“Son,” replied Avallach kindly, “it is that already. This disease but increases the work. And, as the toil is multiplied, so too the glory. What God sends we will endure, depending not on our own strength but upon the One who upholds us all. And,” he said, lifting his hand, palm upward, in the manner of a supplicant, “if prayer can avail, I will devote myself to it with a whole and willing heart.”
I was clearly not persuading him otherwise, so I did not press the matter further. “May your prayers prove more potent than any elixir,” I told him.
When our talk concluded a short while later, we left Avallach to his rest. Paulinus, Elfodd, Charis and I walked down to the lake, where the monk showed us the plant which gave the potion its healing power. Putting off his tunic and sandals, and rolling up his trouser legs, he waded into the water—bent-backed, hands on knees, dark eyes searching the cool, green shallows.
In a moment, he stopped and reached into the water and brought up a plant with long green leaves, clusters of small pale pink flowers on a fleshy stem. I knew the plant as that which the lake-dwellers called ffar gros. “This,” he said, pointing to the thick brown root, “when crushed with the leaves and stalks of the garlec and the brillan mawr in equal measure—and the whole prepared as I have told you—provides such benefit as we can supply.” Then, as if proving the taste of the imagined remedy, he added, “I think a little liquor of the rhafnwydden will make it more palatable.”
Returning to the bank, he quickly secured the other plants he had mentioned. For indeed they grow readily in woods and along most watercourses throughout Ynys Prydein. Satisfied with his ingredients, Paulinus led us on to the abbey, where, after obtaining the necessary utensils, he set about preparing the potion, showing us how to strip the stems and roots of the plants before crushing and boiling them together with a small amount of salt water in a pot. The water turned yellow and smelled of rotten eggs.
When he judged it prepared, Paulinus dipped out some of the cloudy liquor with a ladle and blew on it gently. “There are several ways to determine if it is well made,” he said, “but this is the best.” With that he put the ladle to his lips and drank it down. “Yes. It is ready.”
Offering the ladle to each of us in turn, he gave us to drink of the draught. “Taste,” he urged. “There is no harm in it.”
“Pungent,” Charis concluded, wrinkling her nose slightly, “and bitter—though not disagreeable.” She passed the ladle to me, and I sipped some down; the liquid tingled slightly on the tongue.
“If given when the fever first commences,” Paulinus instructed, “the best result is secured, as I say.”
I commended the monk’s sagacity, and said, “This plague will be a match for any man’s best. Your king could use you in the fight. Will you come with me?”
Paulinus was not slow to reply. “I will come with you, Lord Emrys.” He turned in deference to his superior. “If, that is, Abbot Elfodd will permit my absence.”
“Paulinus,” Elfodd said in a fatherly tone, “you have received a summons from the High King. You must go. And, as we somehow endured here before you came, I daresay we shall make out when you have gone. Yes, go. I give you my blessing. Return when your service is completed.”
Paulinus inclined his head. “I am your man, Lord Emrys.”
“Good.”
“We will prepare as much of the potion as we can before you go,” Charis offered. “We will send you away with a goodly supply.”
Elfodd approved her offer. “The brothers stand ready to serve. Many hands will speed the work.”
“I thank you both. I knew it could not be wrong to come here.” To Paulinus I said, “Hurry, now. We will leave as soon as you are ready.”
Charis and I left Elfodd and Paulinus to their work and returned to the palace. She made no sound as we walked along, so I asked, “Are you frightened?”
“Of the plague?” she asked with slight surprise. “Not in the least. In my years on the Glass Isle, I have seen all that illness and disease can do, Hawk. Death no longer holds any terror for me. Why do you ask?”
“You have said nothing since leaving the abbey.”
She smiled wistfully. “It is not from fear of plague, I assure you. If I am reticent it is because you will be leaving soon, and I do not know when I shall see you again.”
“Come with me.”
“Oh, Merlin, I dare not. Would that I could, but—”
“Why not?”
“I will be needed here.”
“Indeed, your skill will be welcomed wherever you go,” I told her. “Arthur would find a place worthy of your skill and renown.” I paused. “I know he would like nothing more than to see you again—Gwenhwyvar, too.”
“And I would like nothing more, I assure you,” she replied. “But my place is here. I have lived so long upon my tor, I could not abandon it now—especially in these troubled days.”
“I wish more had your courage.”
“Bless you, my Hawk. Perhaps when this present difficulty is over, I will come to Caer Melyn and stay a while with you. Yes,” she said, making up her mind. “I will do that.”
While waiting for Paulinus to join me, I rode to Shrine Hill. It was in my mind to spend a moment at the small wattle-and-mud chapel in prayer before returning to the fray. The shrine, on its hump of a hill beside the tor, is kept clean and in good repair by the monks from the abbey. They venerate the place, since it was here the Good News first came to Britain with Joseph, the wealthy tin merchant from Arimathea. The shrine is a simple structure, lime-washed with a reed-thatched roof over a single room containing a small stone altar.
I dismounted outside and entered the cool, dark room to kneel on the bare earth floor before the altar. The feeling of the Savior God’s presence in that crude sanctuary remained as potent as ever—it is an ancient and holy place. Here Arthur was given his vision and call, the night before he received the Sword of Sovereignty from the Lady of the Lake. Here, too, I saw the Grail, that most mysterious and elusive token of God’s blessing and power.
Kneeling in that humble place, I said my prayers, and when I rose once more to continue on my way, it was with strength of heart and soul renewed.
Paulinus and I left Ynys Avallach a short while later; Arthur was waiting and I was anxious to set my plan in motion. It was this: all travel to and from Londinium must cease—every road and riverway sealed off; every settlement and holding must be warned and provided with the elixir. As to that, I would have Paulinus teach ten of the Cymbrogi how to make the potion; these ten, armed with this knowledge, would then range far and wide throughout Ynys Prydein taking word of the plague and instructing others how to combat it. Each monastery and abbey would, like the Glass Isle, become a refuge; the monks and clerics would make the healing potion and dispense it to surrounding settlements and holdings, instructing the people in the ways of combating the disease.
It was, I reflected, a poor strategy with which to fight so powerful an enemy as the Yellow Ravager. Still, it was the only weapon we had and we must use it however we could, seizing any advantage and every opportunity to strike—and strike swiftly.
Accordingly, Paulinus and I raced back along the Briw, retracing the trail to the landing-place where Barinthus and the boat waited. It was late the next day, and the sun was almost down, when I hailed the pilot. While he and Paulinus boarded the horses, I stood watching the gloom deepen across the vale of Mor Hafren, spreading like an oily stain over the water.
It was death I saw, the dissolution of the Summer Kingdom, that fairest flower extinguished in the first flush of its bloom before my eyes. My heart grew heavy within me, and cold.
Great Light, what more can one man do?
The sun had set by the time we reached the far shore, yet the night sky was light, so we hastened on our way, stopping once only to rest and water the horses. We rode through the next day and most of the next night—keeping close watch for the Vandali, but encountering none—and reached the British encampment
before dawn. At our arrival, one of the night guards roused Arthur, who abandoned his bed to greet us.
I protested the intrusion, but he waved it aside. “I would have wakened soon in any event,” he said. “Now we have a moment’s quiet to speak to one another.”
He bade me join him at his tent, where a small fire burned outside. “Gwenhwyvar is still asleep,” he explained as we sat down at the fire.
“I thought I saw more ships on Mor Hafren,” I remarked as we sat down by the fire.
“Lot is here, as you know,” Arthur answered. “Idris and Cunomor have come at last, and Cadwallo arrived the day after you left. They are with Gwalchavad and Cador, who are leading a raid to the south. If all goes well they should return at dawn.”
Rhys appeared bearing a bowl and some cold meat and stale bread. He offered the bowl first to Arthur, who pushed it towards me. “I will have something later,” he said, “but you have ridden hard. Eat, and tell me how you have fared in the Glass Isle.”
“It was God’s own hand that led me there, Arthur,” I told him, breaking the bread. “I was right about the plague.”
“I know,” replied Arthur, “Llenlleawg told me about Caer Uisc. I was wrong to oppose you.”
I waved aside his apology. “I have brought word of a healing potion—among other things.”
“I thought they said there was a monk with you.”
To Rhys I said, “Fetch Paulinus; Arthur will receive him now.”
Yawning—all but swaying on his feet with exhaustion—the monk was led forth. Arthur cast a dubious eye over him. “I give you good greeting, brother,” he said amiably.
Paulinus inclined his head uncertainly. “And I you,” he responded, but, oblivious to the honor paid him, made no further salutation.
“Paulinus!” I said sharply. “Shake off your lethargy, man. Should the High King of Britain not command your attention?”
Paulinus’ eyes grew wide as he snapped himself erect. “Lord Arthur! Forgive me, my king; I did not know it was you. I thought—” He gestured vaguely towards the tent as if expecting a different king to appear still. “I thought that you would be a much older man.”
Arthur enjoyed this. “Who then did you think me?”
“I took you for a steward,” Paulinus blurted, much chagrined. “The Pendragon of Britain,” he began. “Forgive me, lord. Jesu have mercy, I meant no disrespect.”
“I forgive you readily,” Arthur said. “I see you stand in need of sleep. I will not keep you from it. Come to me when you are better rested and we will talk.” To Rhys he said, “Find this monk some place to lay his head where he will not be wakened by everyone who passes. And give him something to eat if he is hungry.”
“Thank you, lord,” said Paulinus. Then, grateful to be relieved of further embarrassment, he gave an awkward bow and scurried after Rhys.
The High King watched him go, shaking his head slightly. “I trust you know what you are doing.”
“He will serve,” I assured him. “He lacks experience of kings: he has spent more time in the company of plants and healing herbs than that of noblemen and princes.”
“Then he is what we need now,” Arthur said, and added in a sour tone, “not another grasping lord who thinks he knows better than his king how to wage war on the invader.”
“It is going badly, then?”
Arthur picked up a stick, snapped it, and threw the pieces into the fire, deliberately, one after the other. “Some would say so.”
“How does the matter stand?”
He frowned into the fire. Behind him the sky lightened to a clear dawn. “The Black Boar and his piglets have fled into the hills,” he said, and I heard frustration in his tone, “and it is the devil’s own work to get at them. With every raid we merely push them deeper into the glens.” He threw another stick at the flames. “I tell you the truth, Myrddin, they are more stubborn than badgers to root out.”
He paused and brightened somewhat. “Now that Lot, Idris, and the others have come we may begin to make better account of ourselves. Jesu knows we are doing all we can.”
Gwenhwyvar, wakened by our talk, emerged quietly from the tent. She was dressed in a thin white mantle, her hair wound in a strip of soft white cloth. She settled easily beside Arthur, who put his arm around her shoulders and drew her to him. “Greetings, Myrddin,” she said. “Have you a good word for us?”
“No, the word is not good. Plague is indeed upon us, and there is no remedy.”
“Then we must prepare as best we can.”
“Yet my journey was not without some small consolation,” I added quickly. “For I have brought a monk who understands much about the disease; he is going to help us. I also learned this: the pestilence likely issues from Londinium—the harbor there serve many foreign vessels. Paulinus tells me that plague often follows the trading fleet.”
Gwenhwyvar caught the full implication of my words at once. “Londinium,” she gasped. “But Cador is on his way there now.”
“He will be stopped,” Arthur said. “It may be that he has not reached the city yet.”
“Londinium must be sealed off,” I said. “All roads must be guarded, and the rivers. No one must enter or leave until the disease has run its course.”
“That means we cannot count on fresh supplies from Londinium’s markets,” Gwenhwyvar said. “Blessed Jesu….” She leaned instinctively against her husband for comfort. “What are we to do, Artos?”
“We will fight this enemy like any other.”
“But it is not like any other enemy,” she snapped. “It spreads on the wind. It slays all without regard, and neither sword nor shield is proof against it.”
“All that can be done, we will do.”
“I must go to my father,” she said, already thinking ahead. “They must be told.”
“No,” he told her bluntly. “You will not go.”
“But I must warn my people. It may be that—”
“They will be warned,” he replied firmly. “But I need you here.” His tone removed all dissent.
“First, we must tell the noblemen,” I suggested. “They will want to send word to their people. The disease cannot have spread far yet.”
Arthur stood. “Rhys!” A heartbeat later, the High King’s steward stood beside him. “Summon the lords to attend me at once.” As Rhys dashed away, the king said, “What will come of this, God alone knows.”
The lords answered Rhys’ call and assembled around Arthur’s fire, a ring of faces—some concerned, others merely curious. Arthur did not bid them sit down, but stood before them grave and solemn; he wasted no words. “Plague has come to Britain,” he said simply. “You must send riders to warn your people.”
The noblemen gazed at Arthur in astonishment, and looked to one another for explanation. “Is this so?” they wondered in shocked voices. “How can it be?”
“Trust that it is so,” the king told them. “The plague follows the trading fleet; foreign merchants have brought this pestilence to our land.”
“Tell us,” called one of the kings, “what is the nature of this pestilence? How is it to be fought?”
Arthur indicated that I should tell them what I knew of it. “This plague is known from elder times as the Scourge of the East,” I began. “It is the Yellow Death, a sickness which spreads with the swiftness and voracity of fire. By these signs it may be known: the flesh fluctuates between intense fever and numbing chill; the limbs tremble and shake; noxious fluids bloat the body, but there is no purging of the bladder. In the final extremity, the skin turns yellow and the victim vomits blood. Death brings release in the space of two days—three at most.”
“Yet, we are not without some hope,” Arthur continued. “We have with us a monk who knows how best to battle this Yellow Ravager. Now you will all summon such messengers as you deem best to ride to your clans and tribes and warn them of the danger.”
“Messengers!” cried Ogryvan. “I will go myself. My people will hear of this plagu
e from no mere messenger. I will not abandon my realm in its crisis.”
Others made similar objection, but Arthur stood firm. “I need you here,” he replied. “The battle is joined. You cannot leave.”
“Cannot leave!” roared Brastias. “Cannot! I give my aid freely, or not at all. I alone determine when I shall come and go.”
“I am your king,” Arthur reminded him, his voice hard-edged as Caledvwlch. “As you have pledged me fealty, I hold authority over you. It is my right to command, and I order you to stay.”
“I, too, am a king,” Brastias replied loftily. “The fealty I pledged is but token of the kingship I hold. If I may not rule even so much as my own movements, whether I stay or go, then I hold no more authority than the lowest servant in my house.”
Arthur fixed him with a look of withering disdain. He checked his anger before answering. “You know best what manner of king you are,” he replied, his voice low. “And I will not make bold to dispute your claim. But you do those you deem beneath you an injustice when you compare their rank to yours.”
Brastias swelled with rage. Arthur allowed him no time to reply. “Time is precious to those we must warn, and we waste it chattering about rights and rule. Summon your riders and send them to Myrddin. He will instruct them.”
Turmoil erupted at this command. The night’s lingering calm was shattered by shouts of alarm as the fearful tidings spread from camp to camp. Arthur gathered the Dragon Flight and chose three from among the volunteers to ride north, bearing the warning to the lords who were on the way to join us—Ector especially—and any other settlements they passed. He also selected a force—two hundred men, who would be sorely missed from the ranks—to lay siege to Londinium. These he dispatched with all haste in the hope that they might stop Cador on his way to the markets.
As this guardian force departed, those closest to Arthur sat in council with him: Gwenhwyvar, Bedwyr, Cai, Llenlleawg, and myself. “Can anything be done?” asked Cai, speaking aloud the question foremost in everyone’s mind.