Oh Arthur, Arthur … if I could just have had the life to watch you win your war, and then to teach you what I have learned from the kings of Eriu, about gods who mean so much, so much to us all, while this One God, this carpenter, means so little to death and conquest, and things of importance!
The pain returned, and with it a difficulty in breathing that made him gasp and moan, so that now he was attended at every moment by anxious women, with round, sweet faces and full moist lips, and he had not even the strength to beg a kiss, but watched them as they bathed his body, and changed the thick plant compress on the green and black gash in his belly, where the festering viscera spread their poison further towards his vital core.
Perhaps only the thought of Arthur kept him alive, but then Arthur was a symbol of such survival and had been so since the great Ambrosius had fallen beneath the Saxon swords at Camulodunon. Arthur! Warlord of Hope! And his image gave Uryen of Powys the strength to fight back the bony hands of death, the descending veil of dark, until one day, when it rained loudly and mournfully …
The door of the round-house was flung open.
A horse whinnied distantly and clopped away across wooden mud-walks, snorting its breathlessness, the sound loud despite the drum of rain on turf and thatched wood. Cold wind brought Uryen to consciousness, the smell of grass, of autumn mist and rain, a smell that he loved, the smell of nature, of life.
The girl drew back, her last touch to his lips a gentle finger’s touch as if she made her final farewell. He watched her go, her skinny body lost in the shapeless dress as she darted round the walls, in awe of someone who came near to the deathbed.
He was a giant of a man, tall and broad, with dark hair that hung in great waves about his shoulders. When he stood upright his head nearly touched the wooden rafters that supported the thatch. A thick leather jacket was tied with silver chain about his chest, and his legs were protected with strips of cowhide woven in and out of a thick pair of cloth breeches. He wore boots up to the knees, with spikes down the inner faces of them so that he could pain his horse into moving fast. About his waist was buckled a glittering bronze and gilt belt, and from the belt hung a Roman sword, short and broad, the gift to him from their foster father, Ambrosius Aurelianus. Legend said it was the sword of Caesar himself, the conqueror of this island who now lay four hundred years dead. As it had won for Caesar great victory over the Gauls of the continental lands across the channel, so it now won for the Britons great victories over the Saxon heathens who swarmed across the eastern lands of Albion.
Uryen of Powys reached out his right hand and felt it gripped by the broad and powerful fingers of this man who now knelt beside him.
Dark eyes searched his own; tears warmed the gaze. Naked of face, the jaws as strong and firm as the rest of his giant physique, Arthur of Powys gazed into the dying eyes of his foster brother.
For a while there was silence, save for the rain, the wind, the nervous stamping of the horses outside. Raised voices and occasional laughter told of the presence of Arthur’s troops, sheltering and resting and wishing they were anywhere but in this small community here on the west of the peninsula that probed from the land of Dyfed into the sea.
The boy Owain, exhausted from his ride, stood in the doorway watching the two warriors. His belly was full since Arthur, whilst riding hard for the coast, had made sure that the young messenger had maintained his strength. He was weary only from lack of sleep and from eight days in the saddle having rested his aching limbs only during the two hour stop at the fort (so small, he had thought – he had imagined a huge and majestic castle on a hill, and had found an earthen rampart no wider than this, his own communal holding).
But he felt now an enormous pride, and even his sister had kissed him for the strength of his will and the enormity of his achievement. He had brought Arthur and Uryen together before death had cheated the warlord of his emissary. Only Owain knew that the men were foster brothers, for he had heard what had passed between them in their first moments together. Why the relationship was a secret he didn’t know, but he understood, as he watched, why the two, the giant warrior Arthur and the pale featured Uryen, why they cried so much in these first minutes of their meeting.
There was talking, then, urgent talking as Uryen told Arthur of what he had found, what he had learned, and Reagan left the round-house with her father so that only Owain remained. He crept round the wall and entered shadow, where the light coming in through the roof hole and the several thin windows never reached.
Arthur had bent close to the dying warrior, and Uryen spoke in whispers, sometimes choking, sometimes gasping for breath, but always talking on, urgently and steadily.
He told of warrior bands called fiana. Owain caught the name only once, but he understood what they were: fierce bands of naked warriors who had rejected the communal laws of their tribes and had become a law unto themselves, riding across the land, making their swords available to any king – so many kings in this country across the sea – who could pay their price.
He told of the kings themselves who were prepared to cease their raiding of the coastal towns of the western kingdom of Albion, and even to join with Arthur to fight the Angle and Saxon armies as they steadily advanced towards the mountain strongholds of the west.
And he told of one warrior in particular …
‘He is known as the Mad Bear and he is a legend …’ murmured Uryen, as strength drained and death crept close with each moment in his brother’s arms. ‘And yet … I met warriors who had seen him, and knew him to exist.’
‘Tell me about him,’ said Arthur, and Owain crept closer to watch the dying man’s lips as the words faded into whispers.
‘He is possessed … they say he is possessed … by a bear that is as fierce and violent as a lightning storm in winter. Some say that it is an unknown god that possesses him, others that it is the ghost of an unborn warrior that was lost in time and is maddened by his imprisonment. When the Mad Bear swings his sword, the blade stretches to cut the heads of all within thirty paces reach; when he smells blood he goes wild, shrieking and screaming and unable to control his violence. In this state of fury he is invulnerable. A spell protects him, an ancient curse, and it is said that he seeks release from this curse which has turned him into a living machine of death and destruction; but there is no way for him to escape the wrath of the god that cursed him so. Release is his eternal quest; death is his eternal skill; such a man might be our eternal salvation.’
‘An invulnerable warrior,’ murmured Arthur. ‘Can this be true?’
Uryen’s grip on his arm was unexpectedly strong. Owain, watching through eyes wide with excitement, observed the whiteness of the fingers as they dug into the warlord’s flesh.
‘You must believe me, Arthur. This warrior has the strength of more than fifty men … and those around him in battle feed upon that strength. He is the greatest fighting force the world has known, and you can use him to the destruction of the Saxon filth.’
Uryen collapsed back and gasped for breath. Arthur touched the parted, dry lips, and used his own spit to moisten his brother’s tongue.
‘Where do I find this warrior? How do I get him to come with me?’
‘A frightening bogland, some days’ ride directly inland from a great fort at Tara, where a king holds court. That king is a ruffian called Diarmait mac Fergal, but he will cooperate with you. The warrior, the Bear, sits in the middle of the bogland, near a small, derelict shelter. He is chained to an iron pole driven forty arms’ length into the ground, and rising as much above the bog. No single man, not even he, has the strength to tear the chain from the pole. No one knows how he came to be thus. Some say a giant imprisoned him there as punishment; others say he imprisoned himself to prevent the god-spirit that possesses him from wreaking death among the innocent and good people of Eriu.’
Uryen choked and gasped; and Arthur comforted his foster brother while Owain watched the grief in the eyes of the man all Britons knew and so
few had seen.
Uryen settled back, the burden of his mission released, his reason for living ended.
Arthur said, softly. ‘This has been a valiant mission, and a valuable discovery. I shall not forget you, Uryen. When your death is avenged, shortly, I shall kill Saxons in your name, and free the eastern lands in your memory.’
Uryen’s hand fell to his side and Owain, watching from the shadows, saw the finger pointing at him. He felt guilty and started, but decided not to run as Arthur’s eyes met his, following his brother’s pointing hand.
Uryen said, ‘He is a young boy, and his sister an aggressive and beautiful girl. They will make fine warriors, Arthur … fine warriors in my memory … just that … just that for me, no more …’
For a moment Owain found himself the centre of Arthur’s severest scrutiny, and then the awful flow of breath from body told both men, the young, and the older by a mere eight years, that Uryen’s spirit had returned to the wind.
Owain crept to the door and stood there watching as Arthur laid his head on his brother’s chest and quietly wept for a while. Owain cried too, realising now that crying was not reserved for children, but had great meaning when the tears were the tears of valiant men, seeing in one death a symbol of their lives, of their own fates.
When Arthur rose, towering high above the boy, straightening his heavy leather outfit, pulling his broad sword round so that it hung across his groin, Owain stood his ground, firm-legged, firm-eyed, and stared up at the man who would win or lose this ancient land for once and for all.
Arthur accorded the boy no gentility as he watched him, standing close, making Owain strain his neck to meet his master’s gaze. Only a few years separated them, and yet Arthur was ageless. Not yet twenty years since his birth, and yet there was a hardness about him, an experienced look, that made all men think of him as superior.
‘Will you fight with me, boy? Will you wield a sword against the Saxons in my brother’s memory?’
‘Yes!’ No pause, no hesitation.
Arthur smiled, reached to touch Owain’s shoulder. ‘And your sister? Is she as fierce as my brother said?’
‘An eagle,’ said Owain. ‘She bides her time, and swoops to kill. She is the fiercest girl in the whole of the peninsula.’
‘How old are you, boy?’
‘Fifteen,’ said Owain quickly. ‘Fifteen years old.’
Arthur’s hand slapped across his face, sent him staggering but not falling. Tears in his eyes, touching the pain in his cheek, Owain stared up at the suddenly angry man.
‘Those who ride with me are honest in all ways. Honest in life, honest in death. There is no room for deceit among those I trust the most. How old are you?’
‘Twelve,’ said Owain, bitterly aware that that was three years too young for Arthur. ‘My sister is my twin.’
Arthur nodded as he contemplated this; then he took the bull pendant from his belt and held it towards the boy. ‘Take it!’ he said angrily as Owain hesitated to take the medallion.
Owain took the jewel and stared at it.
‘A warrior queen gave it to me as a gift of love,’ said Arthur. ‘Now it is yours as a gift of thanks. If you still have the fighting urge when you reach the age of fifteen, come to me at the fort of Powys and you shall fight with me. Reagan too. Three years, boy. Make sure you come.’
Before Owain could reply he had swept from the round-house leaving him standing in the dimness, the bull amulet draped across his hand, the dead body of Uryen at peace on the pallet behind him.
Seven riders were outside in the easing rain, mounted and ready. Metal weapons and chains rattled and jingled as they restlessly waited for Arthur to mount and lead the way back to the fort. There was no thought of staying overnight. There were Saxons to be killed.
Reagan ran up to Owain as the warlord led his men through the houses and towards the open land and the hill passes that led eastwards. The people of the settlement watched the troop ride away, steam rising from the brown flanks of the horses, light sparkling on metal helms and exposed blades as all eight knights drew their swords and whirled them above their heads in a final farewell.
‘Three years, boy!’ came Arthur’s final cry, through the drum of rain and the noisy rustling of trees, thrashed before the growing wind.
Two riders split off from the other six and galloped towards the monastery that had so betrayed its faith. Then distance and the veil of rain had consumed the warriors, and it was left to the community to contemplate what had occurred.
PART TWO
Sneachta Doom – the Snow Destroyer
CHAPTER TWO
Connacht, the northern territory of the Ui Fiachrach, AD 478
Dark clouds hung above the high mountain to the west, rising slowly, powerfully, as they brought the Thunder God across to the lowlands. To sharp eyes, in the tight-packed village at the mountain’s foot, the slim shape of Cathabach, blue-robed, his long hair white as the froth that covered the storm seas, could be seen standing on the ritual rock, near the summit of the magic hill. His arms were raised and he made the complex passes of his hands, the time-honoured ritual that established communication with Thunder, drank its spit, its sweat, its blood, talked to the god through the pores of his body, through the cool air passing across his wildly waving limbs.
Clouds, like a dense fog, began to roll across the jagged head of Slieve Mor, the dark mountain, tumbling down towards the man as if they hastened to consume him. Cathabach made no move to run; when he was finally enveloped by the cloud he would be foolish to try and pick his way down the treacherous slopes back to the community.
As the touch of Thunder grew close his voice rose into a shrill wail, speaking the ancient language of those Druid ancestors of whom Cathabach was an enfeebled and fading reflection.
Once, perhaps not more than ten generations ago, the voice of the seers had risen to fill this bowl of land between mountains – and the Thunder God had answered for all to hear. Now it was hard for Cathabach even to remember the secret ritual words and magic passes. At times he wept, but always in the privacy of his imda, to the east of the main house. Hidden from the rest of the house’s occupants by his woven curtain, drawn across to cut the firelight and curious gazes of the chief’s family from his small cubicle, his tears were for what had been lost and would never be recovered. And so much was being lost, so much was changing, battered and beaten by the fierce determination of those black-robed worshippers of the carpenter god from the old Roman lands in the far east. They brought their cross, their virgin mother, their paradox and their preaching, and they stole the children of the tribal chiefs to make the tribes listen to them.
Evil men, worshippers of an evil god, but their effect was uncanny and frightening and as the decades fled by so the ancient words were being lost. Soon only a few frightened old men would remember how it had been to speak with Thunder and Sky, to commune with the three-faced god in the Earth, to fornicate with the Mother of the Rock, who now slipped deeper into the world, as if she could no longer bear to look upon the dark hills and flickering green and purple slopes.
Thunder spoke, softly, distantly, and in the village, lost among the glistening lakes and marshes of the lowlands, a few eyes turned towards the magic slieve and perhaps picked out the wind-blown shape of Cathabach, his hair streaming about his head as he turned to look across the bay.
The sudden scream that came from the village reached even his distant ears. From the large round-house in the centre of the circle of dwellings, the sound was the noise of an animal dying, or of a man succumbing to multiple thrusts of an iron sword – the sort of sound that prickled the scalps and quickened the hearts of all those who heard it, for there were few men and women who had not heard the awful screams of death in this much raided end of the world.
Women rushed from their work at the rough stone querns or the small pottery kilns, and entered the hut where lay the chief’s son, Niall cu mire, sometimes called artmire or Mad Bear. It was this young boy
who was the source of the awful sound.
On the mountain side, as the second scream caught his attention, Cathabach turned and stared at the distant pass from the central boglands, sensing trouble as Niall’s hysteria told of blood on the wind.
Niall was silenced quite quickly, and soon just the sonorous moaning of wind, and the silent creeping of the thick cloud penetrated Cathabach’s awareness. But he kept his eyes fixed on the distant pathway down the slopes, leading from the thin land-bridge with the mainland, some hours’ ride away.
At length a single rider appeared, dark and featureless at this enormous distance, but a rider, and coming fast. For a second Cathabach thought it might have been a Christian monk, but the monks rode slowly, and they never came alone, and anyway, it was only a few weeks since a group of them had last been out to this peninsular community, and they were not likely to return for at least two seasons.
When Niall’s frightening screaming began again Cathabach realised with an awful start just who was riding towards them.
Despite the descending cloud, which covered him completely before he had gone more than forty paces, Cathabach began to scramble back towards the village. Thunder spoke to him, high above, but he ignored the god.
The Bear, the great Black Bear with its hideous laughter, had been haunting him since he was three years old!
That first night, three years ago, he had alarmed the entire village with his desperate screaming. His mouth had filled with blood and he had been conscious of running through the winter darkness inside the fort, slipping in the mud inside the piled earth wall and the wooden pallisade, scrabbling for a piglet, a tiny beast that squealed, in its own way, as loud as the hysterical young Connachtman behind it.