The Hallowed Isle Book Four (5 page)

“We are merchants and farmers, lord, not fighting men—” one of the magistrates said sullenly. He gestured in the direction in which the prisoners had gone. “If we were, do you think we would have suffered that lot for so long?”

“If you cannot defend yourselves, then I will have to appoint you a protector . . .” the king said slowly. “Is that what you desire?”

“Oh, my lord—” Another man looked up eagerly. “Indeed it is! He and his men can stay at the old fort, and—”

Artor's features creased in a sardonic smile, as if he had heard this before. “And who will rebuild it? And what will they eat? An ill-fed man cannot swing a sword—”

“But you— We supposed—” The magistrates wilted beneath his glare.

“I will give you Paulinus Clutorix, a veteran of the Saxon wars, and three experienced men.”

“But that's not enough—”

“Very true,” Artor continued briskly. “He will take on more, enough to mount a regular patrol, and he will drill every man of fighting age in this valley in the use of arms so that when the time comes to go after a band of outlaws, or you see yon river bobbing with Irish coracles, you'll have a force sufficient to deal with them.”

The town fathers were frowning. Their reluctance seemed strange to Medraut, who had grown up among a warrior people who had never been forbidden by the Romans to bear arms. But he could see that some of the younger men were
grinning. He had seen his father fight the day before. Now, he was seeing how Artor ruled.

“And there will be a levy, in goods or coin, upon each household for their keep.” The townsmen began to protest while Artor's warriors tried to hide their grins. The king held up one hand. “Did you assume I would send gold? How do you think I feed my men if not by taking tithes and levying taxes? At least this way you will know where your tax money goes. And the burden must be shared by everyone—” He gazed sternly around him. “Even the monks who own these rich fields. . . .”

Now it was the churchmen who were protesting. The defending force would have their prayers, of course, but their produce belonged to God. In Artor's face there was no yielding. Medraut suppressed an anticipatory grin.

“Good father, if prayer had protected you from outlaw spears or Irish swords I might agree,” said the king. “But I have seen too many burnt monasteries. Pay your share, holy brethren, if you expect my men to come to your call!” He sat back, eyes glinting, a grim smile twitching the brown beard.

Morgause had always said that Artor let the priests rule him, but Medraut saw now that it was not so. He sat hunched on his bench, resting his chin on his fist as he watched. In how many other ways had she been wrong? The priests would call his birth ungodly, but he was
glad
now to be Artor's son. And if he worked hard, he thought, perhaps the wary courtesy with which the high king treated him would change to true affection, and Medraut could prove himself a worthy heir. . . .

“It looks . . . defensible . . .” said Gwyhir, whose turn it was to ride beside the king.

Artor laughed. The firth of the Clutha lay before them, its waters a shifting sheet of silver beneath the high clouds. Low hills ran along the peninsula behind it, featureless as if carved from shadow. The great rock of Altaclutha rose from those opalescent waters like an island, its sheer sides carved by the gods into a fortress that needed little help from man to be secure. From this distance, he could scarcely distinguish the
stone walls and slate roofs from the native stone, and the causeway that connected it to the land was hidden from view.

“Dun Breatann is the fortress of the Britons indeed. Since my father's time the Rock has guarded the west of Alba. But Ridarchus is old now, and I do not know his heir.”

“It is Morcant Bulc, is it not?” Gwyhir answered him. “Ridarchus' grandson. They came once to Dun Eidyn when I was a child.”

Artor nodded. He did not want to think about inheritance, but he supposed it was his duty. Unbidden, the face of Medraut came to mind. He had hoped to learn more of the boy on this long journey up from the south, and to some extent he had done so. But Medraut's smooth surface repelled intimacy. How he could have come from the same nest as his brothers was cause for amazement. Gualchmai could not conceal a thought if he tried. Aggarban's sullen silences were easily read, and the eyes of Gwyhir and Goriat were deep pools into which one had only to gaze to see their souls.

Medraut was clearly doing his best to please, thought the king. He was observant, and did not make the same mistake twice, but he reminded the king of a man struggling to learn a new language, learning by rote the turns of phrase for which he had no natural ear. It was not because he had been brought up in Alba—his brothers had been accepted by Artor's household immediately. But their actions, even their mistakes, came from the heart. One sensed that Medraut's were the result of calculation.

In the next moment Artor shook his head, blaming his distrust on his own fears. Most likely the boy was simply shy.

The high king glanced back along the line. Men who had been slumped in the saddle reined in straying mounts and straightened to military alertness when they felt his eye upon them. Artor turned back, gesturing to Gwyhir to blow his horn. The sound echoed across the pewter waters, and in a few moments he heard an answer from the dun, faint and sweet with distance, like an echo of faerie horns.

The night after their arrival a storm rolled in from the sea, dense clouds wrapping close about the Rock, blanketing the
ever-changing tides. For five days they huddled beneath the slate roofs of the fortress, the only thing solid in a dissolving world. But the ale-vats of Dun Breatann were deep, and if it was wet outside, the drink flowed just as freely within.

“I gather that your journey here was not altogether peaceful—” said Ridarchus, indicating the bits of bandage that still adorned some of Artor's men.

Unlike his brother-in-law, Merlin, who still towered like a tree, Ridarchus had shrunk with the years, flesh and bone fined down to a twisted, sinewy frame. Only his nose still jutted fiercely. Sitting there with his black mantle and glinting dark eyes he reminded Artor of a raven. And like the bird, Ridarchus had grown wise with years.

“It's true, and makes your hospitality all the more welcome. But you will find the roads to the south safer, for awhile.”

“You should have found them safe already, once you entered my lands,” rasped Ridarchus. “I must thank you for ridding me of young Cuil and his band. But his death has won you few friends here, I warn you. He was popular with the common folk, with whom he used to share his booty.”

“Do they not understand that without safe roads there will be no trade, and no long-term prosperity?”

“In their children's time, perhaps,” said the prince, “but Cuil gave them gifts they could hold in their hands.”

“I suppose so, and I am sorry he was killed in the fighting,” said Artor, “for he was the brother of a man who captained the queen's guard when we campaigned in Demetia, and after I had drawn his teeth I would have spared him.” He blinked as a change in the wind outside rippled through the hangings that were supposed to keep out draughts and sent smoke billowing sideways from the central fire.

“Maybe now news will reach us as well,” said Ridarchus. “We hear little of what is happening in the world outside this isle.”

Artor shook his head. “The Empire of the West is beseiged on every side. Theoderic rules in Italia, and has just married his daughter Amalafrida to Thraseric of the Vandals in the north of Africa. In Gallia, Chlodovechus is expanding his borders
in all directions. Three years ago he captured Burdigala. They say that the Romans in the Gothic lands fought for Alaric, their Gothic ruler, but the Franks were still too strong for them. Alaric made peace and paid Chlodovechus tribute last year.”

“Will the Visigoths become a subject kingdom then?”

Artor shrugged. “They have a foothold in Iberia already— they have moved so many times, perhaps they will all pass over the Pyrenaei montes and abandon the south of Gallia to the Franks entirely.”

The men who sat around the fire were singing, first the warriors from the dun, and then, as they caught the chorus, Artor's men as well. The king did not see Medraut among them and wondered where he had gone.

“I perceive that this matters to you,” Ridarchus said after a moment had passed. “But we have our own troubles here in Britannia. Why do you care what happens across the sea?”

“No doubt Cassivellaunus might have said the same, before Caesar came,” Artor observed dryly. “The Franks have proved themselves a warlike people. If they are not controlled now, your son's sons may see them at your gates. And there are men of our blood in Gallia who will certainly be overrun.”

“I have heard a rumor that you mean to cross the sea yourself.” Ridarchus cocked his head, bright eyes fixing the king.

“Riothamus has appealed to me. But before I go I must make Britannia secure.”

“Hence this journey—” Ridarchus said slowly.

The high king nodded. “Until the Saxons came, the wild tribes of the North were always the greatest danger, and after them, the men of Eriu. When I have done what I can for you, I will move on to Dun Eidyn and seek a treaty with the Pictish king.”

Ridarchus signaled to one of the serving girls to bring them more ale. He drank, then set his beaker down with an appreciative sigh.

“You can make a treaty for me, too, if you will—” he said then. “You know that for many years there have been men of Eriu on the peninsula of Cendtire, the old Epidii lands. Far from increasing the danger from their kinfolk across the water,
I think they have protected us. They have been good neighbors, and we have fought side by side when the Picts got too strong. But perhaps too many of them have left Dal Riada, for in Eriu, Feragussos their king can no longer hold against the Ui Niall.

“Do you see those two men in the saffron tunics, there by the door?” He paused to drink once more and Artor followed the direction of his gaze. “They arrived a little before you did. They are men of Cendtire, ambassadors. Feragussos wishes to move himself and his court and the rest of his clan here from Dal Riada, and offers friendship. I could tolerate their presence unofficially, but I would not enter into such an alliance without your good will.”

Particularly
, thought Artor,
when I am sitting in your hall.
But he smiled. “I agree. I shall prepare a letter of invitation to Feragussos and welcome him as an ally.”

Medraut moved away from the shelter of the inner wall, leaning against the wind. For the moment it had ceased to rain, but there was still enough moisture in the air to sting. He picked his way across the uneven rock to the breast-high wall that edged the clifftop and clung to it, gulping deep breaths of the brisk wind.

To the south and west stretched the silver dimpled waters of the Clutha. Beneath banks of low cloud he could just make out the darker masses of the far shore. He looked up as a gull screamed overhead, flung across the sky by the wind.

Free
— he thought,
what would it feel like to be that free?
Even through the thick folds of his woolen mantle he was beginning to feel the chill, but after the odorous warmth of the hall it was welcome. He turned, his gaze moving from the watchtower on the highest point of the Rock to the great hall set into the niche halfway down one side.

He wondered why he felt so constricted—he could find no fault with Ridarchus' hospitality . . . and then, as the gull called again, he remembered the seabirds wheeling above the Bodotria, and realized it was the scent of northern fires, and the sound of northern voices, that had disturbed him. They reminded him of Dun Eidyn.

I can't go back there
, he thought, and still less did he desire to revisit Pictland, where he would remember Kea every time he turned around. But where could he run to? Certainly not to his mother. He had proved that he could manage on his own, but then he had been traveling with a goal, a place at the court of the high king. It was no part of his life-plan to become a nameless wanderer upon the roads. He wondered if Gualchmai and his new wife would take him in.

The sky was darkening. He felt one cold drop strike his hand and then a spattering of others as the heavens began to open once more. He sucked in a last breath of the cold, salttanged air and started back towards the inner wall. The squall was coming quickly now; he pulled his mantle over his head and hunched against the rain.

After the wall, one gained the next level by a steep flight of steps cut into the rock. Fighting the buffeting of the wind, Medraut had nearly gained the top when he sensed something dark rise up before him, recoiled, and slipped on the rain-slick stone. He flailed wildly, but there was nothing to hold onto. His falling body hit one outcrop and then another, and slid to the base of the wall.

When he came to himself, it was full dark. He hurt all over, and he was
cold.
Head throbbing, he tried to remember what had happened. If someone had pushed him, why had they not taken advantage of his unconsciousness to toss him into the sea? And if not, why was he still lying here? But if no one had seen him fall, surely someone should be wondering where he had gone. . . .

At least he could feel all his limbs. Very carefully, he tried to move. Everything ached, but it was only in his right leg that he felt real pain. Still, it was only going to get colder. He had to get up somehow.

Medraut had made it to the steps when he heard voices from above. Torches flared wildly as the wind caught them. Someone was calling his name.

“Look, there at the foot of the stair,” someone cried.

“Here—” He let his dark mantle fall back so that the paler tunic could be seen. “I'm here. . . .”

He tensed as someone hurried towards him, torch held too
high for features to be seen. Then the man was kneeling, and Medraut looked up into the anxious eyes of Artor the king.