Legacy: Arthurian Saga (166 page)

It was Melwas who suggested single
combat. How he was brought towards this was not quite clear; my
guess was that he took very little steering. Young, keen-tempered,
a good swordsman, knowing himself to be in grave danger, he must
have leaped at the chance of a quick decisive solution that gave
him a half-hope of success. He may have counted on more. His
challenge came at last, hotly: "A meeting to settle these matters
here and now, and man to man, if we are ever to agree as neighbors
again! You are the law, King; then prove it with your
sword!"

Uproar followed, arguments flying to
and fro across the hall. The older of those present found it
unthinkable that the King should risk himself, but all had by this
time some inkling that there was more at stake than harbor dues,
and the younger knights were quite frankly eager to see a fight.
More than one of them (Bedwyr was the most insistent) offered
himself as combatant in Arthur's place, until finally the King,
judging his moment, got decisively to his feet. In the sudden
silence he strode to the round table at the hall's center, lifted
the tablets where Melwas' grievances were listed, and sent them
smashing to the floor.

"Now bring me my sword," he
said.

It was midday when they faced one
another on the level field in the northeast quarter of Caer Camel.
The sky was cloudless, but a steady cool breeze tempered the warmth
of the day. The light was high and even. The edge of the field was
deep in people, the very ramparts furred with folk. At the top of
one of Camelot's gilded towers I saw the cluster of azure and green
and scarlet where the women had gathered to watch. The Queen, among
them, was in white, Arthur's color. I wondered how she was feeling,
and could guess at the still composure with which she would hide
her fear. Then the trumpet sounded, and silence fell.

The two combatants were armed with
spears and shields, and each man had sword and dagger at his belt.
Arthur was not using Caliburn, the royal sword. His armor -- a
light helmet and leather corselet -- showed neither jewel nor
device. Melwas' dress was more princely, and he was a shade the
taller. He looked fierce and eager, and I saw him cast a look
toward the palace tower where the Queen stood. Arthur had not
glanced that way. He looked cool and infinitely experienced,
listening apparently with grave attention to the herald's formal
announcement.

There was a sycamore tree to one side
of the field. Bedwyr, beside me in its shade, gave me a long look,
and then drew a breath of relief.

"So. You're not worried. Thank God for
that!"

"It had to come to this in the end.
It's best. But if there had been danger for him, I would have
stopped it."

"All the same, it's folly. Oh, I know
that he wanted to, but he should never risk himself so. He should
have let me do it."

"And what sort of showing would you
make, do you suppose? You're still lame. You could have been cut
down, if not worse, and then the legend would have had to start
again. There are still simple folk who think that right is with the
strongest sword."

"As it is today, or you'd not be
standing idly by. I know. But I wish..." He fell silent.

"I know what you wish. I think you
will have your wish, not once but many times, before your life's
end."

He glanced sharply at me, started to
say something more, but then the pennon fell, and the fight had
begun.

For a long time the men circled one
another, spears poised for the throw, shields ready. The light
advantaged neither. It was Melwas who attacked first. He feinted
once, then, with great speed and strength behind the throw, hurled
the spear. Arthur's shield flashed up to deflect it. The blade slid
screaming past the boss, and the spear buried itself harmlessly in
the grass. Melwas, snatching for his sword-hilt, sprang back. But
Arthur, in the same moment as he turned the spear aside, flung his
own. By doing so he cancelled the advantage that Melwas' first
thrown had given him; but he did not draw his own sword; he reached
for the other's spent spear, upright by him in the turf, pulled it
up, and hefted it, just as Melwas, abandoning his sword-hilt, sent
the King's spear also whizzing harmlessly from his shield, and
turned, swift as a fox, to pick it up in the same way and face
spear with spear once more.

But Arthur's weapon, harder flung, and
more desperately parried, flew spinning to one side, to bounce
level along the turf and skid away from Melwas' hand. There was no
hope of snatching it up before Arthur could throw. Melwas, shield
at the ready, feinted this way and that, hoping to draw the other's
spear and so regain the advantage. He reached the fallen weapon; he
stooped for it where it lay, the shaft half-propped to his hand by
a clump of thistles. Arthur's arm moved, and the blade of his spear
flashed in the light, drawing Melwas' eye. Melwas ducked, throwing
his shield up into the line of the cast, at the same time swerving
down to grab the fallen weapon. But the King's move had been a
false one; in the unguarded moment when Melwas stooped sideways for
the other spear, the King's, thrown straight and low, took him in
the outstretched arm. Arthur's sword whipped into his hand as he
followed the spear.

Melwas staggered. As a great shout hit
the walls and echoed round the field he recovered, grabbed the
spear, and hurled it straight at the King.

Had he been any less fast, Arthur must
have closed with him before he could use the spear. As it was,
Melwas' weapon struck true when the King was halfway across the
space between them. Arthur caught it on his shield, but at that
short range the force was too great to turn. The long shaft whipped
in a half-circle, checking the King's rush. With the sword still
held in his right hand, he tried to tear the spear-point from the
leather, but it had gone in close by one of the metal stays, and
jammed there, caught by its barbs. He flung the shield aside, spear
and all, and ran in on Melwas, with nothing to guard his naked side
but the dagger at his left hand.

The rush gave Melwas no time to
recover himself and grab a spear for a third cast. With the blood
streaming down his arm, he dragged out his sword, and met the
King's attack, body to body, with a slithering clash of metal. The
exchange had left them still evenly matched, Melwas' wound, and the
loss of strength in his sword against the King's unguarded side.
Melwas was a good swordsman, fast and very strong, and for the
first few minutes of the hand-to-hand struggle he aimed every
stroke and slash at the King's left. But each one met iron. And
step by step the King was pressing him; step by step Melwas was
forced to give in front of the attack. The blood ran down,
weakening him steadily. Arthur, as far as could be seen, was
unhurt. He pressed forward, the ringing blows coming fast and hard,
the whining whip and parry of the long dagger chiming between.
Behind Melwas lay the fallen spear. Melwas knew it, but dared not
glance to see where it lay. The dread of fouling it, and falling,
made him slower. He was sweating freely, and beginning to breathe
like a hard-ridden horse.

One of those moments came when, breast
to breast, weapon to weapon, the men stood locked, totally still.
Round the field the crowd was silent now, holding its
breath.

The King spoke, softly and coldly. No
one could hear what he said. Melwas did not reply. There was a
moment's pause, then a swift movement, a sudden pressure, a grunt
from Melwas, and some kind of growled answer. Then Arthur
disengaged smoothly, and, with another low-spoken sentence,
attacked afresh.

Melwas' right hand was a blur of
glossy blood. His sword moved more slowly, as if too heavy for him.
His breathing labored, loud as a stag's in rut. With a great,
grunting effort he brought his shield smashing down, like an axe,
at the King. Arthur dodged, but slipped. The shield's edge took him
on the right shoulder, and must have numbed the arm. His sword flew
wide. There was a gasp and a great cry from the watching people.
Melwas gave a shout, and swung his sword up for the
kill.

But Arthur, now armed only with a
dagger, did not spring back out of range. Before anyone could draw
breath he had jumped forward, straight past the shield, and his
long dagger bit into Melwas' throat.

And stayed still, followed only by a
trickle of blood. No thrust followed. He spoke again, low and
fierce. Melwas froze where he stood. The sword dropped from his
lifted hand. The shield fell to the grass.

The dagger withdrew. The King stepped
back. Slowly, in the sight of all that throng, the King's men and
his own, and of the Queen watching from her tower, Melwas, King of
the Summer Country, knelt on the bloody grass in front of Arthur,
and made his surrender.

Now there was no sound at
all.

With a movement so slow as to be
almost ceremonial, the King lifted his dagger, and cast it, point
down, to quiver in the turf. Then he spoke again, more quietly even
than before. This time Melwas, with bent head, answered him. They
spoke for some time. Finally the King, still with that ceremony of
gesture, reached a hand, and lifted Melwas to his feet. Then he
beckoned the defeated man's escort to him, and, as his own people
came crowding, turned away among them and walked back toward the
palace.

In later years I heard several stories
about this fight. Some said it was Bedwyr who fought, not Arthur,
but that is patently foolish. Others asserted that there was no
fight, or Melwas would surely have been slain. Arthur and Melwas,
they said, were brought by some mediator in the Council to agree on
terms.

That is not true. It happened exactly
as I have told it. Later I learned from the King what had passed
between the two men on the field of combat: Melwas, expecting
death, was brought to admit the truth of the Queen's accusation,
and his own guilt. It is true it would not have served for Arthur
to kill him, but Arthur -- and this on no advice from me -- acted
with both wisdom and restraint. It is a fact that after that day
Melwas was loyal to him, and Ynys Witrin was reckoned a jewel in
the tally of Arthur's sovereignty.

It is a matter of public record that
the King's ships paid no more harbor dues.

7

So the year went by, and the lovely
month came, September, my birth-month, the wind's month, the month
of the raven, and of Myrddin himself, that wayfarer between heaven
and earth. The apple trees were heavy with fruit, and the herbs
were gathered and drying; they hung in sheaves and bunches from the
rafters in the outhouses at Applegarth, and the still-room was full
of ranked jars and boxes waiting to be filled. The whole house,
garden, tower and living quarters, smelled sweetly of herbs and
fruit, and of the honey that welled from the hives; even, at the
end of the orchard, from the hollow oak where the wild bees lived.
Applegarth, it seemed, reflected within its small boundaries the
golden plenty of the kingdom's summer. The Queen's summer, men
called it, as harvest followed hay-time, and still the land glowed
with the Goddess-given plenty. A golden age, they said. For me,
too, a golden age. But now, as never before, I had time to be
lonely. And in the evenings, when the wind was in the southwest, I
could feel it in my bones, and was grateful for the fire. Those
weeks of nakedness and hunger, and exposure to the mountain weather
in the Caledonian Forest, had left me a legacy that even a strong
body could not shake off, and were pricking me forward into old
age.

Another legacy that time had left me;
whether as a lingering after-effect of Morgause's poison, or from
some other cause, I had, from time to time, brief attacks of
something that I might have called the falling sickness, save that
this is not a malady that comes in later years if it has not been
felt before. The symptoms, besides, were not like those in cases
that I had seen or treated. The fit had come three times in all,
and only when I was alone, so none knew of it but myself. What
happened was this: resting quietly, I had drifted off, it seemed
into sleep, only to wake, cold and stiff and weak with hunger --
though not inclined to eat -- many hours later. The first time it
was a matter of twelve hours or so only, but I guessed from the
giddiness, and the light, exhausted feeling, that it had not been
normal sleep. On the second occasion the lapse of time was two
nights and a day, and I was lucky that the malady had struck me
when I was safely in my bed.

I told no one. When the third attack
was imminent I recognized the signs; a light, half-hungry
sensation, a slight giddiness, a wish to rest and be silent. So I
sent Mora home, locked the doors, and took myself to my bedchamber.
Afterwards I felt as I sometimes had after a time of prophecy,
borne up like a creature ready for flight, with senses rinsed and
clean as if new-made, colors and sounds coming as fresh and
brilliant as they must to a child. Of course I took to my books for
enlightenment, but finding no help there, I put the matter aside,
accepting it, as I had learned to accept the pains of prophecy, and
their withdrawal, as a touch of the god's hand. Perhaps now the
hand was drawing me closer. There was no fear in the thought. I had
done what he had required of me, and when the time came, would be
ready to go.

But he did not, I reckoned, require me
to sacrifice my pride. Let men remember the royal prophet and
enchanter who retired from men's sight and his King's service in
his own time; not a dotard who had waited overlong for his
dismissal.