The Bretwalda (The Casere Book 4) (45 page)

Derryth nodded appreciatively. ‘Nice speech.’

‘Don’t tell them that.’ Conn pointed to a large pillar. ‘I need to get there. Cover me – some crackers perhaps?’

Derryth nodded and on Conn’s mark, a dozen arrows flew harmlessly into an opposite wall. It was distraction enough for Conn to get to the pillar as arrows whistled by his head.

‘I said ‘cover me’ – not waste arrows on that wall over there.’

‘Give better instructions next time, then. What does ‘cover me’ actually mean?’

The banter was just long enough for the crackers attached to the arrows to ignite, and the tom thumbs went off with a bang and a crash. Everyone scattered – the children were more scared of the sudden noise than the knives at their throats, and the folgere were distracted long enough to not slit their throats. A dozen men died as Conn turned from the pillar and Derryth and others emerged from the doorway, firing into the necks of those holding children. Children escaped in one direction while the folgere in another – they headed for the inner cirice and Ashtoreth. The pressure in Conn’s head was immense. Ashtoreth was giving everything she had to kill him. Every folgere that died, however, weakened her.

The great hall was now under Twacuman control and the children were being herded out the back of the room.

‘They must be running out of folgere. This is getting ridiculous.’ Bodies were lined on the floor everywhere – boys, youths, men – the arrows had been indiscriminate. Derryth was saddened by the carnage.

‘I think this is near the end. They are in the cirice – with the heart. Man, I have a headache. Ashtoreth is very upset.’ Conn looked at his old friend. ‘Derryth, I need to do the rest alone.’

Derryth nodded. ‘I know. We can’t enter the Cirice uninvited. Only you can, it seems. Take care.’

Conn nodded and, after restocking his arrows, ran for the doorway and did a forward roll over the cobble stone and behind a pillar. An arrow bounced off his brigandine. ‘Either they are getting better, or I’m getting slower. They hit me that time.’ Conn called out.

‘The latter.’ Derryth assured him.

‘Some help please.’

‘Okay.’ Derryth peered around the corner with a small mirror. ’12:05, 12:15 and 11:49.’

‘Three of them?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘I was just checking – I forget that you can count.’

Conn grabbed a chair that was within reach and kicking it with his leg in the opposite direction he peeled around the pillar. The momentary pause of the bowmen was all he needed; three very quick arrow found him alone and standing behind another pillar.

‘It’s you that can’t count – you told me that you have fifty-seven children when you had fifty-nine.’

‘So how long do you hold grudges? It was an oversight.’

‘That nearly got us killed.’

‘That nearly got us killed – true. Anyway; two rooms to go. Farewell.’

‘Farewell.’

Arriving at the next door, Conn removed three glass bottles from his backpack and filled the necks with muslin cloth. He then lit his Molotov cocktail and tossed it into the room – all three. They contained a special mixture of petroleum and chemicals that was as close to a tear gas and smoke bomb as he could make. It didn’t take long before people started to cough and splutter and complain. Wrapping his head in muslin and a wet rag pack over his mouth Conn stepped into the room. The folgere were starting to be distressed and Conn quickly put them out of their misery; as a dozen men fell to the floor dead. At his own limits, Conn raced through the other door; into a long corridor that headed to stairs and the stair led down to a dungeon.

‘Typical.’ Conn thought as he descended slowly down the staircase. The cirice was long, and surprisingly well lit; a pillar of light descended down from an outside wall, and lamps hung from the walls. The walls were decorated with images of men and boys fornicating together, while the virginity of girls was offered to Ashtoreth, under the guidance of a senior folgere. The scenes were cruel and degrading, and Conn felt sick.

The voice in Conn head was stronger. Here she sought to speak to him, and despite his block, he could still hear her. ‘How dare you come into my house and destroy my beloved. You have no right. No-one has that right.’

‘Ishtar has the right – you stole her folgere – you murdered them. She has every right to extract revenge.’

‘Ishtar? Ishtar was always too weak – she refused to do what had to be done – she let the Priecuman live when they had no place – and she weakened herself by creating those dreadful children of hers – to take care of them. She deserved what she got.’

‘Badb is Ishtar’s child?’

Ashtoreth laughed madly. ‘You think you know so much but you know so little. You have been lucky so far – you only faced my children in Meshech – a little bit of me to protect what should be mine. Of course Badb is Ishtar’s child – as are all the other horrid imitations. They are all weak.’

Conn could sense that there were three folgere in the room. But there were four bodies. Who was the fourth? The conversation he was having with Ashtoreth was confusing her folgere – they thought that only their leader spoke to Ashtoreth – how was it possible for this feorrancund to be able to speak to their beloved when they couldn’t. One ran across the room – but too slowly; he died on the floor of the Cirice.

‘LEAVE MY FOLGERE ALONE’. She screamed into his head.

‘I am Ishtar’s sword, Ashtoreth, her hand when she has none. You have two folgere left. How do they want to die?’

Conn heard a voice from the front of the room. ‘We will not die, Feorrancund, it is you who will die. Look – we have someone of yours. Already she has made her offering – but it meant little as she was unclean.’

Conn stood out and watched the two men drag a girl out from behind the altar. It was Disetha. Her dress was torn and her shredded dress exposed her battered body. She had obviously been repeatedly raped as dried blood was on her clothes and her legs.

Her voice was faint but resolute. ‘Hello papa. I’m sorry, but there is no other way.’

‘There is always another way, Disetha. I was expecting something – but not this.’

‘You were? I am surprised. I didn’t think you knew.’

One of the folgere was getting disturbed at the conversation. ‘What are you babbling about? Feorrancund – hand over your weapons or she dies.’

Conn took a deep breath. He had no choice. ‘Go ahead – kill her. It will only mean that you die slower and harder. It is better for you if you run into your own sword.’

Conn’s response caused confusion in Ashtoreth’s mind. They had all expected Conn to do anything to protect one of his.

The two folgere looked at him with surprise. ‘You want us to kill her? But you are weak – you are Priecuman – you will never do what has to be done. She is your daughter!’

Conn removed his sword and taking a cleaning cloth, shined the blade. ‘She is like my daughter; that is true. But we all have to make sacrifices – for you two, I’m happy to sacrifice her. Kill away.’

Conn could tell that Ashtoreth was about to urge them to stop but she was too late; the two folgere snapped in the rush of despair that grabbed them. They rushed forward with Disetha as if to collide her into him; their swords in their other hands to take Conn out as well. They didn’t account for Conn’s speed; he stepped and feigned as they attacked; the sword missing his chest by inches. The second man shoved Disetha forward, pulling his knife from her back. He turned to face Conn, expecting to see him dying. Instead Conn’s katana whizzed through the air, severing his throat. The other folgere had the wakizashi imbedded into his chest, and Conn removed it as he fell to the floor.

‘One thousand down, and one to go.’

Ashtoreth was screaming into his head; all her folgere were now dead; she was alone, and alone, Conn had determined, she would die. Conn went to Disetha. He kissed her on the forehead, and checked her wound.

‘I’m so sorry. There was no other way.’

‘Do not worry – this is the way. Do you have the large black stone with you – the one that is always around your neck?’

‘I do – how do you know about it?’

She smiled. ‘When I was younger in Sytha I used to watch you bathe – and pretend that one day you would take me as bedda. But you never did. I know why now.’

Conn removed the necklace from around his neck. ‘Why do you want it?’

‘I want you to put around my neck? The folgere used me as an offering – now all I have to do is offer myself.’

‘You would be folgere to Ashtoreth?’ Conn was incredulous. At the same time, however, he could hear Ashtoreth growing weaker in his mind – and strangely he could feel the concern of Ishtar and the other Gyden.

‘She is Gyden – my Gyden – the Gyden of my people. If she dies, we die. Perhaps we all die.’

Sighing, Conn lifted her head and lowered the necklace on to her chest and the strap over her neck. As it touched her, she spoke ‘Ashtoreth, I offer myself as your lover and your friend; to worship you, and to guide the worship of you by your people. Please accept my love.’

The stone flickered and then glowed; dimly and then in a sudden burst of light. It then faded. Disetha’s jaded breathing stopped and then re-started, weak but even. The wound that Conn had his hand over stopped bleeding and closed over; it was as if it had never been.

Shaking his head in amazement, Conn walked to the front altar and removed the large black stone from the centre of the stone, placing it into his pouch. There was no resistance and the haligdom barely flickered as he touched it. Ashtoreth was all but extinct. Returning to pick up the girl, he headed up the stairs and back into the sunlight. God, he needed a drink.

Chapter 21
Disetha il Axum

With Disetha so weak they stayed on the island for another two nights before heading back to Axum-jo. They had to build a pyre for the fallen Twacuman and then dig a mass grave for the folgere. The was well over a hundred of them. Of the two hundred Twacuman he landed on the island with, he left fifty behind. His greatest victory was also his largest defeat. He felt almost overcome with sadness and melancholy.

Njil explained how Disetha had managed to get off the boat. Conn had left both girls behind – and Disetha had not complained. However, as Njil turned back to sea, she had simply dived overboard, butt naked, with her dress around her waist. Without any way of doing anything about it, Njil did nothing.

There were also the girls to take care of – nearly two hundred had been stolen – as young as twelve and as old as twenty, and because of their treatment, most were in shock and distress. He mentioned it to Disetha as she recovered – she was still unable to stand. Coming back from the dead was taxing.

‘How many of the necklaces do you have?’

‘From the folgere?’

She nodded.

‘Nearly two hundred I think.’

‘Please give one to each of the girls. They were kidnapped because these are the called. The folgere felt it and were going to eradicate them. It will sooth their anguish. If they aren’t called, they will give them back.’

Conn didn’t really understand but did as she said.

The girl who Conn had rescued from torture came and asked him for one. It was the first words that she had spoken. As he handed her one, she declined.

‘Not that one…’

Bemused, Conn let her select one that suited her, and she, like the girls recovered quicker, and they returned to Axum-Jo.

~oo0oo~

They were very unpopular.

‘If I could hit you I would.’ Halla exclaimed. ‘We know what happened the last time I tried to do that…’ She turned serious. ‘Is it over now.’

‘Not quite.’ Conn knew it was close and for the first time in his life, it was making him sad.

Once Disetha was on her feet. They went in search of the cirice. She had a new couple of acolytes to help her – the girl he rescued – her name was Giselda, and Vila. Bizarrely, the beautiful woman from Jamut had been called to be a folgere.

‘I’m so happy you are not angry.’ They were in bed together for what would be the last time. ‘I have never felt complete since my initiation by the folgere. But at the same time, I felt a connection, deep down inside.’ She sat up on the mattress. ‘I am not the first be called from Jamut. The first Jarl’s mother was a folgere. I recall the story was that he brought her back from Sytha – before the great darkening.’

‘The First Sythan War.’

The First Sythan War finished in the Meshechian year 15 – or 15AC, the AC being After the Casere. It seemed that the Casere started a calendar epoch that started from his arrival. Conceited really. The Ancuman had a different numbering system – not unlike a lot of Asian systems; it was based on the age of the Bretwalda. The year had been Farolfur 80 – it would change to Vigbert 18.

‘Yes, the first. I think she was some native woman that he found over there and brought back as a theow. After she had her children with the Jarl, she left him and became a folgere, here in this very castle. She was supposedly very beautiful – and all the daughters born to the Jamut are said to have beauty.’

‘Eight hundred years ago?’

‘Yes.’ She stood up and walked around the room, naked. ‘When I touch the walls I think I hear her call me.’ She got back in bed. ‘Since you have released me, this is our last night together. If you give me a haligdom now, I’m sure we can make the night
really
memorable.’

Conn didn’t need to be asked twice.

As they wanted for the last of the Southern Isle wiga to arrive – including Kolbert and Sarun, Conn searched the castle and the grounds for the cirice, without luck. Disetha couldn’t find it either. He put it down to the fact that Ashtoreth hated him and tried to kill him many times – at this moment, she was silent. Disetha said that she was alive but only just. She also had to grow, and like all babies, she didn’t have a voice. He also didn’t have many haligdoms left. He had given them all away – all except one.

‘I thought you didn’t have any.’ Derryth was confused.

‘No – I have just one and it is a white one. I think it is a diamond rather than a white emerald – but I’ve never had it checked. It was my mothers, and if it is a diamond, I do not want to know where she got it from because it is too big to…’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I have an absurd idea. He got out the gem and placed in on a tile. He then spun it.

‘What are you doing?’

‘You say the wind speak to you. I’m going to let the gemstone speak to me.’

The stood and followed the direction it pointed and when they got to a blind end, they spun again.

They soon found themselves an audience. Disetha and her acolytes started following them. They were soon back inside the huge tower house. It was the biggest he had seen in Kishdah because if was one of the oldest. It seemed that the oldest was Himyar – possibly because the leader of the Kishdah at the time of the First Sythan War, was from Himyar.

By the time the Axum had wrested leadership of the Kishdah nation, they had a lot of experience building tower houses or donjons, and Axum was the biggest and best. It had more floors, and its walls were thickest.

Inside the gem had them climbing the stairs.

‘We’ve looked on every floor.’ Disetha complained, ‘several times.’ They kept going. Until they found themselves on the roof. It was flat. In the corner were the square building that were the guard stations. As the highest point in the town, guards observed all four directs at all times. Conn noticed that the guard towers were particularly high, and went to one of them, and climbed up inside. It was at least twenty-foot high. Back down, he addressed the group.

‘This is the cirice; or was. It has been taken down and moved. The roof; the walls; the pillars, everything. If we go downstairs, I’ll wager that there are more pillars holding up this roof that this roof is double the thickness.’

‘What do we do?’

‘We rebuild it.’

Because he didn’t have many of his craeftiga with him, Conn spent half a lunar supervising local masons. He still had the Twacuman, and as they were master woodworkers, together the rebuilt the cirice. The floor was lifted to be the ceiling ten foot up and with new pillar and new walls the cirice would soon be complete. There was the problem of the altar.

‘It can’t be destroyed and it would have been very difficult to move because it is very heavy.’ Conn complained to Derryth. ‘What did they do with it.’

‘How would they have got it up here?’

‘Only way I can imagine is a crane – a huge treadwheel crane. It would have been lifted up floor by floor.’ He stopped. ‘Of course, that is why the roof was destroyed. They needed to have access to the sky to construct and use the crane.’

‘Which means that the altar is under the bailey.’ Conn went and looked over the barricades. Finally, he pointed. ‘There.’

~oo0oo~

Workers started digging the next day and as they started to excavate the site, it was soon clear that Conn was right. Just like in Nobatia, a lot of the cirice was here – but it was placed carefully as this was still their folgere’s cirice. Three days later, they had the altar exposed and a large treadmill being constructed on the roof of the tower house. With everything in place, they moved the altar inch by inch up the side of the tower, until it was finally back on the roof.

As Conn watched one of the workmen came to him. ‘Marquis, we have found something.’

They walked down the huge hole. Against the side of the building were long flat pieces of stone where would have formed the dais on which the altar was sat. Most had been moved ahead of the altar but one had been stuck. With the altar gone, they were able to access it. He explained as they looked. ‘When we moved the stone, we found a doorway – it goes under the tower.’

Conn nodded with a heavy feeling. ‘Keep digging until we can open the door. Don’t open it.’

Conn and Derryth moved back to the bailey as more worker went down with buckets and shovels.

‘That is another prison isn’t it. Who would they imprison underground?’

‘Someone they hate the most.’

‘Ishtar?’

Conn nodded. It didn’t take long for the doorway to be accessed and the worker removed themselves from the hole as Conn moved down again. Derryth had a couple of candle lanterns fetched. He watched Conn use kunai to unlock the doorway from its three-hundred-year old seal. It opened by being pushed in. With a screech. the ancient hinges moved and Conn and Derryth entered the room. Their candles took some time to illuminate the room, at least for Conn’s eyes. Disetha was the only other one to enter. She staggered as if struck and Derryth caught her before she fell. Conn looked her with concern.

‘I think you should leave. You are not welcome here’.

What struck all three of them as unusual was that it wasn’t Conn’s normal voice. Shocked by both incidents, Disetha removed herself. Derryth looked at Conn.

‘You all right.’

‘Yea, I’m fine.’ He cleared the frog in his throat. ‘Not sure what happened then.’ He turned back around and pointed out the walls. ‘You need to read this – because I don’t think it will be there much longer. You will remember it better than me.’

‘What is it?’

‘The prophesy – probably written in blood.’

As Derryth studied the walls, Conn investigated the room. He found what he was looking for – the ancient bones. Derryth returned to his side. ‘It wasn’t very long. What is that?’

‘The bones of the folgere, and her haligdom.’ The haligdom was also unusual. It was hanging on the wall, on a gold chain. ‘There is only a single person, a single chain, and a single haligdom.’ Conn picked up the gold chain and as it left the wall, the haligdom simply dissolved into dust.

‘Well, that is not something you see every day. What happened.’

‘I think that it couldn’t be in two places at one time.’ He pointed. ‘Look at that.’ It was a crack in the wall – a large one, it was right behind where the haligdom had been handing. It went through the layers of marble and stone into the earth. They knew that because of the moisture stain down the wall. ‘This whole room is totally sealed. I’ve looked. It is lined with layers of marble so that it is a perfect seal. And the door was barred with stone from the dais and guarded by the altar of Ashtoreth. This room was designed to keep someone in, and allow nothing to escape. But here, there is a crack that goes all the way through to the earth.’

‘And she got out through the crack.’

‘I presume.’

‘What did she do after that?’

‘I don’t know – but I know where we can find out.’

~oo0oo~

Not soon after they left the chamber the roof collapsed and there was more work inside to fill in the new hole in the floor. With the dais completed, the altar was put in place, the treadwheel removed, and the cirice was finished. Cleaned and tidy, it was ready for the return of the haligdom. Conn returned to the room with a dozen ladies and the two hundred girls. Indeed, they had all been called to Ashtoreth.

Disetha explained the contradiction. ‘As you killed the male folgere, the power they held over the inner nature of Ashtoreth started to weaken. The male folgere were an aberration – somehow the outer nature of Ashtoreth became perverted and it consumed her and all her people. But it took a great deal of effort to maintain that – that is why they initiated all children – there would not be sufficient volunteers to maintain that control. As the numbers of folgere decreased, their number of initiations plummeted. So girls started to feel the call – as I did. And the folgere knew that – so they had all these girls kidnapped. By sacrificing them, they hoped that it would be sufficient to maintain their power of the outer nature.’

‘But why my daughters?’

‘You are the only person know to be able to counter an attack by a Gyden. By sacrificing one of your daughters they would understand why you are able to do that. Through her link to you, they would see inside your mind, and Ashtoreth would tear you apart from the inside.’

‘Just as Ishtar did in Nobatia.’

‘Indeed. And that is why Ishtar’s beloved was bought here, to the cirice to die. I understand now that she was the last – the holder of the heart of Ishtar, the most beloved. Just as I am the most beloved of Ashtoreth. Instead of being killed in Nobatia, she was brought here, and after the last folgere died, they placed her in that cell.’

Disetha knew all this because after her rejection, she spent a day in a deep meditational trance, to understand why she was so hated. She found the answers from the wind, as Derryth would have explained. The truth is everywhere.

With all the girls sitting around the outside of the room, Conn stood in the doorway of the room, Vigbert on his side. The dozen ladies were all naked – their black gowns cast on to the floor at their feet, and they started a chant that was joined by the two hundred girls. Leaving Vigbert behind, Conn walked up the stone steps and between naked women; their eyes closed and their ebony skin and breasts glistened with sweat. Fireplaces in the corner kept the room warm.