Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘She comes with me!’ Morgan insisted.

‘I have orders from Arthur,’ I insisted to Morgan, and that settled the matter, though in truth her brother’s orders were terrible and vague. If Guinevere is in danger, Arthur had told me, I was to fetch her or maybe kill her, but I had decided to fetch her, and instead of sending her to safety across the Severn I would carry her still closer to the danger.

‘It’s rather like watching a herd of cows threatened by wolves,’ Guinevere said when I reached her room. She was standing at the window from where she could see Morgan’s women running to and fro between their buildings and the boats that waited beyond the shrine’s western palisade. ‘What’s happening, Derfel?’

‘You were right, Lady. The Saxons are attacking in the south.’ I decided not to tell her that it was Lancelot who led that southern assault.

‘Do you think they’ll come here?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. I just know that we can’t defend any place except where Arthur is, and he’s at Corinium.’

‘In other words,’ she said with a smile, ‘everything is confusion?’ She laughed, sensing an opportunity in that confusion. She was dressed in her usual drab clothes, but the sun shone through the open window to give her splendid red hair a golden aura. ‘So what does Arthur want to do with me?’ she asked. Death? No, I decided, he had never really wanted that. What he wanted was what his proud soul would not let him take for itself. ‘I am just ordered to fetch you, Lady,’ I answered instead.

‘To go where, Derfel?’

‘You can sail across the Severn with Morgan,’ I said, ‘or come with me. I’m taking folk north to Corinium and I dare say from there you can travel on to Glevum. You’ll be safe there.’

She walked from the window and sat in a chair beside the empty hearth. ‘Folk,’ she said, plucking the word from my sentence. ‘What folk, Derfel?’

I blushed. ‘Argante. Ceinwyn, of course.’

Guinevere laughed. ‘I would like to meet Argante. Do you think she’d like to meet me?’

‘I doubt it, Lady.’

‘I doubt it too. I imagine she’d prefer me to be dead. So, I can travel with you to Corinium, or go to Siluria with the Christian cows? I think I’ve heard enough Christian hymns to last me a lifetime. Besides, the greater adventure lies at Corinium, don’t you think?’

‘I fear so, Lady.’

‘Fear? Oh, don’t fear, Derfel.’ She laughed with an exhilarating happiness. ‘You all forget how good Arthur is when nothing goes right. It will be a joy to watch him. So when do we leave?’

‘Now,’ I said, ‘or as soon as you’re ready.’

‘I’m ready,’ she said happily, ‘I’ve been ready to leave this place for a year.’

‘Your servants?’

‘There are always other servants,’ she said carelessly. ‘Shall we go?’

I only had the one horse and so, out of politeness, I offered it to her and walked beside her as we left the shrine. I have rarely seen a face as radiant as Guinevere’s face was that day. For months she had been locked inside Ynys Wydryn’s walls, and suddenly she was riding a horse in the open air, between new-leaved birch trees and under a sky unlimited by Morgan’s palisade. We climbed to the land bridge beyond the Tor and once we were on that high bare ground she laughed and gave me a mischievous glance. ‘What’s to stop me riding away, Derfel?’

‘Nothing at all, Lady.’

She whooped like a girl and kicked back her heels, then kicked again to force the tired mare into a gallop. The wind streamed in her red curls as she galloped free on the grassland. She shouted for the joy of it, curving the horse around me in a great circle. Her skirts blew back, but she did not care, she just kicked the horse again and so rode around and around until the horse was blowing and she was breathless. Only then did she curb the mare and slide out of the saddle. ‘I’m so sore!’ she said happily.

‘You ride well, Lady,’ I said.

‘I dreamed of riding a horse again. Of hunting again. Of so much.’ She patted her skirts straight, then gave me an amused glance. ‘What exactly did Arthur order you to do with me?’

I hesitated. ‘He was not specific, Lady.’

‘To kill me?’ she asked.

‘No, Lady!’ I said, sounding shocked. I was leading the mare by her reins and Guinevere was walking beside me.

‘He certainly doesn’t want me in Cerdic’s hands,’ she said tartly, ‘I’d just be an embarrassment! I suspect he flirted with the idea of slitting my throat. Argante must have wanted that. I certainly would if I were her. I was thinking about that as I rode around you just now. Suppose, I thought, that Derfel has orders to kill me? Should I keep riding? Then I decided you probably wouldn’t kill me, even if you did have orders. He’d have sent Culhwch if he wanted me dead.’ She suddenly grunted and bent her knees to imitate Culhwch’s limping walk. ‘Culhwch would cut my throat,’ she said, ‘and wouldn’t think twice about it.’ She laughed, her new high spirits irrepressible. ‘So Arthur wasn’t specific?’

‘No, Lady.’

‘So truly, Derfel, this is your idea?’ She waved at the countryside.

‘Yes, Lady,’ I confessed.

‘I hope Arthur thinks you did the right thing,’ she said, ‘otherwise you’ll be in trouble.’

‘I’m in trouble enough already, Lady,’ I confessed. ‘The old friendship seems dead.’

She must have heard the bleakness in my voice, for she suddenly put an arm through mine. ‘Poor Derfel. I suppose he’s ashamed?’

I was embarrassed. ‘Yes, Lady.’

‘I was very bad,’ she said in a rueful voice. ‘Poor Arthur. But do you know what will restore him? And your friendship?’

‘I’d like to know, Lady.’

She took her arm from mine. ‘Grinding the Saxons into offal, Derfel, that’s what will bring Arthur back. Victory! Give Arthur victory and he’ll give us his old soul back.’

‘The Saxons, Lady,’ I warned her, ‘are halfway to victory already.’ I told her what I knew: that the Saxons were rampaging free to the east and south, our forces were scattered and that our only hope was to assemble our army before the Saxons reached Corinium, where Arthur’s small warband of two hundred spearmen waited alone. I assumed Sagramor was retreating towards Arthur, Culhwch was coming from the south, and I would go north as soon as Issa returned with Argante. Cuneglas would doubtless march from the north and Oengus mac Airem would hurry from the west the moment they heard the news, but if the Saxons reached Corinium first, then all hope was gone. There was little enough hope even if we did win the race, for without Gwent’s spearmen we would be so outnumbered that only a miracle could save us.

‘Nonsense!’ Guinevere said when I had explained the situation. ‘Arthur hasn’t even begun to fight!

We’re going to win, Derfel, we’re going to win!’ And with that defiant statement she laughed and, forgetting her precious dignity, danced some steps on the verge of the track. All seemed doom, but Guinevere was suddenly free and full of light and I had never liked her as much as I did at that moment. Suddenly, for the first time since I had seen the beacon fires smoking in the Beltain dusk, I felt a surge of hope.

The hope faded quickly enough, for at Dun Caric there was nothing but chaos and mystery. Issa had not returned and the small village beneath the hall was filled with refugees who were fleeing from rumour, though none had actually seen a Saxon. The refugees had brought their cattle, their sheep, their goats and their pigs, and all had converged on Dun Caric because my spearmen offered an illusion of safety. I used my servants and slaves to start new rumours that said Arthur would be withdrawing westwards to the country bordering Kernow, and that I had decided to cull the refugees’ herds and flocks to provide rations for my men and those false rumours were enough to start most of the families walking towards the distant Kernow frontier. They should be safe enough on the great moors and by fleeing westwards their cattle and sheep would not block the roads to Corinium. If I had simply ordered them towards Kernow they would have been suspicious and lingered to make certain that I was not tricking them. Issa was not with us by nightfall. I was still not unduly worried, for the road to Durnovaria was long and it was doubtless thronged with refugees. We made a meal in the hall and Pyrlig sang us the song of Uther’s great victory over the Saxons at Caer Idem. When the song ended, and I had tossed Pyrlig a golden coin, I remarked that I had once heard Cynyr of Gwent sing that song, and Pyrlig was impressed.