They met on the king’s pitch: that long stretch of packed earth, its tufts of grass nurtured by the noble blood that has been spilled there. That hard and level plain beneath Winchester’s walls where men are tested and found, all too often, to be wanting. The parties went out in the morning. Two priests blessed the earls. The king, resplendent in a robe of rich blood-red, presided from a shaded pavilion. He was young then, his hair as dark as a raven’s feathers, his jaw so square it might have been carved from stone, and not yet married – his beautiful queen, Eufeme, would be won in a few years’ time. The crowd and two earls waited until the sun stood directly overhead so neither would have the advantage. Then the young lords took to the pitch. One of the earls wore armour his father had given him, with gold worked into the greaves, so that he sparkled in the sun, a gleaming paragon of manhood. The other wore a helm, won in a battle against the Danes, set with precious gems, and with every turn of his head, green and red crystals glowed; never had a man seemed more worthy.
The king raised his hand; the earls raised their swords, saluting one another. Their squires had sharpened those swords at that day’s dawning, working the edges with a whetstone until either earl could have shaved his throat, so keen were they. They set their stances. Behind the king, in the shade of the pavilion, the earls’ wives, those two twins, clung to each other and wept, tears staining their angelic faces.
The king dropped his hand, the trumpet blasted, the two earls leapt at each other, their blades shrieking, locking, the two men grappling, leaping back, trying each to gain the advantage over the other. But they were as well-matched in war as in wives and so within an hour, both earls lay dead upon the ground. The twins were now widows. The two spring flowers of knighthood had been plucked too early and their two ladies, once perfect lilies, were now left to wilt.
King Evan flew into a terrible rage – what an utter waste! What vile stupidity! If it went on like this, he’d have no knights left. And so he declared, from that day forward, no girl or woman anywhere in his kingdom could inherit a thing. Not land, not title, not even a skein of yarn.
He seized the twins’ father’s lands for himself, sent the bereaved twin widows to a convent, and …
My stranger’s name proved true for a moment. Silence. The cat came around again and jumped into their lap. It eyed me as I poured more wine. Around us, the inn had darkened. Night waited at the windows. A gust rattled the door, pushed down against the flames in the hearth. Then they leapt back up, illuminating a golden highlight in Silence’s hair, so momentarily radiant, I swore I could smell sun-warmed oats and not the smoky belch of the fire. They leaned back, putting themselves in shadow, nodding to themselves, as if they were telling themselves the story, keeping it from me. Unfair.
I fed the fire another log. I prompted as gently as I could with a conversational nothing: ‘Twins. They’re always evil.’ But even as I mumbled, my mind was spinning out the twists this story might take (a visit from an incubus to the convent, one of the twins conceiving the person who sat beside me). ‘Was it,’ I tried, ‘a demon? Who came to lie with one of the fair twins?’ I paused, but no answer came. ‘Like Merlin’s own begetting?’ I prompted. ‘Surely you know the story how the great wizard’s mother lay with an incubus and that is how Merlin got his sorcer—’
My stranger stirs. ‘You will hear of Merlin soon enough.’
I lean closer to them, my fingers flexing. I could already imagine how I’d tell this tale – how at the earls’ dual fall, I’d strike my harp, thus and so! And the promise of Merlin, and magic to come …
Silence cleared their throat a little. ‘Sometimes it seems it’s all a dream. I wake from one only to find myself in another.’
That voice seized me back to the present. An old man’s words. Odd to hear them in the mild tenor of a boy’s voice, with the huskiness of innocence. I waited, trying to be as patient as a priest.
‘Maybe it doesn’t begin there,’ Silence said at last. ‘Maybe it starts with …’
My stranger was threatening to settle into deep brooding, so I pushed their mug closer. They drank deeply. I watched the cords of their throat move with each swallow (no Adam’s apple, but not all men have one). Some downy hairs on their cheeks, though their words made them seem old enough to be a greybeard. Words! Few enough of those to go around.
‘Perhaps it starts with my father. He served King Evan. Was a knight of his inner circle. Fought at his side in many a battle. But mostly he went hunting.’
We were off again at last, all herky-jerky.
‘My father was Earl Cador.’ They paused as if waiting for a reply.
I mumbled, ‘Ah, Cador,’ as if it were a familiar name. Sons of earls always think their fathers are famous because those fathers hire minstrels to write stories about them. But there are earls enough in this country to pave a road with them. ‘You’re his … son?’ I ventured, hoping they would affirm my choice of ‘boy’.
‘I’m not a bastard, if that’s what you’re asking. Nor am I a liar. I may not look to you like the child of an earl, but I am.’ They levelled their gaze, staring straight into me. ‘I always tell the truth.’
A shame. I thought then that the story would be of little worth, for the truth is seldom wondrous. Moreover, they had dodged the question I asked – neither saying they were Cador’s son, nor saying they weren’t. I pushed aside my frustration and said, ‘Cador … your father? I’ve heard he was brave and gallant in his youth.’ I’d heard no such thing, but then I’ve always thought the virtue of honesty is rather a tepid one.
‘Mmmmm. Yes.’
Such reluctance and stammering was enough to make me want to set aside my tankard, unroll my blankets and curl up, story be damned. But the firelight cast hungry shadows on that face, set those grey eyes glowing, and I found that I wanted, I needed, to know this person.
‘Yes, I believe it does start with Cador. My father. Years before I was born. He served King Evan. They often hunted together.’
King Evan, who ruled all of England from the Humber in the north to the tip of Cornwall in the south, from Offa’s Dyke in the west to the sea in the east, had received word from a bedraggled messenger (who practically crawled into his hall bearing the message in a last gasp) that raiders had come ashore near Titchfield and put houses to flame. King Evan had been dining when the messenger arrived (for King Evan often liked to dine) and sent his beautiful queen Eufeme away from the hall to her chambers, ordered the servants to clear the tables, and commanded his knights to ready their horses immediately. Titchfield lay two days’ march away, across the heathland and down to the coast, and they hastened to begin immediately.
King Evan rode in the vanguard, his normally handsome face contorted with rage. Raiders! Interrupting dinner! They gave their horses free rein, galloping across the marshy plains. Alongside the king rode his nephew, Cador, an orphan whom the king had generously brought up in the keep, raising him to knighthood in just the last year. What a pair they made. King Evan’s raven-dark hair now bore a few strands of silver, giving him a steely affect. Square-jawed and blue-eyed, he sat upright on his horse, hand resting on the pommel of his sword, staring ahead of him as if, despite the miles to go, he could see the raiders already. Cador bounded at his left, riding so fast that his blond hair streamed out behind him (long hair was the fashion then for knights), his ruddy cheeks still soft with youth, his hazel eyes drinking in the world. But this man was anything but soft: he had first blooded his blade against Norway’s raiders, in the battle that won King Evan his beautiful bride, Eufeme. If the king looked to be carved from stone, then Cador was hewn from oak. A perfect pair of men, riding side by side.