‘But never mind all that,’ he said, sweeping a hand through the rain as he walked towards us. ‘Here, both of you,’ he snapped, handing Taliesin his staff. ‘Quick now!’
We had dismounted, and I looked at Iselle and she looked at me, then together we strode across the wind-rippled grass to meet the druid.
‘I know!’ Merlin said, sweeping towards us, a skeletal dark wraith in the storm, and before I could stop him, he threw up his claw-like hands and took hold of my cloak where it fastened at my shoulder. ‘I know, Galahad!’ he said, ‘why Guinevere went back to Arthur.’ His eyes were wild as he blinked the rain from them. ‘Why she spent one more night with him.’
He turned those wild eyes onto Iselle. ‘You must have wondered,’ he told her, ‘why your mother would go back to Arthur after he had bound her to a stake and lit the fuel upon which her pretty feet stood?’
Iselle glared back at him. ‘Because her mind was gone even then,’ she spat, but did not mean it.
Merlin shook his head, water flicking from his lank beard and moustaches. ‘No, child,’ he said. Child. Even as Iselle stood there in blood-smeared scale armour, and as her wolf banner flapped in the rainy gusts, and as men fought and died with her name on their lips. ‘It was because she saw this day,’ he said. ‘Her talents were ever greater than my own. The gods showed Guinevere this day.’ He threw his arms wide to encompass that hill and the tumult boiling around it. ‘Don’t you see?’ Iselle glanced at me. I gave a slight shake of my head, and Merlin sighed with dramatic effect. ‘She saw her child,’ he said. ‘Arthur’s child. She saw you, Iselle, and she knew what she must do. Just as you know what we must do.’
‘I know how to kill Saxons, druid,’ she said through a grimace.
Merlin turned his rain-glistened face up to the grey sky. ‘I see it all now.’ He laughed and there was joy in it, and several weary spearmen turned at the sound, no doubt thinking that they had enemies in front and the mad behind.
‘I thought it was lost. All lost. But it never was.’ The druid shook his head. ‘I am an old fool.’
Taliesin came up and lifted an old sack which he held towards Merlin. ‘Will we do it now?’ he asked.
‘Not yet, boy,’ Merlin said, reaching out to scrub Taliesin’s head with a bony hand and taking back the staff. ‘But soon, I think.’ He looked back to Iselle. ‘Well, then, let them see you, Iselle, daughter of Arthur, granddaughter of Uther Pendragon.’ He gestured towards the summit’s edge. ‘Let them all see you, including the gods.’
Iselle held Merlin’s eye for a long moment, then she nodded and turned and went to take her place in the shieldwall, and men cheered her in rasping voices that sounded like a chorus of rooks.
‘How do you know?’ I asked Merlin.
He half turned and gestured. ‘The cauldron told me,’ he said. ‘I saw it all in the cauldron.’
He was grinning and I found it unnerving given the circumstances. Given that even now spearmen were climbing the hill to fight us. So, I thought to bring the old man’s head down from the clouds by asking how he had got the cauldron up the tor. But he told me it was a spell which had persuaded a flock of gulls to grip the cauldron’s rim with their strong feet and carry the treasure up to the top of the hill. There were no birds on the wing that I could see. More likely Merlin had paid or threatened some of the camp followers to lug the thing up the tor and had since sent them away, knowing what must now follow.
And what must follow was slaughter.
As Iselle and I had ridden up the tor, we saw the ruin of the men of Powys. Being fierce and proud, they had been loath to withdraw, their warrior king fighting in the heart of the struggle, his spearmen gathered around him. But as the other kings and lords of Britain obeyed the command to retreat to the tor, walking backwards, shields and weapons raised to defend themselves against the oncoming enemy, the men of Powys had become isolated, the Saxons and Lady Morgana’s men flowing around them, as a stream will find the easiest route around a boulder. We had watched King Catigern being cut off. It had sickened me and now the survivors – in separate knots of five to ten men – were coming up the slope, fleeing the massacre of their countrymen. I could not see King Catigern amongst them.
Only Lord Constantine and his red cloaks had prevented a rout. They were the finest warriors in Britain, having fought shoulder to shoulder against the Saxons for so many years, and they did not break now, but stood halfway up the steep eastern slope around Arthur’s bear banner, their shield rims kissing, their stiff helmet crests bristling in the wind. They bought us time and we used that time to build a shieldwall around the summit.
‘This is where we make our stand!’ Gawain roared, pulling men into that wall, slapping the backs of warriors he knew and sharing knowing looks with some of the older men. His bronze armour, like my own, was sheeted in blood and would stay that way now the rain had stopped. ‘This is where we will beat them. Up here where the gods can see us.’ He had never put much store in the gods, but he knew what men wanted to hear, and his words gusted in the wind which bellied Iselle’s wolf banner, the cloth straining between the long spears which I had sunk deep into the soft earth.
Having hobbled their horses by the old ruined tower, Lord Cai and the rest of his men came to stand with Iselle and me at the eastern edge of the summit, from where we could watch our foes gathering for the final push. They grouped into a dozen or more shieldwalls, many of them six men deep, Morgana’s own men and her allies on the left of Lord Constantine and his red cloaks, the Saxons facing him and spread across the rest of the terraced slope.
‘Constantine needs to get up here before the Saxon swines get around the back of him,’ Lord Cai said, palming sweat from his eyes.
‘His men are exhausted.’ Iselle shook her head as if in wonder, putting a hand to her neck and the dark bloody grime smeared there. I was relieved when I saw no wound in the pale skin revealed. ‘They need to rest.’
‘They’ll be resting for ever if they don’t move now.’ Parcefal worked a whetstone along the blade of his spear. His face was gaunt-looking, his eyes sunken and the skin beneath them puffy and swollen. He was old and tired and yet I would not have wished to fight him.
‘Come with us, Galahad,’ Merlin suddenly ordered, levering men aside with his staff so that he and Taliesin could pass through the shieldwall. He had put on his feathered cloak, so that he shone purple and green as the wind played across the feathers, and men stepped aside, making room for him to pass, none of them wanting those black feathers to touch them, for they feared that cloak and its magic. ‘I want to show you something which would have your monks of the Thorn pissing in their cassocks,’ the druid called back to me, ‘and in return you’ll make sure no harm comes to me or the boy.’
I looked at Iselle. ‘Go,’ she said, and so I followed Merlin and Taliesin down onto the next terrace below the summit, as men told Merlin to turn the Saxons’ gut ropes into snakes or boil the brains in their skulls or fill their mouths with maggots, or whatever other horrible affliction they could think of.
‘You will have to wait and see,’ Merlin called to them over his shoulder, a mischievous grin on his pursed lips. I noticed that Taliesin held a crow tightly in his small hands, though where he had got it, who could say? Then Merlin lifted his staff above his head and held it there, his arm quivering, until enough of those down below had seen him and word spread among the different shieldwalls.
‘Men of Britain!’ he called out, his voice the creak of a thick rope under strain. He turned his head slowly, raking his eyes across the spear-armed ranks of our enemies. ‘You damn your own souls. You serve an enemy of the gods!’ He half turned his face to me and frowned. ‘Can they hear me, Galahad?’ His feathers were ruffling, and I wondered if he had plucked some of those feathers and breathed life into them to make the crow in Taliesin’s hands.
I shrugged. ‘It’s windy,’ I replied.
‘Give it here, boy,’ he said, and Taliesin stepped up and handed the crow to Merlin, taking th
e staff in return as Merlin lifted the crow to his face and whispered to it, his beard rope jerking up and down. The bird croaked and twitched its head this way and that, the black bead of its eye blinking as Merlin lifted it up for all to see. ‘Morgana has betrayed us all!’ he shouted. ‘And for that I curse her. She will die before Samhain and all who fight for her here today will suffer. But those who fight beside us now against the invaders will be spared. Here is my curse!’ With that, he opened his hands and the crow flapped its wings and took flight, croaking as it rose into the grey, flapping into the east above our enemies. And such was Merlin’s reputation, even then, that hundreds of pairs of eyes followed that bird. In that moment the battle and the butchery were overshadowed by a bird; everyone on the tor watching the crow and wondering if Merlin really had the power to lay down such a curse.
And then the bird fell. It plummeted towards the ground, spinning, its wings dead and useless, its little body limp, and I did not see where it landed but I heard the gasps and murmurs and saw the men touching iron to ward off the evil of Merlin’s curse. I shuddered inside my scale coat.
Had Lady Morgana seen it? I hoped so. I wanted her blood to run cold, as mine did. I wanted her to see how her spearmen, those warriors with the crows painted on their shields, looked at one another now, all of them pulled and plucked by the fear which Merlin had sown in their souls. Some of those men were arguing amongst themselves now, some even turning their shields and spears towards the Saxons across the slope, who could no more than they understand how Merlin had killed a flying bird with thought or words.
‘Come, Taliesin,’ the old druid said, and together we clambered back up to the plateau and I thought I caught a glimpse of something small and white between the druid’s finger and thumb before he dropped it in the grass. Just a sliver of bone, perhaps. A needle sharp and slender enough to stitch a wound or a feathered cloak. Or to pierce a bird’s heart. Or perhaps my eyes had deceived me because some part of me needed an explanation.
What Lord Constantine had needed was an opportunity, and Merlin had given him one. As the fear and uncertainty swept over Morgana’s men, he led his red cloaks up the tor and we on the summit cheered as those brave men joined us. We cheered those men and we cheered for Merlin and we taunted the enemy because many of them were now cursed along with their lady.
And we were still cheering and taunting when the Saxons came to kill us.
I stood with the horse lords of Britain, with Arthur’s Companions, those proud men who had ridden with him and fought for him in Britain and in Gaul. Men who had been tempered by war, so that even now, as old as some of them were, they stood firm and fought with the ceaseless rhythm of the turning of years. A brotherhood of blood. They had known my father, for he had been one of them, and now they would know me.
‘Hold!’ Lord Cai bellowed, thrusting his spear at the lower edge of a Saxon shield, tipping the top edge forward and giving me a glimpse of beard and teeth. I did not miss, and the Saxon died with blood bubbling and frothing at the gash in his throat. Then the clash of shields as their wall struck ours, they pushing upwards, their blades snaking at our shins and legs, our strokes raining down upon their shields and helmets, for we held the high ground and would not, could not, cede it.
‘Hold!’ Iselle shrieked, big-eyed, blood-spattered, ramming her spear down into bear fur and leather and flesh.
A blade scraped off my right greave where the hawk’s head sat over my knee. Another, or perhaps the same, cut through my trews and sliced into the flesh of my left thigh and the pain seared like fire.
‘Push them back!’ Gawain roared, hammering a shield with his sword, his features twisted with hate, spittle flying from his mouth. ‘Give no ground!’
But there were too many of them. Cadwy took a spear in his belly, the blade ripping him open so that his gut rope sprang out and he fell to his knees, clutching at himself and groaning. Nabon tried to grab his comrade under his arms and pull him back, but a Saxon spear skewered him through his calf, and he bent to grab the offending spear, roaring in fury and pain. I lost sight of him for a moment, but when I saw Nabon again, his eyes were staring and his mouth was still open. His scream was silent, though perhaps it echoed in the other world.
I saw Lord Constantine’s sword rising and falling. I saw Gawain fighting like some hero from the old tales, hammering Saxons into the ground and challenging their best warriors to fight him. I looked over to the northern edge of the plateau and saw King Cuel and his men of Caer Gloui fighting hard beneath their boar banner, and with them was old King Menadoc and his sun-shields of Cornubia, striving to hurl back the shadow that sought to overcome us.
Further down the slope, two of the Dumnonian shieldwalls – some three hundred men – were facing off against the Saxons who fought beneath the green ship’s prow beast, so that it seemed Merlin’s curse and that crow falling from the sky had turned half of the crow-shields against Lady Morgana, though whether they would fight was yet to be seen. And even if they did, it would likely be too late, for King Cerdic’s warriors and those men yet loyal to Morgana still numbered more than a thousand and we could not hold them.
A huge Saxon got both hands on my shield and ripped it off my arm and then he was on me and I was falling backwards. Even as I fell, the big warrior landing on me, driving the air from my lungs, I saw Saxons driving our men back. Heard their animal grunts as they broke our shieldwall, then the cheer as others flooded in through the breach.
Iselle!
I got my left hand under the Saxon, whose hands were around my neck, and I pulled my knife from its sheath and punched it into his side, felt the blade scrape against his ribs and smelled his breath as he made a guttural sound like some beast. Then he went rigid and his eyes swelled, and I felt the tip of the spear which Parcefal had thrust into his back and almost into my chest.
‘On your feet,’ Parcefal growled, before spinning to face another Saxon while I heaved the dying man off me and turned to see Culhwch shielding Iselle with his own body, three Saxons running him through with spears. We were breaking. But I was up, Boar’s Tusk in my hand, for I would be no less than he had been. And then that odd sensation again, as though all the swirling chaos on that hill had receded like the tide and I was caught in a waking dream. A dream over which I had full mastery, so that I was creating it.
I cut and moved, spun and ducked and thrust. Boar’s Tusk flashed in my right hand, the long knife in my left, and my enemies were slow. Clumsy. And I slaughtered them where they stood.
I saw Culhwch go down. Saw a Saxon slam his shield boss into Iselle’s face and saw her stagger back as I killed the man and caught Iselle before her legs gave way.
‘I’ve got you,’ I told her. She grimaced and spat out the blood which was spilling across her lips from a cut above her right eye. Somehow, though, she kept her feet and still gripped Excalibur, holding it before her as I searched for a way out.
I saw Tarawg, sheeted in blood, swinging an axe, screaming in defiance as they cut him down. I saw brave Medyr, his black curls flinging blood as he held two Saxons at bay, though a third was coming at his back.
I looked this way and that, seeking a way out but there was none. I looked into the south-east and saw smoke, black as pitch, rising from Camelot, but there was no time to think more of that, and I parried a spear thrust. Then another. Holding Iselle against my body, consumed with wrath for any man or blade which sought to hurt her.
Medyr was gone but Gawain was beside me now and Parcefal was still fighting nearby. But the enemy were everywhere. They had broken through all around the summit and were trying to get to Merlin, who stood by the Cauldron of Anwnn, Taliesin at his side, the two of them performing some sort of rite as the slaughter whirled and eddied around them.
I turned a sword thrust aside and put a man down and Gawain hacked a head from its shoulders.
‘I won’t leave you,’ I growled at Iselle.
A sword bit into my left shoulder, sending bronze scales fl
ying like sparks from a fire and causing me to drop the knife, though I held on to Iselle and she put Excalibur’s point into an open mouth and twisted the blade.
There were too many of them.
But we would not yield. We would never yield. My left arm around Iselle, we stumbled but we did not fall, and in my desperation to see a way out, I hauled my helmet off my head and let it drop, the white horsehair plume trailing to the ground. And then a score of men cut their way through to us and I saw that Lord Geldrin led them. He threw himself at the enemy and his men formed a shieldwall around us, around Iselle, and then King Menadoc and his sun-shields were there too, throwing the Saxons back with savage, desperate strength.
And somewhere to the east, horns sounded.
I could not breathe. Blood was in my eyes and in my mouth. I thought my heart would burst from its hammering. But I stayed on my feet and Iselle did too, and we watched the Saxons on our side of the tor being pushed back off the plateau.
‘Why?’ I rasped, my mouth too dry to say more. We saw others of the enemy overlap their shields and we thought they would march to sweep us off the tor, but instead, they walked backwards, blades held high towards us. They retreated, and then we realized that the horn blasts were calling them back, though we could not imagine why King Cerdic would recall his men when they were on the cusp of winning.
‘What’s happening?’ Gawain’s great chest was rising and falling, his sword dripping gobbets into the grass. ‘Why are they retreating?’ But no one could say, and nor was the fighting over. But the Saxons were falling back from the summit, being drawn like an ebbing tide, back to their king.
‘See there!’ a man called, pointing his broken sword down the tor’s eastern slope. I thought he was pointing at the crow-shields, who looked to have driven the other Saxon force off. One of the shieldwalls stood jeering at the Saxons and hammering spear staves and sword pommels against their shields in thunderous rhythm. The other wall of crow-shields stood facing the woman whom they had served that morning but did not serve now, not since they had seen the last druid in Britain make a crow fall from the sky through the power of his own will and maybe that of the gods too.
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