Stones Of Power - The Last Sword Of Power Part 2

'Or more?'

'We are harrying the enemy to the coast. Will you change your mind about not burning their ships?'

'No. Without ships they cannot retreat. It would cost near a legion to destroy their army utterly, and I do not have five thousand men to spare.'

'Let me bind your arm, sire.'

'Stop fussing over me, man! The wound is sealed - well, almost. Look at them,' said the King, pointing to the field between the stream and the lake and the hundreds of bodies lying twisted in death. 'They came for plunder. Now the crows will feast on their eyes. And will the survivors learn? Will they say. "Avoid the realm of the Blood King?" No, they will return in their thousands. What is it about this land that draws them?'

'I do not know, sire, but as long as they come we will kill them,' said Victorinus.

'Always loyal, my friend. Do you know what today is?'

'Of course, my lord. It is the Day of the King.'

Uther chuckled. 'The Day of the Two Suns. Had I known then that a quarter-century of war would follow . . .' He lapsed into silence.

Victorinus removed his plumed helm, allowing his white hair to flow free in the evening breeze. 'But you always conquer, my lord. You are a legend from Camulodunum to Rome, from Tingis to Bysantium: the Blood King who has never known defeat. Come, your tent is ready. I will pour you some wine.'

The King's tent had been pitched on the high ground overlooking the battlefield. Inside a brazier of coals was glowing beside the cot-bed. Uther's squire, Baldric, helped him out of his chain-mail, his breastplate and his greaves, and the King sank gratefully to the cot.

Today I feel my age,' he said.

'You should not fight where the battle is thickest. A chance arrow, a lucky blow ..."

Victorinus shrugged. 'We . . . Britain . . . could not stand without you.' He pa.s.sed the King a goblet of watered wine and Uther sat up and drank deeply.

'Baldric!'

'Yes, my lord.'

'Clean the Sword - and be careful now, for it is sharper than sin.'

Baldric smiled and lifted the great Sword of Cun.o.belin, carrying it from the tent.

Victorinus waited until the lad had gone, then pulled up a canvas stool and sat beside the monarch.

'You are tired, Uther. Leave the Trinovante uprising to Gwalchmai and me. Now that the Goths have been crushed, the tribes will offer little resistance.'

'I will be fine after a night's sleep. You fuss over me like an old woman!'

Victorinus grinned and shook his head and the King lay back and closed his eyes. The older man sat unmoving, staring at the face of his monarch -the flaming red hair and the silver blond beard - and remembered the youth who crossed the borders of h.e.l.l to rescue his country. The hair was henna-dyed now and the eyes seemed older than time.

For twenty-five years this man had achieved the impossible, holding back the tide of barbarian invaders threatening to engulf the Land of Mist. Only Uther and the Sword of Power stood between the light of civilization and the darkness of the hordes. Victorinus was pure-blood Roman, but he had fought alongside Uther for a quarter of a century, putting down rebellions, crushing invading forces of Saxon, Norse, Goth and Dane. For how much longer could Uther's small army prevail?

For as long as the King lived. This was the great sadness, the bitter truth. Only Uther had the power, the strength, the personal magnetism. When he was gone the light would go out.

Gwalchmai entered the tent, but stood in silence as he saw the King sleeping. Victorinus rose and drew a blanket over the monarch; then, beckoning to the old Cantii warrior, he left the tent.

'He's soul-weary,' said Gwalchmai.'Did you ask him?'

'Yes.'

'And?'

'What do you think, my friend?'

'If he dies, we are lost,' said Gwalchmai. He was a tall man, stern-eyed under bushy grey brows, and his long silver hair was braided after the fashion of his Cantii forebears. 'I fear for him. Ever since the Betrayal . . .'

'Hush, man!' hissed Victorinus, taking his comrade by the arm and leading him away into the night.

Inside the tent Uther's eyes opened. Throwing off the blanket, he poured himself some more wine and this time added no water.

The Great Betrayal. Still they spoke of it. But whose was the betrayal, he wondered? He drained the wine and refilled the goblet.

He could see them now, on that lonely cliff-top . . .

'Sweet Jesus!' he whispered. 'Forgive me.'

Cormac made his way through the scattered huts to the smithy where Kern was hammering the blade of a plough. The boy waited until the sweating smith dunked the hot metal into the trough and then approached him.

'You have work for me?' he asked. The bald thickset Kern wiped his hands on his leather ap.r.o.n.

'Not today.'

'I could fetch wood?'

'I said not today,' snapped the smith. 'Now begone!'

Cormac swallowed hard. 'I could clean the storeroom.'

Kern's hand flashed for the boy's head, but Cormac swayed aside causing the smith to stumble. 'I am sorry, master Kern,' he said, standing stockstill for the angry blow that smacked into his ear.

'Get out! And don't come back tomorrow.'

Cormac walked, stiff-backed , from the smithy and only out of sight of the building did he spit the blood from his mouth. He was hungry and he was alone. All around him he could see evidence of families - mothers and toddlers, young children playing with brothers and sisters, fathers teaching sons to ride.

The potter had no work for him either, nor the baker, nor the tanner. The widow, Althwynne, loaned him a hatchet and he chopped wood for most of the afternoon, for which she gave him some pie and a sour apple. But she did not allow him into her home, nor smile, nor speak more than a few words. In all of his fourteen years Cormac Daemonsson had seen the homes of none of the villagers. He had long grown used to people making the sign of the Protective Horn when he approached, and to the fact that only Grysstha would meet his eyes. But then Grysstha was different ... He was a man, a true man who feared no evil. A man who could see a boy and not a demon's son. And Grysstha alone had talked to Cormac of the strange day almost fifteen years before when he and a group of hunters entered the Cave of Sol Invictus to find a great black hound lying alongside four squealing pups - and beside them a flame-haired babe still wet from birth.

The hound attacked the hunters and was slain along with the pups, but no man among the saxons cared to kill the babe, for they knew he was sired by a demon and none wanted to earn the hatred of the pit-dwellers.

Grysstha had carried the child from the Cave and found a milk-nurse for him from among the captured British women. But after four months she had suddenly died and then no one would touch the child. Grysstha had taken him into his own hut and fed him with cow's milk through a needle pierced leather glove.

The babe had even been the subject of a Council meeting, where a vote was taken as to whether he lived or died. Only Calder's casting vote saved young Cormac - and that was given after a special plea from Grysstha.

For seven years the boy lived with the old warrior, but Grysstha's disability meant that he could not earn enough to feed them both and the child was forced to scavenge in the village for extra food.

At thirteen, Cormac realised that his a.s.sociation with the crippled warrior had caused Grysstha to become an outcast and he built his own hut away from the village. It was a meagre dwelling with no furniture save a cot-bed and Cormac spent little time there except in winter, when he shivered despite the fire and dreamed cold dreams.

That night, as always, Grysstha stopped at his hut and banged on the door-post. Cormac called him in, offering him a cup of water. The old man accepted graciously, sitting cross- legged on the hard-packed dirt floor.

'You need another shirt, Cormac, you have outgrown that. And those leggings will soon climb to your knees.'

'They will last the Summer.'

'We'll see. Did you eat today?'

'Althwynne gave me some pie - I chopped wood for her.'

'I heard Kern cracked your head?'

'Yes.'

"There was a time when I would have killed him for that. Now, if I struck him, I would only break my good hand.'

'It was nothing, Grysstha. How went your day?'

"The goats and I had a wonderful time. I told them of my campaigns and they told me of theirs. They became bored long before I did!'

'You are never tiresome,' said Cormac. 'You are a wonderful storyteller.'

Tell me that when you've listened to another story-teller. It is easy to be the King when no one else lives in your land.'

'I heard a saga poet once. I sat outside Calder's Hall and listened to Patrisson sing of the Great Betrayal.'

'You must not mention that to anyone, Cormac. It is a forbidden song - and death to sing it.' The old man leaned back against the wall of the hut and smiled. 'But he sang it well, did he not?'

'Did the Blood King really have a grandfather who was a G.o.d?'

'All kings are sired by G.o.ds - or so they would have us believe. Of Uther I know not. I only know his wife was caught with her lover, that both fled and he hunted them. Whether he found them and cut them to pieces as the song says, or whether they escaped, I do not know. I spoke to Patrisson, and he did not know either. But he did say that the Queen ran off with the King's grandfather, which sounds like a merry mismatch.'

'Why has the King not taken another wife?'

'I'll ask him the next time he invites me to supper.'

'But he has no heir. Will there not be a war if he dies now?'

'There will be a war anyway, Cormac. The King has reigned for twenty-five years and has never known peace . . . uprisings, invasions, betrayals. His wife was not the first to betray him. The Brigantes rose again sixteen years ago and Uther crushed them at Trimontium.

Then the Ordovice swept east and Uther destroyed their army at Viriconium. Lastly the Jutes, two years ago. They had a treaty like ours and they broke it; Uther kept his promise and had every man, woman and child put to death.'

'Even children?' whispered Cormac.

'All of them. He is a hard, canny man. Few will rise against him now.'

'Would you like some more water?'

'No, I must be getting to my bed. There will be rain tomorrow - I can feel it in my stump - and I'll need my rest if I'm to sit shivering.'

'One question, Grysstha?'

'Ask it.'

'Was I really born to a dog?'

Grysstha swore. 'Who said that to you?'

"The tanner.'

'I have told you before that I found you in the cave beside the hound. That's all it means.

Someone had left you there and the b.i.t.c.h tried to defend you, as she did her own pups. You had not been born more than two hours, but her pups were days old. Odin's Blood! We have men here with brains of pig-swill. Understand me, Cormac you are no demon-child, I promise you that. I do not know why you were left in that cave, or by whom. But there were six dead men on the path by the cliff, and they were not killed by a demon.'

'Who were they?'

'Doughty warriors, judging by their scars. All killed by one man - one fearsome man. The hunters with me were convinced once they saw you that a pit-dweller was abroad, but that is because they were young and had never seen a true warrior in action. I tried to explain, but fear has a way of blinding the eyes. I believe the warrior was your father and he was wounded unto death. That's why you were left there.'

'And what of my mother?'

'I don't know, boy. But the G.o.ds know. One day perhaps they'll give you a sign. But until then you are Cormac the Man and you will walk with your back straight. For whoever your father was, he was a man. And you will prove true to him, if not to me.'

'I wish you were my father, Grysstha.'

'I wish it too. Good-night, boy.'

CHAPTER TWO.

The King, flanked by Gwalchmai and Victorinus, walked out into the paddock field to view his new horses. The young man standing beside the crippled Prasamaccus stared intently at the legendary warrior.

'I thought he would be taller,' he whispered and Prasamaccus smiled.

'You thought to see a giant walking head and shoulders above other men. Oh, Ursus, you of all people ought to know the difference between men and myths.'

Ursus' pale grey eyes studied the King as he approached. The man was around forty years of age and he walked with the confident grace of the warrior who has never met his equal.

His hair flowing to his mail-clad shoulders was auburn red, though his thick square-cut beard was more golden in colour and streaked with grey. The two men walking beside him were older, perhaps in their fifties. One was obviously Roman, hawk-nosed and steely- eyed, while the second wore his grey hair braided like a tribesman.

'A fine day,' said the King, ignoring the younger man and addressing himself to Prasamaccus.

'It is, my lord, and the horses you bought are as fine.'

'They are all here?'