Ursa Major: A Tale of King Arthur

By Jim Chapman

In Illyria, in the middle of the fifth century, Gaius, a Roman centurion born in Britannia, is separated from his legion after a battle with Atilla the Hun. With the remnants of his cohort he starts north, towards Italia. Kallisto, a Greek woman, with several companions, is also fleeing Atilla and they join forces. Feeling that he has been abandoned by the Roman army, he chooses to desert and return to Britannia. Many of his men, and the women, vote to accompany him. Driven apart by a storm, they reunite in Venezia. From there, they head north across the Alps. After many tribulations, they enter Gaul in early summer. They become embroiled in the Battle of Chalôns, the titanic encounter between Atilla and Aetius, supreme commander of the Romans in Gaul that will determine fate of the Western Roman Empire. By helping Aetius, they receive his support in continuing their quest to reach Britannia. When they arrive, Gaius, born a Briton, becomes the chief of a Celic army and defeats an invading Saxon force. Throughout the book he has been associated with sign of the bear, Artos in the Celtic language. With the defeat of the Saxons, he assumes the name of Arthur.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Chapman
• Release date: Nov 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463705919

Jim Chapman

Notre Dame in Philosophy, Peace Corps in Africa, Three years in Venice, University of Oregon in Italian, 55 countries in the world, and counting.

Book preview

Prologue

Attila, the Scourge of God, consolidated various Hunnic tribes of Central Asia into an unstoppable fighting empire. Leaving the steppes, they had been marauding throughout the Eastern Roman Empire since 431 CE. Theodosius II, the eastern emperor of the Roman Empire, situated in Constantinople, could not defeat Attila on the battlefield. He agreed to pay him huge ransoms in return for a cessation of hostilities.

Attila wanted power, not riches. He saw, in 446 CE., that the western part of the empire was weak. He determined to invade. Sweeping through the Balkans, he was invincible, scattering opposing armies as he advanced. 

Atilla was met, finally, in Thermopylae, by a roman force that slowed him down but suffered mightily as a consequence. 

Gaius, a roman centurion, commander of a cohort of approximately eighty men, was part of that force. After the battle, Gaius’s cohort, much reduced, found himself cut off from the remnants of his legion by Attila’s army.

Attila turned north towards the Western Empire. 

Gaius, with the remainder of his men, was on his own.

Chapter 1

Warmth spread over his forehead, into his eyes, into his mouth. He tasted the salty thickness of blood. With his grimy fingers, he scratched  the blood out of his eyes. The battle, the clash of steel on steel, rang around his head, in the confused blackness.

Not like this! If I am to die, I want to see the blow coming!

Something grabbed him by the back of his armor and lifted him off the earth. His hands and legs hung down, dangling. The blood dripped even more profusely across his eyes and down into his mouth. He gagged.

Centurion, I have you. The Huns have retreated.

Is he alive, Severus? Gaius recognized Lucius’s voice.

Yes, but as close to dead as I have ever seen him. Help me carry him to the shade over there.

I’m alive, by Mithras, Gaius mumbled. It will take more than one turd-sucking Hun to kill me. And, how are you managing to drag me over every cursed rock on this battlefield?

Well, then, maybe we should let him walk, Lucius, if he’s feeling so ungrateful.

Where’s the Hun I was going to kill? Gaius mumbled.

I did it for you, Centurion. Severus retorted. But not before he gave you the crack that split your helmet and would have taken your head off, if I hadn’t taken his. I suppose that’s as close to thanks as we are likely to get, Lucius. Here, let’s put him here and you can go get some water to wash this wound. Gaius, I have to get what’s left of this helmet off your head. Bite this strap. This is going to hurt.

The centurion, Gaius Julius Barbatus, felt the fingers of his optio, his second-in-command, exploring around the edge of his helmet, near where it met the upper part of his armor. He knew that there was no easy way for Severus to remove his helmet and he took a deep breath. Severus pulled. Gaius muffled his scream as best he could, sinking his teeth deeply into the sweaty leather strap. After the helmet came loose, he spat out the strap.

By the gods, Severus, it didn’t hurt that much when the Hun’s sword hit me!

Gaius, my friend, be thankful that you have such a thick skull. And that I came up behind that Hun when I did.

Lucius arrived with a helmet full of dirty water. He held it out as Severus used a part of his tunic to wash the blood out of Gaius’ eyes. He then inspected the wound on their centurion’s head.

Nasty, but there’s always more blood from a head wound than seems right.

He offered the rest of the water to Gaius, who drank it greedily and then looked up at Severus.

What happened to the Huns?

While you flailed at a headless barbarian, we sent them running.

Severus laughed heartily.

Gaius’ dark glance quashed his levity. Severus continued in a graver tone.

We lost a lot of men; so, did they. Our advantage was that we fought in a narrow field and their horses collided with one another. Their archers were good; this time, ours were better. I doubt that Attila himself was here. I didn’t see him. He’s too smart to have accepted battle on our terms. Still, a victory, even one as costly as this one, is welcome.

I’m getting tired of costly victories, my friends. How many of us are left?

Severus swiveled his head and looked quickly at Lucius, who appeared to be counting to himself.

Well, Optio, intoned Lucius quietly, since we were only a small rearguard to begin with, there are possibly fifteen of us who survived, with one of those too badly wounded to last much longer. The rest of the army may or may not have escaped, but the losses will be long remembered.

Gaius winced. Out of an entire cohort, only fifteen men left. After twenty years of fighting, only fifteen men left. By Mithras, my men have been done badly by me.

Gaius dropped his head, then spoke through gritted teeth. And where’s the army now? They probably assumed that we were all lost. Certainly, they won’t be returning to look for us. And, as to what we can do, it will be impossible to rejoin them, not with the entire Hunnic army between them and us.

What do we do, now, Centurion Julius Gaius, my friend? What now?

Gaius struggled to sit up. He reached for the cup, only to find it empty.

Lucius took it from him and left to fill it again.

Gaius took their moment alone to muse to his long-time friend.

Severus, between us, I say that we head north, towards Rome, or whatever is left of Rome, and consider that it is our duty to get the few men remaining to safety. There are mountains to cross, I know, but you and I, we have crossed mountains before. If we stumble onto the army, well and good. Nevertheless, we need to move, first, towards the sea, to find a way home.

Severus nodded slowly.

Chapter 2

Ferocious howling, and exultant shrieking in some language Gaius did not know, reverberated off the granite walls of the desolate canyon.  His left hand tightened on the shaft of his spear while he dropped his right hand onto the hilt of his sword. Sunlight beat on his helmet and reflected off the sharp boulders that towered around him, forming a narrow gorge that prevented him from seeing where the screams were coming from.

Curiosity, outweighing common sense, pushed him forward. He heard the pawing and scraping of horses’ hooves on the hot rock just before he caught sight of them. As he advanced, he could see that two horses scrabbled uneasily, jostling each other, while they tugged at the leather lanyards that were around their necks and attached to small scrubby bushes that looked to be loosening their tenuous grasp on the rocky soil. Their wild eyes and flared nostrils told Gaius that they were ready to bolt. The louder the screams, the more they stamped and heaved. They did not notice his approach behind them.

Gaius had left his cohort under the command of Severus, his friend and second-in-command, ostensibly so that he might hunt, more because he wanted time to think. But horses! Horses were good. They needed horses and he resolved to steal these that, by their tack, clearly belonged to no Roman. These were Hunnic horses. From long experience, Gaius knew that to separate a Hun from his horse was to render him half a man. He, with the two horses, against two half-men- a fair fight.  He smiled, though the twitch of the crooked crease of the old sword wound on the left side of his face begged to be called a decent smile.

Whatever the Huns were doing, which was so frightening the horses, was no concern of his as long as they remained distracted. Gaius moved quietly up behind the agitated rear flanks of the horses, almost gagging on the smell that could only be coming from the strange saddles that the Huns used.

He reached for the lanyards. The horses shied at the movement, lending their whinnying screams to the convulsing violence on the other side of the large boulder. They reared and struck out at him with their hooves. To stay clear of the hooves and the snapping teeth, Gaius leapt forward, causing him to tumble into the small clearing. He tried to jump quickly to his feet, but his hobnailed sandals slid on the small rocks that littered the ground. He dropped to his knee, gathering his spear, which now lay off to his side. His eyes found the two men as they spun around, now pointing their blood-covered swords at him. Gaius’s left hand reached out, feeling for the shaft of his spear while at the same time pulling his sword from its sheath. The familiar weight of the sword in his right hand sent a surge of confidence through his body, a familiarity going back twenty years.

The two Huns started toward him, turning their backs on a large bleeding bear. Gaius’s attention, now that he had recovered the long shaft of his spear, focused on the two Huns who were separating, heading to either side of him, daring him to laugh with them, as they delighted in their good fortune to find themselves with even better amusement, a single Roman legionary. Gaius knew Huns; they lived for war. They would have no fear of death.

Gaius backed up and felt the heat of the boulder against his shoulders. Wanting to join in the fight, the horses stamped viciously only a few paces to his left. His eyes darted back and forth between the two laughing men. Unlike the Roman legionary, they wore no armor, no helmet and carried no shield. Their swords were longer than Gaius’s. That was just as Gaius wanted it. In a close, confined fight, a quick stabbing motion usually dominated an encumbered swinging motion, as he had learned after so many years in the Roman army.

With the blade in his right hand pointed at one of the Huns and the razor-sharp tip of his spear pointed at the other Hun, Gaius waited for the attack. They leapt at him immediately, screeching simultaneously, as if he were just another bear.

He wasn’t.

Gaius attacked, lunging to his left, his spear-point lusting after the unprotected midriff of the Hun who, to avoid the well-practiced thrust spun further to Gaius’s left. The Hun, covered in the bear’s blood, fell against the horse’s chest, which suddenly reared backwards and lashed out at the Hun’s unprotected skull, dashing his brains all over its front hooves, and on Gaius, too. The slippery gore, coating the shaft of his spear, caused it to slip from his grasp. The other Hun took advantage of Gaius’s distraction. He swung his long sword at the legionary, only to find his blade glance off the rusty side of the legionary’s helmet, a blow that now joined many others, from many other battles. Before the Hun had enough room to unleash another arcing stroke, Gaius eviscerated him with the sharp point of his sword, just as his drillmaster had taught him decades ago. His helmet might be rusty; his blade and his sword arm never. He wiped the blood away with the Hun’s ragged shirt, allowing the brilliant sheen of the steel to flicker in the blazing Greek sun. He sheathed it.

Gaius hesitated only a moment to catch his breath, before he remembered the wounded bear, and that it might still be dangerous. The horses stood quietly in the sudden lull resulting from the death of their masters. In the heat and sudden silence, they trembled only slightly, apparently feeling that the bear presented no threat. Gaius glanced at the bleeding black heap. It did not stir. He grabbed the dangling leather strands hanging from the horses’ necks and pulled them around the opposite side of the boulder, shielding them from both the fallen Huns and the motionless bear. He tied them to the most substantial limb he could find in the raw bleakness of the countryside above the destroyed city of Thermopylae. He wanted to leave, now that he had the horses. Still, the thought of a bearskin, with the winter near, stopped him.

He edged around the boulder to get close to the bear. He stepped over the barbarians, spitting on them as he did so. It was they who were destroying what was left of the Roman Empire. Two fewer of them made him smile. At that moment, he heard a gurgling grunt coming from the wounded bear, lying approximately twenty paces from him.

The bear moaned, struggling mightily to regain its feet. Bleeding profusely, it staggered as it regained it balance. Turning its head over its shoulder, it looked straight at Gaius. He laid his hand on the hilt of his sword but left it in its scabbard. Gaius puzzled at the bear’s eyes drilling into him. The attitude of the bear displayed no trace of fear, nor of animosity. As the bear swayed, his gaze toward the Roman never wavered.

Gaius, expecting to harvest a carcass, found himself in a battle of wills instead.

What now? Does this bear want something?

The black bear began to shuffle away from Gaius, but by twisting its head backwards, never lost eye contact with the legionary.

Gaius squinted at the retreating bear, the bright sun in his eyes and wondered if Faunus, the Roman god of forests, was playing with him. Or Pan, since this was Greece. If this were the gods trying to tell him something, should he listen, or should he run? The gods would not be trifled with by a mere human. It paid to tread carefully when gods were present.

The bear faltered slightly and then continued up the inclined path covered in loose stones.

Gaius, as he looked at the blood dripping from the bear’s underbelly, knew that it was grievously wounded. Yet, it did not stop. It continued to cast glances back at Gaius.

As much as he wanted to run away, to take his horses and flee, the bear’s intense eyes caused him to imagine that the gods, surrounding this place, haunting it, were watching him.

Gaius moved slowly up the hillside, following the bear and its pathetic attempt to climb away from the battleground and the two barbarians who had caused it such harm. He shook off the oppressive heat and the ringing in his head from the sword stroke on his helmet. The steep hillside required that he scramble upwards on all fours, like the slow-moving bear in front of him. Except for his heavy breathing, there was no sound other than the scratching of the bear’s long claws on the unstable rocks, some of which tumbled back in Gaius’s face. He brushed them aside. He was slowly overtaking the bear, who, he noticed, looked back less often the closer that Gaius approached.

A wounded bear is extremely dangerous, yet, if Gaius felt any fear, it was not of the bear but only that he might fail to understand any message that he now felt the gods were trying to give him. His already aching head began to throb, filled with a whistling curiosity in a way he had never before experienced. Pan was playing him, luring him onward.

So intent was he on the large rump of the bear, and the splotches of blood on the rocks beneath him, he nearly didn’t stop climbing as the bear halted a few paces in front of him. He swallowed the lump of dry dust in his throat, as his instincts told him he ought to unsheathe his sword, to prepare himself for whatever might happen. Then he saw the bear look up the hill.

That was when Gaius noticed a cave entrance.

The bear, it was apparent to Gaius, had little strength left. It did not waste any more effort assuring itself that Gaius was following. It lifted each of its legs slowly, methodically, inexorably towards the opening in the mountain. Life ebbing away, it remorselessly scrambled forward, as if to what it knew to be its grave.

Gaius, in a trance, could do nothing but follow.

The bear, which, during the long hard climb up the hillside, having made only rumbling sounds since the vast bellowing snarls during the battle with the barbarians, now grunted and gurgled. As it prostrated itself on the shady ground, out of the fiery sunlight, the noises from the bear seemed to come from the earth itself. It was home.

The bear looked straight at Gaius. And then closed its eyes.

Gaius was a man who believed in the gods like he believed in the wind, the rain, the cold of winter and the heat of summer: forces in his world to which he owed respect, even awe, and which he might ignore only at his peril. He had never before felt so close to the Unknowable. The small cave presented him with a portal into the domain of Pan, and, if so, then this was no ordinary bear. But, if not ordinary, then what? He squatted in front of the cave entrance and sweated in the sunlight as his eyes searched deeper into the darkness behind the bear’s quiet bulk.

Did I save this bear? Is it an offering, this bearskin, or a sacrifice to the gods?

Gaius didn’t move for some time.  He finally pulled his sword from its sheath. Gaius would not pretend to understand the ways of the gods. He decided that, simply, he wanted the bearskin because winter was not far off. The bear had brought him here. He had killed the barbarians, thus allowing the bear to die in its home, on its own terms. Did Pan want him to have this bearskin rather than leave it to rot in the heat, to be torn apart by wolves? Gaius wavered. He wanted one more sign.

He held his sword blade up in front of him, feeling the sharpness of its edge. Then, as the sunlight caught the lustrous steel and reflected deeply into the darkness, something flashed back at him. Gaius stopped breathing and focused as best he could, holding the blade still, squinting at what he thought he had seen. He rose from his squatting position and moved towards the narrow opening, finally crouching next to the bear’s carcass. Before he moved completely into the shadow of the cave, he oriented himself with one last glimpse from the reflected sunlight. He was sure, now, that he had seen something gleaming near the top of the interior of the cave. He eased himself by the bear and crawled towards the place that he had fixed in his mind. He extended his hand to a shelf that he could just make out in the dim light. He felt around, gingerly, and his fingers closed around what felt to be the stem of a goblet. He pulled, though he felt some resistance. He pulled harder and it tumbled onto him, a silver cup, entangled in the folds of a bulky, soft leather satchel.

By Mithras! he whispered.

Chapter 3

Rather, by the shades of Artemis and Apollo.

Crouching at the entrance of the cave, Gaius spun towards the voice, holding his sword in front of him, expecting an attack. He opened his eyes wide at the sight of a curly white-haired man in a soiled tunic who had spoken to him in Latin, tinged with a Greek accent.  Seeing that the man stood on the incline to the cave before him empty-handed, Gaius lowered his sword. He was shocked that the man had managed to approach without a sound. He let the tip of the blade touch the earth, while his left hand, that held the bag and the cup, tightened. They stared at each other wordlessly.

Then Gaius spoke. Who are you and how did you escape the Huns?

The man said nothing in reply.

The Greek, his eyes dancing from Gaius’s face and then to the cup in Gaius’s left hand, appeared to be weighing some option known only to him. He started up the incline towards the Roman and the bear, causing Gaius to twitch his sword point back to the stranger.

Stay where you are, Gaius said, in an even voice.

There’s nothing here for you now, Dominus. The bear is dead and that which you hold in your left hand remains useless to you without my help. I have spent many years with this bear and, now that the gods have chosen for him to die, I am left with no more to do here.

Gaius looked at the man quizzically.

Why do you address me as ‘Dominus?’ I am but a mere centurion.

Because the bear of Artemis recognized you as the king foretold.

Then, the bear mistook me for someone else.

The man, his eyes, suddenly fierce in the blinding sun that shone full on his face, stood still in front of Gaius and chewed on his lower lip.

It is unlikely, he said.

Tell me, then, little man, what you have you been doing here while the bear lived?  I don’t understand how you avoided those Huns. It’s not like them to leave an unarmed man alive.  With no weapons, you would have been less sport and more the ridding of a pesky nuisance. Now the bear, that was sport.

An aggrieved shadow flitted across the face of the wizened man who stopped at the middle of the hill.

That was less an animal and more a manifestation of the Oracle waiting for a new champion.

Gaius cocked his head and looked around the constricted defile in which he and the man were standing, the noon day sun beginning to make the air shimmer. He looked over at the horses which were straining at their tethers, trying to claim the inadequate shade that was only enough for one of them. They pushed and snapped at each other. The bodies of the dead Huns were covered with flies.

What Oracle?

I am one of the last priests of Delphi. I was a child when the cave of the Oracle was destroyed. Before that time, the eldest priest escaped with the chalice and the Kykeon, the herbs of Demeter.  I accompanied him here to this place, as he was guided by the goddess Artemis, and he hid what you have in your hand in the recesses of this cave, the lair of the bear. The old priest died long since. And many bears have called this cave home. I was entrusted both with the safety of the Kykeon and an explanation.

Gaius looked down at the bear. It looked old, but not that old.

Bears and I have been here a long time, the priest added as he noticed Gaius’s doubtful glance at the motionless animal. Artemis speaks through the spirit of a bear.

I was imagining that it was Pan who was playing with me. Roman gods, Greek gods, men do best to stay out of their way.

You are like most men. You fear the gods and do what you feel you must to assuage them. You fear them because you don’t understand that we humans and the gods walk together toward our fates. We are never alone. For some, that is frightening. For others, it is maddening. For those of us who have known the Oracle, these are simply the ways of gods and men.

This is an infernal place to try to talk. Let us drag the carcass of the bear into the shade. Artemis or no Artemis, I intend to return to my men with a bearskin.

The Greek winced, and then again started up the hill, slowly.

What is your name?

Arcas, named after the son of Artemis. And yours?

Gaius, with a cautious chuckle, replied, Julius Gaius Barbatus, a roman centurion, hunting. I have found more than I bargained for. Now, I suppose you consider that I am about to skin your mother. Is that right?

Arcas managed a wry pout.

Everything is its own thing, Roman, and everything is one thing.

Gaius shrugged. He wasn’t getting much out of this priest.

Then Arcas approached Gaius and, with both hands, dug into the ruff around the bear's neck and strained to pull the carcass into the cave. Gaius sheathed his sword, laid the cup and leather bag on the ground, and grasped the other end of the bear. Together, they pulled at the ponderous weight. Aided by the small stones that rolled beneath the carcass and under their sandals, they found some shade.

Along with a sword and long spear, a Roman legionary carried a dagger. As soon as Gaius had the bear in the shade, he drew the dagger from his belt and turned the carcass over on its back. As he was about to make an incision in the belly of the bear, Arcas reached in to hold the belly taut. Gaius looked at him with surprise.

Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me skin your bear?

Who you are, Roman, and who this bear is, why I am here, and why those Huns found this lair in order to bring you here, what that chalice is, and what those herbs are, all are the gods’ doing. You did not kill the bear, I know that. I saw the fight. I saw the bear lead you to the cave. I saw you treat the bear with respect and saw you find the cup and bag. For me, the gods spoke. The bear chose you and you have chosen to keep the bear with you. So, I will do what I can to help that happen.

He grabbed the bear's fur and spread it open for Gaius’s knife.

Both sloppy with sweat, they cut and scraped the bear’s flesh away from the skin. They said very little to each other until they finished.

What shall we do with the flesh? Gaius wondered aloud when they had separated the skin from the carcass of the bear.

He lay the bearskin fur-side down on the earth.  Using the dirt, he scrubbed away at chunks of offal that still clung to the inside of the skin. When it looked to be drying out in the sun, he stood over the bear and urinated on the exposed hide. Arcas, who had been watching, walked over to his side and began to share in the urinating.  They then rubbed the dirt and urine into the still-supple skin, knowing that it would help to cure it.

Soon, what’s left of him will become part of every animal that finds him. None of us can escape that fate. The bear has served his purpose and now we must attend to ours.  I say we find a place to wash.

Gaius look down at his hands and tunic and laughed.

The two of them lifted the now much lighter bearskin to their shoulders and carried it toward the horses. As they approached, the horses reacted to the scent of the bear and reared back on their hind legs and gnashed their teeth. Seeing that the lines tied to the trees were loosening, Gaius dropped the bearskin and lunged between the horses and grabbed at the reins. Using his fingers, he pinched the nostrils of one of the horses as hard as he could. As it calmed down for a moment, he peeled a strip of cloth from the Hunnic saddle and tied it across the eyes of the momentarily subdued horse. Unable to see, it ceased the fretful stamping of its hooves. He then quickly disabled the other horse in like manner. Gaius and Arcas rolled up the bearskin and tied it to the back of the larger horse.

Gaius looked back. "And the Huns? They will not go unavenged. Attila, from what I have heard, knows every one of his men. He will miss these two and will find them here, and then follow us.

They killed the bear. They will suffer the same fate as him. In this sun, the bear meat will bring every predator worthy of the name to feast. It’s no longer our problem. You dropped this. Arcas held out the cup and the leather bag to Gaius. These are now your responsibility. Let us be gone.

Are you going to tell me what they are?

Pour your life into this chalice, lift it to your lips and that commitment will become the maker of wholeness.

Gaius, sighed. Let’s go.

Chapter 4

Gaius had taken longer than he had planned to return to the encampment as he tried to cover their tracks to