Enemy of God twc-2

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Are their oaths our business?’ I asked.

  He stared at his sword. Its grey blade that was chased with intricate whorls and long-tongued dragon heads reflected the far slate-dark clouds. ‘A sword and a stone,’ he said softly, perhaps thinking of the moment when Mordred would become king. He stood suddenly, and turned his back on the sword to stare inland at the green hills. ‘Suppose,’ he said to me, ‘that two oaths clash. Suppose I have sworn to fight for you and sworn to fight for your enemy, which oath do I keep?’

  ‘The first given,’ I said, knowing the law as well as he.

  ‘And if they were both given at once?’

  ‘Then you submit to the King’s judgment.’

  ‘Why the King?’ He quizzed me as though I was a new spearman being taught the laws of Dumnonia.

  ‘Because your oath to the King,’ I said dutifully, ‘is above all other oaths, and your duty is to him.’

  ‘So the King,’ he said forcefully, ‘is the keeper of our oaths, and without a King there is nothing but a tangle of conflicting oaths. Without a King, there is chaos. All oaths lead to the King, Derfel, all our duty ends with the King and all our laws are in the King’s keeping. If we defy our King, we defy order. We can fight other Kings, we can even kill them, but only because they threaten our King and his good order. The King, Derfel, is the nation, and we belong to the King. Whatever you or I do, we must support the King.’

  I knew he was not talking about Tristan and Mark. He was thinking of Mordred and so I dared to speak the unspoken thought that had lain so heavily on Dumnonia for all those years. ‘There are those, Lord,’ I said, ‘who say you should be the King.’

  ‘No!’ He shouted the word into the wind. ‘No!’ he repeated more quietly, looking at me. I looked down at the sword on the stone. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I swore an oath to Uther.’

  ‘Mordred,’ I said, ‘is not fit to be King. And you know it, Lord.’

  He turned and looked at the sea again. ‘Mordred is our King, Derfel, and that is all you or I need to know. He has our oaths. We cannot judge him, he will judge us, and if you or I decide another man should be King, where is order then? If one man takes the throne unjustly, then any man can take it. If I take it, why should another not take it from me? All order would be gone. There would just be chaos.’

  ‘You think Mordred cares about order?’ I asked bitterly.

  ‘I think Mordred has not yet been properly acclaimed,’ Arthur said. ‘I think that when the high duties are put on him then he may change. I think it more likely that he will not change, but above all, Derfel, I believe he is our King and we must endure him because that is what we have to do whether we like it or not. In all this world. Derfel,’ he said, suddenly sweeping up Excalibur and swinging her blade about the whole horizon, ‘in all this world there is only one sure order, and that is the King’s order. Not the Gods. They’ve gone from Britain. Merlin thought he could bring them back, but look at Merlin now. Sansum tells us that his God has power and so He might, but not for me. I see only kings, and in kings are concentrated our oaths and our duties. Without them we would be so many wild things scrambling for place.’ He rammed Excalibur back into its scabbard. ‘I must support kings, for without them there would be chaos and so I have told Tristan and Iseult that they must stand trial.’

  ‘Trial!’ I exclaimed, then spat on the turf.

  Arthur glared angrily at me. ‘They are accused,’ he said, ‘of theft. They are accused of breaking oaths. They are accused of fornication.’ The last word twisted his mouth and he turned away from me to spit it across the sea.

  ‘They’re in love!’ I protested, and when he said nothing I attacked him more directly. ‘And did you stand trial, Arthur ap Uther, when you broke an oath? And not the oath to Ban, but the oath you swore when you betrothed yourself to Ceinwyn. You broke an oath, and no one put you in front of magistrates!’

  He turned on me in a flaring rage and for a few heartbeats I thought he was about to drag Excalibur free again and attack me with the blade, but then he shuddered and went still. His eyes glistened with tears again. He said nothing for a long while, then he nodded. ‘I broke that oath, true. Do you think I haven’t regretted it?’

  ‘And you will not let Tristan break one oath?’

  ‘He’s a thief!’ Arthur snarled at me in fury. ‘You think we should risk years of border raids for a thief who fornicates with his stepmother? You could talk to the families of the dead farmers on our frontier and justify their deaths in the name of Tristan’s love? You think women and children should die because a prince is in love? Is that your justice?’

  ‘I think Tristan is our friend,’ I said, and when he did not answer, I spat at his feet. ‘You sent for Mark, didn’t you?’ I accused him.

  He nodded. ‘Yes. I sent a messenger from Isca.’

  ‘Tristan is our friend,’ I shouted at him.

  He closed his eyes. ‘He has stolen from a King,’ he said stubbornly. ‘He has stolen gold, a wife and pride. He has broken oaths. His father seeks justice and I am sworn to justice.’

  ‘He is your friend,’ I insisted. ‘And he is mine!’

  He opened his eyes and stared at me. ‘A King comes to me, Derfel, and asks for justice. Am I to deny Mark justice because he is old and gross and ugly? Do youth and beauty deserve perverted justice? What have I fought for all these years, if not to make certain that justice is even-handed?’ He was pleading with me now. ‘When we travelled here, through all those villages and towns, did people run away because they saw our swords? No! And why? Because they know that in Mordred’s kingdom there is justice. And now, because a man beds his father’s wife, you would have me toss that justice away like an inconvenient burden?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘because he is a friend, and because if you make them stand trial they will be found guilty. They have no chance at trial,’ I protested bitterly, ‘because Mark is a Tongued One.’

  Arthur gave a sad smile as he acknowledged the memory I had deliberately provoked. That memory was of our very first meeting with Tristan, and that meeting too had been a legal matter, and in that case a great injustice was almost done because the accused was a Tongued One. In our law the evidence given by a Tongued One was incontrovertible. A thousand people could swear the opposite, but their evidence was nothing if it was contradicted by a Lord, a Druid, a priest, a father speaking of his children, a gift-giver speaking of his gift, a maid talking of her virginity, a herdsman speaking of his animals or a condemned man saying his final words. And Mark was a Lord, a King, and his word outweighed those of a Prince or a Queen. No court in Britain would acquit Tristan and Iseult, and Arthur knew it. But Arthur had sworn an oath to uphold the law.

  But on that far day, when Owain had so nearly perverted justice by using the privilege of a Tongued One to tell a lie, Arthur had appealed to the court of swords. For Tristan’s benefit Arthur himself had fought Owain and Arthur had won. ‘Tristan,’ I now said to Arthur, ‘could appeal to the court of swords.’

  ‘That is his privilege,’ Arthur said.

  ‘And I am his friend,’ I said coldly, ‘and I can fight for him.’

  Arthur stared at me as though he was only just realizing the true depths of my hostility. ‘You, Derfel?’

  he asked.

  ‘I shall fight for Tristan,’ I said coldly, ‘because he is my friend. As you once were.’

  He paused a few heartbeats. ‘That is your privilege,’ he finally said, ‘but I have done my duty.’ He walked away and I followed ten paces behind; when he slowed, I slowed, and when he turned to look at me, I looked away. I was going to fight for a friend.

  Arthur curtly ordered Culhwch’s spearmen to escort Tristan and Iseult to Isca. There, he decreed, their trial would be held. King Mark could provide one judge and we Dumnonians the other. King Mark sat in his chair, saying nothing. He had argued for the trial to be held in Kernow, but he must have known it did not matter. Tristan would not stand trial for Tristan
would never survive a trial. Tristan could only appeal to the sword.

  The Prince came to the door of the hall and there he faced his father. Mark’s face showed nothing, Tristan was pale and Arthur stood with head bowed so that he did not need to look at either man. Tristan wore no armour and carried no shield. His black hair with its warrior rings was combed back and tied with a strip of white linen that he must have torn from Iseult’s dress. He wore a shirt, trews and boots and had a sword at his side. He walked halfway to his father and there stopped. He drew his sword, stared into his father’s implacable eyes, then rammed the blade hard into the turf. ‘I will be tried by the court of swords,’ he insisted.

  Mark shrugged and made a lethargic gesture with his right hand, and that gesture brought Cyllan forward. It was plain that Tristan knew the champion’s prowess for he looked nervous as the huge man, whose beard grew down to his waist, stripped off his cloak. Cyllan pushed his black hair away from the axe tattoo, then pulled his iron helmet onto his head. He spat on his hands, rubbed the spittle into his palms, and walked slowly forward and knocked Tristan’s sword flat. With that gesture he had accepted battle.

  I drew Hywelbane. ‘I shall fight for Tristan,’ I heard myself saying. I was oddly nervous, and it was not just the nervousness that precedes battle. It was fear of the great gulf that was opening in my life, the gulf that separated me from Arthur.

  ‘I shall fight for Tristan,’ Culhwch insisted. He came and stood beside me. ‘You’ve got daughters, fool,’ he muttered.

  ‘So have you.’

  ‘But I’ll beat this bearded toad quicker than you, you Saxon bag of guts,’ Culhwch said fondly. Tristan stepped between us and protested that he would tight Cyllan alone, that this was his battle and no one else’s, but Culhwch growled at him to get back into the hall. ‘I’ve beaten men twice as big as that bearded lout,’ he told Tristan.

  Cyllan drew his longsword and gave it a slash through the empty air. ‘One of you,’ he said carelessly,

  ‘I don’t care which.’

  ‘No!’ Mark suddenly shouted. He summoned Cyllan and two others of his spearmen and the three men knelt beside Mark’s chair and listened to their King’s instructions. Culhwch and I both presumed that Mark was ordering his three men to fight the three of us. ‘I’ll take the bastard with the big beard and the dirty forehead,’ Culhwch decided, ‘you take that red-haired piece of dogshit, Derfel, and my Lord Prince can skewer the bald one. Two minutes’ work?’

  Iseult crept from the hall. She seemed terrified to be in Mark’s sight, but she came to embrace Culhwch and me. Culhwch swamped her in his arms, while I knelt and kissed her thin pale hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said in her little shadow voice. Her eyes were red with tears. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Tristan, and then, with one scared backward look at her husband, she fled back into the hall’s shadows. Mark raised his heavy head from the collar of his sealskin fur. ‘The court of swords,’ he said in a voice thick with phlegm, ‘demands one man on one man. It has always been thus.’

  ‘Then send your virgins one at a time, Lord King,’ Culhwch shouted, ‘and I’ll kill them one at a time.’

  Mark shook his head. ‘One man, one sword,’ he insisted, ‘and my son asked for the privilege, so he will fight.’

  ‘Lord King,’ I said, ‘custom decrees that a man can fight for his friend in the court of swords. I, Derfel Cadarn, insist on the privilege.’

  ‘I know of no such custom,’ Mark lied.

  ‘Arthur does,’ I said harshly. ‘He fought for your son in a court of swords and I will fight for him today.’

  Mark turned his bleary eyes towards Arthur, but Arthur shook his head as if to suggest he wanted nothing to do with the argument. Mark looked back at me. ‘My son’s offence is filthy,’ he said, ‘and no one but he should defend it.’

  ‘I will defend it!’ I said, then Culhwch stepped beside me and insisted that he would fight for Tristan. The King just looked at us, raised his right hand and gave a weary gesture. The spearmen of Kernow, instructed by the red-haired man and the bald warrior, formed a shield-wall at the King’s signal. It was a wall two men deep and the front rank held their shields in a locked row while the second rank held their shields to protect the heads of the front rank. Then, on a word of command, they tossed their spears to the ground.

  ‘Bastards,’ Culhwch said, for he understood what was about to happen. ‘Shall we break them, Lord Derfel?’ he asked me.

  ‘Let us break them, Lord Culhwch,’ I said vengefully.

  There were forty men of Kernow, and three of us. The forty shuffled slowly forward in their locked shield-wall with their eyes watching us warily from beneath the rims of their helmets. They carried no spears and had drawn no swords. They did not come to kill us, but to immobilize us. And Culhwch and I charged them. I had not needed to break a shield-wall in years, but the old madness whirled in me as I screamed Bel’s name, then I shouted Ceinwyn’s name as I rammed Hywelbane’s point at a man’s eyes and as he ducked aside I threw my shoulder at the junction of his and his neighbour’s shields.

  The wall broke and I screamed in triumph as I thumped Hywelbane’s hilt on the back of one man’s head, then stabbed it forward to widen the gap. In battle, by now, my men would be thrusting behind me, opening the gap and soaking the ground with enemy blood, but I had no men behind me, and no weapons opposing me, just shields and more shields, and though I whirled in a circle, making Hywelbane’s blade hiss as she slashed around, those shields closed inexorably on me. I dared not kill any of the spearmen, for that would have been dishonourable after they had so deliberately cast aside their own weapons, and bereft of that opportunity I could only try and frighten them. But they knew I would not kill and so a ring of shields circled me, closed on me, and Hywelbane was at last stopped dead by an iron shield-boss and suddenly the shields of Kernow were pressing hard about me. I heard Arthur shout a harsh command, and I guessed that some of Culhwch’s and my spearmen had wanted to help their lords, but Arthur held them back. He did not want a bloody fight, Kernow against Dumnonia. He just wanted this grim business done and finished.

  Culhwch had been trapped like me. He raged at his captors, called them infants, dogs and worms, but the men of Kernow had their orders. We were neither of us to be hurt, but just held tight by a press of men and by the clamp of their shields, and so, like Iseult, we could only watch as the champion of Kernow walked forward, his sword held low, and gave his Prince a bow. Tristan knew he would die. He had taken the ribbon from his hair and tied it about his sword’s blade, and now he kissed the linen strip. Then he held his sword out, touched the champion’s blade, and sprang forward in a lunge.

  Cyllan parried. The sound of the two swords echoed back from the palisade, then echoed again as Tristan attacked a second time, this time swinging the sword in a fast downward slash, but once again Cyllan parried. He did it easily, almost wearily. Twice more Tristan attacked, and then he kept his blows going, swinging and lunging as fast as he could, trying desperately to wear Cyllan’s defence down, but he only wearied his own arm, and the moment he paused for breath and took a step back, the champion lunged.

  That lunge was so well done. It was even beautifully done if you cared to see a sword used properly. It was even mercifully done for Cyllan took Tristan’s soul in an eyeblink. The Prince did not even have the time to look back at his lover in the hall’s shadowed door. He just stared at his killer, and the blood gushed from his cut throat to turn his white shirt red, then his sword dropped as he made the dying, bubbling, choking sound, and as his soul fled, he just dropped.

  ‘Justice is done, Lord King,’ Cyllan said bleakly as he pulled his blade free from Tristan’s neck and walked away. The spearmen who surrounded me, none of whom had dared meet my eyes, drew back. I raised Hywelbane and the sight of its grey blade was misted by my tears. I heard Iseult scream as her husband’s men killed the six spearmen who had accompanied Tristan and who now took hold of their Queen. I closed my eyes.

&nbs
p; I would not look at Arthur. I would not speak with Arthur. I walked to the headland and there I prayed to my Gods and I begged them to come back to Britain, and while I prayed the men of Kernow took Queen Iseult down to the sea-lake where the two dark ships waited. But they did not carry her home to Kernow. Instead the Princess of the Ui Liathain, that child of fifteen summers who had skipped barefoot into the waves and whose voice had been a shadowy wisp like the seamen’s ghosts who ride the long sea winds, was tied to a post and heaped around with the driftwood that lay so thick on Halcwm’s shore, and there, before her husband’s unforgiving eyes, she was burned alive. Her lover’s corpse was burned on the same pyre.

  I would not leave with Arthur. I would not talk to him. I let him go, and I slept that night in the dark old hall where the lovers had slept. Then I travelled home to Lindinis and that was when I confessed to Ceinwyn about the old massacre on the moor when I had killed the innocent to keep an oath. I told her about Iseult burning. Burning and screaming while her husband watched. Ceinwyn held me. ‘Did you not know that hardness in Arthur?’ she asked me softly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘He is all that stands between us and horror,’ Ceinwyn said, ‘how could he be anything but hard?’

  Even now, with my eyes closed, I sometimes see that child coming from the sea, her face smiling, her thin body outlined against the white clinging dress and her hands reaching for her lover. I cannot hear a gull’s cry without seeing her for she will haunt me till the day I die, and after death, wherever it is my soul goes, she will be there; a child killed for a King, by law, in Camelot.

  * * *

  I did not see Lancelot for many years after the Round Table oath, nor did I see any of his henchmen. Amhar and Loholt, Arthur’s twins, lived in Lancelot’s capital of Venta where they led bands of spearmen, but the only fighting they seemed to do was in its taverns. Dinas and Lavaine were also in Venta where they presided over a temple dedicated to Mercury, a Roman God, and their ceremonies rivalled the ones held in Lancelot’s palace church that had been consecrated by Bishop Sansum. Sansum was a frequent visitor to Venta and he reported that the Belgic people seemed happy enough with Lancelot, which we took to mean that they were not openly rebellious. Lancelot and his companions also visited Dumnonia, most often going across their border to the Sea Palace, but sometimes travelling as far as Durnovaria to attend some high feast, but I simply stayed away from such festivals if I knew they were coming, and neither Arthur nor Guinevere ever demanded that I attend. Nor was I invited to the great funeral that followed the death of Lancelot’s mother, Elaine. Lancelot, in truth, was not a bad ruler. He was no Arthur, he cared nothing for the quality of justice or the fairness of taxes or the state of the roads, he simply ignored those things, but as they had been ignored before his rule no one noticed any great difference. Lancelot, like Guinevere, cared only for his comfort and, like her, he built a lavish palace that was filled with statues, bright with painted walls and hung, of course, with the extravagant collection of mirrors in which he could admire his own endless reflection. The money for these luxuries was exacted in taxes, and if those taxes were heavy then the compensation was the freedom of the Belgic lands from Saxon raids. Cerdic, astonishingly, had kept his faith with Lancelot and the dreaded Sais spearmen never raided Lancelot’s rich farmlands. But nor did they need to raid, for Lancelot had invited them to come and live in his kingdom. The land had been depopulated by the long years of war and huge stretches of fine fields were growing back to woodland, and so Lancelot invited settlers from Cerdic’s people to till the fields. The Saxons swore oaths of loyalty to Lancelot, they cleared the land, they built new villages, they paid their taxes, and their spearmen even marched in his war-band. His palace guard, we heard, were all Saxons now. The Saxon Guard, he called them, and he chose them for their height and for the colour of their hair. I did not see them in those years, though eventually I met them, and they were all tall blond men who carried axes polished to a mirror brightness. Rumour had it that Lancelot paid tribute to Cerdic, but Arthur angrily denied it when our Council asked him if it was true. Arthur disapproved of Saxon settlers being invited onto British land, but the matter, he said, was Lancelot’s to decide, not ours, and at least the land was at peace. Peace, it seemed, excused all.