The Hallowed Isle Book Three (14 page)

There were other, more familiar faces: old Eleutherius from Eboracum and his son Peretur, Eldaul who ruled the area around Glevum, and Catraut, who kept a wary eye on the Saxons of the east from Verulamium. As his gaze moved around the circle it was the younger men who drew Betiver's attention. They were the ones upon whose strength Artor would build Britannia, whose focus was on the future.

But the silver hairs of age and experience were still much in evidence. Ridarchus had come down from Dun Breatann. He was as old as Leudonus, though he looked stronger. Men said he was married to a sister of Merlin. Betiver found it hard to imagine. Next to him was his half-brother Dumnoval, a grandson of the great Germanianus, who now held the Votadini lands south of the Tava under Leudonus, who had been too ill to come.

Instead, young Cunobelinus was there to speak for the Votadini of Dun Eidyn. There had some discussion about that earlier, for Gualchmai was Leudonus' named heir. But Gualchmai was sitting on Artor's right hand, as Cai held the place on his left, and no one had dared to ask whether that meant the northerner had renounced his birthright to serve the High King, or was claiming a greater one, as Artor's heir.

It seemed unlikely, for although in a year of marriage the queen had not kindled, she was young and healthy, and surely one day she would bear a child. As if the thought had been a summons, Betiver noted a change in the faces of the men across the circle and turned to see Guendivar herself, standing in a nimbus of light in the doorway.

Old or young, men fell silent as the High Queen made her way around the circle, carrying the great silver krater by the handles at each side. This, thought Betiver, was not the laughing girl who had become his friend, but the High Queen, remote and perfect as an icon in a dalmatic of creamy damask set with pearls, the finest of linen veiling her hair beneath the diadem. As she came to each man, she offered the krater. As the wine flowed over the bright silver, it caught the light with a garnet-colored glow.

“The blood of the grape is the blood of the land,” she said softly. “And you are its strong arms. Drink in peace, drink in unity, and be welcome in this hall . . .”

“Lady, you lend us grace—” murmured Vortipor, and then flushed as he realized he had spoken aloud. But no one else seemed to notice—he was saying no more than what they all felt, after all.

Guendivar completed the circle and brought the krater to Artor. “The blood of the grape is the blood of the land, and you, Pendragon, are its head—”

Artor's hands closed over hers on the krater, drawing her closer as he lifted it to his lips. His face bore an expression Betiver had never seen there before—he could not tell if it were joy or pain. Then he let go, looking up at her.

“As you are its heart, my queen . . .” he murmured. For a moment his eyes closed. When he opened them again his features had regained their usual calm. Now it was Guendivar in whose eyes Betiver saw pain. For a moment the queen bowed her head, then she lifted the krater once more and with the same gliding gait bore it out of the hall.

Slowly the murmur of conversation resumed, but the mood had changed. It reminded Betiver of something—abruptly he remembered rapt faces in the church of his boyhood when the icon of the Virgin had been carried around. His breath caught—was the thought sacrilege? A churchman might say so, but his heart told him that a power that was in its way as holy as anything blessed by the church had rested upon the queen as she moved through the hall.

But Artor was speaking—

“In my own name, also, I bid you welcome. We have much to discuss, and more to think on. The Saxons are beaten and for a time their oaths will hold them. We must plan how to use that time to keep them divided in heart and in territory, so that they do not combine against us again. We must plan also a new campaign against the men of Eriu who have seized land in Demetia, and bring it once more under British rule. But these tasks, however pressing, are only a beginning. For too long, force has been our only governor—if we wish to restore the security we knew under the Romans, we must return to the rule of law.”

Betiver shifted his weight as Artor's opening speech continued. If he had stayed at home in Gallia, he thought, he might have been addressing such a meeting in his own father's hall. But like Gualchmai, he had chosen to remain in Britannia and serve Artor.

In the afternoon Artor released the members of the council to rest, to think on the matters he had set before them, and to seek exercise. Betiver offered to guide some of the younger men around the countryside, and when he met them at the horse pens, he found that Guendivar, dressed for riding, was waiting too. Her presence might inhibit some of their speech, but she would not impede their exercise. He knew already that she could ride as well as any man. And if the princes were dubious—he smiled quietly—they were in for a surprise.

Certainly the girl who leaped unassisted to the back of the white mare Artor had given her was a very different creature from the image of sovereignty who had brought them wine in the hall. For riding, Guendivar wore breeches and a short tunic. Only the linen cloth that bound her hair showed her to be a woman, and the embroidered blue mantle pinned at the shoulder, a queen.

When they were mounted, it was she who led the way. Indeed, thought Betiver as he brought up the rear, she could have guided the visitors with no help from him. But as he watched her laugh at some word of Peretur's, or smile at young Vortipor, he realized that it was not her safety, but her reputation, he would be guarding today.

At the bottom of the steep hill, Guendivar reined in. They had departed through the gate on the northeast side of the hill, past the well. From its base, the road ran straight towards the little village that had grown up in the days when the only structure on the hill was the shrine. The queen's mare snorted and shook its head and she laughed.

“Swanwhite wants to stretch her legs!” She gestured towards the village. “Do you think you can catch her if we run?”

By the time they arrived at the village, both horses and riders were quite willing to keep to a more leisurely pace. Guendivar's head wrap had come off and her hair tumbled down her back in a tangle of spilled gold. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She looked, thought Betiver, twice as alive as the woman who had stood beside Artor in the council hall, and he felt an odd pang in the region of his heart.

They ambled through the spring green of the countryside, talking. In the warmth of her presence, Vortipor and the other princes lost all their shyness. The air rumbled with their deep laughter.
She is charming them
, thought Betiver.
Artor should be pleased
.

Vortipor told them a long story about hunting stag in the mountains of Demetia, and Peretur countered with a tale of a bear hunt in the dales west of Eboracum. Everyone, it seemed, had some tale of manly prowess—vying with words, the young men strutted and pranced like stallions before a mare. It was Ebicatos, the Irishman who commanded the garrison at Calleva, who protested that the queen must be becoming bored by all these stories of blood and battle, though Betiver had seen no sign of it in her face. But when the Irishman praised her white mare for winning the race to the village, and began the tale of the Children of Lir, who had been transformed by a jealous stepmother into swans, Guendivar listened with parted lips and shining eyes.

Their ride brought them around in a wide half-circle to the southwest. When the hill loomed before them once more, they slowed. The young men gazed at it in amazement. It did not seem possible they had come all this way so quickly, but the sun, which had reached its zenith when they set out, was well along in its downward slide.

The evening session of the council would be beginning. Merlin had returned from his most recent wanderings, and tonight he would report on what he had seen. That should be more interesting than the endless debates they had been listening to, though it would no doubt lead to more.

“Ah, lady,” cried Vortipor, “I wish we did not have to return. I wish we could ride westward without stopping until we reached the sea, and then our horses would all become swans, to carry us to the Isles of the Hesperides!”

“The Isles of the Blessed, the Isle of Fair Women, and the Isle of Birds—” murmured Ebicatos.

“There is no need, surely, when the fairest of all women is here with us on this hallowed isle,” said Peretur. He caught her outstretched hand and kissed it fervently.

Betiver's breath caught as Guendivar's beauty took on an intensity that was almost painful. Then she shook her head and bitterness muted her radiance like a cloud hiding the sun.

“And here I must stay—” A sudden dig of the heels sent her mare curvetting forward. Startled to silence, the others followed.

What is this that I am feeling?
Betiver asked himself as they began to climb the hill.
My sweet Roud is a good woman, and I love her and my son . . 
.

The red-headed Alban girl whom he had tumbled in the inebriation of the Feast of Lugus eleven years before had been an unexpected mate, but a good one. It was a soldier's marriage, unblessed by the Church, but recorded by the clerks of Artor's army. But the contentment Roud brought him had nothing in common with the painful way his heart leaped when he looked at Guendivar. A glance at the other men told him that they felt the same. They would serve her—they would die for her—with no hope of any reward beyond a word or a smile.

She is Venus
—the remants of a Classical education prompted him,
and we are her worshippers. And that is only fitting, for she is the queen
. But as they clattered beneath the gatehouse he wondered why, with such a woman in his bed, did the king seem to have so little joy?

* * *

Artor is not happy.. . 
. Merlin glanced at the king from beneath his bushy brows and frowned. Seated on the king's right hand, he could not look at him directly, but the evidence of his eyes only confirmed what other senses had been telling him. Artor was paler than he had been, and thickening around the middle—those changes were a natural result of sitting so much in council chambers and eating well. But there was something haunted about his eyes.

It was not the council, which was going as well as such things ever did. It had become clear that Roman order would never return to Britannia until Roman law ruled once more. The princes must learn to think of themselves as
rectors
, and their war-leaders as
duces
, the generals of the country. Those who had ruled as chieftains had to become judges and magistrates, deriving their power from rector and emperor once more. Thus, and in this way only, could they separate their civilization from the ways of the barbarians.

To Merlin, longing for his northern wilderness, they were both equally constricting, but he had been born to serve the Defender of Britannia, and with him, its Law. Artor's attempts to restore the old ways even looked as if they might be successful. He should have been, if not triumphant, at least well pleased. Something was wrong, and Merlin supposed it was his duty to try and set it right. The thought made him tired, and he yearned to be back in the forest and the undemanding society of the wild folk who lived there. One day, he thought then, he would seek those green mysteries and not return.

The tone of the voices around him changed and he brought his awareness back to the present. The discussion of titles and duties was coming to a close.

“That is well, then, and we can move to the next topic,” said Artor. “The Saxons. Merlin has been going among them—they seem to respect him as a holy man—and I believe we can benefit from his observations.”

Merlin's lips twitched. He had wandered through the territory of the enemy in times past in safety, protected by their respect for those they thought old or mad. Their response to him now was different, and he knew why.

As if the thought had awakened it, he felt a throb of force from the rune-carved Spear that leaned against his chair, and the familiar pressure in his mind, as if Someone were listening. The head of the Spear was shrouded in silk, and a wrapping of leather thongs hid the runes carved into the shaft, but it still carried the power of the god Woden, and when Merlin came to a Saxon farmstead, holding that staff and with his long beard flying and an old hat drawn down over his eyes, he knew whom they believed him to be.

Merlin got to his feet and moved to the central hearth, leaning on the Spear. Artor straightened, eyes narrowing, as if something within him scented its power. Or perhaps it was the Sword at his side that had recognized another Hallow. Once, the god of the Spear had fought the one that lived in the Sword, but now they seemed to be in alliance. He must explain to Artor what had happened, one day.

But for now, he had to tell these British leaders what he had seen in the Saxon lands.

“In Cantium, the lady Rigana has gathered a council of thanes to advise her. The child, Oesc's son, is healthy, and the men seem very willing to support an extended regency. Many of their young warriors died at Mons Badonicus. They have sufficient men to defend the coasts against small groups of raiders, but I do not believe they will be a danger to us until at least another generation is grown.”

“That is all very well,” said Catraut, “but what about the Saxons of the south and west?”

“Aelle is an old man—” said Merlin.
My age, but Mons Badonicus broke him.. . 
. “He will not ride to war again. And Ceretic's son is little more than a boy. Even if he should seek vengeance, it is clear that his father's thanes will not support him.”

“And the Anglians?” asked Peretur.

“There also, for different reasons, I see no danger,” said Merlin, and began to lay out his analysis of Icel's position as sacred king, and the reasons why the oath he had given Artor would continue to bind him.

“Separate, these tribes do not present a danger. It is my counsel that you choose brave men to settle the lands that lie between their holdings. So long as the Saxons perceive their portions as tribal territories, they will find it hard to combine. They may hold half Britannia, but they will not see it that way, and so long as you, my lords, remain united, you will be the stronger.”