Meurig at last abandoned his argument, rolled up the parchment and thrust it into his toga. He turned to me. ‘You will not,’ he said, speaking British again, ‘be expecting us to feed your men?’
‘We carry our own food, Lord Prince,’ I said, then inquired after his father’s health.
‘The King suffers from fistula in the groin,’ Meurig explained in his squeaking voice. ‘We have used poultices and the physicians are bleeding father regularly, but alas, God has not seen fit to requite the condition.’
‘Send for Merlin, Lord Prince,’ I suggested.
Meurig blinked at me. He was very short-sighted, and it was those weak eyes, perhaps, that gave his face its permanent expression of ill-temper. He uttered a short snaffle of mocking laughter. ‘You, of course, if you will forgive the remark,’ he said snidely, ‘are famous as one of the fools who risked Diwrnach to bring a bowl back to Dumnonia. A mixing bowl, yes?’
‘A cauldron, Lord Prince.’
Meurig’s thin lips flickered in a quick smile. ‘You did not think, Lord Derfel, that our smiths could have hammered you a dozen cauldrons in as many days?’
‘I shall know where to come for my cooking pots next time, Lord Prince,’ I said. Meurig stiffened at the insult, but Agricola smiled.
‘Did you understand any of that?’ Agricola asked me when Meurig had left.
‘I have no Latin, Lord.’
‘He was complaining because a chieftain hasn’t paid his taxes. The poor man owes us thirty smoked salmon and twenty cartloads of cut timber, and we’ve had no salmon from him and only five carts of wood. But what Meurig won’t grasp is that poor Cyllig’s people have been struck by the plague this last winter, the river Wye’s been poached empty, and Cyllig is still bringing me two dozen spearmen.’ Agricola spat in disgust. ‘Ten times a day!’ he said, ‘ten times a day the Prince will come out here with a problem that any half-witted treasury clerk could solve in twenty heartbeats. I just wish his father would just strap up his groin and get back on the throne.’
‘How sick is Tewdric?’
Agricola shrugged. ‘He’s tired, not sick. He wants to give up his throne. He says he’ll have his head tonsured and become a priest.’ He spat onto the tent floor again. ‘But I’ll manage our Edling. I’ll make sure his ladies come to war.’
‘Ladies?’ I asked, made curious by the ironic twist Agricola had put on the word.
‘He might be blind as a worm, Lord Derfel, but he can still spot a girl like a hawk seeing a shrew. He likes his ladies, Meurig does, and plenty of them. And why not? That’s the way of princes, isn’t it?’ He unstrapped his sword belt and hung it on a nail driven into one of the tent poles. ‘You march tomorrow?’
‘Yes, Lord.’
‘Dine with me tonight,’ he said, then ushered me out of the tent and squinted up at the sky. ‘It will be a dry summer, Lord Derfel. A summer for killing Saxons.’
‘A summer to breed great songs,’ I said enthusiastically.
‘I often think that the trouble with us Britons,’ Agricola said gloomily, ‘is that we spend too much time singing and not enough killing Saxons.’
‘Not this year,’ I said, ‘not this year,’ for this was Arthur’s year, the year to slaughter the Sais. The year, I prayed, of total victory.
Once out of Magnis we marched on the straight Roman roads that tied Britain’s heartland together. We made good time, reaching Corinium in just two days, and we were all glad to be back in Dumnonia. The five-pointed star on my shield might have been a strange device, but the moment the country folks heard my name they knelt for a blessing for I was Derfel Cadarn, the holder of Lugg Vale and a Warrior of the Cauldron, and my repute, it seemed, soared high in my homeland. At least among the pagans it did. In the towns and larger villages, where the Christians were more numerous, we were more likely to be met by preaching. We were told that we were marching to do God’s will by fighting the Saxons, but that if we died in battle our souls would go to hell if we were still worshippers of the older Gods.
I feared the Saxons more than the Christian hell. The Sais were a dreadful enemy; poor, desperate and numerous. Once at Corinium, we heard ominous tales of new ships grounding almost daily on Britain’s eastern shores, and how each ship brought its cargo of feral warriors and hungry families. The invaders wanted our land, and to take it they could muster hundreds of spears, swords and double-edged axes, yet still we had confidence. Fools that we were, we marched almost blithely to that war. I suppose, after the horrors of Lugg Vale, we believed we could never be beaten. We were young, we were strong, we were loved by the Gods and we had Arthur.
I met Galahad in Corinium. Since the day we had parted in Powys he had helped Merlin carry the Cauldron back to Ynys Wydryn, then he had spent the spring at Caer Ambra from which rebuilt fortress he had raided deep into Lloegyr with Sagramor’s troops. The Saxons, he warned me, were ready for our coming and had set beacons on every hill to give warning of our approach. Galahad had come to Corinium for the great Council of War that Arthur had summoned, and he brought with him Cavan and those of my men who had refused to march north into Lleyn. Cavan went on one knee and begged that he and his men might renew their old oaths to me. ‘We have made no other oaths,’ he promised me, ‘except to Arthur, and he says we should serve you if you’ll have us.’
‘I thought you’d be rich by now,’ I told Cavan, ‘and gone home to Ireland.’
He smiled. ‘I still have the throwboard, Lord.’
I welcomed him back to my service. He kissed Hywelbane’s blade, then asked if he and his men could paint the white star on their shields.
‘You may paint it,’ I said, ‘but with only four points.’
‘Four, Lord?’ Cavan glanced at my shield. ‘Yours has five.’
‘The fifth point,’ I told Cavan, ‘is for the Warriors of the Cauldron.’ He looked unhappy, but agreed. Nor would Arthur have approved, for he would have seen, rightly enough, that the fifth point was a divisive mark which implied that one group of men was superior to another, but warriors like such distinctions and the men who had braved the Dark Road deserved it.
I went to greet the men who accompanied Cavan and found them camped beside the River Churn that flowed to the east of Corinium. At least a hundred men were bivouacked beside that small river, for there was not nearly enough space inside the town for all the warriors who had assembled about the Roman walls. The army itself was gathering close to Caer Ambra, but every leader who had come for the Council of War had brought some retainers, and those men alone were sufficient to give the appearance of a small army in the Churn’s water meadows. Their stacked shields showed the success of Arthur’s strategy, for at a glance I could see the black bull of Gwent, the red dragon of Dumnonia, the fox of Siluria, Arthur’s bear, and the shields of men, like me, who had the honour of carrying their own device: stars, hawks, eagles, boars, Sagramor’s dread skull and Galahad’s lone Christian cross.
Culhwch, Arthur’s cousin, was camped with his own spearmen, but now hurried to greet me. It was good to see him again. I had fought at his side in Benoic and had come to love him like a brother. He was vulgar, funny, cheerful, bigoted, ignorant and coarse, and there was no better man to have alongside in a fight. ‘I hear you’ve put a loaf in the Princess’s oven,’ he said when he had embraced me. ‘You’re a lucky dog. Did you have Merlin cast you a spell?’
‘A thousand.’
He laughed. ‘I can’t complain. I’ve three women now, all clawing each other’s eyes out and all of them pregnant.’ He grinned, then scratched at his groin. ‘Lice,’ he said. ‘Can’t get rid of them. But at least they’ve infested that little bastard Mordred.’
‘Our Lord King?’ I teased him.
‘Little bastard,’ he said vengefully. ‘I tell you, Derfel, I’ve beaten him bloody and he still won’t learn. Sneaky little toad.’ He spat. ‘So tomorrow you speak against Lancelot?’
‘How do you know?’ I had told no one but Agricola of that firm decisio
n, but somehow news of it had preceded me to Corinium, or else my antipathy to the Silurian King was too well known for men to believe I could do anything else.
‘Everyone knows,’ Culhwch said, ‘and everyone supports you.’ He looked past me and spat suddenly. ‘Crows,’ he growled.
I turned to see a procession of Christian priests walking alongside the Churn’s far bank. There were a dozen of them, all black gowned, all bearded, and all chanting one of the dirges of their religion. A score of spearmen followed the priests and their shields, I saw with surprise, bore either Siluria’s fox or Lancelot’s sea-eagle. ‘I thought the rites were in two days’ time,’ I said to Galahad, who had stayed with me.
‘They are,’ he said. The rites were the preamble to war and would ask the blessing of the Gods on our men, and that blessing would be sought from both the Christian God and the pagan deities. ‘This looks more like a baptism,’ Galahad added.
‘What in Bel’s name is a baptism?’ Culhwch asked.
Galahad sighed. ‘It is an outward sign, my dear Culhwch, of a man’s sins being washed away by God’s grace.’
That explanation made Culhwch bay with laughter, prompting a frown from one of the priests who had tucked his gown into his belt and was now wading into the shallow river. He was using a pole to discover a spot deep enough for the baptismal rite and his clumsy probing attracted a crowd of bored spearmen on the rushy bank opposite the Christians.
For a while nothing much happened. The Silurian spearmen made an embarrassed guard while the tonsured priests wailed their song and the lone paddler poked about in the river with the butt end of his long pole that was surmounted by a silver cross. ‘You’ll never catch a trout with that,’ Culhwch shouted, ‘try a fish spear!’ The watching spearmen laughed, and the priests scowled as they sang drearily on. Some women from the town had come to the river and joined in the singing. ‘It’s a woman’s religion,’ Culhwch spat.
‘It is my religion, dear Culhwch,’ Galahad murmured. He and Culhwch had argued thus throughout the whole long war in Benoic and their argument, like their friendship, had no end.
The priest found a deep enough spot, so deep, indeed, that the water came right up to his waist, and there he tried to fix the pole in the river’s bed, but the force of the water kept bearing the cross down and each failure prompted a chorus of jeers from the spearmen. A few of the spectators were Christians themselves, but they made no attempt to stop the mockery.
The priest at last managed to plant the cross, albeit precariously, and climbed back out of the river. The spearmen whistled and hooted at the sight of his skinny white legs and he hurriedly dropped the sopping skirts of his robe to hide them.
Then a second procession appeared and the sight of it was sufficient to cause a silence to drop on our bank of the river. The silence was one of respect, for a dozen spearmen were escorting an ox-cart that was hung with white linens and in which sat two women and one priest. One of the women was Guinevere and the other was Queen Elaine, Lancelot’s mother, but most astonishing of all was the identity of the priest. It was Bishop Sansum. He was in his full bishop’s regalia, a mound of gaudy copes and embroidered shawls, and had a heavy red-gold cross hanging about his neck. The shaven tonsure at the front of his head was burned pink by the sun, and above it his black hair stood up like mouse ears. Lughtigern, Nimue always called him, the mouse-lord. ‘I thought Guinevere couldn’t stand him,’ I said, for Guinevere and Sansum had always been the bitterest of enemies, yet here the mouse-lord was, riding to the river in Guinevere’s cart. ‘And isn’t he in disgrace?’ I added.
‘Shit sometimes floats,’ Culhwch growled.
‘And Guinevere isn’t even a Christian,’ I protested.
‘And look at the other shit who’s with her,’ Culhwch said, and pointed to a group of six horsemen who followed the lumbering cart. Lancelot led them. He was mounted on a black horse and wore nothing but a simple pair of trews and a white shirt. Arthur’s twin sons, Amhar and Loholt, flanked him, and they were dressed in full war gear with plumed helmets, mail coats and long boots. Behind them rode three other horsemen, one in armour and the other two in the long white robes of Druids.
‘Druids?’ I said. ‘At a baptism?’
Galahad shrugged, no more able to find an explanation than I. The two Druids were both muscular young men with dark handsome faces, thick black beards and long, carefully brushed black hair that grew back from their narrow tonsures. They carried black staffs tipped with mistletoe and, unusually for Druids, had swords scabbarded at their sides. The warrior who rode with them, I saw, was no man, but a woman; a tall, straight-backed, red-haired woman whose extravagantly long tresses cascaded from beneath her silver helmet to touch the spine of her horse. ‘Ade, she’s called,’ Culhwch told me.
‘Who is she?’ I asked.
‘Who do you think? His kitchen-maid? She keeps his bed warm.’ Culhwch grinned. ‘Does she remind you of anyone?’
She reminded me of Ladwys, Gundleus’s mistress. Was it the fate of Silurian Kings, I wondered, always to have a mistress who rode a horse and wore a sword like a man? Ade had a longsword at her hip, a spear in her hand and the sea-eagle shield on her arm. ‘Gundleus’s mistress,’ I told Culhwch.
‘With that red hair?’ Culhwch said dismissively.
‘Guinevere,’ I said, and there was a distinct resemblance between Ade and the haughty Guinevere who sat next to Queen Elaine in the cart. Elaine was pale, but otherwise I could see no evidence of the sickness that was rumoured to be killing her. Guinevere looked as handsome as ever, and betrayed no sign of the ordeal of childbirth. She had not brought her child with her, but nor would I have expected her to. Gwydre was doubtless in Lindinis, safe in a wet nurse’s arms and far enough away so that his cries could not disturb Guinevere’s sleep.
Arthur’s twins dismounted behind Lancelot. They were still very young, only just old enough, indeed, to carry a spear to war. I had met them many times and did not like them for they had none of Arthur’s pragmatic sense. They had been spoiled since childhood, and the result was a pair of tempestuous, selfish, greedy youths who resented their father, despised their mother Ailleann and took revenge for their bastardy on people who dared not fight back against Arthur’s progeny. They were despicable. The two Druids slid off their horses’ backs and stood beside the ox-cart.
It was Culhwch who first understood what Lancelot was doing. ‘If he’s baptized,’ he growled to me, ‘then he can’t join Mithras, can he?’
‘Bedwin did,’ I pointed out, ‘and Bedwin was a bishop.’
‘Dear Bedwin,’ Culhwch explained to me, ‘played both sides of the throwboard. When he died we found an image of Bel in his house, and his wife told us he’d been sacrificing to it. No, you see if I’m not right. This is how Lancelot evades being rejected from Mithras.’
‘Maybe he has been touched by God,’ Galahad protested.
‘Then your God must have filthy hands by now,’ Culhwch responded, ‘begging your pardon, seeing as he’s your brother.’
‘Half-brother,’ Galahad said, not wanting to be too closely associated with Lancelot.
The cart had stopped very close to the river bank. Sansum now clambered down from its bed and, without bothering to tuck up his splendid robes, pushed through the rushes and waded into the river. Lancelot dismounted and waited on the bank as the Bishop reached and grasped the cross. He is a small man, Sansum, and the water came right up to the heavy cross on his narrow chest. He faced us, his unwitting congregation, and raised his strong voice. ‘This week,’ he shouted, ‘you will carry your spears against the enemy and God will bless you. God will help you! And today, here in this river, you will see a sign of our God’s power.’ The Christians in the meadow crossed themselves while some pagans, like Culhwch and I, spat to avert evil.
‘You see here King Lancelot!’ Sansum bellowed, throwing a hand towards Lancelot as though none of us would have recognized him. ‘He is the hero of Benoic, the King of Siluria and t
he Lord of Eagles!’
‘The Lord of what?’ Culhwch asked.
‘And this week,’ Sansum went on, ‘this very week, he was to be received into the foul company of Mithras, that false God of blood and anger.’
‘He was not,’ Culhwch growled amidst the other murmurs of protest from the men in the field who were Mithraists.
‘But yesterday,’ Sansum’s voice beat down the protest, ‘this noble King received a vision. A vision! Not some belly-given nightmare spawned by a drunken wizard, but a pure and lovely dream sent on golden wings from heaven. A saintly vision!’
‘Ade lifted her skirts,’ Culhwch muttered.
‘The holy and blessed mother of God came to King Lancelot,’ Sansum shouted. ‘It was the Virgin Mary herself, that lady of sorrows, from whose immaculate and perfect loins was born the Christ-child, the Saviour of all mankind. And yesterday, in a burst of light, in a cloud of golden stars, she came to King Lancelot and touched her lovely hand to Tanlladwyr!’ He gestured behind him again, and Ade solemnly drew out Lancelot’s sword that was called Tanlladwyr, which meant ‘Bright Killer’, and held it aloft. The sun slashed its reflection off the steel, blinding me for an instant.
‘With this sword,’ Sansum shouted, ‘our blessed Lady promised the King that he would bring Britain victory. This sword, our Lady said, has been touched by the nail-scarred hand of the Son and blessed by the caress of His mother. From this day on, our Lady decreed, this sword shall be known as the Christ-blade, for it is holy’
Lancelot, to give him credit, looked exquisitely embarrassed at this sermon; indeed the whole ceremony must have embarrassed him for he was a man of vast pride and fragile dignity, but even so it must have seemed better to him to be dunked in a river than publicly humiliated by losing election to Mithras. The certainty of his rejection must have prompted him to this public repudiation of all the pagan Gods. Guinevere, I saw, pointedly stared away from the river, gazing instead towards the war banners that had been hoisted on Corinium’s earth and wooden ramparts. She was a pagan, a worshipper of Isis; indeed her hatred of Christianity was famous, yet that hatred had clearly been overcome by the need to support this public ceremony that spared Lancelot from Mithras’s humiliation. The two Druids talked softly with her, sometimes making her laugh.
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