I shrugged. ‘Prayers. I remember a crucifix.’ I had not been in the birth-chamber, of course, for no man ever went into a birth-chamber, but I had watched from Caer Cadarn’s ramparts.
‘No wonder it all went wrong,’ Merlin said. ‘Prayers! What use are prayers against an evil spirit? There has to be urine on the door sill, iron in the bed, mugwort on the fire.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘A spirit got into the boy before Morgan could help him and that’s why his foot is so twisted. The spirit was probably clinging onto the foot when it sensed Morgan’s arrival.’
‘So how do we get the spirit out?’ I asked.
‘With a sword through the wretched child’s heart,’ he said, smiling and leaning back in his chair.
‘Please, Lord,’ I insisted, ‘how?’
Merlin shrugged. ‘Old Balise reckoned it could be done by putting the possessed person into a bed between two virgins. All of them naked, of course.’ He chuckled. ‘Poor old Balise. He was a good Druid, but the overwhelming majority of his spells involved taking young girls’ clothes off. The idea was that the spirit would prefer to be in a virgin, you see, so you offered it two virgins so that it would be confused about which one to choose, and the knack of it was to get them all out of the bed at the exact moment that the spirit had come out of the mad person and was still trying to decide which virgin it preferred, and just at that moment you dragged all three off the bed and tossed a firebrand onto the bed-straw. It was supposed to burn the spirit to smoke, you see, but it never made much sense to me. I confess I did try the technique once. I tried to cure a poor old fool called Malldyn, and all I achieved was one idiot still mad as a cuckoo, two terrified slave girls, and all three of them slightly scorched.’ He sighed. ‘We sent Malldyn to the Isle of the Dead. Best place for him. You could send Mordred there?’
The Isle of the Dead is where we sent our terrible mad. Nimue had been there once, and I had fetched her out of its horror. ‘Arthur would never allow it,’ I said.
‘I suppose not. I’ll try a charm for you, but I can’t say I’m very hopeful.’ Merlin lived with us now. He was an old man dying slowly, or so it seemed to us, for the energy had been sucked out of him by the fire that had consumed the Tor, and with the energy had gone his dreams of assembling the Treasures of Britain. All that was left now was a dry husk growing ever older. He sat for hours in the sun and in winter he hunched over the fire. He kept his Druid’s tonsure, though he no longer plaited his beard, but just let it grow wild and white. He ate little, but was always ready to talk, though never about Dinas and Lavaine, nor about the dreadful moment when Cerdic had sliced off the plait of his beard. It was that violation, I decided, as much as the lightning strike on the Tor, that had sucked the life from Merlin, yet he did retain one tiny flickering scrap of hope. He was convinced the Cauldron had not been burned, but had been stolen, and early in our stay at Lindinis he proved it to me in the garden. He built a mock tower of chopped firewood, placed a gold cup in its centre and a handful of tinder at its base, then ordered fire to be fetched from the kitchens.
Even Mordred behaved that afternoon. Fire always fascinated the King and he stared wide-eyed as the model tower blazed in the sunlight. The stacked logs collapsed into the centre, and still the flames leapt, and it was almost dark when Merlin fetched a gardener’s rake and combed the ashes. He brought out the golden cup, no longer recognizable as a cup, misshapen and twisted as it was, but still gold. ‘I reached the Tor the morning after the fire, Derfel,’ he told me, ‘and I searched and searched through the ashes. I had every scorched timber removed by hand, I sieved the cinders, I raked the remnants and I found no gold. Not one drop. The Cauldron was taken, and the tower was set on fire. I suspect the Treasures were stolen at the same time, for they were all stored there except for the chariot and the other one.’
‘What other one?’
For a moment he looked as if he would not answer, then he shrugged as if none of it mattered now. ‘The sword of Rhydderch. You know it as Caledfwlch.’ He was speaking of Arthur’s sword, Excalibur.
‘You gave it to him even though it’s one of the Treasures?’ I asked in astonishment.
‘Why not? He’s sworn to return it to me when I need it. He doesn’t know it’s the sword of Rhydderch, Derfel, and you must promise me not to tell him. He’ll only do something stupid if he finds out, like melt it down to prove he isn’t frightened of the Gods. Arthur can be very obtuse at times, but he’s the best ruler we have so I decided to give him a little extra secret power by letting him use Rhydderch’s sword. He’d scoff if he knew, of course, but one day the blade will turn to flame and he won’t scoff then.’
I wanted to know more about the sword, but he would not tell me. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ he said, ‘it’s all over. The Treasures are gone. Nimue will look for them, I suppose, but I’m too old, much too old.’
I hated to hear him say that. After all the effort that had gone into the collection of the Treasures he simply seemed to have abandoned them. Even the Cauldron, for which we had suffered the Dark Road, seemed not to matter any more. ‘If the Treasures still exist, Lord,’ I insisted, ‘they can be found.’
He smiled indulgently. ‘They will be found,’ he said dismissively. ‘Of course they’ll be found.’
‘Then why don’t we look for them?’
He sighed as though my questions were a nuisance. ‘Because they are hidden, Derfel, and their hiding place will be under a spell of concealment. I know that. I can sense it. So we have to wait until someone tries to use the Cauldron. When that happens, we’ll know, for only I have the knowledge to use the Cauldron properly and if anyone else summons its powers they’ll spill a horror across Britain.’ He shrugged. ‘We wait for the horror, Derfel, then we go to the heart of it and there we shall find the Cauldron.’
‘So who do you think stole it?’ I persisted.
He spread his hands to show ignorance. ‘Lancelot’s men? For Cerdic, probably. Or maybe for those two Silurian twins. I rather underestimated them, didn’t I? Not that it matters now. Only time will tell who has it, Derfel, only time will tell. Wait for the horror to show, then we’ll find it.’ He seemed content to wait, and while he waited he told old tales and listened to news, though from time to time he would shuffle into his room that led off the outer courtyard and there he would work some charm, usually for Morwenna’s sake. He still told fortunes, usually by spreading a layer of cold ashes on the courtyard’s flagstones and letting a grass snake ripple its way through the dust so he could read its trail, but I noted that the fortunes were always bland and optimistic. He had no relish for the task. He did possess some power still, for when Morwenna caught a fever he made a charm of wool and beechnut shells, then gave her a concoction made from crushed woodlice that took the fever clean away, but when Mordred was sick he would always devise spells to make the sickness worse, though the King never did weaken and die. ‘The demon protects him,’ Merlin explained, ‘and these days I’m too weak to take on young demons.’ He would lean back in his cushions and entice one of the cats onto his lap. He had always liked cats, and we had plenty in Lindinis. Merlin was happy enough in the palace. He and I were friends, he was passionately fond of Ceinwyn and our growing family of daughters, and he was looked after by Gwlyddyn, Ralla and Caddwg, his old servants from the Tor. Gwlyddyn and Ralla’s children grew up alongside ours and all of them were united against Mordred. By the time the King was twelve years old Ceinwyn had already given birth five times. All three of the girls lived, but both the boys died within a week of their births and Ceinwyn blamed Mordred’s evil spirit for their deaths. ‘It doesn’t want other boys in the palace,’ she said sadly, ‘only girls.’
‘Mordred will go soon,’ I promised her, for I was counting the days to his fifteenth birthday when he would be acclaimed King.
Arthur counted the days too, though with some dread for he feared that Mordred would undo all his achievements. Arthur came frequently to Lindinis in those years. We would hear hoo
fbeats in the outer courtyard, the door would be flung open and his voice would echo through the palace’s big, half-empty rooms. ‘Morwenna! Seren! Dian!’ He would shout, and our three golden-haired daughters would run or toddle to be swept up in a huge embrace and then they would be spoiled with presents; honey on a comb, small brooches, or the delicate spiral-patterned shell of a snail. Then, draped by daughters, he would come to whatever room we occupied and give us his latest news: a bridge rebuilt, a lawcourt opened, an honest magistrate found, a highway robber executed; or else some tale of a natural wonder: a sea snake seen off the coast, a calf born with five legs or, once, tales of a juggler who ate fire. ‘How is the King?’ he would always ask when these wonders had been recounted.
‘The King grows,’ Ceinwyn would always reply blandly and Arthur would ask no more.
He would give us news of Guinevere, and it was always good, though both Ceinwyn and I suspected that his enthusiasm concealed a strange loneliness. He was never alone, but I think he never did discover the twin soul he wanted so much. Guinevere had once been as passionately interested in the business of government as Arthur, but she gradually turned her energies to the worship of Isis. Arthur, who was ever made uncomfortable by religious fervour, pretended to be interested in that woman’s Goddess, but in truth I think he believed Guinevere was wasting her time searching for a power that did not exist, just as we had once wasted our time pursuing the Cauldron.
Guinevere gave him only the one son. Either, Ceinwyn said, they slept apart, or else Guinevere was using a woman’s magic to prevent conception. Every village had a wise woman who knew what herbs would do that, just as they knew what substances could abort a child or cure a sickness. Arthur, I knew, would have liked more children for he adored them, and some of his happiest times were when he brought Gwydre to stay in our palace. Arthur and his son revelled in the wild pack of ragged, knot-haired children who raced carelessly about Lindinis, but who always avoided the sullen, brooding presence of Mordred. Gwydre played with our three, and Ralla’s three, and with the two dozen slave or servant children who formed miniature armies for mock combat or else draped borrowed war-cloaks over the branch of a low-growing pear tree in the garden to turn it into a pretend house that imitated the passions and procedures of the larger palace. Mordred had his own companions, all boys, all slave sons, and they, being older, roamed more widely. We heard tales of a reaping hook stolen from a hut, of a thatch or a hayrick fired, of a sieve torn or a newly laid hedge broken, and, in later years, of a shepherd’s girl or a farmer’s daughter assaulted. Arthur would listen, shudder, then go and talk with the King, but it made no difference.
Guinevere rarely came to Lindinis, though my duties, that took me all across Dumnonia in Arthur’s service, carried me to Durnovaria’s Winter Palace frequently enough and it was there, as often as not, that I met Guinevere. She was civil to me, but then we were all civil in those days for Arthur had inaugurated his great band of warriors. He had first described his idea to me in Cwm Isaf, but now, in the years of peace that followed the battle outside London, he made his guild of spearmen into a reality.
Even to this day, if you mention the Round Table, some old men will remember and chuckle at that ancient attempt to tame rivalry, hostility and ambition. The Round Table, of course, was never its proper name, but rather a nickname. Arthur himself had decided to call it the Brotherhood of Britain, which sounded far more impressive, but no one ever called it that. They remembered it, if they remembered it at all, as the Round Table oath, and they probably forgot that it was supposed to bring us peace. Poor Arthur. He really did believe in brotherhood, and if kisses could bring peace then a thousand dead men would still be alive to this day. Arthur did try to change the world and his instrument was love.
The Brotherhood of Britain was supposed to have been inaugurated at the Winter Palace at Durnovaria in the summer after Guinevere’s father, Leodegan the exiled King of Henis Wyren, had died of a plague. But that July, when we were all supposed to meet, the plague came to Durnovaria again and so, at the very last moment, Arthur diverted the great gathering to the Sea Palace that was now finished and shining on its hill above the creek. Lindinis would have been a better place for the inaugural rites because it was a much larger palace, but Guinevere must have decided that she wanted to show off her new home. Doubtless it pleased her to have Britain’s crude, long-haired, rough-bearded warriors wandering through its civilized halls and shadowed arcades. This beauty, she seemed to be telling us, is what you live to protect, though she took good care to make sure that few of us actually slept inside the enlarged villa. We camped outside and, truth to tell, we were happier there.
Ceinwyn came with me. She was not well, for the ceremonies occurred not long after the birth of her third child, a boy, and it had been a difficult confinement that had ended with Ceinwyn desperately weak and the child dead, but Arthur pleaded for her to come. He wanted all the lords of Britain there, and though none came from Gwynedd, Elmet, or the other northern kingdoms, many others did make the long journey and virtually all Dumnonia’s great men were present. Cuneglas of Powys came, Meurig of Gwent was there, Prince Tristan of Kernow attended, as, of course, did Lancelot, and all those Kings brought lords, Druids, bishops and chieftains so that the tents and shelters made a great swathe about the Sea Palace’s hill. Mordred, who was then nine years old, came with us and he, to Guinevere’s disgust, was given rooms with the other Kings inside the palace. Merlin refused to attend. He said he was too old for such nonsense. Galahad was named the Marshal of the Brotherhood and so he presided with Arthur and, like Arthur, believed devoutly in the whole idea.
I never confessed as much to Arthur, but I found the whole thing embarrassing. His notion was that we would all swear peace and friendship to one another, and thus heal our enmities and bind each other in oaths that would forbid any in the Brotherhood of Britain from ever raising a spear against another; but even the Gods seemed to mock that high ambition for the day of the ceremony dawned chill and gloomy, though it never did actually rain, which Arthur, who was ridiculously optimistic about the whole thing, declared to be a propitious sign.
No swords, spears or shields were carried to the ceremony, held in the Sea Palace’s great pleasure garden which lay between two newly built arcades that stretched on grass embankments towards the creek. Banners hung from the arcades where two choirs sang solemn music to give the ceremonies a proper dignity. At the north end of the garden, close to a big arched door that led into the palace, a table had been set. It happened to be a round table, though there was nothing significant in that shape; it was simply the most convenient table to carry out into the garden. The table was not very large, maybe as far across as a man’s outstretched hands could reach, but it was, I remember, very beautiful. It was Roman, of course, and made of a white translucent stone into which had been carved a remarkable horse with great spread wings. One of the wings had a grievous crack running through it, but the table was still an impressive object and the winged horse a wonder. Sagramor said he had never seen such a beast in all his travels, though he claimed that flying horses did exist in the mysterious countries that lay beyond the oceans of sand, wherever they were. Sagramor had married his sturdy Saxon Malla and was now the father of two boys.
The only swords allowed at the ceremony were those belonging to the Kings and Princes. Mordred’s sword lay on the table, and criss-crossed above it were the blades of Lancelot, Meurig, Cuneglas, Galahad and Tristan. One by one we all stepped forward, Kings, Princes, chieftains and lords, and placed our hands where the six blades touched and swore Arthur’s oath that pledged us to amity and peace. Ceinwyn had dressed the nine-year-old Mordred in new clothes, then trimmed and combed his hair in an attempt to stop its curly bristles jutting like twin brushes from his round skull, but he still looked an awkward figure as he limped on his clubbed left foot to mumble the oath. I admit that the moment when I put my hand on the six blades was solemn enough; like most men there, I had every intent
ion of keeping the oath which was, of course, for men only, for Arthur did not consider this to be women’s business, though plenty of women stood on the terrace above the arched door to witness the long ceremony. It was a long ceremony, too. Arthur had originally intended to restrict the membership of his Brotherhood to those oath-sworn warriors who had fought against the Saxons, but now he had widened it to include every great man he could lure to the palace, and when the oaths were finished he swore his own oath and afterwards stood on the terrace and told us that the vow we had just sworn was as sacred as any we had ever made, that we had promised Britain peace and that if any of us broke that peace then it was the sworn duty of every other member of the Brotherhood to punish the transgressor. Then he instructed us to embrace each other, and after that, of course, the drinking started.
The day’s solemnity did not end as the drinking began. Arthur had watched carefully to see which men avoided other men’s embraces, and then, group by group, those recalcitrant souls were summoned to the palace’s great hall where Arthur insisted they should be reconciled. Arthur himself showed an example by first embracing Sansum, and afterwards Melwas, the dethroned Belgic King whom Arthur had exiled to Isca. Melwas submitted with a lumbering grace to the kiss of peace, but he died a month later after eating a breakfast of tainted oysters. Fate, as Merlin loved to tell us, is inexorable.
Those more intimate reconciliations inevitably delayed the serving of the feast which was to take place in the great hall where Arthur was bringing enemies together, and so more mead was carried out to the garden where the bored warriors waited and tried to guess which among them would be summoned to Arthur’s peace-making next. I knew I would be summoned, for I had carefully avoided Lancelot during the whole ceremony, and sure enough Hygwydd, Arthur’s servant, found me and insisted I go to the great hall where, as I feared, Lancelot and his courtiers waited for me. Arthur had persuaded Ceinwyn to attend and, to give her some added comfort, he had asked her brother Cuneglas to be present. The three of us stood on one side of the hall, Lancelot and his men on the other, while Arthur, Galahad and Guinevere presided from the dais where the high table stood ready for the great feast. Arthur beamed at us. ‘I have in this room,’ he declared, ‘some of my dearest friends. King Cuneglas, the best ally any man could have in war or peace, King Lancelot, to whom I am sworn like a brother, Lord Derfel Cadarn, the bravest of all my brave men, and dear Princess Ceinwyn.’ He smiled.