The Iron Grail (34 page)

‘As we discussed, it’s not the getting in, it’s the getting out.’

Cathabach touched fingers to the new marks on his chest and cheeks. ‘I’ve prepared myself for his loss. When the king dies, his son rules, unless challenged. When a king is lost, the Speakers for Past, Land and Kings must guard the land for seven years. I am the new Speaker for Kings. The older man who had that honour has now retired from the ritual, and will be sent into his shaft in this orchard in due course. Not yet.’

Why was Cathabach telling me this? He got to the point. ‘A land without a king is a land that is vulnerable, as you have seen all too clearly. That cannot happen again. Merlin … I have seen you summon the shade of a man from his lake burial of generations ago. And if such things as kolossoi exist, temporary life, out of Time, then is it possible that you could reach into the depths of your enchantment and find a way of drawing such a spirit from Urtha: sending it in his place, guarding it, protecting it, bringing it home to be with the king again? Is there any way at all that Urtha can be sheltered with charm, with shadows, with the veneer of a ghost, to allow him to undertake the journey there and back in safety?’

Again he touched the cuts on his body, the dye still soaking into his skin. His gaze at me was strong and steady. ‘If there is to be a price to pay for it, a life to pay for it, then again it is the Speaker for Kings who must pay that price. The older man can be reinstated, to pass on the list and the achievements of our ancestors.’

I was impressed by the man’s courage. He had been Urtha’s closest friend in the retinue of the
uthiin
, the elite knights who rode with the king; he would always have given his life before the king’s in battle. Most men would. This more calculated offer of sacrifice was a rare quality in my experience. Cathabach had clearly arranged the hierarchical structure of Taurovinda to protect both figurehead and memory.

‘There are two ways in which it might be done,’ I told him. ‘Neither would call for your death. One of them would be a demanding piece of sorcery on my part. And I will willingly practise it. I have a great reserve of energy; it’s time I put it to use.’

I was almost as surprised by my words as Cathabach was pleased with them. I had spent millennia guarding against the wasting consequence of using my skills. The next few generations would be very different for me, though that was just the shadow of a self-prophecy at the time.

‘And the other way?’ the Speaker for Kings asked.

‘She’s thinking about it. Argo. She’s tired, but she might be prepared to give protection to a king. Lets wait and see what she does.’

*   *   *

As I left the orchard I heard a brief burst of laughter, two women sharing a moment of amusement. Sitting cross-legged, close to the wicker wall of the sanctuary, Atalanta and Ullanna were examining Ullanna’s bow and arrows. Each wore a heavy cloak, but the hoods were thrown back and they had tied their hair identically in a loose braid hanging from the right. Small clay cups and a half-emptied pigskin of fermented milk lay between them. Their conversation was soft, a struggle to understand each others dialect, but with much miming, much humour.

When they realised I was watching them they glanced at me and each, with affection, blew me a kiss. But they were making a point: go away, this is private.

I wonder what they talked about? Ullanna would have learned a great deal, the detail in the legends she had been taught as a child. Atalanta, no doubt, was being fed the stuff of dreams.

Ullanna was very subdued and very sad when I next saw her, returning to the enclosure around the king’s house. But it was a dreamy sort of sadness, as if she knew she had been granted a very special gift an enriching and wonderful gift, but the time for gifts was now finished.

PART FOUR

Argo in the Otherworld

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

from
Ulysses
, by Alfred Lord Tennyson

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Shadows of Heroes

I was woken by the touch of winter on my nose. The air was frigid. The dew on the ground had crystallised; breath frosted. A winter’s dawn painted the sky with star-speckled magenta. Horses whickered and dogs shivered. Across the town, people rose into the chill, astonished at this intrusion of ice into the summer.

The whole of the ceremonial way from hill to river was crusted with white. The evergroves were in their winter wrap. Nantosuelta had frozen upstream for as far as the eye could see.

Sitting aslant on the frozen surface was Argo; she leaned, ready to be pulled upright. The eye on her bow seemed to watch, from the distance, with amusement.

Rubobostes was amazed. Urtha was swearing, tightly wrapped in his heavy cloak as he stared at this winter landscape in astonishment. He was less distressed, now; more angry and determined. But Jason laughed.

‘She says yes,’ he murmured, wiping the gathering ice from his long beard.

‘Who says yes?’ Urtha demanded.

‘The old ship. She’s agreed. Don’t you think so … Antiokus?’

I acknowledged his words. Jason added, ‘You must have spoken to her well. But she has decided to make us work for our journey, Lord Urtha. She won’t make it easy for us.’

‘Your ship has done this? Turned warmth into winter?’

Jason acknowledged the king’s complaint. ‘You’ll work for your battle, it seems.’

‘We’ll have battle enough without your ship testing us,’ the Celt complained. Jason laughed so loudly it came close to insulting Urtha. The two men glared at each other, then lowered their lances. As the old Greeklander turned away, I swear he commented unflatteringly on the trustworthiness of goddesses.

I may be wrong.

It was of no importance to me. I was delighted to see my friend back from her much-needed rest. I knew exactly what Argo was doing: exhausted, she had none the less consented to a further adventure; but homesick, she had created the landscape that most comforted her. Argo, Urtha needed to be reminded, was not at this time the ship of the warm, wine-dark sea of Aegaea. Mielikki, the Forest Lady of the North, now shaped her taste, and snow and ice, and the menace of
voytazi
, were what excited her. Elemental
voytazi
, indeed, struck at the ice on the river, causing it to buckle and crack, the mean, pike-faced heads chattering and grinning as these fish creatures, summoned from the deep, came to sniff the air of their temporary domain.

They could consume a man in moments. More impressively, they could hold a man below the water for a year, keeping him alive until they were ready to feed on his flesh.

To each goddess her own helpers; her own hounds; her own terrors. I had thought that beautiful, gentle Hera, daughter of Cronos, had had only benign helpers when she had guided Argo and Jason to the Golden Fleece; but her terrors, when she revealed them, were appalling, though no account of them has survived in the records of that famous voyage, save for my own.

What we needed now was Ruvio, the Dacian’s magisterial horse. Rubobostes and a small retinue rode west to find the creature, and later in the day returned, following the galloping stallion, who raced three times around the fort before coming to a head-shuddering stop before the outer gates. Five mares had galloped with him, red flanks shining, black manes flowing. Their breath frosted voluminously in the winter air. They were Otherworldly by their look, sleek and graceful, all of them pulsing with the beginning of new life, Ruvio’s seed at work in their wombs.

‘Can we take them too?’ Ullanna asked me in a whisper.

‘Not on Argo. But I imagine they’ll wait for Ruvio at Nantosuelta’s ford of farewell. They’ll follow us into Ghostland if they can.

‘Good,’ the Scythian said practically. ‘They’ll be useful. One more string to our bow.’

I laughed out loud. I liked the expression. It was novel. She often coined pithy images such as this. But her mood darkened when she was told she was to stay behind.

Kymon was stalking the length and breadth of Taurovinda in a deep sulk, his hand resting on his sword, his face more grim than the argonauts in the orchard. He too, was not to accompany his father on the expedition, and he was not happy about the fact. He and Manandoun were to take charge of the fortress, to entertain their guests, show hospitality to strangers and defend against intruders.

The boy was still ashamed of his failure, before his father’s return. Anxiety and irritation fought for control in the youthful, flushed features. He wanted the chase, but Urtha was adamant.

‘I trust no men but you and Manandoun to guard the hill. You are both experienced men. Manandoun has insight and resolve. You have vision and determination. If you stay here, then this is one old man who’ll not worry about his home.’

‘Very well,’ Kymon agreed. ‘But next time there is an expedition, I expect to be taken along.’

‘I agree,’ said Urtha. ‘Now go and make a plan for defending what will one day be your own citadel.’

Ullanna was to remain as well. This had been negotiated with Argo—she had called me to her—who was prepared, as I’d suggested, to protect the king but no other from the ‘mortal’ world.

Cathabach was required to stay behind for the same reasons, though his position, now, would in any event have required him to do so.

Argo had further promised, however, that our small crew would be sufficient to search for Munda and Jason’s son.

Niiv had finished instructing on the method of turning Argo into a sledge. The ship sat upright on the ice, braced by the thin trunks of trees felled for the purpose, draped with the harnessing that would be attached to Ruvio. Argo seemed placid, almost amused. Ice formed on her hull, stretching stiffly from the shields below her rails.

She seemed to call: come on then, let’s get this done with.

Supernatural though she was, she perhaps had no idea of the strange journey that awaited her, awaited us all.

Supplies were loaded aboard; Cathabach marvelled at the edge of the winter world that Argo had created. ‘If she decides to stop playing the game and the ice melts, the ship will founder with all that strapped-on wood.’

His caution was understandable, but Niiv grinned and reassured him. ‘She will make us take the strain for a while. Her intention is not to drown us. You can watch our progress in that well of deep water.’

Some time in the next day or so I was summoned to take my place on the ship. Ruvio stamped and snorted. The frozen river stretched out of sight ahead of us. Shivering men and women sat on the benches, cloak-wrapped and gaunt. Farewells had been brief and few—but there had been tears in Ullanna’s eyes on two different occasions. Atalanta was very aware of the sky and the woodland, and the steep-sided fortress. She was absorbing the sights and sounds of this world, remembering for her dreams, with the hunger of a starving child.

Rubobostes, who was used to taking command of the steering oar at the stern, now stood at the bridle of his wonderful horse. At the signal from Jason he urged the beast forward, and after a few moments of straining and heavy breathing the animal got the measure of Argo; the ship lurched, skidded slightly, then began to slide. Niiv cheered loudly. On the shore, the gathered horsemen followed us for a while, before striking off across more amenable terrain, to wait for us at the Ford of the Last Farewell. They would not be able to enter the Otherworld, and they knew it. But Urtha wanted them with him at that point in case the Heroes had learned of the expedition, and had sent their own army to face us.

*   *   *

The river and forest froze ahead of us for as far as the eye could see, melting behind us in an eerie transformation from stark white to lush, drooping green. We were drawn into bleak winter, snow falling constantly, the ice below us creaking and threatening to break. Two arrow flights away, behind us, summer bloomed, waving us goodbye.

Ruvio slipped and struggled as he took the strain, but was soon into his stride, and Argo travelled fast across the ice. When the breeze shifted, Jason order the sail unfurled; it caught the wind, the ship skidded for a moment, and then continued on its journey in the fashion of a chariot racing through water, great sprays of ice and snow slicing into the winter trees that crowded the river, knocking herons from their feet and sending dark birds circling skywards in shock. Mielikki seemed to grin from her position in the stern, enjoying the game.

Ruvio, released from the burden of hauling, galloped beside us, the sweat from his flanks and the breath from his nostrils forming a shimmering, misty cloak around him.

Less than two days later we were approaching the final curve in Nantosuelta before the Ford of the Last Farewell. And at this point, Argo and Mielikki decided that the game was over. Argo was rested; the point had been made (that though she was not always at a captain’s beck and call, she would keep a promise). The winter melted away, along with the ice, but slowly, giving the argonauts time to swing over the sides of the ship and untie the wooden rollers that had converted the hull into a sledge. She sank into the river, lurching alarmingly, and Ruvio swam to the shore, released from his harness.

It was an altogether different ship that now glided peacefully and silently round the curving stream, until the tall stones that guarded the ford came into view, and the shallow banks, and the inlet on the far side, with its rocky gully leading into the hinterland.

The stream that flowed through the gully was narrow. I had expected that Argo would wait until nightfall, then make us all fall comatose while she negotiated the impossible waterway with the aid of a little ancient magic. She had done this before, on our way to Greek Land. But I was wrong. She sent Hylas to the place of exiles, on her whispered and private instruction. He returned later, depressed and weary, and took his place silently.

Argo moved on into shallower water, below denser canopy, dazzled by sunlight, drifting in silence. The argonauts sat quietly at their benches, heads turned to watch the way ahead, all curious as to where Argo would take the turn into the world of the Dead.