By Force Alone Read online

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ Pellinore says.

  And this is how they meet, more or less. It can’t have meant that much to Uther. The moon shines down on that quiet glade, the placid pool. They’re creatures with an affinity to water. As Pellinore goes to help the boy, Merlin lunges at him and Pellinore jumps back, frightened. Merlin laughs and shakes his arms at him. ‘Woooo…’ he says.

  ‘Freak!’

  ‘I see a great big beast riding on your back,’ says Merlin; but he says it without meaning harm, and perhaps Pellinore sees that, for again he offers Merlin his arm, and after a moment the wizard accepts and, leaning on the pageboy, he accompanies him out of that place and back into the world.

  3

  It’s a beautiful day when they set out riding. Dew glistens on the grass, and snow dusts the Eryri mountains. As they ride along the hills the sea comes into view far in the distance, a flock of seagulls dark like ash over the swell. The air smells fresh and clear. Wild daffodils and creeping buttercups and honeysuckle. A village to the east, nestled at the foot of a hill, with cooking smoke rising.

  They ride at an easy canter, Uther leading, his sword on his hip. And he remembers a day much like it is today, with the sun shining and few clouds in the clear blue sky, but the air was filled with the smell of blood and smoke and the fields strewn with the corpses of men. It had been on the wrong side of the Picts’ Wall, and he no longer a sword-for-hire but a commander, if in someone else’s army and in someone else’s war. What king or lord it was it no longer mattered, for the man lay dead at Uther’s feet with an arrow through his cheek and another in his chest, and he had gurgled out his last words not long before, and then the Picts were upon them.

  Awful they were, in their tribal tattoos, like carrion birds they came upon the dead. And he, Uther, with his sword arm bleeding, hid. He crawled under the corpses of his fallen men and there he lay, for all that it was such a beautiful day, he saw nothing more of it but the flesh of his comrades, their stench, their blood, and there he lay as the Picts walked amidst the dying and the dead, assisting the former to hasten their final journey, assisting the latter by stripping and robbing them bare. He bore them no ill-will, in their place he would have done the same, it was just common sense. But it was the taste he could never quite rid himself of, the taste of that day, how he bit into cloth to stifle his own screams from the pain, a dirty shirt soaked in blood and piss, but he kept quiet as the dead, and when the Picts departed night had fallen.

  He had crawled out from under the corpses, amazed to be alive. He had lost a lot of blood. There was no moon that night, and nothing stirring. He bound his wound, then retched against the Romans’ wall. That night he searched by touch as much as vision until he found at last a broken section and crawled through. He wound his way away from the boundary of the Caledones, delirious, sick and half convinced that he was dying. But by morning he was still alive.

  He swore that day that he’d return to that savage land, return with his sword and subject it to his will. That he would piss from on high on the Picts and make them his. It was on that day, perhaps, that he finally understood his destiny, emerging into daybreak after that infernal day and night. A clear morning, and heathers bloomed, and nary a cloud in the sky. And he thought, I would be king.

  And so it was. So it is. They make good time but still the taste is in his mouth, but by noon they stop at a garrison that is now his by rights, and the soldiers welcome him with joy, and he washes away the stench of that long-forgotten battle with watered ale. He supervises the storerooms and examines the soldiers’ weapons and observes them in practice, and he checks the records, so many carts, so many horses, the tariffs levied and the totals earned.

  In truth he finds it dull. They lunch but sparsely, and resume their way. Uther thinks of wide-hipped women, tall, strong women, black-haired, doe-eyed, full-lipped women. Uther’s hard. Of the seventeen serving girls in Dinas Emrys only eight are left who can work and he’d had three of those the other night. They don’t fulfil him. A camp meal, nothing more, hastily eaten and shat. He needs a queen.

  ‘A king is not a king without an heir.’ The soothsayer, Merlin, appears by his side. He steals a glance at the king’s crotch and leers, the expression unbecoming on his youthful face.

  ‘Do not trespass into my head again, astrologer.’

  ‘Sire, I speak only the plain truth. It is there for all to see.’

  Uther shifts uncomfortably in the saddle. He needs a vessel for his seed. The wizard boy is right.

  ‘You ever fuck a woman, boy?’

  The wizard shrugs. ‘I don’t discriminate,’ he says.

  ‘I bet you don’t.’

  ‘You must have sired children, lord.’

  Uther shrugs. ‘Born on the road, perhaps,’ he says, indifferent. A fighter on the road is but a dandelion, his seed spreads everywhere.

  The wizard nods. ‘You have time, yet,’ he says.

  That night they camp under the stars. Uther sits by the fire whittling wood with his knife. The wizard, Merlin, sings softly by the stream. His pale white hands submerged in water, he catches fish, quick as an osprey. The song speaks of the land under the stars, of ash and silver birch and fern, of moors and fenlands. The horses whinny, softly, paw the ground.

  Uther sleeps. Uther dreams of islands.

  4

  White sails and dark clouds, a storm on the horizon. Sea spray and crying birds, and a single boat, sailing on the sea towards a distant shore.

  5

  They ride for days across the land. Across his land. His kingdom. This land is riven, tribal. Silures, Demetae, the Ordovices.

  Wales, the Saxons call this land. Filled with petty chieftains, men dressed in the rags of Roman generals and ruling villages of farmers and their farmer wives. But not to be underestimated. And as the riders pass they must sit with the chiefs and share a meal and give gifts and receive them, a kingdom’s like a spider’s web, it’s a delicate weave of fragile alliances. Uther promises peace. He promises stability. He is a soldier, they respect the sword. It is not that long ago that Rome had fallen, and this island still remembers the tread of the booted auxilia. The ships still dock at Fort Constantine, carrying pottery and wine, glass, silverware. Traders still come, though they are more wary now. There’s profit still to be made with this land of his and by damn he intends to make his profit.

  Five days’ ride, to Dolaucothi, and the gold mines there. His mines. His gold. A wide estate along the valley of the River Cothi. Here it is as though the Romans never left. Aqueducts and water tanks, trip hammers worked by water wheel. The miners and engineers live in an adjacent village, children run naked and shrieking, splattered in gold dust.

  ‘My lord,’ Chief Engineer Magnus says. ‘We are honoured by your visit.’

  He is a youngish man, who speaks quietly but with authority to his men. Not slaves, these. Mining’s a specialised job. This one is of this land, they all are, but he has the air of the old world about him. ‘We try to maintain the gold field operations, but we are sorely lacking in equipment.’

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘The furnace needs repairing. We need dewatering machines. The aqueducts are never properly maintained. And we need timber for the beam supports. You wish to see the tunnels?’

  It’s a familiar litany. Everywhere he goes there are needs and requests and demands. He grows weary of it all. But gold! He follows Magnus, born and raised here like his father before him, but with some Gaul or Palestinian in him. He sees the molten gold in the furnace, how bright it is! The water as it floods and strips the land, the miners searching for the tell-tale signs. Then down the shaft into the tunnels, following a seam, the specks of shiny matter in the walls. The miners move like ghosts below the surface. They have their own language, one he does not understand. Merlin follows behind, seemingly fascinated, he asks questions of a technical nature and Magnus answers in that same incomprehensible tongue.

  It’s eerie down there. He’d rather
face a man in open battle than skulk in tunnels underground. His chest feels tight. But Merlin moves at ease, he’s like a lizard. He says, ‘What gold we have fell from the heavens, it isn’t native to this Earth.’

  ‘Is that correct,’ Uther says drily.

  ‘I think so, yes. It’s why it’s rare.’

  But Uther doesn’t care, beyond that gold is pretty and it shines, and people covet gold. He’d make a crown fit for a queen, and earrings too, perhaps a pendant.

  ‘The next shipment will be ready in a fortnight,’ Magnus says.

  Uther is relieved to be back above ground. There is a soldier encampment to watch over the mines and what they hold – his soldiers. His mine. That night they sit around a fire when Magnus brings out a small bag from which he extracts a handful of dry leaves.

  ‘A little present from the traders,’ he says. He places stones in the fire and when they are hot he places the weed on the stones. It releases a pleasant aroma, Uther thinks. He feels his muscles relax and his mind grow heavy. Merlin hums a wordless tune. The stars swirl overhead, so many stars, how had he never seen the shapes they make? He laughs. Merlin smiles a goofy smile.

  Uther sees a falling star. He thinks of gold.

  6

  Eight miles from Dolaucothi, they climb atop Pen-cerrig-mwyn where a lead mine is in operation. So much metal carried out of the earth, and his, all his. Tunnels follow the veins underground but he politely abstains from going down below again. The dirt removed is carefully packed and stacked against the slope. And Uther thinks, they are building a mountain here, in a hundred years’ time a visitor may come and find a taller, broader mountain where this one once stood. But he has little interest in lead, and the Chief Engineer of this place bores him with more demands, salaries for the miners, which number two hundred and fifty or so, and the need for new chits for the toll roads, and the problems with brigands in the hills who covet the shipments.

  ‘Brigands?’ Uther says. This he understands. And there is indeed a tribe, or at the very least, a family, well-known to all the local lads, it seems, who make a trade of hijacking the loads. So Uther mounts up and his soldiers follow. Less than a day’s ride and they come upon a nestled valley and a lovely stream, and huts of mud and straw and women at their washing, children in their play and men who sit and play dice by the cooking fires.

  There’s no discussion. No man will take what’s his by right and force alone. That day they swoop down on the robbers, the horses thundering down the slopes, the women screaming, children run, the men draw weapons, but they’re no match for Uther’s force.

  It’s a distasteful business.

  When it is done there’s no one left alive but one, an elder. They set to make a cross and nail him to it, like the Christ in Palestine. The water in the brook is spoiled, but it will wash the detritus of that place and, downstream, the water will make people sick. Let it be a warning to them, he thinks. And after all the water will be clear again before too long.

  In the heat of the slaughter, as his sword caught a woman with her babe in arms, he thought he saw Merlin, just for a moment. The boy’s rapt face. Those eyes. Uther kills for killing is his business. But Merlin doesn’t kill so much as watch. He finds the wizard, at times, distasteful.

  They leave that place. They ride into the night. More falling stars. The via lactea, the Milky Circle in the sky. The riders’ shadows are as long as blades or elves, they flit like ghosts under the moonlight. They sleep, they rise. The sun is hot. The road slopes down by degrees, the air becomes enriched with salt, and Uther sees the sea. They ride into Dinas Maelor.

  The giant steps out from his fort, and Uther marvels at the sight of such a thing. A great coarse being with wild hair and a beard in which birds make their nests, and on his head a crown of thorns and thistles. They say it takes the weaver women seven days to spin one of his shirts. He wears gold on his fingers, and his teeth could chew through rocks. He stands with hands on hips and glares at them. He dwarfs the men. They say he eats a sheep each day for supper.

  ‘So you’re King Uther.’

  ‘Aye.’

  They stare. The giant’s eyes are flecked with gold and cobalt.

  ‘You came to… what?’

  ‘I am the King.’ He says it simply. It is merely fact.

  The giant nods. ‘I heard you did for the lead thieves of Bawddwr.’

  ‘It is so.’

  They stare again. The giant nods. ‘My liege?’

  ‘Yes, Maelor Gawr?’

  ‘Be welcome in my castle. Lord—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I have a problem with sheep thieves.’

  And thus it’s ever so.

  ‘Of course you do,’ sighs Uther.

  They enter. Into the giant’s giant hall, the fireplace is like a furnace, and three skinned lambs turn slowly on a spit. ‘Rubbed with olive oil, sea salt and garlic,’ the giant says, with pride. The smell of fat makes Uther’s mouth water. They’re served a dry hard cheese, fresh bread, a brace of dormice cooked the Roman style. The giant plucks the lamb meat off the bone, but delicately. He’s dainty in his habits, and wipes his fingers on a cloth as large as a military tent. The soldiers eat with less restraint. All but Merlin, who picks at a honey cake.

  The giant puts the carcass down. The gold glints in his eyes.

  ‘And what is this?’ he says, ‘You have yourself a plaything, liege?’

  ‘My wizard, Merlin.’

  ‘Is that so.’

  Merlin nods politely.

  ‘Is the food not to your liking, wizard?’

  ‘I find the company so much more nourishing,’ the wizard says.

  ‘Indeed, you look well fed.’

  ‘I thank you, kindly.’

  Uther frowns. ‘Perhaps you could do something about these sheep thieves our host finds so inconvenient, Merlin.’

  ‘Me, lord?’ The boy looks startled.

  The giant laughs, like boulders falling from a hilltop. ‘You haven’t earned your keep yet, imp?’

  Merlin bites on the last of the honey cake and scatters crumbs onto the floor. ‘If this is my king’s desire.’

  ‘It is,’ says Uther.

  ‘Then be it so.’

  The boy stalks out. ‘Sheep? Sheep!’ he says.

  ‘A knife’s no toy to play with,’ says Maelor Gawr.

  ‘But it is useful,’ Uther says.

  *

  That evening with the fall of dusk, a shout brings them to the battlements. They see the dust at first, and then the herd of sheep that storms towards the castle. The giant’s herdsmen catch the sheep and lead them to the kitchens. Behind the sheep comes Merlin, sauntering, chewing on a blade of grass. ‘Sheep? Sheep!’ he says.

  ‘Are those…?’

  Merlin just shrugs.

  That night they feast on flanks and chops and loins and legs, yet Uther sticks to watered ale and Merlin to another honey cake. But Maelor Gawr eats hungrily, and grease runs down his cheeks and in his beard, where mice gnaw on the scraps that fall into their paws. The torches burn in Dinas Maelor. The fire roars. And all is well.

  7

  In this manner they circumnavigate this green and pleasant land of his. Along the coastal road and in the shadow of the snowy mountains, ever present, to see his people. Fisherfolk and sheep herders and barley farmers, weavers and potters and brewers. They welcome him gladly, the safety he brings, they come out to see him pass and ask him in for cakes and ale, and often he accepts, he and his men, and so the journey’s slow. He basks in the warm glow of his people’s affection. In one village they erect a bonfire and host a fair for him, they spit a pig over the coals and serve him beer. He entertains the children with a song, young mothers come to touch his hand for luck.

  A king is not a king without an heir. And on that journey he spends much of his time examining the maidens of that land, dark haired and brown eyed and fair to see, and there is nary a night that he spends alone.

  Farther along the coast they co
me across a group of semi-feral boys collecting crabs along the shore. They run after the knights and try to mimic them with sticks instead of swords. Uther takes out his sword and shows it to the boys. He calls them soldiers. He shares their food, boiled crab and periwinkles, and gives them coin, and tells them to come seek him when they’re ready. In truth, he knows his battle’s far from over, for all that Vortigern is dead. His enemies are ever present, scheming in their castles, hiring men. He cannot be complacent.

  This coastal part becomes more densely populated. He sees the remnants of Roman fisheries long since abandoned, and makes a note to try and bring them back. Along this coast fishermen go out in boats and come back with a daily catch, and the fish markets do good trade, but this is small scale work, and he doubts there is much tax revenue generated. A king is not a king without his tax. He sees a great blue shark for sale and orders half to be prepared. He bites into white flesh and fat runs down his chin. He tastes the sea. He notices Merlin has more of an appetite for the creatures. The boy’s eyes flash and his hair turns white as sea spray. His skin is almost scaly, Uther thinks. That night they stop in yet another village to take their hospitality. The night is cold, a wet cold wind blows from the sea. The skies amass with clouds. Uther wraps up in a heavy blanket and sits by the fire, staring out to sea. Sometimes he dreams of a shining white island, far in the distance, and it seems to call out to him. But tonight sees nothing but the coming storm, a solitary cormorant diving against the gathering clouds. The tide rises against the beach, the waves are high. And down there, as though it were his bath, is Merlin, frolicking, at ease. An eel is what he reminds Uther of. He strains his eyes to try and make out details – it seems to him that Merlin’s not alone, that there are others with him in the water, graceful figures moving in a dance of foam and spray. But he can never make them out clearly.