The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur (The Warlord Chronicles, #1)

by Bernard Cornwell

and though he was still a young man, the sad, wise look of his face made him seem much older.

The Isle of Britain, Sansum said, was beloved of God. It was a special land, set apart from other lands and girdled by a bright sea to defend it from pestilences, heresies and enemies. Britain, he went on, was also blessed by great rulers and mighty warriors, yet of late the island had been riven by strangers, and its fields, barns and villages had been put to the sword. The heathen Sais, the Saxons, were taking the land of our ancestors and turning it to waste. The dread Sais desecrated the graves of our fathers, they raped our wives and slaughtered our children, and such things could not happen, Sansum asserted, unless they were the will of God, and why would God so turn his back upon his special and beloved children? Because, he said, those children had refused to hear His holy message. The children of Britain still bowed down to wood and stone. The so-called sacred groves still stood and their shrines still held the skulls of the dead and were washed with the blood of sacrifices. Such things might not be seen in the towns, Sansum said, for most towns were filled with Christians, but the countryside, he warned us, was infested with pagans. There might be few Druids left in Britain, yet in every valley and farmland there were men and women who acted like Druids, who sacrificed living things to dead stone and who used charms and amulets to beguile the simple people.

Kingdoms need kings, and without them they are nothing but empty land inviting a conqueror’s spears.

I ran with him and suddenly I was released from fear as the mad, God-given joy of battle came to me for the very first time.

Later, much later, I learned that the joy and the fear are the exact same things, the one merely transformed into the other by action, but on that summer afternoon I was suddenly elated.

God be thanked for that, and for the gift of fire, and for the strength to go on with this tale of Arthur, the King that Never Was, the Enemy of God and our Lord of Battles.

The Tongued-ones were the nine witnesses whose word carried the weight of truth in law: a Lord, a Druid, a priest, a father speaking of his children, a magistrate, a gift-giver speaking of his gift, a maiden speaking of her virginity, a herdsman speaking of his animals and a condemned man speaking his final words.

She spoke with the terrible simplicity of truth and I thought how ferocity gave her a beauty that nature had denied her.

He spoke of war, and of the terrible joy it was to ride an armoured horse into battle. He spoke as he had spoken to me on the ice-cold ramparts of Caer Cadarn, describing a land at peace in which the common folk did not fear the coming of spearmen in the dawn. He talked passionately, urgently, and Guinevere listened so willingly and assured him his dream was inspired. Arthur spun a future from his dream and Guinevere was deep inside the thread. Poor Ceinwyn, she had only her beauty and her youth, while Guinevere saw the loneliness in Arthur’s soul and promised to heal it. She left before the dawn, a dark figure gliding across Caer Sws with a sickle moon trapped in her tangling hair.

Guinevere wore a new torque of heavy gold that day and some of us felt a sorrow for Ceinwyn, but Ceinwyn was a child, Guinevere was a woman and Arthur was helpless. It was a madness that love. Mad as Pellinore. Mad enough to doom Arthur to the Isle of the Dead.

‘But at Mordred’s acclamation,’ she asked disappointedly, ‘the sword was only laid on the stone? Not thrust into it? Are you sure?’ ‘It was laid flat on top. I swear it’ – I made the sign of the cross – ‘on Christ’s blood, my Lady.’ She shrugged. ‘Dafydd ap Gruffud will translate the tale any way I want him to, and I like the idea of a sword in the stone.

‘I want it to be the poet’s Camelot: green grass and high towers and ladies in gowns and warriors strewing their paths with flowers. I want minstrels and laughter! Wasn’t it ever like that?’ ‘A little,’ I said, ‘though I don’t remember many flowery paths. I do recall the warriors limping out of battle, and some of them crawling and weeping with their guts trailing behind in the dust.’ ‘Stop it!’ Igraine said. ‘So why do the bards call it Camelot?’ she challenged me. ‘Because poets were ever fools,’ I said, ‘otherwise why would they be poets?’ ‘No, Derfel! What was special about Camelot? Tell me.’ ‘It was special,’ I answered, ‘because Arthur gave the land justice.’ Igraine frowned. ‘Is that all?’ ‘It is more, child,’ I said, ‘than most rulers ever dream of doing, let alone do.’

‘Lanval merely watches over you, Lady,’ I told her, ‘for upon your safety depends Prince Arthur’s happiness, and upon his happiness rests a kingdom.’

I had not realized how much I loved the place till first I left it.

‘Good. Fury is very useful, and dear Nimue has a talent for it. One of the things I can’t stand about Christians is their admiration of meekness. Imagine elevating meekness into a virtue! Meekness! Can you imagine a heaven filled only with the meek? What a dreadful idea. The food would get cold while everyone passed the dishes to everyone else. Meekness is no good, Derfel. Anger and selfishness, those are the

qualities that make the world march.’ He laughed.