The Bloody Cup (63 page)

‘My lady, you had no need to come to this place,’ Artor protested weakly. ‘Battlefields aren’t for you.’

Anna stroked the dying man’s hands with work-hardened fingers so like his own.

‘Did you think you could keep me away, Father? At last, I may tell you that your long silence has not harmed me. Some matters are greater than the demands of the human heart and, like my mother, I always understood. Be at peace, Father, for your long labour is over.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly, lord. Now sleep while we watch over you. Have no fear of the darkness for we’ve come to light your way.’

‘It would be good to rest for a while, but there is still so much to do.’

Nimue smiled. ‘Others can finish what you have begun. Sleep, and dream, dear Artor.’

The High King sighed and his eyes began to close. Then, abruptly, he dragged himself back from sleep and called for Bedwyr. He was so distressed that Nimue ordered that the Cornovii should be found immediately.

Bedwyr had led a cavalry charge on the right horn of the army crescent during the battle, a position Artor had insisted on, in order to keep the Arden Knife safe. Even so, Bedwyr had reaped a bitter harvest of Brigante souls as the traitors tried to flee back across the river and on to Bremetennacum. He had hunted the fleeing warriors down like vermin.

Now, in response to Artor’s call, he came running. He paused outside the king’s tent to straighten his hair and jerkin, and then entered the presence of the High King.

He bowed low.

‘Bedwyr, my friend, you must ensure that Caliburn goes to Lady Nimue. She will know what to do with my sword. Protect her, and keep your word to me.’

Shock, loss and pain struggled for mastery in Bedwyr’s eyes.

Artor fell back on the pillows. ‘What has been done with Odin?’

‘He lies with the other dead from your personal guard, my king. They will be burned in the morning. Do you wish any special arrangements to be made for your friend?’

Artor shook his head. ‘Odin was a warrior and I’ll not dishonour him by sending him to his gods unaccompanied. Let his ashes mingle with the remains of my sons. Those of my guard who still live belong to Ector now. Their oaths to me belong to the son of King Bran. Give him my scrolls as well . . . and my maps.’

Anna’s lips trembled but her eyes remained dry. Exhausted, Artor closed his eyes.

‘He should rest now, Mother.’ Taliesin knuckled his eyes like an unhappy child. ‘I cannot tell how long he will endure.’

The three queens left Artor’s tent, and stood amidst the organized bustle of a successful army. A huge tower of bodies had been built on rafts of tree logs near the riverbank, some distance from the Celtic encampment. Closer, and more poignant, a smaller tower of timber and dead warriors rose, ready for incineration, with Odin lying in state at the apex.

‘Ah, brave heart,’ Nimue whispered. ‘Asgaad awaits you.’

‘He’ll not go there.’ Bedwyr’s voice was thick with unshed tears. ‘Not if Artor chooses the Underworld of the Romans. King and servant are hand-fasted forever, and Odin would happily give up his heaven for his master.’

A troop of Celtic cavalry rode across the river and added more weapons and shields to an ever-growing pile of captured arms that had been collected from the battlefield. When the warriors saw Bedwyr with the queens, they nodded respectfully and addressed the Cornovii king.

‘The hunting is good, my lord. Not a single Pict will return to their highlands and the Brigante are crushed. Our king has won a great victory.’

‘Aye, men. Aye,’ Bedwyr said quietly.

When the warriors had ridden past, he turned back to the queens; his face was streaked with tears.

‘But who’ll hold back the Saxons from Lavatrae and fair Melandra? It will all be lost now - all of the loveliness that he created.’

‘Look around you, Bedwyr.’ Anna pointed at the churned earth, the smoke rising from the burning corpses of horses, and the huge store of weapons, armour and shields that spoke mutely of violent death. A wagon was already stacked with precious objects that had been looted from the dead, ready for the long journey to Cadbury.

‘What loveliness exists here, except the brotherhood of men? And who can see loyalty, or love, or duty with human eyes? But these qualities live in this place of death, even though the earth has run with blood and corruption scents the soft air with the reek of carrion. Feel it, Bedwyr. The land goes on. We are the ones who decay and die.’

‘Artor must not die here,’ Enid said quietly. ‘His reputation will keep the west free from invasion for a little space until the Saxons discover that he has died and passed into the shadows. We must take him back to Glastonbury so we can perform the necessary rites.’

‘No!’ Bedwyr exclaimed. ‘You mustn’t move him. The army could easily lose heart, and Artor’s life might still be saved if we care for him properly.’

‘We must move him,’ Nimue replied firmly. ‘The continued safety of the west demands that King Artor departs this field in the manner of a High King. Gather the army together, friend Bedwyr, so we may speak to them. Meanwhile, you must prepare a cart with all the necessary comforts to ensure that Artor does not suffer during his journey. Taliesin will know what has to be done.’

Nimue turned to Bors and Pelles Minor, who had come to Artor’s tent in Bedwyr’s wake, and both men shifted nervously from foot to foot. Neither man was particularly superstitious, but they sensed that legends would come into being from this strange evening.

‘You, Bors, in company with Pelles, are in charge of returning our warriors to their homes,’ Nimue instructed. ‘You must then secure Cadbury Tor until Artor recovers or a successor assumes the throne as the new High King of the Britons. You must not fail in this!’

The two captains bowed. If they found anything odd in obeying orders issued by a woman, they did not show it. Privately, they wondered if these queens were even mortal.

The following dawn, Odin was consigned to the fire with Artor’s personal guard, and departed for his final meeting with his gods. Artor was present, propped upright on his campaign stool, his pain dulled by poppy juice. Throughout the ceremony, his face remained composed, but some warriors swore that he wept as Odin’s corpse blackened and burned.

Throughout the day, preparations were made for departure and, as the long dusk lengthened, torches and campfires were lit and the army gathered on the banks of the river. Mounted on their steeds, the three queens rode forward to address the warriors, while Gareth and Taliesin ministered to their master in a hide-covered cart in preparation for the journey. Bedwyr held the reins of the carthorse loosely in his hands, awaiting his orders.

When Nimue addressed the warriors, her words rose over the murmurs of the men in a clear, pure voice that resembled the striking of silver bells.

‘Men of the west! Brave hearts of the king! You have laboured here on these nameless fields to free your lands from a deadly danger. Now is the time for you to rest. Artor, the High King of the Britons, has been sorely wounded while killing the Matricide, Modred, and we have come to take our lord to Glastonbury to be healed. You must fear no danger. And you should not despair, for know you that when his people have most need of him, the High King will return. I, Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, do swear that what I say is true.’

Anna spoke next. Men looked at her, and could see the resemblance to their beloved King in the noble lines and bones of her face, and they accepted completely her right to address them.

‘You know of me, men of the west, I am Anna, King Artor’s kin, and I do not lie. I bore the twins, Balyn and Balan, who fought with you in our last Saxon summer, and who gave up their young lives for the west. When next you embrace your women and children, the High King will be with you; when you march to fight during another Saxon summer, Artor will ride with you and, when you face the last darkness, he will intercede for you with your gods to ease your journey. I swear that Artor will not die, because he is more than mere mortal flesh. You have only to call and he will be there, in your hearts, when you act with valour and honour.’

The crowd’s fear and anxiety rose up in a flurry of cries and prayers. Queen Enid spoke so quietly that men were forced to pass her words back through the body of the army.

‘People of the west, I bear the promise of King Gawayne that safe harbour will exist for any Celt beyond the Wall in our lands and he will endeavour to honour his promises to the High King should another Saxon summer come upon us. So, take heart, men of the west. You are not alone, though the winds of sorrow scar our hearts. I promise in my king’s name, and over the body of my son, the hero Galahad.’

A few ragged cheers rose from the ranks.

‘Fear no evil, people of the west.’ Nimue lifted Caliburn with surprising ease. ‘The sword of the High King is with you, regardless of the troubles, or the loneliness, that are yet to come. No other hand but Artor’s will ever wield it, so keep faith with Artor and honour the Warrior of the West.’

At first, the crowd mumbled their doubts, but then a firm resolve entered their hearts and they roared their approval. Whether the king lived or died, he was theirs forever.

Nimue nodded to Bedwyr and the cart pulled away with the three queens riding before it.

And so Artor left the battlefield where he had risked and lost so much. His departure should have been ignominious, for he was borne away in a cart and placed on soft furs to ease the agony of his wounds. But something of his spirit invested the warriors of his guard with courage and dignity, and they held their heads high and their horses pranced with pride.

The army formed a pathway of honour and the warriors raised their weapons in tribute, while their voices stirred the sweet air of dusk in farewell.

‘
Ave
, Artor, Warrior of the West!’

Artor heard the words repeated over and over as the cart took him away from all he had known and loved as a man, and tears snaked down his face.

The High King departed from the kingdom of the Celts, and was seen no more.

POSTSCRIPT

On a slate-grey day, flushed with the first autumnal fall of russet leaves, Taliesin and Lady Nimue returned again to the lake that lay in the fold near Caer Gai. Their mood was sombre, now that their separate duties were almost done.

Nimue wept at the recollection of how she, Enid and Anna had washed Artor’s aged body, reduced to heavy bones covered with flaccid skin that no longer retained even a memory of youth. The long road to Glastonbury stretched ahead of them, but time must be stolen to serve these last devotions to their king.

Anna had kissed his calloused, sun browned hands that still retained a fragment of beauty in their length and delicacy, while Enid had washed his feet and dried them with her hair, much as the harlot Mary had done for Jesus five hundred years before. The Otadini queen recognized no blasphemy in her actions.

Nimue had closed the king’s fatal wound and pressed a gold coin into Artor’s mouth to pay the Ferryman, knowing that the Roman way had been close to the High King. The coin itself was minted with the head of Octavian, and Nimue knew that Artor would have found some comfort in her gift.

On the long journey to Glastonbury, traders and pilgrims stepped aside from the cavalcade with superstitious dread, for who could look upon these faces of marbled beauty and not understand that something strange walked these dusty roads?

At Glastonbury, the monks sent up prayers, begging God to intercede and save the soul of Artor, the fabled son of Uther Pendragon.

‘Perhaps their prayers will shorten his path to paradise,’ Bishop Mark said reflectively, as a group of priests dug Artor’s grave beside those of churchmen who had served Glastonbury, and Artor, so well.

‘He’ll only enter paradise if your god also shelters Targo, Myrddion, Odin and all of his pagan friends,’ Nimue answered simply. ‘My king will not consent to cross the portals to heaven without them.’

Bishop Mark had led a requiem Mass in the small church at Glastonbury for the salvation of Artor’s soul. It was attended by the three queens, Taliesin, Bedwyr and Artor’s surviving guard. Ector, with chin upraised to hide the tears that threatened to expose his weakness, stood beside his grandmother and gripped her hand tightly.

Finally, Mark spoke for the High King, for he had heard Artor’s first, and last, confession, and he knew the depth and breadth of Artor’s spirit.

‘I will not speak of sins, for King Artor’s faults are forgiven under the seal of the confessional. I will not speak of guilts, for King Artor carried shame for deeds that weren’t of his own making, because he was a man with a conscience. But I will speak of what he did, for those exploits are what will endure down the wide, dark river of time.

‘For a space, Artor saved our world. While he ruled the west, no Saxon set foot within the borders that he decided were part of his kingdom. No churches were burned, for the High King used his own body and brain to protect us from the barbarians. He gave up everything that less noble men hold dear to ensure that ordinary men and women possessed what he did not - a peaceful fireside and a quiet life.

‘Do not bother with foolish regrets if, at the end, Artor’s legacy fails. Without Artor, the Saxons would have destroyed the west thirty years ago, just as I know that they will come to Glastonbury’s doors in time. But Artor has given us breathing space which will serve to civilize the Saxon enemy, so that the land will not be wholly destroyed. The Modreds of these isles are as nothing, mere huff and puff that will be used to frighten children in our future. But Artor will become everything that we aspire to be, while the man he was will be forgotten. Perhaps that is a pity, for Artor was good, strong and true. But so are many men. What he taught us is what will last. You did not lie, Nimue, when you promised the High King’s army that Artor will come, again and again, whenever we have need of him. We will draw on his memory, and become all the stronger and better for it. So pray with me for the true king, under the legend that will be, for we will not see another warrior fit to take his place.’