The Hallowed Isle Book Two (26 page)

“You are squabbling like dogs while another hound takes the bitch away. I want my wife back, and I want Cataur's head—it doesn't matter to me who leads us so long as we win. We need someone with experience, with an authority that all can see. I will pledge myself and my warriors to Aelle of the South Saxons until this war is done!”

A murmur spread through the assembly like wind in the trees. Aelle's head came up and he frowned as if uncertain whether to be grateful. Oesc grimaced back at him.
If you don't want it, all the better! You will be less likely to cling to power.

“He is right,” said Hæsta. “It is the ancient way of our people to choose a war-leader. Aelle is an old wolf and will lead us well.”

Everyone looked at Ceretic, whose face had gone dangerously red. But he was a wolf himself, and he could see that the temper of the gathering was against him. He shot Oesc a look of mingled amusement and fury and nodded.

“I agree.” He lifted his horn. “In Woden's name I swear it—I and all who are sworn to me will follow Aelle for the duration of this war!”

“Aelle!” came the shout as more horns were raised. “Aelle!”

For a time Aelle listened, then he stood, and gradually the shouting ceased.

“As you have chosen me your leader, I accept the call.” His deep voice rumbled through the air like distant thunder. “The Britons have given us fair words, but they cannot uphold them. There is no safety in oaths or treaties. Not until all of Britannia is Saxon will our wives and our homes be secure. Let us go forth in Woden's name, and fight until we have the victory!”

“Look, my lord—from here you can see the Isle of Glass. Beautiful, is it not?” Merlin pointed across the vale, where a scattering of hills rose from a sea of cloud. But only one of them compelled attention. The king reined in abruptly, and Merlin knew he had seen the Tor, its pointed cone dark against a sky flushed rose with morning light, its line pure as some Grecian vase.

“Very beautiful, had I seen it at any other time.” Artor's lips tightened and he kicked his mount into motion down the hill. “Does Cataur think that because this is a holy place I will hold my hand? This war is his doing!” His horse broke into a trot.

Merlin held back a little, gazing across the vale.
You will not be stopped by coming to the holy Tor, but perhaps you will be changed
.

The druid had been in Isca when word of the Saxon outbreak arrived. For one terrible moment the events of the first Saxon Revolt had played themselves out in memory. Even before the messenger appeared his dreams had been filled with images of blood and fire. Was it because of them that he felt as if he were repeating actions performed long ago? Or was it only because this was the old enemy, the White Dragon, that had come forth to do battle with the Red once more?

Hengest was dead. This was his grandson, and his foe was not an old king worn out with wars, but Artor. Still, it seemed to Merlin that this campaign was only the culmination of the wars he had fought so long ago, and it was right that one more time he should ride to battle behind a king.

At this season the marshlands were mostly dry. As they reached the bottom of the hill and clattered across the logs of the causeway, cattle grazing in the water meadows looked up with incurious gaze. But mist still hung in the hollows and dimmed the copses, as if they were moving through a series of veils between the worlds.

Artor's face was grim. His control, thought the druid, was no doubt too rigid just now for him to sense any changes in the atmosphere. But the other men, less preoccupied, were looking around them with mingled distrust and wonder. As the Isle grew closer, its rounded slopes rising up to hide the Tor, Merlin felt its power growing steadily stronger, like the vibration of a great river, or the heat of a fire. It had been a long time since he had come here. He had forgotten how, to those with inner sight, the Tor could become in truth an isle of glass through which the light of the Otherworld shone clear.

Open your heart and your eyes, boy,
he thought, fighting to control the intoxication of that radiance. The Christian wizard who had brought his followers to this place and built the first church at its base had known what he was doing. The Tor was a place of power.

By the time they reached the Isle, the sun was high. The mists had burned away, and with them, some of the visible mystery. The round church and beehive huts of the monks nestled at the base of the hill, with the community of nuns beside the sacred well beyond them. The lower meadows had sprouted a new crop of tents of hide and canvas, and men and horses were everywhere. The pressure of so many minds buzzed in Merlin's brain.

“Speak with Cataur,” he told the king, “and when you are done, however it goes, come to me on the top of the Tor. You will not wish to take the time, but you must do so. From the summit you will be able to see more than the road across the vale—you will see your way.” He held Artor's gaze until the angry light in the king's eyes faded and he knew that the younger man was sensing, at least a little, the ancient power that would outlast all of them and their fears.

“Look at that arrogant son of a swine, parading in here as if he had won a victory instead of plunging the land into war!” exclaimed Cai. “I know how I'd reward him if I were high king!” He frowned as Cataur approached the awning that had been set up to shade the meeting, escorted by Leo-degranus, the prince of Lindinis who was in a sense their host here. His hand drifted toward the pommel of his sword.

“Just as well you are not—” answered Betiver. “Artor will have to handle him like a man carrying coals through a hay-field, or we'll have all the west and south aflame. This deed of Cataur's has united the Saxons, but it could break the British alliance.”

“And Artor knows it—” Gualchmai shook his head. “He's got a frown on him that would curdle new milk. Still, ‘tis not entirely a bad thing. With every year the Saxons have been getting stronger. Do we smash them now, we'll not risk being too weak to do it in a few years' time. . . .”

His younger brother Gwyhir bared his teeth in a grin. He was pale of hair and combative, like his brother only in his height. The third brother, Aggarban, was short and darker. Men said that after the first son, all of Morgause's children had been festival got, of fathers unknown. In the north, where they held to the old ways, no one thought the worse of her. In the south they remembered that she was the king's sister, and if they spoke of it, did so in whispers.

“I hope we will fight—” said Aggarban. “You have had your shares of glory, but I still have to make my name!”

“You sound as if we should thank Cataur for starting this war!” Betiver said bitterly.

Gualchmai shrugged. “I will not blame him. I do admit it has all been a bit unexpected, but ye must bring a boil to a head before ye can lance it. Cataur is only forcing the king to do what one way or another had to come.”

Even as Betiver frowned he had to admit that there was a certain hard logic in his words. But he remembered Oesc's fair head next to Artor's brown as they bent over the tabula board or stood at the butts for archery. Oesc had begun as Artor's prisoner, but in the end it seemed to him that they had found a kind of peace in each other's company that Artor had with no one else. The breaking of that bond must surely be hurting both of them now.

There was a little murmur of anticipation as Artor pushed through the crowd. For a moment he hesitated, glaring at the canopy beneath which Cataur waited. Then, without looking to see if his escort followed, he marched towards him. The Dumnonian prince stood up as Artor neared. His sandy hair had grown thinner, noticed Betiver. But the flush on his fair skin was probably from the heat, not shame.

The king's warriors stepped back out of earshot, facing the men of Cataur's houseguard. They could not make out words, but the rise and fall of the two voices came clearly, Artor's deep and tightly controlled and Cataur's higher, with the hint of a whine. But perhaps that was only Betiver's interpretation. Certainly the Dumnonian's face was getting even redder as the discussion went on.

“Say what you will!” Cataur's voice rose. “Giving the woman back now won't stop the war!”

“The war you wanted!” came Artor's shout in reply. The escorts moved closer as he went on. “Send the woman to my stronghold at Dun Tagell. The chieftains of Demetia are still gathering their men. I must go north to join them. Take your own men east and hold Aelle's forces for as long as you can. If you fail me I promise that when I have dealt with the Saxons I will come after you myself!”

He stood, and Cataur got to his feet as well, grinning tightly.

“My lord, we will do all that men can.”

The afternoon was far advanced when Merlin felt the energy that pulsed around the summit change and came back from the aery realms in which he had been wandering. Looking down, he saw the pattern of the encampment dislimning as the Dumnonians moved out. Then he became aware of a subtler alteration and knew that Artor was climbing the hill. No other would dare. Even the monks came here only on feast days to make prayers to the Archangel Michael, whom they hoped would bind the old powers that lived in the Tor.

The strengthening breeze set dust whirling in a spiral, and he smiled. Could one bind the waters that flowed through the earth, or the wind that stirred his hair? Perhaps the monks' prayers kept them from feeling the power of the Tor, but even with his eyes open, Merlin could see the lines of power radiating out from the holy hill.

He turned as the high king appeared at the edge of the flattened oval of the summit, his hair blown, a sheen of perspiration on his brow. But the haze of anger that had pulsed around him that morning was gone. Perhaps he had worked off his fury on the climb.

“Have you brought me here to show me all the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof?” Artor asked wryly when he had his breath again. To the north and south, hills edged the vale. To the west one could guess at the blue shimmer of the sea. Eastward the land fell away to dim distances veiled by the smoke of burning fields.

Merlin shook his head. “Glory you shall see, but not of this world. Take a deep breath—this air comes pure from the heights of heaven.”

“Cataur and Oesc are in
this
world—” Artor said angrily.

“Breathe!” Merlin's voice compelled obedience. The air the king had drawn in to argue with was expelled without words. He breathed in again, more slowly, and his eyes widened.

“What is it? I feel a tingling, and there are little sparkles in the air!”

“Look at me . . .” said the druid.

“There is a haze of brightness around you,” whispered Artor after a moment had passed.

“Now, look at the land. . . .”

This time, the silence was longer. The king stood still, trembling, his eyes wide and unfocused.

“What do you see?”

“Light—” came the answer. “With every breath, light flows through the grass and stone and trees. . . .”

“Life,” corrected the druid. “It is the Spirit that you are perceiving, that moves like a wind through all that is.”

“Even the Saxons?”

“Even through them, though they do not perceive it. He who understands this mystery is part of the land. This is the power that will carry you to victory.”

Nearby, someone was groaning. Oesc roused, smelled horses and old blood and the smoke of a watch fire, and knew he was encamped with Aelle's army. The groaning man must be Guthlaf, one of his houseguard who had taken an arrow through the thigh. But he would live, and they had won the battle. He turned over, wincing as the movement jarred stiff muscles, and gazed upward, where stars winked through a high haze of cloud. The gods had favored them with good weather for campaigning, and barring a few scratches, he had come through the fighting unscathed.

But he was tired to the bone. He tried to remember what it was like to sleep in a real bed with the soft warmth of a woman beside him. He had had Rigana for little more than a year—it was not long enough to offset a lifetime of loneliness. Is
she even alive? Is the child?
By day he could assure himself that Cataur would have no reason to kill her. But in the dark hours he imagined a lifetime spent grieving for her loss.

Even if Cataur had offered to give her back tomorrow, Oesc could not break the oaths that bound him to the war. That was the doom that haunted his nightmares. Living or dying, how could Rigana forgive him for not rescuing her? He had meant their marriage to join their two peoples in harmony, and instead it had led to a new and more devastating war.

It was small consolation to reflect that Cataur must be regretting his action as well. One of Ceretic's warriors was boasting that he had struck the Dumnonian prince from his saddle. The Britons had got their leader safely away, but it would be long before Cataur could fight again. After several preliminary skirmishes, the main forces had met near Sorviodunum, and the Dumnonians, if not quite defeated, had been prevented from retreating westward. Now the larger Saxon army was pursuing them across the plain.