Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘Till Arthur forgives him,’ I said, ‘which he will, for Arthur always forgives his enemies.’

‘How very Christian of him.’

‘How very stupid of him,’ I said, making sure that Gwydre was not in earshot. He had gone to look at the bear. ‘But I can’t see Arthur forgiving your half-brother,’ I went on. ‘I saw him a few days ago.’

‘Lancelot?’ Galahad asked, sounding surprised. ‘Where?’

‘With Cerdic.’

Galahad made the sign of the cross, oblivious to the scowls it attracted. In Durnovaria, as in most towns in Dumnonia, the majority of folk were Christian, but today the streets were thronged with pagans from the countryside and many were eager to pick fights with their Christian enemies. ‘You think Lancelot will fight for Cerdic?’ Galahad asked me.

‘Does he ever fight?’ I responded caustically.

‘He can.’

‘Then if he fights at all,’ I said, ‘it will be for Cerdic.’

‘Then I pray I am given the chance to kill him,’ Galahad said, and again crossed himself.

‘If Merlin’s scheme works,’ I said, ‘there won’t be a war. Just a slaughter led by the Gods.’

Galahad smiled. ‘Be honest with me, Derfel, will it work?’

‘That’s what we’re here to see,’ I said evasively, and it struck me suddenly that there must be a score of Saxon spies in the town who would have come to see the same thing. Those men would probably be followers of Lancelot, Britons who could mingle unnoticed in the expectant throng that swelled all day. If Merlin failed, I thought, then the Saxons would take heart and the spring battles would be all the harder. The rain began to fall more steadily and I called Gwydre and the three of us ran back to the palace. Gwydre begged his father for permission to watch the summoning from the fields close under Mai Dun’s ramparts, but Arthur shook his head. ‘If it rains like this,’ Arthur told him, ‘then nothing will happen anyway. You’ll just catch cold, and then — ’ he stopped abruptly. And then your mother will be angry with me, he had been about to say.

‘Then you’ll pass the cold to Morwenna and Seren,’ I said, ‘and I’ll catch it from them, and I’ll give it your father, and then the whole army will be sneezing when the Saxons come.’

Gwydre thought about that for a second, decided it was nonsense, and tugged his father’s hand.

‘Please!’ he said.

‘You can watch from the upper hall with the rest of us,’ Arthur insisted.

‘Then can I go back and watch the bear father? It’s getting drunk and they’re going to put dogs on it

I’ll stand under a porch to keep dry. I promise. Please, father?’

Arthur let him go and I sent Issa to guard him, then Galahad and I climbed to the palace’s upper hall. A year before, when Guinevere had still sometimes visited this palace, it had been elegant and clean, but now it was neglected, dusty and forlorn. It was a Roman building and Guinevere had tried to restore it to its ancient splendour, but it had been plundered by Lancelot’s forces in the rebellion and nothing had been done to repair the damage. Cuneglas’s men had made a fire on the hall’s floor and the heat of the logs was buckling the small tiles. Cuneglas himself was standing at the wide window from where he was staring gloomily across Durnovaria’s thatch and tile towards the slopes of Mai Dun that were almost hidden by veils of rain. ‘It is going to let up, isn’t it?’ he appealed to us as we entered.

‘It’ll probably get worse,’ Galahad said, and just at that moment a rumble of thunder sounded to the north and the rain perceptibly hardened until it was bouncing four or five inches from the rooftops. The firewood on Mai Dun’s summit would be getting a soaking, but so far only the outer layers would be drenched while the timber deep in the heart of the fires would still be dry. Indeed that inner timber would stay dry through an hour or more of this heavy rain, and dry timber at the heart of a fire will soon burn the damp from the outer layers, but if the rain persisted into the night then the fires would never blaze properly. ‘At least the rain will sober up the drunks,’ Galahad observed. Bishop Emrys appeared in the hall door, the black skirts of his priest’s robe drenched and muddy. He gave Cuneglas’s fearsome pagan spearmen a worried glance, then hurried over to join us at the window.

‘Is Arthur here?’ he asked me.

‘He’s somewhere in the palace,’ I said, then introduced Emrys to King Cuneglas and added that the Bishop was one of our good Christians.

‘I trust we are all good, Lord Derfel,’ Emrys said, bowing to the King.

‘To my mind,’ I said, ‘the good Christians are the ones who did not rebel against Arthur.’

‘Was it a rebellion?’ Emrys asked. ‘I think it was a madness, Lord Derfel, brought on by pious hope, and I daresay that what Merlin is doing this day is exactly the same thing. I suspect he will be disappointed, just as many of my poor folk were disappointed last year. But in tonight’s disappointment, what might happen? That’s why I’m here.’

‘What will happen?’ Cuneglas asked.

Emrys shrugged. ‘If Merlin’s Gods fail to appear, Lord King, then who will be blamed? The Christians. And who will be slaughtered by the mob? The Christians.’ Emrys made the sign of the cross.

‘I want Arthur’s promise to protect us.’

‘I’m sure he’ll give it gladly,’ Galahad said.

‘For you, Bishop,’ I added, ‘he will.’ Emrys had stayed loyal to Arthur, and he was a good man, even if he was as cautious in his advice as he was ponderous in his old body. Like me, the Bishop was a member of the Royal Council, the body that ostensibly advised Mordred, though now that our King was a prisoner in Lindinis, the council rarely met. Arthur saw the counsellors privately, then made his own decisions, but the only decisions that really needed to be made were those that prepared Dumnonia for the Saxon invasion and all of us were content to let Arthur carry that burden. A fork of lightning slithered between the grey clouds, and a moment later a crack of thunder sounded so loud that we all involuntarily ducked. The rain, already hard, suddenly intensified, beating furiously on the roofs and churning streamlets of water down Durnovaria’s streets and alleys. Puddles spread on the hall floor.

‘Maybe,’ Cuneglas observed dourly, ‘the Gods don’t want to be summoned?’

‘Merlin says they are far off,’ I said, ‘so this rain isn’t their doing.’

‘Which is proof, surely, that a greater God is behind the rain,’ Emrys argued.

‘At your request?’ Cuneglas enquired acidly.

‘I did not pray for rain, Lord King,’ Emrys said. ‘Indeed, if it will please you, I shall pray for the rain to cease.’ And with that he closed his eyes, spread his arms wide and raised his head in prayer. The solemnity of the moment was somewhat spoilt by a drop of rainwater that came through the roof tiles to fall straight onto his tonsured forehead, but he finished his prayer and made the sign of the cross. And miraculously, just as Emrys’s pudgy hand formed the sign of the cross on his dirty gown, the rain began to relent. A few flurries still came hard on the west wind, but the drumming on the roof ceased abruptly and the air between our high window and Mai Dun’s crest began to clear. The hill still looked dark under the grey clouds, and there was nothing to be seen on the old fortress except for a handful of spearmen guarding the ramparts and, below them, a few pilgrims who had lodged themselves as high as they dared on the hill’s slopes. Emrys was not certain whether to be pleased or downcast at the efficacy of his prayer, but the rest of us were impressed, especially as a rift opened in the western clouds and a watery shaft of sunlight slanted down to turn the slopes of Mai Dun green. Slaves brought us warmed mead and cold venison, but I had no appetite. Instead I watched as the afternoon sank into evening and as the clouds grew ragged. The sky was clearing, and the west was becoming a great furnace blaze of red above distant Lyonesse. The sun was sinking on Samain Eve, and all across Britain and even in Christian Ireland folk were leaving food and drink for the dead who would cross the gulf of Annwn on the bridge of swords. This was the night when the ghostly procession of shadowbodies came to visit the earth where they had breathed and loved and died. Many had died on Mai Dun and tonight that hill would be thick with their wraiths; then, inevitably, I thought of Dian’s little shadowbody wandering among the ruins of Ermid’s Hall.