Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

‘What happened to your beard, Lord Derfel?’ Mordred asked with pretended concern. I said nothing.

‘Speak!’ Loholt ordered me, and cuffed me around the face with his stump. The bear claws raked my cheek.

‘It was cut, Lord King,’ I said.

‘Cut!’ He laughed. ‘And do you know why it was cut, Lord Derfel?’

‘No, Lord.’

‘Because you are my enemy,’ he said.

‘Not true, Lord King.’

‘You are my enemy!’ he screamed in a sudden tantrum, banging one arm of the chair and watching to see whether I showed any fear at his anger. ‘As a child,’ he announced to the crowd, ‘this thing raised me. He beat me! He hated me!’ The crowd jeered until Mordred held up a hand to still them. ‘And this man,’ he said, pointing at me with his finger to add bad luck to his words, ‘helped Arthur cut off Prince Loholt’s hand.’ Again the crowd shouted angrily. ‘And yesterday,’ Mordred went on, ‘Lord Derfel was found in my kingdom with a strange banner.’ He jerked his right hand and two men ran forward with Gwydre’s urine-soaked flag. ‘Whose banner is that, Lord Derfel?’ Mordred asked.

‘It belongs to Gwydre ap Arthur, Lord.’

‘And why is Gwydre’s banner in Dumnonia?’

For a heartbeat or two I thought of telling a lie. Perhaps I could claim that I was bringing the banner as a form of tribute to Mordred, but I knew he would not believe me and, worse, I would despise myself for the lie. So instead I raised my head. ‘I was hoping to raise it on news of your death, Lord King.’

My truth took him by surprise. The crowd murmured, but Mordred just drummed the chair’s arm with his fingers. ‘You declare yourself a traitor,’ he said after a while.

‘No, Lord King,’ I said, ‘I might have hoped for your death, but I did nothing to bring it about.’

‘You didn’t come to Armorica to rescue me!’ he shouted.

‘True,’ I said.

‘Why?’ he asked dangerously.

‘Because I would have thrown good men after bad,’ I said, gesturing at his warriors. They laughed.

‘And did you hope Clovis would kill me?’ Mordred asked when the laughter had died.

‘Many hoped for that, Lord King,’ I said, and again my honesty seemed to surprise him.

‘So give me one good reason, Lord Derfel, why I should not kill you now,’ Mordred commanded me. I stayed silent for a short while, then shrugged. ‘I can think of no reason, Lord King.’

Mordred drew his sword and laid it across his knees, then put his hands flat on the blade. ‘Derfel,’ he announced, ‘I condemn you to death.’

‘It is my privilege, Lord King!’ Loholt demanded eagerly. ‘Mine!’ And the crowd bayed their support for him. Watching my slow death would give them a fine appetite for the supper that was being prepared on the hilltop.

‘It is your privilege to take his hand, Prince Loholt,’ Mordred decreed. He stood and limped carefully down the pile of heads with the drawn sword in his right hand. ‘But it is my privilege,’ he said when he was close to me, ‘to take his life.’ He lifted the sword blade between my legs and gave me a crooked smile. ‘Before you die, Derfel,’ he said, ‘we shall take more than your hands.’

‘But not tonight!’ a sharp voice called from the back of the crowd. ‘Lord King! Not tonight!’ There was a murmur from the crowd. Mordred looked astonished rather than offended at the interruption and said nothing. ‘Not tonight!’ the man called again, and I turned to see Taliesin walking calmly through the excited throng that parted to give him passage. He carried his harp and his small leather bag, but now had a black staff as well so that he looked exactly like a Druid. ‘I can give you a very good reason why Derfel should not die tonight, Lord King,’ Taliesin said as he reached the open space beside the heads.

‘Who are you?’ Mordred demanded.

Taliesin ignored the question. Instead he walked to Fergal and the two men embraced and kissed, and it was only when that formal greeting was done that Taliesin looked back to Mordred. ‘I am Taliesin, Lord King.’

‘A thing of Arthur’s,’ Mordred sneered.

‘I am no man’s thing, Lord King,’ Taliesin said calmly, ‘and as you choose to insult me, then I shall leave my words unsaid. It is all one to me.’ He turned his back on Mordred and began to walk away.

‘Taliesin!’ Mordred called. The bard turned to look at the King, but said nothing. ‘I did not mean to insult you,’ Mordred said, not wanting the enmity of a sorcerer.

Taliesin hesitated, then accepted the King’s apology with a nod. ‘Lord King,’ he said, ‘I thank you.’

He spoke gravely and, as befitted a Druid speaking to a King, without deference or awe. Taliesin was famous as a bard, not as a Druid, but everyone there treated him as though he were a full Druid and he did nothing to correct their misapprehension. He wore the Druidical tonsure, he carried the black staff, he spoke with a sonorous authority and he had greeted Fergal as an equal. Taliesin plainly wanted them to believe his deception, for a Druid cannot be killed or maltreated, even if he is an enemy’s Druid. Even on a battlefield Druids may walk in safety and Taliesin, by playing the Druid, was guaranteeing his own safety. A bard did not have the same immunity.

‘So tell me why this thing,’ Mordred pointed to me with his sword, ‘should not die tonight.’

‘Some years ago, Lord King,’ Taliesin said, ‘the Lord Derfel paid me gold to cast a spell on your wife. The spell caused her to be barren. I used the womb of a doe that I had filled with the ashes of a dead child to perform the charm.’

Mordred looked at Fergal, who nodded. ‘That is certainly one way it can be done, Lord King,’ the Irish Druid confirmed.

‘It isn’t true!’ I shouted and, for my pains, received another raking blow from the bear claws on Loholt’s silver-sheathed stump.

‘I can lift the charm,’ Taliesin went on calmly, ‘but it must be lifted while Lord Derfel lives, for he was the petitioner of the charm, and if I lift it now, while the sun sets, it cannot be done properly. I must do it, Lord King, in the dawn, for the enchantment must be removed while the sun is rising, or else your Queen will stay childless for ever.’

Mordred again glanced at Fergal and the small bones woven into the Druid’s beard rattled as he nodded his assent. ‘He speaks true, Lord King.’

‘He lies!’ I protested.

Mordred pushed his sword back into its scabbard. ‘Why do you offer this, Taliesin?’ he asked. Taliesin shrugged. ‘Arthur is old, Lord King. His power wanes. Druids and bards must seek patronage where the power is rising.’

‘Fergal is my Druid,’ Mordred said. I had thought him a Christian, but was not surprised to hear that he had reverted to paganism. Mordred was never a good Christian, though that, I suspect, was the very least of his sins.

‘I shall be honoured to learn more skills from my brother,’ Taliesin said, bowing to Fergal, ‘and I will swear to follow his guidance. I seek nothing, Lord King, but a chance to use my small powers for your great glory.’

He was smooth. He spoke with honey on his tongue. I had paid him no gold for charms, but everyone there believed him, and none more so than Mordred and Argante. It was thus that Taliesin, the bright-browed, bought me an extra night of life. Loholt was disappointed, but Mordred promised him my soul as well as my hand in the dawn and that gave him some consolation. I was made to crawl back to the hut. I took a beating and kicking on the way, but I lived. Amhar took the leash of hair from my neck, then booted me into the hut. ‘We shall meet in the dawn, Derfel,’ he said.

With the sun in my eyes and a blade at my throat.