The Last Days of Magic (20 page)

“Impossible,” declared the legate. “Just as with the Lollard problem, you cannot stop ideas as long as the Irish Church keeps spreading them. The Irish Church also supports the Celtic heretical practice of allowing anyone to increase his station through effort, while it is truly only God who determines a man’s station, and that is through his birth. The Irish Brehon laws are based on the principle of
Is ferr fera chiniud
—‘A person is not his birth.’”

“That will never happen in Our England as long as We are king,” declared Richard.

“May your rule be a long one, Your Royal Majesty. But what if these ideas continue to spread? Do you want to spend the rest of your life fighting one uprising after another? I am sure you are already aware that the Irish Church is a strong supporter—a promoter, even—of the Celtic practice of electing their kings. If your nobles should get the idea that they could be elected to the throne, not to imply they would be successful, but still, it would cause a constant irritation to Your Royal Majesty.”

“Hm,” mumbled Richard, turning back to the food table. “We will give your words proper consideration.”

The legate bowed to Richard’s back.

“Are you in London long?” asked de Vere, ushering the legate and Chaucer to the door.

“I will be staying at the Westminster Priory for the next two days. I understand that the abbey is almost finished, and His Holiness the pope is anxious for me to inspect it.”

Having escorted them out of the room, de Vere returned to Richard. The king, no longer eating, was leaning against the table looking thoughtful. “Your thoughts, dear friend?” Richard asked.

“If Ireland could truly be taken,” said de Vere, “think of the land and income that would be gained. It would be a mighty addition to your kingdom. Memories would fade of the unfortunate events in Scotland and France.”

“True,” said Richard. “And a new war would stop the nobles from grumbling about taxes, if there were land for them to gain.”

“And if the Roman Church secretly paid for the war, all those taxes would fatten your treasury,” said de Vere.

“If Ireland could really be taken.” Richard picked up a dish of miniature fruits sculpted out of colored sugar and almond paste and handed it to de Vere. “Go find out if it is possible.”

10

London, England

The Same Day

C
arrying the dish of sugar fruits across the inner yard of the Tower of London, de Vere noticed that Clanvowe’s corpse, now headless, lay smoldering on the remains of the fire. He knew that the blackened head would already be on a spike above the outer gatehouse.

De Vere entered a low, windowless stone building. To the guard sitting inside, he said only, “Third cell.” De Vere pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket, selected one, and handed it to the man. Following the guard down the short corridor, de Vere drew a violet-scented handkerchief from his sleeve and covered his nose against the rancid smell.

The guard unlocked the cell, placed his torch into a wall bracket inside, returned the keys to de Vere, and left without comment. The flickering torchlight penetrated the darkness just enough to reveal an ancient figure sitting with his back against the far wall, his only clothing a dirty, tattered loincloth. Both legs had been chopped off above the knee, the scarred flesh having withered to expose nubs of bones into which were set iron rings. A chain led from the bone rings to a bracket in the center of the cell floor.

De Vere placed the dish on the stone floor. The prisoner turned his face toward the sound, sniffed the air, and began to crawl toward de Vere, dragging the chain behind him. Reaching the dish, he drew it to his nose and examined its scent cautiously, then propped himself up against the wall next to the door.

“Sugar, my last pleasure,” said Oren, turning to face de Vere as if he could still see out of the scarred hollows that once held eyes. “What do you want?”

M
ORE
THAN
THIRTEEN
HUNDRED
years earlier on Anglesey Island, Wales, in the year
CE
60, Oren leaned heavily on the oak branch he was using as a crutch. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on pushing away the wave of pain threatening to overwhelm him. Regaining control, he looked back across his homeland. Smoke billowed from scores of fires where Roman legionaries were burning the sacred groves. Behind him the sun was setting.

Dawn seemed like an age ago, when he had stood with his now-dead father on the bank of the narrow strait, no wider than a river, that separated Anglesey Island from the western coast of the Welsh mainland. Young, in his first century, facing his first battle, Oren had been full of excitement and confidence. Proudly clutching the new blade his father had made for him, he had been impatient for the Romans to show themselves on the opposite bank.

His family clan were Bwbachod, master smiths of the Welsh faeries known as the Tylwyth Teg. They, along with most of the Tylwyth Teg clans, had formed an alliance with the last of the Britannia druids, whom the Roman invaders had driven from the mainland. For the next two decades, Rome seemed content to leave the alliance bottled up on their island. That was, until Queen Boudica had stirred up a revolt among the Britannia tribes, burning the twenty-year-old commercial settlement of London to the ground and waking the wolf. Rome sent reinforcements, who crushed Boudica’s army in retaliation. The Roman commander, Suetonius, had decided to invade Anglesey while he had the men readily available and eliminate the pesky druids and their philosophy of independence from any central authority.

Standing by his father in the mist of the Tylwyth Teg army that morning, Oren felt his excitement catch in his throat at the sight of two full Roman legions, the XIV and the XX, marching toward the opposite bank in tight formations. Under cover of arrow volleys, wizards from Europe, sorcerers from Egypt, and a handful of druid
traitors countered the enchantments being hurled by the Tylwyth Teg. The legionaries bridged the narrow strip of water by roping together shallow barges they had carried overland. They surged across, crashing into the combined Tylwyth Teg and druid forces.

A pilum, a Roman heavy javelin, had caught Oren in the leg just above the knee, shattering the bone. Oren’s father turned from the mayhem to help him, only to be struck down by two arrows in his back.

Grabbing a stout oak branch from the ground, Oren hauled himself up and limped toward the Celli Ddu faerie mound lying a mile to the northwest, intent on escaping into the Middle Kingdom. The legionaries beat him to it. They had built a fire in the entrance and were swarming over the mound with shovels and picks, digging up the enchanted stones it covered. As he watched, the first standing stone was unearthed and pulled over. With it, all hope that the Tylwyth Teg would hold Anglesey died in his heart.

He hobbled across the island, and every faerie mound he came to was suffering the same fate. His new plan to hide in the woods vanished as the legionaries began to burn the sacred groves. With his opportunities for cover going up in flames, he had to continue lugging his shattered leg west. There was nowhere else to go.

Standing at the base of a low ridge, he gazed back across his beloved island. Physically he had passed exhaustion long ago. He gathered what was left of his mental strength. Over the ridge was his Bwbachod-clan faerie mound, situated on the end of a point extending out the westerly edge of Anglesey Island. He had seen no surviving mounds, nor had he seen Roman soldiers headed this way. The sun was setting on the longest day of his life as he started up the rise, dragging his injured leg along behind him as he could no longer raise it at all. The next hour would decide his fate.

He managed to clear the ridge and advance out the point, its edges sheer cliffs to the sea below. Fear rose in his chest when he saw Roman ships in the bay.
That’s how they reached the mounds so quickly,
he thought. With no legionaries in sight, he hobbled on.

I’m going to make it,
Oren thought as he approached his still-intact mound. He could see the edge of its doorway. He gathered the last of his strength and pushed his body to move faster. A legionary crept around the mound and rushed at him. Oren locked eyes with him for a moment. Suddenly the man noticed the emerald green grass, stopped, squatted down, and began to examine it closer. Being a Bwbachod, Oren carried his power in his eyes.

A second legionary emerged and charged at Oren, but then that man noticed the beauty of the blue sky spotted with small clouds and stopped to admire it. Oren lurched around the distracted soldier.

“Don’t look him in the eye,” ordered the decanus as he led his remaining five legionaries around the other side of the mound. They knocked Oren to the ground and slipped a linen bag over his head. The decanus felt for Oren’s eyes through the linen and, ignoring his screams, thrust his dagger through the bag into one eye, gave it a quick twist, then the other eye, taking away his ability to work enchantments.

Bound, Oren was carried to the ship and dropped into the hold on top of two dozen other captive Tylwyth Teg, each maimed or painted with runes as needed to prevent any use of magic. At the Roman fort of Isca Dumnoniorum in southwest Britannia, the surgeon who hacked off Oren’s shattered leg decided that he would be easier to handle if the other leg were removed as well.

From there the captives were shipped to pagan Rome, valuable chattel for the information they could provide, as Rome continued to struggle with tribes of Nephilim across its empire. The centuries passed, and they were needed less and less. Some died under torture, some found ways to take their own lives, and some were traded away.

O
REN
DID
NOT
know how many of his fellow captives were still alive. He had not heard the voice of another Tylwyth Teg since Count Philip of Savoy had shipped him to England in 1283 as a gift to King
Edward Longshanks, who was having trouble with the remains of the Tylwyth Teg during his Welsh campaigns. Oren’s resistance to questioning had been broken long ago, so he knew that to be bribed meant that something important was at stake.

Gripping the plate of sugar fruits, he repeated his question: “What do you want?”

Squatting down beside Oren, de Vere took one of the sweets, put it in his mouth, and crunched on it. Oren placed the dish on his lap and covered it with both hands.

“How can Richard invade Ireland?” de Vere asked.

“He cannot,” said Oren. “The Romans failed. The Normans failed. Richard would fail as well.” Oren slipped a sugar fruit into his mouth. A moan emerged from his throat as the confection melted.

“Why would Richard not succeed, specifically?” de Vere asked.

“Because the Sidhe have what the Tylwyth Teg did not, a Goddess to watch over them. Evidently we were not important enough to any of the divine beings in the Otherworld.”

“The Morrígna.”

“Yes, the mighty protector of Ireland, but not Wales,” said Oren, the old bitterness returning. “She merges and commands the power of the Sidhe and the Celts when her twin physical aspects are present in this world, and if Richard is planning an invasion, they will be present. Even the Fomorians dare not oppose the will of the Morrígna twins.”