Lancelot Read online

  And I was angry. It was not the sparhawk’s fault that she alone of the creatures had been plucked from the mews, pulled from that night’s ruin. If anyone was to blame it was her master the falconer. Poor old Hoel, who I was sure must be dead, his soul borne to the hereafter on the gusts made by the beating wings of his bating, shrieking hawks.

  I was angry and I was confused. Was my father delirious? Had the events of that bloody night unbalanced his mind? What was the loss of the gyrfalcon compared with the loss of his kingdom? Of course I was too young to know that the sight of the sparhawk was to my father the final confirmation of his own destruction. In that bundle of mottled feathers, beak, talons and wrath was his downfall. It was the loss of hope, while his precious gyrfalcon now belonged to another man. That magnificent bird would sit on Claudas’s arm, and Claudas would sit on Benoic’s throne.

  Yet I would not abandon the sparhawk. If I could keep her alive, if I could train her to fly to my arm, to stoop to the kill and come to my voice, then my father would see. He would know he had been wrong to give up on us all. He would take up his shield and spear and be the warlord again, and our enemies would pay in blood.

  The seemingly boundless, rich alluvial fields had at last given way to marshland, through which we had toiled all but to the ends of endurance. Soaking. Sinking with every step through the reeds and wind-stirred grass. Not knowing whether the ground beneath the white mantle would hold us or try to claim us for itself and the spirits who dwelt below. Only eight of the twenty-three horses survived. The others were sucked into the liquid earth and struggled until exhaustion claimed them or the blade ended their misery.

  I did not know which was worse, the sight of the horses in their rolling-eyed terror, fighting in vain against this unfamiliar but inexorable enemy, or the sound of their terrified whinnying, which cut through me like a cold wind. Balsant rumbled and cursed the greed which had inspired folk to take the horses into a marsh because they neither would abandon nor could carry on their own backs the belongings loaded on the animals.

  ‘Should have eaten the beasts before now, when we still walked on honest ground,’ Balsant told anyone who would listen. ‘Could’ve kept our strength up. I didn’t turn my back on a good steel death to drown in a cursed fen.’ It was dusk and he knew we must gain solid ground before night came and with it who knew what?

  My mother asked him if he would have our people cast their last possessions into the marsh and take on the existence of beggars and cut-throats, no better than the creatures that lived only to eat, breed and die. She said this as Govran, up to his thighs in freezing water, cut the throat of a small bay pony which was squealing because it belonged to the marsh now. I watched my mother turn to the servants and household warriors who were pulling and pushing her two mares on and promise each of them one of her silver siliquae which were minted long ago in the days of the usurper Magnus Maximus and stamped with the emperor’s face. They redoubled their efforts. The mares struggled on.

  ‘Silver shines even in a darkling swamp like this,’ Govran muttered to me, filling raw hands with warm breath before patting Malo’s withers and whispering encouragement in his ear. The stallion was one of the eight horses that lived. Govran laboured tirelessly with him, used all his lore and experience and sometimes even the whip to incite Malo’s ire so that he would toss his head and snarl and plunge on, his hooves breaking the snow crust and churning the cold water beneath.

  My father, though he seemed no longer king, yet had enough of the man in him to help the groom and do what he could for his horse, getting himself sodden to the bone, shivering and blowing for the beast’s sake and even getting a kick for his trouble, which Govran murmured had broken a rib, though my father did not admit it.

  And the stallion himself was too proud and stubborn to die in that marsh anyway, to be drawn down into cold oblivion in full sight of men he thought of as his inferiors. So he survived and in his exhaustion I told him I was proud of him. Admitted in his ear I had wanted his survival more than I had wanted that of some of our two-legged travelling companions, a sentiment he seemed to understand, replying with a derisive snort.

  Then, as the sun slipped behind the horizon leaving only a wake of pale light in the sky, we came to a more substantial world.

  We did not so much make camp as collapse where we could, and spent the night trembling with cold and racked with misery, and I being threatened with the murder of the sparhawk by Derrien because of her constant hi-aa, hi-aa shriek from the basket. So I picked up the basket and the sodden nest of my cloak and moved away from Derrien and the others, finding a rock against which I placed the bird in her wicker cage. Then I lay on the sparhawk’s other side so I could protect her should her clamour rouse any of the others to murder.

  Who could blame her for shrieking in fury? Shut in the cramped darkness, barely able to spread her wings and starving so that she would surely have gone for my eyes given the chance.

  Up with the sun we trudged on, heartened a little by the feel of good solid earth beneath our feet, and some of the warriors even sang the songs of their fathers’ fathers, which lifted spirits further.

  At last the snow was melting. The day was clear and there was no rain and just enough wind to help dry our clothes and the cloaks on our backs. We camped before dusk that day so that some of the men could go hunting and return before nightfall. Derrien and Olier, who had lost their horses in the marsh, went off with bows and returned with four ducks, a hare and a pigeon. Govran strode back to the fires with a small deer across his shoulders and we cheered him, and others came in with waterfowl and rabbit and whatever creatures they had managed to shoot or spear. But Balsant, the only warrior on horseback now, because he took Malo out to the woods on the eastern horizon came with a boar slumped behind him. It was a fearsome-looking beast even in death and gutted, all bristle, tusk and blood. How my uncle had caught and speared that boar alone, he and Malo bone-weary as they were, was a wonder, but he made sure every mouth tasted its flesh that night.

  Two days later we came to the Beggar King. I knew we were near the coast because of the gulls wheeling in and out of the mist and because I could smell the sea in the air, the brine and the dark green wrack spewed upon the shore. I fancied I could even make out the scent of wet rocks and wave-licked pebbles and shells, and the metallic tang of the sea creatures themselves. No snow here, the last fall eaten away by the salty wind if it had settled at all. Just dunes and thick grass, gorse and heather.

  I asked Govran why the Beggar King was so named and he could not tell me. He did say that even if the lord of this land, situated between the estuaries of two great rivers, was master of only the sea terns and the wild wind, he would still be a wealthier man than my father was now. Though the groom made sure no ears but mine heard him say it.

  It was Olier who saw them first. Then a murmur rose behind us as others all along the column saw warriors on the high ridge to the west. Sentinels watching us. Some on foot, others sitting sturdy ponies built for life among the wind-scoured dunes and weather-beaten rocks of the fretted coast. Spear blades prodding the low-slung belly of the sky. Iron helmets, grey as rain cloud. Faces we could not read from an arrow’s flight away, but eyes which we felt across the distance boring into us.

  We knew they were the Beggar King’s men. Not that he was a real king. At least not in the eyes of the other kings and lords of Armorica. But whatever, whoever he was, he had warriors and he had land and now he had us, too, for we had come to him for sanctuary. And we must have made a sorry sight, for all that the warriors amongst us straightened, and my father, who now sat Malo, seemed to own his great size again as he had before King Claudas came to Benoic with fire and sword.

  And yet Malo told our tale to anyone who had eyes to see. The dull black hide stretched taut over his ribs. His head carried low and his ears pinned. Of course, we all looked like Malo, beaten and forlorn. Withered like grape vines after the blight. But to me, seeing the stallion like that was the mo
st shocking thing.

  Those of our warriors who still owned shields, who had not abandoned them in the marsh, held them above their heads to tell those watching we came in peace. Not that we could be mistaken for a war band, having more women, children and old folk than fighting men. And we followed the track round to the west, past the edge of the ridge, and there before us, with the sea at its back, was the town. All we could see was the palisade of sharpened stakes which enclosed it and the pall of smoke which sat above it, brown against grey. Rust and iron.

  A party of the Beggar King’s men were waiting to greet us, their leader and a score of others on horseback holding long spears, another thirty or so on foot. Few had helmets. Fewer still swords. Leather armour, thick wool, furs. Spears, long knives, bows and small shields. No blades of the quality of my father’s sword or my uncle’s or those at some of our other men’s hips. No, they were not impressive to look at, but then neither were we. The warriors of Benoic were not exactly awe-inspiring. Not even Balsant or my father gleamed in their war glory now.

  Behind the Beggar King’s unremarkable warriors were gathered pedlars and merchants, wild-looking children and wanton-looking women, all come to cure us of need and unburden us of our coin or whatever else we could trade. They bustled with arms full of loaves and wine skins and smoked fish strung through the gills. They carried baskets brimming with who knew what? And buckets of steaming broth which I could smell on the breeze and which had our mouths watering. Which was of course their intention.

  ‘Now is the time to look like men,’ Balsant growled over his shoulder and I saw Hector lift his head as though he were on the other end of a string tugged by a god. ‘This place might be our salvation. Might put food and wine in our bellies and a roof over our heads, but we are Benoic men.’ My uncle’s stomach must have been growling with the delicious smell of the broth, same as everyone’s, but he did not want us falling on those vendors like savages out of the hills.

  ‘Listen to Balsant,’ my mother called. ‘Have your pride. The gods know we don’t have much else.’

  My father raised his hand and we came to a shuffling halt. He walked Malo forward to meet the helmeted, lean-faced leader of the welcome party, and Balsant went with him. My mother hissed at Hector and shoved him forward and he fidgeted with his sword and cloak, then hurried to catch up with the men.

  I could not hear what was said but it cannot have been much for we were soon moving again, I clutching the sparhawk’s basket, feeling her own trepidation through the weave, the folk around me squeezing out their last dregs of strength and the will to walk a little further. To deliverance.

  The Beggar King’s warriors did not help us with our burdens but they did fall in beside us, forming a corridor of blades and muscle so that the sellers who had come from the town could not get to us if we did not want them to.

  ‘At least wait until we are inside the wall before you fall to it like slobbering hounds,’ Balsant called, his voice carrying the length of the column and giving rise to groans and curses from those who were halfway to tasting that freshly baked bread and the wine and the other wondrous delights. If only in their minds. ‘Once inside, buy if you have coin. Trade if you can. If you have nothing, fear not. You will not starve, for we have made arrangements with our hosts. Your king will see you fed.’

  The men cheered their king and the women called on the gods to protect my father and favour him, but I saw my mother grimace. So did Govran, who walked beside me holding his wife Klervi’s hand.

  ‘Your mother knows this Beggar King’s game,’ he said. ‘He means to be generous when he knows we have neither the heart nor will to refuse. He’ll stack up the debt your father owes, stack it right up till it touches the straw of his roof.’ The groom shook his head. ‘But I would not turn my nose up at a meal and a fire and a skin of good wine.’ He grinned at Klervi. ‘Even bad wine.’

  I was barely listening, my eyes full of the strange kingdom in which we found ourselves when we passed through the open gates. This kingdom on the edge of the ocean. There were only a few solid dwellings I could see, smoke seeping through roofs thatched with coarse grass, so that they might have been giant dogs steaming by the fire. There was a smithy from which a black serpent coiled smokily upwards until vanquished by the sea’s breath. There were several wood-framed workshops in which craftsmen toiled, though their hammers and planes, pole-lathes and adzes went still when they saw us. We exiles. Vagabonds drifting into that place like feathers from a fox’s kill.

  The other dwellings, lying thick as gorse on the ground, wreathed in the fog from countless peat fires, were tents, goat and calf skin, greased to keep out wind and rain, protected from the sea weather by each other and the encircling palisade. And yet all of it so insubstantial, a town of skins and smoke that looked as if it might be swept into the sea by a staunch southerly gale. And it reeked. Tent leather. Human waste. Rotten fish. Peat smoke and dried sea wrack. And people. So many people. Clinging to the place like mussels to a rock, folk packed so tightly the lice could crawl from one to another.

  ‘Doesn’t look like much, eh, lad?’ Govran said as we followed my father on Malo, along with my uncle and my brother. We passed through the main thoroughfare, trying to keep our footing on the slippery reed mats which made narrow walkways across the mud. Many of the others had broken away to buy food, but most stayed with their king, nervous in a strange place amongst strange people.

  ‘It is more than we have now, Govran,’ my mother said, cursing under her breath and lifting her dress, whose hem was already sodden with filth. And when we came at last, slipping and sliding, to the king’s hall, I could feel my mother’s shame coming off her like heat. She glowered as we were made to wait in the squelching, freezing sludge. She a queen, by the gods, and her husband a warrior king. A real king. Lord of Benoic and master of hawks and stallions. Now come as a supplicant to the hall of a prince of the gulls and the strand and the weed upon it which farmers inland buy to enrich the soil beneath their crops.

  We waited long enough that I could no longer feel my feet and had given up trying to crunch up my toes inside my shoes to keep some life in them. A steward had told us the reason for the waiting was so that they could make ready within the hall to receive us. But my mother was convinced it was done to further humiliate her and my father, and she stood there refusing to shiver like the rest of us. My father said not a word, perhaps thinking his presence was enough, his physical presence and the authority of his kingship. Or perhaps he had nothing to say. Whatever, he left the talking to my uncle, who at least had the nerve to growl at the wolf-faced leader of our escort that the women and children were hungry and cold and could not be expected to wait much longer before their menfolk took it upon themselves to seek food and shelter where they could.

  ‘I will see if they are ready for you, lord,’ the man said with a nod, for he knew a warrior when he saw one and had just enough respect in him. But before he got to the door, the steward appeared again and announced that King Ban, his family and a small retinue were welcome to go inside.

  ‘Out of the cold and into their debt,’ my mother said, as Balsant told the other warriors and the rest of our people to wait patiently while he and the king spoke on their behalf and arranged for them to spend the night under a roof, even if just a roof of leather. They nodded obediently, rubbing hands and hugging children close for warmth.

  ‘And may our cousins from Benoic enjoy all the hospitality it is the Beggar King’s pleasure to provide,’ the steward said, with a smile like grease on a plate.

  The sparhawk shrieked with hunger. My father dismounted, leaving Malo with a servant, and took my mother’s arm in his, she straightening her back and lifting her chin. My brother turned to me and winked and I lifted the basket so that I could all but hide behind it, and thus we entered the hall.

  It was wonderful coming under a roof. The floor was thick with dried grass and reeds which sweetened air that was otherwise made foul by the fish oil burning
in the myriad lamps and the peat fire smouldering in the long hearth. Made foul by us, too, for we were filthy and reeking and I had not realized how reeking till we bustled into that place. But it was dry and warm and every restless flame lifted a Benoic soul, vanquished our misery just as they chased the darkness off to linger in pools of shadow among the rafters and corners and beneath the long tables where hunting hounds would lie were the man sitting before us a real king.

  But the lord of this hall was not like my father, did not fit any kingly mould that I knew of. Indeed, standing there silhouetted by the hearth flames he looked like something which the sea had cast onto the shore. A slick of the green weed which entangled the legs of the geese and sandpipers scavenging on the mudflats and rocky reefs at low tide. He was reed-thin. No shoulders to speak of. No brawn from sword and shield work. No tree trunk legs to root into the earth in defiance of some enemy. Skin too pale for a coast-dweller, as Govran observed later, sunken cheeks, a long nose and a tangle of sandy hair that mocked the shears. Not handsome or fierce-looking like Balsant. Not haughty or noble like the sparhawk in my basket, nor meek like the Christian monks who had come to Benoic from Britannia proclaiming their god’s great power with restless tongues. But he did look clever, this lord of tents. I did not see it at first – I just saw a man who did not look like a king – but Govran saw it. The groom could read a horse and believed he could read a man too, and whispered to those around him that our host had more slyness in him than a fox, which of course had my stomach aching for the loss of Flame.

  ‘Welcome, brother!’ our host called, his arms outstretched as if he would embrace my father, who did not so much as stir the dried grass beneath his feet but stood there, the dulled spearhead of his people. ‘We can see how our cousins from Benoic have suffered,’ the Beggar King announced. ‘You have been tested.’ He frowned. ‘Driven out by your enemies, your people butchered.’ His eyes fastened on my father’s once more. ‘And how you must burn to reclaim what you have lost, my lord king.’ The eyes in that too-pale face glimmered like embers in the ashes.