Dragon's Child (42 page)

Uther would scarcely notice her absence.

Queen Ygerne stared into her silver mirror. Her grey eyes, so different from her son’s cold orbs, softened as she remembered her father’s face, like - yet unlike - Artorex. Uther may have stamped his bloodlines on the young man in hair and body, but the boy’s firm jaw and those colourless eyes belonged to her father.

In the Great Hall, those grey eyes had looked at, and over her, without any recognition. Why should he care for her? Had she fought for him when he was too small to fight for himself ? She had not. Had she taken the honourable course when she discovered Uther’s plot to trick her into his bed? No. She never even thought to open her veins. And hadn’t she stayed with her monster husband for decades, when common morality suggested that she should have left?

For the first time in many years, Queen Ygerne laughed freely. Uther was embarked upon a fruitless struggle with his only son that would poison the last years of his life. Beyond doubt, Uther would fail. Her father had been a warrior beyond peer and Uther had been the greatest tactician of Celtic Britain. So what would Artorex, the culmination of them both, achieve?

‘More than you, Uther. More than you!’

 

Four weeks after his audience with the High King, Artorex returned to the Villa Poppinidii with the core of the impossibles at his back. He would have travelled during the first week after his return from Anderida, but he was obliged to make provision for the wounds of his men, and Venta Belgarum was unwilling to let their hero go. Also, to his shame, a corner of Artorex’s heart feared to face his daughter and the decisions that he’d made for her future.

The spring thaw had begun and the earth was sodden with seeping water that fed the bulbs, flowers and weeds as they thrust their green heads through the moist farm soil. The Villa Poppinidii was at its best with the peach and pear trees laden with blossoms, buttercups growing in yellow drifts in the fields while newborn calves, foals and lambs frolicked in the long grasses.

Artorex could smell the rich, heady aroma of life beginning again as spring embraced the land once more.

‘Winter has passed, so joy and happiness can return,’ Artorex said softly to Ector as the two men gazed over the fertile fields. ‘All that death and waste was for such a petty thing - a crown that is as dead as stone. This place was all I ever wanted, so why did the three travellers ever come to change the natural way of things?’

As always, Targo and Odin stood behind him, grim guardians who watched Artorex’s back at all times. They would have turned away from their master’s grief, but Ector was standing beside Artorex and Odin trusted no one.

‘Who can say why men are such cruel, brutal creatures, my son?’ Ector replied thoughtfully as one hand stroked his foster-son’s broad shoulders. ‘It’s the women who civilize and the men who destroy. I think often of my Livinia and her gardens, and of little Gallia as she found beauty at the edge of the forest in places where we see only usefulness.’

‘Aye,’ Artorex answered simply.

He gazed fondly at Ector and struggled to put his thoughts into words.

‘I will go to Gallia’s house soon but, before I do, there is a request I must make of you,’ the young man said gently as he fixed his gaze urgently on the older man. ‘It is a matter of importance to me, and I will ask you to swear your oath on the Villa Poppinidii and the memory of our Mistress Livinia that you will keep your word on this matter.’

‘Ah, young man, what have they done to you in the south that you can doubt me? You, more than any other person, should know that I’d do anything you ask of me, if I could. I don’t need to swear my oath, but I’ll accede to your wishes. I swear my oath on Livinia’s ashes, on this good earth and on the love that keeps me here where the world is quiet and pure.’

Ector’s face was old now and was seamed by wrinkles, but he was still as strong as an old oak and the years stood lightly on his balding head and huge shoulders.

‘Licia cannot continue to be my child.’

Artorex’s voice was empty of grief, or filled with it, depending on the sensitivity of the listener.

‘I have been told that I am the legitimate son of Uther Pendragon, the last child of a warrior line whose blood has been poisoned by greed and corruption through many generations. I won’t expose Licia to ambitious men who’d exploit her to achieve their own ends.’

Then he sighed with all the regret that any true man can feel for the loss of his loved ones. He gazed around the fields and the mists of morning.

‘I want you to adopt Licia as your daughter. In these fields, she can grow tall and strong under your influence, just as I did. It is the best solution I can devise to ensure that she learns to live and laugh like her mother.’

‘But the Gallus family knows the truth of Licia’s birth,’ Ector protested.

‘Gallia’s family is much smaller now and her kin are very proud,’ Artorex responded. ‘They’ll follow your advice. Gallinus will understand the risks involved to his niece. Think, Father. She’s the granddaughter of Uther Pendragon, and she’s the niece of Morgan and Morgause, two truly frightening creatures. If Morgan knew that Licia still lived, she wouldn’t hesitate to snatch her away in an instant to teach her perversities. Can I permit such a fate for my little Licia?’

‘No!’ Ector replied forcefully.

‘If it be known in the future that she is my daughter, the Villa Poppinidii will become a magnet for the greedy, the violent and those men who’d want to father a son on her, even if rape was the only option. To such creatures, the grandson of Artorex would be a huge prize, and I wouldn’t wish such a fate upon her.’

‘Never!’ the old man hissed. ‘And I would die to prevent it.’

‘Then you must take her into your family. If such an arrangement would be acceptable to you, I would ask that I be permitted to become her foster-uncle so I can see her when duty permits. She is very young, and I’m certain she will forget me in time.’ Artorex’s face was infinitely sad. ‘I’ve never asked so much of any man as I now ask of you, Father. She’ll have a bride price of great worth, and the Villa Poppinidii will be safe, at least for the duration of my life. Gareth will see to everything else.’

‘I want nothing for this duty,’ Ector stated unequivocally. ‘For there’s no gold or land that can have half the worth of my children.’ He gazed into the face of Artorex. ‘Caius will be silent?’

‘Aye. Caius and I have reached an understanding,’ Artorex replied. ‘His fate is tied to mine, and will always be so.’

‘Well, I’m damned if I understand him,’ Ector said with some humour - and father and foster-son laughed ironically.

Later, Artorex strode across the fields, his shadows in place behind him, until he came to the burned earth where he’d known such joy. The timber of the framework was now ash, but the burned stone of the walls and the jagged foundations pointed to love that had been real, but was now lost forever. Already the tendrils of wisteria shoots, tougher than Artorex could imagine, struggled with the ivy to gain a foothold on the stone.

Absently, Artorex bent over to pull out a succulent weed growing between the flagged stones of the courtyard. Odin followed his master’s lead, so the weeds were soon gone and the tomb of Gallia and Frith, for such this place now was, was cleansed of the parasitic plants.

‘My greatest wish is that you should plant flowers around and among the ruins of my house,’ Artorex told Gareth that night. ‘Roses, spring blossoms and the deep strong roots of alder and hazel should flourish there, because a garden in Gallia’s memory is the only object of real worth that I can give to the baby Licia.’

Gareth knelt before his master and swore to serve Artorex as long as he lived, without question.

‘The Garden of Gallia shall be beautiful, for I will tend to it as you require. But I crave my lord’s permission to grow herbs and simples as well, and the ordinary daisies and poppies that Frith loved.’

‘There’s no need to ask, Gareth.’ Artorex smiled at the youth. ‘You may raise a memorial to Frith, my mother of the heart. I will send gold to pay for its construction.’

‘I’ll do as you ask, my lord. If you agree to come with me tomorrow, I’ll show you what I want to do.’

And so, in the morning, Artorex found himself back at the place where his journey had begun, in his glade in the Old Forest where the weak light of spring reached downwards to split the darkness.

The stone had not changed, nor had its powerful, eerie carvings. Artorex sensed that he was in the presence of something holy that was as alien to him as the ways of women.

Even Odin sensed the mystic presence and abased himself before the stone.

‘I ask a boon that I might keep this stone under my protection, Lord Artorex,’ Gareth explained while pointing at the carving. ‘Gallia and Frith came here almost every day, for it was a place where they felt contentment and were at peace with the world. Gallia said she felt close to you when she was here, and Frith told me the stone was sacred to women and was as old as the world. She ground her herbs in the cup on its spine.’ He smiled shyly at Artorex. ‘She told me that blood had defiled the stone in times long past, but that her woman’s magic had destroyed the demons that lived within it.’

‘Then you may move the stone where you will. Ector will give you whatever men you need to position the stone in its new place of rest. Perhaps you might lay it in the forecourt of the ruins so that a pond forms around it and water might drain from the cup when the rains fall.’

Artorex sighed, for in the past he’d only ever imagined a flow of fresh, sacrificial blood in its holy cup. He hadn’t discerned any other use for the ancient relic.

‘Perhaps, water flowers might make it an object of beauty rather than a symbol of death.’

 

During the coming months, Artorex, his scum and those warriors who flocked to his banner rode through the mountain chain like an armed whirlwind. No Saxon dared to walk on soil that Artorex deemed to be sacred to the cause of the west. No Norseman dared to cut a single tree in the forests that Artorex claimed as his own. And no man was left to breathe who stood against the dying Uther in his dusty Great Hall. The last Dux Bellorum became the Warden of the Britons, and his fame grew.

On those few, brief occasions when quiet settled on the borders, Artorex returned to the Villa Poppinidii. There, he played with a small blonde girl whom he called Licia, who was accompanied always by her constant shadow, the pale-haired Gareth.

Ector’s remaining hair also whitened, but the old man gained a whole new lease of life when Caius rode off to war as one of Artorex’s captains. Ector was often heard to say that Lucius’s gift of a foster-son was the greatest piece of luck in his long and fortunate life.

No house rose on the foundations of the old house where Gallia and Frith had died. Only flowers were allowed to live there, blooms that were cared for by Gareth who promised that no one would trouble Licia’s peace with tales of a warrior father. Artorex came to love her as an uncle should, on the surface at least. And if he wept for the loss of his daughter to preserve her safety, then only Targo knew. And Targo never told.

The sun rose and fell on the Villa Poppinidii as it had done for hundreds of years, and Gallia rested in a golden urn set in a niche in the ruined walls of her house. Regardless of the worth of her last resting place, no hand would dare to touch the Dux Bellorum’s garden or its contents. Eventually, even to the faithful Artorex, she became a dream, and then the faint memory of a dream, and time washed her away in the great actions of powerful men.

But the garden bloomed on the defiled earth where so much of her Artorex had died. The cup in the stone filled with clean water and washed away the memory of old evils. And Frith’s spirit danced in the wild daisies that grew in great white masses, intertwined with blood-red poppies like the heart’s blood she had shed for love.

For one year, Artorex pushed his great strength to the limit, living in the saddle and gathering around his core of surviving impossibles a large force of young and eager warriors. The nobility, the villages and the last Celtic-Roman settlements all sent their best sons to ride with Artorex, the Warrior of the West, and the few Saxon toeholds in the north-west of the British lands were forced back into the mountains or the Wash, like mud cleansed from Artorex’s feet.

Icy purpose drove him. When the west became a secure bastion, Artorex made camp in the mountains, in the old fortresses, creating a string of guardian towers to watch the encroaching Saxon menace that lay just over the borders.

During this time, Venta Belgarum never saw his face. He told himself that his hatred for Uther was so deep that he could not trust himself to allow the ancient, dying King to live. He tried to convince that coldest part of himself that his neglect of the source of all British power was also to protect Targo, who had sworn an oath to avenge Gallia’s murder.

But Artorex knew, in a sickened corner of his soul, that he couldn’t bear to see his own self in all of Uther’s ruin and cruelty. So he rode, fought and pushed the Celtic edge to the limit - through the power of Celtic horsemanship.

At the end of winter, Myrddion found Artorex in a windswept bivouac. The young man was brooding over maps drawn on soft, rolled cowhide as he planned his next campaign against the Saxon underbelly.

‘Don’t you have a smile for an old friend, Artorex?’ Myrddion murmured from the entrance to the simple mud and wattle hut.

Artorex raised his head to meet the dark eyes of Myrddion.

‘You’re always welcome, Myrddion, oldest of teachers.’ Artorex’s mouth twisted a little in irony, and Myrddion felt a wrench in his heart for his pupil’s lost innocence.

Artorex swept furs, discarded maps and an old and dirty wooden plate off a stool in the centre of the room.

‘Sit, my friend, and ignore my distraction, for I’m tired and heartsick at what must be done this spring. How goes Venta Belgarum?’