“Well, are you not going to respond at all?”
The King, haggard beyond belief when I had first set eyes on him again after our seven-year separation, now sat across from me, his right leg propped up on a footstool for comfort, his upper body slouched forward to allow him to clutch his right elbow loosely with his left hand, resting the weight of both arms on his raised right knee. He was peering directly at me from close range, his eyes narrowed to slits and his focus shifting slightly as his gaze moved from one of my eyes to the other, and I was amazed to realize that, even after he had just unburdened himself of an appalling litany of woes and tribulations, a half smile played about his lips. Now he was waiting for an answer from me, and I had none to give him, because I had not yet grasped the full significance of what he had been saying to me. I shook my head, slowly, to win myself some time to think.
“Oh, I’ll respond. I will respond, be sure … but not before I get my wind back. May I think for a few more moments?”
“For as long as you wish.”
My mind was in turmoil. He had summoned me to join him in the Villa Britannicus immediately upon my return to the hilltop fortress, and I had barely taken the time to instruct my new squire, a Frankish boy called Lanfranc, in where to find my quarters and stow my equipment, before I rode down to report to the King in the villa below Camulod’s hill. When I came face to face with him, however, the mere sight of him had driven the air from my chest. He was gaunt, his face close to cadaverous in its deep-lined pallor, and yet his posture was flawless, his back straight and his head held high. He had walked right to me and embraced me in a hug that showed me even more graphically than his face had that my beloved friend and King was far from being the powerful monarch I remembered, and yet his hair was still rich and thick, its deep brown locks layered with lighter golden streaks, and his yellow, gold-flecked eyes were no less vibrant than they had ever been. Only when he moved could I begin to discern the cause of his ailment. He moved haltingly, holding himself relentlessly upright yet giving the indelible impression that he was upon the point of cringing and folding in upon himself, crossing his knees in agony. That was merely an impression, as I have said, but it was a powerful one.
I had referred to his old wound, looking down at his groin and asking him how much it still troubled him, but he had no intention of wasting time discussing something that was immutable. He had waved away my question with a stock answer that was clearly delivered by rote, then dismissed everyone else in the room with instructions that he was not to be disturbed, for any reason whatsoever, until he and I had finished our deliberations. That done, he had brought me up to date immediately, with a complete and realistic overview of what was happening, both militarily and politically, here in Camulod and elsewhere throughout Britain. I sought to ask questions of him at the start of things, but he had no patience for questions that sprang from ignorance. He told me bluntly to be quiet and listen, and to absorb everything he had to tell me. Once I had done that, he said, the questions currently in my mind would all have been answered, and I would have other, more important questions to ask.
And so he talked on, for nigh on a full hour, and I listened without interrupting. He had come well prepared for this presentation, too, for he had known months in advance that it was coming and he had assembled evidence to back him up in everything he said, particularly in those areas where I might have sought to dispute his findings. He had left no room for disputation. His arguments were crisp and concise, his findings were thoroughly researched and backed by written reports, and, above all, the logic of what he was telling me was incontestable.
It was the content that was unacceptable. The cumulative effect of all that he was telling me left me stunned, my mind reeling and my senses unable to absorb the series of disasters he was foretelling.
I was painfully aware of his eyes watching me, and I was in no hurry to return his gaze. The forefront of my mind was filling up with trivial questions and queries, too, all of them dreamed up to offer me a way of avoiding the confrontation that I knew to be inevitable. Where was Merlyn? Why was he not here? Where was the Queen? I had not seen a single sign of her since my arrival. And where were my fellow knights?
Finally I sat back and crossed my arms on my chest, acutely aware that he was waiting for me to say something. “You’ve just finished telling me that it’s all over, here in Britain, that Camulod cannot stand up to the forces that are being brought against it, that you are beset on every side by treachery and jealous rivals and that you yourself are soon to die. And you want me to add something—some kind of commentary—to that?”
His tiny smile grew wider before dying away.
“No, Lance, that is not quite what I’ve been telling you. The situation here in Britain is fluid, and it will never be ‘all over,’ as you put it, for as long as people live here. It will change greatly, however, because the entire world is changing greatly nowadays, since the collapse of Rome. And at this moment, as destiny would have it, the forces aligned against us—meaning against me and my grand designs—are greater than any I can rally in response. Yet that may change, too. Mordred has the potential to change everything, if he can but manage to stay alive. He has grown into a real Pendragon since you last saw him. He will soon be twenty, and he joined the brotherhood of the order last year.”
“Seur Mordred. It has a solid ring to it.”
“Aye, it does. But my son is more of a hothead than I ever was. Less disciplined in some ways, more rigorous in others, perhaps the influence of his mother’s blood. Mordred does not enjoy being jostled by anyone and has been involved in several challenges within the past year.”
“Challenges? You mean with steel?”
“No, he is not that rash. He knows the penalty for that too well to challenge my authority in that matter. His fighting has been confined to legal weapons … practice swords … legal but no less lethal. He has thrashed three opponents severely, out of four challenges.” Arthur shrugged. “They were but young hotheads like himself, not a one of them yet exposed to the realities of warfare. There’s nothing like feeling real terror and spilling real blood and seeing your friends butchered in front of you to make you realize there are better ways to spend your time than fighting, eh?”
“What about the fourth challenger? What happened to him?”
“He beat Mordred severely enough to put him in sick bay for a handful of days. Taught him a valuable lesson. Mordred had been picking several fights a week, some of them serious, some less so, but after he came to see that he was not invincible, despite being my son, he changed his ways, became more circumspect in his dealings with others … Best thing that could have happened to him. Now he and Lionel, the fellow who thrashed him, are inseparable and will probably remain lifelong friends.”
“That pleases me,” I said. “I have known some close and enduring friendships grown from ill beginnings. Tell me, then, about these forces you claim are being brought against you. You said you are beset on every side by treachery and jealous rivals.”
He shook his head, gainsaying me again. “No, I said I was beset on all sides, referring to the increasing pressure of the Outlanders who appear to be swarming into Britain from beyond the seas to the east, along the Saxon Shores. They never stop coming, Lance, and because they control the entire eastern coast and we have no ships, we are denied access to their landing beaches and so can do nothing to prevent them from landing.
“They’ve always been coming here, you know. That’s why the eastern coast is known as the Saxon Shores. But the Saxon Shores have now become the Saxon Lands, and no one knows today how far inward they stretch from the sea. The Outlanders are everywhere today, Lance, swarming the length and breadth of Britain, with the exception only of these lands here, the lands we hold and rule in conjunction with our allies.
“They call me the Riothamus, but if I am High King at all, it is only High King of southwest Britain, and to believe anything other than that is sheer folly. Believe me, for I know the truth of this from a host of traveling priests, were you to draw a line straight south from Hadrian’s Wall through the middle of this land today, you would find that the entire area east of that line is occupied by the people we call Outlanders, and that they have spilled over the divide and now occupy much of the land on this side of the line, too, most particularly in the northwest. I think it is safe for us to assume that the entire region south of the Wall, from coast to coast and as far south as Chester, is now occupied by what we think of as the enemy.”
I felt my eyes grow wide. “What does that mean, ‘we think of as the enemy’? Do you doubt that they’re the enemy?”
“No, I do not. But neither do I believe that they are all godless savages like your Attila and his Huns. Certainly there are savages among them, men I would kill on sight and think nothing of the blood I spilled, but there are others, and far more numerous, who are simply people looking for a place to live and rear decent crops with which to feed their families. The Anglians are the most evident of those. Anglians have been living here in Britain for a hundred years and more, and many of them are Christians. Merlyn befriended some of them, as did your friend and mentor Bishop Germanus. I have met some of them myself, and so have you.
“Einar of Colchester is one, and you met him when he brought his daughter here, long years ago, seeking alliance through marriage. Einar is an Anglian, and therefore, strictly speaking, an Outlander, but he is as British as I am, born and raised here, as were his parents, and Anglian or not, he is a fine man and a staunch and loyal friend. He is also strong enough in his own right to hold a kingdom intact and secure in territories that no Briton from our part of the world has visited in half a hundred years. I find hope in that, Lance, in the fact that Einar and I know and respect each other as men and kings and allies, and as friends. He has great influence among his own people, and the Anglians, combined, are far more numerous in Britain than all the other races of Outlanders combined. I believe that Einar and I, working together, could forge a treaty that would permit us, Britons and Anglians, to live together side by side in amity from this time on. I have discussed the matter with him, and we are of like mind, seeing such a treaty as the only peaceful solution to the problems besetting all of us.”
I sat open mouthed. “You mean you would forge an alliance with all the Anglians and simply give them more than half the country?”
His brows knitted in perplexity. “What country would I be giving them, Lance? We are the ones in peril here. They already hold more than half the country. It’s theirs, by right of conquest and occupation, and much of it has been theirs for these past hundred years, since before Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus founded Camulod. I am merely trying to salvage something for my Britons and their children, attempting to convert the Anglians from victorious enemies to cooperative neighbors.
“Einar is working now—and working hard—to convince his fellow Anglian kings to join with him and subscribe to our ideas, but it is a difficult concept to sell to men who think of us as implacable foes. Nevertheless, he is optimistic that an accommodation can be reached, and if he is correct, and we can achieve alliance, then our combined forces would be strong enough to compel the other Outlander races to make peace and live in amity with us, or quit our shores once and for all.”
He drew a deep breath. “But, as I say, the process is slow, and I cannot take part in it. The men Einar is trying to convince to join us have believed for years that I am evil incarnate. And in the meantime, I have Danes breathing down my neck from the northeast and marauding Saxons and Ersemen raiding my shores from the west. That is something I am going to have to deal with very quickly, I fear.”
He snorted a laugh that was half amused and half bitter. “And of course, my old enemy in Chester, Symmachus, is thriving. The latest I have heard, in tidings that arrived two months ago, is that he is back at his old tricks, forging alliances with alien Outlanders and apparently promising them all the wealth of Camulod if they will join his campaign to stamp us out. That was the treachery to which I referred. The jealousy is far less serious and I have been aware of it for years. Two kings, both known to you, sworn enemies of mine since I rejected their daughters all those years ago. There’s Lachlan from northern Cambria, and Annar of Mann. Both of them are ungracious malcontents, petty louts who are really not worthy of consideration but who have always believed the world should be indebted to them.”
“And what about this belief that you yourself are soon to die? What kind of nonsense is that? Of all the people I know, Arthur, you are the very last one I would ever expect to bleat such weak-kneed, self-pitying tripe, so I hope you have some convincing theory to back it up.”
Instead of answering, Arthur rose to his feet and walked away to stand peering closely at the colored glass in the magnificent window that brightened the entire room. He reached out then and touched it gently, running his fingertips across the smooth, uneven, translucent surface, and the bright afternoon sun beyond painted him in blotches of bright color, splashing its light across his standing form.
“Do you know the story of this window?” He continued without waiting for an answer. “This room was called the Family Room, the most important room in the whole villa when Publius Varrus and his wife, Luceiia Britannicus Varrus, lived here. It was Luceiia who decided that she wanted more light in here, since she and her family spent most of their time together in this room. So she had this window made, at great expense, to let in the light and keep out the weather, and she knocked a hole in the wall to accommodate it … Her brother and her husband, both dead far longer than she, were the dreamers who founded Camulod, and her grandson was Uther Pendragon, my father. Luceiia Britannicus has been dead for decades, forgotten by all but Merlyn, who knew her personally, and by those of her family who have been told the tales of her wondrous beauty and great strength.”
He turned back to face me, slowly, his face now melancholy. “We all die, Lance. That is the one inescapable cost of being born. We all die. But that is why I summoned you home. I have one last task for you to do, my friend, one final duty to impose upon you.”
I felt a deep chill settle into the pit of my stomach and I had to swallow hard to quell a wave of nausea, and I had a sudden, absolute conviction that he himself believed he was about to die. In consequence, I spoke more flippantly, perhaps, than I had intended to.
“There was a lot of terminality in that last statement. Far too much for my liking.”
He moved back to his chair and settled himself comfortably before he responded. “And far too much for mine, Seur Clothar. We are as one in that. But there are times in life, and this is one of them, when we must simply accept that certain things exist and have to be accommodated, no matter how much we may dislike them.”
I waited then, and when I saw that he would say no more, I nodded. “What would you have of me, my lord King?”
He smiled at me again, that same sad, secret smile that I had seen him use several times during this interview. “Something that I have always had from you in addition to loyalty, honor and integrity, but a thing which I think you may find difficult to accord to me this time.”
“Try me, my lord. What would that be?”
“Unquestioning obedience.”
Again, in the mere tone of his voice, in the flat, uninflected way he pronounced the words, I sensed a knell, and a rush of gooseflesh stirred the hairs on my arms and on the nape of my neck, so that I had to fight down the physical urge to shiver. “And when have I ever refused you that, my lord?”
“You never have. I merely said I think you might, this time.”
His lips quirked again in the ghost of a smile. “I remember you now, from bygone days. You are the fellow who never learned how to speak to a king civilly and without contradicting him. I never did have you flogged for insolence, did I? You might have been a good man and a noble knight had you ever learned the proper deference and humility to show to your reigning lord. A touch of humility here and there, a bit of groveling, even a hint of sycophancy might have stood you in good stead over the years … But then again, I tend to forget that you are an Outlander, too, with heathen ways and a foreign tongue, and each time I remember, I elect to show leniency because of it.”
I stood up while he was still talking and walked to where Excalibur stood propped in a corner of the room. I picked it up, enjoying the weight and feel of it, and drew the magnificent blade from its sheath, watching the way the light beams flickered and danced along its shimmering length, and then I turned and faced him and held the extended point towards him as he finished what he was saying, aware that I was the only person in all of Camulod who would dare to bare a blade in the King’s presence, let alone to point one at him.
“Aye, right,” I responded as he fell silent. “I should have spent more time kissing your regal arse. We’ve had this talk before, many times, my lord, but you are simply going to have to come to terms with the fact that I have never liked you and that I tolerate you only because I was ordered to tolerate you when I first came to your cold, rainy domain.” I turned away from his grin and slipped the sword back into its sheath, then replaced it in the corner. “Now tell me, if you will, why I am going to disobey you for the first time in my life.”
His laugh was a loud, short bark, reminiscent of the Arthur I had known years earlier. “God, Lance! I wish I had five hundred more like you. We would sweep this country clean of all the ills that plague it. I want you to take the Queen to Gaul with you, to your cousin Pelles’s place in Corbenic, and hold her there in safety until it is safe for her to return, although I doubt that time will ever come.”
Of all the things he might have said to me, that was the last I could ever have anticipated hearing. Not the part about taking the Queen away, for that I could understand and, to a degree, concur with, but the last part of what he had said, about doubting that it would ever be safe for her to return to Britain, simply scooped the breath from my lungs and left me incapable of speech. I turned abruptly on my heel and stalked away from him, aware of the loud sounds of my booted feet on the wooden floor.
“I can’t do that, Arthur!”
“There, you see? I was right.”
“No, damn it, you were not right, but this is simply too much.”
“How so? D’you not believe she will be safer in Gaul than she will be here?”
“Of course she will, if you go to war as you think you will. But what is too much to accept is your evident belief that she—and therefore I—will never be able to come back. Does Gwinnifer have any notion of what you are planning for her?”
“Of course she has. We have talked of it many times. She was adamant at first, refusing even to address the possibility, but then she began to see the logic of what I was suggesting, and from being adamant, she went to being merely reluctant.”
“So how did you change her mind?”
He quirked his lips and tipped his head drolly to one side. “By reminding her of how much she loves her father, Symmachus, and would enjoy the prospect of being reunited with him, particularly if he and his nasty friends had the good fortune to kill me or capture me. That, plus a grudging admission that I myself would be safer and more effective in war knowing that she was far away and in no danger, finally convinced her to agree to my suggestions. But I enjoin you, on your honor, to say nothing to her of the possibility of her being unable to come back here. That would undo everything.”
I wanted to scream at him, to vomit out all the frustration caused by seeing him, Britain’s paragon and paladin, talking so calmly and acceptingly of defeat and death at the hands of enemies for whom he had always had soaring disdain. I had never known, had never suspected, that he might be capable of such passivity, and yet even as I thought those things, I knew that he was being pragmatic and realistically trying to do what was best for Gwinnifer.
“Arthur,” I said, hearing the near despair in my own voice, “answer me this: what’s the real reason underlying all this pessimism? In all the years we’ve known each other, I have never known you to be so negative. Why are you doing this?”
“Because I know I am soon to die, my friend. I do not think it, Lance, I know it. That knowledge, once accepted, tends to alter a man’s viewpoint.” He smiled at the stricken look on my face and shook his head gently. “As I said a moment ago, we all die.”
I attempted to answer him, but the anguish in my throat prevented me from saying anything on the first attempt. I coughed savagely to clear my throat and then responded, “Aye, we all die, Arthur, but in the course of time, and the bishops tell us we can never know when our time will come. You’re telling me you do know. How can that be?”
“Ah, Lance. Because I know. I have lived inside this body for years enough to know when it is failing me. I walk without limping nowadays and fortunately, albeit mysteriously, I ride more easily than I walk, but too much of my life today is given to the appearance of being well and strong and healthy. Were I to acknowledge the constant pain that wracks me, or betray how I really feel most of the time, the effect upon my men, from garrison troops and horse troopers to Knights Companion, would be disastrous. The ancient laws of our people decree that a king must be physically flawless and unimpaired in order to remain in power. I am badly flawed nowadays and deeply impaired, and I dare not show it, Lance, not to anyone. But setting all pretense aside, just between you and me, I live in constant pain from my wound. It never leaves me, not even in the night, when I should be shielded by sleep. I walk in public without limping and I hold my head high, but in truth I want to scream and sag to my knees after only a few steps. I simply do not dare to show weakness, and it is becoming more and more difficult every day to keep up the pretense. It has been close to eight years now since I took that spear thrust. The skin is whole, and the scar is faded, but the damage done inside will never heal …
“And Gwinnifer has suffered more than me, in some ways. She is a passionate young woman, with strong and natural desires that I am now incapable of servicing. I have not been a husband to my wife in more than seven years, and even before that, I gave her little to remember, thanks to our determination to avoid having a son for Symmachus to control and corrupt.
“Quite apart from that, however, I can feel myself growing weaker with each month that passes. That began about a year ago. Until then, I had been … coping, sufficiently at least to look the king I was supposed to be. But last winter I sickened with a congestion, and I have never been able to regain full health since then.”
He stood up again and returned to the window, where he resumed his examination of the glass and spoke to me over his shoulder. “Recently, as I told you earlier, I have begun receiving reports that Symmachus is preparing to move against us. Word is that he has learned of what I plan to do with Einar and the Anglians, and he intends to put a stop to it.” He turned to face me, leaning his back against the wall beside the window and crossing his arms on his chest. “He still has his ten thousand men, apparently, and he has allied himself with the Erse king Cyngal, from the south coast of Eire, who has a large fleet of galleys and the warriors to man them. He has also induced Annar of Mann Isle and Lachlan of Snowdonia to join him—no great difficulty there—along with a few other petty brigand kings who share a hunger for Camulod’s wealth, and he is inflaming all of them with stories of how I am betraying Britain to the Anglian Outlanders. They believe him, of course, because they are too stupid to doubt him. But one of these fine days, sooner rather than later, they will come calling on us, seeking to test our mettle. When they do, I will be forced to fight—I mean in person—and my weakness will quickly become visible.”
He turned away, peering into the translucent glass of the window as if he could see through it. “My two remaining sources of hope are that Mordred will emerge as a strong leader in time to take my place, and that Einar will succeed in bringing the Anglians to treat with us before the hammer falls. In the meantime, however, I require you to see to my Queen for me.”
“In God’s name, Arthur, think about what you are doing … and think of what people will say.”
He spun to face me, his face tight with anger. “Why should I care what people say? And why would you think I have not already thought, deeply and painfully, about what I am doing in putting my wife away while I am still alive and filled with love for her? People will say what they wish to say, Clothar, irrespective of truth or untruth. They might well say she ran away with you, or that you abducted her. Who will remember, or even care, once we are all dead? Let them think what they will and say what they wish. I want to know my Queen, my wife, my love, is safe from harm—the harm that will surely come to Camulod within the next few months—for when I die, however I die, she will have no life ahead of her here, other than to exist as her father’s chattel or as the concubine of some foul-smelling, beer-swilling pig like Lachlan of Snowdonia.
“In Gaul with you, on the other hand, she will live in sunshine, and she will be happy there … happier than she ever could be here. She is still a young woman, short of her prime. Twenty-six years old, by her own estimation. Plenty of time ahead of her to bear children and raise a family, Lance, once I am gone. I tell you true, I could not wish her any greater joy than to entrust her to your care, for you and she are the two people I love most in all this world.” He held up his open palm towards me. “I know! You do not wish to hear any of this. Let me enclose it, then, in better terms. If all goes as I hope it might go, I shall send for you, for both of you, to come home again within the year. Will you accept my word on that?”
“Of course I will. And this is what you would have me do, this is how you believe I can best serve you?”
He hesitated for one fraction of a heartbeat, and then nodded. “It is.”
In that moment, seeing that slight hesitation and then the emphatic nod of his head, I knew that there was nothing I would not do for this man or for his lady Gwinnifer, and that I would do whatever I did out of sheerest love, accepting full responsibility for that love in the manner this man himself had led me to expect and accept so long ago.
He saw me nod in acknowledgment, and slapped his hands together. “Excellent,” he said, beaming with delight. “So be it.”
“What about my men, Arthur, the men currently in Gaul? When will you bring them back?”
“As soon as I can, Lance. But Connor is dead, and I know not who serves as admiral now in his place. If we yet have friends there in the north, then the trading ventures will continue and we can begin the evacuations with the next fleet …”
“But?”
“But the word I hear now is that the Scots have started moving from their islands onto the mainland and they are having to fight every inch of the way. But they now have all the armor and weapons that they needed at the start, and so they have little incentive to trade as heavily with Gaul as they did in the past.”
“You believe that?”
“Not fully, no. But it’s probably partly true. They will keep trading, though.”
“Good, and as long as they do, we will keep sending men and horses home, even if we have to do it one squadron at a time. Some of our troopers might prefer to remain in Gaul—the married ones—but it would be unforgivable to strand the others there.”
“It would, I agree, as long as they yet have a home here to return to.” He looked at me, his instinct as keen as it had ever been. “There’s something chafing at you. Come on, spit it out and let’s look at it.”
I nodded. “Where is Merlyn, Arthur? I have not seen him or heard from him in several years. Is he alive?”
“Aye, he’s alive, but I can’t tell you where he is, for I don’t know. He is seldom seen nowadays, for his condition is far advanced and he shuns the company of people. But he has much to keep him occupied … or so he tells me. He is transcribing, or arranging, some very old writings by my own ancestors—journals compiled by Publius Varrus and Caius Britannicus. At least he was when I saw him last, about four months ago. But yes, he is very much alive and as unpredictable as he ever was. He could appear here at any time, so don’t be surprised if he simply materializes one day and demands to talk with you. Now let us go and visit the Queen. She did not wish to be present when I was burdening you with the task of looking after her, and she will be happy to know that you have accepted the task.”
“I have one more question before we do that.”
“Ask away.”
“When will we leave?”
“Whenever you wish.”
“I don’t wish, Arthur, not at all, I have no slightest desire to go anywhere, but I need to know your wishes in this. If you have no particular time in mind, that will suit me to perfection. Can we stay here, think you, until war actually breaks out?”
“Of course you can, but you would then have to be prepared to leave between any given moment and the next, and that might be subjecting you and your mission to more risk than would be wise.”
“True, but it might never happen at all … the war, I mean.”
“I know what you mean. But I think we would be foolish to live in hope of that. Symmachus is eager to confront me face to face. The war is coming, Lance, and I want you two safely away from here before it breaks. Now, let’s go and talk to Gwinnifer.”
For the next two months, Camulod seemed under an enchantment, even while everyone was training openly for war. The weather was unusually clement and warm, and there were no disturbances or raids in any of our territories to disrupt the peace. Arthur, in commemoration of the War Games that Pelles had held to such grand effect in Corbenic years earlier, organized a similar event in Camulod, with great, serious and highly skilled competition among the Knights Companion themselves and among the various outlying garrisons, as well as the troopers from the different army groups. Gwinnifer was the Queen of the Festival, and she and her ladies took turns in awarding prizes, gifts and honors to the victorious participants. Everyone who was fit enough to attend was there for the festivities, and many of the Knights Companion, thanks to their magnificent armor, swords and accoutrements, and the skills they showed in using all of them, distinguished themselves in the eyes of the spectators sufficiently to make their names well known to the ordinary people. The names of Sagramore, Bedwyr, Tristan, Lionel—he who had thrashed Arthur’s son and heir and made him a friend for life—along with Gareth, Mordred and Gwin now became as familiar to the common populace as were those of Arthur and Merlyn.
Then, ten days after the conclusion of the Games, a report reached us that one of our northernmost outposts, manned and garrisoned by our faithful Seur Pelinore, one of the King’s oldest friends and a king in Cambria in his own right, had been overrun and wiped out in a surprise dawn attack by a horde of assailants from the north and west. Pelinore had been killed in the fighting, and the survivors had surrendered but been slaughtered out of hand. Four men, all of them wounded, escaped the massacre and made their way homewards together to Camulod. Two of them died on the road, but two won home, and one of those, a veteran of Ghilleadh’s campaign, swore under oath that the leader of the raid had worn the armor and insignia of Symmachus of Chester—a Roman corselet emblazoned with the double X of the Twentieth Legion, which had built the fortress of Chester and garrisoned it thereafter for three hundred years.
Two days later, amid chaos and confusion on all sides as Camulod prepared for all-out war, we quietly bade farewell to Arthur and our other friends, and I led his Queen and mine away from the place I had come to love most in this world. Gwinnifer brought no ladies with her. She and I rode off alone towards Glevum, where a vessel waited to carry us to Gaul. I wore only a plain wool tunic and a traveling cloak, and we traveled in a single two-wheeled cart driven by our only companion, my squire Lanfranc. In the cart, beneath our bodies, were all of Gwinnifer’s worldly possessions and my own, including my armor, my weapons and a superb saddle and bridle that had been a parting gift from Arthur.
No one seemed to take any notice of our departure, and that was as it should be, since the entire operation had been planned months earlier, and the ship had been moored in Glevum since that time. I had, of course, said goodbye to Arthur the previous night, at a dinner shared by my old companions from the first knighthood ceremony, and Gwinnifer had spent the remainder of the night making her own farewells to him, but even as we slipped away in the morning mist, neither of us truly believed, even in the depths of our souls, that we would never see him again. It was not that kind of parting, somehow, and we both departed believing that this would be a temporary separation and that we would return within the year, once everything had settled down again.
To my great surprise and delight, Merlyn was waiting for us when we reached Glevum, his somber, black-clad figure unmistakable even from a great distance. He did not have much to say, and I noticed when he did speak that his voice was rough and indistinct, as though his tongue had swollen to overfill his mouth, but he spoke slowly, and by listening closely I understood what he was telling us. He wished us well, both of us, and asked the gods, Christian and pagan, to look over us and keep us safe. He would remain near, but not in, Camulod, he said, working on his written history of Arthur’s colony from the days of its earliest beginnings. When I asked him where he would stay, he answered, “Where I always have, in Avalon.” I smiled then, remembering the tiny, hidden valley among the hills that had been his sanctuary for so long. I had been there several times but had forgotten both its name and its existence until that moment. And then, just before we boarded the ship, he handed me a bulky package that he had concealed beneath his robe. It was my heritage, he said, the documents sent to him by Germanus concerning my family and background. He had kept them safe for all these years, and now he could think of no place safer for them than in my possession. I thanked him, intrigued, and carried the package aboard beneath my arm, intending to read it later.
I never did read it, however. I never even opened the package, and I still have it, intact, because every time I moved to open it and read the contents, something, some warning little voice, stopped me from doing so. I cannot explain that, even to myself, but I never failed to heed that voice.
My last memory of Merlyn alive is of him stooping forward and saying to me, in his strangely thickened voice, “Come back, Hastatus. Come back someday, when all this hurly-burly has died down. I’ll be waiting for you in Avalon.”
It took me more than a score of years to return, but when I did I found him waiting there for me as he had promised, although nothing remained of him by that time but a few dried old bones and wisps of snow-white hair. But he had left a store of treasures there for me in my old age. His manuscript was written, and when I read it, I found it gave me strength to persevere with my own record. And he left me one more wondrous gift. I have it in my home today and everyone who sees it marvels at its beauty. Of course, I tell them it was mine when I was young, for if I told them it was Arthur’s, they would know its name and that would cause nothing but more grief. And so it is no longer Excalibur, the magical sword born of a flashing, fallen star and forged for a great King. It is simply a magnificent sword, fit to be worn by a champion. When I die, it will go to my son Clovis.
We heard word from Britain from time to time, most of it—all of it, in fact—brought out by priests. We heard of a great battle at a place called Graupius, or Grampia, or even Gropus, where Arthur was reported dead, although his corpse was never found, and neither was his fabled sword. And we heard reports that all his knights had died with him. We heard, too, that some of his knights survived and that one of them had stolen the King’s sword, Excalibur. And then we heard that the King’s wife, Gwinnifer, had proven faithless and had run away with one of the King’s own knights. And we heard that the King’s son, Mordred, had been killed in battle; and also that he had betrayed his father and survived the battle; we even heard that he had seduced his stepmother, the Queen, and had then been slain by the King’s vengeful Frankish knight. On another occasion, we heard a report that reversed that tale entirely, stating that the Frankish knight had seduced the Queen and had been slain thereafter by her vengeful stepson, Mordred.
The most persistent tale of all was of the death of Arthur and the disappearance of his body and his sword, and the story being told among his former people was that he had been enchanted and spirited away by protective gods, to recover from his wounds and regain his strength for times of need ahead. There were many variants of that tale, each newly arriving priest bringing us several versions. But the one thing they all contained in common was that Arthur the King was dead.
Hearing that last tale on one particular occasion, I remembered what Arthur had said about people saying and believing what they wanted to say and believe, irrespective of the truth involved, and remembering my friend that night, I wept for him and for what might have been and should have been.
And then, three years later, by which time all reports from Britain had dried up and Gwinnifer and I had come to know and love each other, we were wed, and I left Corbenic, with my cousin Pelles’s blessings, and led her home with me to Benwick, where no one knew she had ever been a queen. Perceval and Bors, the last surviving members of our Brotherhood of Knights Companion to the Riothamus, rode with us and remained with us until they died, and now they are all dead.
I miss them all.
FINIS