“Well, what about the Pict?” I asked. “Isn’t he facing the same problem?”
“Oh, no,” Dafydd said, shaking his head. “He’s got something special there at his wee little fortress. He’s trying to turn it into a proper castle, you know—but bugger that, what I keep hearing is that he has some kind of infinite supply of food. It’s a magic graal, you know. Take food from it and more appears. He can feed everyone in his fortress just fine, and plenty of people have joined him to get their three squares a day, you bet. But meanwhile the land is dying around him, spreading east from the Gwyr peninsula and maybe north and west, too, I don’t know. Haven’t heard from anybody out there.”
“So nobody is heading to Sveinsey anymore? Or even in that direction?”
“Only the evil and the stupid.”
I raised an eyebrow. “The evil?”
“Pagan bastards. Druids. There was one in here about seven days ago, and another a couple weeks before that. Tattoos on their arms, you know.”
That was why I’d asked Ogma for a full kit. The time when Druids earned respect wherever they walked had passed, and it was getting to the point where we couldn’t even walk around freely without harassment or outright violence. I nodded and asked, “They went to join the Pict?”
“No, not join him. They thought they could bloody do something about him. I wished them well in that regard, but they haven’t come back and we still can’t get to Gloucester, so they’ve had all the effect of King Cadoc’s prayers, which is to say, no effect at all.”
Abruptly I no longer felt like drinking with those men. They had told me all I needed to know, and nothing would follow except personal questions and the exchange of lies. Blending in with the converted populace wasn’t difficult so long as I kept my tattoos hidden, for the rules were simple in the early Church of the time: praise Jesus, and if you ran into anyone who didn’t do the same, attack the weak and shun the strong. The social camouflage was easy to maintain but wearying on the spirit. I thanked the men for their company and excused myself to look after my horse, may the Lord bless and keep them and destroy all evil.
I brushed Apple Jack down and fed him and settled in to wait out the night, resolving to get an early start in the morning. I wanted to strip and dry out my kit but the necessity of maintaining my Christian fa?ade made that impossible. Whenever someone entered the stables I knelt and clasped my hands and made a show of prayer. No one interrupted my pious devotion.
The rain renewed with a vengeance in the morning, determined to erode my substance away and chap my hide. Big fat drops spanged off my helmet and slapped against my leathers. I kept my head down for most of the time and trusted Apple Jack to follow the path. After a soggy lunch under the partial shelter of an ash tree, we longed for the dry comfort of the stable at the Silver Stallion.
An hour’s numbing march after lunch brought a surprise. I wiped rain out of my eyes at one point and Apple Jack shook his head to accomplish the same end. Refocusing on the road, I saw a structure ahead that I had missed before.
“Wait,” I said aloud, and Apple Jack stopped. “How did I not see that?”
<You mean that building surrounded by a graveyard?>
Yeah, that’s what I mean. It looks like a chapel. The cross on the roof was a bit of a giveaway. It wasn’t a cathedral or even a regular meeting house; it was a small gray stone-and-mortar job put together in such a way as to suggest that the mason had been in a hurry. Tombstones leaned left and right in the sodden earth and completely surrounded the chapel, giving the yard the likeness of stained and broken teeth. It was the most morbid house of worship I’d ever seen.
<I didn’t see it either. Maybe it was camouflaged? I have seen Druids do that before.>
Oh, that’s true. That must be what happened. There must be another Druid around here somewhere, and that’s good.
<Nothing smells good though. I smell death.>
How much? Is this just a vague uneasiness or do you actually smell rotting flesh through all the rain?
<I suppose it could be coming from the graveyard. But there’s something not right about it. Oh well, we’re just going past, right?>
No, I think we need to check it out.
<I think we need to live.>
Come on, it’s just a chapel in the middle of a graveyard. Buried bones can’t hurt you. There’s probably someone friendly inside.
<What if that’s the lure? It’s not a place of refuge; it’s a spider’s web, Gawain! There’s a murderer inside who has a convenient graveyard to bury us in! Have you thought of that?>
Um. No.
<Well, you go say hi then, and I’ll stand out here and guard the supplies.>