Bridge to the Palace
There is a palace on a river island. It is a triangle made of standing stones topped by lintels. On top of that row of stones there is another row of lintel topped stones.
It was never a comfortable palace. It is open to the sky. It was built so long ago that no-one knows where they hauled the stones from or how they got them across the river onto the island. Some say they were helped by giants.
There is a Queen in the palace. Queen Aubyx of Beria. Dowager. She is old, plump and white-haired, with a mean face and red robes. She sits on a throne at the apex of the triangle. In front of her are twelve spearmen with gleaming bronze spears. In front of them are the people feasting at the tables. They have eaten from bowls of green and black olives that servants brought around. They now enjoy chickpea pancakes dipped in olive oil, washed down by heavy mugs of golden beer. Later on the trays of roasted beef will be brought out and each man’s appetite will receive it’s allotted portion.
Behind the Queen sits King Fyx, well shadowed within the deep dark apex of the triangle. Pale-faced. He is too sacred for words. None but the Queen hears him whisper. No-one but her talks for him.
In the hall, where people feast, Cock, a renowned reveller, leans on the shoulder of Cavgan, a young dark-haired stableboy.
“Big surprise tonight,” says Cock, “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”
“What do you mean?” Says Cavgan.
“Cock!” Shouts Azuk, a travelling man.
“I mean,” says Cock. “There’s going to be a fight. Yack…”
“Don’t listen to him,” says Azuk, “He’s drunk.”
Cavgan is a boy of adolescent years but everyone knows that he is the Queen’s lover. She is an old woman. He is a boy. She enjoys people’s disgust.
Cavgan, alerted by what Cock said, and Azuk’s attempts to conceal it, touches a serving girl on the arm.
“Bring the Queen.” He whispers to her. “There’s something I must tell her.”
The girl takes her tray to where the warriors stand. She smiles, curtsies and Qabas, the famous spearman, lets her pass.
She tells the Queen. The Queen is red-faced.
“What’s this?!” She says in her booming voice. “A stablehand summons a Queen! Qabas!” She shouts.
“Majesty?”
“Put Cavgan the stablehand up in a cage.”
“Yes, majesty.”
Qabas crosses the hall, grabs Cavgan, and tosses him to the warriors who hold him. Qabas lowers the cage, opens it and Cavgan gets stuffed inside. The feasters, quiet since the guards came, laugh and jeer as Cavgan is hauled up to hang beside the other skeleton filled cages. Everyone knows of Cavgan’s ridiculous love affair. No-one respects him.
“I must speak to the Queen!”Cavgan shouts from behind bars. “There’s a plot! Yack is coming!”
“Stop!” Aubyx rises from her throne and everyone falls silent.
“Talk fast and don’t lie or you’ll be flayed.”
The boy tells everything.
“He’s lying!” Azuk shouts.
Darkness has fallen, servants bring firebrands to light the hearth, and Azuk suddenly realizes that if he can get out through the stones he can flee into the night’s darkness. He tries but there are people crowded behind him.
“Seize them!” Orders the Queen and the warriors take them.
Cavgan is freed. Azuk won’t talk but Cock talks a lot when they hold his feet to the fire.
“Yack’s bringing a warband!” He shouts “We had to get the men off the bridge so he could cross! He wants to get to the back of the palace and-”
“Enough!” said the Queen. “If he talks of our king, cut out his tongue.”
So it was Yack the enemy. Back when King Ben ruled there was a battle. Fyx, heir to the throne, fell off his chariot and hit his head and his heart must have been hit too for his mind was broken. Ben said that Fyx would never recover. He wanted to marry again and sire a new heir and he said that Fyx must be sacrificed to the gods. That same night, as King Ben strolled through the palace, a stone block fell and crushed him. It was willed by gods, said Queen Aubyx. They wished to assert their rule through Fyx, and she could interpret her son’s whispered words.
Not everyone agreed. Yack, brother of Ben, said that the Gods struck down father and son so that he could rule. When drunk he also said that Ben’s death was no accident, that Aubyx was a false prophet who should be burned. He said that Fyx, always out of sight, was a mindless cripple and he wanted to haul him out so the people could watch him drool.
So now Yack, leader of men, is coming to the Palace with a warband. Queen Aubyx, thinking fast, had the two traitors hauled up in cages. She orders Qabas to go across the river and fetch men from the village. She orders the people to gather weapons. The warriors have spears, they lend others their daggers. Flint knives, clubs and sharpened sticks are passed round. Qabas comes back with villagers. They bring slingshots and stones, bronze hatchets and hammers with stone heads. There are fur-clad hunters with bows and flint-head arrows.
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Cavgan borrows a bronze-tipped warspear. Queen Aubyx holds a gleaming bronze dagger.
“I will not be taken alive.” She says.
A curtain is draped in front of the King’s alcove.
Mital, crippled priest, calls them out to the bridge.
“The bridge fell through one year and a cart went into the river.” He says.
“Both man and mule drowned. If we weaken the bridge here…” He taps his birch staff on the central span.
“It will fall from under their feet.” Finished Aubyx.
So they lift the boards and chop at the wood supports with hatchets. Then someone has the idea of using ropes so they take them from the cages and tie them onto the splintered wood supports of the bridge. They put the boards on loose to cover their work.
“But…” says Cavgan, as he looks down at the fast flowing river, “How do we get back over when the bridge is gone?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said the Qabas, “We’ll probably be dead by then.”
The Queen looks at him sourly.
At midnight the enemy comes. They burn no torches. They all come down the white track toward the bridge.
“How many?” Cavgan whispers.
“Hundred and fifty.” Says Qabas, “All warriors.”
“And we’ve got… seventy five?” Cavgan says.
“We’ve got less than forty who’ll fight.” Says Qabas.
“I’ll fight.” says Cavgan.
“You’re protecting your Queen?” Qabas sneers.
“Hell!” Cavgan spits. “I’m just going to fight.”
“Quiet now.” Qabas whispers, “They’re closing.”
There are no men on the bridge. They made it look as though the traitors had done their work. The enemy warband reaches the bridge. The sound of boards under foot. Yack leads them. He wears a horned-helmet, bronze armour, and carries a big club.
“Wait…” Qabas whispers.
Yack gets over the bridge. Defenders hide in the palace. Men crouch in the shadows waiting to pull the bridge. Qabas and Cavgan lie in ferns by Yack’s feet. The last men come onto the bridge.
“Now!” Qabas shouts. Yack hears and strikes at him. Men pull the ropes. Qabas dodges and spears at Yack’s legs, slicing through leather and scoring flesh. Cavgan charges in screaming, spear held high, he strikes, drives a man back.
All the people come out screaming. They carry firebrands. Slingers run forward and hurl stones at the men on the bridge. A stone strikes and a man’s head smashes like an egg. Blood pours over wood and men smear it underfoot. Hunters shoot their feather-fletched arrows into the mass of men. People attack. Men pull the ropes and pull, and pull, but the bridge supports hold and the men come across the bridge to fight. Qabas and the twelve warriors fight at the front. Men and women pour in behind them and it looks like the bridge will stand, that the men pulling the ropes will have to drop them and join the fight but then the left support snaps, and the bridge tips right, spilling boards and men into the river, then the right support snaps and the bridge falls and dozens of men fall and plunge into fast flowing river and are carried off.
People cheer. Yack turns, shocked to see the bridge gone. Qabas darts a strike at him, knocking a horn off his helmet.
Cavgan gets his spear into a man then a spear goes into him and he staggers off bleeding. The people get all around the men and batter them. Men take spear wounds. Men fall with broken heads. Blood pours onto ground and into the river.
The slingers hit the men on the far bank and they run.
Yack throws down his club in surrender and Qabas takes him.
“Let him live,” says the Queen from between the stones. “He is my brother-in-law.”
Then she goes to Cavgan who is dying.
“Tell others,” he says, “Tell them I fought like a man.” and darkness comes into his eyes.
Aubyx nods. “Kill the rest.” she says.
And so it is. If men beg, they are bludgeoned and then thrown into the river to drown and if you wander along the river, even now, you can find white bones tangled among the reeds.
