Camelot

by Giles Kristian

  ‘You cannot protect yourself,’ she replied, walking over to where one of the dead men’s spears lay. She burrowed a foot beneath the shaft and lifted the spear into the air, catching it with ease.

  ‘God will protect me,’ I said, watching her.

  ‘You know what those men were going to do to you?’ she asked.

  I did not answer that and felt my cheeks flush with heat and shame despite the cold.

  She looked past me to the coracle and shrugged. ‘I knew Eudaf. He made some shoes for my mother.’

  I looked down at her own boots, which were sturdy and well made, and somehow I knew that they were not Eudaf’s work but rather that she had taken them from a young Saxon whom she had killed with that bow of hers.

  ‘He was a good man,’ she said. This young woman who was out here in the marsh, a bow on her back, two long knives in her belt, a spear in one hand and a Saxon sword in the other. ‘Why are you taking him to Ynys Wydryn?’ I did not answer. She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll see that he gets there.’

  ‘I don’t need your help,’ I said. Just moments ago, I had been lying in the mud, helpless and terrified. I knew what the Saxons would have done to me, just as this woman knew it, and the shame of it swamped me.

  ‘You know the ways?’ she asked, pointing the spear at the water, which was flat and dark and still, though the reeds bristled gently in a thin breeze. ‘You are not very skilled in that boat.’ It was almost raining now, a fine mizzle hanging in the air.

  ‘You’ve been watching me?’ I asked, appalled to think that she had followed me through the marsh without my knowing.

  ‘I wanted to see if you’d fall in,’ she grinned.

  I looked at the coracle hedged in by the reeds, then at the eastern skyline where huge flocks of starlings moved like smoke. Really, I was trying to summon a reply the way a warrior might counter a spear thrust. But it would be dark soon. And I did not know the marsh well. And even those who did sometimes vanished, never to be seen again.

  ‘God will protect me,’ I said again, thinking of the corpses I had seen hanging above the old causeway, watching me though their eyes were long gone. The memory put a bad taste in my mouth, a sourness mixing with the coppery tang of blood.

  ‘Good, because my bow will not shoot when the string is wet,’ she said, walking past me down the bank to where Eudaf and the little boat waited.

  ‘What is your name?’ I asked.

  ‘Iselle,’ she answered, giving it to the breeze as much as to me, as if names were unimportant.

  ‘I’m Galahad,’ I called after her. Not that she had asked. A moment’s hesitation, and then I followed her down to the water.

  Rain came. Vengeful and cold, shafting into the water and hissing amongst the reeds. It lashed us in our little boat and soaked through Eudaf’s shroud so that his face appeared through the worn wool, the mouth open but the eyes closed. I tried not to look back at him, keeping my eyes on the channels ahead, looking for signs of the ancient causeway, searching the bank for a willow or alder whose shape I recognized, or the lightning-struck oak I had seen earlier. Anything that would suggest we were going the right way.

  I kept warm from paddling, but for my hands which were raw and growing numb, and my feet chilled by the water sloshing in the bilge. I wondered how Iselle fared, crouching behind me, thinking she must be terribly cold though she did not say it. The only time she spoke was to tell me to take this passage or that, and even then she had to raise her voice to be heard over the seething rain and the wind, too, which had been gathering when we set off, jostling the lapwings and stonechats against the darkening grey sky. Now that wind buffeted the little coracle, seeking through the weave of my habit. It keened from the west, sweeping across the marsh to bend the tall grasses and send furrows racing across the water.

  Sometimes the wind was with us, leaning into the stretched hide which covered the boat, pushing us on. Other times it drove us into the reeds and muddy shallows so that I had to scull fiercely with the paddle, my muscles burning, and Iselle had to work with the Saxon spear, thrusting it into the sludge to push us back into the channel. Eudaf the cobbler was not much help, but in the end we three threaded our way through the web of saltwater channels unmolested by spirits and fen-dwellers, perhaps made as invisible as spirits ourselves by the veiling rain and winter gloom. And we came, wind- and rain-flayed, to Ynys Wydryn as the light was draining from the world.

  I swept my loops through the water, looking up at the tor, which loomed in the dusk like a whale breaching the grey sea. It was Iselle who saw the figure up there on the crown of the hill, a dark speck against the sky. One of the brothers, I knew even before my eyes found him, thinking how miserable it must be, keeping watch up there in that foul gloaming. Looking for me.

  ‘You went without their permission, didn’t you?’ she called. I could not tell if her words were of admonishment, or even respect. Or mockery, that I might need the consent of others to leave the island.

  The wind howled. Frenzied now, as if it had snarled itself on the island of Ynys Wydryn and could not tear free. I battled the fretted water and took us in to the jetty, where Father Yvain was waiting, the rain spilling down his face as it would course over a crag of rock.

  ‘Damned fool!’ he bellowed into the wind, grabbing hold of the coracle and pulling it alongside the mooring. Behind him came two torches, the flames hissing and bucking, and in the light they cast I saw the faces of Father Padern and Father Dristan. ‘God-damned fool!’ Yvain said, as Iselle and I wrestled Eudaf’s corpse across the rocking craft to the monk’s waiting hands.

  You’re not him, Galahad, Yvain’s eyes said. You’re just a frightened fool who should have known better.

  Yvain threw the body over his shoulder and I lifted the coracle out of the water, fighting to keep hold of it in the wind.

  ‘What’s got into you, Galahad?’ Father Padern demanded, his firebrand hissing. ‘In the name of the Thorn, what have you done?’

  ‘Father Brice is going to flay you alive,’ Father Dristan told me, helping me steady the coracle and carry it to a sheltered spot, where we turned it over beside its twin, weighing it down with stones. ‘And who is that woman?’ Rain pattered on the hide which he clutched at his neck, drops beading on the waxed surface and spilling off in rivulets. ‘What’s she doing with you?’

  ‘I’m alive because of her,’ I said, clenching and unclenching my hands, trying to work some feeling back into them as I watched Father Yvain hefting the corpse along the track towards the cluster of buildings huddled together beneath the tor, out of the prevailing winds.

  Father Dristan stopped me, grabbing hold of my arm. ‘You don’t need to prove yourself to us, Galahad,’ he said, rain spitting from his lips. He followed my gaze to Father Yvain. ‘He has been looking for you since you missed dawn prayers. Even took the other boat out when he realized you’d gone into the marsh.’

  I looked up at the tor and wondered which of the monks was on his way down now, soaked to the marrow and wind-blasted, having been up there looking down onto the reed-beds.

  ‘Come along, Galahad!’ Father Padern swept his arm to usher me towards the monastery, his troubled expression lit now and then by the failing torch. ‘Let us get inside before we are all carried off into the night.’

  I looked at Iselle, who was standing on the jetty still, the elm bow over her shoulder and the spear and sword in her hands. A striking figure against the rain which lanced the water behind her. Some of her hair had escaped the hood and now whipped about in the wind. She gripped those weapons as though she might use them again at any moment, and for a little while we held each other’s eyes.

  Then I turned and went to meet my fate.

  ‘She cannot stay,’ Father Brice said again. Father Dristan had built up the hearth fire and those of us who had been out in the night now stood around it, holding hands or the hems of our habits near to the flames as we dripped onto the rushes. The stink of wet wool cloyed the
air and men coughed and spluttered with the smoke, because the applewood which Dristan had brought in was not properly seasoned.

  ‘You can’t send her into this storm, Father,’ I said.

  ‘You forget your place, Galahad,’ Father Judoc warned, pouring himself a cup of wine. ‘You are a novice, nothing more. Remember that, unless you wish your punishment to be more severe.’

  Iselle had yet to speak, though the brothers had allowed her into the warming-house and given her a space near the hearth. She stood there now, gazing into the flames which flapped in the draw of the smoke-hole.

  ‘Brothers.’ Father Yvain was rubbing his huge hands and spreading them near the fire. ‘Galahad must be punished, no one says otherwise.’ He glared at me from the shadow of his furrowed brow. ‘He’ll be punished for being a bloody fool and going into the marsh—’

  ‘And for leaving the island without the Prior’s permission,’ Father Judoc cut in, getting a grunt from Yvain and some murmurs of agreement from the others.

  ‘But the lad is right about the girl,’ Father Yvain went on. ‘We cannot send her out.’

  Iselle swept the sodden hood from her head and twisted it in her hands so that water dripped onto the hearth stones. By the fire’s light, and because the blinding terror had ebbed from me now, I saw her properly for the first time.

  ‘A woman cannot stay the night under our roof,’ Father Padern said. The way he looked at Iselle, you would have thought she was a thrys, one of the fen creatures said to feed on human flesh.

  ‘There is a woman in the infirmary now, Brother,’ Dristan reminded him, and though his voice was timid there could be no denying it.

  ‘She has no boat,’ I told them. ‘Would you have her swim back to the village?’

  ‘I don’t live in the village,’ Iselle said, but received only stares in reply.

  ‘I’ve warned you, Galahad,’ Father Brice said, holding an ink-stained finger up to silence me. ‘Do not make it worse.’

  ‘There are ways,’ Iselle said. ‘Old paths through the marsh.’

  ‘Not where a God-fearing soul can walk,’ Father Padern creaked, tugging at his white beard. A log rolled out of the flames and lay hissing.

  ‘We know of this young woman.’ Father Judoc frowned at Iselle, who showed no sign of hearing any of us now, so absorbed was she with the fire. Her eye was caught by a spider scuttling across the rough bark of the errant log, seeking escape. ‘She is a wild creature.’

  ‘She is a brave young woman who saved Galahad’s life,’ Father Yvain said, using the iron poker to push the log back into the fire’s red heart, his words stirring more murmurs and low talk.

  ‘You saw her kill three Saxons?’ Father Brice asked me, even though I had already told him the story. ‘Saw it with your own eyes, Galahad?’

  ‘I swear it by the Thorn, Father,’ I said.

  The monks looked at one another in the way of men who did not need words to share thoughts. On the one hand they struggled to accept that Iselle had killed three Saxon warriors. On the other, they could not believe that I would lie about it.

  ‘And you had no part in the killing?’ Father Brice asked.

  Father Judoc scoffed at that. ‘Galahad is not his father,’ he said, glaring at me. ‘I cannot even imagine what delusions compelled you to go into the marsh. Are you sick?’ He turned to Father Dristan. ‘Has anyone felt his brow?’

  ‘I’m not sick, Father,’ I said. ‘And I did not kill anyone.’

  He was right about who I was, though. I had been a helpless, frightened fool, and had it not been for Iselle I’d be dead.

  ‘That is a Saxon sword, I can tell you that much,’ Yvain said, at which every eye turned towards Iselle, who looked up from the fire, raking her gaze across each of the monks in turn, as if challenging them to question how she had come by the blade. Her fierce eyes seized on Father Judoc, who seemed to shudder in his skin before letting his own gaze slide away.

  ‘You’ve rare courage, girl,’ Father Yvain told Iselle. ‘Plenty of seasoned warriors would not have taken on three Saxons with nothing but a hunting bow.’

  ‘Someone has to kill them,’ Iselle said, with no less flint in her eyes for Yvain than for Judoc. ‘My arrows work better than your prayers.’

  Father Brice and some of the others made the sign of the Thorn at that blasphemy, though none found the words to argue with her.

  ‘While you hide here on this island, the Saxons slaughter and rape and burn.’

  I stood there gaping like a fish in the bilge. That this young woman dared to speak to the brothers in such a way. At the steel in her voice and the fire in her eyes.

  ‘While you hide here, fear spreads among our people like flames in dry straw,’ she rasped, throwing an arm out behind her.

  But Father Judoc would hear no more. ‘Enough!’ he snapped, glancing at Father Folant as though he feared the man would embark on one of his rants about the death of Britain and the end of our order. But Father Folant, who stood back in a dark corner, was lost in his own thoughts.

  Iselle bit her lip, as though fighting to keep further words unsaid. Then she looked back into the flames.

  ‘Well, Galahad,’ Father Brice said, ‘if there is any good to have come out of your reckless disobedience, it is that we may bury the babe with the cobbler. I pray the mother will find solace in knowing her poor child will find his way to heaven with Eudaf’s help.’

  ‘Or to Annwn,’ Father Judoc said through his teeth.

  Father Brice dipped his tonsured head. ‘Which of us can claim to truly see beyond the veil, Brother?’ he asked, at which Judoc was not the only one to thread his fingers in the sign of the Thorn. ‘We will bury the child and the man tomorrow and, afterwards, Galahad will accept his punishment. I do not think we need trouble Prior Drustanus with this matter. It would only hurt him to know that Galahad had broken our rules and put himself in danger.’ He looked up at me and I held his eye. ‘Thirty strikes of the Thorn upon his flesh. One for each shoot which sprouted from Joseph of Arimathea’s staff when he thrust it into the earth.’

  Father Yvain made a gruff sound in the back of his throat at this, and even Father Brice frowned. ‘You do accept this punishment, Galahad?’ he asked. Perhaps he feared I might not, as was my right, seeing as I had not yet taken the tonsure. None of them could stop me leaving Ynys Wydryn altogether. But where would I go? The brothers had taken me in, and I would not abandon them. But thirty strikes! I doubted even Father Judoc would have pronounced a harsher penalty.

  ‘I accept, Father,’ I said, to Brice’s relief. I chanced a look at Iselle and, from the expression on her face, she thought me a fool or a coward or both.

  ‘What about the girl?’ Father Judoc asked.

  ‘No good can come of her being here. You mark me, Brothers,’ Father Folant said, the first words he had spoken since Dristan had built up the fire.

  ‘She saved Galahad’s life,’ Father Yvain said, and there was weight in his words. Apart from Yvain himself, they had all been Brothers of the Thorn when I was brought to Ynys Wydryn. They had all heard the stories about me. They had listened as Prior Drustanus proclaimed that I was given to the order by God.

  ‘And she helped bring the cobbler here,’ Father Brice added, ‘for which we are grateful.’ Saying the words seemed almost to cause him pain, yet he persisted. ‘I say she may stay with us until the storm yields. With us, not among us,’ he clarified. ‘She will sleep in the byre. It will be warm enough in there, I think.’

  My eyes met Iselle’s and she gave a slight nod as if to say that she was content to sleep in the byre with the cows. Perhaps she would even prefer it, and who could blame her after how we had treated her?

  ‘We are all tired,’ Father Brice said, ‘and some of us are soaked to the skin. Let us rest before prayers and be thankful that our brother Galahad has returned safely.’

  ‘And give thanks that three Saxons who were breathing this morning are feeding the fox this night.’ Father Yvai
n nodded at Iselle in a gesture as solemn as it was respectful.

  ‘Have Brother Meurig make you some hot food, Galahad,’ Father Brice ordered. ‘You must be hungry and will need your strength tomorrow.’ He saw me look at Iselle. ‘She will be fed, Galahad,’ Brice assured me, then nodded at Dristan, who half scowled, picked up a horn lantern and asked Iselle in a quiet voice to follow him to the byre.

  I stood by the fire a little longer, letting it warm my wet clothes, then I went to find Father Meurig, who made me a bone broth thickened with parsnips and sweet chestnuts that soured with his chiding.

  ‘What got into you, Galahad? Going into the marsh alone! And without the Prior’s consent. Are you unwell? Did some malevolent spirit compel you?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I teased, though I still shuddered to think of it.

  ‘Well, what did you see out there? Tell me or I shall not feed you.’ On and on he went, drawing the day from me like a man wringing foul water from a cloak’s hem. ‘The Saxons. Tell me about them. What did those devils look like?’

  I slurped the hot broth down and made my escape, but even at prayers I felt the brothers’ questions weighing in their stares. They watched me from beneath heavy brows and from the corners of their eyes as they sang their praises to Christ and the Thorn. I felt their suspicions as a presence in the flame-played dark, as the storm tore at the thatch above our heads. I felt their mistrust, as sharp as the wind which sought through cracks in the old walls where the hazel and ash wattle showed.

  For I had been out there in the marsh, beyond the sanctuary of Ynys Wydryn. I had seen with my own eyes things which only existed amongst us as whispers and rumour. The children of the reeds, as thin as the bulrushes, their swollen eyes watching me as I passed. The gallows creaking with the weight of the hanged. And, of course, our enemies the Saxons, who had been alive and fierce-eyed one moment and dead the next, their souls released to the afterlife by Iselle’s arrows. I had seen all these things and perhaps they had left a mark on me which changed my appearance in the brothers’ eyes. Like a scar which I had not had the day before, but which now compelled them to stare.