The Broken Kings: Book Three of The Merlin Codex by Robert Holdstock Page A
Authors: Robert Holdstock
Ads: Link
need to give some thought to the matter,” Vortingoros finally said. “I can agree with you that the situation is serious; I will offer you what help I can. First, I must discuss the matter with my counsel.”
“This is appreciated.”
“And I must introduce Kymon to my nephew. I have a feeling the two young men will get along very well.”
Kymon smiled and bowed his head. Was he aware of the murmur of humour in the ranks of champions in the king’s hall?
“At least, before the chin-cut,” the host king added to more mirth.
Vortingoros rose and gripped wrists with Urtha. “By the way. Despite all I’ve told you, we still practise the Moon Hunt. Its time is nearly here, and if the Speaker for the Land agrees, we could hunt the night after tomorrow, after moonrise.”
“For boar?”
“For a stag, whose belling tells us that he’s a prize on four legs.”
“After what you’ve described to me, are you sure it’s wise?”
“Wise? No. But the hunt is still in our blood. You and your son must join us. I will present you with the best portion of the flesh, though we must go to convivial combat together if you wish to secure the velvet and the horn.” He laughed. “What do you say?”
“I say yes.”
An owl, dark-faced, tawny-feathered, suddenly swooped through the hall and rose into the stream of light from the smoke-hole in the roof.
Frowning at the bird, which had startled him, and with the quiet comment, “Do you watch everything I do?” Urtha retired to the guest hall with his son and retinue, weary, apprehensive, unable to sleep.
I would have to be careful how I answered his question, when it came to the moment.
Chapter Nine
The Chin-Cut
The evening before the Moon Hunt, by arrangement and agreement between the two kings, Kymon and Vortingoros’s nephew Colcu met in the circle where the game was to be held, a wide space, defined by feathered posts and filled with a scatter of rusting weapons, wooden swords, bent-shafted spears, ropes and “leaping” points, the cut trunks of trees and carefully positioned flat-topped blocks of grey stone. A few thornbushes had been allowed to grow there, and a central oak, sufficiently battered and broken as to suggest the hazardous and limb-damaging use to which it had often been put.
Kymon inspected the circle and was contemptuous. “Nothing bright. No bright iron. No sharp-edged bronze. No shields. This is a child’s playground.”
Urtha picked up one of the discarded blades and bent it until it snapped. He had seen at once what this circle represented. Not a playground for children but an echo of the crow-ground after battle. These weapons, even the wooden batons, had been taken from a skirmish field. Urtha glanced into the fading light above him. Sure enough, a bird was hovering there, swooping and disappearing as it eyed the ground. One of the Morrigan’s daughters, given a small role as she herself grew to become a retriever of souls when blood-tempered iron was dipped again into the life-forge.
There would be no killing today. The bird was young, her presence in the clouds simply to watch and learn.
Colcu had been out with the group setting traps for the coming Moon Hunt. Now he trotted through the main gate into the hill on a white pony, which was decked with red and black feathers above its bright bronze eye-covers. His feet almost touched the ground. He rode straight to the games circle with his uncle leading him and swung down from the narrow saddle to confront Kymon. The two youths engaged each other’s gaze coldly while their guardians talked and laughed. Colcu was a full head taller than Urtha’s son, and he seemed to be in distress at having to “prove” himself with this Cornovidian “child.”
Although Kymon kept wisely quiet, he was alarmed to see the purple “torque heads” tattooed on each side of Colcu’s throat, a mark that always preceded the fitting of a golden torque, the mark of royalty but also of having taken a
“This is appreciated.”
“And I must introduce Kymon to my nephew. I have a feeling the two young men will get along very well.”
Kymon smiled and bowed his head. Was he aware of the murmur of humour in the ranks of champions in the king’s hall?
“At least, before the chin-cut,” the host king added to more mirth.
Vortingoros rose and gripped wrists with Urtha. “By the way. Despite all I’ve told you, we still practise the Moon Hunt. Its time is nearly here, and if the Speaker for the Land agrees, we could hunt the night after tomorrow, after moonrise.”
“For boar?”
“For a stag, whose belling tells us that he’s a prize on four legs.”
“After what you’ve described to me, are you sure it’s wise?”
“Wise? No. But the hunt is still in our blood. You and your son must join us. I will present you with the best portion of the flesh, though we must go to convivial combat together if you wish to secure the velvet and the horn.” He laughed. “What do you say?”
“I say yes.”
An owl, dark-faced, tawny-feathered, suddenly swooped through the hall and rose into the stream of light from the smoke-hole in the roof.
Frowning at the bird, which had startled him, and with the quiet comment, “Do you watch everything I do?” Urtha retired to the guest hall with his son and retinue, weary, apprehensive, unable to sleep.
I would have to be careful how I answered his question, when it came to the moment.
Chapter Nine
The Chin-Cut
The evening before the Moon Hunt, by arrangement and agreement between the two kings, Kymon and Vortingoros’s nephew Colcu met in the circle where the game was to be held, a wide space, defined by feathered posts and filled with a scatter of rusting weapons, wooden swords, bent-shafted spears, ropes and “leaping” points, the cut trunks of trees and carefully positioned flat-topped blocks of grey stone. A few thornbushes had been allowed to grow there, and a central oak, sufficiently battered and broken as to suggest the hazardous and limb-damaging use to which it had often been put.
Kymon inspected the circle and was contemptuous. “Nothing bright. No bright iron. No sharp-edged bronze. No shields. This is a child’s playground.”
Urtha picked up one of the discarded blades and bent it until it snapped. He had seen at once what this circle represented. Not a playground for children but an echo of the crow-ground after battle. These weapons, even the wooden batons, had been taken from a skirmish field. Urtha glanced into the fading light above him. Sure enough, a bird was hovering there, swooping and disappearing as it eyed the ground. One of the Morrigan’s daughters, given a small role as she herself grew to become a retriever of souls when blood-tempered iron was dipped again into the life-forge.
There would be no killing today. The bird was young, her presence in the clouds simply to watch and learn.
Colcu had been out with the group setting traps for the coming Moon Hunt. Now he trotted through the main gate into the hill on a white pony, which was decked with red and black feathers above its bright bronze eye-covers. His feet almost touched the ground. He rode straight to the games circle with his uncle leading him and swung down from the narrow saddle to confront Kymon. The two youths engaged each other’s gaze coldly while their guardians talked and laughed. Colcu was a full head taller than Urtha’s son, and he seemed to be in distress at having to “prove” himself with this Cornovidian “child.”
Although Kymon kept wisely quiet, he was alarmed to see the purple “torque heads” tattooed on each side of Colcu’s throat, a mark that always preceded the fitting of a golden torque, the mark of royalty but also of having taken a
Similar Books
