Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

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

‘Lord Merlin asked us to come,’ Cywwylog said proudly. He’s taken a liking to young Mardoc, he has. He spoils him! Always feeding him, he is, and you’ll get fat, yes, you will, you’ll be fat like a pig!’

And she tickled the boy again who laughed, struggled and at last broke free. He did not run far, but stood a few feet away from where he watched me with his thumb in his mouth.

‘Merlin asked you to come?’ I asked.

‘Needed a cook, Lord, that’s what he said, and I dare say I’m as good a cook as the next woman, and with the money he offered, well, Idfael said I had to come. Not that Lord Merlin eats much. He likes his cheese, he does, but that doesn’t need a cook, does it?’

‘Does he eat shellfish?’

‘He likes his cockles, but we don’t get many of those. No, it’s mostly cheese he eats. Cheese and eggs. He’s not like you, Lord, you were a great one for meat, I remember?’

‘I still am,’ I said.

‘They were good days,’ Cywwylog said. ‘Little Mardoc here is the same age as your Dian. I often thought they’d make good playmates. How is she?’

‘She’s dead, Cywwylog,’ I said.

Her face dropped. ‘Oh, no, Lord, say that isn’t true?’

‘She was killed by Lancelot’s men.’

She spat onto the grass. ‘Wicked men, all of them. I am sorry, Lord.’

‘But she’s happy in the Otherworld,’ I assured her, ‘and one day we’ll all join her there.’

‘You will, Lord, you will. But the others?’

‘Morwenna and Seren are fine.’

‘That’s good, Lord.’ She smiled. ‘Will you be staying here for the Summons?’

‘The Summons?’ That was the first time I had heard it called that. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t been asked. I thought I’d probably watch from Durnovaria.’

‘It’ll be something to see,’ she said, then she smiled and thanked me for talking to her and afterwards she pretended to chase Mardoc who ran away from her squealing with delight. I sat, pleased to have met her again, and then wondered what games Merlin was playing. Why had he wanted to find Cy wwylog? And why hire a cook, when he had never before employed someone to prepare his meals? A sudden commotion beyond the ramparts broke my thoughts and scattered the playing children. I stood up just as two men appeared dragging on a rope. Gawain hurried into sight an instant later, and then, at the rope’s end, I saw a great fierce black stallion. The horse was trying to pull free and very nearly dragged the two men back off the wall, but they snatched at the halter and were hauling the terrified beast forward when the horse suddenly bolted down the steep inner wall and pulled the men behind him. Gawain shouted at them to take care, then half slid and half ran after the great beast. Merlin, apparently unconcerned by the small drama, followed with Nimue. He watched as the horse was led to one of the eastern shelters, then he and Nimue came down to the temple. ‘Ah, Derfel!’ he greeted me carelessly. ‘You look very glum. Is it toothache?’

‘I brought you Excalibur,’ I said stiffly.

‘I can see that with my own eyes. I’m not blind, you know. A little deaf at times, and the bladder is feeble, but what can one expect at my age?’ He took Excalibur from me, drew its blade a few inches from the scabbard, then kissed the steel. ‘The sword of Rhydderch,’ he said in awe, and for a second his face bore an oddly ecstatic look, then he abruptly slammed the sword home and let Nimue take it from him. ‘So you went to your father,’ Merlin said to me. ‘Did you like him?’

‘Yes, Lord.’

‘You always were an absurdly emotional fellow, Derfel,’ Merlin said, then glanced at Nimue who had drawn Excalibur free of its sheath and was holding the naked blade tight against her thin body. For some reason Merlin seemed upset at this and he plucked the scabbard away from her and then tried to take the sword back. She would not let it go and Merlin, after struggling with her for a few heartbeats, abandoned the attempt. ‘I hear you spared Liofa?’ he said, turning back to me. ‘That was a mistake. A very dangerous beast, Liofa is.’

‘How do you know that I spared him?’

Merlin gave me a reproachful look. ‘Maybe I was an owl in the rafters of Aelle’s hall, Derfel, or perhaps I was a mouse in his floor rushes?’ He lunged at Nimue and this time he did succeed in wresting the sword from her grip. ‘Mustn’t deplete the magic,’ he muttered, sliding the blade clumsily back into its scabbard. ‘Arthur did not mind yielding the sword?’ he asked me.

‘Why should he, Lord?’

‘Because Arthur is dangerously close to scepticism,’ Merlin said, stooping to push Excalibur into the temple’s low doorway. ‘He believes we can manage without the Gods.’

‘Then it’s a pity,’ I said sarcastically, ‘that he never saw Olwen the Silver glowing in the dark.’

Nimue hissed at me. Merlin paused, then slowly turned and straightened from the doorway to give me a sour look. ‘Why, Derfel, is that a pity?’ he asked in a dangerous voice.

‘Because if he had seen her, Lord, then surely he would believe in the Gods? So long, of course, as he didn’t discover your shellfish.’

‘So that’s it,’ he said. ‘You’ve been questing about, haven’t you? You’ve been shoving your fat Saxon nose where it oughtn’t to be shoved and you found my piddocks.’

‘Piddocks?’

‘The shellfish, fool, they’re called piddocks. At least, the vulgar call them that.’

‘And they glow?’ I asked.

‘Their juices do have a luminous quality,’ Merlin admitted airily. I could see he was annoyed at my discovery, but he was doing his best not to show any irritation. ‘Pliny mentions the phenomenon, but then he mentions so much that it’s very hard to know quite what to believe. Most of his notions are arrant nonsense, of course. All that rubbish about Druids cutting mistletoe on the sixth day of a new moon! I’d never do that, never! The fifth day, yes, and sometimes the seventh, but the sixth? Never! And he also recommends, as I recall, wrapping a woman’s breast band about the skull to cure an aching head, but the remedy doesn’t work. How could it? The magic is in the breasts, not in the band, so it is clearly far more efficacious to bury the aching head in the breasts themselves. The remedy has never failed me, that’s for sure. Have you read Pliny, Derfel?’

‘No, Lord.’

‘That’s right, I never taught you Latin. Remiss of me. Well, he does discuss the piddock and he noted that the hands and mouths of those who ate the creature glowed afterwards, and I confess I was intrigued. Who would not be? I was reluctant to explore the phenomenon further, for I have wasted a great deal of my time on Pliny’s more credulous notions, but that one turned out to be accurate. Do you remember Caddwg? The boatman who rescued us from Ynys Trebes? He is now my piddock hunter. The creatures live in holes in the rocks, which is inconvenient of them, but I pay Caddwg well and he assiduously winkles them out as a proper piddock hunter should. You look disappointed, Derfel.’

‘I thought, Lord,’ I began, then faltered, knowing I was about to be mocked.

‘Oh! You thought the girl came from the heavens!’ Merlin finished the sentence for me, then hooted with derision. ‘Did you hear that, Nimue? Our great warrior, Derfel Cadarn, believed our little Olwen was an apparition!’ He drew out the last word, giving it a portentous tone.

‘He was supposed to believe that,’ Nimue said drily.

‘I suppose he was, come to think of it,’ Merlin admitted. ‘It’s a good trick, isn’t it, Derfel?’

‘But just a trick, Lord,’ I said, unable to hide my disappointment.