‘If you touch that child, Wenhaver, I will visit the exact same injuries on your body as you inflict on her, after I publicly tell all on Cadbury Tor of the reason for your punishment. Beware what you say, madam, for I am the High King, and you have never paid for Myrnia’s scars. She may have been a servant, but she was in my service, so you will have a care. You are merely my excessively tiresome and stupid wife, who can be removed from your position at my whim.’
Any clever young aristocrat in Wenhaver’s service soon learned to cover their ears so they could swear on either the Tuatha de Danann or the Christus that they’d heard nothing during the course of their duties in her chambers.
Without another word, Artor eased the glittering cloth from Linnet’s unresisting hands and strode out of the room. Behind him, he heard the crash of precious glass pots of unguents and perfumes strike the wall, and Wenhaver’s voice shrieked until he swore she sounded like the coarsest prostitute.
‘Let her rave,’ he whispered softly, as he strode back through the rabbit warren of corridors. ‘The selfish bitch will live my way, or not at all.’
Nimue raised her tear-stained face as he entered. Targo lay naked on his pallet, except for a strip of cloth that concealed the old man’s genitals. Perce and Nimue, between them, were washing the old man’s body.
‘Here!’ Artor said softly, as he draped the wonderful, expensive cloth over a stool. ‘Targo deserves the shroud of a king, and so he shall have the best that I own. In three days, his funeral pyre will be lit in the forecourt of Cadbury Tor.’
As quickly as he had come, Artor was gone again.
Odin chanted in his own tongue while Nimue was sewing Targo’s remains into his shroud. Then, as she was about to finish the last of the stitches, the Jutlander slipped a small carving of a wooden ship on to Targo’s breast.
‘Once the maidens take his soul to Valhalla, Targo will have a boat that he can row through the heavens,’ Odin explained quietly.
‘Targo believed that he must pay the Ferryman his fee to cross the River Styx. The High King has left the fee with me,’ Nimue said sadly, and laid two golden coins on Targo’s closed eyes.
She sewed the last stitches, and the remains of the old Roman were hidden from the light.
‘By sea, by fire, by boat or by the horses of the air,’ Odin intoned, ‘our friend will go to the gods as all great warriors must.’ He turned to face Nimue. ‘You did the best you could, little dragonlet.’
Nimue flashed a quick, surprised glance at Odin’s broad face. ‘You speak excellent Celt when you wish to do so,’ she said. ‘It’s something about you that I have never noticed before.’
Odin bowed his head and smiled slyly. ‘Targo always knew. He taught me to speak your language, so I listened and learned. Targo said I could serve my master better if everyone thinks I’m stupid.’
Nimue laughed for the first time in many sad hours. It was an appreciative gurgle of amusement at Targo’s foresight - and Odin’s duplicity.
‘I certainly won’t tell anyone,’ Nimue promised. ‘And I’ll swear that Perce won’t reveal your secret either. After all, you’re Perce’s mentor now.’
‘Nimue! As if I would!’ Perce protested with mock affront.
The three friends gripped hands across Targo’s withered corpse, and laughed and wept by turns. The old warrior would have appreciated their laughter.
Nimue, Perce and Odin remained with the shell of the old man, and kept a long watch through the night. Nimue prayed, and every breath she took was a hymn to speed Targo on his way to the afterlife. She had seen his soul depart his body and she had no doubt that Targo lived on in another world that was beyond her knowledge or understanding.
There were no more deaths from the contagion. It vanished from Cadbury as it had come, speedily and without fanfare. It was as if Targo’s death marked a return to normality. Always sensitive to the power of symbols, Artor set his considerable energy to the task of galvanizing the population for one purpose, building a massive funeral pyre for his friend. Carts were sent out of Cadbury into the forests, and they returned, groaning under the weight of long, straight trees that had been stripped and prepared on site for the ritual conf lagration.
The population did not begrudge Targo the efforts they expended for his funeral. As arms master to the High King and the last Roman warrior in Britain, he had the romantic gloss of legend. He had stood at Artor’s shoulder for many years and, in his great old age, had assumed a giant’s stature in the eyes of the common people. He stood tall for all of them, for he was a common man who had touched the gods and, like the ordinary citizens of Cadbury, he had died as they, too, would eventually perish.
The funeral pyre took many days to build, so Artor sent word of the coming event to Targo’s old friends. Only Wenhaver had nothing praiseworthy to say of the old soldier, she sulked and nagged by turns. Artor simply ignored her childish behaviour. The queen could bear insults, but indifference drove her half-mad with rage. When a number of the loyal kings arrived for Targo’s last ceremony, she was an unwilling hostess, completely lacking in charm. The fact that those who had known Targo cared nothing for her rudeness simply added to her feelings of injustice.
A week after Targo’s death, his body was placed atop an impressive pyre of massed logs. The air was sweetened by the heady odours of precious attars set in wax combs amongst the wood to mask the smell of corruption beneath Targo’s golden shroud. Artor ordered that the old man should go to the afterlife without armour or weapons for, as he told Llanwith, Targo had proved his status as a warrior and had no need of swords to proclaim his courage as a man.
The morning of the burning dawned sweet and clear. The fortress walls had been opened and it seemed to Nimue’s eyes that the whole of Cadbury town filled the square and every raised structure that gave them a vantage point. Excited boys swung their legs over the edges of the roofs while they waited to see the great Artor honour his sword master. A festive air filled the square with a hum of excitement, and many women had collected flowers that they threw on to the pyre, where their brilliant colours softened the harsh majesty of the rough-hewn logs.
Nimue had dressed in her finest, cradling Targo’s old sword in her slender arms. She followed directly behind her master, clad in his customary black, as he stood to one side of the tribal kings. As always, Myrddion’s tall, slim figure was both graceful and manly, and was now adorned by a serpentine gold chain across his chest.
The crowd sighed as Artor came forth from the great hall, accompanied by his queen. Wenhaver had dressed ostentatiously in a gown of many brilliant colours. As always, she was heavily adorned with gems and wore her hair long and loose like a maiden. Several women in the crowd pursed their lips with disapproval at such a festive display, but the younger girls were awed by Wenhaver’s undoubted beauty, even if it was marred by a surly, proud expression.
The king was a sombre figure, dressed in deepest sable without adornment. Only his amber hair and gold dragon crown provided any colour.
Artor’s face looked stern and strong, but Nimue knew that the king had wept for hours the previous night, for she had heard him when she strayed near his apartment. Gruffydd had told her that Artor was inconsolable, and had kept to his room as much as possible. She alone among the crowds saw the pallor under the king’s tanned skin, and the swollen eyelids hooding his grey eyes.
When the assembled guests had settled, Myrddion Merlinus stepped forth and raised a tall black staff that was the symbol of his office.
‘Hear, people of Britain! We have come here today to honour a man who arrived in our lands as a stranger, in a time of strife and danger. He dwelt among us for many years and served us with great courage and skill. All who wish to honour him should speak now, and remember Targo, Sword Master and Bodyguard of the High King of the Britons.’
Artor stepped forward and the crowd was suddenly still. With his back to the pyre, Artor surveyed the crowd with his head lifted in pride at the honour he was about to bestow on his friend.
‘Targo, my friend, had only one name. There was no family nomen by which we might know his ancestors. All that we know of him was that he was of common stock, and was born under the hot sun of the Roman hills.
‘He was already well past his youth when I first met him. It was an unwilling meeting, for I was a feckless boy and he was a hard taskmaster. I can still remember how he would sit beneath a linden tree and set me tasks that made no earthly sense to the boy I was. If I made an error in judgement during my weapons training, he would say, “You’re dead, boy!” He guided me towards making sound decisions based on thought and logic. He helped to turn an unwilling child into a man. That I can stand before you as High King of the Britons today, undefeated by the Saxons, can only be attributed to the lessons taught to me by Targo. These lessons were Targo’s laws.
‘Targo followed me through weariness and pain. He gave me laughter, hope and courage, and the strength to face the task that still lies ahead of us. And he never ceased to challenge me to think, and to rule, and to be a warrior, even as he lay dying.
‘I honour Targo, my oldest friend and my staunchest servant. He was a stranger who came to a new land, and spent the rest of his life keeping the west free for all Britons.
‘Ave, Targo! Sword Master and Man! Honour him, free men of the west!’
Artor stepped back, to be replaced by other men of renown, Myrddion among them, who spoke of Targo’s courage and his manliness. Gruffydd, too, bearing Artor’s great sword, spoke of his drinking friend while he wept unashamedly.
Then the swell of speakers was done.
Nimue bit her lip. These men had touched on those aspects of Targo’s character that warriors prize, but so much was left unsaid, so much that she had seen since she had first come to Cadbury.
Gathering her courage, she smashed custom and stepped forward, her heart in her mouth in fear and trepidation.
The crowd howled in protest, joined exultantly by Wenhaver, for all women were precluded from speaking praises of the dead, least of all a maid who was largely unknown and of peasant heritage.
Nimue stood before the angry mob, a tall, slender woman of silver and grey, and waited until Artor raised his hand.
The crowd stilled.
‘I know that I speak against custom,’ Nimue spoke in a loud, clear voice, ‘but I break with tradition because Targo was my friend, and he would have known that I loved and respected him for the true man that he was. I wish to speak for Targo and I will
not
be silent!’
The crowd exploded with shouted insults once again, but Artor strode to Nimue’s side and silence slowly fell.
‘Have you gone witless, girl?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘You could easily be killed if you affront this assembly. I might not be able to dissuade them from violence if they feel insulted.’
Nimue stared directly into Artor’s stormy eyes. ‘My lord, all men obey you. I was there with Targo at his deathbed, and I know what manner of man Targo really was, deep in his hidden heart where neither weapons nor killing ever owned him. Someone must speak for the Targo who lived beyond his trade in death. I am an alien, as he was, but we understood each other, my lord, and I know his history from his own lips, and wrote it down as he requested in the nights and days before his death. I claim the right to speak for Targo himself. ’
Slowly and deliberately, Artor faced the crowd. His eyes were shadowed with the recognition that there were facets of Targo’s life that he had never cared to discover.
‘When Targo was struck with illness, this woman physicked him at great risk to herself. She was prepared to remain with Targo to face the whim of the contagion. Nimue nursed our friend through his last illness, and obtained a history of his life from the man as he lay dying. She knows and understands Targo’s mind and spirit.
‘It’s unseemly to shout and threaten while Targo waits above us in his golden shroud that has been sewn by the hands of this extraordinary woman. I propose that we break with tradition and permit her to speak, although she is a woman and our customs do not generally permit such licence to a female.
‘The famed Boedicca, a great Briton, who almost drove the Romans out of our lands, was also a woman, and she suffered a man’s fate from the justice of Rome. Our enemies made no distinction. How can we?’
The affronted muttering of the crowd indicated that many men were still enraged by Nimue’s request, but others agreed that the disturbance made by protest was more unseemly than the trivial words of a mere woman.
Silently, Nimue waited, a silver light in her grey dress, until the crowd lapsed into attentive regard, or an insulted silence.
‘As you can see, I am a woman. And my hair, my eyes and my tattoo mark me as a barbarian woman at that. No doubt I was born to ignorant, savage parents who worshiped pagan gods from the frozen north. Therefore, I wish to speak for Targo, a man who came from the pagan south, where the winds stir softly through the green olive groves, and the grape vines shiver in the summer breezes; where the air is heavy with the smells of aromatic wood smoke and the racks of drying fish. So he told me in the days before his death, for I’ve never seen such a land, and can only imagine it.’
The crowd remained silent but stone-faced.
‘Targo was robbed of children of his own, a loss that he regretted throughout his long life. What stole this basic right from him? Women know these things and we understand. When the land was threatened, the young men and boys were taken from their simple homes and forced into the Roman legions. How well we also know of the need that robs us of our husbands, our fathers, our sons and our brothers. But Targo never lost his love of the quiet land with its fertile fields, its village life and the deep springs of water from the earth that is the first love of all, the memory of home.’