Read Online The Iron Grail by Robert Holdstock - Free Book Online Page B

punishment. But so simple an action as commanding the shield centre of the circle, among the Celts as I will choose to all them, could as easily result in the summary execution of Kymon, for assuming a right in the king’s absence that should have been contested, as it might in the gentle acceptance of his right to occupy this manly space simply because he was his father’s son.
    Munda, being who she was, had the greater right to occupy the centre space. Although I record these stories at a later time than their occurrence, I remember well how high in the society of decision-making and battle-planning were the women of Alba; it changed later, but in Urtha’s day, he was the right arm of power and Aylamunda, while she had lived, had been the left. When dead, they would occupy different territories in the Land of the Shadows of Heroes, though there would be paths to draw them together as need and memory necessitated.
    It was not, therefore, the surviving band of Urtha’s uthiin who posed the danger to Kymon, but the High Women who had survived, and whose ancestors were the modronae who sheltered the exiled children in Ghostland.
    Meat was roasted and fowl was boiled; the smell of sour bread and sweet cakes drifted fragrantly through the valley. Honey was stirred into the coarse ale, and leather flasks were filled and placed at table.
    At the end of the valley, in a small hazel glade, the pit had been dug to take the boy. He was laid there quite without ceremony, but with a little pigmeat, a sword, his cloak and mementoes of his parents. Kymon uttered a brief chant of forlorn hope in a desperate world; he summoned the boy’s ghost back from the Otherworld to help at Taurovinda. The earth was piled above the corpse, and then we went to eat.
    Kymon sat silently in the centre of the ring of tables as the uthiin , the High Women, and the Speakers for the Past, for the Land and for Kings—the druids, in other words—settled on their benches and began to drink. The flesh was cut from the bone and distributed; bread passed round the table. When everyone was eating, busying themselves with conversation and protocol, Kymon stood, fetched meat and bread for himself and filled a cup with water that had been drawn from the spring.
    All eyes were on him, I now realised. He seemed unconcerned by the steady gaze of these rough-bearded, rough-clothed men. He ate quietly and slowly. Two children sang for the host, but Amalgaid, the poet, remained silent. This was not the time to mock or celebrate the past deeds of the men here.
    Suddenly, the oldest of the uthiin tossed the bone from his portion on to the floor next to Kymon. The boy calmly regarded the other man, then picked up the remnant and placed it on his plate. A second bone came from another direction. Kymon placed it on his plate. Then one of the elder women threw a small, red scarf towards him. Kymon wound the fabric round his wrist. The woman smiled at him, then murmured something to the man who sat next to her. He frowned, but drew a small, bronze knife and tossed it carefully in the boy’s direction. Kymon picked it up, gathered up the animal bones and stood, the oval shield balanced before him against his body.
    ‘If this is all you offer me to fight with, then I will fight with it.’
    Two of the uthiin looked alarmed; they had not offered their services to the youth, they had intended to tease him. Now one of them stood—a man called Gorgodumnos, red-haired and red-bearded, wearing half his battle-harness, scales of leather over a green jacket and a bronze torc round his powerful neck.
    ‘By what right do you take the centre?’
    ‘I was never taught my rights in this sort of matter,’ Kymon answered loudly. ‘When the slaughter happened, I was taken by the neck and carried into Ghostland. I had only just begun to learn. But this shield was Urtha’s, the king’s, my father’s. He carried it when we took the fire to Herne’s Grove at midwinter dusk.’ He slapped