Orion and King Arthur

CHAPTER THREE Spoils of War

1

I woke up back at Amesbury fort, wrapped in my bedroll at the base of the palisade. It was sunrise, a clear warm day was in prospect. I blinked in confusion. How did I get to the English Channel in 1588? Why? Who had sent me there?

It couldn’t have been Aten, I thought. Or, if it was, why would he return me here to Amesbury, where I can protect Arthur? Was it Anya? I tried to contact her, reached out with my mind all that morning as I went through my usual ritual of bathing in the horse trough, to the usual jibes and jeers of the other squires.

Nothing. Not even a hint of her presence. Aten is blocking my effort to reach her, I told myself. He doesn’t want me to be with her.

It didn’t take long for the news of Arthur’s victory over the Saxon host to spread beyond the fort’s confines. The second day after he had scattered the barbarians, an itinerant Jewish merchant arrived at the gates of Amesbury fort in a creaking, lopsided wagon pulled by a pair of mangy mules.

His name was Isaac. He was short and wiry, all bones and tendons. His face was swarthy, as if permanently suntanned, and his lean jaw was covered with a luxuriant dark beard. His cheeks were hollow, but his deep-set brown eyes were alert and keenly intelligent.

Arthur sent Sir Kay, his chamberlain, to meet the visitor and look over his wares. Apparently the peddler had learned that we had taken a fair amount of booty from the Saxons that had been slain: weapons mostly, heavy swords and sharp-edged axes that the barbarians could throw like missiles. Dozens of helmets, many sporting polished horns. A few shields and several strange seashell pendants carved with curious runes. If they were meant to be magical amulets they had done little good to the men who wore them: they had been ripped from the corpses of the slain.

Merlin was curious about the visitor and whatever news he might have about the world beyond the stakes of Amesbury’s palisade. Curious myself, I followed the white-haired wizard through the open gates of the fort and up to the merchant’s top-heavy wagon.

“Greeting, oh wise one,” said the peddler, bowing respectfully. “I am Isaac the Jew, a poor wandering merchant striving to eke out a living for my family. I have four children.” Here Isaac paused and added, with a resigned shrug, “All daughters.”

“I am Merlin,” the wizard replied, “adviser to the High King, Ambrosius Aurelianus.”

“Adviser to the High King? Indeed?”

A small crowd of inquisitive knights, squires, and footmen was gathering at the gate, ogling the pots and blankets and trinkets dangling from the sides of Isaac’s overladen wagon.

I noticed Lancelot among them, and beside him stood brown-robed Friar Llunach, the fort’s chaplain, his jowly face grim with dislike for the Jewish Isaac.

Pointing to the mound of spoils, Isaac said to Merlin, “You have won a great victory here. News of it is spreading throughout the land.”

Merlin nodded. “It will be a long time before Aelle tries to test young Arthur in battle again.”

“Indeed,” said Isaac. “Aelle will never again challenge Arthur or anyone else. The man is dead.”

“Dead?” Merlin’s eyes went wide. Everyone in the small knot of onlookers was startled by the news.

Isaac explained, “Some say he was slain by his own men, who felt shamed when their Bretwalda fled in panic from Arthur’s charge.”

“You must tell Arthur himself of this,” Merlin said, gesturing toward the open gate.

“Hold!” cried Friar Llunach. “The Jew may not enter the fort.”

“And why not?” Merlin snapped.

Frowning, the priest said, “He’s a Jew! An unbeliever. One of Christ’s murderers.”

Many of the onlookers stepped back, as if afraid they would be polluted if they stayed near the merchant. Lancelot stood firm, though. As did I.

Merlin shook his head sadly. “This man is nothing more than an itinerant peddler. He no more murdered your Christ than you did yourself.”

“Blasphemy!” hissed the friar.

For an instant I thought that Merlin was going to laugh in the priest’s face. Instead, the old wizard drew himself up in his long, dingy robe and said merely, “This news must be told to Arthur.”

Beckoning Isaac to follow him, Merlin went through the gate and into the fort, the little crowd parting like the Red Sea before the pair of them.

Friar Llunach stood there, radiating fury. Turning to young Lancelot, he half whispered, “That old magician is no Christian. He still follows the old gods.”

I smiled to myself. If I had it right, Merlin was himself one of the old gods. But was he aiding Aten or not? Would he one day assassinate Arthur or try to protect him from Aten’s murderous plans, even as I was?

2

“Aelle is dead?” Arthur blurted, delighted surprise wreathing his smiling face.

Isaac stood respectfully before the young commander, who sat in an ancient Roman camp chair behind the rough trestle table that took up much of his room. Sir Bors stood behind him, looking suspicious, as usual.

Merlin, standing beside the merchant, said, “Apparently he was killed by his own men, who were shamed by his flight at the battle.”

Arthur leaned back in the creaking chair. Stroking his light beard, he muttered, “So much for the self-styled Bretwalda.” Then he looked up at Isaac once again and asked, “Does my uncle know of this?”

“Your uncle, sir?”

“Ambrosius, the High King.”

Isaac’s eyes slid toward Merlin, then back to Arthur. “The High King is your uncle?”

“He is,” said Arthur. “And he must be told of Aelle’s death immediately.”

As soon as Arthur asked his knights for a volunteer to carry the news to the High King, young Lancelot begged for the mission.

“It won’t be easy,” Arthur warned the youth. “You’ll have to ride alone through deep woods and dark nights.”

Lancelot was practically quivering with enthusiasm. “I can do it, lord! Please let me do it!”

Before the sun set, Lancelot galloped off for Cadbury on the fastest horse in our fort, trailing two other mounts behind him. Arthur, Bors, and I watched him disappear over the ridgeline from the parapet.

Bors shook his head. “That lad has more guts than brains,” he muttered.

Isaac took his pick of the battle spoils, offering in return fine linen tunics, iron cook pots, blankets that looked newly weaved. The knights bargained with him day and night; Isaac never pressed them, he seemed content to accept whatever they demanded of him.

The evening before he was to leave, I went out to his wagon, where he was bundling the Saxon booty into rough burlap sacks.

“Are you satisfied with what you’ve gained?” I asked him.

Isaac shrugged in the gathering shadows. “Am I satisfied? Why not?”

“I think you could have bargained harder.”

With a sardonic little smile, Isaac replied, “And make your fine knights angry with me? It’s bad enough that the priest hates me. I’m not going to make enemies of men who carry swords.”

I helped him lift a bundle and shove it into his cluttered wagon. “You’re very cautious.”

“I’m alive. Killing a Jew isn’t a crime to these people, you know.”

“These people? You don’t think I’m one of them?”

The sun had dipped below the wooded hills, but I could see the crafty expression on Isaac’s face. “You are taller than the rest of them. Your skin is almost as dark as mine. You’re no Briton.”

“You’re very observant,” I said.

“A Jew needs to be observant,” he said, a tinge of bitterness in his voice. “And compliant. A Jew can’t afford to make enemies. They already hate me.”

“You follow a difficult path.”

With a shrug, Isaac replied, “I manage to survive.”

A sudden thought occurred to me. “You offered no coin for any of the spoils.”

“Coin?” Isaac looked startled. “If they thought I carried coin with me they’d slit my throat on the spot and ransack my wagon.”

Raising my hands, I said, “Sorry. Forget that I mentioned it.”

“Just don’t mention it to them,” Isaac whispered.

Gold was so rare and precious among the Britons that it was the cause of murders, even among the Christians. Strange, I thought, how easily men forget their religion over gold, or anything else they covet.

By the time Isaac finished packing his wagon it was fully night, cloudy, moonless.

“Will you come into the fort for supper with me?” I asked him.

Shaking his head, he said, “I will stay here with my goods. I have a little bread and a few lentils.”

“I don’t think any of the men would pilfer your wagon,” I told him. “Arthur wouldn’t allow it.”

With that sad little smile of his, Isaac replied, “Arthur I trust. But the others…” He waggled a hand.

So I stayed with the merchant, shared his bread and lentils—and a pair of ripe apples that he pulled out of a burlap sack—and slept the night on the ground beneath his wagon.

In the morning Isaac yoked his mules and drove off. But not before saying to me, “You are a good man, Orion. I will tell the others of my people that you can be trusted.”

I thanked him and watched him drive the creaking wagon slowly away from Amesbury fort.

Five days later Lancelot came galloping back from Cadbury, covered with dust and grime, his mount lathered and heaving.

Even as he slid out of his saddle, Lancelot cried, “The High King wants to see Arthur! He wants Arthur to come to Cadbury castle! I’ve got to tell him!”

And he dashed past me, racing for the rough-hewn tower where Arthur stayed.