The Legend of the King (24 page)

"You there!" Dinadan called. The young man looked up, smiled, and walked to meet them.

"Good day, friends," the young man said.

"Who are you?" Dinadan asked. The holy man's face was open, honest, and—in a vague way—familiar.

"I'm Brother Guinglain, a hermit. And who are you?"

"I'm Sir Dinadan of King Arthur's Round Table, and this is Sir Palomides."

Brother Guinglain's smile grew wider. "I'm glad to meet you both, especially any knight of King Arthur's Round Table. Did you survive the battle?"

Dinadan shook his head. "I've just this morning arrived from France. Can you tell me what happened?"

Brother Guinglain nodded. "All that I know, at least. Perhaps we could go apart and talk. Upwind of the field, I think."

Dinadan agreed. The smell of death was stronger here than it had been at the beach. Together, they made their way to the top of the hill, where they could look out over the battlefield and the village, and where a steady northwesterly wind carried away the stench of human decay. They sat in the grass, and Brother Guinglain took a deep breath. "That's better," he said.

"When was the battle?" Dinadan asked.

"Three days ago, maybe?" Brother Guinglain replied. "I wasn't here yet; nor have I found anyone who could tell me. The villagers all fled days before, when the White Horsemen arrived."

"The White Horsemen?" Dinadan asked. "The ones with the white horse trampling a crown?"

Brother Guinglain nodded. "Yes. Mordred's army."

"Mordred," Dinadan repeated.

Brother Guinglain nodded. "King Arthur's son."

Dinadan sighed. The djinn back at Angora had spoken truly: Mordred was Arthur's son. That gave the djinn's other words more force—such as the spirit's statement that Arthur's day was over. Dinadan's chest felt tight.

"So Sir Mordred's armies met King Arthur's at this place?" asked Palomides. Brother Guinglain nodded. "And what was the result of the battle?"

"That," Brother Guinglain said, "I am still puzzling over. One thing I know: the White Horsemen were utterly crushed."

"And Sir Mordred?"

"Dead," Brother Guinglain replied. "I found his body at the foot of the hill yesterday. He still looks angry."

"And King Arthur?" Dinadan demanded.

Brother Guinglain shrugged and said, "I find no trace of him."

"Then he's alive!" exclaimed Dinadan.

Brother Guinglain sighed. "I don't know that, either."

"What do you mean, friend?" asked Palomides.

"I've found few of Arthur's knights," Brother Guinglain said, "but there are new graves. Someone has been burying the dead."

Palomides rose to his feet. "Excuse me," he said. Then, his hand resting on his sword's hilt, he strode off toward a clump of bushes at the edge of the field. The bushes rustled suddenly and a figure leaped out wielding a sword. "Stand!" the figure shouted. Palomides stopped advancing, but he drew his own sword. "Who are you?" the figure called. "Friends of the king or enemies?"

Dinadan rose and walked up beside Palomides. "I am Sir Dinadan of the Fellowship of the Round Table," he said. Now that he was near, he saw that the swordsman was little more than a boy.

Slowly, the youth lowered his blade. "If that's so," he said, "then we're friends. I'm Sir Bede, also of the Round Table."

Dinadan nodded a greeting. "Glad to meet you, Sir Bede. Er, I've been away for nearly two years, which probably explains this, but I don't believe I've ever heard of you."

"I was knighted just a few months ago," Sir Bede admitted. "I suppose I was the last knight King Arthur admitted to the fellowship. Not that the king knighted me himself. Sir Terence did that. But the king confirmed it."

"
Sir
Terence?" Dinadan asked. When he had last seen Terence, he had been Sir Gawain's squire. "Sir Bede, would you join us? It seems that a great deal has happened since I was last in England, and I feel rather lost."

They started back toward Brother Guinglain, and Palomides asked, "Were you in this battle, Sir Bede?"

Sir Bede nodded. "Only at the end. The night before the battle, I was sent ahead to scout the White Horsemen. When the two sides charged, I was cut off from Arthur's men, with all Mordred's armies between us. I tried to circle around to join Arthur's army, but I never made it."

"Then you witnessed the fight. How did it go?" Palomides asked intently.

"Back and forth, sir," Sir Bede said. "At first the king's charge down the hill drove Mordred back, but Mordred had more men than any of us thought, and he began to push Arthur up the hill. Then the tide turned again, at daybreak—I don't know why—and Mordred began retreating. But it still looked bad. More than half the men on both sides were down. Some of the White Horsemen began to flee, which was when I joined the battle."

"What did you do?"

"I charged from the rear."

Palomides' eyes lit up, and his expression was approving as he gazed at Sir Bede's face. "Alone?" he asked mildly.

"Ay, at first," Bede said. "I knew I would die, but..." His eyes filled with tears and for a moment he couldn't speak.

"But what?" asked Brother Guinglain.

"But ... at the bottom of the hill ... I saw Arthur fall beside Mordred. So I attacked."

There was a long silence. At the words
I saw Arthur fall,
Dinadan felt as if his heart had stopped.

Sir Bede went on. "Then I was surrounded by hundreds of knights, charging the White Horsemen beside me, with Sir Lancelot at their head. They came from the south, and they drove Mordred's armies into the ground. I saw that much, and then no more. I awoke hours later with a knot on the back of my head, and I was alone on the field."

"Ah, I understand," Dinadan said. "You're the one who's been digging graves." Sir Bede nodded. Dinadan hesitated, then asked, "How many of ... which of Arthur's knights...?"

Sir Bede shook his head. "I have planted the glory of England in the earth of Barham Down, but please ask me no more." Dinadan looked at the ground miserably, but after a moment Sir Bede added, "But there is one strange thing. Though I know where I saw him fall, I haven't found the king. He's just not here."

For three days the four worked together, digging graves and growing in friendship. On the second day they were joined by villagers from Barham, who cautiously had begun returning to their homes from wherever they had been hiding. At the end of the third day, the field was empty again, though rutted and covered with mounds of earth, and a rainstorm had even begun washing away the bloodstains. By common, unspoken consent, the four rode away together. Dinadan led the way. He wanted to check on an old friend.

The three days it took them to arrive at the Sisters of Joy Convent were sobering. When Dinadan had left England, it had been an idyllic place, dotted with prosperous farms and comfortable villages. A traveling knight of Arthur's table could be sure of a welcome at any manor house, and someone with a song to sing could obtain a meal at any tavern he chose. But this England was like something from a nightmare. What farms they found were burned to the ground. Villages were abandoned in ruins. People were scarce—or, at any rate, made themselves scarce when they saw mounted knights approaching.

"It's the White Horsemen," Bede explained. "For months now they've been destroying everything they found, killing who they could, then telling people that they'd been sent by Arthur."

"But who would believe such a tale?" Dinadan demanded.

Bede shrugged. "They said that the king had gone mad, out of jealousy over Lancelot and Guinevere. I believed it myself at first, when the horsemen killed my wife."

Dinadan turned to look at Bede's face. While he had labored over the graves beside this knight, he had sometimes sensed a hard-edged maturity behind Bede's youthful looks, the sort of wisdom that comes only from knowing great pain. "Your wife?"

"Elise," Bede said, his face calm. "I was luckier than most. Sir Terence found me and showed me I was wrong about Arthur. But most of these people, farmers like me, knew only that they'd been ruined by knights."

"He's right," Guinglain added. "I've seen whole villages, perhaps whole counties, hiding in forests, many of them starving."

With these bleak words weighing on his mind, it was with immense relief that Dinadan saw that the stone walls and buildings of the Sisters of Joy Convent were still standing and, looking inside the iron gates, that the rose gardens were intact. He had sat in those gardens many times, talking with his old friend Sister Brangienne. The gates were chained, and the bell that used to hang on them to ask for admittance was gone, but Dinadan leaned against the bars and called out, "Hello? Sister Brangienne? Anyone?"

After several minutes, a fearful face peeked around the wall, and Dinadan addressed himself to a young nun. "Good day, sister. I'm looking for Sister Brangienne."

"Please, sir knight," the nun whispered. "We have no treasure here, and barely enough food for ourselves."

"We'll take nothing from you," Dinadan said. "I only want to speak to Sister Brangienne. Could you find her and tell her that Sir Dinadan is here?"

The young nun hesitated, then said softly, "I'll speak to the Mother Superior," and scurried away.

A few minutes later, a tall nun with an imposing wimple shadowing her face appeared from a doorway and strode firmly toward the gates. Dinadan greeted her as she came near. "Good day, Mother. I am Sir Dinadan, an old acquaintance of Sister Brangienne's. I wonder if I could speak with her."

The Mother Superior raised her head, gazed into Dinadan's eyes, and said, "That's
Mother
Brangienne to you." Then she smiled like the sun, and tears began flowing down her cheeks. "I have prayed hourly for you, my dear friend. To see you alive is like seeing the face of God."

Half an hour later, Dinadan knew much more about the Battle of Barham Down than even Bede had been able to tell them. The convent had become a hostel for refugees, who brought their families and their needs, but also their news, and from all the scraps of information that Brangienne had been given, she had pieced together a comprehensive picture of the fight and its aftermath. Lancelot's charge had completely destroyed the White Horsemen, but not before Arthur's armies had been nearly wiped out as well. Lancelot's troops had taken a few prisoners, and using the information derived from them, he had been able to find and release all Mordred's hostages. Then Lancelot had sent his French vassals back to the Continent.

"And what of Lancelot himself?" Dinadan asked.

Brangienne pursed her lips thoughtfully, then said, "I think Sir Lancelot is no more."

"Dead?" Dinadan asked softly.

"In a sense," she replied after another pause. She looked pensively at Dinadan, then at his three companions. At last she nodded. "Yes, I can trust you. To our north, about a day's journey, there is a gentle hermit named Constans, living in a stone cottage."

"I've met Brother Constans," Guinglain remarked. "A good man."

"Yes," Brangienne said. "A former knight who has turned to a life of contemplation. Anyway, a traveler yesterday told me that Constans has taken in a novice, a tall man with broad shoulders named Jean Le Forestier."

Dinadan nodded. Lancelot had used that name before. "I've met this Jean," he said. "He's a good man, too."

"I believe so," Brangienne replied. "But, as I say, Sir Lancelot is no more. You should not seek him."

"We won't," Dinadan said.

"So, if I may ask, what
will
you do?" Brangienne inquired.

"I don't really know," Dinadan replied. "After finding the battlefield, all I could think of was making sure you were all right. Now I'm not sure."

It was Guinglain who spoke. "We will continue our journey, seeking out what's left of England."

The others nodded agreement, and Dinadan said, "Then it's decided. But you don't mind if I check on you every now and then? These are dangerous times, you know."

"I would be most offended if you didn't," Brangienne replied, smiling. Then she added, "One more thing, Dinadan."

"Yes?"

"As you look for the remains of England, it might help you to know that we have received several new additions to our convent here. One, in particular, you should know. She is a former noblewoman, one of Mordred's freed prisoners, who wishes to put that life behind her now."

"Oh?" Dinadan asked, searching Brangienne's face. "And what is this noblewoman's name?"

Brangienne smiled. "Former names are not very important here. Often, you know, when a woman takes the veil, she changes her name. I never did myself, but most of my sisters have left their old names and taken a new one, of some saint or person from the Bible, for instance."

Dinadan nodded. "Sister Jezebel, maybe? Or Salome?"

"I've not had either of those, precisely," Brangienne admitted. "We mostly have Marys and Marthas. But they don't always confine themselves to women's names: I have two Sister Josephs and a Sister Barnabas. And this particular woman has said that when she is approved to take the veil, she would like to be called Sister Arthur."

"I see," Dinadan said slowly. "And this Sister Arthur—she is well?"

"I believe so."

"And at peace?"

"In the past month, she has lost everything and everyone she loved," Brangienne said. "It would be too much to call her at peace. But I believe she will be content here in time. She says she'd like to work in the flower gardens."

Although it had been wonderful to find Brangienne alive, and to discover that Guinevere was safe, Dinadan's feelings of relief faded quickly as they rode through the broken pieces of Arthur's kingdom. Every day, it seemed, they came upon more appalling sights and greater desolation. Some days they didn't see a single living human. It felt to Dinadan as if England had been completely depopulated, and they were left alone, so it was a relief when, toward evening on their fourth day, they saw a campfire in the distance. Remembering that in this new England a stranger was less likely to be a friend, they approached the fire cautiously. Dinadan and Guinglain, the two who looked the least threatening, rode ahead of the others and hailed the camp. There was no answer. Riding in, they found the campsite empty.