Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

Aelle curbed his beast on a shoulder of the hill where he waited for me, then, when I joined him, he mutely pointed down into a saddle of land. An army was there. I could not count them, so many men were gathered in that fold of land, and these men, I knew, were but a part of Aelle’s army. The Saxon warriors stood in a great crowd and when they saw their King on the skyline they burst into a huge roar of acclamation and began to beat their spear shafts against their shields so that the whole grey sky was filled with their terrible clattering. Aelle raised his scarred right hand and the noise died away. ‘You see, Derfel?’ he asked me.

‘I see what you choose to show me, Lord King,’ I answered evasively, knowing exactly what message I was being given by the stranded boats and the mass of armoured men.

‘I am strong now,’ Aelle said, ‘and Arthur is weak. Can he even raise five hundred men? I doubt it. The spearmen of Powys will come to his aid, but will they be enough? I doubt it. I have a thousand trained spearmen, Derfel, and twice as many hungry men who will wield an axe to gain a yard of ground they can call their own. And Cerdic has more men still, far more, and he needs land even more desperately than I do. We both need land, Derfel, we both need land, and Arthur has it, and Arthur is weak.’

‘Gwent has a thousand spearmen,’ I said, ‘and if you invade Dumnonia Gwent will come to its aid.’ I was not sure of that, but it would do no harm to Arthur’s cause to sound confident. ‘Gwent, Dumnonia and Powys,’ I said, ‘all will fight, and there are still others who will come to Arthur’s banner. The Black-shields will fight for us, and spearmen will come from Gwynedd and Elmet, even from Rheged and Lothian.’

Aelle smiled at my boastfulness. ‘Your lesson is not yet done, Derfel,’ he said, ‘so come.’ And again he spurred on, still climbing the hill, but now he inclined east towards a grove of trees. He dismounted by the wood, gestured for his escort to stay where they were, then led me along a narrow damp path to a clearing where two small wooden buildings stood. They were little more than huts with pitched roofs of rye-thatch and low walls made from untrimmed tree trunks. ‘See?’ he said, pointing to the nearer hut’s gable.

I spat to avert the evil, for there, high on the gable, was a wooden cross. Here, in pagan Lloegyr, was one of the last things I had ever expected to see: a Christian church. The second hut, slightly lower than the church, was evidently living quarters for the priest who greeted our arrival by crawling out through the low door of his hovel. He wore the tonsure, had a monk’s black robe and a tangled brown beard. He recognized Aelle and bowed low. ‘Christ’s greetings, Lord King!’ the man called in badly accented Saxon.

‘Where are you from?’ I asked in the British tongue.

He looked surprised to be spoken to in his native language. ‘From Gobannium, Lord,’ he told me. The monk’s wife, a draggled creature with resentful eyes, crawled from the hovel to stand beside her man.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked him.

‘The Lord Christ Jesus has opened King Aelle’s eyes, Lord,’ he said, ‘and invited us to bring the news of Christ to his people. I am here with my brother priest Gorfydd to preach the gospel to the Sais.’

I looked at Aelle, who was smiling slyly. ‘Missionaries from Gwent?’ I asked.

‘Feeble creatures, are they not?’ Aelle said, gesturing the monk and his wife back into their hut. ‘But they think they will turn us from the worship of Thunor and Seaxnet and I am content to let them think as much. For now.’

‘Because,’ I said slowly, ‘King Meurig has promised you a truce so long as you let his priests come to your people?’

Aelle laughed. ‘He is a fool, that Meurig. He cares more for the souls of my people than for the safety of his land, and two priests are a small price for keeping Gwent’s thousand spearmen idle while we take Dumnonia.’ He put an arm about my shoulders and led me back towards the horses. ‘You see, Derfel? Gwent will not fight, not while their King believes there is a chance of spreading his religion among my people.’

‘And is the religion spreading?’ I asked.

He snorted. ‘Among a few slaves and women, but not many, and it won’t spread far. I’ll see to that. I saw what that religion did to Dumnonia, and I’ll not allow it here. Our old Gods are good enough for us, Derfel, so why should we need new ones? That’s half the trouble with the Britons. They’ve lost their Gods.’

‘Merlin has not,’ I said.

That checked Aelle. He turned in the shadow of the trees and I saw the worry on his face. He had always been fearful of Merlin. ‘I hear tales,’ he said uncertainly.

‘The Treasures of Britain,’ I said.

‘What are they?’ he demanded.

‘Nothing much, Lord King,’ I said, honestly enough, ‘just a tattered collection of old things. Only two are of any real value; a sword and a cauldron.’

‘You have seen them?’ he asked fiercely.

‘Yes.’

‘What will they do?’

I shrugged. ‘No one knows. Arthur believes they will do nothing, but Merlin says they command the Gods and that if he performs the right magic at the right time then the old Gods of Britain will do his bidding.’

‘And he’ll unleash those Gods on us?’

‘Yes, Lord King,’ I said, and it would be soon, very soon, but I did not say that to my father. Aelle frowned. ‘We have Gods too,’ he said.

‘Then call them, Lord King. Let the Gods fight the Gods.’

‘Gods aren’t fools, boy,’ he growled, ‘why should they fight when men can do their killing for them?’

He began walking again. ‘I am old now,’ he told me, ‘and in all my years I have never seen the Gods. We believe in them, but do they care about us?’ He gave me a worried look. ‘Do you believe in these Treasures?’

‘I believe in Merlin’s power, Lord King.’

‘But Gods walking the earth?’ He thought about it for a while, then shook his head. ‘And if your Gods come, why should ours not come to protect us? Even you, Derfel,’ he spoke sarcastically, ‘would find it hard to fight Thunor’s hammer.’ He had led me out of the trees and I saw that both his escort and our horses were gone. ‘We can walk,’ Aelle said, ‘and I shall tell you all about Dumnonia.’

‘I know about Dumnonia, Lord King.’

‘Then you know, Derfel, that its King is a fool, and that its ruler does not want to be a King, not even a, whatever it is you call him, a kaiser?’

‘An emperor,’ I said.

‘An emperor,’ he repeated, mocking the word with his pronunciation. He was leading me along a path beside the woods. No one else was in sight. To our left the ground fell away to the misted levels of the estuary, while to our north were the deep, dank woods. ‘Your Christians are rebellious,’ Aelle summed up his argument, ‘your King is a crippled fool and your leader refuses to steal the throne from the fool. In time, Derfel, and sooner rather than later, another man will want that throne. Lancelot nearly took it, and a better man than Lancelot will try soon enough.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Why did Guinevere open her legs to him?’ he asked.

‘Because Arthur wouldn’t become King,’ I said bleakly.

‘Then he is a fool. And next year he’ll be a dead fool unless he accepts a proposal.’

‘What proposal, Lord King?’ I asked, stopping beneath a fiery red beech. He stopped and placed his hands on my shoulders. ‘Tell Arthur to give the throne to you, Derfel.’

I stared into my father’s eyes. For a heartbeat I thought he must be jesting, then saw he was as earnest as a man could be. ‘Me?’ I asked, astonished.

‘You,’ Aelle said, ‘and you swear loyalty to me. I shall want land from you, but you can tell Arthur to give the throne to you, and you can rule Dumnonia. My people will settle and farm the land, and you shall govern them, but as my client King. We shall make a federation, you and I. Father and son. You rule Dumnonia and I rule Aengeland.’