A chapter a day: The Broken Kingdom – Chapter 3

I’ve decided to publish a fresh chapter every weekday for the next few weeks of my new Arthurian epic novel The Broken Kingdom. It’s completely free to read, and I am hoping that people will come to this website each day and read the next chapter (of 30) of the story about the legendary hero Arthur, his mother Igraine and sister Morgan, the wizard Merlin, and all the rest of the familiar cast from the legends, plus a few new additions. It’s a fantasy novel, technically, as it has a little light magic and some seriously nasty dragons, but otherwise it is set in a realistic 5th-century Britain, after the Romans have left, which is riven by endless war. Only Arthur and his band of warriors, can hope to mend The Broken Kingdom . . .

Chapter Three
Princess Morgan fought to control her pony. It had become infected with the panic of the herd in the wild gallop up the slope to King Urien’s palace, pursued by more than a hundred of his savage riders. But it was as nothing to the fear that gripped her as the fearsome men of Rheged, wolfish and brandishing their weapons, closed in on the little party of Dumnonians trapped against the tightly shut gates of the fortress. They were so many, and she knew that, even if she were not slaughtered immediately, a fate more terrible than death awaited any pretty maiden caught alive by the enemy. 

Her servant Hanna had taken great delight in telling her the gruesome details of the fate of women captured in war – and she should know. Although Hanna had been born in Caer Camlann, only a year before Morgan, her mother was a captive of the spear, taken in during a raid on the rich farmlands of Gwent, Dumnonia’s neighbour to the north, in the days before the peace. Her mother still wept when she recalled her treatment at the hands of the victorious spearmen of King Uthur, she had been raped many times, ripped and torn, by seven, eight, perhaps even nine men, passed around the camp fire like a leg of mutton for each man to enjoy his portion. From one of those brutal unions, she could not possibly say which, Hanna had been conceived. 

“Best submit meekly and try to please the first man,” was Hanna’s advice. “He may take a liking to you and offer you his protection.”

Or think you a whore and share you with all his friends, Morgan had thought. 

She wished Hanna were with her now. At the last minute, her only maid servant, her only friend, in truth, had been seized by a spring fever and had been deemed too ill to travel by the wise woman who tended her. No, she did not wish Hanna here, that was a shameful thought. She was glad Hanna was safely abed in the caer, no doubt now recovering from her cold. Nevertheless, Morgan had never felt quite so alone. 

The men of Rheged were now only a few paces away and their leader, a foul-smelling savage warrior whom she had heard called Haffa, seemed to be leering at her. Beside her horse, out of the corner of her eye, she saw her half-brother draw his sword. Arthur was so quick with it, she knew from watching him practise, day after day, in the sword-yard at Caer Camlann, and he was usually able to defeat even the older warriors who tried a bout with him, but against so many of these northerners, he stood no chance. The men would all die, and then she would soon wish for death.

She looked above the heads of the riders of Rheded and to her right and saw a huge bird-like creature, bigger than any she had seen before, a majestic being of gold and black, circling over the pastures beyond the fortress. Behind the mighty bird-beast, a bloody sun was touching the tops of hills to the west. Save me, O King of the Sky, she thought. Swoop down, take me in your golden talons and carry me far away.

“Open the gates, open in the name of Uthur of Dumnonia,” the Decurion Julius was bellowing. “Open up, you stupid fucking pricks!” And, suddenly, miraculously, Morgan heard the clatter of wood on wood and turned quickly to look behind her. 

Christ and all the Saints be praised, the princess scarcely dared to believe it, but the gates behind her were indeed slowly opening, just a crack at first and then more and more and she found herself staring in at a muddy expanse a hundred paces across inside the palisade and a knot of mailed men at each door heaving the heavy portals.

“About bloody time,” muttered Julius. 

“Welcome to the Palace of Penrith, seat of Urien the Just, King of Rheged,” said Haffa, grinning mirthlessly at the Dumnonians through his grey, greasy beard. “May your sojourn in the halls of the King be joyous, and your departure a sweet sorrow.” 

The horses and the unladen mules were taken away for stabling on the far side of the big round compound that made up most of the Palace of Penrith. The turma were shown to a small ramshackle building, not much more than a barn, near the main gate at the south of the caer. But the southerners were happy enough: there was a cheerful fire in the hearth, and they had been given loaves of bread and a round cheese and a barrel of ale. Most of them were content just to be off their horses and out of the rain.

Morgan had only a few moments, and only a curtained off space allocated for her privacy, to change into a clean, dry gown and don her best pure white lambswool cloak with the golden dragons of Dumnonia stitched into the thick black border. She washed her face and hands in a bowl of cold water, ran a comb through her long black hair and tied it back with a green ribbon, but she felt far from ready to meet her new lord and future husband. Tiny winged beasts frolicked in the stomach and she felt dowdy, damp and more than a little sick. 

In the near-darkness of the hut, while she hastily readied herself for the royal audience, she felt the sour bile rising in her gorge, the old affliction, scalding hot at the back of her throat. A grey rat had scurried out from behind a barrel of flour, and Morgan snatched a glance over her shoulder. The curtain was drawn and there was no one watching, anyway. She hawked and spat a bright green gobbet at the rat, spattering the moving creature. The animal let out a high-pitched shriek, as the green smoking bile quickly ate through its fur, burning through flesh and bone to leave the creature twitching, bloody and finally mercifully dead on the hard beaten-earth floor. 

Morgan immediately felt better. She checked again that no one had seen her: the last thing she wanted was for her new husband to get wind of this shameful quirk. No one was watching her: a game of dice had begun and all the men were crowded round the tray watching the throws. Her half-brother looked over and raised a questioning eyebrow – Did she need something? – and Morgan gently shook her head, signalling that all was well, and wiped clean her burning mouth with the back of her hand.

Her escort to cross the fifty yards of muddy courtyard to the great hall consisted of the Decurion Julius, the priest Antonius, her brother Arthur, and four of the larger legionaries of the turma, who carried the big, heavy chests that contained her dowry. She was not the only precious thing that Uthur had sent north to make his peace with Rheged. As she left the barn, she saw that the rest of the men had all settled down comfortably, their boots off, their arms and armour stacked, lounging on thick banks of dry straw and began to drink: their hosts at least had not been mean with their ale.

“You look like a queen,” said her brother with a grin as they stepped out of the hut into the perpetual drizzle and prepared to make their way over the twilight courtyard towards the king’s hall. And you are a rotten liar, Arthur, she thought. But she returned his smile gratefully. He has grown so handsome, she thought, tall, clean-limbed and strong. She loved the way his longish dark hair curled over his bright blue eyes, and he constantly had to sweep it out of his face to see. If only I was marrying you, Arthur, my warrior hero, then I could stay in Dumnonia for ever and be content.

She loved him so fiercely in that moment. But only for a moment. Then, as a last gleam of sunlight lanced in through the clouds from the west, she lifted her chin, took a double handful of her long skirts, hoisted them and began to walk briskly across the puddle-dotted courtyard towards the great hall with seven men following in her wake.

The hall of King Urien was a long, high building filled with smoke and the noise of half a hundred people and animals. The frame was built of solid oak timbers and the walls of hurdles of platted ash thickly smeared with mud, horse dung and straw, tied to the oak beams, dried and then painted with lime wash. The roof was a thatch of greenish-yellow barley straw, with a louvre in the centre to let out the smoke. Although not much seemed to be escaping, for the princess could barely make out the far end of the hall through the fog, and the man seated there on a dais in a huge chair.

At the entrance to the hall, her escorts were politely invited to divest themselves of their cumbersome swords and shields and spears, leaving them stacked in a neat pile by the whitewashed wall, but they retained the three precious strong-boxes containing her dowry, and made their way deeper into the smoke-filled interior. 

The hall was gloomy, no more than a dozen candles had been lit to ward off the coming darkness but it was warm and smelt familiarly of wet dog, roasted meats and old sweat. The creatures in her belly increased the frenzy of their dancing. She thought: This is to be my hall, my hearth. This will be my home for the rest of my days.

The party was ushered into the presence of the King with little ceremony. 

“The Dumnonians are here at last, Highness,” Haffa called out cheerily and Morgan found herself looking up at a dais where a very fat man of perhaps forty-five summers in a long blue woollen gown with an angry red face was slumped in a vast wooden chair, intricately carved and padded with big, purple cushions. 

A gold circlet around his brow held back a mane of brown hair well salted with white, and his fat fingers were thick with rings of gold and silver, so many that his fingers seemed more metal than flesh. Haffa took up a position on his left and leaned on his spear, smirking insolently at the Dumnonians, and on the King’s right hand stood a short, crop-haired warrior of middle years with sword at his side and a long dagger in his belt. An anxious looking old woman, thin as a pole, with long wiry arms and short wispy hair hovered behind the King’s throne, twisting her hands together and frowning at the newcomers. In the corner of the hall, a beautiful young man with shining grey eyes sat on a stool and strummed a note on a harp he held in his hands. He was dressed in a long, white woollen robe, a bright, unnaturally clean garment.

He sang: “I met my love at the east gate, the secret gate, the east gate,

I met my love at the east gate, in the Old Caer of Penrith.”

The music hummed in the air for an instant and made the silence afterwards seem even more bleak. Around the hall, lounging against the white-washed walls, stood a score of spearmen in fur, mail and leather, their shields slung over their backs.

“Hail, King Urien,” said Julius, bowing from the waist. The other men, save for those soldiers who carried the heavy chests all bowed at the same time, and Morgan quickly dipped her knees in an elegant curtsey that she had been practising diligently every evening after supper since they had left the borders of Dumnonia. 

“Mighty King,” Julius continued, “I bring you words of peace and rich gifts of friendship from High King Uthur, son of Ythur, the Pendragon of Britain, and lord of Dumnonia, and I present to you the Princess Morgan, daughter of the High King and the fairest maiden in all the south. Uthur bids me to tell you that out of his great love for Rheged and its noble King, and out of a desire for peace between our two peoples, he would be greatly honoured if you would consider taking the princess to wife.”

“I know fine well what Uthur wants,” growled King Urien. “He wants me to bend the knee and accept him as my overlord. He wants to set himself over me – over me – and over every other free man in the whole of Britain. He wants to rule us all!”

“The High King seeks peace. For too long we Britons have fought amongst ourselves, for too long we have shed each other’s blood in the name of honour and independence. Our petty kings squabble and tear at each other while the land bleeds.”

“So I’m a petty king am I? A squabbler?”

Even in the dim light of the candles, the princess could see the back of Julius’s neck flushing with hot blood.

“Forgive me, Highness, I merely meant that we have all been at war with our British brothers for far too long. The ancient kingdoms of Britain have been broken by our struggles and must be mended. Or we are lost. The High King wishes the land we share to be at peace so that old wounds may be healed and all may prosper . . .”

“Under him.” Urien reached a fat hand round behind him and scratched noisily at one huge buttock. The Decurion said nothing; but he bowed his head in agreement. 

King Urien sighed, a huge gust of air. “Well, the girl will do, I suppose. She’s pretty enough.” He turned his ruddy face to the thin old woman. “Ceinwyn, take her to my bed-chamber and examine her thoroughly. I must be certain she is a maiden.”

The elderly matron stepped down from the dais and came down among the Dumnonians, she grasped the princess’s arm, and her touch felt scaly and cold against Morgan’s bare skin and her grip surprisingly strong. Morgan felt a rising tide of black terror, and she resisted the old woman’s tugging for just a moment, but all of her Dumnonians were now stepping away from her. Only her brother Arthur stood firm. 

“Madam, you will be gentle with her,” he said, looking into the old woman’s eyes. It was not a question. His bright gaze bored into her. She nodded acquiescence.

As Ceinwyn led Morgan to a room behind the king’s throne – a dim cave lit by a single rush-light and separated from the hall by a flimsy screen – the princess heard Urien say: “Let us see the gifts with which the Uthur seeks to buy our friendship.”

She lay back on the huge wooden bed behind the wicker screen, which was heaped with greasy blankets, mouldy pillows and moth-eaten old furs. She lifted her own skirts and allowed the old woman to peer between her legs, very glad that she did not need to take the whole dress off for the inspection. As she lay there, she could clearly hear Antonius the priest begin speaking to King Urien of the treasures they had brought for him. His wheedling tone resembled a slippery market-day merchant crying his gimcrack wares, but she fixed her mind resolutely on his words, trying to block out the sensation of the cold finger that parted the lips of her intimate parts. 

“The High King sends you rich furs from the forests of Dumnonia, plush, noble pelts of bear, wolf and beaver,” Antonius was saying. 

The crone between her legs probed more deeply with a hard digit, drawing a gasp of surprise from her. I have never let even the sweetest boy do this to me, yet this creature whom I have never set eyes on before today is destined the first to touch me down there, Morgan thought. And her cheeks began to redden with the shame of it. 

“ . . . and precious tin from the deep moorland mines, two score bright ingots of the finest quality . . .” Morgan tried to concentrate on Antonius’s silk-smooth words.
“Here we have also rare amber, clear as honey, and – see, my lord – a perfect honey-bee is encased inside the golden jewel. One of Almighty God’s true miracles.”

“You are still a maid, I make no doubt,” said Ceinwyn, wiping her finger on the skirts of Morgan’s gown. “The King will be glad. He likes them ripe and unsullied.”

Morgan rearranged her clothing, her head still buzzing with blood. Is this what Hanna’s mother felt, she wondered. No, that must be a thousand times worse. But she could not imagine it. She wished the floor would open up like a well beneath her feet and swallow her whole. It did not. Instead, old Ceinwyn took her by the hand and led her back out into the presence of the King and made her stand just behind the throne. 

“Tell me, then, just what exactly would the High King in Dumnonia, with all his magnificent generosity” – the sneering tone from the throne was obvious – “have me do in the name of our new friendship – apart from bedding his sweet little daughter?”

Julius’s face was grim. He looked like a man who has nearly come to the end of his patience. But Antonius only frowned, as if genuinely puzzled: “My lord, Uthur has set out all that he requires from you quite clearly in the scroll he sent you not two months past. I penned it myself. He has not changed his plans. His word is good. And we had word from you that you agreed this solemn pact with him. Do you forget?”

“I leave womanish letters to my clerks, tell me to my face, priest, since you were the creator of this scroll: what does Uthur want of me, apart from my oath of loyalty.”

Antonius looked uncomfortable. “Highness,” he began, “it is a delicate matter, indeed, a secret matter – perhaps we might discuss this in private, there are far too many flapping ears in this hall.” His eyes flicked to the crop-haired warrior standing beside the throne fingering his sword hilt, and then over at the bright-eyed harpist, who gazed back at him with an open and friendly, indeed, almost seraphic smile.
“Just tell me, priest. I have no secrets from any person now in my presence.”

Still Antonius hesitated. “My lord, perhaps . . .”

“Tell me, or be gone and take your flea-bitted furs, wasps in resin and trinkets with you. I’ll keep the girl and dispose of her as I chose: the price for my patience.”

Antonius looked helplessly at the Decurion, an urgent question in his eyes.

Julius straightened his spine. “Very well, my lord. This summer Uthur will lead his spears, two thousand men, north, through Powys, where he will be joined by their reinforcements, as his allies, and he will march on the kingdom of Gwynedd on Midsummer’s Eve. The men of Gwynedd are the last holdouts, the last men who reject his High Kingship. He means to subdue them quickly and force them to recognise his claim to the High Kingship of Britain. Uthur’s armies are mighty, and the men of Gwynedd will most likely retreat before the combined power of the spears of Dumnionia and Powys and will fall back to Ynys Mon. They have done this many times in the past, believing themselves secure on their ancient island fortress, a place from whence they can continue to defy the High King’s warriors on the mainland. 

“So your task, my lord King,” continued Julius, “and the price of the High King’s friendship, is to take to the sea with a thousand spearmen, not a man less, and attack Ynys Mon from the northwest – from the Western Sea – at the same time as Uthur attacks from the east. Gwynedd will be caught between a hammer and an anvil, and Uthur believes they will quickly surrender and acknowledge him as overlord. All this can be accomplished in a matter of days and Britain will at last know true peace.”

But King Urien was no longer listening to the Decurion. He was looking at the crop-haired warrior standing beside the throne.

“You see?” he said. “I did not lie. The Pendragon of Dumnonia is treacherous.”

“As you say,” said the warrior. 

Antonius looked wildly at the king and the hard man standing beside him. “My lord King,” he stammered, “who . . . who is this man?”

“Did I not introduce you?” Urien, grinned nastily. “That was most remiss of me. May I present Angharad of Gwynedd, Lord of the Mountains, Prince of Ynys Mon.”

Then Haffa lifted a hand and the hall was suddenly all movement. The Rheged warriors stationed against the walls of the hall stepped forward as one man and the small Dumnonian party found themselves surrounded by a ring of levelled spears.

“You know, priest, I could send you back to Dumnonia with my polite refusal,” said Urien. “But I wish to make a point about the perfidy of this so-called High King. So I shall keep Uthur’s miserly gifts, and give his virgin daughter to my good friend Angharad as his concubine – and I will send him all your severed heads in a barrel.”

Chapter Four
The wind whipped across the hillside and ruffled the long grey hair of the lean, old man who lay still as a corpse atop a flat boulder, tugging, too, at his loose black robe. 

Merlin did not feel the wind on his clothing. Not this wind. Not this chill breeze on this immobile, stick-thin body. Yet, far to the north, high currents swept over his golden wings and the black scales of his belly, warmer jets lifted his leathery pinions and swept along his widespread tail feathers that steered his path through the air. The enormous dragon-bird he inhabited was all eyes, its tiny mind occupied only with the shrill cry of “I see, I see!” It had not fought him so much as given a shudder when he entered its body. He could feel the sharpness of its talons curled into its loins, and sense the taint of evil thrumming in its dreigiau blood, and feel the wind streaming over its bright plumage but, most of all, through its magnificent eyes he could see.

To be continued tomorrow.

If you would like to read the complete story of The Broken Kingdom, either as an eBook, or paperback, or listen to the audio version, it is available now from Amazon. Follow the link here.

If you enjoyed this free extract from the book but would like to buy me a cup of coffee or a pint to say thank you, I most gratefully accept. Visit the Ko-Fi website here to show your appreciation for my work. Thank you very much!

Angus Donald’s has also written an epic five-book Viking series, published by Canelo, which begins with The Last Berserker (Fire Born 1). He is the author of the Outlaw Chronicles, which kicks off with Outlaw, published by Little, Brown. He is currently writing the 11th Robin Hood novel in that bestselling series.


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