Camelot

by Giles Kristian

  ‘But how?’ I asked. My skin prickled. ‘How do you serve Merlin?’ It seemed, as I stared at Yvain, that his face had changed by the firelight, that he no longer looked like the man I knew.

  ‘I’ve not seen him,’ Yvain admitted, shaking his head. ‘Not for ten years. But I had no reason to think he was dead and so my oath held. Still does.’

  ‘What oath?’ I asked.

  He chewed his lip a moment, then looked at me, his eyes clear with truth. ‘To look after you, lad. To make sure you never came to harm. Not that you could get into much trouble on Ynys Wydryn.’ He smiled. ‘But I swore an oath to Merlin, and an oath is not something you can toss into a marsh once it becomes too heavy to carry.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. I did not understand any of it. ‘Why me?’

  Yvain’s brows arched and he leant forward on the stool. ‘You’re Lancelot’s son,’ he said. ‘Whether you like it or not.’

  I reeled at his words, my thoughts flying this way and that, wild as leaves in a gale. ‘Why would you do this for Merlin?’ I asked. ‘Why would you give him so many years?’

  ‘They were mine to give,’ Yvain stated simply.

  I thought of the many times, when I was new to the monastery and Prior Drustanus led us in prayer, that the big, bearded monk had been conspicuous by his absence. And I would find him in his workshop among piles of sweet-smelling wood shavings, and he would let me watch him work.

  ‘But you are a Christian?’ I said.

  Yvain nodded. ‘As much as a man can be a Christian and yet serve a druid.’

  I looked at the others and my stomach hardened. Gediens had found another patch of rust and was working at it with a cloth which he had dipped in the lamp oil. Gawain was using a stick to scrape mud from his boot. Neither man looked surprised by anything Yvain had said.

  Iselle, though, could make no more sense of it than I. ‘Did Merlin reward you?’ she asked Father Yvain.

  Gawain lifted his chin towards Yvain. ‘Does he look like a rich man?’ he asked Iselle.

  ‘I will have all I need because of Merlin,’ Yvain replied. ‘I will see my wife again. I will hold my son in my arms. I will carry my little girl on my shoulders. My Tangwen.’ Tears stood in his eyes.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a family,’ I said. ‘You’ve never spoken of them.’

  It was as if a cloud passed across Yvain’s face then. He took a breath. When he let that breath go, it battered the little flame clinging to a reed wick in an oil-filled clam shell. ‘They are gone, Galahad,’ he said. ‘The sweating sickness took them. The summer before Lord Arthur’s last battle. I had sought out Merlin, hoping he could do something. He came, but we were too late. Nothing could be done. He took away their pain but not even Merlin could hold them to this world.’

  Iselle and I shared a look, neither of us wanting to dig deeper into this wound which I had opened. Both of us wanting to know more.

  ‘Merlin could not save my family.’ Father Yvain wiped a tear that had escaped his eye. ‘But he could do something for me. Before the end, he put a charm on my wife and my little ones. Henbane, blood and bone.’ He waved a hand. ‘Other things besides. He marked them, my boy and girl being so small that I feared they would not find their mother in Arawn’s realm. And he put the mark on me, too. Merlin swore to me that no matter how many years I lived on after my three loves, when I crossed over I would find them again. That my wife and my son and my sweet Tangwen might even be standing there on the shore, waiting for me.’

  Father Yvain wiped the tears from his beard and sat up on his stool, exhaling deeply, then fixed me with his gaze once more. ‘In return for doing this for me, Merlin wanted something.’ He shrugged. ‘I would have given my life there and then, but Merlin needed me to live. He wanted my oath, that I would do whatever he asked of me when he asked it.’

  He looked at Gawain. ‘I thought I would die on that field, when Mordred betrayed us and Dumnonia’s spearmen were cut down like wheat before the scythe. But I lived and, not long after that, Merlin came to collect what I owed.’ His eyes swung back to me. ‘He said I must join the monks of the Thorn on Ynys Wydryn. That I must look after you, letting nothing harm you. That I should keep you safe, Galahad, at least until Gawain came for you, as Merlin knew he would. One day.’ He shook his head. ‘I will find my family in the hereafter. And if spearmen come for you in the night, I will kill them.’

  ‘An oath is an oath,’ Gediens said in a quiet voice. And even Gawain would not upbraid Yvain more for his actions earlier that night. Nothing could change what had already happened, and there was a sense among us of a collective weariness. As though a painful boil had at last been lanced and all that could be done now was to rest and hope the wound healed.

  ‘We may as well get some sleep.’ Gawain stood to pull off his scale armour. ‘Tomorrow will bring what tomorrow will bring.’

  We made ourselves as comfortable as we could, but I knew I would not sleep. My head was crammed with thoughts and memories. They writhed in my skull like eels in a basket. I understood now why Father Yvain had never seemed as fully immersed in the Order as the other brothers. And why, when we were at Lord Arthur’s dwelling, he had seemed to care little for the cutting of the Holy Thorn which I had carried with me from Ynys Wydryn. I tried to understand the sacrifice that Yvain had made. The deal he had struck with Merlin. Ten years for a druid’s spell. An oath as binding as chains forged by Gofannon the smith-god, in return for a mark seen only by the dead.

  And among those writhing eels were other floundering things for which I had no name. Questions which I could not ask. Not yet, anyway. Such as, had Prior Drustanus and the brothers known Yvain’s reasons for joining the Order? And how had Merlin known that Gawain would one day come for me?

  No, sleep would not find me as Gawain had. And so I lay on my cloak on that hard mud floor and watched the flickering ghosts of flames cavorting on the whitewashed walls and the dark thatch. I thought of Yvain’s wife and children. Three faceless figures standing hand in hand on Annwn’s mist-shrouded shore. I thought of Geldrin, Lord of the Heights, who had seemed to know me, and I thought of Iselle and how she had slashed open a man’s face, her wild eyes blinking away his blood. And I wondered what tomorrow would bring.

  10

  Yvain

  WE WERE READY WHEN they came for us. Eight of Lord Geldrin’s spearmen, mailed, swathed in pelts and cloaks against the chill, and resenting having duties before Tintagel had awoken. Silent but purposeful, they ushered us along the track in the cold dark before the dawn. We shivered and clung to our own thoughts, our breath trailing us like smoke as we tramped towards the old hall, which loomed like a sleeping giant in the gloom, its own breath palling above the thatch. But then the spearmen led us off the timber walkway and onto the mud, which squelched underfoot, and I saw Gawain and Father Yvain share a look which put a cold blade of fear in my guts.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Gawain asked the lead man of our escort.

  ‘Where we’re told,’ the man said over his shoulder, shoving the butt of his spear at a dog which had been with us since we left the kiln-house and which seemed determined to sniff the spearman’s trews. The man was the only one I recognized from the previous night, and I guessed that those who had stood guard around the kiln-house were now snug in their beds.

  Gulls wheeled and shrieked above us in the murk. The moon still hung above the far horizon, spilling light across the Western Sea and silvering a shredding billow of cloud which looked to me like a bird of prey with wings outstretched before the stoop.

  ‘There’s nothing over here,’ I said to Iselle as we trudged up a grassy incline, the breeze cold on my face, making my eyes water. That breeze carried the scent of sea wrack left behind on the sand and shingle at low tide, and the begging cries of guillemots in their rocky roosts.

  ‘Did you think Lord Geldrin would invite us into his hall for warm bread and honey wine?’ Iselle asked, as we walked further from the settlement and up a rocky ou
tcrop which we knew led to nothing.

  ‘I hoped that he might,’ I replied, my stomach still sour from Lord Geldrin’s wine, ‘but it looks like we’ll know soon enough.’ For there on that ledge stood a dark figure against the gradually lightening sky, his cloak billowing in the wind. It was Geldrin, ruler of Tintagel. Lord of the Heights. He had been looking out to sea but now he turned and watched us climb towards him, a spear in his hand, his short-cropped hair standing in tufts.

  Beside him stood a young woman swathed in silver fur, her face as pale as the coming dawn, her long black hair flying in the wind like a crow’s wing. At this woman’s right shoulder stood a huge, mailed warrior whose face was as craggy as the cliffs below, and behind him, four spearmen whose shields, like his, were daubed white with a black raven or crow perched on the iron boss.

  ‘Lord Gawain,’ Lord Geldrin called in greeting. ‘And Lord Gediens,’ he added, dipping his head to both warriors. ‘I trust you slept well. The wine was not worth remembering, I’ll be the first to admit, but then I didn’t think I owed you my best since your friends killed three of my men and maimed two.’

  ‘The wine was good enough,’ Gawain rumbled.

  We came onto the bare rock and I saw the sea at Lord Geldrin’s back, the wave crests breaking white and scudding northwards. I looked east, towards the mainland, and saw the first fringe of light creeping above Dumnonia’s dark forests.

  ‘But the meat was tough,’ Gawain added, glancing at Gediens, who agreed.

  ‘Think I lost a tooth on it.’ Gediens frowned, putting a finger and thumb to his mouth.

  ‘I told you, we’re getting too old to eat anything that hasn’t been boiled for a day,’ Gawain chided him, the two of them talking as easily as if they were in an ale house, denying Lord Geldrin the fear he would have expected to see from men stood at spear-point on a cliff edge in the wind and dark.

  Lord Geldrin smiled, and the sea far below could not have been colder. He glanced at the young woman beside him. She nodded but did not speak, her dark eyes passing from one of us to the other, taking hold of every detail from our feet to our heads.

  Lord Geldrin turned his face away from the wind so that it would not snatch his words away. ‘What are you doing at Tintagel, Lord Gawain?’ he asked.

  ‘It is none of your concern,’ Gawain said, ‘but seeing as you have brought us all up here, it seems to me you are trying to make a point, and so I will tell you, to save us all the trouble. We are here to meet an old friend.’

  At this, the dark-haired woman’s eyes narrowed and she took a step forward, hands one upon the other below her waist.

  ‘His name?’ Lord Geldrin asked.

  ‘Parcefal,’ Gawain said.

  ‘Parcefal ap Bliocadran?’ Lord Geldrin asked, glancing at the woman, who kept her eyes fastened on Gawain.

  Gawain nodded. ‘The same.’

  A few of the spearmen around us shared surprised looks, for just as men had heard of Gawain of Lyonesse, so they had heard of Parcefal too.

  Lord Geldrin’s hand tightened on his spear, his knuckles white. ‘What would one of Arthur’s horse lords be doing here?’ he asked, then turned to me. ‘It is strange, monk,’ he said, ‘all these famed warriors who rode with the great Arthur appearing again now like wraiths gathering for Samhain.’

  Gawain gave a grim smile. ‘It is not our problem that everyone thinks we are long dead.’ He shrugged. ‘But I have not seen my old friend for a long time and would like to raise a cup with him as we used to.’ He threw an arm back towards the roundhouses, workshops, stables and byres. ‘We arranged to meet here.’

  ‘Why here?’ Lord Geldrin asked.

  Gawain shrugged. ‘Have you travelled in Dumnonia these last years, lord? The land crawls with Saxons. Famine takes the old and young. Disease stalks the cantrefs and forts. Men murder each other for a coin, or a scrap of iron, or to take another man’s wife. And the great kings of Britain?’ he said, the words dripping with scorn. ‘They won’t fight our enemies. They hide behind their walls.’ He gestured at the cliff edge. ‘Lucky for you, you don’t need walls.’

  The insult was scarcely veiled, but Lord Geldrin ignored it. ‘Where is the great Parcefal now?’ he asked.

  Gawain pressed a thumb against the side of his broken nose, turned his head and expelled a wad of snot into the wind. ‘We have yet to find him.’

  ‘Perhaps he has changed his mind,’ Lord Geldrin mused, aiming the words at Gediens. ‘Perhaps he does not wish to be reminded of former days, when he was young and men feared him. Would you not rather live out your days in peace?’

  ‘There can be no peace until we take back our land,’ Gediens said.

  Lord Geldrin nodded, accepting that. ‘There is no one else you have come here to find? Just Parcefal, slaughterer of Saxons?’

  ‘Just him,’ Gawain said.

  The Lord of the Heights lifted his spear and pointed it down into the fortress. ‘Why then did you buy eight horses from Lidas? Even if you find your old friend, that’s only six of you.’

  ‘Two to carry supplies and arms,’ Gawain replied.

  ‘And eight saddles?’ Lord Geldrin said.

  With his fingers Gawain brushed at some dirt on his tunic sleeve. ‘Lidas is a generous man.’

  Lord Geldrin smiled. ‘No, Lord Gawain, he is not.’

  The dark-haired woman raised her hand to Lord Geldrin and lifted her chin towards Gawain. ‘Lord Gawain, did you come here to meet the druid Merlin?’ she asked.

  Lord Geldrin caught Gawain’s eye. ‘I said nothing of the cloak of black feathers which we found,’ he growled too quietly for the woman to hear.

  Father Yvain made a show of making the sign of the Holy Thorn, and so I did the same. Gawain and Gediens frowned at one another.

  ‘Merlin has not been seen in Dumnonia, nor anywhere in Britain for many years,’ Gawain told the lady. ‘He was not a young man when I knew him.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps he had enough magic to keep death at bay. But it is more likely he is in Annwn causing trouble amongst the dead.’ He turned his head to look at the warriors with the black birds on their shields. ‘Who are you, lady?’ he asked.

  The lady considered her answer. ‘I am Lady Triamour.’ She lifted a slender hand to tuck a wisp of dark hair behind her ear. Her voice was thin in the gusts and brittle like new ice.

  ‘Lady Triamour,’ Gawain said, dipping his head respectfully. From the way he stared I could tell he thought her beautiful. And she was beautiful. Her full brows guarded blue-grey eyes the shape of little spear blades. Her lips were as plump as ash buds in winter, though cracked and sore-looking, ravaged by wind, teeth or nail. A small speck of brown skin sat below her left eye, where a tear might rest, and to me she had a sad, distant look.

  Gawain tore his eyes from her and nodded at the warriors. ‘Are they crows, or ravens? It is hard to tell.’

  ‘Crows,’ rumbled the huge, granite-faced warrior at the lady’s right shoulder.

  The lady swept an arm towards Tintagel. ‘All this used to belong to my great-grandfather,’ she said, ‘before Uther took it from him.’

  Gawain looked surprised, as did Gediens and Father Yvain. ‘You are the Lady Morgana’s granddaughter?’ he asked.

  ‘I am,’ Lady Triamour replied, not with pride but rather a sense of weariness.

  ‘Mordred’s daughter?’ Gawain frowned. She nodded. I looked at Iselle, who lifted an eyebrow. I knew the stories. It was said that before he was High King, Uther desired Lady Igraine, wife of Lord Gorlois of Tintagel, and was prepared to go to war to win her for himself. But Tintagel was as formidable then as now, and so Uther persuaded Merlin to help him take the fortress and the lady by whatever magic the druid possessed. Some said that Merlin wove a spell which made Uther resemble Gorlois, and so complete was the illusion that Gorlois’s warriors opened the gates and welcomed Uther in, a wolf into the hen coop. Igraine, thinking her husband returned, took Uther to her bed and soon thereafter was born Arthur.

  Ot
her tales said Merlin conjured a sea fog as thick as dragons’ breath, within whose concealment Uther’s men stormed the land bridge and took the fortress in a welter of blood. Whatever the truth of it, here was Lord Gorlois and the Lady Igraine’s great-granddaughter. The granddaughter of Arthur’s half-sister, Morgana, Lady of Camelot. And so here, also, was Lord Arthur’s granddaughter. I put that thought aside.

  ‘I saw you once,’ Gawain said, ‘when you were a little girl. You were screaming like a banshee because another child had thrown your straw doll down the well.’

  Lady Triamour’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘I do not remember that,’ she said, and I found it hard to imagine her screaming nowadays. She seemed so calm. Strangely serene.

  ‘You were just a child,’ Gawain said with a smile.

  In some ways, Lady Triamour looked a child still, with her slender neck and those doleful, unmoored eyes.

  ‘Why has Merlin returned?’ she asked.

  ‘Has he?’ Gawain glanced at me and at Gediens, as though wondering if either of us had heard anything to support this lady’s claim.

  ‘You know he has,’ Lady Triamour said.

  Gawin sighed. ‘I have never been so ambitious as to know the mind of a druid.’

  ‘And yet you rode with Merlin,’ Lord Geldrin put in, ‘to recover the sword Excalibur from the painted wildlings north of the great wall.’

  ‘I did,’ Gawain admitted. ‘I was there to keep Arthur alive, not to serve Merlin.’

  Lord Geldrin had more to say on this but Lady Triamour spoke first. ‘So, you refuse to tell us what you want with Merlin?’

  ‘I told you, I—’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Lady Triamour interrupted. ‘You came here to meet with Merlin for some purpose which must be of consequence. Or why else would the druid have crawled out from whatever rock he has been under these past years?’

  ‘So you say,’ Gawain said, sharing a weary look with Gediens, who shrugged and shook his head.

  ‘Lord!’ one of Geldrin’s spearmen called out, pointing his spear back down towards his master’s hall.