‘He looks confident,’ Bors said of Ebrauc’s king, for there was almost a smile on Einion’s thin lips and in his pale blue eyes as he watched his champion scything his great sword through the air to loosen shoulders that could have borne an ox’s yoke.
‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ Benesek asked. ‘He’s seen the man slaughter twelve enemies in fights such as this.’
‘You think he’ll beat Lord Arthur?’ I asked.
Benesek raised an eyebrow. ‘Didn’t say that,’ he said. ‘Lord Arthur wouldn’t have survived in Gaul if he were not a fighter. And he’s good reason to win. Better reason than just to live, for if he beats that big bastard he’s as good as won Uther’s high seat.’ He nodded at the spearmen all around us. ‘This lot will have seen a little blood fly on a summer’s day and will be content. They’ll go back to their lands knowing that Dumnonia’s new king is a warrior like his father before him.’
I watched Arthur as he walked along the line of spearmen who formed the arena’s far boundary. From end to end he stalked, gripping sword and shield and ignoring all those who growled encouragement as he passed. He had removed his cloak and given it to Gawain but he still looked magnificent in his bronze armour, its countless burnished scales reflecting the setting sun’s light so that as he moved he seemed cloaked in fire.
His helmet’s red plume swished as though in tribute to his fine war horses and the hinged, gold-chased cheekpieces were down, obscuring much of his face and making him look even more intimidating, and whatever good looks could still be glimpsed were marred now by a grimace and wild eyes; a savage mask that made him seem a different person from the man I had seen in King Uther’s hall. It was a transformation which chilled my blood.
‘Back in Gannes, when I was a child, some hunters caught a wolf,’ Bors said. ‘Not just any wolf but the pack leader, so my father said. They put it in a cage for the whole village to come and see. Bigger than me it was, snarling at us all and hungry. Pacing up and down in that cage and wanting to rip our throats out.’ He lifted his chin towards Arthur and did not need to say more.
King Meirchion of Rheged, whom men called Meirchion the Lean, had taken it upon himself to be the arbiter of the fight. The epithet was a good one, for Meirchion was without a doubt the fattest man I had ever seen. He was a bald, sweating, stout-limbed man with florid cheeks and narrow eyes. But Rheged was a large and powerful kingdom and so when Meirchion addressed the lords of Britain there was not a man who did not hold his tongue and show him respect.
‘This fight can only be stopped by a crippling wound or by death,’ he said, puffing for breath so that I wondered how he had managed the climb up to the plateau, and how his horse had survived the long journey south from Rheged. Then he lifted a hand upon whose fat fingers rings of silver and gold shone. ‘Or if one of the combatants yields, in which case the other may spare the man’s life,’ he said, wiping sweat from his bald head. He squinted at Merlin. ‘Tell us all what this fight is about, druid,’ he said, then gestured to the spearmen around him who had not been in the king’s hall. ‘Just so that we are all clear.’
Merlin sighed. ‘King Einion does not believe that Lord Arthur should be king,’ he said in a tired voice. Then fluttered a hand towards no one in particular. ‘There were some clumsy insults cast about, none worth repeating, and here we are like halfwits at a cock fight, about to watch two men who should be fighting the Saxons go at each other until one of them is dead.’ He looked up at the sky. Dusk gathered in the wake of the sun’s descent towards the western horizon. Not so long ago the day had been golden and the Pendragon had still been with us. It seemed much had changed already. ‘It is no wonder that the gods are deserting us,’ Merlin said.
Meirchion the Lean nodded. ‘That’ll do.’ He looked at Odgar. ‘You ready?’ he asked.
The champion lifted the end of his long beard to his lips and kissed the silver ring that was knotted there. Then he picked up his shield, which was painted with jagged black lightning, thrust his left arm through the rope loops to grip the handle and nodded.
‘Are you ready, Arthur ap Uther?’ the King of Rheged asked, his mention of Arthur’s lineage deliberate, it seemed to me. Rheged and Ebrauc had not always been friends and Meirchion was wise enough to know that Arthur and his famed horse soldiers could make for useful allies if ever his kingdom found itself at war with its eastern neighbour.
‘Ready, lord king,’ Arthur said, and beat his sword pommel twice against the inside of his shield. ‘Odgar of Ebrauc fights me today because his lord dares not,’ Arthur said in a clear voice, then pointed his sword at King Einion’s champion, ‘but no one can say that this man is a coward. Behold him now and hereafter remember him as a brave son of Ebrauc.’
Arthur was a tall man but Odgar was a head taller and far broader. He was Ebrauc’s champion and, as such, a warrior of reputation. He was a towering cliff face of a man, enormously strong and an experienced killer too. And yet the way Arthur spoke made it seem as though Odgar was some untested spearman out to kill his first man.
The expression on Odgar’s flat face was one of confusion. It was normal for men to trade insults before a fight and so he did not know what to make of his opponent’s behaviour. He glanced at his king but Einion just nodded at him to get on with the killing. So Odgar came forward and the spearmen from seven kingdoms took up the cheering for whichever man they wanted to win.
‘Lord Arthur can fight on four legs but can he fight on two?’ a man shouted.
‘He’ll need his horse to reach that big bastard!’ another called.
‘Come then, Odgar,’ Arthur said. ‘Let the gods decide it.’ He swept his sword through the air, his top lip hitched back from white teeth. ‘The gods and iron,’ he said.
Then Odgar attacked.
Arthur caught the first blow on his shield, reeling under the impact, then leapt forward, his counter strike just as ferocious and sending a shiver through the limewood boards of Odgar’s lightning-painted shield, such that men cheered to see that this might be a good fight. Then Odgar came on, scything his sword down again and again, from left to right, right to left, but he hit nothing because Arthur was fleet of foot and would not let any of those mighty blows land. He sidestepped and twisted and led Odgar on, the champion of Ebrauc snarling and slashing about him like a man hacking a path through brambles, and any one of those cuts might have smashed Arthur’s shield or lopped off a limb had Arthur’s feet not danced across the grass.
The combatants broke off, breathing hard. Already sweating.
Each having taken the other’s measure, both men thumped sword against shield and strode forward.
‘Lord Arthur plays a dangerous game,’ Benesek said, as Arthur seemed to open himself up, inviting the strike and then wrenching himself aside as Odgar’s blade flashed down. ‘One of these times he’ll guess wrong, or else Odgar will reverse the cut at the last,’ Benesek said.
As if he had heard Benesek, Arthur thrust his sword at Odgar’s face and the big man checked his advance and raised his shield. But Arthur’s thrust was a feint and now he swept his sword down across his body then up towards the champion’s right thigh. Somehow Odgar got his sword there to parry and the blades sang, then Odgar threw a foot forward and swept his shield across, slamming it into Arthur’s right shoulder to rattle the bronze scales and send Arthur staggering.
Cheers for King Einion’s man then. Perhaps for Arthur, too, for he had kept his feet after a blow that could have felled a stallion.
‘He’s quick for such a big man,’ Bors said admiringly.
‘The big ones tire easily,’ I said and Bors thrust his shoulder into mine, because he knew I was teasing him. ‘Lord Arthur will tire him,’ I said.
‘He might if he lives long enough,’ Benesek said, for Odgar was on Arthur again and this time it was all Arthur could do to get his shield between himself and the champion of Ebrauc’s sword. Splinters flew from Arthur’s bear shield and he was driven back, his arm bones surely rattling
under the onslaught.
This was a desperate contest. Each move and counter-move a fear- and sweat-soaked thread to be woven later into fireside verse by those who had the gift. For now, though, they made just a dreadful, discordant song. The clank of blade on shield boss. The dull thud of sword on limewood boards and, now and then, the scrape of a blade’s edge across iron ringmail or down bronze scales. And always the breathing, ragged and urgent. A man’s lungs pumping in his chest like forge bellows, feeding the fire of hate and the blood lust. These sounds told the true story. They were the lyre strings before they are tuned to melodious accord, before the bard’s fingers caress them to lift our hearts and our ideals.
No glory now. Just two men hacking at each other with sharp steel. Each craving the other’s death. Both desperate to live.
I wondered what King Uther would have thought had he known that men would fight over his throne with the echo of his last heartbeat still reverberating around Tintagel’s heights.
‘Put him down, lord!’ one of Arthur’s red-cloaked horsemen barked.
‘Gut him, Odgar!’ someone else yelled. ‘For Ebrauc!’ And as if in answer, Einion’s champion swung his sword backhanded with such strength that it sliced off the bottom third of Lord Arthur’s shield and I saw a glitter of scales in the air.
A cheer went up from the men of the north. Einion smiled and nodded, as if at last his champion was doing what he should have done the moment the fight began, for Arthur was bleeding. Odgar’s sword had cut through his shield and scale armour and even through the heavy leather jerkin beneath and gouged into the flesh above Arthur’s left hip.
Odgar himself grinned, scenting the blood, and such a wound, though not fatal, might have shaken some men’s confidence. Not Arthur. He looked down at the gash, at the fish-scale armour which was slick with blood, then he roared at Odgar, calling him the reeking dung of a spavined mare. He threw what was left of his shield at the big man, who lifted his own shield to bat it aside, but then Arthur was on him. Arthur ap Uther thrust high to keep Odgar’s shield high, then dropped to his knees and scythed his sword backhanded into Odgar’s right leg below the knee. The champion of Ebrauc bellowed in pain and hammered his sword down but Arthur spun away on the balls of his feet and came up still spinning to slash his sword into Odgar’s left shoulder where it crunched against the rings of Odgar’s mail, splitting some so that they flew like water glittering in the late sun.
The champion swept his shield wide and Arthur leapt back out of his blade’s reach, then sprang forward, quick as thought, and thrust his sword into Odgar’s open, braying mouth. For a heartbeat the big man’s skull checked Arthur’s momentum but then Arthur rammed the sword forward and there was a crack of bone, a gush of blood and a low groan from spearmen who knew that Odgar was dead, even though he still stood.
But Arthur had not finished with him yet. He bent his sword arm and reached out with his left hand to grab hold of Odgar’s long beard, that beard of which the champion was so proud and which had the silver ring knotted in it, and when the end of it was in his fist Lord Arthur pulled hard. He hauled the big champion forward with such violence, at the same time thrusting his sword deeper still, that with the sound of metal scraping metal the sword blade burst through the back of Odgar’s helmet, gleaming red in the red twilight.
Now Odgar’s big legs gave out and he collapsed, spewing gore, and Arthur let the great weight of his opponent’s armoured body pull him off the long blade. Then Arthur, his golden beard spittle-laced and blood-spattered, lifted that glistening red sword and pointed it straight at King Einion.
‘This man died for nothing,’ he yelled at the king. His eyes were wild with terror and the savage joy of battle. The veins in his neck strained against the skin. He might have been speaking to a king, but that fact did not blunt his rage. ‘Odgar of Ebrauc would have been a good man to stand shoulder to shoulder with against the Saxons,’ he roared. ‘Instead he lies here and will never know the glory of throwing the invaders back into the sea.’ He jabbed the bloody blade towards King Einion. ‘That is your doing, lord king. Not mine.’
The King of the North was all scowl and knitted copper brows but he did not refute the accusation, as his men came forward to gather up their champion’s body.
‘Wait,’ Arthur told them and strode back to where Odgar lay face down in the grass, his blood pooling on the sunbaked earth, drowning a clump of buttercups. The spearmen stepped back, affording the victor his right to the spoils, and I expected Lord Arthur to take the helmet, even split as it was, and Odgar’s mail coat, as well as his sword and his studded belt. But he took none of these trophies, telling Ebrauc’s spearmen that they should keep it all for they would need good war gear in the coming struggle against the Saxons. But he did use his own sword to saw through the end of Odgar’s beard until the silver ring came free.
He stood and turned until he found me in the crowd and there was a cold hardness in his blood-splashed face. ‘Lancelot, isn’t it?’ he asked, rubbing the ring on his trouser leg then holding it up to examine it by the fading light.
‘Yes, lord,’ I said.
‘Merlin must know something which I do not,’ he said, ‘to have brought you to my father’s deathbed today.’ Then he tossed the ring to me and I caught it. ‘So, remember, Lancelot, the waste you saw here.’ He almost spat the words. ‘The misuse of a brave man.’ I nodded and made a fist around the ring which was warm in my hand.
Then Arthur turned and walked back to Gawain and the rest of his men, and they slapped his back, praising his victory as much as chiding his mistakes in the fight, and he took it all in good humour, his teeth flashing white in his beard. In that instant I could have sworn I saw the battle wrath fly out of him, like a crow flapping up from the barley.
Uther the Pendragon, High King of Britain, lay dead and stiffening in his bed. Odgar, the champion of Ebrauc, was being hauled off by his arms through the summer flowers, streaking the grass red as he went. But Lord Arthur’s soldiers, those big, battle-scarred men who were short in Britain but long in war, laughed and cheered, and it seemed to me they were as happy as children allowed to stay up to hear the bards.
The day after Uther died, grey cloud rolled in from the ocean to cloak Tintagel in a dark pall and the sound of women’s wailing hung in the air like the threat of rain. I’d heard some women saying that Britain was gods-cursed, which was why the Saxons were getting stronger while our own great warlord lay stiff and cold. Bors heard a druid called Senorix telling a group of King Menadoc’s Sun Shields that the Christians were to blame, and that even now they gathered in their churches to work their spells against us pagans.
‘You think a man like Uther would suffer such a miserable lingering death had not some foul magic been worked against him?’ Bors screeched in imitation of the druid.
But Benesek warned us both against listening to druids. ‘Men like Senorix and Merlin stir up trouble wherever they can,’ he told us, filling a cup from a wine jug he had bought from one of Uther’s stewards. We were settling down for the night in a round hut on the exposed, wind-blasted north-east side of the peninsula, having eaten a meal of bread and smoked mutton from the supplies we’d brought from Karrek in the Swan. Gwydre, commander of Uther’s bodyguard, had put us in there with King Menadoc and his men, saying we Cornubians ought to get along fine, and in truth we did not envy Gwydre, having to keep the peace in Tintagel between all those men from different kingdoms.
‘Druids stir trouble. That’s what they do,’ Benesek said, swirling the wine round in his cup before downing half of it. ‘Because they thrive on chaos. They feed on it.’
I did not know enough about druids to disagree with him. I knew Merlin was cunning. When I was a boy, he and his slave, Oswine, had tricked me into witnessing his rites with Guinevere in the Lady’s keep. It had been some sort of test. And now, years later, he had tricked me again, this time into swearing an oath to serve – to protect was how he put it – the next king of Dumnonia, who m
ust surely be Lord Arthur. And I knew that Pelleas had not liked Merlin, just as Benesek mistrusted him still, though I did not know if their reasons went beyond a warrior’s natural mistrust of magic.
‘So don’t you concern yourself with any of Merlin’s nonsense, Lancelot,’ Benesek said, meaning the oath I had muttered in the High King’s hall. ‘I’ll straighten it out with him before we leave. As for Uther, he was past knowing what he was saying.’ He drained his cup, dragged a hand across his long moustaches and reached for the wine jug. ‘Steer clear of druids. That’s my advice to you.’
‘So you don’t believe Senorix that the Christians killed King Uther with the help of their god?’ I said, guiding the conversation away from Merlin, for I was not yet ready to forget my promise to Uther. Not before I had at least seen Lord Arthur acclaimed. Not before I had found out why Merlin had put me in the position to be making such a promise to the High King of Britain.
‘No, I do not,’ Benesek said, clenching and unclenching his right hand. ‘That old goat would have me believe these swollen knuckles are the Christians’ fault. That every time my guts are loose it’s because some Christ-follower prayed to his god to sour my belly.’ He shrugged. ‘Druids,’ he said, then drank again.
Even so, the High King was dead and women wailed and the blue summer sky had been usurped by grey, swollen cloud which weighed above our heads like a low roof. For a full day and night that cloud threatened rain, which did not fall until at last, on the day of Uther’s funeral rites, the gloom above our heads released its burden. That rain fell all day, hissing down upon Dumnonia’s peninsular fortress to flatten the grass and summer flowers, even finding its way through old thatch to puddle on earthen floors. To the south we could see patches of clear sky between thin gauzes of distant rain, but Tintagel and the seas breaking on its ragged shore were flayed by the downpour, so that we all feared that King Uther’s balefire would not burn. And if Uther did not burn, then how would his spirit body make the journey to the afterlife? If there was no fire because the gods did not believe Uther, scourge of the Saxons, was worthy of the hereafter, what would that say about Britain’s future?
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