Here Lies Arthur

  WINNER of the CILIP Carnegie Medal

  Bronze Medal Winner – Nestlé Children’s Book Prize

  “A masterpiece”

  Sunday Telegraph

  “Brilliant … an absorbing and emotionally engaging work”

  Amanda Craig, The Times

  “Beautifully written without a dull word …

  this is historical writing at its best”

  Independent

  “A majestic achievement, richly evoking time and place, and full of resonance for today”

  Nicolette Jones, The Sunday Times

  “A compelling narrative”

  Bookseller

  “Reeve is a terrific writer and at times this novel packs real emotional heft and more than a little adult sensibility”

  Toby Clements, The Times

  “Electrifying … a strikingly vivid glimpse into dark-age Britain.”

  Booktrusted

  “Every novel that Reeve writes becomes a bestseller in our stores straight away. This should be no exception. A retelling of the beloved legend by one of the country’s best storytellers.”

  Julian Exposito (Borders UK),

  The Bookseller’s Children’s Buyer’s Guide

  “I loved it… If an author is going to retell these stories, they had better offer something new and different – and Philip has delivered on both counts.”

  John McLay

  “Philip Reeve has taken the tale of Camelot and given it an intriguing and strikingly contemporary twist”

  Daily Mail

  “A vivid new take on the story of Arthur … masterful writing”

  Time Out

  “Stylishly taut prose”

  Daily Telegraph

  “Reeve is master of young adult fiction”

  Scotsman

  “Brilliant. A wonderfully irreverent reworking of the King Arthur legend”

  Guardian

  “A witty retelling of the Arthur legend, which has plenty of mud and gore and reads more like fantasy than history”

  Elle

  “Roars along like a charging cohort of Saxon soldiers, and will leave older children thrilling in its wake”

  Literary Review

  About the Author

  PHILIP REEVE

  was born in Brighton in 1966. He worked in a bookshop for many years before breaking out and becoming an illustrator – providing cartoons for various books, including several of the Horrible Histories series. He has been writing since he was five, but Mortal Engines was his first published book. He lives with his wife and son on Dartmoor.

  His children’s novels have been nominated for the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and the WHSmith People’s Choice Awards, and have won the CILIP Carnegie Medal, the Blue Peter Book of the Year, the Nestlé Book Prize Gold Award and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize.

  By Philip Reeve

  Fever Crumb

  Mortal Engines

  Predator’s Gold

  Infernal Devices

  A Darkling Plain

  Here Lies Arthur

  In the BUSTER BAYLISS series:

  Night of the Living Veg

  The Big Freeze

  Day of the Hamster

  Custardfinger

  Larklight

  Starcross

  Mothstorm

  For Geraldine McCaughrean

  NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION

  Before English existed, people in Britain spoke a language similar to Welsh. At the back of the book, there is a guide to how some of the names and place names in Here Lies Arthur might have been pronounced.

  HIC IACET ARTHURUS, REX QUONDAM REXQUE FUTURUS

  Here lies Arthur – King that was, King that will be again.

  Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d’Arthur

  Contents

  Cover

  Here Lies Arthur

  About the Author

  By Philip Reeve

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Note on Pronunciation

  Epigraph

  South–West Britain

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLIII

  XLIV

  XLV

  XLVI

  XLVII

  XLVIII

  XLIX

  L

  LI

  Author’s Note

  Note on Pronunciation

  Copyright

  SOUTH–WEST BRITAIN

  AROUND AD 500

  I

  Even the woods are burning. I plunge past the torched byre and hard into the shoulder-deep growth of brambles between the trees, but there’s fire ahead of me as well as behind. The hall on the hill’s top where I thought I’d find shelter is already blazing. I can hear men’s voices baying like hounds on a scent, the hooves of horses on the winter earth like drums. I see their shadows long before the riders themselves come in sight. Fingers of darkness stretch from their raggedy banners, reaching through the smoke which hangs beneath the trees. I duck sideways into a brambled hollow and wriggle deep. Thorns tug at my dress and snag my hair. The ground’s frosty. Hard and cold under my knees and fingers. Fear drags little noises out of me. I squeak and whimper like a hunted cub.

  But it’s not me these horsemen are hunting. I’m nothing to them. Just a lost girl-child scurrying across the corners of their war. They thunder past without seeing me, the firelight bright on spears and swords, on mail and burnished helmets, on shield bosses and harness buckles and fierce faces lit up like lanterns. Their leader’s out in front on a white horse. Big, he is. Shiny as a fish in his coat of silver scales. The cheek-guards of his helmet ripple with fire-gleam and his teeth between them are gleaming too, bared in a hard shout.

  You’ve heard of him. Everyone’s heard of Arthur. Artorius Magnus; the Bear; the Dux Bellorum; the King that Was and Will Be. But you haven’t heard the truth. Not till now. I knew him, see. Saw him, smelled him, heard him talk. When I was a boy I rode with Arthur’s band all up and down the world, and I was there at the roots and beginnings of all the stories.

  That was later, of course. For now I’m still a snotnosed girl, crouched in the brambles, giddy with the thump and stink of horses and so still that you’d think I’d been turned to a stone by my first glimpse of the Bear.

  I didn’t know then who he was, nor why he’d led his fierce, shiny riders to burn my home. All I knew was it was unnatural. Wrong as snow in summer or the sun at midnight. War’s a thing for autumn, when the harvest’s in and the rains not yet come to turn the roads to mud. When men can be spared to go harrying into other lands and carrying off other men’s grain and cattle. So what do these horsemen mean by coming here in winter’s dark, with the trees bare and the hay-stores half empty and cat ice starring and smashing on the puddles they ride their horses over? Are they even men at all? They look to me like Dewer’s Hunt. They look like the Four Riders of the world’s end I’ve heard the mo
nks talk about up at Lord Ban’s hall. Though there’s more than four of them. Five, seven, ten, more than I can count, heaving uphill on a steep sea of horse-muscle.

  Uphill, and past me, and gone. Their wild voices blur into the crackle of burning brush and the steady bellowing of scared cattle from the byres. I sneeze on the smoke as I make myself move, slithering across the flank of the hill, over the knuckles of tree-roots, over the granite boulders furry with moss, through sinks of dead leaves in the hollows. Don’t ask me where I’m going. Away from the burning. Away from those angry riders. Just away is good enough for now.

  But then I reach the road, down at the bridge where it crosses the river, and there’s another of the raiders there. His horse has come down in trampled mud at the bridge’s end and the battle has left him behind. He’s on foot, furious, flailing at the horse with the flat of his sword. A young man, his white face framed by wings of red-gold hair, a thin beard clinging to his jaw like fluff the wind has blown there. His eyes are full of angry tears and a desperate hunger for blood. Even the blood of a girl-child, I realize, as I somersault out of the scratchy undergrowth and land thump on the path before him. He forgets the horse and comes at me. With his blade in front of me, the steeps and fire behind, I turn, looking for a way out.

  Ways out are all I have been looking for this evening, ever since I woke in my master’s house to find the thatch ablaze, the women screeching, the men scrambling sleepily for staves and spears and sickles. I remember how the shadows of horsemen flicked past the open doorway. How my master had run out shouting and how a sword came down on his head and made the women screech louder. How I scrambled between the horses’ legs and over a fence the pigs had trampled down in panic. Gwyna the Mouse they call me, and like a mouse I always have the sense to scurry out of trouble.

  Except that now all my quickness and cunning have brought me to this: a dead end, cut off short by a shouting boy.

  And for once I’m more angry than afraid. Angry at myself for running into his way, and angry at him and his friends for their stupid, unseasonal war. Why couldn’t they stay at home, wherever their home is? I dart at the boy, and he flinches back, as if he thinks I mean to fight him. But mice don’t fight. I duck by him quick, feeling the wind of his sword past my face, hearing the hiss of sliced air. I run towards the bridge, where his terrified horse is heaving up, mud and white eyes and a smoke of dragon-breath. I go sideways to avoid it, and lose my footing on the ice, and fall, and keep on falling.

  And I leave the fire and the noise behind me, leave everything, and dive down alone through darkness into the dark river.

  II

  The first shock of that cold water jarred my teeth and made my lungs go tight. I surfaced in the shadows under the bridge, and heard the boy above me, screaming curses at his horse. I turned circles, paddling with my hands. This mouse could swim. Raised near the river, I’d been in and out of it as long as I could remember. In summer me and the other children of the place came down at evening when the day’s work ended to splash and shout until the light died. In autumn, master had me dive in to set his fish-traps. Open-eyed in the hubble and swirl below the rapids, I’d wedge the long wicker creels in place, then lift them out later full of plump, speckled fish.

  So I took a deep breath and dived, kicking out hard, letting the river drag me away from sword-boy. Gritty water pressed against my eyes. I could see only darkness, with here and there an orange fire-gleam slanting down. It was easier to find my way by touch. I pawed over slimy boulders to the first bend below the bridge and came up for air, yelping and gasping in the clatter of the rapids. The current tugged at me, reminding me of all the things that haunt rivers, ready to drag unwary children under with their long, green hands. I was scared of them, but the raiders scared me more.

  I slid down into a calmer pool and trod water there, listening for the sounds of battle. There was nothing, only the voices of the river and the woods. Far off, the farm where I’d grown up was burning like a dropped torch. I wondered if all master’s household were dead. There had been no love between me and them – I was just a hanger-on, the whelp of some dead slave-woman. But still that farmstead was the only home I’d known. Out of pity for myself I cried and cried, adding my tears to the river till the cold clutched and shook me and set all my teeth a-rattle.

  At last, just to keep warm, I started swimming again. Downstream, letting the river do the work. I kept my head above the surface this time. If you’d been watching from the bank you’d think you’d seen an otter, scared from its hole by the fighting upriver and heading for quieter fishing grounds. I swam until the trees parted above me to let the sky show and the river widened into a deep pool. Another river joined it there, coming down off the moors and tipping into the pool in a long fall, pale in the moonshine like an old man’s beard.

  There, cold as a ghost, wet as a drowned dog, I came ashore, heaving myself out by the tangle of tree-roots that reached out of the bank. I flopped into the litter of beechmast and dead leaves between the trees and made a little ball of myself, trying to hug some warmth back into my juddering, shuddering limbs. The noise of the water filled my head. Where would I go now? What would I eat? Who would I serve? I didn’t know. Didn’t care either. There was no more feeling left in me than in a hearthful of cold ashes. When feet came scuffing through the fallen leaves and stopped beside me I didn’t even look up, just knelt there, shivering.

  III

  It was dark under those trees. I couldn’t see the man who lifted me and carried me away from the pool. I couldn’t see his waiting horse, though I felt it snort and stamp when he hung me over its saddle like a blanket-roll. I didn’t see him till we reached shelter. It was an old building from the Roman times, big and pale in the owl-light, half sunk in furze and trees. He led the horse right inside, and small, loose tiles slid and scraped beneath its hooves as if the place was floored with teeth, or knucklebones. He lifted me down from the horse’s back and laid me in a corner. I was too scared to look at him. He moved about quietly, kindling a fire. Big shadows shifted across the walls. Traces of paint clung to the plaster. Ivy hung down thick through the rotted cage of rafters overhead, rustly and whispering. I squinched my eyes shut. I thought if I was small enough, and still enough, and quiet enough, he might forget me.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  I opened one eye. He was crouching by me. He wore a shabby black travelling cloak fastened with a flashy, complicated brooch. A jangle of charms and amulets hung round his neck. Horse charms, moon charms, paw of a hare. Magic things. In the shadow of his hood his face gave away no secrets. Sallow, sharp-nosed, beardless. Was he a priest? He wasn’t dressed like one, but I’d never seen a man clean-shaved who wasn’t a priest or a high-born warrior, and this was no warrior. Fine-boned like a hawk, he looked. Quick and birdy in his movements too. And his eyes were hawk’s eyes, patient and clever.

  What did he want with me?

  “Hungry?” he asked again. He stretched out the palm of his hand towards me and suddenly a hunk of bread was between his fingers. I shuffled backwards, pressing my spine against the wall. I was afraid of him and his magic bread.

  He laughed. “It’s only a trick, girl. Look close.” He folded his hand over the bread and when he opened it again the bread was gone. He waggled his fingers and the bread was back. It perched on his palm like a baby bird. He held it towards me again but I closed my mouth tight and turned my face away. I didn’t know much but I knew to fear magic.

  Another laugh. A ripply sound, like water running in the first thaw of spring. “Scared it’ll make you sleep a thousand years? Or witch you away to my kingdom under the hill?” He pushed the bread back inside his clothes and went about his business. He took a saddlebag from his horse and opened it, pulling out a cooking pot, a sack of food, a stained old blanket that he wrapped around me. All the time he talked to me softly, the way a farrier whispers to a scared horse.

  “I’m as mortal as you, girl. I am Myrddin. The bard Myrddin.
You know what a bard is, don’t you, girl? A traveller and spinner of tales. There’s my harp, bundled in oilcloth, see? It was I who thought you came from the otherworld. Creeping out of the lake like that. You must swim like a fish. I thought you were the lake-woman herself, come up from her home under the waters to steal my heart away. But you’re a little young yet, aren’t you, to be stealing anything but apples and barley cakes? How many summers have you seen? Nine? Ten?”

  I managed a shivery shrug. Nobody had ever told me how old I was. Nobody had ever asked before.

  “And have you a name?” He crouched down again on the far side of the fire and watched me. He threw back his hood, baring cropped, greying hair. The flame light stroked his face and gleamed in his eyes. He wore a look you could have taken for kindness.

  “Gwyna,” I said.

  “So you can speak! And where have you come from, Gwyna?”

  “From my master’s farm. Up that way.” I pointed with my head. My voice sounded very small and dull compared with his, as though the river-water had washed all the colour out of it. But it made the lights in his eyes flare up like embers when a breeze catches them.

  “You’ve come from Ban’s place?”

  I nodded numbly. Ban was my master’s master: lord of the fort on the hill above my burned home, and all the lands you could see from that hill.

  “But it must be miles from here…”

  “Not so far by river,” I said. “I swam all the way.”

  “Like a fish.” He was looking at me different now. I started to feel pleased. Nobody had ever cared much what I was or did before.