“What was?” I asked.
“Paradise.” He leaned back on the grass and rested his head on his arms. “Sweet paradise.”
“Ynys Trebes, you mean?”
“No, no. I mean, Derfel, that when God made man He gave us a paradise in which to live, and it occurs to me that we have been losing that paradise, inch by inch, ever since. And soon, I think, it will be gone. Darkness descends.” He went silent for a while, then sat up as his thoughts gave him a new energy. “Just think of it,” he said, ‘not a hundred years ago this land was peaceful. Men built great houses. We can’t build like they did. I know Father has made a fine palace, but it’s just broken pieces of old palaces cobbled together and patched with stone. We can’t build like the Romans. We can’t build as high, or as beautifully. We can’t make roads, we can’t make canals, we can’t make aqueducts.” I did not even know what an aqueduct was, but kept silent as Culhwch snored contentedly beside me. “The Romans built whole cities,” Galahad went on, ‘places so vast, Derfel, it would take a whole morning to walk from one side of the city to the other and all of your footsteps would fall on trimmed, dressed stone. And in those days you could walk for weeks and still be on Rome’s land, subject to Rome’s laws and listening to Rome’s language. Now look at it.” He waved at the night. “Just darkness. And it spreads, Derfel. The dark is creeping into Armorica. Benoic will go, and after Benoic, Broceliande, and after Broceliande, Britain. No more laws, no more books, no more music, no more justice, only vile men round smoky fires planning on who they’ll kill next day.”
“Not while Arthur lives,” I said stubbornly.
“One man against the dark?” Galahad asked sceptic ally
“Wasn’t your Christ one man against the dark?” I asked.
Galahad thought for a second, staring into the fire that shadowed his strong face. “Christ,” he said finally, ‘was our last chance. He told us to love one another, to do good to each other, to give alms to the poor, food to the hungry, cloaks to the naked. So men killed Him.” He turned and looked at me. “I think Christ knew what was coming and that was why He promised us that if we lived as He lived then one day we’d be with Him in paradise. Not on earth, Derfel, but in paradise. Up there’ he pointed to the stars’ because He knew the earth was finished. We’re in the last days. Even your Gods have fled from us. Isn’t that what you tell me? That your Merlin is scouring strange lands to find clues to the old Gods, but what use will the clues be? Your religion died long ago when the Romans ravaged Ynys Mon and all you have left are disconnected scraps of knowledge. Your Gods are gone.”
“No,” I said, thinking of Nimue who felt their presence, though to me the Gods were always distant and shadowy. Bel, to me, was like Merlin, only far away and indescribably huge and far more mysterious. I thought of Bel as somehow living in the far north, while Manawydan must live in the west where the waters tumbled endlessly.
“The old Gods are gone,” Galahad insisted. “They abandoned us because we are not worthy.”
“Arthur is worthy,” I said stubbornly, ‘and so are you.”
He shook his head. “I am a sinner so vile, Derfel, that I cringe.”
I laughed at his abject tone. “Nonsense,” I said.
“I kill, I lust, I envy.” He was truly miserable, but then Galahad, like Arthur, was a man who was for ever judging his own soul and finding it wanting and I never met such a man who was happy for long.
“You only kill men who would kill you,” I defended him.
“And, God help me, I enjoy it.” He made the sign of the cross.
“Good,” I said. “And what’s wrong with lust?”
“It overcomes reason.”
“But you’re reasonable,” I pointed out.
“But I lust, Derfel, how I lust. There is a girl in Ynys Trebes, one of my father’s harpists.” He shook his head hopelessly.