The white shield that signified Raven’s peaceful intent was swiftly lashed to the masthead. The galley’s sail had already been lowered, so that dipping oars moved her smoothly toward the narrow strait. The oars threw crystal sparkles into the air and a bit of white foam rolled back past Raven’s stern.
On the western side of the strait, rearing gigantically from the gorse, broom and heather that covered the thin soil, stood a menhir of astounding size. More than ten times taller than great Wulfhere’s height it lofted, weighing hundreds of tons. The lost years of time had been sealed within its pitted surface as honey in the comb. The first Caesar, Caius Julius, had seen it. From this spot, it was said, he had watched his fleet put defeat on the Veneti, and even then the menhir had been ancient out of memory.
“Rider on our steerboard side, coming down to the beach,” Makki Grey-gull called out.
Cormac’s head swiveled. Aye, the horseman was there, coming swiftly with the sun blazing behind him. His mount’s hooves threw up pale spurts of sand. Richly as he glittered with golden adornment, the horse glittered no less. A magnificent purple plaide blew about him. No, no; was a Romish cloak he wore, not a Celtic plaid.
He drew rein at the water’s edge in the way that his grey horse was flung back almost on its haunches. Water surged in foam about its fetlocks. From a mouth stretched wide between moustaches the colour of a wheat harvest, the rider bawled challenge in… Latin!
“Who may ye be that in a warship you armed have come across the sea? The shield of peace at your masthead I see; still, consent or permission to land here you have not asked of my lord Howel, Prince of Bro Erech. Tell me your names and your purpose ere further you go, or as enemies be cried!”
Wulfhere bristled. Cormac grinned wolfishly and clapped a restraining hand on the giant’s shoulder. To the coast-watcher of Armorica he replied ashout, and not in the Roman tongue.
“It’s failing your eyes be, Garin son of Teregud Hundred-hands, for I know ye though I must look into Behl’s eye to see ye there! Sure and it’s a strange pass things are come to, an I not welcome to your lord Howel, whether announced or unannounced! Cormac mac Art of Eirrin am I. Your prince will be remembering the day we fought the Saxons off Cornwall.”
Raven was forging foamily through the tiny strait now, not slowing her pace. Cormac had on him a cloak that billowed behind. His helmet’s horsetail crest danced in air the while he stood gazing shoreward, wearing a smile and deigning to touch nothing save the planking under his feet.
“Cormac!” Garin cried from shore. “Och man, it’s welcome ye be to me also! It is in peace ye come? Ye speak for your shipmates?”
“My head upon it.”
Garin brandished his silver-mounted spear in acknowledgment. There would be no braying of horns, no signal-smokes to bring forth Prince Howel’s weapon-men with blades bared. Had Raven borne the menace of hostile crew, they’d naturally have slain Garin with arrows upon being challenged. The deed would not have gone unwitnessed and arms would have been raised posthaste. Little comfort would Garin have gained from that! For its danger, his position as coast-watcher was held in honour.
Raven left the strait astern. Before her spread the Mor-bihan, the Little Sea, some hundred square miles of sunlit water shading with depth from green to amethystine purple. Many islands it contained, though some were no more than sandbars. They disappeared occasionally or regularly with the tides, Cormac mac Art knew well. When the tide ebbed, some of them linked together in ship-biting barriers barely visible. Threading a way among these natural traps could be difficult or worse. Cormac watched close; so did others.
“By Wotan,” Wulfhere muttered, scratching at brine within his beard where it was wont to crust. “This be like trying to navigate in a wash-tub. Slow, slower there with the stroke! An we run aground in this Bretonish pond the shame will be crimson, and I’ll flay someone!”
Slowly, slowly they oared past a brackish lagoon whose white sand beaches were swept by the tails of tiny lizards. Rushes, marram grass and sea-thistles clung along its shores.
Then Raven received the blessing of deeper water once more.
The hall of Prince Howel was builded on the largest island in the Mor-bihan, one of the few that was never submerged. Circular in plan, the keep lay within a complex of ditches, earthworks, and dry-stone fortifications. Thus the hall was proof against all and aught save a determined assault by great numbers of seasoned fighting men.
The problem of taking it did not interest Cormac or Wulfhere, save as a problem for amusement. It seemed unlikely that a force sufficiently mighty would find cause for the expense of coming against such a place. Mac Art was passing happy to arrive here as friend.
Raven’s herringbone of oars backed water briefly. Her two iron anchors went out with great splashes. The ship lay still upon the sea. Despite the sign of peace she displayed, peasant folk were running for shelter within the isle’s fortification. Mothers snatched desperately at their children and Cormac shook his head at the jumbled mix of Celtic and Romish clothing.
“Blood of the gods! Best we be going ashore and content them.”
“Aye,” Wulfhere agreed, turning to his steersman. “Ordlaf: ye will command until we return. Enforce their behavior, I care not how.” And he let his cool gaze pass over the rest of the crew.
Ordlaf Skel’s son grinned. “They will behave, Captain.”
Wulfhere and Cormac waded ashore shieldless. Wulfhere bore his huge-headed ax as a matter of course, and Cormac’s sword in its metal-chaped scabbard lay across his shoulders, against the splashing of his companion’s enormous feet. Out of the water, he buckled it normally about his hips.
Up the shelving beach they strode, and gained the firmer footing of the path to Prince Howel’s hall. Ere they had covered the third part of the distance, they were met by a bard of middle rank, in company with two warriors.
The bard, a red-haired young man freckled in extreme degree, gave them formal greeting.
“My lords! I am Oswy… the prince sits in judgment this forenoon, else he’d have met ye on the shore, and he has charged me to say so. In the mean time, it is his command that all ye wish be done.”
“And that be fine of the Prince Howel,” Wulfhere rumbled. “For the present, all I want is for my men to come ashore and beach my ship. And when they’ve done that, to stretch their legs a little. And for myself-about three vats of ale.”
By the look Oswy gave the northerner, attempting to take in his vast dimensions at a distance of four feet and failing, he half believed that so much would be required. He said “Naught in that exceeds my authority, God knows! And yourself, my lord?”
“One vat will suffice me,” the dark-armoured Gael said.
With sea-salt astringent on their skins and the taste of it itching in their throats, they two came to the open grassy space outside the prince’s hall. Crowded the area was, with the bright retinues of the two chieftains here present for litigation, and with Howel’s own retinue as well as lookers-on.
In a chair draped with rich fabric sat Howel himself, Prince of these Britons become Bretons. Howel was a strongly built man whose moustaches were long and reddish. His wife, the Lady Morfydd, had seated herself on the grass beside his chair. Her green-skirted legs were curled neatly under her in disregard of her own high rank and station. Yet she was no fool, this woman. Despite her youth her long black hair was stranded with grey, and it was said that her eyes could see into the human heart or into the time-to-come.