Bernard Cornwell - The Winter King

Galahad could not sleep. The fire flickered low while above us the stars shone bright. One fell, cutting its swift white path through the heavens and Galahad made the sign of the cross for he was a Christian and to him a falling star was the sign of a demon falling from paradise. “It was on earth once,” he said.

“What was?” I asked.

“Paradise.” He leaned back on the grass and rested his head on his arms. “Sweet paradise.”

“Ynys Trebes, you mean?”

“No, no. I mean, Derfel, that when God made man He gave us a paradise in which to live, and it occurs to me that we have been losing that paradise, inch by inch, ever since. And soon, I think, it will be gone. Darkness descends.” He went silent for a while, then sat up as his thoughts gave him a new energy. “Just think of it,” he said, 'not a hundred years ago this land was peaceful. Men built great houses. We can't build like they did. I know Father has made a fine palace, but it's just broken pieces of old palaces cobbled together and patched with stone. We can't build like the Romans. We can't build as high, or as beautifully. We can't make roads, we can't make canals, we can't make aqueducts.“ I did not even know what an aqueduct was, but kept silent as Culhwch snored contentedly beside me. ”The Romans built whole cities,“ Galahad went on, 'places so vast, Derfel, it would take a whole morning to walk from one side of the city to the other and all of your footsteps would fall on trimmed, dressed stone. And in those days you could walk for weeks and still be on Rome's land, subject to Rome's laws and listening to Rome's language. Now look at it.” He waved at the night. “Just darkness. And it spreads, Derfel. The dark is creeping into Armorica. Benoic will go, and after Benoic, Broceliande, and after Broceliande, Britain. No more laws, no more books, no more music, no more justice, only vile men round smoky fires planning on who they'll kill next day.”

“Not while Arthur lives,” I said stubbornly.

“One man against the dark?” Galahad asked sceptic ally

“Wasn't your Christ one man against the dark?” I asked.

Galahad thought for a second, staring into the fire that shadowed his strong face. “Christ,” he said finally,

'was our last chance. He told us to love one another, to do good to each other, to give alms to the poor, food to the hungry, cloaks to the naked. So men killed Him.“ He turned and looked at me. ”I think Christ knew what was coming and that was why He promised us that if we lived as He lived then one day we'd be with Him in paradise. Not on earth, Derfel, but in paradise. Up there' he pointed to the stars' because He knew the earth was finished. We're in the last days. Even your Gods have fled from us. Isn't that what you tell me? That your Merlin is scouring strange lands to find clues to the old Gods, but what use will the clues be? Your religion died long ago when the Romans ravaged Ynys Mon and all you have left are disconnected scraps of knowledge. Your Gods are gone."

“No,” I said, thinking of Nimue who felt their presence, though to me the Gods were always distant and shadowy. Bel, to me, was like Merlin, only far away and indescribably huge and far more mysterious. I thought of Bel as somehow living in the far north, while Manawydan must live in the west where the waters tumbled endlessly.

“The old Gods are gone,” Galahad insisted. “They abandoned us because we are not worthy.”

“Arthur is worthy,” I said stubbornly, 'and so are you.“ He shook his head. ”I am a sinner so vile, Derfel, that I cringe.“ I laughed at his abject tone. ”Nonsense," I said.

“I kill, I lust, I envy.” He was truly miserable, but then Galahad, like Arthur, was a man who was for ever judging his own soul and finding it wanting and I never met such a man who was happy for long.

“You only kill men who would kill you,” I defended him.

“And, God help me, I enjoy it.” He made the sign of the cross.

“Good,” I said. “And what's wrong with lust?”

“It overcomes reason.”

“But you're reasonable,” I pointed out.

“But I lust, Derfel, how I lust. There is a girl in Ynys Trebes, one of my father's harpists.” He shook his head hopelessly.

“But you control your lust,” I said, 'so be proud of that."

“I am proud of it, and pride is another sin.”

I shook my head at the hopelessness of arguing with him. “And envy?” I offered him the last of his trinity of sins. “Whom do you envy?”

“Lancelot.”

“Lancelot?” I was surprised.

“Because he is Edling, not I. Because he takes what he wants, when he wants, and does not seem to regret it. That harpist? He took her. She screamed, she fought, but no one dared stop him for he was Lancelot.”

“Not even you?”

“I would have killed him, but I was far from the city.”

“Your father didn't stop him?”

“My father was with his books. He probably thought the girl's screams were a gull calling into the sea wind or two of his fili having a squabble about a metaphor.”

I spat into the fire. “Lancelot is a worm,” I said.

“No,” Galahad insisted, 'he is, simply, Lancelot. He gets what he wants and he spends his days plotting how to get it. He can be very charming, very plausible and he could even be a great king."

“Never,” I said firmly.

“Truly. If power is what he wants, and it is, and if he receives it, then perhaps his appetites will be slaked? He does want to be liked.”

“He goes a strange way about it,” I said, remembering how Lancelot had taunted me at his father's table.

“He knew, from the first, that you were not going to like him and so he challenged you. That way, when he makes an enemy of you, he can explain to himself why you don't like him. But with people who don't threaten him he can be kind. He might be a great king.”

“He's weak,” I said scornfully.

Galahad smiled. “Strong Derfel. Derfel the Doubtless. You must think we're all weak.”

“No,” I said, 'but I think we're all tired and tomorrow we have to kill Franks, so I'll sleep." And next day we did kill Franks, and afterwards we rested in one of Ban's hilltop forts before, with our wounds bandaged and our battered swords sharpened, we went back into the woods. Yet week by week, month by month, we fought closer to Ynys Trebes. King Ban called on his neighbour, Budic of Broceliande, to send troops, but Budic was fortifying his own frontier and declined to waste men on defending a lost cause. Ban appealed to Arthur, and though Arthur did send one small shipload of men, he did not come himself. He was too busy fighting Saxons. We did get news from Britain, though such news was infrequent and often vague, but we heard that new hordes of Saxons were trying to colonize the middle lands and pressing hard on Dumnonia's borders. Gorfyddyd, who had been such a threat when I left Britain, had been quieter of late, thanks to a terrible plague that had afflicted his country. Travellers told us that Gorfyddyd himself was ill and many thought he would not last the year. The same sickness that had afflicted Gorfyddyd had killed Ceinwyn's betrothed, a prince of Rheged. I had not even known she was betrothed again and I confess that I felt a selfish pleasure that the dead prince of Rheged would not marry the star of Powys. Of Guinevere, Nimue or Merlin I heard nothing. Ban's kingdom crumbled. There were no men to gather the harvest in the last year and that winter we huddled in a fortress on the southern edge of the kingdom where we lived on venison, roots, berries and wildfowl. We still made an occasional raid into Prankish territory, but now we were like wasps trying to sting a bull to death for the Franks were everywhere. Their axes rang through the winter forests as they cleared land for their farms while their new-built stockades of brightly split logs shone in the pale wintry sun.