Bernard Cornwell - Enemy of God

He laughed. ‘Guinevere and I talk of Dumnonia. Of Britain. And, of course, about Isis.’ Some of his enthusiasm dissipated at the mention of that name, but then he shrugged. ‘Not that we’re together often enough. That’s why I always hoped Mordred would take the burden, then I would be here all my days.’

‘Talking of broken pothooks instead of Isis?’ I teased him.

‘Of those and everything else,’ he said warmly. ‘I’ll farm this land one day, and Guinevere will go on with her work.’

‘Her work?’

He smiled wryly. ‘To know Isis. She tells me that if she can just make contact with the Goddess then the power will flow back down to the world.’ He shrugged, sceptical as always of such extravagant religious claims. Only Arthur would have dared plunge Excalibur into the soil and challenge Gofannon to come to his aid, for he did not really believe Gofannon would ever come. We are to the Gods, he once told me, like mice in a thatch, and we survive only so long as we are not noticed. But love alone demanded that he extend a wry tolerance to Guinevere’s passion. ‘I wish I could be more convinced of Isis,’ he admitted to me now, ‘but, of course, men aren’t part of her mysteries.’ He smiled. ‘Guinevere even calls Gwydre Horus.’

‘Horus?’

‘Isis’s son,’ he explained. ‘Ugly name.’

‘Not as bad as Wygga,” I said.

‘Who?’ he asked, then suddenly stiffened. ‘Look!’ he said excitedly, ‘look!’

I raised my head to peer over the flowery screen and there was Guinevere. Even from a quarter mile away she was unmistakable, for her red hair sprang in an unruly mass above the long blue robe she wore. She was walking along the nearer arcade towards the small open pavilion at its seaward end. Three maidservants walked behind with two of her deerhounds. The guards stepped aside and bowed as she passed. Once at the pavilion Guinevere sat at a stone table and the three maids served her breakfast.

‘She’ll be eating fruit,’ Arthur said fondly. ‘In summer she’ll eat nothing else in the morning.’ He smiled.

‘If she just knew how close I was!’

‘Tonight, Lord,’ I assured him, ‘you will be with her.’

He nodded. ‘At least they’re treating her well.’

‘Lancelot fears you too much to treat her badly, Lord.’

A few moments later Dinas and Lavaine appeared on the arcade. They wore their white Druidical robes and I touched Hywelbane’s hilt when I saw them and promised my daughter’s soul that her killers’

screams would make the whole Otherworld cringe in fear. The two Druids reached the pavilion, bowed to Guinevere, then joined her at the table. Gwydre came running a few moments later and we saw Guinevere ruffle his hair, then send him away in a servant’s keeping. ‘He’s a good boy,’ Arthur said fondly. ‘No deceit in him. Not like Amhar and Loholt. I failed them, didn’t I?’

‘They’re still young, Lord,’ I said.

‘But they serve my enemy now,’ he said bleakly. ‘What shall I do with them?’

Culhwch would doubtless have advised that he kill them, but I just shrugged. ‘Send them into exile,’ I said. The twins could join the unhappy men who had no oath-lord. They could sell their swords until at last they were killed in some unremembered battle against the Saxons or the Irish or the Scots. More women appeared on the arcade. Some were maids, while others were the attendants who served Guinevere as courtiers. Lunete, my old love, was probably one of those dozen women who were Guinevere’s confidantes and also the priestesses of her faith.

Sometime in the middle of the morning I fell asleep with my head cradled in my arms and my body lulled by the warmth of the summer sun. When I woke I found Arthur had gone and that Issa had returned. ‘Lord Arthur went back to the spearmen, Lord,’ he told me. I yawned. ‘What did you see?’

‘Another six men. All Saxon Guards.’

‘Lancelot’s Saxons?’

He nodded. ‘All of them in the big garden. Lord. But only the six. We’ve seen eighteen men altogether, and some others must stand guard at night, but even so there can’t be more than thirty of them altogether.’

I guessed he was right. Thirty men would be sufficient to guard this palace, and more would be superfluous especially when Lancelot needed every spear to guard his stolen kingdom. I raised my head to see the arcade was now empty except for the four guards who looked utterly bored. Two were sitting with their backs to pillars while the other two were chatting on the stone bench where Guinevere had taken her breakfast. Their spears were propped against the table. The two guards on the small roof platform looked equally lazy. The Sea Palace basked under a summer sun and no one there believed an enemy could be within a hundred miles. ‘You told Arthur about the Saxons?’ I asked Issa.

‘Yes, Lord. He said it was only to be expected. Lancelot will want her guarded well.’

‘Go and sleep,’ I told him. ‘I’ll watch now.’

He went and, despite my promise, I fell asleep again. I had walked all night and I was weary, and besides, there seemed no danger threatening at the edge of that summer wood. And so I slept only to be abruptly woken by a sudden barking and the scrabble of big paws.

I woke in terror to discover a brace of slavering deerhounds standing over me, one of the two was barking and the other growling. I reached for my knife, but then a woman’s voice shouted at the hounds.

‘Down!’ she called sharply. ‘Drudwyn, Gwen, down! Quiet!’ The dogs reluctantly lay flat and I turned to see Gwenhwyvach watching me. She was dressed in an old brown gown, had a shawl over her head and a basket in which she had been collecting wild herbs on her arm. Her face was plumper than ever and her hair, where it showed under the scarf, was untidy and tangled. ‘The sleeping Lord Derfel,’ she said happily.

I touched a finger to my lips and glanced towards the palace.

‘They won’t watch me,’ she said, ‘they don’t care about me. Besides, I often talk to myself. The mad do, you know.’

‘You’re not mad, Lady.’

‘I should like to be,’ she said. ‘I can’t think why anyone would want to be anything else in this world.’

She laughed, hitched up her gown and sat heavily beside me. She turned as the dogs growled at a noise behind me and watched with amusement as Arthur wriggled across the ground to join me. He must have heard the barking. ‘On your belly like a snake, Arthur?’ she asked.

Arthur, just like me, touched a ringer to his lips. ‘They don’t care about me,’ Gwenhwyvach said again. ‘Look!’ And she vigorously waved her arms towards the guards who simply shook their heads and turned away. ‘I don’t live,’ she said, ‘not as far as they’re concerned. I’m just the mad fat woman who walks the dogs.’ She waved again, and again the sentries ignored her. ‘Even Lancelot doesn’t notice me,’ she added sadly.

‘Is he here?’ Arthur asked.

‘Of course he isn’t here. He’s a long way away. So are you, I was told. Aren’t you supposed to be talking to the Saxons?’

‘I’m here to take Guinevere away,’ Arthur said, ‘and you too,’ he added gallantly.

‘I don’t want to be taken away,’ Gwenhwyvach protested. ‘And Guinevere doesn’t know you’re here.’

‘No one should know,’ Arthur said.

‘She should! Guinevere should! She stares into the oil pot. She says she can see the future there! But she didn’t see you, did she?’ She giggled, then turned and stared at Arthur as though she found his presence amusing. ‘You’re here to rescue her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tonight?’ Gwenhwyvach guessed.

‘Yes.’

‘She won’t thank you,’ Gwenhwyvach said, ‘not tonight. No clouds, you see?’ She waved at the almost cloudless sky. ‘Can’t worship Isis in cloud, you know, because the moon can’t get into the temple, and tonight she’s expecting the full moon. A big full moon, just like a fresh cheese.’ She ruffled the long hair of one of the hounds. ‘This one’s Drudwyn,’ she told us, ‘and he’s a bad boy. And this one’s Gwen. Plop!’ she said unexpectedly. ‘That’s how the moon comes, plop! Right into her temple.’