I was nervous of the coming fight, but Nimue seemed unafraid. “I have nothing to fear,” she told me. “I’ve taken the Three Wounds, so what can hurt me?” She was sitting beside me, close to the ford at the vale’s northern end. This would be our first defence line, the place where we would begin the slow retreat that would suck the enemy into the vale and Arthur’s trap. “Besides,” she added, “I am under Merlin’s protection.”
“Does he know we’re here?” I asked her.
She paused, then nodded. “He knows.”
“Will he come?”
She frowned as though my question was crass. “He will do,” she said slowly, ‘whatever he needs to do.”
“Then he will come,” I said in fervent hope.
Nimue shook her head impatiently. “Merlin cares only for Britain. He believes Arthur could help restore the Knowledge of Britain, but if he decides that Gorfyddyd would do it better, then believe me, Derfel, Merlin will side with Gorfyddyd.”
Merlin had hinted as much to me at Caer Sws, but I still found it hard to believe that his ambitions were so far from my own allegiances and hopes. “What about you?” I asked Nimue.
“I have one burden that ties me to this army,” she said, ‘and after that I shall be free to help Merlin.”
“Gundleus,” I said.
She nodded. “Give me Gundleus alive, Derfel,” she said, looking into my eyes, ‘give him to me alive, I beg you.” She touched the leather eyepatch and went silent as she summoned her energy for the revenge she craved. Her face was still bone pale and her black hair hung lank against her cheeks. The softness she had revealed at Lughnasa had been replaced by a chill bleakness that made me think I would never understand her. I loved her, not as I believed I loved Ceinwyn, but as a man can love a fine wild creature, an eagle or a wildcat, for I knew I would never comprehend her life or dreams. She grimaced suddenly. “I shall make Gundleus’s soul scream through the rest of time,” she said softly, “I shall send it through the abyss into nothingness, but he will never reach nothingness, Derfel, he will always suffer on its edge, screaming.”
I shuddered for Gundleus.
A shout made me look across the river. Six horsemen were galloping towards us. Our shield-wall stood and thrust their arms into their shield-loops, but then I saw the leading man was Morfans. He rode desperately, kicking at his tired sweat-whitened horse, and I feared those six men were all that remained of Arthur’s troop.
The horses splashed through the ford as Sagramor and I went forward. Morfans reined in on the river bank. “Two miles away,” he panted. “Arthur sent us to help you. Gods, there are hundreds of the bastards!” He wiped sweat off his forehead, then grinned. “There’s plunder enough for a thousand of us!” He slid heavily from his horse and I saw he was carrying the silver horn and guessed he would use it to summon Arthur when the moment was right.
“Where is Arthur?” Sagramor asked.
“Safely hid,” Morfans assured us, then looked at my armour and his ugly face split into a lopsided grin. “Weighs you down, that armour, doesn’t it?”
“How does he ever fight in it?” I asked.
“Very well, Derfel, very well. And so will you.” He clapped my shoulder. “Any news from Galahad?”
“None.”
“Agricola won’t let us fight alone, whatever that Christian King and his gutless son might want,” Morfans said, then he led his five horsemen back through the shield-wall. “Give us a few minutes to rest the horses,” he called.
Sagramor pulled his helmet over his head. The Numidian wore a coat of mail, a black cloak and tall boots. His iron helmet was painted black with pitch and rose to a sharp point that gave it an exotic appearance. Usually he fought on horseback, but he showed no regret at being an infantryman this day. Nor did he display any nervousness as he prowled long-legged up and down our shield-wall and growled encouragement to his men.
I pulled Arthur’s stifling helmet over my head and buckled its strap under my chin. Then, arrayed as my Lord, I also walked along the line of spears and warned my men that the fight would be hard, but victory certain so long as our shield-wall held. It was a perilously thin wall, in some places just three men deep, but those in the wall were all good men. One of them stepped out of the line as I approached the place where Sagramor’s spearmen bordered mine. “Remember me, Lord?” he called.