Artor saw the single tear, and repressed an overwhelming feeling of sorrow for his friend of so many years.
‘I have to be shaved and bathed like a babe. Damn, but you’d never believe how often we use these sodding things.’ Targo waved his ruined hands at his master. ‘I hate the weakness of old age, for all that Perce never makes me feel like a burden. He says that it’s a privilege to serve a man of the legions. Perce doesn’t lie, so I know he feels it’s worth his while to clean up my puke and shit without complaint. In a few months, my body has become more finicky than that of a child. I can’t eat what I used to, and good red meat fair curdles my innards. I’m an old man, and I’ve lived way past my time, so I should be grateful to be still breathing. But I feel it, my boy, no matter how hard I try to pretend that I’m still useful. May Mithras bless Perce, for he helps me feel like a man again.’
Artor wrapped his arms round the frail old shoulders and held Targo close.
What could he say in comfort, when all Targo described was the truth? Instead, he rocked the old man as he would a mother, a father or a lover.
Perce had woken and watched from his pallet, glad that neither man knew he was awake.
‘You’re still of use to me, Targo. When the nights are cold and Gallia is a distant memory, and when I know I can never acknowledge Licia’s future children, then I feel the gorge of Uther rise in me like some waiting venom. At these times, I come to you to find the old Artorex in your eyes, and these thoughts make me happy for a little while.’
Targo broke their embrace. ‘I wish I
had
been your father, boy. Though you’d be a damn side shorter than you are now.’
Both men laughed briefly.
‘I would like to ask for Odin’s assistance for two hours a day to train my boy in the use of weapons when he is exercising with Gareth. I can work on Perce’s brain, but Odin can give him the skill and the battle sense. I can assure you that Perce will become a warrior, and I ask you to accept him as such for me. Consider him my very last gift to you.’
Artor bowed his leonine head, and then gripped Targo’s malformed old paw in his warm hands.
‘You may have whatever you desire, Targo. You may have Odin, Perce or the whole kingdom if you will it. As long as you are prepared to stay with me.’
‘Nothing is forever, Artor, you know that. But of one thing I am certain. I believe that Perce should take my place when I am gone to the gods.’
‘If he is that good, I will certainly consider it. But no one
can
take your place, my friend. No one! Who’ll remind me that I’m mortal, once you have gone to the shades?’
‘Shite, boy, they’ll line up to prove you’re mortal!’
After honest laughter, both men sat silently and stared into the fire for a long time.
‘Am I doing right by marrying this Wenhaver?’ Artor asked eventually. ‘I don’t much like her.’
‘I suppose you have to marry someone, and this one will do well enough if you treat her as if she was spun gold and pander to her vanity. But I’d never trust her, boy. She’s as shallow as a puddle on the roadway.’
‘I hear you, Targo,’ Artor answered with a boyish grin.
‘And she’ll be as muddy as a puddle on the roadway if she takes it into her silly head to get stirred up,’ the old man continued.
‘And she’s likely to trip me up if I don’t watch where I am walking,’ Artor added.
‘You’ve got it, lad. Aye. But you were ever a quick study, just like my Perce.’ Targo glanced with affection to where his servant was still feigning sleep.
‘I’ll become resentful of Perce if you keep going on about his virtues. You know what my father was like.’
Artor was only half joking, and Targo knew it.
‘Ah, but you’ll always be the closest to my heart. And you must be the one who’ll light my funeral pyre.’
‘Cease such talk,’ Artor admonished Targo gently. ‘Your time hasn’t arrived yet.’
‘But it’s close, Artor. I can feel it coming.’
On the late spring morning when the High King of the Britons was to wed, Artor tried to conjure up some of the joy he had felt twenty years earlier when Gallia had come to him, all in crimson, with field flowers in her hair. But he simply felt forsaken, like a man who has outlived his time.
The previous day, a letter had come from Aquae Sulis - expected, but hard to endure nonetheless.
The courier who had brought the fine scroll bowed so low that his back bent like a good longbow. Artor gave him a handful of coins in thanks, took a deep breath and broke the wax seal that kept the scroll tightly wound.
The Latin script was very pure and inscribed in a beautiful hand.
To Artor Rex, High King, and brother by marriage.
Ector, your father, has died. He slipped quietly away in his sleep, so I thank the gods that he suffered no pain. My lord was happy and at peace, having completed his promise to you and having watched the marriages of his beloved granddaughters.
Do not reproach yourself, my lord, that you only saw him occasionally. He took such pride in you, and in the trust that you placed in him, and he was constantly warmed by his memories.
He was content to pass into the shadows, for he believed with his whole heart that his loved ones were awaiting him beyond the veil. He often spoke of how he would embrace Gallia and Frith in your name when he joined them. He took joy at the thought of death and rejoining his beloved Livinia, so we shouldn’t grieve for him.
I have sent word to my husband who has decided to be present when Ector goes to meet the gods. Ector has chosen inhumation, and wishes to lie in Gallia’s garden with the sarcophagus mounted under a granite bench so that visitors can sit in the sunshine and contemplate the beauty of the world in which his remains will lie. He believes that he will hear and feel them and their joy. I have found a stonemason who is already working on Ector’s memorial. I have decided that a simple line of Latin should be carved on one side, away from the weather:
ECTOR WAS A TRUE FATHER, HUSBAND, SON AND WARRIOR HE WAS A MAN
Have I been too sentimental? Will his spirit go into the shadows joyously under such an epitaph? I will be guided by your advice, for you knew him better than any other man.
I had hoped to send you his felicitations on your wedding day, for Ector was glad that you had decided to end your long period of mourning. Ector understood that love of the living takes precedence over any respect owed to the dead.
I wish you happy and will always remember the debts I owe to you. My friend Gallia would have been so very, very proud of you.
The Villa Poppinidii goes on, as it always will, so do not fear for us.
From Julanna, matriarch of Villa Poppinidii.
Scribed by Sisiphus, servant of Branicus,
Magistrate of Aquae Sulis.
Artor had wept a little, and then gave the news to Targo. On his last night unwed, the High King and his old arms master had recalled Ector’s many words and deeds over a fine flagon of red wine, so that the High King awoke the following morning with a pounding headache and an empty feeling somewhere below his ribs. He dressed with care, eyes downcast, and with a temper fraying with regrets and memories.
The day was inauspicious and he dreaded its end.
Targo insisted on attending the marriage ceremony, so Perce dressed the old man in his best finery, and then transformed himself into a fitting accessory to accompany a person of such distinction. He assisted his master to the church, then purloined pillows to ease Targo’s aching joints on the hard wooden stools that had been commandeered from the priests. Perce ensured that they arrived early, so that Targo could point out every person of importance to his servant before the ceremony began, when the young man must take his place with the other servants along the outer walls of the chapel.
All the lesser kings from throughout the land had come to Artor’s wedding bearing gifts of competitive ostentation and uselessness. Artor was amazed at the variety of objects presented by his peers and viewed the silver platters, golden buttons, ornamental sheaths, eating knives, jewelled gloves, precious nard and even a pair of golden-soled sandals with amusement.
Among the guests, Targo noted that Llanwith was almost wholly bald and was accompanied by his son and grandson who looked so much like the old king that Targo had no difficulty in pointing them out to Perce. Fortunately for Artor’s peace of mind, Comac and his new wife, Licia, had chosen to stay at home, for Licia remained in mourning for her grandfather. Artor listened to Llanwith’s descriptions of their match with obvious pleasure.
King Luka had arrived alone. He was now quite bandy-legged from a lifetime in the saddle, but Perce gazed at him with open-mouthed respect when Targo described his role in the weapons training received by Artor. The three travellers were fast assuming the gloss of legend.
‘Oh, the years have flown by, my boy. So fast. You must remember all that I tell you of the past, or else it may be lost forever.’
‘I will remember, master,’ Perce vowed, and as he did not write, he decided that he would ask Nimue to keep Targo’s memoirs for him.
‘Ah, now there is King Lot. He is known as Lot the Fat. And the woman with him is Queen Morgause, who is Artor’s half-sister. She’s a stupid, vicious woman who hated Artor for many years. But she made her peace with her brother after Artor avenged the death of her son, Gaheris, who was murdered by Glamdring Ironfist a little time past.’
He smiled in remembrance of the death of the Saxon thane.
‘And the crone in black is Morgan, sister of Morgause. She’s a witch, and is sometimes called Le Fey. She is clever and vicious, and she has hated Artor forever for what his father did to her family.’
Perce looked blankly at Targo.
‘You’ll discover the discord that lies between Artor and Morgan at a later time, my boy. For now, you must simply be careful to avoid the woman. She’ll use you to hurt my Artor if she recognizes an opportunity to do so.’
Targo smiled as he recognized other guests, and they bowed to him in turn.
‘The fine-looking man is Gawayne, eldest son of King Lot and Queen Morgause, so he is King Artor’s nephew and a genuine prince. Technically, I suppose, he is Artor’s heir. He is also the best swordsman in Britain. I forget just who is who among his brothers, they all have similar-sounding names. Morgause is a silly creature, but she chose to remind the world of Gorlois, her dead father, when she named her sons. She is, at best, an obsessive and stupid cow.’
‘She can’t be that stupid if she manages to rub everyone’s nose in her birthright every time her sons are named,’ Perce whispered.
‘Good lad,’ Targo responded. ‘Most people don’t realize what she’s doing.’
‘And there’s Nimue,’ Perce added happily; the two friends were too busy with their respective masters to see each other often.
Myrddion entered the church and sat discreetly behind the kings. His black clothing, his silver hair and his scarcely lined skin, now pale from years in his library, made him an arresting and distinguished figure.
But Nimue, his apprentice, eclipsed all other women in the church. She wore her extraordinary hair loose as befitted her status as a maiden. She wore grey, in keeping with her position, but no colour could have suited her ethereal beauty half so well. Her skirts swept the ground and her arms, ears and white throat were bare of ornament.
She spotted Perce in the press of celebrants, and gave the boy a smile of such extraordinary brilliance that it set her face alight. More than one pair of male eyes followed her to her seat behind Myrddion, and more than one young man found that his jaw had dropped unattractively open.
‘How Queen Wenhaver will hate her.’ Targo grinned in amusement. ‘Myrddion is the nimblest mind in the kingdom, so he’ll keep her safe.’
‘What do you mean, master? I don’t understand. Why would anyone hate Nimue?’
Perce was so obviously innocent of lust that Targo found himself determined to have a long talk about sexual matters with the boy.
‘Nimue is exquisite. She’s also blind to how good she looks to any man with functioning balls. That artlessness just makes her more alluring and, for the ruthless men among us, she will always be a walking invitation to rape.’
Perce snorted.
‘What does that rude noise mean?’ Targo snapped at the young man.
‘She’d kill anyone who attempted to force themselves on her. I saw her once bury that hairpin of hers so deep in an archer’s thigh he couldn’t walk for a week.’
Now it was Targo’s turn to laugh. ‘She wasn’t aiming at his thigh, was she?’
‘He moved at the last moment. Otherwise he’d be—’
‘Castrato,’ Targo finished for him.
Perce nodded.
Targo glanced down the path as more guests arrived. ‘Here comes the Bishop of Venta Belgarum. I can see that he’s managed to grow quite plump.’ Targo smiled as he recalled the fine fare and excellent wines that were the accepted lot of the priesthood. Such suffering they were forced to endure in the service of their god!
‘Right, off with you, lad. I’ll see you after this sodding alliance is cast in stone.’
Perce was often confused by Targo’s mode of speech as, indeed, were most of the courtiers of the king’s favour. The old man could utter such vulgar crudities that Perce was glad that no ladies were within earshot. Yet when he chose, which was rarely, Targo spoke like a lord. His intelligent mind had collected elegant words and phrases over a lifetime. Now, when he cursed and swore, Targo seemed to be trying to recapture the young self who had joined the Roman legions. Perce understood Targo’s dilemma because he came from the same poverty, and had learned the same language at his mother’s knee. The difference between them was that Targo had spent his youth killing, and Perce had not. The younger man was very religious, which Targo was not. In short, Perce had the opportunity to learn all that Targo knew, without having to spend a lifetime hiring his services out to the highest bidder.