‘Fools,’ Bors snarled, panting beside me as we watched the last of the Saxons break and hare down the hill. ‘They’d have been better off running up the damn hill,’ he said. Blood-spattered, streaming with sweat and round-eyed with the savage thrill of butchery, my cousin made a fearsome sight.
‘The end would be the same,’ I said, as Parcefal and Cai and the sixteen men and horses still able to fight kicked back their heels, lowered their long spears and galloped after the enemy. ‘Did you see the rooks fly over them,’ I said, ‘when you were up on the hill?’
Bors knuckled sweat from his eyes. ‘I saw them,’ he said.
Merlin, wherever he was, would have said that that omen was a message from the gods and perhaps it was. What he would have said about my dream before the battle, in which my father and I clung to each other as we had never done while he was alive, I could not guess. But what did it matter now? We had lured the enemy into our trap and slaughtered them. I stood there on that gentle slope, aware of the blood coursing through my veins and my heart thumping beneath my breastbone and the leather and scale armour. I thought the gods were with me. I thought myself invincible. And we had won.
That summer we marched east and took the war to Rhegin. Spearmen from Caer Gwinntguic joined us, wanting revenge for King Deroch whom the Saxons had murdered and thrown off the ramparts of Venta Belgarum along with his high seat. Furthermore, hearing of the great slaughter we had made, one hundred and twenty warriors led by Lord Farasan marched south from Caer Celemion to swell our numbers. Lord Farasan was a good fighter and a useful ally, having for years held his southern border, and these days his northern territories, too, against the Saxons advancing along the Tamesis valley.
I would have given much for thirty, even twenty more of Arthur’s horse soldiers, but those long-experienced warriors were in the north with their lord and I had to make do with the seventeen that I had. Still, there were times when I strapped on Tormaigh’s boiled leather armour and rode him into battle alongside Cai and Parcefal, revelling in the stallion’s strength and quickness. Loving the freedom of it. Thrilling in the charge like a hawk folding its wings and stooping to the quarry.
We fought the Saxons whenever we found them outside their forts or beyond the frontier which they had long ago agreed with Ambrosius Aurelius, but which King Aella refused to recognize.
It was a summer of blood, and by the time the first cold dewy mornings came, and the days turned still and heavy with the air smelling of damp earth, we had killed and maimed, mutilated and butchered more Saxons than we knew had ever come to our shores. And still there seemed no end to them. The spears on their ramparts were forests. The clamour of their war songs was thunder on the air and we knew that come next spring there would be more boats crunching the shingle of Rhegin’s southern shore. More ambitious young men hungry for land and plunder and glory.
We had seen over two hundred of our own warriors killed and many more wounded so that they might never again carry a spear in defence of their homes and kin. Just eight war horses were left now and only six men experienced enough to ride them. Our blades were dull from killing, our shields were splintered and our bodies were weary. And even if we had not won, in as much as we had not even come close to driving the invaders back into the sea, we had not lost. Not one battle.
I had led our brave men into the fray time and again. Whether mounted on Tormaigh or fighting on foot I was the first to blood the enemy and the last to sheathe my sword. The Saxons had learnt to fear me. They saw my scale armour and my white-plumed helmet, which had once been Benesek’s, and they knew death was coming.
It was a summer of blood, and at that summer’s end, when the low sun threw long shadows across the land, we had done enough to check the enemy’s advances and send Aella to ground like a fox before the hounds.
I had done what Arthur asked of me. But then came news far worse than any omen. Worse even than the certainty of more ships and more Saxons coming in the spring.
I was tired from war and sick of the stench of death, but I was feared and respected. I was Arthur ap Uther’s right hand. I was a lord of war. And yet when this news came from the north, I cried like a child.
Word came from the north like an ill wind. Riders carried it first to Camelot and from there a man rode east to find me camped in a valley a half-day’s ride south of Venta Belgarum. Despite having had several days to practise their delivery of the news, the messengers were rigid and tight-faced as they dismounted sweat-lathered horses and walked towards me across mud glistening in the light of a watery, corn-coloured sun.
‘My lord Lancelot,’ the older of them said, white hands balled at his sides, his eyes flicking from me to Bors to Parcefal, who had come from his tent to hear what they had to say. ‘Lords,’ he said, including the others. ‘It is my duty to—’ He stopped and cleared his throat, then scratched awkwardly at his bearded neck.
‘Out with it, man,’ Bors said.
The messenger nodded. ‘Lord Arthur is dead,’ he said.
I looked at Bors, then at Parcefal, who had known Arthur for many years, stupidly thinking that Parcefal would tell the messenger that it was not so, that he had made some mistake.
‘How?’ Parcefal asked, blunt as an old knife, before I could find my tongue.
‘Slain in a battle north of Galwyddel,’ the man said, deliberately emphasizing the name of that place, as if to make a point of how far away it was. ‘Our lord and future king is slain helping the King of the North,’ he said, the words escaping tight lips. Clearly he did not think his lord should have been fighting another man’s war, though he stopped short of saying so.
‘And King Einion?’ I asked. If he was dead too, Britain must surely face ruin.
‘Alive,’ the messenger said.
‘And Mordred?’ Parcefal asked, for Arthur might not be king but he was the protector of Britain, and as such, Mordred was his heir.
‘Alive,’ the man said, nodding at Parcefal, who nodded back, taking some small comfort in that fact at least.
‘Mordred has … the body?’ I asked. I did not know why I asked that then. Perhaps I simply needed to know where my friend was beneath the sky. Even if his soul had flown the flesh.
The messenger glanced at his younger companion, who it was clear did not want to play any further part other than having ridden all this way.
‘Lord Arthur’s body was lost,’ the other man said.
Bors shook his head and cursed. I looked at Parcefal, whose scarred face now looked as fierce as it had ever done in battle.
I turned my glare back on the Dumnonian. ‘Lost how?’ I asked.
He frowned. ‘In the melee, lord,’ he said.
‘Then perhaps he is alive,’ I said, seeing a glimmer of hope in his grim account.
But the man shook his head. ‘Mordred saw him fall. He tried to reach Arthur but there were too many of the enemy. He was forced to ride clear or else be cut down beside his father.’
Parcefal grunted, as if to suggest that would have been the thing to do under the circumstances.
‘And Gawain?’ Bors asked.
‘He and Bedwyr are alive. They withdrew at Mordred’s command,’ the man said. ‘They are riding south to Camelot with what’s left of the army.’
It was barely autumn but that news made my blood run cold. My thoughts struggled in their own melee and I found it difficult to draw an even breath. Arthur dead? It did not seem possible.
‘Was the battle won?’ I asked.
‘Neither won nor lost,’ the messenger said.
‘Yet Mordred is riding back to Camelot.’
‘With Arthur dead, Lord Mordred believes any obligations to the King of the North are void.’
‘I agree with him on that,’ Parcefal said. ‘Why waste more men fighting the Picts when we have enough enemies of our own at the gates?’
Still, I felt more contempt than ever for Mordred then, knowing he had left Arthur’s body to the enemy. I shuddered to think how the
Picts would treat such a trophy. I shuddered even more to think how Guinevere would take the news. Her husband, the Lord of Dumnonia, the hope of Britain … and my best friend, was dead.
Facing Guinevere was harder than killing Saxons. Much harder. She had known before me, of course, but when I saw her, after a meeting of Arthur’s warlords, it was as if she had seen Arthur cut down. She was pale and glassy-eyed with grief, the way some men are after their first battle, or after taking a blow to the head. And yet even in her anguish she shone in that dark hall. Brighter than the beeswax candles and the polished bosses of the bear shields which hung on the walls.
‘I should have been with him,’ I said, not knowing what else to say. I had waited until the hall was empty but for two or three slaves who scurried about gathering cups and plates and scraping food leavings into a bucket for the pigs. Guinevere did not meet my eye but watched a young Saxon boy scattering clean reeds upon those made dirty by so many warriors’ boots.
‘You cannot protect us all, Lancelot,’ she said.
Our eyes had met earlier, while Mordred talked of how he had tried and tried again to reach Arthur before the Picts could unhorse him and deal the death blow. And in that look I had told her that we must speak, for all that I detested the idea of seeing her pain up close, her agony at losing the man we both loved. But now she would not look at me.
‘What will you do?’ I asked.
‘What will any of us do?’ she said. Hers was the better question, for without Arthur to unite the kingdoms, Britain was doomed. There was no one else. No lord or king who looked beyond his own borders to see what Britain could be if only we stood together against our enemies.
She looked over to Arthur’s chair, carved in oak as Uther’s had been, but incised with a bear’s face high on the splat and paws on its arms, their claws already wearing smooth from Arthur’s touch.
Mordred’s chair now, I thought. Perhaps that’s what Guinevere was thinking too. For Mordred had just declared his right to rule in his father’s place. More than this, he had claimed it was his duty to assume the mantle of Lord of Dumnonia and protect the kingdom as his father had. He had not gone as far as to suggest that he be proclaimed king, as Uther had been and as Arthur intended to be. But he would, in time. I knew it.
‘Why did you not speak against him?’ Guinevere asked me. She turned and looked at me and I saw that she had not been sleeping.
‘Why should I speak against Mordred?’ I asked, then lifted my chin towards Arthur’s high seat. ‘I do not want it,’ I said. ‘Neither does Gawain. Nor Bedwyr. Nor Parcefal. Arthur was the only one—’ I stopped. Saying his name put a lump in my throat. ‘He was the only one who believed Britain can be whole again, as it was when Maximus reigned.’
‘Mordred wants it,’ she said, looking back at that bear-carved chair.
I shrugged. ‘Perhaps he is the best man to sit there. At least he wants it. And he is Arthur’s son. Uther’s grandson.’
‘He hates you,’ she said.
‘He does,’ I said. ‘But he cannot harm me.’
Mordred had changed much in the years I had been in Gaul. No brooding boy now, he was a full-grown man and a warrior of reputation. He commanded his own loyal spearmen and was as brave as any man in battle. Perhaps he was the only man in Dumnonia who could lead. But no matter how much he hated me, I did not fear him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘You didn’t kill him,’ she said. There were no tears in her tired eyes. Perhaps she had done all her crying already. She pursed her lips and released a long breath whilst pressing the heel of her hand against her chest. As though staunching the blood from a wound.
‘You are still the Lady of this hall,’ I said.
‘Mordred does not want me here. He’ll bring Morgana to Camelot now Arthur is gone.’
‘He won’t dare move against you,’ I said. But she did not seem to care.
‘Why did you give me back the ring?’ she asked. I thought I saw a glistening of her eyes then, by the light of the nearby candle.
I considered her question for a moment. ‘Because the ring was a promise,’ I said. ‘A promise you could not keep.’
‘I was just a girl,’ she said.
‘A promise neither of us could keep,’ I corrected. I remembered that day when I had ridden away from Camelot, having pulled that silver ring from my neck and given it back to her. ‘You had a different life. A new life.’
She worked a thumb into the palm of her other hand. ‘And what do I have now?’
I wanted to take those pale hands in my own and put them to my lips. I wanted to breathe warm breath into them.
‘You have me,’ I said.
She closed her eyes and shook her head as if I had spoken disrespectfully. And perhaps I should have regretted those words. Perhaps I was without honour. And yet, it was the truth. She did have me then, in that sorrow-filled hall, with Arthur’s high seat standing empty as though waiting for him. Just as she had always had me, since that day when we were both children and I had cheated the sea god Manannán mac Lir of his rich haul.
‘Lancelot, I see you have come sniffing like a hound after scraps.’ We turned to see Mordred standing in the doorway. ‘Or have you been eyeing my father’s seat?’ He leant against the thick doorpost, lifted his chin and scratched his fair beard. So much like his father then. ‘Or perhaps you covet both? My father’s wife and Dumnonia?’
‘Careful, Mordred,’ I said as he grinned and came deeper into the hall. As always, Melwas was with him, close as a shadow, and he leered when he saw Guinevere and me together in the shadows near the bear-carved chair.
‘Now, now, Lancelot,’ Melwas said, jutting his chin at me. ‘You should show respect to the Lord of Dumnonia.’ He snatched a wine jug and two cups off a passing slave.
‘And you should have protected Arthur,’ I said, to Melwas and Mordred both.
Melwas slammed the cups and wine down and dropped a hand to his sword’s hilt, but Mordred’s raised hand stopped him drawing the weapon. More of Mordred’s men were coming blathering and laughing into the hall and he did not want to begin his reign by spilling blood there. How could he unite the Britons if he could not keep peace in his own hall? Besides which, he knew I was not afraid to fight him or Melwas or anyone else in all of Britain. I had been Arthur’s champion. Mordred knew I was the best. I knew it too.
‘Get out, Lancelot,’ Mordred said. ‘Both of you,’ he added, turning hate-filled eyes on Guinevere. ‘Out of my hall. You dishonour my father by being here together.’
I squared my shoulders to him, ignoring the hands that were on weapons and the murmurs on lips. ‘Talk to my Lady like that again and I’ll kill you,’ I said. I did not need to touch Boar’s Tusk to give weight to that threat, and every man in the hall fell silent then, their eyes round in the flamelight.
‘Go, Lancelot,’ Guinevere said, loud enough for all to hear.
I did not move from that spot on the dirty rushes.
‘You see, even she grows tired of you,’ Mordred said.
I looked at Guinevere.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I’ll not be chased out of my own hall.’ She gave me a sad smile. ‘Go.’
I looked at Mordred, hating him. I looked at Melwas and could almost feel how he hungered to fight me. The other men in that hall simply looked on, scenting blood and doubtless hoping to see some.
‘Go,’ Guinevere said again. ‘I’m safe here. Just go.’
And so I went.
There was a crust of old snow on the ground the night they came for me. Camelot was a frozen mound in a black land. A silent, smoke-wreathed bastion rising from the coastal plain and wetlands of eastern Dumnonia like a statement of defiance. Hope in the darkness.
It was a cold night, cold enough for extra bed skins. Cold enough to see your own breath fogging, even indoors if you neglected to keep the hearth well fed. Summer was a distant memory, of bright wheat fields and heavy air thick with buzzing insec
ts. Of golden dawns clamorous with bird song, and green pastures and the sweet breezes after rain. Of war too. Corpses littering hillsides like pale stones. Wolves prowling in the wake of our army, like gulls flocking behind a fishing skiff. Of crows and ravens sidling and hopping amongst the wreckage, all black wings and bickering and greed-glossed eyes as they feasted upon the dead.
The land slept, swathed in ice and muted. Watched over by the distant glimmering stars and perhaps by the gods, too. Such a night that even our foes the Saxons must have been snugged up in thick furs, perhaps remembering winters in their old northern homelands across the cold sea. But the Saxons were not my enemies that night.
I should have known they would come. I knew Mordred hated me and had done since the day we met, when he had ridden into Camelot with four severed heads tied to his saddle horns. In the autumn he had brought his mother, Morgana, to Camelot, just as Guinevere said he would. For years Mordred had sought Arthur’s permission to bring Morgana to court but always Arthur refused.
‘I don’t want her here, Lancelot,’ he had told me once. ‘No good can come of it, and Mordred needs to understand that.’ It was no surprise that Arthur did not want his half-sister around, not after the shame of begetting a child with her. ‘Anyway, Morgana despises me,’ he said. ‘Not that I blame her. I did nothing to stop Uther’s plan to have the infant killed.’
‘You were young,’ I had said, trying to soothe his tortured conscience. ‘And your father was the High King. What could you do?’
Arthur’s lip had curled. ‘Still, I earned Morgana’s hate. Mordred’s too.’
Despite Arthur’s joy at having Mordred at his side, he had never relented in this matter. Now, though, Mordred was free to do as he liked, and so Morgana, who had hissed at me the day Uther died, lived in Arthur’s hall. And Morgana despised Guinevere. Not that Guinevere had let her and Mordred drive her from the place. She lived at one end of the hall while Mordred and his mother lived at the other, and I imagined that the air itself in that hall must have been cold as frost, no matter how high the flames in the hearth.
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