The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur

by Bernard Cornwell

  Morgan answered the monk from behind her golden mask. She spoke with unaccustomed deference as she claimed that Gundleus’s messenger had lied. She and Nimue, Morgan said, had peered into the cauldron and seen the truth reflected in its watery mirror. There was no victory in the north, nor was there defeat there either, but Morgan warned that the enemy was closer to Ynys Wydryn than any of us knew and that we should all be ready to leave the Tor at first light and seek safety deeper inside southern Dumnonia. Morgan spoke the words soberly and heavily, and when she had finished she bowed to the Queen, then bent awkwardly forward to kiss the hem of Norwenna’s blue robe.

  Norwenna snatched the robe away. She had listened in silence to the dour prophecy, but now she began to cry and with the sudden tears came a wash of anger. ‘You’re just a crippled witch!’ she screamed at Morgan, ‘and want your bastard brother to be King. It won’t happen! You hear me! It will not happen. My baby is King!’

  ‘High Lady –’ Nimue tried to intervene, but was immediately interrupted.

  ‘You’re nothing!’ Norwenna turned on Nimue savagely. ‘You’re nothing but an hysterical, wicked child of the devil. You’ve put a curse on my child! I know you have! He was born crooked because you were present at his birth. Oh God! My child!’ She was screaming and weeping, beating her fist on the table as she spat her hatred at Nimue and Morgan. ‘Now go! Both of you! Go!’ There was silence in the hall as Nimue and Morgan went into the night.

  And next morning it seemed Norwenna must be right for no beacons blazed on the northern hills. It was, indeed, the most beautiful day of that beautiful summer. The land was heavy as it neared harvest, the hills were hazed by the somnolent heat and the sky almost cloudless. Cornflowers and poppies grew in the thorn thickets at the Tor’s foot and white butterflies sailed the warm air currents that ghosted up our patterned green slopes. Norwenna, oblivious to the day’s beauty, chanted her morning prayers with the visiting monks, then decreed she would move from the Tor and wait for her husband’s arrival in the pilgrims’ chambers in the shrine of the Holy Thorn. ‘I have lived among the wicked too long,’ she announced very grandly, as a guard shouted a warning from the eastern wall.

  ‘Horsemen!’ the guard cried. ‘Horsemen!’

  Norwenna ran to the fence where a crowd was gathering to watch a score of armed horsemen crossing the land bridge that led from the Roman road to the green hills of Ynys Wydryn. Ligessac, commander of Mordred’s guard, seemed to know who was coming for he sent orders to his men to allow the horsemen through the earth wall. The riders spurred through the wall’s gate and came towards us beneath a bright banner that showed the red badge of the fox. It was Gundleus himself and Norwenna laughed with delight to see her husband riding victorious from the war with the dawn of a new Christian kingdom bright upon his spear-point. ‘You see?’ she turned on Morgan. ‘You see? Your cauldron lied. There is victory!’

  Mordred began to cry at all the commotion and Norwenna brusquely ordered him given to Ralla, then she demanded that her best cloak be fetched and a gold circlet placed upon her head and thus, dressed as a queen, she waited for her King before the doors of Merlin’s hall.

  Ligessac opened the Tor’s land gate. Druidan’s ramshackle guard formed a crude line while poor mad Pellinore shrieked in his cage for news. Nimue ran towards Merlin’s chamber while I went to fetch Hywel, Merlin’s steward, who I knew would want to welcome the King.

  The twenty Silurian horsemen dismounted at the Tor’s foot. They had come from the war and so they carried spears, shields and swords. One-legged Hywel, buckling on his own great sword, frowned when he saw that the Druid Tanaburs was among the Silurian party. ‘I thought Gundleus had abandoned the old faith?’ the steward said.

  ‘I thought he’d abandoned Ladwys!’ Gudovan, the scribe, cackled, then jerked his chin towards the horsemen who had begun to climb the Tor’s steep narrow path. ‘See?’ Gudovan said, and sure enough there was one woman among the leather-armoured men. The woman was dressed as a man, but had her long black hair flowing free. She carried a sword, but no shield, and Gudovan chuckled to see her. ‘Our little Queen will have her work cut out competing with that imp of Satan.’

  ‘Who’s Satan?’ I asked, and Gudovan gave me a buffet on the head for wasting his time with stupid questions.

  Hywel was frowning and his hand was clasped about his sword’s hilt as the Silurian warriors neared the last steep steps that climbed to the gate where our motley guards waited in two ragged files. Then some instinct that was still as sharp as when he had been a warrior tugged at Hywel’s fears. ‘Ligessac!’ he roared. ‘Close the gate! Close it! Now!’

  Ligessac drew his sword instead. Then he turned and cupped an ear as though he had not heard Hywel properly.

  ‘Shut the gate!’ Hywel roared. One of Ligessac’s men moved to obey the order, but Ligessac checked the man and stared at Norwenna for orders instead.

  Norwenna turned to Hywel and scowled her displeasure at his order. ‘This is my husband coming,’ she said, ‘not an enemy.’ She looked back to Ligessac. ‘Leave the gate open,’ she commanded imperiously, and Ligessac bowed his obedience.

  Hywel cursed, then clambered awkwardly down from the rampart and limped on his crutch towards Morgan’s hut while I just stared at that empty, sunlit gate and wondered what was about to happen. Hywel had scented some trouble in the summer air, but how I never did discover.

  Gundleus reached the open gate. He spat on the threshold, then smiled at Norwenna who was waiting a dozen paces away. She raised her plump arms to greet her Lord who was sweating and breathless, and no wonder for he had climbed the steep Tor dressed in his full war gear. He had a leather breastplate, padded leggings, boots, an iron helmet crested with a fox’s tail and a thick red cloak draped about his shoulders. His fox-blazoned shield hung at his left side, his sword was at his hip and he carried a heavy battle-spear in his right hand. Ligessac knelt and offered the King the hilt of his drawn sword and Gundleus stepped forward to touch the weapon’s pommel with a leather-gloved hand.

  Hywel had gone into Morgan’s hut, but now Sebile ran out of the hut clutching Mordred in her arms. Sebile? Not Ralla? I was puzzled by that, and Norwenna must also have been puzzled as the Saxon slave ran to stand beside her with little Mordred draped in his rich robe of golden cloth, but Norwenna had no time to question Sebile for Gundleus was now striding towards her. ‘I offer you my sword, dear Queen!’ he said in a ringing voice, and Norwenna smiled happily, perhaps because she had not yet noticed either Tanaburs or Ladwys who had come through Merlin’s open gate with Gundleus’s band of warriors.

  Gundleus thrust his spear into the turf and drew his sword, but instead of offering it to Norwenna hilt first he held the blade’s sharp tip towards her face. Norwenna, unsure what to do, reached tentatively to touch that glittering point. ‘I rejoice at your return, my dear Lord,’ she said dutifully, then knelt at his feet as custom demanded.

  ‘Kiss the sword that will defend your son’s kingdom,’ Gundleus commanded, and Norwenna bent awkwardly forward to touch her thin lips to the proffered steel.

  She kissed the sword as she had been commanded, and just as her lips touched the grey steel Gundleus rammed the blade hard down. He was laughing as he killed his bride, laughing as he slid the sword down past her chin into the hollow of her throat and still laughing as he forced the long blade down through the choking resistance of her writhing body. Norwenna had no time to scream, nor any voice left to scream with as the blade ripped through her throat and was rammed down to her heart. Gundleus grunted as he drove the steel home. He had slung his heavy war shield so that both his leather-gloved hands were on the hilt as he pushed and twisted the blade downwards. There was blood on the sword and blood on the grass and blood on the dying Queen’s blue cloak, and still more blood as Gundleus jerked the long blade violently free. Norwenna’s body, bereft of the sword’s support, flopped sideways, quivered for a few seconds, and then was still.

  Sebile dropped the
baby and fled screaming. Mordred cried aloud in protest, but Gundleus’s sword cut the baby’s cries short. He stabbed the red blade down just once and suddenly the golden cloth was drenched with scarlet. So much blood from so small a child.

  It had all happened so fast. Gudovan, next to me, was gaping in disbelief while Ladwys, who was a tall beauty with long hair, dark eyes and a sharply fierce face, laughed at her lover’s victory. Tanaburs had closed one eye, raised one hand to the sky and was hopping on one leg, all signs that he was in sacred communion with the Gods as he cast his spells of doom and as Gundleus’s guards spread into the compound with levelled spears to make that doom reality. Ligessac had joined the Silurian ranks and helped the spearmen massacre his own men. A few of the Dumnonians tried to fight, but they had been arrayed to do Gundleus honour, not oppose him, and the Silurian spearmen made brief work of Mordred’s guards and briefer work still of Druidan’s sorry soldiers. For the very first time in my adult life I saw men die on spearheads and heard the terrible screams a man makes when his soul is spear-sent into the Otherworld.

  For a few seconds I was helpless with panic. Norwenna and Mordred were dead, the Tor was screaming and the enemy was running towards the hall and Merlin’s Tower. Morgan and Hywel appeared beside the tower, but as Hywel limped forward with sword in hand, Morgan fled towards the sea gate. A host of women, children and slaves ran with her; a terrified mass of people whom Gundleus seemed content to let escape. Ralla, Sebile and those of Druidan’s misshapen guard who had managed to avoid the grim Silurian warriors ran with them. Pellinore leaped up and down in his cage, cackling and naked, loving the horror.

  I jumped from the ramparts and ran to the hall. I was not being brave, I was simply in love with Nimue and I wanted to make sure she was safe before I fled the Tor myself. Ligessac’s guards were dead and Gundleus’s men were beginning to plunder the huts as I dived through the door and ran towards Merlin’s chambers, but before I could reach the small black door a spear-shaft tripped me. I fell heavily, then a small hand gripped my collar and, with astounding strength, dragged me towards my old hiding place behind the baskets of feasting cloths. ‘You can’t help her, fool,’ Druidan’s voice said in my ear. ‘Now, be quiet!’

  I reached safety just seconds before Gundleus and Tanaburs entered the hall and all I could do was watch as the King, his Druid and three helmed men marched to Merlin’s door, I knew what was to happen and I could not stop it for Druidan was holding his little hand hard over my mouth to stop me shouting. I doubted that Druidan had run into the hall to save Nimue, probably he had come to snatch what gold he could before fleeing with the rest of his men, but his presence had at least saved my life. But it saved Nimue from nothing.

  Tanaburs kicked the ghost-fence aside, then thrust the door open. Gundleus ducked inside, followed by his spearmen.

  I heard Nimue scream. I do not know if she used tricks to defend Merlin’s chamber, or whether she had already abandoned hope. I do know that pride and duty had made her stay to protect her master’s secrets and now she paid for that pride. I heard Gundleus laugh, then I heard little except for the sound of the Silurians raking through Merlin’s boxes, bales and baskets. Nimue whimpered, Gundleus shouted in triumph, and then she screamed again in sudden, terrible pain. ‘That’ll teach you to spit on my shield, girl,’ Gundleus said as Nimue sobbed helplessly.

  ‘She’s well raped now,’ Druidan said in my ear with a wicked relish. More of Gundleus’s spearmen ran through the hall to enter Merlin’s rooms. Druidan had forced a hole in the wattle wall with his spear and now ordered me to wriggle through and follow him down the hill, but I would not leave while Nimue still lived. ‘They’ll be searching these baskets soon,’ the dwarf warned me, but still I would not go with him. ‘More fool you, boy,’ Druidan said, and he scrambled through the hole and scuttled towards the shadowed space between a nearby hut and a chicken pen.

  I was saved by Ligessac. Not because he saw me, but because he told the Silurians there was nothing in the baskets that hid me except for banquet cloths. ‘All the treasure’s inside,’ he told his new allies, and I crouched, not daring to move, as the victorious soldiers plundered Merlin’s chambers. The Gods alone know what they found: dead men’s skins, old bones, new charms and ancient elf bolts, but precious little treasure. And the Gods alone know what they did to Nimue, for she would never tell, though no telling was needed. They did what soldiers always do to captured women, and when they had finished they left her bleeding and half mad.

  They also left her to die, for when they had ransacked the treasure chamber and found it filled with musty nonsense and only a little gold, they took a brand from the hall fire and tossed it among the broken baskets. Smoke billowed from the door. Another burning brand was thrown into the baskets where I was hidden, then Gundleus’s men retreated from the hall. Some carried gold, a few had found some silver baubles, but most fled empty handed. When the last man was gone I covered my mouth with a corner of my jerkin and ran through the choking smoke towards Merlin’s door and found Nimue just inside the room. ‘Come on!’ I said to her desperately. The air was filling with smoke while flames were leaping wildly up the boxes where cats screamed and bats flapped in panic.

  Nimue would not move. She was lying belly down, hands clasped to her face, naked, with blood thick on her legs. She was weeping.

  I ran to the door which led into Merlin’s Tower, thinking there might be some escape that way, but when I opened the door I found the walls unbreached. I also discovered that the tower, far from being a treasure chamber, was almost empty. There was a bare earthen floor, four timber walls and an open roof. It was a chamber open to the sky, but halfway up the open funnel, suspended on a pair of beams and reached by a stout ladder, I could see a wooden platform that was swiftly being obscured by smoke. The tower was a dream chamber, a hollow place in which the Gods’ whispers would echo to Merlin. I looked up at the dream platform for a second, then more smoke surged out behind me to funnel up the dream tower and I ran back to Nimue, seized her black cloak off the disordered bed and rolled her in the wool like a sick animal. I grabbed the corners of the cloak and then, with her light body bundled inside, I struggled into the hall and headed towards the far door. The fire was roaring now with the hunger of flames feasting on dry wood, my eyes were streaming and my lungs were soured by the smoke that lay thickest by the hall’s main door, so I dragged Nimue, her body bumping on the earth floor behind me, to where Druidan had made his rat hole in the wall. My heart thumped in terror as I peered through, but I could see no enemies. I kicked the hole larger, bending back the willow wattles and breaking off chunks of the plaster daub, then I struggled through, hauling Nimue after me. She made small noises of protest as I jerked her body through the crude gap, but the fresh air seemed to revive her for she at last tried to help herself and I saw, as she took her hands away from her face, just why her last scream had been so terrible. Gundleus had taken one of her eyes. The socket was a well of blood over which she again clapped a bloody hand. The tussle in the ragged hole had left her naked so I snatched the cloak free from a splintered wattle and draped it around her shoulders before clasping her free hand and running towards the nearest hut.

  One of Gundleus’s men saw us, then Gundleus himself recognized Nimue and he shouted that the witch should be taken alive and thrown back into the flames. The cry of the chase went up, great whoops like the sound of hunters pursuing a wounded boar to its death, and the two of us would surely have been caught if some of the other fugitives had not already ripped a gap in the stockade on the Tor’s southern side. I ran towards the new gap only to discover Hywel, good Hywel, lying dead in the breach with his crutch beside him, his head half severed and his sword still in his hand. I plucked up the sword and hauled Nimue onwards. We reached the steep southern slope and tumbled down, both of us screaming as we slithered down the precipitous grass. Nimue was half blind and utterly maddened by her pain while I was frantic with terror, yet somehow I clutched on to Hyw
el’s war sword, and somehow I made Nimue get to her feet at the Tor’s foot and stumble on past the sacred well, past the Christians’ orchard, through a grove of alders and so down to where I knew Hywel’s marsh boat was moored beside a fisherman’s hut. I threw Nimue into the small boat of bundled reeds, slashed the painter with my new sword and pushed the boat away from the wooden stage only to realize I had no quant pole to drive the clumsy craft out into the intricate maze of channels and lakes that laced the marsh. I used the sword instead; Hywel’s blade made a sorry punting pole, yet it was all I had until the first of Gundleus’s pursuers reached the reedy bank and, unable to wade out to us because of the glutinous marsh mud, hurled his spear at us instead.

  The spear whistled as it flew towards me. For a second I could not move, transfixed by the sight of that heavy pole with its glittering steel head hurtling towards us, but then the weapon thumped past me to bury its blade in the punt’s reed gunwale. I grabbed the quivering ash staff and used it as my quant pole to drive the boat hard and quick out into the waterways. We were safe there. Some of Gundleus’s men ran along a wooden trackway that paralleled our course, but I soon turned away from them. Others leaped into coracles and used their spears as paddles, but no coracle could match a reed punt for speed and so we left them far behind. Ligessac fired an arrow, but we were already out of range and his missile plunged soundlessly into the dark water. Behind our frustrated pursuers, high on the green Tor, the flames leaped hungrily at huts and hall and tower so that grey churning smoke rose high in the blue summer sky.

  ‘Two wounds.’ Nimue spoke for the first time since I had snatched her from the flames.