The Shining Company (10 page)

‘But if you make the choice to become my men in this, then here and now you shall take the Great Oath to keep faith with me and with each other. And after that there can be no turning back with honour.’

Aneirin’s voice fell silent, and he looked towards the King, and the King nodded and made a small gesture of finis with one gaunt hand.

No one moved. No one slipped away into the shadows. Only a dog snarled softly over a bone, and a knot in one of the pine torches spat sharply into the silence and far off along the Town Ridge a child began to cry.

We took the Oath then, sitting at the tables and around the fires. Warriors and shieldbearers alike, although I think that in truth it was meant only for the binding of the Three Hundred. The Great Oath which is the same through all the kingdoms, among all tribes and clans of Britain for it is older than clans and kingdoms.

‘If we break faith with you, may the green earth gape and swallow us, may the grey seas roll in and overwhelm us, may the sky of stars fall upon us and crush us out of life for ever.’

‘It is done, and it is well done. So do I count you all henceforth as sons of mine,’ said Mynyddog, speaking for himself. His voice was dry and grinding in his chest, but the words came clear enough to all of us.

Then came the next thing.

He made a sign to the men of his household
standing by, and the trestle boards of the High Table were drawn away, and great kists of carved and painted wood were brought from the Hall and set before him; and at his word they were opened and the swords which they contained were lifted out and freed of their wrappings of oiled linen. Great swords, some of them new from the smith’s hands, some ancient and curiously wrought, hilts with goldwork, blades of fine blue-watered steel.

The giving of such weapons by a king to his followers in honour or reward or for the binding together of a brotherhood is a thing that all who have ever heard the harpers singing the high and ancient tales around the fires at night must know well enough, but I had never thought to see such a sword-giving in the world of my own day. It was like watching part of some half-lost hero tale, something that belonged to an older and darker and more shining world than mine.

There were no fine swords for the shieldbearers, of course, nor did we expect it. But I have not even now forgotten how the fierce splendour laid hold upon us all, in Mynyddog’s flame-lit forecourt that night of early summer. And the faces of the young men crowding about the King for their gift-weapons, their eyes bright in the flare of the torches come easy to my mind.

I have but to close my eyes to see them passing, the men I came to know. The Prince of the Cymru, Madog, of little Elmet, Morien and Peredur, big fair Geraint from the far south, Tydfwlch The Tall; Gwenabwy who, so he claimed, had once killed a wolf with his naked hands; Cynan and Cynri and Cymran
who were not strangers and in-comers like so many of us, but sons of Clydno who in his lifetime had been the king’s judge, and who had crossed over from the ranks of the Teulu … As each came up Mynyddog laid a gaunt hand for an instant on the hilt of each sword, in token that it was his gift, before his captain and the greybeards of his household bestowed it on its new master, until after a long while the kists were empty and none of the new Brotherhood lacked a sword.

I mind Gorthyn coming back to his place at one of the long side tables bearing an old sword with gold wires braided round the grip of age-blackened ivory, and a curling wave-break pattern engraved along the blade. It showed in the torch light when he half withdrew the scuffed wolfskin sheath, smiling at it gently and gravely, much as though it had been his first girl.

By the time the last sword had been given out it was late; way past the usual time to quench the torches and smoore the fires, and all things had taken on the golden glow that comes of much mead and the prospect of glory. But the King’s Gathering Feast was not over. One thing remained.

And for this last thing, Ceredig the Fosterling became the King’s voice. ‘Mynyddog the King bids you, before you sleep this night, to drink together for the first time as a brotherhood.’

And while the words yet hung in the air among the smoke and the echoes of harpsong, light wavered again in the doorway of the High Hall, and the Queen and her daughters came through, bearing great mead bowls and followed by other women of the household with long-necked storage jars to keep them filled.

In Dyn Eidin they followed the old custom, and the women did not eat with the men on great occasions, but held their own feasting in the women’s house. So though I had seen all of them from a distance more than once by then, I had not seen the King’s women together; and they were worth the seeing. The Queen herself spear-tall, with a strong quiet face, and goldwork on her neck and arms, apples of gold hanging at the ends of her braided hair. Two of her daughters were out of the same mould, though with more of laughter in their faces; and the gowns of all of them not wool, but fine silks that must have come from the East in the pack-trains of merchants such as Phanes of Syracuse. The third daughter, walking last of the group in a gown of rose-hip red was the odd one out; smaller than the rest - which could have been because she was the youngest - with dove-gold hair and a narrow face that looked at first sight to be all eyes and no mouth.

The Queen held the golden mead bowl first for her lord the King, then for those who sat all across the foreporch where the High Table had been, while her daughters came down the lesser tables, holding their mead bowls for the warriors sprawled there. The youngest daughter, the Princess Niamh, was working her way down the long side table where Gorthyn sat, firmly concentrating on what she was doing, lest she spill a drop. And as she drew near, I saw that the reason her face looked to be all eyes was that despite her fairness, she had dark straight brows that should have been a boy’s and overshadowed all the rest, and in her care of the bowl she carried she had sucked her mouth in until it all but disappeared. She looked
much younger than her sisters, maybe younger even than Luned, but somehow, watching her come, I was not surprised if - as I had heard - the Queen her mother had chosen to pass on to her and not to either of the other two, her own physic skills.

She came to Cynan and his brothers sitting next to the men of Gwynedd. All three brothers looked like horses - the high cheekbones and flared nostrils and full dark eyes, the thick stallion crest of black hair - and none of them ever walked if they could ride, as though maybe there was a centaur somewhere in their bloodline. But as each rose to drink from the bowl she held, it was Cynan I noticed above the other two. It was always Cynan who I noticed, as though something in me knew already that somewhere in the future we had meaning for each other.

The bowl she held for him was of fine red Samian ware glowing in the flamelight almost the same colour as her gown. The colour made me look at it in the first place, and looking, I saw how his fingers crept on the sides of it to touch hers. I was not surprised; Cynan made laughing love to every girl who came his way, but this was different, a kind of teasing, and the look on their faces, glimpsed against the blue-shadowed and flame-fringed night was different, too, the look of old friends sharing a secret and maybe a jest. It was a very belonging look, and for that moment it made me think of Conn and Luned and me.

Then Cynan bent his head to drink from the tipped bowl. And after, the Lady Niamh passed on to Tydfwlch the Tall, to Gwenabwy, to Gorthyn who was still so busy dandling his sword that he scarcely
realized she was there, until she stood close over him and his neighbour jabbed him in the ribs.

And in a short while after, came the end of the King’s Gathering Feast.

At the Royal Farm there were five more long-houses like the one that had received us on our first night below Eidin Ridge. All of them new-built and smelling of raw timber, and so roughly thatched that in times of storm the rain drove through and spat into our fires and soaked the bracken and skins of our sleeping places. (We did something about that ourselves as time went by, adding another layer of furze and broom to make the roofs within reason watertight.) And there we were lodged, fifty warriors to a long-house, and as many of their shieldbearers as could pack in with them, while the rest of us slept in the foreporch and lofts and wherever we could find space in the farm buildings round about.

From the very first, the Three Hundred were divided into troops of fifty and the Fosterling saw to it that each troop contained men from all the kingdoms, that there might be no danger of cross-loyalties to tribe or territory coming between troop and troop. And of course for us, their shieldbearers, it was the same.

We began our training almost without realizing that we did so, for in those early days much of it was the same as the training for manhood that we had known among our own hills: running and wrestling, the use of sword and spear, javelin and bow. (It was Morien,
always the inventor in our midst, who brought out some story of Artos having used fire arrows in the taking of some Saxon stronghold, and set to work with linen rags soaked in pitch until he had achieved arrows of a like kind, one of which set fire to a store-shed roof, and gained him the name of Morien the Fiery which he bore from that time forth). Cavalry training came later, but even that at first was a familiar kind. The Three Hundred trained sometimes by troop, sometimes all together as one war-band; and we, of course, did not train with them, not as yet. But we underwent all the same schooling on the same practice grounds at the foot of the Town Ridge, shouted at by the same war-scarred veterans of bygone battles; and at night, serving our warriors in Hall, we shared the same food and firelight and harpsong.

And by the end of the first few weeks we had begun to knit together into something whole and complete. The Three Hundred had begun to call themselves the Companions because that was the name by which men spoke of Artos’ band of cavalry.
We
were never the Companions, but the bonding was for us also.

I have known much the same thing since, at another time and in another place, but that was the first time; and the first time for anything can only come once.

Some while past noon of a sweltering day - it was still early summer but thunder had been muttering among the hills all morning without being able to bring itself to the point of storm-break, and the sunlight was thick and heavy and the river levels quivering in the heat- haze - a knot of us were sprawling within the thin
shade of the alder trees at the edge of the practice grounds, waiting for our lords and masters who were at their running and wrestling out on the open turf.

Nearest of all the wrestlers, Gorthyn and Cynan were heaving and straining at each other like a pair of antler-locked stags, and close beyond them Cynran, the youngest of the three brothers, had taken on Llif from beyond the old northern wall, a long lean Piet, sandy-haired and tattooed on breast and shoulders with the blue spiralling patterns of his people. I could see the blue spandrils leap and quiver with the movement of the straining muscles under the skin. I could hear the whistling breaths and the pad of bare feet on turf as men shifted their stance. But it had all been going on for a long time, each victorious wrestler moving up at the end of his bout to take on the winner of another pair, and we, waiting with our lords’ clothes and rough linen towels to rub them down, were growing bored.

Looking back now, I do not know how it came about that we drew our knives and began to play Blade-bite. It is a boys’ game that we should all have grown out of by that time, but we were bored, as I have said. We formed the circle and began, each pair of challenger and challenged in turn taking stance in the centre to try their blades against each other, the victor, as among the wrestlers, going on to meet the victor of the next pair. Only one strike allowed, and the victory to the blade that took the least damage. My knife was a veteran of more than one such contest, and had the notches to prove it, though since it was a good blade, and I had the knack, it had generally given more damage than it took; and when one of
Cynan’s shieldbearers, Dara by name, challenged me, I advanced to meet him in the middle of the circle with the confident air of a proved champion.

I remember the sharp clash and rasp as our blades met; and truly his suffered the deepest notch; I mind the shout going up, and the comparing of blades. But in the moment of impact I had felt something spring loose in the hilt, and when I looked to see what was amiss - being beaten about the shoulders in congratulations by my fellow shieldbearers the while - I found that one of the rivets holding the horn plates of the grip in place had sprung under the shock of blade meeting blade.

Conn was standing on the outskirts of the group, looking on. He seemed to spend a lot of his time looking on from the outskirts in those days, having no place of his own. He ran errands for everybody, tended horses, burnished harness and gear, fetched and carried, and was beginning to wear a sullen look, a down-tailed look like a masterless dog. I had noticed it for some while past, but had not known what to do about it.

I called him over and held out my knife. ‘Conn, look you. This has sprung a rivet-there. Take it up to Fercos the weapon-smith, ask him to set it to rights, and wait you till it be done.’

He took the knife without a word, and turning, departed at his loping, faintly lopsided run, up the steep track that wound towards the Dyn. When I turned back to the wrestlers, Gorthyn had thrown his man. He straightened and stood back, shaking the sweat-darkened hair out of his eyes, then bent to pull Cynan laughing and breathless to his feet. They came
back each with an arm across the other’s shoulders, towards the shade of the trees, and Dara and I caught up the towels we had abandoned on the grass, and went to meet them.

A good while later, Conn had not returned. I had bidden him wait while the rivet was dealt with, and maybe Fercos was busy. The weapon-smiths of Eidin were mostly busy at that time, and Fercos, the King’s armourer, must be in demand above all the rest. Meanwhile it was drawing on towards time for the evening meal. Eating with no tools but one’s fingers is an awkward and messy business, and I should soon be in need of my knife - on this more than any other evening of the week for since there was no room for the whole Company in the King’s Hall, each troop in turn supped with the King while the rest fed in their own hostels from the great cookhouses at the farm, and this evening it was the turn of our troop.