The Return of Sir Percival

by S Alexander O'keefe

  As Talorc begrudgingly retold his story, she withdrew a map from a pocket in her traveling cloak and spread it out on the small wooden camp table nearby.

  “We are here,” Morgana said, pointing to the midpoint on the road that ran from Noviomagus to Londinium. “Where is the Knight and his army?”

  Talorc slowly drew the hunting knife from his belt and walked over to the map. After staring at the map and then lifting his gaze to the surrounding hills and sky for several moments, he touched the sharpened tip of his blade to a spot to the north of their position—a point between their position and Londinium.

  “This place. It is called the Vale of Ashes. The army—they call it the Queen’s Army now—is camped there by a river.”

  Talorc’s comment about the name of the army enraged Morgana, and she suspected that’s why the Pict had said it.

  Garr looked suspiciously at the man. “How do you know this, Pict?” he demanded.

  “I have followed this army for many days, Saxon, and I know it comes for you and the Norse dogs marching behind you. I also know that the man who leads this army will not allow you to pass on to Londinium. On the morrow, Saxon, there will be blood,” Talorc said with satisfaction in his voice.

  “How many are they?” Morgana said.

  The Pict reached for a stick lying on the ground and began to draw lines in the dirt. “For each line, a hundred soldiers,” he said as he drew twenty separate lines.

  “Why should I believe you?” Garr said in a low growl.

  Talorc’s eyes narrowed, and then he spoke in a terse whisper, his hand tightening on the knife in his hand. “I don’t care what you believe, Saxon, but know this: If I wanted your head, I would take it myself. I would not wait for the army of the Pendragon’s Queen to do that for me.”

  Garr started toward him, a snarl on his face, but Morgana cut him off.

  “Garr, send riders to Ivarr and Sveinn. Tell them the enemy is less than a day’s march away. Tell them that if they’re not here before nightfall, I will march away and let them fight the Britons on their own.”

  The Saxon reluctantly shoved his partially drawn sword back into its sheath, glared at the Pict, and then walked across the field to where two of his men were currying their horses. Morgana turned to Talorc and spoke in a cold, hard voice.

  “Where is the Pendragon’s whore?”

  “You mean the Queen of the Britons,” he said with a small smile.

  “She is the queen of nothing, Pict,” Morgana hissed.

  “No, Roman Princess? Then why is it that so many men have flocked to her banner and marched to war without the promise of gold or silver?” Talorc said in quiet contempt.

  “If her men are stupid enough to fight for food, then she is welcome to them. Now where is she?” she said, stabbing a finger into the map.

  The Pict touched the map with the tip of his knife. “Here, in a villa, five miles north of the army. She is guarded by one hundred men. The Knight of the Table is with her.”

  “Tomorrow, you will kill her, but not,” Morgana said, turning to look across the camp at where Lord Aeron was sitting on a rock honing his sword, “until Sir Percival has left for the battlefield.”

  “What will you gain from this killing, Roman?” Talorc growled.

  “That’s not your affair, Pict!” Morgana snapped. “I have your blood oath, and you will honor it.”

  For an instant, rage flared in the man’s eyes, and then it faded. The Pict smiled and backed away from Morgana, sheathing his knife. After mounting his horse, Talorc looked over at Morgana and said in a hard, flat whisper she could not hear, “Yes, I shall keep my oath, Roman, and you will keep yours, or you will follow the Queen of the Britons into the grave.”

  * * *

  AT FIRST, LORD Aeron didn’t recognize the Pict warrior when he rode into the camp from the north, then he saw the blue fletching on the arrows, just visible over the top of the deerskin quiver strapped across his back. This was the same warrior Morgana had secretly met in the forest many months ago. Lord Aeron watched the rider for another moment and then turned away, feigning a lack of interest. He continued to hone the blade of his sword with a well-worn whetstone, but he could still see Morgana from the corner of his eye.

  The tense exchange between the Pict, Morgana, and Garr did not make any sense to him until Morgana drew a parchment role from her cloak—a map. Then he knew: The Pict must have brought word of Sir Percival and his army. When Garr left the meeting and sent two messengers racing south, he felt certain that the army led by his brother Knight must be close by. It seemed Sir Percival was moving faster than Morgana had anticipated. A battle would come soon, maybe even on the morrow.

  The knight continued to hone the sword blade, waiting for the rumors to race around the camp, as he knew they would. An hour later, he stood up, sheathed his sword, and walked his horse across the camp to the creek on the far side. As he crossed the field, he passed by a lean old man clad in a motley collection of animal skins that marked him as a local hunter. The man was sitting alone, fitting an iron point to the tip of a wooden arrow he had whittled from a piece of hardwood. Lord Aeron drew his horse to a halt next to the man, using the animal’s body to hide him from Morgana’s sight.

  “Hunter, I’m told that the enemy is near.”

  The hunter nodded without looking up.

  “So the Pict says. Don’t trust him. After dark, I’ll go and see for myself.”

  When Lord Aeron didn’t move, the hunter looked up at him in silence and then spoke quietly. “Saw you kill that Saxon the other day. A bad one, he was. Killed a woman in one of the villages the Norse sacked on their way in. I knew the lass’s father … a good man. There was no cause for him to do that. So I guess I’m thanking you for doing something … something I should have done.”

  “Why are you telling me this, hunter?” Lord Aeron said quietly.

  The old man’s eyes returned to his work when spoke. “I served the Pendragon as a scout in the last years of the war. My son … he was proud of me. He’s gone now. I remember those days. So let’s just say that we were both someone else, a long time ago, and leave it at that.”

  For a moment, the two men’s eyes met, and then Lord Aeron glanced back at Morgana’s camp on the knoll. She was still immersed in conversation with Garr.

  “The Pict said the Queen was with the army,” the hunter said in a whisper as he returned to his work.

  For a moment, the breath caught in Lord Aeron’s throat. “The Pict said this?” he asked in a hoarse tone.

  “Aye, he was dead sure. She’s staying at a villa behind the lines. I’ve been there before. Might just visit there tonight.”

  “I’d like to ride along with you, if you don’t mind,” Lord Aeron said.

  “I’ll be at that big oak at the top of yon hill, two hours after dark. Can’t wait long.”

  “Understood,” the knight said, and continued walking his horse across the camp to the stream on the far side.

  NORTH OF THE VALE OF ASHES

  After bathing in a spring a mile from the manor where the Queen was staying, Percival dressed in silence. The sun had passed below the horizon moments earlier, and although it was still early in the fall, the Knight could feel the chill in the air on his bare skin.

  As he donned his leather jerkin, he sensed someone watching him from the other side of the small clearing and reached for his sword.

  “You have no need of that. I’ve only come to talk with an old friend.”

  Percival eased his hand away from the sword. He had not heard that voice in nearly a decade, and yet he recognized it immediately. And yet the voice was different. It lacked the irrepressible mirth and passion he remembered.

  “Galahad,” he said in disbelief as he watched his brother Knight emerge from the shadows, dressed in a long, black cloak. “I … feared you perished at Camlann, brother. You cannot know how it gladdens my heart to see you alive,” Percival said, a depth of feeling in his voice as he walked
over to his friend and embraced him.

  When the two men separated, Galahad looked at him and said, in a voice laden with regret, “Maybe the man that you knew did perish at Camlann.”

  Percival could only see the outline of Galahad’s face in the dark, but the certainty in his voice disturbed him.

  “How did you know that I would be here?”

  “Oh, I remember your obsession with bathing, and I knew there would be no time for it in the morning. Your mother … you said she insisted upon it when you were a boy, as I recall.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Percival said, the hint of a smile coming to his face.

  “Come, sit,” Galahad said, gesturing to two large stones in the clearing, alongside the remains of a past fire. A small stack of branches lay beside the ashes. “We can start a fire and drink a toast or two to a world that is no more.”

  Percival walked over to one of the stones and sat down as Galahad adeptly lit a small fire, using a striking steel and stone.

  “Why, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you light a fire before, brother. You are quite the woodsman now.”

  “Alas, how the mighty have fallen,” Galahad said with a sad smile as he sat down on the rock and drew a skin of wine from his traveling cloak.

  As the light from the flames grew, Percival could see the cruel scar that marred the right side of the other man’s face and the second scar across his forehead. Although the wounds shocked him, it was the flat-dead look in Galahad’s blue eyes that shook him to the core.

  “Oh, don’t grieve for me, brother,” Galahad said, misunderstanding Percival’s look. “From what I saw when you walked out of that spring, fate has dealt you a far crueler throw of the dice than I.”

  “It was God’s will,” Percival said as he threw a branch into the fire.

  “If it’s all the same to the Almighty, I’ll take a different path and drink from a very different barrel of ale the next time around,” Galahad said.

  “That might be difficult. From what I remember, you have already sampled just about every cask, barrel, and keg in the land.”

  The two men laughed together, and for a moment, they returned to a different time and place.

  “Let us drink a toast to what once was,” Galahad said as he filled two simple wooden cups with wine and handed one to Percival. He raised his cup. “To the Table, the Pendragon, and Queen Guinevere.”

  “So say we all,” Percival said, raising his cup.

  Then both men drank a long draught and stared into the fire in silence.

  Percival looked over at his friend, questions swirling through his mind. Where had he been all these years? Had any of the other members of the Table survived? Had he come to join with him in the battle against Morgana?

  “How is she?” Galahad asked, interrupting Percival’s thoughts.

  “The Queen is well. She is less than a league from here. You must come and see her. We can ride there together. I will seek an audience,” Percival said, standing up. “We can talk on the way. I have many—”

  Galahad stood up and threw his wooden cup into the fire. “There’s no time,” Galahad said, shaking his head. “I only came to honor a promise that I made to Lancelot.”

  Percival looked at Galahad in confusion.

  His brother Knight looked down at the fire and spoke in a tired voice, as though he were watching a painful but all too familiar tragedy unfold.

  “At Camlann … just before the final charge, Lancelot asked for my forgiveness, and he asked … that I seek your forgiveness on his behalf, as well, if you ever returned. I think … he knew he was going to die.”

  Percival looked into the night sky, remembering Lancelot’s stern countenance, their arguments over strategy and tactics, and the older Knight’s rage when he had raised his concerns directly with the King at a meeting of the Table. Lancelot had taken Percival’s breach of protocol as a personal affront and had never spoken to him directly again. After that day, he had been excluded from all strategy sessions with the King and had been assigned the least favorable duties. His ostracism had been one of the reasons he had volunteered to serve in the Marches, although it had not been the most important reason.

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Percival said. “We disagreed on how to fight the war against Morgana, and he was surely a hard taskmaster, but I believe that his heart was true. However, I grant him my forgiveness, whether needed or not.”

  Galahad nodded and squatted down by the fire, his eyes distant.

  “He sent me to hold the left flank, before the final charge was made, so I didn’t see it, but I am told that he was magnificent. The charge and the savage melee that followed broke the enemy’s lines and carried the day, leaving the Pendragon the master of the field … a field of dead. The King died from his wounds, and the Table died with him. Oh, Sir Dinadan and I lived, but not for long. Sir Dinadan recovered from his wounds … only to later die by the blade of Hengst the Butcher.”

  Galahad was silent for moment and then looked over at Percival, a smile on his face. “But then, you put that right, brother. I wish I had been there to see you strike the Butcher down.”

  Galahad’s smile slowly faded, and when he continued, his voice was filled with both anger and regret.

  “All that blood … and that for a people who couldn’t even rouse themselves to fight by our side … to fight for their own survival. Well, they have reaped in full measure the misery of that cowardly choice. Instead of living under the King’s peace, they now slave under the Norse lash.”

  “What are you saying?” Percival said in confusion.

  “Criers went out in the days before Camlann, calling on anyone who could bear arms to join the ranks. The response was feeble.” The anger drained from Galahad’s voice as he finished, as if he were too tired to carry its weight. “Less than a thousand men came, and they were a miserable lot.”

  Percival shook his head in frustration. “You can’t ask farmers and other men that ply the peaceful trades to take the field as soldiers on the morrow with the call of a battle horn. It takes time, training, leadership. That’s what I tried to tell Lancelot, and later, the King, before I left for the Marches. We needed to raise levies from the peasants, to organize them, train them, to let them pick their own leaders. Lancelot wouldn’t hear of it. In his mind, cavalry and archers won wars, not a peasant infantry, and he had the King’s ear.”

  “He was right,” Galahad said, anger returning to his voice. “As I said, the few who came broke and ran.”

  “Galahad, the Roman cavalry didn’t conquer most of the known world, the Roman infantry did. The men who filled those ranks weren’t Knights of the Table or master bowmen. They were tradesmen, farmers, fishermen, and stable boys. The difference was they were trained to be soldiers on the Field of Mars and on hundreds of other practice fields throughout the empire,” Percival said.

  Galahad looked in the direction of Morgana’s encampment to the south and shook his head. “You’re wrong, and you will see that on the morrow, if you take the field. You must take the Queen and leave this place. Morgana may want a battle, but the Norse do not. They seek the riches of Londinium. Let them pass, and you will avoid a slaughter.”

  “And the people of Londinium? What of them? Should I leave them to be spitted on the swords of the Norse?”

  “Yes!” Galahad answered, his voice rising. “That’s what they deserve! Haven’t your spies told you? The mayor of Londinium and his council rejected your call for reinforcements. The cowards will stay within their walls and allow you and your army to be annihilated, in the hope that this will leave fewer men to besiege their city.”

  “No, that cannot be,” Percival said, shaking his head.

  “It is. It will be Camlann all over again. Morgana will win the day. You must retreat,” he said with desperate intensity.

  “I will not.”

  “Then you and your army of peasants will die, and when the carrion are picking at your bones, what will happen to the Quee
n? Will you leave her to be enslaved as a Norse pet or to face Morgana’s knife!” Galahad said in a cold, hard voice.

  “That will not happen!” Percival said, raising a clenched fist. “You and I, the last of the Table, will fight together on the morrow, with the Queen’s Army, and we will defeat Morgana and the Norse.”

  “Those days are gone. I am no longer a Knight of the Table.”

  “You will always be a Knight of the Table.”

  Galahad shook his head and spoke in a voice bereft of hope. “No. A promise was made, a bargain struck. What has been done cannot be undone. The price would be too high.”

  Percival crossed to his side and laid one hand upon his shoulder. “I don’t know what you have promised or what you’ve done, but I know you are a man of honor, and I know we need your sword—”

  Galahad stepped away from him, and the Knight’s hand fell away. “Good-bye, Percival,” he said and walked toward the forest wall. Just before he entered the darkened wood, he turned. “We were both cursed, brother,” he said, “to fall in love with the one woman we couldn’t have. When you came to know this, you did the honorable thing. You took the farthest posting from Camelot, the defense of the Marches, and I believe you agreed to undertake the Grail quest for the same reason— to stay away from her. I took a different path. I buried my pain in drink and in the arms of other women. If … if you truly love her, you must take her away from this place.”

  “I will pray for you, my friend,” Percival said.

  “Pray instead for yourself, and for the Queen, for on the morrow, I fear it will be you in need of God’s mercy,” he said and then disappeared into the forest.

  CHAPTER 31

  GUINEVERE’S QUARTERS, NORTH OF THE VALE OF ASHES

  hen the knock came on the outer door to her chambers, Guinevere placed her hand on her chest, in the vain hope of slowing the beat of her pounding heart. Arthur had come to her on the night before he left for the battle of Camlann. She remembered his tired and worn face, a face that had aged twenty years in the last months under the weight of a thousand burdens. Although he’d told her all would be well, in her heart, she’d known otherwise. She’d somehow known that it would be their last parting. Now she faced that prospect again.