Excalibur

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘And?’ She glared at me. Cuneglas was her husband’s grandfather and family pride was at stake. ‘Well?’

  ‘I was there, Lady,’ I said simply.

  ‘You have an old man’s memory, Derfel,’ she said disapprovingly, and I have no doubt that when Dafydd, the clerk of the justice who writes down the British translation of my parchments, comes to the passage on Cuneglas’s death he will change it to suit my Lady’s taste. And why not? Cuneglas was a hero and it will not hurt if history remembers him as a great warrior, though in reality he was no soldier. He was a decent man, and a sensible one, and wise beyond his years, but he was not a man whose heart swelled when he gripped a spear shaft. His death was the tragedy of Mynydd Baddon, but a tragedy none of us saw in the delirium of victory. We burned him on the battlefield and his balefire flamed for three days and three nights, and on the last dawn, when there were only embers amidst which were the melted remnants of Cuneglas’s armour, we gathered around the pyre and sang the Death Song of Weriinna. We killed a score of Saxon prisoners too, sending their souls to escort Cuneglas in honour to the Otherworld, and I remember thinking that it was good for my darling Dian that her uncle had crossed the bridge of swords to keep her company in Annwn’s towered world.

  ‘And Arthur,’ Igraine said eagerly, ‘did he run to Guinevere?’

  ‘I never saw their reunion,’ I said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter what you saw,’ Igraine said severely, ‘we need it here.’ She stirred the heap of finished parchments with her foot. ‘You should have described their meeting, Derfel.’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t see it.’

  ‘What does that matter? It would have made a very good ending to the battle. Not everyone likes to hear about spears and killing, Derfel. Tales of men fighting can get very boring after a while and a love story makes it all a lot more interesting.’ And no doubt the battle will be filled with romance once she and Dafydd maul my story. I sometimes wish I could write this tale in the British tongue, but two of the monks can read and either could betray me to Sansum; so I must write in Saxon and trust that Igraine does not change the story when Dafydd provides her with the translation. I know what Igraine wants: she wants Arthur to run through the corpses, and for Guinevere to wait for him with open arms, and for the two of them to meet in ecstasy, and maybe that is how it did happen, but I suspect not, for she was too proud and he was too diffident. I imagine they wept when they met, but neither ever told me, so I shall invent nothing. I do know that Arthur became a happy man after Mynydd Baddon, and it was not just victory over the Saxons that gave him that happiness.

  ‘And what about Argante?’ Igraine wanted to know. ‘You leave so much out, Derfel!’

  ‘I shall come to Argante.’

  ‘But her father was there. Wasn’t Oengus angry that Arthur went back to Guinevere?’

  ‘I will tell you all about Argante,’ I promised, ‘in due time.’

  ‘And Amhar and Loholt? You haven’t forgotten them?’

  ‘They escaped,’ I said. ‘They found a coracle and paddled it across the river. I fear we shall meet them again in this tale.’

  Igraine tried to prise some more details from me, but I insisted I would tell the story at my own pace and in my own order. She finally abandoned her questions and stooped to put the written parchments into the leather bag she used to carry them back to the Caer; she found stooping difficult, but refused my help. ‘I shall be so glad when the baby’s born,’ she said. ‘My breasts are sore, my legs and back ache, and I don’t walk any more, I just waddle like a goose. Brochvael’s bored with it too.’

  ‘Husbands never like it when their wives are pregnant,’ I said.

  ‘Then they shouldn’t try so hard to fill their bellies,’ Igraine said tartly. She paused to listen as Sansum screamed at Brother Llewellyn for having left his milk pail in the passageway. Poor Llewellyn. He is a novice in our monastery and no one works harder for less thanks and now, because of a limewood bucket, he is to be condemned to a week of daily beatings from Saint Tudwal, the young man – indeed scarce more than a child – who is being groomed to be Sansum’s successor. Our whole monastery lives in fear of Tudwal, and I alone escape the worst of his pique thanks to Igraine’s friendship. Sansum needs her husband’s protection too much to risk Igraine’s displeasure.

  ‘This morning,’ Igraine said, *I saw a stag with only one antler. It’s a bad omen, Derfel.’

  ‘We Christians,’ I said, ‘do not believe in omens.’

  ‘But I see you touching that nail in your desk,’ she said.

  ‘We are not always good Christians.’

  She paused. ‘I’m worried about the birth.’

  ‘We are all praying for you,’ I said, and knew it was an inadequate response. But I had done more than just pray in our monastery’s small chapel. I had found an eagle stone, scratched her name on its surface and buried it beside an ash tree. If Sansum knew I had made that ancient charm he would forget about his need for Brochvael’s protection and have Saint Tudwal beat me bloody for a month. But then, if the saint knew I was writing this tale of Arthur he would do the same.

  But write it I shall and for a time it will be easy, for now comes the happy time, the years of peace. But they were also the years of encroaching darkness, but we did not see that, for we only saw the sunlight and never heeded the shadows. We thought we had beaten the shadows, and that the sun would light Britain for ever. Mynydd Baddon was Arthur’s victory, his greatest achievement, and perhaps the story should end there; but Igraine is right, life does not have tidy endings and so I must go on with this tale of Arthur, my Lord, my friend and the deliverer of Britain.

  Arthur let Aelle’s men live. They laid down their spears and were distributed among the winners to be slaves. I used some of them to help dig my father’s grave. We dug it deep into that soft damp earth beside the river, and there we laid Aelle with his feet facing north and with his sword in his hand, and with the breastplate over his broken heart, his shield across his belly and the spear that had killed him alongside his corpse, and then we filled the grave and I said a prayer to Mithras while the Saxons prayed to their God of Thunder.

  By evening the first funeral pyres were burning. I helped lay the corpses of my own men on their pyres, then left their comrades singing their souls to the Otherworld while I retrieved my horse and rode northwards through the long soft shadows. I rode towards the village where our women had found shelter and as I climbed into the northern hills the noise of the battlefield receded. It was the sound of fires crackling, of women weeping, of chanted elegies and of drunken men whooping savagely.

  I took the news of Cuneglas’s death to Ceinwyn. She stared at me when I told her and for a moment she showed no reaction, but then tears welled in her eyes. She pulled her cloak over her head. ‘Poor Perddel,’ she said, meaning Cuneglas’s son who was now the King of Powys. I told her how her brother had died, and then she retreated into the cottage where she and our daughters were living. She wanted to bind up my head wound that looked much worse than it was, but she could not do it for she and her daughters must mourn Cuneglas and that meant they must shut themselves away for three days and nights in which they must hide from the sun and could neither see nor touch any man.

  It was dark by then. I could have stayed in the village, but I was restless and so, under the light of a thinning moon, I rode back south. I went first to Aquae Sulis, thinking that I might find Arthur in the city, but found only the torch-lit remnants of carnage. Our levy had flooded over the inadequate wall and slaughtered whoever they found inside, but the horror ended once Tewdric’s troops occupied the city. Those Christians cleaned the temple of Minerva, scooping out the entrails of three sacrificed bulls that the Saxons had left spilling bloodily across the tiles, and once the shrine was restored the Christians held a rite of thanksgiving. I heard their singing and went to find songs of my own, but my men had stayed in Cerdic’s ruined camp and Aquae Sulis was filled with strangers. I could not fin
d Arthur, or any other friend except Culhwch and he was roaring drunk, and so, in the soft dark, I rode east along the river. The air stank of blood and was filled with ghosts, but I risked the wraiths in my desperation to find a companion. I did find a group of Sagramor’s men singing about a fire, but they did not know where their commander was, and so I rode on, drawn still farther eastwards by the sight of men dancing around a fire.

  The dancers were Blackshields and their steps were high for they were dancing across the severed heads of their enemies. I would have ridden around the capering Blackshields, but then glimpsed two white-robed figures sitting calmly beside the fire amidst the ring of dancers. One of them was Merlin.

  I tied my horse’s reins to a thorn stump, then stepped through the dancing ring. Merlin and his companion were making a meal of bread, cheese and ale, and when Merlin first saw me he did not recognize me. ‘Go away,’ he snapped, ‘or I shall turn you into a toad. Oh, it’s you, Derfel!’ He sounded disappointed. ‘I knew if I found food that some empty belly would expect me to share it. I suppose you’re hungry?’

  ‘I am, Lord.’

  He gestured for me to sit beside him. ‘I suspect the cheese is Saxon,’ he said dubiously, ‘and it was rather covered in blood when I discovered it, but I washed it clean. Well, I wiped it anyway, and it’s proving surprisingly edible. I suppose there’s just enough for you.’ In truth there was enough for a dozen men. ‘This is Taliesin,’ he curtly introduced his companion. ‘He’s some kind of bard out of Powys.’

  I looked at the famous bard and saw a young man with a keenly intelligent face. He had shaved the front part of his head like a Druid, wore a short black beard, had a long jaw, sunken cheeks and a narrow nose. His shaven forehead was circled by a thin fillet of silver. He smiled and bowed his head. ‘Your fame precedes you, Lord Derfel.’

  ‘As does yours,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Merlin groaned. ‘If you two are going to grovel all over each other then go somewhere else and do it. Derfel fights,’ he told Taliesin, ‘because he has never really grown up, and you’re famous because you happen to have a passable voice.’

  ‘I make songs as well as sing them,’ Taliesin said modestly.

  ‘And any man can make a song if he’s drunk enough,’ Merlin said dismissively, then squinted at me. ‘Is that blood on your hair?’

  ‘Yes, Lord.’

  ‘You should be grateful you weren’t wounded anywhere crucial.’ He laughed at that, then gestured at the Blackshields. ‘What do you think of my bodyguard?’

  ‘They dance well.’

  ‘They have much to dance about. What a satisfying day,’ Merlin said. ‘And didn’t Gawain play his part well? It’s so gratifying when a halfwit proves to be of some use, and what a halfwit Gawain was! A tedious boy! Forever trying to improve the world. Why do the young always believe they know more than their elders? You, Taliesin, do not suffer from that tedious misapprehension. Taliesin,’ Merlin now explained to me, ‘has come to learn from my wisdom.’

  ‘I have much to learn,’ Taliesin murmured.

  ‘Very true, very true,’ Merlin said. He pushed a jug of ale towards me. ‘Did you enjoy your little battle, Derfel?’

  ‘No.’ In truth I was feeling oddly downcast. ‘Cuneglas died,’ I explained.

  ‘I heard about Cuneglas,’ Merlin said. ‘What a fool! He should have left the heroics to halfwits like you. Still, it’s a pity he died. He wasn’t exactly a clever man, not what I should call clever, but he was no halfwit and that’s rare enough in these sad days. And he was always kind to me.’

  ‘He was kindness itself to me,’ Taliesin put in.

  ‘So now you will have to find a new patron,’ Merlin told the bard, ‘and don’t look at Derfel. He couldn’t tell a decent song from a bullock’s fart. The trick of a successful life,’ he was now lecturing Taliesin, ‘is to be born with wealthy parents. I have lived very comfortably off my rents, though come to think of it I haven’t collected them for years. Do you pay me rent, Derfel?’

  ‘I should, Lord, but never know where to send it.’

  ‘Not that it matters now,’ Merlin said. ‘I’m old and feeble. Doubtless I shall be dead soon.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ I said, ‘you look wonderfully fit.’ He looked old, of course, but there was a spark of mischief in his eyes and a liveliness to his ancient, creased face. His hair and beard were beautifully plaited and bound in black ribbons, while his gown, except for the dried blood, was clean. He was also happy; not, I think, just because we had achieved victory, but because he enjoyed Taliesin’s company.

  ‘Victory gives life,’ he said dismissively, ‘but we’ll soon enough forget victory. Where’s Arthur?’

  ‘No one knows,’ I said. ‘I heard he spent a long time talking with Tewdric, but he’s not with him now. I suspect he found Guinevere.’

  Merlin sneered. ‘A hound returns to its vomit.’

  ‘I’m beginning to like her,’ I said defensively.

  ‘You would,’ he said scornfully, ‘and I dare say she won’t do any harm now. She would make you a good patron,’ he told Taliesin, ‘she has an absurd respect for poets. Just don’t climb into bed with her.’

  ‘No danger of that, Lord,’ Taliesin said.

  Merlin laughed. ‘Our young bard here,’ he told me, ‘is celibate. He is a gelded lark. He has forsworn the greatest pleasure a man can have in order to preserve his gift.’

  Taliesin saw my curiosity and smiled. ‘Not my voice, Lord Derfel, but the gift of prophecy.’

  ‘And it’s a genuine gift!’ Merlin said with unfeigned admiration, ‘though I doubt it’s worth celibacy. If I had ever been asked to pay that price I’d have abandoned the Druid’s staff! I’d have taken humble employment instead, like being a bard or a spearman.’

  ‘You see the future?’ I asked Taliesin.

  ‘He foresaw victory today,’ Merlin said, ‘and he knew of Cuneglas’s death a month ago, though he didn’t scry that a useless Saxon lump would come and steal all my cheese.’ He snatched the cheese back from me. ‘I suppose now,’ he said, ‘that you want him to forecast your future, Derfel?’

  ‘No, Lord.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Merlin said, ‘always better not to know the future. Everything ends in tears, that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘But joy is renewed,’ Taliesin said softly.

  ‘Oh, dear me, no!’ Merlin cried. ‘Joy is renewed! The dawn comes! The tree buds! The clouds part! The ice melts! You can do better than that sort of sentimental rubbish.’ He fell silent. His bodyguard had ended their dance and gone to amuse themselves with some captured Saxon women. The women had children, and their cries were loud enough to annoy Merlin, who scowled. ‘Fate is inexorable,’ he said sourly, ‘and everything ends in tears.’

  ‘Is Nimue with you?’ I asked him, and saw immediately from Taliesin’s warning expression that I had asked the wrong question.

  Merlin gazed into the fire. The flames spat an ember towards him, and he spat back to return the fire’s malice. ‘Do not speak to me of Nimue,’ he said after he had spat. His good mood had vanished and I felt embarrassed for having asked the question. He touched his black staff, then sighed. ‘She is angry with me,’ he explained.

  ‘Why, Lord?’

  ‘Because she can’t have her own way, of course. That’s what usually makes people angry.’ Another log cracked in the fire, spewing sparks that he brushed irritably from his robe after he had spat at the flames. ‘Larchwood,’ he said. ‘Newly cut larch hates to be burned.’ He gazed at me broodingly. ‘Nimue did not approve of me bringing Gawain to this battle. She believes it was a waste, and I think, probably, that she was right.’

  ‘He brought victory, Lord,’ I said.

  He closed his eyes and seemed to sigh, intimating that I was a fool too great for endurance. ‘I have devoted my whole life,’ he said after a while, ‘to one thing. One simple thing. I wanted to restore the Gods. Is that so very hard to understand? But to do anything well, Der
fel, takes a lifetime. Oh, it’s all right for fools like you, you can fritter about being a magistrate one day and a spearman the next, and when it’s all over, what have you achieved? Nothing! To change the world, Derfel, you have to be single-minded. Arthur comes close,’ I’ll say that for him. He wants to make Britain safe from Saxons, and he’s probably achieved that for a while, but they still exist and they’ll come back. Maybe not in my lifetime, maybe not even in yours, but your children and your children’s children will have to fight this battle all over again. There is only one way to real victory.’

  ‘The way of the Gods,’ I said.

  ‘The way of the Gods,’ he agreed, ‘and that was my life’s work.’ He gazed down at his black Druid’s staff for a moment and Taliesin sat very still, watching him. ‘I had a dream as a child,’ Merlin said very softly. ‘I went to the cave of Cam Ingli and dreamed that I had wings and could fly high enough to see all the isle of Britain, and it was so very beautiful. Beautiful and green and surrounded by a great mist that kept all our enemies away. The blessed isle, Derfel, the isle of the Gods, the one place on earth that was worthy of them, and ever since that dream, Derfel, that is all I ever wanted. To bring that blessed isle back. To bring the Gods back.’

  ‘But,’ I tried to interrupt.

  ‘Don’t be absurd!’ he shouted, making Taliesin smile. ‘Think!’ Merlin appealed to me. ‘My life’s work, Derfel!’

  ‘Mai Dun,’ I said softly.

  He nodded and then, for a while, he said nothing. Men were singing in the distance and everywhere there were fires. The wounded cried in the dark where dogs and scavengers preyed on the dead and the dying. In the dawn this army would wake drunk to the horror of a field after battle, but for now they sang and gorged themselves on captured ale. ‘At Mai Dun,’ Merlin broke his silence, ‘I came so close. Very close. But I was too weak, Derfel, too weak. I love Arthur too much. Why? He isn’t witty, his conversation can be as tedious as Gawain’s, and he has an absurd devotion to virtue, but I do love him. You, too, as it happens. A weakness, I know. I can enjoy supple men, but I like honest men. I admire simple strength, you see, and at Mai Dun I let that liking weaken me.’