The Winter King Read online

  We had all heard similar tales, though Ligessac was the first man I met who claimed to be at the Battle of the White Horse. Later I decided he had not been there at all, but was merely spinning a tale to earn a credulous boy’s admiration, yet his account was accurate enough. Mordred had been a drunken fool, Arthur had been the victor, but Uther had still sent him back across the sea. Both men were Uther’s sons, but Mordred was the beloved heir and Arthur the upstart bastard. Yet Arthur’s banishment could not stop every Dumnonian believing that the bastard was their country’s brightest hope; the young warrior from across the seas who would save us from the Saxons and take back the Lost Lands of Lloegyr.

  The second half of the winter was mild. Wolves were seen beyond the earth wall that guarded Ynys Wydryn’s land bridge, but none came close to the Tor, though some of the younger children made wolf charms that they hid beneath Druidan’s hut in hope that a slavering great beast would leap the stockade and carry the dwarf off for supper. The charms did not work and as the winter receded we all began to prepare for the great spring festival of Beltain with its massive fires and midnight feasting, but then a greater excitement struck the Tor.

  Gundleus of Siluria came.

  Bishop Bedwin arrived first. He was Uther’s most trusted counsellor and his arrival promised excitement. Norwenna’s attendants were moved out of the hall and woven carpets were laid over the rushes, a sure sign that a great person was coming to visit. We all thought it must be Uther himself, but the banner which appeared on the land bridge a week before Beltain showed Gundleus’s fox, not Uther’s dragon. It was bright morning when I watched the horsemen dismount at the Tor’s foot. The wind snatched at their cloaks and snapped their frayed banner on which I saw the hated fox-mask that made me cry out in protest and make the sign against evil.

  ‘What is it?’ Nimue asked. She was standing beside me on the eastern guard platform.

  ‘That’s Gundleus’s banner,’ I said. I saw the surprise in Nimue’s eyes for Gundleus was King of Siluria and allied with King Gorfyddyd of Powys, Dumnonia’s sworn enemy.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Nimue asked me.

  ‘He took my mother,’ I said, ‘and his Druid threw me into the death-pit.’ I spat over the stockade towards the dozen men who had begun to walk up the Tor that was too steep for horses. And there, among them, was Tanaburs, Gundleus’s Druid and my evil spirit. He was a tall old man with a plaited beard and long white hair that was shaved off the front half of his skull in the tonsure adopted by Druids and Christian priests. He cast his cloak aside halfway up the hill and began a protective dance in case Merlin had left spirits to guard the gate. Nimue, seeing the old man caper unsteadily on one leg on the steep slope, spat into the wind and then ran towards Merlin’s chambers. I ran after her, but she thrust me aside saying that I would not understand the danger.

  ‘Danger?’ I asked, but she had gone. There seemed to be no danger for Bedwin had ordered the land gate thrown wide open and was now trying to organize a welcome out of the excited chaos on the Tor’s summit. Morgan was away that day, interpreting in the dream temple in the eastern hills, but everyone else on the Tor was hurrying to see the visitors. Dru-idan and Ligessac were arraying their guards, naked Pellinore was baying at the clouds, Guendoloen was spitting toothless curses at Bishop Bedwin while a dozen children scrambled to get the best view of the visitors. The reception was supposed to be dignified, but Lunete, an Irish foundling a year younger than Nimue, released a pen of Druidan’s pigs so that Tanaburs, who was first through the stockade gate, was greeted by a squealing frenzy.

  It would take more than panicking piglets to frighten a Druid. Tanaburs, dressed in a dirty grey robe embroidered with hares and crescent moons, stood in the entranceway and raised both hands above his tonsured head. He carried a moon-tipped staff that he turned sunwise three times, then he howled at Merlin’s Tower. A piglet whipped past his legs, then scrabbled for a footing in the muddy gateway before dashing downhill. Tanaburs howled again, motionless, testing the Tor for unseen enemies.

  For a few seconds there was silence except for the snapping of the banner and the heavy breathing of the warriors who had climbed the hill behind the Druid. Gudovan, Merlin’s scribe, had come to stand beside me, his hands wrapped in ink-stained cloth strips as a protection against the chill. ‘Who is it?’ he asked, then he shuddered as a wailing shriek answered Tanaburs’s challenge. The shriek came from within the hall and I knew it was Nimue.

  Tanaburs looked angry. He barked like a fox, touched his genitals, made the evil sign, and then began hopping on one leg towards the hall. He stopped after five paces, howled his challenge again, but this time no answering shriek sounded from the hall so he put his second foot on the ground and beckoned his master through the gate. ‘It is safe!’ Tanaburs called. ‘Come, Lord King, come!’

  ‘King?’ Gudovan asked me. I told him who the visitors were, then asked why Gundleus, an enemy, had come to the Tor. Gudovan scratched at a louse under his shirt, then shrugged. ‘Politics, boy, politics.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  Gudovan sighed as if my question was evidence of an incurable stupidity, his usual response to any query, but then offered me an answer. ‘Norwenna is marriageable, Mordred is a baby who must be protected, and who protects a prince better than a king? And who better than an enemy king who can become a friend to Dumnonia? It’s really very simple, boy, a moment’s thought would have yielded the answer without you needing to trouble my time.’ He gave me a feeble blow on the ear as retribution. ‘Mind you,’ he cackled, ‘he’ll have to give up Ladwys for a time.’

  ‘Ladwys?’ I asked.

  ‘His lover, you stupid boy. You think any king sleeps alone? But some folk say that Gundleus is so passionate for Ladwys that he actually married her! They say he took her to Lleu’s Mound and had his Druid bind them, but I can’t believe he’d be such a fool. She’s not of the blood. Aren’t you supposed to be tallying the rents for Hywel today?’

  I ignored the question and watched as Gundleus and his guards stepped carefully through the treacherous mud-slide in the gateway. The Silurian King was a tall, well-made man of perhaps thirty years. He had been a young man when his raiders had captured my mother and cast me into the death-pit, but the dozen or so years that had passed since that dark and bloody night had been kind to him for he was still handsome, with long black hair and a forked beard that showed no trace of grey. He wore a fox-fur cloak, leather boots which reached to his knee, a russet tunic and carried a sword sheathed in a red scabbard. His guards were similarly dressed, and all were tall men who towered over Druidan’s sorry collection of crippled spear-carriers. The Silurians wore swords, but none carried a spear or shield, evidence that they had come in peace.

  I shrank away as Tanaburs passed. I had been a toddling child when he had thrown me into the pit and there was no chance that the old man would recognize me as a death-cheater nor, after his failure to kill me, did I need to fear him, yet still I shrank from the Silurian Druid. He had blue eyes, a long nose and a slack dribbling mouth. He had hung small bones at the end of his long, lank white hair and the bones clattered together as he shuffled ahead of his king. Bishop Bedwin fell into step beside Gundleus, proclaiming a welcome and saying how honoured the Tor was by this royal visit. Two of the Silurian guards carried a heavy box that must have contained presents for Norwenna.

  The delegation disappeared into the hall. The fox banner was thrust into the earth outside the door where Ligessac’s men barred anyone else from entering, but those of us who had grown up on the Tor knew how to wriggle into Merlin’s hall. I raced round the south side and scrambled up the log pile and pushed aside one of the leather curtains that protected the windows. Then I dropped to the floor and hid behind the wicker chests that held the feasting cloths. One of Norwenna’s slaves saw my arrival, and probably some of Gundleus’s men did too, but no one cared enough to eject me.

  Norwenna was sitting on a wooden chair in the hall’s centre. The wi
dowed Princess was no beauty: her face was moon round with small piggish eyes and a thin, sour-lipped mouth and skin that had been pocked by some childhood disease, but none of that mattered. Great men do not marry princesses for their looks, but for the power they bring in their dowries. Yet Norwenna had still prepared herself carefully for this visit. Her attendants had dressed her in a fine woollen cloak dyed pale blue that fell to the floor all around her and they had plaited her dark hair and wound it in circles about her head before wreathing sloe blossom into the tresses. She wore a heavy gold torque about her neck, three golden bracelets on her wrist and a plain wooden cross that hung between her breasts. She was plainly nervous for her free hand was fidgeting with the wooden cross, while in her other arm, swaddled in yards of fine linen and wrapped in a cloak dyed a rare golden colour with water impregnated by the gum of bee-hives, was the Edling of Dumnonia, Prince Mordred.

  King Gundleus gave Norwenna scarcely a glance. He sprawled in the chair facing her and looked as though he was utterly bored by the proceedings. Tanaburs scuttled from pillar to pillar, muttering charms and spitting. When he passed close to my hiding place I crouched low until the smell of him had faded. Flames crackled on the fire-stones at the hall’s two ends, their smoke mingling and churning in the soot-blackened roof space. There was no sign of Nimue.

  Wine, smoked fish and oatcakes were served to the visitors, and then Bishop Bedwin made a speech explaining to Norwenna that Gundleus, King of Siluria, while on a mission of friendship to the High King, had happened to be passing close to Ynys Wydryn and had thought it courteous to pay this visit to the Prince Mordred and his mother. The King had brought the Prince some gifts, Bedwin said, upon which Gundleus carelessly waved the gift-bearers forward. The two guards carried the chest to Norwenna’s feet. The Princess had not spoken, nor did she speak now as the gifts were laid on the carpet at her feet. There was a fine wolf fur, two otter pelts, a beaver fur and a hart’s skin, a small gold torque, some brooches, a drinking horn wrapped in a silver wicker pattern and a Roman flask of pale green glass with a wonderfully delicate spout and a handle shaped as a wreath. The empty chest was carried away and there was an awkward silence in which no one quite knew what to say. Gundleus gestured carelessly at the gifts, Bishop Bedwin beamed happiness, Tanaburs hawked a protective gobbet of spit at a pillar while Norwenna looked dubiously at the King’s gifts which were not, in truth, over generous. The hart’s skin might make a fine pair of gloves, the pelts were good, though Norwenna probably had a score of better ones in her wicker baskets, while the torque around her neck was four times as heavy as the one lying at her feet. Gundleus’s brooches were of thin gold and the drinking horn was chipped at its rim. Only the green Roman flask was truly precious.

  Bedwin broke the embarrassing silence. ‘The gifts are magnificent! Rare and magnificent. Truly generous, Lord King.’

  Norwenna nodded obedient agreement. The child began to cry and Ralla, the wet nurse, carried him off to the shadows beyond the pillars where she bared a breast and so silenced him.

  ‘The Edling is well?’ Gundleus spoke for the first time since entering the hall.

  ‘Praise God and His Saints,’ Norwenna answered, ‘he is.’

  His left foot?’ Gundleus asked untactfully. ‘Does it mend?’

  ‘His foot will not stop him from riding a horse, wielding a sword or sitting upon a throne,’ Norwenna answered firmly.

  ‘Of course not, of course not,’ Gundleus said and glanced across at the hungry babe. He smiled, then stretched his long arms and looked about the hall. He had said nothing of marriage, but he would not in this company. If he wanted to marry Norwenna then he would ask Uther, not Norwenna. This visit was merely an opportunity for him to inspect his bride. He spared Norwenna a brief disinterested look, then gazed again about the shadowed hall. ‘So this is Lord Merlin’s lair, eh?’ Gundleus said. ‘Where is he?’

  No one answered. Tanaburs was scrabbling beneath the edge of one of the carpets and I guessed he was burying a charm in the earth of the hall floor. Later, when the Silurian delegation was gone, I searched the spot and found a small bone carving of a boar that I threw on the fire. The flames burned blue and spat fiercely, and Nimue said I had done the right thing.

  ‘Lord Merlin, we think, is in Ireland,’ Bishop Bedwin at last answered. ‘Or maybe in the northern wilderness,’ he added vaguely.

  ‘Or maybe dead?’ Gundleus suggested.

  ‘I pray not,’ the Bishop said fervently.

  ‘You do?’ Gundleus twisted in his chair to stare into Bedwin’s aged face. ‘You approve of Merlin, Bishop?’

  ‘He is a friend, Lord King,’ Bedwin said. He was a dignified, plump man who was ever eager to keep the peace between the various religions.

  ‘Lord Merlin is a Druid, Bishop, who hates Christians.’ Gundleus was trying to provoke Bedwin.

  ‘There are many Christians in Britain now,’ Bedwin said, ‘and few Druids. I think we of the true faith have nothing to fear.’

  ‘You hear that, Tanaburs?’ Gundleus called to his Druid. ‘The Bishop doesn’t fear you!’

  Tanaburs did not answer. In his questing around the hall he had come to the ghost-fence that guarded the door to Merlin’s chambers. The fence was a simple one: merely two skulls placed on either side of the door, but only a Druid would dare cross their invisible barrier and even a Druid would fear a ghost-fence placed by Merlin.

  ‘Will you rest here tonight?’ Bishop Bedwin asked Gundleus, trying to change the subject away from Merlin.

  ‘No,’ Gundleus said rudely, rising. I thought he was about to take his leave, but instead he looked past Norwenna to the small, black, skull-guarded door in front of which Tanaburs was quivering like a hound smelling an unseen boar. ‘What’s through the door?’ the King asked.

  ‘My Lord Merlin’s chambers, Lord King,’ Bedwin said.

  ‘The place of secrets?’ Gundleus asked wolfishly.

  ‘Sleeping quarters, nothing more,’ Bedwin said dismissively.

  Tanaburs raised his moon-tipped staff and held it quivering towards the ghost-fence. King Gundleus watched his Druid’s performance, then drained his wine and tossed the drinking horn on to the floor. ‘Maybe I shall sleep here after all,’ the King said, ‘but first let us inspect the sleeping quarters.’ He waved Tanaburs forward, but the Druid was nervous. Merlin was the greatest Druid in Britain, feared even beyond the Irish Sea, and no one meddled in his life lightly, yet the great man had not been seen for many a long month and some folk whispered that Prince Mordred’s death had been a sign that Merlin’s power was waning. And Tanaburs, like his master, was surely fascinated by what lay behind the door for secrets could lie there that would make Tanaburs as mighty and learned as the great Merlin himself. ‘Open the door!’ Gundleus ordered Tanaburs.

  The butt of the moon staff moved tremulously towards one of the skulls, hesitated, then touched the yellowing bone dome. Nothing happened. Tanaburs spat on the skull, then tipped it over before snatching his staff back like a man who has prodded a sleeping snake. Again nothing happened and so he reached his free hand towards the door’s wooden latch.

  Then he stopped in terror.

  A howl had echoed in the hall’s smoking dark. A ghastly screech, like a girl being tortured, and the awful sound drove the Druid back. Norwenna cried aloud with fear and made the sign of the cross. The baby Mordred began wailing and nothing Ralla could do would quiet him. Gundleus first checked at the noise, then laughed as the howl faded. ‘A warrior,’ he announced to the nervous hall, ‘is not frightened of a girl’s scream.’ He walked towards the door, ignoring Bishop Bedwin who was fluttering his hands as he tried to restrain the King without actually touching him.

  A crash sounded from the ghost-guarded door. It was a violent, splintering noise and so sudden that everyone jumped with alarm. At first I thought the door had fallen before the King’s advance, then I saw that a spear had been thrust clean through it. The silver-coloured spearhead stood proud of the o
ld, fire-blackened oak and I tried to imagine what inhuman force had been needed to drive that sharpened steel through so thick a barrier.

  The spear’s sudden appearance made even Gundleus check, but his pride was threatened and he would not back down in the face of his warriors. He made the sign against evil, spat at the spearhead, then walked to the door, lifted its latch and pushed it open.

  And immediately stepped back with horror on his face. I was watching him and I saw the raw fear in his eyes. He took a second pace away from the open door, then I heard Nimue’s keening cry as she advanced into the hall. Tanaburs was making urgent motions with his staff, Bedwin was praying, the baby was crying while Norwenna had turned in her chair with a look of anguish.

  Nimue came through the door and, seeing my friend, even I shivered. She was naked and her thin white body was raddled with blood that had dripped down from her hair to run in rivulets past her small breasts and on to her thighs. Her head was crowned with a death-mask, the tanned face-skin of a sacrificed man that was perched above her own face like a snarling helmet and held in place by the skin of the dead man’s arms knotted about her thin neck. The mask seemed to have a dreadful life of its own for it twitched as she walked towards the Silurian King. The dead man’s dry and yellow body-skin hung loose down Nimue’s back as she stuttered forward in small irregular steps. Only the whites of her eyes were showing in her bloody face, and as she twitched forward she called out imprecations in a language fouler than any soldier’s tongue, while in her hands were two vipers, their dark bodies gleaming and their flickering heads questing towards the King.

  Gundleus retreated, making the sign against evil, then he remembered that he was a man, a king and a warrior and so he put his hand on his sword hilt. It was then that Nimue jerked her head and the death mask fell back from the hair that was piled high on her scalp, then we all saw that it was not her hair that was piled there, but a bat that suddenly stretched its black, crinkling wings and snarled its red mouth at Gundleus.