Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

Arthur came to the hall and I thought how different he looked without Excalibur hanging in its cross-hatched scabbard. He grunted when he saw the rain had stopped, then listened to Bishop Emrys’s plea. ‘I’ll have my spearmen in the streets,’ he assured the Bishop, ‘and so long as your folks don’t taunt the pagans, they’ll be safe.’ He took a horn of mead from a slave, then turned back to the Bishop. ‘I wanted to see you anyway,’ he said, and told the Bishop his worries about King Meurig of Gwent. ‘If Gwent won’t fight,’ Arthur warned Emrys, ‘then the Saxons will outnumber us.’

Emrys blanched. ‘Gwent won’t let Dumnonia fall, surely!’

‘Gwent has been bribed, Bishop,’ I told him, and described how Aelle had allowed Meurig’s missionaries into his territory. ‘So long as Meurig thinks there’s a chance of converting the Sais,’ I said,

‘he won’t lift a sword against them.’

‘I must rejoice at the thought of evangelizing the Saxons,’ Emrys said piously.

‘Don’t,’ I warned him. ‘Once those priests have served Aelle’s purpose he’ll cut their throats.’

‘And afterwards cut ours,’ Cuneglas added grimly. He and Arthur had decided to make a joint visit to the King of Gwent, and Arthur now urged Emrys to join them. ‘He’ll listen to you, Bishop,’ Arthur said,

‘and if you can convince him that Dumnonia’s Christians are more threatened by the Saxons than they are by me, then he might change his mind.’

‘I shall come gladly,’ Emrys said, ‘very gladly.’

‘And at the very least,’ Cuneglas said grimly, ‘young Meurig will need to be persuaded to let my army cross his territory.’

Arthur looked alarmed. ‘He might refuse?’

‘So my informants say,’ Cuneglas said, then shrugged. ‘But if the Saxons do come, Arthur, I shall cross his territory whether he gives permission or not.’

‘Then there’ll be war between Gwent and Powys,’ Arthur noted sourly, ‘and that will help only the Sais.’ He shuddered. ‘Why did Tewdric ever give up the throne?’ Tewdric was Meu-rig’s father, and though Tewdric had been a Christian he had always led his men against the Saxons at Arthur’s side. The last red light in the west faded. For a few moments the world was suspended between light and dark, and then the gulf swallowed us. We stood in the window, chilled by the damp wind, and watched the first stars prick through the chasms in the clouds. The waxing moon was low over the southern sea where its light was diffused around the edges of a cloud that hid the stars forming the head of the snake constellation. It was nightfall on Samain Eve and the dead were coming. A few fires lit Durnovaria’s houses, but the country beyond was utterly black except where a shaft of moonlight silvered a patch of trees on the shoulder of a distant hill. Mai Dun was nothing but a looming shadow in the darkness, a blackness at the dead night’s black heart. The dark deepened, more stars appeared and the moon flew wild between ragged clouds. The dead were streaming over the bridge of swords now and were here among us, though we could not see them, or hear them, but they were here, in the palace, in the streets, in every valley and town and household of Britain, while on the battlefields, where so many souls had been torn from their earthly bodies, the dead were wandering as thick as starlings. Dian was under the trees at Ermid’s Hall, and still the shadowbodies streamed across the bridge of swords to fill the isle of Britain. One day, I thought, I too would come on this night to see my children and their children and their children’s children. For all time, I thought, my soul would wander the earth each Samain Eve.

The wind calmed. The moon was again hidden by a great bank of cloud that hung above Armorica, but above us the skies were clearer. The stars, where the Gods lived, blazed in the emptiness. Culhwch had come back to the palace and he joined us at the window where we crowded to watch the night. Gwydre had returned from the town, though after a while he got bored with staring into a damp darkness and went to see his friends among the palace’s spearmen.

‘When do the rites begin?’ Arthur asked.

‘Not for a long time yet,’ I warned him. ‘The fires must burn for six hours before the ceremony starts.’

‘How does Merlin count the hours?’ Cuneglas asked.

‘In his head, Lord King,’ I answered.

The dead glided among us. The wind had dropped to nothing and the stillness made the dogs howl in the town. The stars, framed by the silver-edged clouds, seemed unnaturally bright. And then, quite suddenly, from the dark within the night’s harsh dark, from Mai Dun’s wide walled summit, the first fire blazed and the summoning of the Gods had begun.

For a moment that one flame leapt pure and bright above Mai Dun’s ramparts, then the fires spread until the wide bowl formed by the grassy banks of the fortress walls was filled with a dim and smoky light. I imagined men thrusting torches deep into the high, wide hedges, then running with the flame to carry the fire out into the central spiral or along the outer rings. The fires caught slowly at first, the flames fighting against the hissing wet timbers above them, but the heat gradually boiled away the damp and the glow of the blaze became brighter and brighter until the fire had at last gripped all that great pattern and the light flared huge and triumphant in the night. The crest of the hill was now a ridge of fire, a boiling tumult of flame above which the smoke was touched red as it churned skywards. The fires were bright enough to cast flickering shadows in Durnovaria where the streets were filled with people; some had even climbed onto rooftops to watch the distant conflagration.

‘Six hours?’ Culhwch asked me with disbelief.

‘So Merlin told me.’

Culhwch spat. ‘Six hours! I could go back to the redhead.’ But he did not move, indeed none of us moved; instead we watched that dance of flame above the hill. It was the balefire of Britain, the end of history, the summons to the Gods, and we watched it in a tense silence as though we expected to see the livid smoke torn apart by the descent of the Gods.

It was Arthur who broke the tension. ‘Food,’ he said gruffly. ‘If we have to wait six hours, then we might as well eat.’

There was small conversation during that meal, and most of what there was concerned King Meurig of Gwent and the terrible possibility that he would keep his spearmen out of the coming war. If, I kept thinking, there would be war at all, and I constantly glanced out of the window to where the flames leapt and the smoke boiled. I tried to gauge the passing of the hours, but in truth I had no idea whether one hour passed or two before the meal ended and we were once again standing beside the big open window to gaze at Mai Dun where, for the first time ever, the Treasures of Britain had been assembled. There was the Basket of Garanhir which was a willow-woven dish that might carry a loaf and some fishes, though the weave was now so ragged that any respectable woman would long ago have consigned the basket to the fire. The Horn of Bran Galed was an ox horn that was black with age and chipped at its tin-rimmed edges. The Chariot of Modron had been broken over the years and was so small that none but a child could ever ride in it, if indeed it could ever be reassembled. The Halter of Eiddyn was an ox halter of frayed rope and rusted iron rings that even the poorest peasant would hesitate to use. The Knife of Laufrodedd was blunt and broad-bladed and had a broken wooden handle, while the Whetstone of Tudwal was an abraded thing any craftsman would be ashamed to possess. The Coat of Padarn was threadbare and patched, a beggar’s garment, but still in better repair than the Cloak of Rhegadd which was supposed to grant its wearer invisibility, but which was now scarcely more than a cobweb. The Dish of Rhygenydd was a flat wooden platter cracked beyond all use, while the Throwboard of Gwenddolau was an old, warped piece of wood on which the gaming marks had worn almost clean away. The Ring of Eluned looked like a common warrior-ring, the simple metal circles that spearmen liked to make from their dead enemy’s weapons, but all of us had thrown away better-looking warrior-rings than the Ring of Eluned. Only two of the Treasures had any intrinsic value. One was the Sword of Rhydderch, Excalibur, that had been forged in the Otherworld by Gofannon himself, and the other was the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. Now all of them, the tawdry and the splendid alike, were ringed by fire to signal to their distant Gods.