The Hallowed Isle Book Three (20 page)

Morgause had spared no pains in her son's education. At this age, all boys were somewhat ungainly, but Medraut had not yet begun the growth spurt that would make his body for a time a stranger's, and in addition to her more private teaching, he had been rigorously schooled in running and leaping, in riding and in swordplay, and in the stylized movements of the warrior's dance.

It was a tradition the Votadini shared with their northern neighbors. Medraut's thin body took on grace as he recognized the quickening rhythm, spine straightening, shoulders braced, and the belted kilt that was all he wore swinging as his feet stamped in time. This was a tradition of unarmed combat. The beat shifted and the boys paired off, leaping and feinting with clenched fists or open hands, proud as young cocks of their energy and skill.

Skinny torsos shone with perspiration; differences in conditioning became apparent as some of the boys began to slow.

Medraut, who had learned a few movements not included in the formal sequence, leaned close to his partner as they switched positions, feet flickering, and in the next moment the other boy fell. Face flaming with shame, he pulled himself upright and shambled off to the sidelines to join those whose endurance had given out.

Again a shift in the drumbeat signaled a change, and the pairs became a line once more. Faster and faster the rhythm drove them, and the dancers circled and spun. Another boy fell, with no help from Medraut, and rolled away. The drumming crescendoed and fell silent. The boys stopped dancing, one or two of them sinking to their knees, chests heaving, as the power of the music let go. Medraut stood with his head up, perspiration running in glittering rivulets down his chest and sides. The hair that clung damply to his neck was the color of old blood, but he had the air of a young stallion that has won his maiden race and vindicated his breeding.

Now a shimmer of tinkling metal brought heads up, eyes widening. A line of young women was filing in, their garments sewn with bits of silver and bronze. Singing and clapping hands, they circled the boys, and then drew back, leaving the girl Morgause had chosen standing alone.

She moved along the line of boys, as if considering them. Her movements were stiff and her smile anxious, as if she were not quite certain she would be able to follow her instructions. Her bright hair, combed in a shining cape across her shoulders, stirred gently as she moved. The boys twitched and licked their lips as she passed them, and halted at last before Medraut, as she had been told to do.

Medraut's eyes widened, and his mother smiled. The ornaments the girl was wearing belonged to the Great Mare, but the gown was one he would recognize as her own, with her perfume still clinging to every fold.
When you take her in your arms you will see Guendivar's face, but it is my scent you will smell, and my magic that will bind you.. . 
.

She had borne five strong sons in pain and suffering, and except for the last, she might as well have been a barren tree. One by one, Artor had seduced them away. Her granddaughter had been taken by Igierne. Medraut was all that remained to her, and she meant to use all her magic to make sure that the link between them stayed as strong as if the cord still connected him to her womb.

The maiden twirled before her chosen champion. From around the circle came a soft murmur of appreciation as she unpinned the brooch that held her garment at the shoulder and let it fall. The girls sang louder and she swayed, cupping her naked breasts in her two hands. They were small, but perfect, pale nipples uptilted beneath the necklet of amber and gold. Medraut's kilt stood out in a little tent before his thighs, and Morgause knew that the girl was arousing him.

The boy had been told what the reward would be if he did well in the dancing, just as the maiden had been told what to do. Did he understand how the act was accomplished? Surely no lad brought up in the dun could be ignorant—he had seen animals coupling, and humans as well, when the revelry became too drunken in the hall.

Seeing the admiration in Medraut's eyes, the girl smiled and held out her hand. He sent a quick glance of appeal towards his mother, who nodded. Then he allowed the maiden to lead him away to the bower that had been prepared for them. The other girls followed, singing, and the rest of the boys, relieved or resentful, went back to their place in the circle and began to tease the serving girls to give them more beer.

To the queens, they offered mead. Now that her son had met his challenge, Morgause could afford to relax. She accepted a beaker and drank deeply, tasting the fire beneath the sweetness and sighing as the familiar faint buzz began to detach her from the world.

The royal circle began to break up as they prepared to light the great bonfire that had been built in the center of the field where they had held the competitions earlier that day. The sun had set some time ago, and the half-light was fading, soft as memory, into a purple glow. In the east, the waning moon, late rising as an old woman, was just beginning to climb the sky.

Morgause got to her feet, taking a deep breath as the world spun dizzily around her. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, or was it the Pictish drums she was hearing? Uorepona was retiring with her women, but Morgause felt desire rising within her. Since those few days during Leudonus' funeral, her courses had not come. Surely, if she worshipped the Goddess at the Midsummer fires, she would become fertile once more!

The drumming deepened. From the other end of the encampment a procession was coming, the light of torches danced and flickered across the grass. Morgause joined the throng that was forming a circle around the pyramid of logs. Tinder of all kinds had been stuffed within it, and the whole doused with oil. In times of danger, that frame of tinder would have held a man.

It will burn
, she thought, taking her place in the circle,
and so will I.
...

Shouting, the torchbearers danced around the waiting pyre, rushing inward and then retreating once more. Again and again they surged, in and back and in again, while the first stars began to prick through the silken curtain of the sky. Each thrust was echoed by a cry from the crowd. The shouting got louder, the dance more frenzied, and Morgause swayed, feeling warmth kindle between her thighs. And then, as if the need of the gathered clans had driven them to climax, the dancers leaped forward and plunged their torches into the pyre.

The tinder caught, flame began to spark along the logs. Morgause felt a blast of warmth against her cheeks as fire billowed skyward. The drumming picked up and suddenly everyone was dancing. She laughed, whirling in place, and then began to move sunwise around the bonfire, hips swaying, arms outstretched.

One of the men caught her eye and began to dance with her, but she did not like his looks, and whirled away. Soon enough a bright-haired warrior found favor, mirroring her movements as they danced together, burning with the same flame. The dance brought them closer and closer, until her bobbing breasts brushed his chest. He seized her then, kissing her hungrily, and staggering like drunkards they wove among the other dancers until they reached the edge of the circle and collapsed together, bodies straining, on the grass.

Her warrior served her well, but when he had left her, Morgause still felt hunger.
Take me!
her heart cried as she began to dance once more,
fill me with your seed, and I will live forever!

And soon another man came to her, and when she had exhausted him, a third. By this time, her clothing had gone, and she danced clad only in her own sweat and her necklaces of amber and jet. After that, she ceased counting. At one point she lay with two men together, and then, just as the early dawn was lightening the eastern sky, she enticed one of the drummers, for there were not many dancers left upright, though coupling figures still writhed upon the grass.

Morgause drew him down, pulling at his clothing with hasty caresses until he grunted and entered her. He was tired, and took his time at it, but a satiated exhaustion was finally overcoming her as well. She lay spread-eagled on the earth, quivering to his thrusts, until above his harsh breathing another sound caught her attention. She looked up, and gazing past the man's muscled shoulder saw Medraut, his hair glinting in the first light, disgust in his eyes.

“You are a man now—” Morgause said harshly. “This is what men do. Did you think you were so different?” Her partner groaned then and convulsed against her, and she laughed.

It was nearly noon when Morgause woke, her head throbbing from too much mead and her body aching from rutting in the grass. After she had bathed, she began to feel better and returned to the women's enclosure. Medraut was nowhere to be seen, but she recognized his maiden, working with the other slave girls to clear the detritus of the night's carousing away. She was wearing a bracelet that Morgause had last seen on her son's arm.

She ducked beneath the shade of the striped awning to pay her respects to the queen.

“Your son performed well last night,” Uorepona said through her interpreter.

“He did. But now the girl may bear his child. Will you sell her to me?”

“If that is so, she would be all the more valuable,” came the answer.

“I will be frank with you,” said Morgause. “The children of princes must be begotten at the proper time and season. It is not my desire that there should be a child, nor that the vessel that received this holy sacrifice should be tainted by the use of one less worthy. But I cannot dispose of your property.”

Uorepona bent to whisper into Tulach's ear.

“Ah—now I begin to understand you. But she is a pretty thing, and has been useful. If I had known your intention, I would have offered you a slave of less value.”

“She was the best choice for my purpose,” answered Morgause. “I will pay well.”

Tulach nodded, and they began the delicate process of haggling.

For the two nights that remained of the festival, Medraut slept with the slave girl and hardly spoke to his mother at all. The girl herself had not been informed of the change of ownership, and when the time came for Medraut to depart, clung to him, weeping. The boy had already tried to persuade Morgause to bring the slave south with them and been refused. When at last they took the road towards the firth, there were tears in his eyes as well.

“Will we come back here? Will they be kind to her?” he asked as the grey waters of the Bodotria came into view.

“She will be well taken care of,” answered Morgause, knowing that by now the slave collar would have been replaced by the mark of the strangler's cord. In time, she would tell Medraut that the girl was dead, and he would forget her.

“Why did you bring me here?” muttered the boy. “Every time something good happens to me, you take the joy away.. . .”

“You are a prince. You must learn to master your desires.”

“As you did at the festival?” he snapped back, then flushed and looked away.

Morgause took a deep breath, striving to control her temper. This was the child of her heart, and she must not drive him off. “I had a reason,” she said finally. “What is important is not
what
you do so much as why.”

“And you won't tell me.. . . Will you answer any of my questions? You have taught me things you never showed my brothers, and they are princes too!”

Morgause took a deep breath. Was now the moment she had been awaiting? Now, when he was beginning to understand what it meant to be a man?

“Your brothers are only princes of the Votadini. You are by birth the heir to all Britannia.”

Medraut reined in sharply, all color draining from his face, staring at her.

“Your father and I lay together unknowing, god with goddess, in the sacred rite of the feast of Lugus. But the seed that was planted in my belly was that of Artor,” Morgause said calmly. “In the old days, you would have been proclaimed before all the people, but Britannia is ruled now by Christians, who would count what we did a sin. Nonetheless, you are Artor's only child.”

From pale, Medraut's face had flushed red. Slowly his complexion returned to normal, but his eyes were shining.

Oh my brother
, thought Morgause,
you fathered this child, but I possess his soul.. . 
.

A.D.
502

I
N THE SECOND YEAR OF THE NEW CENTURY, SICKNESS STALKED
the land. It came with vomiting and fever, and when it killed, took by preference the young and strong. The first cases appeared in Londinium, where a few trading vessels still put in at the wharves, and the illness spread along the roads to such other centers of population as remained. Then it began to strike in the countryside. If not so deadly as the great plague that had devastated the empire some forty years before, it was fearful enough to make people flee the towns that were beginning to rise from the ashes of the Saxon wars.

That year, the rains of winter persisted into the summer months, blighting the grain. Those who were still healthy shivered along with the sick and cursed whichever gods commanded their loyalty. And some, especially those who held to the old ways, began to speak against the king.

Artor had never entirely recovered from the wound he got in the Irish wars. He could walk and fight and ride, but not for long. He had moved to Deva to direct the conclusion of the campaigning, but he had delegated its execution to Agricola in Demetia, and Catwallaun Longhand in the north of Guenet. And the British efforts had been rewarded with victory. Even the holy isle of Mona was now free. The only Irishmen remaining in Britannia were those who had given oath to defend it for Artor—Brocagnus in Cicutio, and others farther inland. To Cunorix, who had once been his hostage, he gave the defense of Viroconium, and the Irish mercenary Ebicatos was installed in Calleva.

But to the common folk of Britannia, coughing beneath their leaky thatching and watching the rain batter down the young grain, these great victories were distant and irrelevant. Any warrior could kill enemies, but the power that kept health in man and beast and brought good harvests came from the king.