David Pilling - The Red Death

“Your father’s shade would never forgive me,” she said one night in our lodgings, “nor would your grandfather’s. I do not care to have Arthur pursuing me though all eternity.”

“What shall we do, then?” I asked. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Caledfwlch laid across my knees. Since Owain’s death I had insisted on carrying the sword at all times, and grew angry if Eliffer tried to take it from me. She was terrified that someone might steal it, and ever watchful for agents from Britain or Domnonia.

She rubbed her thin hands together, and her eyes took on a faraway look. “East,” she murmured, “the whole of the Western Empire is tumbling into barbarism, but the Eastern half remains strong. These days the pillar of civilisation is not Rome, but Constantinople.”

Eliffer took my hands in hers. “We are going to a marvellous city,” she said with one of the rare smiles that summoned up the ghost of her old beauty, “a place of silver and gold, where the people wear silks and eat caviar. We can start anew there.”

Her description of the city made me eager to leave at once. Nor did I object to leaving Paris, which I regarded as a dirty, alien and friendless place.

We left very soon after Owain’s funeral in a large military cemetery outside the city, and joined one of the many merchant caravans striking out on the long journey to Constantinople, half a world away. The mighty imperial city straddling the Bosphorus was the world’s largest centre of commerce, a place where East met West to trade.

The man who agreed to take us was a Frankish cloth merchant named Clothaire, an ex-soldier who had fought in Clovis’s army against the Romans at Soissons. He had one leg and an inexhaustible fund of stories about his military career. Most of these were obvious lies, even to a child like me. He took a liking to my mother, and chose to believe her story that Owain had been her husband.

“Who am I to ignore the plight of a fellow soldier’s widow?” he said, “no common widow, but a woman of beauty and learning.”

He stroked her hand with his callused paws as he spoke, and smiled at her with a suggestive familiarity that Eliffer must have found repellent. But she was a fine actress when occasion demanded.

“My eternal thanks,” she replied, discreetly pulling her hand away, “and we promise not to be a burden to you.”

Clothaire might have been a liar, but he was no fool, and provided well for the long and dangerous journey to the East. His caravan consisted of a dozen wagons, all loaded with merchandise and supplies. His drivers were honest, sober men, and he hired a reliable troop of mercenaries as a guard. Most of them were Franks, but I remember a trio of Sarmatians, expert horsemen from the steppes of Rus, hundreds of miles to the east.

The Sarmatians were extraordinary-looking men, larger than most Franks, with long fair hair and beards and dark skins. They wore bronze helmets and coats of scale armour made of lacquered bone, and preferred to keep their own company, sitting apart at meals and growling away in their strange language. They took a liking to me, perhaps because I was the only child in the caravan, and let me perch on the saddle of one of their big horses while the rider walked the beast about.

Some seventeen hundred miles lay between us and Constantinople – seventeen hundred miles full of danger, even for a company so well-armed and prepared as ours. I was happily oblivious to the risks, and regarded the journey as a great adventure into the unknown.

We left Frankia and passed through the land of the Burgundians into southern Germania, part of the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. These were relatively civilised and peaceful lands, but the roads and highways were not as safe to travel as they had been under the Caesars, nor as well-kept. Several times the caravan was attacked by bandits, but they were easily driven off by Clothaire’s guards. I recall one of the Sarmatians riding back from pursuing one such band of would-be robbers. His white teeth flashed in a grin as he galloped past our wagon, proudly holding his lance aloft with a severed head impaled on the tip.

Clothaire was amused by my friendship with the Sarmatians, and lusted after my mother for the duration of the journey. She was aware of his intentions and skilfully managed to evade them without giving offence. He made strenuous efforts to ingratiate himself, and had one of the Sarmatians make me a leather baldric or sword-belt for Caledfwlch. I was too small to carry the sword at my hip, so slung it across my back.

Even at that tender age I knew Caledfwlch was an essential part of me. It was a link to the homeland I would probably never see again, the father I had hardly known, and my famous grandfather. The shadow of Arthur loomed large in my mind, though I knew little about him save what Eliffer chose to tell me.

She whiled away the tedious hours on the road by regaling me with stories of Arthur’s exploits and his extraordinary court at Caerleon. I devoured them all and demanded more, and like every good storyteller she filled the gaps in her knowledge with colourful lies and exaggeration.

“Your grandsire was a man of fire and gold,” she told me, “a huge man, the biggest I ever saw, and immensely strong. They called him The Bear of Britain. His hair was the colour of molten gold, his eyes flashed like stars, and he wore golden armour with red boots and gauntlets. A leaping red dragon was engraved on his shield, and seemed to roar and breathe fire when he charged into battle.”

“Did he kill many men in battle?” I asked excitedly. That was what I cared about – not whether he was a good man, or a kind man, but whether he was a fighter.

“Hundreds, I should think,” Eliffer said absently, stroking my hair. I was perched on her lap, and she was seated on the back of one of the wagons, dangling her legs over the edge. Hills covered in dark pine forest stretched away either side of the uneven, rutted road, and rain pattered against the canvas roof above our heads. We were passing through southern Germania, a gloomy, rain-misted land populated by sullen barbarians whose harsh tongue scraped against my nerves.

“Hundreds,” she repeated, warming to her theme, “thousands. Arthur and his Legion slaughtered innumerable hordes of foul barbarians, Saxons and Jutes and Irish and Picts and other such pagan filth. He fought twelve battles, and in every one was victorious. During the twelfth battle, at Mount Badon, he raised a great wooden crucifix and called on Christ to help him vanquish the pagan host. Christ heard him. A great shaft of light pierced the clouds, and in the first charge Arthur himself slew nine hundred and sixty warriors.”

She tapped Caledfwlch’s hilt. “This sword drank the blood of Britain’s enemies that day. But not enough. An entire generation of Saxon warriors was wiped out at Badon, but those folk breed like vermin. Slowly they recovered their strength, while we dissipated ours. Young men grew up who knew nothing of the old wars and how close Britain had come to destruction. They betrayed Arthur, and the result was Camlann.”

“My father was one of the traitors,” I said. She sighed and nodded.

“Yes. He was a good man in many ways, but weak and easily led. He allowed his cousin Medraut to trickle poisoned words into his ears. Amhar was a traitor to his father and oath-sworn lord, and paid the price for it. Never forget that, Coel. Treachery is an unforgivable crime.”

She preached the same lesson many times on the road to Constantinople. As a result the shame I felt over my father’s treachery festered inside me. I swore a private oath to be honest and true all my days, and root out treachery wherever I encountered it.

Eliffer also told me of Arthur’s wars, and the provenance of Caledfwlch. I learned how his Legion, which never exceeded three hundred horse-soldiers, had so frequently routed and overthrown the invading barbarians.