Camelot

by Giles Kristian

  We stayed sober that night, because the king himself was a sober man, and because we talked of Arthur and Guinevere and so it would not have felt right to be making ourselves stupid with drink. And in a wet, grey and misty dawn we crossed the shallow water over to Ynys Môn.

  Tears stood in Gawain’s eyes as King Cadwallon’s boat bore us across the slack water. Parcefal and Gediens, too, were mute at the bows, taut with emotion and lost in memory. King Cadwallon had sent an emissary to King Pelles to say that we were coming, and so now waiting on the dunes were a score of spear-armed warriors, golden in bronze scale coats, their large horses up to their knees and hocks in the wind-stirred grass. Helmets glinting dully in the mist, red plumes like drops of blood on the iron-grey day.

  ‘Lord Arthur’s Companions,’ I said under my breath, and even I, who did not know the men beneath those grey and silver-chased helms, was moved almost to tears by the sight of them. The last of Arthur’s famed horse warriors. They could be none other. Men who had forged their own reputation in another time, who had long ago frozen Saxon hearts with terror but then had faded from the world. Seeing them now, I felt I was looking across the water into the past, and it caused my heart to ache.

  ‘There’s Cai.’ Gawain’s eyes narrowed as he peered through the sea fog rolling southward along the channel. It seemed the low clouds were descending to the earth.

  ‘That’s him,’ Parcefal confirmed with a nod. ‘He always sat back in the saddle like that.’

  I had heard of Cai ap Cynyr. He had been one of Arthur’s commanders as far back as their time fighting in Gaul for King Syagrius. But, two years after Arthur’s last battle, when most people in Britain believed Arthur himself was one way or another gone from the world, Lord Cai had led the last of his horse warriors west in search of a new lord to serve. For they numbered too few by then to continue the fight against the Saxons, and rather than see them whittled away in meaningless skirmishes and ill-used by lesser warriors than Arthur, Cai sought to preserve the company, as a man shields a candle flame with his hand as he walks through a darkened room. And in Ynys Môn, far from the maelstrom of chaos which poured into a Britain without Arthur, these cataphracts, as they were known in the twilight of the empire, these knights from another age, had found a worthy king in Pelles.

  We came ashore and for a moment we stood on the sand, facing the grim, golden men whose eyes glared from the shadows of their helmets, as their mounts snorted and nickered at our unfamiliar scent, their breath gushing out in plumes on the chill, damp day. Some of those eyes were on me, I noticed, and I knew these men would have known my father, would have fought beside him. One or two may even have fought against him, when he and Lord Arthur became enemies. They knew his panoply as they would know Arthur’s, and I was aware of the weight of the scale coat, of the shield on my back and the helmet on my head, in a way I had not been since the first days of training in it.

  When he had come ashore, Merlin had fallen to his knees and kissed the ground, then plucked up some coltsfoot, which we used to gather on Ynys Wydryn because it never failed to cure a cough, while a decoction of its leaves would always soothe a cut or burn.

  ‘I am home, brothers,’ Merlin muttered, as if to the yellow flowers in his hand, though of course he was honouring his ancestors who had lived here with the sacred groves a thousand years, and would endure here still had ranks of men in scarlet cloaks and hobnailed shoes not brought fire and slaughter to Ynys Môn. Then, the last of the druids picked up his staff and stood, still clutching the yellow stars in his other hand. ‘Shall we play these games much longer?’ he asked, looking from Gawain to Lord Cai and back to Gawain. Both men’s faces looked colder than the water at our backs, which the rowers were churning with their oars as they turned the boat back into the drifting fog above the channel to go and bring our horses across.

  Iselle frowned at me, asking if I understood what was going on, at which moment Gawain’s face cracked into a broad smile and he strode forward, unable to keep up the pretence longer.

  ‘Brothers!’ he greeted the riders, who were all grinning themselves now and dismounting, so that at least I knew that they were of flesh and blood like us, not sombre ghosts from a time past.

  Bronze scales rattled, leather creaked and voices boomed as Lord Arthur’s former companions greeted one another, embracing and clapping shoulders and gripping forearms. Rolling back the years with the age-old greetings and retorts, and with the casual irreverence of those who know each other, blood and bone, no matter the time which has separated them.

  ‘And this must be Galahad,’ Lord Cai said in a voice like a sharp spade in stony ground, squaring his shoulders to me and weighing me with his eyes, from my boots and hawk-faced greaves, to my father’s white-plumed helmet. Between the long, greying forks of his moustaches, his jaw tightened, and I feared he did not approve of what he saw.

  ‘If you have but half Lancelot’s courage, you will not be found wanting,’ he said, and I realized that in that moment he was not seeing me at all, but rather the butchery of the great battle, and that was what had cast a shadow across his face.

  ‘It is an honour to meet you, lord,’ I said. He shook the hand which I offered him, and Gawain gripped my shoulder.

  ‘Galahad is as fast as Lancelot was,’ he said, ‘and it would seem he shares some of his father’s … talent.’

  Cai’s eyes widened, their whites bright in his sun-browned face. ‘The brothers of the Thorn did not mind Gawain taking you away?’ He seemed to be addressing both Gawain and me. ‘Having fed and watered you so many years?’

  ‘The brothers are no more,’ I answered, the ache of it dulling now, so that I wondered if it would become just the memory of pain rather than pain itself, as it was when I thought of my mother.

  ‘Saxons,’ Gawain said. Explanation enough. ‘We got Galahad out just in time.’ The horse warriors around me murmured and cursed at that. It hurt their pride to think of their old enemies running amok in the east, and perhaps guilt still clung to some of them for having turned their backs and ridden away. The loss of such men as these had surely hastened the end of Arthur’s Britain. And yet what can men and horses do to prevent the sun from setting?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cai said. To me, not Gawain.

  ‘Lord Arthur will come again,’ I said, not knowing what else to say.

  Cai lifted his grey eyes to Gawain. ‘That would be a day to light fires all across the land,’ he said, ‘and for every young man to take up his father’s arms and fight.’ He nodded at me and then he turned to Iselle, whom Gawain introduced, praising her love of killing Saxons, and her skill, which far exceeded my own, seeing as I had never killed any man, Saxon or otherwise. Cai bowed his head in respect, and his men made a fuss of Iselle, asking to see the Saxon sword, which she drew from its scabbard, handing it to the nearest warrior, a tall, fair-haired man who had lost an eye years ago. He hoomed in admiration and spoke begrudgingly in praise of Saxon swordsmiths and the quality of their steel.

  Indulge them, my eyes said to Iselle, and so she did, drawing the long knife from her belt and passing it hilt first to another of Cai’s warriors, and I could not help but wonder what these men would say if they knew that this fierce-eyed young woman was the daughter of Lord Arthur and Lady Guinevere.

  ‘Not yet, Galahad.’ Merlin was close enough that I could smell the beeswax and tallow which he had run through his beard and moustaches to stiffen them into points. ‘Now is not the time.’ His words stole my breath. Were my thoughts scattered upon my face for him to read, like the sediment left in the wine cup from which bards make predictions to amuse a crowd? I glanced around, but Iselle was speaking with Cai, who was asking after Guinevere.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked Merlin, resenting him for having told me his secret in the first place. ‘She deserves to know.’ After what she had shared with me that night in Arthur’s stable, how could I not share this knowledge with her?

  ‘When it is the right time, then she will know
.’ His words did not sound to me like those of a man who no longer believes that the gods have a hand in our affairs. ‘Besides, Galahad,’ he continued, grinning, ‘you have other things to concern yourself with, such as making sure to give a good impression to your grandfather.’

  He frowned at my face, drumming his fingers on the gnarled head of his ash staff. ‘Did I not mention it before?’ he asked, clearly taking pleasure in my confusion.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked him.

  He glanced down at my hand, which was wrapped around Boar’s Tusk’s grip. ‘How quickly your thoughts turn to blood,’ he said. ‘Just like your father.’

  I glowered at him and he sighed. ‘King Pelles is your grandfather on your mother’s side,’ he said, then shrugged. ‘Your parents never spoke of the Fisher King?’

  My mind waded through memories, back to my childhood. Yes, perhaps there was something swirling there, some recollection of my mother telling me that we would not be seeing my grandfather the king again. Nothing for my mind to grip and bring closer, though. My mother had died shortly after my seventh summer, and it was possible that, after, my father never spoke of my grandfather.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I said.

  ‘Some memories are as heavy as the quern stone which grinds the grain for our daily bread,’ he said, pointing his staff towards Gediens and another warrior, who were deep in the reliving of some shared experience. The druid lifted an eyebrow. ‘Other memories are as dewdrops clinging to a web. A breeze can shake them off.’

  ‘Does King Pelles know me?’ I asked, hating that Merlin knew more about my kin and my life than I did.

  ‘He has met you,’ he nodded, ‘when you were a young boy.’ He looked up at a pair of sand martins which streaked above our heads, their undersides flashing white amidst the sea fog. He frowned, perhaps seeing some omen in the birds’ flight, or perhaps the frown was because he could read nothing in it and was reminded that the gods had forsaken him. ‘Let us hope he remembers you, Galahad,’ he said.

  The whinnying of our horses from across the water told us that King Cadwallon’s men were loading them onto the boat.

  ‘In the name of King Pelles ap Phellehan, scourge of the Irish, beloved of the gods and of his people, welcome to Ynys Môn,’ Lord Cai called, catching up with the formal greeting which his games had neglected before. ‘I only wish Lord Arthur were here too,’ he went on, stirring murmurs of agreement from his men, ‘for then our brotherhood would drink together this night, the shades of fallen companions sharing the lamplight with us as if it were Samhain and the wine left out for them.’

  Every man took a moment with that, nodding earnestly, then smiled again. Our horses were almost at the bank, so we turned to help bring the boat and its precious cargo safely in, while Lord Cai’s men mounted their fine war horses and took up the reins.

  ‘He has told you, then, about your grandfather?’ Gawain asked as he and I stood upon the landward side of the gangplanks over which the horses would be led.

  ‘He has,’ I said, supposing he must have seen the change in my face. ‘You knew?’

  ‘I did,’ he admitted.

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’

  His brow furrowed beneath his helmet’s rim. ‘I thought to,’ he said, ‘but Merlin persuaded me that your knowing would change you when you met the king, what with the past being all stirred up. That it would be better were the king to take you as he finds you.’ He chewed the next words a moment before saying them. ‘King Pelles did not like your father.’ He did not need to explain further. I could easily imagine why the king my grandfather would dislike my father, knowing, as all Britain did, of my father’s love for Guinevere. ‘I don’t know why the druid changed his mind about telling you, but,’ he grunted, ‘I should have told you anyway.’

  I knew why Merlin had told me. Seeing that I was thinking of telling Iselle the truth of her own lineage, he had wanted to lead my thoughts elsewhere. And it had worked, for I wanted to ask Gawain about my grandfather and what sort of man he was, but I did not get a chance, because the horses came clumping onto the planks and we had to guide them ashore.

  Then, we mounted and followed the last of Lord Arthur’s horse warriors over the grassy dunes and onto a meadow where lady’s smock swayed in the sea breeze, which meant there would be adders and so we took care to watch where our horses trod. We rode across the same ground over which the legions had marched, and passed ancient oaks which had, as knee-high saplings, somehow escaped being trodden down by hobnailed shoes or snapped by moving walls of shields as inexorable as the tide. We rode to meet King Pelles, whom men called the Fisher King, and who was my grandfather.

  I had never eaten so well as I did in those days before we took ship for the Isle of the Dead. And the feast which my grandfather King Pelles laid on was like something of which the bards sing, when they name each dish with an awe usually reserved for ancient heroes or the constellations in the night sky. We ate goose and duck, spitted boar and fowl, eggs, eels, scallops, oysters and mussels, fresh baked bread and cheese, leeks, parsnips and turnips. We drank wine the colour of a Roman emperor’s cloak and which tasted of some faraway country beneath a warmer sun. And ale made with cankerwort, yarrow and the ground ivy which creeps in copses and oak woods. We feasted in a long hall warmed by two round hearths, at a table and benches with all of those men who had once ridden with Arthur but who now served another lord, and it said much about King Pelles that he was able to prepare such a banquet in so little time.

  As for the Fisher King himself, he was in his late seventies now, birch-thin and tremulous. He boasted a fine head of hair, white as a swan’s wing, and overgrown eyebrows of the same colour which protruded, giving him the look of a learned man who is inquisitive and wise, if not entirely sane. His short beard was white and neat and looked as soft as the fine down from a goose’s belly. His watery eyes were the palest violet-blue of harebells, those flowers worn by faithful lovers but which Father Judoc said we must never pick for they are the Devil in disguise, and his cheeks were webbed with red veins as fine as spider silk. He was old and frail, like a man who has lived far beyond his allotted years, and yet he seemed at the same time to have plenty of life left in him.

  ‘My own grandson,’ he said, knowing me the moment he laid those startling blue eyes on me. He held a bony hand towards me, tracing the lines of my face without actually touching me. ‘So much like your mother, it breaks my old heart,’ he said, and he thought nothing of letting the tears slide down his cheeks. ‘And what a handsome couple you make,’ he added, glancing at Iselle beside me.

  We both flushed red and I avoided Gawain’s eye as I answered that Iselle and I were merely friends and nothing more. But the king only smiled as one does when indulging a child. He had lived too long, seen too much.

  ‘What was my mother like, lord king?’ I asked. He had made me sit next to him and I was glad to be able to ask him about my mother, even though the mention of her awakened something of the old ache, which I hoped would not swell to the chest-clenching pain it had once been.

  ‘Ah, my Helaine.’ King Pelles stared ahead but with an inward eye. ‘She was so beautiful. A gentle spirit, she was. But no one’s fool.’ His eyes sharpened again, coming back to me. ‘Not even your father’s fool.’ Then he sighed. ‘But she loved him. We can be lords or ladies of a thousand men, but we can never rule our hearts, Galahad,’ he said. Gawain and Cai, Parcefal, Gediens and the others were deep in their reminiscing, drowning themselves in wine and the past. Merlin was conversing with the king’s bard, a well-fed, ruddy-cheeked man who was all but lapping up Merlin’s every word, as a house cat takes milk from a bowl.

  ‘I cannot picture her face any more,’ I admitted to the king, though I said it also for Iselle. Wanting her to know me better.

  ‘Then you have only to look in a mirror, Galahad,’ King Pelles said, ‘and you will see her eyes and her fairness. Her lips, too.’

  I did not see how this
could be true, how I could look like my mother, when everyone else saw my father in me. But perhaps we sometimes see what the heart wishes us to see. And it was clear to me now that my grandfather missed his daughter, as I missed my mother.

  ‘When I smell wood violets, I think of her,’ I said. ‘Just a breath of it on the breeze and I am a boy again.’

  The king smiled at that, his wide blue eyes turning to Iselle, as if he had known she had something to say. For three heartbeats it seemed that Iselle would refuse the unspoken invitation. Then she said, ‘She would have stayed with you if she could.’

  I nodded. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Not like my father. He had a choice.’

  I regretted the words the moment they were on the air. Their petulance. But there was no judgement in the king’s eyes.

  ‘I did not care for Lancelot,’ he said, ‘and I lost my daughter over it.’ He lifted a hand upon whose fingers rings of silver and gold winked with flamelight. ‘Yet, some others loved him dearly. Your mother for one. And Guinevere.’ He gestured at the grinning, grizzled warriors lining his table. ‘The men who fought alongside him. Even Arthur loved him.’ He shook his head. ‘Arthur loved him after everything.’ He picked up his cup, which was made of Roman glass, yellow and cloudy as an old man’s eyes, and sipped at the wine. And at his thoughts. ‘I am an old fool, Galahad,’ he put the cup down again, ‘but I know that a man so loved by some and so hated by others must be a man who is true to his heart.’ When he smiled, his face fell into the familiar creases and lines, as saddle leather after years of use. ‘And besides, he was by all accounts as arrogant as he was skilful. I would wager my kingdom that your father had not even considered the possibility that he might not ride back to you at the end of that dreadful day.’