The Winter King Part 25

The enemy began putting new troops in their front line. Some carried Cuneglas's eagle, some Gundleus's fox and a few had emblems of their own. Then a cheer sounded behind me and I turned, expecting to see Tewdric's men arriving in their Roman uniforms, but instead it was Galahad who came alone on a sweating horse. He slid to a halt behind our line and half fell off the horse in his haste to reach us. "I thought I'd be too late," he said.

"Are they coming?" I asked.

He paused and even before he spoke I knew that we had been abandoned. "No," he said at last. I swore and looked back to the enemy. It was the G.o.ds alone who had saved us in the last attack, but the G.o.ds alone knew how long we could hold now. "No one is coming?" I asked bitterly.

"A few maybe." Galahad gave the bad news in a low voice. "Tewdric believes we're doomed, Agricola says they should help us, but Meurig says we must be left to die. They're all arguing, but Tewdric did say that any man who wants to die here could follow me. Maybe some are on the way?" I prayed there were, for some of Gorfyddyd's levy had arrived on the western hill now, though none of that ragged horde had yet dared to cross Nimue's ghost-fence. We could hold for two more hours, I thought, and after that we were doomed, though Arthur would surely come first. "No sign of the Blacks.h.i.+eld Irish?" I asked Galahad.

"No, thank G.o.d," he said, and it was one small blessing on a day almost bereft of blessings, though a half-hour after Galahad came, we did at last receive some reinforcements. Seven men walked north towards our battered s.h.i.+eld-wall, seven men in war gear carrying spears, s.h.i.+elds and swords, and the symbol on the s.h.i.+elds was the hawk of Kernow, our enemy. Yet these men were no enemies. They were six scarred and hardened fighters led by their Edling, Prince Tristan. He explained his presence when the excitement of greeting was over. "Arthur fought for me once, and I have long wanted to repay the debt."

"With your life?" Sagramor asked grimly.

"He risked his," Tristan said simply. I remembered him as a tall handsome man, and so he still was, but the years had added a wary and tired look to his face as though he had suffered too many disappointments. "My father," he added ruefully, 'may never forgive my coming here, but I could never have forgiven my absence."

"How's Sarlinna?" I asked him.

"Sarlinna?" He took a few seconds to remember the small girl who had come to accuse Owain at Caer Cadarn. "Oh, Sarlinna! Married now. To a fisherman." He smiled. "You gave her the kitten, didn't you?" We put Tristan and his men in our centre, the place of honour on this battlefield, yet when the enemy's next a.s.sault came it was not against the centre, but against the tree fence protecting our flanks. For a time the shallow trench and the fence's tangling branches caused them havoc, but they learned swiftly enough to use the felled trees to protect themselves and in some places they burst clean through and bent our line backwards again. But again we held them, and Griffid, my erstwhile enemy, made a name for himself by cutting down Nasiens, Gundleus's champion. The s.h.i.+elds crashed incessantly. Spears broke, swords shattered and s.h.i.+elds split as the exhausted fought the weary. On the hilltop the enemy levy gathered to watch from beyond Nimue's ghost-fence as Morfans once again forced his tired horse up the perilously steep slope. He stared northwards and we watched him and prayed that he would blow the horn. He stared for a long time, but he must have been satisfied that all the enemy forces were now trapped in the vale for he put the silver horn to his lips and blew the blessed summons across the din of battle. Never was a horn call more welcome. Our whole line surged forward and scarred swords hammered at the enemy with a new energy. The silver horn, so pure and clear, called again and again, a hunting call to the slaughter, and each time it sounded our men pressed forward into the branches of the felled trees to cut and stab and scream at the enemy who, suspecting some trickery, glanced nervously around the vale as they defended themselves. Gorfyddyd shouted at his men to break us now, and his royal guard led the attack on our centre. I heard Kernow's men screaming their war cry as they paid their Edling's debt. Nimue was among our spearmen and wielding a sword with both hands. I shouted at her to get back, but the bloodl.u.s.t had swamped her soul and she fought like a fiend. The enemy was scared of her, knowing that she was of the G.o.ds, and men tried to evade rather than fight her, but all the same I was glad when Galahad thrust her away from the fight. Galahad might have come late to the battle, but he fought with a savage glee that drove the enemy back from the twitching pile of dead and dying men. The horn sounded a last time. And Arthur, at last, charged.

His armoured spearmen had come from their hiding place north of the river and now their horses foamed through the ford like a tide of thunder. They crashed over the bodies left by the early fighting and brought their bright spears down into the charge as they seared into the enemy's rearward units. Men scattered like chaff as the iron-shod horses drove deep into Gorfyddyd's army. Arthur's men divided into two groups that cut deep channels through that press of spearmen. They charged, they left their spears fixed in the dead and then made more dead with their swords.

And for a moment, for a glorious moment, I thought the enemy would break, but then Gorfyddyd saw the same danger and he shouted at his men to form a new s.h.i.+eld-wall facing north. He would sacrifice his rearward men and instead make a new line of spears from the back most ranks of his forward troops. And that new line held. Owain, so long ago, had been right when he told me that not even Arthur's horses would charge home against a well-made s.h.i.+eld-wall. Nor would they. Arthur had brought panic and death to a third of Cuneglas's army, but the rest were now formed properly and they defied his handful of cavalry.

And still the enemy outnumbered us.

Behind the tree fence our line was nowhere more than two men deep and in places it was just one. Arthur had failed to cut through to us, and Gorfyddyd knew that Arthur never would cut through so long as he kept a s.h.i.+eld-wall facing the horses. He planted that s.h.i.+eld-wall, abandoning the lost third of his army to Arthur's mercy, then turned the rest of his men to face Sagramor's s.h.i.+eld-wall again. Gorfyddyd now knew Arthur's tactics, and he had defeated them, so he could hurl his spearmen into battle with a new confidence, though this time, instead of a.s.saulting all along our line, he concentrated his attack along the vale's western edge in an attempt to turn our left flank.

The men on that flank fought, they killed and they died, but few men could have held the line for long, and none could have held it once Gundleus's Silurians outflanked us by climbing the lower slopes of the hill beneath the ghastly ghost-fence. The attack was brutal and the defence just as horrid. Morfans's surviving hors.e.m.e.n hurled themselves at the Silurians, Nimue spat curses at them and Tristan's fresh men fought there like champions, but if we had possessed double our numbers we could not have stopped the enemy from outflanking us and so our s.h.i.+eld-wall, like a snake recoiling, collapsed on to the river bank where we made a defensive half-circle about two banners and the few wounded men we had managed to carry back with us. It was a terrible moment. I saw our s.h.i.+eld-wall break, saw the enemy begin the slaughter of scattered men, and then I ran with the rest into the desperate huddle of survivors. We just had time to make a crude s.h.i.+eld-wall, then we could only watch as Gorfyddyd's triumphant forces pursued and killed our fugitives. Tristan survived, as did Galahad and Sagramor, but that was small consolation for we had lost the battle and all that remained for us now was to die like heroes. In the northern half of the vale Arthur was still held by the s.h.i.+eld-wall, while to the south our wall, that had resisted its enemies all that long day, had been broken and its remnant surrounded. We had gone into battle two hundred strong and now we numbered just over a hundred men.

Prince Cuneglas rode forward to ask for our surrender. His father was commanding the men facing Arthur and the King of Powys was content to leave the destruction of Sagramor's remaining spearmen to his son and to King Gundleus. Cuneglas, at least, did not insult my men. He curbed his horse a dozen paces from our line and raised an empty right hand to show he came in truce. "Men of Dumnonia!" Cuneglas called. "You have fought well, but to fight further is to die. I offer you life."

"Use your sword once before you ask brave men to surrender," I shouted at him.

"Afraid to fight, are you?" Sagramor jeered for so far none of us had seen Gorfyddyd, Cuneglas or Gundleus in the front of the enemy s.h.i.+eld-wall. King Gundleus sat on his horse a few paces behind Prince Cuneglas. Nimue was cursing him, but whether or not he was aware of her I could not tell. If he was he could not have been worried, for we were all now trapped and surely doomed.

"Or fight me now!" I shouted at Cuneglas. "Man to man, if you dare." Cuneglas gazed at me sadly. I was bloodstained, mud-covered, sweaty, bruised and hurting, while he was elegant in a short suit of scale armour and with a helmet surmounted by eagle feathers. He half smiled at me. "I know you're not Arthur," he said, 'for I saw him on horseback, but whoever you are, you have fought n.o.bly. I offer you life."

I pulled the sweaty, confining helmet off my head and tossed it into the centre of our half-circle. "You know me, Lord Prince," I said.

"Lord Derfel." He named me, then did me honour. "Lord Derfel Cadarn," he said, 'if I stand surety for your life and for the lives of your men, will you surrender?"

"Lord Prince," I said, "I do not command here. You must speak to Lord Sagramor." Sagramor stepped up beside me and took off his black spired helmet that had been pierced by a spear so that his black curly hair was matted with blood. "Lord Prince," he said warily.

"I offer you life," Cuneglas said, 'so long as you surrender." Sagramor pointed his curved sword to where Arthur's hors.e.m.e.n dominated the northern part of the vale.

"My Lord has not surrendered," he told Cuneglas, 'so I cannot. But nevertheless' he raised his voice "I release my men from their oaths."

"I also," I called to my men.

I am sure some were tempted to leave the ranks, but their comrades growled at them to stay, or perhaps the growl was simply the sound of tired men's defiance. Prince Cuneglas waited a few seconds, then took two thin gold torques from a pouch at his belt. He smiled at us. "I salute your bravery, Lord Sagramor. I salute you, Lord Derfel." He threw the gold so that it landed at our feet. I picked mine up and bent the ends apart so that it would fit around my neck. "And Derfel Cadarn?" Cuneglas added. His round, friendly face was smiling.

"Lord Prince?"

"My sister asked that I should greet you. And so I do."

My soul, so close to death, seemed to leap with joy at the greeting. "Give her my greetings, Lord Prince," I answered, 'and tell her I shall look forward to her company in the Otherworld." Then the thought of never seeing Ceinwyn again in this world overcame my joy and suddenly I wanted to weep. Cuneglas saw my sadness. "You need not die, Lord Derfel," he said. "I offer you life, and I stand surety for you. I offer you my friends.h.i.+p too, if you will have it."

"I would honour it, Lord Prince," I said, 'but while my Lord fights, I fight." Sagramor pulled his helmet on, wincing as the metal slid over the spear wound on his scalp. "I thank you, Lord Prince," he told Cuneglas, 'and choose to fight you." Cuneglas turned his horse away. I looked at my sword, so battered and sticky, then I looked at my surviving men. "If we did nothing else," I told them, 'we made sure Gorfyddyd's army can't march on Dumnonia for many a long day. And maybe never! Who'd want to fight men like us twice?"

"The Blacks.h.i.+eld Irish would," Sagramor growled and he jerked his head towards the hillside where the ghost-fence had held our flank all day. And there, beyond the magic-ridden posts, was a war-band with round, black s.h.i.+elds and the wicked long spears of Ireland. It was the garrison of Coel's Hill, Oengus Mac Airem's Blacks.h.i.+eld Irish, who had come to join the killing.

Arthur was still fighting. He had torn one-third of his enemy's army into red ruin, but the rest now held him checked. He charged again and again in his efforts to break that s.h.i.+eld-line but no horse on earth would ride through a thicket of men, s.h.i.+elds and spears. Even Llamrei failed him and all that was left for him to do, I thought, was to thrust Excalibur deep into the blood-reddened soil and hope that the G.o.d Gofannon would come from the darkest abyss of the Otherworld to his rescue. But no G.o.d came, nor did any man come from Magnis. We later learned that some volunteers had set out, but they arrived too late.

Powys's levy stayed on the hill, too scared to cross the ghost-fence, while beside them were gathered more than a hundred Irish warriors. Those men began to walk south, aiming to walk around the fence's vengeful ghosts. In a half-hour, I thought, those Blacks.h.i.+eld Irish would be joining Cuneglas's final attack and so I went to Nimue. "Swim the river," I urged her. "You can swim, can't you?" She held up her left hand with its scar. "You die here, Derfel," she said, 'then I die here."

"You must'

"Hold your tongue," she said, 'that's what you must do," and then stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the mouth. "Kill Gundleus for me before you die," she pleaded. One of our spearmen began singing the Death Song of Werlinna and the rest of them took up the slow, sad melody. Cavan, his cloak blackened by blood, was hammering the socket of his spearhead with a stone, trying to tighten the shaft's fit. "I never thought it would come to this," I said to him.

"Nor me, Lord," he said, looking up from his work. His wolf-tail plume was bloodsoaked too, his helmet dented and there was a rag bandaged about his left thigh.

"I thought I was lucky," I said. "I always thought that, but perhaps every man does."

"Not every man, Lord, no, but the best leaders do."

I smiled my thanks. "I would have liked to have seen Arthur's dream come true," I said.

"There'd be no work for warriors if it did," Cavan said dourly. "We'd all be clerks or farmers. Maybe it's better this way. One last fight, then down to the Otherworld and into Mithras's service. We'll have a good time there, Lord. Plump women, good fighting, strong mead and rich gold for ever."

"I shall be glad of your company there," I told him, but in " truth I was utterly bereft of joy. I did not want to go to the Otherworld yet, not while Ceinwyn still lived in this one. I pressed the armour at my chest to feel her small brooch and I thought of the madness that would never now run its course. I said her name aloud, puzzling Cavan. I was in love, but I would die without ever holding my love's hand or seeing her face again.

Then I was forced to forget Ceinwyn for the Blacks.h.i.+eld Irish of Demetia, instead of walking around the fence, had decided to risk the ghosts and cross it. Then I saw why. A Druid had appeared on the hill to lead them through the spirit line. Nimue came to stand beside me and stared up the hill to where the tall, white-cowled and white-robed figure strode long-legged down the steep slope. The Irish followed him, and behind their black s.h.i.+elds and long spears came Powys's levy with its mixed weaponry of bows, mattocks, axes, spears, single-sticks and hayforks.

My men's singing faded away. They hefted spears and touched their s.h.i.+eld-edges on each other to make sure the wall was tight. The enemy, who had been readying their own s.h.i.+eld-wall to attack ours, now turned to watch as the Druid brought the Irish down to the valley. lorweth and Tanaburs ran to meet him, but the newly come Druid waved his long staff to order them out of his path and then he pushed his robe's hood back and we saw the long, plaited white beard and the swinging pigtail of his black-wrapped hair. It was Merlin.

Nimue cried when she saw Merlin, then she ran towards him. The enemy moved aside to let her pa.s.s, just as they parted to let Merlin walk towards her. Even on a battlefield a Druid could walk wherever he wanted, and this Druid was the most famed and powerful in all the land. Nimue ran and Merlin spread his arms to welcome her and she was still sobbing as at last she found him again and threw her thin white arms around his body. And suddenly I was glad for her.

Merlin kept one arm around Nimue as he strode towards us. Gorfyddyd had seen the Druid's arrival and now galloped his horse towards our part of the battlefield. Merlin raised his staff in greeting to the King, but ignored his questions. The Irish war-band had stopped at the hill's foot where they formed their grim black wall of s.h.i.+elds.

Merlin walked towards me and, just as on the day when he had saved my life at Caer Sws, he came in stark, cold majesty. There was no smile on his dark face, no hint of joy in his deep eyes, just a look of such fierce anger that I sank to my knees and bowed my head as he came close. Sagramor did the same, then suddenly our whole battered band of spearmen was kneeling to the Druid. He reached out with his black staff and touched first Sagramor and then me on the shoulders. "Get up," he said in a low, hard voice before turning to face the enemy. He took his arm from around Nimue's shoulders and held his black staff level above his tonsured head with both hands. He stared at Gorfyddyd's army, then slowly lowered the staff, and such was the authority in that long, ancient, angry face and in that slow, sure gesture that the enemy all knelt to him. Only the two Druids stayed standing and the few hors.e.m.e.n remained in their saddles.

"For seven years," Merlin said in a voice that reached clear across the vale and right up its deep centre so that even Arthur and his men could hear him, "I have searched for the Knowledge of Britain. I have searched for the power of our ancestors that we abandoned when the Romans came. I have searched for those things that will restore this land to its rightful G.o.ds, its own G.o.ds, our G.o.ds, the G.o.ds who made us and who can be persuaded to come back to help us." He spoke slowly and simply so that every man could hear and understand. "Now," he went on, "I need help. I need men with swords, men with spears, men with hearts unafraid, to go with me to an enemy place to find the last Treasure of Britain. I seek the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. The Cauldron is our power, our lost power, our last hope to make Britain once again into the island of the G.o.ds. I promise you nothing but hards.h.i.+p, I will give you no reward but death, I shall feed you nothing but bitterness, and will give you only gall to drink, but in return I ask for your swords and your lives. Who will come with me to find the Cauldron?" He asked the question abruptly. We had expected him to talk of this sprawling blood-letting that had turned a green vale red, but instead he had ignored the fight as though it was irrelevant, almost as if he had not even noticed that he had strayed on to a battlefield. "Who?" he asked again.

"Lord Merlin!" Gorfyddyd shouted before any man could respond. The enemy King pushed his horse through the ranks of his kneeling spearmen. "Lord Merlin!" His voice was angry and his face bitter.

"Gorfyddyd," Merlin acknowledged him.

"Your quest for the Cauldron can wait one short hour?" Gorfyddyd asked the question sarcastically.

"It can wait a year, Gorfyddyd ap Cadell. It can wait five years. It can wait for ever, but it should not." Gorfyddyd rode his horse into the open s.p.a.ce between the spear-walls. He was seeing his great victory jeopardized and his claim to be the High King threatened by a Druid, and so he turned his horse towards his men, pushed back the cheek pieces of his winged helmet and raised his voice. "There will be time to pledge spears to the Cauldron's quest," he called to his men, 'but only when you have punished the wh.o.r.emonger and drowned your spears in his men's souls. I have an oath to fulfill, and I will not let any man, even my Lord Merlin, deflect that oath's keeping. There can be no peace, no Cauldron, while the wh.o.r.e's lover lives." He turned and stared at the wizard. "You would save the wh.o.r.e-lover by this appeal?"

"I would not care, Gorfyddyd ap Cadell," Merlin said, 'if the land opened and swallowed Arthur and his army. Nor if it engulfed yours as well."

"Then we fight!" Gorfyddyd shouted, and he used his one arm to drag his sword free of its scabbard.

"These men' he spoke to his army, but pointed the sword towards our banners 'are yours. Their lands, their flocks, their gold and their homes are yours. Their wives and daughters are now your wh.o.r.es. You have fought them this far, would you now let them walk away? The Cauldron will not vanish with their lives, but your victory will vanish if we do not finish what we came here to do. We fight!" There was a heartbeat of silence, then Gorfyddyd's men stood and began to beat their spear-shafts against their s.h.i.+elds. Gorfyddyd gave Merlin a triumphant look, then kicked his horse back into his men's clamorous ranks.

Merlin turned to Sagramor and me. "The Blacks.h.i.+eld Irish," he said in a casual voice, 'are on your side. I talked with them. They will attack Gorfyddyd's men and you shall have a great victory. May the G.o.ds give you strength." He turned again, put an arm around Nimue's shoulders and strode away through the enemy ranks that opened to let him through.

"It was a good try!" Gundleus called to Merlin. The King of Powys was on the threshold of his great victory and that giddy prospect had filled him with the confidence to defy the Druid, but Merlin ignored the crowing insult and just walked away with Tanaburs and lorweth.

Issa brought me Arthur's helmet. I crammed it back on my head, glad of its protection in these last few moments of battle.

The enemy re-formed its s.h.i.+eld-wall. Few insults were shouted now, for few men had energy for anything other than the grim slaughter that loomed on the river's bank. Gorfyddyd, for the first time all day, dismounted and took his place in the wall. He had no s.h.i.+eld, but he would still lead this last attack that would crush his hated enemy's power. He raised his sword, held it aloft for a few heartbeats, then brought it down.

The enemy charged.

We thrust spears and s.h.i.+elds forward to meet them and the two walls crashed with a terrible sound. Gorfyddyd tried to thrust his sword past Arthur's s.h.i.+eld, but I parried it and cut at him with Hywelbane. The sword glanced off his helmet, severing an eagle wing, then we were locked together by the pressure of the men thrusting from behind.

"Push them!" Gorfyddyd shouted at his men, then he spat at me over the s.h.i.+eld. "Your wh.o.r.e-lover," he told me over the battle's din, 'hid while you fought."

"She is no wh.o.r.e, Lord King," I said, and tried to free Hywelbane from the crush to give him a blow, but the sword was trapped fast by the pressure of s.h.i.+elds and men.

"She took enough gold from me," Gorfyddyd said, 'and I don't pay women whose legs don't part." I heaved at Hywelbane and tried to stab at Gorfyddyd's feet, but the sword just glanced off the skirts of his armour. He laughed at my failure, spat at me again, then raised his head as he heard a dreadful screaming battle cry.

It was the attack of the Irish. The Blacks.h.i.+elds of Oengus Mac Airem always charged with a ululating scream; a terrible battle-cry that seemed to suggest an inhuman delight in slaughter. Gorfyddyd shouted at his men to heave and cleave, to break our tiny s.h.i.+eld-wall, and for a few seconds the men of Powys and Siluria struck at us with a new frenzy in the belief that the Blacks.h.i.+elds were coming to their aid, but then new screams from the rearward ranks made them realize that treachery had changed the Blacks.h.i.+elds'

allegiance. The Irish sliced into Gorfyddyd's ranks, their long spears finding easy targets, and suddenly, swiftly, Gorfyddyd's men collapsed like a p.r.i.c.ked waters king I saw the rage and panic cross Gorfyddyd's face. "Surrender, Lord King!" I shouted to him, but his bodyguard found s.p.a.ce to hack down with their swords and for a few desperate seconds I was defending myself too hard to see what happened to the King, though Issa did shout that he saw Gorfyddyd wounded. Galahad was beside me, thrusting and parrying, and then, magically it seemed, the enemy was fleeing. Our men pursued, joining with the Blacks.h.i.+elds to drive the men of Powys and Siluria like a flock of sheep to where Arthur's hors.e.m.e.n waited to kill. I looked for Gundleus and saw him once among a ma.s.s of running, mud-covered, b.l.o.o.d.y men, and then I lost sight of him. The vale had seen much death that day, but now it saw outright ma.s.sacre for nothing makes for easy killing like a broken s.h.i.+eld-wall. Arthur tried to stop the slaughter, but nothing could have checked that pent-up release of savagery, and his hors.e.m.e.n rode like avenging G.o.ds among the panicked ma.s.s while we pursued and cut the fugitives down in an orgy of blood. Scores of the enemy succeeded in fleeing past the hors.e.m.e.n and crossing the ford to safety, but scores more were forced to take refuge in the village where at last they found the time and s.p.a.ce to make a new s.h.i.+eld-wall. Now it was their turn to be surrounded. The evening light was stretching across the vale, touching the trees with the first faint yellow sunlight of that long and b.l.o.o.d.y day as we stopped around the village. We were panting and our swords and spears were thick with blood.

Arthur, his sword as red as mine, slid heavily from Llamrei's back. The black mare was white with sweat, trembling, her pale eyes wide, while Arthur himself was bone-weary from his desperate fight. He had tried and tried again to break through to us; he had fought, his fnen told us, like a man possessed by the G.o.ds even though it had seemed, all that long afternoon, as if the G.o.ds had deserted him. Now, despite being victor of the day, he was in distress as he embraced Sagramor and then hugged me. "I failed you, Derfel," he said, "I failed you."

"No, Lord," I said, 'we won," and I pointed with my battered, reddened sword at Gorfyddyd's survivors who had rallied around the eagle banner of their trapped King. Gundleus's fox banner also showed there, though neither of the enemy Kings was in view.

"I failed," Arthur said. "I never broke through. There were too many." That failure galled him, for he knew only too well how close we had come to utter defeat. Indeed, he felt he had been defeated, for his vaunted hors.e.m.e.n had been held and all he had been able to do was watch as we were cut down, but he was wrong. The victory was his, all his, for Arthur, alone of all the men of Dumnonia and Gwent, had possessed the confidence to offer battle. That battle had not gone as Arthur had planned; Tewdric had not marched to help us and Arthur's war horses had been checked by Gundleus's s.h.i.+eld-wall; but it was still a victory and it had been brought about by one thing only: Arthur's courage in fighting at all. Merlin had intervened, of course, but Merlin never claimed the victory. That was Arthur's and though, at the time, Arthur was full of self-recrimination it was Lugg Vale, the one victory Arthur always despised, that turned him into the eventual ruler of Britain. The Arthur of the poets, the Arthur who wearies the tongues of the bards, the Arthur for whose return all men pray in these dark days, was made great by that stumbling shambles of a fight. Nowadays, of course, the poets do not sing the truth about Lugg Vale. They make it sound like a victory as complete as the later battles, and perhaps they are right to shape their story thus for in these hard times we need Arthur to have been a great hero from the very first, but the truth is that in those early years Arthur was vulnerable. He ruled Dumnonia by virtue of Owain's death and Bedwin's support, but as the years of war ground on there were many who wished him gone. Gorfyddyd had his supporters in Dumnonia and, G.o.d forgive me, too many Christians were praying for Arthur's defeat. And that was why he fought, because he knew he was too weak not to fight. Arthur had to provide victory or lose everything, and in the end he did win, but only after coming within a blade's edge of disaster.

Arthur crossed to embrace Tristan, then to greet Oengus Mac Airem, the Irish King of Demetia, whose contingent had saved the battle. Arthur, as ever, went to his knees before a king, but Oengus lifted him up and gave him a bear hug. I turned and stared at the vale as the two men talked. It was foul with broken men, pitiful with dying horses, and glutted with corpses and littered weapons. Blood stank and the wounded cried. I felt more weary than I had ever felt in my life and so did my men, but I saw that Gorfyddyd's levy had come down from the hill to start plundering the dead and wounded and so I sent Cavan and a score of spearmen to drive them away. Ravens flapped black across the river to tear at dead men's bowels. I saw that the huts we had fired that morning still smoked. Then I thought of Ceinwyn, and amid all that b.e.s.t.i.a.l horror, my soul suddenly lifted as though on great white wings. I turned back in time to see Merlin and Arthur embrace. Arthur almost seemed to collapse in the Druid's arms, but Merlin lifted and clasped him. Then the two of them walked towards the enemy's s.h.i.+elds. Prince Cuneglas and the Druid lorweth came from the encircled s.h.i.+eld-wall. Cuneglas carried a spear, but no s.h.i.+eld, while Arthur had Excalibur in its scabbard, but no other weapon. He paced ahead of Merlin and, as he drew near to Cuneglas, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "Lord Prince," he said.

"My father is dying," Cuneglas said. "A spear thrust took him in the back." He made it sound like an accusation, though everyone knew that once a s.h.i.+eld-wall broke many men would die with their wounds behind.

Arthur stayed on one knee. For a moment he did not seem to know what to say, then he looked up at Cuneglas. "May I see him?" he asked. "I offended your house, Lord Prince, and insulted its honour, and though no insult was meant, I would still beg your father's forgiveness." It was Cuneglas's turn to seem bemused, then he shrugged as though he was not certain he was making the right decision, but at last he gestured towards his s.h.i.+eld-wall. Arthur stood and, side by side with the Prince, went to see the dying King Gorfyddyd.

I wanted to call out to Arthur not to go, but he was swallowed in the enemy's ranks before my muddled wits recovered. I cringed to think what Gorfyddyd would say to Arthur, and I knew Gorfyddyd would say those things, the same filthy things that he had spat at me across the rim of his spear-scarred s.h.i.+eld. King Gorfyddyd was not a man to forgive his enemies, nor one to spare an enemy hurt, even if he was dying. Especially if he was dying. It would be Gorfyddyd's final pleasure in this world to know that he had hurt his foe. Sagramor shared my fears, and both of us watched in anguish as, after a few moments, Arthur emerged from the defeated ranks with a face as dark as Cruachan's Cave. Sagramor stepped towards him. "He lied, Lord," Sagramor said softly. "He always lied."

"I know he lied," Arthur said, then shuddered. "But some untruths are hard to hear and impossible to forgive." Anger suddenly swelled up inside him and he drew Excalibur and turned fiercely on the trapped enemy. "Does any man of you want to fight for your King's lies?" he shouted as he paced up and down their line. "Is there one of you? Just one man willing to fight for that evil thing that dies with you? Just one? Or else I'll have your King's soul cursed to the last darkness! Come on, fight!" He flailed Excalibur at their raised s.h.i.+elds. "Fight! You sc.u.m!" His rage was as terrible as anything the vale had seen that whole day. "In the name of the G.o.ds," he called, "I declare your King a liar, a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, a thing without honour, a nothing!" He spat at them, then fumbled one-handed at the buckles of my leather breastplate that he still wore. He succeeded in freeing the shoulder straps, but not the waist, so that the breastplate hung in front of him like a blacksmith's ap.r.o.n. "I'll make it easy for you!" he yelled. "No armour. No s.h.i.+eld. Come and fight me! Prove to me that your b.a.s.t.a.r.d wh.o.r.e-monger ing King speaks truth! Not one of you?" His rage was out of control for he was in the G.o.ds' hands now and spattering his anger at a world that cowered from his dreadful force. He spat again. "You rancid wh.o.r.es!" He whirled around as Cuneglas reappeared in the s.h.i.+eld-wall. "You, whelp?" He pointed Excalibur at Cuneglas. "You'd fight for that lump of dying filth?"

Cuneglas, like every man there, was shaken by Arthur's fury, but he walked weaponless from the s.h.i.+eld-wall and then, just feet from Arthur, he sank to his knees. "We are at your mercy, Lord Arthur," he said and Arthur stared at him. His body was tense for all the rage and frustration of a day's fighting was boiling inside him and for a second I thought that Excalibur would hiss in the dusk to strike Cuneglas's head from his shoulders, but then Cuneglas looked up. "I am now King of Powys, Lord Arthur, but at your mercy."

Arthur closed his eyes. Then, still with his eyes shut, he felt for Excalibur's scabbard and thrust the long sword home. He turned away from Cuneglas, opened his eyes and stared at us, his spearmen, and I saw the madness pa.s.s away from him. He was still seething with anger, but the uncontrollable rage had pa.s.sed and his voice was calm as he begged Cuneglas to stand. Then Arthur summoned his banner holders so that the twin standards of the dragon and the bear would add dignity to his words. "My terms are these," he said so that everyone in the darkening vale could hear him. "I demand King Gundleus's head. He has kept it too long and the murderer of my King's mother must be brought to justice. That granted, I ask only for peace between King Cuneglas and my King and between King Cuneglas and King Tewdric. I ask for peace between all the Britons."

There was an astonished silence. Arthur was the winner on this field. His forces had killed the enemy's king and captured Powys's heir, and every man in the vale expected Arthur to demand a royal ransom for Cuneglas's life. Instead he was asking for nothing but peace.

Cuneglas frowned. "What of my throne?" he managed to ask.

"Your throne is yours, Lord King," Arthur said. "Whose else can it be? Accept my terms, Lord King, and you are free to return to it."

"And Gundleus's throne?" Cuneglas asked, perhaps suspecting that Arthur wanted Siluria for himself.

"Is not yours," Arthur replied firmly, 'nor mine. Together we shall find someone to keep it warm. Once Gundleus is dead," he added ominously. "Where is he?" Cuneglas gestured towards the village. "In one of the buildings, Lord." Arthur turned towards Powys's defeated spearmen and raised his voice so that each man could hear him.

"This war should never have been fought!" he called. "That it was fought is my fault, and I accept that fault and shall pay for it in any coin other than my life. To the Princess Ceinwyn I owe more than apology and shall pay whatever she demands, but all I now ask is that we should be allies. New Saxons come daily to take our land and enslave our women. We should fight them, not amongst ourselves. I ask for your friends.h.i.+p, and as a token of that desire I leave you your land, your weapons and your gold. This is neither victory nor defeat' he gestured at the b.l.o.o.d.y, smoke-palled valley 'it is a peace. All I ask is peace and one life. That of Gundleus." He looked back to Cuneglas and lowered his voice. "I wait your decision, Lord King."

The Druid lorweth hurried to Cuneglas's side and the two men spoke together. Neither seemed to believe Arthur's offer, for warlords were not usually magnanimous in victory. Battle winners demanded ransom, gold, slaves and land; Arthur wanted only friends.h.i.+p. "What of Gwent?" Cuneglas asked Arthur. "What will Tewdric want?"

Arthur made a show of looking about the darkening valley. "I see no men of Gwent, Lord King. If a man is not party to a fight then he cannot be party to the settlement afterward. But I can tell you, Lord King, that Gwent craves for peace. King Tewdric will ask for nothing except your friends.h.i.+p and the friends.h.i.+p of my King. A friends.h.i.+p we shall mutually pledge never to break."

"And I am free to go if I give you that pledge?" Cuneglas asked suspiciously.

"Wherever you wish, Lord King, though I ask your permission to come to you at Caer Sws to talk further."

"And my men are free to go?" Cuneglas asked.

"With their weapons, their gold, their lives and my friends.h.i.+p," Arthur answered. He was at his most earnest, desperate to ensure that this was the last battle ever to be fought among the Britons, though he had taken good care, I noticed, to mention nothing of Ratae. That surprise could wait. Cuneglas still seemed to find the offer too good to be true, but then, perhaps remembering his former friends.h.i.+p with Arthur, he smiled. "You shall have your peace, Lord Arthur."

"On one last condition," Arthur said unexpectedly and harshly, yet not loudly, so that only a few of us could hear his words. Cuneglas looked wary, but waited. "Promise me, Lord King," Arthur said, 'upon your oath and upon your honour, that at his death your father lied to me." Peace hung on Cuneglas's answer. He momentarily closed his eyes as though he was hurt; then he spoke.

"My father never cared for truth, Lord Arthur, but only for those words that would achieve his ambitions. My father was a liar, upon my oath."

"Then we have peace!" Arthur exclaimed. I had only seen him happier once, and that was when he had wed his Guinevere, but now, amidst the smoke and reek of a battle won, he looked almost as joyful as he had in that flowered glade beside the river. Indeed, he could hardly speak for joy for he had gained what he wanted more than anything in all the world. He had made peace. Messengers went north and south, to Caer Sws and to Durnovaria, to Magnis and into Siluria. Lugg Vale stank of blood and smoke. Many of the wounded were dying where they had fallen and their cries were pitiful in the night while the living huddled round fires and talked of wolves coming from the hills to feast on the battle's dead.

Arthur seemed almost bewildered by the size of his victory. He was now, though he could scarcely comprehend it, the effective ruler of southern Britain, for there were no other men who would dare stand against his army, battered though it was. He needed to talk with Tewdric, he needed to send spearmen back to the Saxon frontier, he desperately wanted his good news to reach Guinevere, and all the while men begged him for favours and land, for gold and rank. Merlin was telling him about the Cauldron, Cuneglas wanted to discuss Aelle's Saxons, while Arthur wanted to talk of Lancelot and Ceinwyn, and Oengus Mac Airem was demanding land, women, gold and slaves from Siluria. I demanded only one thing on that night, and that one thing Arthur granted me. He gave me Gundleus.

The King of Siluria had taken refuge in a small Roman-built temple that was attached to the larger Roman house in the small village. The temple was made of stone and had no windows except for a crude hole let into its high gable to let smoke out, and only one door which opened on to the house's stableyard. Gundleus had tried to escape from the vale, but his horse had been cut down by one of Arthur's hors.e.m.e.n and now, like a rat in its last hole, the King waited his doom. A handful of loyal Silurian spearmen guarded the temple door, but they deserted when they saw my warriors advance out of the dark.

Tanaburs alone was left to guard the fire lit temple where he had made a small ghost-fence by placing two newly severed heads at the foot of the door's twin posts. He saw our spearheads glitter in the stableyard gate and he raised his moon-tipped staff as he spat curses at us. He was calling on the G.o.ds to shrivel our souls when, quite suddenly, his screeching stopped.

It stopped when he heard Hywelbane sc.r.a.ping from her scabbard. At that sound he peered into the dark yard as Nimue and I advanced together and, recognizing me, he gave a small frightened cry like the sound of a hare trapped by a wildcat. He knew that I owned his soul and so he scuttled in terror through the temple door. Nimue kicked the two heads scornfully aside then followed me inside. She was carrying a sword. My men waited outside.

The temple had once been dedicated to some Roman G.o.d, though now it was the British G.o.ds for whom the skulls were stacked so high against its bare stone walls. The skulls' dark eye-sockets gazed blankly towards the twin fires that lit the high narrow chamber where Tanaburs had made himself a circle of power with a ring of yellowing skulls. He now stood in that circle chanting spells, while behind him, against the far wall where a low stone altar was stained black with sacrificial blood, Gundleus waited with his drawn sword.

Tanaburs, his embroidered robe spattered with mud and blood, raised his staff and hurled foul curses at me. He cursed me by water and by fire, by earth and by air, by stone and by flesh, by dewfall and by moonlight, by life and by death, and not one of the curses stopped me as I slowly walked towards him with Nimue in her stained white robe beside me. Tanaburs spat a final curse, then pointed the staff straight at my face. "Your mother lives, Saxon!" he cried. "Your mother lives and her life is mine. You hear me, Saxon?" He leered at me from inside his circle and his ancient face was shadowed by the temple's twin fires, which gave his eyes a red, feral threat. "You hear me?" he cried again. "Your mother's soul is mine! I coupled with her to make it so! I made the two-backed beast with her and drew her blood to make her soul mine. Touch me, Saxon, and your mother's soul goes to the fire-dragons. She will be crushed by the ground, burned by the air, choked by the water and thrust into pain for evermore. And not just her soul, Saxon, but the soul of every living thing that ever slithered from her loins. I put her blood into the ground, Saxon, and slid my power into her belly." He laughed and raised his staff high towards the temple's beamed roof. "Touch me, Saxon, and the curse will take her life and through her life yours." He lowered the staff so it pointed at me again. "But let me go, and you and she will live."

I stopped at the circle's edge. The skulls did not make a ghost-fence, but there was still a dreadful power in their array. I could feel that power like unseen wings battering great strokes to baffle me. Cross the skull-circle, I thought, and I would enter the G.o.ds' playground to contend against things I could not imagine, let alone understand. Tanaburs saw my uncertainty and smiled in triumph. "Your mother is mine, Saxon," he crooned, 'made mine, all mine, her blood and soul and body are mine, and that makes you mine for you were born in blood and pain from my body." He moved his staff so that its moon tip touched my breast. "Shall I take you to her, Saxon? She knows you live and a two-day journey will bring you back to her." He smiled wickedly. "You are mine," he cried, 'all mine! I am your mother and your father, your soul and your life. I made the charm of oneness on your mother's womb and you are now my son! Ask her!" He twitched his staff towards Nimue. "She knows that charm." Nimue said nothing, but just stared balefully at Gundleus while I looked into the Druid's horrid eyes. I was frightened to cross his circle, terrified by his threats, but then, in a sickening rush, the events of that long-ago night came back to me as if they had happened just yesterday. I remembered my mother's cries and I remembered her pleading with the soldiers to leave me at her side and I remembered the spearmen laughing and striking her head with their spear-staves, and I remembered this cackling Druid with the hares and moons on his robe and the bones in his hair and I remembered how he had lifted me and fondled me and said what a fine gift for the G.o.ds I would make. All that I remembered, just as I remembered being lifted up, screaming for my mother who could not help me, and I remembered being carried through the twin lines of fire where the warriors danced and the women moaned, and I remembered Tanaburs holding me high above his tonsured head as he walked to the edge of a pit that was a black circle in the earth surrounded by fires whose flames burned bright enough to illuminate the blood-smeared tip of a sharpened stake that protruded from the bowels of the round dark pit. The memories were like pain serpents biting at my soul as I remembered the b.l.o.o.d.y sc.r.a.ps of flesh and skin hanging from the fire lit stake and the half-comprehended horror of the broken bodies that writhed in slow pitiful agony as they died in the b.l.o.o.d.y darkness of this Druid's death-pit. And I remembered how I still screamed for my mother as Tanaburs lifted me to the stars and prepared to give me to his G.o.ds. "To Gofannon," he had shouted, and my mother screamed as she was raped and I screamed because I knew I was going to die, 'to Lleullaw," Tanaburs shouted, 'to Cernunnos, to Taranis, to Sucellos, to Bel!" And on that last great name he had hurled me down on to the killing stake. And he had missed.

My mother had been screaming, and I still heard her screams as I kicked my way through Tanaburs's circle of skulls, and her screams melded into the Druid's shriek as I echoed his long-ago cry of death. "To Bel!"I shouted.

Hywelbane cut down. And I did not miss. Hywelbane cut Tanaburs down through the shoulder, down through the ribs and such was the sheer blood-sodden anger in my soul that Hywelbane cut on down through his scrawny belly and deep into his stinking bowels so that his body burst apart like a rotted corpse, and all the time I screamed the awful scream of a little child being given to the death-pit. The skull circle filled with blood and my eyes with tears as I looked up at the King who had slain Ralla's child and Mordred's mother. The King who had raped Nimue and taken her eye, and remembering that pain I took Hywelbane's hilt in both my hands and wrenched the blade free of the dirty offal at my feet and stepped across the Druid's body to carry death to Gundleus.

"He's mine," Nimue shouted at me. She had taken off her eye patch so that her empty socket leered red in the flame light She walked past me, smiling. "You're mine," she crooned, 'all mine," and Gundleus screamed.

And perhaps, in the Otherworld, Norwenna heard that scream and knew that her son, her little winter-born son, was still the King.