The Bloody Cup (4 page)

‘She was always a scamp.’ Artor smiled fondly in memory of Anna’s childhood in Aquae Sulis. ‘Your mother was always scraping her knees and running off with the farm workers to explore the fields of the villa.’

‘Why have I never met this Ordovice queen?’ Wenhaver scowled at the compliments that had been heaped on another woman, especially on one whose lineage was rumoured to be so high. ‘Why has she never journeyed to Cadbury, or even to Venta Belgarum?’

Artor’s eyebrows drew together in controlled anger. Of the twins, only Balan was sufficiently alert to recognise Artor’s displeasure at any implied criticism of his mother, and he smiled gratefully in response.

‘Queen Anna prefers her adopted lands and she has told me often that she is reluctant to leave their borders,’ Artor answered testily. ‘I honour her preferences in this matter, for she cares nothing for courts or ceremony.’

‘And her people would not readily permit her to leave,’ Balan added. ‘Even her Roman childhood is now seen as a virtue, for she insists on cleanliness and the old values of honour and respect for all souls who come in contact with her.’

Wenhaver frowned briefly, but then remembered that lines were beginning to deepen around her eyes. She forced her brow to smooth, although her blue eyes continued to glitter. Somewhere in her mean little heart, Wenhaver recognized that her husband loved Anna more than anyone. She smiled sweetly as she twisted the knife to show her displeasure.

‘Does she really work in the fields like a servant?’ she lisped in saccharine concern, as she examined her own hennaed and polished nails. ‘Her complexion must be ruined!’

Balan whitened, and even Balyn flushed at the queen’s insult.

‘Desist, Wenhaver!’ Artor raised his voice fractionally. ‘Not all queens are amused by idle pleasures and personal vanities. Some, like the Lady of the Ordovice, are chatelaines in the Gallic sense, because they share those tasks that the common women must endure. In so doing, they understand their subjects much better. My sister Morgause is one such queen. She rules with King Lot and concerns herself with women’s matters, where her orders are obeyed implicitly. I admit that we have had our differences in the past, but I have never doubted that my sister is a true queen.’

Wenhaver turned her fabulous eyes from one boy-man to the next, and then lowered her lashes to avoid seeing the anger on her husband’s face. Her expression warned the king that tantrums were imminent but it left the twins totally confused.

Artor turned back to Balan, a partiality that was not lost on his twin brother, who stiffened a little and was imprudent enough to allow his cheeks to whiten with annoyance.

‘So Anna has managed to civilize Llanwith’s stiff-necked Cymru warriors? My foster-father, Ector of the Poppinidii, feared that she would never be accepted because of her Roman breeding, even though she was raised as a Celt.’

‘Her personal qualities always triumph over any prejudices that might confront her, my lord. In fact, she still uses her Roman name within her household and the whole tribe knows it, but they accept her quirks and continue to love her.’ Balan glowed with pride, although every word was chosen carefully. He imagined a chasm opening at his feet as the conversation threatened snares that he could not hope to avoid.

‘Licia!’ Artor murmured softly and, behind the throne, Odin stirred.

‘Her name is magical and very, very old. She was named for the great matron of the Poppinidii, Livinia Major, who died before she was born.’

‘Aye, we have been told the story of her birth by Lady Livinia Minor,’ Balyn said, vying for the eye and favour of the king.

‘You have been to Aquae Sulis?’ Artor asked, his eyes flickering with sudden pleasure and his body leaning forward impulsively.

Wenhaver gaped at her husband’s sudden animation. He obvi - ously cared for these outlandish twins. He usually tired of visitors quickly.

‘Many times, my lord. We have seen Gallia’s Garden and the urn containing her ashes, and we have heard the legend of the wise healer, Frith. Local folk regularly visit the shrine, although few seem to know the history of Gallia. She died before Mother was born.’ Balyn smiled as he realized he had Artor’s full attention, even if his information was inaccurate.

‘All the better,’ Artor’s inner voice whispered. ‘What they don’t know can’t hurt them.’

‘We’ve also said a prayer for Lord Targo, sword master of renown.’ Balyn spoke quickly, as was his custom. ‘And Grandfather Ector, of course.’

Artor wasn’t disposed to like the boy, but he couldn’t disguise the affection for Ector that infused his voice.

‘Lord Ector was my foster-father and a man who was decent through to his bones. His dearest wish was to be buried in Gallia’s Garden so that visitors could sit awhile over his resting place and ponder the natural beauty around them. He often expressed the desire to hear laughter and the soft music of the earth as he slept in death.’

‘A pretty conceit,’ Wenhaver murmured in a voice just loud enough for her husband to hear. Artor gritted his teeth and continued.

‘Gallia was a Roman woman of little worldly account, lad, and she died long before her time. She was not yet twenty when she perished. I knew both Gallia and Frith well, so I can swear they were two of the finest women who ever drew breath in Aquae Sulis. They always had my undying respect, and their garden is maintained at my expense and by my direct orders.’

Wenhaver yawned delicately, but pointedly.

‘But I fear we are boring the queen, who has little tolerance for tales of the past. She will be cross if we discuss paragons whom she has never met or understood.’

Like an indulgent uncle, Artor gazed down at the two young men who stood so upright and proud like two fine hounds bred for battle and the hunt.

‘Gareth, my strong right arm, personally laid the garden during his youth. His brother and his nephews now tend it for me.’

Balyn frowned. He had no idea what lay behind this oblique conversation, but he was determined to discuss its issues with the king’s ‘strong right arm’ in the near future.

Balan smiled easily, for he loved listening to tales of the past and was entirely wrapped up in Llanwith’s scrolls, just as Artor had been when the Villa Poppinidii had been his home. But, unlike his brother, who always accepted circumstances at face value, Balan was wary of the waves of dislike that appeared to exist between the High King and his glittering queen. He promised himself he would think about the implications of the conundrum when he had more time.

The weak afternoon light warned the king that night would soon be upon them, so he accepted the twins’ oaths of loyalty and offered them places in his militia where they could begin to prove their worth. Both young warriors greeted his decision with unconcealed happiness and Artor was reminded that they were still very young.

I shall avoid prejudgement, he told himself sternly, remembering a younger self, faced with the ill will of his own father.

As the twins bowed to take leave of their king, Balan stopped their hasty, excited retreat by gripping his brother’s arm.

‘Our thanks, my lord,’ a confused Balyn muttered, but Balan nudged him.

‘Tell them about the other visitors!’ he hissed.

‘Your pardon, Majesty, but the excitement of finally meeting you has driven all rational thought from my head,’ Balyn explained. ‘You are about to receive other noble visitors and kinsmen. We promised to serve as their envoys.’

Artor raised one mobile brow.

‘Lord Gawayne is returning to Cadbury with his eldest son. We met upon the road, but Gawayne wished to view the resting place of the Lord Targo, so we parted at the crossroads leading to Aquae Sulis.’

Wenhaver smiled, and Artor cringed inwardly as he read her openly excited and lascivious thoughts.

The bitch is in heat, he thought savagely, but his face revealed nothing but polite interest.

‘I remember Gawayne’s boy well. He was a large and beautiful babe who almost killed Lady Enid during his birthing. The beauteous Nimue, the Maid of Wind and Water, managed to save both mother and son.’

With a brief flash of unholy amusement, Artor watched his wife’s chagrin at his unwelcome compliments towards another woman. Myrddion’s apprentice outdid the queen in beauty, intelligence, style and accomplishments. Regardless of the gulf of social position that yawned between them, Wenhaver knew that Nimue would always be her superior, and her hatred for Myrddion’s woman hadn’t wavered in the long decades since they had last met. In one detail only was the queen superior to Nimue - her enmity was eternal.

Wenhaver’s dislike turned her doll-like face into a twisted and ugly reflection of its self. Yet sadness tinged his triumph, for he realized that he and Wenhaver had made a pointless, barren wasteland of their lives. He regretted the way they picked at each other, tearing off fragile scabs of mutual forbearance for the sake of a moment’s satisfaction.

‘What is the lad named?’

‘His name is Galahad, my lord, and the Otadini claim he is the greatest warrior in the world.’

‘Galahad,’ Artor repeated, and somewhere beyond the mortal world, he felt a tremor in the void as the wheel of Fortuna shuddered and began slowly to turn.

‘The boy will be welcome,’ the king said softly, and the audience was over.

Far away in the cold north, Morgan swayed over her knucklebones and felt a fissure open in the fabric of the world. Her sister, Morgause, was in deadly peril. The bones presaged death, and the pattern warned Morgan that other deaths were promised. Her brother, Artor, was now threatened as never before, and she tried desperately to dredge up a feeling of triumph in his fall from eminence on Fortuna’s wheel. She had hated him for so long that she should have felt something - even relief.

Her kinfolk were dying, but she looked in vain for a sign in the portents that revealed her own fate.

‘Shite!’ she exclaimed crudely. She brushed away a tear, for the Fey prayed for death every day of her pain-filled existence.

Then her eyes whitened and rolled backward in her head until all she saw was a battered tin cup that filled and overflowed with fresh, glistening blood.

‘The Cup is come,’ Morgan whispered through lips that were dried, cracked and oozing with the fragility of poisoned old age. ‘The Cup is filling, filling, and we will all be washed away.’

Her vision cleared and she could focus on her withered, tattooed hands once again. Her ugly mouth smiled and her tongue flickered over her bleeding lips like a lizard kissing the sun.

‘But Artor nears his end,’ she whispered thinly. ‘Praise be to all the gods! At last Gorlois will be avenged!’

But reason threatened her momentary triumph. Artor was close to sixty years, Morgause was older still and Morgan felt as ancient as the dead heart of the Otadini Mountains. They should all have died decades ago, and now the siblings existed as anachronisms of power and illusory vitality.

Her rational mind sighed.

What does it matter after all these years? Who remembers the ancient wrongs?

She answered her own question.

I do! And so does my pestilential brother. Fortuna’s wheel turns . . . at last.

CHAPTER II

BLOOD OATHS AND BATTLE BROTHERS

Artor paced up and down the length of his personal sleeping quarters. Bronze lamps had been lit and Percivale and Gareth moved around the spartan room, preparing for the king’s rest and comfort, while Odin leaned impassively against the heavy, wooden door.

Their lord’s frugal habits meant that Percivale and Gareth had little to do but put away the High King’s scrolls in their fitted shelves and tidy Artor’s collection of maps. Odin personally tasted the High King’s water, stored in a beaten silver flask, and nibbled at the plates of nuts, cheese and flat bread that were prepared for him. Artor always remonstrated with Odin over his precautions and called him an old woman, but when Artor’s safety was at stake, Odin simply ignored his master’s wishes with a vague, agreeable smile.

Artor considered his three closest bodyguards and wondered why they had remained true to him for so long. Odin, the Jutlander, had to be well over sixty, but his tawny hair and greying beard suggested maturity rather than great age. His muscles were still as hard as old oak, while his huge spine remained unbent. Odin had sworn a solemn oath to cleave to Artor until death took him and, regardless of the passage of time, Odin would never change his allegiance.

Gareth was almost a kinsman, for his grandmother, the slave woman Frith, had been Artor’s mother in all but blood. Frith had died with Gallia, Artor’s deeply loved Roman wife, whose memory had developed into the idealized beauty of a distant dream. Gareth had spent his youth caring for Artor’s daughter, mother to those strong twins who had so shaken the High King’s guarded heart. Gareth knew no other life than service to Artor and his family.

As for Percivale, chaste, Christian and a superb athlete, he was partly of Targo’s making and partly a product of Gallwyn from the kitchens of Venonae. With his whole, passionate heart, Percivale had sworn to guard his king while breath remained in his body. Artor knew, to his cost, that Percivale would dare anything, risk anything and sacrifice himself beyond reason for him.

Suddenly, Artor was angry with both himself and his servants. Why must they love him? He could never care for them with that same, unreserved devotion. He wore their love around his neck like a chain of lead.

‘I have waited so long for a sign that I’d almost given up hope of a solution,’ Artor sighed, speaking to no one in particular.

‘Lord?’ Percivale looked up as he tidied the High King’s desk. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

‘This matter goes beyond your understanding,’ Artor growled. He continued to pace, but he felt ashamed of his outburst of temper.

Gareth set down the draught of clean water in its silver jug which was heavily decorated with a dragon swallowing its own tail. He placed one hand gently on his master’s shoulder and stilled the king’s frenetic movement.

‘Yes, my lord, they are your grandsons. And, no, you cannot share the secret of their birth with them, for such knowledge could lead to their deaths.’