“Did you think to fight the Vandali alone?” I remarked, striding up beside him.
“Where is your warband?” asked Bedwyr.
“Welcome, brother,” said Cai. “We feared your pilot had lost his way on that ocean of yours.”
“Gwalchavad! Bedwyr! Cai!” he shouted with husky heartiness, embracing us with his free hand. “Bless me, but it is good to see you again. I tell you the truth, we met Arthur’s messenger halfway, so I sent the warriors home and came on alone.”
He did not say it, but with Britain sore beset by plague and drought, no doubt it was safer for his men to remain in Armorica. Turning to Arthur, he said, “I am heartily sorry I could not come to you sooner, Bear. But the Frencs grow ever more contentious and will not be appeased so easily as in the past. We had our hands full through the summer, I tell you. Still, Ban would have me beg your pardon for the delay.”
“There is no need,” said Arthur, waving aside the apology. “Tell me, how fares your brother?”
“Ban sends his greetings to one and all, and asks to be remembered by his former swordbrothers. As ever, he is desirous of coming to Britain one day soon, ‘when kingly duties weigh less heavily upon the crownéd head,’ as he says.”
“If that is the case,” I ventured, “then he will likely remain in Benowyc forever. I have never known a man so able at producing work out of thin air.”
“Too true,” agreed Bors. “I tell him the same thing myself, but he can always find a thousand things begging to be done, and it is ‘Who will do them if I leave?’ and thus he keeps himself busy year to year.” Turning to Arthur, he said, “Now, then, what am I hearing about this Grail of yours?”
“It saved Arthur’s life,” Gwenhwyvar replied. “If not for the Grail, Britain would be in mourning now. The Holy Cup healed his wounds and restored his life.”
“Then it is true?” Bors wondered, turning wide eyes towards Arthur. “From the moment we made landfall, I have heard nothing but talk of this Holy Grail. I thought it must be one of those peculiar rumors that surface from time to time—like that enormous serpent living in the lake up north.”
“Afanc,” I told him. “I know a man who saw it snatch one of his cows from the shore of the lake where it was grazing. I myself have seen it.”
“The serpent?” asked Bors in astonishment.
“No, the lake.”
They all laughed at this, and Bors thrust the cup into my hands. “Drink, brother! Ah, but it is good to be back among true friends.”
Rhys arrived while Bors was speaking and whispered something to the king. “I fear, Lord Bors,” said Arthur, “Gwenhwyvar and I have been called away. We must speak to Myrddin before he disappears again. But you will sit with me at table tonight,” Arthur promised, “and I will tell you all about the battles you have missed.”
The Pendragon and his lady moved away then, and Bedwyr made excuses, too, saying he must see to the night watch and supper for Llenlleawg. He hurried off to order the Cymbrogi, leaving Cai and me to help Bors with the welcome cup. “Where is our Irishman?” wondered Bors.
“At the shrine,” I answered, and went on to explain about the Fellowship of the Grail. “We each take it in turn to guard the shrine,” I concluded. “It was Llenlleawg’s bad luck to draw the short straw—he has the watch tonight.”
“Alone?” asked Bors, passing the cup to me.
“Nay,” replied Cai, “there are eight Cymbrogi with him—or soon will be—so he will not lack for company.”
“When did you arrive?” I asked, taking a drink and passing the cup to Cai.
“At midday, just,” Bors replied. His features grew keen. “But tell me, have you seen this Grail?”
“Man,” Cai hooted, “for three whole days I have done little else save stand beside it from dawn to dusk.”
“Where is this shrine?” Bors asked, excitement growing. “Take me.”
“Now?” said Cai. “We have just this moment returned from there.”
“Now,” Bors insisted. “I want to see this marvel for myself. If it is as you say, even a moment is too long to wait.”
“But the shrine is closed now,” I explained. “Even if it were not, people in their hundreds have waited through the day to see it, and now must wait through the night as well. They stand ahead of you, brother. But never fear, I have the watch tomorrow, and I will take you and make certain you get to see it.”
Bors yielded with good grace. “Very well,” he said, “if I must wait, then at least I tarry in good company. Bless me, but I am sorry I missed the fighting. Was it bad?”
“Bad enough,” I replied. “The Saecsens were worse, of course, but the Vandali were nearly as bad—fiercest when backed into a corner. Fortunately, Arthur saw to it that did not happen very often. Mostly, we chased them up and down the valleys. They had their women and children with them.”
“God in Heaven!” He shook his head in disbelief.
“Truly,” I declared. “It seems they had been forced to flee their homeland in the southern seas somewhere, and they were looking for new lands for settlement.”
“They chose the wrong place when they chose Britain,” Bors said.
“They tried Ierna first,” I said, “and when we chased them away from those green hills, they came here. It took the whole summer, but we vanquished them at last. Even so, they have not done too badly.”
“No?” He regarded us dubiously.
“For a truth,” Cai declared, nodding. “In return for peace and sworn allegiance to the High King, Arthur gave them lands in the north.”
“He never did!”
“Did and done,” I told him, and related the story of how Arthur had undertaken single combat with the Black Boar, and received the deadly wound which ended in the miraculous healing. “I believe it is for the best,” I concluded. “The Grail is established, Britain is at peace, and the Kingdom of Summer is begun. Never has there been a better time to be alive.”
Bors regarded me curiously, trying to determine if I was sincere or not. Unable to decide, he reached for the cup instead, took a long draught of the ale, whereupon one of the serving men appeared to say that Avallach called for his guests to take their places at the board. We hurried into the hall, where we were joined at table by Bedwyr and Cador, and some others eager to renew their acquaintance with Bors. The talk was fine and amiable, the ale flowed freely, and we spent the evening pledging and repledging our undying friendship to one another.
“I wish Llenlleawg were here,” Bedwyr said at one point. “This is just the tonic that would do him good.”
“To Llenlleawg!” proclaimed Cai grandly. “The finest warrior who ever drew sword or sat horse.”
“I will drink to that,” declared Cador cheerfully, raising his cup high.
“To the finest warrior that ever drew sword!” echoed Bedwyr, and we all acclaimed the sentiment with a noisy rattling of our cups.
We were then overtaken by a sudden and irresistible urge to drink the health and virtue of every single member of the Dragon Flight, fine men each and every one. Night was far gone when I finally found my bed. The warriors’ lodgings were full, so I took off my boots and curled up in the corner. It seemed that I had merely closed my eyes when I was roughly roused by someone shaking me by the shoulder.
“Wake up!” said a voice loud in my ear. “Lord Gwalchavad, please, wake up!”
I opened one eye, and recognized the face hovering above me in the dark. “Tallaght, what are you doing?”
“I am trying to wake you, lord,” he said.
“You have achieved your ambition,” I replied, and made to roll over. “Now go away and let me sleep.”
He started shaking me again. “Forgive me, lord. You must come with me. There is trouble.”
I sat up. “What trouble?” I demanded, pulling on my boots.
“I cannot say,” he answered. “Rhys says the Pendragon has roused the Dragon Flight. We are summoned to the yard at once.”
As we
were no great distance from the hall, I could hear men moving quickly and quietly in the corridor beyond. By the time we joined them, the yard was in turmoil: men rushing everywhere at once to saddle horses and procure weapons by torchlight. I caught sight of Rhys, leading Arthur’s mount from the stables.
“Rhys!” I shouted, running to meet him. “Are we attacked?”
“The shrine,” he shouted breathlessly as he passed without slowing. “Something has happened at the shrine.”
“Well, what is it, man?”
“How do I know?”
He hurried on, so I concerned myself with saddling my horse and arming myself. I had just strapped a sword to my hip and got hold of a spear when Rhys’ hunting horn called us to be mounted. I swung into the saddle and saw Arthur across the yard, his face set in that expression I have come to know well: the serene, unhurried calm of a skilled craftsman assembling the tools of his trade. Unlike other men when riding into battle, the Pendragon becomes more himself rather than less.
Even-tempered by nature, in a fight Arthur is never uneasy or alarmed, never worried or distressed, never fear-fraught nor less yet unnerved. Myrddin has said that he believes Arthur truly lives only in the fight. “Many warriors live to fight,” Myrddin told me once, “but Arthur comes alive in battle—the way an eagle only comes alive when it takes flight.”
“He is courageous,” I agreed.
“What is courage but the mastery of fear?” said the Wise Emrys. “But there is no fear in Arthur. Tell me, does the eagle fear the wind that frees him to fly?”
Well, the Eagle of Britain was ready to soar, and those who recognized the sight knew well what it meant.
We rode through the gate and pounded onto the winding Tor path in the dark—there must have been fifty or more men clattering down the hillside at Arthur’s back. Gaining the lakeside path, we flew past the monastery, scrambled over the lowland, and made directly for Shrine Hill, where we found the place in chaos.
People were stumbling around in the darkness, for the moon had set and dawn had not yet come, and they were shouting at one another; the women were wailing and children were crying, but I could not see what had happened to cause such distress. There was a crush of confusion at the foot of Shrine Hill; Rhys gave forth blast after blast on the horn, and we forced our way through the clinging throng and rode for the hilltop.
The shrine itself was peacefully quiet, and we swiftly discovered why: the warriors charged with guarding the shrine were dead. They lay on the steps leading to the entrance to the shrine where they had fallen. All had been attacked with a sword and suffered horrific wounds—several had lost limbs, and one had been decapitated.
Arthur took one look at the carnage and said, “Who had the watch tonight?” His voice was tight, as if he were speaking with immense difficulty.
“Llenlleawg,” I answered.
Without another word, the king turned and mounted the steps to the shrine. He stepped inside, only to emerge a moment later, his face frozen in a rictus of shock and dismay.
“Arthur?” said Bedwyr as the king strode past. “Is he inside?”
But the king made no reply and, without so much as a backward glance, walked back down the hill.
Seizing a torch from the hand of a nearby warrior, Bedwyr dashed to the entrance of the shrine. “Well?” Cador shouted at him.
When Bedwyr did not answer, Cador cleared the steps in a bound and dashed inside. I could see the torchlight playing over the interior of the shrine, and then Cador appeared in the doorway looking shaken and unsteady. Thinking to see Llenlleawg dead in a pool of blood, I leapt up the steps to the door of the shrine and looked inside—but there was neither blood nor body. Indeed, the shrine was completely empty….
Owing to my relief at not finding Llenlleawg’s corpse, it took a moment for the awful significance to break over me. But when it did, it burst with all the fury of a tempest: the shrine was empty…the Grail was gone, Caledvwlch was gone, and Llenlleawg was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Rhys! Cai!” cried the Pendragon upon reaching the throng at the bottom of the hill. “Find someone who saw what happened!”
The two were already moving to his command as Arthur, having mastered his shock, swiftly turned to the waiting Cymbrogi. “The Grail is gone, and Caledvwlch with it. The guards are dead. Get more torches. Search the hill. I want to know how many were here, and which way they went.” In the moment of stunned hesitation that followed, he roared, “Now!” and men scattered in twenty directions.
Seizing a torch from one of the sconces at the entrance to the shrine, I began searching the outside of the building and was quickly joined by Cador bearing another torch. We walked slowly, crouching low, examining the soft, dusty earth for fresh footprints, or for any other sign that the attackers might have crept up from behind the shrine to take the watchmen unawares.
There were all sorts of marks in the dust—the tracks of masons and the imprints where stone and tools had lain—but all these were old and scuffed about. “Nothing fresh here,” Cador concluded.
Still, just to make certain we had not missed anything or overlooked any possible trace, however small, we made a second circuit of the shrine. This time, the only new tracks we saw were those Cador and I had made during the first circuit; I could identify them readily enough on the dry, dusty ground—which gave me to know that had there been any new tracks the first time, we would have recognized them. There were none.
“Go tell Arthur,” Cador said. “I will look over there.” He pointed to the broad slope of the hill’s rearward side.
Hurrying to the front of the shrine, I found the hillside ablaze with the light of torches as the Cymbrogi scoured the path and surrounding area. Arthur and Bedwyr were standing halfway down the hill talking to Myrddin, who was still on horseback. After a few brief words, the Emrys turned his mount and raced away again. Hearing my footsteps behind him, the king whirled on me. “Well?” he demanded.
“We found nothing, Pendragon,” I told him.
“Look again,” he commanded.
“We have already searched twice, and—”
“Again!” The order was curt, and brooked no reply.
Bedwyr, grim in the softly fluttering light, nodded. “We must be certain,” he said.
As it was easier to comply than to argue, I walked the shrine perimeter for the third time, more slowly and painstakingly, to be sure. Again I saw nothing I had not seen before. Nor did Cador’s scrutiny turn up any traces that the shrine had been approached from the rear. Cador met me at the hilltop, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Whoever did this did not strike from behind.”
We hurried back, reaching the king just as Rhys and Cai came hastening up the pathway, dragging two others between them.
“There are at least three more dead down there,” Rhys informed us bleakly. “Skulls split ear to ear. Another four wounded.”
“These two saw what happened,” Cai added. “They are father and son—arrived after nightfall from east of—”
Arthur raised a hand and cut him off. Addressing the two men, he said, “What did you see?”
The older of the two swallowed, then glanced sideways at Cai, who urged him on with a sharp nod. The man licked his lips and said, “It was dark, Lord Pendragon. I fear my eyes is not what they was—’ specially in the dead of night.”
“Just say what you saw,” urged Arthur impatiently.
The man blinked, his face squirming in the torchlight; he licked his lips again, and worked his jaw. The second man, a youth with a club foot, blurted, “It were terrible, Lord Pendragon. Terrible. The first thing I knowed something’s amiss was when up there comes a shout—like a death cry, it were. We had just got ourselves a piece of the ground and rolled up in our cloaks to sleep, and this brought us up again something quick, I can tell you.”
The elder man nodded his agreement at this. “Aye, the very truth.”
“Yes, yes,” growled B
edwyr testily. “But what did you see!”
“Tell them and be quick about it,” coaxed Cai in a low tone, with another nod of encouragement.
“Up there,” the youth said, pointing to the shrine, “men was all asudden fighting for their very lives. All of them at it, eh, Da?”
The man nodded. “Every last one,” he murmured.
“They was fighting something fierce,” the youth continued, “and must have been six or more against one—but the one, he were a fighter. He flew this way and that, slashing and slashing. And what with the shouting and slashing, I never seen such a sight. He killed them all, he did.”
“Every last one,” repeated the father.
“Who?” demanded Bedwyr.
The young man looked at Cai for help.
“His name!” said Arthur tersely, holding him to the task.
“I never heard his name,” the youth replied. “But he were tall—taller than the rest, at least.” He hesitated, glancing around quickly, then added, “And the queen were with him.”
The words hit me like a spear in the gut. Llenlleawg and Gwenhwyvar? Can it be true? I looked to Arthur to judge his reaction, but, save for a tightening of his jaw, saw no appreciable change.
Bedwyr, however, had gone red in the face, and was almost shaking with frustrated rage. “How could you see all this from down there?” he shouted, pointing angrily down the hill at the place where they had stood.
“For the torches on the side of the shrine,” the young man explained. “We saw it all. He killed them, and then he comes running down here, running like his legs is afire. We see him waving that great sword in one hand, and carrying something under his other arm.”
“What was he carrying?” demanded Bedwyr roughly.
The youth shrugged. “A wooden box.”
“Is that what you saw, too?” Bedwyr turned his withering gaze on the elder of the two.
“Tell the truth, man,” Arthur cautioned, his voice tight.
The man licked his lips and said, “Some of the people down here, they started shouting: ‘The Grail! The Grail! He has got the Grail!’ I do not know about that—all I saw was the box, and him running away with it.”
Grail Page 21
