The Return of Sir Percival

by S Alexander O'keefe

  Ivarr drove his heels into his horse and galloped forward, roaring, “We are attacked! Get off the bridge! Move!”

  As he pressed forward, trampling over fallen men and horses, the Norseman saw ghostly bowmen in the fog, sending arrow after arrow into the massed warriors, killing men and animals alike. For a moment, it seemed as if the bowmen were standing on the river itself, but then he realized they were shooting from small islets.

  Ahead of him, at the crest of the bridge, Ivarr saw mud-covered chains beneath the horses’ hooves. Rage welled up inside of him. Once the column of horses had been evenly split between one side of the river and the other, men hiding beneath the bridge must have snapped the chains tight, tripping the horses and now barring passage across. This was a well-planned ambush.

  Ivarr wheeled his horse, smashing into the rider to his right, and roared out a command.

  “Move! Go back! It’s a trap!”

  The warriors on his right and left struggled to turn their mounts, cursing and screaming at each other and their horses. The panicked animals attacked each other in the desperate frenzy. An arrow slammed into Ivarr’s breastplate, and a second scored a furrow across the upper part of his right arm. Another arrow pierced the thigh of the man behind him, drawing a scream of rage and pain.

  Realizing he couldn’t force a passage through the melee of men and horses to either the front or rear, Ivarr forced his mount to gallop directly at the wooden rails on the right side of bridge. Although the horse tried to slow its momentum as it approached the obstacle, the Norseman forced the animal to smash through the barrier and jump into the flowing water four feet below.

  As soon as the horse splashed into the chest-high water, Ivarr wheeled the animal toward the shore, where he could see the rest of his column still riding toward the bridge. He drove his booted feet into the horse’s sides, and it leaped forward, but the mud on the bottom of the river slowed its progress.

  The men on the islet closest to him focused their fire on him, and

  Ivarr felt two arrows glance off his breastplate and a third score a furrow across his left thigh, drawing a growl of rage. A moment later, his horse found firmer ground and galloped up the river bank to the safety of a row of trees.

  Other men followed Ivarr’s lead and leaped through the gap in the side of the bridge and plunged into the river below, but not all were as fortunate as their leader. The archers on the islet in the middle of the river were now ready. Many of the riders didn’t make it to the far shore, and others who did were either wounded or dying.

  * * *

  AN HOUR BEFORE noon, Ivarr stood on a bluff, looking down at the growing force of men camped in a clearing on the far side of the bridge. The sight filled him with wrath. The approach of a man with a heavy step drew the Norse leader’s attention, and he glanced coldly back at Geir, the old warrior who’d accompanied him to the parley with Morgana.

  Geir had sailed with the Norse warlord’s father on a longship in the early days. It was said they had raided as far south as the sea of the Romans. The warrior had joined Hengst and Ivarr’s band five years earlier, after losing his own ship in a dicing match. The Norseman walked over to Ivarr, and the two men stood in silence for a moment, staring at the enemy camp on the far side of the river. When Ivarr finally spoke, his words were dripping with scorn.

  “A week ago, this rabble cringed in fear at the sight of Ivarr the Red and his men. They cried and mewled like kittens as we took their wealth and women, and now they would be warriors. I shall kill them all, and their women and children shall labor under the slaver’s lash all of their days.”

  Geir waited a moment, until the Norseman’s anger subsided, then pointed to the enemy camp in the distance. “Do you see the holes that those men over there are digging?”

  Ivarr nodded.

  “Those are for dung and urine. Do you see those men cutting wood?”

  Ivarr grunted an acknowledgement.

  “Those are for barrier walls. And those men, lined up there with their bows at the ready, they provide cover in case of attack. And—”

  “What are you saying, Geir?” Ivarr said, with a mixture of impatience and anger.

  “War leader, these men are not the sheep of yesterday. They now have leaders who know what they are about.”

  “Bah! Sheep are sheep, and so what if they have found a farmer who was once a soldier to lead them.”

  “War leader, whoever leads these men is not a farmer. Look at the white markings on the bridge, there, there, and there.”

  Ivarr leaned forward and for the first time noticed the white chalk markings that divided the bridge into sections. Each section was marked with either a “I,” “II,” or “III.”

  “Now,” Geir continued, “look at where their leader positioned his archers. I have seen this before. Each group of archers is told to fire only on the men within one section. This allows men to shoot from both sides of the bridge without hitting one another. Do you remember a voice calling out commands from the far shore during the battle?”

  Ivarr hesitated and then nodded grudgingly.

  “Their leader was commanding the archers in one location to target the men in a different section of the bridge as we tried to escape.”

  “Why do you tell me this, Geir?” Ivarr said, his voice cold and hard.

  “The men who set this trap and commanded this battle are truly skilled in the way of war. We must be wary—”

  “Do not tell me what we must do, Geir!” Ivarr roared, his eyes blazing. “I know what we must do! We must slaughter these men and their leaders. This will happen on the morrow. Have Keld ride back up the road until he finds Ragnar and the men afoot. Tell him that if he is not here by the morn, I will have the skin flayed from his body!”

  ABBEY CWM HIR

  Guinevere reviewed the ciphered message a third time and then stood up from her desk. She carefully rolled up the parchment and slid it into a small leather pouch. Then she placed a metal sheath over the candle on the desk to hide its light, and walked to the window overlooking the darkest part of the courtyard. Torn was barely visible there, sitting on a wooden bench in the dark, sharpening his knife. She opened the shutter and dropped the leather pouch to the ground. A moment later, Torn sheathed his knife and started across the courtyard, stopping to tie his bootlace beside the leather pouch. When he stood up, the pouch was gone.

  The message was one of many Guinevere had sent out in the past week to the sparrows who lived along the roads she expected Percival to travel on as he made his way to the abbey. She knew every village and town he approached would assume the worst and prepare for a fight. A single errant arrow could take the Knight’s life, bringing his long quest to a tragic end. In each message, she advised the women of his approach and told them to take whatever precautions they could to protect him.

  Guinevere walked back to her desk, lifted the sheath from the flickering candle, and returned the book of cypher codes to the iron strongbox on the table. The light from the candle illuminated two golden rings. They must have fallen out of the white, silken bag, where she kept them, when she placed the strongbox on the table. She stared at the rings for a moment, and then she picked them up and slowly sat down.

  One of the rings was made from the finest gold in the land, and it bore the seal of the house of Pendragon—a dragon. The second ring was smaller, and the gold of a lesser grade. The only visible marking on the smaller ring was a single word etched on the inside, where it would touch the skin of the wearer. The word was Forever.

  As she stared at the rings, the memory of her wedding day returned. The ring that Arthur had placed on her finger that day was the larger of the two rings—the ring that the Royal Council had ordered the royal forge to make for the occasion. Although it was magnificent, her wedding ring was not the cherished family heirloom she had chosen for the occasion—the ring worn by her deceased mother and grandmother on the day of their nuptials. That ring waited under a stone at Pen Dinas, for a day that
would never come.

  When she’d asked Arthur for the right to choose her own wedding ring, he had made light of it, saying, “Guinevere, rings are a thing of no moment. Let the Royal Council have its way on the day of the wedding and wear another thereafter. For my part, I am no ring wearer, so I shall surely set aside whatever trinket they would have you give me on that day.”

  A sad smile came to Guinevere’s face as the scene faded from memory, for the truth, as she later discovered, was that Arthur did faithfully wear a ring. He wore it on a chain close to his heart, every day without fail.

  Guinevere didn’t realize Cadwyn had knocked on the door, or that she’d told her handmaiden to come in, until she was standing in front of her.

  “Milady? Are you unwell?”

  “Oh, Cadwyn, yes. I mean no, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

  “Your face,” Cadwyn said, “you look so sad.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Cadwyn asked in a soft voice, “Milady, those rings, I have never seen them before. If they make you so sad, why not hide them away?”

  Guinevere glanced down at the bands of gold resting in her palm.

  “I could do that, but the memories would still remain, and, in truth, I pray that those remembrances stay with me until my dying day. They have within them equal shares of joy and sadness, and I need to remember both, for although the first brings happiness, often the second brings wisdom.”

  “Would … you speak of this, Milady … the story of the rings?” Cadwyn said in a near whisper.

  “You would know all my deep, dark secrets, Cadwyn Hydwell,” Guinevere said with a laugh.

  “I’m sorry, Milady, it’s just that you have lived such a life! I could only dream of the things you have done … the people you have met, and, Milady, now that Sir Percival comes, why, who knows what the future will bring?”

  Guinevere smiled. “Who knows, indeed? Very well, sit, and I will tell you of a girl who was much like you so many years ago.”

  Cadwyn sat in the chair across from the Queen, her eyes glowing and face rapt with attention. Guinevere leaned back in her chair, a pensive look on her face.

  “Where to begin? My father promised my hand to Arthur when I was still a child. At that time, Arthur was not yet King. He was one of a number of powerful and ambitious warlords seeking the throne left vacant by the death of Uther Pendragon. He needed the support of my father—an old and respected lord of great wealth—to achieve that end. So they met to discuss the matter. After meeting with Arthur and his councilor, Merlin the Wise, my father decided to support Arthur’s claim to the throne.”

  Cadwyn leaned forward in her chair, looking confused. “But, Milady, Arthur was Uther Pendragon’s son, was he not? So he was the rightful king.”

  Guinevere placed the two rings on the table and clasped her hands together on her lap.

  “That, my dear, is the tale that has been told, and there is some truth to it. You see, the wiser Roman emperors had a practice, as they neared the time of their death, of adopting as their son another Roman who was wise and strong enough to rule the empire. It is said that King Uther, who didn’t have any male heirs, followed that practice when he chose Arthur to be his successor.”

  Cadwyn’s eyes widened.

  Guinevere nodded. “Yes, that is the truth of it, my dear. Alas, the matter did not end there. Uther’s brother denied Arthur’s claim after Uther’s death and insisted that the crown was his by right. Others, who claimed lineage through King Aurelius, and even distant King Vor-tigern, also laid claim to the crown. So, a war of succession followed. It was a fearful time.”

  A distant look came to Guinevere’s face, and she was quiet for a moment as she remembered the look of fear on her mother’s face every time her father rode off with his liegemen in those years. Then she continued.

  “When Arthur sought my father’s aid in this war, he agreed to support Arthur’s claim. In return, Arthur agreed to take me for his Queen, when I came of age.”

  “Milady, did your father ask you if …”

  Guinevere smiled a sad and knowing smile.

  “No, Cadwyn. That is not the way of things. The daughter of a powerful lord is a coin in the game of power, a thing to be bartered away for gain. It has been thus for centuries.”

  Cadwyn sat up in her chair, a look of defiance on her face. “I will choose the man that I marry.”

  Guinevere laughed. “I suspect you will, Cadwyn, and he will be a very lucky man.”

  “I shouldn’t interrupt, Milady. Sister Aranwen says that it is a bad habit. Please—”

  “It may be that,” the Queen said with a laugh, “but life would be so much less interesting without that bad habit of yours. So I must ask you to keep it. Now, where was I?” She tapped one finger against her chin. “Why, I am becoming quite the old woman, forgetting myself every other moment.”

  “You are not, Milady. Why, you are as young and beautiful as a spring rose.”

  “I’ll settle for a late-summer bloom,” Guinevere said with a smile. “Oh yes, I remember now. Arthur spent a year fighting to secure the throne and another two years subduing the endless revolts that seemed to arise in one part of the land or another. In time, he came to reign as the undisputed king of the land, and when I was eighteen, he sent for me, and a grand wedding was arranged.

  “This,” Guinevere said, touching the larger of the two golden rings on the table, “is my wedding ring. It was designed by a famed court artisan, forged by the court smith, and then approved by the Royal Council as fitting for the occasion.”

  Cadwyn stared at the magnificent ring and spoke in a whisper.

  “It is a magnificent ring, Milady.”

  “Indeed, it is, and most would choose it over the other. I suspect that I would have as well, had I been given the choice as a young woman. But,” Guinevere said in a voice tinged with regret, “the more modest ring is the one I would choose today, or even a ring of the crudest wood, if it was given by my beloved with all his heart, as Arthur gave this one.”

  “Milady, Arthur gave you the smaller ring as well?” Cadwyn asked, confusion in her voice.

  A sad smile came to Guinevere’s face. “No, Cadwyn, Arthur did not give me this ring.”

  “But you said—”

  “I did. You see, I was not Arthur’s first wife.”

  Cadwyn’s eye widened, and she lifted a hand to her mouth.

  Guinevere looked over at the flickering candle and spoke as though she were describing the life of another woman.

  “When I married Arthur Pendragon, he was the unchallenged King of the Britons and the first knight of the invincible Knights of the Round Table. He was also late in his fourth decade of life. Although few know of it, long before he reached those powerful heights, the young Arthur—a man who was just one of many lords fighting to defend his family’s ancestral fiefs like many other—fell in love. His beloved was the daughter of a lesser noble, and his family frowned upon the union, but Arthur rejected their advice. He chose love over power, and I’m told that she loved him as dearly as he loved her.”

  “Milady,” Cadwyn said, her voice hesitant, “if you will, how did you learn of this?”

  Guinevere gently took the smaller of the two rings and rested it in her palm. “This ring … it was brought to me by a messenger after Arthur’s death at Camlann. They assumed it was mine. For a year after Arthur’s death, I kept it locked away, not wanting to know the truth of the matter, but one morning, I decided otherwise and asked the abbess what she knew of it. She had known Arthur in the early days and had attended his wedding to … Alona, his first wife.

  “She died in childbirth,” Guinevere said, her eyes on the ring, “in the second year of their marriage. The child died as well. The abbess said Arthur was a broken man for a very long while. Over time, he recovered, but the abbess said he was different—colder, more distant. That was the man who became King.”

  Guinevere fell silent and gently returned the two rings to the silk
en bag and then placed it back in the strongbox. “I have kept both my ring and Alona’s to honor him, for he was a great and wonderful man in so many ways, and Alona must have been … most wonderful as well, for him to love her so dearly. But sometimes, in my weaker, more selfish moments, I envy her, for she and Arthur married for love, whereas we … our union … was one of duty.”

  “Milady, one day you will marry for love!” Cadwyn burst out.

  Guinevere looked over at her young friend in surprise and smiled.

  “Oh, Cadwyn, you are precious, but alas … those days are gone.”

  CHAPTER 19

  CAMP ON THE RIVER WID

  ercival stood on the edge of a stand of trees bordering a broad, open field on the south side of the River Wid—a field that was quickly becoming a fortified camp. As he watched the lines of men digging a ditch and building a palisade across the exposed part of the field, he remembered doing this same work side by side with the men of town near his home, under the watchful eyes of his father and grandfather.

  Capussa walked over to stand beside Percival and nodded toward the rows of stakes protruding from the ground forming a palisade along the ditch dug on the perimeter of the camp. “You have done this before, Knight. I would not have thought a man of noble blood would know of these things.”

  Percival smiled, remembering his protestations as a younger man at the effort he considered wasteful, and his grandfather’s stern reply: “Percival, a wise commander prepares for both victory and defeat. If you are driven from the field, this ditch and palisade will mean the difference between life and death for you and your army.”

  He glanced over at Capussa and smiled ruefully. “When I was ten years old, I was forced to dig a ditch and build a palisade like this one in the hot sun. I was quite sure the work was beneath me. My grandfather thought otherwise. When I threw down my shovel and tried to climb out of the ditch, he knocked me back into the mud and told me to keep at it.”