“Do I look wounded?” the High King asked. “A touch of fever troubled my sleep. I am better now.”
Arthur began to move among his beloved Cymbrogi then, speaking to them, calling them by name, asking after their wives and families. This one he knew had a new son, that one had just married a woman from the south, another trained hounds, still others were sons of former soldiers—Arthur knew them all. Remarkable, I thought, that he should know the small concerns of each man. But this he appeared to do. And I heard in their replies to Arthur, and in the banter that accompanied their talk, enormous relief. Clearly, they had been worried for their king and were now reassured.
The Pendragon moved off in the company of his men, and soon the sport began once more. I watched for a time, then returned to my duties. I gathered firewood and refilled all the water jars, then took a horse from the picket and rode to a nearby hilltop to cut fresh heather for the Pendragon’s bed-place. As the sun touched the western hills, I returned to camp with my bundle of heather.
The Emrys was waiting for me outside the Pendragon’s tent. He had the pouch of stone-carving tools in his hand, for he had been at work in the Round Table. “Where is he?”
I pointed to the valley. “With the Cymbrogi. He awoke and went down to them.”
The Emrys turned, walked across the camp, and started down to the valley. Suddenly alarmed, I threw myself from the saddle and hastened after him.
Sunlight the color of golden honey mead filled the valley. The sky shone like molten brass, the field like emeralds. We came upon Arthur sitting on a stone as on a throne, his spear across his lap, eyes half-closed, a smile upon his lips. Gwenhwyvar stood beside him, her hand on his right shoulder, watching the contest before them: two riders speeding at full gallop to snatch an armring from the grass with the point of a spear. She turned her head toward us and smiled, but her smile was tight and unnatural.
“Arthur,” said the Emrys softly.
The Pendragon opened his eyes and turned to greet his Wise Counsellor. “It is a fine day, is it not?”
“Yes. How do you feel?”
“I am well.”
“When the sun sets, it will grow cold. We should return to camp now.”
“But the sun is not gone yet,” said Arthur. “Sit with me a little while.”
“Gladly,” replied the Emrys, kneeling next to him.
The three of them watched the riders for some small time. The sun dipped lower, and the shadows crept long. The sky paled; the brilliant colors faded. Seabirds circled overhead, keening their mournful call to the dying day. I heard the waves tumbling on the nearby shore. The light in the valley dimmed.
The Emrys stood and touched Arthur on the arm. The Pendragon stirred—he had fallen asleep. However, he stood at Myrddin’s touch, straightened himself, and called the victors of the contest to him. With good words he praised their prowess, while Gwenhwyvar presented them gifts of gemstones. When this custom had been served, Arthur bade farewell to his men and returned to camp.
At supper, we ate roast venison which some of the warriors had stalked in the nearby wood earlier in the day, and drank ale from the stocks aboard the ships. The night came on cold and damp, as the Emrys said it would, so the fires were banked high. Gwenhwyvar and Bedwyr tried on several occasions to persuade Arthur to withdraw to his tent to rest, but the Pendragon would not.
Instead, he insisted that he should remain with his lords and battlechiefs and called for a song. Myrddin Emrys at first resisted the summons, but at length consented and ordered his harp to be brought to him. “Which of the tales of Britain would you hear, Pendragon?”
Arthur’s brow wrinkled in thought as he paused, then answered, “It is not of Britain that I would hear tonight, but of the Otherworld. A cold night, with a fresh wind blowing—on storm-tossed nights like this such tales should be told.”
“Very well,” agreed Myrddin Wledig, “hear then, if you will, the song of Bladydd, the Blemished King.”
I wondered at this choice, for it is an obscure tale and very strange—concerning a prince with a voracious hunger for wisdom, who falls foul of an Otherworld king and is blighted and eventually destroyed by the very knowledge he sought. But the company of lords and battlechiefs loved this tale, and indeed, it was beautifully sung by the Exalted Emrys, last of the True Bards of the Island of the Mighty.
The tale grew long in its telling, and when it was over Arthur bade his companions sleep well and with Gwenhwyvar on his arm went to his tent. I stretched myself on the red calfskin next to the fire, wrapped my cloak tightly around me, and went to sleep.
In the night I heard urgent voices. I arose and saw torchlight flickering inside the Pendragon’s tent. Something was wrong. My stomach tightened in alarm.
The camp was dark, and no one else was about. I crept to the tent and peered inside.
Bedwyr and the Emrys were with him. Gwenhwyvar stood a little apart, her hands at her side, twisting her silken mantle in tight fists. Blood smeared her face and the front of her mantle.
“Lie still, Bear,” Bedwyr was saying. “Let the Emrys care for you.”
“Be easy, brother,” said Arthur in a rasping voice. “I am going to get up now. I cannot let the Cymbrogi see me here like this.”
The Emrys toiled at the wound; his hands were dripping with Arthur’s blood.
“The Cymbrogi have seen you lie about before,” Bedwyr told him. “They are well used to the sight. Be quiet now.”
“I will not! Help me stand.” He snatched at Bedwyr’s cloak and made to pull himself up. The covering slipped from around his neck. I saw the wound and gasped.
It was a ghastly green-grey, with violet, thread-like fingers stretching across the Pendragon’s shoulder. The flesh along the original cut was withered, black, and rotting. Arthur’s neck was red and inflamed from his throat to his armpit. The wound had apparently burst in the night—the pain must have been unbearable!—and the Emrys had been called to stop the bleeding.
“I am finished,” said Myrddin at last. “I can do nothing more here.”
Bedwyr and the Emrys put their arms around Arthur’s wide shoulders and raised him up.
“We have made an end of Medraut at last,” Arthur said carelessly. “It will be a cold day in Hell before anyone dares attack the Emperor of Britain again. Where is Gwenhwyvar?”
“She waits over there a little,” Myrddin Emrys told him.
“I hope she is not hurt…”
“No, she is well. Arthur,” said the Emrys, speaking in low, urgent tones. “Your wound is swollen and has broken open. I am at the end of my skill, Arthur—do you understand? I can do nothing more for you, but I know where help can be found.”
Bedwyr glanced up and saw me. He motioned me closer and gripped my shoulder hard. “Quickly!” he said in a voice tight with dread. “Go find Barinthus and tell him to make ready a boat.” I stepped to the tent flap and Bedwyr added, “Aneirin—take care. No one else can know.”
Alarm and dread warring in me, I dashed away to rouse Arthur’s pilot and charge him with this secret task. Barinthus was never difficult to find, for he always stayed near the ships. I hastened down the hill track, a stiff wind whipping my cloak against my legs. Rags of cloud streamed across the moon; the white-crested wavetops glinted darkly in the shifty and uncertain light.
I made directly for the lone campfire fluttering on the shore before the dark hump of a small skin-covered tent just above the high tide mark. “Barinthus!” I hissed amid the sough and moan of wind and waves.
He stirred and thrust his head out through the hide-covered opening, and I charged him with Bedwyr’s command. He ducked back into his shelter for his lamp, and emerged wearing his bearskin. He marched into the tide-flow to where his coracle was moored.
I hurried back across the beach and saw the glimmer of a guttering torch on the hill track above me. Bedwyr and Myrddin, with Arthur sagging between them, met me as I reached the foot of the hill. Gwenhwyvar, holding a torch in one h
and and the High King’s sword in the other, went before them.
“The boat is being readied,” I told Bedwyr.
“Was anyone with Barinthus?”
“He was alone. No one else knows.”
“Good.” The Emrys gazed out onto the sea. Though the wind still blew and the sea ran strong, the waves were not driven overmuch. “It will be a rough voyage, but swift. All the better. We have a little time yet.”
“I am going to sit you down now, Arthur.” Bedwyr shifted the High King’s weight.
“No—I will stand. Please, Bedwyr. Only a little longer.”
“Very well.”
“Bedwyr, my brother…”
“What is it, Bear?”
“Look to Gwenhwyvar. See that she is cared for.”
Bedwyr swallowed hard. “Do that yourself, Bear.”
“If anything happens to me.”
“Very well…if you wish it,” Bedwyr told him, pulling the red cloak more closely around Arthur’s shoulders.
The Pendragon could scarcely lift his head. His speech had grown soft, almost a whisper. “Myrddin,” he said softly, “I am sorry I could not be the king you wanted me to be—the Summer King.”
“You were the king God wanted. Nothing else matters.”
“I did all you ever asked of me, did I not, my father?”
“No man could have done more.”
“It was enough, was it not?”
“Arthur, my soul, it was enough,” Myrddin said softly. “Rest you now.”
The queen stepped close and handed me the torch. She embraced her husband and held him. “Rest your head on my shoulder,” she said, and placed her cheek against his. They stood like this for a long moment and Gwenhwyvar spoke soothing words into his ear. I did not hear what she said.
After a moment we heard a whistle. Bedwyr turned. “It is Barinthus. The boat is ready.”
I walked ahead, holding the torch high to light the way across the stone-strewn beach to the water’s edge where Barinthus had brought the boat. He had chosen a small, stout vessel with a single mast and a heavy rudder. There was a tented covering in the center of the craft where Arthur could rest.
I waded into the water and stood beside the boat, with the torch lifted high. The wave-chop slapped the boat and rocked it from side to side; I gripped the rail with my free hand to help steady it. Bedwyr and Myrddin made to carry Arthur to the boat, but he refused. The Pendragon of Britain strode into the water on his own strength and boarded the pitching craft.
While Barinthus busied himself with the sail, the queen fussed over Arthur to make him comfortable beneath the canopy. At last the Emrys said, “We must go. It will be dawn soon, and we must be well away before we are seen.”
“Let me go with you,” Gwenhwyvar pleaded.
“You are needed here, Gwenhwyvar. You and Bedwyr must buy Arthur time to heal,” Myrddin explained. “I tell you the truth, I fear for the world if knowledge of Arthur’s weakness reaches Britain’s enemies. No one can know,” the Emrys said earnestly. “See you keep the secret well.
“Tomorrow, send the lords back to their realms and the Cymbrogi back to Caer Lial. I will return here in three days and bring Arthur with me, or take you to be with him.”
Gwenhwyvar clutched at Arthur’s hand. “Have no fear,” Arthur whispered. “I go to Avallon for my healing. I will return when I am strong once more. Wait for me but a little.”
Gwenhwyvar nodded and said no more. She knelt and kissed Arthur with a lingering kiss. “Farewell, my soul,” she whispered, and pressed the sword Caliburnus into her husband’s hand.
“Bedwyr—he should have it,” Arthur protested weakly.
“Keep it,” Bedwyr replied. “You will need it when you return.”
Gwenhwyvar kissed Arthur and laid her head against his chest. She whispered something, and he smiled—I do not know what she said. She climbed from the boat and watched as Bedwyr and I pushed it into deeper water. Once free of the sand, the pilot turned the bow toward the open sea and raised the sail.
The Emrys stood and called to us. “Have no fear! Arthur will return. Keep faith, my friends. The final danger has not come. Wait for us!”
We three stood on the strand and watched the boat draw away. We watched until the small, bright point of light that was Barinthus’ lamp disappeared into the cloud-wracked darkness of the sea and night. Grief sharp as a spearthrust pierced my heart. For in the mournful sigh of wind and wave, I heard the lament for the lost.
A seabird disturbed from his night’s rest took wing above us and raised a solitary keen. Seeking some word of consolation, I said, “If there is healing for him anywhere in this worlds-realm, he will find it in Avallon.”
Gwenhwyvar, dark eyes gleaming with unshed tears, pulled her cloak high around her shoulders, then turned away, straightened her back, and began ascending the hill track. Bedwyr stood long, gazing into the void, the restless wave-wash around his feet. I stood with him, my heart near to breaking. At last he reached out to me, took the torch from my hand, and with a mighty heave threw it into the sea. I watched its flaming arc plunge like a star falling earthward, and heard it hiss as it struck the sea and died.
11
“Mryddin should have returned before now. Something is wrong!” Bedwyr threw down his bowl and stood up.
“He said to wait. What else can we do?” Gwenhwyvar asked, her voice raw with torment.
“He said he would come back in three days. Well, the third day has passed and he has not returned!”
Indeed, since dawn, when I arose and took up my place of vigil, we had watched and waited, gazing out over the western sea whence the Emrys’ boat would come. I stood my watch all day, relieved by Bedwyr from time to time, or Gwenhwyvar, or sometimes both at once. We talked of this and that, small things, matters of no consequence. The one thing we did not mention was the boat, though our thoughts were full of nothing else.
The day had faded into a dull and sullen sunset. Still, none of us saw so much as a thread of sail or a sliver of mast. But one day before, the bay had been alive with ships. The queen had let it be known that the Pendragon and his Wise Counsellor were communing together and did not wish to be disturbed. She bade the lords and kings of Britain return each one to his own realm and await the High King’s pleasure. The Cymbrogi she ordered back to Caer Lial.
Fergus and Ban grew anxious and approached the queen in private. Yet, through all her assurances Gwenhwyvar protected the secret and gave nothing away, though her heart was breaking all the while.
Bors, Cador, and Rhys had been the last to leave. They insisted that they would wait and ride to the palace with the king, but Gwenhwyvar urged them to hasten back and see to readying the Pendragon’s palace for his return—much had been ruined by the Picti. In the end, they reluctantly agreed and rode away so that by evening of the second day we three were alone on Round Table hill.
Then we had waited and watched as the sun climbed to its full height and started its long slow slide to the west. But the sea remained empty; no boat appeared. Nor did we see any sign of it at dusk, when Bedwyr set a beacon fire on the beach below the hill.
Now we sat in silence before the Pendragon’s tent. The red-gold dragon standard rippled in the evening breeze. As if in answer to Bedwyr’s outburst, a flight of gulls wheeling overhead began screaming. Their complaint echoed up from the valley below. Bedwyr gazed at the bowl he had thrown down and kicked it aside. “We should not have let him go,” he muttered, his voice full of reproach and pain.
“Then we will go to him,” Gwenhwyvar said softly. She turned to me, and placed her hand on my arm. “You have been to the island, Aneirin.”
“Several times, yes. As you have been, my lady.”
“You will pilot,” declared Bedwyr.
“But we have no boat!” I pointed out.
“Arthur the Shipbuilder is our lord,” sniffed Bedwyr, “and this fellow says we have no boat. I will get one.”
“Then I will be yo
ur pilot—may God go with us,” I answered.
Bedwyr saddled one of the horses and left at once. Gwenhwyvar and I spent a fretful dusk before the fire, neither one of us speaking. She withdrew to her tent when the moon rose, and I spread my red calfskin before the entrance and lay down with a spear next to me—no fire to warm or cheer me, no roof above me but the stars of Heaven, bright with holy fire.
I lay down, but I did not sleep. All night long I twisted and turned on my calfskin, watching the long, slow progression of the moon across the sky and praying to Jesu to protect us—which he did. At last, just before dawn I slipped into a strange sleep: deep, yet alert. I knew myself asleep, yet I heard the sea moan on the shore below the hill and the wind sigh through the grass around me.
It was the time between times, neither day nor night, darkness nor light, when the gates of this world and the next stand open. The restless wash of the sea below the cliffs sounded like the troubled murmurings of distant crowds in my ears. The wind-sigh became the whisper of Otherworld beings bidding me rise and follow.
I lay in that Otherworldy place and dreamed a dream.
In my dream I awoke and opened my eyes and I saw green Avallon, Isle of Apples, fairest island that is in this world, next to the Island of the Mighty. I heard the strange, enchanting music of Rhiannon’s birds, and I smelled the sweet fragrance of apple blossoms. On my lips I tasted the warmth of honey mead, and I arose.
I walked along the wayworn path from the sea-cliff to the Fisher King’s palace. Where the palace should have been I saw nothing but a Cross of Jesu wrought of stone and lying on the ground—and beside it, a leather pouch containing Myrddin’s stone-carving tools. I bent down to trace the words inscribed upon it, but a cloud passed over the sun and the light grew dim, and I could not read what had been written there.
I looked to the east and saw stars glimmering in the sky, though still the sun shone in the west. Storm clouds gathered above me. Lightning flashed, and thunder quaked. The whole earth began to tremble with the sound.