But I had turned my back on all of it.
‘I would have fought Arthur and the gods themselves if you had let me,’ I say.
‘I know, Lancelot,’ she says in a tired voice, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘But it is too late now.’
I want to tell her she is wrong. That it is not too late. And I look at her black robes and wonder if she is a druid now, like Merlin, or if she has given herself to the Christians’ god and has been living a life of prayer and silence somewhere no one, not even Arthur, could find her.
She opens her mouth to speak but the working of the door latch stops her.
It is the boy. He comes in, his eyes fastening on Guinevere with undisguised suspicion.
‘Hello,’ she says. ‘I’m Guinevere.’
He frowns, his cheeks red and his eyes watery from the cold.
Guinevere says, ‘What is your name?’
He looks at me and I nod.
‘Galahad,’ he says.
She dips her head. ‘I am happy to meet you, Galahad. I am an old friend of your father.’
‘I’ve never heard of you,’ the boy says. As if he doesn’t believe her. But she smiles anyway, and I cannot take my eyes off her face, and that smile is so true, as if she remembers the boy, as if she and he were friends once.
And yet there is such a sadness in her face too, and it is almost too much for me to bear.
‘Well, Galahad,’ she says, ‘will you look after your father for me?’
The boy does not know what to make of this request. He looks at me and then back to Guinevere. But he nods and I think how precious he is and how lucky I am to have him. My son.
‘Thank you,’ she says. Then she says, ‘I had best go.’
‘You won’t stay the night?’ I ask.
‘No,’ she says.
I tell the boy that he is dropping soil all over the floor and to take the valerian to the stream and wash off the roots. He lingers a moment, watching Guinevere, then he is gone.
‘Why did you come?’ I ask her.
She puts the cup on the table and shakes her head. She says, ‘You have a life now. You have a beautiful boy. I am happy for you, Lancelot.’
‘Why now?’ I ask. ‘Why did you come now?’
She shakes her head again and walks towards the door but I get there first and put myself in her way. ‘Tell me,’ I say, horrified that she is slipping away again, like a good dream which you are not ready to let go. I ask her again why she is here. She has opened the old wound. Not that it had ever really healed. I tell her I must know why.
She presses her palms together in front of pursed lips, looking over to where Galahad’s short spear leans up against the wall beside my own. Then she brings her eyes back to me and closes them.
When she opens them again there are tears.
‘It is Arthur,’ she says.
‘You came here for him?’ Anger flares in my chest but she shakes her head.
‘He does not know I am here, but he did come to me,’ she says. ‘It is the only time I have seen him since that day.’
‘What did he want?’ I ask.
Her eyes widen. ‘Forgiveness,’ she says.
I think about that for a long moment. ‘And did you forgive him?’ I ask.
‘I forgave Arthur long ago,’ she says. ‘I told him I do not hate him for what he did. He is not the man he was. He is old, Lancelot. We hurt him so very deeply. But he is sorry.’
‘Why does he need your forgiveness now?’ I ask.
She sighs. ‘He has gone to war,’ she says. ‘The Saxons have marched. King Aella means to crush Arthur once and for all and take Dumnonia.’
‘But the kings won’t fight beside Arthur,’ I say.
‘King Cyngen will,’ she says. ‘And King Cyn-March has sent spearmen.’
‘It is not enough,’ I say.
‘No, it is not,’ she admits. ‘And Arthur knows it, but he must fight. What else can he do? He must try or else Britain is lost.’
‘Britain is already lost,’ I say, thinking of what Merlin and the Lady had told me those years before at Karrek. They had been right. Without Arthur there could be no Britain. And Arthur could not win this fight.
‘You came here to tell me that Arthur is going to war?’ I say.
‘I should go,’ she says.
I reach out and take her hands in mine and a shiver runs through her body into my own flesh. ‘Why did you come? Tell me, Guinevere.’
She lets out a halting breath. ‘I came to ask you to help him,’ she says. ‘He needs you, Lancelot. He always has. I thought that perhaps if you could be friends again, that he would be the Arthur he once was. That if I could bring you and Arthur together again, that you could win. And perhaps the gods will forgive us.’ She shakes her head, her dark hair still untamed as it ever was. ‘But now I don’t want you to go to him.’
Her blue-green eyes implore me. ‘I want you to stay here and watch your boy grow to be a man. I want you to live, Lancelot.’
She lets go my hands and reaches up, placing her own hands either side of my face, then she kisses my mouth, her lips tasting of the spiced wine and of the past. When she pulls away she says, ‘You have lost so much, Lancelot. I want you to live and find happiness again. I want Galahad to know who his father is.’
‘I care nothing for the gods’ forgiveness,’ I say. ‘And I renounced my oath to Arthur the day he took you from me.’
She blinks slowly and nods, accepting that.
‘Please be happy,’ she says, pulling her cowl back over her head.
I cannot speak. I just stand aside and she opens the door and walks out. And when she has mounted the palfrey she looks back at me one last time, and I know she is replacing her memories of the young man she once knew with the timeworn man who stands before her now, letting her go.
I want to tell her that I love her. That I have always loved her. But I cannot speak. I just watch her turn the palfrey and ride away, knowing that I will not see her again in this life.
Even after so long, the padded leather tunic and scale armour coat feel familiar. They are a little tighter than they once were perhaps, but they fit me still, though the armour is heavy, dragging me down until I strap on my belt to take some of the weight onto my hips. It will feel as nothing when I am on Tormaigh’s back, and just putting the war gear on again stirs memories of long-ago battles, so that even as I stand here in the forest clearing, the ground mist knee-high and the trees dripping, I can almost hear the clash of arms and the shouts of men and the shrieks of Arthur’s war horses.
The boy helped me scrub the little bronze plates until we could see our faces in them and now he kneels on the wet grass behind me, strapping on my greaves. He treats my war gear with reverence and awe and I tell him that the greaves were a gift from Lord Arthur himself, though I suspect he thinks I am teasing, and when he is finished with the straps he fetches my helmet, whose long plume he has washed and combed so that it streams like white water.
‘See, Father,’ the boy says, and I look up at a pair of swans beating southward through the grey dawn, trumpeting as they go. The boy looks at me, waiting for me to infer some omen from the birds, but I just ask him to fetch my spear and he runs off while I strap on Boar’s Tusk, gripping its silver-wire-bound hilt and checking that it slides easily from the scabbard.
Then together the boy and I array Tormaigh for war, laying mail upon a woollen blanket across his back, then strapping on the hardened leather breastplate upon which is incised a larger version of the sun that adorns the boy’s arm bracer. After that, we put on the boiled leather shaffron which covers the top and sides of Tormaigh’s head and face and goes down to his nostrils, the armour having been made specially for him so that the eyeholes are in just the right place.
When it is done I mount and pull the boy up behind me and we ride east through the rising mist which hangs over the land like a shroud.
Later, with the wintry sun still low in a pallid sky and Tormaigh’s
nostrils flaring, catching scents on the air, the boy tightens his grip around my waist. He has never heard the clamour of battle before and it frightens him, though he does not say as much, and we crest a rise overlooking the struggle. Having lived alone in the clean air of the forest, we three smell the armies below. The stench of sweat and leather and dirty flesh. The sharp tang of blood and the fetor of human dung.
‘Who is winning, Father?’ the boy asks.
I dismount and lift the boy down, then drop to my knees so that I can look into his eyes. ‘You will stay here,’ I say. ‘I love you, Galahad. You know that, don’t you?’ He nods, catching sight of something, and I turn to see a brown hare standing tall on its hind legs in the long grass. Ears raised, it watches us with golden eyes. Unafraid.
‘Stay here and I will find you after.’ I pull the boy to me, barely feeling his small body against mine because of the scale armour and thick tunic. ‘I am proud of you. My son.’
Then I stand and mount Tormaigh again and lean forward in the saddle so that my mouth is near his ear. ‘Just one more time, my old friend,’ I tell the stallion, and he nickers softly and nods his head. He is old and tired. His muzzle is grey and there are grey flecks in his coat too, hidden now by his armour.
The boy watches me and when he sees that I am ready, he hands me my big spear and I smile at him, resting the spear across Tormaigh’s neck. Below us butchery is being done. I see the Britons arrayed in three shieldwalls, two sweeping back from the main one like wings. The central and largest body of men is comprised of Dumnonians. The left wing, King Cyngen’s men of Powys, their stag antler banner stretched out between two boar spears behind them. The right wing is made up of spearmen from Cornubia, sent by King Cyn-March, who is duty bound to fight for Dumnonia. On the far right, behind the Cornubians, are Mordred’s warriors, placed as a reserve and to bolster Cyn-March’s men if need be. And it won’t be long, for the Saxons are winning.
Arrayed in the shape of a great boar’s snout, hundreds of Saxons have driven into the Dumnonians’ centre, bowing the line. Seeking to carve a way through to Arthur’s own bear standard, where forty horsemen wait. I see Arthur amongst them, tall in the saddle, watching his lines and waiting for his moment. He looks magnificent on his white mare, his armour glinting in the day, his red cloak and red helmet plume bright as blood. But there are too many of the enemy.
I look round at the boy one last time and nod to him. He nods back and I flick the reins and kick with my heels and Tormaigh walks forward down the gentle slope.
29
A Hawk Still
CANTERING NOW, TORMAIGH’S iron shoes drumming a three-beat gait upon the ground. My heartbeat in my ears, deafening inside the padded leather liner and helmet with its closed cheek guards. On the right, the Cornubians are breaking under the Saxon onslaught. Mordred must take his men to help King Cyn-March drive the enemy back before it is too late.
The spear’s shaft is warm in my hand, the ash intimate and reassuring. Tied below the wicked sharp blade, a green silken ribbon flies, having long ago bound hair as black as a raven’s wing and as red as fire.
Some of the Britons in the rearmost ranks are twisting their necks to see who is coming so late to the fight. They see a lord of war, resplendent in burnished bronze, iron and steel, on a great stallion sheathed in shining leather. They know me but they think it cannot be, and it takes one of them shouting my name to make the others believe it.
‘Lancelot!’ the man is yelling. I hear that even above the clamour of battle, the drumming of hooves and the pulsing in my ears. ‘Lancelot!’ the spearman yells, and now others shout it too. ‘Lancelot! Lancelot has come!’
And my blood gushes in spate through my limbs.
‘Lancelot!’
Those men in the rear ranks hoist their spears skyward in time with the chorus, which rises to the grey sky now in a rhythm like the heartbeat of Taranis, god of war.
‘Lancelot! Lancelot! Lancelot!’
The armoured men on the armoured horses are twisting in their saddles, even pulling their mounts around to see for themselves if it can be true. That is when Arthur sees me, though I cannot tell what is in his mind as I ride towards him. Enclosed within his silver and gold-chased helmet, his face is battle grim. His eyes are cold and iron-grey. Around him are faces I know, though older now, scarred and etched by years of war, beards grey that once were fair or dark. Parcefal and Gofan. Cai and Geraint and Arthur’s nephew Gawain, who looks as formidable as ever he did. They nod to me in greeting, these warriors of Britain, these chosen of Arthur, as though this is just another fight. Not the end of a dream.
Arthur’s grey eyes flash and he bares his teeth in a grin as savage as a sword cut in flesh. Then he hauls his reins, pulling his mare back around to face the enemy and yelling at Cai to sound his war horn.
The note is long and piercing and hangs on the air still when a great cheer goes up from the British lines. Then before us the Dumnonian shieldwall is moving, dividing in its centre, the ranks of spearmen parting to create a channel so that I see the Saxon front ranks now, their shields raised before them and their helmets turning this way and that. They do not know what is coming but they should fear it.
I walk Tormaigh forward until I am beside Arthur on his right. He turns and our eyes meet and I nod and he nods back. Then Gawain hoists his spear high. ‘For Arthur! For Arthur!’
‘For Arthur!’ more than two thousand voices cry.
Arthur points his own spear at the enemy who wait at the other end of that cleared path, then we kick our heels and our horses whinny and shriek. And we charge.
We hit the Saxons like a storm of steel, driving through them, splintering shields and bone, piercing flesh, disembowelling men where they stand and trampling them to bloody ruin. They scream and try to escape us but cannot because of the press, and we thrust our spears down and urge our mounts on and kill.
Arthur is wild, his spear lost now but scything Excalibur at men’s heads, driving his horse on, deeper into the thronging mass of the enemy.
Gawain swings an axe left and right, splitting skulls and shields and stealing lives. And I urge Tormaigh on, the stallion swinging his leather-sheathed head at the enemy, eyes rolling, teeth bared, white spittle flying from his mouth. My spear is like a living creature in my hands, thirsting blood as it used to. Craving it. And I am death.
And yet the enemy are too numerous. Their warriors fall only for others to take their place and I see Gofan gored by a spear and pulled from his horse. I see Parcefal’s mare stumble and fall and then I lose sight of him.
Thrust, pull back, thrust again. I kill and kill but there are too many.
Tormaigh shrieks and I feel the pain resonate through his flesh. My spear blade splits a shield but snags in the wood and I cast it aside and draw Boar’s Tusk, laying about me, having to lean out of the saddle because it is not a long blade.
The Dumnonian spearmen had charged with us and are amongst us now, but they too are being enveloped. I see Geraint, the huge warrior who led Arthur’s spearmen whenever Arthur was mounted. He sees me and shouts that we are betrayed! That Mordred has turned against us and has led his men into Arthur’s allies the Cornubians. Mordred, his ambition laid bare at last, has made an agreement with King Aella and now sows carnage in Arthur’s right wing. I feel it. A shudder running through the Britons’ line. A knife in Arthur’s heart.
I take a man’s head from his shoulders and turn just in time to see the big Saxon driving his spear into Tormaigh’s throat latch. The stallion screams and swings his head at the Saxon, blood spraying from the wound, and he stumbles on, carrying me forward still, towards Arthur. He and Gawain loom above the swarming enemy, hacking and thrusting, unable to turn their mounts now for the press, the two of them shining above the sea of grey like a sunset on the edge of the western sea.
I drive Tormaigh on, scything my sword backward and feeling it bite, carving a way through the enemy, and I see Gawain’s horse go down, but Geraint is
there, shielding Gawain, driving men back with his spear and his great strength. And I scream at Tormaigh to keep going, asking more of him than I have a right to, but my old friend pushes on under a deluge of blades, his pride and courage defying them all, and I am just a spear-throw from Arthur when I see a Saxon bring a long axe down poll first onto his mare’s shaffron. A killing blow. Arthur is still swinging Excalibur as he falls – but I see nothing more. Because Tormaigh’s forelegs buckle and the ground seems to rise up, and once I might have leapt clear but the scale armour drives me onto the earth, knocking the wind from me.
I climb to my feet, drawing my long knife, blocking spear thrusts with the knife and lunging with Boar’s Tusk. Twisting and cleaving. Cutting and stabbing and striding on.
I am Lancelot. There is no one better.
‘Arthur!’ I bellow, turning a sword aside and cutting a throat. ‘Arthur!’
A knot of warriors to my right splits and Mordred is there, bloody and fierce-eyed. He takes Geraint’s spear on his shield, ducks and swings his sword, taking off Geraint’s left leg below the knee, and the big warrior lows like a bull as Mordred’s men plunge their spears down. Then Gawain carves into them with his axe, scattering them like a swirl of autumn leaves.
‘Lancelot!’ Arthur cries, his eyes blazing within his red-plumed helmet, our grins like vicious reflections in gleaming bronze. Then he throws himself at Mordred and their blades ring as if to summon gods.
I look west and see Parcefal, mounted again, at the head of a dozen horse warriors, hewing a path through the Saxons to reach us. To save his lord.
I think of the boy watching from the hill and I put a man down but another takes his place. They know me, these Saxons. Know my reputation and covet my war gear, and they die for their ambitions, but I see Mordred pull his sword from Arthur’s shoulder. I see the bright blood on the blade. I see Arthur deflect Mordred’s next strike. See him thrust Excalibur into Mordred’s chest, forcing the sword deeper until the two of them are bound in a mortal embrace, and in that moment the air itself is changed. A shiver runs through Briton and Saxon, like wind seeking through a forest canopy, leaves whispering to leaves that the season has turned, and perhaps the gods themselves hold their breath then.
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