Arthur seemed troubled by Owain’s claim, but his position in Dumnonia was still uncertain, for though he had been named as Mordred’s protector and one of the kingdom’s warlords, that only gave him an authority equal to Owain’s. All of us had noted how, in the wake of the Silurian rout, Arthur had taken charge, but Owain, by demanding Ladwys as his slave, was reminding Arthur that he held equal power. The moment was awkward until Arthur sacrificed Ladwys to Dumnonian unity. “Owain has decided the matter,” he said to Gundleus, then turned away so he would not have to witness the effect of his words on the lovers. Ladwys screamed her protest, then went silent as one of Owain’s men dragged her away.
Tanaburs laughed at Ladwys’s distress. He was a Druid, so no harm would be done to him. He was no prisoner, but free to go, though he would have to leave the field without food, blessing or company. Yet, emboldened by the day’s events, I could not let him go without speaking and so I followed him across the pasture that was littered with the Silurian dead. “Tanaburs!” I called after him.
The Druid turned and watched me draw my sword. “Careful, boy,” he said and made a sign of warning with his moon-tipped staff.
I should have felt fear, but a new warrior spirit filled me as I stepped close to him and placed the sword in the tangled white hairs of his beard. His head jerked back at the touch of the steel, rattling the yellow bones tied to his hair. His old face was lined, brown and blotchy, his eyes red and his nose twisted. “I ought to kill you,” I said.
He laughed. “And the curse of Britain will follow you. Your soul will never reach the Otherworld, you will have torments unknown and unnumbered, and I will be their author.” He spat towards me, then tried to push the sword blade out of his beard, but I tightened my grip on the hilt and he suddenly looked alarmed as he realized my strength.
A few curious onlookers had followed me and some tried to warn me of the dreadful fate that would torment me if I killed a Druid, but I had no intention of killing the old man. I just wanted to frighten him. “Ten or more years ago,” I said, ‘you came to Madog’s holding.” Madog was the man who had enslaved my mother, and whose homestead the young Gundleus had raided.
Tanaburs nodded as he remembered the raid. “So we did, so we did. A good day! We took much gold,” he said, ‘and many slaves!”
“And you made a death-pit,” I said.
“So?” He. shrugged, then leered at me. “The Gods must be thanked for good fortune.”
I smiled and let the sword point tickle his scrawny throat. “So I lived, Druid. I lived.”
It took Tanaburs a few seconds to understand just what I had said, but then he blanched and trembled, for he knew that I, alone of all in Britain, possessed the power to kill him. He had sacrificed me to the Gods, but his carelessness in not making sure of his gift meant that the Gods had granted the power of his life into my keeping. He screamed in terror, thinking my blade was about to lunge into his gullet, but instead I pulled the steel away from his ragged beard and laughed at him as he turned and stumbled away across the field. He was desperate to escape me, but just before he reached the woodland into which the handful of Silurian survivors had fled, he turned and pointed a bony hand towards me. “Your mother lives, boy!” he shouted. “She lives!” Then he was gone.
I stood there with my mouth open and my sword hanging in my hand. It was not that I was overcome by any particular emotion for
I could hardly remember my mother and had no real recollection of any love between us, but the very thought that she lived wrenched my whole world as violently as that morning’s destruction of Merlin’s hall. Then I shook my head. How could Tanaburs remember one slave among so many? His claim was surely false, mere words to unsettle me, nothing more, and so I sheathed the sword and walked slowly back towards the fortress.