Excalibur

by Bernard Cornwell

  And so I travelled through places where few free Britons had stepped in a generation. These were the enemy heartlands, and for two days I rode through them. At first glance the country looked little different from British land, for the Saxons had taken over our fields and they farmed them in much the same manner as we did, though I noted their haystacks were piled higher and made squarer than ours, and their houses were built more stoutly. The Roman villas were mostly deserted, though here and there an estate still functioned. There were no Christian churches here, indeed no shrines at all that I could see, though we did once pass a British idol which had some small offerings left at its base. Britons still lived here and some even owned their own land, but most were slaves or else were wives to Saxons. The names of the places had all changed and my escort did not even know what they had been called when the British ruled. We passed through Lycceword and Steortford, then Leodasham and Celmeresfort, all strange Saxon names but all prosperous places. These were not the homes and farms of invaders, but the settlements of a fixed people. From Celmeresfort we turned south through Beadewan and Wicford, and as we rode my companions proudly told me that we now rode across farmland that Cerdic had yielded back to Aelle during the summer. The land was the price, they said, of Aelle’s loyalty in the coming war that would take these people clean across Britain to the Western Sea. My escort was confident that they would win. They had all heard how Dumnonia had been weakened by Lancelot’s rebellion, and that revolt had encouraged the Saxon Kings to unite in an effort to take all southern Britain.

  Aelle’s winter quarters were at a place the Saxons called Thunreslea. It was a high hill in a flat landscape of clay fields and dark marshes, and from the hill’s flat summit a man could stare southwards across the wide Thames towards the misty land where Cerdic ruled. A great hall stood on the hill. It was a massive building of dark oak timbers, and fixed high on its steep pointed gable was Aelle’s symbol: a bull’s skull painted with blood. In the dusk the lonely hall loomed black and huge, a baleful place. Off to the east there was a village beyond some trees and I could see the flicker of a myriad fires there. It seemed I had arrived in Thunreslea at the time of a gathering, and the fires showed where folk camped. ‘It’s a feast,’ one of my escort told me.

  ‘In honour of the Gods?’ I enquired.

  ‘In honour of Cerdic. He’s come to talk with our King.’

  My hopes, that were already low, plummeted. With Aelle I stood some chance of survival, but with Cerdic, I thought, there was none. Cerdic was a cold, hard man, while Aelle had an emotional, even a generous, soul.

  I touched Hywelbane’s hilt and thought of Ceinwyn. I prayed the Gods would let me see her again, and then it was time to slide off my weary horse’s back, twitch my cloak straight, unhook the shield from my saddle’s pommel and go to face my enemies.

  Three hundred warriors must have been feasting on the rush-covered floor of that high, gaunt hall on its damp hilltop. Three hundred raucous, cheerful men, bearded and red-faced, who, unlike us Britons, saw nothing wrong in carrying weapons into a lord’s feasting-hall. Three huge fires flared in the hall’s centre and so thick was the smoke that at first I could not see the men sitting behind the long table at the hall’s far end. No one noticed my entrance, for with my long fair hair and thick beard I looked like a Saxon spearman, but as I was led past the roaring fires a warrior saw the five-pointed white star on my shield and he remembered facing that symbol in battle. A growl erupted through the tumult of talk and laughter. The growl spread until every man in that hall was howling at me as I walked towards the dais on which the high table stood. The howling warriors put down their horns of ale and began to beat their hands against the floor or against their shields so that the high roof echoed with the death-beat.

  The crash of a blade striking the table ended the noise. Aelle had stood, and it was his sword that had driven splinters from the long rough table where a dozen men sat behind heaped plates and full horns. Cerdic was beside him, and on Cerdic’s other side was Lancelot. Nor was Lancelot the only Briton there. Bors, his cousin, slouched beside him while Amhar and Loholt, Arthur’s sons, sat at the table’s end. All of them were enemies of mine, and I touched Hywelbane’s hilt and prayed for a good death.

  Aelle stared at me. He knew me well enough, but did he know I was his son? Lancelot looked astonished to see me, he even blushed, then he beckoned to an interpreter, spoke to him briefly and the interpreter leant towards Cerdic and whispered in the monarch’s ear. Cerdic also knew me, but neither Lancelot’s words, nor his recognition of an enemy, changed the impenetrable expression on his face. It was a clerk’s face, clean-shaven, narrow-chinned, and with a high broad forehead. His lips were thin and his sparse hair was combed severely back to a knot behind his skull, but the otherwise unremarkable face was made memorable by his eyes. They were pale eyes, merciless eyes, a killer’s eyes.

  Aelle seemed too astonished to speak. He was much older than Cerdic, indeed he was a year or two beyond fifty which made him an old man by any reckoning, but he still looked formidable. He was tall, broad-chested, and had a flat, hard face, a broken nose, scarred cheeks and a full black beard. He was dressed in a fine scarlet robe and had a thick gold torque at his neck and more gold about his wrists, but no finery could disguise the fact that Aelle was first and foremost a soldier, a great bear of a Saxon warrior. Two fingers were missing from his right hand, struck off in some long-ago battle where, I daresay, he had taken a bloody revenge. He finally spoke. ‘You dare come here?’

  ‘To see you, Lord King,’ I answered and went down on one knee. I bowed to Aelle, then to Cerdic, but ignored Lancelot. To me he was a nothing, a client King of Cerdic’s, an elegant British traitor whose dark face was filled with loathing for me.

  Cerdic speared a piece of meat on a long knife, brought it towards his mouth, then hesitated. ‘We are receiving no messengers from Arthur,’ he said casually, ‘and any who are foolish enough to come are killed.’ He put the meat in his mouth, then turned away as though he had disposed of me as a piece of trivial business. His men bayed for my death.

  Aelle again silenced the hall by banging his sword blade on the table. ‘Do you come from Arthur?’ he challenged me.

  I decided the Gods would forgive an untruth. ‘I bring you greetings, Lord King,’ I said, ‘from Erce, and the filial respect of Erce’s son who is also, to his joy, your own.’

  The words meant nothing to Cerdic. Lancelot, who had listened to a translation, again whispered urgently to his interpreter and that man spoke once more to Cerdic. I did not doubt that he had encouraged what Cerdic now uttered. ‘He must die,’ Cerdic insisted. He spoke very calmly, as though my death were a small thing. ‘We have an agreement,’ he reminded Aelle.

  ‘Our agreement says we shall receive no embassies from our enemies,’ Aelle said, still staring at me.

  ‘And what else is he?’ Cerdic demanded, at last showing some temper.

  ‘He is my son,’ Aelle said simply, and a gasp sounded all around the crowded hall. ‘He is my son,’ Aelle said again, ‘are you not?’

  ‘I am, Lord King.’

  ‘You have more sons,’ Cerdic told Aelle carelessly, and gestured towards some bearded men who sat at Aelle’s left hand. Those men – I presumed they were my half-brothers – just stared at me in confusion. ‘He brings a message from Arthur!’ Cerdic insisted. ‘That dog,’ he pointed his knife towards me, ‘always serves Arthur.’

  ‘Do you bring a message from Arthur?’ Aelle asked.

  ‘I have a son’s words for a father,’ I lied again, ‘nothing more.’

  ‘He must die!’ Cerdic said curtly, and all his supporters in the hall growled their agreement.

  ‘I will not kill my own son,’ Aelle said, ‘in my own hall.’

  ‘Then I may?’ Cerdic asked acidly. ‘If a Briton comes to us then he must be put to the sword.’ He spoke those words to the whole hall. ‘That is agreed between us!’ Cerdic insisted and his men roared their approval
and beat spear shafts against their shields. ‘That thing,’ Cerdic said, flinging a hand towards me, ‘is a Saxon who fights for Arthur! He is vermin, and you know what you do with vermin!’ The warriors bellowed for my death and their hounds added to the clamour with howls and barks. Lancelot watched me, his face unreadable, while Amhar and Loholt looked eager to help put me to the sword. Loholt had an especial hatred for me, for I had held his arm while his father had struck off his right hand.

  Aelle waited until the tumult had subsided. ‘In my hall,’ he said, stressing the possessive word to show that he ruled here, not Cerdic, ‘a warrior dies with his sword in his hand. Does any man here wish to kill Derfel while he carries his sword?’ He looked about the hall, inviting someone to challenge me. No one did, and Aelle looked down at his fellow King. ‘I will break no agreement with you, Cerdic. Our spears will march together and nothing my son says can prevent that victory.’

  Cerdic picked a scrap of meat from between his teeth. ‘His skull,’ he said, pointing to me, ‘will make a fine standard for battle. I want him dead.’

  ‘Then you kill him,’ Aelle said scornfully. They might have been allies, but there was little affection between them. Aelle resented the younger Cerdic as an upstart, while Cerdic believed the older man lacked ruthlessness.

  Cerdic half smiled at Aelle’s challenge. ‘Not me,’ he said mildly, ‘but my champion will do the work.’ He looked down the hall, found the man he wanted and pointed a finger. ‘Liofa! There is vermin here. Kill it!’

  The warriors cheered again. They relished the thought of a fight, and doubtless before the night was over the ale they were drinking would cause more than a few deadly battles, but a fight to the death between a King’s champion and a King’s son was a far finer entertainment than any drunken brawl and a much better amusement than the melody of the two harpists who watched from the hall’s edges.

  I turned to see my opponent, hoping he would prove to be already half drunk and thus easy meat for Hywelbane, but the man who stepped through the feasters was not at all what I had expected. I thought he would be a huge man, not unlike Aelle, but this champion was a lean, lithe warrior with a calm, shrewd face that carried not a single scar. He gave me an unworried glance as he let his cloak fall, then he pulled a long thin-bladed sword from its leather scabbard. He wore little jewellery, nothing but a plain silver torque, and his clothes had none of the finery that most champions affected. Everything about him spoke of experience and confidence, while his unscarred face suggested either monstrous good luck or uncommon skill. He also looked frighteningly sober as he came to the open space in front of the high table and bowed to the Kings.

  Aelle looked troubled. ‘The price for speaking with me,’ he told me, ‘is to defend yourself against Liofa. Or you may leave now and go home in safety.’ The warriors jeered that suggestion.

  ‘I would speak with you, Lord King,’ I said.

  Aelle nodded, then sat. He still looked unhappy and I guessed that Liofa had a fearsome reputation as a swordsman. He had to be good, or else he would not be Cerdic’s champion, but something about Aelle’s face told me that Liofa was more than just good.

  Yet I too had a reputation, and that seemed to worry Bors who was whispering urgently in Lancelot’s ear. Lancelot, once his cousin had finished, beckoned to the interpreter who in turn spoke with Cerdic. The King listened, then gave me a dark look. ‘How do we know,’ he asked, ‘that this son of yours, Aelle, is not wearing some charm of Merlin’s?’

  The Saxons had always feared Merlin, and the suggestion made them growl angrily.

  Aelle frowned. ‘Do you have one, Derfel?’

  ‘No, Lord King.’

  Cerdic was not convinced. ‘These men would recognize Merlin’s magic,’ he insisted, waving at Lancelot and Bors; then he spoke to the interpreter, who passed on his orders to Bors. Bors shrugged, stood up and walked round the table and off the dais. He hesitated as he approached me, but I spread my arms as though to show that I meant him no harm. Bors examined my wrists, maybe looking for strands of knotted grass or some other amulet, then tugged open the laces of my leather jerkin. ‘Be careful of him, Derfel,’ he muttered in British, and I realized, with surprise, that Bors was no enemy after all. He had persuaded Lancelot and Cerdic that I needed to be searched just so that he could whisper his warning to me. ‘He’s quick as a weasel,’ Bors went on, ‘and he fights with both hands. Watch the bastard when he seems to slip.’ He saw the small golden brooch that had been a present from Ceinwyn. ‘Is it charmed?’ he asked me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll keep it for you anyway,’ he said, unpinning the brooch and showing it to the hall, and the warriors roared their anger that I might have been concealing the talisman. ‘And give me your shield,’ Bors said, for Liofa had none.

  I slipped the loops from my left arm and gave the shield to Bors. He took it and placed it against the dais, then balanced Ceinwyn’s brooch on the shield’s top edge. He looked at me as if to make sure I had seen where he put it and I nodded.

  Cerdic’s champion gave his sword a cut in the smoky air. ‘I have killed forty-eight men in single combat,’ he told me in a mild, almost bored voice, ‘and lost count of the ones who have fallen to me in battle.’ He paused and touched his face. ‘In all those fights,’ he said, ‘I have not once taken a scar. You may yield to me now if you want your death to be swift.’

  ‘You may give me your sword,’ I told him, ‘and spare yourself a beating.’

  The exchange of insults was a formality. Liofa shrugged away my offer and turned to the kings. He bowed again and I did the same. We were standing ten paces apart in the middle of the open space between the dais and the nearest of the three big fires, and on either flank the hall was crammed with excited men. I could hear the chink of coins as wagers were placed.

  Aelle nodded to us, giving his permission for the fight to begin. I drew Hywelbane and raised her hilt to my lips. I kissed one of the little slivers of pig bone that were set there. The two bone scraps were my real talismans and they were far more powerful than the brooch, for the pig bones had once been a part of Merlin’s magic. The scraps of bone gave me no magical protection, but I kissed the hilt a second time, then faced Liofa.

  Our swords are heavy and clumsy things that do not hold their edge in battle and so become little more than great iron clubs that take considerable strength to wield. There is nothing delicate about sword fighting, though there is skill. The skill lies in deception, in persuading an opponent that a blow will come from the left and, when he guards that side, striking from the right, though most sword fights are not won by such skill, but by brute strength. One man will weaken and so his guard will be beaten down and the winner’s sword will hack and beat him to death.

  But Liofa did not fight like that. Indeed, before or since, I have never fought another quite like Liofa. I sensed the difference as he approached me, for his sword blade, though as long as Hywelbane, was much slimmer and lighter. He had sacrificed weight for speed, and I realized that this man would be as fast as Bors had warned me, lightning fast, and just as I realized that, so he attacked, only instead of sweeping the blade in a great curve he lunged with it, trying to rake its point through the muscles of my right arm.

  I walked away from the lunge. These things happen so fast that afterwards, trying to remember the passages of a fight, the mind cannot pin down each move and counter-stroke, but I had seen a flicker in his eye, saw that his sword could only stab forward and I had moved just as he whipped the stab towards me. I pretended that the speed of his lunge had given me no surprise and I made no parry, but just walked past him and then, when I reckoned he must be off balance I snarled and backswung Hywelbane in a blow that would have disembowelled an ox.

  He leapt backwards, not off balance at all, and spread his arms wide so that my blow scythed a harmless six inches from his belly. He waited for me to swing again, but instead I was waiting for him. Men were shouting at us, calling for blood, but I had n
o ears for them. I kept my gaze fixed on Liofa’s calm grey eyes. He hefted the sword in his right hand, flicked it forward to touch my blade, then swung at me.

  I parried easily, then countered his backswing which followed as naturally as the day follows the night. The clangour of the swords was loud, but I could feel that there was no real effort in Liofa’s blows. He was offering me the fight I might have expected, but he was also judging me as he edged forward and as he swung blow after blow. I parried the cuts, sensing when they became harder, and just when I expected him to make a real effort he checked a blow, let go of the sword in mid-air, snatched it with his left hand and slashed it straight down towards my head. He did it with the speed of a viper striking.

  Hywelbane caught that downward cut. I do not know how she did it. I had been parrying a sideways blow and suddenly there was no sword there, but only death above my skull, yet somehow my blade was in the right place and his lighter sword slid down to Hywelbane’s hilt and I tried to convert the parry into a counter-cut, but there was no force in my response and he leapt easily backwards. I kept going forward, cutting as he had cut, only doing it with all my strength so that any one of the blows would have gutted him, and the speed and force of my attacks gave him no choice but to retreat. He parried the blows as easily as I had parried his, but there was no resistance in the parries. He was letting me swing, and instead of defending with his sword he was protecting himself by constantly retreating. He was also letting me exhaust my strength on thin air instead of on bone and muscle and blood. I gave a last massive cut, checked the blade in mid swing and twisted my wrist to lunge Hywelbane at his belly.

  His sword edged towards the lunge, then whipped back at me as he sidestepped. I made the same quick sidestep, so that each of us missed. Instead we clashed, breast to breast, and I smelt his breath. There was a faint smell of ale, though he was certainly not drunk. He froze for a heartbeat, then courteously moved his sword arm aside and looked quizzically at me as if to suggest that we agree to break apart. I nodded, and we both stepped backwards, swords held wide, while the crowd talked excitedly. They knew they were watching a rare fight. Liofa was famous among them, and I dare say my name was not obscure, but I knew I was probably outmatched. My skills, if I had any, were a soldier’s skills. I knew how to break a shield wall, I knew how to fight with spear and shield, or with sword and shield, but Liofa, Cerdic’s champion, had only one skill and that was to fight man on man with a sword. He was lethal.