Pendragon's Heir

by Suzannah Rowntree

  Mordred and the King discussed tribute payments, border disputes, and succession as if either meant the truce to last years rather than weeks. While he listened Perceval amused himself playing a game with Mordred’s men. Each of these was a knight he knew, and some were men he had fought alongside at the battle of Joyeuse Gard. He looked into each of their eyes in turn, measuring how long it took them to glance away or transfer their attention to the sky above his head.

  Sir Agravain, oddly, lasted longer than any of the others. For a while he tried to stare back, and with the effort a bead of sweat began to trickle down his forehead, but eventually he too dropped his gaze. What happened next was almost too sudden to see. Only Perceval saw him flinch away from something on the ground. There was a little ripple in the grass and Perceval saw the diamond-shaped head of an adder rise from the ground and strike at Agravain’s booted foot. Then his uncle flashed his sword out: under the bright morning sun, it must have shone from the hillside like the flaming blade of Eden. The King broke off what he was saying mid-sentence.

  “Treachery!” Sir Bedivere cried. He had only seen the sword.

  Downhill, Sir Ector gestured to his trumpeter to sound the charge.

  At the shouting and the trumpet-blast, Agravain looked up from the adder transfixed on his swordpoint. Other swords leapt from sheaths as both sides recoiled a few steps, and he stood suddenly abandoned in the space between two bristling forces. Sudden realisation of what he had done flashed across Agravain’s face—then Perceval wheeled and ran with the others, back to where the squires held their horses. He shook his head. Agravain! God help the fool! Too soon, too soon!

  Perceval reached Heilyn, whom he had permitted to come because there would be no battle, and snatched Gringolet’s reins. He glanced up and down the hill. Trumpets blared, men yelled, Mordred and his knights were scrambling into the saddle to ride back up to their army, which crested the hill and poured down to meet them like a flood. Downhill, Sir Ector and the King’s footmen—shadowed by banners of Trinovant, Camelot, and the southern fiefs—surged up the slope, a rising tide cut free of gravity.

  There was no time to speak, hardly time to mount. Perceval got one foot into the stirrup before he shouted to Gringolet. The old warhorse wheeled and went trotting down the slope. Perceval pulled himself into the saddle, slid his other foot into the stirrup, and reached the safety of his own ranks, which opened to flow about him a moment before Sir Ector’s trumpeter gave the signal to let fall the pikes.

  Then the two bodies of foot met with a splintering of spears, and the shout of the charge blurred into the screams of the melée.

  The King mustered his knights on the right flank. There were fewer than fifty of them all told, knights of the Table with other lords who had come to fight for the King.

  In the commotion Sir Bedivere was pale and grinning. This must be the sound of the great wars of his youth, when barbarians from across the sea harried Britain and the King won his name on Badon Hill. He pulled on his helm and laced it shut, shouting, “What now, lord?”

  The King turned to look up the hill where Mordred’s knights stood waiting. Perceval had discussed the terrain with him last night. It was good smooth ground, but steep; a charge would tire and flag by the crest of it. If they waited for Mordred to charge down, on the other hand, the sheer weight and force given by the slope would work to his advantage even if he ordered the men to check their speed. Let Mordred’s knights reach the main body of battle, which now straggled slowly down the slope in a swaying ribbon of steel and blood, and they would cut easily through the line. The best tactic would be to wait until Mordred’s horse came downhill and then cut through their flank obliquely.

  “We charge,” said the King. “Now, before they move.”

  “Now?”

  The King signalled to his trumpeter. “Mordred is bareheaded.”

  Perceval gripped his lance and tensed for the signal. Even so, the call of the trumpet caught him almost by surprise. With a heave like an earthquake, Gringolet bounded forward. Then they went flying up the hill, horses straining, lances in rest.

  They caught Mordred unawares, as Arthur had guessed; his men were barely moving when the King’s knights met them at the crest of the hill. Perceval saw and marked the golden eagle of Agravain, and wrestled Gringolet aside to strike him clear on the brow of his helm. So the last prince of Orkney was the easiest unhorsing of his life, though whether in the end Agravain was finished by lance or sword or snake-venom, Perceval never knew.

  His spear splintered somewhere in that charge and he swept out his sword, but by now he had already broken through Mordred’s ranks to the other side. Perceval pulled Gringolet into a trot and wheeled him almost straight into the gigantic blow of an axe swung by Sir Sadok, who had sat beside Sir Caradoc at the Table. Perceval warded the stroke, but it lit on Gringolet’s neck, and the old horse went down.

  Perceval rolled clear just in time and rose to his feet. Where were the others? Was he cut off, here behind Mordred’s lines? But Sir Sadok was still trying to kill him and there was no time to look. Perceval ducked, lifting his shield against another buffet. The other knight circled him at a continuous tight canter, raining down blows from every direction. Perceval kept moving, catching the blows on his shield, feeling for the first time the panic of a foot soldier attacked by a cavalryman faster and bigger than himself. There was not a moment to stop, or to breathe, or to flail out at the horse’s legs.

  Perceval began to be dizzy.

  Then another knight flashed past, sword swinging. Sadok caught the blow on his shield, but this gave Perceval the moment he needed to thrust his sword deep into the enemy’s horse. Sadok slid from the beast’s back, and then they were more evenly footed. But it was not for nothing that Perceval had once been called the greatest swordsman of Logres.

  It was past midday when he struggled back from the rear of the line and found himself on the crest of the hill up which they had charged hours before. It was windy up here on the ridge, and there were clouds rolling across the sun. The cavalry charge had become a melée, and the melée had become a bitter killing match. Neither side yielded ground. There was little sound anymore but the wet thud of heavy blows. Downhill, the battle moved east a short way. Perceval strained his eyes at the crowd and saw Sir Ector’s banner still flying.

  He turned his attention back to the high ground. Many of the horses were dead now and the fighting was done on foot. Even at this hour it was impossible to say who was winning; the matter was still far too evenly matched.

  And Sir Gawain, if it had been him, had warned them against fighting before Lancelot arrived. For the first time, Perceval began to worry.

  He spotted Heilyn not far away, fighting some gigantic northern baron with a mace. Perceval shook off his weariness and went toward them. There was a brief fearful struggle in which he would have lost an arm if Heilyn had not been there by his side. Then at last the two knights of Logres laid the enemy twitching on the battlefield, and Perceval grasped the young knight’s arm. “Heilyn. Leave us. You’ll find horses at the camp. Go back to Lydaneg and tell them of the battle.”

  It was impossible to see Heilyn’s face under his helm, of course. Nor did he make any reply; only turned and went away down the hill.

  The wind sliced Perceval to the bone. Under his mail all his clothing was drenched with sweat so that if he stopped moving he was seized by teeth-chattering cold. He kept moving. There were ravens drifting overhead, black against purple sky, scenting a feast already. A little way uphill, two of them floated down and began to dig at one of the carcases lying there.

  There was something wrong with this battlefield, Perceval thought. By now, one or another of the sides should have fled, or should have been swallowed by the other. Today, some deep and stubborn enmity held men who had once been brothers to a grim and unyielding combat. Their numbers melted like snow, and still neither side gained the upper hand. Perceval ground his teeth in vexation. What about Mordred? If Mordr
ed could be killed, surely his men would lose heart and flee. But the obsidian blade had broken upon the traitor’s shadow.

  He swallowed. What was about to happen here on Camlann ridge? Was this, then, the end of Logres?

  He passed his sword to his left hand to flex his tired fingers. Then he closed them again on the hilt and went back into the fighting.

  What passed in the next few hours blurred into one desperate, gasping struggle for life. But an end came even to this. He blocked a blow meant for Sir Ironside, and slew the man that was fighting him, but too late: the knight fell into the mud and died slowly of his many wounds. He saw Sir Kay’s tall figure sink under the blades of three men at once, and avenged the gruff steward as he could. The sky blackened. Perceval found the last of the three knights who had killed Sir Kay, and beat him to the ground, and stood dizzily alone among dead men.

  He lifted his head and blinked back his pain and weariness. Was no one else still standing? He went stumbling between the stiff bodies of men and horses until he found a man in battered armour leaning against the wind on a spear.

  There was a dog lying with shallow whining pants at his feet.

  “Who else is left?” asked the King through bloody lips. He had lost his helm; at some point it had been broken open and ripped off.

  They turned and saw another. Mordred the traitor came limping toward them on dragging feet. His surcoat was stained in blood, every faithful knight of Logres had made him a target, but he was still standing, and now lifted shield and sword for one last charge.

  “There he is,” breathed the King, “the worker of this realm’s grief.”

  And he gripped his spear, which still flaunted the Red Dragon of Britain, in a hand which trembled for weariness.

  Perceval caught the King’s arm. “Sire, if he cannot be killed…”

  But his own hand was weak enough to be shaken off by a gesture, and the King looked at him with such wrath and grief in his eyes that Perceval was silenced.

  “If this is the end of our fair fellowship, as Merlin told me when I was a youth, and the time of my departure from Logres, I go willingly. But first I will try if that traitor’s carcase has lost its old virtue.”

  And he lifted his spear and charged. When Mordred saw the King coming he broke into a stumbling run. But all weariness had fallen from Arthur of Britain, and he struck the traitor with such force that his spear passed through shield, and armour, and body.

  Mordred gasped and a gout of blood trickled out at his lips. The King kept his grip on the spear-haft, nigh fainting from his exertion. Then Mordred dropped his splintered shield, reached forward, gripped the ash, and with a dim straining grunt pulled himself closer to the King.

  “Sire!” Perceval framed the warning with his mouth, but nightmarishly, his voice ceased to work.

  Mordred’s sword hung in the air. At the last moment the King lifted his shield, but his arm was too feeble. The blade bit into his skull. The King fell.

  Then Mordred also crumbled to the ground, and when Perceval crept closer, he found the son of Morgan staring at the sky with empty eyes.

  BY MIDDAY WHEN NO WORD HAD come from the north, Blanchefleur knew something must have gone wrong, and badly. That afternoon, as leaden clouds hid the sun and a cold wind blew from the West, the silence oppressed all of them more heavily. In the end, as the afternoon dragged toward evening, Guinevere put on her cloak and said, “Are you coming?”

  “Wait for us.”

  They had their horses brought out and were climbing into the saddle when Sir Heilyn came riding up the hill into the courtyard, drooping upon a lonely horse.

  Blanchefleur’s heart stood still when she saw him. If Perceval were alive, surely he would have come to her, too?

  “What news?” asked the Queen.

  Heilyn said: “Battle, with no victory in sight.”

  “We will go,” said Guinevere.

  “Lady Queen, no. The battlefield is no place for you.”

  “Young knight, yes. When the fighting is done, then the battlefield becomes the place of women. I tell you we will go.”

  Heilyn looked from the Queen to Blanchefleur, and she knew he saw the same resolve in both of them. “Well.” He turned to Branwen.

  “If you are going back, please don’t leave me here,” she begged. “Am I to be the only one left in Logres?”

  “We will go together,” he said, and they rode west, into the wind.

  It was near sunset when they came to the bare ridge called Camlann. In the valley on the eastern side, in the woods by the stream they found bodies and weapons littering the ground, but no sign of living men. The battle on foot must have fled away to north and east.

  On the ridge itself, there was a heavy smell, like blood, on the air. Dead men, dead horses, and live birds covered the ground. At first Blanchefleur thought she would try not to look. But then she saw a shield that she recognised, and then faces swam into focus. There was Sir Kay. There was that amusing young traitor she had met at Joyeuse Gard, Pertisant. There was Agravain.

  There was Cavall the wolf-hound, sleeping the endless sleep upon a headless body in silver and sable.

  One thing was certain. Not a soul was left here alive.

  Heilyn pointed south, where the ridge ran downhill into forest. “There is a chapel down there which may shelter our folk from the wind, if any are left.”

  They went down into the trees and found the place. Sir Lucan was lying by the doorstep in a pool of blood and entrails, dead. Inside the half-ruined stone building they found the King stretched out on the flagstones. Nearby, to Blanchefleur’s inexpressible relief, she saw Perceval slumped against the wall, holding a torn scrap of surcoat to a gash on his leg and cradling something round and bloody under his other arm.

  He looked up at them and croaked, “The King…”

  Guinevere went down on her knees and took the Pendragon’s hand. His head had been horribly wounded, and there was a scrap of silk tied around his head to keep the blood out of his eyes.

  “Lady,” breathed the King.

  “Hush, be still,” Guinevere begged him, her eyes filling with tears. Blanchefleur sat where she could hold the King’s other hand and said to Perceval, “Is no one else left?”

  “Only Bedivere.”

  “And Mordred?”

  “The King killed him,” said Perceval. He smiled sweetly, like a shaft of spring light. “See!” And he lifted up the severed head he had cradled under his arm.

  There came a footstep on the threshold, and Sir Bedivere entered, moving stiffly, as if in pain. His eyes rose to the newcomers in greeting, and then he went down on his knees by the King. “My lord.”

  The King’s eyelids flickered. “Bedivere? Tell me what you saw.”

  “I threw the sword Excalibur into the water, sire. And a hand and an arm came up, and caught the sword Excalibur, and took it into the water.”

  “Yes,” the King breathed. “That is how it was when the sword came to me from the Lady of the Lake.” He blinked and focused on the Queen. “What, lady, do you weep?”

  “I do.”

  “Not for me,” he began, but stumbled over the words. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger and more urgent. “I have waited too long, and time grows short. Help me.”

  “Where?” Guinevere asked.

  “The river—down to the river.”

  With Bedivere supporting the King on one side and Heilyn on the other, they all straggled out of the chapel and down the western slope of the ridge. Fog shrouded their view on all sides. At last they came to the river, which with the mist hiding its further bank seemed like the shore of a pale sea. There in the water a black barge waited, with black-clad queens within. Nimue, the Lady of the Lake was there, and Queen Morgawse the mother of Gawain, and Morgan the Queen of Gore in the robes of a nun.

  Perceval was walking with Blanchefleur, limping from his wound, still carrying Mordred’s head. When he saw Morgan he hesitated, and then splashed out to the barge.<
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  “Lady,” he said, “this is rightfully yours. The shadow blade worked, but not as we thought. We are grateful.”

  He handed it over almost shyly, as if unsure how it would be received. But Morgan took it without a tremor, and if she felt grief at the sight of her son, she showed no sign. Only she turned in her seat, lifted the head in both her hands, and cast it out into the river. When she turned back to Perceval, she said, “I also am grateful.”

  He bowed to her and returned to the shore.

  The Lady of the Lake spoke. “Sir King, are you ready?”

  Guinevere looked at her uncomprehendingly, and turned to the King. “You are leaving us?”

  “In Avalon there is a cure for this wound.”

  “A cure.” Blanchefleur felt the taste of hope. “Then you’ll come back to us one day.”

  “One day. There is yet work for me in Logres.”

  His voice faded into weakness. Heilyn said, “Quick,” and the three knights lifted him into the barge, where a place was prepared for him to lie. To Blanchefleur’s surprise, there were tears running down Morgan’s cheeks as she received his head in her lap and helped the others cover him with blankets. “Alas, brother! Too long you have waited, and the wound in your head is grown cold.”

  Blanchefleur tried to stem her own tears, but as she splashed into the water and leaned over the gunwhale to grip the King’s hand, they spilled over. “Father! Father!” she cried. “How long?”

  A smile touched his lips. “Lady of Logres. Tarry not for me, dearheart. Farewell.”