The Beloved Dead Read online

  But that had been years before and few now credited Merlin’s stories. Arthur’s subsequent promotion to Dux Bellorum allowed him the luxury of being seen in public with Guinevere. He could never consider marrying her, though, he believed. She was a disgraced sister of the community, and the people would not accept her as his wife. A Rigotamos must be seen as nearly perfect, Arthur thought. And consorting with a fallen sister also damaged the image of piety that he hoped to project. Never mind that many of our people did not yet embrace the Christ and, indeed, still clung to the old ways, the old gods.

  Our present discussion was caused by an envoy from Lord Mark at Castle Marcus who had arrived some weeks before. The young envoy had carried a parchment that only Arthur, Merlin, Kay, and I had been privy to, and its contents had been closely guarded ever since. Even Bedevere had not been acquainted with its message, though that was bound to happen as soon as our task at the White Mount was completed.

  The message was simple. Mark, David, Gawain, and a number of other lords believed it was time for Arthur to take a bride. To that end, they proposed an arranged marriage between Arthur and the young daughter of a northern lord, Aircol, who paid no obeisance to the consilium. The group of lords believed that an alliance with Aircol would not only strengthen the consilium through numbers, but would help protect the north. The girl was but fourteen, less than half of Arthur’s age. Still, she was of an age to marry.

  Their argument was well spoken and logical, too logical. Such marriages were not uncommon among the nobles, allying families and property. Aircol’s lands were well placed to help defend against Saxon encroachment, and should the Saxons invade our lands, his men could flank them or even come into the Saxon lands to their rear, wreaking havoc and disrupting any invasion.

  So Arthur had acceded, and I had erupted.

  “But you love Guinevere!” I had shouted.

  “Yes. But there is nothing I can do, Malgwyn, and you know that!” came his reply.

  “Explain that to my cousin, whose pleasures you have certainly enjoyed for many seasons!”

  He turned from me then, unwilling to discuss the matter further, unwilling, I guessed, to risk a complete break.

  And so it had remained between us, few words passing and then but grunts and shrugs. Seeing Guinevere, so happy with Arthur, stabbed at my heart, but this was not my message to deliver. If her heart were to be broken, then Arthur would have to do it. I would have no part of it.

  Now he wished to discuss it once more. We found a fallen log and both sat, not looking at each other, looking instead to the lands to the south, Saxon lands.

  “Malgwyn,” he began finally. “You know that I do love Guinevere, but you know too that the decisions of a Rigotamos are not always his own.”

  I chuckled. “Is that so, my lord? Strange that Vortigern never worried about such things. He threw away his woman in favor of a Saxon bride, and no one urged him to do it. Aye, everyone was aghast! But he cared not!”

  “True. And he was betrayed! And no one stood with him! Malgwyn, no matter how much I love Guinevere, no matter how much you love her as your cousin, she is still a woman cast out of the Christ’s community. A Rigotamos cannot marry such as her. A Rigotamos must be perfect. And marriages are about strengthening one’s position. Guinevere knows this. And though she be of noble birth, Cadwy is long dead, his property split among his sons. I must make the marriage most advantageous to our people!”

  Lord Cadwy had been Guinevere’s guardian after the death of her father. Castellum Arturius had once belonged to Cadwy, but the old man had given it to Arthur. The rest of his lands had gone to his sons, a wastrel lot who never amounted to much.

  “My lord, I will concede that a marriage to Guinevere brings no advantage to our strength or our defense. Only a fool would argue that. But I reject your argument that you cannot marry her, that she is unacceptable. You well know that she is favored by the people. They truly love her, and I see no reason why they would object to your marriage.”

  Arthur nodded. “That is true. Guinevere is well thought of by the people. But being a beloved woman is just not the same as being a queen. The people would expect more of her, more of me in my choice.”

  I was arguing with an oak tree. In truth, he had already decided and no matter how much I challenged him, he would not be swayed. “Tell me what it is you wish of me, Rigotamos, in this matter.”

  He sighed and looked off at the twilight, back toward the heart of our lands. “I need you to go with Bedevere and Merlin to escort Aircol and his daughter back to Castellum Arturius for the wedding.”

  I started to protest, but his wool-wrapped hand had already raised to stop me. “Malgwyn, I need to show my resolve in this matter, and pay proper respect to Aircol. To do that, I need my most trusted advisors to provide the escort.”

  “What of Kay?”

  “As Seneschal, he has many duties to perform in preparation for the wedding.” He stopped and smiled. “Already he is finding it a daunting task.”

  I could not help but laugh. The Seneschal served as keeper of the Rigotamos’s household. Kay, tall and slender as a willow, was one of my favorites, but he had an infamous temper and had been much out of sorts lately, dealing with the chore of handling Arthur’s servants. He was always more a soldier than an administrator. But after a moment the laugh caught in my throat, and I turned away from Arthur.

  “What else troubles you, Malgwyn?”

  Off in the distance, to the southwest, I saw a single lamp lit at a farmstead, bursting into life. “I thought you were going to ask me to explain this thing to Guinevere.”

  He studied his wrapped hand, the one missing his middle finger, taken at the joint by a well-aimed Saxon spear. “No, that is a job I cannot delegate to another. Do not think that I find any pleasure in this, Malgwyn. I have loved Guinevere for more than ten winters. But marriages for kings are affairs of state, not affairs of the heart. You have no idea how I wish it could be otherwise.”

  “You are wrong, Arthur,” I said, taking a liberty I would never dream of taking among others. “Kings are men with the power to do what they please. But you have never understood that.”

  “Remember your friend Patrick?” The good Patrick, episcopus to the Scotti across the sea, had died some months before in a sordid affair at Ynys-witrin. I had not known him long, but I came to consider him a good and true man, and that can be said of so few in the world.

  “How could I not?”

  “You are asking me to be the sort of tyrannus that he denounced.”

  “I am asking you to be the kind of king that our land is filled with.”

  With that, I felt his hand on my shoulder, wrenching me around to face him. We were close enough that I could smell the mint leaves he had chewed to freshen his breath.

  “I am not like them, Malgwyn. I do not want to be like them.” No anger sparked his eyes; no blood marked his cheeks. He said it earnestly and with an intensity that marked a young man, not a war-hardened chieftain.

  “I will go for you, just as I came here for you. I know that you mean well, my lord.” My next question was a difficult one. “How will you tell Guinevere of your decision?”

  A sad and dark look clouded his face. “Gently, not easily. Part of me wishes to maintain our relationship, but I would not dishonor her nor my marriage to Gwyneira by suggesting it.”

  “She would not agree to that at any rate.”

  Arthur chuckled. “I know. She already senses that this is coming. She is your cousin, after all, Malgwyn. I cannot think of a good way to tell her this, so I will just tell her and pray that she does not have a dagger near at hand. But know this and know it well, Malgwyn, no dagger she could wield against me would strike any deeper or any truer than the one that this matter has already struck me with.”

  “Tell me, Arthur. When you first determined that you wanted to be the Rigotamos, did you think that it would come without costs?”

  The corners of his mouth turned up in
a half smile. “Trying to do right for the people has forever been weighted down with costs. But I will admit that the vision of sunny days shone more brightly than that of the rainy ones.”

  A good answer. An honest one. “I know that you are trying to do the right thing, and that counts for much in this world.”

  He rose then, his hand lingering on my shoulder. “Aye, old friend, I do mean well. I fought across this land to bring it peace. But even in peace, there are often wounded and dead left on the battlefield.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  We returned to the others then, our new camp a bustle of activity. Kay was supervising construction and Bedevere was busy setting guards. Merlin was overseeing the cook. The ground was littered with bricks and stone, remnants of Roman buildings. A broad expanse of the old wall surrounding Londinium still stood, below the mount. It once ran across its summit, but, since it had fallen into disrepair, people had taken the bricks to use in their own modest huts. You could always tell a Roman wall; it was principally built from regular stone, but every so often a course of red stone was laid.

  A new face was among us, though—Morgan ap Tud, Arthur’s new physician. With his vast store of knowledge on herbs and healing, Merlin had generally taken care of most of those duties. But with Arthur’s election as Rigotamos, the old man had been called on for other chores. Lord David argued that Arthur needed a trained physician; I suspected that David needed a spy in our midst.

  But Morgan, a short, slender fellow with a closely trimmed beard, seemed a good man. I say “seemed” as I did not know him well enough to truly judge him. He had trained in the north with a renowned physician named Melus. And he bore himself well. But time would answer my questions about him and this was his first journey with us. At that moment, I noticed him scurrying about the campfire in some sort of frenzy.

  As I approached the fire, I saw old Cerdic getting our meal ready, dodging Morgan, who seemed to be everywhere at once. Poor Morgan! He had not been among us long enough to make many friends, and since he was often without duties to perform, he spent his time trying to be helpful, and further aggravating a forever annoyed Cerdic.

  The old servus had been with Arthur longer than anyone, I think. Merlin once told me that Cerdic had been a gift from one of Arthur’s kin many years before. He was a stout man with a barrel chest and a thin fringe of white hair encircling his bald head. He had few of his teeth left and those seemed to just barely cling to his gums. Though not a short man, he was not as tall as I, and he always wore a deep blue tunic. I suspected that it had some significance, but I knew not what it might be.

  Arthur had brought Cerdic along to make our meals. Now the Rigotamos’s head steward, he had cooked for our campfire during the war. The cooking was not difficult; it was finding something to cook that often made it a trial. And Cerdic was a master at scavenging. This night he had concocted a stew of deer meat with leeks, with some loaves of bread he had stashed on our wagon.

  I stole up behind him and whispered, “I trust not a cook who does not eat his own food.”

  He chuckled, and without turning answered, “If you had gnashers like mine, you would steer clear of tough meat and hard bread.”

  “If I had gnashers like yours, I would crawl in the grave and pull the dirt in on top of me.”

  “I thought you had already done that, but ’twas wineskins that you pulled over the top of you.”

  ’Twas only two years before when that had been true. I had already become accustomed to such jests, and Cerdic and I traded them now in the manner of old friends. “Where is Talorc?”

  Talorc was a Pictish slave of Arthur’s, a stubborn and bitter youth whom I had first encountered in the events surrounding the conspiracy against Ambrosius Aurelianus and Arthur. He knew not his place. Kay had begged Arthur to sell him, but the Rigotamos was not much of one for buying and selling slaves. Cerdic had brought him on this journey to try to teach him humility. Or to take the chance to drown him in the river. I was not sure which.

  “I sent him out to find some pig and cabbage for tomorrow. We are staying longer than I expected, and I did not bring enough provisions.”

  “May I help, Cerdic?” an incredibly solicitous Morgan offered.

  The old servus rolled his eyes. “If you could go and find Talorc and see what is keeping him, Master Morgan, that would be help aplenty.”

  And the little fellow bounced off, glad to have a task set for him.

  “Sold what you had to the locals, I expect,” I said once Morgan was out of earshot. We all suspected that Cerdic stole from Arthur’s table to add to his own coin hoard.

  He just grunted and moved on about his chores.

  “What did you tell Arthur?” The voice at my shoulder was as familiar as my own—Merlin.

  Turning, I took him by the shoulder and drew him away from the others. “What you wanted me to tell him. What else could I say? I serve Arthur.”

  His wrinkled visage smiled at me. “I knew that, but Arthur worried.” The old man paused, the corners of his mouth drawing down. “You should know, Malgwyn, that I counseled Arthur against this match. I advised him to marry Guinevere.”

  At that, I took a step backward and cocked my head at him. “In truth?”

  He nodded, his wispy white hair rustling in the breeze. “No one loves Guinevere more than I. She is as my daughter, and I do not believe that this arrangement will bring Arthur the benefits he seeks. Once,” and his eyes grew watery and dim, “I loved one as he loves Guinevere. And I did not act until it was too late. This is why I have urged him to make Guinevere his queen.”

  “Then why has he agreed to the match?”

  “Mark and David threatened to withdraw from the consilium if he refused.”

  I felt the blood rising in my face; a tingle ran across my skin. “He said nothing of this to me!”

  Merlin’s fragile hand touched my tunic. “Lower your voice! He would call for my head if he knew I had told you this. Arthur knows too well how you feel about David.”

  “I spoke the truth at Ynys-witrin!”

  The hand grasped my shoulder. “I do not doubt you, and you raised doubts in Arthur’s mind. But there was no certain proof that David lied about his involvement in Lauhiir’s treachery. And you have never been an ally of David’s. Then, there’s the other.”

  He did not need to say more. Merlin was no believer in the Christ, and he thought Arthur’s devotion was not wise. Aye, he thought it decidedly unwise. Though he had his differences with Druids, he was more aligned with them than the Church. In truth, Merlin was a child of the forest and field, who believed that they provided all a man needed for survival. I could not and did not argue with him. Arthur loved Merlin as a father and chose to ignore his religious beliefs.

  But “the other” that Merlin referred to was Aircol’s devotion to the Christ and his support of the Church. It was nearly as famous throughout our lands as Arthur’s. In truth, some said that he had given far more to the support of the Church than the Rigotamos. But Arthur’s problems with the Church stemmed more from the corruption within than a lack of faith. It would please him to strengthen his ties with another soldier of the Christ, especially since so many of the other lords in the consilium did not share his beliefs.

  As I sorted these things in my head, we retreated behind one of the two wagons we had brought along to bear our supplies. Servants and slaves listen too closely to things we say. More than once, when we warred against the Saxons, slaves had sold crucial information to our enemies. We had discovered their treachery before much damage had been done, and Arthur had taken their heads, but it was wise not to create the opportunity for such betrayal.

  “And what of the contract? What has Arthur promised?”

  “Nothing as yet. One of our tasks will be to negotiate that. Aye, that is the main reason he wishes you to go.”

  Again, the blood flushed my face. “He said nothing of this!”

  “Of course not, Malgwyn!” Merlin chided me in his teach
er’s voice. “That would not have been wise. To convince you to support his decision was quite enough of a chore for him to perform. My task was to conscript you as a negotiator.”

  “Some wine, my lords?” Talorc had appeared at my elbow, a wineskin in hand. Merlin gave him a withering look and the boy melted away, back toward the fire.

  “That child is a menace!” Merlin snorted.

  “I see Kay has been abusing your ear.” Kay had never much liked the boy, but since taking over Arthur’s household, the dislike had grown to intense hatred. Still, the Rigotamos refused to let him be sold. “So, what will be our instructions? How much of Arthur’s lands will we have to give away?”

  “Whatever it takes to assure that Aircol joins the consilium. That is the only reason Arthur has agreed to this match.”

  I frowned. “That could mean giving up a great deal.”

  “That is why you are coming, to make certain that I don’t give away all of Britannia,” he said with a wink. Merlin paused then and brushed a strand of white hair from his face. “You think Arthur weak.”

  “No, I think Arthur underestimates his strength among the people. I think Arthur worries too much about placating the other lords. Answer me this, Merlin. In all of your years have you ever seen the people take to a lord as they have Arthur? Have you ever seen them surge to touch his tunic as he passes?”

  It was true. Arthur was an uncommon man, and the common people adored him.

  Old Merlin shook his head. “No, Malgwyn, but it has not been that many moons past that four lords of the consilium conspired to overthrow him! And by the strength of those who support Arthur and an abundance of good fortune, they were defeated.”

  “But Guinevere does not deserve this, not when we all know that Arthur adores her.”

  Merlin nodded slowly. “Were Arthur you, he could marry whomever he likes; some might grumble, but that would be all. Arthur, though, is not you. He is the Rigotamos, the head of a council of other lords who snipe and bait and attack each other, all maneuvering for some advantage, some secret channel through which they can ascend to become Rigotamos. And beyond that, he is a believer in the Christ, and one who believes in Him more strongly than others do.” He paused. “Do you know what a king is, Malgwyn?” Merlin asked after a moment. “He is someone whom people admire and trust enough to place their security and that of their families in. Arthur earned people’s admiration as the Dux Bellorum, our leader of battles. But it was his fervent belief in the Christ and those messages He champions that brought him the people’s trust. Should he marry a woman who had been cast from a believer’s community, they would begin to question if their trust was well and truly placed. A simple pebble thrown in a quiet pool causes ripples that eventually spread across the water, perhaps even sending water over or through a levee.”