Camulod Chronicles Book 9 - The Eagle Read online

  "Aye, so I've been told, by you. But no one else, other than your relatives, had ever set eyes on it before you pulled it from that stone. Is that not right?"

  "Aye, but what of that?"

  I shrugged. "I wasn't there, so I don't know the truth of it, but I've been told you drew it from the altar stone itself, in front of thousands of people, in the great theater there by Saint Alban's Shrine."

  "Aye, I did, but it was no—"

  "And when you drew it forth and brandished it above your head, the clouds parted and a beam of light from Heaven itself shone all about you. Is that not true?"

  "Aye, it is, but even there there's no ma—"

  "No magic, my lord?" My interjection left him open mouthed. "Is that what you were going to say? No magic? No miracle?"

  Arthur stood there, nonplussed by my obstinacy and frowning at my insistence in this matter, the rising flush of blood in his cheeks evident even in the light from the flickering fire. But then he drew a quick breath and opened his mouth to speak again, and once more I cut him off before he could utter a word.

  "Nigh on ten thousand people watched you do what you did that day in Verulamium, Arthur. They saw the bishops place the golden coronet of kingship upon your brow and name you Riothamus, High King of All Britain, and they all heard you swear an oath to use your military might to defend all Britain and the Christian Church against the foreign invaders who were even then marching against you."

  He was gazing at me, smooth faced and wide eyed, waiting for me to finish, and I pushed right ahead.

  "They saw you swear your oath upon the cross that stood before you on the altar. You grasped the cross through the purple Lenten cloth that covered it, and then they saw the bishop behind you call upon Heaven for a sign that you were justly chosen. And upon his call the clouds above you parted and the sun shone through, bathing you in golden light as you drew a sword—this sword—out of the altar stone.

  "Ten thousand people saw that, Arthur, with their own eyes. And would you now tell them that what they saw was trickery? That they saw no miracle that day, and that the clouds would have broken open anyway, precisely when they did?"

  "They would," he whispered, "they would have opened as they did, even had no one been there."

  "But everyone was there, Arthur, and they saw the heavens open in a sign that had been called for. And they saw you raise a shining silver sword the like of which had never been seen."

  "No! It was not like that at all!" His voice was huge, angry with denial of what he knew to be the truth, but mine was, too, as I shouted louder.

  "Yes! Yes, Arthur, yes, it was! They saw their Riothamus crowned and blessed with a bright and magical sword, and that is why your men think you are more than simply human!"

  He blinked in shocked disbelief, and then he reared up, one upraised hand clutching the sheathed sword as though he would strike me down with the hilt of it, and I saw the rage swell in him and be checked, held and forced back down with an effort of will that was clearly visible. He stood there for long heartbeats, drawn up to his full height and filled with a massive, bated breath, teetering on the edge of fury, and then he suddenly seemed to sag. The tension and the rage drained out of him. He dropped his chin on his chest with an audible snort, then tossed the sword into his other hand and reached across to lean it where it had been before, against the wall of the cave. He looked down at the fire then, and moved directly to sit on his own saddle, where he bent forward and threw a few short lengths of fresh wood onto the embers.

  I remained where I was without moving until the first tongue of new flame sprang into life, and the King pointed to my own saddle, across from him.

  "Sit, man, in the name of God." When I had done so, he looked at me sidelong again and blew out a long exhalation between tightly pursed lips. "Now . . . I know you had no thought of provoking me to anger, Clothar of Benwick. And I know you are a Frank, and therefore unaccustomed to speaking in subtleties. But then I also know that, providing you speak slowly, you can speak Latin fairly well, and even understandably at times, despite the outlandish tortures you inflict upon your vowel sounds . . ." He wrinkled his face into a wizened mask. "So tell me, slowly, if it please you: why are. we having this conversation and what does it concern? Can you explain that, clearly?"

  I nodded. "You are concerned about your men's mental conditioning . . . their morale. You are fretting about their well-being. They, on the other hand, see you as being invulnerable. I see an opportunity to relieve your worries about the men, and to enable them to share your gift and profit thereby."

  "What gift?"

  "Your invulnerability."

  "You're mad. I'm no more invulnerable than you are. You know that. You've seen me bleed. Damnation, man, you've made me bleed!"

  'True, my lord. But we are not speaking of truth here. We are speaking of perception."

  "In God's name—"

  "No, and let us leave God out of this discussion for the time being, at least. I say we can allow your men to share your gift and I am correct. We can pass on your magical endowments, from you to them. Hear me out, Arthur, please." This was to stem him, because he had begun to rise again, but now he subsided once more, albeit reluctantly.

  "You make no sense, Lance."

  "No, not to your ears at least, King Briton, because you have not yet allowed yourself to hear what I am trying to say. Now will you listen to what I have to tell you? And before you say no, try to recall the last time I wasted your time." I paused, giving him opportunity to respond, but he said nothing and so I continued, this time in more deliberate and measured tones.

  "Some time before we left Camulod this spring, I heard Merlyn use a word that I had heard used once before, by Bishop Germanus. I recognized it when I heard it again, but I did not understand it when Merlyn said it, any more than I had understood it when Germanus used it. I asked Merlyn what it meant, however, and he told me, and we talked about it for a long time after that. It's a wonderful word, Arthur; a word of power but not an obvious one. I used it a moment ago and you took no notice."

  "What word?"

  "Perception."

  "Perception. That's your word of power?" The King nodded, his brow slightly wrinkled. "It means appearances, I believe. Why would you call it a word of power?"

  "Because of the way Merlyn spoke of it and explained it to me. He believes it to be powerful, and so did the blessed Germanus. But it doesn't mean appearances . . . at least, that's not all it means. It means the way people see things, Merlyn says. People's perceptions can govern how they behave and even how they live their lives. He says perceptions can influence a man, or a group of men, or an army, or even entire peoples, to change their ways of doing things and adopt new beliefs and new ideas." I paused to let that sink home, and then I concluded, "Perceptions—the way people perceive things—can shape destinies, my lord."

  "Are we back to 'my lord' again? I like not the smell of this. Where are you leading me, Lancie?"

  "To here and now, no further for the present. But in the here and now I will challenge you to think upon perceptions."

  "Hmm." The King stared into the fire's heart as he plucked pensively at his upper lip, but finally he peered upwards at me beneath raised eyebrows. "Proceed then. Let me hear this challenge."

  "Very well." I leaned back and made myself as comfortable as I could. "Imagine, if you will, that the perceptions held by your soldiers are all true. Rightly or wrongly, they perceive you as being invulnerable, protected by the shining, unearthly beauty and power of the glorious blade you call Excalibur, the sword you pulled from God's own altar stone.

  "They perceive that, as long as you retain possession of that blade, as long as you hold Excalibur and wield it, you will lead a charmed life, unable to be injured. Of course that is nonsense, and I believe that as much as you do, but that is what they perceive, and that perception, in and of itself, can be invaluable to us—to you and to the entire realm of Britain.

  "How so, you ask,
and so you should. Imagine this, for a moment, Arthur. Think seriously about it, not as something to scoff at as soon as I am finished but as something that you may legitimately put to use for the good of everyone involved." I took a deep breath and moved on.

  "It's becoming more and more likely we'll be here all night and there will be no battle tomorrow morning. But there will be a battle soon, Arthur, one of these days. Visualize the gathering, if you will, before you send your leaders to their stations. All of them will be there, awaiting your instructions. And they will all be watching you, admiring you, probably thinking to themselves that after the battle, when it comes time to tally up the butcher's bill, they might well all be dead but you will still be seated on your horse, your armor unsullied, your skin unblemished, your very life protected by the shining blade you wear. . .

  "Now . . . Imagine this. Imagine that tonight, on the eve of battle, you were to gather all your leaders close and tell them that you are aware of your good fortune in being so blessed. Not only that alone, but you tell them that you have devised a way to share your gift with them.

  "You tell them all the story of your vigil on the night before you claimed the crown—of how you cleansed yourself in the holy ritual and were then purged of all sins by the attending priests, then spent the night awake and in prayer, preparing to go forward with the rising sun, in purity and as a penitent, into the sight of God, seeking his blessing and enlightenment.

  "Tell them all that, and then tell how you accepted the gold corona of the Riothamus onto your brow, and the shining purity of Excalibur into your hands . . .

  "They will enjoy the hearing of such things directly from you. All of them will, even those who were there to see it for themselves. But they will all wonder, too, what this tale could possibly have to do with any of them in person. Then you tell them that you have decided to share your gifts. You cannot share the high kingship, for that is a task for one man only and a fearsome, daunting burden. But you can share your other attributes, and, given they are properly prepared, shriven and purified, penitent and prayerful after spending the night in a waking vigil, you may share with them the mantle and the aura of the power vested in you through Excalibur. If they come to you in the veil of dawn, properly prepared and spiritually cleansed, and kneel before your feet in loyalty and humility, you will bless them with the power of the sword by laying its bare blade upon their shoulders, one, and then the other, encompassing their head so that the aura of this peerless, shielding weapon lies over them. Then, when they rise again, they will be transformed. Because they will be perceived, by their peers, and in their own eyes just as firmly, as being different, being altered . . . being more than they were before . . .

  "Perceptions, Arthur."

  He looked hard at me then, his brows contracted in what might. have been the beginnings of a frown, although I knew it to be no more than a sign that my friend was already beyond contact, sinking deeply into one of his frequent periods of intense concentration. I had engaged his full attention with my talk of new things to ponder and I knew he would have no more to say to me for some time. He would think through everything I had told him, considering the pros and contras of every aspect of each point he could identify, and when he had satisfied himself that the topic could hold no fresh surprises for him, he and I would talk about it further.

  3

  The silence that followed was long but comfortable, requiring nothing from either of us, but nevertheless I found myself focusing intently upon a need to sit motionless, not even daring to glance sideways at him lest I interrupt his thinking. I knew that was ridiculous, because in the course of four years of close friendship I had come to know that once Arthur Pendragon had immersed himself in the analysis of some problem, nothing short of a physical interruption would induce him to abandon the process. Even so, and fully aware of the lack of need to do so, I kept my eyes directed straight ahead, gazing steadfastly into the fire and showing nothing of what was in my mind as I waited for Arthur the King to decipher whatever was in his. Looking back on it, I can never remember enduring another silence as long as that one was. But as we sat there in the utter stillness of the night, we heard, from outside, the muffled thump of a falling body and a stifled curse.

  Arthur was on his feet almost before I could react, and there is nothing wrong with my own reflexes. But as I started to leap upright, he was already there, leaning forward, one hand outstretched to stop me from moving, the other raised to his lips signaling silence. He shrugged the blanket quickly from around his shoulders and threw it to me, then twirled his hands around each other in a signal for me to lie down and wrap myself in it as though asleep. As I fumbled with the cloth, shaking its folds loose, he reached down and retrieved my long dirk from where it lay by his saddle, then lobbed it to me before he stepped swiftly to collect our swords. His own dirk, which was really a Roman gladius short- sword, swung in its sheath by his right side. He turned back with the two long swords, moving swiftly for such a big man, and quickly shifted his saddle sideways and threw our two horse blankets over it to make it look as though it might be a sleeping man. He propped my sword against the end of the bundle, where its cross hilt could be clearly seen against the embers behind it. Then, again signaling me to be silent, he quietly unsheathed Excalibur, dropped the empty scabbard against the wall and moved swiftly to stand motionless behind the sharp corner where he could not be seen from the entrance to the cave.

  He had not managed to be completely silent in his hurried movements, and so for the first few moments after he grew still we scarcely dared to breathe, waiting for an alarum to be raised and for a crush of bodies to come chaining into the cave, alerted to our presence. But the moments lengthened without disturbance, and eventually we—or I, at least—began to think we might have escaped detection. I raised myself cautiously on one elbow, preparing to rise to my feet, but Arthur was both more cautious and less trusting than I, and he waved me back down. I subsided, my senses straining again, thinking he might have heard something new.

  It had occurred to me, of course, that whoever was out there might be from our own army, but without absolute certainty of that, neither Arthur nor myself would have dreamed of endangering ourselves by taking even the tiniest risk of discovery. And so we waited there in the darkness, our heart rates gradually returning to normal as the time passed.

  An ember settled in the fire close by my head with a soft crushing sound, a whispering puff of powdered ash and a small display of bright-burning sparks that rushed frantically along the charred and blackened surface of some of the sticks in the fire pit like scurrying ants, before dying into invisibility. I watched them, fascinated with the way their image remained bright against my eyelids when I blinked. There was no possibility of the embers being seen from outside the cave, I knew, but if anyone came inside there was equally no possibility of the dying fire going undetected.

  As that thought came to me, bringing a clear vision of a featureless man standing with his head tilted back, nostrils flaring widely as he sniffed at the cave entrance, I heard stealthy, muffled movements right outside the cave. Once more I froze, holding my breath, and this time was rewarded with the sound of a low-pitched voice muttering in a harsh, guttural language that was unlike anything I had ever heard before. Whoever the man was, however, he was still outside the cave, and the odds were favorable that he might be alone, for no one had answered him. I threw my mind back to the sight of the snow outside when Arthur and I had stood there looking out a short time earlier. The heavy, blowing snowfall had covered all trace of our earlier movements by that time, so there was nothing out there to betray our presence. No blemishes of any kind marred the perfect, wind-smoothed layer of snow fronting the entrance to the cave. I looked over at Arthur then, wondering what was going through his mind.

  He had propped his long-bladed sword carefully against the wall since I last looked at him, and now he held his unsheathed shortsword loosely by his side. His left hand was still extended towards m
e. Its fingers spread in a peremptory signal for me to remain where I was, but all his attention was focused intently on the sounds, or more accurately now the silence, beyond the outthrust shelf that concealed him.

  Then came the sound of a single, hesitant footstep on the bare ground inside the entrance and Arthur waved his hand at me in an unmistakable command to lie down, quickly. I lowered myself instantly, knowing I was within moments of being seen" by the intruder. My face in the crook of my bent arm, I heard him come forward slowly into the cave and then stop with a sharp intake of breath. There was another long moment of utter silence, and then a rush of footsteps as he ran rapidly towards my "sleeping" form, evidently hoping to put an end to me before I could move to resist him.

  I swung around and away, hard, pushing myself up into a sitting position just in time to see Arthur step smoothly out of concealment, pivoting on his left foot and grasping the running man by the back of the neck, pulling him around and off balance towards him as he thrust upwards with the sword in his right hand, the entire strength of his body uncoiling behind the blow. The Dane—for there was no doubting his identity, even in the dim light of the dying fire—died instantly, his chin snapping downwards to his chest and the breath leaving his body in a grunt as the lethal blade of the gladius slammed through his sternum to the hilt and ruptured his heart. Arthur held him upright, hunching his shoulders and bending his knees to accommodate the man's weight as he spoke to me in a hiss over his shoulder.