The Legend of the King

by Gerald Morris

  "Then you witnessed the fight. How did it go?" Palomides asked intently.

  "Back and forth, sir," Sir Bede said. "At first the king's charge down the hill drove Mordred back, but Mordred had more men than any of us thought, and he began to push Arthur up the hill. Then the tide turned again, at daybreak—I don't know why—and Mordred began retreating. But it still looked bad. More than half the men on both sides were down. Some of the White Horsemen began to flee, which was when I joined the battle."

  "What did you do?"

  "I charged from the rear."

  Palomides' eyes lit up, and his expression was approving as he gazed at Sir Bede's face. "Alone?" he asked mildly.

  "Ay, at first," Bede said. "I knew I would die, but..." His eyes filled with tears and for a moment he couldn't speak.

  "But what?" asked Brother Guinglain.

  "But ... at the bottom of the hill ... I saw Arthur fall beside Mordred. So I attacked."

  There was a long silence. At the words I saw Arthur fall, Dinadan felt as if his heart had stopped.

  Sir Bede went on. "Then I was surrounded by hundreds of knights, charging the White Horsemen beside me, with Sir Lancelot at their head. They came from the south, and they drove Mordred's armies into the ground. I saw that much, and then no more. I awoke hours later with a knot on the back of my head, and I was alone on the field."

  "Ah, I understand," Dinadan said. "You're the one who's been digging graves." Sir Bede nodded. Dinadan hesitated, then asked, "How many of ... which of Arthur's knights...?"

  Sir Bede shook his head. "I have planted the glory of England in the earth of Barham Down, but please ask me no more." Dinadan looked at the ground miserably, but after a moment Sir Bede added, "But there is one strange thing. Though I know where I saw him fall, I haven't found the king. He's just not here."

  For three days the four worked together, digging graves and growing in friendship. On the second day they were joined by villagers from Barham, who cautiously had begun returning to their homes from wherever they had been hiding. At the end of the third day, the field was empty again, though rutted and covered with mounds of earth, and a rainstorm had even begun washing away the bloodstains. By common, unspoken consent, the four rode away together. Dinadan led the way. He wanted to check on an old friend.

  The three days it took them to arrive at the Sisters of Joy Convent were sobering. When Dinadan had left England, it had been an idyllic place, dotted with prosperous farms and comfortable villages. A traveling knight of Arthur's table could be sure of a welcome at any manor house, and someone with a song to sing could obtain a meal at any tavern he chose. But this England was like something from a nightmare. What farms they found were burned to the ground. Villages were abandoned in ruins. People were scarce—or, at any rate, made themselves scarce when they saw mounted knights approaching.

  "It's the White Horsemen," Bede explained. "For months now they've been destroying everything they found, killing who they could, then telling people that they'd been sent by Arthur."

  "But who would believe such a tale?" Dinadan demanded.

  Bede shrugged. "They said that the king had gone mad, out of jealousy over Lancelot and Guinevere. I believed it myself at first, when the horsemen killed my wife."

  Dinadan turned to look at Bede's face. While he had labored over the graves beside this knight, he had sometimes sensed a hard-edged maturity behind Bede's youthful looks, the sort of wisdom that comes only from knowing great pain. "Your wife?"

  "Elise," Bede said, his face calm. "I was luckier than most. Sir Terence found me and showed me I was wrong about Arthur. But most of these people, farmers like me, knew only that they'd been ruined by knights."

  "He's right," Guinglain added. "I've seen whole villages, perhaps whole counties, hiding in forests, many of them starving."

  With these bleak words weighing on his mind, it was with immense relief that Dinadan saw that the stone walls and buildings of the Sisters of Joy Convent were still standing and, looking inside the iron gates, that the rose gardens were intact. He had sat in those gardens many times, talking with his old friend Sister Brangienne. The gates were chained, and the bell that used to hang on them to ask for admittance was gone, but Dinadan leaned against the bars and called out, "Hello? Sister Brangienne? Anyone?"

  After several minutes, a fearful face peeked around the wall, and Dinadan addressed himself to a young nun. "Good day, sister. I'm looking for Sister Brangienne."

  "Please, sir knight," the nun whispered. "We have no treasure here, and barely enough food for ourselves."

  "We'll take nothing from you," Dinadan said. "I only want to speak to Sister Brangienne. Could you find her and tell her that Sir Dinadan is here?"

  The young nun hesitated, then said softly, "I'll speak to the Mother Superior," and scurried away.

  A few minutes later, a tall nun with an imposing wimple shadowing her face appeared from a doorway and strode firmly toward the gates. Dinadan greeted her as she came near. "Good day, Mother. I am Sir Dinadan, an old acquaintance of Sister Brangienne's. I wonder if I could speak with her."

  The Mother Superior raised her head, gazed into Dinadan's eyes, and said, "That's Mother Brangienne to you." Then she smiled like the sun, and tears began flowing down her cheeks. "I have prayed hourly for you, my dear friend. To see you alive is like seeing the face of God."

  Half an hour later, Dinadan knew much more about the Battle of Barham Down than even Bede had been able to tell them. The convent had become a hostel for refugees, who brought their families and their needs, but also their news, and from all the scraps of information that Brangienne had been given, she had pieced together a comprehensive picture of the fight and its aftermath. Lancelot's charge had completely destroyed the White Horsemen, but not before Arthur's armies had been nearly wiped out as well. Lancelot's troops had taken a few prisoners, and using the information derived from them, he had been able to find and release all Mordred's hostages. Then Lancelot had sent his French vassals back to the Continent.

  "And what of Lancelot himself?" Dinadan asked.

  Brangienne pursed her lips thoughtfully, then said, "I think Sir Lancelot is no more."

  "Dead?" Dinadan asked softly.

  "In a sense," she replied after another pause. She looked pensively at Dinadan, then at his three companions. At last she nodded. "Yes, I can trust you. To our north, about a day's journey, there is a gentle hermit named Constans, living in a stone cottage."

  "I've met Brother Constans," Guinglain remarked. "A good man."

  "Yes," Brangienne said. "A former knight who has turned to a life of contemplation. Anyway, a traveler yesterday told me that Constans has taken in a novice, a tall man with broad shoulders named Jean Le Forestier."

  Dinadan nodded. Lancelot had used that name before. "I've met this Jean," he said. "He's a good man, too."

  "I believe so," Brangienne replied. "But, as I say, Sir Lancelot is no more. You should not seek him."

  "We won't," Dinadan said.

  "So, if I may ask, what will you do?" Brangienne inquired.

  "I don't really know," Dinadan replied. "After finding the battlefield, all I could think of was making sure you were all right. Now I'm not sure."

  It was Guinglain who spoke. "We will continue our journey, seeking out what's left of England."

  The others nodded agreement, and Dinadan said, "Then it's decided. But you don't mind if I check on you every now and then? These are dangerous times, you know."

  "I would be most offended if you didn't," Brangienne replied, smiling. Then she added, "One more thing, Dinadan."

  "Yes?"

  "As you look for the remains of England, it might help you to know that we have received several new additions to our convent here. One, in particular, you should know. She is a former noblewoman, one of Mordred's freed prisoners, who wishes to put that life behind her now."

  "Oh?" Dinadan asked, searching Brangienne's face. "And what is this noblewoman's name?"
>
  Brangienne smiled. "Former names are not very important here. Often, you know, when a woman takes the veil, she changes her name. I never did myself, but most of my sisters have left their old names and taken a new one, of some saint or person from the Bible, for instance."

  Dinadan nodded. "Sister Jezebel, maybe? Or Salome?"

  "I've not had either of those, precisely," Brangienne admitted. "We mostly have Marys and Marthas. But they don't always confine themselves to women's names: I have two Sister Josephs and a Sister Barnabas. And this particular woman has said that when she is approved to take the veil, she would like to be called Sister Arthur."

  "I see," Dinadan said slowly. "And this Sister Arthur—she is well?"

  "I believe so."

  "And at peace?"

  "In the past month, she has lost everything and everyone she loved," Brangienne said. "It would be too much to call her at peace. But I believe she will be content here in time. She says she'd like to work in the flower gardens."

  Although it had been wonderful to find Brangienne alive, and to discover that Guinevere was safe, Dinadan's feelings of relief faded quickly as they rode through the broken pieces of Arthur's kingdom. Every day, it seemed, they came upon more appalling sights and greater desolation. Some days they didn't see a single living human. It felt to Dinadan as if England had been completely depopulated, and they were left alone, so it was a relief when, toward evening on their fourth day, they saw a campfire in the distance. Remembering that in this new England a stranger was less likely to be a friend, they approached the fire cautiously. Dinadan and Guinglain, the two who looked the least threatening, rode ahead of the others and hailed the camp. There was no answer. Riding in, they found the campsite empty.

  "Hello?" Dinadan called again. "If you're hiding somewhere, we mean you no harm!"

  "That'd be in your best interest," said a gruff voice behind them, "since I've got an arrow aimed at your back. Who are you?"

  "Just a minstrel and a holy man," Dinadan replied.

  Now a new voice, a woman's, spoke from Dinadan's left. "Good Gog, it's Dinadan, isn't it?"

  "I am Sir Dinadan," Dinadan replied cautiously. A sturdy young woman stepped out of the shadows, holding a small child in her arms, and Dinadan gaped at her. "Lynet?"

  "Close. It's Luneta."

  Dinadan leaped from his horse and hurried forward to embrace the daughter of his old friends Gaheris and Lynet. "Little Luney! You look just like—"

  "I know, just like my mother. It's good to see you. I heard you were off in the Orient somewhere."

  "I was, but I'm back," Dinadan replied, turning to see a tall lanky fellow in black clothes appear from behind a tree.

  "Dinadan, this is my husband, Rhience."

  Dinadan shook Rhience's hand, then called out to Bede and Palomides. "Come on in! They're friends."

  Rhience raised one eyebrow. "I thought you said you were just a minstrel and a holy man."

  Dinadan looked pointedly at Rhience's empty hands. "And I thought you said you had an arrow aimed at my back."

  Rhience sniffed. "Just because I'm a liar doesn't make it all right for you to be one. Don't you know anything about moral theology?"

  "No," Dinadan said.

  "Lucky dog," Rhience muttered. "Could you unteach me sometime?"

  Bede and Palomides approached the fire, and Dinadan turned back to Luneta. "And this is your child?"

  "She is now," Luneta replied. "Her parents were killed by the White Horsemen. She almost died of hunger before we happened to find her."

  "Happened," Rhience repeated softly.

  Luneta shrugged. "Well, we had help. A friend named Robin took us to her."

  "Heard of the chap," Dinadan said absently as he examined the child. She was a towheaded girl with very large eyes, perhaps three years old. "And what is your name?" he asked her.

  Luneta and Rhience waited, but after a moment, Luneta said, "We don't know. She hasn't spoken yet."

  No one said anything. Dinadan guessed that, like him, the others were wondering what horrors those huge eyes had witnessed. They gathered around the fire and shared their scanty provisions, then their stories, which was one thing, at least, that they all had in abundance. When they were done, Dinadan asked Luneta, "And where are you three going now?"

  Luneta was busy coaxing the child to eat another scrap of bread, so it was Rhience who answered. "We've just been up north to Luneta's old home in Orkney, Sir Gawain's estates that her father managed. The lands and farms have been burned, but Orkney Hall's still standing, and the people are starting to rebuild and replant. Now we're on our way home, to my family estates near Chichester."

  Bede looked puzzled. "A little out of your way on this road, aren't you?"

  Rhience nodded. "We left the Great North Road to check on an old friend who lives in these parts, the good hermit Godwulf."

  "Godwulf?" repeated Guinglain.

  "Ay. You know him?"

  Guinglain shook his head. "I never met him, but I've been to his hermitage." Then the young hermit said bluntly, "Godwulf is dead."

  Rhience's lips tightened. "The White Horsemen?"

  "Of course. But there's a new hermit there, and I'd like to see him again. We'll ride with you tomorrow."

  The cavalcade of travelers arrived at Godwulf's hermitage shortly before dark the next day. A thin stooped man with graying hair and a shabby hermit's robe appeared from the one habitable structure in the clearing, a small, recently rebuilt hut with a nearly completed thatched roof.

  "Brother Adelbert?" called Guinglain.

  "Brother Guinglain?" the hermit replied.

  Guinglain dismounted from his mule and embraced his fellow hermit. Then he introduced the others. Adelbert greeted them gravely, then said, "I'm glad you've come. My dinner has been ready this past hour and more, but I was so busy mucking wi' the house that I was putting it off. Will ye share my food?"

  "Do you have enough to share?" Dinadan asked.

  "If I have any at all, I have enough to share," Adelbert replied. "But there's enough for us all, if that's what you mean. It ain't much, just porridge, but it'll fill you. The miller down t'village is almost done repairing t'mill, and then we'll have bread."

  "No beer?" asked Rhience.

  For the first time, Adelbert's solemn face cracked in a smile. "Ye knew Godwulf, then?"

  Rhience's eyes were bright, with either tears or laughter. "Ay. I spent several months with him."

  "He was a power of a man, wasn't he?" Adelbert said simply.

  "Ay, that he was. A power of a man."

  "As soon as I finish the hermitage roof," Adelbert said, "I'll start on t'brewhouse. I've found a village boy who used to tag along at Godwulf's heels when he worked, and he thinks he can remember how he did the trick. The lad'll be joining me up here once he finishes rebuilding his folks' farmhouse. But no, we've nothing brewed yet. Good water, though."

  Dinadan dismounted slowly and watched while the others tended their horses and set about making their beds and building an outdoor fire. Luneta was walking the little girl around the clearing, talking brightly and pointing out birds and trees, ignoring the fact that every few feet in the courtyard, another mound of freshly turned earth marked a grave. Dinadan shook his head slowly. He could sense a slight lightening of the mood in his party, perhaps prompted by Brother Adelbert's talk of rebuilding, but he resisted it. It was too little. A rebuilt farmhouse and mill—what was that compared with the glory of the kingdom that just a few years ago had made England great? Dinadan thought of Arthur's magnificent castle at Camelot—now in ruins, according to Bede. He thought of the days of feasting or—even better—the days of judgment, when Arthur had listened to his people, then meted out true justice, marked with both wisdom and compassion. He thought of the great knights—Gawain and Lancelot and Tor and Bedivere and Kai and all the heroes of the land—who had ridden out on quests for justice, vying with each other in helping the helpless and crushing oppression. Now all that w
as gone. By any sane reckoning, England was in for generations of lawlessness and war. Was he to feel hopeful because a hermit was planning to rebuild a brewhouse? Because farmers were starting to work their fields again? Glory like Arthur's should not pass so quickly or be forgotten so easily.

  "What is it, my friend?" asked Palomides, standing nearby. Dinadan shook his head. Like the child clutching Luneta's finger, he could find no words. Palomides didn't press him. Instead he said, "Come. Brother Adelbert is ready to serve our porridge."

  Dinadan followed his friend to the fire and sat in silence as the others joined the circle. Rhience glanced up at him. "Say, Dinadan, I meant to ask you earlier. Was that a rebec I saw in your gear today?"

  Dinadan nodded.

  "Then you play?"

  Dinadan paused, then nodded again.

  "Maybe you could give us a tune after we eat."

  The others looked expectantly at Dinadan, but he shook his head. "I can't."

  It was Palomides who asked, "Why not?"

  "I have no music left," Dinadan replied softly. He looked up and, one by one, met everyone's eyes. "Don't you feel it? For me, music is hope, but with the end of Arthur's reign, all the hope is gone. Haven't you been paying attention as we rode? England's in ruins. What took Arthur his whole life to build has collapsed in a few months, and where do you see hope for the land? Did you listen to yourself yesterday, Rhience? 'The fields are all burned, but at least the house hasn't been torn down.' Is that what we have left? That maybe the bloody wreck of England isn't quite as mangled and destroyed as it might have been?" Hot tears began coursing down his cheeks. "That's all we can say? That's our hope?"

  Rhience looked somber, but he said, "No. I would say that our hope is in the people."

  "What people?" Dinadan demanded. "The people are hiding in holes. We go days without seeing people!"

  "We're people, aren't we?" Rhience asked quietly.

  Dinadan rolled his eyes. "We're the hope of England? A couple of knights, a family, two holy men, and a singer of tales?"