CHAPTER 21
THE HIGH KING
Dybris moaned as someone pressed a cold rag to his forehead.
“Finally awake, eh?”
It was Brother Neot, whispering.
Dybris sat up but regretted it as his head throbbed and his stomach soured. “Where’s Merlin?” His voice rasped.
“Wherever … and better off than you. He protected his head, but you couldn’t, you fool.”
Dybris stretched his neck and regretted that as well. “Go away.”
“Crogen has forbidden me.” Neot wrung his rag into a wooden bowl.
Touching his face carefully, Dybris determined that the left side of his head was swollen, and his eyebrow had a scabby mass. “Where is he?”
“Outside. Weeping.”
Dybris’s tongue felt thick as he sipped water from a bowl. “Tell him I’ve woken.”
“Dreamer! He doesn’t weep for you. The druidow burned our abbey last night.”
Dybris looked around the room. He’d thought this was an abbey building, but a glance confirmed that above him hung the ragged thatch around the hole in the roof. Faint light from the morning sun seeped through, revealing the stone walls of the village chapel and his brother monks sleeping in soot-stained garments on the dirt floor and on wooden benches.
“Ah, now you see, don’t you, the results of your fine work. Herrik ran to us for help, but it was too late. We and a few villagers brought water from our spring, but the fire wouldn’t be slaked.” His voice turned bitter. “All our years copying the Scriptures are nothing but ashes.”
Dybris covered his face. “Nothing saved?”
“Just the scrapings of food stored in the cave. But that means nothing since neither parchment nor quill survived.” Neot’s voice broke. “And it’s your fault!”
“Oh, God!” Dybris cried out in prayer.
A quiet knock sounded on the chapel door.
Neot rose, answered, and stepped outside.
In the dim light, Dybris hadn’t seen who had come. He was about to rise and investigate when Neot opened the door and entered with squinting, smoldering eyes.
“Now it’s worse. Troslam, the good weaver of our village, tells me there was thievery and death last night.”
“You can’t blame me for —”
One of the monks turned over in his sleep, and Dybris hushed his voice.
“For stirring up these troubles?” Neot whispered. “Yes, I can. All restraint has been thrown off, and only God knows the depth of last night’s transgressions. Never in all my years in Bosventor has there been a murder, and now three men lie slain. Priwith the potter was stabbed in his own bed, his house ransacked and his valuables stolen …”
Dybris stood, and his bruised limbs protested the act. He had to get away from Neot and speak with Crogen.
“Then Troslam caught Stenno sneaking in through a window. In the struggle, the weaver slew him while defending his family. And don’t you dare leave.” Neot pulled Dybris’s hood and forced him to sit down. “Drink the cup you’ve filled. Last of all was poor Brunyek, our simple oat farmer, whom Troslam found while on his way here. Thrown into a ditch along the road, his back stabbed and his bag of coins missing.”
Pushing Neot’s hands away, Dybris limped to the door. “Stop blaming me for the sins of the Stone! This I tried to stop, while you did nothing.”
“You don’t deserve to be in our order,” Neot yelled as the other monks awoke.
“That is for Crogen to decide.” Dybris slammed the door behind him as he hobbled out into the sunrise.
Downhill he found Crogen sitting on a rock that jutted out from the hillside like an old tooth. His sooty, tear-stained face was uncovered, and he looked unblinking to the western hills, where dark clouds gathered.
“It … it is burned up,” the abbot said quietly. “Completely gone. Day has brought it to light, and who of us will survive these flames?”
Merlin rose, still tired from the failed efforts to extinguish the abbey’s flames. Yet a new sense of urgency gripped him as he remembered the unfinished sword and the imminent coming of the High King. In the house, he woke his father and they devoured the day-old barley porridge along with a few hard biscuits.
After pushing the bowls to the center of the table, they walked to the smithy with purpose in their steps.
“After you fell asleep last night,” Owain said, “I heated the hoof shavings and left the blade to temper overnight. It should be ready for us to clean and then attach the handle.” He went over to where they kept a waist-high barrel, removed the lid, and fished through the hot shavings with a pair of tongs until he found the blade and pulled it out by the tang.
Merlin turned the handle of the grinding stone while his father removed the scale created by hardening the blade. After that, Owain smoothed the transition to the ricasso near the tang with a set of handmade files.
Next they ground the tang so the bronze guard, handle, and pommel fit snugly. These pieces had been poured from liquid metal two months ago using a split clay mold Merlin’s father had carved.
A craftsman from Fowavenoc had inlayed red glass into the pommel as well as the guard. Owain explained that the center inlay of glass bore a triskelion design — a triple spiral. Merlin surmised from this that the craftsman must have been a Christian, for the triskelion design had come from Erin with missionaries who used it to represent the Trinity.
All Merlin could see, however, was the flash of red when the sun played upon the surface of the inlays. Red like blood and fit for a king who must rule by the justice of his blade.
When all the pieces fit, they wrapped wet leather around the blade to protect it and then heated the tang’s tip to a bright apple color. The guard, handle, and pommel were tapped into place, and Owain hammered the tang tip flat into a small recess in the pommel. In this way, the sword was made whole and, barring some catastrophe, would not come apart.
Using the reflected morning light to reveal flaws, Merlin’s father examined his work and said that he could find nothing disagreeable.
Merlin took the blade then, and he felt all the bevels and edges, tracing each detail of the hilt with his fingertips. He finally tested its weight and balance as he swung it with both hands in the center of the shop.
“This is the best work you’ve ever done, Tas. An expert blade to rival the finest in the kingdom!”
“They say an old blade’s always better than a new, so we’ll see. Many’s the dying warrior who cursed his smith. The ones that bent or broke taught me more than the ones I did right. Only through fire, quench, and battle is any man and his work truly known.”
“Shall we sharpen it?”
“Aye. And carve ‘OAG’ onto the handle to mark it as one of my blades. There’s just enough time before Uther arrives.”
“What will you do if the High King won’t receive it?”
His father sat down heavily. “I haven’t decided. Very little that I have is precious enough to show my sorrow. What else could I offer to make amends? There’s a puzzle to think on.”
Merlin swung the sword one last time before offering it to his father. “Will Uther give the monks justice for the burning of the abbey? Mórganthu better not show his face.”
“If I know Mórganthu, he’ll be there.”
Merlin winced. “Then may Jesu and the king help us.”
In all of Dybris’s years as a monk, he had never felt the way he felt this morning. Standing there beside the road with the other monks as they awaited the arrival of the High King, he was utterly embarrassed. Aching, swollen, bloodied, unshaven, and with spilled pigment on his robe, he wanted to crawl back to the chapel.
Oh, he’d protested to Crogen, but the new abbot said they all must appear before the king. Of course, yesterday Dybris just had to choose the white pigment, and when the Stone’s iniquitous power had knocked him away, he just had to spill the pigment all down the front of his robe.
Why hadn’t he put the stopper back?
Ah, to have only soot on his robe like the others — but no, it appeared some malignant bird had stood on his head and offalled him.
Fie!
For all that, the arrival of Uther mab Aurelianus, High King of the Britons, would have been a grand affair if not for the somber mood of the people of Bosventor. Oh, the other monks eagerly anticipated the justice they’d receive against the druidow, but the villagers were downright glum.
One man, whom Dybris hadn’t met during his brief time at the abbey, stood near and complained to those around him, hooting, “A crock o’ ants, he is! Tregeagle cares nothin’ but fer tribute, and Uther’ll be the same. You’ll see.”
The others nodded, and an old woman said, “Ah, Uther’ll not care for tributes when he gets a sight o’ our Stone!”
The Stone. What would Uther do with the Stone?
So when the battle horns blasted and people turned to see Uther’s war band rounding the side of the mountain from the east, Dybris prayed for deliverance from the Stone and its curse.
Uther rode up in his gilded chariot with a friendly smile but a stern gaze.
All around Dybris the people averted their eyes from Uther’s face, yet still they spied at the silvered shirt of iron rings that hung down past his waist and over his gray leather trousers. This was all held fast with a thick brown belt, buckled and tied, from which hung his sword. Over it all Uther wore a plum-colored, embroidered cloak pinned on his right shoulder with a silver brooch.
Longer still the villagers stared at his golden torc. Thick and intricate, it shone brightly on the man’s sturdy neck, and its ends each carried an eagle’s head with amethyst eyes. Uther’s shaven face was handsome and rugged, and his thick brown hair fell down past his shoulders. His left hand, gauntleted in dark gray, gripped the reins of twin chestnut horses as he raised the other, bare, in a blessing to the people that went unreceived.
“There,” one of the brothers whispered, “look at his shield!”
Dybris hadn’t yet noticed it or the signifier who held it, standing as he was in the chariot close behind Uther. The shield was blazoned with a great golden boar in the honor point and wreathed with a knotwork of blood-red vines.
To Uther’s right in the chariot hunched an old man, long-bearded and hoary. He was unarmored, yet he wore fine garments of green covered with a great black cloak. In his hands he held an ancient wooden harp whose bronze strings glittered in the morning light. At his throat rested a twisted white-gold torc, and its ends were formed as heads of moor cats, each with a sparkling white eye.
Behind Uther’s chariot, two palfreys pulled a light wagon. Holding the reins in the center sat a thoughtful Igerna, queen and covenant wife of Uther. Her dress of blue-and-green plaid was simple and yet showed signs of an expert seamstress. Over this she wore a light-brown traveling cloak with a silver brooch that matched her husband’s. Her hood was raised over her flaxen-red hair to keep off the morning chill, and a thin gold torc, clean of ornamentation, glinted at her throat.
“See the babe!” a woman next to Dybris said.
“Wait till Mórganthu shows him the Stone,” another answered. “Won’t he jus’ love it?”
Dybris sidestepped away from them to see the new heir to the throne, Arthur, who sat nestled in the queen’s arms. He was dark of hair and, Dybris thought, bright of eye for one so young. The boy, by all accounts not a season past his first winter, looked out with a tender shyness, and Dybris smiled to behold his countenance. Here sat the future hope of Britain’s protection. How many armies would those chubby legs lead? Which judgments would his pursed lips speak? What number of enemies might those small hands slay? Or would he die in youth as countless princes had done throughout history?
O God, Dybris prayed, guide and guard this little one. And if he is not your chosen one for our land, please raise up another to take his place and protect us from our enemies.
The horses paused for a moment to eat some grass, and Igerna spurred them forward. Only then did Dybris notice that on each side of the queen sat the two royal daughters, Eilyne and Myrgwen.
Eilyne, coming to the age of womanhood, sat stiffly in her plaid of maroon, green, and white. She glanced at the people but did not smile. Myrgwen, not yet ten winters, giddily waved at the monks and leaned over the edge of the wagon. Her older sister reached behind their mother and pulled her back, but the younger kept waving.
After the wagon rolled past, a troop of twenty warriors rode by, each bearing the pin of a small golden boar on their variously colored cloaks. Firm of face, they scanned the gathered crowd and moved to follow their king.
Combined with Vortigern’s men, Dybris reasoned, that would make around forty warriors in all. Not many, considering this was the High King, but it was logical, since his purpose was to check the fortifications and beacons — and to recruit Gorlas, the king of Kernow, and raise up men to join the fray. Uther’s main host, it was told, lay eastward, where the Saxenow threat grew.
Neot coughed and turned to Crogen. “Now then, didn’t Uther’s father kill Vortigern’s grandfather in battle? How can one serve the other?”
“It is a wonder to behold, I say. The battle took place because Vitalinus had, while steward, assassinated Aurelianus’s father, Constans, and stolen the High Kingship.”
“How did they reconcile?” Neot asked.
“Blood-bitterness lay between the families until Uther chose Igerna as his bride.”
“And she is Vortigern’s sister?”
“I have it on good authority that he secretly courted her after they met on a bridge one day when he was on campaign. Oh, she refused him, you can be sure.”
“But changed her mind?” Neot asked.
“She saw the practical side … bringing the two houses together and healing the blood-feud … But they say she soon fell in love as well.”
“And why do you know all this?”
Crogen’s head tilted slightly, and he sighed. “Ah, Neot, a scribe like I … I wrote a history, you know. And now I’ll have to write it again.”
Merlin somewhat reluctantly passed back the wool-wrapped sword to his father as they entered the village green near midmorning. It had been a privilege to carry it along with his small harp, which hung over his shoulder.
“Uther’s here,” his father said, “and we’ve made it just in time. He and his wife are on a bench atop the Rock of Judgment.”
“Are the druidow here?”
“Only a few guarding the Stone.”
Finding a place at the back near the monks, they sat down on the long grass. Merlin found his father’s hand, which trembled upon the cloth-covered hilt of the sword.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, but Uther’s barely changed. Stronger, with more hair, but he hardly looks different from when we parted.”
“And so, splendid lord,” Merlin heard Tregeagle say, “this man, this Pennar, has been seized by the men of Garrinoc. They would have tried him themselves, but their magister has died. Hearing of your coming, they sent him for your judgment rather than bothering Gorlas.”
“So it is better to bother me, then?”
“Esteemed lord, they considered your judgment of the more lasting type. It seems Gorlas has trouble making up his mind on such matters.”
“I am innocent!” Pennar pleaded, and his chains clinked as he held his hands out to Uther.
“What crime is he accused of, Magister?” Uther asked.
“Cattle thievery, my lord. Caught with three steers in his possession.”
“Did anyone witness the crime?”
“No, splendid lord, but —”
“Then how in a Pictish winter am I to judge? Surely someone —”
“I can speak, my lord,” spoke the nasally voice of a man who shuffled from the crowd and bowed low.
“And who are you?”
“I am named Kudor, my highly estimable majesty, and it was my cattle he stole. I lay asleep on a cold night and woke to hear bovinous lowing. Desiring still my warm pallet, I ignored it. In the morning, three of my prized cattle had been stolen, and the footprints led to my neighbor’s house.”
“And did you find your three cattle there?”
The man belched. “No, goodly lord, there were but two.”
“Two? What of —”
“I can explain, my lord,” Tregeagle said. “One had already been roasted.”
“What do you say, accused?” Uther demanded. “Do you deny this?”
“No, my lord,” Pennar pleaded. “Kudor owed me the cattle these last four years. When I lent them, he’d just moved to our village, was poor, and I took pity.”
“Slander!” Kudor said, but Uther held up his hand.
“Pennar,” Uther asked, “why did you not bring this before your magister?”
“I did, my lord, but he was old and did nothing before he passed away, and King Gorlas failed to appoint a new magister. This winter my other cows caught the bloaty shakes and had to be burned. With no milk or meat, and little grain from a poor harvest, my family starved —”
“Punishment of the gods, my lord,” Kudor snorted.
“Pennar, have you proof of this debt?” Uther asked, leaning forward on the bench.
“Kudor’s left forearm has three small scars marking the debt in the usual way.”
Kudor laughed as he rolled up his sleeve. “I paid it back two years ago. As you see, my lord, the lines are cross-scarred, signifying payment.”
“A lie,” Pennar claimed. “Never did I crosscut them. If the magister were alive —”
“Silence!” Uther said.
No one spoke for a while, and Merlin asked his father what was happening.
“Uther’s examining Kudor’s arm, and by its girth I’d say that man hasn’t missed any meals.”
“Kudor,” Uther said. “I see the debt scars and the payment cross-scar, but what scar is this from under your sleeve?”
“That, my lord? A mere scratch.”
And Merlin heard him cough. Twice.
“Lift your shirt, man,” Uther said.
“My shirt?” Kudor’s voice turned shrill. “How will that decide the present case?”
“Lift your shirt.”
“No sense, no sense, I say!”
Uther’s bench creaked as he rose.
“Merlin,” Owain said, “Uther’s jumped down from the rock, and the man’s backing into the crowd. Hah! Uther grabbed him by the scruff of his tunic and is hauling him back. Wait … Uther’s limping. I’ve never seen him limp before.”
Kudor blubbered as Uther ripped the man’s shirt off.
“As suspected!” Uther said. “Not only has he been whipped for thievery, but — if I can tell from the different ages of the scars — thrice. Vortigern,” he commanded, “inspect the back of the accused.”
“It is clear, my lord. No scars.”
“I protest,” Kudor screeched.
Uther’s bench groaned as he sat down again.
“He’s conferring with his wife,” Merlin’s father said.
After a few moments, Uther rose again. “The accused is to be set free. Kudor’s cross-scar is recent, and he tried to hide his past thievery.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Pennar said.
“Colvarth! Where is my bard?”
“Tas,” Merlin whispered, “I didn’t know there was a bard here. What’s he like?”
“It’s the same man who served Uther’s father. I wouldn’t have thought him still alive. And his beard’s twice as long since last I heard his harp.”
“Colvarth,” Uther said, “write a declaration of this man’s innocence and my judgment that Kudor is to pay an honor price quadruple the theft.”
“No … I’ll have nothing left!” Kudor pleaded.
“His family will be in poverty,” Pennar said. “Please, High King, change the judgment —”
“Have him whipped? Are you a fool?” Uther asked.
“Please. Just lessen the fine … in Jesu’s name.”
Uther paused. “Because you claim this by the Christ, Pennar, the honor price will be reduced to double. Colvarth, please write that down.”
Colvarth’s quill scratched on parchment as the bard wrote out the High King’s decision. Then he spoke to the king, slowly. “Is … that all, my king?”
“No. Record as well that our merciful Pennar is to be the new magister of Garrinoc.”
Colvarth coughed. “King Gorlas might not be … pleased with the appointment. Is it not … better to ask him first?”
“Certainly not. Pennar will do nothing but please our Gorlas, and I will tell him myself when we see him.”
Pennar fell to his knees. “Oh, my great lord, I don’t deserve —”
“Nonsense. We need able men in leadership. Mercy. Action. Faithfulness. Loyalty. Wisdom. All these I seek. Rise, Pennar. Shake off your bonds and instead receive this bronze torc of office from my hand.”
“Merlin,” Owain said, “it’s my time. Before Uther goes on to something else. Come with me to the front. Here’s the sword. Hold it till I call.”
They wended around the crowd, and Merlin felt his father’s sweat drip down to their joined hands. Merlin’s stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a frog. Would Uther think his father had been faithful? Loyal? Wise?
“Sit here,” his father told him. “And pray.”