M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon Read online

  ‘I played no part in Deva’s destruction,’ Mark protested, as the men with Causus strode, limped and hobbled to the centre of the hall. But the words came out as a whine rather than an accusation. ‘Modred chose to send a message to Artor which told the High King that the old ways were gone and finished. You were his victims, not mine.’

  ‘But you said nothing to Modred that could have saved us,’ roared an old-young man with wild eyes and a crazed expression. His face had a red scar that ran from his right eyebrow across his nose to his jaw, while his arm had a wrapped stump where his forearm and hand had once been. ‘I am Jacobus ap Lorweth, and my kin are both Roman and Deceangli. My mother was born within spitting distance of your accursed hall, Mark, and she was killed in her own house while surrounded by her grandchildren. Why did you permit the Picts to kill children, you traitorous bastard? Why did you turn your face away from your own people?’

  ‘You have the right, citizens of Deva, to demand reparation from all of the Deceangli nobles assembled here.’ Bran’s voice was hard, for he had found it difficult to hear the stories of these two men and learn that they were true Britons who had been irreparably wronged by Modred and Mark.

  ‘I have been appointed as the new magistrate of Deva since the old was executed by Modred,’ Causus said slowly. He gathered his gravitas around his stocky form as if he were donning an invisible cloak. ‘We have decided already that we will not call for judgement on anyone but Mark, a man who had the power to save our people, but chose to remain silent and comply with the orders issued by Modred. Perhaps the Matricide would have stayed his hand had Mark insisted. Perhaps it is Mark who should take the ultimate responsibility for the actions of the traitors.’

  ‘Then you may announce your judgement,’ Gawayne called from the Otadini camp. ‘It is clear to me that you are owed a large portion of the blood price paid by Mark’s and Modred’s tribes, and that this traitor should be judged by the people of Deva.’

  Voices rose in vociferous agreement. Inured to the predictable moral weakness of the kings, Bran smiled sardonically at their eagerness to pass on the unpleasant task of judgement to other shoulders. He was aware that many of them must be feeling a twinge of guilt at Deva’s fate, for Artor was the only ruler who had made any attempt to save the city.

  The men of Deva conferred briefly, and then Causus Gallio faced the assembly.

  ‘Then we demand the body and soul of this creature. He would welcome death as a release, so we decree that he shall live. He dreads any return to the cells of Deva, so we decree that he shall rot there. I hope that he will remember the dead of our city until his last breath, and I pray that his victims visit him during the long nights and cluster around him until he howls to his gods for release. Even then, we will keep his husk alive to suffer as we have suffered. As my father often said: So let it be written: so let it be done.’

  Mark began to shriek in a voice far more powerful than his ruined body should have permitted. As he was dragged away, he begged for a clean death, beating at the breastplates of his guards with ineffectual fists. When this tactic failed, he swore vile insults in a futile attempt to goad them into striking him down and killing him. The kings sat like stone, their faces turned away from Mark’s shame, until the sounds of his despair faded and stillness returned to King Artor’s hall.

  Then, with a great beating of wings and a cry of exultation, the owl took to the air, swooped low over the heads of the assembled lords, and with unnatural speed swept upwards through the burned rafters until it disappeared into the sun-drenched daylight.

  ‘The goddess has received her sacrifice and has departed,’ Taliesin murmured, and ran his fingers over his harp strings with a sound identical to the beating of unseen wings.

  The judgement of Mark, former king of the Deceangli tribe, had been completed. It was time now to begin the serious discussion of securing the future of tribal Britain.

  CHAPTER III

  IDYLL

  A single sparrow should fly swiftly into the hall, and coming in at one door, instantly fly out through another. In that time in which it is indoors it is indeed not touched by the fury of the winter, but yet, this smallest space of calmness being passed almost in a flash, from Winter going into Winter again, it is lost to your eyes.

  The Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People

  ‘Mother! Look!’

  The shrill piping of pleasure came from high in an ancient oak, and for one short moment Elayne felt a thrill of fear for her wayward eldest son. He had climbed far too high for a boy of seven, and she could barely make out his wildly curling russet hair among the autumn leaves of the canopy.

  Seven years! Such a long time, yet no day passed without a tangible memory of the man who had fathered her first child. As she stroked the weathered bark of the venerable oak, she was reminded of the mental strength of the last High King of the Britons. He had been strong, firm and age seared, like a tree that has seen every vicissitude of man: fire, the axe, and the destructive waste of the sword. But the heart of the man, like the tree, was still sound and growing. Time had taken away his keen eyesight and the strength of his arms, but nothing could dim the intelligence and the sympathy in his clear grey eyes.

  How she missed their talks, those long afternoons when they had walked through the echoing halls of Cadbury. Artor had been the only man who had ever valued her talent for detecting guile and lies, who understood her as a person and not as a potential mother who could add to the glory of her tribe. Had he been younger, would they have cleaved to each other, thigh to thigh and breast to breast? But such thoughts were disloyal, unworthy and pointless, for Artor had gone into the great darkness while she was the wife of his most loyal vassal, Bedwyr of Arden. A single night, time out of time, when king and lady had been threatened by the coldness of death, had been all that fate had permitted. Yet Fortuna, or God, had ordained that one last gift should be proffered to a man who had given away everything of personal value. Before he died, he had known that he had fathered a son.

  ‘Mother? You’re not watching!’ a petulant voice called out from the crown of the tree. ‘Look up here, Mother! The world is quite different from upside down.’

  Her wayward son was laughing as he swung on the wind, his knees hooked over a sturdy branch so that his long curling hair hung down below his merry, fearless face. With her heart in her mouth, Elayne tried not to reveal her panic. ‘Come down, Arthur! At once! Your cousin Ector will soon be here with his betrothed. What will they think if they find you abed with broken limbs because you were showing off in a tree? You’re not a little boy any longer.’

  Arthur swung upward and gripped the branch with two dirty, grass-stained hands that were large for a boy of his age. As agile as an eel, or the otters that frolicked in the rivers where the pools were deep and leaf dappled, the boy scrambled down the tree, his small face screwed up with uneasiness.

  ‘You won’t tell Ector, will you, Mother? He’d laugh at me for playing like a baby.’ Arthur was so distressed that he slipped as he dropped from the lowest branch and a twiglet scored his forearm from elbow to wrist.

  Although she was heavy with child, Elayne swung his strong, growing body into a warm embrace. He squirmed with embarrassment under her caresses, but nevertheless permitted his mother to wipe away the line of blood from his arm before kissing his cheek and releasing him.

  ‘Your nurse is waiting, Arthur, and she will be cross if she lacks the time to bathe and dress you for Ector’s visit. What will Ector’s beloved think if you look like a beggar or an urchin, with leaves in your hair and your hands as dirty as the paws of a farmer’s boy? Old Caitlin will be shamed before her king.’ Although her tone of voice was mock-serious, the boy remained sunny tempered while Lady Elayne plucked a stray dried leaf from his curls and planted a kiss on his broad forehead.

  ‘Besides,’ she said with a secretive smile. ‘We have a very special visitor coming with Ector on this occasion. Taliesin mentioned him w
hen he visited us last winter, and you might have heard tales of his exploits. Then again, you may not know of him, because boys are notoriously bored by stories of old men.’

  The lad looked closely at his mother with a narrow, measuring gaze that almost stopped her heart. Artor had examined faces just so, carefully and coldly, and she was swept back to another time and place, when she had been in great peril but had become gloriously and deliriously alive.

  At such times, Elayne felt shame at the vividness of her memories. Here, in the Forest of Arden, they were untroubled by the world outside its borders. She was able to forget the first year of her marriage, the peril of Bedwyr’s journey into the north with Percivale and Galahad, and the vicious hatred of Queen Wenhaver that had made her sojourn in Cadbury so dangerous. But the scent of the wind on icy mornings, the cry of a hunting hawk high above the trees, or even the smell of burning logs in the depths of winter, could speed her back to that other time, and that other Elayne, who had yet to learn the taste of womanly tears.

  A tug on her sleeve pulled her back into the present. ‘Are you playing with me, Mother? Who is our visitor? You haven’t told me whom Ector plans to marry, so the stranger could be anyone. You just want me to be good and not complain about having to take a bath. But I’d have one anyway . . . because Ector is coming.’

  ‘I always play fair with you, sweetling, but I have been teasing you. Ector is to marry Gwyllan, whose name means seagull. She is the daughter of . . .’ Elayne allowed her voice to fade away, dragging out the pause until Arthur jumped up and down with impatience.

  ‘Who, Mother? Who? You’re teasing me again!’

  His face screwed up and she saw a brief flash of anger pass redly through his grey-green eyes. But then it was gone as fast as it had appeared, to be replaced by a cheeky grin. ‘Our visitor is no one important. You just want me to be good and remain quiet.’

  ‘Ah, sweetling, the man of whom we speak is King Gawayne of the Otadini. He was the right hand of King Artor, and he was the west’s greatest swordsman in his younger days.’

  ‘Is he the father of Prince Galahad who sought and died for the Cup? The nephew of King Artor?’ The boy’s eyes were so wide that they were almost starting out of his head. ‘Truly? King Gawayne is coming here?’

  ‘Yes, Arthur, he is. King Gawayne is coming here, so be off with you to your bath, or he’ll think you’re a young Saxon rather than a true-born Celt.’

  In fact, all the Cornovii lords, high and low, knew that Bedwyr had not sired the cuckoo in his nest, but none dared lay the name cuckold on such a noble warrior. Moreover, Lady Elayne was universally loved by all who lived in Arden Forest, so though the peasantry whispered around the winter fireplaces that young Arthur had been fathered by a great warrior, the most able in the land, no one was willing to name the dead high king. And so the boy grew without care for or knowledge of his birthright, exactly as his father had intended. The isolation of Arden Forest protected the lad from the scrutiny of those Celtic lords who would have guessed his parentage from a single glance at his wild hair. Bedwyr had even grown to like the boy, for in his grey-green eyes and calm face the Cornovii lord could see all that remained of his beloved master, now long buried in the wet earth of holy Glastonbury.

  So matters stood in the year of our Lord 527, when Ector and his father led a loose confederation of western tribes that were seeking to keep the Saxon menace at bay. And now they had come to the Forest of Arden on a visit that would change the pleasant days of Arthur’s childhood out of all recognition.

  The retinue that rode up to the wooden hall and spreading house of Bedwyr Slave-scar was fine indeed. Ector of the Ordovice, the chosen heir of King Artor, was a young warrior of seventeen years whose dark hair and flashing eyes bore the stamp of otherness, that odd quality some men possess that sets them apart. He was a little above middle height, and had the unmistakable muscle of a skilled fighting man. He rode a large stallion of a rich dun colour that pawed the earth when he drew it to a halt, as if it were still eager to gallop wildly and only obeyed its master because it judged Ector’s will to be stronger than its own.

  Beside him, a woman sat astride a white hill pony. A long veil obscured her face and protected her complexion from the weak sun and the dust of the road. Fine kidskin gloves covered her hands, and the wool of her cloak was finely woven with a pattern of checks in dull green and dark blue. As Ector assisted her to dismount, she lifted her veil, and the crowd that had gathered in welcome saw the face of Gwyllan, the daughter of King Gawayne, for the first time. Their indrawn breath paid tribute to her beauty without the need for words.

  Gawayne had always been a handsome, charismatic man, and elements of his blond beauty had been inherited by his daughter. Her skin was like his: fine and thin and very fair, with a light feathering of golden down that caught the light with a shimmer like gold dust. Her mother, Queen Enid, who had not made the long journey to the Forest of Arden, had been a dark, tiny beauty in her youth, and it was from her that Gwyllan had inherited the thick, dark brown hair that was as glossy as a horse’s tail and braided in long plaits that fell almost to her knees. Her brows were also dark and fine over guileless blue eyes that, like Gawayne’s, glowed with intelligence and sensitivity. Her fragile strength, her tiny voluptuousness and the delicacy of her bone structure brought out protectiveness in any man with red blood in his veins.

  Gawayne must have been busy keeping the young bucks away from this one, Bedwyr thought with a wry smile. An appropriate punishment for a reformed womaniser! Bedwyr had first seen the girl at Deva when Mark had been brought to justice, but in the intervening years the daughter of Gawayne had grown into a beautiful woman, a female whose every movement spoke of sexual promise. Even Bedwyr felt the tug of that innocent invitation and his loins tightened against his will, so that the ageing warrior was reminded again that a man was forever prey to the devils of his sexual appetite.

  Anna and Bran had accompanied the young lovers. Bran and Ector had visited Arden on many occasions, for Bedwyr was a trusted ally who guarded the approaches to the Ordovice lands. But, despite her liking for the forest master, Anna had never joined them before, for she had felt a certain apprehension at the likelihood of meeting Elayne and her son. However, the coming nuptials had forced the issue. Throwing caution to the winds, she decided to travel with the wedding party to visit their Cornovii allies. There, she could observe the boy and his mother, and perhaps satisfy her hopes that her father’s old friend was happy at last.

  ‘You have too many trees here, Bedwyr, not to mention rabbit holes that are determined to finish me off.’ A booming voice drowned the jumble of courteous welcomes from Bedwyr and Elayne. ‘Help me off this fucking horse. I’m an old man and long rides are becoming too difficult for me.’

  The last great legend of the west, King Gawayne of the Otadini, dismounted with a boy’s grace, putting the lie to his complaints of decrepit old age. Straightening his back slowly and surveying the stout defences set into a copse of mature oaks, Gawayne nodded and acknowledged the crisp, disciplined admiration of the warriors manning the palisades. In return, they honoured him with a wholly Roman salute, their fists thudding against the centre of their breasts.

  Gawayne was as grey as an old lion, the creature he most resembled. His hair was a wild long bush around his head, resembling a mane, and his handsome features still retained the ghost of his old beauty, although his jowls sagged and deep pouches below his blue eyes revealed the many years he had lived. His gaze remained as open and as welcoming as ever, so women still blushed when he patted their cheeks, or other parts of their bodies. Even Elayne flushed as she acknowledged the flair of this man who had entranced three extraordinary women. Queen Enid of the north, Queen Wenhaver of the Britons and Mistress Miryll from Salinae were all great beauties, and while no one spoke openly of Miryll’s pregnancy and death, many stories had been sung of Gawayne’s legendary charm.

  Introductions were made with due pomp and ceremony. With
pride, Bedwyr introduced his eldest son, red-haired Lasair who was six years old and a fine, sturdy boy. The next child was a daughter, whom Elayne had called Nuala in honour of an aunt who lived beyond the Hibernian Sea. The small, red-haired girl was five and she giggled when Gawayne swept her up into his arms and tickled her chin. The youngest was another boy, Barr, who was little more than a toddler and darker in colouring than his siblings. He bowed low, and almost fell in his eagerness to demonstrate his new-found skill. Gwyllan was charmed and clapped her hands in congratulation, while little Barr blushed a bright, beetroot red.

  ‘And this is Arthur,’ Bedwyr said, without any further embellishment.

  If Arthur was embarrassed at being ranked below his baby sister, it didn’t show in his eager face. Like a miniature young man, he stepped forward and made his bow, producing a posy of wild flowers from behind his back and offering it to Gwyllan with a brilliant smile.

  ‘These flowers are for my lady,’ he murmured, ‘but they are not as fair as you.’

  Anna’s heart stuttered with shock as she realised she had always suspected the truth. Indisputably, she recognised the wildly curling hair that had been forced into some kind of order, and the tall, loose-limbed grace that set him apart from his siblings. Anna paled a little and looked away.