Dark North

Seven

The following morning, the sun rode high in a cloudless sky, but it was still early spring and Camelot’s regal banners streamed on an ice-edged breeze.

The conference with the Roman ambassadors was to be the main event of the day, though of course this would not involve the majority of those gathered in the palace, only the King and his senior advisors. Minor nobility would be allowed into the audience gallery, where they were expected to be seen and not heard. Lesser-titled men were not even permitted to wait outside in the lobbies. Not that many would complain about this; most had spent long hours in the saddle to reach this place, and now the delights of Camelot would prove a welcome diversion.

All that morning, rivers of household men and their lackeys poured down the Eagle Road, eager to lose themselves in a day’s holiday. Most walked together in chattering bands, while some — suspecting they’d be too drunk by the day’s end to think twice about paying an exorbitant fee to have themselves carried back to the palace in a litter — descended on horseback. The mood was merry. Though the stakes would be high in the conference hall, most common men knew these great affairs were beyond their understanding, and did not trouble their heads with it.

Alaric, Malvolio and Benedict walked with the other squires from Penharrow. There was much ribaldry, much ribbing and lampooning of each other, all born from sheer excitement. Camelot was the largest town that most of the lads had ever seen, and thronging with traffic: townsfolk and tradesmen jostled each other as they hurried back and forth, while wagons and carts made even slower progress, and on the narrower roads threw up gouts of liquid mud. There was a riot of noise: steel-shod wheels clashing on paving stones, clog-irons thumping, hammers falling, bells clanging, hucksters and hawkers calling their wares, geese clacking and sheep bleating as they were driven to market. Every status of person was on show, from lords and ladies in curtained carriages, to lepers and cripples begging on corners. Mailed soldiers mingled with vagabonds. Monks and other pilgrims strode in single file, cowled heads bowed. Madmen capered to the jigs of street-musicians.

The back alleys were even more chaotic. Wattle-and-timber buildings leaned towards each other like rows of decrepit old men. Here, the fine townhouses of courtiers and flunkeys gave way to the homes and shops of the town’s merchant class, each with its own painted shield hanging over its lintel: cobblers, ironmongers, smiths, glass-painters, carpenters, coopers, saddlers, masons, grocers, haberdashers, poulterers, milliners and locksmiths.

In one square, the lads were mesmerised by a raised stage on which a miracle play was in progress. A pimply-faced youth with straggles of straw in place of blonde locks wore a woman’s dress sewn with oak leaves to indicate that he was ‘Eve.’ ‘Adam’ was a much older man, balding, with a pendulous strawberry nose and a hanging belly. He wore only a flagellant’s loincloth as they fled together from the Garden of Eden, a representation provided by items of flat scenery — illustrated first with vines and fruit, and later with rocks and tangled thorns — which a tireless procession of helpers in hose and sweat-soaked blouses transported across the rear of the stage. Alongside the melodrama, a plump, doughy-looking boy seated on a stool divided his attention between a large currant-bun and a trumpet, on which he blew irregular, discordant blasts — possibly to indicate the mayhem of the world beyond Paradise, or more likely because this was the most his skill with a trumpet amounted to. Despite this, the lesson of the Fall of Man was not lost on the awed crowd, though it was diluted somewhat by other events in the same square, which included juggling, acrobatics and a bear-baiting. The lads inevitably became bored, and soon found their way to the taverns.

There was every kind of tavern in Camelot town, and every kind of bawdy house, though the latter, by Arthur’s ordinance, were confined to a low quarter close to the docks, where the tanneries and workshops discharged their effluent direct into the River Itchen. It was no surprise to find that most of the Penharrow retinue, along with many others, had already found their way to this quarter, the knights and men-at-arms in particular having failed to be distracted by the shopping streets or miracle plays. Ale, wine and West Country cider was quaffed in abundance, and saucy girls were on hand to assist the gallant gentlemen in their quest to spend every penny they had.

There was little romance in the air, Alaric thought glumly as he and the others stood crammed in one dingy interior. It reeked of smoke and onions, and the floor was rotted hay, much of which he suspected had fallen from the bedding in the loft, to which a creaking, rickety stairway led an endless procession of lads and lasses. Most of these couples seemed to come down again with almost indecent speed, the lasses promptly discarding their companions and latching onto new customers.

“Why the face?” Malvolio wondered, grinning over his drinking-pot. He and Benedict were already flushed around the gills as the liquor took hold of them.

“I don’t have much appetite for this,” Alaric said.

Over the last few days, his yearning for Countess Trelawna had become overpowering. He knew better than anyone how ridiculous it was, but could any man control such a floodtide of emotion? He could neither eat nor sleep; he had no patience for raucous company or idle banter. He wondered if this was what was meant by ‘love-sickness.’ It was a worrying thought. When men were in love they did rash things. He’d held amorous feelings for his mistress for almost as long as he could remember, or so it seemed — at least since he’d begun to find her womanly shape fascinating rather than motherly — but now the flame burned with frightful ferocity. Maybe this ensued from the near-death of her husband. For a very brief time the unobtainable dream had seemed a fraction closer. Earl Lucan was now fit and well again, but the flame could not be quenched.

“We never got to toast your birthday,” Malvolio slurred.

“Now’s your chance,” Alaric replied, making to leave.

Malvolio stopped him. “What ails you, lad?”

“Forgive me.” Alaric shouldered his way through the throng. “I need some clean air.”

“Alaric!” Malvolio called after him.

“Let him go,” Benedict advised, beckoning to a foxy-faced miss with black bangs and witch-green eyes. “It’ll take more than clean air to cure his disease.”

At the tavern door, Alaric was spotted by Turold, who was sprawled on a bench beside the fire, a wench on one knee. On the other knee sat his lute, which he plucked at.

“Too much to drink already, Alaric?” he laughed.

“That’s what I’m seeking to avoid, my lord,” Alaric replied. “Men say foolish things in their cups.”

“And most of the rest of the time, in my experience,” Wulfstan observed sagely. He was on the opposite bench, gazing into the flames as he sipped at a pewter tankard.

Alaric departed, and Turold shook his head. “He’s turned strange, that one.”

“Cusp of manhood,” Wulfstan said. “Doesn’t know how he’s expected to behave yet.”

They were distracted by braying laughter, and turned to spot Malvolio struggling in the arms of Benedict and several other squires while a black-haired lass poured a goodly measure of ale behind his codpiece.

“For which there’s something to be said,” Wulfstan added dourly.

Alaric walked to the basilica, feeling small and inconsequential as he mounted its broad marble steps. It wasn’t the first great cathedral he’d visited — he’d darkened the doors at both Durham and York during his travels with Earl Lucan — but St. Stephen’s, which, though he’d been to Camelot twice before, he’d never entered, was the stuff of dreams.

As he strode through the vast nave, its white paving stones tinged pink and blue by the towering stained-glass windows, its air heavy with frankincense, he listened to the distant choral chanting of the cathedral chapter and was moved, not so much by the aura of sanctity as by the sense of his own unworthiness. Each stone pillar was painted in beautiful hues of red, green and gold, and carved with passages of scripture in Latin. At the foot of each pillar there was a tomb, and in repose atop each tomb the effigy of some knight who had died in the service of Christ. As Alaric walked up the central aisle, he dwelled on the terrible wars that Arthur and his knights had waged to wrest this land back from heathen powers. The losses had been uncountable, and yet here he was, torturing himself with desire for the wife of one who had stood by Arthur from the beginning, who had served in all five of his most difficult campaigns, receiving one terrible wound after another. It felt as if the weight of his guilt would crush him. And yet Alaric trudged on, trying not to meet the gazes of those supplicants who knelt in the side-chapels or before candle-lit alcoves where saints might grant boons to the pious, for surely he wore his failings the way a condemned man wore his shroud.

Far overhead, the vaulted ceiling was the most vivid depiction of Heaven he could imagine: painted blue, yet spangled with gold and silver stars. Images of angels in flight were etched across it, swan wings spread, battle-horns at their lips, banderoles billowing behind them, bearing more names of fallen heroes.

The main altar itself was the most potent reminder of all that he was a traitor.

The central table was a solid block of Greek gold, liberated by Arthur from the booty of the Saxon horde he had decimated in the desperate battle on the River Duhblas; it was so heavy that it had taken sixteen of his men to carry it. Its sides were engraved with images from the Bible, its top laid with crisp white linens. At either end stood a rose-coloured candle, each as tall and thick as a man’s arm. Ten paces behind it, a triptych depicting the life and death of St Stephen arched over the entrance to the choir, which rose in tier upon tier of elaborately carved and polished wooden benches. At the very rear, the basilica’s main altarpiece towered fifty feet into the air, a masterpiece of interlocking bas reliefs, each panel — silver inlaid with gold, or gold inlaid with silver — telling a tale from the lives of the martyrs.

Alaric knelt, helpless before this vision of celestial splendour.

Many in Albion had come late in life to the Christian God. Pictish and Saxon incursion after the legions left had sent many Britons back to their hill-forts and their woodland temples, where the faces of pagan spirits were still cut in the bark. Only Arthur’s victories had helped reverse this tide. But Alaric was not a recent convert. He had no memory of his real parents, who had been murdered and his home destroyed while he was still a babe in arms. But those who’d abducted him, in one of those strange contradictions that bedeviled Christianity, had seen to it that he was baptised before making him their slave. As such, he had never known any other faith, and had never held with those cynical men who reckoned the weakness of God’s servants to be a weakness of God Himself. Prelates might abuse their positions — gluttonous friars might roister with thanes and knaves, priests might steal church-offerings to line their vestment pockets, bishops might seek and wield power like ordinary, avaricious men — but they committed these deeds in defiance of Christ, not on His instruction. As such, the Holy Cloth did not protect them. They were as surely bound for Hell as any of those lay-sinners they so roundly condemned in the quest to empower themselves even more.

God was good.

God was kind.

God would forgive.

Though first one had to be contrite. One must seek forgiveness, and seek it honestly — not because one feared punishment, but because one regretted one’s offences.

Alaric walked doggedly from the cathedral, leaving by one of its rear doors. He could never seek shrift as things were. Though it was wicked and perverse of him, he loved his overlord’s wife. Expressing regret for that would not help — for it would be a lie, and God recognised all lies. Perhaps it was God’s little jest, therefore, that the first person he saw on leaving the building was Countess Trelawna. She sat with her ladies in the cathedral garden, in the midst of a manicured lawn with pollarded plum trees to either side.

“Alaric?” she said, noting his peculiar expression.

“My… lady,” he stuttered. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“How so, Alaric?”

“I thought… the attractions of the royal palace.”

“Ah… the season. To walk on the terraces up yonder would freeze our blood. Down here, the sun’s kisses are warmer. I’m equally surprised to see you. I thought the city would provide diversions.”

“Only brief ones, ma’am.” He was surprised she couldn’t tell that that his limbs were quaking, his brow flustered. He even resented her for that, so his voice hardened. “I came to the cathedral to find peace.”

“Peace, Alaric?”

“And I didn’t. In case you were wondering.”

“Why do you seek peace? You’re a young man. You know no troubles.”

Alaric gazed at her long and hard, willing her to understand his torment. She regarded him with all innocence, though several of her ladies were now eyeing him curiously.

“You’re right, my lady,” he finally said, struggling to fight back tears. “I can’t tell you my troubles — they’re trifling things. As you say, I’m only a boy.”

He turned and left the garden with plodding steps.

Trelawna gazed after him, puzzled. “I meant no insult.”

“I don’t think he was insulted, mistress,” Annette said, averting her eyes.

“I doubt it would be possible for you to insult that one,” Gerta muttered. She sat several yards away on a stool, working at her embroidery, adding under her breath: “Foolish brat. He’ll bring destruction on more than just himself.”