Here Lies Arthur (13 page)

XXVII

 

A spring day stands in my memory, clear as a white stone. Blossom on the trees and a hundred hundred flowers in the long grass of the water-meadows. I’m about fifteen. My life as a boy lies far behind me, vague and half-forgotten. My hopeless hair reaches right down my back now, tied in two fat plaits. I wear a dress which was given me by my lady Gwenhwyfar, one of her own cast-offs.

I’m quite a young lady, you see. I gossip with the other girls my own age, and look after the young ones, and serve my mistress, and at the moment I am trying to catch the eye of the young man who has been sent out with us as an escort. His horse paces along beside us as we walk; its yeasty smell mixes with the scent of flowers, and the girls vie with each other to see who can walk closest to him. Unfortunately he has eyes only for Celemon. Celemon is Cei’s daughter, but she has turned out nothing like her ugly father or her fat mother. She looks the way the rest of us look in our dreams. She has
corn-gold hair, and grey eyes with flecks of gold and copper in them. She is wearing a wide hat, like a wheel of woven straw, because the sunshine brings her out in freckles, which she hates, but I think they suit her. And specks of sun come through the hat’s weave and dapple her face with tiny patterns of light, so she is twice-freckled, dark and bright.

The little girls laugh, the bigger ones chatter. Even my lady Gwenhwyfar, going ahead of us, is smiling. We are going to picnic by the riverside.

Halfway there, someone spies a horseman coming down a hillside not far off. The girls clump together nervously. There have been rumours that the king of Calchvynydd has been boasting he’ll take back the lands Arthur has scrumped from him. Is this the out-rider of a raiding-band?

Sunlight shines on metal as his distant horse brings him down through the trees. Our bodyguard kicks his pony in front of us and draws his sword, glad of a chance to show it off.

“He’s alone,” says Gwenhwyfar, in a warning voice, not wanting him to go and skewer some harmless traveller.

Through the wild flowers, glittering with light, the lone rider draws closer. His horse is the colour of sour milk. His cloak is a moth-eaten curtain. His helmet is a kitchen pot. One of the girls laughs, and the others lose their fear and join in as he swings his nag to a stop in front of us. His leather jerkin is too small, his boots are too big. An old carving knife is stuck through his belt, and the javelins bound to his saddle are just willow
withies, sharpened to points and blackened in a fire. Under the shadow of the pot’s brim his face is sun-browned, and his smile is big and brilliant.

“I’m looking for Arthur’s place. Is that it there?”

It’s Peredur. I’m so ashamed of him that I have barely time to feel astonished at seeing him here. I’m pleased to see that he’s learned he’s not a girl, but I wish he’d left that cooking-pot in the kitchen. He doesn’t seem to know how dim-witted he looks. In fact, he sits there beaming at us as if he thinks he’s the finest warrior in the whole island of Britain. I burn red, blushing for both of us.

Gwenhwyfar is well enough brought up not to join in her maidens’ tittering. But even she can’t quite keep a smile from her face as she goes forward to greet this newcomer. “Aquae Sulis is in Arthur’s charge, and I am Arthur’s wife,” she says kindly. “And you – you have ridden far, sir?”

“Days and days!” Peredur can’t stop grinning. He has
no idea
how to speak to a high-born lady! The girl’s hiss with shock, hearing him address their mistress as if she were a goose-girl. His pot slips over his eyes so that he has to tilt his head back to look at us. Is he a madman? Dangerous?

“A saint took my home, so I’ve come to join Arthur’s war-band,” he explains. “I’m Peredur, son of Peredur Long-Knife.”

He looks from face to face, as if it surprises him that we haven’t all heard of him, or at least of his father. His eyes go past me without a pause. Of course, he’d hardly be expecting to find his old friend Gwyn among the
maidens, and as a girl I’m not worth looking at, specially not when I’m standing next to lovely Celemon.

He reaches up to hold his pot in place with a soft, womanish gesture, which makes the girls about me titter louder.

“Arthur does want warriors, doesn’t he? They told me that’s what he came looking for when he came to my mother’s house once. And there were lots on the big road, riding towards that town. I saw them from the hilltop.”

Warriors on the road? Riding to Sulis? What can he mean?

I still remember how the laughter stopped, and the sunlight seemed to dim. We turned to look towards the town, and there, like blood in water, we saw the reddish smoke lofting from kindled thatch.

XXVIII

 

Those stories we’d been hearing that spring were not just stories. A war-band from Calchvynydd had threaded itself through the eye of the woods and into the vale where Sulis stood, and taken us all by surprise. Later, I wondered why no one had ridden in from the settlements they’d looted on their way to warn Arthur they were coming. But maybe the country people there were so sick of Arthur that they were pleased to see someone squaring up to him at last. Or maybe they didn’t see any difference between these rival war-bands. They might as well let the raiders take their stuff as give it up in taxes to Arthur.

Whatever the reason, the raid came unexpected. The Calchvynydd men didn’t breach the walls of Sulis, and twelve of them were cut down in the fighting round the gate, but they set fire to the great huddle of buildings in the wall’s lee, and drove off a lot of cattle from the farms about. And as Arthur and his riders woke and buckled on their swords and spilled out to meet them, the
raiders broke this way and that, and two of them came thundering out across the water-meadows to where we girls stood watching.

“What is happening?” Peredur kept asking, innocent as a child. “What’s that smoke? Is someone’s house afire? We should warn them! Look, here comes somebody!”

Here came somebody all right. A stranger on a great tall roan horse, scarlet his cloak and his tunic, scarlet his helmet and shield. Behind him, shouting vengeance, rode Bedwyr.

Gwenhwyfar stood watching as the riders closed with us, pounding across the meadows through a storm of flung-up turf and hurtling flowers. We girls hurried this way and that, half wanting to run to the river and hide among the willows there, half thinking that it would be safest to break back to the town and hope we met no more raiders on the way. And the red man veered towards us, scenting plunder.

The boy who’d come to guard us kicked his pony to a run and went out to meet the raider, swishing his sword about. He was brave, I suppose. The raider’s horse crashed sideways against his pony, like two ships colliding in a surf of flowers, and the raider’s sword went through his throat. A splurt of blood fell down the sky, poppy red. The riderless pony cantered off. The raider glanced back, and saw Bedwyr driving towards him. He sheathed his sword and drew a short stabbing-spear, turning his snorting horse to meet the charge. “Bedwyr!” I squealed, with all the other girls. I saw Bedwyr’s red hair flap like a flag in the wind. He’d
not bothered to put his helmet on. I thought of the hardness of blades and the thinness of skulls. “Bedwyr!”

Bedwyr raised his shield as the spear came at him. The blade glanced from the shield rim and drove down, through Bedwyr’s leg, nailing him to his own horse. He screamed. The horse screamed. They went down together, Bedwyr underneath. The raider dragged his own horse round and his hard eyes slid across our faces. Far away, more riders were speeding across the meadows. The raider’s comrades, off to some safe place to count their loot and stolen cattle. I saw that he was scared. Scared to rejoin his friends without some stolen treasure to brag about.

I ran to Gwenhwyfar. I don’t think she’d moved since all this began. She had one hand up to Peredur’s saddle, as if to stop him spurring his old horse forward and trying to fight the raider with his kitchen-knife. I shoved her sideways as the raider’s red horse cantered towards her. But he wasn’t after Gwenhwyfar. He didn’t know who she was. He’d seen a brighter treasure; pretty Celemon. I heard her screech as he leaned out of his saddle and swept her up. I saw her legs kicking as he dumped her across his saddle-bow and urged his horse towards the river. Her hat bowled down-wind.

I called her name. The other girls were scattering. “Celemon!” I shouted.

“I’ll stop him!” called Peredur. “I’ll save her!” He dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and was away, holding his pot on his head with one hand, clinging to
the bridle with the other, a scared girl diving out of his path.

The red raider was pushing his horse hard, but it had been hurt by its collision with the pony, maybe lamed. I was afraid that Peredur would catch him up, and challenge him. I started to run. I stopped and bunched up my skirt and stuffed it into my belt, and then ran on. Thistles slashed at my bare legs. I slithered through a cowpat, startling up a storm of brown dung-flies. I ran till the back of my throat was one cold gasp, and I’d lost sight of the horses. Then I saw sunlit metal flash, away among the willows. The red man had reached the river, and was casting to and fro along the steep bank, looking for a place to cross. Peredur was galloping to cut him off.

I ran again, and reached them as they met. Peredur was lucky. The red man was encumbered by the squiggling girl across his horse’s shoulders. He hadn’t a chance to draw his sword. Instead, as Peredur came riding at him with one of those toy spears upraised, he caught it by the shaft and wrenched it sideways, tugging Peredur out of the saddle. I heard the yelp of surprise as he fell.

The sour-milk nag, indignant at being made to run so far, trotted off a little way along the riverside and started cropping the grass.

The red raider swung himself down off his horse and tramped back to where Peredur had fallen, pulling out his sword as he went. The boy lay face up. The pot had come off his head and rolled down the river bank, which was steep just there. I could see spreading ripples
in the water where it had sunk. The red man lifted up his sword.

I wanted to shout out and tell him no. I wanted to beg him to take pity. But they don’t have pity, those armoured, riding men. Even if he left Peredur alive, he’d still make off with Celemon.

So instead of words, I threw myself at him. Down the slope between the willows, across a few yards of short green grass. I can’t have weighed half what he did, but he didn’t know I was there, and didn’t see me until I was almost upon him. He was turning towards me when we hit. I reckon I caught him off balance. He went backwards with me on top of him, and the river took us both.

I was all right. I felt safer in water. I swim like a fish, remember? But the raider had a helmet, and a belt with big bronze fittings, and a scabbard with more bronze on it, and a fat gold ring around his neck, and all those wanted suddenly and very much to be down in the soft mulch of the river bottom. A big bubble came out of his mouth as he sank. Squarish it was, and silvery, like a pillow of light. It wobbled past me to the surface, and I kicked free of him and went after it. Hauled myself out and sat shivering, watching the ripples spread.

When the water was still again I climbed back up the bank. The dead man’s sword stood in the nettles, point down, still quivering, where he had dropped it as he fell. There was shouting from the water-meadows. More of Arthur’s riders had come to save Gwenhwyfar and her ladies. Celemon was snivelling quietly, hung head down across the raider’s horse. I left her to it, and went to
Peredur. He lay where he had fallen, looking dead, but when I touched his face and the water from my wet hair dripped on his eyelids he frowned and sat up, trying to look fierce.

“Where is he?”

“Don’t you remember?” I said. “You fought him, and he’s dead.”

Peredur looked about for the body. He put up one hand to his head and ruffled his tangled brown hair. “My helm…”

“It went in the river,” I said. “It smelled of soup, anyway. We’ll find you a better one.”

“And the red man?”

“He went in the river, too.”

“He was Arthur’s enemy?”

I nodded.

“And I defeated him?”

“Oh yes,” I said, and nodded so hard that even I started to believe that it was true. And I turned and grasped the hilt of the sword and tugged it out of the earth, and gave it to Peredur.

XXIX

 

I was steeped in river water, but no one thought to ask me why as we tramped back across the fields to Sulis. I doubt they even looked at me. They were all too taken up with Bedwyr, who had been dragged out from under that wreck of horsemeat by two of his comrades and carried back to the town on a plank, trying hard all the way not to weep at the pain of his gashed and shattered leg. The girls praised his courage in a wistful way, knowing that he’d end up dead or crippled, and less handsome either way. They cooed and sighed about him, and saved their smiles for Peredur, who rode ahead on the dead raider’s roan mare, clutching the dead man’s sword and looking confused but happy to find himself so suddenly a man. Celemon, who was unhurt, was busy telling everyone how brave he had been; how he had challenged the man who’d taken her, and stuck one of those silly willow-spears clean through him.

A part of me was sorry that I’d given Peredur my triumph, and angry at him for accepting it so easily. But
Peredur wasn’t someone you could be angry at for long. He was too open and smiling, and he looked too good. I stole glances at him through my wet hair all the way. Filled my eyes with him, and felt sorry, knowing that he’d be swallowed into the warrior-life, and learn to hide all his sweetness under bluster and ironmongery.

Arthur was red and shouting when we found him. Striding through the forum, past the rubble-heaps where the banqueting hall had been, demanding to know how the raiders had been allowed to come and shame him at the gates of his own place. Knocking down any man who tried to give him an answer. It was useless to tell him, as Cei was trying to, that only a few farmers and slaves had been killed, and a few huts set ablaze. The insult hurt Arthur more than the raid itself. The thought of men telling how he’d been outwitted.

But even he looked twice at Peredur. His anger faltered. “Who’s this?”

Gwenhwyfar, kneeling before him, told him quickly what Peredur had done. Arthur looked at him, and put his anger aside, and smiled. “Peredur Long-Knife’s son, is it? That mother of yours told me there were no men left in her fish-stinking hall. But you look like him, all right, and you fight like him too. You’ll ride with us now, eh?”

In the ground behind the marketplace horsemen were mounting up, getting ready to ride out and cut off the raiders’ retreat and win back the cattle they had stolen. Arthur heaved himself into his saddle and drew Caliburn and swished it about in the sunlight,
bellowing some bloodthirsty oath. I saw Peredur clambering on to a fresh mount, and then lost sight of him as the riders clattered away.

I tried not to care. I thought if I didn’t care, he might come back all right. It’s the people you let yourself care about, they’re the ones fate takes away from you. Look at poor Bedwyr.

They had carried him to the dingy, damp-smelling place which he shared with Medrawt and with Medrawt’s wife and babies. Gwenhwyfar sent her girls home, and asked me to come with her, and went inside to see how he was being cared for. I thought she had asked me to go with her because I was the oldest, but perhaps she already knew we would find Myrddin there. He was stooping over the pallet where Bedwyr lay, his fingers parting the lips of a wound so deep that it made me feel sick and scared to look at it. It was like a red mouth.

“He’ll not walk again,” I heard Myrddin say.

Medrawt was there, at the head of the bed, cradling his brother, who was asleep, or unconscious. “Better to die than live a cripple,” he said grimly. “Don’t say it! God will heal him.”

The wound in Bedwyr’s leg filled with blood and dribbled it down on to the coarse sheets, which were already sodden. Medrawt’s dogs nosed close, and Myrddin cursed them and kicked them away. I looked at Bedwyr’s white face, and felt glad I’d drowned that raider.

“Bring him to my house,” said Gwenhwyfar.

The men hadn’t noticed her till then. She stood near
the bed with a corner of her mantle raised to her face, as if to shield herself from the smell and sight of blood. She looked pale, but she always looked pale. She said, “He won’t heal in this place. He needs quiet, and air, and cleanliness.”

“He needs splints and bandages more,” snorted Myrddin.

“Then splint and bandage him, and bring him to my house,” said Gwenhwyfar. “I shall tell my women to make ready for him.”

Medrawt said, “Do it!”

My master glared past Gwenhwyfar at me, like he was wondering if I was part of this challenge to his doctoring. Then he nodded, and snapped at me to find a straight ash-stick and tear some linen for bandages, as if I was his servant still. But while we were working together, wrapping the wrecked leg in white cloth that kept soaking through red, he asked me softly if I was all right, and if I had been harmed or frightened by the raiders. As if it meant something to him. As if
I
meant something to him.

At last the bleeding slowed. Myrddin lifted Bedwyr’s head and made him drink a cup of wine with stinking herbs in it. Then he was carried in the twilight across to Gwenhwyfar’s hall, and I went with him, and looked back and saw Myrddin watching from the rushlight-glow in the doorway of Medrawt’s place.