I was panting now, my breath coming in agonized gasps as I dreamed my way up the last few paces of the road and there, suddenly, at the summit, I saw light and colour and warmth.
For the road dropped beyond the pass to a coastline where there were trees and fields, and beyond the coast was a glittering sea in which an island lay, and in the island, shining in the sudden sun, was a lake. ‘There!’ I spoke aloud for I knew the island was my goal, but just when it seemed I was given a renewed energy to run down the road’s last miles and plunge into that sunlit sea, a ghoul sprang into my path. It was a black thing in black armour with a mouth spitting black slime and a black-bladed sword twice as long as Hywelbane in its black-clawed hand. It screamed a challenge at me.
And I screamed too, and my body stiffened in Nimue’s embrace.
Her arms gripped my shoulders. ‘You have seen the Dark Road, Derfel,’ she whispered, ‘you have seen the Dark Road.’ And suddenly she pulled away from me and the cloak was whipped from my back and I fell forward onto Dolforwyn’s wet grass as the wind swirled cold about me.
I lay there for long minutes. The dream had passed and I wondered what the Dark Road had to do with my soul’s desire. Then I jerked aside and vomited, and after that my head felt clear again and I could see the fallen silver cup beside me. I picked it up, rocked back onto my haunches and saw that Merlin was watching me from the far side of the royal stone. Nimue, his lover and priestess, was beside him, her thin body swathed in a vast black cloak, her black hair held in a ribbon and her golden eye shining in the moonlight. The eye in that socket had been prised out by Gundleus, and for that injury he had paid a thousandfold.
Neither spoke, but just watched as I spat the last vomit from my mouth, cuffed at my lips, shook my head, then tried to stand. My body was still weak, or else my skull was still reeling, for I could not raise myself and so, instead, I knelt beside the stone and leaned on my elbows. Small spasms still made me twitch from time to time. ‘What did you make me drink?’ I asked, putting the silver cup back on the rock.
‘I made you drink nothing,’ Merlin answered. ‘You drank of your own free will, Derfel, just as you came here of your own free will.’ His voice, that had been so mischievous in Cuneglas’s hall, was now cold and distant. ‘What did you see?’
‘The Dark Road,’ I answered obediently.
‘It lies there,’ Merlin said, and pointed north into the night.
‘And the ghoul?’ I asked.
‘Is Diwrnach,’ he said.
I closed my eyes for I knew now what he wanted. ‘And the island,’ I said, opening my eyes again, ‘is Ynys Mon?’
‘Yes,’ Merlin said. ‘The blessed isle.’
Before the Romans came and before the Saxons were even dreamed of, Britain was ruled by the Gods and the Gods spoke to us from Ynys Mon, but the island had been ravaged by the Romans who had cut down its oaks, destroyed its sacred groves and slaughtered its guardian Druids. That Black Year had occurred more than four hundred years before this night, yet Ynys Mon was still sacred to the few Druids who, like Merlin, tried to restore the Gods to Britain. But now the blessed island was a part of the kingdom of Lleyn, and Lleyn was ruled by Diwrnach, the most terrible of all the Irish Kings who had crossed the Irish Sea to take British land. Diwrnach was said to paint his shields with human blood. There was no King in all Britain more cruel or more feared, and it was only the mountains that hemmed him in and the smallness of his army that kept him from spreading his terror south through Gwynedd. Diwrnach was a beast that could not be killed; a creature that lurked at the dark edge of Britain and, by common consent, he was best left unprovoked. ‘You want me,’ I said to Merlin, ‘to go to Ynys Mon?’
‘I want you to come with us to Ynys Mon,’ he said, indicating Nimue, ‘with us and a virgin.’
‘A virgin?’ I asked.
‘Because only a virgin, Derfel, can find the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. And none of us, I think, qualifies,’ he added the last words sarcastically.
‘And the Cauldron,’ I said slowly, ‘is on Ynys Mon.’ Merlin nodded and I shuddered to think of such an errand. The Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn was one of the thirteen magical Treasures of Britain that had been dispersed when the Romans had laid waste Ynys Mon, and Merlin’s final ambition of his long life was to reassemble the Treasures, but the Cauldron was his real prize. With the Cauldron, he claimed, he could control the Gods and destroy the Christians, and that was why, with a bitter tasting mouth and a belly rank with sourness, I was kneeling on a wet hilltop in Powys. ‘My job,’ I said to Merlin, ‘is to fight the Saxons.’
‘Fool!’ Merlin snapped. ‘The war against the Sais is lost unless we regain the Treasures.’
‘Arthur doesn’t agree.’
‘Then Arthur is a fool as great as you. What do the Saxons matter, fool, if our Gods have deserted us?’
‘I am sworn to Arthur’s service,’ I protested.
‘You are sworn to my bidding too,’ Nimue said, holding up her left hand to show the scar that matched mine.
‘But I want no man on the Dark Road,’ Merlin said, ‘who does not come willingly. You must choose your loyalty, Derfel, but I can help you choose.’
He swept the cup off the rock and put in its place a heap of the rib bones that he had taken from Cuneglas’s hall. He knelt, picked up one bone and placed it in the centre of the royal stone. ‘That is Arthur,’ he said, ‘and this,’ he took another bone, ‘is Cuneglas, and this,’ he laid a third bone so that it made a triangle with the first two, ‘we shall speak of later. This,’ he laid a fourth bone across one of the triangle’s corners, ‘is Tewdric of Gwent, and this is Arthur’s alliance with Tewdric, and this is his alliance with Cuneglas.’ The second triangle was thus formed on top of the first and the two now resembled a crude, six pointed star. ‘This is Elmet,’ he began the third layer that was parallel with the first, ‘and this is Siluria, and this bone,’ he held up the last, ‘is the alliance of all those kingdoms. There.’ He leaned back and gestured at the precarious tower of bones standing at the stone’s centre. ‘You see, Derfel, Arthur’s careful scheme, though I tell you, I promise you, that without the Treasures the scheme will fail.’
He fell silent. I stared at the nine bones. All of them, except for the mysterious third bone, were still hung with scraps of meat, tendon and gristle. It was just that third bone that had been scraped clean and white. I touched it very gently with my finger, taking care not to disturb the fragile balance of the squat tower. ‘And what is the third bone?’ I asked.
Merlin smiled. ‘The third bone, Derfel,’ he said, ‘is the marriage between Lancelot and Ceinwyn.’ He paused. ‘Take it.’
I did not move. To take the third bone would be to collapse Arthur’s fragile network of alliances that were his best, indeed his only hope of defeating the Saxons.
Merlin sneered at my reluctance, then he took hold of the third bone, but he did not pull it free. ‘The Gods hate order,’ he snarled at me. ‘Order, Derfel, is what destroys the Gods, so they must destroy order.’ He pulled the bone out and the pile immediately collapsed into chaos. ‘Arthur must restore the Gods, Derfel,’ Merlin said, ‘if he is to bring peace to all Britain.’ He held the bone out to me. ‘Take it.’
I did not move.
‘It is just a pile of bones,’ Merlin said, ‘but this bone, Derfel, is your soul’s desire.’ He held the clean bone towards me. ‘This bone is Lancelot’s marriage to Ceinwyn. Snap this bone in two, Derfel, and the marriage will never happen. But leave this bone whole, Derfel, and your enemy will take your woman to his bed and maul her like a dog.’ He thrust the bone towards me again, and again I did not take it. ‘You think your love for Ceinwyn isn’t written all over your face?’ Merlin asked derisively. ‘Take it! Because I, Merlin of Avalon, grant you, Derfel, power of this bone.’
I took it, the Gods help me, but I took it. What else could I do? I was in love and I took that cleansed bone and I placed it in my pouch.
‘It won’t hel
p you,’ Merlin mocked me, ‘unless you break it.’
‘It may not help me anyway,’ I said, at last discovering that I could stand.
‘You are a fool, Derfel,’ Merlin said, ‘But you are a fool who is good with a sword and that is why I need you if we’re to walk the Dark Road.’ He stood. ‘It’s your choice now. You can break the bone and Ceinwyn will come to you, that I promise, but you will then be sworn to the Cauldron’s quest. Or you can marry Gwenhwyvach and waste your life battering Saxon shields while the Christians connive to take Dumnonia. I leave the choice to you, Derfel. Now close your eyes.’
I closed my eyes and dutifully kept them closed for a long time, but at last, when no more instructions were given, I opened them.
The hilltop was empty. I had heard nothing, but Merlin, Nimue, the eight bones and the silver cup were all gone. Dawn showed in the east, the birds were loud in the trees and I had a clean-picked bone in my pouch.
I walked downhill to the road beside the river, but in my head I saw the other road, the Dark Road that led to Diwrnach’s lair, and I was frightened.
WE HUNTED BOAR THAT morning and Arthur deliberately sought my company as we walked out of Caer Sws. ‘You left early last night, Derfel,’ he greeted me.
‘My belly, Lord,’ I said. I did not want to tell him the truth, that I had been with Merlin, for then he would have suspected that I had not yet abandoned the Cauldron’s quest. It was better to lie. ‘I had a sour belly,’ I explained.
He laughed. ‘I never know why we call them feasts,’ he said, ‘for they’re nothing but an excuse to drink.’ He paused to wait for Guinevere, who liked to hunt and who was dressed this morning in boots and leather trews that were strapped tight to her long legs. She hid her pregnancy beneath a leather jerkin over which she wore a green cloak. She had brought a brace of her beloved deerhounds and she handed me their leashes so that Arthur could carry her through the ford that lay beside the old fortress. Lancelot offered the same courtesy to Ceinwyn who cried out in evident delight as Lancelot swept her into his arms. Ceinwyn was also dressed in men’s clothes, but hers were not cut close and subtle like Guinevere’s. Ceinwyn had probably borrowed whatever hunting clothes her brother did not want and the baggy, over-long garments made her look boyish and young beside Guinevere’s sophisticated elegance. Neither woman carried a spear, but Bors, Lancelot’s cousin and his champion, carried a spare weapon in case Ceinwyn wanted to join a kill. Arthur had insisted that the pregnant Guinevere should not carry a spear. ‘You must take care today,’ he said as he restored her to her feet on the Severn’s southern bank.
‘You worry too much,’ she said, then took the hounds’ leashes from me and pushed a hand through her thick, springing red hair as she turned back to Ceinwyn. ‘Become pregnant,’ she said, ‘and men think you’re made of glass.’ She fell into step beside Lancelot, Ceinwyn and Cuneglas, leaving Arthur to walk beside me towards the leafy valley where Cuneglas’s huntsmen had reported plenty of game. There might have been fifty of us hunters altogether, mostly warriors, though a handful of women had chosen to come and two score of servants brought up the rear. One of those servants sounded a horn to tell the huntsmen at the valley’s far end that it was time to drive the game down towards the river and we hunters hefted our long, heavy boar spears as we spread out into a line. It was a cold late summer’s day, cold enough to cloud our breath, but the rain had cleared and the sun shone on fallow fields laced with a morning mist. Arthur was in high spirits, revelling in the day’s beauty, his own youth and the prospect of a hunt. ‘One more feast,’ he said to me, ‘then you can go home and rest.’
‘One more feast?’ I asked dully, my mind fuddled with tiredness and from the lingering effects of whatever Merlin and Nimue had given me to drink on Dolforwyn’s peak.
Arthur clapped my shoulder. ‘Lancelot’s betrothal, Derfel. Then back to Dumnonia. And to work!’ He sounded delighted at the prospect and he enthusiastically told me his plans for the coming winter. There were four broken Roman bridges that he wanted rebuilt, then the kingdom’s stonemasons would be sent to finish the royal palace at Lindinis. Lindinis was the Roman town close to Caer Cadarn, the place of Dumnonia’s royal acclamations, and Arthur wanted to make it the new capital. ‘There are too many Christians in Durnovaria,’ he said, though he hastily, and typically, added that he had nothing personal against Christians.
‘It’s just, Lord,’ I said drily, ‘that they have something against you.’
‘Some do,’ he admitted. Before the battle, when Arthur’s cause had seemed utterly lost, a party opposed to Arthur had grown bold in Dumnonia and that party had been led by the Christians, the same Christians who had the guardianship of Mordred. The immediate cause of their hostility had been a loan that Arthur had forced from the church to pay for the campaign that ended in Lugg Vale, and that loan had sparked a bitter enmity. It was odd, I thought, how the church preached the merits of poverty, but never forgave a man for borrowing its money.
‘I wanted to talk to you of Mordred,’ Arthur said, explaining why he had sought my company on this fine morning. ‘In ten years,’ Arthur went on, ‘he’ll be old enough to take the throne. That’s not long, Derfel, not long at all, and he needs to be raised well in those ten years. He must be taught letters, he must learn to use a sword and he must learn responsibility.’ I nodded agreement, though not with any enthusiasm. The five-year-old Mordred would doubtless learn all the things Arthur wanted, but I did not see what business it was of mine. Arthur had other ideas. ‘I want you to be his guardian,’ he said, surprising me.
‘Me!’ I exclaimed.
‘Nabur cares more about his own advancement than he does about Mordred’s character,’ Arthur said. Nabur was the Christian magistrate who was the child King’s present guardian, and it was Nabur who had plotted most vigorously to destroy Arthur’s power; Nabur and, of course, Bishop Sansum. ‘And Nabur is no soldier,’ Arthur went on. ‘I pray that Mordred will rule in peace, Derfel, but he needs the skills of war, all kings do, and I can think of no one better than you to train him.’
‘Not me,’ I protested. ‘I’m too young!’
Arthur laughed at that objection. ‘The young should be raised by the young, Derfel,’ he said.
A distant horn sounded to signal that game had been started from the valley’s end. We hunters entered the trees and stepped over the tangles of briar and the dead trunks that were thick with fungi. We advanced slowly now, listening for the terrifying sound of a boar crashing through the brush. ‘Besides,’ I went on, ‘my place is in your shield-wall, not in Mordred’s nursery.’
‘You’ll still be in my shield-wall. You think I would lose you, Derfel?’ Arthur said with a grin. ‘I don’t want you tied to Mordred, I just want him in your household. I need him to be raised by an honest man.’
I shrugged that compliment away, then thought guiltily of the clean, unbroken bone in my pouch. Was it honest, I wondered, to use magic to change Ceinwyn’s mind? I looked at her, and she glanced my way and gave me a shy smile. ‘I have no household,’ I said to Arthur.
‘But you will, and soon,’ he said. Then he held up a hand and I froze, listening to the sounds ahead of us. Something heavy was trampling in the trees and we both instinctively crouched with our spears held a few inches above the ground, but then we saw that the frightened beast was a fine stag with good antlers and we relaxed as the animal pounded past. ‘We’ll hunt him tomorrow, maybe,’ Arthur said, watching the stag run past. ‘Give your hounds a run in the morning!’ he shouted to Guinevere.
She laughed and came down the hill towards us, her hounds straining at their leashes. ‘I should like that,’ she said. Her eyes were bright and her face flushed by the cold. ‘The hunting’s better here than in Dumnonia,’ she said.
‘But not the land,’ Arthur said to me. ‘There’s an estate north of Durnovaria,’ he went on, ‘that is Mordred’s by right and I plan to make you its tenant. I’ll grant you other land, too, for your own, but you ca
n make a hall on Mordred’s land and raise him there.’
‘You know the estate,’ Guinevere said. ‘It’s the one north of Gyllad’s holding.’
‘I know it,’ I said. The estate had good river land for crops and fine uplands for sheep. ‘But I’m not sure I know how to raise a child,’ I grumbled. The horns sounded loud ahead and the huntsmen’s hounds were baying. Cheers sounded far to our right, signifying that someone had found quarry, though our part of the wood was still empty. A small stream tumbled to our left and the wooded ground climbed to our right. The rocks and twisted tree roots were thick with moss.
Arthur dismissed my fears. ‘You won’t raise Mordred,’ he said, ‘but I do want him raised in your hall, with your servants, your manners, your morals and your judgments.’
‘And,’ Guinevere added, ‘your wife.’
A snapping of a twig made me look uphill. Lancelot and his cousin Bors were there, both standing in front of Ceinwyn. Lancelot’s spear shaft was painted white and he wore tall leather boots and a cloak of supple leather. I looked back to Arthur. ‘The wife, Lord,’ I said, ‘is news to me.’
He clasped my elbow, the boar hunt forgotten. ‘I plan to appoint you Dumnonia’s champion, Derfel,’ he said.
‘The honour is above me, Lord,’ I said cautiously, ‘besides, you are Mordred’s champion.’
‘Prince Arthur,’ Guinevere said, for she liked to call him Prince even though he was bastard born, ‘is already chief of the Council. He can’t be champion as well, not unless he’s expected to do all Dumnonia’s work?’
‘True, Lady,’ I said. I was not averse to the honour, for it was a high one, though there was a price. In battle I would have to fight whatever champion presented himself for single combat, but in peace it would mean wealth and status far above my present rank. I already had the title of Lord and the men to uphold that rank and the right to paint my own device on these men’s shields, but I shared these honours with two score other Dumnonian war leaders. To be the King’s champion would make me the foremost warrior of Dumnonia, though how any man could claim that status while Arthur lived, I could not see. Nor, indeed, while Sagramor lived. ‘Sagramor,’ I said carefully, ‘is a greater warrior than I, Lord Prince.’ With Guinevere present I had to remember to call him Prince once in a while, though it was a title he disliked.