Here Lies Arthur Read online

  “She’s in love,” Celemon told me one morning while we knelt behind Gwenhwyfar in the church. “She has conceived a passion for Medrawt.”

  “That’s nonsense,” I whispered back.

  “Well what would you know about it, Gwyna? What would you know about love? Medrawt is a better Christian than Arthur. I saw her speak to Bedwyr in the forum yesterday. And Bedwyr’s Medrawt’s kinsman. Don’t you see? He was passing on a message…”

  “Bedwyr’s Arthur’s kinsman, too,” I reminded her. “Bedwyr has more sense than to betray Arthur.”

  Above my lady Gwenhwyfar’s bowed head Bishop Bedwin waved his hands about, in that way God seems to like. I suppose God must have known her secret, but did the bishop? Bedwin had known her since she was a little girl. Maybe he was happy to see her happy. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to condemn her. Maybe he, too, was hoping Bedwyr might rid us of Arthur.

  XXXIV

  A secret’s a weighty thing to carry. I wondered often if I should hunt Myrddin out and tell him about Gwenhwyfar and Bedwyr. After all, I was meant to be his spy, wasn’t I? I couldn’t decide. Sometimes I thought no, my mistress was kind to me, I shouldn’t betray her, and I didn’t want any harm to come to Bedwyr. But sometimes, when I heard him with Gwenhwyfar, I could have killed him myself for wasting all his love and gentleness on the old heron.

  One morning, Myrddin surprised me while I was out buying saffron. His hand on my shoulder felt like a bird’s talon. I hadn’t noticed till then how thin he’d grown. He’d got a threadbare, abandoned look. He’d been travelling all summer, telling his stories of Arthur, helping people to imagine the day when Arthur would lead all Britain against the Saxons. Trouble was, now that Arthur had Aquae Sulis and his other little patches of land, he hadn’t much interest in forging great alliances. He was happier raiding, and filling his hall with other men’s treasure. Myrddin was wearing himself out for nothing.

  Still, he had a smile for me. “It’s been a while since I saw you, girl.”

  I asked him how he did. Well, he said, but he didn’t look it. That curly-haired boy didn’t look after him the way I used to. His clothes were dirty, and his hair long. A white stubble of beard showed on his cheeks, like mould on a cheese. He scratched his chin and looked sideways at me and said, “What news from the women’s hall?”

  I wondered, from the way he said it, if he knew something. He was clever, wasn’t he? I remembered that thing he’d told me weeks back – how sometimes on our way through the world we meet someone who touches our heart. Had he guessed what was happening between Bedwyr and Gwenhwyfar, even then?

  “Well?” he asked. “Does the old heron still spend as much time by her pond? Has she caught any fish yet?” He studied me while I tried to think of my reply, watching my face the way a cat watches a mouse-hole. “Something is troubling you, Gwyna. Tell me. Let me help.” He smiled. His kindness was bait to tempt my secret out. He could see I needed a friend to help me bear the weight of it. He smiled, and I couldn’t resist him.

  “She has caught Bedwyr,” I said, and looked round to make sure no one but he had heard me. I hadn’t meant to tell him, but I was suddenly glad that I had. It all spilled out of me. “And she knows about me, master, and the sword from the water. She’ll tell everyone about it if she finds out I’ve betrayed her… ”

  Myrddin looked angry. Quiet angry. He said, “When Arthur finds out what she is doing he will strike her dead before she can tell anything. Does she not know that? What is wrong with her?”

  “It’s love, master.”

  “Love?” He looked at me despairing, like he expected better from me. “She’s not a girl.” Then, softer, “Gwyna, you’re not betraying her. This would have come out anyway. There are already rumours. Better that I know, so that I can decide what to do. Arthur will be back soon…” He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb, as if thinking on it all gave him a headache. As if I’d laid one burden too many on his shoulders.

  “It’s Gwenhwyfar who’s the betraying one,” he said. “She’s betrayed Arthur. She’s betrayed you. What right has she to make you part of her lies?”

  “Will you tell Arthur?”

  “I don’t know. I must think what would be best…”

  When I told him the secret I was hoping he’d say, “It’s not so bad. It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing to fret about.” Instead, he’d grown more distracted and grave-looking than I’d ever seen him.

  “But Arthur doesn’t care about Gwenhwyfar,” I said.

  “He cares about appearances, Gwyna. If he thinks his wife is false, a man like that, there will be blood. Arthur has this peculiarity: he cannot bear to be thought a fool. Tell your mistress that. Tell her he is only a day’s ride away, and will soon be back. Tell her she must put an end to this.”

  Well, how could I? It wasn’t my place to tell Gwenhwyfar what she should do. But when I reached home with the saffron I went to her and told her that I’d met with my lord Myrddin and that he’d said Arthur might soon be back.

  She blushed when I told her. I can see her now, standing in the garden in her robe of flame-coloured linen, turning her face away so that I wouldn’t see the colour burning there. “And how does Myrddin know?” she asked. “Did some spirit tell him? Did he summon up his father, the Devil?”

  I shrugged. It seemed to me that Myrddin was wiser than she reckoned, and that there were many ways he might know Arthur’s movements. Messengers came in sometimes from the war-band, and not all the messages they carried were shared with her. But I had already said all I dared.

  I imagine Arthur, next morning, sitting on his horse, somewhere where the round chalk downs are plump as cushions and the smoke of burned farmsteads makes shadows on the grass.

  A messenger has come to find the war-band. As he waits for the man to draw close, Arthur thinks of home. It’ll be good to get back, this time. He’s not as young as he once was. Too many nights on his camp-bed, and too many days in the saddle. There’s an old wound in his side that aches dull and steady. He thinks, for some reason, of Gwenhwyfar. When he gets home, he’ll be a better husband to her. If he can make her happier, maybe she’ll give him a son.

  Perhaps this messenger brings good news, he thinks. Perhaps Gwenhwyfar is already carrying his child.

  (And perhaps I’m being kind to him. Perhaps I don’t quite want to believe that what he did next was just out of hurt pride.)

  But the man, pale, purse-lipped with worry, won’t meet Arthur’s eye. Men who carry good news don’t wear that look.

  “What is it?” Arthur says, and the messenger swallows hard and says, “I’ve word from Myrddin.”

  XXXV

  I remember the sound her robe made, whispering as she wove her way between the thistles that had grown up around the baths. It was evening, the day after my meeting with Myrddin. Away in the redness of the west great clouds were massing, dark and sky-tall, as if some enchanter had cast spells upon the hills there and they were swelling into mountains. The autumn air was heavy with heat.

  As we came into the courtyard I glimpsed Bedwyr waiting for us by the entrance to the spring. He vanished inside with a stiff-legged movement. It was careless of him, letting himself be seen like that. It felt like a bad omen.

  “My lady…”

  “One of the ghosts of the place, Gwyna,” she said, trying to sound light.

  “We should go home,” I warned her.

  But how could she? Arthur was coming. She did not know when she would be alone with Bedwyr again. Maybe tonight was her goodbye to him. Oh, she saw the sense in what I said. It made her pause and look at me. A gust of breeze lifted the edges of her head-cloth. A smell of rain on the wind, and two dark blotches of colour high on Gwenhwyfar’s cheeks. Then she turned and went into the shrine, and the first thunder grumbled in the west.

  I waited outside this time. Since my talk with Myrddin I’d been edgy as a spooked horse. I was fearful we’d been followed.

  The
sky didn’t help. It was lead colour, curdling, filled with wicked spirits. It wasn’t a sky to be out under. A tree of lightning stood suddenly upon a hill-top westward. The temple precinct filled with a brownish, ghostly light, and the flowers of the bindweed showed white, white on the crumbled altars.

  I heard shouting from the sentries on the wall, down by the gate. Then thunder again.

  No, not thunder. That long rumble was the sound of Aquae Sulis’s gates being dragged open, and hooves thrumming on the cross-hatch of logs which covered the muddy place between them.

  I ran to the door of the shrine and looked into the darkness. A flash of lightning made all the dangling charms and wet ferns jink with blue light. I called, “Lady?” as loud as I dared.

  Thunder. Horses in the streets, torches moving. Was it raiders? No, I’d heard the gates open. A shouted word whirled about like a leaf on the gusting wind.

  “Arthur!”

  I ducked inside. Storm light flickered off the water in the pool. Lightning flamed on the white bodies of Bedwyr and my mistress. They looked like Adam and Eve, surprised in their garden by God.

  “He’s here.” I said stupidly. “Arthur. He’s back.”

  They were scrambling up, untying themselves from each other. I shielded my eyes from them. I said, “He’ll go up to the hall first. He’ll want food and stabling and clean clothes before he sends for you, lady. You’ve time to get you home. And if you don’t want to see him we’ll tell him you’re sick. We’ll say the thunder has given you a headache…”

  Why did I have to make their plans for them? Bedwyr was a warrior. Gwenhwyfar was my mistress. Why couldn’t they tell me what to do? But they just stared at me, numb, holding on to each other.

  And Arthur wasn’t going to the hall. I remembered Myrddin, and how he had watched me when we spoke in the marketplace. He knew everything. He’d known that if I warned Gwenhwyfar about her husband’s homecoming she would be certain to meet with Bedwyr that night. He must have sent a messenger to find Arthur on the road somewhere, and told him to come home quick, and where to look for his wife.

  I heard hooves on the old pavement outside the baths. I heard something batter against the planks that screened the entry-way. I heard Gwenhwyfar say “Jesu,” as she struggled into her shift.

  I ran out into the courtyard as the planks at the entrance gave way. Beyond them, rain, and tossing furze-bushes and men and firelight. Arthur and a party of his warriors, dismounted, some with torches, boys behind them holding the heads of their scared horses as the lightning flickered. The men looked confused. Maybe they were wondering why Arthur had ridden so hard to Sulis just to lay siege to this old temple. Arthur shoved past them into the courtyard, a black shape against another flare of lightning, hairy in his wolf-skin cloak. I’d forgot how big and broad he was. How tall. How like a bear.

  Lightning flashed on Caliburn’s blade. Rain, hissing on the flagstones.

  He bellowed, “Gwenhwyfar!”

  “She is at the spring, lord,” I squeaked, running at him, like a mouse running out of the wainscot. “She only comes here to bathe. Give her time to dress, lord, and—”

  A hard blow of his fist sent me sideways, spraddled me in a nettle-clump. I was lucky I was on his left side, or he’d have used the sword on me. What was I, to Arthur in his wrath? A mouse, that’s all. I saw his face. The anger in it. Blood dark in his cheeks and the spittle blown white from his hollering mouth.

  “Gwenhwyfar!”

  He went past me, and I scrambled up to keep from being trod on by the men that followed him. Hands caught me from behind, twisting me round. Myrddin’s black robes flapped at my face. I heard him say, “Come, Gwyna. This is no place for you…”

  “You told him!” I screamed, trying to break away from him. I twisted my head and I saw Arthur climb the three steps and go inside, swiping down handfuls of the dangling charms. I heard Bedwyr in there shouting something. Later people said it was a challenge, but it didn’t sound like a challenge to me. Arthur shouted back, no words, just a roar. There came scuffling sounds, a clatter of kicked stones, a noise like a hurt dog whining.

  Myrddin’s grip was weak. I broke free of him and ran. “Gwyna!” I heard Myrddin shout. Inside the shrine Gwenhwyfar was screaming. Arthur’s men were bunched in the doorway, staring into the dark. One said, “Jesu, Christos…” as I squirrelled my way between them. Inside, rain spewed through the rotting roof, spattering into the spring. The torches lit up Gwenhwyfar, over by the felled statue of the goddess, half crouched, cowering, her hands up shivering in front of her. I thought she’d wrapped herself in Bedwyr’s red cloak, but it was just her own white shift, splashed red. On the floor lay a red and white thing that jerked like a killed pig. Arthur stood over it. He raised Caliburn high and grunted as he hacked down.

  “Bedwyr!” screamed Gwenhwyfar.

  Arthur turned to face us, Caliburn red in his red hand, his whole arm red to the elbow. He held up some gaping thing for us to see.

  “Jesu, Christos…”

  “Gwyna!” my master shouted from behind me somewhere, angry sounding.

  Hailstones hissed furiously on the roof. I ran past Arthur and round the pool’s side to my mistress. “Bedwy-y-y-y-r,” she was grizzling.

  I picked up Bedwyr’s cloak. I don’t know why. Who knows why they do anything, at times like that? I wrapped it round her. It slapped wetly against her bare legs. Arthur was bellowing again, shouting at his men to look at what became of traitors. When he’s finished, I thought, he’ll come for Gwenhwyfar. For me too. Rage like his strikes anything it sees. I dragged her with me to a crack in the wall. “Bedwy-y-yr!” she sobbed, hiccuping.

  “He’s dead!” I said. And he was. I’d not believed it till I said it.

  I shoved her in front of me like a bundle, through that crack and away along black nettly passages between the bath-houses, out into the pouring streets. While Arthur’s men stood at the pool’s edge and watched as Arthur swung Bedwyr’s head by its hair and flung it from him – that tumbling, woeful, boyish, lightning-lit face, that red-gold hair like the fires of a falling star – and the waters took it with a feathery splash.

  XXXVI

  Where was I going? Just away. The animal fear that had set me running the night I first saw Arthur had hold of me again. Just get us away, me and my mistress, before he kills us too.

  I steered Gwenhwyfar through the rain, making for the gate. Men barged past us, hurrying to the baths to see what the commotion was. The sky tipped water on us. Peredur came by, a straggle of wet feathers plastered over that helmet he always wore. I caught him as he passed. I yowled into his wide-eyed face. “Find Medrawt! Tell Medrawt that Arthur’s killed his brother!”

  I don’t know why I did that either. I think I remembered the love Medrawt had shown Bedwyr when Bedwyr was sick, and thought he should know what had happened. Maybe I hoped he’d take his sword and come like an avenging angel and kill Arthur. Blood must have blood. Bedwyr’s other kin might take Arthur’s side when they heard what Bedwyr had done, but not Medrawt. You kill a man’s brother, he’s got to kill you, it’s only natural. But as Peredur ran off with my message I realized that Arthur would know that as well as I did. He’d be expecting Medrawt’s vengeance, and he’d likely have sent men to kill him too.

  Then we were out of the town somehow. We were scrambling through wet fields. We were blundering through scratchy woods. Gwenhwyfar was so slow and stumbly I almost left her, for fear Arthur and his men were coming after her and would catch us both. Three times I ran on ahead. And three times I went back for her, because I couldn’t bear to leave her lone and helpless. She was making a hurt, raw-throated noise that I could hear above the hiss of rain and hoo of wind-whipped trees. It was like she was a child, and I her mother. I held her hand and tugged her after me.

  Where were we going? Just away. I think I had an idea of getting to the Summer Country, where Gwenhwyfar might beg her kinsman Maelwas to shelter us. But I didn’t know how to find Maelw
as, beyond just going south, and I couldn’t tell which way south was, with no moon, no stars, and the wind coming from every way at once.

  At last we came to a place where the track we were following sloped down into a flood. A swollen river filled the world ahead, glinting scaly under the lightning-flashes like a huge serpent winding its way between the hills. We turned back, shoving through alder and tussock-grass to a line of trees on a rise above a little lake, and we huddled on the wet grass in their shelter.

  I’d been right to fear for Medrawt. When Arthur rode back into Sulis he sent his old companion Greidawl Widow-maker with a couple of men straight to Medrawt’s house to kill him. But fate had better ideas. As Greidawl rode up through the streets that first great crash of thunder booming over the rooftops scared his mare so much she reared up and threw him backwards and he broke his head on a lead trough by the wayside. And since he’d not told his men where they were going or what they were to do there, they busied themselves getting him indoors and fetching doctors to him, and while they were about it Peredur went past them with my message.

  “Arthur has killed your brother.”

  Anyone else, hearing those words from a bedraggled clown like Peredur, might have thought it was all some sort of joke. But maybe Medrawt suspected the truth about Bedwyr and Gwenhwyfar. Maybe he knew. For all I know Bedwyr had told him everything. At any rate, it took him only a moment to understand that this was real, and what it meant. He called for his sword, ready to go and get his vengeance, but while he was waiting for his man to bring it he thought again. He couldn’t fight all Arthur’s band. And he had his wife to think of. He could hear her voice in the next room, comforting their daughters, who’d been woken by the storm. More thunder broke over the house, so loud that it left no space in his head for his thoughts and he had to clutch his hands over his ears. His man came back, the sword-hilt flaring as lightning spiked in through the shutter-cracks. Medrawt ignored him, ran to the room where his wife was.