King of The World's Edge Read online

  He stooped, put the plate beneath it, and the rocking stone descended upon it, holding it safe there until such time as Myrdhinn described, upon joining us:

  “When the moment is come for Arthur’s awaking, the earth will shake, the rocking stone will topple down the cliff and Lyonesse will rise from the sea. Then, according to my vision, men will find my hidden words, will read, understand and obey. Then, when the drowned lands are fertile enough so that apple blossoms Wow again in Avalon, in apple blossom time, men will enter his sleeping-chamber, waking him without fear of the watchers, and the era of peace on earth will begin.”

  You, my Emperor, may think this fantastic, but had you heard the words of the ancient, you could not have doubted. It may occur to you that Myrdhinn was a sorcerer, and it is true that at tunes he did use sorcery, as will be shown, but he dreaded it mightily. His Christian beliefs warred with his Druidic learning and he had the feeling that he was risking hellfire by the use of black magic.

  He was an heir to all the lost lore of the ancients, and much of his sorcery was marvelous tricks with quite natural explanations, but the basic facts which made them possible were hidden from the rabble. The world is hoary with years and has forgotten much.

  Now, our mission accomplished, we must needs look to our own welfare and so held a council to decide our future, and found that we were of several minds.

  Some were for striking deep into the hills and gathering other fugitives about us until we were able to strike again for freedom. Sir Bedwyr proposed this plan and many agreed with him, but I disputed, it seeming wiser to take ship and sail across to Armorica, where we might find kinsmen who would see us on the road to Rome. *

  Here, I suggested, a punitive expedition might be sent as had been once before from Gaul. Surely, I argued, Britain was too valuable a part of the Empire to be lost—and then Myrdhinn ended the bickering.

  “You, Sir Bedwyr, and you, Centurion, think of nothing but the regaining of Britain, but believe me when I tell you this is not possible. The Empire itself is dying; the seat of power is shifting eastward. Britain has been lost for a generation and its only hope of Romano-British domination died when treachery and intrigue brought us to Camlan field. Gaul is going down the same road and soon will be lost forever to Rome.

  “Britain belongs now to the strongest and will be dismembered among them. It is for us to flee, not to Rome, whose power is waning, but to another land of which the ancients tell.

  “Suppose, now, that there was a land, beyond the western ocean, so far away that it is unknown to the Jutes and Angles, the Saxons and the Norse—known to Rome long ago, but forgotten by all except scholars. Would it not be worth visiting, exploring, conquering perhaps, to furnish for us poor exiles a new home, a new domain into which Rome might send fleets and colonies should the barbarians press too hard? I am certain that there is such a land.

  “Firstly, it is said that King Solomon of the Jews obtained precious metals from its mines, brought hence by the men of Tyre. Homer, of the Greeks, speaks of a westerly land beyond the seas, locating, as does Pliny, the Western Ethiopians in this land. Plato tells us of a sunken continent named Atlantis, but this is not the same, for Anaxagoras also tells of a great division of the world beyond this ocean, dry and unsubmerged.

  “The historian Theopompus tells us of the Meropians and their continent beyond the western ocean, larger, he says, than all our known world, and Aristotle says that the Carthaginian explorers discovered and settled a part of the southern country, until their Senate decreed that no one should voyage thither, killing all the settlers, lest it no longer remain a secret; for the Carthaginians wished this country to be kept as a refuge for themselves if ever a disaster befell their republic, but lost their shipping in the Punic Wars.

  “Statius Sebosius calls this land ‘the two Hesperides’ and tells us that forty-two days’ sailing will bring us there. Could you ask for better proof than all of this?”

  “Ridiculous!” snorted Sir Bedwyr. “There is not a vessel in Britain that could be equipped for such a voyage! Far better to recruit, build up strength and have at the Saxons again.”

  “You are forgetting the Prydwen. Arthur’s own dromon lies safe at Isca Silurum, if the Saxon dragon-ships have not raided and burned the city. If we find her whole, will you sail with us?”

  “Not I,” quoth he, stoutly. “I live and die in Britain. What! Should I venture to sea in a ship so weighed down with metal that a puff of breeze might founder her? Let steel kill me, not tin!”

  Here he spoke of a novelty, which the Cornish tin miners had conceived. They had sent great stores of this metal, without cost, to Arthur for embellishment of his ship, and the Imperator had sheathed the Prydwen with it, from stem to stern, above and below water, knowing it to be protection against fireballs above and barnacles below. This made the Prydwen glitter so handsomely that many called her “The House of Glass.”

  “Your fears are unfounded. I feel it in my prophetic soul, that I and all who sail with me shall see this land which may indeed prove to be the Isles of the Blest of which you have all heard at your mother’s knee. Why not? The wise geographer, Strabo, believed in it. Shall we consider him a romancer? It may indeed be that the Meropians have already sailed eastward and discovered Europe; for Cornelius Nepos, the eminent historian, says that when Q. Metellus Celer was proconsul in Gaul, in 63 B.C., certain peculiar strangers were sent to him as a gift from the King of the Batavi. They said that they had been driven from their own land, eastward over the oceans until they had landed on the coast of Belgica.

  “This may have inspired Seneca, one hundred and thirteen years thereafter, to prophesy in his tragedy of Medea, as follows:

  “ ‘In later years an age shall come, when the ocean shall relax its bonds, a great continent shall be laid open and new lands revealed. Then Thule shall not be the remotest land known on the earth.’

  “Four hundred and fifty years have elapsed since that prediction. If we sail and discover, we cannot now call ourselves the first, because we shall but follow in the footsteps of others who have traveled in less stout vessels than ours.

  “Fishers from Armorica, our own kinsfolk, have visited its northern fishing-grounds yearly, in their ridiculous craft, while Maeldune of Hibernia, with seventeen followers, less than a hundred years ago, was blown to sea in flimsy skin currachs, and claimed to have reached a large island where grew marvelous nuts with insides white as snow.

  “So you see there are such lands and they can be reached! Moreover, in our own tunes, Brandon, the monk of Kerry, the same one who recently established the monastery at Clonfert, has been there not once only, but twice! He had no great warship, such as we, but a merchant vessel with strong hides nailed over it, pitched at the seams, and it took him and his people forty days (almost exactly as related by Statius Se-bosius) to reach this mysterious country.

  “Now who among you will come with me and call yourselves men?”

  “There is nothing here for us but a choice between death or slavery and degradation. I say let us all go and find this paradise on earth, this land of Tir-nan-og, this country of Hy Bresail, these Fortunate and Blessed Isles!”

  Thus I, carried away with enthusiasm.

  Then, indeed, began much arguing pro and con, which in the end resolved itself into a division of our force. Many, fearing monsters of the deep, demons and other fantasies, elected to remain, and choosing Sir Bedwyr as their leader they marched off toward the wild mountains, and whether they died before they reached the safety of the hills or lived henceforward a life of skulking outlawry, I know not.

  At a little port we bought skin currachs, and, hugging shore, passed through the muddy waters, left them for cleaner, and in the end we reached Isca Silurum, without seeing a Saxon sail. And mightily glad we were to see the glitter of the Prydwen’s sides and the golden glint of Isca’s guardian genius, high upon its pillar, for these things told us that we wer
e sailing into a free and friendly province.

  So we found it, a little section of free land, bounded by the four cities of Aquae Sulis, Corinium, Glevum and Gobannium—a little island of freedom in a barbarian sea, and we in its one safe port of Isca were loath to leave it for the dreaded Sea of Darkness.

  Yet a month later we left it. One hundred fighting-men, besides a full complement of sailors, and thirty Saxons whose strong backs we thought would be useful when winds could not be found. These were prisoners doomed to execution, and we took them to make up a lack of rowers. Better for us if we had let them die by the ax!

  So we turned our backs on Britain, never, any of us, to see it more.

  4 A Little Ship—and a Great Sea

  Now, it is not my concern to make a tedious account of our sea voyage, but a few items of importance must be told for your guidance.

  When your fleet of conquest and discovery sails, lay in great store of provisions, for this sea is vast.

  Once out of sight of land, let your shipmen sail into the face of the setting sun; they will find the land that is waiting for your rule.

  If driven out of their course by storms, having sailed thus west for forty days or thereabouts, sail north or south along the coast of this land which the people here call Alata, and they will find a broad gulf, as we found it, into which empties a mighty river.

  Let them search for this river, for there at its mouth lies a fortified town and in it wait guides who will conduct your men to my capital city.

  Carry much water. It is life itself, for this sea is so vast that we tossed upon it near two months, and had we not had many rainy days we could not have lived, though four times we found islands and filled our casks, pails, pans, even our drinking-cups before leaving those hospitable shores for our westward journey.

  Yet there was no bickering aboard ship, among us Romano-British, although on the tenth day at sea we learned the mettle of our slaves.

  At first we had filled the port oar-bank with Saxons, thinking that rowing as a unit against a unit of free men on the opposite bank might breed within them a spirit of competition and bring about a better understanding. Enemies though they were, we respected them as doughty fighters and hoped to use their strong backs to advantage. But they sulked and would not work well, lagging in the stroke and causing trouble in many ways.

  Then we separated them, fifteen to a side, and a free man between each two of them. This system, with use of the whip, worked better. There was no more lagging, and sulk as they might,“the Prydwen plowed on through fair and foul weather alike, sometimes with sail and sometimes with oar-play, but questing westward with a lookout always at the masthead; for at that time not even Myrdhinn was certain how far we might have to seek for sight of land.

  Before the dawn of this tenth day, these despairing homesick Saxons struck in the only way left open to them, preferring death to continued slavery.

  I was roused from sleep by a yell, and my door crashed open. In bounced Marcus, my sister’s son, with a cry of “Fire!” which brought me up standing. Unarmed, I rushed out in my night-gear.

  Below decks, the planking beneath the oar benches was blazing, spreading fast along the inner sides, crisping the leathers over the oar-holes and flaring to high heaven, painting the sail scarlet.

  It was more than one fire—it was many—started simultaneously, but running together so rapidly that we, could hear the flames roar. A bucket brigade was forming, and as I looked the first water fell, but I had no eyes for that.

  There was a greater sight, a thing so brave in its hopeless despair and determination that I cannot describe it with justice. Midway down the port bank sat three men already lapped in fire!

  Two had already breathed flames and were dead or dying, for their heads had dropped on their breasts and their long hair was burning. The third saw me staring, laughed wildly in his torment and triumph and beat his breast with a charred and blistered hand.

  Then he began to sing! I shall never forget the sight, the smell of burning flesh, the crackle of rushing flames and that fierce terrible song:

  “Cattle die, kings die,

  Kindred die, we also die;

  One thing never dies:

  The fair fame of the valiant!”

  His eyes closed, I thought him spent, and then he raised his face upward—and cried (a glad call, inspiring as a trumpet blast!):

  “Courage, comrades, let us go to Woden like men!”

  And he rolled from his bench into the flames, stone dead.

  Gods! How they fought us as we tried to quench the fire they had set, by saving through the days the oil issued in their rations, letting it soak into the planking, and, when all was ready, igniting it with live coals from a cresset handy to one in his chains, then passing the coals from hand to hand till all were supplied.

  More than one of us bore marks of their manacles as they sought to hinder us until we all should burn together; but in the end, those living were herded aft under guard, not all walking there, being borne by those comrades who had not been clubbed into insensibility.

  You may well suppose that after the fire was out, we were all in savage mood and with little inclination to be lenient to the rebels.

  “Overboard with them!” was the main cry, as the men crowded round. Then Myrdhinn came forward.

  “I have something to say to you all,” he mildly interrupted. “Saxons, is your chief dead?”

  “I, Wulfgar Ironbelly, am King, and alive,” growled a flaxen-bearded giant, thrusting to the edge of his group.

  “And I, his brother Guthlac, am alive,” echoed one who might have been his twin, closely following. “Speak to us both, Gaffer, and we will barken.”

  “First,” Myrdhinn began, “I am responsible for this expedition. I know my limitations, and having no experience upon the sea I have not interfered with affairs pertaining to ship life and operations. However, I have no intention that men brave enough to seek liberty through painful death and courageous enough to watch their kinsmen suffer in quiet and watch in quiet the fire creeping to envelop themselves shall now die a useless death, depriving this ship of near a score and a half of such doughty spirits. Saxons, ye are free men!”

  An uneasy murmur rippled through the crowd. Was Myrdhinn mad?“

  The Saxons looked at each other, unbelieving. Had they heard aright?

  “You are free,” Myrdhinn repeated, “on conditions. We obviously cannot put back at this stage of the journey, the purpose of which may have escaped you. We are engaged in a journey to the world’s edge in search of new lands of which we have tidings. We do not know what we may find there or if we shall ever return. Knowing that behind us lies only ruin, war’s desolation, and an unhappy future, we go west, where our faith has placed the Land of the Blessed. Possibly we may find it. Very likely, we shall not.

  “Saxons, I ask you to fight beside us, to chance the decrees of Fortune with us, to accept hunger, thirst, the perils of a strange land, for the joy of discovery and adventure. In short, I would sail with you all as brothers. Saxons! Is it yea or nay?”

  They talked among themselves in low voices. Then Guthlac struck hands with his brother and their eyes gleamed through the soot.

  “What a tale we shall bring home with us, Wulfgar!”

  “Count on us as free men under your conditions, Wealas!”

  The gathering broke up and I followed Myrdhinn to his cabin.

  “In God’s name, are you mad? Can’t you see, if we do discover anything, the news will reach the Saxons too? Those pirates will follow to ravage any settlements that Rome may make!”

  Myrdhinn shook his head. “Do not concern yourself about trifles, Varro. Not one of those men will ever see his homeland. They are doomed men already.”

  I stared at him. Sometimes Myrdhinn terrified me.

  “Just how much do you know? How about us? Will we succeed?”

  “I know
more than you think and less than I wish. I can foresee much, but not all—or enough. There are blanks in the future which are closed to me as much as to other men, and nothing I could tell you would be enough, or what you should know, the future being mutable and subject to change. But do not worry about Saxon pirates ravaging Roman towns in Brandon Land, for that they will never do.”

  I believed him then, and now I know that what he said was true.

  Well, we fought on, beating our way into storms and out of them, storms so tremendous that we took in seas over the bulwarks and learned what it was to struggle without ceasing, through a world all water, with a ship that would scarcely obey the helmsman, so sluggishly she rolled. We knew the worry of broken oars, of riven sails, of a crew more dead than alive from loss of sleep and the battering of the waves, but bailing like fiends to keep the water down so that the next great water mountain might not in its falling finish the work entirely and send us afl to Neptune.

  But Myrdhinn kept us courageous and still believing in him; when it seemed as though we were to sail till our beards were gray, we kept on striving to cross this mighty River of Ocean, though beginning to despair of ever reaching its farther bank.

  Finally the winds ceased blowing and not even a tiny swell rippled the surface, so it was “out oars and row,” which we did for a weary week, and nobody became disheartened; for Myrdhinn told us that Bran-don had come to this place and passed through it without harm, though hindered by floating weed. So we knew ourselves to be in the proper track and took this for a good omen, till fog came down and for three days we saw neither sun nor star to guide us, and our shipman was like to go out of his mind with worry and fret about it.

  So Myrdhinn looked into his private stores and brought up a little hollow iron fish, which he placed with care in a bucket of water, treating it as a very precious thing.

  At once, it turned itself about, pointing with its nose to the south and marking the north with its tail, so intelligently that almost our shipman was afraid to look at it, not having much trust in Myrdhinn’s good intentions, and, I think, disbelieving in any other lands save those he knew.