Camelot

by Giles Kristian

  ‘Yield, or they die!’ someone yelled. ‘Drop it and I’ll spare them.’

  ‘How do I know?’ I heard Father Yvain growl, his breathing like forge bellows. ‘How do I know you won’t kill them after I’m dead?’

  A murmur of voices, then two men took me under my arms and lifted me to my feet. They did the same with Iselle, whose face was blood-spattered and fierce still as she struggled and fought. A man put his spear blade to her throat, just as I felt a blade press against my own, the steel holding the night’s cold within it.

  A man came into the stable, lifting a lantern and casting light across the faces of the dead men as he stepped over them. He stopped a spear’s length from Father Yvain, his men gathering either side of him with spears and shields.

  ‘You’d rather watch them die, and then we’ll kill you?’ this man asked Father Yvain. ‘We can do it that way,’ he said, as if it mattered little either way. Broad-shouldered and ruddy-faced, he had seen perhaps fifty winters and had courage enough to stand before Father Yvain with neither helmet, shield, nor a blade in his hand. He was richly dressed, though, and his fur-trimmed cloak of blue wool was fastened with a silver brooch whose long, sharp pin gleamed by the lantern light. ‘Well?’ he asked, holding a finger up towards the men with the blades at our throats, letting them know that in a moment they would either be killing or not.

  Father Yvain looked at me. I shook my head, not wanting him to give up his spear, for I was sure that they would slaughter him the moment he did.

  But Yvain gritted his teeth, nodded and threw the spear down, at which moment three warriors rushed in and took hold of him.

  ‘Good.’ The man with the fine brooch nodded.

  ‘Who are you?’ Father Yvain asked him.

  His hair was fair but greying. His beard was short, but his moustaches were long, and he looked to me more like a Saxon than a Briton.

  ‘I am Lord Geldrin,’ he said. ‘And you, it would seem, are a priest who would have been better suited to war than to prayer.’ He looked at one of his men, who was sitting against the wall, pressing his cloak against his face, trying to stem the blood as others kneeling by him demanded in vain to see the wound.

  ‘That was me,’ Iselle said, scorn in her voice, pride in her eyes. The man threatening her leant forward, his spear blade lifting her chin so that she could say no more.

  ‘She took my fingers!’ another man shrieked, gripping his ruined hand, blood running in rivulets down his arm to his elbow and dripping onto the straw.

  Father Yvain grimaced. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you about her.’

  Lord Geldrin lifted the horn lantern to get a better look at Iselle, whose eyes met his with defiance. ‘What is Lord Gawain, Prince of Lyonesse, doing in Tintagel? What is his business here?’

  ‘Ask him yourself,’ I said.

  The lantern swung, flooding me with light.

  ‘And who are you?’ His lips bunched, eyes narrowed. ‘Have we met? You dress like a Christian monk, yet you do not have the tonsure.’

  ‘I am Galahad, lord. We have not met before.’

  ‘Galahad,’ he repeated, speaking my name as if trying to recall the taste of it in his mouth. His eyes were in me like hooks in my flesh. ‘You are familiar to me, Galahad. It is as if I am looking at a ghost.’

  I glanced at Father Yvain. He shook his head, and Lord Geldrin noticed the exchange but said nothing, instead drawing his fingers back and forth, inviting me to speak.

  ‘I was a novice at the Monastery of the Holy Thorn on Ynys Wydryn,’ I said. ‘Until the Saxons came and slaughtered my brothers.’ I nodded towards Father Yvain. ‘We two survived.’

  Lord Geldrin showed neither surprise nor pity to hear what had befallen the Brothers of the Thorn. ‘And now you are here, in my island fortress, asking questions of my shore guards and my Greek guests, yet never coming to my hall to pay your respects.’ He pulled his long moustaches through his fist to smooth them as he thought. ‘How did you come to be travelling with Prince Gawain? Is he a Christian these days?’

  I bunched my muscles, testing the hold which the two men had on me. They tightened their grip. ‘As I said, lord, ask him yourself.’

  Lord Geldrin’s brows arched. ‘Oh, I will,’ he nodded, his eyes lingering on me. Then he turned to his spearmen. ‘Bring them outside.’

  My vision was still marred, my legs unsteady as Lord Geldrin’s men hauled us from the stable into the night, their spears at our backs, pushing us along the timber walkway which was slippery with mud, towards a crowd of folk who had congregated by the main entrance to Uther’s hall. Lord Geldrin’s hall these days, I reminded myself, wondering what we had done to make an enemy of the Lord of Tintagel.

  ‘Keep your ale hole shut,’ Father Yvain gnarred in my ear as those folk saw Lord Geldrin coming, the murmur of their voices rising on the chill night air. The crowd split apart to let their lord through, and there were Gediens and Gawain, their scale coats gleaming dully in the flame-flickered dark, a hedge of spears levelled at them.

  Gawain nodded at me, clearly relieved to see that we were all unhurt.

  ‘Lord Gawain, did I not give you my word that I would bring your friends to you unharmed if you came peaceably?’ Lord Geldrin swept his arm towards us. ‘Though it was no easy task. I daresay that if the Christ had had a friend like your monk here, the Romans would never have crucified him.’ He frowned and gestured at Iselle. ‘As for this wild creature, she is the Morrigán made flesh.’

  Mention of the Queen of Demons, the shape-shifting battle goddess who could foretell a man’s doom, sent a shiver through the crowd. Men and women stared at Iselle, some touching iron or making signs against evil, and she glared back at them, her eyes white in the darkness.

  ‘Is she your daughter, Lord Gawain?’ the Lord of the Heights asked.

  ‘No,’ Gawain said. ‘But I’d be proud if she were.’ That pride was in his eyes even so.

  Lord Geldrin shared a look with his people, and I knew that here was a man who enjoyed his status and the eyes of the crowd upon him. ‘You have cost me dearly,’ he told us. ‘I will decide how best you can repay me. In the meantime, those scale coats now belong to me. We don’t see their like much these days.’ He held a hand out behind him and the spearman who had Gawain’s sword placed the leather and silver wire-bound grip in his lord’s hand. Holding the blade, Lord Geldrin pulled the grip and the pommel to see if they still fitted securely on the tang. Then he took hold of the blade with two hands and flexed it before examining it to check that it had returned to true. Seeming to approve, he made a series of practice cuts which showed that he knew his sword craft, and after a final flourish a satisfied grunt escaped his throat.

  ‘A little heavy towards the point, perhaps, but a fine sword.’ He nodded. ‘I would expect nothing less from Gawain of Lyonesse, the man who rode beside Arthur. Who fought alongside the great lord of war until the very moment Mordred ap Arthur cut his own father down.’ He turned the sword in his hand so that its polished blade reflected flame. ‘Was this the sword you wielded that dark day?’ he asked Gawain.

  Gawain lifted his bearded chin. ‘It was.’

  ‘And you, Gediens ap Senelas,’ Lord Geldrin turned and pointed the blade at Gediens, ‘were you there too?’

  ‘Until the end,’ Gediens replied, his back straight, knowing the worth in reputation of being able to say that you had stood beside Arthur on that fateful day.

  Lord Geldrin spread his arms wide, a flamboyant gesture made ominous by the gleam of steel in the gloom of night. ‘Then why are we spilling blood?’ he asked Gawain, ‘when we should be sharing wine and food and listening to your tales of the old days and of Arthur?’

  Gawain’s lips warped amid his beard. ‘I am not one for tales. Do we look like bards?’ He glanced at Gediens, who gave a sour grin.

  They did not look like bards. But they did look like the sort of warriors upon whom bards contrived their songs, like women weaving thread on a loom to make pat
terned cloth. Just like the sword in Lord Geldrin’s hand, they were forged in fire and made for war.

  Lord Geldrin spun to face the crowd and turned his empty hand palm uppermost. A gesture that asked them what he was supposed to do with such difficult strangers. ‘They are too proud, too famous to pay their respects at my hall,’ he said with exaggerated deference, ‘yet they sleep in a stable with their horses.’ He wore a troubled frown.

  ‘Your hall?’ Gawain shook his head, flamelight from a nearby torch playing on his scarred face. ‘It will always be King Uther’s hall. Until a king sits in the high seat. Or a man who is worthy of it. A man who makes war against the Saxons. Not a man who sits upon it like a crow atop a dung heap.’

  The crowd stirred at that like leaves in a gathering wind. Geldrin’s men tensed as if expecting the order to put their spears in our flesh. But Lord Geldrin only smiled to himself as he handed Gawain’s sword back to the man who had given it to him.

  ‘It seems we shall have no stories of Arthur this night,’ he told his people, before turning back to Gawain. ‘But tomorrow I think you will feel differently. At the very least you will tell me what you are doing here. Why you went down to the sea cave this morning and why you are so eager to know about the ship which was moored in my bay.’

  He turned his deep-set eyes on Iselle. ‘And let us hope that at least one of you has a gift for spinning a tale,’ he said, his gaze moving over to me, ‘because your lives will depend upon it.’ He swept an arm towards us. ‘Take them away. Feed them. Wine too. I’ll not have it said I’m a poor host.’

  ‘Their armour, lord?’ a spearman asked, gesturing at Gediens’s scale coat.

  Geldren scowled. ‘No rush. We are not barbarians, who would so dishonour two lords of Britain by stripping them of their war glory in front of folk who have surely heard of them and know their reputation. Tomorrow, tomorrow.’ He waved an arm towards the spitting darkness. With that, we were led away by his spearmen, one of whom waited until we were out of his lord’s sight before slamming his spear butt into the back of Father Yvain’s head. I heard the crack of it and Yvain stumbled but did not fall.

  ‘That’s for Gereint,’ the spearman said, spitting at Yvain, who clutched the back of his head but kept walking, eyes on the muddy trackway, mouth clenched on the pain.

  My mind showed me again the brief and bloody chaos inside that stable. Father Yvain killing with the skill and instinct of a gifted warrior. My arms around a man’s neck as Iselle slashed her knife across his face. The terror and the thrill of it was a faint shiver still in my arms and legs.

  Without breaking stride again, Father Yvain straightened to his full height. He took his hand away from his head and I saw it was slick with blood. ‘Did your father never teach you how to hit properly?’ he growled at the spearman, who muttered some foul insult and raised the spear to strike him a second time.

  ‘You!’ Gediens pointed a finger at the spearman. ‘Touch my friend again and I swear you’ll wish you were washing up on Annwn’s shores with this Gereint.’

  The spearman spat at Father Yvain again and told Gediens that, lord or no, he was hardly in a position to be making threats. Yet he did not hit Father Yvain again before we were thrown into a kiln-house standing but a spear-cast to the east of Lord Geldrin’s hall.

  One of the spearmen lit a stinking oil lamp and placed it in the stone oven amongst a litter of potsherds, making sure that the wick took the flame, before they shut the door behind them and took up guard positions around the place.

  ‘Let me see your head, Father,’ I said, as the others found stools or slumped down against the circular wall.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Father Yvain replied, flapping a blood-red hand at me, but I pushed him down onto a stool so that I could look at the wound.

  ‘The blood has thickened,’ I said, relieved, though the gash in his scalp was as long as my thumb.

  ‘Told you, it’s nothing.’ Father Yvain lifted his chin towards the door. ‘That mouthy weasel shit hits like a little girl,’ he added loudly enough for the spearmen outside to hear.

  My own head hurt in two places, the worst being on my forehead where the shield rim had struck me, and now there was an egg-shaped swelling which throbbed like the surging sea down in the cove.

  I sat on the earthen floor, which was dry and cracked from a thousand clay firings in the oven which dominated the space, and for a long while none of us spoke, each lost in the tangle of our own thoughts. Although, looking at Gawain’s face, all glower and bridled fury, I knew something was coming. It took as long as a good knife-sharpening for it to work its way up and into his mouth.

  ‘What in Balor’s name did you do?’ he hissed at Father Yvain.

  The monk matched Gawain’s glare with his own.

  ‘They came with spears raised. If not for Iselle they would have stuck me in my bed furs.’ He put his clean hand to his head wound to check that the bleeding had stopped. ‘I killed them before they could kill us.’

  ‘And what if Lord Geldrin wanted only to talk to us?’ Gawain asked. ‘What if it was simply because we offended him by not paying our respects, and he sought to show us that he is lord here? To embarrass us, nothing more?’

  But Father Yvain shook his head. ‘They gave no warning and came in the dark. No shields, so not even prepared for a fight. Just spears. Which, if you ask me, speaks of murder, not an invitation to pay respects to their master.’

  Gawain grimaced, chewing on his next words.

  I said, ‘For all we knew, you and Gediens were already dead.’

  Gawain’s head came around, his eyes seizing mine. ‘But we weren’t,’ he said, then dipped his chin. ‘Did you kill any of them?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Good, that’s something at least.’

  But the truth was I felt ashamed. Father Yvain had fought so well. Like a champion. Iselle had fought with fierce courage, never asking for quarter. What had I done? Barely more than the horses tethered in the stall.

  ‘I would have done the same as Yvain.’ Gediens broke his own silence, not looking up as he worked at a rust spot on his helmet, scraping it with a thumbnail.

  Gawain hoomed in the back of his throat. ‘And now we will have to pay a blood price,’ he said, those words meant for us all. He looked at Father Yvain, who had moved the oil lamp and was setting a fire in the clay oven. ‘You should have held back until you knew,’ he said. ‘You should have waited.’

  Father Yvain placed the kindling, leaving a gap at its heart. ‘I couldn’t wait.’ He took a handful of straw to the lamp flame.

  ‘Why not?’ Gawain asked.

  Father Yvain’s head came up. ‘You know why.’

  Gediens’s eyes flicked up at me, then back down to the helmet on his knee. That glance was quicker than a heartbeat, yet Iselle had seen it too, for she looked at me then, an unspoken question in a face still speckled with a man’s blood.

  ‘What has it to do with me?’ I asked, looking from Gawain to Father Yvain.

  Gawain looked at the monk as though inviting him to answer my question, but Father Yvain shook his head.

  ‘What has it to do with me?’ I asked again, putting more edge on my voice.

  ‘Tell me this, Galahad,’ Gawain said. ‘Was Yvain a diligent Brother of the Holy Thorn? Did he take the teachings of your order to heart? Did he serve your god well? At least no less than the other brothers on Ynys Wydryn?’

  I wanted to see Father Yvain’s face, but he busied himself with the fire, pushing the ball of burning straw in amongst the kindling.

  ‘Father Yvain was assiduous in his faith,’ I replied. ‘He worked. Prayed. Sang the devotions as well as any of the brothers.’

  Father Yvain snorted at that, then leant into the oven and blew softly upon the new flames, fanning them amongst the sticks.

  ‘Truly?’ Gawain asked, lifting an eyebrow at me.

  I felt the frown on my face as I searched for the trap in the questions.

 
‘I didn’t know half the devotions,’ Father Yvain said, placing more sticks into the fire. ‘I’d sooner turn bowls and cups than listen to the rest of you droning like bees after a smoking. You know it’s true, lad.’

  Gediens grinned at that. Iselle too.

  My frown deepened. The fire crackled and popped, its coppery red light blooming, vanquishing the dark, yet spawning new shadows.

  ‘I daresay Yvain here volunteered whenever someone was needed to leave Ynys Wydryn,’ Gawain suggested, his eyes challenging me to say different. Flames danced in a hundred and more bronze scales that would soon belong to another man.

  ‘Because he knew the marsh better than any of us,’ I said, as though it were as simple as that.

  ‘Enough, Gawain.’ Father Yvain took a split log from a basket and laid it on the snapping, crackling sticks.

  ‘Because he had vowed to serve the Prior and the monastery,’ I said.

  Gawain laughed then. Even in that place, with spearmen guarding us and the promise of blood on the morrow. Even though we had failed to find Merlin and Parcefal, Gawain laughed, and the sound of it was like a flame beneath my blood, making it boil.

  ‘Let it be, Gawain,’ Father Yvain rumbled under his breath, though we all knew it was too late for that now.

  Gawain stared at the monk. ‘Brother Yvain ap Drudwas ap Kailin does not serve the Christian god, Galahad, but another master.’

  I looked at Yvain, expecting him to deny it. He did not.

  ‘As I serve Arthur, so Yvain serves another lord,’ Gawain went on. ‘And, like Arthur, this man is but a breath in the wind. A long shadow falling across us from former times.’

  Father Yvain sat back on his stool and watched the fire which he had brought to life. He was resigned and knew there could be no putting the stopper back in the bottle now.

  ‘I serve Merlin,’ he confessed. ‘As Gawain serves Arthur, so I serve Merlin.’

  Iselle and I looked at each other.

  Yvain shrugged. ‘You might as well know.’