The Barley and the Rose: Volume VI of the Glastonbury Chronicles

By S. P. Hendrick

Something was not right. Britannia had all but healed from the revolution which had almost destroyed both Land and People. The Sidhe had returned to their ancient homeland, technology was slowly being restored and all should have been at peace, yet even the Land knew something was amiss. When Arthur stepped upon the stone to receive the Crown the Land cried out in more than ancient proclamation that this was the True King.

It screamed!

Almost as alarming as the temblor that devastated New Glastonbury was the news which Dubhghall brought his King: signals were being aimed at the far side of the planet, signals from beyond the three moons of Britannia, signals which seemed to mean an invasion.

Could the Sidhe protect them, or was this the enemy from which They too had fled, an enemy whose very presence could lead to the end of all life?

Throughout the Glastonbury Chronicles, Hendrick has shown that she deeply understands the purpose and passion of the ancient king sacrifice, the royal blood that restores the fertility of the land, better than anyone I’ve ever seen since Mary Renault. More than that, she makes you feel both the pain and the heady joy of fulfilling that destiny through the King and his Knight, this time unabashedly called Arthur and Gareth. A great adventure and a satisfying end.

Maggie Secara, author of “The Dragon Ring” and “Molly September”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pendraig Publishing
• Release date: Nov 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781936922482

Book preview

By S.P Hendrick

First Edition Copyright 2012

SmashWords Edition 2012

By Pendraig Publishing

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except brief quotation in a review.

Cover Design & Interior Images, Typeset & Layout: By Jo-Ann Byers-Mierzwicki

Pendraig Publishing

Los Angeles, CA 91040

www.PendraigPublishing.com

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

More Great Books by S.P. Hendrick

Other Fiction Novels from Pendraig Publishing

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Dedication

To all the unsung Bards

who have woven and rewoven the tapestries of myth

throughout the ages in the colours

of their own particular culture and understanding,

and to those who will come after:

Mythology never dies,

but is reborn in each and every mind

and seen anew with each pair of eyes

beholding the Universe around them.

As the Ancients connected the dots

of the stars in the sky

to make pictures from their mythology,

so do the dreamers of today chant the mantra

What if…?

and connect the dots

of what might be.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Prologue

Our reward for a job well done in the world of flesh was to separate us from it. For awhile it was a heady bounty. I had the blood of the Sidhe within my veins and though my Anmchara had not been born that way in other lives, from the time we had returned as twins it was something we had shared. Had I not upon that one occasion killed him in my frenzy but let him slay me as the scenario had called for, perhaps the rest of history would have gone another way. Still, I could not have asked for more, for a better end in any of my lives, nor a more beloved hand to take me there.

We stayed as creatures of light, one with the Shining Ones who had welcomed us home, feasting with the Dagda and Our Dark Lady, my sometimes Father Lugh and all Their kith and kin in all the guises They had been called by all the tribes of our ancestors of far gone Earth, whether worshipped in the tongues of the Gaul or the Gael, Cymru. Manx, Cornish, Scot, Pict, Breton, or the more ancient tribes of insular Britain who had perished or been absorbed by the conquest of Rome. We feasted until we could feast no more and gloried in the company of our Ancestors and yet…

We had worn flesh so long we were not entirely comfortable without its rewards and limitations. To wear flesh meant to be mortal, at least to taste mortality, to taste death. Death had become the one constant in our Universe and the dark flavour of it had made us gourmets, savouring it in all its aspects and looking forward to it as the dessert, the final treat, of a life well spent and a job well done.

Our Lady was compassionate enough to hear our unspoken prayer. Assuring us we would never be far from Her sight, She gave us permission to return to the world of Men. With Her kiss still burning upon our immortal brows, with the sound of Brighid’s sweet laughter in our immortal ears, we slipped once more from the brilliance of Their eternal Land, into the comfort between the Worlds, the Void in which we existed between lives.

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Chapter One

Brilliance and darkness coexisted within our consciousness without the need of physical form. We were. We are. We will be. All and nothing, reverberating in the stillness of ever and never waited for the first tenable breaths to alter our state from formless bliss to the harsh bounds of physicality. We existed in the consciousness of Our Lady, knowing within Her mind and heart and womb our true worth and taking our rest from the cares of the world that we knew inevitably would call us back to the duties we had no real reason to escape. We had been, from the beginning, created for such duties and as such had been afforded various privileges to balance out the responsibilities that went with them.

We were not Gods; neither were we mortals, but somewhere in between, one foot in each world and comfortable in both. The stuff of Godhood ran within our veins and we exulted in spilling it, sending it back into the Land upon which we walked for a time. His was the role of the blade, mine of the chalice, his to free me from the physical one day, then join me on the other side of the Veil until the time for our return had been decreed by Our Lady and the needs of the Land. She always knew well before the moment drew nigh, for it took us years to grow, to attain manhood, to Awaken to our nature and our duty. When it came almost to the appointed time we were reunited with our other Companions and the scene played out again as it had for millennia and across the far reaches of space, from the green isles of our long lost home on Earth to the tiny speck of dust our unvanquished ancestors had claimed and named New Britain, later to be called Britannia. Those few days or weeks or months or years that we spent in full awareness of our bond were intense on all levels and we treasured them, reliving them in each Awakened life to come.

Each time had its variables: the age at which we Awakened, the circumstances, and the time we spent apart before our paths crossed and were joined until we drew our last breaths together. The one big difference this time was that when we were dragged head-first, kicking and screaming into the harsh light of the physical world, this time we were already Awake and recalled everything from before.

There had been no sense of time within the Void, only a sense of peace and completion, our reward for services rendered, I supposed, yet even eternity is measured out in smaller cycles. We were aware the interval between had ended and the beat which began the new one had been struck.

Suddenly I was alone.

In all the vastness of the Eternal Now which was but a thought in the mind of Our Lady I could sense his presence; when we were parted once more his absence was profound. It was the way of things, the bait I followed eagerly into rebirth, knowing the final comfort would await us again when our journey reached its goal.

I took the breathless plunge once more into the world of flesh, felt its walls close in around me, nearly senseless in the dark warmth of my mother’s womb until the beat and interval quickened their pace and expelled me, helpless, into the light of day. My mother screamed in pain with the final contraction; the strong hands of the midwife lifted my tiny blood-drenched body from between my mother’s thighs and tied and clipped the cord which had bound me to her, and all began anew. The same strong hands presented me to my father, Edward, who named me Arthur and asked the blessing of the Gods upon his new-born son and heir.

Within a month I was his heir no more, but King, with my mother Alexandra the Queen Mother acting as Regent. Father had contracted Dorian Fever, a plague which had decimated Britannia in the year before. New Glastonbury and the Palace had been spared contagion till that point, but Father, in his duties as King, had ventured beyond the city gates and had been exposed. Years later I saw accounts of his funeral, one of the great spectacles of our history, and learned of the great love his people had borne him, a love that was transferred to Edward’s young widow, and ultimately to me.

All I knew, as I suckled at the breast of Queen Alexandra, was that a part of me was missing, a part of me which should have been at my side, my twin, my brother. Then one blessed day a voice which was not a voice echoed in my mind; I felt him reaching out to me and in his own loneliness rejoicing that I was again alive and affirming that we would be reunited when the Gods willed it.

It took three years for me to learn the spoken words well enough to communicate what kept me silent and so sad. I spoke with him often in our own language, at times allowing the words to slip past my lips and chatter on in half sentences, smiling as he answered me within my mind. The images were there, faces, places, incidents, but a child of three does not know the words to describe them to his mother or those who watched his every move. They had no idea why knives and swords and arrows held such a fascination for me, or why I would point to them with such excitement as we walked down the hallway upon which they hung as remembrances of the past.

To hear them tell the tale, I had an imaginary playmate with whom I was more comfortable than I was with those of flesh and blood. When I could finally sort out the words I asked them where my brother was and they looked upon me with pity, for my mother had not remarried and I had been my father’s only child. Yet I was insistent. I had a brother, an older brother. His name was Gareth and we had been separated. I needed to be with him, to play with him, to see his smile and grow with him.

I could describe Gareth’s blue eyes and light brown hair, and as I grew older and more insistent I learned the words to tell my mother what his father looked like, with his great ginger mustachios and beard and about the black horse Gareth had been given for his birthday. That time I had my mother's attention in the fullest.

How old is Gareth? she asked.

Older than me. He can read and write. He says he gave a letter to his father to bring to me but his father didn’t bring it. He told him the young King didn’t have time for it. But I do, Mama. I do.

Wait here, she said, and left the room. A few moments later she returned with the man whose face I had seen through Gareth’s eyes, a ruddy face, with great ginger mustachios. He wore a uniform of red decorated with many splendid medals.

Lord Tyrell, she said. You have a son named Gareth, have you not?

Why yes. He’s seven now.

And did you give him a black horse for his birthday?

His complexion reddened even more as he was taken aback by the question.

Why yes. However did you know?

His Majesty has told me all about it. He also says you have a letter from Gareth which he would very much like to have.

Sir Percy MacGregor, Lord Tyrell, Prime Minister of all Britannia sputtered a moment and was speechless.

I shall go home at once and fetch it immediately, Your Majesty, he said, bowing low to me and to my mother.

No, said my mother. That will not be necessary. Bring the lad here. I believe though they have never met in this life these two have old ties between them. If you and Lady Tyrell could spare young Gareth we would be pleased to welcome him as a guest in the Palace at least on the weekends, and whenever else you can manage.

As you wish, Your Majesties.

He bowed again and was gone.

My mother knelt down to embrace me, smiling with tears in her eyes. Why she cried I had no way of knowing. I now believe it was because she had sussed out the entire meaning of what had just transpired and was a bit overwhelmed by it all.

Yes, Arthur. I believe you, she said quietly close to my ear. I am sorry it took so long for me to figure it out.

She held me as only a mother could and I was more content than I had been since my birth.

Anmchara…I’ve sent for you. Now everything will be all right.

His voice was within my head, as loud in my mind as hers had been within my ear.

I know, Anmchara, I know.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Chapter Two

The next few years were unremarkable, save that Gareth and I were together more and more, growing as any healthy young boys grew. He had his own quarters in the Palace and more and more it became the case that he lived with us and visited his parents and his sister Sybella. Bella, we called her, for she was a very pretty little green-eyed girl with hair the colour of her father’s mustachios and a mind which constantly wondered about things, far more than ever we did. In all honesty, with the knowledge we recalled and the histories through which we had lived and died, our schooling did no more than fill in the gaps left by the intervening years.

At age eleven Bella was sent away for schooling by the Grand Dame of the Order of the Sword and the Rose, for her inquiries and intelligence had raised interest within their cloistered walls. Dreams she had recounted to her brother sounded very familiar to us both, and we knew at once she was more than just a sister in the mortal family into which Gareth had been born. She was one of us, one of those inconstant constants which flowed through our lives and around which our lives flowed. She was his sister, and had once been mine, yet her role within the life which we shared as Gareth and Arthur and Sybella had not yet fully been written by Our Lady’s hand and only dedication to Her within the Temple would serve to bring her into her own.

By the time I had reached that age Gareth’s voice had already changed and he had borne his first duelling scar, one I had, with my cup-hilt rapier, accidentally inflicted upon his handsome face, right above his left eye. His mother, father and the Queen Mother were all aghast at how narrowly the blade had missed his eye. We were forbidden use of swords without the proper safety equipment from then on and I was beside myself with guilt. I recalled too personally, too dearly, the time he had been blinded by a glowing hot poker, relived for those moments the pain which had seared him and had fallen upon my knees as the blood flowed down his face, begging his forgiveness as the attendants went rushing for help. He soaked my green tunic with his good red blood, staining my mind more than the cloth could ever be stained, for I had wounded him again, my Knight, my brother. I, who should have died, I who had killed him once in a rage, I, who was the one meant to bleed and die; I had wounded the other half of my soul.

The scar only made him the more handsome. The girls all wanted to touch it, to praise his bravery, to ask him about the pain and to kiss away the memory of it. He gave me a knowing wink and nod as he disappeared down the hall with one of the maids and was initiated by her into the oldest fraternity known to man. I lay on my bed alone but not alone, not fantasising, but through him seeing the whiteness of her skin, hearing the breathless sighs of passion, smelling the muskiness of her body, tasting the salt of her skin, feeling each incandescent motion between them, slow, fast, faster, until the world around us exploded into the brilliance I had remembered only beyond the Veil.

Anmchara?

Yes?

I had forgotten.

So had I.

It was one of the reasons we returned again and again to the flesh, but one the Queen Mother would have been scandalised to find I had experienced at my tender age. If in years I was not yet a man, in mind I was and what she did not know I am certain would not have hurt her, though a few choice precious stones had disappeared around the Palace to keep quiet the escapades of the fifteen-year-old son of the Prime Minister and the nearly thirteen year old King.

There were tunnels beneath the Palace we remembered, tunnels uncharted on paper, passages by which we took them, blindfolded and eager, to hidden chambers wherein we made a trysting place and pleasured women half again our age, sometimes one between us, sometimes two. No one but they and we were any the wiser. It was our way and had been so for as long as we could remember, yet never at so young an age could we recall such liaisons.

All were not happy times however, for the more erotic our games became, the more frequently they were accompanied by other visions, visions in which the acts of life became acts of death. The first time it was triggered by blood; the young woman we had brought to bed may have been on the verge of her menses, or so we reasoned, for our vigorous lovemaking unleashed with it what seemed a torrent of dark fluid. With each thrust into her Gareth became more and more covered with it, until all I could see was the blood on his sword as he pulled it from my body. I curled into a ball and lay motionless for a long time as she laughed at the boy who could not stand the sight of a little blood. He made certain I was alive and unhurt, then hoodwinked her once more and led her from our trysting place.

I did not see her again.

He returned to find me crying softly and cradled me in his arms, rocking me softly until the tears subsided. The pallet upon which we had lain with her was still bloody, yet it no longer bothered me. He held me. I could let go. I could die in his arms once more and all would be as it should be.

I am told I had stopped breathing. I recall nothing but the radiance around me and Her face, beautiful beyond the faces of women and Her voice telling me to return. Taking flesh had been our choice, She said, and we must see it through for this cycle. Then I felt his mouth upon mine, breathing air into my lungs and I kissed him with more passion than I had known my young body could muster, embraced him in life with as much love as he had embraced me in death and I knew what an interlace it all was. There was no end, no beginning, neither between us nor life, nor death, nor love, nor Her, nor the great release of the body through either love or death. We were old beyond years and still we were not yet, by the reckoning of even our own society, men.

We clung to each other as one does to a lifeboat, holding on through each heartbeat, each joyous breath, each moment of the ensuing night, neither knowing nor caring who might be looking for us, for we were all we needed, all we had in the world of Men, all that ultimately mattered. We merged with each other as we had sometimes done before, slippery with the blood which covered our pallet and caring of nothing but our own joy.

For the first time in my young life it was truly good to be the King.

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Chapter Three

I do not know in what Universe we had expected we could have gotten away with it. When we appeared the following day, bloody and unkempt, we were escorted directly into the presence of my mother, who was not, in any sense of the word, amused. Her first thought appeared to be relief, her second, worry and her third anger.

Do you know the hue and cry has been set out for the two of you? she asked in her most imperious tone. Arthur, a King cannot just wander off and expect it not to be noticed. You have the welfare of the entire Kingdom on your head.

I wanted to reply that I had not even formally been crowned and would not be until I had reached my majority, but some sort of divine reason prevented me from speaking. I knew only too well she was right and I had no place in which to argue or even negotiate. Had I not known all that the responsibility of Kingship entails, had I not recalled the arrow and the sword and the fullness of my heart bursting forth upon the ground, had I not remembered the faces of my wives and consorts as I had bid them one last adieu, I might have spoken back to her like some vain and pompous brat, asserting my divine right and alleging I could bloody well do as I pleased. Somewhere within the maturity of my soul I realized there had been a reason this wise and beauteous woman was my mother and Regent until the portion of my maturity dictated by the calendar had caught up with the spirit which dwelt within this newly pleasured flesh.

It was Gareth who answered her, Gareth, his head hung low, unable to look her in the eye.

Please, Your Majesty…it was my fault, not his. I got us lost in the passageways and we fell asleep. His Majesty the King was not at fault. If you must punish someone, punish me.

She looked long and hard at us, from one to the other and back again, not speaking, trying her best to look stern, though I met her eye and saw the glimmer of a smile begin to cross her face.

Very well, Gareth, if that is your wish.

No, Anmchara…I was equally at fault.

Let it be, Anmchara. I am supposed to guard you, even from this. I failed you and will take the punishment.

Mother, please…I am equally guilty. Do not punish him alone.

You are quite right, Arthur. You are the King. The well-being of your subjects should be more important than your own. Your punishment will be to watch him be punished, you for allowing him to get you two into this situation, him for lying about it.

Lying?

Amelia was apprehended as she came out of the passageway. She wore a ring on a chain around her neck, one your great-great-grandmother used to wear. The guards accused her of stealing it. She told them the two of you had given it to her and why.

You didn’t take her all the way back to her quarters?

I was worried about you.

What happened to her? I asked.

"She has been banished from the Palace, she and her family.

For having a tumble with us? asked Gareth.

For receiving stolen property.

But I am the King. It was mine to give.

I knew as soon as the words fell from my lips that I had been unwise to say them.

No, Arthur, that ring is mine, not yours. When you marry it will go to your wife. It is a ring only a Queen might wear, but you are too young to understand such things.

Begging Your Majesty’s pardon…

Yes?

What will happen to the girl and her family?

I could feel the guilt within him begin to well up.

Amelia. She has a name. Amelia and her family will be relocated to New London. They are not in any trouble, but I do not think it wise for you three to be under the same roof.

We looked at each other hastily.

No, it isn’t about the sex. It’s not as though I have been unaware of your activities, and I know she has been involved in many of them. That’s not the point. The receiving of stolen property is.

You’re certain? I asked.

Of course. If you’re old enough to take lovers, then of course you have my blessing, provided they consent. Just don’t go running off to Gods know where and make us search high and low for you, worried to death that there has been another coup and you have been taken, both of you. The King and the son of the Prime Minister would make fine hostages for some enemy, now wouldn’t they? Now go away and wash up like good lads.

She forgot the punishment.

He must have let slip a smile, for the words had hardly passed from his mind to mine when she remembered she had neglected to pass sentence upon us.

As to the matter of punishment…Gareth, you will return to your parents’ home for a week. When you return, there will be no swordplay between you for a month. Understood?

We both nodded. There were other things to do than play with swords. We had lots of them. But to spend a week apart…

We can do it, Anmchara. It’s not as if we will really be apart.

I will wear you in my heart’s core, yea, in my heart of heart.

I do not think she saw the smile which crossed our faces; if she did, I am sure she could not have understood it.

For how long had we used this shorthand between us? Millennia. Lines from the Immortal Bard, speeches of Hamlet, most often exchanges between the Prince of Denmark and his dearest friend, Horatio. Had we read it yet in this life? I could not recall, not that it really mattered. As Ophelia had said to her brother Laertes ’Tis in my memory locked.

Why Hamlet? At times the politics of the play had proven very close to home. I had once had an uncle who had killed my father and married with my mother, then tried to kill me, yet the love of the play had come long before that. The relationship between Gareth and me, no matter what names of faces we wore or what planet or century in which we lived, was quite close to Horatio and Hamlet, that kind of camaraderie which understood loyalty and life and death. There were other reasons too…the swordplay, the fact that the Prince had led the quiet life of a scholar away from all he had known in his youth, only to be recalled home just as his world was about to get entirely too interesting. When Horatio had rejoined him at the Palace their world had begun to shift, to make sense, to have purpose, and to rush into the ultimate climax of their lives and Hamlet’s death.

So it had been with us again and again. We joined forces once more, knew our purpose and our fate and ran headlong into it, embracing it without remorse, without regret. Too often it had ended with him left alone on the stage to pick up the pieces, though in our lives it was not a jealous brother who killed the rightful King. Far from it! I had bedded and wedded his sister often enough in the past, but there had never been jealousy between us. It was not the hand of some resentful Laertes by which my life ended, but his, my dearest friend and Knight, my Horatio. Of late he had found a way to end his own life with mine and neither of us faced the desolation of dying alone.

This time had been different. This time we had not forgotten it all and though the thought had gone through my mind that in Hamlet’s words it hath made me mad, I was not. Neither of us was. We were just two adolescents with raging hormones trying to cope with more than three millennia of memories of life and death and all the things which had made them worthwhile.

I loved my mother, not as Hamlet had loved his Gertrude, not as Stephen had loved his Auntie Kate and all the myriad complications that relationship had spawned, but purely as my mother. She was wise and fair and just and in short, the perfect Regent for our Land. As with the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, when my story opened I had usually found myself fatherless, though there had been notable exceptions…when we had been twins we had known a dear and loving father, yet he, like Hamlet’s father, like my father on so many occasions, had been the victim of murder most foul, not the Sacral Regicide which was a consummation devoutly to be wished.

The play fit us, fit us as if it had been written for us, and perhaps it had, though neither of us could recall having met William Shakespeare.

Perhaps we didn’t remember everything.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Chapter Four

Our exploits from then on were more cautious, more discreet. We had