by M. K. Hume
‘Help me to my feet, Bedwyr,’ Galahad ordered. ‘We must put the Cup in some safe place, for only holy hands may dare to hold it.’
Gingerly, Bedwyr scooped up the Cup with a scrap torn from his tunic. It was made of base metal and appeared quite battered. To Bedwyr, it was valueless, yet it had caused the deaths of many good men. He thrust it into his shirt. Miserably, he wadded another piece of his tunic to stem the blood from Galahad’s wound. Then he helped his companion to his feet.
‘Your wound need not be mortal, Galahad. Cleansing, bandaging, rest and care may yet see you well.’
‘If it’s God’s will that I’m to die in this quest, then so be it,’ Galahad replied in a monotone. ‘But first, I want to cleanse myself from sin in the sea.’
‘We waste time, my friend. You needn’t perish. For the sake of your God, you must see sense!’
‘Don’t be an ass, Bedwyr,’ Galahad replied in his usual superior tone. Unaccountably, the prince’s scorn made Bedwyr feel a little better.
With the help of Bedwyr’s shoulder, Galahad began to walk, his steps becoming firmer as he slowly gained some balance. The two men retraced their steps past Gronw’s corpse towards the saddlebags that were lying beside the dying fire.
‘How did you manage to reach Gronw so quickly?’ Galahad asked painfully as they struggled towards the river edge.
‘I used a coracle. I’ve never paddled one of the infernal things before, so I’m lucky to be alive to tell the tale. I can’t swim.’
Galahad tried to laugh, but he coughed and spat blood into the grass. Bedwyr averted his gaze in shame.
‘Your coracle will suit my purposes admirably.’
Eventually, Galahad eased himself on to a large stone that had fallen from the Roman bridge.
‘The Romans were great builders,’ Galahad said softly as he looked in appreciation at the stonework of the structure above him. ‘It’s one of the reasons that King Artor has been so successful, for he’s always tried to retain the best that they left behind.’
Bedwyr was surprised by the sensitivity of Galahad’s words, for the Otadini prince was hardly an introspective man.
‘I’m beginning to think that he could do without the bad influence of Lucius’s Cup,’ Galahad went on. ‘I won the Cup in fair combat, so I think I should be the one to determine its fate.’ He smiled at Bedwyr with a hint of pride. ‘You may return it to me now.’
‘You won’t try to kill me again?’ Bedwyr asked carefully as he drew the relic out of his tunic and handed it to the prince.
‘I don’t think I have the strength to try,’ Galahad replied ruefully. ‘It will be coming with me on my journey, so there’ll be one less temptation for evil to use.’
Bedwyr stared into Galahad’s stern, beautiful face. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ll head for Mona Island in your coracle. The holy men there will cure me if I survive the journey. If the Cup of Jesus should reach the priests of Mona, they will protect it with their lives. If not, the sea will take it and keep it safe from the impious hands of mortal men until the Last Judgement.’
‘You can’t reach Mona in a coracle’, Bedwyr stated, aghast at Galahad’s intentions, for the crossing could take many hard days.
‘With God’s grace, I shall complete the journey. But you mustn’t look for me among the courts of men, for I’ve lost the right to stand beside my fellow warriors.’
Bedwyr was stricken. ‘I’m the only person who knows about your lapse, and I won’t tell anyone, because I’m the one who has sorely wounded you.’
‘For the sake of my resolve, Bedwyr, I beg you to be silent. Help me into the coracle and then I’ll be gone. If you won’t assist me, I’ll launch it myself.’
Bedwyr realized that Galahad was in deadly earnest.
‘I won’t stop you, but you must have fresh water if you’re to survive the journey. Isn’t suicide a mortal sin in your faith?’
Bedwyr ran back to Gronw’s camp to snatch up a leather bladder of water and then hurried back to Galahad. With regret, he helped his companion to the water’s edge and dragged the coracle with his free hand.
He stood knee-deep in the water while he loaded the water skin and the remainder of their rations. Galahad sat quietly through the operation, the Cup held loosely in both hands.
‘Why didn’t the Cup betray you, Bedwyr? Why could you hold it, and yet it had no power to touch your heart?’
Bedwyr held the frail boat steady with both hands and frowned.
‘My eyes saw the Cup as a fragment of old metal and nothing more. Lucius of Glastonbury used it to hold clean water, the purpose for which it was first fashioned. It may have held sacred blood, or poetic inspiration, or the hopes of good men, but its value was always in the hands that held it. I’ll not revere an object, and nor will I kill, or die, for such a thing. But I would be prepared to die for Lucius or Percivale. I would even be prepared to give my life for you, Galahad. Yes, I’d die for human hands and hearts, but not for that thing. I’ve seen too much death and sent too many men to the shadows myself to give a damn for any object, regardless of its power.’
Galahad was silent, as if sunk deeply in thought. Then he rose painfully to his feet.
‘Farewell, my friend,’ he said as he struggled into the flimsy vessel that Bedwyr held steady for him. ‘I hope to see you in my heaven one day, even though you will always be a pagan. You’ve proved to be a far wiser man than I shall ever be.’
He gripped Bedwyr’s wrist in the time-honoured sign of friendship.
‘When you speak with Artor, perhaps you shouldn’t tell the whole truth of the Cup. Some tales are best embroidered if the truth can cause harm. I ask only that you tell my father that I achieved my avowed task.’
‘Is there nothing else I should tell him?’ Galahad had made no mention of messages of love or regret, even to his mother.
‘There’s nothing more to say,’ Galahad replied.
Bedwyr would remember the Otherworld calm and the eldritch glow on the face of the prince for many years to come, and would wonder if the sacrifice of such an extraordinary life was necessary to expunge a momentary lapse of honour.
Then the fast-flowing current gripped the coracle and its passenger, and Bedwyr began to weep for the loss of his companion.
When he reached the hamlet where he had left his horses and Percivale’s body, the fisherman wondered at his ragged dress and the lines of pain and grief in his face.
Bedwyr dismounted and apologized for losing the coracle, but the fisherman simply jerked his head towards the river where a new coracle rested, upside down, on the grassy bank. Bedwyr grinned in amusement, a response that convinced the fisherman that this scarecrow was daft.
‘Keep this horse in lieu of your lost vessel, my friend. I’ve no further use for the beast and I hope you have better luck than the last man who owned it. I’ll simply take my property and leave you in peace.’
‘We put the corpse in the shed, so the snows will have kept him fresh. I hope it worked.’
‘I’m sure you did your best. Does your kindness extend to providing me with a meal and a store of grain for my horses?’
‘Aye, I’m no thief. For such a beast, you can take whatever grain and fish you need. A horse will make the ploughing easier.’ The fisherman peered between the beast’s legs and grinned with real delight. ‘He’s a stallion too. Shite, he’s worth a jug of cider, if your lordship isn’t too proud to drink a poor man’s tipple. Aye, this big boy will pay his way with the mares around these parts. It were a good day for me when you bought my old coracle, my lord.’
When Bedwyr departed for Bremetennacum, he left with a large bag of grain, and a supply of smoked fish and meat that would last through his journey. He had developed a liking for these laconic peasants and their untroubled approach to life’s tragedies and unexpected windfalls. He wished them well.
At Deva, Bedwyr rejected the main route leading to the south in order to visit Lady Nimue at Caer
Gai. Dragging his friend’s corpse all the way to Cadbury was impractical, so Bedwyr decided to ask Nimue if Percivale’s remains could lie in peace close to her home.
Little more than a goat track snaked through the tall, grey-black mountains to the eyrie of Caer Gai. The route was cruel and Bedwyr was forced to lead his horses on foot to spare the beast’s hooves from the flinty and treacherous terrain. His own feet suffered too, for his boots had split apart through hard usage and water-damage.
‘Who’d choose to live in this desolate place?’ he asked the wind, in the absence of any living companion and to break the cold, aching silence. Above him, the mountains frowned down on the bare track and an occasional hawk circled in the thin air. Sometimes, out of loneliness, Bedwyr caught himself speaking to Percivale whose corpse should have long since been buried.
Eventually, he arrived at a remote village in a fold of the hills and he recognized the influence of Myrddion Merlinus. The people were hardy and stunted, like the trees that set their roots in barren earth, but they were well fed and clean. They had probably dwelt in this isolated, unforgiving place for generations beyond counting. Bedwyr noted the cunning irrigation that fed their crops and explained the prosperity of the village. What arable land existed had been ingeniously put to work, and well-fed goats and sheep were penned where they could be protected from the extremes of weather.
He asked for the whereabouts of Lady Nimue from each person he met, but every villager steered him unceremoniously towards the headman of the village. The farmers regarded him with suspicious, unfriendly eyes, while large-eyed children clutched their mothers’ skirts and sucked their thumbs. The obvious evidence that the stranger carried a corpse made him fearsome to these simple folk, and Bedwyr noticed that several of the women warded themselves and their children from the curse of evil magic.
‘I mean Lady Nimue no harm,’ he told the headman. ‘Her son, Taliesin, is well-known to me. I bring news . . . and the body of her friend.’
The headman continued to shake his head, as if he feared Bedwyr would spirit the Lady of the Lake clean away when their backs were turned.
‘Please, sir, I have travelled for many weary miles afoot to deliver a message from the dead to the Lady of the Lake. Do you dare to anger a shade because you stood between his desires and the lady whom he loved? I know the lady will be glad of my arrival.’
So Bedwyr alternated between cajoling and threatening until the headman’s fat, squat wife bade him send the lordling to the mistress; she would know immediately if there was any wrong in the intentions of her visitor.
Aided by sketchy directions, Bedwyr eventually found the lake, still partly frozen and pearl-grey under warming skies. From there, he travelled to a strange hilltop villa that sprawled around and above the trunk and roots of a riven oak.
‘The legends live on, I see,’ Bedwyr grunted to the corpse of Percivale as he stumbled on bleeding feet towards a metal-bound, oak door. Like the beggar he resembled, Bedwyr longed for warmth, fresh bread and, desperately, for sleep.
He used the hilt of the Arden knife to pound upon the heavy door. When it was opened, a vivid, smiling young man stood on the threshold. His eyes opened wide as he saw, and smelt, Percivale’s remains.
‘Rest, friend, for exhaustion covers you like the shroud that your companion wears. Let me take your horse - and his mate, who carries his burden with growing unease. I’ll feed, water and curry their coats until they are content. My mother waits in the great room for you.’
The young man slipped past Bedwyr, leaving him to enter a short, flagged passage that opened into a room full of colour, strange weavings and the scent of sweet wood and dried flowers. A fire blazed in a stone hearth in the centre of the room and several huge, shaggy mastiffs sprawled on the warm stone floor at its base. They lifted their heads as he entered, and Bedwyr saw their noses catch the smell of death that he carried with him. They would have growled to match their raised hackles, but a crisp voice hushed them, and they dropped back into their warm sloth.
‘Enter, friend,’ a woman’s voice greeted him from the corner of the room where a great loom stood. ‘I don’t remember your name, but your face is familiar. You are one of the men who fought with Myrddion and Artor at Mori Saxonicus, aren’t you?’
Although the ceiling of the room was tall and the fire smoke was dissipated by cunning use of hide flaps, the air was dim and glittering with dust motes so that Bedwyr’s tired eyes were almost blind. Then the woman moved towards him and Bedwyr immediately recognized the Nimue he had first glimpsed at a distance, so many years earlier, for what man could forget her silver hair or her pearl complexion? But now her beauty seemed incandescent in the filtered firelight. Her simple robe of unbleached wool moved around her with a memory of life. Her hair shone on her shoulders and back as she slid into the light.
Bedwyr fell to his knees in exhaustion and superstitious dread. He lowered his head in supplication.
‘My lady, I bear a message to you from the dead, and I beg your forgiveness for the sorrow that I bring. I ask that you bless my friend and give him peace and a final resting place.’
Her breath caught in her throat. ‘Taliesin! My son, Taliesin. He’s not your dead companion, is he? Do not fear to speak the truth, for I’ll not harm the bringer of bad news. But tell me quickly, for I can scarcely think for fear.’
‘No, madam. I’d not bring your son to you unheralded. I swear to you that Taliesin was hale and happy when I left Cadbury.’
Relief showed clearly on her face.
‘Come, my lord, rise. I’m not a woman of worth or power, and my sons would be amused to see a man on his knees at my feet.’
An unobtrusive servant woman knocked at the doorway. Nimue instructed her to bring food and wine. Then Nimue led the exhausted Bedwyr to a heavy bench. Only then did she notice the blood that caked his rag-covered feet.
‘Your poor feet!’ She exclaimed. ‘They are in sore need of attention.’
She knelt to unwrap the crude bandages and examine each foot, toe by toe. Bedwyr protested that one of her servants could dress his cuts and blisters, but Nimue ignored his suggestions. She clucked over deep, half-scabbed gashes and sniffed at the wounds to assess whether infection was present. Then she left him to fetch what she needed.
The warmth of the fire slowly seeped through to his bones. As he leaned back against the stone wall, his eyelids drooped. His tired mind reminded him dimly that his tasks were not yet completed, but the luxury and comfort of his surroundings lulled him as if he was a babe. His head nodded on to his breast and he slept.
He awoke when Nimue returned and forced him to endure having his feet washed in bowls of warm water. The filth and corruption that soon stained the water embarrassed Bedwyr. He protested and would have pulled away from her touch, but her clear blue eyes stilled him.
Nimue found an unguent on her shelves that smelled of sheep’s fat and smeared it over his wounds. It soon began to dull the throbbing ache of his sores. Then she bound his feet firmly with clean rags.
‘These poor, abused feet have carried you many miles to my door. What is your name, master, for I find I cannot remember.’
‘I am Bedwyr, whom Artor called the Arden Knife,’ he replied slowly. ‘I have walked and ridden from Deva and, before that, from Bremetennacum.’
‘You have come far then,’ Nimue replied. She waited with perfect stillness
‘Forgive me—’
‘My son says your second horse bears a corpse,’ she interrupted, her forehead furrowed.
He sighed. ‘The body is all that remains of my friend, Percivale, warrior and favourite of the High King and all who knew him.’
‘Percivale? My Perce is dead?’
‘Aye, my lady. He fell beside me at Bremetennacum in the service of the High King.’
Nimue’s eyes filled with tears. Mutely, she folded her hands in her lap and allowed her sorrow to flow without check or shame.
The silence in the room was profound
; Bedwyr could hear the evening wind outside the walls.
After a time, Nimue spoke.
‘Long ago, when I was a babe in the kitchens of Venonae, he was my brother in all but blood,’ Nimue explained. ‘He saved me from scalds and burns more than once. He dried my tears and told me wondrous stories of pigs and sheep on the farms. And at Cadbury Tor, he served the ancient Targo with all the purity of his love, risking his life with me when plague struck the citadel. Why would Fortuna desire the life of sweet Percivale?’
Bedwyr had no sensible reason to offer her. ‘Percivale asked me to tell you that he always loved you. Perhaps his declaration seems simple, but Percivale was a true warrior whose heart was ever innocent and pure.’
‘Yes, he was always so. But has he no wife or children who long for his presence? Why have you brought him to me?’
Bedwyr fiddled with his ragged tunic. Lady Nimue did not know she had been Percivale’s only love. Should he burden her further, for truth isn’t always kind.
‘You must tell me, Bedwyr,’ she pleaded, as if she could read his mind, and the warrior knew there was nothing he could deny this woman.
‘Percivale never wed, for his heart had long been lost to you, my lady. But you mustn’t frown or weep over his choice, for my friend understood that Lord Myrddion was the only man you ever desired. One’s heart feels what it chooses, whether we desire it or not.’
The lady wept softly. Her son entered the room and came swiftly to comfort her with strong arms and a full heart, while Bedwyr sat by the fire, cloaked in his own misery.
Suddenly, in the way of this magical place and the family who seemed to have no need for words, soup appeared before him on a small table and wine came in an earthenware cup. A servant pressed him to eat and drink and, by his side, Lady Nimue sat quietly until he was finished.
‘My son, Glynn, will take you to a warm pallet where you may sleep.’ The storms of her sorrow had been washed out of her extraordinary eyes. ‘You have carried your burdens like a true warrior and I fear you will bear many more before you reach the final darkness. When you have rested, I wish to hear more of my Perce and how he died. And then we will consign Percivale’s body to the fire.’
