by Mary Stewart
Next a meeting was arranged between Mordred and the King. Each took with him fourteen knights, and they met at a place between the two armies. Both leaders had warned their armies that, should the talks fail, the signal for attack would be the drawing of a sword. "And so they met as their appointment was, and so they were agreed and accorded thoroughly; and wine was fetched, and they drank." But an adder crept out of a little heath bush. and stung a knight on the foot. The man drew his sword to slay the adder, and at that the watching hosts attacked one another. Towards the end of the day of carnage Arthur sought out Mordred, who alone of his host still lived. Of Arthur's army only Sir Lucan, Sir Bedivere and the King survived. Sir Lucan tried to dissuade Arthur from seeking Mordred out, for "we have won the field, for here we be three on live, and with Sir Mordred none is on live, and if ye leave off now this wicked day of destiny is past."
But Arthur, unheeding, attacked and killed Mordred, and in so doing received his own death wound. Sir Bedivere carried him to the shore, where a barge awaited him; in it were three queens — his sister Queen Morgan, the Queen of Northgalis, and the Queen of the Waste Lands, with Nimuë, the chief Lady of the Lake. The barge took sail for the vale of Avilion, where the King might be healed of his grievous wound.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
"The wicked day of destiny," as Malory calls it, is the day when Arthur's final battle was fought at Camlann. In this battle, we are told, "Arthur and Medraut fell."
This reference, from the Annales Cambriae, which was compiled three or possibly four centuries after Camlann, is all we know of Mordred. When he reappears some centuries later, in the romances of Malory and the French poets, he has taken on the role of villain necessary to the conventions of romance. Mordred the traitor, perjurer and adulterer is as much an invention as the lover and great knight Sir Lancelot, and the roles played by both in the tales of "King Arthur and his Noble Knights" are filled with the absurdities inevitable in a long-drawn series of stories.
In the fragments of those stories that have been used in this book, the absurdities speak for themselves. Throughout the final debacle Arthur, that wise and experienced ruler, shows neither sense nor moderation; worse, he is tainted with the same treachery for which he condemns his son. If Arthur had had any reason at all to distrust Mordred (for instance over the murder of Lamorak or the exposure of Lancelot and the Queen) he would hardly have left him as "ruler of all England" and guardian of the Queen, while he himself went on an expedition from which it was possible he might never return. Even granted that he did appoint Mordred his regent, it is hard to see why Mordred, with every hope of becoming his father's heir, should have forged a letter purporting to tell of Arthur's death, and on the strength of that seized both kingdom and Queen. Knowing that Arthur was still alive, and with a vast army at his back, Mordred could be sure that the King would come straight home to punish his son and repossess kingdom and Queen. More, the final battle between King and "traitor" was brought about by accident, in the very moment when the King was about to seal a truce with the villainous Mordred, and grant him lands to rule. (it is another, though minor, absurdity that the lands are Cornwall and Kent, at opposite sides of the country, the one already held by the Saxons, the other by Arthur's declared heir, Constantine.)
For none of the "Mordred story," then, is there any evidence at all. It is to be noticed that the Annales Cambriae does not even state that he and Arthur fought on opposite sides. It would have been possible — and very tempting — to have rewritten the story completely, and set Arthur, with Mordred at his side, against the Saxons, who (as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) fought a battle against the Britons in A.D. 527, and presumably won it, since the Chronicle does not emphasize Saxon defeats. The battle, at the right date, might even have been the battle of Camlann, the last stand of the British against the Saxons.
But the temptation had to be resisted. Until I came to study in detail the fragments that make up Mordred's story, I had accepted him without question as the villain of the piece, an evil man who brought about the tragedy of Arthur's final downfall. Hence, in my earlier books, I had made Merlin foresee that doom, and warn against it. So I could not rewrite the Camlann battle. Instead I tried to iron out the absurdities in the old story, and add some saving greys to the portrait of a black villain. I have not made a "hero" out of Mordred, but in my tale he is at least a man who is consistent in his faults and virtues, and has some kind of reason for the actions with which legend has credited him.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about the tale of the final years of Arthur's reign is the way which the actual historical events can be made to fit with the legend. Arthur most certainly existed, and so may Mordred have done, but since the traitor of romance was a figment of the storyteller's imagination, then I would suggest that the Mordred of my story is just as valid, since I, too, have perhaps earned a place among those of whom Gibbon writes with such urbane contempt:
The declamations of Gildas, the fragments and fables of Nennius, the obscure hints of the Saxon laws and chronicles, and the ecclesiastical tales of the venerable Bede have been illustrated by the diligence, and sometimes embellished by the fancy, of succeeding writers, whose works I am not ambitious either to censure or transcribe.
—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Some other brief notes
Camlann. The site of Arthur's last battle cannot be identified with any certainty. Some scholars have suggested Birdoswald in Northumbria (the Roman Camboglanna), others the Roman Camulodonum (Colchester). The most usually accepted site is in Cornwall, on the River Camel; this because of Arthur's strong connection with West Country legend. I have set the battle beside the River Camel near South Cadbury in Wiltshire. The hill at South Cadbury has, owing to recent excavations, a strong claim to being an Arthurian strong point, possibly "Camelot" itself. Hence there seemed no need to look further for the site of the final battle. I do not know when the local stream was called the Camel, but the long ridge nearby was in antiquity known as "Camel Hill."
At that date, also, there would be lake and fenland stretching right inland from the estuary of the River Brue almost as far as South Cadbury. The hills of modem Glastonbury would then be islands — Ynys Witrin, or the Glass Isle — and Caer Camel "not far from the seaside." The barge that carried the wounded Arthur to be healed at Avilion would have only a brief journey to the legendary place of healing.
The date of Camlann. Scholars place the date of the battle somewhere between A.D. 515 and — a wide choice, but a date somewhere about to 527 seems reasonable. One date given for Badon Hill is a.d. 506, and we are told (in the Annales Cambriae) that Camlann was twenty-one years later.
The following is a table of the "real" (as opposed to guesswork) dates:
524 A.D. Clodomir, son of Clovis and ruler of the central part of the Frankish kingdom, was killed at Vézeronce in battle with the Burgundians. Two of his sons, aged ten and seven, were put in charge of Clevis's widow, Clothild, in Paris, but were murdered by their uncles. The third son fled into a monastery.
526 A.D. Theodoric, King of Rome and "emperor of the West," died at Ravenna.
527 A.D. Justin, ageing "emperor of the East," abdicated in favour of his nephew Justinian.
527 A.D. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "in this year Cerdic and Cynric fought against the Britons at the place which is called Cerdicesleag" (Cerdic's field or woodland).
Neustria. This was the name given to the western portion of the Frankish empire after its division at Clovis's death in 511.
Drustan. Drust or Drystan, son of Talorc, is an eighth-century wan who later was absorbed into the Arthurian legend as Tristram.
Linet. In one version of the Gareth legend he marries Liones, in another her sister Linet.
Arthur's sons. We have the names of two, Amr and Llacheu.
Convent. The word did not always, as now, imply a religious house for women only. It was used interchangeably with "monastery." Many of the foundations h
ad communities of both women and men.
The harper's song. This is a free translation of an Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Wanderer," which in The Last Enchantment I attributed to Merlin.
Seal Island: Selsey.
Sutthrige: Surrey.
Edinburgh and Lochawe, 1980-1983
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARY STEWART, one of the most popular novelists writing today, was born in Sunderiand, County Durham, England. After boarding school, she went on to Durham University, and later worked there as a lecturer in English Language and Literature, until her marriage in 1945. Her husband is Sir Frederick Stewart, who has recently retired from the chairmanship of the Geology Department of Edinburgh University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Lady Stewart's career as a novelist began in with the publication of Madam, Will You Talk? Since then she has published sixteen successful novels, including The Wicked Day, the fourth of her novels of Arthurian legend. Preceding it is her magical merlin trilogy, about the legendary enchanter Merlin and young Arthur. (the novels of the trilogy are The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment.) Her books for young readers, The Little Broomstick (1972), Ludo and the Star Horse (1974), and A Walk in Wolf Wood (1980), quickly met with the same success as her other novels. In 1971, the Scottish chapter of the International PEN Association awarded her the Frederick Niven Prize for The Crystal Cave. In 1974, the Scottish Arts Council Award went to Ludo and the Star Horse.