Divine Sacrifice, The (4 page)

Arthur stomped in before I could respond, and Ider rose to bow to him, but the Rigotamos waved him back to his seat. “We are preparing to leave now. Coroticus knows we are coming today.
Why this haste?”

“My lord, I know only that the abbot did not expect you until the evening meal. He sent me to hasten your departure, or at least that of Malgwyn. Please, Rigotamos, the abbot is in a
terrible state! Give Malgwyn his leave to depart now.”

This morning, before Ider burst in upon us, as Merlin and Owain abused me for a lazy sluggard, I was intended to ride with Arthur to Ynys-witrin. My old friend Coroticus, the abbot, was still
battling with Arthur about his cruciform church in the castle. Arthur called it worshipful, reminding the abbot that the cross was a recognized symbol; Coroticus called it blasphemous, but offered
no real rationale for his opposition. We all knew his motive; he wanted Arthur to reduce the abbey’s taxes. Arthur would not. Without the abbot’s blessing, Arthur had called a halt to
the church’s construction. And now it was but a muddy foundation in the middle of the castle, caught between two stubborn men.

Our meeting would be the third and the only one held at Ynys-witrin. Indeed it was Arthur’s right to demand that all such parleys be held at Castellum Arturius, but this trip was
special.

The Tor, a tall, steep hill among the small chain which made up Ynys-witrin, was a critical point in our alert system. So important did the
consilium
deem it that they insisted an armed
presence was necessary, claiming there was too much of a gap between Castellum Arturius and the channel. So, Lauhiir had the charge of building permanent defenses there.

A watch fire was also kept at the Mount of Frogs, to the northwest, and it was much more defensible than the Tor, but the place itself was said to be enchanted, the home of three giants.
Establishing a stockade there had become a problem. Though I believed not in such things, many of our soldiers did believe in giants and enchantresses and magic. Old superstitions die hard.
Finally, Arthur ordered a minor lord, Teilo, to dispatch troops there. I believe some extra lands changed hands in the process. This despite the fact that David and another minor lord, Dochu, had
troops closer.

The trip to Ynys-witrin then was for Arthur to inspect Lauhiir’s fortifications on the Tor as well as to argue religion and the unfinished church with Coroticus. While I minded not my job
of observing Lauhiir, I found arguments about religion unsettling. My own beliefs drifted upon a stormy sea, while both Arthur and Coroticus had firm, strong beliefs in the Christ. That the
specifics of those beliefs were often as different as words would allow was of little consequence to them, but kept me confused. More particularly, however, I minded how Arthur used me as a buffer
between himself and Coroticus, allowing me to earn the abbot’s wrath by couching their differences as the result of discussions with me. “Why just last eve,” Arthur would say,
“Malgwyn reminded me that the problem with that was . . .” Hence my reluctance to abandon my furs and face the coming journey. Until Brother Ider’s abrupt appearance.

Arthur twirled his beard with one finger while wrinkling his brow. “No,” he said finally. “We will both depart now.” He looked to Owain. “Fetch
Bedevere, boy. Tell him that I have ordered our immediate departure.”

Merlin, who had been silent until then, left his workbench and faced Arthur. “Something lies hidden in this that I do not like,” he said, shaking his gray-bearded head. “Ider,
when was Elafius’s death discovered?”

“Why, just after the midnight, master.”

“Who discovered him?”

“I do not know. I know only that Coroticus sent for me and dispatched me here.”

I nodded. “It must have been so for Ider to arrive so early this morn.”

“Both of you,” Merlin said, “be cautious. I see nothing good in this. Send for me if you have need of my services.”

Arthur patted him on the back. “We will, old friend. Come, Malgwyn. Let us find out what stirs the abbot from his peace.”

“Merlin must have cast a spell for rain,” Arthur grumbled as we rode our tired, wet horses along the muddy track. The Rigotamos was a tall man, solidly built, with
chestnut-brown hair and a long, flowing beard. His fingers were curiously at odds with his body, being short and stumpy. One had been taken by a Saxon spear, but the others, protruding from the
wool wrapped around them, were rough and red. A true believer in the Christ, he was also a magician at balancing the demands of the
consilium
and his devotion to justice, a devotion that
most called a weakness.

“Be easy, Ider,” I told the young
monachus
whose eyes had spread wide at the mention of Merlin and spells. “The Rigotamos jests.” Though the peasants and
townsfolk still believed that the old man was a sorcerer, he held no magic in his heart, just a bag of tricks that gave the illusion of magic. His pouch held herbal cures, and nuts, sometimes
candies for the young. And, in truth, he had put them to good use in the past. Mostly, now, he was just an old man with a wandering mind, sharp and penetrating at times, fogged and clouded at
others. But, we treasured him all the same.

Still, I sensed in Ider an uneasiness in such company. “By your leave, my lord,” he began in a stutter. “I would speed my own return to prepare the abbot for your
arrival.”

Arthur glanced at me, his eyes hiding well those thoughts behind them. “As you will, Brother Ider. Tell the abbot that we will take our noon meal with him.”

With that, Ider prodded his horse into a slippery trot as if he could not leave us behind fast enough. “Better,” Arthur observed. “Now we can speak without caution.”

“This journey could have waited until the summer,” I pointed out, looking down and seeing how my horse’s hooves sank six inches into the thick brown mud. The Romans had planned
one of their solid, cobbled roads here, and they had been responsible for clearing the lane on which we rode. But threats from elsewhere in the empire had stolen both interest in another road and
the funds to construct it. So, we were left with a path nearly impassable in wet weather.

“No,” Arthur answered, shaking his shaggy head. “In truth Elafius’s death would have called us forward, or at least called you forward, regardless of when we had planned
this visit. And the sooner Lauhiir understands that I will keep my eye turned in his direction, the better he will behave.”

“He is a petulant child,” Bedevere said, his voice gravelly and deep. “Better you should spank him than coddle him.”

“If necessary, old friend, I will do what must be done.”

And Arthur was clever when it came to politics. His family traced its roots back to Roman senators, or so he claimed on those few occasions when he actually spoke of them. The Rigotamos was
curious with regard to that. He said little of his family, in a time when family meant rank, wealth. I knew, though, that while his ancestry might have gotten him his first post, his rise in power
was due to his own actions, his own victories, at which his cleverness rose to the fore again.

He fought with brains, with common sense. Where Lord Mark would send a hundred men headlong into an assault against the Saxons, Arthur would use fifty men skillfully and achieve the same
result.

“And what of Coroticus and the church?” I asked. “Will this be the final tale on that?”

“Of course not,” the Rigotamos answered with a smile in his eye. “Coroticus will never give up his one point of leverage. He demands lower taxes in exchange for his blessing on
my church. That, I will never agree to.”

In truth, Arthur was no friend of the clergy. As a young noble, he collected taxes for the
consilium,
and he earned the wrath of priests and
monachi
by not taking their bribes,
forcing them to pay their taxes, something that endeared him to the
consilium
but did little for his standing with the church.

We met few travelers on the muddy road, almost impassable in places, rising and falling with the gentle slopes along the levels. Most moved to let us pass. Some bowed to Arthur; a few reached to
touch him. I never understood that. It was most remarkable. I had seen many lords in my life, but Arthur was the only one that the common folk wanted to touch. Well, aside from those that wished to
hang their lord for his cruelty. Arthur’s dealings could seem as cruel as any, but he used that weapon selectively and never without cause.

As we neared the bridge across the River Brue before arriving at Ynys-witrin, we happened upon a group of merchants, their wagons loaded with wares, headed toward the little village outside the
abbey. I rode ahead of Arthur and Bedevere and approached the group.

“Fair morn to you!” I greeted.

One of the merchants, a chubby man with greasy hair and beard, turned and eyed me with a fierce look, probably expecting something other than a well-dressed, one-armed man. One-armed, aye,
one-legged men were not unknown, but almost none were well-to-do. Most were beggars, shunned by the people as cursed. His eye was quick enough to catch the Rigotamos and Bedevere in the distance
though.

“My lord, how may I assist you?” His voice was as greasy as his hair.

“Why come you to Ynys-witrin? Is there some festival?”

“Have you not heard, my lord?”

“Heard what?”

The man’s eyes grew wide. “Why, I would think the Rigotamos’s councillors would have heard.” I was growing quickly tired of this man.

Placing my hand on the hilt of my sword, tucked snugly in my leather belt, I smiled down at him. “If I knew, I would not be asking. Do not test my good manners.” The world would not
miss one less merchant, and insolence to Arthur’s counselors was insolence to Arthur.

His eyes grew wider still and he gulped. “No harm meant, my lord. Patrick is said to arrive from across the sea today. With Patrick and the Rigotamos both here, it becomes a
festival.”

I groaned. And the merchant hurried to catch up with his wagon, splashing its way through the mud.

Patrick!

This trip was ill-fated from the start. Patrick, though some called him “Patricius,” was the last thing we needed. Born to a local official in the last years of the Roman time, he
had been stolen by the Scotti across the water when he was but a boy. After many years, the stories told us, he escaped and made his way to Gaul where he became a priest and had quickly become one
of the most famous and important. He allied with Bishop Germanus in the Pelagian matter and earned great respect among the clergy.

Pelagius. Would that I had never heard that name. Pelagius had been a priest of our lands who had aspired to greater rank in the church. I tried to remember what I knew of Pelagianism, what the
monachi
had said in passing.

He had been a man of our lands, a deeply religious man, who traveled far and wide, yea even unto Rome itself. He was a man of great stubbornness, a man of stout beliefs, who argued that all man
needed, for eternal life, were good works, not God’s grace. Rumors abounded that he had gone far to the east, beyond the Holy Land. Said to be a tall, friendly man, he refused to accept
certain of the church’s teachings. I do not profess to be a learned man of religious things. All I can say for certain was that Pelagius claimed that man had complete free will and could
choose between good and evil for himself. If I understood correctly, God’s grace and the sacrifice of the Christ had little meaning according to Pelagius. His beliefs made little headway with
the church fathers, and he was eventually forced to flee, some said to the far east.

Patrick owed much of his power to his support of Bishop Germanus in the Pelagian affair. When a young
sacerdote
named Agricola, the son of a British
episcopus,
had openly
championed Pelagius, Germanus and first Lupus, and then Severus, were sent to end the heresy. Patrick, himself a much younger man than now, gave homage to Germanus, earning the great man’s
thanks and garnering a great deal of power for himself. And he was not shy about displaying that power. A great busybody, he frequently interfered with lords and their followers. Fortunately, he
spent most of his time with the Scotti and rarely visited our shores. Until now.