Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘Yes, Lord,’ I admitted. Merlin had told me so long before, but he had sworn me to secrecy for fear that Arthur might destroy the sword to demonstrate his lack of superstition.

‘Merlin has demanded its return,’ Arthur said. He had always known that demand might come, right from the distant day when Merlin had given the young Arthur the magical sword.

‘You will give it to him?’ I asked anxiously.

He grimaced. ‘If I don’t, Derfel, will that stop Merlin’s nonsense?’

‘If it is nonsense, Lord,’ I said, and I remembered that shimmering naked girl and told myself she was a harbinger of wondrous things.

Arthur unbuckled the belt with its cross-hatched scabbard. ‘You take it to him, Derfel,’ he said grudgingly, ‘you take it to him.’ He pushed the precious sword into my hands. ‘But tell Merlin I want her back.’

‘I will, Lord,’ I promised. For if the Gods did not come on Samain Eve then Excalibur would have to be drawn and carried against the army of all the Saxons.

But Samain Eve was very near now, and on that night of the dead the Gods would be summoned. And next day I carried Excalibur south to make it happen.

Mai Dun is a great hill that lies to the south of Durno varia and at one time it must have been the greatest fortress in all Britain. It has a wide, gently domed summit stretching east and west around which the old people built three huge walls of steeply embanked turf. No one knows when it was built, or even how, and some believe that the Gods themselves must have dug the ramparts for that triple wall seems much too high, and its ditches far too deep, for mere human work, though neither the height of the walls nor the depth of the ditches prevented the Romans from capturing the fortress and putting its garrison to the sword. Mai Dun has lain empty since that day, but for a small stone temple of Mithras that the victorious Romans built at the eastern end of the summit plateau. In summer the old fortress is a lovely place where sheep graze the precipitous walls and butterflies flicker above the grass, wild thyme and orchids, but in late autumn, when the nights close in early and the rains sweep across Dumnonia from the west, the summit can be a chill bare height where the wind bites hard. The main track to the summit leads to the maze-like western gate and the path was slippery with mud as I carried Excalibur to Merlin. A horde of common folk trudged with me. Some had great bundles of firewood on their backs, others were carrying skins of drinking water while a few were goading oxen that dragged great tree trunks or pulled sledges heaped with trimmed branches. The oxen’s flanks ran with blood as they struggled to haul their loads up the steep, treacherous path to where, high above me on the outermost grass rampart, I could see spearmen standing guard. The presence of those spearmen confirmed what I had been told in Durnovaria, that Merlin had closed Mai Dun to all except those who came to work.

Two spearmen guarded the gate. Both were Irish Blackshield warriors, hired from Oengus mac Airem, and I wondered how much of Merlin’s fortune was being spent on readying this desolate grass fort for the coming of the Gods. The men recognized that I was not one of the folk working at Mai Dun and came down the slope to meet me. ‘You have business here, Lord?’ one of them asked respectfully. I was not in armour, but I wore Hywelbane and her scabbard alone marked me as a man of rank.

‘I have business with Merlin,’ I said.

The Blackshield did not stand aside. ‘Many folk come here, Lord,’ he said, ‘and claim to have business with Merlin. But does Lord Merlin have business with them?’

‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that Lord Derfel has brought him the last Treasure.’ I tried to imbue the words with a due sense of ceremony, but they did not seem to impress the Blackshields. The younger man climbed away with the message while the older chatted to me. Like most of Oengus’s spearmen he seemed a cheerful rogue. The Blackshields came from Demetia, a kingdom Oengus had made on Britain’s west coast, but though they were invaders, Oengus’s Irish spearmen were not hated like the Saxons. The Irish fought us, they stole from us, they enslaved us and they took our land, but they spoke a language close to ours, their Gods were our Gods and, when they were not fighting us, they mingled easily enough with the native Britons. Some, like Oengus himself, now seemed more British than Irish, for his native Ireland, which had always taken pride in never having been invaded by the Romans, had now succumbed to the religion the Romans had brought. The Irish had adopted Christianity, though the Lords Across the Sea, who were those Irish kings like Oengus who had taken land in Britain, still clung to their older Gods, and next spring, I reflected, unless Merlin’s rites brought those Gods to our rescue, these Blackshield spearmen would doubtless fight for Britain against the Saxons.

It was young Prince Gawain who came from the summit to meet me. He strode down the track in his limewashed wargear, though his splendour was spoilt when his feet shot out from under him on a muddy patch and he bumped a few yards on his bottom. ‘Lord Derfel!’ he called as he scrambled up again,

‘Lord Derfel! Come, come! Welcome!’ He beamed a wide smile as I approached. ‘Is not this the most exciting thing?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know yet, Lord Prince.’

‘A triumph!’ he enthused, carefully stepping around the muddy patch that had caused his downfall. ‘A great work! Let us pray it will not be in vain.’

‘AH Britain prays for that,’ I said, ‘except maybe the Christians.’

‘In three days’ time, Lord Derfel,’ he assured me, ‘there will be no more Christians in Britain, for all will have seen the true Gods by then. So long,’ he added anxiously, ‘as it does not rain.’ He looked up at the dismal clouds and suddenly seemed close to tears.

‘Rain?’ I asked.

‘Or maybe it is cloud that will deny us the Gods. Rain or cloud, I am not sure, and Merlin is impatient. He doesn’t explain, but I think rain is the enemy, or maybe it is cloud.’ He paused, still miserable. ‘Both, perhaps. I asked Nimue, but she doesn’t like me,’ he sounded very woeful, ‘so I am not sure, but I am beseeching the Gods for clear skies. And of late it has been cloudy, very cloudy, and I suspect the Christians are praying for rain. Have you really brought Excalibur?’

I unwrapped the cloth from the scabbarded sword and held the hilt towards him. For a moment he dared not touch it, then he gingerly reached out and drew Excalibur from its scabbard. He stared reverently at the blade, then touched with his finger the chased whorls and incised dragons that decorated the steel. ‘Made in the Otherworld,’ he said in a voice full of wonder, ‘by Gofannon himself!’

‘More likely forged in Ireland,’ I said uncharitably, for there was something about Gawain’s youth and credulity that was driving me to puncture his pious innocence.

‘No, Lord,’ he assured me earnestly, ‘it was made in the Otherworld.’ He pushed Excalibur back into my hands. ‘Come, Lord,’ he said, trying to hurry me, but he only slipped in the mud again and flailed for balance. His white armour, so impressive at a distance, was shabby. Its limewash was mud-streaked and fading, but he possessed an indomitable self-confidence that prevented him from appearing ridiculous. His long golden hair was bound in a loose plait that hung down to the small of his back. As we negotiated the entrance passage that twisted between the high grass banks I asked Gawain how he had met Merlin.

‘Oh, I’ve known Merlin all my life!’ the Prince answered happily. ‘He came to my father’s court, you see, though not so much of late, but when I was just a little boy he was always there. He was my teacher.’