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July 23 - July 27, 2020
Uther eased himself out of his chair and stood huge and grim on Caer Cadarn’s wall to pronounce the name of his new-born grandson, the name of his heir and the name of his kingdom’s edling. The winter-born babe would be named after his father. He would be called Mordred.
Magic, she said, happened at the moments when the lives of the Gods and men touched, but such moments were not commanded by men.
No one chose me, except me. You have to make the choice for yourself. It could happen to any of us here.
two women holding a twin-handled cup.
The young priest was Sansum, and that night was the first time I ever saw the saint.
I know I have gained Christ and through His blessing I have gained the whole world too, but for what I have lost, for what we have all lost, there is no end to the reckoning. We lost everything.
Agricola also warned us about a new Saxon leader named Aelle who was struggling for ascendancy among the Sais. That was the first time I ever heard Aelle’s name and only the Gods then knew how it would come to haunt us down the years.
King Tewdric of Gwent was one, Owain, the Champion of Dumnonia, was the second and Merlin, Lord of Avalon, the third.
‘The Knowledge of Britain is the lore of our ancestors, the gifts of our Gods, the Thirteen Properties of the Thirteen Treasures which, when gathered, will give us back the power to claim our land.’
Thus, as the High Council ended, was Arthur, son of nobody, chosen to be one of Mordred’s sworn protectors.
Uther, High King and Pendragon of Britain, died.
The baby was not the High King, of course, for that was an honour which was only granted to a king acknowledged by other kings as one above them all, nor was Mordred the Pendragon, for that title only went to a High King who had won his position in battle.
Mordred was always a grim child, with red hair and a stubborn heart,
Who held Caer Cadarn held Dumnonia, the old saying went, and who held Dumnonia held Britain.
For Arthur, at last, had come.
remember to stab. The point always wins, always.’
‘the whole point of battle, boy, is to break the enemy’s shield-wall. Everything else is easy, and Arthur’s horses scare battle lines into flight, but the time will come when an enemy will stand firm, and the Gods help those horses then. And the Gods help Arthur too if he’s ever knocked off his lump of horseflesh and tries to fight on foot wearing that suit of fish-armour.
despite Owain’s professed liking for Arthur there was something else there, something deeper than jealousy.
Taxes, as I was to learn, were the best source of wealth for men who did not want to work,
Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you’ll just weep yourself to death.
Mordred was ever ill-omened and his acclamation was doomed to be touched by tragedy.
I had expected Arthur to fight calmly, using the skills Hywel had taught him, but that morning, as the rains poured from the winter skies, I saw how Arthur changed in battle. He became a fiend. His energy was poured into just one thing, death, and he laid at Owain with massive, fast strokes that drove the big man back and back. The swords rang harsh. Arthur was spitting at Owain, cursing him, taunting him, and cutting again and again with the edge of the sword and never giving Owain a chance to recover from a parry.
Arthur’s own face was hard as stone. There was not a scrap of kindness there, only the face of a fighter come to triumph. It was a terrible face, his big jaw set in a rictus of hate so that those of us who only knew Arthur as a painstakingly thoughtful man were shocked by the change in him.
So in front of you now, and in front of our friends from Gwent and Kernow’ – here Arthur gestured courteously towards Agricola and Tristan – ‘let me swear upon whatever oath you hold most dear that I shall use the power you give me for one end only, and that one end is to see Mordred take his kingdom from me when he is of age. That I swear.’
But it was on that happy night, when peace had come at last, that Arthur broke Britain.
I saw Arthur staring fixedly towards the back of the hall
I turned and saw a young woman who stood head and shoulders above the crowd and who carried a bold defiant look on her face. If you can master me, that look seemed to say, then you can master whatever else this wicked world might bring. I can see her now, standing amidst her deerhounds that had the same thin, lean bodies, and the same long nose and the same huntress eyes as their mistress. Green eyes, she had, with a kind of cruelty deep inside them. It was not a soft face, any more than her body was soft. She was a woman of strong lines and high bones, and that made for a good face and a
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Fate, Merlin always said, is inexorable. So much followed from that hurried ceremony in the flower-speckled clearing beside the stream. So many died. There was so much heartache, so much blood and so many tears that they would have made a great river; yet, in time, the eddies smoothed, new rivers joined, and the tears went down to the great wide sea and some people forgot how it ever began. The time of glory did come, yet what might have been never did, and of all those who were hurt by that moment in the sun, Arthur was hurt the most. But on that day he was happy.
Battle assaults the senses, and that assault ferments fear, and obedience is the narrow thread that leads out of fear’s chaos into survival.
Lancelot
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.’
Once you write something down it becomes fixed. It becomes dogma. People can argue about it, they become authoritative, they refer to the texts, they produce new manuscripts, they argue more and soon they’re putting each other to death. If you never write anything down then no one knows exactly what you said so you can always change it.
‘I failed Arthur,’ I said bitterly. ‘Everyone fails Arthur. He expects too much. Now go.’
I prefer meat, fresh meat,
‘I was born weak, Derfel,’ she said, ‘and life is spent pretending otherwise.’
we had to leave the Isle because that was her fate and I was the instrument of that fate,
‘He won’t live to enjoy his bride,’
she even plays throwboard with that wretched Bishop Sansum from the shrine.
‘I wanted to do such great things, Derfel,’ he said, ‘such great things. And in the end it was I who betrayed them, wasn’t it?’
‘Some men are better at knowing than doing,
‘I am to yield Britain back to her Gods,’
That was his other condition. I could take the sword of the Gods, he said, so long as I gave it back when he needed it.’
when the moment comes to return Caledfwlch it will be at a time when I need the sword most.’
The other came later and was to give us more trouble,
Mordred?
‘His soul,’ she went on, ‘is a chariot drawn by two horses; ambition and conscience, but I tell you, Derfel, the horse of ambition is in the right-hand harness and it will always outpull the other. And he’s able, so very able.’
an enemy forgiven is an enemy who will have to be fought over and over again.
He longs for peace, he talks of peace, but his own trusting soul is the reason he will always have enemies.
Fate is inexorable,
How much of our earth has been wet by blood because of jealousy! And at the end of life, what does it all matter? We grow old and the young look at us and can never see that once we made a kingdom ring for love.
‘I swore you no oath,’ he said to Arthur, ‘but I do now. Where you fight, Lord, I fight, and he who is your enemy is mine, and he who is your friend is my friend also. I swear that on the precious blood of the living Christ.’
