Andrew Offutt - When Death Birds Fly

Gnawing his beard, Wulfhere snarled, “So! So! When we have been to Jutland and gathered a full crew, though-”

“Oh, aye!” Cormac said. He gave Howel the thin-lipped ghost of a smile. “Your gallop along the jetty was fine to see. Although some might say it wasn’t befitting your princely dignity, quite.”

“My princely dignity is my concern!” Howel answered. “And strong enow to survive, I’m thinking. I’d been exercising this horse along the beach when I saw Norn’s sail. The day I return sedately to my hall and sit my throne looking splendid while a friend’s fate is in doubt will-will-”

He sputtered briefly, searching for words to describe what sort of improbable day that would be. Cormac’s heart lightened. He clapped Howel lightly on the shoulder and proceeded along the jetty with him. Their destination was the great hall, Cormac dreaming of shedding his war-gear, of bathing luxuriously and donning fresh clothes. He did bend an appraising gaze on Raven .

The war-bird’s lean dark length had been drawn far up the shore, beyond reach of the highest tide or any likely excess of storm-lashed sea. Rough triangular cradles had been made for her from timber baulks, and tenting of sail-leather was folded nearby to prevent rain from delaying her drying out. Some few of Howel’s seamen had begun scraping weed and barnacles from her hull.

Wulfhere, ambling beside his Gaelic bloodbrother and the prince, cast a middling jealous eye at this activity.

“Those planks near the prow that were sprung in Galicia-they want renewing, Cormac,” he said. “Remember ye when we rammed yon deathly barge and sent it splintered into the arms of Ran?”

“Who could be forgetting? Was made of monstrous bones,” Cormac explained to the prince, “and it burned with fire that did not consume. The crew were sea-women of spectral beauty, or seemed so, though in truth it’s monsters they were, in a disguise of illusion. We smashed their craft and slew them all… and the look in your eyes warns me ye have doubt on you that it’s the unadorned truth ye’re hearing.”

“Never!” Howel said valiantly, and they entered his hall.

Evening fell, warm and dark blue. In a chamber panelled with beechwood and lit by oil lamps, the two reivers sat clean and freshly clad. Morfydd was present, in a gown blue as the gloaming. Gold-worked at the border it was, and gold cinctured her tiny waist. For once, her hair was decorously coiled atop her head. Prince Howel stood with feet planted wide, his strong features heavy with concern. His tunic was almost ridiculous on him; plunder it was, off a ship out of Greece. The tunic was silk, and deep blue and silver bordered.

“I’ve held converse with Odathi,” he said. “By the Great Abyss! I like not the omens that haunted your voyage, Cormac!”

He used the word carelessly. Two days’ run to Nantes was scarce what Cormac would have called a ‘voyage,’ or Howel either, had he been thinking about it.

“They were summat… disconcerting.” Cormac agreed. “It’s with Odathi ye’ve spoken, ye say. With his crew as well?”

“With some of them. All spoke of Arawn leading the Wild Hunt through the sky-”

Wulfhere sighed deeply. “By your leave, prince, not one o’ them knows whereof he speaks-and Cormac here is in error for once! Was Odin the Spear-Brandisher, on his way to some great battle in the east, with his valkyrior! Ask any of my Danes. They, too, were there.”

Cormac shrugged, and spoke to Morfydd. “There it is, lady. The Skull-splitter knows what he saw, and so do I. What make you of this?”

“Peradventure it is not the mystery it seems, Cormac. Captain Wulfhere… your Spear-Brandisher, Odin the One-eyed… he is a god of death, is he not?”

“Of death in combat, aye,” Wulfhere answered, looking askance at the wise-woman, wondering what she was about. “Slain warriors revel and fight in his halls until the day of the last battle for gods and men.”

“My people have known Arawn the Hunter for very long. He too is a god of death, and all that live is his warranted prey-but equally he is the god of rebirth. The one-eyed wanderer or the antlered huntsman; what matters it.” She gestured. “These are the guises of poetry and common memory. It’s in my mind that neither of you saw what was truly there. No matter; surely was a presage of great death coming. A war perhaps-and there is usually a war. I’m satisfied it does not hang over this realm of Bro Erech. I would know.”

“It may be that I will add to that, very soon,” Prince Howel said. There was a note in his voice that none could have taken lightly. “We’re hard upon Midsummer, and I am priest as well as prince. The rites may tell us more than we’d comfortably wish to know.”

“Why, here’s a thing, prince!” Wulfhere chuckled. “Ye follow the old ways still, and intercede before the gods for your people? What does this Christer bishop over in Vannes think of such?”

Morfydd’s eyes flashed. Although the query was addressed to her lord, she bit back an angry outburst of her own. Cormac observed it, and sympathized with her. The subject was a sore one with him also.

Howel grimaced as if he had swigged ale from a barrel with bad wood in it. “Paternus? He says little to my face! To be sure, he knows the people still keep the rites of Beltaine and Samhain, Midwinter and Midsummer as the year turns, and he likes it not. He’s too wise to provoke trouble to no gain. I suppose he fancies that Bro Erech will come within his Church’s net gradually.”

“It’s no fancy, that,” Cormac said, and his bearing was grim. “Given time, this Church will destroy the worship of all other gods. Hang your Bishop Paternus, Howel; see him swing and make it known ye’ll be having none to replace him. An rulers enow act so, the Cross-worshipers may yet be stopped.”

“Not by the hanging of bishops!” Howel said. “Were it so simple, Cormac, the spread of this faith had been stopped long agone, by the rulers of Rome’s Empire. The gods know their power was greater than mine, and yet they failed.”

Morfydd gripped his hand and shoulder. “Listen to Cormac mac Art, my dear lord! You can do something, if you cannot do everything! Well may you save yourself from seeing the ruling power slip into the Church’s hands within your lifetime, our people tortured and slain for worshiping the old gods!”

“True is that,” Cormac agreed. “Is knowing on ye what the Christians dare claim? Ye must have heard it time and again from the Bishop of Vannes! They say their god is the only god, all others being false demons who deceive men. They say that Arawn-Cernunnos, the Horned God, as the Romans called him when they found him worshiped in Gaul-is the greatest and worst, and make him one with their own arch-demon. I forget me what name they give him.”

“Satan,” Morfydd supplied.

“It’s only fools they are,” Howel said impatiently. “The Antlered God was worshiped in Gaul and Britain ere Christianity was ever heard of, or Rome either.”

“As we well know! The Christians do not, or care what is true-the ignorant, rigid-minded clods! They’re after believing whatever their bishops tell them!”

“Enough!” Howel was beginning to grow angry. “I know my own demesne, Cormac, and by the gods I still rule it! You will see. Come to the ring of standing stones in the Forest of Broceliande upon the Night. It is very near now. See what multitudes of folk attend the old rites, long though the journey is. Then tell me the Church and its bishops are a threat!”

Well , Cormac thought wearily, I tried. Mayhap Morfydd can make him see sense, when they are abed,together. He loves her. Knows he not the Church calls her a witch, and would joyfully burn her alive?