Lancelot

by Giles Kristian

  ‘It is not as though we do not know who will be named,’ a man behind me said and I saw Benesek and some others look over at Lord Constantine, whose breastplate of hammered bronze, cast to mimic a well-muscled torso, glinted with reflected flame in the smoke-hazed gloom. As Uther’s warlord, he was permitted to wear his sword in the king’s hall and I saw that its ivory hilt was carved into the shape of an eagle’s head. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, bull-necked man who wore his lineage as proudly as he wore that plum-coloured cloak and Roman armour, and now he lifted his smooth chin a little higher still as he anticipated the words that would put him on that oaken throne with his uncle’s last breath still hanging in the smoky fug.

  Merlin turned and looked up at the gable wall of the hall’s western end. There was a hole up there to let light in and smoke out, and Merlin stared at it, stroking his beard. ‘I had thought to wait until sunset,’ he said, ‘to give every lord of Britain time to get here and witness the High King’s decision. But I suppose it won’t matter now and I hardly expected King Cadwallon to be here when he could be running through the hills waving his sword around after the Irish.’ And with that he went back to the king’s bedside and spoke softly in Uther’s ear.

  I looked at Lord Arthur. His lean, handsome face lit by the nearest hearth flames, his full lips almost pursed in his neat golden beard as though he were weighing up the possible outcomes of the day. Then I glanced at Lord Constantine and saw him and Arthur share a look of hawkish suspicion before they both turned their eyes back to the king’s deathbed.

  Igraine was helping Merlin pull Uther up onto a rich bolster of bright yellow silk which I could not help but think was at great odds with the stained bear fur and the grave solemnity of the occasion. And now some men touched iron armour or scabbard mounts for luck as a hum rose amongst the audience because folk knew that the long-awaited announcement was almost on the royal tongue.

  Uther cursed at the effort and strain of moving up onto the bolster, then closed his eyes and caught his breath: a rasping wheeze that was too weak even to stir the smoke which lingered around his bed. Then he growled for wine and this time drank without spilling a drop.

  ‘Lord High King Uther ap Constantine ap Tahalais, supreme ruler of Britain,’ Merlin said in a clear and commanding voice, ‘speak the name of the man who will rule in Dumnonia and, if the gods will it, inherit the mantle of High King of Albion after your death.’

  No hum in the hall now. Just the crackle of fuel in the hearths, the soft snoring of a hound and, somewhere in a dark corner, the scrabbling of a mouse after grain amongst the cut grass.

  All eyes on the dying king. All ears waiting, hearts barely daring to thump for fear of missing the words we had come to hear. Who amongst the lords and leaders gathered beneath that rotting thatch would strive to unite the kingdoms of Britain and continue King Uther’s long fight against the invaders? Who would esteem the old ways and entice the favour of the gods so that even they might help us throw the Saxons back into the sea from whence they came?

  ‘My heir,’ Uther said, his voice stronger than it had been before, ‘is the man who will do more than stem the rising Saxon tide … the way a linen dressing soaks up blood.’ Some glanced at Constantine then, who I saw was frowning, but most eyes were on the dying king, whose gaunt and cadaverous body was heaving for breath as he gathered his strength for the next words. ‘He will take up my sword against our enemies and scour them from the land with the fury of Beltane’s cleansing fire.’ The effort of making that proclamation in a voice all could hear had been prodigious and it left Uther blown, his eyes closed as he summoned the last of his famous strength.

  No one said a word. The fires cracked and spat, Uther’s wolfhound snored contentedly and we waited.

  And eventually the High King opened his eyes again.

  ‘My heir,’ he said, pressing both hands onto his straw-filled mattress to steady himself, ‘is my son. Arthur.’ He almost shouted that name so that there could be no mistaking it, and then he slumped back against the silken bolster, his eyes closed once more.

  For several heartbeats there was silence. Men and women looked at Lord Arthur, who looked at his cousin Lord Constantine, who was glaring at Uther.

  ‘No!’ Lord Constantine roared, the horror clear on his clean-shaven face even in the shadow-played hall. ‘No,’ he said again, quieter this time, but it seemed he could say no more. Could not summon the words.

  The murmur of voices rolled in like the surf upon the shore but receded again as King Einion of Ebrauc stepped forward, the gold torc at his neck reflecting the flame from a nearby oil lamp. ‘It cannot be Lord Arthur,’ he declared, throwing out an arm in Arthur’s direction. ‘What does Arthur know about Britain? He has been in Gaul these last ten years.’

  ‘And what do you think my lord has been doing there, King Einion?’ the man on Lord Arthur’s right asked, having stepped forward as if to challenge the King of the North. ‘He’s been fighting the Franks. He’s been winning battles.’

  ‘Impudent dog,’ one of the Ebrauc men snarled.

  ‘And who are you?’ King Einion demanded of Arthur’s man.

  ‘I am Gawain, son of King Lot of Lyonesse,’ Gawain said.

  ‘Lord Arthur’s nephew,’ Benesek muttered in my ear.

  Like Arthur, the warrior wore a neatly trimmed beard, though Gawain’s hair was walnut to Arthur’s pine. Unlike his lord, Gawain’s face was scarred and his nose broken. It was a brawler’s face and it made him look at least Arthur’s age though he must have been some years younger.

  ‘Ah, Lyonesse,’ King Einion said, scratching his beard. ‘I heard this very morning that King Lot could not be here with us because he is fearful of a Saxon attack. Even now he guards his shores.’ Then he turned towards the other kings and lords. ‘And yet his son, like Uther’s son, instead of standing at his father’s shoulder against our enemies, chose to fight for another king across the sea.’

  Gawain tensed, his hands becoming fists, but Arthur breathed a word to him and he gave an almost imperceptible nod, his hands softening even if his face did not.

  ‘We are here now, King Einion,’ Lord Arthur said.

  ‘Aye, like a dog slinking into the feast, you have come for the king’s leavings,’ King Einion said, and the man beside him, a hulking, muscle-bound, flat-faced man whose black beard reached down to his belt, grinned provocatively while a collective gasp drew the flickering lamp flames. It was a vile insult, even had Lord Arthur not just been named as Uther’s successor. But before Arthur could answer that insult, Lord Constantine took two steps forward, having at last found some words.

  ‘Lord Arthur turned his back on Britain many years ago,’ he told the assembly. ‘He serves King Syagrius in Gaul and now we are expected to welcome him like a conquering Caesar home from the wars?’

  ‘Arthur,’ Uther growled from his bed.

  ‘But he has not fought beside us,’ Lord Constantine protested.

  ‘Arthur,’ the High King snarled again, then was seized by coughing so that both Merlin and Igraine tried to comfort him, the druid with mumbled charms and the queen with more wine.

  ‘The bards will not sing it like this,’ Bors said under his breath, and he was right, I thought. I saw four men amongst the crowd who I guessed were bards, here to gather the strands that they would later weave into verse, but the way this day was going it was hard to imagine even a half-decent song coming out of it. Unless of course the bards substituted their own inventions for the truth, which was the usual way of it after all.

  ‘It is true I have not fought beside you, cousin,’ Arthur said, squaring his shoulders to Constantine. ‘But when I am king I will fight in front of you.’

  This was well said and I saw King Menadoc and a few others nod in appreciation.

  ‘You will not lead the men of Ebrauc,’ King Einion said. ‘Lord Constantine’s claim is the stronger. He is Ambrosius Aurelius’s son.’

  Arthur seemed to consider this for a momen
t, while Constantine, who seemed surprised by the vehemence of King Einion’s support, nodded in gratitude to the King of Ebrauc.

  Einion nodded back. ‘The king is not in his right mind,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he has forgotten the years that his son has been absent.’

  ‘Judgement and good sense often flee the dying,’ King Cyngen of Powys rumbled, his dark brows knitting. ‘In his last days my father did not recognize my mother or me, nor could he remember what he had eaten that morning. And yet he remembered a song from his boyhood days. Every word of it.’

  ‘Enough!’ Merlin called, lifting his ash staff, but Arthur raised a hand towards him and the druid frowned but lowered the staff.

  ‘Lord king, you are not so deep in the wild lands that you have not heard my reputation,’ Arthur told King Einion, ‘and you must know that I have never lost a battle. And that my horsemen are feared from Noviomagus to Argentoratum.’ He pursed his lips and absently brushed at a speck of dirt on the shoulder of his red cloak. ‘So, I am beginning to wonder if the reason you do not want me to be king is because you would rather have a lesser soldier on Dumnonia’s throne.’

  Arthur avoided Lord Constantine’s eyes then, for he knew that was an affront to the man who had guarded the eastern border lands against the Saxons these last years. And Constantine was offended. His hand fell to the eagle-head sword hilt at his waist, though he did not pull the blade from its scabbard. He knew that to draw his sword against Uther’s son – Uther’s unarmed son – in the High King’s own hall was to invite bloodshed, for there could be no going back from such a thing.

  And yet of Arthur’s two offences, both given in calm and measured voice, the insult to King Einion was the gravest.

  ‘You go too far, Lord Arthur!’ King Einion roared, and many men in that hall voiced their agreement, a clamour rising to the old thatch as men spoke for or against the rival claimants. For in suggesting that the King of Ebrauc would prefer a weaker king in Dumnonia, Arthur was questioning Einion’s loyalty to the alliance which bound Britain against the Saxons. Perhaps he was even insinuating that the King of Northern Britain planned a war against Dumnonia.

  I saw Merlin shake his head at Lord Arthur, eyes wide as if pleading with Uther’s son to change course before it was too late. But Arthur looked composed and untroubled and even spread his arms out before him as though inviting the King of Ebrauc to seek whatever redress he considered appropriate.

  ‘Perhaps I will challenge you on the day of your acclamation, before Merlin gives you King Uther’s sword,’ Einion said. The huge, mail-clad warrior beside him grinned again, confirming that he was King Einion’s champion, which made him the foremost warrior in all of northern Britain.

  Arthur turned his palms to face the roof. ‘Why wait, lord king?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s a confident bastard,’ Benesek beside me growled into his long grey moustaches, for he had worked out Arthur’s strategy even if I had not. ‘Clever bastard too,’ he said. ‘Or stupid,’ he added after a moment’s consideration.

  King Einion jutted his copper beard towards the deathbed and its grim human cargo. ‘Your father,’ he said, almost spitting the words. He gestured to his surroundings. ‘It would be unseemly.’

  Lord Arthur did not take his eyes from the King of Ebrauc. ‘The High King is dead,’ he said. Just like that he said it, and we all looked at Uther and some of the women in the hall gasped while a low rumble rolled amongst the men. For Arthur was right. Uther the Pendragon, High King of Britain and scourge of Saxons, was dead.

  Only Merlin did not seem surprised and perhaps he had already known, but Queen Igraine had not and now she fell to her knees and buried her face in the stained bear skin, her hands clutching Uther’s dead hands.

  ‘So?’ Lord Arthur said, repeating his gesture inviting King Einion to do what he must.

  The King of Ebrauc glanced about him at the other kings and lords of Britain, then pointed a finger at Lord Arthur, which was itself insult enough.

  ‘So, I challenge you,’ he said. ‘My champion against yours. Today. Here. Before the sun sets.’ The enormous warrior beside him rolled his shoulders and stroked his long beard as he glared at Gawain. I saw that there was a silver ring tied into the end of that long beard. A lover’s ring perhaps. Or else taken from the finger of some warrior he had killed.

  ‘If anyone should challenge him, it should be Lord Constantine?’ King Cynfelyn of Cynwidion said, at which Constantine nodded, though not convincingly.

  ‘There is no need for blood to be spilled,’ King Menadoc said. ‘Would we tear Britain apart before King Uther is cold?’

  Some men agreed with the King of Cornubia, but not enough. Menadoc was a small king of a small kingdom at the far end of southern Britain and he only ruled at Dumnonia’s pleasure, and so his was not a voice which could stop what was happening.

  ‘Merlin,’ Lord Arthur said, ignoring King Menadoc and two or three other men who were protesting that this behaviour was abhorrent in light of King Uther’s passing, ‘is King Einion’s challenge lawful before the gods and according to the ancient laws?’

  Merlin thought about it. ‘Any challenge to the named heir should be made on the day of acclamation,’ he said, nodding to King Einion and to Lord Constantine too.

  ‘Then let us acclaim Lord Arthur today,’ King Cyngen of Powys said, throwing his arms wide. ‘We are all here. Those of us who matter, anyway. Let us get it done now so that we do not have to come back to this wind-blasted rock again for another few years.’

  ‘Three days, lord king,’ Merlin told the King of Powys. He pointed his staff up at the hole in the gable wall. ‘The moon is waxing gibbous but in three days it will be full,’ he said. ‘That is when we shall acclaim the new king.’

  ‘But I can answer King Einion’s insults today,’ Arthur said.

  Merlin sighed. ‘If you must, lord,’ he said. ‘But we must await the moon.’

  ‘And who is your champion, Lord Arthur?’ King Einion asked. ‘Gawain of Lyonesse? Or perhaps one of your dark-skinned horsemen? A soot-black fiend from some gods-forsaken land across the sea.’

  ‘I am not yet a king,’ Arthur said, his face grim, ‘and prefer to do my own fighting than ask other men to fight on my behalf.’

  ‘You see, lads?’ Benesek murmured in my ear. ‘You see what’s happening?’

  And all of a sudden I did see.

  The truce between the kingdoms of Britain was ever a fragile thing and Arthur knew it. Whether or not he had known that his father would name him as his successor, Arthur had chosen to meet the challenge of dissenting voices head on. King Einion might as well have been a hawk held by the jesses for the way he had been brought to this. For Arthur knew that it was better to deal with any opposition now, before it could grow like a boil and burst later. Furthermore, if in doing so he could prove his own courage and worthiness to lead, if he could inspire loyalty in the other rulers, or even fear, then so much the better for his acclamation and accession to the dragon-carved throne of Dumnonia.

  He had wanted this fight. He had needed it.

  But he still had to win it.

  ‘What is your name, champion of Ebrauc?’ Arthur asked the huge warrior beside King Einion.

  ‘Odgar, lord,’ the big man said.

  ‘I have watched Odgar kill twelve men in single combat, Lord Arthur,’ King Einion said.

  ‘Twelve men,’ Arthur repeated. He seemed impressed. ‘Well then, Odgar, I shall be waiting for you outside.’

  A hum rose in the hall. Queen Igraine still knelt by her husband’s bed, holding his hands, her old face, which still hinted at the famous beauty she once possessed, glistening with snot and tears. But everyone else, the lords and ladies, kings’ champions, bards, servants and slaves, jostled their way to the main doors and spilled out of the hall.

  ‘Let us hope the fool lives long enough for you to keep your oath,’ Merlin gnarred at me as we pushed along the stream of babbling folk and came into the golden glow of that late
afternoon. And off he went, clearing a path through the crowd with his staff and leaving me to collect Boar’s Tusk from a steward, who must have remembered me for he was holding the scabbarded sword and belt ready. And as I strapped the sword belt on and waited for Benesek and Bors to retrieve their own swords, folk looking at me because I had no name that anyone knew and yet the High King had spoken to me, I thought how strange it was that I shared Merlin’s hope.

  I had come to Tintagel for no other reason than to accompany Benesek and, selfishly, to enjoy two or three sun-blessed days at the peninsular fort before sailing back to Karrek. And yet somehow, and for reasons I could not fathom, Merlin had shaped events so that I had stood at the dying king’s bedside and sworn an oath to protect the next king of Dumnonia. All being well, Arthur ap Uther would be that king and it did not matter to me that I had never spoken to Lord Arthur nor seen him before that day. Nor did I know what sort of man he was or whether he would make a good king or turn out to be a tyrant.

  In spite of all this I, like Merlin, wanted Arthur to survive. As I walked across grass smudged with purple dog violets and yellow kidney vetch, all trodden flat beneath soldiers’ feet, I wanted more than anything for Lord Arthur to kill that big champion of Ebrauc and be acclaimed king with the coming of the full moon.

  So that I could keep my oath.

  15

  Arthur

  IT SEEMED TO me that every spearman in Britain was on Tintagel’s heights. Word of King Einion’s challenge carried on the sea-whipped breeze until each lord’s retinue of warriors had gathered beside the High King’s hall like crows swooping in dark clouds to the scent of blood.

  King Menadoc’s Sun Shields were there. Cyngen’s men with their stag-antler-painted shields and Cynfelyn’s spearmen and the soldiers of King Meirchion Gul of Rheged stood shoulder to shoulder with Lord Constantine’s Roman-armoured troops and the warriors of several other rulers and minor kings. Arthur’s horse soldiers pushed their way to the front of the thronging, spear-armed mass to watch their lord, and opposite them, on the other side of this temporary arena made of flesh and iron, stood King Einion’s men of Ebrauc, along with Einion himself.