What foul shape stole into the Ketrick castle on some forgotten night, or rose out of the dusk to grip some woman of the line, straying in the hills?
The mind shrinks from such an image. But this I know: there must have been survivals of that foul, reptilian epoch when the Ketricks went into Wales. There still may be. But this changeling, this waif of darkness, this horror who bears the noble name of Ketrick, the brand of the serpent is upon him, and until he is destroyed there is no rest for me. Now that I know him for what he is, he pollutes the clean air and leaves the slime of the snake on the green earth. The sound of his lisping, hissing voice fills me with crawling horror and the sight of his slanted eyes inspires me with madness.
For I come of a royal race, and such as he is a continual insult and a threat, like a serpent under foot. Mine is a regal race, though now it is become degraded and falls into decay by continual admixture with conquered races. The waves of alien blood have washed my hair black and my skin dark, but I still have the lordly stature and the blue eyes of a royal Aryan.
And as my ancestors – as I, Aryara, destroyed the scum that writhed beneath our heels, so shall I, John O’Donnel, exterminate the reptilian thing, the monster bred of the snaky taint that slumbered so long unguessed in clean Saxon veins, the vestigial serpent-things left to taunt the Sons of Aryan. They say the blow I received affected my mind; I know it but opened my eyes. Mine ancient enemy walks often on the moors alone, attracted, though he may not know it, by ancestral urgings. And on one of these lonely walks I shall meet him, and when I meet him, I will break his foul neck with my hands, as I, Aryara, broke the necks of foul night-things in the long, long ago.
Then they may take me and break my neck at the end of a rope if they will. I am not blind, if my friends are. And in the sight of the old Aryan god, if not in the blinded eyes of men, I will have kept faith with my tribe.
Bran Mak Morn
Bran Mak Morn
ACT I SCENE I
SCENE. A high, flat ledge just over a waterfall. Bran Mak Morn is pacing to and fro. Dubthak enters the scene.
BRAN: Ah, Dubthak, bring you tidings of Conmac the Red that you come so fast? You seem breathless.
DUBTHAK: I came in haste to tell you of my news ere it reached your ears garbled by ignorant tongues. As for Conmac he may be in the midst of the Baltic or sailing up the Thames or in Hades for all I know. My tidings concern him not.
BRAN: What then?
DUBTHAK: Why, this. You know that five days since I took a band of three-score warriors to the Forth, thinking to surprise Ingall the Rover in the bay?
BRAN: Yes.
DUBTHAK: Well either, we marched too slow or Ingall got word of our coming or the foul fiend took a hand for just as we topped Mount Arsa we saw his sail beating out to sea. So there was nothing to do but to turn and march back. But fortune favored us after all for on our return we surprized a Celtic village and put it to the sword. The loot was scant but we took two-score slaves. As fair youths and maidens as ever you laid eyes upon.
BRAN: What of the men?
DUBTHAK: No men survived the raid except for some that were out hunting and a few that fled.
BRAN. Dubthak, these massacres must cease. I have warned you –,
DUBTHAK: A score of times my chief. But when the torch is lit and the blade bared only you can restrain the warriors. I could not, even if I so desired, which I do not. I have no love for the Scots or Britons either.
BRAN. Well, bring the prisoners before me.
Exit Dubthak.
Still murder, fire and rapine. My Picts are wild and impatient of restraint. Some day it may be that they will turn against even me. A hard, thank-less task it is to raise the Pict nation out of savagery and bring it back to the civilization of our fathers. Of the age of Brennus. The Picts are savages. I must make them civilized. They are wolves and I must make them men. Can one man do it? I do it because the welfare of the nation is my sole ambition. Because I know that no barbarian nation can stand before Rome. But they, like children or wolves, see only that I seek to restrict them in what they think is their lawful rights. Their lawful rights! The right to steal, to burn, to slay! What I seek to accomplish is the work of a century and I strive to accomplish it in one short reign! Suppose I do drag them a little way toward the goal? I will fall in battle and they will back deeper than ever into the pit of barbarism. If my own people do not rise against me. As long as I lead them against the Roman, the Scots, the Britons or the Norse the
Bran Mak Morn
Manuscript
This manuscript apparently was written circa 1922–1923, when Howard was 16 or 17 years old.
Synopsis
Synopsis
The story of a forgotten age; of the clash of swords and the barbarians who fought Rome.
The time is between 296 A.D. and 300 A.D. The augusti are Maximian and Diocletian. They have appointed co-rulers of somewhat less power but with the dignity of Caesars—Galerius and Constantius.
Salient points: in Britain the rule of the usurper Carausius, former Count of the Saxon Shore, later emperor of Britain (and Gaul?) by virtue of the Roman-British legions, has just come to an end. Allectus, former secretary of the usurper has murdered him in York (British appellation) and calls himself emperor of Britain.
Constantius, endeared to the Britons because of his British wife, Helena, a Celtic princess, with Galerius, is gathering forces on the Gallic coast for an invasion. Note: Constantius divorced Helena in order to marry the daughter of Maximian but he has made a secret pact with his British friends—that his and Helena’s son, Constantine, shall succeed him, despite any later heirs.
The commander of the Wall, an old soldier of Carausius, hates Allectus and is preparing to march upon him from the rear with the greater part of his cohorts. Allectus has been intriguing with many leaders, Roman and barbarian. He aspires to the title of augustus of the Roman empire, as Serverus did.
The Goths and Vandals and Franks massed along the Rhine await his word to cross the border and carry the sword to the walls of Rome. But they will not move so long as the two Caesars with their united armies lie east of the channel. These barbarians have sworn allegiance to Allectus and he has promised them rich lands south of the Rhine. But he plays a perilous game. He believes he can defeat the Caesars unless the Commander of the Wall attacks him from the North. This is his plot: to hold the legions in play on the Wall while he presents an unbroken front to the Caesars. As soon as they sail from Gaul his spies will carry the word to his Teutonic allies. When he has broken the Caesars he will sail to Gaul and complete the work they have begun.
To hold the legions on the Wall he has plotted with Bran Mak Morn, chief of the Cruithni Picts, and with a band of desperate Northmen. These Northmen have beached their galleys in a northern bay and lie in wait for the word to attack. But they despise their Pictish allies and insult the Pictish king, killing his sweetheart. He sends a false courier to them bidding them attack, and ambushing them in a morass, wipes them out. So the Commander, unknowing, marches from the Wall and falls on Allectus’ forces just as Constantius, sailing unbeknownst in a fog, attacks from the sea-shore. Allectus is killed and the empire is saved.