Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur

Part One

The Dark Road

TODAY I HAVE BEEN thinking about the dead.

This is the last day of the old year. The bracken on the hill has turned brown, the elms at the valley’s end have lost their leaves and the winter slaughter of our cattle has begun. Tonight is Samain Eve.

Tonight the curtain that separates the dead from the living will quiver, fray, and finally vanish. Tonight the dead will cross the bridge of swords. Tonight the dead will come from the Otherworld to this world, but we shall not see them. They will be shadows in darkness, mere whispers of wind in a windless night, but they will be here.

Bishop Sansum, the saint who rules our small community of monks, scoffs at this belief. The dead, he says, do not have shadowbodies, nor can they cross the sword bridge, but instead they lie in their cold graves and wait for the final coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is proper, he says, for us to remember the dead and to pray for their immortal souls, but their bodies are gone. They are corrupt. Their eyes have melted to leave dark holes in their skulls, worms liquefy their bellies, and mould furs their bones. The saint insists that the dead do not trouble the living on Samain Eve, yet even he will take care to leave a loaf of bread beside the monastery hearth this night. He will pretend it is carelessness, but all the same there will be a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water beside the kitchen ashes tonight.

I shall leave more. A cup of mead and a piece of salmon. They are small gifts, but all I can afford, and tonight I shall place them in the shadows by the hearth then go to my monk’s cell and welcome the dead who will come to this cold house on its bare hill.

I shall name the dead. Ceinwyn, Guinevere, Nimue, Merlin, Lancelot, Galahad, Dian, Sagramor; the list could fill two parchments. So many dead. Their footsteps will not stir a rush on the floor nor frighten the mice that live in the monastery’s thatched roof, but even Bishop Sansum knows that our cats will arch their backs and hiss from the kitchen corners as the shadows that are not shadows come to our hearth to find the gifts that deter them from working mischief.

So today I have been thinking about the dead.

I am old now, maybe as old as Merlin was, though not nearly so wise. I think that Bishop Sansum and I are the only men living from the great days and I alone remember them fondly. Maybe some others still live. In Ireland, perhaps, or in the wastes north of Lothian, but I do not know of them, though this much I do know: that if any others do live, then they, like me, cower from the encroaching darkness like cats shrinking from this night’s shadows. All that we loved is broken, all that we made is pulled down and all that we sowed is reaped by the Saxons. We British cling to the high western lands and talk of revenge, but there is no sword that will fight a great darkness. There are times, too frequent now, when all I want is to be with the dead. Bishop Sansum applauds that wish and tells me it is only right that I should yearn to be in heaven at God’s right hand, but I do not think I shall reach the saints’ heaven. I have sinned too much and thus fear hell, but still hope, against my faith, that I will pass to the Otherworld instead. For there, under the apple trees of four-towered Annwn, waits a table heaped with food and crowded with the shadowbodies of all my old friends. Merlin will be cajoling, lecturing, grumbling and mocking. Galahad will be bursting to interrupt and Culhwch, bored with so much talk, will steal a larger portion of beef and think no one notices. And Ceinwyn will be there, dear lovely Ceinwyn, bringing peace to the turmoil roused by Nimue.

But I am still cursed by breath. I live while my friends feast, and as long as I live I shall write this tale of Arthur. I write at the behest of Queen Igraine, the young wife of King Brochvael of Powys who is the protector of our small monastery. Igraine wanted to know all I can remember of Arthur and so I began to write these tales down, but Bishop Sansum disapproves of the task. He says Arthur was the Enemy of God, a spawn of the devil, and so I am writing the tales in my native Saxon tongue that the saint does not speak. Igraine and I have told the saint that I am writing the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in the enemy’s language and maybe he believes us, or maybe he is biding his time until he can prove our falsehood and then punish me.

I write each day. Igraine comes frequently to the monastery to pray that God will grant her womb the blessing of a child, and when her prayers are done she takes the finished skins away and has them translated into British by the clerk of Brochvael’s justice. I think she changes the story then, making it match the Arthur she wants rather than the Arthur who was, but perhaps that does not matter for who will ever read this tale? I am like a man building a wall of mud and wattle to resist an imminent flood. The darkness comes when no man will read. There will just be Saxons.

So I write about the dead and the writing passes the time until I can join them; the time when Brother Derfel, a humble monk of Dinnewrac, will again be Lord Derfel Cadarn, Derfel the Mighty, Champion of Dumnonia and beloved friend of Arthur. But now I am just a cold old monk scribbling memories with my one remaining hand. And tonight is Samain Eve and tomorrow is a new year. The winter is coming. The dead leaves lie in shining drifts against the hedgerows, there are redwings in the stubble, gulls have flown inland from the sea and woodcock gather under the full moon. It is a good season, Igraine tells me, to write of old things and so she has brought me a fresh pile of skins, a flask of newly mixed ink and a sheaf of quills. Tell me of Arthur, she says, of golden Arthur, our last and best hope, our king who never was a king, the Enemy of God and the scourge of Saxons. Tell me of Arthur.

A field after battle is a dreadful thing.

We had won, but there was no elation in our souls, just weariness and relief. We shivered about our fires and tried not to think of the ghouls and spirits that stalked the dark where the dead of Lugg Vale lay. Some of us slept, but none slept well for the nightmares of battle’s end harried us. I woke in the black hours, startled out of sleep by the memory of a spear thrust that had so nearly skewered my belly. Issa had saved me, pushing the enemy’s spear away with the edge of his shield, but I was haunted by what had so nearly happened. I tried to sleep again, but the memory of that spear thrust kept me awake, and so at last, shivering and weary, I stood and drew my cloak about me. The vale was lit by guttering fires, and in the dark between the flames there drifted a miasma of smoke and river mist. Some things moved in the smoke, but whether they were ghosts or the living I could not tell.

‘You can’t sleep, Derfel?’ A voice spoke softly from the doorway of the Roman building where the body of King Gorfyddyd lay.

I turned to see it was Arthur who watched me. ‘I can’t sleep, Lord,’ I admitted.

He picked his way through the sleeping warriors. He wore one of the long white cloaks that he liked so much and, in the fiery night, the garment seemed to shine. There was no mud on it, or any blood, and I realized he must have kept the cloak bundled safe for something clean to wear after battle. The rest of us would not have cared if we had ended the fight stark naked so long as we lived, but Arthur was ever a fastidious man. He was bare-headed and his hair still showed the indentations where the helmet had clasped his skull. ‘I never sleep well after battle,’ he said, ‘not for a week at least. Then comes a blessed night of rest.’ He smiled at me. ‘I am in your debt.’

‘No, Lord,’ I said, though in truth he was in my debt. Sagramor and I had held Lugg Vale all that long day, fighting in the shield-wall against a vast horde of enemies, and Arthur had failed to rescue us. A rescue had come at last, and victory with it, but of all Arthur’s battles Lugg Vale was the nearest to a defeat. Until the last battle.

‘I, at least, will remember the debt,’ he said fondly, ‘even if you do not. It is time to make you wealthy, Derfel, you and your men.’ He smiled and took my elbow to lead me to a bare patch of earth where our voices would not disturb the restless sleep of the warriors who lay closer to the smoking fires. The ground was damp and rain had puddled in the deep scars left by the hoofs of Arthur’s big horses. I wondered if horses dreamed of battle, then wondered if the dead, newly arrived in the Otherworld, still shuddered at the memory of the sword stroke or spear blow that had sent their souls across the bridge of swords. ‘I suppose Gundleus is dead?’ Arthur interrupted my thoughts.

‘Dead, Lord,’ I confirmed. The King of Siluria had died earlier in the evening, but I had not seen Arthur since the moment when Nimue had pinched out her enemy’s life.

‘I heard him screaming,’ Arthur said in a matter-of-fact voice.

‘All Britain must have heard him screaming,’ I answered just as drily. Nimue had taken the King’s dark soul piece by piece, all the while crooning her revenge on the man who had raped her and taken one of her eyes.

‘So Siluria needs a King,’ Arthur said, then stared down the long vale to where the black shapes drifted in the mist and smoke. His clean-shaven face was shadowed by the flames, giving him a gaunt look. He was not a handsome man, but nor was he ugly. Rather he had a singular face; long, bony and strong. In repose it was a rueful face, suggesting sympathy and thoughtfulness, but in conversation it was animated by enthusiasm and a quick smile. He was still young then, just thirty years old, and his short-cropped hair was untouched by grey. ‘Come,’ he touched my arm and gestured down the vale.

‘You’d walk among the dead?’ I pulled back aghast. I would have waited till dawn had chased the ghouls away before venturing away from the protective firelight.

‘We made them into the dead, Derfel, you and I,’ Arthur said, ‘so they should fear us, should they not?’ He was never a superstitious man, not like the rest of us who craved blessings, treasured amulets and watched every moment for omens that might warn against dangers. Arthur moved through that spirit world like a blind man. ‘Come,’ he said, touching my arm again.

So we walked into the dark. They were not all dead, those things that lay in the mist, for some called piteously for help, but Arthur, normally the kindest of men, was deaf to the feeble cries. He was thinking about Britain. ‘I’m going south tomorrow,’ he said, ‘to see Tewdric.’ King Tewdric of Gwent was our ally, but he had refused to send his men to Lugg Vale, believing that victory was impossible. The King was in our debt now, for we had won his war for him, but Arthur was not a man to hold a grudge. ‘I’ll ask Tewdric to send men east to face the Saxons,’ Arthur went on, ‘but I’ll send Sagramor as well. That should hold the frontier through the winter. Your men,’ he gave me a swift smile, ‘deserve a rest.’

The smile told me that there would be no rest. ‘They will do whatever you ask,’ I answered dutifully. I was walking stiffly, wary of the circling shadows and making the sign against evil with my right hand. Some souls, newly ripped from their bodies, do not find the entrance to the Otherworld, but instead wander the earth’s surface looking for their old bodies and seeking revenge on their killers. Many of those souls were in Lugg Vale that night and I feared them, but Arthur, oblivious of their threat, strolled carelessly through the field of death with one hand holding up the skirts of his cloak to keep it free of the wet grass and thick mud.

‘I want your men in Siluria,’ he said decisively. ‘Oengus Mac Airem will want to plunder it, but he must be restrained.’ Oengus was the Irish King of Demetia who had changed sides in the battle to give Arthur victory and the Irishman’s price was a share of slaves and wealth from the dead Gundleus’s kingdom. ‘He can take a hundred slaves,’ Arthur decreed, ‘and one third of Gundleus’s treasury. He’s agreed to that, but he’ll still try to cheat us.’

‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t, Lord.’

‘No, not you. Will you let Galahad lead your men?’

I nodded, hiding my surprise. ‘So what do you want of me?’ I asked.

‘Siluria is a problem,’ Arthur went on, ignoring my question. He stopped, frowning as he thought about Gundleus’s kingdom. ‘It’s been ill-ruled, Derfel, ill-ruled.’ He spoke with a deep distaste. To the rest of us corrupt government was as natural as snow in winter or flowers in the springtime, but Arthur was genuinely horrified by it. These days we remember Arthur as a warlord, as the shining man in polished armour who carried a sword into legend, but he would have wanted to be remembered as nothing but a good, honest and just ruler. The sword gave him power, but he gave that power to the law. ‘It isn’t an important kingdom,’ he continued, ‘but it will make endless trouble if we don’t put it right.’ He was thinking aloud, trying to anticipate every obstacle that lay between this night after battle and his dream of a peaceful united Britain. ‘The ideal answer,’ he said, ‘would be to divide it between Gwent and Powys.’

‘Then why not do that?’ I asked.

‘Because I have promised Siluria to Lancelot,’ he said in a voice that brooked no contradiction. I said nothing, but just touched Hywelbane’s hilt so that the iron would protect my soul from the evil things of this night. I was gazing southwards to where the dead lay like a tide-rill by the tree fence where my men had fought the enemy all that long day.

There had been so many brave men in that fight, but no Lancelot. In all the years that I had fought for Arthur, and in all the years that I had been acquainted with Lancelot, I had yet to see Lancelot in the shield-wall. I had seen him pursuing beaten fugitives, and seen him lead captives off to parade them before an excited crowd, but I had never seen him in the hard, sweaty, clanging press of struggling shield-walls. He was the exiled King of Benoic, unthroned by the horde of Franks that had erupted out of Gaul to sweep his father’s kingdom into oblivion, and not once, so far as I knew, had he ever carried a spear against a Frankish war-band, yet bards throughout the length and breadth of Britain sang of his bravery. He was Lancelot, the King without land, the hero of a hundred fights, the sword of the Britons, the handsome lord of sorrows, the paragon, and all of that high reputation was made by song and none of it, so far as I knew, with a sword. I was his enemy, and he mine, but both of us were friends of Arthur and that friendship kept our enmity in an awkward truce.

Arthur knew my hostility. He touched my elbow so that we both walked on south towards the tide-rill of the dead. ‘Lancelot is Dumnonia’s friend,’ he insisted, ‘so if Lancelot rules Siluria then we shall have nothing to fear from it. And if Lancelot marries Ceinwyn, then Powys will support him too.’

There, it was said, and now my hostility was brittle with anger, yet still I said nothing against Arthur’s scheme. What could I say? I was the son of a Saxon slave, a young warrior with a band of men but no land, and Ceinwyn was a Princess of Powys. She was called seren, the star, and she shone in a dull land like a spark of the sun fallen into mud. She had been betrothed to Arthur, but had lost him to Guinevere, and that loss had brought on the war that had just ended in the slaughter of Lugg Vale. Now, for peace, Ceinwyn must marry Lancelot, my enemy, while I, a mere nothing, was in love with her. I wore her brooch and I carried her image in my thoughts. I had even sworn an oath to protect her, and she had not spurned the oath. Her acceptance had filled me with an insane hope that my love for her was not hopeless, but it was. Ceinwyn was a Princess and she must marry a King, and I was a slave-born spearman and would marry where I could.

So I said nothing about my love for Ceinwyn, and Arthur, who was disposing of Britain in this night after his victory, suspected nothing. And why should he? If I had confessed to him that I was in love with Ceinwyn he would have thought it as outrageous an ambition as a dunghill rooster wanting to mate with an eagle. ‘You know Ceinwyn, don’t you?’ he asked me.

‘Yes, Lord.’

‘And she likes you,’ he said, only half as a question.

‘So I dare to think,’ I said truthfully, remembering Ceinwyn’s pale, silvery beauty and loathing the thought of it being given into Lancelot’s handsome keeping. ‘She likes me well enough,’ I went on, ‘to have told me she has no enthusiasm for this marriage.’

‘Why should she?’ Arthur asked. ‘She’s never met Lancelot. I don’t expect enthusiasm from her, Derfel, just obedience.’

I hesitated. Before the battle, when Tewdric had been so desperate to end the war that threatened to ruin his land, I had gone on a peace mission to Gorfyddyd. The mission had failed, but I had talked with Ceinwyn and told her of Arthur’s hope that she should marry Lancelot. She had not rejected the idea, but nor had she welcomed it. Back then, of course, no one believed Arthur could defeat Ceinwyn’s father in battle, but Ceinwyn had considered that unlikely possibility and had asked me to request one favour of Arthur if he should win. She wanted his protection, and I, falling so hard in love with her, translated that request as a plea that she should not be forced into a marriage she did not want. I told Arthur now that she had begged his protection. ‘She’s been betrothed too often, Lord,’ I added, ‘and too often disappointed, and I think she wants to be left alone for a time.’

‘Time!’ Arthur laughed. ‘She hasn’t got time, Derfel. She’s nearly twenty! She can’t stay unmarried like a cat that won’t catch mice. And who else can she marry?’ He walked on a few paces. ‘She has my protection,’ he said, ‘but what better protection could she want than to be married to Lancelot and placed on a throne? And what about you?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Me, Lord?’ For a moment I thought he was proposing that I should marry Ceinwyn and my heart leapt.

‘You’re nearly thirty,’ he said, ‘and it’s time you were married. We’ll see to it when we’re back in Dumnonia, but for now I want you to go to Powys.’

‘Me, Lord? Powys?’ We had just fought and defeated Powys’s army and I could not imagine that anyone in Powys would welcome an enemy warrior.

Arthur gripped my arm. ‘The most important thing in the next few weeks, Derfel, is that Cuneglas is acclaimed King of Powys. He thinks no one will challenge him, but I want to be sure. I want one of my men in Caer Sws to be a witness to our friendship. Nothing more. I just want any challenger to know that he will have to fight me as well as Cuneglas. If you’re there and if you’re seen to be his friend then that message will be clear.’

‘So why not send a hundred men?’ I asked.

‘Because then it will look as if we’re imposing Cuneglas on Powys’s throne. I don’t want that. I need him as a friend, and I don’t want him returning to Powys looking like a defeated man. Besides,’ he smiled, ‘you’re as good as a hundred men, Derfel. You proved that yesterday.’

I grimaced, for I was always uncomfortable with extravagant compliments, but if the praise meant that I was the right man to be Arthur’s envoy in Powys then I was happy, for I would be close to Ceinwyn again. I still treasured the memory of her touch on my hand, just as I treasured the brooch she had given me so many years before. She had not married Lancelot yet, I told myself, and all I wanted was a chance to indulge my impossible hopes. ‘And once Cuneglas is acclaimed,’ I asked, ‘what do I do then?’

‘You wait for me,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m coming to Powys as soon as I can, and once we’ve settled the peace and Lancelot is safely betrothed, we’ll go home. And next year, my friend, we’ll lead the armies of Britain against the Saxons.’ He spoke with a rare relish for the business of making war. He was good at fighting, and he even enjoyed battle for the unleashed thrills it gave his usually so careful soul, but he never sought war if peace was available because he mistrusted the uncertainties of battle. The vagaries of victory and defeat were too unpredictable, and Arthur hated to see good order and careful diplomacy abandoned to the chances of battle. But diplomacy and tact would never defeat the invading Saxons who were spreading westwards across Britain like vermin. Arthur dreamed of a well-ordered, lawfully governed, peaceful Britain and the Saxons were no part of that dream.

‘We’ll march in the spring?’ I asked him.

‘When the first leaves show.’

‘Then I would ask one favour of you first.’

‘Name it,’ he said, delighted that I should want something in return for helping to give him victory.

‘I want to march with Merlin, Lord,’ I said.

He did not answer for a while. He just stared down at the damp ground where a sword lay with its blade bent almost double. Somewhere in the dark a man moaned, cried out, then was silent. ‘The Cauldron,’ Arthur said at last, his voice heavy.

‘Yes, Lord,’ I said. Merlin had come to us during the battle and pleaded that both sides should abandon the fight and follow him on a quest to find the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. The Cauldron was the greatest Treasure of Britain, the magical gift of the old Gods, and it had been lost for centuries. Merlin’s life was dedicated to retrieving those Treasures, and the Cauldron was his greatest prize. If he could find the Cauldron, he told us, he could restore Britain to her rightful Gods.

Arthur shook his head. ‘Do you really think the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn has stayed hidden all these years?’ he asked me. ‘Through all the Roman years? It was taken to Rome, Derfel, and it was melted down for pins or brooches or coins. There is no Cauldron!’

‘Merlin says there is, Lord,’ I insisted.

‘Merlin has listened to old women’s tales,’ Arthur said angrily. ‘Do you know how many men he wants to take on this search for his Cauldron?’

‘No, Lord.’

‘Eighty, he told me. Or a hundred. Or, better still, two hundred! He won’t even say where the Cauldron is, he just wants me to give him an army and let him march it away to some wild place. Ireland, maybe, or the Wilderness. No!’ He kicked the bent sword, then prodded a finger hard into my shoulder. ‘Listen, Derfel, I need every spear I can muster next year. We’re going to finish the Saxons once and for ever, and I can’t lose eighty or a hundred men to the chase of a bowl that disappeared nearly five hundred years ago. Once Aelle’s Saxons are defeated you can chase this nonsense if you must. But I tell you it is a nonsense. There is no Cauldron.’ He turned and began to walk back to the fires. I followed, wanting to argue with him, but I knew I could never persuade him for he would need every spear he could muster if he was to defeat the Saxons, and he would do nothing now that would weaken his chances of victory in the spring. He smiled at me as if to compensate for his harsh refusal of my request. ‘If the Cauldron does exist,’ he said, ‘then it can stay hidden another year or two. But in the meantime, Derfel, I plan to make you rich. We shall marry you to money.’ He slapped my back. ‘One last campaign, my dear Derfel, one last great slaughter, then we shall have peace. Pure peace. We won’t need any cauldrons then.’ He spoke exultingly. That night, among the dead, he really did see peace coming.

We walked towards the fires that lay around the Roman house where Ceinwyn’s father, Gorfyddyd, lay dead. Arthur was happy that night, truly happy, for he saw his dream coming true. And it all seemed so easy. There would be one more war, then peace for evermore. Arthur was our warlord, the greatest warrior in Britain, yet that night after battle, among the shrieking souls of the smoke-wreathed dead, all he wanted was peace. Gorfyddyd’s heir, Cuneglas of Powys, shared Arthur’s dream. Tewdric of Gwent was an ally, Lancelot would be given the kingdom of Siluria and together with Arthur’s Dumnonian army the united Kings of Britain would defeat the invading Saxons. Mordred, under Arthur’s protection, would grow to assume Dumnonia’s throne and Arthur would retire to enjoy the peace and prosperity his sword had given Britain.

Thus Arthur disposed the golden future.

But he did not reckon on Merlin. Merlin was older, wiser and subtler than Arthur, and Merlin had smelt the Cauldron out. He would find it, and its power would spread through Britain like a poison.

For it was the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. It was the Cauldron that broke men’s dreams.

And Arthur, for all his practicality, was a dreamer.

In Caer Sws the leaves were heavy with the last ripeness of summer.

I had travelled north with King Cuneglas and his defeated men and so I was the only Dumnonian present when the body of King Gorfyddyd was burned on Dolforwyn’s summit. I saw the flames of his balefire gust huge in the night as his soul crossed the bridge of swords to its shadowbody in the Otherworld. The fire was surrounded by a double ring of Powys’s spearmen who carried flaming torches that swayed together as they sang the Death Lament of Beli Mawr. They sang for a long time and the sound of their voices echoed from the near hills like a choir of ghosts. There was much sorrow in Caer Sws. So many in the land had been made widows and orphans, and on the morning after the old King was burned and when his balefire was still sending a pyre of smoke towards the northern mountains, there was still more sorrow when the news of Ratae’s fall arrived. Ratae had been a great fortress on Powys’s eastern frontier, but Arthur had betrayed it to the Saxons to buy their peace while he fought against Gorfyddyd. None in Powys knew of Arthur’s treachery yet and I did not tell them.

I did not see Ceinwyn for three days, for they were the days of mourning for Gorfyddyd and no women went to the balefire. Instead the women of Powys’s court wore black wool and were shut up inside the women’s hall. No music was played in the hall, only water was given for drink and their only food was dry bread and a thin gruel of oats. Outside the hall the warriors of Powys gathered for the new King’s acclamation and I, obedient to Arthur’s orders, tried to detect whether any man would challenge Cuneglas’s right to the throne, but I heard no whisper of opposition.

At the end of the three days the door of the women’s hall was thrown open. A maidservant appeared in the doorway and scattered rue on the hall’s threshold and steps, and a moment later a billow of smoke gushed from the door and we knew the women were burning the old king’s marriage bedding. The smoke swirled from the hall’s door and windows, and only when the smoke had dissipated did Helledd, now Queen of Powys, come down the steps to kneel before her husband, King Cuneglas of Powys. She wore a dress of white linen which, when Cuneglas raised her, showed muddy marks where she had knelt. He kissed her, then led her back into the hall. Black-cloaked Iorweth, Powys’s chief Druid, followed the King into the women’s hall, while outside, ringing the hall’s wooden walls in ranks of iron and leather, the surviving warriors of Powys watched and waited.

They waited while a choir of children chanted the love duet of Gwydion and Aranrhod, the Song of Rhiannon, and then every long verse of Gofannon’s March to Caer Idion, and it was only when that last song was finished that Iorweth, now robed in white and carrying a black staff tipped with mistletoe, came to the door and announced that the days of mourning were at last over. The warriors cheered and broke from the ranks to seek their own women. Tomorrow Cuneglas would be acclaimed on Dolforwyn’s summit and if any man wanted to challenge his right to rule Powys then the acclamation would provide that chance. It would also be my first glimpse of Ceinwyn since the battle.

Next day I stared at Ceinwyn as Iorweth performed the rites of acclamation. She stood watching her brother and I gazed at her in a kind of wonder that any woman could be so lovely. I am old now, so perhaps my old man’s memory exaggerates Princess Ceinwyn’s beauty, but I do not think so. She was not called the seren, the star, for nothing. She was of average height, but very slightly built and that slenderness gave her an appearance of fragility that was, I later learned, a deception, for Ceinwyn had, above all things, a will of steel. Her hair, like mine, was fair, only hers was pale gold and sun-bright while mine was more like the colour of dirty straw. Her eyes were blue, her demeanour was demure and her face as sweet as honey from a wild comb. That day she was dressed in a blue linen gown that was trimmed with the black-flecked silver-white fur of a winter stoat, the same dress she had worn when she had touched my hand and taken my oath. She caught my eye once and smiled gravely and I swear my heart checked in its beating.

The rites of Powys’s kingship were not unlike our own. Cuneglas was paraded about Dolforwyn’s stone circle, he was given the symbols of kingship, and then a warrior declared him King and dared any man present to challenge the acclamation. The challenge was answered by silence. The ashes of the great balefire still smoked beyond the circle to show that a King had died, but the silence about the stones was proof that a new King reigned. Then Cuneglas was presented with gifts. Arthur, I knew, would be bringing his own magnificent present, but he had given me Gorfyddyd’s war sword that had been found on the battlefield and I now gave it back to Gorfyddyd’s son as a token of Dumnonia’s wish to have peace with Powys.

After the acclamation there was a feast in the lone hall that stood on Dolforwyn’s summit. It was a meagre feast, richer in mead and ale than in food, but it was a chance for Cuneglas to tell the warriors his hopes for his reign.

He spoke first of the war that had just ended. He named the dead of Lugg Vale, and promised his men that those warriors had not died in vain. ‘What they achieved,’ he said, ‘is peace between the Britons. A peace between Powys and Dumnonia.’ That caused some growls among the warriors, but Cuneglas stilled them with a raised hand. ‘Our enemy,’ he said, and his voice was suddenly hard, ‘is not Dumnonia. Our enemy is the Saxon!’ He paused, and this time no one growled in dissent. They just waited in silence and watched their new King, who was in truth no great warrior, but a good and honest man. Those qualities seemed obvious on his round, guileless young face to which he had vainly attempted to add dignity by growing long, plaited moustaches that hung to his breast. He might be no warrior, but he was shrewd enough to know that he had to offer these warriors the chance of war, for only by war could a man earn glory and wealth. Ratae, he promised them, would be retaken and the Saxons punished for the horrors they had inflicted on its inhabitants. Lloegyr, the Lost Lands, would be reclaimed from the Saxons, and Powys, once the mightiest of Britain’s kingdoms, would once again stretch from the mountains to the German Sea. The Roman towns would be rebuilt, their walls raised to glory again and the roads repaired. There would be farmland, booty and Saxon slaves for every warrior in Powys. They applauded that prospect, for Cuneglas was offering his disappointed chieftains the rewards that such men always sought from their kings. But, he went on after raising a hand to still the cheering, the wealth of Lloegyr would not be reclaimed by Powys alone. ‘Now,’ he warned his followers, ‘we march alongside the men of Gwent and beside the spearmen of Dumnonia. They were my father’s enemies, but they are my friends and that is why my Lord Derfel is here.’ He smiled at me. ‘And that is why,’ he continued, ‘under the next full moon, my dear sister will pledge her betrothal to Lancelot. She will rule as Queen in Siluria and the men of that country will march with us, and with Arthur and with Tewdric, to rid the land of Saxons. We shall destroy our true enemy. We shall destroy the Sais!’

This time the cheers were unstinted. He had won them over. He was offering them the wealth and power of old Britain and they clapped their hands and stamped their feet to show their approval. Cuneglas stood for a while, letting the acclamation continue, then he just sat and smiled at me as if he recognized how Arthur would have approved of all he had just said.

I did not stay on Dolforwyn for the drinking that would go on all night, but instead walked back to Caer Sws behind the ox-drawn wagon that carried Queen Helledd, her two aunts and Ceinwyn. The royal ladies wanted to be back in Caer Sws by sunset and I went with them, not because I felt unwelcome among Cuneglas’s men, but because I had found no chance to talk with Ceinwyn. So, like a moonstruck calf, I joined the small guard of spearmen who escorted the wagon homewards. I had dressed carefully that day, wanting to impress Ceinwyn, and so I had cleaned my mail armour, brushed the mud from my boots and cloak, then woven my long fair hair into a loose plait that hung down my back. I wore her brooch on my cloak as a sign of my allegiance to her.

I thought she would ignore me, for all through that long walk back to Caer Sws she sat in the wagon and stared away from me, but at last, as we turned the corner and the fortress came into sight, she turned and dropped off the wagon to wait for me beside the road. The escorting spearmen moved aside to let me walk beside her. She smiled as she recognized the brooch, but made no reference to it. ‘We were wondering, Lord Derfel,’ she said instead, ‘what brought you here.’

‘Arthur wanted a Dumnonian to witness your brother’s acclamation, Lady,’ I answered.

‘Or did Arthur want to be sure that he would be acclaimed?’ she asked shrewdly.

‘That too,’ I admitted.

She shrugged. ‘There’s no one else who could be King here. My father made certain of that. There was a chieftain called Valerin who might have challenged Cuneglas for the kingship, but we hear Valerin died in the battle.’

‘Yes, Lady, he did,’ I said, but I did not add that it had been I who had killed Valerin in single combat by the ford at Lugg Vale. ‘He was a brave man, and so was your father. I am sorry for you that he’s dead.’

She walked in silence for a few paces as Helledd, Powys’s Queen, watched us suspiciously from the ox-cart. ‘My father,’ Ceinwyn said after a while, ‘was a very bitter man. But he was always good to me.’ She spoke bleakly, but shed no tears. Those tears had all been wept already and now her brother was King and Ceinwyn faced a new future. She hitched up her skirts to negotiate a muddy patch. There had been rain the night before and the clouds to the west promised more soon. ‘So Arthur comes here?’ she asked.

‘Any day now, Lady.’

‘And brings Lancelot?’ she asked.

‘I would think so.’

She grimaced. ‘The last time we met, Lord Derfel, I was to marry Gundleus. Now it is to be Lancelot. One King after another.’

‘Yes, Lady,’ I said. It was an inadequate, even a stupid answer, but I had been struck by the exquisite nervousness that ties a lover’s tongue. All I ever wanted was to be with Ceinwyn, but when I found myself at her side I could not say what was in my soul.

‘And I am to be Queen of Siluria,’ Ceinwyn said, without any relish at the prospect. She stopped and gestured back down the Severn’s wide valley. ‘Just past Dolforwyn,’ she told me, ‘there’s a little hidden valley with a house and some apple trees. And when I was a little girl I always used to think the Otherworld was like that valley; a small, safe place where I could live, be happy and have children.’ She laughed at herself and began walking again. ‘All across Britain there are girls who dream of marrying Lancelot and being a Queen in a palace, and all I want is a small valley with its apple