Pendragon and the Mists of Britannia (Pendragon Legend Book 2) Read online

  “Your name, kind sir,” Arthur asked before deciding it was time to sheath his gladius.

  “You may call me Verovingian, friend.”

  “Very well, Verovingian. I am Arthur Pendragon.”

  “I know. My master bids thee welcome and eagerly anticipates your arrival.”

  “How far?”

  “We will be there by midnight.”

  Arthur had been under the impression that his meeting would be just past the treeline. He wasn’t expecting that the journey would take half the night.

  “Lead the way, Verovingian,” Arthur said as he eased his foot into the stirrups before Verovingian suggested another course of action.

  “Boadicea is tired. Perhaps it would be better for you to walk alongside her,” he said, as his head tipped forward in a bow that was so imperceptible that it almost went unseen.

  Arthur stopped in the midst of his motion and considered the stranger’s advice. Boadicea was indeed exhausted. They had ridden for some time to get here, and prior to that she had been ridden for months and been on board a vessel across the sea.

  The stranger had no horse, and it was obvious to Arthur that he had arrived on foot. As they walked, Verovingian folded his arms and tucked one into the other’s sleeve. He was a man of average build, much shorter than Arthur. His most distinctive quality however was not his lack of physical presence but his register. A falsetto with authority in its undertones gave Arthur’s escort an air of invincibility. He carried no weapons, no sword or dagger that Arthur could discern, yet Arthur knew that the stranger should not be taken lightly.

  As the night continued to engulf the countryside and all around the trees and the features of the islands began to fade to darkness, the only thing that remained visible were the markings on the escort’s face and arms. Arthur had to assume that the markings were all across his being as every part of him that was uncovered by cloth was covered in ink. It was a fluorescent kind of ink that harnessed the energy of the day’s sun and released it to the whispers of the night.

  “What is this land called and who is the king here?” Arthur began trying to discern the hierarchy of rule and the people he had to visit once this was done.

  “You are on Gaea’s land,” he said.

  Arthur had heard the name before. His mother had spoken of the deity of nature and provided the young Arthur with an alternative narrative to the forces of the world. As a child, he had heard numerous stories of a concept that he did not particularly understand or was able to apply his senses too. Gaea was one of them.

  Asking to see Gaea, his mother had told him to look around and see it everywhere but she never pointed to one particular object or being to identify it as the personification of Gaea.

  “You were never able to grasp all that Gaea represents, even when you were young on your mother’s lap?” Verovingian declared, somewhat prophetically.

  Arthur’s silence spoke volumes. He was beginning to understand that Verovingian was like a soothsayer who could see the future or the past. But the men of magic and wizardry occupied a place far from the mind of the young general. Even with his mother’s guidance, wizardry was not something that he understood or cared to explore.

  The lack of a response prompted another observation.

  “Your time on the battlefield has altered your gifts and moved you distant.”

  “Distant from what?” Arthur asked, feeling the effects of an uncomfortable conversation upon him.

  “Distant from the truth. It is the reason you and your father lost the throne that was rightfully yours.”

  Arthur had been patient while the topic centered and swirled around him, but talk of his father began to stir an emotion that one could only label as ire.

  “You were not there, so it is safe to say that you do not know the circumstances of the moment that led to the usurper’s victory.”

  “Perhaps,” the stranger replied.

  “You seem to suggest that my father’s lack of veneration to a god was the reason that he was cheated of what was rightly his. If that is the case, then your gods are vindictive and would rather a tyrant and a fool be the leader of the greatest empire that has ever existed.”

  “My humble apologies. I mean no disrespect to you or your father, or the long line of emperors you descend from. I merely note that you have the mistaken notion of what Gaea is and what it is about. Your comment obviously suggests that you label Gaea as a deity.”

  “Is she not?”

  “Gaea is neither she nor he. Gender is a human trait and a very physical one, intended only to bring physical diversity to the subsequent generation. Gaea does not need the distinction of gender as Gaea, neither a he nor a she, lives forever and since there is no need for reproduction, does not need to assume roles of the masculine or the feminine.”

  Arthur turned to look at his nocturnal companion. By this point, without the benefit of sunlight and now shielded by the trees from the starlight, the glow from Verovingian’s markings were so vibrant that they penetrated the sackcloth that covered all of him except his face, hands, and feet.

  The glow of his drawings was enough to illuminate the path the two men traversed.

  “Where is Gaea?” Arthur asked, trying to get a better idea of the phenomenon that he had a little facility with.

  “Everywhere you look, you see Gaea.”

  “I see nothing in the distance. Is that Gaea too?” Arthur asked as he tried to place the mysterious man in a predicament.

  “More so than the things you do see. Gaea is the canvas on which the painting of life is layered. While Gaea is what you can see and all that you can’t, it is best to begin looking for Gaea in what you can’t see.”

  It was beginning to be too much for the man that lived and commanded by the sword and so silence befell the two hikers.

  ***

  As the crescent moon began its nightly ascent, the hour of their arrival approached. Soon they would be on land that was inhabited. For the entire length of the journey thus far, no animal, critter, or person had intervened. It was not something Arthur was familiar with. On the continent, for as far as the Roman influence spread, it was impossible to travel for more than an hour without coming across a fellow traveler.

  The isles were not the same as the continent in this respect, and as Arthur would soon find out, in many respects.

  In the distance, between the trees, flames danced.

  “The guardian of this land,” Verovingian began, now on the last leg of the journey, “is King Megolin.”

  “I thought you said it is Gaea’s land?”

  “Indeed, it is Gaea’s land, and she has chosen King Megolin as its worldly guardian.”

  “Then how does Merlin, your master fit into all this?”

  “Merlin is the prince of this land, Demetia.”

  “Demetia?”

  “Yes. Demetia is the name of this section of Gaea’s land.”

  “I must say, my friend,” Arthur began. “You do know how to confuse a stranger.”

  Verovingian offered a smile in response.

  “I didn’t answer your question because it was the wrong question and you needed to know about Gaea before you understood the hierarchy of its worldly guardians. Since you asked the wrong question, I chose to give you the right answer to the question you should have asked.”

  “Is this how it is going to be?” Arthur asked, smirking in the dark for the first time in his life.

  The painted man’s answer was simple and to the point. “Yes.”

  3

  Welcoming Party

  Morning had broken on the ridge surrounding the bay. The men and women in the camps slept soundly by the fires that burned brightly. It was the first time in a long while that they had felt the soft hand of peace touch them ever since they left Rome under threat of the emperor’s ire.

 
“My lord, we have a rider approaching,” Vipsanius announced.

  “How many?” Uther returned.

  “Just one, my lord,” came the answer.

  “Is it Arthur?” Uther asked, worrying that his son had not yet returned.

  “No, my lord. Should I send a rider to track him?”

  “No, Vipsanius. But do escort the rider. I would like to meet him myself.”

  “Yes, my lord. Right away,” Vipsanius answered before rushing off to fulfill his lord’s command.

  Uther returned to his tent to inform his wife that they had a visitor.

  “A rider approaches, my love.”

  “From what direction?” Igraine inquired.

  “I didn’t ask, but judging from the direction he was pointing, I assume it was coming from the north,” Uther answered, initially not seeing the significance.

  “You cannot trust this man,” Igraine proffered.

  “Because he comes from the north?”

  “If he comes from the north, he does so to shield his true origin. There is nothing in the north but barren land and rock,” she answered, her brows slightly cambered inward.

  “Very well. Let me take care of it. You stay inside.”

  “I want to see his face,” Igraine insisted.

  “Well, you can see him from behind the tent. I do not want to put you in harm’s way.”

  “I have been on the road for months. I have managed to stay alive and well. Do not think I cannot handle the gaze of one wayward rider,” Igraine shot back.

  Uther smiled. It was all he could do when faced with the fierce nature of his wife.

  “However, I would like to know where our son is. He has not returned since leaving yesterday,” she insisted.

  “Yes, my love. I am aware. Should you prefer I send trackers to find him?”

  “No, my dear. Let us attend to this rider and then set up the rest of the camp. We have to understand the politics of the land before long. And Arthur has his own path to follow. He needs to meet with the one they call Merlin.”

  “He told you this?” Uther inquired.

  “No. But a mother knows,” she said, smiling.

  “This is more than just what a normal mother would know, my love. Who is this Merlin and what does he have to do with our son?”

  “My dear, Arthur has a road ahead of him that has been chartered by Gaea. He needs to follow it. There are numerous blessings that await him, but numerous choices he has to make as well. Half his accomplishments will rely on those blessings, the other half will rely on the consequences of his choices. You and I cannot get ourselves involved.”

  “I don’t fully understand all that you have said, but I will yield for now. But you must explain this to me so that an old man can understand,” Uther replied. “You still have yet to tell me who Merlin is.”

  “You are not old. You will never be old. You are here to bring this land together and if you are wondering if Merlin can be trusted, you have my assurance that he can.”

  “To conquer it?” Uther asked, surprised that his wife was advocating a resurgence of Roman power in the isles. She wasn’t. He had misunderstood.

  “No. Not to conquer it. To unite it, my dear. This land does not need to be fought on or have precious blood be spilled upon it. Treat this land as sacred and bring it together from north to south, and generations henceforth will remember you.”

  “Yes, and the only way I know how to unite the lands is by conquering it,” Uther replied. “I am a man of the sword, Igraine,” he continued, his voice now as serious as it had ever been.

  “Then you must find another way. Bringing these people together is now your destiny,” Igraine insisted, her eyes carrying the full weight of her burden in delivering the message.

  The man who was destined to be the emperor of Rome had sat humbly in a tent pitched just the night before. There was no semblance of an imperial palace around him, but there was a gravity within him that was unmistakable. There may not have been the trappings of an emperor to demand adulation from his subjects, but there was a force that emanated from a statesman.

  “Very well, my dear. I shall think hard about how to proceed. You have given me much to think about. Now let us turn our gaze upon this mystery that rides to greet us.”

  “He rides to greet us not,” Igraine replied. “I am afraid his intentions are unclear at best, malicious at worst. You will do well to be on your guard,” she warned once more.

  Uther had nothing to add. He was already contemplating his actions and his words. In the back of his mind, his son’s absence weighed heavily, and the words of his wife with regards to his son. Uther was beginning to feel the strangeness of his predicament in a strange land.

  As the beating hoofs of the visitor’s horse stopped just outside the tent, Uther bent his right knee and bowed before the ancestral tokens that were laid out on the altar.

  “Walk with me, Father. Guide my lips, make light my sword, and make quick my feet. Even though I have disappointed you and lost the throne, I beseech you, do not abandon my side. I wait to reunite with you in the afterlife once my task in this world is done.”

  Closing his eyes, he rose. He had recited that short verse thousands of times since his father’s death. He would recite them ten thousand more before his time would come. Removing his ring, the symbol of the true emperor, and donning his linen cassock, he entered the main hall of his tent. A fire burned in the middle, under the oculus of the large tent. Uther shared his penchant for keeping warm with his son.

  The lush green grass of the meadow that once was, was now covered by Anatolian rugs, spoils of his conquests in his earlier days of his battles for Rome. It and the ancestral tokens were the only things that had made the trip with him this far east. It was only because Igraine had carried it with her when she left Rome ahead of Uther’s capture. All the other mementos were lost to the greed of the soldiers who ransacked his home and torched its walls on the emperor’s command.

  Vipsanius entered shortly after Uther had taken his place at the head of the round table made from a recently felled ash tree. Uther sat admiring the rings of the tree that had just been sanded. No finish had been laid on it yet and it was made to serve as the Pendragon table of the council. For now, it served as the table at which Uther Pendragon would first lay his eyes on the man that was about to enter the tent and forever alter the course of his life and that of his people.

  4

  Your Grace

  The fires that burned amidst the old ash trees of the Demetian Forest were constructed carefully so as to not damage the roots in the ground or the branches and leaves above. They provided just enough heat for those huddled around it. Even though the hour was late, the entire town and the surrounding hamlets had made their way to the main gathering area to await the arrival of one man.

  “Is there usually this many people in Demetia at this time of the night?” Arthur asked his companion.

  “No, friend. They are here to see you,” Verovingian replied.

  “They knew I was coming?” Arthur asked, surprised.

  “They have been waiting for you to come,” he said, in a silent whisper.

  “What’s that? Did you say something?” Arthur asked, having not received a reply but thinking that he had heard the man utter words that were unintelligible.

  “Nothing, my friend. These are the people who have come from the surrounding hamlets within the forest. They heard you will be arriving this night and have come to see you. It is customary for you to bow when you make eye contact with them.”

  “Do I need to stop and make eye contact with everyone?” Arthur asked, not accustomed to the local manners.

  “No. You only have to make eye contact periodically with the people around you. When your eyes lock with theirs, then you bow. You do not need to stop.”

  Arthur, not wanting t
o offend his hosts, began his attempt at cultural relations, all while noticing that the people were not painted like the man with whom he had spent the evening conversation.

  “Do we have far to go?”

  “We are almost there,” he answered, with a slight smile that told Arthur that he was to be assured of his safety and that no harm would come to him.

  “Why do you possess intricate stigmata, but your people do not?” Arthur asked.

  “We call these devotions,” Verovingian began. “Only some of us have it, and even then, those who have them have different ones and get them at different times in their lives. Most of the people you passed just now will not have even a single devotion. Each devotion is cut into the skin and the lifeblood of a fungus found in the bay where you landed is pushed into the area that is cut. Once the skin heals, the material from the fungus carries the light in the shape of the cut that was first made.”

  “That’s like being cut by a sword a thousand times,” Arthur suggested.

  “Indeed. It is a part of the process of devotion,” Verovingian said, pausing to decide if he should continue the next statement. Finally, he said, “I will invite you to my next devotion ceremony.”

  “I would very much like that,” Arthur replied, as they turned the corner and now faced the wooden structure.

  “You will first meet the king, who is in that structure.”

  “Do I need to know any formality when I am presented to his highness?”

  “No. Just bow and speak when you are spoken to. You will address him first as ‘Your Grace,’ and bow. If he speaks, acknowledge. If he poses a question, answer and end with ‘Your Grace.’ Understand?”

  “Yes, it’s fairly simple,” Arthur answered, knowing that the rituals and practices were not as ornate or complicated as that of seeking an audience with the emperor, even when the emperor was one’s grandfather.

  As they arrived at the great hall, Arthur noticed that it was built amidst the trees of the forest. Gargantuan ash trees, many fifty feet in width, stretched out across the great hall. The roof of the tent sat thirty cubits high over the length of the hall that stretched one hundred and fifty paces. The entire area was lit with torches that burned to emit light while they infused the air with a sweet incense that Arthur had never experienced before. It was intoxicating and invigorating at the same time, a sensation that was mutually exclusive. In Rome, all the torches Arthur was used to, burned with a foul smell. But it was the price one paid for nocturnal illumination.