I turned back in time to see Merlin and Arthur embrace. Arthur almost seemed to collapse in the Druid’s arms, but Merlin lifted and clasped him. Then the two of them walked towards the enemy’s shields.
Prince Cuneglas and the Druid lorweth came from the encircled shield-wall. Cuneglas carried a spear, but no shield, while Arthur had Excalibur in its scabbard, but no other weapon. He paced ahead of Merlin and, as he drew near to Cuneglas, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Lord Prince,” he said.
“My father is dying,” Cuneglas said. “A spear thrust took him in the back.” He made it sound like an accusation, though everyone knew that once a shield-wall broke many men would die with their wounds behind.
Arthur stayed on one knee. For a moment `;2:,’ he did not seem to know what to say, then he looked up at Cuneglas. “May I see him?” he asked. “I offended your house, Lord Prince, and insulted its honour, and though no insult was meant, I would still beg your father’s forgiveness.”
It was Cuneglas’s turn to seem bemused, then he shrugged as though he was not certain he was making the right decision, but at last he gestured towards his shield-wall. Arthur stood and, side by side with the Prince, went to see the dying King Gorfyddyd.
I wanted to call out to Arthur not to go, but he was swallowed in the enemy’s ranks before my muddled wits recovered. I cringed to think what Gorfyddyd would say to Arthur, and I knew Gorfyddyd would say those things, the same filthy things that he had spat at me across the rim of his spear-scarred shield. King Gorfyddyd was not a man to forgive his enemies, nor one to spare an enemy hurt, even if he was dying. Especially if he was dying. It would be Gorfyddyd’s final pleasure in this world to know that he had hurt his foe. Sagramor shared my fears, and both of us watched in anguish as, after a few moments, Arthur emerged from the defeated ranks with a face as dark as Cruachan’s Cave. Sagramor stepped towards him. “He lied, Lord,” Sagramor said softly. “He always lied.”
“I know he lied,” Arthur said, then shuddered. “But some untruths are hard to hear and impossible to forgive.” Anger suddenly swelled up inside him and he drew Excalibur and turned fiercely on the trapped enemy. “Does any man of you want to fight for your King’s lies?” he shouted as he paced up and down their line. “Is there one of you? Just one man willing to fight for that evil thing that dies with you? Just one? Or else I’ll have your King’s soul cursed to the last darkness! Come on, fight!” He flailed Excalibur at their raised shields. “Fight! You scum!” His rage was as terrible as anything the vale had seen that whole day. “In the name of the Gods,” he called, “I declare your King a liar, a bastard, a thing without honour, a nothing!” He spat at them, then fumbled one-handed at the buckles of my leather breastplate that he still wore. He succeeded in freeing the shoulder straps, but not the waist, so that the breastplate hung in front of him like a blacksmith’s apron. “I’ll make it easy for you!” he yelled. “No armour. No shield. Come and fight me! Prove to me that your bastard whore-monger ing King speaks truth! Not one of you?” His rage was out of control for he was in the Gods’ hands now and spattering his anger at a world that cowered from his dreadful force. He spat again. “You rancid whores!” He whirled around as Cuneglas reappeared in the shield-wall. “You, whelp?” He pointed Excalibur at Cuneglas. “You’d fight for that lump of dying filth?”
Cuneglas, like every man there, was shaken by Arthur’s fury, but he walked weaponless from the shield-wall and then, just feet from Arthur, he sank to his knees. “We are at your mercy, Lord Arthur,” he said and Arthur stared at him. His body was tense for all the rage and frustration of a day’s fighting was boiling inside him and for a second I thought that Excalibur would hiss in the dusk to strike Cuneglas’s head from his shoulders, but then Cuneglas looked up. “I am now King of Powys, Lord Arthur, but at your mercy.”