So. A wizard’s soul gone out from the body in tangible form.
In the dim Frankish forests, Sigebert’s people knew of such things, for despite his Latin education and manners, Sigebert One-ear of Metz was a German: a Frank. His own people called this sort of sorcerous messenger Sendings, or fylgja. He could not doubt that this owl was real; Lucanor’s fylgja.
Lucanor.
The name was strange to him. Greek, was it not? No matter; the names of Cormac mac Art and Wulfhere Skull-splitter were very, very familiar indeed. Pirates. Too recently, whilst they sought to dispose of their sword-won gains ashore, Sigebert had acted in his official capacity as representative of the king. He sought to take them into deserved custody. Was then that a sword in the hand of one of their men had butchered his face.
“Be sure that I will act,” he promised, who had been called the Favoured, for his good looks, since he was first able to walk. No more.
Laughter?
I am sure that you will not! In the light of day you will believe that none of this occurred, and put it from your mind. You are not the Count of Nantes, nor will you go to him with a tale so doubtful. The more fool you!
Sigebert gritted his teeth and his nostrils flared in an angry breath. He’d like to meet this Lucanor as a man, and see how sneery he was then!
His visitor saw. Despite its haughty tone, the thing that was Lucanor knew well that it might need this Frank for an ally. As chief customs assessor of Nantes, Sigebert held some power, and was well informed of all goings and comings within the city. More, he hated the huge Danish pirate and his dark henchman even as Lucanor did. Yet Lucanor’s physical body lay far indeed from northward Nantes. It had not been possible for him to travel so far, swiftly enow to give Sigebert this warning in the flesh. Nor would he place himself physically in the power of this clever villain until he had shown the Frank his value.
Besides, his spirit double, his Sending or fylgja as the barbarians called it, must return to his body ere dawn, for the sun’s direct light could destroy it. They were no friends, Sendings and sunlight.
You will remember, the black owl said, or whispered, or thought harshly. You will not believe, Sigebert One-ear, Frank, of Metz and now of Nantes… but you will remember, and in my time I will come to you again.
With a horripilating rustle the great fell bird hopped to the window and was gone on spectral wings. Sigebert felt the air stir. The thing’s shadow was an evil splotch that flowed over buildings and dark streets of Nantes. Watchdogs and alley curs across the city cringed and whimpered softly at its passing. None dared bark.
1
“The temporary rescue of Italy entailed the permanent ruin of Gaul. A vast horde of Vandals, Suebi and Alanas, escaping from the central European domination of the Huns, crossed the ill-defended Rhine, and fanned out across the interior provinces, threatening to invade Britain. Italy was powerless to help, and the British proclaimed a native emperor… He crossed to Gaul, and expelled the invaders; but they withdrew the wrong way, not back across the Rhine, but across the Pyrenees into Spain. There most of them stayed. The (Suevi)… descendants still inhabit northwestern Spain; the Vandals passed on, to leave their name in Andalusia, ultimately to found a stable kingdom in what had been Roman Africa.”
– John Morris, The Age of Arthur
That same purple night of summer lay on another coast far to the south and west; on Brigantium in the Suevic kingdom. Here in northern Hispania the night was graciously warm and all but cloudless. The spacious harbour with its triple bays sighed and surged with the tide.
In a richly tapestried chamber, five men conferred ’neath the beams of a low ceiling. At the head of the smooth-topped oaken table sat Veremund the Tall, king of this land. Though his long legs were stretched out he was not the tallest of this extraordinary gathering. At his right hand sat his kinsman and advisor, tawny-moustached Irnic Break-ax in his tunic of blue with its crossed sets of yellow stripes; Zarabdas the mage, once a priest of Bel in Syria and now among the Suevic king’s most valued servants, was at his left. His dusky skin, forked jet-black beard and expressive dark eyes, no less than his eastern robes among the fair, Germanic Suevi, gave him an air of strangeness and alien mystery that Zarabdas was not ashamed to exploit. No charlatan, this dark mage among people whose hair ranged in hue from nigh white to a medium brown, and seldom that dark. His powers and learning were real. So too were the theatrical instincts he had cultivated, along with his impressive robes.
“Wisdom alone,” Zarabdas had told his king, “will not gain one a hearing.”
They three dominated and ruled the Sueves who dominated northwestern Spain. They three sat at table’s head, and did not dominate that gathering.
The other men at the stained and battered table were more memorable still. Neither Germans nor Easterners nor even Celts were these twain, neither members of royal family nor wizards-in the usual sense. They did possess a certain wizardry at tactics, and at relieving laden ships of their cargoes. And at the bloody work of sharpened steel. Indeed one of them combined dark hair and dusky skin with pale Celtish eyes, though they were so deeply set in their slits as frequently to appear darker.
The one was an immense Dane with an immense red beard. His physique seemed to crowd the low room, compressing the others into corners. When he lowered his voice others were put in mind of distant thunder; when he raised it, of thunder bursting directly above their heads. Was a voice that had long led men, had competed with sea-storm and battle-din to be heard, and never could accommodate itself long to more polite indoor tones. The chest whence it emanated bulged like twin shields and gold armlets and ornaments flashed on the giant.
The fifth man of that gathering went cleanshaven as if to flaunt his scars of past combats. He was without ornaments though his black tunic was bordered with gold. His square-cut black hair and dark, somber face made a setting of startling contrast for the cold, narrow eyes in their slitted niches. His rangy body bespoke and radiated a different sort of power from the massive Dane’s; swifter and more compact. His hands, one of which gave pensive support to his chin while the other lay relaxed on the table before him, were long-fingered and sinewy with tendons prominent on their backs. The right had been scarred; as had his face, more than twice. With weapons or unaided, those hands knew all there was to know about the business of killing.
King Veremund, and his brother Irnic, and his mage Zarabdas. And their two… guests. At this moment dreams of these latter two troubled the sleep of a Frank named Sigebert One-ear. Only days agone, they and their crew of reivers, searaiders, had done the Suevic king a high service. Now they spoke of matters more mundane, though of little less import.
They were Wulfhere Hausakluifr and Cormac mac Art of Connacht in Eirrin.
“Trade!” King Veremund said, nigh exploding the word from under his droopy yellow-white moustache. “Shipping! I said once that it has been worse than poor these thirty years, and this supernatural terror that has haunted our shores all but destroyed it. Because of you, my friends, the terror is now destroyed… and yet that is only a beginning. There are other dangers.”
“Pirates,” Cormac said, without the sign of a smile.
“Foul bloody seagoing dogs who cannot be countenanced,” Wulfhere added, and when he grinned his full beard moved like a fiery broom on his barrel of a chest.