The Killing Way E-Book

Anthony Hays

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 370

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Welcome to fifth-century Britain: the Romans have left, the Saxons have invaded, the towns are decaying and the countryside dangerous. A young leader has forged a reputation as both a warrior and a diplomat and supreme power is within his grasp. But Camelot does not exist; chivalry is nonexistent; betrayal and treachery are endemic. This is not the Arthur of legend. And neither is this Arthur's story. This tale belongs to its grim narrator, Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, a man whose broken life mirrors the broken Roman roads that divide the landscape. Once a feared warrior, he should have lost his life when he lost his swordhand on the battlefield. But Arthur saved him, condemning Malgwyn to a half-life as a meagre scribe. But when a young woman is murdered and Arthur's reputation is threatened, Malgwyn is tasked with solving the mystery and safeguarding the stability of Arthur's newborn realm.

Leseprobe

Welcome to fifth century Britain: the Romans have left, the Saxons have invaded, the towns are decaying and the countryside is dangerous. A young leader has forged a reputation as both a warrior and a diplomat and supreme power is within his grasp. But Camelot does not exist; chivalry is nonexistent; betrayal and treachery are endemic: this is not the Arthur of legend. And neither is this Arthur's story.

This tale belongs to its grim narrator, Malgwyn ap Cuneglas, a man whose broken life mirrors the broken Roman roads that divide the landscape. Once a feared warrior, he should have lost his life when he lost his swordhand on the battlefield. Arthur saved him, condemning Malgwyn to a half-life as a meagre scribe. But when a young woman is murdered and Arthur's reputation is threatened, Malgwyn is tasked with solving the mystery and safeguarding the stability of Arthur's newborn realm.

Anthony Hays is a journalist and novelist. He has covered topics as varied as Civil War history, narcotics trafficking, political corruption, and the War on Terror.

ANTHONY HAYS

First published in the United States of America in 2009 by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

This edition first published in the UK in 2011 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Anthony Hays 2009.

The moral right of Anthony Hays to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-85789-005-4 (hardback) ISBN: 978-0-85789-006-1 (trade paperback) eBook ISBN: 978-0-85789-008-5

Printed in Great Britain.

Corvus An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House 26-27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

This book is dedicated to the memory

of my brother,

Ronald Douglas Hays

(1949-1990),

who would have written a novel himself had

fortune not treated him so cruelly.

Where do you start in recognizing those people who have played a part in a project that has taken more than ten years to bring to fruition? The list is almost longer than the book itself. First, of course, I want to thank my agent, Frank Weimann, for taking a chance on me. For their technical advice and friendship, my appreciation goes to Geoffrey and Patricia Ashe and Dr. Christopher Snyder, who have shared generously of their knowledge of the time and the characters. I also must thank John Paine for his outstanding guidance.

For their generous years of advice, support, and kindness, Dr. James A. Grimshaw, his wife, Dee, Dr. Richard Tuerk, and his wife, Roz, top the list. They all kindly read versions of the book and offered their suggestions. Others who have been integral parts of my life as a writer are former classmates and professors Dr. Bryan Dietrich, Robert Sterling Long, Dr. C. Jason Smith, Dr. Bill McCarron, and the late Dr. Joanne Cockelreas. Among the friends and colleagues are fellow authors Gordon Mennenga, Howard Bahr, Charles C. Thompson II, Kevin and Gail Buckley, as well as Owen Thompson, Kelly Linam, Liz Mills, Lesley Daniel, Marty Alexander, Lesa Plunk, and my good friend Brian Holcombe. I would be completely remiss if I overlooked Stephen Fitzpatrick and Bill and Diane Pyron, old friends from my days in Kuwait.

And then there are those who have been there for me all along the way. My brother, John David Hays, Woodson Marshall, Don Cornelius, Greta Crowe, and my dear, dear aunt Mary Dee Welch and her family, Red and Carrie Nell Shelby, Larry and Joan Phelps, John Roberts and Susan Parris, and the entire Bain family. I can't forget to mention Anna Pastore and Dr. Judy Edwards, friend, colleague, and boss.

Last, and absolutely not least, I want to thank my editor, Claire Eddy, her assistant Kristin Sevick, and all the folks at Tor.

TONY HAYS

Savannah, Tennessee

In the eightieth year from the Adventus Saxonum

Iam in my ninetieth winter, the oldest man in the western lands. My eyes and my one hand have not yet deserted me, so I think it meet that I put down in writing some of what I have lived through. And there has been much, from my farming days near the lands of the river Cam to the battles against the Saxons to my days at Arthur’s castle. I have witnessed death, devastation, and treachery. But I have also seen goodness in commoner, and king, and in these days that is exceptional and worthy of note.

My days are spent in contemplation and remembrance near the brothers at Glastonbury, that place we used to call Ynys-witrin before the Saxons spread their vile language like a plague across our land. I am not a brother, and I do not live with them, rather in a small house near the abbey. But I take my meals at the abbot’s table, and I read the brothers’ manuscripts, copy an occasional one if they have need of me and my hand is not too pained. They leave me to myself much of the time, unless the abbot needs advice on treating with the ubiquitous Saxons. He respects my word; no one else in our lands has as much experience dealing with them.

Each person’s life brings unexpected events, trials, burdens, each of which tests his soul and his nerve. Such has been my life . As a young man, I thought to be no more than a simple farmer. Now I look back at the different paths I have followed, and I count among them farmer, soldier, scribe, councillor to a king, and now simply a penitent soul looking for reason in all that has passed. Though I could have wished to remain that simple farmer, I cannot count my life as a bad one. I believe that I have done much good with the years God has given me. And I owe that satisfaction to one man.

I never intended to write these words. These memories were saved in the farthest reaches of my mind, back where no one, not the Saxons or anyone, could take them from me. But not a fortnight ago, I argued with Gildas, that fat monk who wrote a tome called De Excidio, and though it pretends to tell something of the history of this land, Gildas ignores the most important parts. He ignores my Lord Arthur, who gave his life to keep the hateful Saxons at bay, who championed the Christ and ruled these lands accordingly. He ignores the sacrifices of the many for the good of our patria.

When I pointed out these omissions, he grumbled that they were not important. To him Arthur was just another self-serving tyrant, concerned only with the women he could bed and the food he could steal from poor folk. When I spoke of Gereint, Gawain, and Gaheris, aye, even Guinevere, he laughed at the blood they had spilt on this very land. At that, I could take no more. I tried to strangle him, and though my bones have weathered ninety seasons, it took three of the monks to drag me away from him and back to my house.

No, I cannot leave the field to such as the fat Gildas. He never really knew Arthur, and what he knew of Arthur he did not like. Besides, all Gildas knows how to do is complain. The others who could have written the truth—Bedevere, my old friend Kay, the old abbot Coroticus—are gone.

The tale is not an easy one, filled as it is with betrayal and death, nor does it please me to recall. But though it takes my last breath to finish, it is a task that must be done, for all of them. It is a debt of honor, and one no man can stop me from paying. So, I take a quill in my one hand, misshapen by age, to record what really happened.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Pleasure myself with a one-armed man?” the wench had whined. “ ’Tisn’t likely.” But half a chilly night and a full skin of wine later, she chanted a different tune. And I was forgetting that I was half a man.

Until someone grabbed me about the neck and lifted me from between her legs.

Until someone flung me across the hut, and I crumpled against the stone and stick wall.

My attacker first appeared as a fuzzy shape, and anger welled up in me as I shook my head to clear it and the figure became better defined. Then he spoke, and the anger filled my throat and threatened to choke off my breath. “It does not surprise me,” the tall, bearded man said with a frown, “to find you wasting yourself with a drunken wench.”

Not only had I been savagely torn from a night of drink and pleasure, but the culprit was none other than my Lord Arthur, a man who had saved my life—and the man whom I hated with all my heart.

“I have need of you,” Arthur said in his deep, rumbling voice. He tossed a woolen wrap at the girl and motioned sharply at the door. Silly wench was blubbering by then, scared witless of Arthur, and she scampered out of the hut and into the foul night.

“I have no need of you,” I answered, groping for the goatskin. But he snatched it from my grasp and poured the wine onto the ground.

“You wound me, my lord.”

“You wound me, Malgwyn. Quit sniveling and come with me.” His voice changed, perhaps unnoticeable to others, but I had warred with him through too many battles and knew that it portended trouble. “There has been a death,” he said, dropping his chin to his chest.

I am called Malgwyn ap Cuneglas. The only thing gentle about my birth was the kiss that my mother laid on my newborn brow. I was born to a farmer near the river Yeo, a man from the west country named Cuneglas. He died when I was but ten years old and my mother when I was seventeen, the year I took to wife Gwyneth, the daughter of my neighbor. She was fifteen and the loveliest lass in our lands. For five years life was as good as I could ask. We farmed and lived and loved. For a while.

Arthur was not king then, but rather the “Dux Bellorum,” the general of generals, for Ambrosius Aurelianus and a handful of lesser kings scattered throughout the land. The kings had made an uneasy alliance with the Saxons to fight the Picts, and then the treacherous dogs betrayed us. To Arthur the kings turned; I knew him then only as a whisper on the wind, a story made larger in the telling, of a great warrior who laid a hundred Saxons low with a single sweep of his sword. And, truly, I paid him no mind. Troop levies had not been made in our region. The Saxons were many leagues away from our lands, and the people found no fear of them; they had once been our allies.

Until.

Until they turned on us, one cool morn while the men of our village were off to market to sell our produce. Until our return brought us death and destruction. As we rounded the road to our village, instead of finding our families eagerly awaiting our return, we discovered our huts destroyed, smoking, burning. We found our women raped and our babies killed. Searching the rubble that had been my home, I found Gwyneth, her legs aspraddle and her throat slit. Our girl, Mariam, still in her first year, had hidden in a storage pit. For a wonder, they had not found the child. I suspected that Gwyneth hid her there when she heard the Saxons come. I took her from the cold pit and cried giant tears, until her wrap was moist with my grief.

The next day I took her to my brother’s home in Castellum Arturius—the town was too large for a simple raiding party—and left her with him. With other men of my village, we mounted our horses and rode to find Arthur, to join him.

I did not cry again.

I smiled at each Saxon throat I cut. I smiled at each rotting Saxon body we left on the battlefield. My fellows thought it odd that I smiled so much at death and devastation, and after a while they called me “Smiling Malgwyn.” They did not understand that the smile ate at me like a disease.

Arthur saw something in me though. Before one battle, I sat on my horse on a ridge and studied the land before us. Another horse rode up alongside, and I took it for one of my fellows. “If Arthur is smart,” I said, “he will place forces in hiding there, there, and there.” My finger pointed out low hills. “When the Saxons ride to face our main force, they will be trapped with their backs to the river.”

“I agree,” a deep voice said. Arthur. “You are Malgwyn ap Cuneglas.”

“Yes, my lord,” I said, turning quickly and giving the salute, surprised almost as much by his sudden appearance as by the fact that he knew me.

He nodded, smiled faintly, turned his horse and left. Within minutes, the troop dispositions were made as I had suggested. When the Saxons made their charge, the course of battle ran just as I predicted. We crushed a large Saxon force, shoving the last survivors into the river to drown. I was given my own troop of horse to command and a place in the war councils.

Had I known then what that brief encounter portended, I would have killed him there. It would have saved me a great deal of pain and misery.

Arthur’s odd pronouncement cleared my eyes, and I began to focus. I yearned to return to the wine and the wench, but the set of his jaw made me want to know more.

“Death is a constant of this life, my lord,” I observed. “It is all around us. Why is this one different?”

Arthur lowered himself onto a stool that I had lashed together out of an armload of trimmed branches and scraps of leather. He was dressed as a common man, in a woolen tunic hanging down nearly to his knees and tied at the waist with a leather belt, and braccae. His huge feet were covered with leather shoes laced across the top in the Celtic manner. He liked to go abroad in peasant’s garb, without the fine linen camisia his wealth and station afforded him. A dagger protruded from his belt, and I suspected that one or more of his men lingered in the darkness outside my hovel.

“A servant girl from my hall was found dead an hour ago in the lane. She was lying outside Merlin’s home.”

“Ravaged?” I gathered my own braccae and slid them on. In front of any other man, I would have been humbled, but we had shared too many campfires to worry about such niceties.

“That is not for me to say, but the poor child was gutted like a deer, slit from throat to belly.”

“Odd. But why does the death of a serving girl disturb the great Lord Arthur?”

“There was a knife lying by her body, covered in blood. It belongs to Merlin.”

And that explained it all. Merlin, though some called him Myrddin hereabouts, was a harmless old man, a councillor to Ambrosius Aurelianus and Arthur’s old teacher at Dinas Emrys, where Arthur was schooled. He came from a town in the far north, Moridunum in Roman days, Carmarthen now. Some said that he was of a long line of prophets, whose deeds gave rise to the town’s name, which meant “inspiration” in our tongue.

Once he had given good counsel, but the years had played tricks on his mind, and he thought himself a sorcerer now and sold potions made of valerian root to the gullible. When he was in his right mind, he could cut through the thickets choking a problem and strike at the root of the matter. And, Arthur loved the old cantankerous fool.

The wine’s magic was beginning to fade and a pain grew in the back of my head as I, now dressed, rested on my haunches. “So, your much touted devotion to justice is now about to betray you? What of it? You are Lord Arthur. You are as good as crowned as the Rigotamos. Do as you please. No one will argue.”

“You know I cannot do that. Vortimer, David, Mordred, and the others are always tormenting me. They snap at my heels like a litter of unruly pups, and they are always looking for some reason to challenge my ascent to the throne.” David, a lord of the northern lands, the Votadini, was one of a number of cagey warriors, ambitious and sly. And while Arthur still championed the Christ, Vortimer, and a handful of other lords led a growing movement of those who believed our troubles came because we strayed from the old gods.

The pain in the back of my neck grew even stronger, and I rubbed it with my one hand. “Go away, my lord. I am no help to you, and even if I could be, give me one reason that I should come to your aid.”

Arthur rose and crossed the hut, kneeling in front of me and resting his hand on my shoulder. I looked up into his eyes and saw a sadness in their depths. “The murdered girl is Eleonore, your wife’s sister.”

I considered this for a moment, letting the weight of what he said fall upon me. Eleonore, a warm and wonderful girl. I remembered her as a child, not yet in her teens, helping my Gwyneth with our Mariam, not long, it seemed, before I found Gwyneth bloodied and Mariam hiding.

Damned Saxons! They couldn’t have done it; this I knew. But I wanted someone to blame, and if I didn’t know who committed the deed, they would serve to fill the role. Or maybe I blamed them for making me less than a man. Arthur and I had done for many of them. But that was before, before the other had happened. And for that, I could blame Arthur.

A man without a limb had no place in our world. ’Twas better to be born with some deformity, for then you might be marked as blessed by the gods, or cursed by them. But one who has lost a limb was given no such choice. The loss of a limb would follow a man into the afterlife and most considered it a punishment for some sin or a cruel nature. Aye, many believed that a man so marked could not ascend to heaven, was doomed to wander the underworld. Such a man could never be a king, for only perfection in a king was acceptable. Losing my arm cost me not only its use but marked me as cursed by the gods both in life and out.

It had happened along the river Tribuit; we battled with an exceedingly large force of Saxons. I remember that it was a pretty morning, but the songs of birds did not grace our ears, rather the clank of metal on metal and that awful, indescribable sound of rent flesh. The enemy had nearly overwhelmed our brave force with their stout spears, lances, and swords, and a handful of us were surrounded on a grassy knoll that sloped into the river.

The more desperate our situation became, the more frenzied the thrust and parry of my sword. I slew twenty of the mongrel Saxons, but with only three of my fellows left, I realized this was the end of my vengeance, the end of my smiles, a reality driven home when a Saxon blade cleaved my right arm at the elbow.

I fell in the blood-dampened grass, my severed member lying with the hand toward me as if imploring me to join it, and waited for peace to come, for my chance to rejoin Gwyneth. But as darkness grew around me, I sensed someone fumbling at the stump of my arm, a leather strap tied taut to stanch the flow of scarlet. As I cried in protest, I was lifted up and placed on a horse; a voice whispered in my ear, “No warrior such as you will waste his life’s blood if I can prevent it.” It was Arthur.

For days I was delirious with fever and exhaustion, near to death I was told. I awoke two weeks later with the brothers of the small abbey at Ynys-witrin, that place also called Avalon. Arthur had left me in their care. The brothers liked Arthur not and he cared not for them, but they respected each other, and Arthur knew my wound would need careful attention if I were to survive.

Survive, what a hateful word.

When I awoke and realized what I had lost, the last thing I wanted was to survive. Gwyneth gone. The farm gone. Half an arm gone. I cursed Arthur for saving me, cursed him for not letting me die on the battlefield, bathing in Saxon blood. I struggled with learning to write my letters. The brothers had suggested the task as a way to keep my mind active, to strengthen my left hand and arm, and to give me a trade, that of the scribe. But for me it was just something to fill my time, to push out thoughts of Gwyneth and the Saxons and a war that had seen Arthur rise high while others lost everything.

The great man visited me once, without warning. “A good occupation,” said a voice from the door.

“Good for something that once was a man,” I had answered without turning, already knowing who it was, continuing to scratch the quill across the parchment.

“That is true only if you believe it yourself.”

“That is what you and your church say, and the Druids as well.”

“Yet, the brothers here have cared for you,” Arthur retorted.

“They are kind.”

“Perhaps you should learn some of that kindness.”

“For what purpose, my lord?” I spat out the words as though they were sour wine.

“In order to turn it upon yourself. You act as a man who has done some great wrong and cannot forgive himself. Be kind to yourself. You deserve it.”

“And what should I tell my men, the ones you dragged me from, the ones I should have died with, and betrayed.”

“That their time had come and yours had not. That God had more plans for you.”

“You are not God, my lord! But you are the archpriest of bastards and the spawn of vermin.” In any other time and place that would have earned me a quick death. But Arthur had merely laughed. I think back now and realize that my words were so venomous because Arthur’s were so true. And I think he knew that then.

“Learn your lessons well, and keep your mind sharp. I may have need of you again.”

He was gone before I could tell him to leave me alone forever.

But though I heeded his words about learning my letters, I kept my mind anything but sharp, except for one irritating puzzle at the monastery that drew me from my melancholy. I learned my letters, and with something of a trade, I returned to Castellum Arturius, intent on making what little money I needed to drink myself into the next life.

I scratched the stubble on my face as I considered Arthur’s expression and a burning that was building in my belly.

We had seen each other little from that time to this. Now, Ambrosius was the Rigotamos, and Cadwy and the rest were but memories, old men who bored guests with their tales of battles gone by, for the Saxons’ advance had been checked for a time. Ambrosius was readying to step down, and the cloak of leadership seemed poised to fall to Arthur. I watched from afar as he rose high in the esteem of the people, and now he sought election as the acknowledged overlord, the Rigotamos, the high king of the Britons. It was a time of relative peace as the Saxons stayed in the lands of the Cantii and left our western fields and villages alone. And I lived alone in my little hut, drinking, trying to forget I’d ever heard of Arthur.

Eleonore, such a pretty child. Dead, now. I had seen her about the castle in recent days, and she showed a love for life that knew no bounds. I could not imagine her cold and white with death, as I had seen her sister, my beloved. It was as if Arthur had brought death to my family again and had saved me to bear witness to it. With a great effort, I pushed myself to my feet and brushed Arthur’s hand from my shoulder, meeting him eye to eye and not yielding an inch. “Listen to me, my lord. Mark you this and mark it well: I will have the truth of it, no matter where it leads. Even if that crazy old fool did the killing. She will atone for another of her family who lies unavenged.”

My lord drew himself to his full height, fearsome as it was, his eyes blazing. “Do not forget who rules Arthur’s castle.”

“Do not forget whom you have sought out,” I countered. “I will not spare Merlin if he is the guilty one. And should your hand be seen in my inquiries, it will prove what Vortimer and the others are probably already whispering: that the great Arthur, who champions truth and justice and boasts the Cross on his shield, will conveniently forget such things when an old friend is in jeopardy. And that will force Ambrosius to reconsider his support for you.” I chose my words well and knew my target even better.

Arthur’s shoulders slumped, and he turned from me. “Of course, you are right. You are a hard man, Malgwyn. But the world needs such as you. Though if any citizen of this kingdom lies unavenged, Malgwyn, it is not Gwyneth. You repaid her death a hundred times over.”

“Her death will never be fully avenged.”

“Believe as you wish. Come, I’ll show you where it happened.”

“Has aught been touched?” I asked him brusquely, struggling into my shirt.

“No. I knew you needed to see her as she was found.”

Outside, people were still moving about in the lanes. This was no ordinary night. The entire consilium, the entire group of lords from all the tribes of Britannia, had come to Arthur’s castle for one purpose and one purpose only—to name a new Rigotamos, a new high king to govern over all.

Oh, the old Rigotamos was not dead. No, he breathed yet.

Most such lords seemed as the one before, one to pay tax to, like all the rest. But Ambrosius was different somehow. He seemed to care about all of the raids by the Saxons, once our allies. “Aye, he has a Roman bearing, that one,” my old man would say, leaning on his hoe at the end of the day. “Yep, him and that young one will stand us in good stead.” By “that young one” he meant Arthur, a young officer and tax collector for Ambrosius. “A good, stout Roman lad,” my father had said.

And when I met him one day, I saw that look in his eye, the one you knew you could trust above all else. His name was well known in our family. Rumors flew that he had been the reason that my cousin Guinevere was cast from the women’s community at Ynys-witrin, but few knew the truth of it. A few years later, when we had laid my old father in his grave and the Saxons turned on us, ravaging the land at will, I remembered those eyes, and it was those I sought after the devils butchered Gwyneth when they reduced our village to burning huts and bloodied bodies. That was the beginning; much came after.

Now, Ambrosius was stepping down, and that young officer, the one I had come to trust with my soul yet now hated with all my heart, was said by some to be the next Rigotamos. He had repulsed the Saxon surge, with me at his side most of the time, and his reputation stood high across the land. Ambrosius, fat and rich, had retired to Dinas Emrys, leaving the administration of the various lords to Arthur. But he did not trust his consilium, as well he might not, and worried that some ambitious lord would conspire to kill him and claim the throne for himself. So, by retiring, he removed himself as a target and secured the major voice in choosing his successor.

By that time, I could care less, a one-armed drunk, saved from the grave by Arthur and despising him for it every day. He had made me half a man, and robbed me of my love for killing Saxons, that inner love that kept a smile across my face. No, I was no lover of Arthur.

It was generally assumed that this meeting of the consilium would confirm Arthur’s choice. Treachery was a way of life, however. By proposing Arthur as his successor now, and using his power with the consilium to secure the selection, Ambrosius could rest easy. I had to wonder at the conjunction of events— the consilium’s meeting and Eleonore’s death. Were they somehow connected?

Arthur’s castle was an old fort even then. An ancient village from Roman times was located to the northeast, and it was among those once-fine houses that some of the soldiers made their homes. Lord Cadwy established our fort on old Roman ruins near the land called Camel. The young Arthur would not take the bribes offered by the abbots and monks to ignore their levy. It earned him no friends among the priests, but the common man appreciated his fairness, and he rose to Dux Bellorum for our consilium. When Cadwy died, Arthur claimed his fort near Camel, changing its name to Castellum Arturius.

I preferred to be closer to the fort above and lived just beyond the outer gates. Years of use had beaten the main road into more a wide gully than a road, but Arthur had had the route cobbled in recent years. It led past my door and entered through Roman-style double gates, winding sharply up through the four defensive rings surrounding the fort. The massive rings were made of rock walls, dry-stacked in the old fashion, not mortared like Roman builders would have it, sixteen feet thick and reinforced by strong wooden posts every ten feet or so. Each ring of stone was surmounted by a stout wooden rampart. It would take a massive army or base treachery to defeat the castle’s defenses.

Guards stood watch at each ring, but they raised a hand and smiled as they saw Arthur with me. Had he worn his warrior’s regalia, they would have stood and saluted, but they knew that Arthur did not like ceremony when he dressed as a common man. Arthur could be a fierce and passionate warrior, and for this his men loved and trusted him. Trusted him enough that they accepted that he was a true believer in the Christ and carried symbols of Christianity on his shield, though even some of Arthur’s men wished for the return of the Druids. A good man he was, but no special friend of the clergy, and that endeared his men to him as well.

On top of the hill, on the high summit, sat Arthur’s great hall. The fletchers’ workshops, armorers, the great market, and other shops and timbered houses lay spread gloriously out below. A Roman-style barracks occupied the far end of the plateau from the great hall, at the terminus of the wide lane that ran the length of the fort. All was fresh and clean, the lanes all paved with local stone. When Arthur had taken residence at the fort, he launched an extensive rebuilding campaign, paving the lanes, repairing the buildings, and erecting a new hall for himself.

As we trudged along the lanes, we encountered few people at this hour, two past the midnight, but as we drew closer to Merlin’s hut, just east of Arthur’s hall, a circle of armed warriors stood guard while a group of young men pushed for a closer look.

The metallic smell of blood hung in the air, like that of a freshly dressed kill in the field. I pushed past the young toughs and through the circle of guards. Eleonore’s face was turned away from me, and I was glad for that. Her tender neck looked like Gwyneth’s, though, and the sight stole my breath from me. From behind I heard a sudden silence and the rustling of bodies as the crowd parted for Arthur.

I knelt before her and pulled her clothing back from her stomach. She wore an old-fashioned gown, called a peplos, with a Roman-type cut, favored by Arthur’s circle. A beautiful bronze brooch, shaped like a dolphin, fastened the gown at her shoulder. But when I saw what had been done to her, appreciation for her jewelry fled and I nearly spewed wine over her. Arthur had been absolutely correct. She was cut from between her breasts to her womanly parts and the flesh laid back. Blood lay splattered about her clothing in gobbets. I took her cold face in my hand and pulled it toward me, and the sight of that familiar face sat me back on my haunches as if I were truly drunk. I began to heave again as the bile flooded my throat. This time I couldn’t hold it back and my evening’s drink splashed all over the cobblestones. She had her sister’s face, almost my wife’s twin, and seeing her like this was like kneeling in my hut, desolate, so many moons before. For a moment, all around me disappeared, and I felt the rage and revulsion of Gwyneth’s death sweep over me again. It was as if I knelt over her still ravaged remains; it was as if she had died once more. My bile heaved and my heart tightened; until, that is, some wag behind me chuckled.

“His lordship not only brought a one-armed drunk to investigate the crime, but one with a weak stomach as well. Perhaps his spine is as yellow as his belly is weak.” I didn’t recognize the speaker, but I knew that he was a follower of one of the lords of the consilium, a young buck with less common sense than experience and of that not much at all.

I paused to see if Arthur would answer this insolence, but he stood curiously silent, perhaps waiting to see what I would do. I knew too that this was Arthur’s way of checking my worth. We had some old warriors about the villages and towns, missing hands, feet, but those who suffered such wounds mostly died from loss of blood or the stinking, choking putrefaction that followed. Those who survived, like me, were left to begging, pleading for a scrap of bread or a jug of wine, losing the last of their pride. A one-armed man served little purpose in any world. Farming required two hands as did most other jobs. Men with one arm had no purpose, no use it seemed. Arthur kept me breathing, gave me a trade to keep me from begging, but he could not return my arm. And now he would see how I had adapted to that loss.

I handled it swiftly, my anger at the child’s death venting on the heckler. With a speed that shocked all who saw, I grabbed the feeble throat of the boy and, in one move, lofted him off the ground and pinned him against the wall of Arthur’s hall. His eyeballs bulged as I remorselessly cut off his breath.

“As you can see, I need but one arm and one hand to stifle your childish mewlings.” I let him drop to the ground, and he clutched his throat. “Another word from you and you’ll be as dead as that girl.” Coughing and hacking, he scuffled away from me across the cobblestones. “Now, go, before I change my mind and end your miserable life.”

I spun around and fixed the crowd of soldiers with a stare. “Would anyone else care to test my spine?”

The young ones took a step back, without knowing it, it seemed. But not Vortimer, who stepped out so that I could see him. He and I had shared a battlefield or two in our time. Bearded with a thick chest, he had not the height of Arthur, or the honesty. The slyness in his eyes worried me, for I could not read him as well as I could read other men.

“Go on now, the rest of you! Get to your homes,” ordered the captain of the guard. The handful of others slowly dispersed, leaving me with the guards and Arthur, and, of course, Eleonore.

“Bring those torches in closer,” I directed. The glowing, dancing globes of light drew in about me until I could see all too clearly what evil the murderer had wrought on the poor girl.

She looked so different now, so unlike the little girl I had watched grow up. She had been but a child when Gwyneth and I were wed. The youngest of the children, she had been doted upon by her parents. Gwyneth often chided them for spoiling her, but both she and I did our share of the spoiling. Eleonore had bright, inquisitive eyes, and when she visited us, as she was wont to do, she would climb into my lap and beg me to tell her stories. How she would listen to those stories, with those beautiful eyes sparkling. But the sparkle was gone now, fled with the fire of life that had once filled her, replaced with the dull glaze of death. I shivered and steeled myself for the task ahead.

The blood I had first noticed now seemed less marked. There was much, to be sure, but not as much as one would expect from such a wound. No great puddles lay on the cobblestones, and yet the knife had ripped through her body, severing all those great channels that carried her blood. A knife, a single-edged blade, lay beside her, and it was covered with her blood and bits and pieces of her flesh. The great, gaping wound could easily have been made with such a weapon.

Still, something bothered me. I brushed the hair back from her face and neck and saw immediately the knife had not killed her. Bruises showed on her pale neck, in the shape of fingers, and small splotches, where blood had burst to the surface and appeared around her white eyes.

Eleonore had been strangled to death.

No blood had sprayed the lane because her heart had quit pumping before her body had been ripped open. I had seen similar wounds on the battlefield, where a blunt blow to the head had killed, and a later sword thrust produced no great gouts of blood. Why would the killer have mutilated her so when she was already dead?

I motioned for the guards to draw closer with their torches, and, with my initial shock set aside, I studied the gaping wound more closely. A quick survey led me to realize two facts: the blood I had sought on the lane was not pooled in her body cavity, another sign that she had been dead when this butchery had been done, and something more disturbing than the poor girl’s identity could ever be.

Her heart was missing.

With all the will I possessed, I strengthened myself and slid my hand into her body, shifting lungs, stomach, but where the heart should have been were those great, severed tunnels and an empty spot. An old monk at Ynys-witrin taught me what I know of a person’s insides. It was another of those studies I performed to help forget my missing arm. Preparing the bodies of the brothers for burial had fallen to this old man. He had studied the human body carefully and knew it well. The other brothers were reluctant to touch a dead body, a superstition dating back to Roman days, but one no more necessary then than now. The dead are ever with us, but I had heard tell of priests and ritual purifications, necessities to be performed before a body could be touched. We worried little about that sort of thing in these days. Now, sitting back on my heels, I studied the blood covering my hand, drying into a mortal glove, and tried to think of some reason for this. Rape. Yes, I understood rape. But this was different.

To be certain, I drew her skirts up and examined her womanhood. No tears, no scrapes, no blood, no bruises, nothing. No reason to think she had been raped or even that she had submitted willingly. I had heard enough in the lanes to know that she had her admirers, those who would pay court to her. Kay was one. I had also seen the look of hunger that young Tristan had given her at the feasting that night. He would bear questioning, as would Kay.

“Malgwyn!” a voice hissed, and I looked up to see Kay himself, with an expression of disfavor on his face. “Her honor, Malgwyn. Leave her something!”

“Her honor is gone with her life’s breath, old friend. And if studying the most private part of her is the path to her killer, then I must follow that lane wherever it leads.” I shook my head, replacing her skirts and smoothing them. “However, that is not the reason this time.”

“She was not abused?” Kay asked. He was an exceptionally tall man, and I was forced to stretch my neck to look up at his face, as I was stocky and of medium height.

“No. There is something else awry here. Where is Merlin?”

“I had him taken to the barracks and tied to a post to keep him out of trouble,” answered Arthur, more loudly than I thought necessary considering the hour, but I suspected he wanted all to know that he would offer no favor in this matter. In other circumstances, I would have laughed at Arthur’s sometimes overwhelming desire to seem fair and just. What man with power in this day and age was either? But this was not a night for jests.

“And your other servants, my lord? The ones that this girl worked with. I’ll need to speak to them as well.”

“As you wish,” Arthur said with a flourish, more for the benefit of his followers, Kay, Bedevere, and the others. He knew that I’d do as I pleased regardless. “You have my full authority in this matter.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“I will leave you to your work,” Arthur answered. “But, Malgwyn?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Be quick about it.” Arthur left abruptly, returning to his hall.

His tone left nothing to the imagination. The longer I took to divine this matter, the less chance Merlin would have, and Arthur’s chances to be Rigotamos would dwindle. The people would demand Merlin’s punishment, and for this there could be only one choice.

Arthur loved the old man like a father, and he would hesitate to have him executed, hesitate until the people began to ponder whether he had the strength to rule. As soon as Arthur lost his popular support, the other nobles would pressure Ambrosius to stop championing him as the new Rigotamos, leaving the field open.

“Are you finished with the body?” a new voice asked, one that was as familiar to me as my own. I turned toward the grim face of my younger brother, Cuneglas, named for our father.