The Legend of the King (23 page)

The new light of day showed a scene of unspeakable devastation. Around Terence, hundreds of men and horses lay sprawled in death or writhing in pain. He caught up to Gawain, whose charge had finally been halted by a solid front of Mordred's men. "I'm behind you, milord!" Terence shouted.

"Never expected anything else!" Gawain called back.

They fought for a moment. Then Terence shouted again. "What happened to you?"

"I felt better."

It was the rising of the sun, of course, and Gawain's old gift, but even that wasn't enough. This new strength was coming from Gawain himself. The sun increased Gawain's strength; it didn't perform miracles. Nor did it heal wounds. Terence stole a glance at Gawain's side. His greaves were bright with blood again.

"Terence!" Gawain shouted. "To the south!"

Terence dodged an attacker and looked beyond the fray toward the south. There, charging into the battle, was a regiment of horsemen. Terence's heart sank. The reinforcements from the sea had arrived. "Mordred's men!" he gasped.

"You idiot! Don't you see?" cried Gawain triumphantly. "That's Lancelot!"

And so it was. With Lancelot himself leading the charge, the regiment of French knights smashed into Mordred's forces from the rear. Terence shouted with joy and turned to look again at Gawain, but Gawain wasn't there. Terence felt himself stumbling backwards. Though he couldn't remember being hit, and he felt no pain, he knew that he must have taken a savage blow. He caught his balance and again raised his sword, which seemed very heavy, and there before him was King Arthur, fighting none other than Mordred himself. The king must have been making for his son from the start of the battle. Arthur's sword flashed, and Mordred went down, but then Arthur himself reeled, as if struck. For a moment he stood still; then he turned his sword so that it pointed toward the ground, drove it down, and crumpled beside it. Terence took a step toward the king, but his legs didn't work and he found himself face-down in the grass. Just before his eyes a tiny blue periwinkle bloomed, incongruous and somehow unconquerable amid the slaughter. "I should show you to Robin," Terence murmured. Then he closed his eyes.

The sun was well up when Terence opened his eyes, but the roar of battle was gone, which was lovely. It seemed so long since Terence had heard silence. He tested his legs, and they seemed to work fine now. He still felt no pain. Pushing himself up onto his elbows, he discovered that he didn't even feel sore or tired. He raised his head and looked into the gentle, amused eyes of a friend.

"Bedivere?" Terence whispered.

"Hello, Terence," Bedivere said.

"But you're dead."

"Do I look dead?"

"No, I have to admit you don't. You look well, in fact. But the thing is, Mordred put a dagger in your heart a while ago."

"Yes, he did that," Bedivere conceded.

"I was the one who found your body."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. That must have been awful for you."

Terence blinked and heard himself saying, "Oh, no, don't feel bad. It wasn't your fault." He sat up and looked around. He and Bedivere appeared to be the only creatures stirring on a field covered with the dead. Terence frowned. "So, Bedivere. Am
I
dead?"

"Do you feel dead?"

"I don't know," Terence replied. "I've never been dead before."

"What would you like to be?" Bedivere asked.

Terence thought about this briefly. "I feel pretty well at the moment," he said at last. "Whatever I am, that's what I want to be."

"Yes," Bedivere said. He took Terence by the hand and raised him to his feet—Bedivere's hand felt solid and real and warm. "Come with me, Lord Terence. We're to find Excalibur."

The last moments of the battle came rushing back to Terence. "I saw Arthur kill Mordred, right over there." He pointed, and Bedivere led the way to the spot. There was Mordred, his eyes open and his lips curled in a frozen snarl, and rising from his breast was the king's sword.

Bedivere gazed at it thoughtfully. "That's just how it looked the first time I saw it," he said. "Except, that time it was sticking out of a stone. "Reaching over, he tugged it free from Mordred's body, then cleaned the blade on a bit of linen that protruded from Mordred's armor.

"Where's Arthur?" asked Terence. He remembered that he had seen the king fall at this spot, but there was no sign of him.

"I suppose we'll find out when we need to," Bedivere replied imperturbably. "Come now. We have to move along."

"Where to?" Terence inquired. He didn't much care, but it seemed polite to ask.

"To the sea."

There was a stir of motion from across the battlefield, and Terence saw first one, then two figures rising from the cluster of bodies. It was too far away to see who they were for certain, but when they started walking toward them, Terence recognized Kai from the slight limp. "Kai and Parsifal?" he asked. Bedivere nodded. Terence watched for a moment, then said, "Say, I feel better than I can ever remember feeling, but Kai's still limping. Why is that?"

"Kai likes to limp," Bedivere replied. Raising his voice, he called out, "Hello, cousin!"

Kai stopped and stared. "Bedivere?"

"Come this way," Bedivere shouted back. "Follow me to the sea."

Bedivere started walking south, and Terence fell in step beside him. A moment later they were joined by Kai and Parsifal, who had picked up Tor along the way.

"To the sea, you say?" asked Tor.

"That's right."

"That's ten bleeding miles, you know," grumbled Kai. "But I suppose if I'm to have a hike, I might as well take it with you."

"I've missed you, too," Bedivere said, smiling.

By the time they arrived at the sea, they had been joined by Ywain and a half dozen others of Arthur's knights. Gawain wasn't among them, Terence noticed, but he felt no surprise or disappointment. He supposed he would find out what had happened to his friend when he needed to. At the beach there stood two ships, a great two-masted frigate and a low barge with no sail at all. A crowd waited for them on the shore. Terence saw many familiar faces, but above them all was his father, Ganscotter the Enchanter. Their eyes met, and Ganscotter smiled warmly.

"Miss me, lad?" asked a voice at Terence's right.

Terence didn't need to turn. He knew Gawain's voice better than he knew his own. "Wondered where you were, rather."

"I came on ahead," Gawain said. "I wanted to be the first to welcome Griflet to the guard."

Now Terence saw with amusement that Gawain stood beside the old court dandy. Griflet still only came up to Gawain's chin, but his eyes were strong and confident as Terence had never seen them before. "Griflet," Terence said, nodding. Griflet smiled back. "What guard is that?" Terence asked Gawain.

"Arthur's guard of honor, of course," Gawain said. "Come with me."

Together all the knights who had followed Bedivere trooped down to the beach, while others detached themselves from the waiting crowd and met them at the barge. They formed two lines, facing each other. Terence found himself across from Gaheris, who winked at him, and a few steps away from Bors and Lionel. Lionel was whispering something to Bors, who was trying very hard to ignore him and maintain a solemn expression. At the far end of the line, nearest the barge, Terence saw Gareth and, beside him, Agrivaine. Terence blinked and took another look. It was undoubtedly Agrivaine, even though Terence couldn't imagine why he should be in Arthur's guard of honor. Agrivaine met his eyes, smiled ruefully, and shrugged, as if to say, "I don't understand it, either." Terence chuckled.

Then, from the gathered crowd, a new group began walking toward the barge, all women, bearing a litter draped in silk. At the head of the procession strode Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, and her daughter, Ariel. As they approached, Bedivere stepped out of the line and held out Excalibur. Nimue took it, nodding her thanks to Bedivere, then continued onto the barge. Behind her, carrying the litter, walked other ladies. Terence recognized Lady Lynet, Lady Sarah of Milrick, Parsifal's wife, Conduiramours, and Lorie, Gawain's wife. At the end of the procession a diminutive figure strode firmly. Terence felt something relax within. It was his beloved Eileen, who had never bothered to learn the dainty step of most court ladies.

On the litter, his face still lined with age, but peacefully composed in sleep, was Arthur himself. The women carried Arthur onto the barge, where Nimue placed Excalibur at his side. Then the ladies stepped off the barge and made way for one more to take their place. Dressed in a regal dress and veiled in gauze—it was hard to tell if it looked like a mourning veil or a wedding veil—the enchantress Morgan Le Fay stepped onto the barge and sat quietly beside the king.

At last Ganscotter spoke. "You are certain, Lady Morgan? You do this of your own will, not because I asked you?"

Morgan nodded. "He is my brother."

"He will not die, you know."

She nodded again. "And the only man I've ever cared for."

"Nor will he wake until he is called for."

"I will wait."

Ganscotter smiled. "Very well," he said. "Then, for your loyalty, I grant those gifts also to you. Sleep, Lady Morgan, forever young and forever faithful beside Arthur the King. When he returns, wake also and return with him."

Slowly, Morgan's eyes closed, though she remained seated upright. The barge disengaged from the shore and moved out to sea. In a moment, it was swallowed up in mist.

Terence looked back at Ganscotter, who smiled brightly at the assembled company. "Well, my friends," he said in a jovial voice, nodding toward the other ship. "Shall we go home?"

Although they had made excellent time over the mountains from Asia, Dinadan and Palomides were stuck in France for nearly a week, waiting for a boat across the channel to England. It seemed that every vessel large enough to transport them and their horses was at sea. Dinadan didn't discover why until the third day, when Palomides joined him in the taproom of the Calais inn where they were staying and said, "I found out why there are no ships."

"Why?" asked Dinadan.

"Sir Lancelot took them all." Dinadan blinked, and Palomides continued. "It would appear that Sir Lancelot and an army of French soldiers have just invaded England. He commandeered every ship for a hundred miles in either direction and crossed to Dover. From what I can gather, we missed them by a few hours."

"Lancelot would never take up arms against Arthur," protested Dinadan.

"Nevertheless, he has led a French army across the sea."

It was three more days before the first of the French vessels returned. Dinadan and Palomides quickly made arrangements for passage and set off across the channel. They sailed through the night, arriving within sight of the English coast at dawn.

"There," Palomides said suddenly, pointing to a beach off to one side.

"What?" asked Dinadan.

"There has been a battle there. See the armor scattered about? And those are bodies."

They directed their boatman to set them down at that beach, and an hour later they were examining the aftermath of war. They tied cloths over their faces to mask the smell of decay.

"What is this insignia?" Palomides asked. "A white horse trampling a crown."

"I've never seen it before," Dinadan said. Most of the dead knights wore the strange symbol somewhere on their armor. Then Dinadan saw a gleaming suit of armor among a cluster of bodies. "Palomides," he called. "Over there."

Dinadan knelt beside the glittering armor while Palomides picked up the knight's shield.

"I know this armor," Dinadan said softly.

"Does it belong to Sir Griflet le Fise de Dieu?" Palomides asked.

Dinadan glanced up, surprised. "Yes. How did you know?"

Wordlessly, Palomides showed the shield to Dinadan. Painted across the shield in large dark letters were the words "Griflet le Fise de Dieu, Hero of England." Some of the lettering was flaking off, and the writing was shaky, but the words were still clear.

Dinadan rose, dusting sand from his knees. "Griflet didn't write that himself," he said. "The Griflet I knew would never have permitted such a scrawl on his armor. Of course," he added reflectively, "the Griflet I knew was the last person I'd suspect of being a hero."

"This was done after the battle, I think," Palomides said. "The words are written in blood."

Dinadan gazed at Griflet's armor for a long moment. The visor was closed, but Dinadan left it so; he didn't want to see the decaying face of the old knight. "A hero of England should be decently buried," he said at last. "We can at least scoop out a grave in the sand." Palomides nodded, and together they dug a shallow grave, lowered Sir Griflet's body into the trench, then heaped sand over it. Dinadan glanced around at the other bodies. "I'm sorry," he murmured to them, "but we can't stay."

Half an hour later, having found a way up the cliffs, they were examining the remains of a military camp. "Arthur," Dinadan said. "That's the royal tent, and that's Sir Kai's. But why would they be abandoned?"

"They left for battle," Palomides said with calm certainty, "traveling light for speed. But that was days ago, judging from the ashes of the fires, and no one has returned."

A sick feeling began to well up inside Dinadan. King Arthur, his king, could not have been defeated. Arthur could not be dead.

"What is this rubbish?" Palomides asked, turning over a wooden box filled with broken wood and torn cloth.

Dinadan stared at it wordlessly, the sickness growing within, then said slowly, "That velvet is one of Queen Guinevere's court dresses. And that table leg—it's from the Round Table." He swallowed hard, trying to force down his despair, but it didn't help. He sank to his knees, leaned forward onto his hands, and was sick.

"Come," Palomides said after a minute. "The tracks lead north."

When they arrived at the battlefield, on a hill north of the village of Barham, they found they were not alone. A handsome youth in the brown cowl of a holy man was leading a mule about the field, stopping to examine each body.