The bear king, p.32
The Bear King, page 32
part #3 of Dark Age Series
At the far end of the beach, the small band of Scoti sat around the remnants of a fire, all glowering looks and hunched suspicion. The Grim Wolves squatted near by, hands never far from their swords, eyes darting. It had been the same ever since he’d asked Erca and his closest advisers to journey with them from Dinas Ffaraon Dandde.
Bellicus caught his arm as he passed. ‘I know you well enough. You’ve been planning something ever since we set off for home. Isn’t it time you spoke up?’
‘It is,’ the Wolf replied. ‘Come, all of you. You must hear what I have to say.’
Erca stood to meet him.
‘You’re ready?’ Lucanus asked.
‘This still sounds like some kind of trick,’ the Scoti chief replied.
‘No trick. Nor should you see it as a prize. It’s a duty.’
‘Why do you think I’d want that? My duty is to my men, my tribe, my village.’
Lucanus held his gaze. ‘You’re a strong man, and that’s what’s needed for hard times. And an honourable one, and that’s needed too, more than ever. You’ll not be short of gold in Tintagel. The western lands are rich with promise and we trade with all the empire. You can do good things for your men there, and for your tribe and your village.’
Erca weighed the words and then nodded.
‘What are you saying?’ Bellicus asked, his voice thick with suspicion. Lucanus turned and looked around at the Grim Wolves. All of them had read the truth in what he’d said, but only Mato put it into words.
‘You’re leaving,’ he said.
Lucanus watched the horror dawn in their faces. ‘This has not been an easy decision. My friends … my brothers … the bonds that bind us are unbreakable, forged through good times and hardship. By rights I should now be sailing back to the Island of the Dead, torn from Catia and Weylyn and all of you, my life and all I dreamed of stolen to advance a plot designed by others.’ He eyed Myrrdin, but this was not a time for recriminations. It was a time for hope. ‘I’ve earned a second chance to live, with my wife, and my son.’
‘You deserve it,’ Mato said, before any of the others could speak. ‘No man has given more.’
‘Where will you go?’ Bellicus asked, crestfallen.
‘Somewhere beyond the reach of wood-priests and witches. Beyond talk of destiny, and royal blood and magic swords.’
‘Will we see you again?’ Comitinus stuttered.
Lucanus grinned. ‘I’ll return when you need me most, in your darkest hour.’
Myrrdin dipped into his robe and pulled out a circlet that glittered in the morning sun. Lucanus furrowed his brow as he studied the golden dragon design.
‘The Pendragon crown was lost on the high moor,’ he said. ‘Corvus took it with him when he fled.’
The wood-priest smiled. ‘And yet here it is.’
The Wolf eyed the shiny, newly worked gold, devoid of any of the scratches and tarnish that had marred the original crown. Myrrdin, still twisting truth and making lies real to further the story his kind had been dreaming up for so long now.
The druid reached up and placed the crown on Erca’s head. ‘The new Pendragon.’
The barbarians roared, stabbing their swords towards the sky.
‘Why him?’ Solinus said, aghast.
‘I wouldn’t wish this burden on any of you,’ Lucanus said. ‘You’ll find he makes a good leader. And a wise one, if he listens to your counsel.’ He paused. ‘Catia speaks highly of him.’
Erca eyed him, then looked away.
‘You must choose a new name now, for your new role,’ Myrrdin said to Erca, ‘one that befits you now that you are no longer a barbarian Scoti, but the great Pendragon, leader of the Britons. Do not take too long in your selection. You are about to be reborn. Transmuted from lead into gold. Let your name be a sign of your enlightenment.’
Lucanus felt oddly pleased to see that Erca seemed genuinely humbled by the honour.
‘I’ll serve well,’ the Scoti chief said. ‘Have no doubt of that.’
Lucanus unsheathed Caledfwlch and offered it to the barbarian. ‘This is yours now.’ Erca took it, turning it over in the sunlight and watching the runes glimmer along the blade.
‘And Weylyn goes with you?’ Bellicus said, frowning. He was struggling to keep up.
‘Weylyn will be free. Arthur will sit on the throne now, and lead Britannia out of this coming dark age, along with his half-sister Morgen.’ The sun and the moon, under the guidance of Myrrdin and the witches. Power shared. That seemed a good arrangement. Power in one hand alone eventually destroyed the one who wielded it.
Lucanus clapped Erca on the arm, though in congratulation or pity he wasn’t quite sure, and then he walked away. The Grim Wolves stalked behind him, like birds behind a plough.
‘We should come with you,’ Bellicus said. ‘You need someone to watch your back.’
‘Aye, look what happens when we’re not there to keep an eye on you,’ Solinus jibed. ‘You lose an arm. Soon there’ll be nothing left of you.’
‘Don’t go, Lucanus. You’re our leader,’ Comitinus said.
‘Stop whining. You sound like a babe.’ Solinus kicked out and his friend danced away.
Mato waved his staff at the others to silence them, then said, ‘We’ll miss you, brother, of course we will. But we all know in our hearts that you deserve this peace, and your time with Catia and Weylyn.’
‘You have important work still,’ Lucanus said. ‘You’ll be Arthur’s circle now. You’ll need to keep an eye on him, teach him how to fight, how to scout.’
‘True. We can’t leave it all up to the wood-priest,’ Solinus said. ‘The poor bastard wouldn’t stand a chance if that happened.’
‘And Erca too,’ Lucanus added, glancing at the knot of barbarians. ‘He’ll need guidance, to learn our ways. But he’s an honourable man.’
‘If you say so.’ Bellicus narrowed his eyes at the Scoti. ‘But if he steps out of line, I’ll knock him on his arse.’
‘I’d expect no less.’
For a while they laughed, as they had done in those long days in the Wilds, and they remembered how things had once been. And when they felt the ache in their hearts growing unbearable, they clapped each other on the arms and said their goodbyes.
The Wolf watched the last rowboat, laden with his old friends, with Myrrdin and Arthur, haul out on to the swell, and then he turned from the past.
Catia waited with her arm round Weylyn’s shoulder. Lucanus thought how bright her face seemed lit by that smile, the one he remembered so clearly from the days when they ran through the fields of Vercovicium, a smile he had not seen for long years.
He pulled his wife into his arms and pressed his lips against hers. ‘This is our last kiss as king and queen,’ he said when he pulled back. And then he brushed her lips again. ‘And this is the first kiss of our new life.’
Together they watched sails billow and Niall’s ships pull away towards the horizon. Then they turned to face their new life together, a story as yet unwritten.
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
Pericles
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First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Bantam Press an imprint of Transworld Publishers
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James Wilde, The Bear King
