But Iselle could not yet see the same things in her mind and she shook her head. ‘I do not want it,’ she said to herself. I saw her lips make the words. She lifted her eyes to Merlin and me. ‘I do not want it,’ she said. ‘I am not a leader like Arthur was.’
‘But you can be,’ Merlin said. ‘It is the will of the gods. I see it now.’ He put a hand to his eye. ‘It is what we have been waiting for.’ He swept his staff back towards the house and the treasure which sat above the cold hearth ash. ‘We have the Cauldron of Annwn,’ and again the staff swung towards the men around the fire, ‘and the last of Arthur’s famed horse warriors, and the son of Lancelot,’ he said, accusing me with that gnarled rod of ash. ‘It is no accident. The gods have stirred us into this broth, girl, and even if you did not want this, it is not your choice to make. Not now.’
He thrust the heel of the staff upon the ground in a way that made me think of the stories of Joseph of Arimathea planting his own staff into the ground of Ynys Wydryn, where it had sunk roots and burst into bud, becoming the Holy Thorn. But there in that lonely steading in the marsh it was not a tree that Merlin was planting, but hope.
Beyond the fire, Gawain growled something and pulled his sword from its scabbard. He threw out an arm, pushing past Tarawg and Cadwy, and strode towards Iselle, and for a terrible moment I thought he had lost his mind in the wine. But then, when he was a spear length from Iselle and I had half drawn Boar’s Tusk and taken three strides, Gawain stopped and gripped the sword by hilt and by blade.
‘Lady, if you will lead, I will follow,’ he said, and fell onto his knees, lifting the sword above his head, his eyes fixed on Iselle’s face. ‘My sword is yours,’ he said.
And so I kept walking and when I got to Gawain I knelt beside him.
‘Get up,’ Iselle hissed.
‘My sword and my life are yours, lady,’ I said, lifting my sword to her as Gawain had.
I saw the turmoil in her, her fists knotting and unknotting, her brows drawn together and her teeth dragging at her bottom lip.
‘Get up, Galahad. Both of you,’ she hissed again, but we did not get up, and Gawain and I glanced at each other, both of us thinking that we must look the biggest fools in Britain, kneeling there in the grass before a woman who did not want to lead us, pledging our lives as if we two led armies of spearmen who would fight when and where we commanded.
But then I felt them at my back like a shadow sweeping to engulf me. Felt their footfalls in the ground beneath my knees. Heard the soft hiss of swords being drawn up the throats of leather scabbards. They gathered around us and they went down onto their knees and they raised their swords in the firelight.
‘We are your men, lady,’ Parcefal said. I looked at the old warrior and saw a glistening of tears running to his grey beard.
‘We are your men, lady,’ others said in a ragged chorus. A gruff, wine- and smoke-dried chorus which was more beautiful than any of the sacred chants that had risen to the thatch in the monastery on Ynys Wydryn.
‘We will fight for you, lady,’ Lord Cai said.
‘Our swords are yours,’ Cadwy said.
And it was then that Taliesin came up and offered Iselle the cloth-wrapped object which earlier I had seen her refuse. Again she shook her head and so Taliesin pulled the leather thongs away and drew a sword from the cloth and there was an intake of breath from the men around me because they recognized that long, straight blade, the gleaming ivory grip which was shaped to fit into the hand, and the guard and spherical pommel of dark wood. I had heard it called Caliburn and Caledfwlch, but these men, and all of Britain, knew it as Excalibur.
As surprised as anyone to see the sword, Merlin spoke some secret words to the gods and hissed at Iselle to take it, which at last she did, holding Excalibur down by her side. Then Merlin beckoned Taliesin to him and gave the boy his staff to hold. The druid stepped up and from somewhere amongst his robes brought out a garland which had been woven from the red campion that I had seen in Taliesin’s hand earlier that day. Blodau neidr, snake flower, was the name some folk gave it, for the seeds were said to cure snake bites. But I had also heard folk say that if you picked red campion, someone you loved would die, and I thought of Guinevere and I wondered when in the previous night Taliesin had pulled those flowers from the hedgerow or woodland floor.
Merlin reached out and placed the garland on Iselle’s head, crowning her as the Romans had crowned their champions.
‘The gods are here among us,’ Merlin said and, still kneeling, we looked around us at the flame-thrown shadows and the moon-paled night, expecting to see Epona riding her great mare, and Cernunnos the horned one, the Morrigán, Queen of Demons, and dread Balor, his single baleful eye shining in the dark. To see Taranis the thunderer, lord of battle, lifting his spear to Iselle as we had lifted our swords, eager to march with us into battle as he had done many lifetimes ago when the tribes of Britain had gathered against the might of Rome.
We were few. We were the last. And the darkness was all around.
But Merlin and Iselle had lit a flame of hope in our hearts. And we were going to war.
‘You need a banner, lady,’ Gawain said. He was sitting on a stool, sweating under the sun as he polished his war gear. His face was grey, and his eyes were swollen with wine and lack of sleep, and Parcefal had joked that if he worked any more lustre into that helmet, Gawain would have the shock of seeing his own face in it. ‘A queen should have a war banner.’
‘I’m not a queen,’ Iselle said.
‘You need a banner,’ Gawain insisted, and I nodded at Iselle that Gawain was right.
‘The bear,’ Gediens said, as if surprised that there was any question about it. He was pulling a comb through his helmet’s long red plume, while Parcefal and I were saddling our horses. ‘She’s Arthur’s daughter. The bear is hers,’ he said.
Gawain shook his head. ‘Constantine flies the bear and has done for years,’ he said. ‘It should be something else. Something that our enemies have not seen.’
‘Uther’s dragon,’ Parcefal suggested. ‘Let the Saxons know that they’ve woken the beast.’
‘Morgana would hate that,’ Gawain agreed through a half-smile, turning his scale coat this way and that, catching the sunlight in the bronze plates to ensure that each and every one was free of any patina.
‘Aye, she’ll think Uther has returned to haunt her,’ Gediens said, for Uther had killed Morgana’s father Lord Gorlois and taken her mother Igraine for himself, along with their clifftop fortress of Tintagel.
‘No,’ Iselle said. ‘I want my own banner.’
Merlin was securing a sack of provisions onto the back of one of the spare horses, but I knew he had been listening carefully and now he smiled.
And I knew what Iselle wanted.
‘A wolf,’ I said.
She nodded.
Gawain, Gediens and Parcefal grinned at one another.
‘A wolf,’ Iselle confirmed, for she had lived like a lone she-wolf, wild and free, but now she had gathered a pack of her own. It was perfect.
‘What do you think, Taliesin?’ Iselle asked and we all looked at Taliesin, who was over by the rain barrel, filling our flasks and empty wine skins with fresh water. The boy tilted his head back and howled at the blue sky, at which a dozen waterfowl clattered up from the reeds, and the rooks in the far-off tree tops squawked in alarm, and we laughed like old friends gathered at a Beltane feast.
And we had feasted the previous night. Having killed the last of the swine and the hens, we ate our fill and Lord Cai lifted his cup towards the marsh and thanked his old lord and friend for this final gift. Then, as the shadows crept, seeming to rise from the marsh around us, and the reeds whispered to the coming dusk, Gawain and I fetched Guinevere’s linen-shrouded body from the house and laid her upon a pyre of dry reeds and deadfall. She weighed less than my scale coat, helmet and greaves, this woman whom my father had loved nearly all his life. Whose soul had entwined with his like the bindweed which
Iselle and Taliesin had pulled from the hedgerow beyond the apple orchard and laid upon the lady, blanketing her in white blossoms.
Merlin thrust the burning brand in amongst the dry fuel and the fire took with frightening haste, as if the flames had been waiting for Guinevere too long. They surged through the pyre, searching and ravenous, and I watched as the white flowers wilted and browned in the heat, and Merlin spoke to the gods in the gloaming.
The fire’s ardent breath and the crackle of the dry fuel drowned the piping of teal and the purring trill of the nightjar, and then we saw the first flames reach her and some of the men lowered their eyes rather than watch. I watched, though. The flare of red gold as the linen caught, then the blackening of it and a glimpse of pale skin before I too looked away.
Guinevere was free. She and my father were together again in some other place, and perhaps that was how it was meant to be, but I wondered about my mother, who must have been waiting for my father since she passed through the veil those years ago. Had my father found her when he fell in battle that summer’s day? Or had he found the shade of some leafy tree and waited for Guinevere there, as Arthur had waited for Guinevere beneath that old twisted apple tree? Had my father abandoned my mother in death, just as he had abandoned me in life?
We watched the black smoke rise like the night itself, pluming up and up as if reaching for the stars which were revealing themselves in the fading sky. Men who knew each other like brothers let their tears fall into their beards as they stood heavy with memories of days when they were young and strong, and everything was possible. They were proud men. Warriors. And they cried for all that was lost. And as they watched that smoke eddy and surge like the last breath of a god freed of some curse of immortality, I knew that they were saying goodbye to Arthur too.
In the morning, we had gone over our plan, such as it was, and said our farewells, pledging ourselves once more to our purpose and to this last fight that would breathe life into the fading dream of Britain or else see it fade for ever.
Cai led his fourteen shining warriors east to round up what spearmen they could, and to be seen in their war glory, their helmets and scale armour glimmering beneath the summer sun, their long red plumes foretelling of the blood they would spill. Time would tell if the kings of Britain would heed the summons which Cai’s riders had carried across the land on our departure from Ynys Môn. Meantime, we wanted word to spread that Arthur’s famed horse warriors had returned to Dumnonia. We wanted the lords and spearmen of Britain to know that the great warriors of the past were gathering, and the time had come to fight. And so, Cai would fan the flames of rumour, but he would also learn as much as he could about our enemy’s strength before riding west to join us on Ynys Wydryn, where we would make our stand.
‘That’s it, then,’ Gawain said, when we had driven the two sheep and the goat out of their pens and Taliesin had done his best, telling the animals that they must find their own food from now on and to stay away from the reed-beds. None of us doubted that the boy was able to make the creatures understand him, even if we did not know how it could be.
As we walked our horses away from that sad little place in the marsh, Arthur’s black bitch Banon walking beside us, I thought of the laughter which we had given to the sky when Taliesin howled like a wolf. The first real laughter of delight that place had heard in many years, perhaps ever. The last, too.
‘Do you think he’ll ever come back?’ Gediens wondered out loud, turning in the saddle to look upon Arthur and Guinevere’s steading one final time.
‘Perhaps, if it looks as though all is lost,’ Parcefal said, gazing eastward towards the rising sun, whose molten copper light showed all the old scars and scratches on his scale armour, and the lines in his face, and the grey stubble on his weather-worn cheeks. ‘Perhaps then he’ll come.’
We rode with that thought tugging at our hopes. Iselle, Gawain, Merlin, Taliesin, Parcefal, Gediens and me. We seven rode south to meet with Lord Constantine and to go to war.
22
Swords of Britain
‘LORD CYNDAF HAS GONE,’ Gediens said, removing his helmet and pushing a hand through his short hair, which looked more fair than grey in the bronze light of the brazier. King Cuel had been relaying the positions of the Saxons and Morgana’s own spearmen but had broken off mid-stream because everyone could see that Gediens had news on his lips.
‘Gone?’ Gawain lowered the cup from which he had been about to drink. ‘Gone where?’
Gediens shrugged, heavy-browed, looking down at the table upon which Gawain and King Cuel had drawn Ynys Wydryn in charcoal. Several smooth pebbles represented our own forces, while three empty cups stood for the enemy. ‘Seems he waited for dark, then led his men east.’
‘Damn him.’ Lord Constantine thumped the tent pole beside him. Gawain spat a curse and King Bivitas of Cynwidion growled that he was not surprised, as the men of Caer Celemion were cowards and always had been.
‘We have to hope the Saxons didn’t see him go,’ King Catigern of Powys said, eyebrow raised as he dug between his teeth with a slender splinter. There were twelve of us in that tent, crowded around the table or by the fire or lurking in the shadows. The kings and lords of Britain who had answered the call.
‘Cerdic will know,’ Merlin said, watching the flames in the brazier leap and cavort. ‘The man is a Saxon, not a fool.’
King Catigern grimaced and spat away the morsel which he had rooted out.
‘Better Cyndaf, or anyone, leaves now than deserts their position tomorrow,’ Gawain said. ‘Or worse still, goes over to Morgana.’
‘I shall curse nine times any man who does,’ Merlin hissed under his breath, a warning for every lord and king to share amongst his men.
We all knew that Gawain was remembering Camlan and how Lord Mordred had betrayed Arthur during the battle, turning the tide in the Saxons’ favour. Such was the hatred which had festered in Mordred all the years since Arthur had tried to have him killed so that Arthur might bury his own shame, of having begot the boy with his half-sister Morgana. Such was the secret poison which turned Mordred against his own people and which Arthur had drawn forth, along with Mordred’s blood, on that death-gorged field.
‘We’re better off without that snake among us,’ King Bivitas muttered, having nothing good to say of his southern neighbour.
‘Lord Cyndaf is no coward,’ King Catigern rumbled in a voice like boulders tumbling down a hillside. As king of Powys, Catigern was one of the most powerful rulers in Britain and certainly the most powerful man in that tent. He had brought four hundred spearmen south to fight under Iselle’s wolf banner and, as Merlin said, when Catigern spoke even the gods turned an ear towards him. ‘A king who deceives his men, those brave spearmen who have pledged to fight for him …’ He walked over to the brazier and tossed the sliver of wood into the flames. ‘That man dishonours his high seat.’
I saw some dark looks and furrowed brows. We needed the spearmen of Powys, and now we feared that King Catigern was having doubts.
‘Speak plain, King Catigern,’ came a voice from the shadows at the far end of the enormous tent. Lord Geldrin stepped into the fire glow, pulling his long moustaches through a fist. Everyone in that tent knew the reason why Lord Cyndaf had taken his men of Caer Celemion and slipped away in the dark, but Lord Geldrin wanted to hear King Catigern say it.
The king glanced at Iselle, who stepped away from Gawain as if to show that she neither sought nor needed his protection, for perhaps she, most of all, knew what was coming, as Catigern turned his gaze onto Gawain. ‘You promised us Arthur,’ he said.
There it was, unsheathed and sharp in the night.
‘Arthur is gone,’ Gawain replied. ‘Nothing can change that. But we have Arthur’s daughter. Uther’s granddaughter.’
King Catigern was a big man. Barrel-chested and broad but running to fat. Even when he did not speak, he was loud. ‘We had Arthur’s son ten years ago and that did us little good.’ There were some murmur
s at the memory. ‘Now we have his daughter and you think that is enough?’
I had heard of other men stealing into the woods or the marshes, as a fox will skulk away from the hen coop before dawn. They had come for Arthur and victory, but now they believed in neither.
Colour flooded Iselle’s pale cheeks. She lifted her cup towards the king. ‘And yet, you are here, lord king.’
Catigern made a sound deep in his throat. ‘I am here, lady, because if we do not stop the Saxons now, you will all be bending the knee to them come winter.’ He looked at King Bivitas of Cynwidion and King Cuel of Caer Gloui and some of the others whose lands were nearer the Saxon frontier than his own. ‘And I will be paying them tribute within three years.’ He turned back to face Iselle. ‘I am here because I believe we have to fight, lady.’
Iselle nodded and held the king’s eye a moment, the two of them sharing an unspoken moment of mutual respect. Then she turned to Lord Geldrin, who was pouring himself a cup of wine. ‘And you, Lord Geldrin, why have you come? Surely the Saxons cannot trouble you in your clifftop fortress?’
In truth, we all wanted to know why Geldrin had come. The Lord of the Heights was no friend of ours after what had happened at Tintagel. He had ordered Father Yvain’s death. His men had taken my old friend to the cliff’s edge and cast him down onto the sea-worn rocks below, and though he defied Lady Triamour by refusing to kill the rest of us, I had hated him and burned to avenge Father Yvain.
But then, to our surprise, Lord Geldrin had arrived on Ynys Wydryn with eighty warriors and swore to fight in the name of Lady Iselle ferch Arthur ap Uther, and I had no choice but to swallow my hatred of the man.
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