The atmosphere in the Great Hall was very tense when Ursula was finally ushered in front of Arturus. Gwynefa had been missing for four fraught days. Braveheart, lightly restrained by Ursula’s hand on his collar, launched himself first at Dan and then Bryn.
‘Ursula, you’re safe!’ Dan’s voice in Ursula’s mind rang with relief.
‘Dan, we could have gone home. Rhonwen would have raised the Veil. I could have got us home. Why didn’t you come with me?’ Dan could hear her distress, her frustration and the tremulous emotional aftershock of her close contact with magic. What could he say?
‘Lady Ursa.’ Arturus got at once to his feet.
‘Your Highness.’ Ursula barely bowed her head. She had not forgiven him.
She was uncomfortable, though only Dan, knowing her so well, could read the subtle signs, the tense way she gripped the hilt of her sword. For some reason she had not been disarmed.
‘I have news of Gwynefa, but I would prefer to speak to you alone.’
Foolishly, Arturus spoke chivalrously. ‘I cannot imagine that you might have any news of my wife that could not be aired in public.’
Dan watched Ursula discreetly readjust her weight to be ready for trouble and take a deep breath. From the corner of his eye he noticed Bryn perform a similar manoeuvre. A number of servants and men at arms present in the Great Hall chose that moment to look away. That should have told Arturus something but he seemed impervious to it all. It was clear to Dan that Gwynefa’s indiscretions were common knowledge.
‘I went to talk to the Aenglisc Heahrune, the Princess Rhonwen. She alone has the power to return Dan and myself to our proper place. I found Rhonwen in Cerdic’s stronghold where she was holding war council on Medraut’s behalf with Cerdic and with …’ She visibly steeled herself. ‘With Queen Gwynefa.’
‘You lie! Guards, seize that troublemaker!’
As two men approached Ursula she unsheathed her sword and they backed away, and Gwynefa chose that precise moment to make an entrance. She was still splendidly dressed in her gilded, jewelled armour. Dan thought she looked ridiculous, like some aging opera singer trying to look like a warrior queen. Ursula looked at her in consternation and surprise. No one else seemed to know what to do.
‘Gwyn!’ Arturus caught himself, before he rushed to her side. Feeling the waves of love and relief that emanated from the High King, Dan was horribly aware that Ursula was unlikely to be believed. His hand unconsciously found his own sword while he found his eyes drawn to his much superior surrendered blade at Arturus’s hip.
‘She has besmirched my honour,’ Gwynefa said melodramatically. ‘Arturus, will you do nothing?’
Arturus gave Ursula his coldest, most calculating glance.
‘And what would you have me do with our finest fighter on the day before we march to battle?’ Arturus’s tone was reasonable.
‘Someone must fight her. Someone must champion my honour.’ Dan wondered if Gwynefa had forgotten who Ursula was. She had bested everyone she fought against prior to the Battle of Baddon Hill
‘I choose him.’ Gwynefa’s glittering, wild eyes picked out Dan.
Dan got to his feet.
‘Queen Gwynefa, I regret to say that I cannot be your champion.’
‘Arturus, make him!’
‘Gwyn, you may have forgotten Gawain. He does not fight.’
‘He fought the Aenglisc at Camulodunum – I’ve forgotten nothing. And he fought Gorlois Cerdic. What kind of fool do you take me for?’
Dan felt everyone’s eyes on him. He felt their excitement building.
‘Let’s give them a show, Dan. Stop at first blood.’
He realised then that Ursula wanted to know; could she be as good as the former Bear Sark? She still felt she had something to prove to him, and he to her.
Dan stood up. Arturus threw him his sword, Caliburn, that was once Bright Killer, and Dan caught it easily. It was good to hold it in his hand again. It had melded to the shape of his hand, through Ursula’s magic, back in Macsen’s land. He was horrified at how suddenly complete holding it still made him feel.
Bryn called Braveheart to his side. Dan had removed his helm some time ago. Ursula removed hers so that her damp hair fell to her shoulders, dark with perspiration. He could feel her sudden excitement, her exhilaration. She had too much frustrated energy to unleash. She needed this.
She attacked, he parried. She was frighteningly strong. His sword arm felt the impact of the blow at his shoulder. He attacked, switching hands to confuse her, but she met every attempt to get past her guard. She was quicker than he remembered. He could feel how good it felt to her, the pleasure she took in her strength, and in her speed. She saw herself as a lioness swift and powerful. Her back ached a little from the ride. She was saddle sore, and lightly bruised, but shifting her weight to thrust her sword forward, it did not matter to her. A part of Dan was becoming alarmed, not only did he begin to feel what she was feeling, he began to know what she would do a moment before she did it. All Arturus’s court, his servants and his guards had gathered round the combatants. They began to shout and stamp, even Arturus yelled for his wife’s champion. Dan noticed the rumpus peripherally.
‘Get out of my head, Dan!’
‘Can’t!’
It was true he couldn’t. Dan had the terrifying sensation of becoming Ursula, while at the same time being himself. Because of the closeness of their connection and their strange experience in helping Taliesin, the fusion happened suddenly, startlingly, completely. Dan no longer knew whose body he controlled. He seemed to see out of two pairs of eyes at once and had no way of processing that vision so that it made sense. The bodies still moved, under whose volition? He felt impact and was afraid; they were going to get hurt.
‘We have to stop this, I don’t like it!’
He did not know which one of them spoke, or if it was both screaming mentally with one accord. Dan’s body backed away and Ursula’s did the same. He bowed and heard himself say in a voice that seemed a long way away, ‘If Queen Gwynefa is satisfied, I believe we should call this a draw.’
He felt his own hand on the distorted shape of a sword hilt and knew that he was himself. It took a moment for his equilibrium to be restored. A quick glance in Ursula’s direction showed him only that she was breathing heavily. Dan looked round to bow to the Queen and realised, at the same moment as everyone else, that Queen Gwynefa was gone.
Ursula sheathed her sword. She looked unperturbed by their strange experience. It was a gift for coolness that Dan envied.
Bryn spoke. ‘I fear the Queen was not so confident of her innocence that she could wait for Gawain to prove it.’
There was a horrible silence. Arturus had gone very pale.
‘Secure the gates and let no one out!’ His voice was cracked with strain. Men hurried to obey him. It was too late.
Gwynefa had planned it well. As she arrived and generated the diversion, three hundred Sarmatian Cataphracts, her dowry troops, had left the fortress along with a sizeable proportion of Arturus’s campaign supplies, neatly stowed in barrels and crates. She was a princess of Rheged, daughter to Meirchion Gul, and the sons of Cynfach’s Cataphracts were men of Rheged first, descendants of the Sarmatians second, and troops of the High King third. It was a bitter blow.
Arturus gathered the remaining men – somewhat less than two hundred – thanked them for their loyalty and instructed them that they would march the next day. Gwynefa had taken few of the officers with her, few of the veterans. She had persuaded young men to join her, men dissatisfied with the slow pace of promotion in the unit. A roll call quickly established that she must have made officers of untried boys. Arturus brightened a little at that. He had hopes that if they could link with Larcius’s light cavalry they could defeat the deserters before they could join with Medraut’s force. He was further cheered by the arrival of Taliesin and Brother Frontalis. Brother Frontalis was too weak to ride but Taliesin had persuaded the brothers of Frontalis’s order to lend them their cart so that Frontalis might go and serve his king for one last time. Arturus’s eyes were damp with tears when he saw the old man, indeed Arturus’s carefully controlled emotions were threatening to overwhelm both himself and Dan. Brother Frontalis was helped inside Arturus’s private chamber in a small rudely screened room to the back of the Main Hall. Arturus sent for food.
Taliesin helped Brother Frontalis drink his wine, his hands trembled from the stress of the journey and he looked weary. Dan tried not to feel the pain in Frontalis’s joints, his sorrow at seeing the distress of Arturus, his hope that he might live long enough to help. He spoke wheezily.
‘Taliesin saw Gwynefa heading towards Gewisse. That’s Cerdic’s kingdom,’ he added for the benefit of Ursula and Dan. ‘I thought you might want to talk to an old friend.’ Arturus clasped the old man’s bony hands and kissed them.
‘Brother Frontalis. What have I done to her? I knew she did not love me but I did not think she hated me.’
Brother Frontalis shook his head. ‘We will talk of these things later, in private. For now, you have more pressing concerns. We must talk about how you can deal with the threat of Cerdic and Larcius.’
‘Larcius?’
There was a strained silence. Could Arturus truly not know that Gwynefa and Larcius had been lovers for the best part of twenty years? Or had he simply assumed that she was capable of acting alone?
Frontalis’s voice was gentle, so soft suddenly that everyone strained to hear it.
‘My dear friend, I think it is time you faced what you have denied for years. This last betrayal of Gwynefa’s is but the last of many. She will join her lover and he will abandon you.’
No one dared breathe.
To Dan’s surprise Arturus’s overriding emotion was one of relief as he turned to Taliesin for the first time. ‘Well, my merlin, what are the forces arraigned against us? Can we win?’
Taliesin slowly shook his head. ‘You cannot ignore them either. Now that they have shown their opposition they cannot but move against you.’
Ursula spoke. ‘I was going to tell you – before. They intend to ambush you in the crooked valley off the Icknield Way.’
There was another long pause, as if Arturus was considering their words. With so many factions against him, he could not stay where he was – he had no choice about war – he could only choose to fight now or to fight later. Everyone in the Hall had ceased breathing, waiting. All eyes were on the High King when he finally spoke.
‘Then we must hurry to this crooked valley, I know it well, Camlann.’ He rolled his tongue round the word and smiled. ‘So that’s where it will end, at Camlann.’ The smile died. ‘Let us find a way to ensure that we will not die alone.’