M. K. Hume [King Arthur Trilogy 04] The Last Dragon (37 page)

Outside, the black sky was riven with forks of white and yellow fire while the earth rumbled and shook with thunder. The trees cried as they were ripped from the ground by unusually strong winds, and even the nocturnal owls were forced to seek safe places where they could survive the terror that came from the heavens.

Had anyone cared to look, the stars were blotted out, one by one, as the storm marched across the sky, so that heaven itself became invisible. Under his warm furs, with his wound stitched, treated and covered, Arthur slept with the innocence of a healthy animal, unaware that the margins of his world were shrinking as time turned Britannia into a cauldron of trouble.

CHAPTER XI

OF LOVE AND WAR

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond and must be polished, or the lustre of it will never appear.

Daniel Defoe,
Of Academies: an Academy for Women

That season was to live in Arthur’s memory as the last months of his boyhood, the period before time, war and violence swept away everything he valued. His wound healed swiftly, leaving a spectacular new scar so that he now had two white lines running parallel across his body, occasioning much curiosity when they were compared with his healed shoulder wound.

Arthur hated being confined to his bed, so while he recovered he was permitted to carry out light duties working at the forge with Rhys ap Myrddion. A horrified Glynn was quite colourful in his description of Arthur’s fate if the wound tore open and permitted the invisible evils of infection to creep beneath the skin. So graphic and ghastly were Glynn’s word pictures that Arthur actually spent most of his time in his quarters until the wound was nothing but a pink-red scar stretching from one side of his abdomen to the other.

After that, he enjoyed his daily sessions at the forge where the iron was melted for the construction of Taliesin’s chains. Once he could move freely, Rhys permitted him to ply the huge leather bellows that kept the fires white hot. Where Taliesin had found the large store of iron scrap needed to complete their task was beyond Arthur’s imaginings.

‘Your brother must have prised every nail and scrap of iron out of the tribes, not to mention pillaging Roman sites, to find such a store of metal. Is our little dyke worth all this effort?’

Rhys grinned with a white and charcoal smile that was much brighter for the glare of flame that surrounded them. ‘My brother is . . . strange, as you are no doubt aware, but he’s rarely wrong when he obeys his instincts. And those instincts led him to you, Arthur, just as our father was led to King Artor a generation or two ago.’ He withdrew a long ribbon of iron from the forge as he spoke, and Arthur thought it resembled a coil of white rope that gradually flushed to cherry red as it cooled. With a sharp iron chisel in one hand and a wooden-handled hammer in the other, Rhys cut the pliant cord of iron into three . . . four . . . five regular strips a little longer than a man’s hand. From his position at the bellows, Arthur found it impossible to raise his eyes from Rhys’s deft gloved fingers. He watched as Rhys put down the chisel to pick up a set of long tongs and replace one of the short pieces of iron in the forge before nodding to his assistant. Using the muscles in his back and upper arms, Arthur brought the red-hot coals to shimmering life until the short thread of iron glowed white again. ‘I, on the other hand, have no gifts beyond those things that are perceived by my brain, my hands and my curiosity.’

Rhys fed the glowing thread of iron through the last completed link in the chain, then twisted the white-hot metal into a perfect oval around the horn of the anvil. Using another set of tongs and his heavy hammer, he pounded the ring with perfectly judged force until small chips of red metal sparked in the hot, dry air and the two raw edges of cooling iron joined perfectly.

‘I consider myself to be a free man,’ Rhys added, and twisted the iron ring off the anvil and placed it in a wooden barrel of cold water, where it sizzled momentarily before changing to the grey of dead men’s lips.

‘You’re a natural man,’ Arthur said slowly as Rhys placed the next thread of iron on top of the hot coals.

‘So are you, boy. I see no sign of a white streak in that curly mop of yours, and you do not appear to be haunted by dreams or strange images in your head. We’re the lucky ones.’ Rhys lifted the end of the growing chain from the barrel and laid it on the anvil while the new thread became white with heat. Then he took the newly cooled ring at the end of the chain in his gloved left hand, bent the hot iron thread through the oval loop with his long-nosed pliers and wound it round the horn of the anvil. A few quick strikes of the hammer sealed the half-formed circlet, and the chain continued to grow.

At last Rhys pulled off his gloves and used a tin dipper to douse his head with water from the barrel. Sighing with pleasure, he turned back to Arthur, taking in the broad shoulders, the keen eyes and the thick bones of wrist and ankle and lamenting the loss of the master smith who lived within this lad, who was still as malleable as the iron he was forcing to bend to his will.

‘I hear a screaming at the back of my skull, just there, when I’m in danger.’ Arthur tapped the back of his head with his knuckles. ‘Sometimes it starts with an itch, or a word or two, but whenever I’m in danger it just seems to come from nowhere.’

Rhys leaned back against his anvil and crossed his arms across his belly, not in dread or out of a need for protection, but with the ease of a man who has always lived with wonders.

‘Your gift seems useful to me, even if it’s only in your imagination. Given your kin, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything you came up with in the way of talents we cannot see. Father was fascinated by those strange gifts, although he hated his own talent for prophecy. He lost it in middle age in some type of unholy bargain and it didn’t return until his last years, but growing up it seemed perfectly normal to me to have a father who spoke of flying ships of iron and journeys to distant stars. I’ve thought hard about some of Father’s more improbable weapons of war and I’m convinced they could be made to work by great and inventive minds.’

‘Your father was a living legend. Neither my mother nor my father has any such talent, but I understand exactly what you are saying.’

‘To Father’s best knowledge, Pridenow was the earliest of your family to bear this unseen affliction, although he managed to hide his fits from others.’ Rhys eyed Arthur carefully as he spoke, hoping the young man was mature enough to understand his colourful background. ‘Father’s stories say that Pridenow had cruel headaches which were passed on to his daughter, Ygerne, a woman who possessed true glamour and the power to draw men to her. No one ever thought of harming Ygerne, not even Uther Pendragon, who seemed to have been prepared to kill almost everyone else, regardless of their station. Morgan was obviously tainted, and gloried in it, while Morgause had a talent for long life, childbirth and power. I know that sometimes these gifts don’t seem to be anything more than odd coincidences, but you and I both know that they are real. Don’t you feel the oddness in your sister Anna? Doesn’t Ector’s wife sometimes make you wonder? Is it so odd then that you imagine warnings when you’re in danger? Be grateful for it, but tell no one about this particular skill, for they might make connections which could do you harm. Do you understand me, Arthur?’

‘I understand, Master Rhys. I must admit that I wish I was free to choose a craft. How fine it would be to become a smith, or to learn the rudiments of healing. I try to imagine the freedom of choice, but I don’t believe that the sons of masters can ever have free will, for we are all born to serve our tribes. Such is the privilege and the punishment of leadership. We have a soft bed, food for our bellies and servants to smooth our lives, but in return we must serve our people, giving our whole selves to the welfare of the weakest, the least able and the most elderly as a sacred duty. Bedwyr believes this service to be an absolute obligation and so does my mother. I have thought about it a lot, and I have come to believe that they are correct. Power and wealth are only transitory, and their pleasures must be paid for. The voice in my head might be a part of that payment.’

Rhys wiped his dripping face with a twist of old cloth. ‘You could be right, lad, but my brother expects his chain to be finished by the time the season is done, so it can be set in place before winter comes. Back to the bellows with you, young Arthur, and exercise your muscles in the service of the west. This chain must hold back the Saxon boats.’

The approach of winter was scarcely noticeable in the fair but slightly tawdry city of Aquae Sulis. The wind was cold and the trees were relinquishing their leaves in sodden piles of brown sludge, but the walled gardens encircling every public building were still quite green, while the Roman predilection for fountains found full expression at every crossroad and in every courtyard.

At first, Arthur was embarrassed by the baths for which the city was famed, for both sexes bathed there on a regular basis, separately and together. He had nothing against swimming – but in public? And naked? He felt sick at the very thought of baring his whole body for the amusement of a crowd of men, servant girls and food vendors. Huddled in his towel, he watched incredulously as Germanus and Lorcan oiled their bodies and used their strigils to clear the accumulated grime out of their pores before plunging into the hot pool, where they stood and jeered at their student. Sheer embarrassment drove him to oil his skin in imitation, but the strigil seemed shaped to cut and nick his underarms and upper thighs. He obviously lacked the necessary familiarity and dexterity with the implement.

‘Hadn’t you better get in the water before you bleed to death?’ Lorcan demanded, his dark eyes dancing with humour.

‘Is he yours?’ a portly citizen asked as Arthur waded awkwardly out towards them, his face contorted as the hot water rose up his thighs.

‘He’s ours, in so far as we’re his teachers,’ Germanus replied cautiously, his eyes lazily scanning the affluent-looking, well-fed gentleman who watched Arthur so intently. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I organise gentlemen’s amusements. Wrestling, boxing – you know the type of thing. I don’t suppose . . . ?’

‘No!’ Lorcan and Germanus said as one, grimacing, as Arthur slid under the water, emerged again and moved into the tepidarium with visible relief.

‘Such a pity,’ the citizen murmured as he took in Arthur’s sculpted shoulders, mane of dripping hair and beautifully etched, muscular abdomen. ‘The scars, I mean,’ he added hurriedly. Lorcan grinned wickedly.

‘You may be of some use to us, sir, if you’re of a mind to assist strangers in your city,’ he said. The two tutors looked at each other with unholy glee. ‘We have a duty as the boy’s mentors . . .’

‘But in an unfamiliar city . . .’ Germanus’s voice faded away.

‘And as a priest, my experience in these matters has been quite limited . . .’

‘Oh, you’re looking for a good brothel?’ the portly gentleman said, the confusion clearing from his plump features. ‘Of course, your lad will need the very best.’

‘Of course,’ Lorcan and Germaus chorused in unison.

‘The house you need is Aphrodite’s Altar. There’s no better brothel in all of Aquae Sulis, for it’s Roman in style,’ the citizen murmured appreciatively, and licked his pink lips.

‘Shaved?’ Germanus asked.

‘Waxed!’ the citizen answered, and shuddered deliciously.

He told them where the brothel could be found, and the tutors clapped him on the back in thanks before sliding into the tepidarium like large pale seals.

‘Come. It’s time you learned what it is to be a man, young Arthur,’ Germanus said in a jovial voice that held more than a trace of mockery.

‘But first we must bathe in cold water,’ Lorcan added, ‘and put a comb through that mop you call hair.’

Bemused, Arthur tried to make sense of his tutors’ teasing. Then, with another hot flush, he began to understand. ‘But I don’t know what to do, and I haven’t any money. You can’t just dump me in some brothel and hope I figure out what I’m doing. Can you?’

‘It’s time you learned, laddie. You’re a great lump of a boy, all hair and teeth, so let’s see if the ladies can soften you a little.’ Lorcan patted him affectionately on the head. ‘You need to become a man, so we’ve organised an excursion for you.’

Arthur blushed and looked terrified. He had not forgotten the tales of his friend, Eamonn pen Bors, who had been taken to a street prostitute by his cheerful older brother. He felt his stomach settle somewhere around his bare, bony toes.

‘Never mind. All you need do to impress the ladies is speak the truth, compliment them often and be very, very grateful,’ Germanus told him. ‘Women are different from men and they don’t think the way we do. You’ll learn that their minds can dance around a half-dozen different subjects without wasting time on logic. Bless them, we men can rarely understand them.’

‘So maybe we should put off this meeting to a later date,’ Arthur suggested desperately. ‘I’ll forgo the experience. After all, I won’t miss something I’ve never had.’

‘And spoil our amusement? No, it’s time you met your fate, young Arthur. The servant girls come close to raping you every time you take off your tunic to wash that torso of yours. If I were a few years younger, I’d be jealous.’ Lorcan’s face became serious as he beckoned over a merchant who traded in ales, ciders and wines. Economically, he raised three fingers to indicate the number of drinks he wanted to purchase. Arthur watched in amazement as he fished a copper coin out of his mouth and washed it casually in the frigidarium before handing it over to the vendor.

Small tin mugs of some pungent brown liquor were thrust into the hands of Lorcan and Germanus, who handed the third to Arthur. The lad sniffed the liquor doubtfully, but Lorcan swallowed his draught in one gulp. The priest shuddered convulsively and his eyes immediately began to water. ‘Damn me, Germanus, but that’s excellent liquor. It’s some kind of country brandy, but I’d rather not ask too many questions about how it’s made. Drink up, Arthur, because it will turn your adventure into great fun.’