Page 51 of The Quest for Excalibur
Suspicious eyes ran over my boy’s attire, and at least one of the women made the hasty sign against the evil eye. Much as they’d done on the day I’d first met them. Another crossed herself. They were hedging all bets here.
One of the older women, her almost white hair in a scrawny plait, turned and called something unintelligible into the hut behind her, her voice a coarse bark. A name, perhaps.
After a moment or two, the curtain across the low door twitched, and a man emerged. Short and solid, with no neck to speak of, and clad in only a grimy, knee-length tunic, he closely resembled a bull. His heavy, almost neanderthal brows furrowed, and he stepped in front of the woman who’d called him. Hands on hips, he spread his sandaled feet as his gaze took in the sword at Arthur’s side. He wasn’t the man I remembered as being in charge.
“Milord,” he muttered, gruffly, after a moment’s clear assessment of whether he owed this to us or not.
Arthur regarded him with more than a hint of frost. “Is that all you owe your king?”
The man’s eyes widened, the women shifted uneasily as one, and I stood up straighter, endeavoring to appear more queenly in my boy’s clothes and probably failing.
After a pregnant pause, the man made a clumsy bow. “I’m right sorry, Milord King. I did not know you.” He straightened up. “And dint expect to see our king in this our ’umble village.”
Arthur let his expression soften, and seeing that, I allowed myself to relax a little, as well.
“Your name?” Arthur asked.
“Turi, Milord.” He tugged his scanty forelock in a tardy show of respect. “You be right welcome to our village. I be the headman here.” He bowed again, lower this time, perhaps trying to make up for his people’s surly, silent welcome.Lackof welcome.
“You can stop bowing, Turi,” Arthur said, his smile slipping into a grin. “I get enough of that at Din Cadan. I’m here to ask for your help in an important matter.” He paused, presumably to let that sink in.
Turi’s eyes sharpened.
Arthur gave him a nod, man to man now, not king to peasant. “I have need of direction to a certain spot on this island. Nial from the Lake Village told me to come here and ask you. He said there might be one amongst you who could help.”
Turi’s face brightened. Not that it did much for his looks, which remained a cross between an angry bulldog and a belligerent wild boar. Having been commanded not to bow, he tugged his forelock in deference again instead. “I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can, Milord.” He gestured around himself at his women. “So will all of us, though most o’ the men be at the abbey, workin’ for the abbot. ’Tis our tribute that they pay. Tribute by work.”
So why had he been inside his hut instead of working with them? Not the time or place to enquire about possible corruption amongst village leaders, though, so I contented myself with pressing my lips together and frowning at him.
He ignored me.
“Good,” Arthur said, sounding satisfied.
Not an eye wavered. Even the children stayed motionless, although some of them had managed to close their mouths.
Arthur encompassed them all with his gaze, and spoke loud and clearly. “I need to know where the ancients, your ancestors, made their sacrifices to the old gods. Before the monks brought Christianity to you.” He paused. “Is there one amongst you who can tell me?”
A communal indrawn hiss of breath sounded from the listening women, and a baby lying on a grubby blanket on the ground began to wail. Turi’s face blanched beneath the tan and dirt. His mouth opened and closed a few times. Clearly this wasn’t the request he’d been expecting.
At last, he found his voice. “Old Mother Nia– she were the keeper o’ secrets,” he managed. “But she been dead these five year now.”
The would-be lyncher? Her wrinkled face and mad eyes had etched themselves with clarity onto my brain twelve years ago, and I’d not forget her in a hurry.
“Did she pass the knowledge on to anyone?” Arthur asked. In an age where records rarely made it to paper, word-of-mouth counted for everything.
Turi scratched his bristly, pepper-and-salt beard. “We don’t talk much about it now,” he said, crossing himself. “Not now we’s Christians.”
Were they? Really? Working for monks did not make them believers in the monks’ God, in my experience.
“Her grandson be the keeper now, by ancient right. She did bring him up from a nipper after his mother and father did die o’ the sweatin’ sickness. She’ve passed him the secrets she had from her own ma, I b’leive.” He crossed himself a little too flamboyantly for sincerity. “But we never speaks ter him about ’em. Like she did, he keeps wot he knows ter hisself. You’ll have ter ask him fer yerselves.”
A whisper of rustled agreement ran between the women. Some of them had caught hold of the nearest children to hold them against themselves, as though they feared some sort of retribution from the old gods, worshipped no doubt in secret, whilst giving lip-service to the monks and their new deity in the abbey church.
“Please send for this boy immediately,” Arthur said, in a voice not accustomed to asking twice.
Turi tugged his forelock again. “Right away, Milord.” He turned to one of the older children, who’d been gazing wide-eyed at us from behind a loom. “Run ter the abbey fields, and fetch Con. Quick now. You’re not to keep the king waitin’.”
Con?
