Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘So without Gwent’s spearmen,’ I said gloomily, ‘we’re doomed.’

Arthur had rarely smiled since Guinevere’s treachery, but he smiled now. ‘Doomed? Who says that?’

‘You do, Lord. The numbers do.’

‘You’ve never fought and won when you’ve been outnumbered?’

‘Yes, Lord, I have.’

‘So why can’t we win again?’

‘Only a fool seeks a battle against a stronger enemy, Lord,’ I said.

‘Only a fool seeks a battle,’ he said vigorously. ‘I don’t want to fight in the spring. It’s the Saxons who want to fight, and we have no choice in the matter. Believe me, Derfel, I don’t wish to be outnumbered, and whatever I can do to persuade Meurig to fight, I will do, but if Gwent won’t march then we shall have to beat the Saxons by ourselves. And we can beat them! Believe that, Derfel!’

‘I believed in the Treasures, Lord.’

He gave a derisory bark of laughter. ‘This is the Treasure I believe in,’ he said, patting Excalibur’s hilt.

‘Believe in victory, Derfel! If we march against the Saxons like beaten men then they’ll give our bones to the wolves. But if we march like winners we’ll hear them howl.’

It was a fine bravado, but it was hard to believe in victory. Dumnonia was shrouded with gloom. We had lost our Gods, and folk said it was Arthur who had driven them away. He was not just the enemy of the Christian God, now he was the enemy of all the Gods and men said that the Saxons were his punishment. Even the weather presaged disaster for, on the morning after I parted from Arthur, it began to rain and it seemed as though that rain would never stop. Day after day brought low grey clouds, a chill wind, and insistent driving rain. Everything was wet. Our clothes, our bedding, our firewood, the floor-rushes, the very walls of our houses seemed greasy with damp. Spears rusted in their racks, stored grain sprouted or grew mouldy, and still the rain drove relentlessly from the west. Ceinwyn and I did our best to seal Dun Caric’s hall. Her brother had brought her a gift of wolf pelts from Powys and we used them to line the timber walls, but the very air beneath the roof beams seemed sodden. Fires burned sullen to grudge us a spitting and smoky warmth that reddened our eyes. Both our daughters were cross-grained that early winter. Morwenna, the eldest, who was usually the most placid and contented of children, became shrewish and so insistently selfish that Ceinwyn took a belt to her. ‘She misses Gwydre,’ Ceinwyn told me afterwards. Arthur had decreed that Gwydre would not leave his side, and so the boy had gone with his father to meet King Meurig. ‘They should marry next year,’ Ceinwyn added. ‘That will cure her.’

‘If Arthur will let Gwydre marry her,’ I responded gloomily. ‘He has no great love for us these days.’ I had wanted to accompany Arthur into Gwent, but he had peremptorily refused me. There had been a time when I had thought myself his closest friend, but now he growled at me rather than welcomed me.

‘He thinks I risked Gwydre’s life,’ I said.

‘No,’ Ceinwyn disagreed. ‘He’s been distant with you ever since the night when he discovered Guinevere.’

‘Why would that change things?’

‘Because you were with him, my dear,’ Ceinwyn said patiently, ‘and with you he cannot pretend that nothing has changed. You were a witness to his shame. He sees you and he remembers her. He’s also jealous.’

‘Jealous?’

She smiled. ‘He thinks you are happy. He thinks now that if he had married me then he too would be happy.’

‘He probably would,’ I said.

‘He even suggested it,’ Ceinwyn said carelessly.

‘He did what?’ I erupted.

She soothed me. ‘It wasn’t serious, Derfel. The poor man needs reassurance. He thinks that because one woman rejected him all women might, and so he asked me.’

I touched Hywelbane’s hilt. ‘You never told me.’

‘Why should I? There was nothing to tell. He asked a very clumsy question and I told him I was sworn to the Gods to be with you. I told him very gently, and afterwards he was very ashamed. I also promised him that I would not tell you, and I’ve now broken that promise which means I shall be punished by the Gods.’ She shrugged as if to suggest that the punishment would be deserved and thus accepted. ‘He needs a wife,’ she added wryly.

‘Or a woman.’

‘No,’ Ceinwyn said. ‘He isn’t a casual man. He can’t lie with a woman and walk away afterwards. He confuses desire with love. When Arthur gives his soul he gives everything, and he cannot give just a little bit of himself.’

I was still angry. ‘What did he think I would do while he married you?’

‘He thought you would rule Dumnonia as Mordred’s guardian,’ Ceinwyn said. ‘He had this odd idea that I would go with him to Broceliande and there we would live like children under the sun, and you would stay here and defeat the Saxons.’ She laughed.

‘When did he ask?’

‘The day he ordered you to go and see Aelle. I think he thought I’d run away with him while you were gone.’

‘Or he hoped Aelle would kill me,’ I said resentfully, remembering the Saxon promise to slaughter any emissary.

‘He was very ashamed afterwards,’ Ceinwyn assured me earnestly. ‘And you’re not to tell him I told you.’ She made me promise that, and I kept the promise. ‘It really wasn’t important,’ she added, ending the conversation. ‘He’d have been truly shocked if I’d have said yes. He asked, Derfel, because he is in pain and men in pain behave desperately. What he really wants is to run away with Guinevere, but he can’t, because his pride won’t let him and he knows we all need him to defeat the Saxons.’

We needed Meurig’s spearmen to do that, but we heard no news of Arthur’s negotiations with Gwent. Weeks passed and still no certain news came from the north. A travelling priest from Gwent told us that Arthur, Meurig, Cuneglas and Emrys had talked for a week in Burrium, Gwent’s capital, but the priest knew nothing of what had been decided. The priest was a small, dark man with a squint and a wispy beard that he moulded with beeswax into the shape of a cross. He had come to Dun Caric because there was no church in the small village and he wanted to establish one. Like many such itinerant priests he had a band of women; three drab creatures who clustered protectively about him. I first heard of his arrival when he began to preach outside the smithy beside the stream and I sent Issa and a pair of spearmen to stop his nonsense and bring him up to the hall. We fed him a gruel of sprouted barley grains that he ate greedily, spooning the hot mixture into his mouth and then hissing and spluttering because the food burned his tongue. Scraps of gruel lodged on his odd-shaped beard. His women refused to eat until he had finished.

‘All I know, Lord,’ he answered our impatient questions, ‘is that Arthur has now travelled west.’

‘Where?’

‘To Demetia, Lord. To meet Oengus mac Airem.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Lord.’

‘Does King Meurig make preparations for war?’ I asked.

‘He is prepared to defend his territory, Lord.’

‘And to defend Dumnonia?’

‘Only if Dumnonia recognizes the one God, the true God,’ the priest said, crossing himself with the wooden spoon and splattering his dirty gown with scraps of the barley gruel. ‘Our King is fervent for the cross and his spears won’t be offered to pagans.’ He looked up at the ox-skull that was nailed onto one of our high beams and made the sign of the cross again.

‘If the Saxons take Dumnonia,’ I said, ‘the.n Gwent won’t be far behind.’

‘Christ will protect Gwent,’ the priest insisted. He gave the bowl to one of his women who scooped up his scant leavings with a dirty finger. ‘Christ will protect you, Lord,’ the priest continued, ‘if you humble yourself before Him. If you renounce your Gods and are baptized then you will have victory in the new year.’