A Saxon slashed at her leg with his axe, and she killed him. As he fell, she saw that he was only a boy of, who knows, twelve or thirteen. She gagged, but charged on to attack the others.
Toward evening, she saw that the Saxons were retreating, with the British in pursuit. Arthur's warriors must have won.
The field was littered with the bodies of the Saxon dead and the British dead, most of whom were foot soldiers. There were many fighters who could not afford to buy horses, and they bore the brunt of the battle.
She had never seen so many corpses and men near death. Her head reeled, her stomach churned.
Lancelot guided Arrow over the dead. He balked. It was natural for a horse to shy away from corpses, but he had to learn to ride over them in battle. He had been trained as a warhorse, but like Lancelot, he was dazed by an actual battle. He whinnied at the sight of dead and dying horses. She jumped down and cut the throat of one poor stallion whose entrails spilled through his sides. Then she wiped her hand on her chain mail and patted Arrow to soothe him. He accepted her touch.
Men began carrying – or dragging – wounded British soldiers, some of them screaming in agony, off the field.
They did not move the wounded Saxons.
Lancelot rode up to Arthur, who stood at the edge of the field watching. "It is a great victory," he said.
Triumph was in his voice, though his face was covered with sweat and his sword and tunic were caked with blood.
"What about the Saxons? Shall we start carrying the wounded prisoners?" she asked. The king shook his head. "We aren't taking prisoners. Our men will dispatch the Saxon wounded." His face and voice were as calm as ever.
Lancelot stared open-mouthed at him.
"We're going to kill their wounded?"
Arthur nodded solemnly. "How can we take them with us? We have barely enough food for our own men, and we can't spare all the soldiers it would take to guard them."
"Oh." Lancelot closed her eyes for a moment.
"You'll soon get used to the brutality of war, as we all have." The king touched her shoulder. Lancelot rode off so she wouldn't have to watch this final slaughter.
After they had carried away the wounded, the British warriors began to bury their dead companions. Lancelot joined in. The lack of coffins broke her heart. She buried one young man whose head she couldn't find. Some Saxon must have it for a trophy.
They did not bury the dead Saxons.
The night after that first battle, Lancelot went to her tent and sobbed. I am a killer, she thought. A butcher, rather.
Slumping down on the wolfskin she had brought to sleep on, she buried her head in her hands. Her body felt riddled with aches and pains, but they were nothing compared with the emptiness she felt in her heart. She believed that she would never be able to feel the least happiness again. She had stepped into hell and could never leave.
Lancelot told herself that she had been a fool. Why had she ever wanted to pretend to be a man? True, she did not want to wear skirts or spin, but was wearing breeches worth going through this horrible slaughter? Fighting a brigand here and there to save some victim was nothing like war. For the first time, she felt ashamed of shedding blood. So much of it, so much. Surely when her father taught her how to defend herself he had never dreamed she would have to fight in such a war. But she could leave, and return to her lands in Lesser Britain. The thought tempted her.
No, her fame as Lancelot of the Lightning Arm was not worth all the killing, but how could she betray all the men she knew? She couldn't leave them when their lives were imperiled. How could she desert Bors, who had half a dozen children at home? Or Gawaine, who, whatever his faults, had entertained her with so many play-fights? She could still picture him covered with flour in the kitchen. Or Arthur, the king who let her call him by his first name? And what would Guinevere think if she heard that Lancelot had abandoned her king? Leaving was impossible. She pulled the wolfskin around her and tried to sleep.
When Lancelot woke and pulled back the flap of her tent, the pink clouds of sunrise brought tears to her eyes. She took a deep breath of the damp and chilly air. She was relieved to still see the sun, though perhaps she should feel guilty when so many would never see it again.
Battles were like nothing else on earth. Crowds of men, rivers of blood. Everywhere she turned, there was another man trying to kill her, or kill Arthur, or kill one of the other British fighters. Lancelot kept wielding her sword again and again, amazed that it struck its targets so effectively.
She became used to the feel of Saxons under the hooves of her horse, and only feared their naked berserkers who dove under horses' bellies to stab them might slash into her horse's chest. The sight of hoof-crushed men became as familiar as the sight of turf. She learned the smell of guts spilling out of bodies.
She managed for a time the great trick of seeing the bodies of the enemy as empty shells and the bodies of her companions as tragic. But after a battle was done, when the British soldiers buried their own dead while finishing off those of the enemy who were not quite dead, leaving them to rot in the sun, she prayed. "Holy Mother, these are all your children. Forgive me for killing them." She avoided being one of those who sent the Saxon wounded to Woden. Bors also declined that task.
She saw her fellow soldiers strip Saxon bodies of their jewelry and weapons, and divide the plunder. Arthur's rule was that plunder be divided fairly. But if any man knew that he had killed a particular Saxon, that man could have the plunder from his body. The soldiers also took the jewelry, weapons, mail, and cloaks from their fallen comrades and buried the Britons in their tunics, unless the mail was so stuck to their bodies that taking it off would tear them to bits. Quartermasters took the armrings and cloak pins to be sent back to the men's families, but Lancelot thought she sometimes saw a warrior wearing a jewel that resembled one that had belonged to a fellow soldier who was now dead.
After the battle, she saw the carrion crows, red kites, and ravens come down looking for food. Heartless birds, she thought, trying to drive them away. A crow perched on a tree near her and cawed loudly. Lancelot looked it in the eye. How foolish I am to be angry at the crows when I am the killer, not they, she thought. They have to eat. If I die in one of these battles, I'd just as soon feed you, she told the crow.
The bloodshed she had joined in colored her every thought. She smiled bitterly at her red cloak and tunics. Yes, the bloody color was fit for her. Dawns and sunsets she saw as bloody skies. The spring flowers this year seemed to mock the many deaths. She took no pleasure in the bluebells and violets.
Guinevere longed for Lancelot more than she had ever longed for anyone. She felt like a bard deprived of his harp. Even though they seldom spoke with each other at Camelot, she had had some idea where Lancelot was – with the horses, with the warriors, in the chapel, alone in bed. And even when Lancelot had been off on a mission or a quest, Guinevere knew that her warrior had been much of the time enjoying herself in the forest or on the moors. It was terrible to realize that now Lancelot might be under attack by enemy soldiers.
Guinevere feared for Arthur, too. As she sat alone in her room, preparing for the day of attending to Camelot's needs, the thought that he might die made her stomach ache. He had tried to be good to her. He had been far better than most husbands. It was not his fault that she longed for a woman.
And what if the king died? God help them all if the Saxons won. She could not let herself imagine what it would be like to have to flee Camelot, or worse, to be there if the Saxons sacked it. Even convents were not safe from Saxon ravages. She had heard too many tales of Saxons raping nuns. She prayed that the Convent of the Holy Mother would be safe.
Even if Arthur died but the Britons won the war, the loss of such a strong, decent leader would be great. She knew her chances of succeeding him in wartime were even less than in peacetime. Gawaine would likely rule. God preserve the nation from losing him at the same time as Arthur, for there was no other man who could gain the throne w
ithout much bloodshed. She believed that Gawaine was more intelligent than he sometimes seemed, and that he played the jester, in part, to reassure the king, so that Arthur would not see him as a threat.
And, after all, Gawaine let his mother rule in Lothian. It might be that he had no taste for ruling and it was even possible that he would let Guinevere rule, with him as her war leader. That was, indeed, the only way she could rule. She would have to endure his lewd speech, but ruling would be worth the price.
Guinevere gasped. What was she doing, imagining Arthur's death? Not when he was in mortal combat. She didn't want him to die. Please God, let him not die. She threw herself on her knees and prayed, begging God to forgive her for imagining that she might benefit from her husband's death.
God protect him, she prayed. And Lancelot. And all the Britons, all the men of Camelot. Especially dear Lancelot. Lancelot is so good, too good.
Guinevere promised God to do anything if only Lancelot survived. But she could not promise to stop loving Lancelot. She would sacrifice anything else, but not the possibility of holding Lancelot in her arms.
There was a knock on her door. Guinevere rose and bade whomever it was to enter. Fencha came in bearing a message.
"It's from the king, my lady," she said.
Guinevere snatched the packet from her and tore it open. He was safe. She sighed with relief. He said the Britons were winning. He made no mention of particular dead, which he surely would have if any of the men close to him had died. Lancelot, then, was still alive, at least at the time Arthur sent the letter.
"Another British victory," Guinevere said."Thanks be to God."
How long would she have to worry night and day? She prayed that Arthur would drive the Saxons back across the seas.
Together with Cai, Guinevere tried to make the caer's routine seem ordinary, although there was much less ceremony and much simpler food, and all the ladies endlessly made cloaks and blankets for the soldiers. She had words of sympathy for those who loved warriors off in the battle, because she did as well.
On the night before a battle, Lancelot stood in a line of men waiting by the priests' tent to be shriven. She still hoped for heaven, but wondered how long her soul could stay clean after so much slaughter.
Bors also was waiting, so she asked him, "Even if fighting the Saxons is necessary, how can we be blessed when we are just about to kill?" Bors sighed and leaned against an alder. "At least we are not killing Christians."
Lancelot also needed to lean against the neighboring tree.
"It is not so bad to kill the Saxons because they are pagans? But some of our own men really are pagan, too. Like Gawaine."
Bors frowned deeply, as if the moonlight that streamed around them offended him. "Gawaine never should have been baptised. He damned his soul rather than saving it." Lancelot gasped.
"He isn't too bad for a pagan," Bors continued, "but he's pledged to be a Christian, and he breaks that pledge every day."
Lancelot made the sign of the cross. "May you be mistaken about his being damned."
Bors made the same gesture. "I hope I am. I like him."
After Lancelot had been shriven, she went off to her own tent and met Gawaine on the way. The red-bearded warrior grinned.
"Someone overheard you and Bors worrying about my soul. Have no fear. Haven't you heard that I was a fosterling to the pope himself, and that he instilled me with enough piety to save the souls of my whole clan?"
Lancelot couldn't help laughing, even on the eve of battle. The idea of Lot and Morgause of Lothian and Orkney sending their eldest son to be fostered by the pope was just as incredible as the picture of Gawaine learning scripture and praying.
"You should not laugh at my history, Lance." Gawaine wagged his finger at her. "I was so renowned for piety that the cardinals were jealous. That was why I had to come home to Orkney."
"More likely you caused the greatest scandal Rome has ever known," Lancelot said.
"I did not, because I left before I was of an age to bed girls."
"That explains your story." She continued smiling for a moment before she remembered that they would be killing and perhaps being killed in the morning. She hoped that God enjoyed jests and would pardon Gawaine therefore.
Lancelot saw Merlin walk painfully to his horse. Each morning the old man looked as if he had aged another year during the night. Arthur put a hand on his adviser's shoulder.
"You are too ill to see battle. You should rest in your tent, or perhaps return to Camelot for a time." Merlin shook his head.
Even that gesture appeared to give him pain. "No, I must stay with you. The men believe I have magical powers, and it reassures them to see me riding with you. The Saxons believe it, too; they fear me."
"All the more reason that I cannot risk your life in battle," Arthur said, giving him a fond look. "You are the only true father I ever had. Show yourself to our men and the enemy, and then, I beg you, go to the back of the ranks where you will be safer from the onslaught."
The old man nodded. "Never fear, I know I cannot fight. I'll go where not too many men have to risk their lives protecting me." The king helped him onto his horse.
Lancelot felt more kindly toward Merlin than she had before. What did it matter whether he guessed she was a woman? If he did, he never told anyone.
Arthur called Lancelot to his tent one night. She entered the tent, heaped with fine rugs for the king to sit on, and he bade her be seated. A brazier kept out the night's chill.
"You are proving to be just as swift and skillful in battle as you are on the contest field," Arthur said, giving her a look of approval. "Therefore, though you are new to warfare, you should command a cavalry regiment, as Gawaine and Peredur do. Of course Bedwyr will continue to lead the foot soldiers, and some of the lesser kings will continue to lead their own men."
"Command a regiment?" Her stomach tightened. She wished that he had not said those words and that she did not have to respond to them. Of course this was an order, not a request. "But what do I know of commanding men, or of tactics?"
"You will learn, as we all have. I was only seventeen when I led my first troops. And I gave Gawaine command of many men when he was that age."
Arthur was encouraging, but implacable.
Lancelot stared at him. She knew that she had no alternative. She might be a disaster as a commander, but no, that was impossible, she could not fail him – or Britain. "I shall do my best."
"Of course. Your best is very good indeed." The king poured himself some ale, and gestured for Lancelot to take some also. "The first thing you need to do is appoint a second in command. Who will you have?"
She had never thought of such a thing, but an answer came quickly to her. "Peredur's brother, Aglovale, unless he would prefer to serve with Peredur."
Aglovale she had met only since the war began, but he was a gentle-mannered man who lived with his family, not at Camelot. She would not be embarrassed to give him orders, as she might be with an older or more seasoned warrior, and he seemed unlikely to resent her or be envious.
Dazed, she left the king's tent. The other commanders were veterans of Arthur's war of succession and numerous campaigns against the Saxons. Would she measure up? She determined to ask Gawaine and Peredur about what would be expected of her.
Lancelot wandered to the campfire where Aglovale and Peredur were eating their share of a deer one of the soldiers had killed that afternoon. Aglovale was a medium-sized, brown-bearded man, a decade younger than Peredur. She called him aside.
"I'm to command a cavalry regiment," she said, unable to mask the uncertainty in her voice. "Would you be my second in command?"
"Of course, if you want me." He smiled as if pleased to be asked.
"I'm a little surprised you would not prefer to be your brother's aide." He laughed.
"Even the friendliest of brothers have their rivalries. I'm just as glad to serve with you instead. Otherwise, Peredur might think he had to appoint me out of duty,
as Gawaine had to choose Agravaine," he said with a grin.
She returned the grin, pitying Gawaine as everyone did, for no one wanted to deal every day with Agravaine's temper.
Aglovale proved to be a good choice. Lancelot had to worry about her regiment, be sure that the physicians saw to the wounded, that the fighters who lost their swords or spears had new ones from the armorers who traveled with the troops, and that new horses were procured through purchase or coercion for men who lost theirs and lived to tell of it. Aglovale helped her with this work.
After her first battle as a commander, she realized that she had to go among the men and talk with them.
One young man, Sawyl, sat staring at the fire at a distance from the others. Unlike them, he was holding his stew bowl without eating, though the food didn't smell too bad.
"Sawyl? Are you well?" she asked.
He stared at her vacantly. "Yes, commander."
"Indeed?" She paused, not leaving him.
"My friend Rhun died today." His voice was flat. "I couldn't reach him before a Saxon axed him."
"I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about him?"
"He... he was so foolish, always jesting. Never again." Sawyl's voice cracked. He bit his lips.
How strange not to weep, Lancelot thought, but she listened to him. "Rhun was a hero," she said, though she had not seen how he died.
"He didn't want to be one." Sawyl sighed.
What more could she say? Were all the men who died in the war heroes, or just dead?
She looked at the faces around the camp and wondered which ones would be gone by the next night.
Soon the men were dropping by her tent late at night to talk a little sheepishly about their fears of death, their grief over friends killed in the previous day's battle, or the wives or loves that they left behind. She was drained, afraid that the heart for battle would go out of her, but Aglovale listened as well as she did, or better, nodding with sympathy and saying little, so she left a good share of this work to him.
Lancelot- Her Story Page 23