Camelot

by Giles Kristian

  He nodded. ‘That too. Always that.’

  I clasped my hands together but did not make the sign of the Thorn, instead pressing my left thumb into my right palm, kneading the flesh, which was tender from how fiercely I had gripped Boar’s Tusk in the caves.

  ‘Men still respect you.’ I kept my head low and nodded towards Gawain and Cai, who were talking in the bows. Beside them, Gediens sat against the side of the ship as Iselle, with Taliesin beside her, close as a shadow, examined the cut which the warrior had taken in his neck. We watched her lift the bloodstained linen binding away and pour Karadas’s wine over the wound, much to the captain’s distress. ‘Look what they have done because you said they must.’

  Cai too was hurt, I knew, from a spear thrust which had not penetrated his armour but had badly bruised his shoulder, and from a blow to the head from which he was still seeing double, so Gawain said.

  Merlin scowled. ‘And they hate me for it.’

  I looked at the Cauldron of Annwn, that treasure of Britain, still tarnished with age and filth and soot, and still smelling of Gadran’s blood even after Cai and Gawain had rolled seawater around inside, before Merlin had rasped at them to stop insulting the god. ‘But, if it restores Lady Guinevere.’ Those six words so heavy with hope that they fell from my mouth like ballast into the sea, and no more followed them.

  Merlin scratched his bearded cheek, for a long moment ensnared by his own thoughts. Then he leant over Seren’s neck and I knew to turn my ear towards his cracked lips. ‘The truth is, Galahad, I think we must prepare for the worst,’ he said in a voice that could have been a creaking of one of the Calistra’s tarred ropes. ‘Even if I can reach her, I fear she will not survive the journey back.’

  I pulled away from those sour words and from the sourness of his breath and fixed my eyes upon his. ‘You don’t believe it can be done?’ I asked.

  Merlin scowled and hissed at me to keep my voice down, though only Seren had heard me above the sea’s murmur across the ship’s bows and the groans of the timbers and ropes, and the whinnying of the other horses.

  The druid leant towards me again. ‘I am only saying that we must look to other outcomes.’

  My legs weakened. I looked to where Guidan and Fiacha lay in their shrouds beside the cauldron, anger flaring in my chest, hot as fire. How could Merlin tell me this now, after all we had been through to retrieve that so-called treasure of Britain? I looked around me at the men who had risked their lives and lost brothers because we – not just Merlin, as I had played my part up to the hilt – had asked for their help. And I looked at Iselle, her hair flying in the wind like flame, for she was Britain and she burned with the hopes of a people. And I felt sick to my stomach, almost feverish with shame because I could not unhear what Merlin had told me. And knowing it when others did not made me as deceitful as the druid.

  ‘Why did six men give their lives for it?’ I asked him. ‘Why are we here?’ I gestured at the indistinct blur of grey sea and grey sky. ‘Instead of standing with Lord Constantine against our enemies?’

  ‘Don’t play the fool, boy, you know why,’ Merlin said.

  And I did. ‘For Arthur,’ I said.

  I let out a shivering breath and glanced at Gawain, whose call upon the blood bonds of brotherhood was the real reason why Cai and the other horse warriors, the last of their kind, had joined us. I knew that if he learnt the truth of Merlin’s doubts, he would likely throw the old man overboard.

  ‘For Arthur,’ Merlin whispered to himself. ‘It has always been for Arthur.’

  Seren snorted and lifted his head in irritation at my neglect, for I had ceased stroking his neck and flank. His tail was pressed tightly against his buttocks. His ears were flicking forward and rearward at every strange sound, every creak and snap of the sail, and it seemed to me that, like the rest of us, he wanted to be somewhere that foully used and begrimed cauldron was not. ‘Soon, my friend. We’re almost there,’ I said, putting my cheek against his muzzle and breathing in the sweet scent of his honest breath. ‘There’s my brave boy.’

  ‘What would you do for her?’ Merlin asked.

  I frowned at him. He rolled his eyes. ‘You know who I mean.’

  My eyes found her. ‘Anything,’ I said.

  His eyebrows lifted. ‘Even journey to the Isle of the Dead to recover a relic because she clings to the hope that Arthur will ride again?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And so would I do anything for Arthur.’ He paused. ‘Try anything.’ He shook his head, his long grey beard and moustaches fraying in the sea wind. He looked old and gaunt, like a tired hound whose coat seems to have shrunk upon its flesh so that the bones can be seen. His eyes, though, were not the eyes of an old man, not rheumy nor clouded, nor their whites tinged red like those of an old hound. Merlin’s eyes were embers amongst the ashes, pulsing with secret life, waiting for the breath that would ignite them. ‘I failed him before,’ he said, throwing out his arms to hold round Seren’s neck as the Calistra bucked over a wave. Some of the horses shrieked in fear. ‘I gave Arthur Lancelot. And I gave the gods Guinevere. And so Arthur had the sword of Britain – I mean your father, not that trinket which he waved around the land to impress the kings. And he had the gods.’ Both hands resting on Seren’s back, he was stroking his right palm with two fingers of his left hand, tracing the triskele of conjoined spirals that had long ago been etched into the skin and still showed green as a vein. He shook his head. ‘I thought it would be enough. I should have seen what would happen. I should have known that love can destroy like fire.’

  What had happened was that my father had loved another man’s wife and that love had poisoned everything. I did not see how any of that was Merlin’s fault, but if he claimed a part of it, it was not for me to argue. Had not the druids always stirred the brew?

  ‘I failed Arthur and I failed Britain. And so, Galahad, I must try to fix what is broken.’ He looked beyond the Calistra’s bows, where, through a darkening veil of rain, the cliffs of Ynys Môn rose from the sea-fretted rocks. Did he mean Britain, or Guinevere, or Arthur? Perhaps he meant all three.

  ‘You will cure Guinevere,’ I said, as though saying it could make it so, ‘and Arthur will lead us again.’

  Merlin said nothing to that but pulled his beard through a knotty fist as he turned his gaze upon the Cauldron of Annwn.

  I did not know what the druid saw when he looked at that begrimed metal bowl which his forebears had carried across the sea, fleeing the flames which the Romans had loosed upon their sacred groves. But when I looked at that cauldron, what I saw was death.

  We watched a boy and girl disappear over the brow of a hill, running to deliver the news of our return, and later, when the guards in the palisade gatehouse saw us emerge from the tree line with the Cauldron of Anwnn swinging gently between two riderless horses, they sounded the horn. I expected we would be greeted with cheers and acclamations, with children running alongside us and with sorry looks from those who knew all too well what it had cost to bring the treasure of Britain back to Ynys Môn. But there was no cheering, not even when we passed through the gateway and walked our mounts into the courtyard as the setting sun broke through cloud to spill a strange red light across the fort.

  One of Lord Cai’s warriors stood waiting for him, while those others of his red-plumed horse warriors who had stayed behind fell in beside us, or rather, beside the cauldron, bear-shields and spears in their hands as they greeted friends, acknowledged empty saddles and asked what had happened on the Isle of the Dead. And at first, I thought their surrounding of the cauldron was some act of respect, done to honour us and those of us who had not returned.

  But then I saw the crow-shields.

  My chest tightened and I looked at Gawain in time to see him lean from his saddle and spit, because he had noticed the shields, too.

  ‘What in the name of the horned god are they doing here?’ Parcefal said, lifting his spear from where it had rested across his saddle horns.
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br />   ‘They came the day you left,’ one of Cai’s men, walking beside us, said. ‘The Lords Melehan and Ambrosius. Their father was Mordred,’ he added, touching the iron of his shield boss at his own mention of Arthur’s son who had betrayed him.

  ‘We know who they are,’ Gawain said. ‘Why are they here?’

  I had the sudden and terrible fear that Morgana and the Saxon King Cerdic had not waited to make good their threat. That their combined army had already fought and defeated Lord Constantine, and that now they had come to demand oaths of loyalty from the kings of Dyfed, Powys and Gwynedd. But it was Iselle who plucked that fear away, sowing a new dread in its place.

  ‘They followed us,’ she said. She had drawn the Saxon long knife from its sheath, its blade catching the setting sun.

  ‘She’s right,’ Gediens said, and I recalled Iselle having seen a warrior’s mail or a helmet amongst the trees above a river valley to the south of Gwynedd. We had thought they must be King Gwion’s men, shadowing us to ensure that we were what we purported to be, but now it seemed likely that Melehan and Ambrosius had followed us. I wondered if they had trailed us from Venta Belgarum all those days ago but then lost us in the marsh, only to pick up our trail when we left Arthur. Or had one of our hosts from any of the forts and rounds along the way sent word of us to Camelot and Morgana, selling us to our enemies even as they shared their food and ale with us?

  ‘We stay with the cauldron,’ Gawain said loudly enough for us all to hear. ‘We don’t let anyone else come within twenty feet of it, understand?’ Men who were hungry and thirsty and bone-weary mumbled their assent, sitting taller in their saddles now, gripping spear shafts, eyes sifting the crowds for signs of trouble. For now, though, the crow-shields just stood in their knots, some thirty men in all that I could see, watching us. And watching the cauldron.

  Then a commotion drew our eyes to the hall, as King Pelles the Fisher King, my grandfather, stepped from the dark, flame-flickered interior into the dusk. He walked leaning on a staff, clinging to the thing with two hands because he was old and lame, and though he must have heard the news already, his old eyes beneath their bushy brows were round as Roman coins as he regarded the cauldron.

  ‘There will be no trouble,’ he called out, taking a tremulous hand from the staff and hoisting it towards the crow-shields. ‘No trouble here!’ he called. His hair, so white, white as a dove’s neck, ruffled in a breeze which carried the sour scent of the white wood sorrel which grew on the earthen bank in the shade of the palisade. ‘Our guests are here in peace,’ he shouted in his dry, thin voice, and this for our benefit. And now I heard Merlin behind me rasp a curse, because Melehan and Ambrosius came in the king’s wake, walking slowly so as not to cause offence by overtaking the lame king. But then the brothers let King Pelles go on without them, having the sense to halt ten paces from where we sat our horses. For my weariness had flown from me like starlings startled from their roost, and I wanted to heel Seren into a canter and sink my spear into those traitors. Those sons of a traitor.

  ‘Lord Gawain,’ Melehan said. ‘My lords,’ he added, nodding in greeting at Parcefal and Gediens; a feigned respect as ill-fitting as the smile on his brother’s face. ‘It is good to see—’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Gawain interrupted him, having no use for false courtesy. But far from taking insult, Melehan nodded, as though the cold faces which he looked up at were only to be expected.

  ‘We came to offer King Pelles an alliance with Queen Morgana and King Cerdic.’ He threw his hands wide and half turned to his host the king. ‘For Gwynedd is not so far away from Camelot.’

  ‘Nowhere is far enough away from traitors and Saxons,’ Gawain muttered, as some of the men around me cursed and spat to hear this confirmation that Lady Morgana had married the Saxon king, as she had told us she would when the Beltane fires licked the night sky. Nor could I believe that Mordred’s sons could be truly happy about it either, to see their grandmother wedded to the man whose war bands had, since the days of Arthur, stalked across Britain like predators scavenging for flesh. But the marriage ensured Melehan and Ambrosius the rule of Dumnonia, perhaps even as Pendragons of Britain, their twin high seats set upon the raised dais of Arthur’s old hall at Camelot, casting long shadows over these Dark and yet still darkening Isles. Gods but I hated them. My gelding sensed it in me and whinnied and pawed at the muddy ground.

  ‘Sadly, King Pelles has declined our queen’s offer of an accord,’ Ambrosius said, making sure to let no ill will show in his face. The men and women who had gathered at news of our return stood around uneasily, their eyes jumping from us to the groups of crow-shields, fearing a fight and yet drawn towards the cauldron. Meanwhile, the wives and families of the men who had not returned had eyes only for the horses they knew and the empty saddles upon their backs. Heedless of the potential violence, indifferent to the treasure of Britain for which their men had died, they clung to each other, little islands of grief in a sea of conflicting currents.

  ‘If you’ve had your answer, why are you still here?’ Gawain asked, looking from brother to brother.

  ‘They are my guests, Lord Gawain.’ King Pelles turned a hard eye towards Gawain. ‘I have their word that there will be no bloodshed, as I will have yours.’

  Gawain looked at me. Not at Cai or Gediens or Parcefal, but me. I think he could feel the hatred on me, as a hand feels the heat of a flame even from a distance, and I knew that if I said that we should fight the crow-shields, Gawain would unleash a savage fury upon them.

  ‘No, Galahad.’ Merlin was behind me and must have seen the way Gawain was looking at me. ‘There has been enough death. Now is not the time,’ the druid said, despite the cruelties which he had suffered at the twins’ hands. ‘We have the cauldron. It is our only concern.’

  I twisted in the saddle to look at Iselle, who sat mounted beside Taliesin, holding his hand with her free hand while she gripped the long knife in the other. The boy looked more frightened of the crowds who had gathered around us than he had of the neamh-mairbh and their dreadful caves. It must have been a long time since he had seen so many people together.

  I straightened and shook my head at Gawain, who blinked in a gesture of understanding, while King Pelles sent servants forward to lift the two shrouded corpses from the horses over which they had been slumped and carried with such indignity home.

  ‘The king and queen have taken your failure to go to Camelot and swear fealty as a declaration of war.’ Melehan’s voice rose so that all might hear. ‘And yet here you are, not standing with Lord Constantine, whose pitiful army will be routed before midsummer.’

  ‘Which has us thinking,’ his twin brother said, taking up the thread as easily as if it were a game between them, ‘that perhaps you don’t intend to fight a war which you know you cannot win, but have come all this way in search of a wedding gift worthy of Queen Morgana and King Cerdic.’

  With that he pointed at the cauldron, a smile lifting the moustaches on his narrow face. ‘It does not look much to me, but I’m sure Merlin can tell us why it was worth men’s lives.’ He gestured at the bodies of Fiacha and Guidan being carried past King Pelles towards his hall.

  ‘I am still waiting for your word that there will be no bloodshed here, Lord Gawain,’ the king said, leaning on his staff. With considerable effort he lifted that stick and pointed it at Lord Cai before sweeping it towards some of the other red-plumed warriors who sat their horses around the ancient treasure of the druids. ‘These men may be your brothers in arms, but they serve me. They are sworn to me.’ This last was spoken to Gawain but meant for those men themselves.

  ‘On my honour, lord king,’ Gawain dipped his head, his helmet catching the dying light of the day, ‘I want nothing but ale and a bed.’

  The king accepted that and told Lord Cai to bring the Cauldron of Annwn into his hall, where we would be welcome to sleep, while the Lords Melehan and Ambrosius and their spearmen would spend the night outside the fort in the grazi
ng meadow beyond the south wall.

  ‘I would offer you the floor of my hall again, but my men have suffered much,’ he explained to Melehan and Ambrosius. The king – my grandfather, I reminded myself – was old and lame, but he was no fool. He knew that we must guard the cauldron. Not that it went well with Morgana’s grandsons. Melehan’s mouth worked, as though swallowing something foul, while Ambrosius crossed his arms over his chest, a thumb pressed to his lips as if to keep in words which wanted to be spoken.

  ‘We understand, lord king,’ Melehan said.

  ‘We will leave for Camelot at dawn, King Pelles,’ Ambrosius said. ‘If you change your mind about the queen’s offer, we would be honoured to speak with you again in the morning.’

  ‘If you live as long as I have, young Melehan, you will learn that changing one’s mind takes too much precious time and strength,’ King Pelles said, and with that he winked at young Taliesin, though he must have wondered who the boy was. ‘Besides which,’ he said, twisting around the staff to look back at Melehan, ‘it takes a better memory than I possess. If one changes one’s mind like the wind, how can you be sure what your current position is?’

  Melehan mumbled some reply to this but the king was not listening now, as he limped to where I sat astride Seren and stroked the gelding’s muzzle as though the two of them were old friends.

  ‘I am glad to see you unharmed, Galahad.’ He searched my face with his pale blue gaze. ‘But you are tired, I see. And you have suffered.’ He frowned, his white brows drawing together. ‘And you have changed, too,’ he continued, studying my face.

  ‘We are all tired, lord king,’ I said. ‘Grandfather,’ I added, forcing a smile which I knew had not reached my eyes.

  But the old man’s smile was warm and sad, and he nodded as if in thanks for that small thing. ‘Come, then, my boy, and take your rest.’ He gestured with his staff towards the hall, whose thatch of wheat straw, usually grey, was made new again by the setting sun. On the crest of that roof, upwind of the smoke seeping out through the thatch, sat a hawk, watching us with its fierce yellow eye. Grey-brown plumage. Bars across its chest. A female. I spun a picture in my mind. My father as a boy, with such a bird as this on his arm. The two of them passing the days together. Yet both alone in their way.