Divine Sacrifice, The (21 page)

“No, Malgwyn. But I have not been looking.”

Arthur seemed to feel better upon hearing that I had not been blind to the situation. He relaxed, his shoulders sagging a bit. “So, you expect it to be only a few days?”

“A week at the most.”

“Then I will gather my forces and return to Castellum Arturius when we have settled with this Gwilym. To remain longer at this time would cause too much curiosity. And if Lauhiir is up to
some evil, I would not have him know that I am suspicious. Not yet, at any rate.”

“A question, Arthur?” Bedevere spoke up. “So the village at Ynys-witrin is prosperous? So Lauhiir seems wealthier than perhaps he should be?”

It was then that I learned to value Bedevere as much as Kay. While Kay’s friendship and loyalty knew no bounds, Bedevere, though quiet, was not afraid to seek out the weaknesses in an
argument and force you to face them. His queries were good and valid ones. Where Kay was often led by his heart, Bedevere spoke with his brain.

Arthur’s mouth curled into a frown, drawing his mustache down. “False prosperity is no prosperity at all and is but misery waiting to befall those who experience it.” Arthur
had an ability to see beyond the immediate, to look to the future. Not into it. But to it. Some gave Merlin the ability to foresee the future, but he did not. He never claimed such a thing. Others
claimed it for him.

The servants were hurrying platters and jugs from the abbot’s kitchen to his hall. Tonight was to be a proper feasting in honor of Arthur and Patrick. No chanting. No reading of sacred
texts. From the smells wafting past us, I knew we would be treated to the finest wines and foods, finer even than that provided by Arthur at his table. Amphorae from Syria and Italy, filled to the
brim with wine, were carted across the muddy pathway. I saw platters of oysters, the moist, white skin of freshly dressed chickens, and pink pork loins seasoned and ready for the hearth, bowls of
young vegetables harvested by the
monachi
, fresh-baked bread from the abbot’s ovens.

In two big pits outside the kitchen, heaped with glowing, orange coals, two of the servants dug carefully, to the accompaniment of sparks and rising smoke. Moments later, they gingerly removed
one, two, and then three long, ash-gray objects, and my mouth immediately began watering. This was a dish I dearly loved. Salmon, stuffed with plums, bread, and herbs, covered in salt dough and
buried beneath an open fire. The dough baked hard and kept all of the juices inside. My Gwyneth, my long-dead wife, had cooked salmon in this manner, and every time I ate it, it reminded me of her,
brought her close to me in good memories.

I was grateful to see several
mortaria
carried across, bowls with special knobs in the bottom in which food was ground for those whose teeth were worn down. My problem lay not with my
teeth but with my difficulty in cutting my food, so I favored the pastelike food that I could spoon into my mouth.

“Savoring the food already, Malgwyn?” Merlin’s cracked voice broke over my shoulder, and I felt the light touch of his age-spotted hand land on my arm. I turned and by his side
I saw Patrick, fewer wrinkles in his face now. He seemed younger, happier.

“And what have you and the
episcopus
been discussing?”

Merlin winked. “He has converted me to this Christianity, and I have promised to persuade our Lord Arthur that all non-believers should be foresworn from drinking alcohol until they
convert.”

Even Patrick laughed at this. “If that were true,” he added, “I would no longer have a mission.”

Coroticus, wearing his abbot’s furs and jewelry, appeared from his hall. I smiled inwardly at his show of wealth. He knew that it would, or should, infuriate Patrick. I reckoned it as the
only way Coroticus could show his independence, to show his displeasure with the way we had treated him.

“Welcome to my hall. It is a bit early for our evening meal, but I invite you to enter and enjoy some warmed and spiced wine. I expect Lord Liguessac and the sister Rhiannon to join us.
The brothers will eat separately from us tonight so that they may keep to their practices, and so that we may be free to discuss those matters of an earthly nature that concern us.”

I suspected that that was Coroticus’s way of saying that we would talk about Elafius’s murder, and perhaps it might signal the beginning of some negotiation for the surrender of
Gwilym. For that, I could not blame him. He was sworn to protect the brethren, and Patrick would denounce him for betraying that as quickly as he would for harboring a murderer.

I smiled, though, to know that Rhiannon would be among us. Part of me was excited by her. Part of me hated that I was. Ygerne was ever present in my mind, but the shade of my brother guarded her
and kept me from pressing my suit. It was silly. This I knew. Perhaps if I had not so neglected my brother and his family for so many years, I would not feel so strangely about it. No matter the
cause, I did feel odd, and until I could conquer that feeling I could not bring myself to let Ygerne know my heart. Heart. A man’s heart is a creature of conflict, and none more so than
mine.

We went in then and found seats around Coroticus’s long table. His servants hustled about, filling our beakers from bowls of steaming wine. The beakers all matched, and I recognized them
as products of Gaul. I knew that they had not been cheap. Another sign of that pesky prosperity that worried Arthur.

As if he had heard, I saw the Rigotamos cock his head to one side and look straight at me, jiggling his beaker in his hand. I nodded, but so slightly that only Arthur would have noticed. He was
telling me that tonight, this night, I was back working as his counselor, not in a
coito
with Patrick.

I took up my beaker and enjoyed the scent of the fennel and clove mixed with the steaming, pale red wine. One sip told me that it was only lightly watered, and that the spices enhanced its
flavor nicely. As I drank, I saw Rhiannon sweep into the hall, her long robe lofting behind her. She wore a kind of wrap around her head and a silver cross at her neck.

Almost on her heels, Lauhiir hurried in, his face red and puffy and his tunic stained with sweat. He stumbled to a halt before Coroticus and bowed. “My apologies, my lord abbot, for being
so late. Pressing business on the Tor delayed me.”

Coroticus nodded as did Arthur, and Lauhiir hustled to his seat. My father told me that the old Romans used to lie on couches around their tables. I smiled at the thought. No wonder their empire
was falling apart. Even Arthur, for all his devotion to things Roman, would never countenance such luxury, such softness. But that was the soldier in him. For us, the realities of life made a
luxury of social niceties. We ate when we had food. Starved when we had none. Whether we did that standing up or sitting down was of little consequence to us. But to eat lying down implied that we
were sick or near death. I chuckled out loud at the thought. For what had the Roman empire been but sick and near death? The softer they got, my father had said, the closer to ruin they had
come.

Now that all the guests were present, the servants streamed in with baskets and baskets of hard-boiled eggs and oysters still in their blackish-gray shells.

As they worked, I glanced around and looked, really, at Coroticus’s hall for the first time. Strangely, I noticed that there was little difference between this, an abbot’s hall, and
Arthur’s hall, that of a king. Banners covered the sturdy timber walls. One held what I took to be a portrait of the Christ set against the Greek letters
chi
and
rho
. Others
held figures of the cross. I had seen the same thing on floor mosaics in old Roman buildings. These designs were woven skillfully into a long cloth banner. This bothered me. Skilled weavers, at
least this skilled, were not many in our lands, and importing such would not be cheap.

A wall at one end blocked off Coroticus’s suite of chambers, where Bedevere and I had stayed the night before. I looked back toward the entrance and found my nose but inches from
Rhiannon’s. So lost was I in surveying Coroticus’s hall, I had not noticed that she had circled the table and slipped into a chair next to me.

“You are not half so grim and ugly when you are not questioning people, Master Malgwyn,” she teased me. “What causes you to study the walls?”

“I wondered where the abbot obtained his wall hangings.” I turned away, resuming staring at the wall.

Next, I felt her breath, warm and scented with chewed mint leaves, blow on my neck. The hairs rose and a flush spread up my face. I leaned away and turned toward her finally.

“You do not act like a sister of the Christ, my lady.” And, in truth, she did not.

She was beautiful. Free of the cosmetics of chalk and berry juice, her skin showed no blemish. Her defiant chin, thrust out toward me, was one of her most appealing attractions. I truly longed
for her. And this I could not show.

“Are you and Coroticus intent on enraging Patrick?”

She smiled and nodded across the table to Bedevere. “Why say you this?”

“Your clothing. It is just that kind of thing that makes Patrick angry. His has been a life of simple things, of hunger and deprivation. For him, sacrifice is the way to the Christ. For
him, luxuries are the province of the corrupt, fine jewelry”—and I reached and held her ornate cross in my palm—“the properties of the evil.”

She looked away, her eyes now focusing on the wall. “I would argue that if one truly loves the Christ, then displaying His symbols, in whatever manner, is praiseworthy. That I appreciate
fine workmanship should not matter.”

“As you wish,” I said. In truth, I cared little about her clothing. “How did a sister come into possession of such an ornate cross? Did you not take a vow of
poverty?”

“I did, but it was a gift from the abbot when I took over the sisters’ community, a symbol of my new office.”

“He seems not to have deprived himself either,” I said sourly.

“And why should he? He is the abbot, not one of the
monachi
. His station requires him to attend councils and feasts. You cannot command respect in tattered rags. Besides, he comes
from a rich family.”

I knew one beggar, his clothes soiled and smelly, whom a king raised high, but I decided not to mention it. Such would seem as bragging, and I had nothing to brag about.

“What bothers me, Rhiannon, is that Coroticus has only recently begun adorning himself with such trinkets. And now he is sharing his bounty with you.”

She stared at me then, with the most intent look I had ever received from anyone. My neck and forehead grew wet, and it was not from the heat of the fire. “I have not bedded Coroticus, and
I do not intend to, though he would welcome it most heartily. He is too much the politician for my taste, and one should never find one’s pleasure too close to home.”

I recoiled, but slightly. I did not expect such candor. “What of your vow of chastity?”

“That is not required, only suggested.”

“Strongly suggested.” I was thinking of Guinevere and her expulsion from the same community this woman now headed. Obviously, many things had changed with Rhiannon’s
arrival.

Rhiannon shrugged at my comment. She seemed to look away, but I saw her eyes flit back and forth as she furtively watched me. But Coroticus had risen and stolen my attention.

“My lord Arthur,
episcopus
Patrick, lords and lady.” He added that last with a smile at Rhiannon. “It is my pleasure to offer this small bounty for your
nourishment.”

This “small bounty” was more than Arthur or any lord of the
consilium
could offer. Yet another puzzling sign of prosperity.

As more delicacies like dates, which must have been shipped in casks from Egypt, and meats were served, the talk turned to taxes and the church’s obligation. Coroticus argued that the
church should be exempt from taxes. Arthur asked, simply, why? And with that came talk of Arthur’s church. I sighed. Patrick remained neutral

While this debate, which Lauhiir seemed to observe with great amusement, continued, I watched as one of Arthur’s soldiers slipped quietly beside Bedevere and whispered in his ear. He
immediately rose, and without begging Arthur’s leave, strode to the door. I followed, glad to leave the argument at the table behind.

A
t the door I saw Illtud, one of Arthur’s leading commanders. A tall, handsome man, with flowing hair somewhere between red and brown, he had
brought two troops of horse at Arthur’s call, though the Rigotamos had just asked for one. Illtud was the kind of officer a general, or a king, needed. He did not hesitate to apply his own
common sense to his orders. And caution was his byword. If Arthur asked for one troop, he would bring two.

Now, his copper hair was darkened by sweat and a look of concern marked his face. “Malgwyn, ’tis good to see you.” He nodded to me, but he was clearly distracted and turned his
attention to Bedevere immediately. “The last patrol has still not returned. I seek permission to send another ten-man patrol to seek them out.”