Authors: Paul Bannister
Bishop Candless was sweating heavily even in the night’s cool. He and two men at arms were hacking away with axes at a mound of silver, chopping priceless works of church plate, beautifully-worked Roman silver dinnerware and even some ancient Celtic torcs and arm rings into small, negotiable pieces that could be used to pay soldiers. Some pieces the trio simply crushed. Later they could be melted to make new coinage.
They were working by the light of a brazier in a small stone courtyard alongside the church at Dun Pelder, dividing and bagging the 80 lbs of silver and gold brought from the bishop’s treasury so it could be sent to the clan sub-chieftains who would recruit and rally a force for Arthur.
The other half-dozen monks who doubled when needed as altar servers, farm labourers, warriors or builders were in the hall preparing food and mules for their journeys to the chieftains. Not one man was on lookout, so the squadron of mounted spearmen sent by Kinadius was able to approach unseen and unhindered. They saw the firelight in the courtyard and dismounted to make the last few hundred yards’ approach as quiet as possible.
A young monk stepped out of the kitchen where he had been boiling some pottage, intending to relieve himself on the grass. The moonlight glinted on the blades and spear heads just 30 yards away as the men at arms advanced, and the monk yelled a warning and ran inside. He did not have time to drop the latch into its heavy bracket, so jammed his arm in there. It was a decision he regretted within a second or two, as the first Picts threw themselves against the door and broke the limb, but despite his screams and vain attempts to wrench his arm free, it stayed in place, even though the attackers kept hurling themselves against the barrier.
On the other side of the building, Candless heard the man’s agony and acted fast. “Over there,” he hissed. “Up the bank. Push the bags into that rabbit warren.” Almost all the loot was already bagged and the biggest of the trio, a giant who had been chopping up the silver, scooped up the bags into his huge arms and staggered away into the dark. Candless and the other monk worked fast to scoop up the loose, unbagged silver so as to leave no clues, and while Candless scoured the work area, the second monk ran to the warren to stuff it, too, into a rabbit hole. Satisfied that all the silver was hidden, Candless picked up one of the axes the trio had been using, the others returned, and the trio, armed, moved to confront the invaders.
From the sounds at the kitchen, the bishop deduced that the raiders were inside, killing or subduing his men. His warrior blood would not let him slink away, and he gambled that a surprise attack by three axemen might turn the fight. With their hampering clerical habits hiked up around their thighs, the trio raced around the building to the kitchens and, screaming the war cries of their Votadini clan, hurled themselves through the open door.
Inside, Candless was enraged to see that the youngest monk, a 10 years old novice called Adrian, was kneeling in supplication, pleadingly holding up his crucifix to a pair of laughing spearmen who had their blades at his face. The bodies of three of Adrian’s brother monks were sprawled across the benches and table, another was folded against the firepit.
At the exact moment Candless took in the image of Adrian, the boy met his death. Both spears stabbed down at the child. His last breaths were to call for his mother, but the person who arrived to help was t
he enraged Candless. His axe bit went deep into the carotid at the neck of the first spearman, causing a jet of hot blood to arc upwards and the half-severed head to flop horribly onto his shoulder, but the blade stuck in the man’s spine. Candless wrenched hard to free it, but the delay meant he had no time to turn the blade’s edge towards the second man. Instead, he swung and clubbed the unbladed side against the side of the spearman’s head just when he was turning his point towards the cleric. Behind him, Candless’ two fellow monks were howling madmen, axes whirling at the startled Picts. They cut down three in as many seconds, but the enemy was too numerous, the space too cramped, and even the inspired fighting madness that was Candless’ chief asset was not enough.
His men died around him in the blood-spattered
abattoir that had been a kitchen, and he went down under a stunning blow, but chance spared his life when a Pict turncoat recognised him as a fellow Mithraist and halted the blades that would have ended it all. So it was that several days later, bloodied and chained, he was hauled before King Kinadius as the monarch sat in state in his Eidyn’s Burh stronghold.
“My good bishop,” said Kinadius, almost genially. “I hear that you are a great friend of my ally, Arthur of Britain. Is this so?” Candless hung his head. “Oh, don’t be ashamed,” Kinadius chided him. “Arthur is a fine man and he rules some excellent territory. He probably owes some of his riches to you, does he not? And,” the king was like a cat with a bird, “do you not also hold some riches fo
r him, to deliver to him soon?”
Candless shook his head. “Nay, lord,” he said. “I am a humbl
e churchman, I have no riches.”
Kinadius was revelling in the baiting. “Iacomus, Iacomus!” he said archly, in mock reproof. “Surely it is a mortal sin to tell lies? I think we shall have to make you pay penance for that.”
And penance it was, Candless thought wearily. The pain had been more than he had ever known. Kinadius had accompanied the captive back to Dun Pelder, where he was given a whipping and a branding , but the stubborn clansman refused to reveal any knowledge of hidden riches.
“There is no secret treasure,” he insisted, even when the red hot iron was so close to his eyeball he felt it drying his very fluids away.
Kinadius was unconvinced, and ordered Candless nailed to the church door with his own Nails of the True Cross. One was hammered though each forearm, but the Picts did not suspend the bishop’s weight on them, instead leaving him standing barefoot on the door sill. They did not want him dead. They were debating the next stage of his torture when they got their breakthrough.
A villager betrayed the wounded trooper who had fled Kinadius’ hall on the day he murdered Milo, and it was the cause of the bishop’s confession. The Picts dragged the trooper to the church door where Candless was impaled and gouged out the man’s left eye. Then they invited Candless to speak before they took the other. The torturers could barely hear the bishop over the man’s screams when he whispered that he’d tell them.
They prised him loose, and with one broken arm and the other mangled, he was at least able to limp to the cavern temple of Mithras under the church and give up the secret of the ingeniously-hidden door in the rough rock wall. The Picts had already found the temple but until then had not discovered the treasure vault.
Inside were the gold aureus coins, the silver and gold figurines, a magnificent altar plate that Candless had not had the heart to cut to pieces, and the small lidded oak chest with the gemstones, ivory and jet, and the 350 or so finger rings; all the treasures that would not melt down for coin or were too individually valuable to pay for the services of a spearman.
Kinadius was informed and hurried down to examine the hoard, while Candless, battered and in agony, stood slumped against a wall. “Bishop, bishop,” the Pict remonstrated delightedly, “you told a lie to your king. That seems to call for a full confession, and your church would deem punishment was necessasy, too. Should I have your tongue removed, or merely have your lips sewn together? I’ll consider the matter. Put him away in his own treasure vault,” he said roughly, turning to examine the oak chest of gemstones. “Give him no water for the next two days. We’ll dry up his lying tongue, for a start.”
The reports that were coming back to me of the weakness of my forces were terrifying. The pestilence had taken nearly half of my army, and yet more men were dying. In the meantime, while I was losing my men to the pestilence, my enemies were gathering. I faced threats from the Saxons in the south and east, Alba was in flames, and news had come that the dark men of the southwest peninsula, the Dumnoni, were raising a force against me. I ordered messengers sent around the country, to assess more accurately the damage the plague had done and to hear what fighting men could be sent when I called for them.
Riders went south and east to the lands of the Cantiaci who fought Gaius Julius Caesar and to the proud Iceni whom Boadicea had led in rebellion. They went to the grain-rich lands of the Corieltavi in the east, and Celtic Dobunni who lived on the edge of the great plain where were the Standing Stones, and the news was doomful.
The messengers also rode to the Cornovii and Silures whose kingdoms marched alongside those of the Dobunni, the latter the tribe of Caratacus himself, to find similar bad tidings. They parlayed with the red-haired kings of the Atrebates and with the olive-skinned Durotriges, whose seagoing lives helped them to escape the worst savagery of the pestilence. They went to see the jarls of the Parisi and the Coriani of the east, only to find their clans had caught the plague from travellers on the north road, and were much diminished.
From Chester it was a short journey for the riders to reach the wide moorlands of the Brigantes, a tribe whose remoteness I hoped had allowed them to escape the plague. They were doubly needed as survivors as they were fearsome warriors and loyal to my cause.
The accounting set in motion, I was desperate to ride north, where the Picts were already gathering, to claim my son’s murderer Kinadius’ head with the blade of Exalter.
Guinevia did not know of Milo’s death, isolated as she was in Myrddin’s mountain retreat, and even as I was thinking of her and how I could break the evil news, a disturbance in the courtyard under my window caught my attention, and there she was, riding in, dust-laden hair wild in the wind, gown awry, and her horse flecked with spume and salt, evidence of a desperate hard journey. Her outriders were grim-faced and purposeful and used the flats of their swords to clear her way as she scrambled from her horse and ran for the steps to my chamber.
In moments she was confronting me, eyes blazing: ”Arthur: Milo, what has happened to Milo?” she was shrieking. “I have seen him in blood!” It was clear to me in an instant. My lovely Druid had psychically viewed something I had not myself seen, and had in her mind’s eye observed our son’s dead body in remote Alba. I was wordless as she battered at my chest, screaming for answers. My throat was swelled closed, I just could not speak. All I could do was to take the blood-stiffened wedding tunic the couriers had brought and dumbly hand it to her, and she knew, her fears were confirmed.
Suddenly, she was icy calm although tears ran down her cheeks and dripped from her chin. She nodded. “Kinadius.” It was not a question. I nodded back, still mute as a swan. “Because of Sintea.” Again, she posed no question. “That is unjust,” she said quietly, “and I will avenge my boy.” She turned away from me, not wanting my comfort and I saw once more the flash of the steel of her character. She would grieve in another place and time. Right now, she wanted only to slake her burning thirst for revenge, but I was the one resolved to carry it out.
Guinevia walked from my chamber, still holding the bloodied tunic to her bosom and I realised I had not spoken a single word. There seemed no reason for me to delay. I lifted Exalter in his scabbard down from the wall peg and strapped him to my waist, took a handful of gold and pushed it into my belt pouch, pulled my cloak down from its peg and left the chamber. Already, I was calling for my horse Corvus and for his stablemate Nonios, the night-black steeds from Frisia that could carry me for long hours each day.
Now Guinevia knew, my kingdom could fend for itself. I had my mission, plan and sequence plotted. I was riding north to kill a Pictish king and I was riding by myself, blood-maddened by the grief of my lover. If I died, at least I would die in an attempt at vengeance, which I called justice
, and the thought drummed in my mind to the rhythm of Corvus’ hoofbeats. That night I slept in in my hooded sagum cloak alongside the moorland Roman road of Nont Sarah while my horses cropped the rough grass; a day and a half later I struck the great north road of Ermine Street and a dazed number of hours later I was outside Eboracum, former fortress of the Roman governor of Britain.
Once, I had ridden across this bridge in triumph, but on this day the scene was one of death carts rumbling across it to bring out corpses for disposal. The pestilence was inside the walls and I was reluctant to enter the city. Gold solved the problem and a messenger went to fetch the guard commander. He saluted in recognition and we conferred for minutes. The garrison, he said, was so weakened as to be near helpless, but the number of new plague victims was lessening and he felt the worst of the pestilence was over.
He took my horses to stable them outside the city and provided me with three more mounts and five troopers, who also had remounts. I eyed them for signs of pestilence, felt reassured, and told them sternly that I would not delay my journey for laggards. In a couple of hours we were heading north again, the men packing forage nets and fodder for our small herd of horses.
We rode, made camp and we rode, made camp and rode more. We crossed the Humber where once Myrddin’s firedrakes had stampeded my enemies, manning the ferry on its rope sling by ourselves, because the ferryman had fled the plague. I expected problems at the Wall, but one of the troopers had local knowledge and he led us to a crossing that was unmanned because of the pestilence. I had no care. I ordered that any sentry who saw us was to be slain. I wanted no word of our coming to reach Kinadius, or I would be his next victim.
Fortune favoured us and we rode unchallenged along the length of Dere Street, paralleling the coast and sleeping in whatever meagre shelter we could find from the chill easterly winds. We made good time thanks to our frequent remounts and only six hard days after leaving Chester, I spied the landmark rise of Dunpendyrlaw, where Candless had his church.
Twice as we got closer, we questioned shepherds about their king and his peace, but had no definite news of anything amiss. One sheep herder did not even know of the pestilence that had swept the land to the south, although he had heard vague rumours of killings at Dun Pelder. That reinforced my decision to approach with extreme caution. We laid up in late afternoon a mile from the loom of the stronghold, concealed in a small copse that was downwind of the ancient earthwork, and at full dark, I went forward with four of the troopers, leaving
the other to guard our horses.