by Lavie Tidhar
‘The hunting was plentiful and the road pleasant. If there were brigands they kept clear of our company, and with good reason. Everywhere we went the king’s banner led, and the villagers assembled to point and stare, and more than once we heard a voice raised in a cry of old – “Pendragon! Pendragon!”
‘They remember, still, you see. They know a true king when they see one. And Arthur sat with their elders and their witches and spoke with and to them, and he must have been compelling, that or it was the number of our swords, for all swore their allegiance to him.
‘So it went for some time, and perhaps we became a little lax. One night, crossing a brook, we were fired at. It happened in total silence, flaming arrows arching through the sky. The man beside me fell down dead with an arrow through his eye. We turned and turned, but we could see no enemy. Arthur became enraged, and screamed defiance at the sky, but only more arrows came and we had no choice but to run for it.
‘We came back the next day and the corpses of our comrades were gone as though they had never set foot in that part of the world. Arthur’s face told us nothing. Calmly he ordered us about our task, and it was only when we’d finished that I realised what he had done.
‘First he had us pile stones and mud into the river. Laborious it was, and hot work besides, but at last it was done. We had made a good job of it, too. We had dammed the river and it would not flow through there again.
‘Next we chopped down the trees. We tore out the flowers. The sound of hammers and axes rang that day under the clear blue sky. When it was done nothing remained of that place, yet still it was not enough for him. “Set it on fire,” he said. “Burn it all.”
‘And burn it all we did.
‘The flames rose high, wizard. They licked the sky itself, and the cloud of smoke and ash dispersed to all corners. Oh, they saw it alright, the pixies and lubberkins of the forest. And the rest, too. The fire marked our passing through that place.
‘I see you know of which I speak. Very well. The rest of the journey was uneventful until we reached Monnow-mouth. The old Roman roads in truth were decent, all in all. And there in the town in the old fort of Blestium – I see you nod, wizard.
‘Well, there were still men there loyal to his father. Once more the banner of Pendragon stood atop the fort. And once more a Pendragon climbed to the top, and there…
‘I see you nod. You knew, didn’t you.
‘The decapitated head of Duke Gorlois.
‘For near two decades it stood there on a spike. The wind lashed it and the rain pissed down on it and nature in all her glory did her best to reduce it to nothing. And still it sat there, glaring down on the land its owner tried to steal, and there is skin still on its skull and lips still with which to speak. And speak it does. Oh, how it speaks!
‘It’s maddened by now, that is certain. It is unnatural, wizard, no – it is ungodly.
‘You laugh. But it’s obscene to keep the spirit of a man locked up like that inside its rotting head. It screams at night. The screams kept us awake, and no birds fly above the fort of Blestium.
‘It is wrong to keep a man from ascending to the Kingdom of Heaven. So I believe.
‘You laugh at me. You mock, wizard. But the lord Jesus said that whoever wishes to slap you, turn also the other cheek to him. As I do now. But regardless. The king, Arthur, rose to the top of the fort and spoke long with the head of dead Gorlois. He let none of us come near, but I and some others were detailed to him and though we were far away we heard Gorlois’ voice, for it carried. And this is what he said:
‘“I see white sails and dark clouds, a storm on the horizon. Sea spray and crying birds, and a single boat, sailing on the sea towards a distant shore. I see your death, Arthur, son of Uther, son of filth and scum, born of rape and violence and lies. And I see worse for you. I see you disappointed. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. I see you jilted, boy. Does that surprise you? I see you cuckolded and betrayed by those you love, if you could ever be said to know love. Love has died inside you, I think, boy. And know this, too. You will die as you have lived, in empty violence. And you will rule, but only over this godforsaken island, this speck of dirt in a cold and filthy sea, far from the world stage, the poetry of Greece and the oratory of Rome, a savage king to rule a savage land. So fuck you, Arthur, just as I fucked your mother—”
‘Here Arthur raised his sword, and silenced the head of Gorlois once and for all. Which is all the mad dead duke ever wanted, I reckon. The rotten old head split in two and burst like an overripe plum, and the stench of it was awful. I saw Arthur then. He leaned on his sword and he stared at the spike that held the head, and the skin was drawn tight on his skull. I had never seen so much hatred before, and it scared me, wizard. It scared me. For I knew then that he would be the true king, the one to rule over all of Britannia. It was the dead look in his eyes that day. I knew then he would let no one and nothing get in his way.
‘We ate roasted pigeons that night, and they made the men sick. By then our numbers had swelled considerably. In every village we passed there were young men eager to join, and less eager to look after sheep. Can’t say I blamed them, either. So by the time we’d arrived in Blestium we had over five hundred with us, plus camp followers of all sorts, petty traders coat-tailing for security, working girls and sweethearts picked along the way. I tell you, wizard, it takes all sorts to make a world, but it is hard to feed them.
‘To tell you the truth, the king didn’t seem to mind. He wanted them following. Wanted them on his side. He knew, you see. He knew what was ahead. Where we, foolishly, thought we’d already won, Arthur knew the war hadn’t even begun.
‘We were about to find out, though, weren’t we, wizard. We were.
‘On we rode, until we came at last to the castle.
‘Dinas Emrys, of which it is spoken in legend and song. Where the clouds lie low over the rolling hills like the breath of a dragon. Where the nights are cold and clear like a king’s purpose. Man. It must have been strange for him to arrive there where his father sat. But if so he did not show it.
‘There was much to prepare. The steward was summoned, a Sir Fergus – you know of him, wizard? A minor character, by all accounts, yet the accounts he kept meticulously. Two working silver mines, he said, and a gold mine still about producing. One chest of coinage, eleven serving girls, a herd of sheep, and problems. He listed those, I tell you, Merlin. Brigands upon the roads and the tax collectors, one by one, assassinated. The mines still working skimmed the profits ruthlessly. Giants stole the sheep. The serving girls were past their best, the treasury’s been depleted, the mice had eaten half the books – “Enough!” shouted Arthur. He ordered that his men be fed. We rode out to the hunt. The local men had tried to hide their sheep from us. Wizard, I’m afraid we did them an unkindness, but we were wary and the road was hard. That night the blood of animals ran all down the sides of the ancient hill in great rivulets and campfires burned again in Dinas Emrys. We drank late into the night and feasted merrily, the knights on choice cuts of the meat, the entourage on the entrails and leftovers. In truth, we all got disgustingly drunk. I tried some wine from Greece stored in the cellars, but it had gone bad long ago. The morning came, the sun rose true, we were a sorry mess.
‘He put us right to work. The king had come to claim his kingdom. We did what we do best, wizard. We rode out with our swords and robbed the fuckers blind. We had to. For two decades they had got away without a tax, without a king’s protection. We raided stores of grain and food, snatched maidens to replace the ones who still remained from Uther’s time. We took their coin and jewels and then offered them payment if they came and worked for us. Arthur had stonemasons and carpenters brought in to fix the castle. The local boys and girls were welcomed in to hunt the rats and mice, and the new cooks were kept busy skinning and gutting the animals for supper. You should have seen it, wizard! The castle was alive again, bustling with the king and his knights and the assembled entourage grew larger ever
y day. All sought the king’s favour. His banner flew over the castle once again, and all the land around it was subservient to his will. The weavers worked tirelessly until their fingers bled, but new tapestries were hung, new lights burned, the old dungeon – ah, but I see you wince, Merlin! – the old dungeon was cleaned up, and gold and silver shone everywhere.
‘It was beautiful, man. Though it was strange, too, I grant you, being this far from the city, with all that land around, and all that mist, and the people strange and surly, and the smell of the far sea in the air like the smell of bewitchment – a cold coming we had of it, in truth.
‘But we had to make ready. We had to make due.
‘For they were coming.’
26
‘We were prepared,’ Ulfius says. He stares with angry bewilderment at the wizard. The small fire hisses as Merlin adds damp logs onto the flames. The wind keens outside, and it seems to Ulfius that there are other voices lost within its sound. Sometimes he thinks he hears the cries of comrades, pleading mercy, begging to be shown the way. At other times he imagines something more unearthly, the cackle of mormos and baying of Gabriel hounds. He tries to shut the sounds away.
He thinks of clashing swords, the screams of dying men. The fire. He’s cold. His side still hurts. He shifts in place and the pain flares up and he lets out a small cry.
‘Quiet,’ Merlin says.
He listens too, Ulfius sees. He listens to the wind.
‘All manner of things are abroad tonight, and none of them friendly,’ Merlin says.
‘The king,’ Ulfius says, ‘I do not know if he’s alive or dead.’
‘Oh, he’s alive,’ Merlin says. ‘He’d better be, or I’ll kill him myself.’
That sudden fury in the wizard shocks Ulfius. He tries to make himself comfortable but the pain remains. He thinks suddenly that for sure he’s dying. That Merlin’s nursing witchery was but a trick.
‘I don’t feel well,’ he says.
‘You’ll live.’
They listen to the wind. Bugaboos and Tom-pokers and witches and nisses. All manner of things are abroad on this night.
Ulfius touches the cross on his neck. ‘All this will vanish, in time,’ he says, his savagery startling even himself – a cold fury to match Merlin’s. ‘All this charmery and abomination, they will be wiped off the face of the earth as the word of Jesus rises. Brimstone and salt, and a fire burning, so that their seeds will no longer be sown nor grow again, like in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.’
He feels so righteous speaking these words. He wants them to hurt.
But the wizard sits back. His boyish face, so pale in the light of the fire, his skin drawn tight over his delicate bones, stares at him, and there’s a spark in those unsettling eyes, as though now, and only now, Ulfius has finally, somehow, fully engaged the wizard’s attention.
‘I had heard these names,’ Merlin says. ‘The cities of the plain, they were called, were they not? It was said the god of the Hebrews sent down destruction from the heavens upon them.’
His mind is shrouded to Ulfius, but some dark design seems to be behind the question.
‘Imagine such a weapon…’ the wizard says.
‘It was the will of God!’
‘Aristotle argues that we are at the centre of the universe and all about us matter moves in uniform circular motions that are eternal. Yet the Stoics say the universe is an infinite non-physical void, the cosmos a gigantic oscillating sphere. And Empedocles specified that the universe shifts between the forces of philia and neikos, love and strife. I think I know enough of strife to know it is a powerful force. Don’t you agree, Ulfius?’
‘Yet what of love?’ Ulfius says. He stares into the fire as though under a spell. What is he doing here, in this cave, how has it come to this? ‘John the Apostle said that God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.’
‘I see no God here,’ Merlin says. He moves his hand between the fire and the wall. The shadows dance and shift, become a rabbit, spider, wolf in quick succession. ‘I see only nature. Can you say that you – and I don’t mean this as a way to cause offence, Ulfius – but you as a dumb-as-shit city boy who until recently’s not been farther than the fucking Cripplegate, you know all of nature and its secrets? You’d believe in a cameleopard or an elephantus, but not in magic? What is magic, after all, but the understanding and manipulating of nature?’
Ulfius can sense the wizard’s anger, underneath the calmness of his voice. Another man, he’d nut right there and then, but not the wizard. He’s like the one small boy no one would ever fuck with cause you knew he was crazy. He’d known boys like that, as small and meek as anything, who’d knife you in the eye and walk away still whistling. The cold ones were always the ones you had to watch out for.
He says, ‘You twist your words to suit you.’
Merlin: ‘That isn’t magic, that’s called speech.’
‘Accept God’s love or you will go to Hell!’
Merlin sits back. Smiles. ‘So that’s the catch?’ he says.
‘Say what you will, I know the truth of it. Accept the word of God or perish.’
‘Everything perishes. We are but organised systems of atoms—’
‘Spare me your atoms!’
They’re at an impasse.
A howl tears the night.
The scream would curdle milk, it is a howl straight out of nightmare. Ulfius clutches the cross and begins to mutter a prayer. Merlin stands, as sinuous as a cat in motion. Goes to the cave’s mouth and peers out. The howl comes again, closer.
Ulfius rises. He reaches for his sword. He is a knight and a Christian.
‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’ he whispers.
He goes to the mouth of the cave.
Peers out into the dark.
That howl again, tearing through the wind. The rain beats down. Far in the distance, lightning flashes. In its light Ulfius sees a hideous form, some vast and ungainly thing shambles past, screaming. It has too many mouths, too many tongues, too many lips.
Behind it comes a rider on a dark horse.
‘Please,’ the rider cries, ‘come back to me, come back, come b—’
The lightning flashes. The two figures, like mimers, go past. The light fades. The howl fades.
In the next flash of lightning, they’re gone.
‘What was that?’ Ulfius says.
Merlin says, ‘One of my rare mistakes.’
They return to the fire. They sit wordlessly now. Ulfius’ mind drifts. How glorious the castle had seemed, when they were done. A new dawn had broken over Dinas Emrys and the hills seemed washed afresh like laundry after the rain. Birds sang in the trees. They were ready.
When he begins to speak again, he isn’t sure if it is to the wizard he is talking or merely to himself. He feels so drowsy.
He says, ‘The first one to arrive was Conan Meriadoc.’
*
‘It was three days to the council and the first king had just arrived. He rode into the castle like he fucking owned the place. Three hundred men in his retinue, and his banner flying high. He rode bare-chested, did Conan Meriadoc. His chest was tanned and glistened with his sweat. His hair was long. His teeth were rotten. Climbed off his horse with booted feet thumping on the ground of the courtyard.
‘“I am here, you fuckers,” he said, “now bring me something to drink!”
‘So there was that. Towards evening the second arrived. Urien of the Old North, and a more savage fucker you would never wish to see. One-eyed he was, as thin as a snake and as leathery. He had but fifty men with him but each of them a backstreet hardened killer, the sort of footpads with smiles like slit throats. He had a raven with him, and more flew overhead. They came and settled on the gate posts and the towers, and none dared shoo them away.
‘He didn’t speak. He had a man to speak for him, and they asked for nothing, but camped outside the gates and made their own fires and chanted l
ate into the night, and their fires smelled of damp leaves and bad magic. They took only bread and water from the kitchens.
‘The next day Outham the Old, accompanied by a company of Franks. He was wrapped heavily in fur, and was cowled, and no man saw his face. He, too, spoke little, and he moved with care, but you could feel his eyes roam, checking out the battlements, the number of our men, the stores supplies, as though already calculating how long to starve us in a siege. I did not like him.
‘Then Yder, with a hundred men and two giants in his retinue. Then Lot. At last the council was all but ready to begin. Arthur welcomed each of the kings personally, but otherwise kept to himself. All we were missing was Leir.
‘I was in the new library when it happened. It was your order, wasn’t it, Merlin? A king to be a proper king must have a library? And so we were sent out into the adjacent towns to raid their stores of manuscripts. A heap of trash! Roman romances and Greek pornography, bestiaries and grimoires. All to satisfy your lust for words! And nary a Testament to be found. Regardless. We had swelled the number of manuscripts and scrolls considerably, until an entire room that used to be a pantry was reserved for it. I was there, taking a moment alone, for I liked to pray, when he appeared, right out of nowhere. I swear it, it is true. The door was closed and there were no windows or hidden entrances and I was alone. Yet I turned, and there he was, a man browsing the manuscripts without a care. He turned to face me.
‘“Plutarch’s Lives,” he said, “is really most excellent. Have you read it?”