Lancelot

by Giles Kristian

  He laughed as he danced, and the two women, whose eyes were shadowed with soot and galena and whose lips were painted red, laughed with him in between sharp cries and shrieks in time with the music. And many of the spearmen who just two days before had stood shoulder to shoulder around their lord as he fought the champion of Ebrauc now stood around him again, only this time they clapped their hands and thumped knife hilts against their shields along with the beat of the drum.

  Benesek had not made it as far as Lord Arthur’s camp. We had been a spear-throw from King Uther’s balefire when one of Lord Constantine’s warriors had recognized Benesek even in the flame-shivered gloom and the two had greeted each other with the jovial familiarity of old friends.

  ‘This man and I fought King Hengist when we were your age,’ Benesek told me, his arm round the spearman’s shoulder. ‘His name is Cunittus and if you can believe it he’s even older than me,’ he said, almost smiling.

  I could believe it. Cunittus’s long hair and beard were completely grey, his face was a mass of creases and scars and I had seen that he walked with a limp.

  ‘But even now I’d pity any Saxon who faced this old dog in a shieldwall,’ Benesek said. ‘I’ve seen him scatter his enemies like a man winnowing grain.’

  ‘Ah, there was a time,’ Cunittus said wistfully. He held out his empty cup and in a heartbeat it was full and Benesek was filling his own. ‘We broke a shieldwall together once,’ he told Benesek. ‘You, me and Pelleas, remember?’ His eyes gleamed with that glorious memory. ‘Is he here?’

  Benesek frowned. ‘I wish he were,’ he said. ‘He’s been dead three years.’

  Cunittus growled under his breath and drank deeply. ‘A blade death?’ he asked.

  I looked at Benesek and he looked at me.

  ‘A good sword pierced his heart,’ Benesek said, and Cunittus nodded, content to know that, and then the two old warriors fell to reminiscing about other old friends and fellow spear-brothers who were even now waiting for them in the otherworld, perhaps on just such a night as this, with a warm breeze and flames and a feast. And so I had left them to it and now I stood watching Lord Arthur, the next king of Dumnonia and perhaps High King of Britain, dancing and laughing and spinning those two women round in the fire’s golden glow.

  ‘I’ve told him he’s going to rip the stitches and reopen the wound,’ someone beside me said, his voice raised above the flutes and the drums and the singing. ‘But he takes no notice.’ The man held out a hand and I shook it, realizing it was Lord Arthur’s nephew Gawain even before he introduced himself and asked who I was.

  ‘I’m Lancelot,’ I said, and was about to say that King Ban of Benoic had been my father but the words got trapped behind my teeth.

  Gawain’s scarred face and broken nose made him look fearsome in the flamelight, yet his eyes were friendly.

  ‘Well, Lancelot, that is a fine-looking sword,’ he said, nodding at Boar’s Tusk. ‘And the man I saw you with looks as though he might have been formidable once.’

  ‘His name is Benesek. He’s a famous warrior,’ I said, thinking Gawain should be more respectful.

  ‘Famous, is he?’ he said, his eyes smiling. ‘Perhaps when the Pendragon’s roar was still enough to make the Saxons foul their trews.’

  One of the red-lipped women cried out and we looked over to see that she had broken from Lord Arthur’s embrace and was pointing down at his left hip where his green tunic was dark and wet with fresh blood. The musicians had stopped playing and men and women’s faces were now heavy-browed with concern, but Arthur threw out a hand to cast away their fears. Then he pulled the woman close and kissed her cheek, at which the spearmen cheered, and Arthur yelled at the musicians to play again and so they did. And now others flooded into the circle to dance, as Lord Arthur came over to where Gawain and I stood.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Gawain chided him as Arthur pulled his tunic up to look at the wound. I saw the cut which Odgar had given him and the broken threads which had allowed new blood to spill.

  Arthur winced. ‘That Odgar was strong as a bull and his sword was wicked sharp,’ he said to me. ‘A dangerous combination, Lancelot.’ The other woman with whom he had been dancing came and gave him a scrap of linen which could have been torn from her undergarments. ‘You still have that ring I gave you? Or have you spent it on wine and women?’ he asked me.

  I lifted the thong round my neck so that he could see Odgar’s ring, which now hung beside a smaller one. Guinevere’s ring.

  Arthur smiled and pressed the cloth to the wound. He pulled his tunic back down and kept the pressure on with his left hand while holding out his bloody fingers to Gawain, who rinsed them with ale from his own cup.

  ‘Merlin tells me you’re a good fighter,’ he said.

  ‘I can fight,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘I always need good fighters,’ he said. ‘How is your horsemanship?’

  I considered that question. I had not ridden in years. ‘I like horses and they like me,’ I said.

  Arthur laughed at that and Gawain grinned. ‘Well, that is a good start,’ he said.

  ‘Lord,’ I said, feeling that I was on a horse there and then, a horse which was bolting and needed stopping. ‘I serve the Lady of Karrek Loos yn Koos.’

  ‘You did serve the Lady,’ he said, stressing the word did. ‘Merlin assures me that Lady Nimue has given her blessing for you to fight for the next king of Dumnonia.’ He fixed me now with eyes that had been the blue of the sky on the day he had fought Odgar, but which were now as dark as pitch and glossy in the fire’s amber glow. ‘And I will be king, Lancelot,’ he said.

  Behind him his spearmen and those others who had been drawn to Arthur’s camp were celebrating as if the gods themselves had come down to Dumnonia and promised to help us drive the Saxons out of Britain. But Arthur had cast off his mirth and looked hard and imposing as he stood beside his father’s pyre, a big hand pressed to the wound in his hip to stem the blood. ‘I will be king and I will reclaim Britain from those who would take it from us. From those who even now prepare to yoke their oxen and turn soil which they believe is theirs because they have won it from us. Because they have watered it with their own blood.’

  Gawain frowned at him and tilted his head towards me.

  Lord Arthur gave his nephew an almost imperceptible nod, then smiled at me and his face transformed once again. ‘But there is time for all that another day. Tonight, we celebrate, Lancelot.’ As if he had overheard his lord, one of Arthur’s tall warriors handed him a cup of wine. ‘And if you are worried about that oath you mumbled in the king’s hall, don’t be.’ He swatted the issue away like a fly. ‘Merlin is always stirring the broth. His scheming is beyond my understanding.’ He shook his head. ‘He says you’re a good fighter and I need fighters. My soldiers are the best in Britain—’

  ‘Best in Gaul too,’ Gawain put in.

  Arthur nodded. ‘You’ll make your name with me, if you’re as good as I have heard. You might even rise amongst my companions. Like cream in the pail.’ He grinned. ‘Or you might just get lucky like Gawain here.’ Gawain grunted. ‘Luck or talent,’ Arthur said, then drank from the cup and swiped a hand across his golden moustaches. ‘Or both. That’s even better.’ His eyes suggested he thought he himself enjoyed those twin blessings. He gestured behind him with the wine cup. ‘They look like drunken fools, Lancelot, but they are the bravest and most skilled horse soldiers since the legions left. And they are loyal.’

  ‘They’re fond of the silver and the wine with which my uncle rewards them,’ Gawain said with a mischievous grin that softened even his battle-scarred face. ‘That’s why they’re loyal.’

  Lord Arthur pointed the finger of the hand curled around his cup. ‘They are loyal because I never lose, nephew,’ he said.

  ‘That too,’ Gawain admitted.

  ‘So, young Lancelot, did you seek me out to make good on the oath Merlin tricked you into?’ He grinned. ‘Or did you come for the ladies?’ He look
ed towards the two women with whom he had been twirling through the flame-licked night. Both were now dancing with other men, though it seemed to me they were not having quite as much fun as before.

  ‘I don’t dance, lord,’ I said, which was answer enough.

  He smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re sure you wouldn’t rather live your life on a rock off the coast of Cornubia, now and again escorting fat merchants to Tintagel?’

  I thought of my duty to the Lady and my future as a Guardian of the Mount. Had the Lady really given her blessing for me to leave Karrek and serve this man? This horse lord, this lord of battle who, in two days’ time, would be acclaimed King of Dumnonia?

  Gawain gestured at Arthur’s hand which was still pressed against his left hip. ‘Need to get that stitched again,’ he said.

  Arthur lifted his tunic. ‘It’s barely bleeding,’ he said, but Gawain arched his left eyebrow, through which a white scar ran up to his hairline. ‘One more dance and I’ll get it stitched,’ Arthur said, then handed me his cup which was still over half full. ‘Drink up, Lancelot. If I was as handsome as you, I’d have conquered every pretty girl in Dumnonia by now.’ With his strong, blue-eyed face, white teeth and neat golden beard, Lord Arthur looked like a hero from a bard’s song, yet here he was bringing a flush of heat to my cheeks. ‘Enjoy yourself, young Lancelot. We shall speak again.’

  ‘Yes, lord,’ I said. He nodded and with that turned and walked back to join those who were spinning and contorting and jumping to the beat of the drum and the trilling notes of the bone pipe. You could hardly tell he was limping.

  I did not speak to Arthur again that night. I suspected the wound was worse than he admitted, for I saw him and Merlin and a grey-haired woman with a horn lantern head towards a tent near the horse picket beside the king’s hall. I didn’t see any of them again before I found a space by one of the fires, wrapped my cloak around me and, my head spinning from too much mead and wine, fell asleep.

  And in the morning, death came to Tintagel.

  16

  Betrayal at Dawn

  I WOKE TO a discord of horror. A chorus of shrieks and squeals that seemed to freeze the blood in my veins and still my heart. Dew-soaked and bleary-eyed, I sat up in the grass. All around me in the half-light men were pulling swords from scabbards, hefting spears and yelling, their raw, sleep-drunk voices thickening the confused clamour. I saw the first blood fly in the dawn as a warrior slashed his spear down, ripping open a man’s throat before that man was fully awake. Another streak of bright vivid red in a morn of muted greys, and I realized they were amongst us, warriors in mail armour and helmets. Men in iron with spears and blades which shone dully in the new day as they plunged and hacked at Lord Arthur’s men, who were still waking to the chaos.

  I drew Boar’s Tusk and held it before me, looking for Benesek and Bors. Looking for Arthur and Gawain, but I saw no faces that I knew amongst the frightened, panic-gripped masks of those who had been sleeping one moment and were now being slaughtered.

  ‘Who are they?’ I shouted to one of Lord Arthur’s men, who was pushing his helmet onto his head with the sober resignation of an experienced warrior.

  ‘Lord Constantine’s men,’ he growled, then hefted his spear and strode into the maelstrom, and I watched him deflect a spearman’s thrust and disembowel the man with a savage riposte. Others too were fighting back, throwing themselves at Constantine’s men with whatever blades they had, and the enemy, seeing that the easy killing was over, drew together, shoulder to shoulder, preparing to advance through the camp like a killing wave of wood, steel, leather and flesh, their big oval shields held before them.

  Beyond this wall of death, in the shadow of the king’s hall, I saw the last of Lord Arthur’s horses being hamstrung by men with dripping red blades. The beasts’ terrible screaming sounded like the torment of a thousand souls, a tumult that tore into the gloomy dawn. Ripped into men’s guts too and sowed fear that soured the mouth.

  ‘Shieldwall! Shieldwall!’ someone was bellowing and I looked over my shoulder to see that one of Arthur’s men, a huge, dark-skinned warrior with a black beard, had set himself with his back to the smouldering timbers and ember-glowing remains of King Uther’s balefire. The gods knew what fate Arthur himself had suffered. Perhaps he had been slaughtered while he slept and even now lay paling in the damp grass. The next king of Dumnonia dead before the first voice could be lifted to acclaim him.

  ‘Shieldwall!’ the big warrior yelled again, smoke billowing around him so that he and those men flooding to join him looked like wraiths emerging from the otherworld on Samhain eve.

  A hand grabbed my shoulder and I spun to see Benesek in his war gear and Bors at his shoulder, his sword drawn and his eyes large as they drank in the horror.

  ‘Easy now, lad,’ Benesek said. ‘Best get back to that lot.’ He gestured with his spear to the shieldwall forming of Arthur’s men. His moustaches were frayed and unkempt and his eyes were swollen with sleep, but he and Bors were alive and my heart leapt in my chest to see them.

  We walked backwards, facing the wave of Dumnonians who were tramping through the remains of the camp, the clothes and furs, the empty wine skins and the abandoned war gear, thrusting their spears down into the wounded and coming on. Driving on. Many of them wore similar mail or scale armour over russet tunics and all wore an iron helmet with a short red crest, so that I imagined this was a sight our ancestors would recognize, having faced the legions who marched under their eagles those many years ago.

  ‘I thought if any of them it’d be Einion,’ Benesek said, ‘not Constantine.’ He spat with disgust at the man’s treachery.

  ‘Look there,’ Bors said, pointing his sword to the west.

  The breeze blew smoke and ashes from Uther’s pyre towards us now. It billowed around us, making men cough and splutter, but even through the smoke and murk I saw King Einion and his men of Ebrauc, their shields painted with jagged bolts of black lightning. More men were flocking to their king but Einion himself stood like a rock at their centre, his face unreadable across the distance separating us.

  ‘And there,’ I said, pointing Boar’s Tusk at a band of warriors gathered by the cattle byre to the south of the king’s hall. ‘Men of Powys,’ I said, recognizing King Cyngen Glodrydd’s stag antlers on their shields.

  ‘I see them,’ Benesek growled.

  There were other groups of men too, other war bands, other spearmen of Britain mustering around their respective kings and lords between the smoking remains of the fires on Tintagel’s heights. And Benesek cursed again, because none of these leaders was bringing his men to help us.

  ‘At least they’re not joining Lord Constantine,’ Bors said, for he could always see the sun behind the cloud. Then the men of Lord Arthur’s shieldwall were shuffling left or right so that we could take our places in that small rampart of warriors. Except that it was not a shieldwall, because at least half the men had not had the chance to fully arm themselves. We were sixty men. Most had helmets, swords and spears, but only twenty or so had any armour, their gear being either with their screaming, hamstrung horses or still amongst the flattened grass where they had slept. Facing us were one hundred and fifty spearmen, all armoured, all carrying large oval shields and bristling with confidence that they could finish what they had started and drown the dawn in a welter of blood.

  ‘Stay together and stay strong!’ the man who commanded our line roared. I was on Benesek’s right and Bors was on his left, and I thought my heart would hammer right through my breastbone.

  ‘Can we hold?’ Bors asked Benesek.

  ‘We can fight, lad, and we can kill,’ Benesek said.

  I saw Lord Constantine in the centre of his shieldwall. He wore his sculpted armour and a bronze helmet with long ear-and-cheek guards and a stiff bronze crest which added to his already impressive height. In his left hand he carried the curved oval shield and in his right he held his sword raised towards us, its ivory hilt, carved in the sha
pe of an eagle’s head, glowing dully in the murky dawn.

  ‘Kill Lord Constantine and they’ll break,’ our leader called, his breath clouding, and some men roared their defiance at the Dumnonians, but not many. Most said nothing, just waited. They knew death was coming in the dawn, and all they could do was try to kill at least once before that shieldwall ground us to bloody meat.

  ‘Kill them all!’ Lord Constantine roared. ‘Send them to Arawn!’ he yelled. He had found his voice now, I thought, remembering how he had all but choked on his words in the king’s hall.

  Thirty paces. Men peering over their big oval shields, close enough that I could see a warrior’s wide eyes fixed on me. As if he had chosen me as his kill, reducing this mayhem of hordes to one against one.

  My own senses seemed to sharpen like a blade kissed by the whetstone. My blood thrummed as if intoxicated. I absorbed it all. Men coughing around me. Smoke surging, thickening the air and stinging my eyes and reaching towards the enemy shieldwall like ghostly fingers. My heartbeat deep in my ears now and a trickle of sweat running down my back, and the muscles in my thighs fluttering.

  Twenty paces.

  ‘Hold,’ Benesek growled at us. ‘Hold, you hear me!’

  My teeth clamped together so that my skull ached. That Dumnonian warrior still staring at me as the distance closed between us and I lifted Boar’s Tusk, pointing the sword at him to acknowledge our unspoken covenant. To the death.

  ‘Artorius!’ a man yelled. ‘Artorius! Artorius!’ others took up the cry, and I thought they were chanting the Roman form of their lord’s name as a battle cry. That they were invoking Arthur the way men invoke gods of battle. Then I heard the low rumble of distant thunder and for a heartbeat I thought the gods were answering these men but then I realized it was not thunder but the sound of horses’ hooves hammering the earth.