by Jacob Sannox
They drew closer, shouting and hurling eggs, which fell short, splattering the road with yolk and white.
Merlin held up his staff and the weapons fell from their hands as their jaws fell slack.
‘Be gone,’ he growled, and, drearily, as though sleep-walking, the men turned about and slowly walked back in the direction they had come.
Arthur, Merlin and company pressed on through a city clogged with rioting youths, who rampaged through the smog, doing battle with the riot police. Arthur saw broken windows everywhere and cars on fire. The ground shook beneath their feet as they walked.
‘Look at that,’ said Bors as they rounded a corner just in time to see a gaggle of protestors, lit by the fires, smash into the police lines. They crunched against the shields as bricks and petrol bombs flew overhead. The officers held their ground and their batons flew, but there were too few of them.
‘That,’ said Bors, ‘Is what you get if you vote Tory!’
It took Arthur’s company nearly two hours to cross the city, and it was nigh on three in the morning when they finally stood before the Tower of London.
‘Are you all ready?’ said Arthur.
‘Aye,’ said Tristan, who spoke for all of the men without need for conversation.
‘Branok’s chambers are high in the White Tower itself,’ said Merlin.
‘We go in as we did before,’ said Arthur. ‘If the ravens lie between us and the Ravenmaster, all of you must take them on while Merlin and I go on to deal with Branok.’
‘Won’t he be expecting that?’ said Tristan. ‘He knows full well we are coming, Arthur. He won’t be as naïve as to sit waiting for us.’
‘What other choice do we have?’ said Arthur.
‘He’s correct, boy,’ said Merlin. ‘Branok may well match us this time, where before we caught him off guard.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Arthur. ‘We proceed as I have said, unless any man amongst you has another suggestion.’
Tristan made no further protest, murmuring, ‘so be it’ as he walked towards the Tower.
They climbed over the barriers by the ticket booths and advanced on the gatehouse. Whenever they encountered anyone, Merlin used his arts to beguile them and so the company passed on through until finally they were inside the Tower itself.
The sight before them struck all still and quiet.
The floor between them and the steps to the White Tower were black. A carpet of thousands of ravens stood before them, strutting about, fighting, and flying here and there, indistinguishable from one another. Thousands of beady black eyes turned to look at Arthur, Merlin and the knights. One by one, the knights drew their broadswords, and Arthur, last of all, drew the very same cavalry sabre that he had wielded at Waterloo.
‘What now?’ asked Kay, and Arthur made no answer, merely standing surveying the scene, looking for some sign that might betray one of the familiars.
The ground rumbled beneath them, and Arthur looked up as a crack opened in the west wall of the White Tower.
‘Onward,’ he muttered. ‘There is no other choice.’
With that he stalked forward, holding up his sabre, picking his way between the birds. The others rushed to join him far less delicately, and the birds called out, flapping up from under their feet.
Arthur led the company across the courtyard, cautious that at any time the familiars could strike. And yet, he thought, would they? They had plenty of opportunities to assault Arthur or his people in the days since the attack on his home. Had a raven not watched his progress when he arrived in London? What was Branok planning?
Arthur had no idea.
He walked onward, his blood whooshing in his ears.
Any second now, the attack would come. Any second.
Arthur could hear Tristan and Gareth’s rapid breathing beside him and knew they too were feeling as though they were looking up at the sword of Damocles.
But the attack never came. Arthur and Merlin ran up the steps to the White Tower as the knights turned to face the ravens and guard the rear. As the two men walked towards the doors, they swung open, revealing the dimly lit interior of the White Tower, so different from the last time Arthur had entered. Artefacts stood around the rooms, which were now laid out to display the arms and armour of the kings and queens of Britain.
Not a sound. No movement.
Arthur turned to ask Merlin if he felt able to go on, but he saw a grim expression on the wizard’s face and perceived a dark fire within his old mentor, who stood straighter than his aged spine would normally allow.
‘Quickly,’ said Merlin and disappeared into the White Tower. Arthur paused only to look back at his knights for a second then followed on, wondering if he would ever step out into the starlight again.
Across the wooden floors, up steps and through narrow corridors, Merlin and Arthur made their progress through the Tower. Each felt unseen eyes upon them as they stalked the fortress where so many had died over the centuries, this bastion of strength, symbol of enduring power.
On and on they went, still meeting no opposition. Arthur strained to hear if battle had been joined in the yard outside, but all was silent save for the sounds of their feet and the noise of their laboured breathing. Arthur limped, his leg crying out, and every so often he would steady Merlin, who no longer had an arm to thrust out to break any fall. Battered and wounded, the mentor and the pupil, the wizard and the king climbed ever higher, until, finally, they came to the spot.
Arthur laid his hand upon the stone wall and drew it back sharply as it seemed to ripple away from him.
Why was he in this place? And what was the significance of the wall? Merlin’s seal may have been broken, but the enchantment he had laid upon the stone was no less potent.
Arthur’s puzzled face looked to Merlin for answers. The wizard nodded towards the wall.
‘Branok lies beyond. I can feel him,’ he whispered, and Arthur remembered their quest, as one might remember the plot of a dream for seconds after waking.
Merlin muttered, his brow furrowing in annoyance, then gestured with his fingers. Suddenly the effect wore off, and Arthur was no longer deceived. He knew his purpose and before him, he saw a door where previously there had only been stone.
‘Branok lies beyond,’ he repeated to himself. Merlin nodded.
‘Ready, boy?’
Arthur nodded.
‘Ready,’ he whispered.
Merlin reached for the handle, and, in a flash of movement which belied his age, he thrust the door inward.
Arthur burst through the open door into the candlelit cell, closely followed by Merlin. The wizard’s remaining hand held out his staff, and Arthur could feel the power emanating from it, the exertion of will.
David Bolton stood in the centre of a salt circle with his back to the door. He was looking down at what Arthur mistook for a bundle of rags, but quickly realised was a man.
‘Branok,’ Merlin exclaimed, putting a name to the figure on the floor, and sure enough, Arthur recognised the warlock. But he was much changed. Branok’s short black hair was a shocking white, his beard grown out and fully silver. His skin hung like melting beeswax and his eyes were rheumy. The air reeked. His whole body lurched with every stolen breath as it lay within the centre of the circle.
Arthur raised his sabre, pointing the tip between David Bolton’s shoulder blades. He drew the Colt from his left pocket.
‘Who are you?’
When the man turned, Arthur saw he was grinning and Excalibur hung at his hip. He did not recognise David Bolton’s face, but heard Merlin gasp and step back.
‘Run, boy,’ said the wizard. ‘Run if ever you trusted me.’
Arthur levelled the Colt so he was aiming at the man’s heart.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded, but the man drew Excalibur and in that instant, recognising the hungry, lusting look in the man’s otherwise unfamiliar face, at last, Arthur realised just who he was facing.
‘Mordred,’ he said, and moved to
parry as his son used Excalibur to slash at his father’s side.
It cleaved through the sabre like it wasn’t there at all. Arthur staggered forwards with his own momentum, exposed. Merlin sprang forward to aid him.
Mordred, wearing David Bolton’s empty body like a costume, wheeled, and as he did so, he brought up the blade, slashing sideways.
And he struck Merlin’s head from his shoulders.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sussex, England
1940 – The Second World War
‘Do me proud,’ said Arthur as he stirred the pot of stew he had been working on for an hour in his new house, nestled within its walled estate, deep in the woods.
Tristan nodded.
‘Will do, sir,’ he smiled, and Arthur detected pity in the gesture, but he said nothing as guilt washed over him. Tristan, dressed in his khaki Home Guard uniform, looked out into the hall, where the others were gathering, ready to leave.
‘Keep safe tonight, sir,’ said Tristan, raising his eyebrows in expectation of reassurance, and Arthur obliged.
‘I will, I will,’ said Arthur. ‘I’ll leave stew in the pot for when you chaps get back.’
‘You don’t have to, sir,’ said Percival, dressed identically to Tristan, as he stepped into the room.
‘I want to,’ said Arthur. ‘Get going or you’ll miss parade and let me down.’
Arthur and his knights did not age, and they had looked in their thirties when they fought at the Somme. After the war they had maintained the same identities, and so, when war was declared on Germany in 1939, some twenty-one years after Armistice Day, they were too old to be conscripted. Locally, there was talk about their youthful looks, but none could deny their war records, and so, with a little subtlety and making a great show of keeping in shape, Arthur’s knights avoided most of the negative comments one could expect if one had avoided the draft.
However, none of them were happy about it, and when the Local Defence Volunteers were initiated in 1940, later becoming the Home Guard, Tristan went to Arthur and gained permission for the brothers to sign up, which all of them did. They, Tristan said, might not be able to go abroad to fight, but they would damn well defend England if it came to it.
An organisation made up of those too old, too young or too ill for conscription, the Home Guard were eventually tasked with delaying the advance of German invading forces until the regular army could regroup. But it was not long before Tristan and the knights wearied of parading with such folk, well-intentioned and noble as they might be. They were still in their prime, warriors beyond comparison, returned from the grave to defend Britain, and yet they lined up in their own clothes with only armbands to mark them out until finally uniforms were issued, beside the inexperienced, the too-experienced and the infirm.
Tristan grew frustrated, but the Home Guard had hidden depths unknown to the public at large. A British resistance effort had been planned and would now be catered for, and the Home Guard was scouted for the best and the brightest. Tristan and the knights shone out beyond all others.
Almost nobody knew of the Auxiliary Units, not even their families. They were secret units who paraded with the Home Guard, but who had their own mission and mandate; they were known amongst themselves as the Scallywaggers.
Tristan and the other knights attended secret training sessions at Coleshill House in Wiltshire, where they learned to ‘scallywag’, which was their term for unarmed combat, assassinations, guerrilla warfare, demolition and sabotage. Upon returning home, Tristan led an operational patrol consisting of Agravain, Kay, Lucan, Gareth, Gawain, Bors and Dagonet while the others gave service elsewhere in the country in various forms.
Once the meeting of the Home Guard was over, the Scallywags melted into the night, disappearing down country lanes and into the woods.
Tristan moved in the cover of the trees at the rear of the group, watching to ensure that they had not been followed.
Before half an hour had passed, they found a gap in the ridge of the hills, the beginning of a medieval track that villagers had used to drive their herds to the common grazing lands atop the hill before the trees had been planted in later centuries. Using the track, the Scallywags could move beneath the level of the ground and out of line of sight. Before long they reached a point that would have drawn no attention to anyone unaware of the secret it held. Here the Royal Engineers had delved an entrance into the unit’s operation base. The door, hinged at the top, was disguised with turf and undergrowth. Bors hauled it open, and the Scallywags disappeared underground.
As was their routine, they scouted out the bunker, checking that nothing had been disturbed, that their MKIIS silenced Sten guns, pistols, silencers, ammunition and munitions were all accounted for and secure. Tristan personally checked the food stores while Dagonet moved down the tunnel leading to the emergency exit.
From here they would launch their campaign against the Nazis, should they successfully invade England, with orders to commit suicide or kill one another, rather than allow any of their number to be captured.
The Scallywags set about maintaining their base and, when an hour had passed, they left it secure and headed home to feast on steaming bowls of stew and hot buttered toast.
Arthur wandered the darkened streets of his town. He was clad in a dark blue boilersuit with a satchel containing his gas mask slung across his chest. He wore both a steel helmet marked with a white ‘W’ and a white band with ARP printed on it over his upper arm. Arthur’s leg had never fully healed from the injury sustained at the Somme, and he usually walked with a cane. While fulfilling his duties as an air raid warden, however, he walked with the aid of a three-metre-long steel ceiling pike with a hook on the end, for use in searching bombed-out buildings. Laden also with a pump and hose, for fighting fires, and a wooden rattle for sounding a gas attack, Arthur walked alone, thinking of his knights, both at home and those who had managed to get abroad. He pondered his own role, and considered whether he could take a combatant role of some kind. But each time he entertained a possibility, his chest seemed to tighten, and he thought that he might pass out. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he heard once more the explosions and screams, saw Gaheris crashing to the ground.
All was calm and quiet as Arthur crossed the deserted high street, checking that the blackout was entirely in place, looking for any light emitting from the swathed windows of houses and businesses.
As he passed the graveyard, a torch beam burst from between the graves, blinding him.
‘Put that light out!’ Arthur shouted, recoiling as he shaded his eyes with his hand. ‘Out, now!’
Instead the torch-wielder lowered the beam to illuminate a small rectangular gravestone; a familiar gravestone, well-tended, devoid of creepers, with a single pebble resting atop it.
Arthur quickened his pace and entered the graveyard through a small kissing-gate then made his way along the various paths towards the gravestone and whoever was standing over it. Arthur had his suspicions.
Sure enough, Merlin stood looking down at the grave, one hand thrust into the pocket of his long green army trench coat and a torch in the other. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail which hung down at the waist.
‘Good evening, boy,’ he said, not looking up from the stone.
‘Merlin,’ Arthur replied as he came to stand beside the old wizard. He looked down at Gaheris’s gravestone.
Corporal Simon Humphrey - 1886 – 1916 - Killed in Action
‘Corporal,’ said Merlin. ‘A knight of King Arthur, a lowly corporal.’
‘There’s nothing lowly about being a corporal, Merlin,’ Arthur snapped.
‘Years since we have seen one another and that is the tone you take with me?’ said Merlin, turning to face him.
‘When you disrespect the fallen, absolutely,’ said Arthur.
Neither man said anything further for a time. Arthur eventually pointed at a group of graves a little further in.
‘Galahad and Lamorak are lyin
g side-by-side, I see,’ said Merlin.
‘These graves are empty. They were laid to rest in Belgium,’ said Arthur.
‘I see. A memorial?’ asked Merlin, and Arthur nodded.
They stood silently for a while, Arthur out of respect for his fallen knights. Merlin? Who could tell?
‘What brings you back after so long?’ asked Arthur. ‘Is all forgiven?’
‘It is not a matter of forgiveness, Arthur. You have a duty to fulfil, and I will not stand by your side while you wilfully shirk it.’
‘I have served this country as best I can since my return,’ said Arthur. ‘I have fought in more wars than anyone alive.’
‘Oh? Is that correct?’ Merlin rapped his knuckles on Arthur’s steel helmet. ‘Do you fight now? No. And aren’t your knights off at war? They appear to have fought in more wars than you, boy.’
‘I would be with them if it wasn’t for my leg,’ said Arthur.
‘Regrettable incident,’ said Merlin, who jumped as Arthur let out a laugh at the absurd reductive summary of the first day of the Somme.
‘I amuse you, boy?’ said Merlin, but Arthur shook his head in silence.
‘How bad is it?’ asked Merlin, softer.
‘Bad enough that I need a cane and failed the medical,’ said Arthur.
Merlin nodded and took hold of Arthur by his right wrist so that he looked up and into the wizard’s eyes.
‘Not the leg,’ said Merlin. ‘How bad is it?’
Arthur could feel Merlin poking around in his mind, saw the old man’s eyes widening and his face twitch. Arthur wrenched his arm free of his mentor’s grasp, but the wizard stepped in and took him in an embrace, there, in the dark in the midst of the dead and the memory of the fallen.
1940 – World War Two - London