Excalibur

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Yes,’ I said, standing as Taliesin came closer.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Taliesin shouted, ‘wait!’ He carried nothing except a small leather bag and a gilded harp. ‘Wait!’ he called again, then hitched up the skirts of his white robe, took off his shoes, and waded into the glutinous mud of the Usk’s bank.

  ‘Can’t wait for ever,’ Balig grumbled as the bard struggled through the steep mud. ‘Tide’s going fast.’

  ‘One moment, one moment,’ Taliesin called. He threw his harp, bag and shoes on board, hitched his skirts still higher and waded into the water. Balig reached out, clasped the bard’s hand and hauled him unceremoniously over the gunwale. Taliesin sprawled on the deck, found his shoes, bag and harp, then wrung water from the skirts of his robe. ‘You don’t mind if I come, Lord?’ he asked me, the silver fillet askew on his black hair.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Not that I intend to accompany you. I just wish passage to Dumnonia.’ He straightened the silver fillet, then frowned at my grinning spearmen. ‘Do those men know how to row?’

  ‘Course they don’t,’ Balig answered for me. ‘They’re spearmen, no use for anything useful. Do it together, you bastards! Ready? Push forward! Oars down! Pull!’ He shook his head in mock despair. ‘Might as well teach pigs to dance.’

  It was about nine miles to the open sea from Isca, nine miles that we covered swiftly because our boat was carried by the ebbing tide and the river’s swirling current. The Usk slid between glistening mudbanks that climbed to fallow fields, bare woods and wide marshes. Wicker fish traps stood on the banks where herons and gulls pecked at the flapping salmon stranded by the falling tide. Redshanks called plaintively while snipe climbed and swooped above their nests. We hardly needed the oars, for together the tide and current were carrying us fast, and once we reached the widening water where the river spilled into the Severn, Balig and his crewman hoisted a ragged brown sail that caught the west wind and made the boat surge forward. ‘Ship those oars now,’ he ordered my men, then he grasped the big steering oar and stood happily as the small ship dipped her blunt prow into the first big waves. ‘The sea will be lively today, Lord,’ he called cheerfully. ‘Scoop that water out!’ he shouted to my spearmen. ‘The wet stuff belongs outside a boat, not in it.’ Balig grinned at my incipient misery. ‘Three hours, Lord, that’s all, and we’ll have you ashore.’

  ‘You dislike boats?’ Taliesin asked me.

  ‘I hate them.’

  ‘A prayer to Manawydan should avert sickness,’ he said calmly. He had hauled a pile of nets beside my chest and now sat on them. He was plainly untroubled by the boat’s violent motion, indeed he seemed to enjoy it. ‘I slept last night in the amphitheatre,’ he told me. ‘I like to do that,’ he went on when he saw I was tod miserable to respond. ‘The banked seats serve like a dream tower.’

  I glanced at him, my sickness somehow lessened by those last two words for they reminded me of Merlin who had once possessed a dream tower on the summit of Ynys Wydryn’s Tor. Merlin’s dream tower had been a hollow wooden structure that he claimed magnified the messages of the Gods, and I could understand how Isca’s Roman amphitheatre with its high banked seats set about its raked sand arena might serve the same purpose. ‘Were you seeing the future?’ I managed to ask him.

  ‘Some of it,’ he admitted, ‘but I also met Merlin in my dream last night.’

  The mention of that name drove away the last qualms in my belly. ‘You spoke with Merlin?’ I asked.

  ‘He spoke to me,’ Taliesin corrected me, ‘but he could not hear me.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘More than I can tell you, Lord, and nothing you wish to hear.’

  ‘What?’ I demanded.

  He grabbed at the stern post as the boat pitched off a steep wave. Water sprayed back from the bows and spattered on the bundles that held our armour. Taliesin made sure his harp was well protected under his robe, then touched the silver fillet that circled his tonsured head to make certain it was still in place. ‘I think, Lord, that you travel into danger,’ he said calmly.

  ‘Is that Merlin’s message,’ I asked, touching the iron of Hywel-bane’s hilt, ‘or one of your visions?’

  ‘Only a vision,’ he confessed, ‘and as I once told you, Lord, it is better to see the present clearly than to try and discern a shape in the visions of the future.’ He paused, evidently considering his next words carefully. ‘You have not, I think, heard definite news of Mordred’s death?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If my vision was right,’ he said, ‘then your King is not sick at all, but has recovered. I could be wrong, indeed I pray I am wrong, but have you had any omens?’

  ‘About Mordred’s death?’ I asked.

  ‘About your own future, Lord,’ he said.

  I thought for a second. There had been the small augury of the salmon-fisher’s net, but that I ascribed to my own superstitious fears rather than to the Gods. More worryingly, the small blue-green agate in the ring that Aelle had given to Ceinwyn had fallen out, and one of my old cloaks had been stolen, and though both events could have been construed as bad omens, they could equally well be mere mishaps. It was hard to tell, and neither loss seemed portentous enough to mention to Taliesin. ‘Nothing has worried me lately,’ I told him instead.

  ‘Good,’ he said, rocking to the boat’s motion. His long black hair flapped in the wind that was stretching the belly of our sail taut and streaming its frayed edges. The wind was also skimming the tops from the white-crested waves and driving the spray inboard, though I think more water came into the boat through its gaping seams than across its gunwales. My spearmen bailed lustily. ‘But I think Mordred lives still,’ Taliesin went on, ignoring the frantic activity in the boat’s centre, ‘and that the news of his imminent death is a ruse. But I could not swear to that. Sometimes we mistake our fears for prophecy. But I did not imagine Merlin, Lord, nor any of his words in my dream.’

  Again I touched Hywelbane’s hilt. I had always thought that any mention of Merlin would be reassuring, but Taliesin’s calm words were chilling.

  ‘I dreamed that Merlin was in a thick wood,’ Taliesin went on in his precise voice, ‘and could not find his way out; indeed, whenever a path opened before him, a tree would groan and move as though it were a great beast shifting to block his way. Merlin, the dream tells me, is in trouble. I talked to him in the dream, but he could not hear me. What that tells me, I think, is that he cannot be reached. If we sent men to find him, they would fail and they might even die. But he wants help, that I do know, for he sent me the dream.’

  ‘Where is this wood?’ I asked.

  The bard turned his dark, deep-set eyes onto me. ‘There may be no wood, Lord. Dreams are like songs. Their task is not to offer an exact image of the world, but a suggestion of it. The wood, I think, tells me that Merlin is imprisoned.’

  ‘By Nimue,’ I said, for I could think of no one else who would dare challenge the Druid.

  Taliesin nodded. ‘She, I think, is his jailer. She wants his power, and when she has it she will use it to impose her dream on Britain.’

  I was finding it difficult even to think about Merlin and Nimue. For years we had lived without them and, as a result, our world’s boundaries had taken on a precise hardness. We were bounded by Mordred’s existence, by Meurig’s ambitions and by Arthur’s hopes, not by the misty, swirling uncertainties of Merlin’s dreams. ‘But Nimue’s dream,’ I objected, ‘is the same as Merlin’s.’

  ‘No, Lord,’ Taliesin said gently, ‘it is not.’

  ‘She wants what he wants,’ I insisted, ‘to restore the Gods!’

  ‘But Merlin,’ Taliesin said, ‘gave Excalibur to Arthur. And do you not see that he gave part of his power to Arthur with that gift? I have wondered about that gift for a long time, for Merlin would never explain it to me, but I think I understand it now. Merlin knew that if the Gods failed, then Arthur might succeed. And Arthur did succeed, but his victory at Mynydd
Baddon was not complete. It keeps the Isle of Britain in British hands, but it did not defeat the Christians, and that is a defeat for the old Gods. Nimue, Lord, will never accept that half-victory. For Nimue it is the Gods or it is nothing. She does not care what horrors come to Britain so long as the Gods return and strike down her enemies, and to achieve that, Lord, she wants Excalibur. She wants every scrap of power so that when she relights the fires the Gods will have no choice but to respond.’

  I understood then. ‘And with Excalibur,’ I said, ‘she will want Gwydre.’

  ‘She will indeed, Lord,’ Taliesin agreed. ‘The son of a ruler is a source of power, and Arthur, whether he wills it or not, is still the most famous leader in Britain. If he had ever chosen to be a king, Lord, he would have been named High King. So, yes, she wants Gwydre.’

  I stared at Taliesin’s profile. He actually seemed to be enjoying the boat’s terrifying motion. ‘Why do you tell me this?’ I asked him.

  My question puzzled him. ‘Why should I not tell you?’

  ‘Because by telling me,’ I said, ‘you warn me to protect Gwydre, and if I protect Gwydre then I prevent the return of the Gods. And you, if I’m not mistaken, would like to see those Gods return.’

  ‘I would,’ he acknowledged, ‘but Merlin asked me to tell you.’

  ‘But why would Merlin want me to protect Gwydre?’ I demanded. ‘He wants the Gods to return!’

  ‘You forget, Lord, that Merlin foresaw two paths. One was the path of the Gods, the other the path of man, and Arthur is that second path. If Arthur is destroyed, then we have only the Gods, and I think Merlin knows that the Gods do not hear us any more. Remember what happened to Gawain.’

  ‘He died,’ I said bleakly, ‘but he carried his banner into battle.’

  ‘He died,’ Taliesin corrected me, ‘and was then placed in the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. He should have come back to life, Lord, for that is the Cauldron’s power, but he did not. He did not breathe again and that surely means the old magic is waning. It is not dead, and I suspect it will cause great mischief before it dies, but Merlin, I think, is telling us to look to man, not to the Gods, for our happiness.’

  I shut my eyes as a big wave shattered white on the boat’s high prow. ‘You’re saying,’ I said, when the spray had vanished, ‘that Merlin has failed?’

  ‘I think Merlin knew he had failed when the Cauldron did not revive Gawain. Why else did he bring the body to Mynydd Baddon? If Merlin had thought, for even one heartbeat, that he could use Gawain’s body to summon the Gods then he would never have dissipated its magic in the battle.’

  ‘He still took the ashes back to Nimue,’ I said.

  ‘True,’ Taliesin admitted, ‘but that was because he had promised to help her, and even Gawain’s ashes would have retained some of the corpse’s power. Merlin might know he has failed, but like any man he is reluctant to abandon his dream and perhaps he believed Nimue’s energy might prove effective? But what he did not foresee, Lord, was the extent to which she would misuse him.’

  ‘Punish him,’ I said bitterly.

  Taliesin nodded. ‘She despises him because he failed, and she believes that he conceals knowledge from her, and so even now, Lord, in this very wind, she is forcing Merlin’s secrets from him. She knows much, but she does not know all, yet if my dream is right then she is drawing out his knowledge. It might take months or years for her to learn all she needs, but she will learn, Lord, and when she knows she will use the power. And you, I think, will know it first.’ He gripped the nets as the boat pitched alarmingly. ‘Merlin commanded me to warn you, Lord, and so I do, but against what? I don’t know.’ He smiled apologetically.

  ‘Against this voyage to Dumnonia?’ I asked.

  Taliesin shook his head. ‘I think your danger is much greater than anything planned by your enemies in Dumnonia. Indeed, your danger is so great, Lord, that Merlin wept. He also told me he wanted to die.’ Taliesin gazed up at the sail. ‘And if I knew where he was, Lord, and had the power, I would send you to kill him. But instead we must wait for Nimue to reveal herself.’

  I gripped Hywelbane’s cold hilt. ‘So what are you advising me to do?’ I asked him.

  ‘It is not my place to give advice to lords,’ Taliesin said. He turned and smiled at me, and I suddenly saw that his deep-set eyes were cold. ‘It does not matter to me, Lord, whether you live or die for I am the singer and you are my song, but for now, I admit, I follow you to discover the melody and, if I must, to change it. Merlin asked that of me, and I will do it for him, but I think he is saving you from one danger only to expose you to a still greater one.’

  ‘You’re not making sense,’ I said harshly.

  ‘I am, Lord, but neither of us yet understands the sense. I’m sure it will come clear.’ He sounded so calm, but my fears were as grey as the clouds above and as tumultuous as the seas below. I touched Hywelbane’s reassuring hilt, prayed to Manawydan, and told myself that Taliesin’s warning was only a dream and nothing but a dream, and that dreams could not kill.

  But they can, and they do. And somewhere in Britain, in a dark place, Nimue had the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn and was using it to stir our dreams into nightmare.

  Balig landed us on a beach somewhere on the Dumnonian coastline. Taliesin offered me a cheerful farewell, then strode long-legged off into the dunes. ‘Do you know where you’re going?’ I called after him.

  ‘I will when I reach there, Lord,’ he called back, then disappeared.

  We pulled on our armour. I had not brought my finest gear, simply an old and serviceable breastplate and a battered helmet. I slung my shield on my back, picked up my spear, and followed Taliesin inland. ‘You know where we are, Lord?’ Eachern asked me.

  ‘Near enough,’ I said. In the rain ahead I could make out a range of hills. ‘We go south of those and we’ll reach Dun Caric’

  ‘You want me to fly the banner, Lord?’ Eachern asked. Rather than my banner of the star we had brought Gwydre’s banner which showed Arthur’s bear entwined with Dumnonia’s dragon, but I decided against carrying it unfurled. A banner in the wind is a nuisance and, besides, eleven spearmen marching beneath a gaudy great flag would look ridiculous rather than impressive, and so I decided to wait until Issa’s men could reinforce my own small band before unrolling the flag on its long staff.

  We found a track in the dunes and followed it through a wood of small thorns and hazels to a tiny settlement of six hovels. The folk ran at the sight of us, leaving only an old woman who was too bent and crippled to move fast. She sank onto the ground and spat defiantly as we approached. ‘You’ll get nothing here,’ she said hoarsely, ‘we own nothing except dung-heaps. Dung-heaps and hunger, Lords, that’s all you’ll fetch from us.’

  I crouched beside her. ‘We want nothing,’ I told her, ‘except news.’

  ‘News?’ The very word seemed strange to her.

  ‘Do you know who your King is?’ I asked her gently.

  ‘Uther, Lord,’ she said. ‘A big man, he is, Lord. Like a God!’

  It was plain we would fetch no news from the hovel, or none that would make sense, and so we walked on, stopping only to eat some of the bread and dried meat that we carried in our pouches. I was in my own country, yet it felt curiously as though I walked an enemy land and I chided myself for giving too much credit to Taliesin’s vague warnings, yet still I kept to the hidden wooded paths and, as evening fell, I led my small company up through a beech wood to higher ground where we might have a sight of any other spearmen. We saw none, but, far to the south, an errant ray of the dying sun lanced through a cloud bank to touch Ynys Wydryn’s Tor green and bright.

  We lit no fire. Instead we slept beneath the beech trees and in the morning woke cold and stiff. We walked east, staying under the leafless trees, while beneath us, in damp heavy fields, men ploughed stiff furrows, women sowed a crop and small children ran screaming to frighten the birds away from the precious seed. ‘I used to do that in Ireland,’ Eachern said. ‘Spe
nt half my childhood frightening birds away.’

  ‘Nail a crow to the plough, that’ll do it,’ one of the other spearmen offered.

  ‘Nail crows to every tree near the field,’ another suggested.

  ‘Doesn’t stop them,’ a third man put in, ‘but it makes you feel better.’

  We were following a narrow track between deep hedgerows. The leaves had not unfurled to hide the nests so magpies and jays were busy stealing eggs and they screeched in protest when we came close. ‘The folks will know we’re here, Lord,’ Eachern said, ‘they may not see us, but they’ll know. They’ll hear the jays.’

  ‘It won’t matter,’ I said. I was not even sure why I was taking such care to stay hidden, except that we were so few and, like most warriors, I yearned for the security of numbers and knew I would feel a great deal more comfortable once the rest of my men were around me. Till then we would hide ourselves as best we could, though at mid-morning our route took us out of the trees and down into the open fields that led to the Fosse Way. Buck hares danced in the meadows and skylarks sang above us. We saw no one, though doubtless the peasants saw us, and doubtless the news of our passing rippled swiftly through the countryside. Armed men were ever cause for alarm, and so I had some of my men carry their shields in front so that their insignia would reassure the local people we were friends. It was not until we had crossed the Roman road and were close to Dun Caric that I saw another human, and that was a woman who, when we were still too far away for her to see the stars on our shields, ran to the woods behind the village to hide herself among the trees. ‘Folks are nervous,’ I said to Eachern.

  ‘They’ve heard about Mordred dying,’ he said, spitting, ‘and they’re fearing what’U happen next, but they should be happy the bastard’s dying.’ When Mordred was a child, Eachern had been one of his guards and the experience had given the Irish spearman a deep hatred for the King. I was fond of Eachern. He was not a clever man, but he was dogged, loyal and hard in battle. ‘They reckon there’ll be war, Lord,’ he said.