It was just after midday that we came to the place Nimue called Llyn Cerrig Bach. The name means the ‘lake of little stones’ and it was a dark sheet of shallow water, surrounded by bogs. Here, Nimue said, the old Britons had held their most sacred ceremonies, and here too, she told us, our search would begin; but it seemed a bleak place in which to seek the greatest Treasure of Britain. To the west was a small, shallow neck of the sea beyond which lay another island, to the south and north were just farmlands and rocks, and to the east there rose a very small steep hill that was crowned with a group of grey rocks like a score of other such outcrops we had passed that morning. Merlin lay as if dead. I had to kneel beside him and put my ear close to his face to hear the tiny scratching of each laboured breath. I laid my hand on his forehead and found it was cold. I kissed his cheek. ‘Live, Lord,’ I whispered to him, ‘live.’
Nimue told one of my men to plant a spear in the ground. He forced the point into the hard soil, then Nimue took a half dozen cloaks and, by hanging them from the spear’s butt and weighting their hems with stones, she formed a kind of tent. The dark riders made a ring about us, but stayed far enough away so that they could not interfere with us, nor we with them.
Nimue groped under her otter skins and brought out the silver cup from which I had drunk on Dolforwyn and a small clay bottle stoppered with wax. She ducked under the tent and beckoned Ceinwyn to follow.
I waited and watched as the wind chased black ripples across the lake, then suddenly Ceinwyn screamed. She screamed again, terribly, and I started towards the tent, only to be stopped by Issa’s spear. Galahad, who as a Christian was not supposed to believe in any of this, stood beside Issa and shrugged at me. ‘We’ve come this far,’ he said. ‘We should see it to the end.’
Ceinwyn screamed again, and this time Merlin echoed the noise by uttering a faint and pathetic moan. I knelt beside him and stroked his forehead and tried not to think what horrors Ceinwyn dreamed inside the black tent.
‘Lord?’ Issa called to me.
I twisted round to see that he was looking southwards to where a new group of riders had joined the Bloodshields’ ring. Most of the newcomers were on ponies, but one man was mounted on a gaunt black horse. That man, I knew, had to be Diwrnach. His banner flew behind him; a pole on which was mounted a crosspiece and from the crosspiece there hung two skulls and a clutch of black ribbons. The King was cloaked in black and his black horse was hung with a black saddle cloth, and in his hand was a great black spear that he raised vertically into the air before riding slowly forward. He came alone and when he was fifty paces from us he unslung his round shield and ostentatiously turned it about to show that he did not come looking for a fight.
I walked to meet him. Behind me Ceinwyn gasped and moaned inside the tent about which my men made a protective ring.
The King was dressed in black leather armour beneath his cloak and wore no helmet. His shield looked flaky with rust and I supposed the flakes had to be the layers of dried blood, just as its leather covering had to be the flayed skin of a slave girl. He let the grim shield hang beside his long black sword scabbard as he curbed his horse and rested the great spear’s butt on the ground. ‘I am Diwrnach,’ he said.
I bowed my head to him. ‘I am Derfel, Lord King.’
He smiled. ‘Welcome to Ynys Mon, Lord Derfel Cadarn,’ he said, and doubtless he wanted to surprise me by knowing my full name and title, but he astonished me more by being a good-looking man. I had expected a hook-nosed ghoul, a thing from nightmare, but Diwrnach was in early middle age and had a broad forehead, a wide mouth and a short clipped black beard that accentuated his strong jawline. There was nothing mad about his appearance, but he did have one red eye and that was enough to make him fearsome. He leaned his spear against his horse’s flank and took an oatcake from a pouch. ‘You look hungry, Lord Derfel,’ he said.
‘Winter is a time for hunger, Lord King.’
‘But you will not refuse my gift, surely?’ He broke the oatcake into halves and tossed one half to me. ‘Eat.’
I caught the oatcake, then hesitated. ‘I am sworn not to eat, Lord King, till my purpose is finished.’
‘Your purpose!’ he teased me, then slowly put his half of the oatcake into his mouth. ‘It wasn’t poisoned, Lord Derfel,’ he said when it was eaten.
‘Why should it be, Lord King?’
‘Because I am Diwrnach and I kill my enemies in so many ways.’ He smiled again. ‘Tell me about your purpose, Lord Derfel.’
‘I come to pray, Lord King.’
‘Ah!’ he said, drawing the sound out as if to suggest that I had cleared up all the mystery. ‘Are prayers said in Dumnonia so very ineffective?’
‘This is holy ground, Lord King,’ I said.
‘It is also my ground, Lord Derfel Cadarn,’ he said, ‘and I believe strangers should seek my permission before they dung its soil or piss on its walls.’
‘If we have offended you, Lord King,’ I said, ‘then we apologize.’
‘Too late for that,’ he said mildly. ‘You are here now, Lord Derfel, and I can smell your dung. Too late. So what shall I do with you?’ His voice was low, almost gentle, suggesting that here was a man who would see reason very easily. ‘What shall I do with you?’ he asked again, and I said nothing. The ring of dark riders was unmoving, the sky was leaden with cloud and Ceinwyn’s moans had subsided to small whimpers. The King lifted his shield, not in threat but because its weight rested uncomfortably on his hip, and I saw with horror that the skin of a human arm and hand hung from its lower edge. The wind stirred the fat fingers of the hand. Diwrnach saw my horror and smiled. ‘She was my niece,’ he said, then he stared past me and another slow smile showed on his face. ‘The vixen is out of the covert, Lord Derfel,’ he said.
I turned to see that Ceinwyn had come out from under the tent. She had discarded her wolfskins and was dressed in the bone-white dress she had worn to her betrothal feast, its hems still soiled by the mud she had kicked onto the linen when she had run away from Caer Sws. She was barefoot, her golden hair had been unloosed and to me it seemed she was in a trance. ‘The Princess Ceinwyn, I believe,’ Diwrnach said.
‘Indeed, Lord King.’
‘And still a maid, I hear?’ the King asked. I said nothing in answer. Diwrnach leaned forward to ruffle his horse’s ears fondly. ‘It would have been courteous of her, do you not think, to have greeted me when she arrived in my country?’
‘She too has prayers to say, Lord King.’
‘Then let us hope they work.’ He laughed. ‘Give her to me, Lord Derfel, or else you will die the slowest of deaths. I have men who can take the skin from a man inch by inch until he is nothing but a thing of raw flesh and blood and yet still he can stand. He can even walk!’ He patted his horse’s neck with a black-gloved hand, then smiled on me again. ‘I have choked men on their own dung, Lord Derfel, I have pressed them beneath the stones, I have burned them, I have buried them alive, I have bedded them down with vipers, I have drowned them, I have starved them and I have even frightened them to death. So many interesting ways, but just give the Princess Ceinwyn to me, Lord Derfel, and I will promise you a death as swift as a bright star’s fall.’
Ceinwyn had started to walk westwards and my men had snatched up Merlin’s litter, their cloaks, weapons and bundles, and were now going with her. I looked up at Diwrnach. ‘One day, Lord King,’ I said, ‘I will put your head in a pit and bury it in slave dung.’ I walked away from him.
He laughed. ‘Blood, Lord Derfel!’ he shouted after me. ‘Blood! It’s what the Gods feed on, and yours will make a rich brew! I’ll make your woman drink it in my bed!’ And with that he kicked back his spurred boots and wheeled his horse towards his men.
‘Seventy-four of them,’ Galahad told me as I caught up with him. ‘Seventy-four men and spears. And we are thirty-six spears, one dying man and two women.’
‘They won’t attack yet,’ I reassured him. ‘They’ll wait till we’ve discovered the Cauldro
n.’
Ceinwyn must have been freezing in her thin dress and without any boots, but she was sweating as if it was a summer’s day as she staggered across the grass. She was finding it difficult to stand, let alone walk, and she was twitching just as I had twitched on Dolforwyn’s summit after drinking from the silver cup; but Nimue was beside her, talking to her and supporting her, but also, oddly, tugging her away from the direction she wanted to take. Diwrnach’s dark riders were keeping pace with us, a moving ring of Bloodshields that moved across the island in a loose, wide circle that was centred on our small party.
Ceinwyn, despite her dizziness, was almost running now. She seemed barely conscious and was mouthing words I could not catch. Her eyes looked empty. Nimue constantly dragged her to one side, making her follow a sheep path that twisted north about the knoll that was crowned with grey stones, but the closer we came to those high and lichen-covered rocks the more Ceinwyn resisted until Nimue was forced to use all her wiry strength to keep her on the narrow path. The front edge of the ring of dark riders had already gone past the steep knoll so that it, like us, lay within their circle. Ceinwyn was whimpering and protesting, then she began to hit at Nimue’s hands, but Nimue held her hard and dragged her on, and all the while Diwrnach’s men moved with us.
Nimue waited until the path was at its closest point to the steep crest of rocks, then at last she let Ceinwyn run free. ‘To the rocks!’ she shrieked. ‘All of you! To the rocks! Run!’
We ran. I saw then what Nimue had done. Diwrnach dared not touch us until he knew where we were going and if he had seen Ceinwyn heading for the rocky knoll he would surely have sent a dozen spearmen to garrison its summit, then sent the rest of his men to capture us. But now, thanks to Nimue’s cleverness, we would have the steep jumble of huge boulders to protect us, the same boulders, if Ceinwyn was right, that had protected the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn through more than four and a half centuries of gathering darkness. ‘Run!’ Nimue screamed, and all about us the ponies were being whipped inwards as the ring of dark riders closed to cut us off.
‘Run!’ Nimue shrieked again. I was helping to carry Merlin, Ceinwyn was already clambering up the rocks and Galahad was shouting at men to find themselves places where they could stand amidst the stones and use their spears. Issa stayed with me, his spear ready to cut down any dark rider who came close. Gwilym and three others snatched Merlin from us and carried him to the foot of the rocks just as the two leading Bloodshields reached us. They shrieked a challenge as they kicked their ponies up the hill, but I knocked the first man’s long spear aside with my shield then swung my own spear so that its steel blade cracked like a club across the pony’s skull. The beast screamed and fell sideways and Issa slid his spear into the rider’s belly while I slashed my spear back at the second rider. His spear-shaft clattered on mine, then he was past me, but I managed to seize a handful of his long tattered ribbons and so dragged him backwards off the small beast. He flailed at me as he fell. I put a boot on his throat, raised the spear and rammed it hard down at his heart. There was a leather breastplate beneath his ragged tunic, but the spear cut through both and suddenly his black beard was frothing with a bloody foam.
‘Back!’ Galahad shouted at us, and Issa and I tossed our shields and spears to the men already safe on the high rocks’ summit, then clambered up ourselves. A black-shafted spear clattered on the rocks beside me, then a strong hand reached down, grasped my wrist and hauled me up. Merlin had been similarly dragged up the rocks, then unceremoniously dropped in the summit’s centre where, like a cup crowned by the ring of vast boulders, there was a deep stony hollow. Ceinwyn was in that hollow, scrabbling like a frantic dog at the little stones that filled the cup. She had vomited and her hands obliviously scratched among the mix of vomit and small cold stones.
The knoll was ideal for defence. Our enemy could only climb the rocks with hands and feet, while we could shelter in the clefts of the summit’s crown to deal with them as they appeared. A few tried to reach us, and those men screamed as the blades slashed into their faces. A shower of spears was thrown at us, but we held our shields aloft and the weapons clattered harmlessly away. I put six men down in the central hollow and they used their shields to shelter Merlin, Nimue and Ceinwyn while the other spearmen guarded the summit’s outer rim. The Blood-shields, their ponies abandoned, made one more rush and for a few moments we were busy stabbing and lunging. One of my men took a spear cut on his arm during that brief fight, but otherwise we were unhurt, while the dark riders carried four dead and six wounded men back to the knoll’s foot. ‘So much,’ I told my men, ‘for shields made of virgins’ skins.’
We waited for another attack, but none came. Instead Diwrnach walked his horse up the slope alone. ‘Lord Derfel?’ he called in his deceptively pleasant voice and, when I showed my face between two rocks, he offered me his placid smile. ‘My price has risen,’ the King said. ‘Now, in return for your swift death, I demand the Princess Ceinwyn and the Cauldron. It is the Cauldron that you’ve come for, is it not?’
‘It is all Britain’s Cauldron, Lord King,’ I said.
‘Ah! And you think I would be an unworthy guardian?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Lord Derfel, you do insult a man so very easily. What was it to be? My head in a pit being dunged by slaves? What a paltry imagination you do have. Mine, I fear, sometimes seems excessive, even to me.’ He paused and glanced towards the sky as if judging how much daylight remained. ‘I have few enough warriors, Lord Derfel,’ he went on in his reasonable voice, ‘and I do not want to lose any more of them to your spears. But sooner or later you must come out of the rocks and I shall wait for you, and as I wait I shall let my imagination rise to new heights of achievement. Give the Princess Ceinwyn my greetings, and tell her I so look forward to a closer acquaintance.’ He raised his spear in mocking salute, then rode back to the ring of dark riders who now had the knoll entirely surrounded.
I let myself down into the bowl in the knoll’s centre and saw that whatever we found here would prove too late for Merlin; death was plain on his face. His jaw was hanging open and his eyes were as empty as the space between the worlds. His teeth chattered once to show he was still alive, but that life was a thread now and it was fraying fast. Nimue had taken Ceinwyn’s knife and was scratching and clawing at the small stones that filled the hollow of the summit, while Ceinwyn, her face looking exhausted, had slumped against a rock where she shivered and watched as Nimue dug. Whatever trance had possessed Ceinwyn had now passed and I helped her clean the mess from her hands, found her suit of wolfskins and covered her over.
She pulled on her gloves. ‘I had a dream,’ she whispered to me, ‘and saw the end.’
‘Our end?’ I asked in alarm.
She shook her head. ‘Ynys Mon’s end. There were lines of soldiers, Derfel, in Roman skirts and breastplates and bronze helmets. Great hunting lines of soldiers and their sword arms were bloody to their shoulders because they just killed and killed. They came through the forests in a great line, just killing. Arms going up and down, and all the women and children running away, only there was nowhere to run and the soldiers just closed on them and chopped them down. Little children, Derfel!’
‘And the Druids?’
‘All dead. All but three, and they brought the Cauldron here. They’d made a pit for it already, you see, before the Romans crossed the water, and they buried it here, then covered it with stones from the lake, and after that they put ashes on the stones and lifted fire with their bare hands so that the Romans would think nothing could be buried here. And when that was done they walked singing into the woods to die.’
Nimue hissed in alarm, and I twisted around to see that she had uncovered a small skeleton. She fumbled among her otter skins and brought out a leather bag that she tore open to take out two dried plants. They had spiky leaves and small, faded golden flowers and I knew she was placating the dead bones with a gift of asphodel. ‘It was a child they buried,’ Ceinwyn explained the smallness of th
e bones, ‘the guardian of the Cauldron and the daughter of one of the three Druids. She had short hair and a fox-skin bracelet on her wrist, and they buried her alive so she would guard the Cauldron till we found it.’
Nimue, the dead soul of the Cauldron’s guardian placated by the asphodel, dragged the girl’s bones from the small stones, then attacked the deepening hole with her knife and snapped at me to come and help her. ‘Dig with your sword, Derfel!’ she ordered, and I obediently thrust Hywelbane’s tip into the pit.
And found the Cauldron.
At first it was just a glimpse of dirty gold, then a sweep of Nimue’s hand showed a heavy golden rim. The Cauldron was much bigger than the hole we had made and so I ordered Issa and another man to help make it wider. We scooped the stones out with our helmets, working in a desperate haste for Merlin’s soul was flickering out the very last of his long life. Nimue was panting and weeping as she attacked the tight packed stones that had been brought to this summit from the sacred lake of Llyn Cerrig Bach.
‘He’s dead!’ Ceinwyn cried. She was kneeling beside Merlin.
‘He is not dead!’ Nimue spat between clenched teeth, then she seized the golden rim with both her hands and began to tug at the Cauldron with all her strength. I joined her, and it seemed impossible that the huge vessel could be moved with all the weight of stones that still pressed into its deep belly; but somehow, with the Gods’ help, we shifted that great thing of gold and silver out of its dark pit.
And thus we brought the lost Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn into the light.