Chapter XLIII:
The Battle on the Salisbury Plain

THE DAY ARTHUR fought Mordred on the Salisbury Plain was the worst day imaginable. If you have ever suffered the misfortune of fighting in a war—not dropping bombs from on high, or pushing a button to launch mass destruction, or “flying a desk,” or directing armies from the safety of a command bunker—but have looked your enemy in the eye, seen his murderous intent, and killed him before he could kill you, only then can you imagine what I witnessed. If not, then words cannot possibly suffice, but for the sake of completeness, I shall have a go.

I stayed inside the parlay tent. Since none of the soldiers who had been posted outside knew of my presence, and since every other able body—including Bishop Gildas—had vacated it, there remained no need for anyone to enter. If someone chancing a glance in the tent’s direction thought it odd that the candles were still burning within, they were too engrossed with the gruesome task of kill-or-be-killed to pay that anomaly any mind. I invoked a light-scattering spell to diffuse shadows my figure might cast against the tent’s sides; due to my most recent magical failures, I was not altogether certain that would shield me from discovery, but it proved effective enough.

I needed to remain hidden until the moment when my original self had departed this world sometime after the battle. I was not certain of the precise time but was forced to, as people will begin saying some fifteen centuries hence, “wing it,” which in my case consisted of alternately working to update this chronicle and peering outside to assess the battle’s progress.

The vista was a sea of corpses, men and horses mainly, with a few of Arthur’s favored fighting hounds lying scattered here and there, some still grasping a limb or other chunk of flesh in their frozen jaws. That was the worst of it—the severed limbs and heads; whole corpses are far easier to behold, for they might not in fact be dead, but could at any moment rise up, dust themselves, bind their bloodied flesh, and move on. Where the body appears intact, one can always hope.

Upon further reflection and observation, I must correct myself. The maimed are the worst to bear, for no healing arts in heaven or on earth can help them, and their cries and pleas and moans grow fainter as their lifeblood ebbs until they achieve blessed silence.

This is my day: scribble some words, watch the armies shove each other this way and that, leaving more dead in their wake like terrible huge death factories, grieve for the sheer waste of it all, and scribble some more. The carnage robbed me of hunger, and my thirst I slaked from a dropped wineskin in the tent, though I was feeling as dry as the bishop’s parchment upon which I was writing before I could force myself to partake, because the wine’s color was blood-red. I could not drink it without gagging.

As afternoon surrendered to evening, the active sounds of fighting diminished, and I doused all but one of the candles to prevent my discovery by some battle-mad survivor bent upon obliterating all living beings in his path. Hunkered beneath my cloak, cradling the last light, I continued writing and grieving.

Night has fallen. The moon has not yet risen, and combat has ceased. Not even the night creatures have mustered the courage to bestir themselves. I do not blame them.

If I strain just so, I can hear the almost-dead. They are not moaning or crying or pleading for help. To a man, they are calling my name, and, to a man, they are accusing me. I do not blame them, either.

Yes, I am most likely going mad. Slowly, moment by moment, drop by drop, like blood from a nicked artery, mad. Lapped to the lips in corpses, every last mother’s son of whom blames me and me alone for his untimely and brutal and senseless death, who on earth—or in heaven or hell, for that matter—would not?

The madness of grief is a wearying business. My arms feel like leaden clubs. Of my legs I feel nothing, having been cramped in the same pose for ever so many hours as the night creeps on and on, reluctantly, as if it knows that the coming day will be the most wretched in the history of time,—past, present, or future.

I know I should sleep, must sleep, to conserve my strength and renew my mind and perhaps lend whatever help I may, come dawn, even if it is only to assist the dying into oblivion. I have killed many a man in my lifetime, even a man not yet born, and for many reasons; but this would be the most valid reason of all—the kindest, in any event.

I must have slept, for it is lighter now, the harsh orange light of decrepit afternoon, and I swelter underneath this cloak. No, I have not lit myself on fire; the candle burned itself out as I dozed. I have woken because the ground shakes—a mounted company approaches! It must be the escort of my original self (have I mentioned, lately, how much I despise time travel?), for I do not recall having seen any other mounted parties when I arrived the first time.

Time! Time to rise up, shake loose the webs of despair binding my brow and blinding my eyes, and see if I can yet resurrect a ray of hope from this dark disaster! Fortune’s fool I may be, but I am also King Arthur’s sister, the Queen of Gore: healer, sorceress, and a force with which Fortuna must reckon.

Let the record end here.