The Killing Way by Tony Hays

Author:Tony Hays
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780765319456
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

The lanes, at least those not yet paved by Lord Arthur, were ankle deep in a thick gray mud, smelling of manure and the fetid stench of rotting straw. Vendors lined the streets, selling wine, some cheap in goatskins and some expensive, in large amphorae from the docks at Ynys-witrin and far to the west near Castle Dore. With all the merchants’ stalls, jugglers, and simple folk gathered from the countryside, this was no ordinary feast, no ordinary gathering of nobles. The procession yesterday told them that if nothing else. The entire consilium, the entire group of lords, all the tribes of Britannia, had come to Arthur’s castle for one purpose and one purpose only—to name a new Rigotamos, a new high king to govern over all. It was as if a great festival had been pronounced, and the people entered into it with a vengeance.

The murmur of the crowd quieted even further as Arthur emerged from the door of his hall, flanked by Kay and Bedevere. As if on cue, Ambrosius Aurelianus rode into the square, and all present, nobles and peasants alike, took a knee. Though in his last years, Ambrosius was a symbol of Roman rectitude. Arrayed as a Roman cavalry officer, he rode erect on a snorting white horse. He wore a bejeweled helmet, tufts of white hair pushing out and framing his craggy features. Were his shoulders any straighter, I would suspect he wore a wooden frame beneath his tunic and brooch-joined fur cloak. But such a one as he would never stoop to such vanity.

I laughed at all this ceremony. Ambrosius had been here since the day before, and indeed had feasted at Arthur’s hall last night as I well knew. But such displays served two purposes. The people expected it, and Ambrosius’s pride demanded it.

Ambrosius was followed by four attendants, and his only allowance to age was for the attendants to help him, ever so slightly, from his horse. I noticed the tremble in Ambrosius’s arms and legs as he dismounted. Ambrosius never moved very quickly, as I recalled, but he moved even more slowly now as he approached Arthur, touched him on the shoulder, and signaled that he should rise. Turning a bit, he signaled that all should rise.

Too much chatter filled the square to hear Arthur’s welcome. The old man had served us well, but plainly if the Saxons were to be kept at bay and unity was to be upheld in our lands, a new leader was needed. And as much as I had come to hate Arthur, I knew that only he could hold all the factions together. No matter how much I respected Arthur’s abilities, the fact that I was who I was, what I was, stood between us. Before that day at Tribuit, I was a good man. Now I was useless, and Arthur had done that. We had seen friends, comrades, die on the battlefield, die a warrior’s death. Why couldn’t he have honored me the

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