The Bloody Cup (23 page)

Artor’s expression brooked no argument and Taliesin backed down. ‘My apologies, my king.’

Scarlet spots tinged Miryll’s pale cheeks and she leapt angrily to her feet. Odin freed the axe that hung from his belt.

‘It’s very easy to pile scorn on a mere woman, Pretender,’ she snarled. ‘I am far better born than you are. My revenge is the know - ledge that the Cup will have you in the end, for Gronw will be certain to spread the tale of what happens here. If you kill me, you’ll be known as a monster. Your Lucius left a small, poisoned dart in wait for you that will bury you in your own dung heap. I’ll enjoy watching you smother in it. You may call me an ignorant fool if you want, but I’ll glory in your punishment.’

‘But, my lady, I thought you understood your position. You will perish. Your pitiful beliefs, your spite and, regrettably, any child that you carry in your womb will go into the shadows with you.’

Miryll finally understood that she would die when this inquisition came to an end. Her servants shuffled and glanced about with darting, wild-eyed stares. They saw their own executions looming and their thoughts began to scramble for some means of self-preservation. Miryll lowered her eyes. Her unborn child would never draw its first breath and she wondered, perhaps for the first time, whether ruthless men and their plans for glory had simply used her up as bait to further their own ambitions.

Her thoughts were visible in her pale countenance. Artor watched her, and his expression softened fleetingly.

‘The west would never embrace the bastard son of Gawayne if I should be murdered’, he told her. ‘I have so many presumptive heirs that I could start my own village with them, and I have nephews and great-nephews all over the north. You and your unborn child are a cruel diversion that has been devised to trick attention away from the real point of attack. Gronw’s real plan was centred on achieving his purpose at Glastonbury. Perhaps, in time, your infant could have caused me problems, but I doubt it.’

‘Gronw wouldn’t use me,’ Miryll whispered brokenly. ‘He raised me and cared for me as part of a great and noble plan.’

‘And he’s filled your head with lies. Why, Miryll? The black warrior has succeeded in drawing me out of Cadbury but, had I not come to Salinae Minor, you would have borne your child and suffered an arranged death in childbirth. Don’t shake your head in disbelief, Miryll, for where is your protector now that you have need of him? Sooner or later, you were doomed to die. But Gronw understood me, for he knew I couldn’t allow dissent within my kingdom. He left you behind so that I would be delayed in my pursuit of him.’

The king smiled regretfully at Miryll, much as a disappointed father would have done.

‘The kingdom would have collapsed if Gronw had been successful and if I had died in last night’s assassination attempt. Such an outcome would have freed Gronw to build a secure base at Salinae Minor where he would be ready to pick up the pieces after the inevitable civil war had run its course. You were always expendable, my dear, regardless of what direction his path followed. You’re female. Had you been born a male, Gronw’s plans would have been quite different.’

Taliesin could see the flaw in Artor’s argument, but the rest of his troop stood gape-mouthed as the king unravelled the plot. What part did the Cup play in all this? Taliesin was certain that Gronw could not be the main conspirator in the plot. He did not possess the necessary knowledge of court life or of Artor himself. A more influential personage was moving the human pieces around the board game.

‘You lie!’ Miryll screamed, but her words lacked conviction.

‘I’m truly sorry for you, Miryll’, Artor replied with sincerity. ‘You’re an accomplished and beautiful woman who was born to marry and to be loved. Gronw has taken your future and poisoned it without a thought for the woman he used as a weapon to suit his own purposes.’

Taliesin watched as the truth of Artor’s words was reflected in her eyes and in her agonized face. His heart ached for her youth and naivety, and he feared for her as well.

Artor took a single step towards her and extended an open hand. ‘I could excuse your betrayal if you chose to reveal what you know of the Bloody Cup. For that information, I’d happily extend mercy to you and to your servants. I’d also allow your child to be born, for I’m not a monster who makes war against innocents. I’m particularly intrigued by the history of the relic, for I know that Bishop Lucius wasn’t always a priest, but was a Roman who served throughout their world.’

Perhaps Artor would have kept his word and taken back his earlier threats. Maybe he would have spared Miryll even if she knew nothing that was of importance to him. After all, Gallia had been pregnant when Uther had ordered her death; Artor had no wish to follow in his father’s footsteps - the very thought haunted him.

But all this would remain conjecture, for Miryll believed that the king truly desired her death. Backed into a corner, and with the fabric of her life in tatters, she chose the Roman way. Had she possessed a sword, she would have fallen on it. Instead, she tore a long golden pin from her hair and leapt towards Artor, intent on stabbing him through the eye.

‘No, Odin! No!’ Artor roared, but too late.

Faster than the flicker of a serpent’s tongue, Odin struck her head off at the throat with his axe.

The lady’s body stood quivering for one poignant moment, spurting blood from the stump of her neck. Then her knees began to buckle and she fell, some distance from her staring head which had landed several feet away.

The servants wailed and covered their heads with their robes.

Artor sighed wearily as he fastidiously stepped away from the growing pool of blood.

Taliesin was the only person present who wept for the lady. He would remember that twisted face, turned ancient by betrayal, for the rest of his unnatural life. He alone saw that in the course of a single winter, Lady Miryll had been a maiden, then a newly impregnated mother, and then had died wearing the face most feared by any woman, the mask of the hag.

Carefully and reverently, Taliesin stepped forward and closed Miryll’s eyes, then reunited head and body. Immediately, her face became smooth and young again, as pale as moonlight and as silent as shadows. The spurting blood had darkened her hair further, so she appeared to be a creature of light and shadow, a carved effigy of a fair young woman who had never truly lived.

Her blood didn’t touch Artor’s sandalled feet, but he was aware that it stained his hands.

‘What could she have been had you never ridden on to her lands, Gawayne?’ Artor mused. ‘And how would she have fared with a different father and another adviser? They are to blame, as are you and I, for no guilt can be apportioned to any of my servants for her death.’

Artor surveyed the carnage in the atrium from behind the careful façade of his royal responsibilities. But what he felt beneath its mask, even Taliesin couldn’t fathom.

‘Her servants will be set free after they’ve been questioned,’ Artor instructed Gawayne. ‘They’ll be permitted to leave the villa, but they may take nothing with them, for this house is now part of Galahad’s wealth. Her possessions are forfeited to your son, for he understood Lady Miryll’s intent when he first met her. We’ll let her people wander until they find a tribe who’ll give them shelter, for I’ll permit no more bloodshed in this place.’

‘What of that one there?’ Gawayne asked, pointing to a servant with a broken arm. ‘He shouldn’t be permitted to walk away. How did he break his arm?’

‘You can question him if you wish’, Artor said, ‘but he will remain unharmed. I’ll not waste more lives when my real quarry has escaped and is miles away from this place.’

Galahad entered shortly after Artor had given his orders and the king’s bodyguards had commenced to shuffle the servants away for questioning. He was momentarily taken aback by Miryll’s corpse, but Artor searched in vain for any compassion in his fiercely beautiful face.

‘Excellent,’ Galahad pronounced pompously. ‘The slut has gone to meet her maker. It saddens me not at all, for she was an abomination.’

Artor was shocked; Galahad’s callousness was so at odds with the Christian code he embraced so enthusiastically. The young man looked so smug that Gawayne stepped forward and slapped his son’s cheek as hard as he could.

‘What was that for?’ Galahad was genuinely unaware of his heartlessness.

‘Lady Miryll is as she was made, my son,’ Gawayne said. ‘And, to my shame, so are you. I wish that you had some pity in you, as your Jesus demands.’

For once, Galahad found he had no glib, easy reply.

Gawayne turned back to Artor and bowed very low to his kinsman. ‘I ask that you allow me to place her in a skiff, my lord. If no one wants to wash Miryll’s poor body clean, then I’ll do it myself. Let me send her to the sea so her soul may be cleansed in the great ocean, and so my unborn child might sleep on the bosom of the waves.’

‘As you wish, Gawayne,’ Artor replied. Then he turned to Galahad, but no liking softened the king’s features.

‘I grant you ownership of this isle as of today, Galahad. You will hold it secure for me.’ And with that, he left the atrium.

Evening came softly and the spring flowers had begun to close their petals with the approach of darkness as Gawayne, Odin, Percivale and Galahad bore the body of Lady Miryll to the small dock at the end of the island. The twilight air was sweet and, to Gawayne’s tired senses, it seemed to skirl its way through the gardens back towards the villa. By morning, it would have scoured the stucco and wood of the building clean of Gronw’s stink. Perhaps the smell of blood in the atrium would also be leached away.

In the end, Taliesin had aided Gawayne in the women’s ritual of cleaning the mutilated corpse. The harpist had watched his mother serve this same, final office to his father’s desiccated remains and he understood the dignity involved in performing these last rites.

Stripped, cleansed and perfumed, Miryll lay upon a simple bed frame with her hair fanning out around her face. Gawayne had plundered her jewel box and found a golden necklace that now covered the severed neck and acted as a bond that joined throat and face together in a semblance of sleep. Her body was decked in fine cloth, while her arms were decorated with bangles.

After their ministrations, Lady Miryll was, once again, the mistress of Salinae Minor.

Before Odin and Percivale raised her bier on to the skiff, Gawayne placed his left palm upon her gently swelling belly. He allowed himself to wonder, for one brief moment, what their child might have been like . . . but then he reminded himself that he had many sons.

Galahad accompanied the bier because he had searched his heart and found it wanting in Christian charity. He realized he had been jealous of the lady, not of her body, but of the easy manner in which she had cast a spell over his father, a man he could never truly understand or love.

Odin bore her frail corpse because he knew that he owed her spirit a debt for shedding her blood. He had no regrets, for his duty lay squarely with ensuring the safety of the king, but blood guilt is a hard burden to bear for those warriors who were born in cold northern climes. By offering Lady Miryll this last dignity, Odin hoped that her shade would not await him at Udgard when death finally embraced him.

Percivale attended the ceremony for Artor’s sake. The king couldn’t attend, for to do so would be to imply guilt over his actions. Only Percivale knew how Artor had pounded the wall of his apartment with both fists when he left the atrium. Only Percivale knew that the High King had fallen on to his knees and prayed to the Christian god for forgiveness. For Artor didn’t know if he had truly intended to execute Miryll out of hand.

A king’s way was to sweep all threats aside. The man’s way was to protect the innocent and the frail. Artor could not be faithful to one duty without failing in the other. And now the High King would never be sure what his final choice would have been. The memory of his beloved Gallia lay across his heart like an ingot of lead for the first time in his long life. Had he been Uther Pendragon, he would have killed the woman and her unborn child without any qualms of conscience but, being Artor, he suffered.

Percivale carried Artor’s end of the lady’s bier, his lips moving soundlessly in the prayers of atonement.

Taliesin waited patiently at the end of the dock, his harp uncovered in the crook of his arm. The skiff was still tied securely, but its sail was set and it was ready for its final voyage.

Once the corpse was in place, Gawayne loosened the rope at the tiller and the skiff leapt away into the current, bearing its effigy of ruined beauty.

Taliesin sang the lady’s death song.

The sweet male voice travelled far on the evening breeze, disturbing the birds as they nestled in the reeds and causing hunters to shiver with superstitious dread as they worked at their trap lines. Those few fishermen who heard the distant thread of song or saw the skiff skim past them on the waves felt as if they had been dealt a sudden blow, and they mourned a loss they could not name.

For beauty itself was riding on those waves and in the notes of the song, haunting and unearthly.

Gawayne watched the skiff and its pale burden until the flood bore them away into the growing darkness. Against his will, he wept silently now that no one could see the sheen of tears on his smooth cheeks. Concealed by the shroud of darkness, Gawayne could not tell if he wept for Miryll or himself.

CHAPTER IX

ANOTHER SAXON SUMMER

‘She’s dead, mistress! She’s dead! Your child!
Our
child! And the High Bastard lives because I failed in my task.’

Gronw slumped over the neck of his failing horse and tried desperately to recall the face of his long-dead mistress. She had died when Miryll was an infant and Gronw had to struggle to recall the details of his lover’s face.

‘Our Miryll is dead,’ he sobbed in contrition, lest the gods send her shade winging after him on the night air. ‘She
must
be dead by now!’

Gronw was largely indifferent to Miryll’s fate, for she had willingly played her part in the execution of the hurried plot to kill Artor. It was she who had placed the drugs in the food given to the guards. And it was she who had knocked at Artor’s door and then lured the king along the corridor to the baths. Naked and laughing, she had plunged into the fug of the calidarium and had played her part in Gronw’s attack on the king. Even when Artor had knocked the breath out of her body with his fist, she had giggled while Gronw attempted to drown the king.