Wicked Day (49 page)

But too late.

An adder, a speckled snake no more than two handspans long, had crept from its hiding to bask on the hot ground. One of Arthur's officers, intent on the scene at the truce table, stepped back unseeingly onto the creature's tail. Whipping round, the adder struck. At the pain the man, whirling, saw the snake on the recoil. His own reflex, that of a trained fighting man, was almost as fast. He snatched his sword out and slashed down at the snake, killing it.

The sun struck the metal. The sword's flash, the King's raised arm, his sudden movement and shout of command, came to the watching hosts as the long-awaited signal. The inaction, the nerve-stretching tension, made almost unbearable by the thundery heat and the sweating uncertainty of that long vigil, suddenly snapped, in a wild shout from both sides of the field.

It was war. This was the day. This was the wicked day of destiny.

A dozen flashes answered as the officers on both sides drew their swords. The trumpets screamed, drowning the shouts of the knights who, trapped between the armies, seized their horses from the grooms and turned furiously to hold back the converging ranks. They could not be heard; their gestures, misinterpreted as incitements to attack, were wasted. It was a matter only of seconds, seconds of furious noise and confusion, before the front ranks of the two armies met in a roaring clash. The King and his son were swept apart, each to his proper station, Arthur under the great Dragon, Mordred no longer regent and King's son, but for all time branded traitor, under the blank standard that, now, would never be written on. And then over the bar of the field, called by the trumpets, like a sea of tossing manes, came the spears and horsehair of the Saxons, and the black banners of the northern fighters who, like the ravens, could hardly wait to take the pickings from the dead.

Soon, too late to dull those flashing signals, the thunderheads came slowly massing across the hot sky.

The air darkened, and in the distance came the first flicker of lightning, the herald of the storm.

The King and his son were to meet again.

Towards the end of the day, with his friends and long companions dead or dying round him, and the hundreds of wasted deaths reeking to the now dark and threatening sky, it is doubtful if Arthur even remembered that Mordred was anything but a traitor and an adulterer. The straight speaking, the truths laid down during that talk by the truce table, the faith and trust so nearly reaffirmed, all had vanished in the first stress and storm of the attack. It was Arthur, duke of battles, who once more took the field.

Mordred was the enemy, the Saxon allies his savage helpers; this battle had been fought before, and many times. This was Glein and Agned, Caerleon and Linnuis, Cit Coit Caledon and Badon Hill. On all these fields the young Arthur had triumphed; for all of them his prophet and adviser, Merlin, had promised him the victory and the glory. Here, too, on the Camel field, it was victory.

At the end of the day, with the thunder overhead and the lightning flaming white from the sky and the water of the Lake, Arthur and Mordred came once again face to face. There were no words. What words could there have been? For Mordred, as for his father, the other man was now the enemy. The past was past, and there was no future to be seen beyond the need to get to the end of this moment that would bring with it the end of the day.

It was said afterwards, no one knows by whom, that at the moment of meeting, as the two men, on foot now, and white with the sweat and dust of the battlefield, knew one another, Mordred checked in his stride and stroke. Arthur, the veteran, did not. His spear took his son straight and clean beneath the rib-cage.

Blood gushed down the spear shaft in a hot stream over Arthur's hand. He loosed the shaft, and reached for his sword. Mordred lurched forward like a spitted boar. The butt of the shaft struck the ground. He leaned on it, and, still carried forward by the weight of the half-checked stroke, came within sword's length of his father. Arthur's hand, slippery with blood, fumbled momentarily on Caliburn's grip, and in that moment Mordred's sword swung, even as he fell dying, in a hard and deadly blow to the side of the King's head.

Mordred pitched down then into the pool of his own blood. Arthur stood for a few seconds still, his sword dropping from his bloodied hand, his other hand moving numbly as if in an attempt to ward off some slight and trivial blow; then slowly his body bent and buckled, and he, too, fell, and his blood joined with Mordred's on the ground.

The clouds broke, and like a waterfall the rain came down.

EPILOGUE

The cool stream on his face brought Mordred back for a moment into the dark. It was quiet, too, all sounds hushed and far, like distant water lapping on a pebbled shore.

A cry somewhere nearby.
"The King! The King!"

A bird calling. The hens were coming down the shingle for food. A gull screaming, but in words now:

"The King! The King!"

Then, and this made him sure it was a dream, the voices of women. He could see nothing, feel nothing, but near him was the rustle of a gown and a gust of women's scent. Voices eddied across him, but no one touched him. A woman's voice said:

"Lift him carefully. Here. Yes, yes, my lord, lie still. All will be well."

And the King's voice, too faint to hear, followed — surely? — by Bedwyr's: "It is here. I have it safely.

The Lady will keep it for you till you need it again."

Again the voices of women, and the first voice, strongly: "I shall take him to Applegarth, where we shall see to the healing of his wounds."

Then the rain, and the creak of rowlocks, and the sound of women's weeping fading into the lapping of the lake water and the hiss of the rain falling.

His cheek was on a cushion of thyme. The rain had washed the blood away, and the thyme smelled sweetly of summer.

The waves lapped. The oars creaked. The seabirds cried. A porpoise rolled, sleek in the sun. Away on the horizon he could see the golden edge of the kingdom where, since he was a small child, he had always longed to go.

THE LEGEND

I have used fragments from two sources, the "history" written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century, and the romance of Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur
, written in the fifteenth.

Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain

In the time of the emperor Leo, Lucius Hiberius, procurator of the Roman republic, sent a message to King Arthur demanding that he pay tribute to Rome, and commanding him to appear before the Senate to answer for his failure to do so. Refusal would mean that the Romans would attack Britain, and restore her to the Roman republic.

Arthur's reply was to gather together an army and sail to Brittany, where, with his cousin King Hoel, he sent word around asking his allies to join him. Meanwhile he sent ambassadors to Lucius Hiberius informing him that he would not pay the tribute, but would fight. "Thereupon the ambassadors depart, the Kings depart, the barons depart, nor are they slow to perform what they had been bidden to do."

Meanwhile ill news was brought to Arthur and Hoel. Hoel's niece, the Princess Helena, had been seized by a monstrous giant, who had fled with her to the top of St. Michael's Mount. Arthur himself, with Kay and Bedivere, set out to deal with the monster. They saw a fire of wood blazing on the Mount, and another on a smaller island nearby. Bedivere, sent to spy things out, found a small boat and rowed across to the islet, where, as he landed, he heard the ullaloo of a woman wailing, and found, by the fire, an old woman weeping beside a new grave-mound. The giant had killed the princess, and gone back to his lair on St. Michael's Mount. Bedivere reported to Arthur, who thereupon tackled the monster in his hilltop lair, and killed him in single combat.

King Arthur then gathered his army and marched with his allies to Autun in Burgundy to meet the army of the Romans. He sent an embassy ahead to Lucius Hiberius to bid him withdraw, or he, Arthur, would give battle as he had sworn. Gawain was with the embassy, and the younger knights, spoiling for a fight, egged Gawain on to start a quarrel. Which he did, and after some high words killed one Gaius Quintilianus, nephew of Hiberius himself. So battle was joined. Bedivere and Kay were killed, but Arthur was victorious, and pressed on eastward, intending to go on to Rome and make himself emperor.

But at this point he heard that his nephew Mordred, to whom he had committed the charge of his kingdom during his absence, had set the crown on his own head, and taken Queen Guinevere to wife, in spite of her former marriage.

Mordred had also sent Cheldric, duke of the Saxons, into Germany, to enlist others of his countrymen and take them back to Britain to swell Mordred's army. For this, more land was to be granted to the Saxons. Mordred had also gathered together the Scots, Picts and Irish and was preparing to resist Arthur's return to Britain.

Arthur, hastening back, landed at Richborough, and there defeated Mordred's troops, but in the fighting Gawain was killed. Mordred fled, but took his stand again at Winchester, where he had lodged the Queen. She fled in fear to a convent near Caerleon, and there took the veil. Arthur and Mordred fought again near Winchester, and again Mordred broke and fled towards Cornwall, where, in the final battle on the River Camel, both he and Arthur fell.

Arthur, who was carried to the island of Avilion for the healing of his hurts, left his kingdom to Constantine of Cornwall. One of Constantine's first acts was to seek out both of Mordred's sons and murder them "by a cruel death" at the sanctuary altar.

Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur

1. When Arthur heard of Mordred's birth, he sent for all the children born in the same month, in the hope of finding Mordred and destroying him. The ship in which the children were placed foundered, but Mordred was cast up, and taken in by a good man, who nourished him till he was fourteen, then took him to the court.

2. When Queen Morgause's sons knew that she had taken Sir Lamorak for her lover, Gawain and his brothers sent for her to a castle near Camelot, intending there to trap and kill Lamorak. One night, while Lamorak was with the queen, Gaheris seized his chance, and, creeping fully armed to their bedside, seized his mother by the hair and struck off her head. Because Lamorak was unarmed Gaheris could not kill him. Lamorak had no choice but to flee, but eventually the Orkney brothers, with Mordred, tracked him down and killed him.

3. Some time later Sir Tristram, challenged by Agravain and Gaheris, refused to fight them, recognizing them by their device as Arthur's nephews. "It is shame," he said, "that Sir Gawain and ye be come of so great a blood that ye four brethren be named as ye be, for ye be called the greatest destroyers and murderers of good knights that be now in this realm." The brothers shouted insults at the Cornish knight, on which he turned to ride away. Agravain and Gaheris promptly attacked him from behind. Tristram, forced to fight, struck Agravain on the head, causing a grievous wound, and also knocked Gaheris out of the saddle. Gareth, speaking later with Tristram, declared himself at odds with his brothers: "I meddle not of their matters, therefore there is none of them that loveth me. And for I understand that they be murderers of good knights I left their company."

4. Agravain and Mordred hated Guinevere the Queen and Lancelot. Agravain insisted that the King be told of what he swore (and Lancelot later denied on oath) was their adultery. Agravain went to Arthur to tell him that Lancelot and the Queen were betraying him, and must be brought to trial, as the law demanded. He offered to bring proof to Arthur. The King, wanting only to ignore the charge, and loving both Lancelot and the Queen, was forced to accede. He agreed to go hunting and to tell Guinevere that he would be away all night. Agravain and Mordred got twelve knights together — all apparently their own countrymen from Orkney — and hid near the Queen's bedchamber to await events. When Lancelot told Sir Bors that he was bidden that night to speak with the Queen, Sir Bors, uneasy but ignorant of what was afoot, tried to stop him. Lancelot refused to listen to him, and went to see the Queen. At a given moment the twelve knights rushed Guinevere's door, shouting: "Now thou art taken!" and smashed the door open with a bench. Lancelot, who was unarmed, wound his mantle round his arm, let the first man in, then killed him. The Queen's ladies helped him don the dead man's armour. In the subsequent melee Agravain was killed, and Gareth, and Mordred was wounded, but managed to flee. He rode straight to the King and told him of the affray, and Arthur grieved bitterly, because he foresaw the end of the fellowship of the Round Table, and also because, by law, he must now put Guinevere to trial by fire.

(Here follows the inevitable last-minute rescue of Guinevere by Lancelot, and the flight of the lovers to Lancelot's castle of Joyous Gard.) Arthur pursued him, and defeated him in battle, whereupon Lancelot returned the Queen ceremoniously to her husband, and fled overseas. Lancelot, "who ruled all France,"

went to his castle in Burgundy, and gathered another army to withstand King Arthur. Arthur, leaving Mordred as regent, or "ruler of all England," went with Gawain, and a great host at his back, to attack Lancelot in Burgundy. There was a great battle, with dreadful losses on both sides.

But then it was reported to Arthur that Mordred had had letters forged, purporting to come from overseas with the news of his, Arthur's, death. Mordred had called a parliament, which pronounced him king, whereupon he declared his intention of taking Guinevere to be his queen. But she, being unwilling, fled to the Tower of London, and held it against him. While Mordred pleaded with her he heard that King Arthur was returning at the head of an army to reclaim his kingdom. Mordred thereupon sent around the kingdom to seek support, which he got in good measure, because "then was the common voice among them that with Arthur was none other life but war and strife, and with Sir Mordred was great joy and bliss.… And so fared the people at that time, that they were better pleased with Sir Mordred than they were with King Arthur." So Mordred led a great host to Dover to face his father on landing. A terrible fight ensued. Gawain was found dying in a half-beached boat, and with his last breath he advised Arthur to forgive Lancelot and invite him back to help crush Mordred. Then Gawain died, and Arthur pursued Mordred and his fleeing host and gave battle once more on the downs, where again Mordred was put to flight.