Bernard Cornwell: Excalibur

The crowd shouted that he would have it and Merlin beamed approval at them. That benevolent smile made me suspicious. One part of me sensed that he was playing a game with these folk, but even Merlin, I told myself, could not make a girl glow in darkness. I had seen her, and I wanted to believe so badly, and the memory of that lissom, shining body convinced me that the Gods had not abandoned us.

‘You must come to Mai Dun!’ Merlin said sternly. ‘You must come for as long as you are able, and you must bring food. If you have weapons, you must bring them. At Mai Dun we shall work, and the work will be long and hard, but at Samain, when the dead walk, we shall summon the Gods together. You and I!’ He paused, then held the tip of his staff towards the crowd. The black pole wavered, as if it was searching for someone in the throng, then it settled on me. ‘Lord Derfel Cadarn!’ Merlin called.

‘Lord?’ I answered, embarrassed to be singled out from the crowd.

‘You will stay, Derfel. The rest of you go now. Go to your homes, for the Gods will not come again till Samain Eve. Go to your homes, see to your fields, then come to Mai Dun. Bring axes, bring food, and prepare to see your Gods in all their glory! Now, go! Go!’

The crowd obediently went. Many stopped to touch my cloak, for I was one of the warriors who had fetched the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn from its hiding place on Ynys Mon and, to the pagans at least, that made me a hero. They touched Issa too, for he was another Warrior of the Cauldron, but when the crowd was gone he waited at the gate while I went to meet Merlin. I greeted him, but he brushed aside my enquiry as to his health, asking instead if I had enjoyed the evening’s strange happenings.

‘What was it?’ I asked.

‘What was what?’ he asked innocently.

‘The girl in the dark,’ I said.

His eyes widened in mock astonishment. ‘She was here again, was she? How very interesting! Was it the girl with wings, or the one who shines? The shining girl! I have no idea who she is, Derfel. I cannot unriddle every mystery of this world. You have spent too long with Arthur and like him you believe that everything must have a commonplace explanation, but alas, the Gods rarely choose to make themselves clear. Would you be useful and carry the Cauldron inside?’

I lifted the huge Cauldron and took it into the palace’s pillared reception hall. When I had been there earlier in the day the room had been empty, but now there was a couch, a low table and four iron stands on which oil lamps stood. The young, handsome, white-armoured warrior, whose hair hung so long, smiled from the couch while Nimue, dressed in a shabby black robe, carried a lit taper to the lamps' wicks. ‘This room was empty this afternoon,’ I said accusingly.

‘It must have seemed so to you,’ Merlin said airily, ‘but perhaps we simply chose not to show ourselves. Have you met the Prince Gawain?’ He gestured to the young man who stood and bowed to me in greeting. ‘Gawain is son of King Budic of Broceliande,’ Merlin introduced the Prince, ‘which makes him Arthur’s nephew.’

‘Lord Prince,’ I greeted Gawain. I had heard of Gawain, but had never met him. Broceliande was the British kingdom across the sea in Armorica and of late, as the Franks pressed hard on their frontier, visitors from that kingdom had been rare.

‘I am honoured to meet you, Lord Derfel,’ Gawain said courteously, ‘your fame has gone far from Britain.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Gawain,’ Merlin snapped. ‘Derfel’s fame hasn’t gone anywhere, except maybe to his fat head. Gawain is here to help me,’ he explained to me.

‘To do what?’ I asked.

‘Protect the Treasures, of course. He is a formidable spearman, or so I’m told. Is that true, Gawain? You’re formidable?’

Gawain just smiled. He did not look very formidable, for he was still a very young man, maybe only fifteen or sixteen summers, and he did not yet need to shave. His long fair hair gave his face a girlish look, while his white armour, that I had earlier thought was so expensive, was now revealed to be nothing more than a coat of limewash painted on plain iron gear. If it had not been for his self-assurance and undeniable good looks, he would have been risible.

‘So what have you been doing since last we met?’ Merlin demanded of me, and it was then that I had told him of Guinevere and he had scoffed at my belief that she would be imprisoned for life. ‘Arthur is a halfwit,’ he insisted. ‘Guinevere may be clever, but he doesn’t need her. He needs something plain and stupid, something to keep his bed warm while he’s worrying about the Saxons.’ He sat on the couch and smiled as the two small children who had carried the Cauldron out to the courtyard now brought him a plate of bread and cheese with a flask of mead. ‘Supper!’ he said happily. ‘Do join me, Derfel, for we wish to talk to you. Sit! You will find the floor quite comfortable. Sit beside Nimue.’

I sat. Nimue had ignored me thus far. The socket of her missing eye, that had been torn from her face by a king, was covered with an eye-patch, and her hair, that had been cut so short before we went south to Guinevere’s sea palace, was growing back, though it was still short enough to give her a boyish look. She seemed angry, but Nimue always seemed angry. Her life was devoted to one thing only, the pursuit of the Gods, and she despised anything which deflected her from that search and maybe she thought Merlin’s ironic pleasantries were somehow a waste of time. She and I had grown up together and in the years since our childhood I had more than once kept her alive, I had fed her and clothed her, yet still she treated me as though I was a fool.

‘Who rules Britain?’ she asked me abruptly.

‘The wrong question!’ Merlin snapped at her with unexpected vehemence, ‘the wrong question!’

‘Well?’ she demanded of me, ignoring Merlin’s anger.

‘No one rules Britain,’ I said.

‘The right answer,’ Merlin said vengefully. His bad temper had unsettled Gawain, who was standing behind Merlin’s couch and looking anxiously at Nimue. He was frightened of her, but I cannot blame him for that. Nimue frightened most people.

‘So who rules Dumnonia?’ she asked me.

‘Arthur does,’ I answered.

Nimue gave Merlin a triumphant look, but the Druid just shook his head. ‘The word is rex,’ he said,

‘rex, and if either of you had the slightest notion of Latin you would know that rex means king, not emperor. The word for emperor is imperator. Are we to risk everything because you are uneducated?’

‘Arthur rules Dumnonia,’ Nimue insisted.

Merlin ignored her. ‘Who is King here?’ he demanded of me.

‘Mordred, of course.’

‘Of course,’ he repeated. ‘Mordred!’ He spat at Nimue. ‘Mordred!’

She turned away as though he was being tedious. I was lost, not understanding in the least what their argument meant, and I had no chance to ask for the two children appeared through the curtained doorway again to bring more bread and cheese. As they put the plates on the floor I caught a hint of sea smell, that waft of salt and seaweed that had accompanied the naked apparition, but then the children went back through the curtain and the smell vanished with them.

‘So,’ Merlin said to me with the satisfied air of a man who has won his argument, ‘does Mordred have children?’

‘Several, probably,’ I answered. ‘He was forever raping girls.’

‘As kings do,’ Merlin said carelessly, ‘and princes too. Do you rape girls, Gawain?’

‘No, Lord.’ Gawain seemed shocked at the suggestion.

‘Mordred was ever a rapist,’ Merlin said. ‘Takes after his father and grandfather in that, though I must say they were both a great deal gentler than young Mordred. Uther, now, he could never resist a pretty face. Or an ugly one if he was in the mood. Arthur, though, was never given to rape. He’s like you in that, Gawain.’