Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘We all want peace,’ I said, ‘but if Dumnonia falls then Gwent will be the next country to feel the Saxon blades.’

‘Meurig insists not,’ the Bishop said, ‘and he is offering sanctuary to any Dumnonian Christian who wishes to avoid the war.’

That was bad news, for it meant that anyone who had no stomach to face Aelle and Cerdic need only claim the Christian faith to be given refuge in Meurig’s kingdom. ‘Does he really believe his God will protect him?’ I asked Emrys.

‘He must, Lord, for what other use is God? But God, of course, may have other ideas. It is so very hard to read His mind.’ The Bishop was now warm enough to risk shedding the big cloak of bear fur from his shoulders. Beneath it he wore a sheepskin jerkin. He put his hand inside the jerkin and I assumed he was scratching for a louse, but instead he brought out a folded parchment that was tied with a ribbon and sealed with a melted drop of wax. ‘Arthur sent this to me from Demetia,’ he said, offering me the parchment, ‘and asked that you should deliver it to the Princess Guinevere.’

‘Of course,’ I said, taking the parchment. I confess I was tempted to break the seal and read the document, but resisted the temptation. ‘Do you know what it says?’ I asked the Bishop.

‘Alas, Lord, no,’ Emrys said, though without looking at me, and I suspected the old man had broken the seal and did know the letter’s contents, but was unwilling to admit that small sin. ‘I’m sure it is nothing important,’ the Bishop said, ‘but he particularly asked that she should receive it before the solstice. Before he returns, that is.’

‘Why did he go to Demetia?’ Ceinwyn asked.

‘To assure himself that the Blackshields will fight this spring, I assume,’ the Bishop said, but I detected an evasion in his voice. I suspected the letter would contain the real reason for Arthur’s visit to Oengus mac Airem, but Emrys could not reveal that without also admitting that he had broken the seal. I rode to Ynys Wydryn next day. It was not far, but the journey took most of the morning for in places I had to lead my horse and mule through drifts of snow. The mule was carrying a dozen of the wolf pelts that Cuneglas had brought us and they proved a welcome gift because Guinevere’s timber-walled prison room was full of cracks through which the wind hissed cold. I discovered her crouched beside a fire that burned in the centre of the room. She straightened when I was announced, then dismissed her two attendants to the kitchens. ‘I am tempted,’ she said, ‘to become a kitchenmaid myself. The kitchen is at least warm, but sadly full of canting Christians. They can’t break an egg without praising their wretched God.’ She shivered and drew her cloak tight about her slender shoulders. ‘The Romans,’ she said,

‘knew how to keep warm, but we seem to have lost that skill.’

‘Ceinwyn sent you these, Lady,’ I said, dropping the skins on the floor.

‘You will thank her for me,’ Guinevere said and then, despite the cold, she went and pushed open the shutters of a window so that daylight could come into the room. The fire swayed under the rush of cold air and sparks whirled up to the blackened beams. Guinevere was robed in thick brown wool. She was pale, but that haughty, green-eyed face had lost none of its power or pride. ‘I had hoped to see you sooner,’ she chided me.

‘It has been a difficult season, Lady,’ I said, excusing my long absence.

‘I want to know, Derfel, what happened at Mai Dun,’ she said.

‘I shall tell you, Lady, but first I am ordered to give you this.’

I took Arthur’s parchment from the pouch at my belt and gave it to her. She tore the ribbon away, levered up the wax seal with a fingernail and unfolded the document. She read it in the glare of the light reflected from the snow through the window. I saw her face tighten, but she showed no other reaction. She seemed to read the letter twice, then folded it and tossed it onto a wooden chest. ‘So tell me of Mai Dun,’ she said.

‘What do you know already?’ I asked.

‘I know what Morgan chooses to tell me, and what that bitch chooses is a version of her wretched God’s truth.’ She spoke loudly enough to be overheard by anyone eavesdropping on our conversation.

‘I doubt that Morgan’s God was disappointed by what happened,’ I said, then told her the full story of that Samain Eve. She stayed silent when I had finished, just staring out of the window at the snow-covered compound where a dozen hardy pilgrims knelt before the holy thorn. I fed the fire from the pile of logs beside the wall.

‘So Nimue took Gwydre to the summit?’ Guinevere asked.

‘She sent Blackshields to fetch him. To kidnap him, in truth. It wasn’t difficult. The town was full of strangers and all kinds of spearmen were wandering in and out of the palace.’ I paused. ‘I doubt he was ever in real danger, though.’

‘Of course he was!’ she snapped.

Her vehemence took me aback. ‘It was the other child who was to be killed,’ I protested, ‘Mordred’s son. He was stripped, ready for the knife, but not Gwydre.’

‘And when that other child’s death had accomplished nothing, what would have happened then?’

Guinevere asked. ‘You think Merlin wouldn’t have hung Gwydre by his heels?’

‘Merlin would not do that to Arthur’s son,’ I said, though I confess there was no conviction in my voice.

‘But Nimue would,’ Guinevere said, ‘Nimue would slaughter every child in Britain to bring the Gods back, and Merlin would have been tempted. To get so close,’ she held a finger and thumb a coin’s breadth apart, ‘and with only Gwydre’s life between Merlin and the return of the Gods? Oh, I think he would have been tempted.’ She walked to the fire and opened her robe to let the warmth inside its folds. She wore a black gown beneath the robe and had not a single jewel in sight. Not even a ring on her fingers. ‘Merlin,’ she said softly, ‘might have felt a pang of guilt for killing Gwydre, but not Nimue. She sees no difference between this world and the Otherworld, so what does it matter to her if a child lives or dies? But the child that matters, Derfel, is the ruler’s son. To gain what is most precious you must give up what is most valuable, and what is valuable in Dumnonia is not some bastard whelp of Mordred’s. Arthur rules here, not Mordred. Nimue wanted Gwydre dead. Merlin knew that, only he hoped that the lesser deaths would suffice. But Nimue doesn’t care. One day, Derfel, she’ll assemble the Treasures again and on that day Gwydre will have his blood drained into the Cauldron.’

‘Not while Arthur lives.’

‘Not while I live either!’ she proclaimed fiercely, and then, recognizing her helplessness, she shrugged. She turned back to the window and let the brown robe drop. ‘I haven’t been a good mother,’ she said unexpectedly. I did not know what to say, so said nothing. I had never been close to Guinevere, indeed she treated me with the same rough mix of affection and derision that she might have extended to a stupid but willing dog, but now, perhaps because she had no one else with whom to share her thoughts, she offered them to me. ‘I don’t even like being a mother,’ she admitted. ‘These women, now,’ she indicated Morgan’s white-robed women who hurried through the snow between the shrine’s buildings, ‘they all worship motherhood, but they’re all as dry as husks. They weep for their Mary and tell me that only a mother can know true sadness, but who wants to know that?’ She asked the question fiercely. ‘It’s all such a waste of life!’ She was bitterly angry now. ‘Cows make good mothers and sheep suckle perfectly adequately, so what merit lies in motherhood? Any stupid girl can become a mother! It’s all that most of them are fit for! Motherhood isn’t an achievement, it’s an inevitability!’ I saw she was weeping despite her anger.