The Iron Grail (20 page)

I joined Urtha on the wall. The Shadow Knights had dispersed, taking their fallen with them. But if the king was triumphant, he expressed it in subdued manner.

‘We won’t have seen the last of them,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t you agree, Merlin? They won’t give up this easily. They’re extending their realm. Though why they should be doing that is beyond me for the moment.’

Behind us, the small army of warriors and their families were spreading out through the streets, laying claim to the houses and planning the rebuilding. It would be a lengthy task.

I recognised, among them, the standards of the Coritani.

It seemed that Urtha, when he had passed through the territory of the High King of the Coritani, had found it reoccupied by the men who had lived there before. They had returned ahead of him from the chaotic adventure that had led an army of the clans into Makedonia and Greek Land. Nosing as I was, in the form of a wolf, I had not seen this encounter. Urtha, alerted to the problems with Taurovinda, had won the respect of these men, and their agreement to assist in his own land. He had kept them in the forest, out of sight and silent. He had not known what to expect in his home citadel, but in the event the Shadow Knights, made mortal in this world, had been outnumbered.

How he would now pay his mercenaries for their continued service was a bridge to be crossed in due time; they would certainly stay for the cycle of a moon. After that they would start to claim cattle and horses.

PART THREE

The Light of Foresight

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Taurovinda

Urtha had claimed back his ancestral fortress of Taurovinda, savaged and stolen from him years before. He had reclaimed his stronghold with boldness and imagination, harnessing the slender forces of arms, men and the supernatural to great effect. He told me almost at once that he had been inspired by the fire and fury of his small son, Kymon; he might otherwise have delayed, seeking the best strategy for what had seemed to him a task that would lead to at least one failure, if not more. He had anticipated a long struggle and had won in glorious, rousing triumph, seduced by youthful recklessness.

Yes, Kymon, the spirit of the king, had been the kick to his flank; only later would he tell me that when he had heard my account of the forlorn figure of Aylamunda, moving behind the Bull on her way to a greater happiness, he had glimpsed her himself, and been filled with such insensate rage that he came close to storming the citadel himself, alone, naked and unarmed. He had seen her as clearly as I had seen her, a glimpse of the darkness below, a glimpse of the woman he had loved with passion. If he suspected that I had in any way
seeded
that momentary sight in his mind’s eye, he kept the thought to himself.

Love does not perish when the body dies. And in Ullanna, Urtha had a new companion—herself the survivor of a tragic separation—who understood the nature of the gash in the muscle of Urtha’s heart. With this Scythian woman by his side, he bragged, he could conquer the Land of the Shadows of Heroes itself!

This thought was idle when he expressed it to me, still in the sweat of victory, but he was aware that Ghostland would need a great deal more subjugation before Taurovinda could again open its gates to the Plain of MaegCatha.

Indeed, there was a great deal to be done, and beginning at dawn of the day following the night of the attack, Urtha and Ambaros, still frail from his wounds, tried to bring a sense of order to the chaos.

The druids, the Speakers for the Past, for Kings and for the Land, keepers of ritual, began to walk the perimeters of both the fortress and the woodland at its heart, the groves and sheltered shafts where offerings had been deposited in the deep of the earth for the last few centuries. They were joined in their task by the High Women, although the women fussed at the wells and in particular at the apple orchards—if apple is the correct word for the small, sour fruit that these people held in such high esteem.

The two Wolf-heads, the itinerant soothsayers who had appeared in the gorge when Kymon had been gathering his forces, were as dirty, grey and unkempt as ever, and stank of the animal oils in their skin clothing. But they were experts at carving, it was discovered, and took it upon themselves to cut away the burned wood from the tall statues that were gathered at the heart of the fortress forest, remaking the faces and using dyes and ochres to bring back the life to them.

I had expected that Munda would involve herself in these sacred duties, but she was nowhere to be seen; up to her own private tricks and trade, no doubt.

Her brother Kymon, however, was very much in evidence. He walked alongside his father, saying nothing, seeing all. He was the heir apparent and his sense of grief and anguish at having failed in his own attempts to retake Taurovinda had rapidly been consigned to a votive shaft in his own mind. He had failed; he had learned a lesson; and that was that! No time to look back, only to look forward, and Taurovinda, the citadel that would one day be his domain, had to be protected against an enemy who were more like gusts of wind than warriors: hard to see and hard to fight, but strong only where the shelter against them was flimsy.

The mercenaries recruited from the Coritani, horsemen and spearmen allied to the warchief Vortingoros, were adept and swift in their abilities in construction. Vortingoros had furnished this small army as Urtha had passed through his land, as repayment for a bond of honour that had fallen due when the two men had been in battle against a northern clan. The force of fresh and eager men swiftly dismantled many of the burned and broken houses, pulling up the roof poles and setting about building two long hostels, one on each flank of the stronghold, living quarters and feasting areas, sufficient for the host of men and women who were now in occupation.

The king’s lodge would be left alone for a while, at Urtha’s specific order. It had not been burned, though was badly ransacked and the roof broken through. But it could be lived in, and counsel could be held there. This was not a gesture of magnanimity on Urtha’s part, simply practical. His priority was to erect good quarters for his new army, good living space for the survivors of his own clan.

Meanwhile, four forges were re-established close to the well and were soon in hot production, repairing weapons and armour, fashioning the tools that would be needed for the general rebuilding itself.

Out on the Plain of MaegCatha the carrion birds had come to feast. Some picked at the eyes and throats of those of Urtha’s people who had fallen in the battle; it would be a while before the remains could be taken from the field. Others, spectral birds, white-plumed, red-eyed, strangely slow in their searching flight as if they hopped and flew through water, feasted on the fast-corrupting sprawl of those who had died from Ghostland. Grey faces, bodies clad in rusted iron, arms uplifted in despair greeted the talons and hooked bills of these feeders on the twice-dead.

It was a grim sight. It was not possible to survey it without feeling subdued by the display of coiling guts and arching backs, blood-blackened grinning mouths widened by the sword.

Standing close to Urtha on the ramparts, I overheard Ullanna say to him, ‘I don’t understand. Why did they come out of the Otherworld? What can they have hoped to achieve in this drab and dreary land? They had lived life to the full, they had died in battle, they had a new life in a country where all was kind to them, where they would meet their sons and daughters in due time. Why cross back to this godforsaken plain?’

Urtha hesitated a long time before he answered. ‘Why does a wild horse run towards a thorn thicket?’

She frowned. ‘Well, perhaps because it’s being pursued. Men are pursuing it. Or perhaps wolves. It finds a way to escape.’

‘Why does a wide-eyed calf run into the maw of a wicker-walled trap, to be captured and marked, led away and slaughtered?’

‘Because it’s being driven. Men are driving it.’

‘So: either escaping or being driven to do the deed.’

Ullanna laughed and leaned on the warlord’s shoulder. ‘I see what
you’re
driving at! But we’re not the best qualified to answer the question.’ She glanced at me as she spoke. ‘What about you, Merlin? Do you have an insight for us?’

‘A glimmer of one,’ I answered, and she acknowledged my words with a little nod of the head.

I had already spoken to Urtha about my suspicions concerning the Shadows of Heroes, that they were a divided host of Dead and Unborn, and that though he certainly had allies among their ranks, distinguishing friend from foe would take some time. What I couldn’t address was the reason for the division, though my suspicions on that front were growing as well. I would need to go back across the river, and journey more deeply into Ghostland than the small sanctuary where the children, dislocated from their own world, had been nurtured and protected by the
modronae
.

Behind us, in one of the open spaces, Kymon was riding a grey pony in tighter and tighter circles, getting the animal used to his feet, his weight, his use of the reins. He looked very much the small man in control. Then his father asked, ‘Where is Munda? I haven’t seen the girl since we entered the fortress last night.’

Both he and Ullanna looked at me, as if I might have known her whereabouts, but the last I’d seen of the girl she was walking towards the far end of the hill, where the apparition of the great Donn had faded, and the reckless Cymbrii had disappeared.

Suddenly Urtha was in a panic. He jumped from the walkway inside the wall, calling loudly for his daughter. Kymon stopped in the middle of his circling, shook his head when asked if he had seen his sister.

An awful sense of fear swept across the newly claimed citadel. The striking of iron in the forges hesitated; the babble of laughter and shouting eased to an eerie silence. Only Urtha’s voice calling for Munda broke the stillness.

The girl’s voice called back as if from a dream, becoming stronger, sharper, finally as real as the girl herself. She was beyond the fortress forest, standing quite still. I could see her and she could see me. Across the distance, she smiled at me.

Urtha, relieved not angry, spent time with her.

When later he returned to his duties of supervision and building, Munda sought me out. I was scratching double spirals on stones to turn, marked side down, around the edge of the shallow spring that rose in Taurovinda. The deep well, behind its stone wall, was supervised only by women. The girl sat down beside me and ran a small, pale finger along my small, shallow scratching, the two spirals, running alongside each other, connected at the middle.

‘I know this.’

‘I’m beginning to realise that you know a great deal. What does the spiral say to you?’

‘It’s Time. Time starts young, here, at the outside, and grows old, here, at the centre, then winds back upon itself to become young again.’

I was astonished. She caught my look of curious surprise and shrugged. ‘It’s easy. As we go forward through Time, deeper into it, so we pass ourselves going back. Time reflects the seasons, growing older then renewing. Simple. Can you see across the divide? Can you see yourself going back?’

‘Where did you learn this?’ I asked her, ignoring her impertinent inquiry. (It was very costly to see into that other Time, where the world moved back to its start. I’d never risked it. I could see no possible use for it.)

‘I have a good dream teacher,’ she replied. ‘I like her. She makes me laugh. In the dream, it’s always snowing and we skate on icy lakes and eat fat fishes, grilled over wood fires. She’s nice.’

My head reeled with her words.

If you have read my account of the resurrection of Jason, in the land of the Pohjoli, before he and I ventured into Greek Land, you will understand why my blood turned to ice at that moment. Munda’s ‘dream teacher’ could surely be no other than Niiv, the northern enchantress, daughter of Mielikki, the Forest Lady who was also the protecting goddess of Argo.

‘What’s her name?’ I asked carefully, and shuddered as Munda whispered, ‘Niif. She’s very pretty, and she gets very angry…’

I remembered that!

Niiv was killing herself, using her talent without care or consideration for the fact that she would age very rapidly if she experimented so powerfully! She was as determined as Medea in this. If I felt a moment’s concern for the young woman from the north, the mood was soon replaced by anxiety for myself.

Yes, I knew that Niiv was making her way back to me, aboard Argo, taunting Jason. She had visited me in the valley of the exiles and taunted me in turn! But Munda’s words made it clear that Niiv had been closer to me more often than I’d realised. She had been in the groves by the river, whispering to Munda in her dreams … Perhaps she had been in Ghostland, before the girl had caught up with the interrupted breath of her life, quickly ageing as we’d crossed the river.

Perhaps, indeed, Niiv had been spying on me from the moment I’d left Greek Land, aboard the shadow of Argo herself. Niiv was determined to exist permanently in my life.

I gently asked Munda when her dream teacher, the pretty girl, had first started to talk to her. She answered, ‘After we came back. After my friend Atanta went away.’

‘Not when you were playing with Atanta before we crossed the river?’

‘No. I don’t think so. When Atanta went away I was very sad.’

‘I remember. I’m sorry you were sad.’

‘But Niif came and told me that all old friends will eventually find each other. Sometimes they get taken for different tasks, and sometimes they forget that they need each other. But in time, everyone who is joined at the heart comes back for the final embrace. Do you believe that, Merlin?’

‘I believe that Niif believes it,’ I commented, trying not to sound sour.

‘But you don’t?’

‘I believe it slightly. One day I’m sure you’ll find your friend again.’

She smiled, looking wistful. ‘And you’ll find the forest that you’ll wear as a cloak. I hope I see you in that cloak of forests!’

The girl’s words spilled from her lips as innocent as leverets spilling from a hare’s womb. Full of potential magic, full of significance, full of taboo.