The Bloody Cup (7 page)

But, late at night, when the wind blew from the east, he struggled with the warning implied by the Bloody Cup. He imagined a large golden goblet decorated with huge, raw-cut stones. It hovered in the deepest recesses of his mind, growing daily in size as his imagination fed on it. Ghastly and grisly, blood spilled down its sides and blurred the rich embossing and the fair gems. Within the rim, the blood swirled in a viscous spiral that dragged Taliesin down into impossible and fathomless depths.

He woke from such dreams drenched in sweat and trembling with terror but, in his waking hours, he mastered his face so that Nimue would miss the telltale pallor of his dread.

Both mother and son lied wordlessly to each other.

Winter had gripped the mountain country in its iron fists when Taliesin prepared to leave the only home he had ever known. On the morning of his departure, he rose early, expecting to find his mother in the kitchens or drying fleece before the fire, but the house had that curious, empty hollowness that only manifests itself when its soul is absent.

Two bare feet had tracked a path from the kitchen quarters, across the coarse stubble of field, and into the line of wild forest. The light footsteps had barely disturbed the dead grasses, but where a light dusting of frost had settled, Taliesin could trace the route taken by his mother.

As quiet as any wild young animal, he followed her footsteps into the trees and along the edge of an ice-bound rivulet that sank into a steeply sloping fold in the hills. At the bottom a black mere lay partially frozen over, glistening in the weak morning light like a slice of polished agate.

Taliesin halted and watched as his mother stepped on to the frozen lake. Her furs trailed from her shoulders, dark and slick as an otter’s coat under the silver fall of her unbound hair. Words sang in Taliesin’s head as Nimue cast off her furs and stood half-naked on the frozen lake, with her slender white arms raised upwards towards the rising sun. He could see the mark of the dragon as it coiled up her leg, and he could visualise the ice beneath her feet puddling slightly beneath the warmth of her feet.

Before she turned to retrace her steps to the Stone House, she bowed to the sky, the water and the willows that defined the far edges of the mere. Around her neck, Myrddion’s electrum necklace gleamed like fish scales.

‘She is, in truth, the Lady of the Lake.’ Taliesin hugged the trunk of the oak tree that hid him in its shadow as his mother glided past him, her furs now returned to her shoulders and her flesh pearly-white in the half-light.

Later that day, when a weak sun had risen in a grey sky, the song was already growing in Taliesin’s head as he rode away from his home with only his favourite hound for company and protection.

Nimue wept.

Three other women faced the same sunrise with similar stirrings of emotion, powerful and scouring.

Far to the north, in a bothie of thatch, willow lathes and mud, Morgan brooded over her shrunken flesh. The polished silver mirror that had been Uther Pendragon’s cruellest gift to her revealed a face and eyes that were as sunken and desiccated as her stepfather’s had been at the time of his death. Uther had hated her as much as he had needed her potions to keep him alive. The old king saw the betrayed Gorlois in his stepdaughter’s face, and Uther understood how deeply she had damaged his last, painful days. Had the old monster known that she would live long enough to discover that her face was even more ugly than his had been? Had Uther known that his mirror would expose her bitter, cruel thoughts and acts in many decades of ugly, vicious living? She pondered on the boundless strength of malice that had burned away every trace of womanliness in her nature. Childless, friendless and empty, she had traded all her possibilities for a promise of revenge. Morgan would have wept, but her obsessions had sucked away even the temporary relief of tears.

How Uther Pendragon must be laughing, beyond the veils of death.

Petulant and mean-spirited, Queen Wenhaver writhed in her sumptuous bed. Her loins hungered for the salacious, thrilling touch of a man, any man, but her lust was secondary to a more primal need. She would renounce all pleasure for a means to make Artor bleed. She, too, no longer found solace in her mirror, for silver threads were visible through the gilt of her hair. With her old, careless arrogance, she consoled herself with the small number that she had removed from her scalp with delicate, golden pincers. She still had time to have her revenge for a lifetime of real and imagined insults.

Elayne woke to find herself covered by travelling furs in a nest of autumn leaves. Half asleep, she realized she lay in a small tent that blocked out the feeble rays of the winter sun. Sleepily, she wondered where she was and who snored beside her. Then she remembered, for Bedwyr’s heavy arm was lying across her body.

I am a wife, she thought, with some surprise. And I go to Cadbury to meet the High King.

Then she smiled and loosened her nut-brown hair.

And woke her husband.

CHAPTER III

BLOOD OATHS AND BATTLE BROTHERS

What is woman that men forsake her
to follow the old grey widow-maker.

Old Norse Song

Gawayne emerged from a deep, satisfying sleep with the unnerving sensation that he had fallen from a great height. Gradually, memory returned, prompted by the warm and naked body that lay in the curve of his painfully numb left arm.

I’ve done it this time, he told himself, as memory slowly returned. Not only will Galahad be furious with my little slip, but I seem to remember that this lady really is a lady.

Gawayne had never been particularly sharp-witted.

The prince was now in his mid-fifties and ought to have been sliding gracefully into dignified old age. But nature had combined his limited intellect with reckless courage, superb athletic grace and the almost ageless, icy beauty of his mother, Queen Morgause. His jaw was a little thickened by time and the white lines around his eyes were a tribute to years spent in the saddle. His russet hair had faded a trifle, but male vanity forced him to retain the shaven cheeks of youth. Unfortunately, his reckless libido still governed his undisciplined body.

‘I hate being hairy’, he had explained to Enid, his wife, as he ritually shaved with a special blade that had been honed to whisper sharpness. ‘But I’m not a Roman with the bravery necessary to pluck out my hair, root by root.’

He had shuddered and Enid had kissed his smooth, still-unlined cheeks with passion.

Gawayne’s son, Galahad, seemed set to eclipse his father, which made the prince feel uncomfortably irritable. It wasn’t that he resented growing old, for so far the process had been quite pleasurable. Nor did he envy Galahad’s brilliance at arms, for his uncle, King Artor, had always possessed greater martial skills than he himself had. The prince enjoyed his reputation as one of the finest Celtic swordsmen of his generation, while his son’s extraordinary physical beauty and purity of face were constant sources of pride to him. What he really loathed about his son was the odour of sanctimony that Galahad wore visibly, like a hair shirt. The young man had turned virginity and celibacy into virtues, conditions that Gawayne considered downright foolish.

As the eldest son, Galahad had family responsibilities. But did the boy listen to his father? Whenever the topic of bedding women came up, Galahad simply smiled innocently and informed his father that he would leave such fleshly pursuits to other men - such as Gawayne. In Galahad’s grandiose vision of his future, he was born to a destiny that surpassed any talent in the martial arts or his role as heir to the throne of a Celtic tribe.

Lying in this strange bed, carved quixotically to resemble a boat, Gawayne ground his teeth in impotent irritation.

He had hoped that the boy would be tempted to indulge himself in the exotic fleshpots of Aquae Sulis, but the charms of fair women, whether noble, common or professional, left Galahad unmoved. Nor did the charms of men, boys or even animals appeal to his son for, as far as Gawayne could judge, Galahad was as sexless as a rock. Galahad actually had the presumption to lecture his father on the duties and responsibilities of marriage, an experience that left Gawayne longing to clout the boy across the ear.

In fact, the only time Galahad showed the slightest interest in anything that Aquae Sulis had to offer was when he viewed the Garden of Gallia at the Villa Poppinidii. This shrine to the Roman way of life in Celtic Britain now included the urn of Targo of blessed memory, whom many soldiers begged to intercede for them with their gods when they were in the extremity of death. While Galahad disapproved of such superstitions, he extolled the virtues of Gallia who was said to exemplify Roman womanhood, even though she was rumoured to be a pagan. The garden itself had touched Galahad’s glacial heart.

‘It’s humbling to hear that a slave and an aristocrat died together and that their ashes are now mingled,’ Galahad told anyone who would listen. ‘The Garden of Gallia has helped me to reflect on my fellowship with our Heavenly Father.’

‘Please, Galahad!’ Gawayne begged. ‘I’ve been lectured all the way from the Wall.’ He wished his son would show enthusiasm for something other than the Christian god.

Journeying south towards Lindinis, the closest settlement to Cadbury, they reached a river with wide meads along its banks and an island within its broad, slow swell. On the island, a villa with an odd, defensive tower spoke of ancient occupation and both men were charmed by the water gardens, where wild marsh flowers grew lustily and reeds formed a dense, almost impenetrable barrier to the river. The air was thick with dragonflies, butterflies and bees.

Both men attempted to ignore the biting gnats that feasted on their unprotected flesh.

As they lazed in the shade of a large tree, a wooden boat made its way to a shelf of silted mud close to where they were dozing in the shadows. Shortly thereafter, a sturdy man approached them. He was no taller than middle height and was decorated with whorls and spirals of woad-blue tattoos that covered all his exposed limbs. After stepping ashore, he brushed away the collected mud that was clinging to his woollen robe. This strange creature, almost deformed because of his abnormally broad shoulders and short, womanish legs, wore a silver band across his forehead that held back the remains of sparse grey hair that had never been cut.

‘My lords,’ he addressed them in a deep, guttural voice. ‘My mistress, the Lady of Salinae Minor, bids you welcome and invites you to accept her hospitality in her villa. We are unused to visitors but she would welcome word of the world, for we are isolated in this remote spot.’

Gawayne brightened immediately; a soft bed under a snug roof would be more than welcome after the discomforts of life on the road - even better than a good vintage wine.

Galahad, however, was unimpressed. His eyes narrowed sharply as he scowled at the stranger. His delicate nostrils twitched as if he scented pagan blood. This creature actually wears perfumed oil, he thought with disgust and wrinkled his upper lip. He looks like a Pict.

‘Thank you, friend,’ Gawayne responded hastily, to counter his son’s all too obvious contempt for this offer of hospitality. ‘I am Prince Gawayne of the Otadini, journeying to Cadbury in the company of my eldest son, Galahad.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve always believed that Salinae lies in the lands of the Ordovice. Is your mistress some distant kin to Bran ap Cerdic?’

‘Her father was distant kin to Llanwith, my lord, and he rebuilt the fortifications of Salinae. He settled here many years ago in company with my mistress, who was his only child. A blood dispute over his wife’s infidelity caused him to be banished to this place after he had her executed under the laws of the Romans.’

Gawayne barely restrained an instinctive wince. Like the High King, he was contemptuous of any man who insisted upon exercising his full rights as paterfamilias.

‘If you’ll join me, good masters, I’ll row you across to the isle,’ the small man suggested gently. ‘My mistress calls the island Salinae Minor in memory of her old home. My name is Gronw and I am the spiritual adviser to the Lady of Salinae. As you must have many questions, you may ask of me what you will.’

Galahad shot Gronw a suspicious, hostile stare. ‘And what shall become of our horses and packs in our absence? I doubt they’ll fit in your boat,’ he retorted rudely.

Any natural resentment that Gronw might have felt was suppressed under a polite smile. He responded with perfect, impassive courtesy. ‘The village that provides us with our grain, meat and servants has been warned of your approach. They will care for your mounts, so you need have no fears for their safety.’

‘I haven’t seen a village and I can’t imagine how you could have contacted any peasants so quickly,’ Galahad declared pugnaciously. ‘How do we know you’re speaking the truth?’

‘Galahad!’ Gawayne admonished, but Gronw waved away Galahad’s slur.