The Circle of the Gods (11 page)

“The gods will show.” He rolled over on his back and stared at the sky. “You have all power over my father. Ask him to give me leave to go … back to Isca and then when the sign comes to where the gods will.”

For a moment Tia said nothing. She was thinking of the old Christian hermit, Asimus, who had placed the sacred silver chalice in her hands and told her that one day held by the right hands it would blush crimson within to show one—the words of Asimus rang clearly in her memory—
who is marked for great and noble duties, someone whose name will live forever, to be praised by all true and just people
… Often, since he was now grown almost to manhood, she had thought of telling Arturo this but had decided against it for it would have only increased his longing to be away from the settlement. Yet now that he had begun to talk of signs from the gods himself, and she herself had once seen the chalice cup blush pink as his baby hands held it, she wondered whether there was not a duty in her to tell him.

Standing and cradling Gerta in the crook of her arm, she said, “Carry yourself patiently and keep from all wildness until the winter comes and I will speak to your father for you. But expect nothing from me if you once play the hellion or the bully or”—her lips tightened to hide an impulse to smile—“seek to frolic with any maiden in the bracken.”

Arturo jumped to his feet, seized her hand and kissed it and cried, “I shall be as patient as the plodding ox, as forbearing as a priest … aye, and as untouched by any maiden's charms.”

So, through the rest of that summer and autumn until the first of winter's gales pushed great curling combers far above the summer drift line on the beach, Arturo was of good behaviour, though sometimes to give ease to the pent-up longing and excess of natural spirits in him he would get leave to ride on herd duty on the moor. Then, with Anga at heel, he would set his pony to wild galloping among the tors, and sing and shout to himself like a madman. Also, when he was on the moor he would spend time with old Galpan and make him tell all he knew of their country and draw maps with a stick in the heath sand of all the tribal lands that divided it. There were times when Galpan, squatting with his back against a rock in the sun, would lose his words in a mumble and drop off to sleep. Then Arturo would lie back and stare up at the sky and watch the great clouds drift in from the west and, of all the places of which Galpan had spoken, his mind would go flighting northward to Lindum and he would remember Daria, the black-haired daughter of Ansold the sword smith. One day, he told himself, he would ride into Lindum and find them and Ansold would make him a sword that all men would fear. Then he would take Daria to be his wife and somewhere carve himself a domain and a kingdom so that all men should call her queen and bow their heads to him for permission to speak just as all men did to Prince Gerontius and that old windbag Ambrosius and to ailing Vortigern.
Aie
, and maybe the day would come when the long-kennelled Angles, Jutes and Saxons of the east would have their days numbered and be driven into the sea. That, at least, would give his father pleasure.

On a night of hard frost when the stars seemed fixed like chips of ice in the sky and the winter grasses were so hoarded with rime that the cliff tops seemed snow-covered, Tia spoke to Baradoc about Arturo. She had chosen her time well. That day she had told him that she was certain that she was with child again, and also a messenger had arrived from Prince of Dumnonia, calling him to a council at Isca.

Baradoc listened to her patiently, watching the firelight play over her face and draw sharp glints from her fair hair.

She finished, “He has curbed his ways and shown all patience. To be a man among men he must now go from here. Take him with you to Isca and leave him with Prince. Things are afoot there and I ask nothing about them. That you show openly now little of your old hatred of the Saxon kind means only that your anger is now appeased by some great hope for the future. Make Arturo part of that future. Although I think he talks too easily of signs and miracles which live only in his imagination, maybe that is how the gods work. But with my own eyes I saw the water in his silver bowl turn crimson as he held it.”

Baradoc smiled. “It was but the reflection of the red sunset.”

“No. It was midmorning, and you know so for I have told you the story often.”

“I tease you.”

“Then please me also. Take Arturo with you.”

Baradoc reached out and took her hand. “It was already in my mind. He shall go.”

So Arturo rode to Isca with his father. But before he went Tia took him aside and told him of the silver bowl and the words of the good Asimus and how, as a babe, he had held it and the water had flushed with crimson from the blood of the Christ who had died on the Cross, and she gave him the bowl to take with him since it was rightfully his.

Looking at it as he held it in his hands, he said his thanks and then added thoughtfully, “I would it had been one of our country's gods.”

“There are many in this country who claim him as the only god.”

“So I know. But for my taste there is overmuch gentleness and forbearance talked about him unless, of course”—he gave her a quick grin—“he uses that as a cloak to hide his real strength and power.
Aie
… maybe that is it. He waits for the day when, perhaps through me, his true majesty and power shall be shown to all. Maybe, too, this is the sign the other gods have chosen to test me. Instead of Badb I have this Christos, for they know that one day he will be even greater than Badb.”

When Arturo was alone he filled the bowl and cupped it in his hands. He held it until the silver was warmed by his palms but there was no flushing of the water. He gave a careless shrug of his shoulders, tipped the water to the ground, and then stowed the chalice away in the baggage pack he was making ready for his trip to Isca.

Arturo sat at a bench in the tavern courtyard, elbows on the rough table, staring at the sparrows that quarrelled over a scattering of scraps Ursula, the tavern keeper's daughter, had just thrown out of the door. Spring sunlight filtered through the leaves of the ancient elderberry tree which grew against the courtyard wall. Anga lay in the shade under the table, snapping at the flies which teased his muzzle. Discontent and boredom showed plainly on Arturo's face. If anyone, he thought, had told him almost three years ago when he came here that he would be tired of Isca soon, he would have laughed in his face. He was, he knew, out of favour with the Prince for his occasional bouts of brawling and outspoken comments on military affairs. The Prince, he felt, with all the men and horses at his command should have moved east long ago. The minds and spirits of the cavalrymen yearned for action, and being denied it they grew bitter and sullen—though not so outspoken with their discontent as he.

Ursula came from the tavern and set before him a jug of beer and a beaker. She was a dark, tall girl of his own age, her cheeks the colour of ripe spindleberries, a strong, large-breasted girl who knew how to look after herself when the young men of the Prince's household grew overbold from drinking. But with this Arturo she had never had trouble… more the pity for everything about him found favour with her. In his twentieth year, broad-shouldered and tall with a closely cropped beard and his pale hair fired with red glints—a young man to make any girl's mind flower with romantic fancies—he had, it seemed, only two loves, the aging hound which lay at his feet and the horses of the Prince's pastures.

Arturo fumbled in his belt pouch and dropped a small silver piece on the table. It was one of the coins that the Prince had started to mint in the last year for the use of his household in Isca and the surrounding country.

As Ursula picked it up Arturo said, “Bring another cup. Durstan joins me soon.”

Durstan came into the courtyard before Ursula returned with the extra beaker. Thickset and dark-haired with sharp, yet smiling brown eyes deeply set in his weathered face, he was dusty from exercise in the schooling pens. Of the same age as Arturo, he was much shorter and seldom given to brooding. Life for Durstan was a brightly moving pageant which gave him constant delight. It was said that where others sometimes groaned and talked in their sleep Durstan always laughed.

He sat down opposite Arturo, reached for Anga's lifted head and briefly fondled and teased the hound's ears. Then he filled the single cup and drained it in one long draft, his Adam's apple working against the throat.

Putting the beaker down, he said cheerfully, “You look like a crow in moult, Arto.”

“Who would not when life here is the same thing every day?”

“Nay, the day will come.” Durstan turned and grinned at Ursula as she brought the second beaker and pinched her bottom as she turned away, though ducking swiftly to avoid the backhand swing of her arm.

“The day has come and gone. How many times has the Prince sent the Count Ambrosius's plea men away with an empty answer? I think he means not to join any fighting but to make all secure here and stay within his bounds until—and then it may be too late—the fighting comes to him. Meanwhile, what do we do? We breed and break horses and drill and sharpen up our men—and then give them nothing but exercises in mock attacks and battle skills. And when we have finished with one lot we send them back to their tribes where they soon forget what they have learned while we go to work on a new levy. Do we sit here for ever, fighting imaginary battles?”

“And is this the feeling of your good father, Baradoc?”

“I know nothing of his thoughts. He keeps them as secret as does the Prince. Once it was well known that his hatred of the Saxon kind was like a fire in his belly. And now, so Leric has told me in confidence, the Prince has sent for him. He arrives in a few days, and it is in my mind he comes to take me back to the settlement.”

“Why so?”

“Because I have asked the Prince to give me a horse in return for my service here and leave to ride to join Ambrosius—and have been refused.”

Durstan laughed. “Then go without a horse.”

Arturo frowned at him. “How could I? I am the son of the chief of the tribe of the Enduring Crow—”

“Now in full moult.” Durstan laughed.

“Aye, maybe. But Ambrosius would do me no favours if I arrived without horses and without men. He would do me no honour since the Prince has refused him more help to take arms against the Saxons.”

“The news is that they sit quietly, content with what they have. Why stir up the hornet's nest?”

“No Saxon sits quietly—except to let his wounds heal—when over the hill there is plunder and land to take. In this, for all his vanities, Ambrosius is right. Do you tell me that you are happy to be here, sweating and riding and shouting all day at sour-faced tribesmen who come only because the Prince has ordered their levy?”

Durstan shrugged his shoulders and filled his beaker.

“No, I am not happy. But I am patient, where you are not. Here there is good living, horses and work, and drink and girls in the evening. When the gods will it, then things will change.”

Arturo smiled suddenly, and said, “Sometimes the gods feign sleep, I think, to give us the chance to arrange our own lives for a while.”

Durstan was silent, but his eyes were on Arturo. He had the same discontent as his friend, but more patience and, for all his carefree manner, more caution since, where Arturo was the son of a chief who was close to the Prince, his own father was long dead and had never been more than a horse trader from neighbouring Lindinis, in the country of the Durotriges. Only his eyes for and skill with horses had brought him to the Prince's service.

Finally he said quietly, “So the gods sleep. How would you have us arrange our lives?”

“We have our own arms and the right to carry them. We buy two horses at the next trading fair and then go north to Ambrosius.”

“But he would give us no welcome. This you have said.”

“Not us alone—but with men well mounted he would. Twelve men, nay, six, well horsed and armed he would accept.”

“And where would we find these others and their mounts?”

Arturo sipped at his beer, and then said, “The gods must wake sometime and give us a little fortune. You think that between here and Corinium or Glevum there are none such as us waiting for the prick of comradeship to bring them forward? No horses to be found or plunder to be taken to pay for them? We shall come as no ragged band. You and I between us can train them and when Count Ambrosius sees us, there will be no heart in him to turn us away. He needs fighting men.”

“The next trading fair is but three days hence. When we have these horses where do we keep them so that none knows they are ours?”

Arturo nodded to the tavern. “Ursula's father, Durno, will stable them and say he has bought and holds them for resale. Which he often does at fair time.”

“The Prince will make trouble for him when we are gone.”

“No. He will say that we stole the mounts.”

“You speak as though you had already arranged all this with him.”

“I have, Durstan.” Arturo grinned.

“And he does this out of friendship for you alone? Or maybe you have promised to marry his daughter?”

“I make no promises, nor does he deal in them. You go to the fair with him. You pick the two horses and he buys them and holds them until we are ready.”

Durstan shook his head. “All this is wild talk, Arto.”

“I have that which will get us two good horses and also leave enough to pay Ursula's father for his trouble.” As he spoke he reached into the loose front of his tunic and brought out the silver chalice that his mother had given him. Seeing the look of astonishment on Durstan's face, he said, “It was a gift from my mother and is mine to do as I wish with. Take it and hide it until fair day.”

Durstan picked it up and turned it about, examining it. Then, whistling gently as he put it under his short cloak, he smiled at Arturo and said, “For this we should get two good mounts and Durno be well satisfied with the barter balance.”