Geraint watched her go with a zestful rubbing of hands. "Got them, by God's Blood, got them fair!" With his dagger, he etched his plan in the dirt. "They won't beach the boats, there's not time. They'll anchor shallow, ready to move before anyone can get here. But, by Jesu, the filthy boats won't be mere.

  We'll cut them loose, and those heathen who never heeded Gospel or Christian prayer will be caught between the squadron and ourselves."

  He glanced from Bedivere to myself, waiting for our enthusiastic approval and perhaps a word of praise for his tactics. Bedivere stared at Geraint as if he had just dropped from the moon.

  "We can bum the boats, set them adrift," Bedivere said with considerable restraint. "But if your men don't get here in time, we're three against eighty."

  Geraint laughed aloud, ran to a small cell and emerged with three long boar spears. He tossed one to each of us. "Do you not see the glorious mathematics of it? That's twenty-six apiece!"

  From the cover of a stand of trees, the three of us watched the men splashing ashore. At this distance, a good bowshot, Geraint recognized the flag flying over the sails: a coiled serpent.

  "Cerdic."

  I knew the name. Cerdic was a very young son of a war chief out of the island of Gueid Guith, which the Saxons call Wight. The men were all young and lightly armed. Besides the necessity

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  of stores, this was probably a prestige raid. Younger men became war chiefs when they proved their leadership and gathered loyal gesith—companions to their personal service. This Cerdic pup was out to make a name for himself.

  "And it pains me to think what that name will be after this day," Geraint chuckled. "Jesu, you lumbering sods, get ashore. I've work to do."

  Bedivere counted the men pattering up the beach. "Seventy-five, Arthur, not an archer in the lot. Swords and axes only."

  "And none left aboard. The boats will be easy." I tried to keep my voice level. My stomach fluttered with a mixture of excitement and terror. My hands sweated on the spear haft.

  "Watch out for the small axes," Geraint cautioned. "They throw them."

  We waited a hundred heartbeats after the last of them disappeared through the trees toward the village, then dashed forward along the shore and out to the anchored boats. Geraint was to watch while Bedivere and I each took a boat.

  The keels would have braziers of live coals ready for cooking and other needs.

  For good measure, each of us had an ample skin of lamp oil. I tethered my mount to the boat hawser and hauled myself up over

  the side.

  She was a beauty, built on a concept that made her the fastest, finest thing in the water. Even as I tossed the oil about, I tried to remember everything about her. Ambrosius should build boats like these. With such craft we could meet them on the sea, even carry their war home to them.

  The smoke rose from Bedivere's keel as the flames lapped over die deck and up the square sail., He waved to me and grinned: frightened as myself, Bedivere still looked ten years younger at that moment, thick in the middle of our old boy-mischief just before we got caught. He pointed to the shore: Geraint paced his horse back and forth, restless as a leashed hound straining after quarry.

  I fired a piece of kindling from the brazier and dropped it on the oil-soaked deck. The greasy flame rolled along the boards, grew, crept up the mast toward the sail. When it was roaring healthily in the river breeze, I leaped overboard, floundered to the shying horse, mounted, cut the hawser and coiled the loose line under my arm.

  "Let's pull them out!"

  As we spurred the horses up onto the beach, there were two Merlin and a Sword

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  doomed craft swinging about in the current that caught at them and nudged them faster and faster downstream.

  Geraint chortled. "Trapped! You dear men, one on each side of me now."

  Bedivere scanned the hills nervously. "How long since we left the fort?"

  "About half an hour," I judged.

  "My men will come," Geraint promised. "When they move, they move fast."

  The first sharp cries reached us from the village, startled and angry. Gerainl crouched his spear. "Jesu, I can hardly wait."

  Bedivere licked his lips. "I could."

  And looking up one last time at the empty hills, I could, too. Ten more minutes, at least five, I begged whatever spirits had helped me live this long. The first running figures appeared among the trees. I swallowed hard; our count must be wrong, there must be a hundred or more. I glanced at Bedivere, saw him white as myself, but Geraint sighed with pleasure.

  "Are they not a lovely sight? Be not afraid, Bedivere."

  That was too much for Bedivere, catching his heart midway between fear and courage. He answered through clenched teeth. "Geraint, if I die today, which seems a good wager, I wouldn't want to go off without letting you know my opinion of your abilities as an officer."

  Alas, Brother Coel will not write what Bedivere called Lord Geraint—pungent and colorful as it was, impugning his intellect, his judgment and, most of all, his sanity. Then there was no more time for talk or thought. They'd seen us. The big fellow in the lead, blond as myself but shaggier, broke into a loping run, shouting at his men.

  With a cry, Geraint kicked his horse into a gallop, Bedivere and I behind. We had agreed to stay in a close wedge, not to be encircled and dragged from our horses, but Geraint forgot that now. It was too late to close with him. He charged straight into the nearest of them. Bedivere and I couched our lances

  tight against our bodies and, close together for protection, galloped after.

  Faces snarled up at me, bodies toppling, until the lance stuck in something and wouldn't come free. A blurred picture of Geraint's sword hewing like a thresher, Bedivere's horse wheeling round and round, then that hated face.

  "Cerdic!"

  I spurred at him, sword whirling in the air. A dull, distantly 26

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  painful jolt somewhere in my body and the face was gone. A great, cold rage had taken me, pan hate, part fear. Cold it was, though, and I could still think with terrible clarity. Geraint was beyond saving now. It always seemed he was surrounded and doomed; then, impossibly, he was free again to plunge back into the dodging Saxons. Time after time Bedivere and I tore free of the men who reached for us to form together and charge back in as a two-horse wall, scattering or crushing them underfoot. None that I met were good swordsmen, but their shield work was brilliant. We had to watch that their wounded didn't hamstring our horses, whose lathered flanks already bled from a score of

  small wounds.

  Then Geraint's horse went down. I closed in to cover him, give him time to mount again, but he refused, swinging the long sword two-handed. Cerdic's men joined in a circle around us, tightening, clogging movement. I felt my own mount stumble, begin to fall, and leaped clear, shield up and sword at guard.

  "Back to back, Artos!"

  Even as I felt Bedivere's wet bulk against mine, the horn cut fiie air, and through a stinging curtain of sweat and blood we saw the shining line of Geraint's horsemen break over the hill with the battle roar deep in their throats. Geraint saw them and swung his sword so viciously, it sang as it cut the air.

  "Now, Cerdic!" I dropped my shield, gripped the sword with both slippery hands and dove for him. He knew he was trapped, but evaded my weakening blows, backing, yelling to his men. I lunged again as he stumbled over a body. My sword should have cut off his arm. It merely floated powerless, a mile from its mark. Without knowing how, I was down on all fours, staring stupidly at churning legs and hoofs, hearing that rich-singing rally of Geraint's over it all: "Now for God and Christ, after them. After them!"

  Where did he find the energy to roar like that, a bundle of red and rags like myself and another like him close by, the three of us suddenly alone like shells on a beach, the tide of battle swirling away from us. The riders wore flowers in their helmets. That was my last clear sight before Bedivere's arms went around me. The tears streaked his dirty, bloody face. "Artos, look at you!"

  It seemed a great effort to talk, much less to smile, but the absurdity was too much. "Rowers in their helmets." "You're killed, man."

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  "Silliest thing I ever . . ."

  "Lie back, lie down, damn you."

  "Flowers . . ."

  We were alone. Geraint's company pursued Cerdic, who had the canny sense to splinter his men into twos and threes that some might escape, and most did.

  Geraint would have none of his squadron stay to help us. By ourselves, on hacked, suffering horses, we forded the river and stumbled back into the stronghold. Inside the gate, we slid out of the saddles and simply fell where we lighted, too spent to move. Breathing. Silent.

  We were blooded now, no longer boys but tried soldiers. And for all that happened that day and would happen a hundred times again, we would never understand it. No man knows the face of battle. You go through it like a dark room, you sweat, you fear, the fear passes, you come out of it and utter nothing but meaningless words about what you saw or felt.

  Geraint struggled to his feet. "The bell. I must ring it to bring the village

  home. And then we can go to chapel, three good men that we are, give thanks for the luck of this day."

  Bedivere nodded, dragging a filthy paw through blood-clotted hair. "I didn't look to be alive now. That's worth a month of masses, right, Artos? Artos. . .

  ? Oh, good Christ, look at—"

  From far away, I felt him fumble at my armor buckles, felt suddenly cool air on the sticky mess of my body. Bedivere sobbed. "His chest, it's—are mere bandages? Are there. . . ?"

  He floated away in the darkness.

  My eyes opened to evening, the clear sky at dusk and its first timid stars winking down at me. I lay under my cloak, body tight-wrapped in linen bandages, not far from where 1 had fainted. A little figure in white stirred a pot over a brazier nearby. I blinked the haze out of my eyes and recognized Eleyne.

  "Where's Bedivere?"

  She turned to me, relief in her eyes, quickly knelt and put her hand to my forehead. "God is good. Awake at last with no fever, and here we thought what with one wound and another that we scarce had linen for—"

  "Bedivere, girl. How is he?"

  "Now don't move. Here's the good thick soup and myself just 28

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  waiting to offer it. We were graced it didn't rain as it does so often in the spring, because we dare not move you. Now raise your head—"

  Like her brother, Eleyne couldn't cry for help in a fire without a page of prologue. My weakness made me foul-tempered.

  "And eat this good—"

  "Damn the soup and damn the bloody rain. Where's my lieutenant!"

  She drew in as if I'd struck her. In an instant I was ashamed and sorry. I saw how spent she was, ridden weary that day to warn the village and summon the men, then returned to care for us and even brew the savory she waited humbly to serve me. I knew little of woman's mind or soul. All I saw in her was a naive girl who would never be even middling comely. Saintly, perhaps; we ascribe virtue to a woman when instinct can offer nothing more personal.

  Thai's a well-turned epigram, worthy of a Roman table, witty in its truth, impoverished for its ignorance. I learned more from Eleyne than ever I taught her.

  "Please forgive me. I was only worried about my friend," Resilient, she shrugged it off and fed me the soup. "He and Geraint are asleep in the hall, where I should be before I fall in my tracks. But I must pray first."

  I tried to make amends with an attempt at charm. "Pray me some manners, then."

  Alas, her smile was less subtle than prim. "We pray for what can be, not for miracles."

  "I deserved that. You must be tired, It's been quite a day." "A fine day. My brother always said the answer to Saxon pig was British horse."

  "Things are changing, Eteyne. There'll be more horse soon, the gods willing."

  Eleyne stared at me with open curiosity. "Why say you 'gods* as if there were many? Are you not Christian?"

  I had to think about it. "Well, I don't know." It seemed a simple admission, but her astonishment made me embellish. "At home we sacrificed to all sorts of gods. I've received the bread, drunk the wine. Some of our folk have been baptized thrice over just for the linen shirts they give out. I've sacrificed to Mithras, Mars, Jupiter, even Venus in ... certain places. I guess, all in all . . ."

  What, all in all? What to say on the subject of God from the Olympus of my twenty years and one brief battle? Now I was

  Merlin and a Sword

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  through it, already healing with youth's vigor, age too far away to imagine.

  The young are truly immortal. My arms would never tire, my loins never lose dieir hunger. God? I was God, my body the earth, my brain the cosmos. Do you see the joke now, Brother Coel? I said at the first that time was the traitor.

  The day comes when the seething beds can cool and not matter, when love means something beyond a reflection of ourselves, when there is more behind than ahead and the house of mind is haunted in every chamber with old songs, old ghosts, old hopes. And youth, though they see every day the cradle and rave shaped so alike, never believe death will happen to them. Ftold you it was a comedy.

  "All in all, I've never seen the face of God. Unless it was a magical boy named Merlin, a glimpse of other faces, a girl I'll know. A man I've never met and almost remember. No, truly, I don't know what I am."

  "Then God bring you an answer and His peace. Let it be your quest as I have mine."

  "You're worn out, Eleyne. A little more of this soup, then off to bed. Leave the prayers till morning."

  She filled the bowl again. "If I let go all the others, there is still the Grail prayer."

  My knowledge of Christian protocol was admittedly faint. "Pardon, the what?"

  She looked me straight on with that ponderous innocence. "Geraint did not te(I you?"

  "We were very busy. He must have forgotten."

  "Oh." She settled herself beside me. "It's a grand tale fit for a bard, but that it's every word true. Before we were chiefs in Dyfneint, we were still appointed folk with a charge on our souls. The Hebrews were the chosen of the Lord. Their blood is in Geraint and me."

  "How's that?"

  "On the night of the Last Supper, Christ Jesus used his bowl to say the first mass. Or some say the bowl brought here was that of a Hebrew tinsmith, Joseph of Arimathea, wflo stood high with Pilate. At Jesus' crucifixion, he caught the Holy Blood in a cup which later he and his family brought into Gaul and then here to Cornwall. Some say one, some the other." Eleyne turned to me, her eyes large in the dusk. "But there was a cup, Lord Arthur. Joseph brought it here to the mines he visited so many times as a young man in the tin trade."

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  That much could be true; the whole world bought its tin from Cornwall.

  "While Joseph and his family guarded the Grail, they were specially graced of God and could heal as Christ did. Folk came, multitudes on pilgrimage to see the Grail and the spear that pierced Christ's side. These things were passed down from father to son until one of them weakened and sinned."

  I finished the soup and handed her the bowl. "Whatever your sense of history, Eleyne, no one can fault your cooking."

  "But this is history," she protested. "It happened. It is my own family, not a word changed or forgot. Why is every king of Dyfneint called the Sinner King?"

  That was also true; somewhere I'd heard it and never connected the meaning.

  "This man, my ancestor, fell from grace. A young woman pilgrim came to him. It was hot summer, her robe was loose. He gazed on her—in less than a brotherly fashion, look you. The spear upon the instant pierced his side with a wound that would not close, and the Grail disappeared from the sight of men and has not been seen by mortal since."

  It occurred to me that a man sensible enough to enjoy a woman's body might have lost the cup in a manner less than mystical, but Eleyne was rapt in her story, so I listened on.

  "That was many generations past, but the charge stands. Our blood tost it, our blood must find it again. If not Geraint and 1, perhaps our children. It will be hard, even though I feel it is still in Holy Britain."

  As gently as possible, I asked, "Have you any notion where?" "Where the heart is, Lord Arthur; and when we are swom to regain the grace we lost. When we are again wise enough, pure enough to see what other men are denied. We or our

  children or our children's children. So every night, sick, well or weary, each of us prays—oh, not to be given the Grail as a gift, but the grace to be worthy of it."

  She seemed so grave and serious hovering over me in the dusk, I tried to lighten the mood a little. "There'll be other things, Eleyne. Don't pledge away your life before you have the handle of it. A fine girl like you will be married soon. Were I landed and settled, I might speak to your father myself."

  But Eleyne was light as lead. "Oh no, you are unsuitable. You are much too ungentle, Lord Arthur. And inclined to lewd-ness, my brother said."

  Had I felt better, it might have tweaked my vanity to be Merlin and a Sword

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  discarded so out of hand, but my body suddenly weighed a thousand stone and had to lie down. Eleyne covered me carefully.

  "Sleep now," she murmured, "and I will pray for you."

  "Fine." ! tried to stretch, but it hurt too much. "And if! find a man of sufficient grace, I'll send him to Dyfneint."

  "I would thank you for that, Lord Arthur."

  She took my meaning as she took all, in deadly earnest. For all her father's

  "kingdom," she was only a Cornish tribeswoman, unused to equality with men.

  I've said somewhere else that proportion and humor are the mellowing gift of time, but some souls will always be passed over. Still the gods must have a sense of humor or at least irony. There was a worthy, gentle man for Eleyne.

  You see, it was I who sent her Lancelot.

  Few of the Second Legion even knew of my going to Dyfneint; my return caused no large ripple. I submitted my report to the imperial staff and waited for my chest to heal. I was still unable to wear harness over it when the whole camp suddenly snapped and bustled to attention with the arrival of Ambrosius. The emperor gave little warning of his arrivals anywhere, but moved with the speed of the cavalry he dreamed of. Some time had passed since we'd last spoken. It was a surprise when my tribune sent for me.

 

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