End of the Century (4 page)

“This one is with me.” Lugh motioned to Galaad with a nod. “Keep watch out here, why don't you, and raise the alarum if the Saeson horde should swim up the Gallus.” He then glanced over his shoulder at Galaad. “Come along, tadpole.”

With that, Lugh disappeared through the entrance. Galaad glanced at the guard, who seemed to quiver with frustrated anger, and hastened after his guide.

As they made their way through the corridors of the palace, Galaad burned to ask Lugh why the sentry had called him “Long Hand,” but the Gael's dark expression and the quickness of his pace suggested the question would not be welcome. Instead, he followed along, taking in the faded grandeur of the building and its fixtures. Sculptures stood atop pedestals in recessed alcoves, likenesses of long-dead emperors and forgotten gods. They passed outside into an enclosed garden, the hedges bare and leafless, the dead grasses underfoot rimed with hoarfrost. Then they reentered the building on the far side and came at last to a large reception hall, semicircular in shape, thronged with people, two dozen or more.

“Wait here,” Lugh said, pointing along the wall, where a low bench sat. “Artor will be along presently, and then you can bore him with your strange tale yourself.”

With that, Lugh turned and moved off into the room's center to join a knot of men talking closely, leaving Galaad on his own.

Galaad, eyes wide, sat on the stone bench and tried unsuccessfully not to look like a complete rustic. It wasn't as though he could help himself, though. These men gathered here, he knew, represented a larger sampling of humanity than he'd ever witnessed before. From their modes of dress and the varied accents and dialects Galaad could hear, he knew that they were representatives of the various client kingdoms of the island, from as far as beyond Hadrian's Wall in the north and the shores of Demetia in the west, and among them perhaps envoys from the Hibernian dynasts or the nations of Gaul beyond the channel.

The center of the audience chamber was dominated by
stibadium
dining couches surrounding a pair of semicircular
sigma
marble tables, placed with their straight sides facing one another so that the whole formed a large marble circle. At the head of the table was a heavy oaken chair, delicately gilt with hammered gold, which like the couches now stood empty.

The floor under Galaad's feet felt warm, no doubt with a Roman heating system hidden beneath, and was elaborately mosaiced. The mosaic was a disquieting mix of Christian and pagan imagery—representations of the Messias balanced by depictions of Bellerophon upon winged Pegasus slaying a monster, the Virgin Mother opposite Apollo and the seasons, cherubim vying with chimera, and at their center the Chi-Rho—suggesting that one of the previous tenants had practiced Gnostic heresies.

It was only midday, but with the warmth seeping from the floor into Galaad's tired feet and the long miles he'd already walked since dawn, he felt himself already growing torpid and weary. He was lulled by the susurration of voices of those gathered in the room, the crowd steadily growing as the moments passed. His lids were heavy over bleary eyes, and he found himself almost lulled to sleep sitting upright on the hard stone bench when the voices around him ceased, of a sudden.

Galaad's eyes opened wide, and he sat bolt upright, half convinced that
he'd dozed and the room had emptied while he slumbered. But no, the room was even more crowded than before, though now silent. The reason for the sudden cessation of conversation was the figure which now stood at the entrance in the chamber's far fall. Having just entered, he paused, surveying the room.

This newcomer was tall, and though perhaps near the end of his fourth decade of life, carried himself with the ease and alertness of a much younger man. Draped over his back was a red cloak, so dark it was almost purple, clasped at the shoulder with a large bronze brooch. Beneath this he wore a linen tunic dyed a deep blue, bound at the waist with a broad leather belt, and a pair of white breeches, their bottoms stuffed into the tops of heavy cavalry boots. Around his neck was the torc of the High King, a thick woven braid of gold with the head of a dragon sculpted at either end. His beard and mustache were neatly trimmed, and his brown hair hung straight to the nape of his neck. Finally, at his belt hung a long sword, the spatha of a Roman cavalryman, but the simple soldier's hilt replaced with one of finely wrought gold and silver.

This was the man Galaad had come to see. This was Artor, High King, Count of Britannia.

At an unspoken signal from Artor, the knots of conversation dispersed, and everyone moved to find their accustomed place. A dozen men sat themselves on the couches, Lugh among them, leaning against the carved cusps of the table's edge. With a start, Galaad realized that these were the captains of Artor's cavalry, the elite of his fighting force that had driven the Saeson from Britannic lands. He looked with newfound admiration at his Gaelic guide.

As Artor took his place in the gilt chair at the head of the marble circle, his sword laid across his knees, the remainder of those gathered in the hall arranged themselves behind the couches, respectfully.

Galaad realized that he'd risen to his feet at some point, unknowingly, and sheepishly sat back down on the bench.

“God give you a good day, gentles,” Artor said to the room, somewhat wearily. “What business have we today?”

In the hours that followed, it was not only Galaad that struggled to stay awake. Several others, Artor himself chief among them, seemed forced to
shift themselves upon their seats constantly, blinking hard and forcing their eyes open, as the apparently endless parade of petty business was marched before them.

Galaad wasn't sure what he might have expected the day of a High King to be like, nor what type of industry he would have assumed a Count of Britannia would have turned his hand to, but he was certain that it would not have included the sort of trivial disputes and mean concerns which he heard aired that afternoon. This kingdom disputed the demarcation of borders with its neighbor, that tribe complained that those upstream polluted their shared waters in defiance of long-held custom, these farmers protested that the landlord to whom they were tenant refused the services for which their taxes made him liable. But the pleas were not limited to those under Artor's dominion. Merchants from the Middle Sea carried grievances that their trade agreements with the High King's government were not being honored, their monopoly on the export of tin infringed by business arrangements that Britannic sellers had made with their competitors. The envoy from a Gaulish king protested that Artor had not supplied the copper and grain which the treaty between their two nations demanded. And a Britannic missionary who worked to convert the subjects of the High King of Hibernia to the Roman religion carried word that the landholder of Alt Cult's soldiers once more raided the island and had again begun to take Christian converts as slaves, as they had in the days of the late Patricius.

One of the captains seated at the marble circle snored gently, head lolling, and Galaad began to suspect that for men who had been bound together on the field of battle, there were far more engaging pursuits than the dreary business of statecraft. Even Artor, who seemed better at hiding his thoughts than many of the others in the room, seemed far less than enthused.

Galaad busied himself identifying those he could from the stories he had heard. Artor was easiest, of course, but only slightly less easy to name was Artor's counselor, the man who called out the supplicants to address the High King and who silenced them when he felt they had spoken long enough.
Caradog, so the stories went, had once translated the Sais tongue to Britannic for the High King Vitalinus, long before Galaad was born. Later, he had fought against the Saeson at the side of Artor's father, Utor. It was said that Caradog had gained his strangely bent arm in battle, but that for all of its withered appearance it was stronger than the limbs of any other three men combined.

The afternoon wore on, and the hall gradually emptied, as supplicants stated their case before the High King, heard his judgement, and departed. Soon, the only ones in the room were Artor and his twelve captains seated about the marble circle, and Galaad sitting on the stone bench at the back of the hall.

“Is there any more business?” Artor asked, stifling a yawn.

“None that I know, majesty,” Caradog answered, consulting the tablet laid on the table before him.

“In that case…”

Galaad began to panic. He felt sure he'd been forgotten, or else overlooked, and that his long journey to Caer Llundain would have been for nothing. With all the courage he could muster, he half rose from the bench into a standing position. He opened his mouth, intending to speak, but succeeded only in emitting a faint squeaking sound. He intended to try again, but never knew if his attempt would have succeeded, as in rising he jostled the bundled slung over his shoulder, causing it to slip far enough to one side that his grandfather's grandfather's sword slid loose from the bindings.

As the sword tumbled to the floor, Galaad grabbed for it, desperately, but even as he watched every inch of the fall, he felt as though he were moving through frigid water, so slowly did his limbs seem to move. So it was that he seemed to have moved but fractionally by the time the sword clattered to the mosaic floor. The deafening sound of metal on stone resounded on the hollow floor, coming back even louder.

Galaad looked up, horrified, and found that all thirteen pairs of eyes in the hall were directed at him.

“Ach, I forgot!” Lugh said, snapping his fingers. “This little tadpole has a story for you, Artor.”

The High King glanced from the Gael captain to Galaad and raised an eyebrow. “Do you, now?”

Galaad opened his mouth once more, and discovered he'd forgotten entirely how to speak.

“My name is Galaad, and I come from Glevum, in Powys, in the west.”

Galaad stood facing the gilt chair of the High King, his hands twisted into white-knuckled fists at his sides, trembling with nervous anxiety.

“I know where Glevum is,” Artor said, his tone surprisingly gentle.

“Oh.” Galaad blinked, and swallowed hard. “Of course. Well, as I say, my name is Glevum…”

“I thought your name was Galaad,” Caradog said, glancing up from his tablet.

“Um, right, of course, my name is Galaad. And…” He broke off, his breath catching in his throat. He'd already forgotten his own name, so nervous was he, and now found that he'd forgotten what he meant to say. That is, he knew what he had in his head to say but could not for his life recall the words he needed to say it.

“Relax, friend,” Artor soothed, folding his hands on the sheathed sword that lay across his lap. “There's no reason to be afraid.”

“But I'm afraid there may be, majesty,” Galaad said, eagerly. “That's just the problem. I don't know what the woman is showing me, but I think it could be something fearful indeed.”

The High King narrowed his eyes and leaned forward in his chair. “What woman?”