Camelot Read online

  ‘I’m just glad we did not have to fight you, Father,’ Endalan said, giving the smile of a hungry, tired man who knows he will soon be dry and filling his belly.

  Yvain halted and nodded at Iselle. ‘She’s the one you should have been worried about. A killer with that bow of hers, as three Saxons would attest, if they were not dead.’

  We all stopped and Iselle planted the end of the bow stave on the ground and lifted her chin, glaring towards the warriors, challenging them to be scornful. But though they eyed her with curiosity, I saw no disbelief in their weathered faces.

  ‘Her name is Iselle,’ I said, at which Iselle hissed something foul, annoyed at me for presuming to give up that which was hers to offer or not.

  ‘Well, Iselle,’ Gawain inclined his head at her, a rivulet of water pouring from his helmet, ‘I hope these monks are as wealthy in wine and beer as they are said to be.’

  ‘The girl may not join us.’ Father Judoc swept an arm towards the building. ‘She is quite comfortable in the byre.’

  Gawain frowned at me and then at Iselle. ‘She kills three Saxons and you make her live in the barn with the cattle?’ He glanced at Father Yvain, who shrugged uncomfortably.

  ‘She’s a wildling, lord,’ Father Brice said.

  ‘We cannot have women among us,’ Father Judoc added.

  ‘Yours is a strange god.’ Gediens shook his head.

  ‘She gets wine and a place by the fire.’ Gawain’s eyes were all flint, at which Judoc and Brice looked at each other, neither willing to argue with the warrior.

  ‘Well, come along.’ Father Brice rounded us up again. And so we took shelter from the storm which flayed Ynys Wydryn, keening like a hundred lost and maddened souls. And before the wind-scattered starlings and rooks found their roosts that night and darkness fell over the marshes, I learnt that a far worse storm was coming.

  Gawain and his men sat on stools by the fire, wolfing down their food and drink as their furs and cloaks and coats of bronze scales hung to dry. The air was cloyed with the stink of wet wool and sweat and the strong, animal scent of these warriors whose skin was begrimed with filth. They were ravenous. We watched them eat, none of the brothers daring to interrupt, knowing that only when they had taken the edge off their hunger would they tell us why they had come. And in that time, I looked at their swords in their stained leather scabbards. At Gawain’s armour, the long leather jerkin covered with thousands of small overlapping bronze plates which resembled the skin of a fish. At the helmet with its iron rivets and hinged cheek pieces and the plume as long as a horse’s tail and as red as blood. Even from across the room, the weight of all that iron and bronze and steel seemed to press down on me.

  ‘You must leave this place and you must do it without delay,’ Gawain said, not looking up from his bowl. He fished out a scrap of meat and blew on it as it steamed between his finger and thumb. Then he thrust the scrap into his mouth and closed his eyes for a moment as if seeking to commit the taste and pleasure of the food to memory.

  Father Brice and Father Judoc, standing across from Gawain on the other side of the hearth, looked at each other. ‘We cannot leave Ynys Wydryn,’ Father Brice said.

  ‘Why would we?’ Judoc asked. ‘We are safe here. Hidden.’

  ‘We found you,’ Gawain said, chewing, juices running into his beard.

  ‘The Saxons do not know we are here,’ Brice said. ‘The ones who attacked Galahad—’

  ‘If they were Saxons,’ Judoc interrupted.

  ‘—They must have wandered in search of plunder, straying far from King Cerdic’s army,’ Brice went on, ‘which I believe is some miles east of Camelot and—’

  ‘The Saxons are already here,’ Gawain cut him off, looking up now, holding Brice’s gaze. There were murmurs and rumbles around the fire then.

  ‘We had to slip past them to get across the White Lake,’ Gediens said, thumbing at the east wall. He was the youngest of the four men, though he could not have been less than forty years old. ‘And not just a few scouts and foragers but war bands. Spearmen by the score. Saw their fires on Pennard Hill. Too many to count.’ He turned his attention back to his bowl, spooning mutton and broth between his remaining teeth.

  Gawain lifted his cup and drank deeply, then dragged a hand across his mouth and moustaches. ‘There is no time to argue amongst yourselves or seek advice from your god, or whatever else it is you do here,’ he told us. ‘The Saxons are all around. Clustered like flies on a corpse. They will see the tor and they will come.’ He glanced around at the modest walls and thatch, our only refuge from the wild storm. From the world, too. ‘And when they find this place, they will burn it and they will kill you.’

  The brothers looked to each other and I saw the fear in their faces, in the widening of their eyes and the flare of their nostrils. I felt the same fear, seeing in my mind again the dead I had seen out in the marsh. I felt the creeping dread stirred up by this warrior’s words, and we looked at him, expecting more, but he said nothing, instead taking a moment to fill his cup again. Letting the blade of his foretelling sink deep into our guts.

  It was Father Yvain who broke the silence. ‘What of Camelot?’ he asked. ‘The Lady Morgana’s spearmen have always kept Cerdic’s raiders at bay. The Saxons rarely leave Caer Gwinntguic.’

  ‘Lady Morgana does not have the strength to face Cerdic in open battle,’ Gawain said. ‘Just like the other lords and kings of Britain, Morgana hides behind her walls and watches the fires redden the night skies. Cerdic pushes west and the land bleeds.’

  ‘Any that do not swear allegiance to him are butchered,’ Hanguis said through a sour grimace. He was a brutal-looking man. Almost completely bald, he boasted a livid scar of white flesh across his forehead where someone had nearly opened his skull.

  ‘And Constantine?’ Father Yvain asked. Because of his occasional forays to the island villages around Ynys Wydryn, he knew more than any of the brothers about the happenings in the kingdoms of Britain.

  ‘He still fights in the east, striking from the forests of Caer Lerion,’ Gawain replied, and I wondered how well he and Yvain had known one another back when they had both fought for Lord Arthur. ‘Two hundred men. A few more perhaps.’ He shook his head. ‘But he will not last long alone. He cannot.’

  I had heard of Lord Constantine, son of Ambrosius and nephew of Uther Pendragon. A warlord of Britain and self-proclaimed king. Though he must be an old man by now.

  ‘Perhaps Camelot will hold out,’ Gawain conceded. ‘I dug those defences with my own hands.’ He raised an eyebrow at me and shook his head as one does at a memory which seems too strange to be real. ‘Long time ago now,’ he said. ‘But Camelot can be held with three hundred spears. Lady Morgana will hold. Everything else will fall.’

  The brothers fell into discussing the threat we faced, arguing about whether or not the Saxon war bands would find a way through the marsh to Ynys Wydryn. I felt Father Brice’s eyes on me but, as I looked up, his gaze fastened back onto Gawain. ‘Why have you come here, Lord Gawain?’ he asked. ‘If simply to warn us, we are grateful and will look to protect the Holy Thorn.’

  A guttural sound escaped Gawain’s throat. ‘I care nothing for your tree, monk.’ He looked up and his eyes were on mine. ‘I’ve come for him. As you knew I would.’

  I felt the blood run cold in my arms then. My stomach rolled like the storm-tossed water around Ynys Wydryn, and all eyes were on me as the hearth flames leapt and the rain seethed in the thatch above our heads.

  ‘I would have come sooner, lad,’ Gawain told me. ‘Many times, I meant to come.’ There was regret in his voice and in his eyes. Eyes which clung to me as if we had shared a past, though I barely knew him. ‘Other matters have kept us away. Other pledges.’ He lifted his cup and drank.

  Father Yvain stiffened. ‘Have you found him?’ he asked, his big beard jutting towards Gawain.

  Gawain glanced at Hanguis.

  ‘Found who, Father?’ I asked.

  ‘Th
e druid,’ Father Judoc spat. ‘They speak of the druid Merlin.’ The other monks made the sign of the Thorn. Yvain, I noticed, did not.

  ‘These last ten years we have searched,’ Gawain said, the words given to the fire. ‘Those of us that were left. We took an oath and we have held to that oath. We have sought Merlin in every corner of the Dark Isles. Many who set out have never returned. Men have given their last good years to it.’ He shook his head, seeing the faces of old friends in his mind, perhaps.

  ‘But you have found him?’ Yvain said. He had walked round the hearth and was now looming over Gawain, who still sat on his stool, the cup of apple wine in his hand. He did not answer, though his eyes seemed to catch light in the flame glow.

  ‘We will not talk of the druid here,’ Father Brice said, his jaw clenching, eyes narrowed in determination. ‘Nor will we hear of you coming to take young Galahad from us. You know he is of the order.’

  Gawain looked up into the monk’s cold glare. ‘He is not shorn,’ he said. Then he turned back to me. ‘Have you taken the oath of the Thorn?’ he asked.

  Father Brice shot me a warning look.

  ‘No, lord,’ I told Gawain.

  ‘The moon is waxing, Lord Gawain,’ Father Brice cut in before I could speak again. The monk lifted a hand and scythed its edge through the tendril of black smoke curling up from the rushlight’s flame. ‘When it is full, I will give Galahad the tonsure myself. He has been with us these last ten years—’

  ‘I know how long he’s been here, monk,’ Gawain growled.

  Father Brice gave a curt nod. ‘And you know that he has dedicated his life to Christ and the saint who lowered our Lord’s body down from the cross. Galahad will be a brother of the order.’

  ‘Galahad will come with us,’ Gawain said.

  Father Judoc took a step towards Gawain, his finger pointing at the warrior. ‘You do not command us here,’ he said.

  ‘Prior Drustanus has always known I would come for the lad,’ Gawain growled. ‘Fetch him. He’ll tell you.’

  ‘The Prior is dying,’ Judoc said, at which we of the Thorn made the sign.

  Gawain gave a tired shrug. ‘Galahad is coming with me.’ He looked up at me. ‘You remember?’ he asked. ‘You remember I told you I’d come for you one day?’

  My thoughts swirled in my skull as Father Brice and Father Judoc complained and protested, and the others murmured amongst themselves. And I searched the silver-bearded warrior’s face, my eyes following the old scar which ran up through his eyebrow to meet his hairline.

  ‘I remember you, lord,’ I said. Every tongue went still. ‘I was a boy.’

  Gawain nodded. ‘What do you remember?’ he asked.

  I looked at the faces around me and saw concern and curiosity. Disquiet and even anger. But Yvain gave a slight nod which said, go on.

  ‘It was the day of the great battle,’ I said, casting my mind back through the years to that day. I looked at Gawain and it was all suddenly there within reach, the memory bright and as sharp as a blade which I feared to touch.

  ‘And?’ Gawain urged.

  I looked into the hearth flames rather than into the warrior’s eyes. I could not breathe deeply enough. The air of that place was foul, and my throat clenched like a fist and my breath was caught in my throat, fitful as a hare caught in a snare trap.

  I did not want to remember.

  ‘Go on, Galahad,’ Gawain said again, the muscle beneath his bearded right cheek twitching.

  I cleared my throat. ‘You found me. Found us,’ I corrected. ‘After.’

  The image of the raven-haired woman filled the eye of my mind. Guinevere, the woman whom my father had loved. Even when my mother was alive, he had loved this other. I had thought this cruel truth only came to me years later, in those times when I failed to stop my mind fetching up memories like sea-wrack spewed upon a shingle beach. Now, I realized that I had always known it, even before that day when she had come to our door in the forest, as though she were a spirit made flesh and sent by some god to damn my father and me. The way she and my father had looked at each other. The pain in their eyes. The longing. The hopelessness. I had not the words for any of it back then, yet I had seen it. Even with my child’s eyes I had seen it.

  ‘I found you, Galahad,’ Gawain confirmed with a nod, and I could see that that terrible day could have been just yesterday for him. ‘All was lost. We had fought the Saxons and the traitors for as long as we could. As hard as we could. In the end, both sides broke.’ His teeth pulled at his lip. ‘It was sheer bloody madness. That’s what it was.’

  Gediens grimaced, Hanguis shook his head and Endalan touched the iron hilt of the sword at his hip to ward off ill luck, the memory of that day still fresh in their minds. A seeping wound.

  Gawain’s eyes found me again. ‘When I got clear of that mess, I found you and Guinevere. I can’t say what had happened to her.’ His brows lifted, as if retreating from all his eyes had seen. ‘I suppose she couldn’t accept it. Losing them both. And just as they’d become brothers of the sword again. After everything.’ He shook his head. ‘Her mind was gone, you see.’ He fluttered his fingers in the smoky air. ‘Just … gone.’

  ‘I remember,’ I said. I looked at my hands. Moved my thumb and fingertips across each other, almost feeling Tormaigh’s coarse mane on my skin. Brave, proud Tormaigh, my father’s war stallion. I closed my eyes and I could hear his hoofbeats on the ground and the din of battle receding like the sound of the ocean at my back. I had clung on to him and he had carried me to a copse of birch. There we found Guinevere lying amongst pink willowherb and cream-coloured meadowsweet.

  ‘I thought she was dead,’ I said, ‘but could see no wounds. Then I thought her asleep but could not wake her.’

  ‘Trapped somewhere between life and death, they said.’ Father Yvain’s words broke upon me like a wave. The memory twisted my insides. Dizzied me. I opened my eyes and looked at Gawain. A glisten of tear on his cheek held a tiny rushlight flame.

  ‘We lost brothers that day.’ Hanguis drained his cup. ‘But we shall see them soon enough.’

  ‘I found you on a deer path in the woods,’ Gawain told me. ‘Somehow, you had got Guinevere up onto that horse. I found you, lad. And I brought you here.’ He looked around, as if judging his own memory of the place against the reality. ‘The brothers took you in and I am grateful to them.’ He nodded at Father Brice and Father Judoc. ‘Carried Guinevere to a woman in Caer Gloui. A healer.’ He shook his head. ‘But the woman could not help her. Could not even name the affliction. So, I brought Guinevere to the nuns across the water.’

  ‘Enough,’ Father Judoc said. ‘We will not talk of that woman here. She lived beyond the shadow of God.’

  ‘If not for her betrayal, Arthur would have thrown the Saxons back into the sea,’ Iselle said, and those brothers of the Thorn who had not wanted Iselle under their roof nodded solemnly.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gawain said, watching the flames leap and dance. He nodded. ‘Perhaps.’

  The hearth wood cracked and spat into the silence.

  ‘You may of course spend the night with us, Lord Gawain,’ Father Brice said after a while. ‘But if this storm passes and it is safe to leave in the morning, you and your men will do so.’

  Gawain nodded. ‘We’ll leave,’ he said, ‘but we’ll be taking Galahad with us.’

  I felt suddenly cold. My breath caught in my chest and I looked at Father Brice.

  ‘Father?’ I needed his reassurance. Needed him to oppose this scarred warrior by means of his venerable age and wisdom and by the strength of his faith.

  ‘It’s all right, Galahad.’ Father Brice lifted a hand towards me. ‘Lord Gawain does not command here.’

  ‘Even so,’ Gawain said, feeding a stick to the fire, ‘I’m taking the lad, when I go.’

  I took a breath, emboldened by Brice’s temerity, though the chill yet lingered in the pit of my stomach. ‘I am not leaving Ynys Wydryn, Lord Gawain,’ I said. ‘My place is her
e.’ I gestured at the three warriors huddled by the fire at Gawain’s shoulders. ‘You have your brothers, and I have mine.’ Father Brice and the others nodded and murmured their approval of my words.

  ‘Your place?’ Gawain searched the flames with his eyes and shook his head. ‘Wherever your place is, it’s not here, Galahad. A man can’t hide from the future, no more than he can hide from the past.’

  ‘Even if he wishes it were otherwise,’ Hanguis muttered under his breath as the fuel crackled and the flames capered, and Father Brice and Father Judoc shared a knowing look.

  ‘Until you came here, I had not thought of the past,’ I lied. ‘Only the future. My future here, as a brother of the Holy Thorn.’ I hardened my eyes on him. ‘When you leave tomorrow, I will visit the Thorn and pray for you, Lord Gawain. When I finish my prayers, I will not think of you again. I will not think of that day again.’

  Gawain searched my face. I did not know what he was seeking in it, but I saw in his eyes that whatever it was could not be found.

  ‘You look tired, Brother,’ Father Judoc told me. I could not recall him having used the term before. ‘Like this storm, Lord Gawain has stirred up things that should be left alone.’ He gestured to the door beyond which a walkway of planks led across the mud to the dormitory. ‘Go and rest, Brother. And do not let your thoughts stray.’

  I did not move, but looked at Iselle, who was watching the warriors with an awe which verged on reverence, the way the brothers looked at the Thorn on its lonely hill. In truth, I did not want to leave them all to talk without me. And yet neither did I want to remain in the company of Gawain and his men. Did not want to breathe the iron smell of their armour and the sheep-stink of the grease on their blades, for it was the scent of ghosts.

  ‘Do as Brother Judoc says, Galahad.’ Father Brice smiled at me. ‘I will be along shortly to change your dressings.’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ I said, turning, and did not look at Gawain again before the door shut behind me.

  I slept only a little that night. The wounds from the Thorn felt like fire, so that I could not lie comfortably but curled around my bolster, clinging to it as a shipwrecked man clings to a timber. And in a way I was drowning. Perhaps it was the rising waters of the marsh, or the rain which still thrashed down upon the thatch and pelted against the dormitory walls. But I think not. I think it was the coming of Gawain and the past he brought with him which had me fearing that I was suffocating. That I was sinking back into the dark mire from which I had been free these last years.