Camelot

by Giles Kristian

  Whereas I scrambled like a mole. Or like a hound in a badger set, eager to root out its prey, not stopping to consider the width of the tunnel or where it led, but pushing on as fast as I could, panting on the thin, stale air, the front of my habit wicking up the water which flowed along the winding passage. I did picture what would happen if the tunnel narrowed. If my shoulders became wedged between the slick rock sides and I could not turn round and go back the way I had come. If I was entombed within the tor and condemned to a handful of terrifying, mind-breaking days, slurping the water beneath me, only to die of hunger. And yet I took some measure of comfort in supposing that if Father Yvain could fit, anyone could.

  When it seemed that I had been crawling for an eternity, I stopped, panting into the sleeve of my habit to let my ears work. For a heart-wrenching moment I heard nothing. Just the thump of my own heart in my chest, the gush of blood in my ears and beyond that, a heavy, crushing quiet. The eternal silence of the grave.

  Then I heard a grunt and a curse, and I exhaled deeply in relief, for I knew that Gawain was behind me, perhaps five spear-lengths back. This was far worse for him, I knew, in his war gear, and because he was not a young man, and this knowledge shamed me into going on.

  Down and down through the pitch dark. Following the coursing water which had been a trickle before but was gushing now, its sibilance a whisper in the blackness of night. Like the soft murmurings of spirits.

  ‘How much further?’ Gawain behind me said, his voice strange and dead and yet so close-sounding that it might have come from my own mouth.

  ‘We must be near the foot of the tor by now,’ I gasped, though for all I could tell in that twisting dark, we might have only crawled a couple of hundred feet. Soon after that, however, I noticed that my shoulders were scuffing the sides less often. Little by little, my cramping neck was stretching out and my head was not so bowed. The tunnel was growing wider. By the time it levelled out, I was able to get to my feet and progress in a crouch, my habit soaked and heavy, my knees stinging where the skin had been torn away, and soon after that I entered a cavern and could stand to my full height below the low rock ceiling. Still, it was oppressively dark, so that I could only see my hand in front of my face as a shadow amongst shadow.

  ‘Galahad?’

  I turned towards Father Yvain’s voice.

  ‘Over here,’ he said.

  ‘Father.’ I clambered over the smooth stones, dropping down with a splash into a pool which I had not seen because it was as black as the rest of the cave. Above the constant chime of flowing water, I heard Iselle hiss and I knew why. This spring, which rose beneath the tor, was a sacred place to those who still venerated the old gods of Britain. It was a place where people now and then came to be healed. To drink the waters and commune with Morrigán, Queen of Demons, goddess of war; Cernunnos, the horned one; and Arawn, lord of the underworld.

  And now I, a would-be Brother of the Holy Thorn, who had been raised in the light of Christ and Saint Joseph, and to whom the gods of Britain were but dark, forbidding shadows, was wading through their sacred pool in my filthy habit of undyed wool. It must have pained Iselle to witness. Still, the cold water felt wonderful on my grazed and bleeding knees and I stopped to cup my hands and drink, the water tasting sweet and clean.

  Father Brice had shown me this spring before, when I was a boy new to Ynys Wydryn. By the guttering flame of a torch, he had explained the awe in which many folk held it, and I had been awestruck myself, thinking that gods resided somewhere beyond the glassy surface upon which the flame danced. In time, the monks had sluiced those gods from me. But Father Brice had never told me of the tunnels.

  Father Brice. A clenching knot squeezed my heart and I drank from the pool again and lifted the water to my face, trying to wash away the pictures from the eye of my mind.

  ‘Here,’ Father Yvain said. ‘The way out.’ There was a splash as Gawain’s shield dropped into the water, followed by the man himself. I was amazed he had managed to bring his shield through the tunnels. Also his iron, silver-chased helmet with its plume, which seemed to glow a little, the only visible thing in that place. But then, I suspected the man’s war finery meant more to him than most of the people he knew. It was easier to imagine Gawain drawing his blades and carving his way through the tunnels of the tor than abandoning his accoutrements.

  Gediens followed close behind, stumbling and falling headlong into the water. Cursing and spitting as he stood and gathered up his shield and spear.

  It was lighter in this cavern than in the tunnels, I realized, or else my eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, for as I followed Father Yvain’s voice, I made out the pale oval of Iselle’s face and the cream colour of her yew bow. I felt a wave of relief wash over me at the sight of her.

  ‘The others?’ Father Yvain asked.

  Gawain looked at Gediens, whose teeth flashed in the dark. ‘I saw them put four down before I followed you,’ Gediens said. ‘Maybe they’re behind us.’

  Gawain shook his head. ‘We can’t wait.’ He turned back to Father Yvain. ‘Get us out of here.’

  And so Father Yvain did.

  We emerged into dusk like ghosts returned from Arawn’s realm, startling an owl, which rose from an oak’s crooked bough and vanished on silent wings. Gawain and Gediens led, shields raised before them in case there were Saxons waiting for us. But there were none and so we made our way through the gloaming, threading between the trees down to the marsh. More than once, I turned and looked up at the tor and its fringe of woods, beyond which our monastery had nestled for so many years, safe and hidden. A sanctuary untouched by the fires which raged across the land. Untouched until this foul day, which had brought blood and Saxon slaughter to our door.

  ‘Where now?’ Father Yvain asked Gawain.

  The rest of us gathered around, drawing close to each other.

  ‘There is something we need to do,’ Gawain said. ‘It is the reason we came to Avalon.’ He looked at me. ‘Other than to bring you out of that place.’

  ‘Well? What is this thing?’ Father Yvain asked, his thick brows drawing in, his expression ominous. Like me, he had lost his brothers, those men with whom he had passed these ten years, and whatever friendship he may have once claimed with Gawain seemed brittle in the aftermath of that.

  ‘You’ll see soon enough,’ Gawain replied, looking out across the night- and mist-swaddled reed-beds. The rains of the last days had raised the waters, drowning the ditches, distorting the channels and tree lines by which we navigated. It was a shadowy, sunken world and treacherous. ‘If we can find it.’

  Gediens pointed his spear towards a stand of hazel and ash on a hump above the reed-beds. ‘The boat is that way,’ he said. ‘If the Saxon swines haven’t taken it.’

  Gawain nodded, but before he could lead the way, Father Yvain took hold of his shoulder. ‘I need to know if what you seek is worth the risk,’ the monk said. ‘I have my own charge, as you well know.’

  I did not know what Yvain meant by that, but Gawain glanced at the hand on his shoulder and turned hard eyes on the monk.

  ‘Careful, Yvain,’ he warned. ‘We have not been spear-brothers for many years. Not since you came here to hide from the world. To worry fish and fowl and give your helmet to the mice to nest in.’

  Beneath his beard, Father Yvain’s face hardened. He took his hand from Gawain’s shoulder and pointed a finger at him. ‘You know why I came here,’ he said, his voice the low rumble of distant thunder. ‘Or are you calling me a coward?’

  Gawain straightened, his lips forming round an answer which he never got to speak, because Gediens saw the torches. The warrior hissed, pointing towards the copse on the low hill, and we crouched down in the mist which rose from the marsh, wreathing around the willows. There were flames among the trees. There were flames everywhere. Dozens of them, bobbing and floating in the near-dark.

  ‘Behind us, too,’ Iselle said. We looked and saw flames flicker and burst into life, each born of a
nother, then dispersing to dance like fireflies as the Saxons spread out, searching for us.

  ‘Looks like Cerdic’s whole army,’ Gawain said, his face and helmet materializing as a cold light permeated the gloom. I looked up to see the cloud slowly ripping apart and the moonlight bleeding through to silver the world. Gediens put three fingers to his iron helmet to ward against ill luck, for in that celestial occurrence he saw the hand of some god. Some god who Gediens believed sought our destruction.

  ‘Do we still try for your boat?’ I asked.

  Gawain’s teeth gnawed at his bottom lip as he wrestled with the prospect of fighting our way to the boat beyond the copse, for surely now we could not pass the Saxons unseen. Then he shook his head. ‘We go to ground,’ he said, his decision made. ‘But not here. We need to find somewhere to hide.’

  Gediens held his shield and spear wide. ‘Where?’ he asked, looking from me to Father Yvain. I looked back towards the tor. The Saxons were all over the higher ground, so we could not go that way. The west was more like sea than marsh, unrecognizable even in the moon glow. No Saxons that we could see in that direction, but we would need Gawain’s boat and for now that was beyond our reach. North or south, then, into the marsh. Into that brackish, insubstantial world which could swallow us alive as easily as a man eating a berry from a bramble.

  ‘I know a place,’ Iselle put in. We all looked at her, but she was looking north, the moonlight on her cheek and in the iron hilt of the Saxon sword on her back. She shrugged at Father Yvain. ‘I told you I did not live in the lake village.’

  ‘You want us to go into the marsh?’ Father Yvain asked. ‘How?’

  She turned to him. ‘We’ll use the old ways.’

  I thought of the sections of causeway of which I had caught glimpses when I took the coracle across the marsh to fetch the cobbler’s corpse.

  ‘It will be under water,’ I said.

  ‘I can find it,’ Iselle assured us. Gawain was all frown. Even Father Yvain seemed unsure, pulling at his lip as he looked off in the direction Iselle had indicated.

  ‘Maybe we should try for the boat,’ Gediens said. ‘I’d rather fight than drown.’

  ‘I can find it,’ Iselle said again.

  Looking at her, her coppery auburn hair swept back now, tied behind her head so that her eyes were revealed in all their hawkish intensity, I believed her.

  5

  Ghosts from the Past

  THE WATER WAS UP to our waists and terribly cold, and I would not have been surprised if the Saxons could hear my teeth rattling in my skull. And yet, now and then, we still managed to surprise some or other bird, a raptor or tufted duck which would clatter up from the reeds and set our hearts hammering as we edged along that ancient causeway. It was slow going because we could not see where we were treading, but had to follow the person in front and hope that our feet found the track below. At least the others had spears, and in Iselle’s case her unstrung bow, which they used to feel their way ahead of every step, poking the causeway beneath the water. I had nothing and could only hold my arms out either side for balance. But I was glad not to be burdened by scale armour, sword or helmet. Should Gawain or Gediens misstep and fall, they would sink in a half-breath, down and down into the black depths, never to be seen again.

  Iselle led the way, stopping now and then to explore with the bow stave or to wait for the rest of us to catch up before following the causeway in a new direction. How she had known where to find the old track was beyond my understanding. Father Judoc would have seen devilry in it. I think Gediens saw the gods of Britain in it. I did not know what to think, other than that this was the second time Iselle had saved my life.

  Not that we were safe yet.

  Sound carries far across the reed-beds in winter and so we did not speak as we inched along, shivering and numb, going deeper into the marsh. Ever further from the tor and from everything I knew. I wondered about the people who used to travel this track. Had they ever fled from their enemies along this very causeway on a night such as this? Had they feared the spirits and the demons of the marsh as I feared them now?

  But I saw no thrys rising from the reeds to devour us. I gritted my teeth against the breath-stealing cold and followed Father Yvain, who followed Iselle. And every step along that sunken timber walkway took us further from the searching torches until they were but pinpricks of flame against the backdrop of the tor, which was seen not as a long, whaleback ridge now, but as a high hill whose summit was washed in moonlight.

  And after the time it would take one of Father Padern’s rushlights to burn down to the nip, Iselle led us off the old track, out of the frigid water and onto ground that felt almost firm underfoot. Shivering, our breath still smoking around our faces, we followed a narrow ridge of land which rose proud of the flood marsh and upon which several stunted willows stood creaking in the breeze, then cut westward into a wood of skeletal beech, birch and alder. It was warmer among the trees, the air pungent with the sweet scent of wet decay and tanged with wood smoke which made my heart ache. To be warm by the hearth now, with Father Meurig grumbling that his barley bannocks needed more salt, yet watching us eat them with proud eyes. I could almost hear Father Brice and Father Judoc arguing about whether or not Joseph brought to these isles vessels containing the blood and sweat of Christ. Bickering about whether the saint had planted his staff in the ground knowing that it would take root and grow, or whether he had simply leant on it, seeking rest, and had been surprised to see roots worm into the earth and buds burst forth soon after.

  Threading these woods, we came to more water, which looked impassable without the causeway. But Iselle led us down a bank to where a skin boat sat among the rushes, tied to a stake which had been driven in deep. She took us across two at a time, sculling with great adeptness though the boat was heavily laden, and upon reaching the other side tied the craft to another mooring post with such fluid, familiar ease that I was sure she must be taking us to her home.

  ‘She’s a resourceful young woman,’ Gediens said, scuffing his boots against the grass to get the mud off them. Iselle had told us to follow the thistle bank until we came to a windbreak of stunted birch trees, then she had gone ahead, vanishing into the night. ‘Proud and fierce as a hawk.’

  ‘And too young for an old dog like you, Gediens,’ Father Yvain said, giving me his spear to carry as he took the bear skin from his shoulders, shaking the water from it as we walked.

  ‘True enough,’ Gediens admitted, a note of regret in his voice. ‘Wild and beautiful.’ He shook his head. ‘Safer to fight Saxons, I think.’ He lifted his chin towards Yvain. ‘But you must have missed a woman’s company, monk,’ he said, the last word spoken as though it tasted bad in his mouth. ‘Someone to warm your bed furs.’

  If Father Yvain took offence, he did not show it. ‘I was not chained to the place,’ he said, and glanced at me to see what I made of that tacit confession. Even in the dark he no doubt saw the surprise in my face. ‘It’s like spear work. You never forget.’ He winked at me.

  We had walked a few paces more when some creature cried in the night. Gawain stopped, lifting his spear in a gesture which told us to be still and listen.

  ‘A screech owl,’ Gediens said.

  Even so, I was peering into the darkness around us, my eyes trying to sort the dark shapes, some still, some moving, into blackthorn and birch, reed-bed and hillock, darting hare or black-crowned night heron sweeping over us with a shout of wok as it passed. I felt each thump of my heart. Even though I was cold, I felt sweat prickling as it seeped out of the skin on my back, the salt in it stinging the wounds made by the Thorn.

  ‘Smoke,’ Gawain said.

  ‘Iselle’s kin’s hearth,’ I suggested. ‘We must be nearing it.’

  Gawain’s scowl told another tale. ‘Heads up and stay close,’ he said, lifting his shield and spear and breaking into a loping run along the bank. We three followed on his heels, looking this way and that and failing to avoid clumps of this
tles which snagged my habit or clawed the skin on my shins.

  ‘What is it, Father?’ I asked as we ran.

  ‘The smoke,’ Yvain said, puffing hard, unused to running. The smell was stronger now. More acrid. And suddenly I understood, even as Father Yvain said the words. ‘That’s no hearth fire.’

  The place had not burned well. The rain had seen to that. But some of the thatch on the inside had taken a flame and burned, the heat seeping through to partly dry the roof outside, which now smouldered and steamed, pouring a thick stream of yellow-grey smoke into the night sky. Some of the more sheltered east wall was burning, weak flame eating into the wattle and old straw and dung, spewing a bitter-smelling, sickly-coloured breath. That was what Gawain had smelled. What Iselle had smelled before him, which was why she had run ahead.

  We found her in the shadows, kneeling in the scorched rushes, holding the hand of a woman, the two of them indistinct shapes in the hanging haze of that dark place. But I could see that the woman was dead. No one alive could be so still, and, as I ventured deeper into that room, by the flickering light of a patch of burning thatch and the glow of dying embers in the hearth I saw the wound which had killed her. Which had ended her suffering, by the looks of it. A gory smile in the white of her throat. Mocking our frail grasp on this life. Iselle’s long Saxon knife lay in the rushes beside her, its blade slick. I shuddered.

  ‘I’ll see if they are still close,’ Gediens said, stepping back out and disappearing into the night, though I doubted he would be able to see much out there. Father Yvain fetched a rain bucket and doused the flames as best he could, raising hisses of steam which sounded like the malice of demons in the dark.

  Iselle’s head was bowed, her hair loose now so that it fell across the dead woman’s face, a tress kissing that dark gash.

  ‘Your mother?’ Gawain asked, his voice soft and low.

  Iselle did not answer. Did not even look up. Gawain nodded at me, wanting me to go closer. To offer some comfort to Iselle, though I did not know how to do that. Still, I took a step forward and Iselle’s head lifted, her eyes meeting mine.