Enemy of God, Page 2

  A field after battle is a dreadful thing.

  We had won, but there was no elation in our souls, just weariness and relief. We shivered about our fires and tried not to think of the ghouls and spirits that stalked the dark where the dead of Lugg Vale lay. Some of us slept, but none slept well for the nightmares of battle’s end harried us. I woke in the black hours, startled out of sleep by the memory of a spear thrust that had so nearly skewered my belly. Issa had saved me, pushing the enemy’s spear away with the edge of his shield, but I was haunted by what had so nearly happened. I tried to sleep again, but the memory of that spear thrust kept me awake, and so at last, shivering and weary, I stood and drew my cloak about me. The vale was lit by guttering fires, and in the dark between the flames there drifted a miasma of smoke and river mist. Some things moved in the smoke, but whether they were ghosts or the living I could not tell.

  ‘You can’t sleep, Derfel?’ A voice spoke softly from the doorway of the Roman building where the body of King Gorfyddyd lay.

  I turned to see it was Arthur who watched me. ‘I can’t sleep, Lord,’ I admitted.

  He picked his way through the sleeping warriors. He wore one of the long white cloaks that he liked so much and, in the fiery night, the garment seemed to shine. There was no mud on it, or any blood, and I realized he must have kept the cloak bundled safe for something clean to wear after battle. The rest of us would not have cared if we had ended the fight stark naked so long as we lived, but Arthur was ever a fastidious man. He was bare-headed and his hair still showed the indentations where the helmet had clasped his skull. ‘I never sleep well after battle,’ he said, ‘not for a week at least. Then comes a blessed night of rest.’ He smiled at me. ‘I am in your debt.’

  ‘No, Lord,’ I said, though in truth he was in my debt. Sagramor and I had held Lugg Vale all that long day, fighting in the shield-wall against a vast horde of enemies, and Arthur had failed to rescue us. A rescue had come at last, and victory with it, but of all Arthur’s battles Lugg Vale was the nearest to a defeat. Until the last battle.

  ‘I, at least, will remember the debt,’ he said fondly, ‘even if you do not. It is time to make you wealthy, Derfel, you and your men.’ He smiled and took my elbow to lead me to a bare patch of earth where our voices would not disturb the restless sleep of the warriors who lay closer to the smoking fires. The ground was damp and rain had puddled in the deep scars left by the hoofs of Arthur’s big horses. I wondered if horses dreamed of battle, then wondered if the dead, newly arrived in the Other-world, still shuddered at the memory of the sword stroke or spear blow that had sent their souls across the bridge of swords. ‘I suppose Gundleus is dead?’ Arthur interrupted my thoughts.

  ‘Dead, Lord,’ I confirmed. The King of Siluria had died earlier in the evening, but I had not seen Arthur since the moment when Nimue had pinched out her enemy’s life.

  ‘I heard him screaming,’ Arthur said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘All Britain must have heard him screaming,’ I answered just as drily. Nimue had taken the King’s dark soul piece by piece, all the while crooning her revenge on the man who had raped her and taken one of her eyes.

  ‘So Siluria needs a King,’ Arthur said, then stared down the long vale to where the black shapes drifted in the mist and smoke. His clean-shaven face was shadowed by the flames, giving him a gaunt look. He was not a handsome man, but nor was he ugly. Rather he had a singular face; long, bony and strong. In repose it was a rueful face, suggesting sympathy and thoughtfulness, but in conversation it was animated by enthusiasm and a quick smile. He was still young then, just thirty years old, and his short-cropped hair was untouched by grey. ‘Come,’ he touched my arm and gestured down the vale.

  ‘You’d walk among the dead?’ I pulled back aghast. I would have waited till dawn had chased the ghouls away before venturing away from the protective firelight.

  ‘We made them into the dead, Derfel, you and I,’ Arthur said, ‘so they should fear us, should they not?’ He was never a superstitious man, not like the rest of us who craved blessings, treasured amulets and watched every moment for omens that might warn against dangers. Arthur moved through that spirit world like a blind man. ‘Come,’ he said, touching my arm again.

  So we walked into the dark. They were not all dead, those things that lay in the mist, for some called piteously for help, but Arthur, normally the kindest of men, was deaf to the feeble cries. He was thinking about Britain. ‘I’m going south tomorrow,’ he said, ‘to see Tewdric.’ King Tewdric of Gwent was our ally, but he had refused to send his men to Lugg Vale, believing that victory was impossible. The King was in our debt now, for we had won his war for him, but Arthur was not a man to hold a grudge. ‘I’ll ask Tewdric to send men east to face the Saxons,’ Arthur went on, ‘but I’ll send Sagramor as well. That should hold the frontier through the winter. Your men,’ he gave me a swift smile, ‘deserve a rest.’

  The smile told me that there would be no rest. ‘They will do whatever you ask,’ I answered dutifully. I was walking stiffly, wary of the circling shadows and making the sign against evil with my right hand. Some souls, newly ripped from their bodies, do not find the entrance to the Otherworld, but instead wander the earth’s surface looking for their old bodies and seeking revenge on their killers. Many of those souls were in Lugg Vale that night and I feared them, but Arthur, oblivious of their threat, strolled carelessly through the field of death with one hand holding up the skirts of his cloak to keep it free of the wet grass and thick mud.

  ‘I want your men in Siluria,’ he said decisively. ‘Oengus Mac Airem will want to plunder it, but he must be restrained.’ Oengus was the Irish King of Demetia who had changed sides in the battle to give Arthur victory and the Irishman’s price was a share of slaves and wealth from the dead Gundleus’s kingdom. ‘He can take a hundred slaves,’ Arthur decreed, ‘and one third of Gundleus’s treasury. He’s agreed to that, but he’ll still try to cheat us.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t, Lord.’

  ‘No, not you. Will you let Galahad lead your men?’

  I nodded, hiding my surprise. ‘So what do you want of me?’ I asked.

  ‘Siluria is a problem,’ Arthur went on, ignoring my question. He stopped, frowning as he thought about Gundleus’s kingdom. ‘It’s been ill-ruled, Derfel, ill-ruled.’ He spoke with a deep distaste. To the rest of us corrupt government was as natural as snow in winter or flowers in the springtime, but Arthur was genuinely horrified by it. These days we remember Arthur as a warlord, as the shining man in polished armour who carried a sword into legend, but he would have wanted to be remembered as nothing but a good, honest and just ruler. The sword gave him power, but he gave that power to the law. ‘It isn’t an important kingdom,’ he continued, ‘but it will make endless trouble if we don’t put it right.’ He was thinking aloud, trying to anticipate every obstacle that lay between this night after battle and his dream of a peaceful united Britain. ‘The ideal answer,’ he said, ‘would be to divide it between Gwent and Powys.’

  ‘Then why not do that?’ I asked.

  ‘Because I have promised Siluria to Lancelot,’ he said in a voice that brooked no contradiction. I said nothing, but just touched Hywelbane’s hilt so that the iron would protect my soul from the evil things of this night. I was gazing southwards to where the dead lay like a tide-rill by the tree fence where my men had fought the enemy all that long day.

  There had been so many brave men in that fight, but no Lancelot. In all the years that I had fought for Arthur, and in all the years that I had been acquainted with Lancelot, I had yet to see Lancelot in the shield-wall. I had seen him pursuing beaten fugitives, and seen him lead captives off to parade them before an excited crowd, but I had never seen him in the hard, sweaty, clanging press of struggling shield-walls. He was the exiled King of Benoic, unthroned by the horde of Franks that had erupted out of Gaul to sweep his father’s kingdom into oblivion, and not once, so far as I knew, had he ever carried a spe
ar against a Frankish war-band, yet bards throughout the length and breadth of Britain sang of his bravery. He was Lancelot, the King without land, the hero of a hundred fights, the sword of the Britons, the handsome lord of sorrows, the paragon, and all of that high reputation was made by song and none of it, so far as I knew, with a sword. I was his enemy, and he mine, but both of us were friends of Arthur and that friendship kept our enmity in an awkward truce.

  Arthur knew my hostility. He touched my elbow so that we both walked on south towards the tide-rill of the dead. ‘Lancelot is Dumnonia’s friend,’ he insisted, ‘so if Lancelot rules Siluria then we shall have nothing to fear from it. And if Lancelot marries Ceinwyn, then Powys will support him too.’

  There, it was said, and now my hostility was brittle with anger, yet still I said nothing against Arthur’s scheme. What could I say? I was the son of a Saxon slave, a young warrior with a band of men but no land, and Ceinwyn was a Princess of Powys. She was called seren, the star, and she shone in a dull land like a spark of the sun fallen into mud. She had been betrothed to Arthur, but had lost him to Guinevere, and that loss had brought on the war that had just ended in the slaughter of Lugg Vale. Now, for peace, Ceinwyn must marry Lancelot, my enemy, while I, a mere nothing, was in love with her. I wore her brooch and I carried her image in my thoughts. I had even sworn an oath to protect her, and she had not spurned the oath. Her acceptance had filled me with an insane hope that my love for her was not hopeless, but it was. Ceinwyn was a Princess and she must marry a King, and I was a slave-born spearman and would marry where I could.

  So I said nothing about my love for Ceinwyn, and Arthur, who was disposing of Britain in this night after his victory, suspected nothing. And why should he? If I had confessed to him that I was in love with Ceinwyn he would have thought it as outrageous an ambition as a dunghill rooster wanting to mate with an eagle. ‘You know Ceinwyn, don’t you?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yes, Lord.’

  ‘And she likes you,’ he said, only half as a question.

  ‘So I dare to think,’ I said truthfully, remembering Ceinwyn’s pale, silvery beauty and loathing the thought of it being given into Lancelot’s handsome keeping. ‘She likes me well enough,’ I went on, ‘to have told me she has no enthusiasm for this marriage.’

  ‘Why should she?’ Arthur asked. ‘She’s never met Lancelot. I don’t expect enthusiasm from her, Derfel, just obedience.’

  I hesitated. Before the battle, when Tewdric had been so desperate to end the war that threatened to ruin his land, I had gone on a peace mission to Gorfyddyd. The mission had failed, but I had talked with Ceinwyn and told her of Arthur’s hope that she should marry Lancelot. She had not rejected the idea, but nor had she welcomed it. Back then, of course, no one believed Arthur could defeat Ceinwyn’s father in battle, but Ceinwyn had considered that unlikely possibility and had asked me to request one favour of Arthur if he should win. She wanted his protection, and I, falling so hard in love with her, translated that request as a plea that she should not be forced into a marriage she did not want. I told Arthur now that she had begged his protection. ‘She’s been betrothed too often, Lord,’ I added, ‘and too often disappointed, and I think she wants to be left alone for a time.’

  ‘Time!’ Arthur laughed. ‘She hasn’t got time, Derfel. She’s nearly twenty! She can’t stay unmarried like a cat that won’t catch mice. And who else can she marry?’ He walked on a few paces. ‘She has my protection,’ he said, ‘but what better protection could she want than to be married to Lancelot and placed on a throne? And what about you?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Me, Lord?’ For a moment I thought he was proposing that I should marry Ceinwyn and my heart leapt.

  ‘You’re nearly thirty,’ he said, ‘and it’s time you were married. We’ll see to it when we’re back in Dumnonia, but for now I want you to go to Powys.’

  ‘Me, Lord? Powys?’ We had just fought and defeated Powys’s army and I could not imagine that anyone in Powys would welcome an enemy warrior.

  Arthur gripped my arm. ‘The most important thing in the next few weeks, Derfel, is that Cuneglas is acclaimed King of Powys. He thinks no one will challenge him, but I want to be sure. I want one of my men in Caer Sws to be a witness to our friendship. Nothing more. I just want any challenger to know that he will have to fight me as well as Cuneglas. If you’re there and if you’re seen to be his friend then that message will be clear.’

  ‘So why not send a hundred men?’ I asked.

  ‘Because then it will look as if we’re imposing Cuneglas on Powys’s throne. I don’t want that. I need him as a friend, and I don’t want him returning to Powys looking like a defeated man. Besides,’ he smiled, ‘you’re as good as a hundred men, Derfel. You proved that yesterday.’

  I grimaced, for I was always uncomfortable with extravagant compliments, but if the praise meant that I was the right man to be Arthur’s envoy in Powys then I was happy, for I would be close to Ceinwyn again. I still treasured the memory of her touch on my hand, just as I treasured the brooch she had given me so many years before. She had not married Lancelot yet, I told myself, and all I wanted was a chance to indulge my impossible hopes. ‘And once Cuneglas is acclaimed,’ I asked, ‘what do I do then?’

  ‘You wait for me,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m coming to Powys as soon as I can, and once we’ve settled the peace and Lancelot is safely betrothed, we’ll go home. And next year, my friend, we’ll lead the armies of Britain against the Saxons.’ He spoke with a rare relish for the business of making war. He was good at fighting, and he even enjoyed battle for the unleashed thrills it gave his usually so careful soul, but he never sought war if peace was available because he mistrusted the uncertainties of battle. The vagaries of victory and defeat were too unpredictable, and Arthur hated to see good order and careful diplomacy abandoned to the chances of battle. But diplomacy and tact would never defeat the invading Saxons who were spreading westwards across Britain like vermin. Arthur dreamed of a well-ordered, lawfully governed, peaceful Britain and the Saxons were no part of that dream.

  ‘We’ll march in the spring?’ I asked him.

  ‘When the first leaves show.’

  ‘Then I would ask one favour of you first.’

  ‘Name it,’ he said, delighted that I should want something in return for helping to give him victory.

  ‘I want to march with Merlin, Lord,’ I said.

  He did not answer for a while. He just stared down at the damp ground where a sword lay with its blade bent almost double. Somewhere in the dark a man moaned, cried out, then was silent. ‘The Cauldron,’ Arthur said at last, his voice heavy.

  ‘Yes, Lord,’ I said. Merlin had come to us during the battle and pleaded that both sides should abandon the fight and follow him on a quest to find the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. The Cauldron was the greatest Treasure of Britain, the magical gift of the old Gods, and it had been lost for centuries. Merlin’s life was dedicated to retrieving those Treasures, and the Cauldron was his greatest prize. If he could find the Cauldron, he told us, he could restore Britain to her rightful Gods.

  Arthur shook his head. ‘Do you really think the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn has stayed hidden all these years?’ he asked me. ‘Through all the Roman years? It was taken to Rome, Derfel, and it was melted down for pins or brooches or coins. There is no Cauldron!’

  ‘Merlin says there is, Lord,’ I insisted.

  ‘Merlin has listened to old women’s tales,’ Arthur said angrily. ‘Do you know how many men he wants to take on this search for his Cauldron?’

  ‘No, Lord.’

  ‘Eighty, he told me. Or a hundred. Or, better still, two hundred! He won’t even say where the Cauldron is, he just wants me to give him an army and let him march it away to some wild place. Ireland, maybe, or the Wilderness. No!’ He kicked the bent sword, then prodded a finger hard into my shoulder. ‘Listen, Derfel, I need every spear I can muster next year. We’re going to finish the Saxons once and for ever, and I c
an’t lose eighty or a hundred men to the chase of a bowl that disappeared nearly five hundred years ago. Once Aelle’s Saxons are defeated you can chase this nonsense if you must. But I tell you it is a nonsense. There is no Cauldron.’ He turned and began to walk back to the fires. I followed, wanting to argue with him, but I knew I could never persuade him for he would need every spear he could muster if he was to defeat the Saxons, and he would do nothing now that would weaken his chances of victory in the spring. He smiled at me as if to compensate for his harsh refusal of my request. ‘If the Cauldron does exist,’ he said, ‘then it can stay hidden another year or two. But in the meantime, Derfel, I plan to make you rich. We shall marry you to money.’ He slapped my back. ‘One last campaign, my dear Derfel, one last great slaughter, then we shall have peace. Pure peace. We won’t need any cauldrons then.’ He spoke exultingly. That night, among the dead, he really did see peace coming.

  We walked towards the fires that lay around the Roman house where Ceinwyn’s father, Gorfyddyd, lay dead. Arthur was happy that night, truly happy, for he saw his dream coming true. And it all seemed so easy. There would be one more war, then peace for evermore. Arthur was our warlord, the greatest warrior in Britain, yet that night after battle, among the shrieking souls of the smoke-wreathed dead, all he wanted was peace. Gorfyddyd’s heir, Cuneglas of Powys, shared Arthur’s dream. Tewdric of Gwent was an ally, Lancelot would be given the kingdom of Siluria and together with Arthur’s Dumnonian army the united Kings of Britain would defeat the invading Saxons. Mordred, under Arthur’s protection, would grow to assume Dumnonia’s throne and Arthur would retire to enjoy the peace and prosperity his sword had given Britain.