‘You had better know what you’re doing, druid,’ Arthur said, scowling with the weight of his burden. Merlin just lifted his staff by way of reply and marched on. Behind us, the clamour of battle. The clash of blades, the voice of struggle; guttural, animalistic, desperate, pitiful. Above us gulls wheeled, shrieking in the dawn and oblivious of our trials. Ahead of us, in the east, the sky was aflame and just then the sun came into view above Dumnonia’s far forests and rolling hills. It half blinded me. It seemed to set fire to the helmets and spear blades of Rheged.
‘Lord Arthur!’ Bors called. We looked behind us and saw that a handful of Constantine’s men had got around Bedwyr’s line and were running after us.
‘Leave them to me,’ Gawain said, hauling on his reins to turn his big mare back to face them. With a kick of heels and yell of encouragement he galloped towards the Dumnonians, his spear couched and his helmet glinting in the golden flood of dawn.
‘Keep going,’ Merlin called, and through the glare I saw the warriors of Rheged shuffling left or right and a gap appearing in the middle of their shieldwall. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Gawain had killed one of the Dumnonians and scattered the rest, and now he trotted the mare after us up the slope to the ridge of rock, the proud animal snorting and tossing her head as if contemptuous of their enemies.
‘I’ll not start a war with Dumnonia, but I’ll not let them follow you either, Lord Arthur,’ King Meirchion the lean called as we tramped through the channel between his war band. ‘Not until midday at least.’ He lifted a fat hand to sweep the sweat from his forehead. ‘I’ll block this like a plum stuck in a throat, Lord Arthur. Won’t let any but your own men through. But you had better be far away by midday, because I’ll not have a war for your sake.’
I heard one of King Meirchion’s men mutter that the man Arthur carried was dead or would be before we got across the land bridge. Arthur must have heard, too.
‘Thank you, lord king,’ he said, as five of Meirchion’s men came forward, each leading a horse on a leather shank. They were not magnificent beasts like Lord Arthur’s horses, which the Dumnonians had so cruelly hamstrung and whose pitiful whinnies still tainted an already foul dawn, but rather the sturdy packhorses and carthorses native to Britannia and which had no doubt borne Meirchion’s provender some four hundred miles from Rheged. Each was saddled and carried a water bottle, rolled-up cloaks and a ration bag.
‘You will of course pay me back,’ Merlin told Arthur. ‘These bow-backed wretches cost me more than a brace of pretty bed slaves and an amphora of Falernian.’
I helped Arthur get Herenc onto his horse behind the saddle horns. I felt how cold was the man’s flesh but I said nothing to Arthur and mounted a small but stocky dun pony, which snorted as I leant forward to let her smell my hand.
Arthur took the biggest of these horses, yet given his scale armour and with the extra burden of Herenc the poor animal looked swaybacked and cruelly laden as we started off towards the rising sun. Behind us there was a jangle of metal and clatter and clump of shields as the men of Rheged closed the gap in our wake, forming a solid shieldwall once more.
‘If King Meirchion betrays us and sides with Lord Constantine we won’t get far,’ Gawain said, looking over his shoulder as if he half expected the shieldwall to part again and allow the Dumnonians to pour through like water through a split hull.
‘He won’t betray us, Gawain,’ Merlin said. ‘I threatened to fill his belly with serpents if he did, and can you imagine how many serpents could happily writhe inside that fat lump of a man? Still,’ he added, lifting his staff and pointing its gnarled end towards the sun which was a huge red and gold burnished disc, like a god’s shield hanging above the horizon, ‘we should make these sorry creatures work for their keep, just to be sure.’ And with that he dug his heels into his pony’s sides and it whinnied and broke into a trot, its hooves drumming the ground.
So we kicked our own mounts and followed him.
Nightfall found us camped beside the old Roman coastal road amongst a hazel coppice understorey to woodland of oak, ash and birch. And though we could have built a pyre to rival Uther’s just from the deadfall around us, we did not risk a fire in case we were pursued by Arthur’s enemies. Instead we pulled our cloaks tight around us and took shelter beneath the bright oval leaves which shivered in the breeze.
Merlin cut a hazel rod and set about etching a circle in the ground inside which we were all to sleep. ‘Really the stick should be cut on May morning before sunrise,’ he said as he bent to the task, using both hands to score the ground, ‘but this will suffice. And being surrounded by hazel we shall be safe from demons, serpents and evil spirits, which is something, I suppose.’
‘And which of those is my cousin Constantine?’ Arthur asked, wincing at the pain in his own left hip as he laid Herenc carefully down.
‘Why, a serpent of course,’ Merlin replied, getting no argument from anyone, given how we had awoken that morning to his treachery.
The Roman road was wide enough for a swaying cart and to my eyes impressive, even cracked and burst through here and there with weeds as it was, though this state of disrepair had caused Lord Arthur to spit aspersions after the High King’s wind-borne ashes. ‘Taxes should have been spent on keeping such roads usable,’ he’d moaned from the back of a horse which was similar to his own proud mare in the way that a pigeon is similar to a gyrfalcon. ‘To beat the Saxons, the armies of Britain will need to march along such roads,’ he had said. ‘There must be men somewhere who have the knowledge to restore them. Were the Romans our betters in everything?’
‘In building, yes. And in war,’ Merlin said, ‘and in appropriating and improving the inventions of others. And, of course, in wine and administration and getting water from this place to that place, and a great many other things besides. But then they turned their backs on their gods and took up the Christ. And before long their great city, the beating heart of their once great empire, swarmed with big dull brutes like Gawain here,’ he said, pointing at the warrior riding up ahead, who seemed neither dull nor brutish to me, though he was undoubtedly big. ‘Let that serve as a lesson to you, Arthur,’ Merlin had said, holding his hand as still as the pony under him would allow, in order to observe a wasp which seemed to be following the inked swirls on the back of his hand. ‘The gods do not put up with being ignored, let alone abandoned,’ the druid said. ‘They become spiteful.’
‘Tell my cousin, not me, for he holds the reins of Britain now,’ Arthur griped. ‘And anyway, have not the gods abandoned me?’
Merlin had said nothing to that and we had ridden on along that time-ravaged road and Herenc had bled dry and turned pallid yellow, the colour of pus-stained linens. And it seemed to me that this, not the weeds in the road, nor the capriciousness of the gods, nor even his betrayal at the hands of his cousin Lord Constantine, was the reason for Arthur’s gloominess.
The previous night, when he had danced in the glow of Uther’s balefire, Arthur had shone brighter than the flames. His presence had illuminated the darkness and the faces around him. Now, his ill mood seemed to darken the day. It dissuaded speech. Made one mile feel like two, and the wellspring of that sourness was poor Herenc, who lay on his cloak amongst the faintly glowing stars of white campion, as nightingale and willow warbler streaked through the gloaming.
The rest of us gave those friends what solitude we could and made ourselves busy with things that did not need doing. I had already checked the ponies’ hooves, picking out some small stones with the tip of my knife, and now I used saddle cloths to rub the sweat from their coats. As if it would make a difference without having a brush to see to their skin and bring up a shine and do a proper job of it.
Bors was cleaning our weapons, now and then spitting on the blades and scrubbing the bloody saliva off with handfuls of oak leaves and moss. Oswine was off gathering herbs for Merlin, who lay on his back and might have been asleep for all anyone knew, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his bl
ack hood. Gawain was a dark shape a short distance off, in his war gear still, so that amongst the moonlit silver birch he looked like the general of a ghost army, silent sentinels looking back along the Roman road whence we had come.
I watched Gawain as I ran the cloth over his mare’s flank – making sure to be gentle because she had taken several blows in the fight – and I thought of something he had told me earlier on the way north.
‘They are close,’ I had said to him, watching the care with which Arthur rode, Herenc mounted in front of him, his arms reaching around to the reins so that Herenc could not fall from the horse though his strength was failing.
‘They are brothers,’ Gawain had replied with a shrug. ‘In the way that you and Arthur are brothers now, Lancelot.’
‘He doesn’t know me,’ I said, watching Arthur speak words of comfort to Herenc, who was slumped over, head bowed so that if not for Arthur’s talking I would have thought the man had slipped from life.
‘You ran to his side when he needed you, Lancelot,’ Gawain said, without turning to look at me. ‘You stood with him in the press. Shed blood with him. In Arthur’s eyes that makes you brothers. If it came to it, he’d give his life for you.’
I’d frowned at that, but Gawain had shrugged again. ‘That’s Arthur,’ he’d said.
Now, sitting on the ground beside him, Lord Arthur held Herenc’s hand in his own and with his other hand pushed the man’s sweat-tangled hair away from his face, speaking in a voice a mother might use to soothe her fevered child.
‘All will be well, dear Herenc,’ Arthur said, then he glanced at the forest around him. ‘We are safe here. Gawain watches the road. Nothing can harm us.’ He lifted a hand to his cheek and knuckled away a tear. ‘Rest now, my friend. Gather your strength.’
Herenc tried to speak but his lips barely moved and the words, if they were words, had no form. He grimaced with pain and I looked away, putting my face against the muzzle of Gawain’s big war horse and hushing her though she had made not a sound since we came into the coppice.
Herenc made another feeble attempt at words then gasped, sudden and loud, like a crab diver up for breath.
‘Shhh. There now, the pain will ease,’ Arthur said. There was no abashment in him, no fear that his intimacies should be overheard by strangers. The unease belonged to us who trespassed with our eyes and ears, and just then Bors looked up from the blade across his thighs, his face drawn and tired, shadow-pooled in the twilight as our eyes met.
Less than a heartbeat only and we were back at our work.
‘Leave the poor man alone, Arthur. For all the gods, let him die in peace.’ The voice had come from the black cowl and I cringed that Merlin should answer such care with not a scrap of his own. I saw Arthur glaring at the druid’s dark shape, though he held his tongue, perhaps not wanting sharp words to tear the peaceful shroud he was winding around his friend.
‘Leave … me,’ Herenc said. Again, barely speech, though close enough.
‘I will not,’ Arthur said. He had given up trying to dispel the flies which buzzed excitedly around them both, hungry for the blood which was in Herenc’s ringmail and on his hands and which had stiffened his cloak. It was on Arthur too. I could smell its coppery scent from where I stood.
‘We have ridden far together, my friend, and shall ride further still. No man has more courage than you. More honour,’ he told Herenc. ‘Look,’ he said, but Herenc was too far gone to look, ‘the bleeding has all but stopped. Sleep. Tomorrow, when you have rested, you will feel stronger. Merlin will stir some elixir, some foul-tasting draught that will take away the pain and restore you.’
I wet the saddle cloth and cleaned the horses’ eyes and noses. Checked backs for sores from the tack. Combed knots from manes with my fingers.
‘He will have left us before the moon climbs above yonder oak,’ said the voice from the cowl. ‘We would be better served talking about what tomorrow holds for those of us who will still be here to see it.’
‘Hold your tongue, druid,’ Arthur snarled, unable to swallow the rebuke even for Herenc’s sake. I looked away but only after I had seen the whites of Lord Arthur’s eyes as he glowered at the shrouded, prostrate figure.
‘Then I shall sleep, Lord Arthur,’ Merlin said. ‘Wake me when Oswine returns. If he has found what I need. If he has not, leave me be.’ He lifted an arm and wafted it at a cloud of gnats hovering above his head. ‘Unless of course you wish to talk about such small matters as your kingdom. Or perhaps the fate of Britain.’
Arthur did not reply. Somewhere off to my left an owl hooted, welcoming the night. It would hunt soon. Closer, amongst the nearby hazels, a soft commotion of flapping wings, some ground-nesting bird dreaming of flight. And still nearer, the gentle voice of a lord of war comforting a dying man.
Gawain had the right idea, I thought, wishing I had taken the first watch. Still, it would not be long now. It couldn’t be. No one could bleed so much and live.
I looked at Bors and saw the relief in his face just as he must have seen it in mine. For Merlin, though he had just a moment ago been flapping at the gnats above him, was asleep, and he snored as loudly as a hog.
Herenc died on the cusp of the new day. We had all slept some hours, even Lord Arthur, though when I woke I saw him sitting once more with Herenc, who did not look to be breathing, though he must have been, if only just. And soon after, as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and shrugged off a dream of my brother Hector, and as blackbirds, robins and wrens celebrated as though they had never before seen the dawn, Herenc at last stopped fighting.
‘He has gone,’ Arthur said. To himself as much as to us.
Bors nodded. ‘He did not want to burden us,’ he said.
Oswine had returned at some point in the night with herbs and wild flowers, and Merlin had crushed and added these to wine, stirring the draught with a hazel twig. Then he and Arthur had trickled the liquid into Herenc’s grimacing mouth and Merlin said: ‘I kill the evil; I kill the worm in the flesh, the worm in the grass. I put a venomous charm in the murderous pain. The charm that kills the worm in the flesh, in the tooth, in the body.’ Three times he spoke the words, his ash staff held aloft and its smooth gnarled head gleaming in the moonlight. Then he had left Arthur cradling Herenc and returned to lie on his bed of leaves.
‘What use your potions and charms, druid?’ Arthur spat. His eyes glimmered with tears.
Merlin shrugged. ‘He had a foot and more in Annwn long before we got my potion into him,’ he said, then reached for something invisible, failing to snatch it from the air. ‘One might as well try to stop blossom being carried off by the wind. I took his pain away. Be grateful for that.’
Arthur frowned and looked at Oswine, to whom I had still not spoken since that night years ago when he had feigned drunkenness to trick me into helping Merlin with his rites in the Lady’s keep. The previous day I had seen the Saxon stalking through the carnage of battle gripping a battered shield and a bloodied axe. Now he was preparing us a breakfast of bread, cheese and wine, though he surely felt Lord Arthur’s glare.
‘Perhaps Oswine brought back deadly nightshade or hemlock to hasten our brother to Arawn’s embrace,’ Arthur said to Merlin, who sat on an old stump enjoying the dappled sunlight on his face.
Merlin sighed as one who grows tired of having to explain himself to smaller-minded men, and Oswine, knowing it was not his place to refute Lord Arthur’s suggestion, continued cutting the cheese into thumb-sized pieces.
‘And perhaps,’ Merlin said, ‘if you had not ridden into a mass of enemy spearmen, your friend Herenc would still be in this world daydreaming of ale and whores and your next foolhardy adventure.’ He threw out his hands. ‘We do what we do and what does not disgust the gods makes them laugh or else passes unseen.’ He considered this. ‘The last of those is the least desirable, I might add.’ The druid shuffled round on the tree stump. ‘Dear Gawain, did I not get Lord Arthur out of that mess back there?’ he asked, tilting his short b
eard towards the Roman road beyond the trees.
‘You did,’ Gawain admitted through a mouthful of cheese which he had pilfered from the ash stump which served as Oswine’s table.
‘And did I not take away your friend’s pain?’ Merlin asked Arthur. ‘If not for me, he would have been writhing like an eel. Mewling like a cat gushing kittens under some bush.’
I had seen Merlin pluck herbs from the grass and crush them into a poultice which he had smeared into Herenc’s ruined flesh, and maybe it had eased the man’s pain. Or maybe Herenc had been too far gone by then to feel much anyway.
Still, Lord Arthur gave Merlin the benefit of the doubt and nodded. He laid Herenc down, stood and looked at the dead man as though planting the memory of his face in his own mind, then lifted his chin and set his jaw. ‘So, what now?’ he said.
‘And there was I thinking you wanted to wait for your cousin to catch up with us before we actually got to the nub of it,’ Merlin said under his breath, turning to regard me with those keen, dark eyes. I was eating bread and cheese and he watched me for a while. I felt uneasy, though I was too hungry to stop eating. ‘Did you know that the hazel is the tree of knowledge, Lancelot?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘It has many virtues, the hazel, but knowledge is one of them,’ he said. ‘And so, given that we are surrounded by hazels, it seems fitting that I should share some scraps of knowledge with you now. With all of you,’ he added, turning back to face Arthur, ‘but mostly with you, Arthur ap Uther. For you are most in need of it.’
Lord Arthur walked over to Oswine, who handed him a piece of cheese and a hunk of bread and Arthur took it over to some deadfall and sat to eat. He should have been sitting on the throne of Dumnonia, yet he looked comfortable enough.
‘Will this knowledge help me avenge myself on my cousin?’ he asked. Gone now were the tear-brimmed eyes and the face that was all compassion and anguish. In its place was a visage of cold hatred. I had marvelled almost to the point of disconcertment at the care this warlord had shown for one of his horse soldiers, a man who Gawain had told me was no closer to Arthur than any of his other retained warriors. But now? Now I marvelled as much at this other face. This bone-hard, steely-eyed face which must have been the last sight many of his enemies had seen in this life.
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