Queen of Camelot Page 6

  “Then suddenly, toward sunset, talk began to go through camp that the King was dying. Everyone fell still. The guard was doubled around Uther’s tent, and all the lords gathered inside, including Ector with Kay and the fosterling, and Merlin, and the kings of Rheged, Strathclyde, Cornwall, Elmet, Lothian, and Gwynedd. I can’t tell you just what happened, because I wasn’t there, but word went round that Uther, on his deathbed, proclaimed the fosterling to be his own son by the queen Ygraine, named him his heir, and bade the kings follow him. The lords took it as well as they might: Ector pleased as punch; Cornwall, Rheged, Strathclyde, and our own good King Pellinore cheered the lad and swore him faith. But Lothian was furious. Lot had schemed for years to become High King, betrothing Uther’s bastard daughter for the purpose. She was there, you know, the beautiful Morgause, to persuade her father to the choice. But they reckoned without Arthur, those two.” He turned to spit, then recollected his audience and contented himself with a gruff rumble in his throat. “There might have been a brawl, except that in the middle of the fracas, Uther died. And that put an end to the celebrations.” The sadness in Corwin’s face bespoke his loyalty to Uther. I was moved to see it. “It’s an uncommon bad omen, victory or no victory, the High King dying while the Saxons still lay encamped across the river. Why, the smoke from their funeral pyres kept us up coughing half the night. A new King had to be chosen, and fast. And while young Arthur had been proclaimed, no one felt easy about making a child a King with such a deadly enemy so near. In the interim, King Lot took charge.”

  “Traitor!” Elaine cried.

  “No, my lady. It needed the strong hand of an experienced warrior the soldiers trusted. It was best for everyone. And who else to turn to? Merlin might have stepped forward, but he did not. He returned to the field hospital, and young Arthur with him, looking dazed and grim. Lot announced we would hold the victory feast as planned, in Uther’s honor, and that afterward a council of commanders could discuss the wisdom of Uther’s recommendation and choose the next High King.”

  “Recommendation!” Elaine bristled. “How dare he! It is treason!”

  “Nonsense,” I retorted, tired of her interruptions. “We are not Roman yet. Kings are still chosen by the lords who must serve them.”

  “If the king’s son or his nephew are not worthy!” Elaine cried, beside herself. “But Arthur is the King’s son! He is worthy! Were they blind? Hadn’t he just won the battle for them?”

  “Yes,” I replied calmly, “it is easy enough to sit here safe in Wales and say so, but imagine being a soldier in the field. What Corwin says makes sense to me. They were all grown men, kings and lords and warriors; they did not want to serve a boy.”

  “Exactly so, my lady,” Corwin said sadly. “It is ever the way of men not to see what is before their noses.”

  “What happened at the victory feast?” I asked.

  Corwin frowned. “Well, they fell to arguing as soon as the wine went round. I have this from Durwen, who dragged himself from bed to accompany Pellinore. There were lords in the hall who were in league with Lothian and objected that a boy not yet fourteen was too young to lead a troop of seasoned warriors, much less a kingdom. Some argued long and loud on Lot’s behalf: Cyndeg of Gore, the snake Aguisel, a few others. Lot himself said nothing. Be sure he had paid them well beforehand for their speeches. They said the High King’s dying in the face of Saxons was an omen, and that Britain itself would die if we did not change the line.”

  “Had they already forgotten who brought them victory? What better omen could there be than that?” Elaine was shouting.

  “Soldiers are superstitious,” Corwin replied, “as you very well know. Black Celts from the hills of Wales are the worst of all. There was many a man in that hall who took it as a sign from the gods that Uther’s line ended with Uther’s death. There were cries of ‘Lothian! Lot for High King!’ from one side of the hall, and cries of ‘Arthur!’ from the other. And then, when the hall was near to erupting into open warfare, Merlin the Enchanter arose before the crowd. One look from him froze the wagging tongues, and when it was quiet, he spoke. It did not matter, he told them, what choice men made. This King had been ordained by gods a hundred years before his birth. He was the Light of Britain; his time had come. That day he had proved his prowess before them all. He was Chosen, and the gods that made men would prove it so that very night. Lot stood up and objected—he has more courage than I have, to face Merlin in the midst of a pronouncement, I grant him that—Lot stood up and objected that an army of men needed a man to lead them, not a boy, and talk about gods and magic and foretelling was so much stuff and nonsense, to borrow my lady’s phrase. Merlin, cool as ice, gestured toward the unarmed boy and said that Arthur stood before them without a sword for a reason. It was not Uther’s sword that would bring him into Kingship, but one given by the gods themselves. That very night, in the presence of them all, they would give the Sword into his hand, the Sword that would protect Britain from her enemies for as long as Arthur held it.” Corwin paused. “Now, Merlin, besides having power from the gods, besides being wise beyond the wisdom of men, Merlin is also a showman of the first class. He let the questions run through the hall like wind through a hayfield, and then he let the murmuring die down until all was still. And then, when he commanded every eye and every ear, he told the history of the Sword. It was, he said, the Sword of the Emperor Maximus.”

  Elaine and I gasped. All Welsh children were brought up on the story of Macsen Wledig, as the Welsh called Maximus, but the tale of the Sword was new to us. Magnus Maximus had been the last Roman commander in Britain; when the Romans pulled out, Macsen stayed with his Welsh princess Elen and forged the hill tribes of Britain into a Kingdom. It was the Sword of Maximus that turned aside the Saxons, the Picts, and the Irish in the dark time men call the Flood Year. Romano-British civilization teetered on the edge of extinction then, but Maximus’ disciplined troops beat back the savages and won for Britain a breathing space of peace. He was acclaimed Emperor of Britain by the people and kept the peace in the Roman way.

  But at length his ambitions outstripped his judgment, and he declared war on the emperor in Rome. He led his loyal British troops across the Narrow Sea into Gaul and across Gaul into Italy. Some say he defeated the Emperor of Rome, some say he was defeated by him; whatever happened, he died there in Aquilea, and his remaining troops brought home his armor and his Sword. Many men stayed in Gaul and settled along the edge of the Narrow Sea in what men call Less Britain. The rest returned to Wales. His son Constantius ruled after him and was the ancestor of Constans, who was murdered by Vortigern, and of Ambrosius, who was the first to reunite the kings of Britain, and of Uther, who just managed to hold the Saxons at bay, until Arthur should come.

  “It was written in the stars, Merlin said in a soft voice that carried to every corner of the hall, that in the dark hour the Light of Britain should blaze forth with a Sword of wondrous brilliance: Maximus’ own Sword, hidden in darkness for a hundred years, waiting for the hand of Britain’s greatest King to lift it once again into the light.”

  He stopped and let the silence hang.

  “Corwin,” I whispered, “you should be a bard.”

  He laughed. “I may have to be, unless my leg heals straight. Anyway, those are Merlin’s words about the Sword. Durwen told me, and he was there with King Pellinore. He was studying to be a bard and had learned how to get things by heart in one hearing.”

  “Was?” I asked quickly.

  Corwin sobered. “Yes, my lady. The poor lad died on the way home of his wound. It was stitched, but he opened it again by sitting a horse too soon, and against orders.”

  “But the Sword!” Elaine cried impatiently. “What can you tell us about that? Where was it? How did Prince Arthur get it? And when did they proclaim him King?”

  “Merlin claimed the Sword lay under Lluden’s Hill, where it had been left by Maximus’ chief captain. He had brought it north from Wales when Elen, in her grief, banished i
t from her sight. It lay in darkness, Merlin said, protected by the god of the place, to be raised into the light by him who was born the rightful King of Britain. He invited all the lords present to ride there that very night and witness its lifting. What could Lot do? Every lord in the hall, from king to count to troop captain, would have given years off his life to witness Merlin’s powers in person. Lot had no hope of being acclaimed King in that hall; his only hope was to join the throng on Lluden’s Hill and hope that Arthur or Merlin would fail.” He laughed and then slowly sobered. “King Pellinore took only Durwen with him, because, according to Durwen, he felt that the anointing of a new king should be witnessed by a bard. Now, I suppose, it is left to me to tell it.”

  He paused again and, closing his eyes, spoke softly. “So they took to horse and rode upstream along the river Eden. In the dark hours of the morning they came to the black island that sits hard by the ford. Lluden’s Hill, the locals call it; it has been a sacred place time out of mind. Merlin led them up the slope to an old tunnel, hidden by undergrowth, and through it into a gigantic cave. So large it was, none could see its roof, nor its ending. Their torches shed a dim and smoky light, enough to glimpse the cold immensity of the place and feel the weight of dark shadows pressing down.” Elaine and I shivered in spite of ourselves and made the sign against enchantment, although we were Christians. “Forty men had followed Merlin, and they all stood within the cave, shuffling and whispering, hearing their own voices speak back to them from the living rock; a place haunted, Durwen swore, with the spirits of the Elder past. Merlin stood up before them, a black shadow in the darkness. ‘Look before you,’ he cried, ‘and see the Sword of Maximus!’ And there it was, in the middle of the vast cavern, stuck into the cleft of a huge rock. There it was; where a moment before they had seen nothing, now they saw the split rock, the dark shaft rising, the dim glow of the hilt seeming to float in the very air. Merlin beckoned, they moved closer, the bravest among them trembling. The scabbard was of some ancient silken fabric, embroidered with the crude marks of the Old Tongue that Britons spoke before the Romans came. Merlin raised high a torch that all might see the writing carved into the rock below the sword: ‘Whoso lifts this Sword from the Stone is Rightwise born King of all the Britons.’ He read it out in a voice of dread, and the echoes circled, chilling the soul. ’rightwise born . . . rightwise born . . . King of all the Britons.’ ”

  “Corwin!” Elaine quavered, gripping my arm.

  His eyes were closed. He did not even hear her. “No one dared to breathe. The Sword stood in its dark sheath, dull and cold, and all around the air stank with the sweat of fear. ‘Let him who dares touch the Sword,’ Merlin called out. But no one moved. At last King Lot stepped forward. ‘I am fitter than any man here to be High King,’ he proclaimed, ‘but I distrust magicians.’ Merlin folded his hands into his sleeves. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘there is no magic in this place but what the gods have bestowed in the Sword itself. I am powerless before it. If the Sword is yours, take it.’ The lords held their breath as Lot reached out, put his hand to the hilt, and pulled.”

  Corwin opened his eyes and stared at us. “Then was the sacred silence rent with a mighty yell, for the Sword did not budge an iota, but Lot’s hand was burned, the flesh seared across the palm where it had held the hilt. He withdrew his hand, white-faced with pain, and cursed Merlin for a lying, two-faced bastard.” Elaine and I both gasped at such outrageous foolhardiness, but Corwin hardly paused for breath. “The company shrank back, afrighted. Someone called out, ‘Let the boy try! Where’s Ector’s fosterling?’ Arthur was pushed forward, and seeing that there was no way out of it, he stood straight as a spear before Merlin the Enchanter. ‘Is it for me?’ he asked the great magician. ‘If you tell me to, I shall try it.’ ”

  “Oh, how brave he is!” Elaine cried.

  “How so,” I countered, “when he has known Merlin his entire life? If there is not trust between them yet—”

  “Oh, shut up, Gwen! You ruin everything!”

  “Merlin told him,” Corwin went on, ignoring us both, “ ‘it is yours, my lord King. It was made for your hand, even before it was made for Maximus.’ So the lad went forward and put his hand to the hilt, and the great Sword slid as sweetly out of the sheath as a knife through butter. Torchlight caught the blade, setting it aglow; as he lifted it into the light, the great jewel in the hilt blazed into life. A huge emerald, hidden in the dark, struck its green fire into every soul and brought them all to their knees. Life! it signaled. Victory! As Arthur held it aloft he seemed to grow taller before their eyes. His face shone in the reflected glory of the Sword, a face full of pride and fierce determination. ‘I shall call it Excalibur,’ he said, which in the Old Tongue means ‘unconquered.’ Then every lord came and knelt before him to pay homage and receive his blessing. Lot was last, but he spoke well and promised faithful service. So they made young Arthur their King in that sacred place, King of all the Britons, and carried him outside as dawn broke in the east. And behind in the cavern the rock lay split in two halves, and the scabbard crumbled into dust, when the Sword was freed.”

  Elaine’s eyes were as large as goose eggs. The magnificence of her hero had been amply confirmed.

  “That’s not the end.” Corwin smiled. “While Durwen was busy spinning phrases in his head to recite to me, others among the lords, including Cyndeg and Aguisel, were grumbling that the whole thing had been planned by Arthur’s allies. Merlin had done nothing but lead them to the Sword. They might have sworn to follow the boy who held that Sword, but they wanted proof that Merlin’s powers were behind him. The lifting of the Sword was not enough; they wanted more.”

  “What fools men are!” I breathed.

  “And Merlin heard them. As they made ready to depart, with the new King at their head, Merlin turned around in the saddle and raised his arms. A thunderous crack rent the sky, a flash of fire burst forth, and the hillside above the cave came down. Trees bent double, horses bolted and men bellowed in fear, but Merlin sat and calmly watched Lluden’s Hill slide into a mountain of rubble. When the last stone had tumbled to a stop at Merlin’s feet, he coolly turned and surveyed the doubters, who shook before his gaze. Then he reined in and rode behind Arthur back to camp.”

  We brought Corwin a flask of honey mead and thanked him sincerely for his tale. Elaine was speechless for a while, but soon she found her tongue.

  “And what does King Arthur look like?” she asked eagerly. “Do tell us.”

  Corwin looked a little blank. “What do you mean, my lady?”

  “I mean, is he dark or fair? Tall or short? Lean or heavy?”

  Corwin smiled and said to me, “It seems the young princess is not without ambition.” I winked at a scarlet Elaine as he continued. “Well, from what I saw of him, he is tall for his age and slender for a warrior, but he is young yet. He is an excellent swordsman, near the best I have seen. What else? Let me see, brown hair, brown eyes, a clear skin with a serious expression, well featured, with a look of Uther about him, and when he was young Uther was considered handsome by all the ladies of the land.” Then Corwin’s gaze grew distant, and his voice pensive. “But I think what is most impressive about him is something that I cannot put into words. Men call it poise, or inner peace, or wisdom, or strength, or grace of bearing, but it is all those and more; he is a man in harmony with himself. He has a mission. He knows who he is.”

  “He must be a born leader,” I said thoughtfully, “for the men he commands are seasoned warriors and kings in their own right. Sword or no sword, men like King Pellinore and my brother Gwarthgydd would not follow a mere boy.”

  “Indeed,” Corwin agreed. “And it isn’t due to Merlin’s magic, either. For Merlin disappeared after the lifting of the Sword and hasn’t been seen since. Yet the army is off after Colgrin, with King Arthur at its head.”

  “He will beat the Saxons,” Elaine said confidently, “and drive them from our shores forever.”

  “It will be a miracle indee
d if he does that,” Corwin replied. “The Saxons have been living on the Shore since Vortigern first invited them, fifty years ago. There are children your age, my young lady, whose grandfathers were born in Britain. Small wonder they consider it their home.”

  “But we were here first,” Elaine objected.

  “We Welsh?” I asked her. “Or we British? We are led by a descendant of Maximus, who was a Roman and a foreigner. The Celts were here before the Romans, and the Ancients before the Celts. No one knows who was here before the Ancients. Perhaps the Saxons are next.”

  “That’s treason!” Elaine cried, tears springing to her eyes. “Gwen, I will never forgive you unless you take it back! How can you say such a thing?” Even Corwin looked shocked.

  “If it isn’t possible to drive the Saxons out—and where, indeed, can they go? —then it will be necessary to treat with them. Yes, I know the old saying: A treaty with a Saxon is as lasting as smoke in the wind, but it seems to me it’s the strongest sword that prevails. Perhaps what Merlin said is true and that Arthur’s Sword is the strongest. Then we shall have peace with the Saxons.” I could see that they both were calmer, and Elaine was on the verge of forgiving me. “Who knows? In two hundred years perhaps even the Saxons will be British.”

  Elaine gasped in horror and began to berate me; Corwin looked afraid.

  “My lady Guinevere, it is not my place to say so, but these are not matters that should concern young maids. These are high matters, and beyond such as me; they are better left to the king’s council chamber. You have a mind, my lady, which may bring you grief if you give it tongue. Such thoughts are better left unspoken.”

  It was good advice. I did not tell him that it was talk in the king’s council chamber that had given rise to these thoughts, voiced here for the first time. I accepted his rebuke, apologized to Elaine, and kept my thoughts to myself thereafter. It was twenty years before I found a mind receptive to these thoughts: a man who accepted them and went beyond them, who believed in compromise and in the value of other cultures besides his own, a man who envisioned the entire civilized world as one community. That man was Mordred.