“Wait!”
“When does Merlin come?”
“Soon.”
“Is Saint Sansum being horrid to you?”
“The saint has the fate of our immortal souls on his conscience. He does what he must do.”
“But did he really fall to his knees and scream for martyrdom before he married Arthur to Guinevere?”
“Yes,” I said and could not help smiling at the memory.
Igraine laughed. “I shall ask Brochvael to make the Mouse Lord into a real martyr,” she said, ‘then you can be in charge of Dinnewrac. Would you like that, Brother Derfel?”
“I would like some peace to carry on with my tale,” I chided her.
“So what happens next?” Igraine asked eagerly.
Armorica is next. The Land across the Sea. Beautiful Ynys Trebes, King Ban, Lancelot, Galahad and Merlin. Dear Lord, what men they were, what days we had, what fights we gave and dreams we broke. In Armorica.
Later, much later, when we looked back on those times we simply called them the ‘bad years’, but we rarely discussed them. Arthur hated to be reminded of those early days in Dumnonia when his passion for Guinevere tore the land into chaos. His betrothal to Ceinwyn had been like an elaborate brooch that held together a fragile gown of gossamer, and when the brooch went the garment fell into shreds. Arthur blamed himself and did not like to talk about the bad years.
Tewdric, for a time, refused to fight on either side. He blamed Arthur for the broken peace and in retribution he allowed Gorfyd-dyd and Gundleus to lead their war-bands through Gwent into Dumnonia. The Saxons pressed from the east, the Irish raided out of the Western Sea and, as if those enemies were not enough, Prince Cadwy of Isca rebelled against Arthur’s rule. Tewdric tried to stay aloof from it all, but when Aelle’s Saxons savaged Tewdric’s frontier the only friends he could call on for help were Dumnonians and so, in the end, he was forced into the war on Arthur’s side, but by then the spearmen of Powys and Siluria had used his roads to capture the hills north of Ynys Wydryn and when Tewdric declared for Dumnonia they occupied Glevum as well.
I grew up in those years. I lost count of the men I killed and the warrior rings I forged. I received a nickname, Cadarn, which means
‘the mighty’. Derfel Cadarn, sober in battle and with a dreadful quick sword. At one time Arthur invited me to become one of his horsemen, but I preferred to stay on firm ground and so remained a spearman. I watched Arthur during that time and began to appreciate just why he was such a great soldier. It was not merely his bravery, though he was brave, but how he outfoxed his enemies. Our armies were clumsy instruments, slow to march and sluggish to change direction once they were marching, but Arthur forged a small force of men who learned to travel quickly. He led those men, some on foot, some in the saddle, on long marches that looped about the enemies’ flanks so they always appeared where they were least expected. We liked to attack at dawn, when the enemy was still fuddled from a night’s drinking, or else we lured them on with false retreats and then slashed into their unprotected flanks. After a year of such battles, when we had at last driven the forces of Gorfyddyd and Gundleus out of Glevum and northern Dumnonia, Arthur made me a captain and I began handing my own followers gold. Two years later I even received the ultimate accolade of a warrior, an invitation to defect to the enemy. Of all people it came from Ligessac, Norwenna’s traitorous guard commander, who spoke to me in a temple of Mithras, where his life was protected, and offered me a fortune if I would serve Gundleus as he did. I refused. God be thanked, but I was always loyal to Arthur.
Sagramor was also loyal, and it was he who initiated me into Mithras’s service. Mithras was a God the Romans had brought to Britain and He must have liked our climate for He still has power. He is a soldiers’ God and no women can be initiated into His mysteries. My initiation took place in late winter, when soldiers have time to spare. It happened in the hills. Sagramor took me alone into a valley so deep that even by late afternoon the morning frost still crisped the grass. We stopped by a cave entrance where Sagramor instructed me to lay my weapons aside and strip naked. I stood there shivering as the Numidian tied a thick cloth about my eyes and told me I must now obey every instruction and that if I flinched or spoke once, just once, I would be brought back to my clothes and weapons and sent away.