The Return of Sir Percival (21 page)

Cadwyn's eyes widened.

Guinevere nodded. “Yes, that is the truth of it, my dear. Alas, the matter did not end there. Uther's brother denied Arthur's claim after Uther's death and insisted that the crown was his by right. Others, who claimed lineage through King Aurelius, and even distant King Vor-tigern, also laid claim to the crown. So, a war of succession followed. It was a fearful time.”

A distant look came to Guinevere's face, and she was quiet for a moment as she remembered the look of fear on her mother's face every time her father rode off with his liegemen in those years. Then she continued.

“When Arthur sought my father's aid in this war, he agreed to support Arthur's claim. In return, Arthur agreed to take me for his Queen, when I came of age.”

“Milady, did your father ask you if …”

Guinevere smiled a sad and knowing smile.

“No, Cadwyn. That is not the way of things. The daughter of a powerful lord is a coin in the game of power, a thing to be bartered away for gain. It has been thus for centuries.”

Cadwyn sat up in her chair, a look of defiance on her face. “I will choose the man that I marry.”

Guinevere laughed. “I suspect you will, Cadwyn, and he will be a very lucky man.”

“I shouldn't interrupt, Milady. Sister Aranwen says that it is a bad habit. Please—”

“It may be that,” the Queen said with a laugh, “but life would be so much less interesting without that bad habit of yours. So I must ask you to keep it. Now, where was I?” She tapped one finger against her chin. “Why, I am becoming quite the old woman, forgetting myself every other moment.”

“You are not, Milady. Why, you are as young and beautiful as a spring rose.”

“I'll settle for a late-summer bloom,” Guinevere said with a smile. “Oh yes, I remember now. Arthur spent a year fighting to secure the throne and another two years subduing the endless revolts that seemed to arise in one part of the land or another. In time, he came to reign as the undisputed king of the land, and when I was eighteen, he sent for me, and a grand wedding was arranged.

“This,” Guinevere said, touching the larger of the two golden rings on the table, “is my wedding ring. It was designed by a famed court artisan, forged by the court smith, and then approved by the Royal Council as fitting for the occasion.”

Cadwyn stared at the magnificent ring and spoke in a whisper.

“It is a magnificent ring, Milady.”

“Indeed, it is, and most would choose it over the other. I suspect that I would have as well, had I been given the choice as a young woman. But,” Guinevere said in a voice tinged with regret, “the more modest ring is the one I would choose today, or even a ring of the crudest wood, if it was given by my beloved with all his heart, as Arthur gave this one.”

“Milady, Arthur gave you the smaller ring as well?” Cadwyn asked, confusion in her voice.

A sad smile came to Guinevere's face. “No, Cadwyn, Arthur did not give me this ring.”

“But you said—”

“I did. You see, I was not Arthur's first wife.”

Cadwyn's eye widened, and she lifted a hand to her mouth.

Guinevere looked over at the flickering candle and spoke as though she were describing the life of another woman.

“When I married Arthur Pendragon, he was the unchallenged King of the Britons and the first knight of the invincible Knights of the Round Table. He was also late in his fourth decade of life. Although few know of it, long before he reached those powerful heights, the young Arthur—a man who was just one of many lords fighting to defend his family's ancestral fiefs like many other—fell in love. His beloved was the daughter of a lesser noble, and his family frowned upon the union, but Arthur rejected their advice. He chose love over power, and I'm told that she loved him as dearly as he loved her.”

“Milady,” Cadwyn said, her voice hesitant, “if you will, how did you learn of this?”

Guinevere gently took the smaller of the two rings and rested it in her palm. “This ring … it was brought to me by a messenger after Arthur's death at Camlann. They assumed it was mine. For a year after Arthur's death, I kept it locked away, not wanting to know the truth of the matter, but one morning, I decided otherwise and asked the abbess what she knew of it. She had known Arthur in the early days and had attended his wedding to … Alona, his first wife.

“She died in childbirth,” Guinevere said, her eyes on the ring, “in the second year of their marriage. The child died as well. The abbess said Arthur was a broken man for a very long while. Over time, he recovered, but the abbess said he was different—colder, more distant. That was the man who became King.”

Guinevere fell silent and gently returned the two rings to the silken bag and then placed it back in the strongbox. “I have kept both my ring and Alona's to honor him, for he was a great and wonderful man in so many ways, and Alona must have been … most wonderful as well, for him to love her so dearly. But sometimes, in my weaker, more selfish moments, I envy her, for she and Arthur married for love, whereas we … our union … was one of duty.”

“Milady, one day you will marry for love!” Cadwyn burst out.

Guinevere looked over at her young friend in surprise and smiled.

“Oh, Cadwyn, you are precious, but alas … those days are gone.”

C
AMP ON THE
R
IVER
W
ID

ercival stood on the edge of a stand of trees bordering a broad, open field on the south side of the River Wid—a field that was quickly becoming a fortified camp. As he watched the lines of men digging a ditch and building a palisade across the exposed part of the field, he remembered doing this same work side by side with the men of town near his home, under the watchful eyes of his father and grandfather.

Capussa walked over to stand beside Percival and nodded toward the rows of stakes protruding from the ground forming a palisade along the ditch dug on the perimeter of the camp. “You have done this before, Knight. I would not have thought a man of noble blood would know of these things.”

Percival smiled, remembering his protestations as a younger man at the effort he considered wasteful, and his grandfather's stern reply: “Percival, a wise commander prepares for both victory and defeat. If you are driven from the field, this ditch and palisade will mean the difference between life and death for you and your army.”

He glanced over at Capussa and smiled ruefully. “When I was ten years old, I was forced to dig a ditch and build a palisade like this one in the hot sun. I was quite sure the work was beneath me. My grandfather thought otherwise. When I threw down my shovel and tried to climb out of the ditch, he knocked me back into the mud and told me to keep at it.”

“I think I would have liked this man,” Capussa said with an approving nod.

“Because he was right, or because he knocked me back into the ditch?” Percival asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Both,” Capussa said.

The Knight smiled. “I thought as much.”

Percival turned at the sound of approaching horses and saw Cynric, Tylan, and a clean-shaven Merlin riding toward him. The three men dismounted, and Percival walked over to meet them, with Capussa at his side. Capussa nodded to Cynric. “Does the enemy make preparation for battle?” he asked.

Cynric shook his head. “Not yet, but the Norse will attack again, once their foot soldiers arrive. The scouts say that may be tonight, but certainly by morning.”

“Aye, he will come,” Tylan concurred with a nod.

“Will the attack come tonight or at dawn?” Capussa asked.

“Ivarr would attack tonight, if he could,” Cynric said. “But the scouts say his men have been coming at a forced march for near a day and a half. They'll want to eat and rest before battle. I wager he will come in the morning.”

Merlin nodded his agreement. “That would be the wiser choice.”

“How many men do we have?” Percival said.

Cynric looked over at Tylan.

“Near three hundred and more come by the hour,” Tylan said, looking across the field at a group of men carrying axes and logs toward the palisade.

“And what kind of men are they?” Percival asked quietly.

“They're brave enough,” Cynric answered, “but most of them have never been in a fight before, and they're not well-armed. Most of them only have axes, knives, and staffs. I can't say how they will hold—”

“They will hold, my friend,” Capussa interrupted. “Thanks to the endless sea of trees in this land, and the two hundred axes at work out there, we will be able to put two hundred pikemen into the field by dawn.”

“A phalanx of pikemen may stop the cavalry, my Numidian friend, but they will only delay hardened warriors afoot,” Merlin said. “Once the Norse get among them, they will break our line, and it will become a slaughter. Ivarr will know this.”

“Then,” Percival said, “we must choose our ground well, so this does not come to pass.”

Capussa gestured toward a large, flat rock they had used as a makeshift desk earlier in the day. “Let us look at that map of yours, Merlin the Wise.”

The five men walked over to the rock, and Merlin rolled out a parchment, revealing a map. “I drew this after talking to the scouts and a local farmer.”

Percival pointed to the line on the map designating the River Wid. “Where will he seek to make his crossing?”

Cynric leaned forward and stared at the parchment for a long moment. “If he crosses to the south,” he said, “his men will have to ride through a foul marsh to reach this camp. A crossing to the north would be easier. There's a path on this side. It runs alongside the river.”

“What is this ground like?” Capussa said, tracing the south bank of the river to the north of the camp.

“It's flat until you reach this stretch,” Cynric said, tapping a spot on the map. “There's a wooded hill there on this side of the river. The path runs along its base.”

“So the path there is bordered on one side by the river and on the other by a slope?” Capussa questioned.

“Yes?”

“Can a line of men take a position on this slope?”

Cynric stared at the Numidian for a moment and then answered, a tinge of excitement in his voice, “Yes, yes. I believe they could.”

“I would see this place,” Capussa said quietly and turned to Merlin. “A man named Hannibal led my people, and other barbarians, as you Romans used to call us, to a great victory. There was a fog that morning, and the enemy was drawn down a narrow road bordered on one side by a hill and—”

“On the other by a lake— Trasimene,” Merlin finished.

“Indeed,” Capussa said, a smile coming to his face.

* * *

C
APUSSA
L
OOKED
A
CROSS
the darkened field at the ordered and fortified camp, alit in the light from the full moon. Three sides of the perimeter were protected by a ditch and a palisade of wooden stakes, and the fourth by a natural barrier of rocks. Sentries were posted at regular intervals along the barriers. Some of the roughly four hundred men enclosed within the camp perimeter were sleeping on the ground, wrapped in simple cloaks or blankets; others were talking quietly in circles around a score of cooking fires. Wooden pikes were stacked next to each fire, ready for use in the morning. Capussa nodded in satisfaction and took a drink from the silver flask he was holding before returning it to a pocket in his black cloak.

After a final look at the perimeter, the Numidian walked back to a long, flat rock where his sword lay. A fire burned in a shallow pit two paces away. Merlin sat on another rock to his right, and Cynric, Tylan, Bray, Keil, and a number of other newly arrived men were sitting on logs and rocks to his left, talking quietly. As he took a seat on the flat stone, Capussa looked over at Cynric and asked, “The Knight?”

“There is a spring just outside the wall. He bathes and then—”

“He will pray,” Capussa finished.

“Eight bowmen watch over him, at a distance,” Cynric said.

Capussa nodded his unspoken thanks and looked over at the fire.

Several minutes after Capussa sat down, Keil rose and walked hesitantly toward him. He sat down on a smaller rock a pace away, and Capussa glanced over at the younger man. “You would ask a question of me, my young friend?”

“Ah, yes, yes sir. The other night, you said, well, you said that you might—”

“Continue my tale of the time Sir Percival and I spent in the land of the Moors? Indeed, I did. Well, the night before a battle is as good a time for a story as any.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Bray and the rest of Cynric's men moved closer.

“Now, where were we? … Oh yes, our time as prisoners of Khalid El-Hashem—our time in the arena.”

Capussa stared at the fire for a moment in silence and then spoke in a musing tone.

“I have been a soldier for more than two decades, and I have closed with the enemy and traded blows in the heat of battle many a time, but … it is a different thing to rise each day as a gladiator. When you awake and watch the sun rise, you know that you will be dead by sundown, unless you can defeat another man in mortal combat; and when you go to bed each night, you know that the next day will be same.”

Five other men walked over from the other side of the fire and sat down quietly.

Capussa nodded at them and continued. “I found, as did other men, that once I survived a month in the arena, the burden of fear receded. You become more comfortable with death. It's as if he is a neighbor who you see at the village well each day. You greet each other and talk of things, and then part. With each parting, you breathe a sigh of relief, but,” Capussa paused, his eyes roving over the growing crowd of listeners, “you know that there will come a day when you will not leave the well. You know one day he will take you.”

Capussa was quiet for a moment, and his eyes grew distant.

“Some men couldn't bear the waiting, and they would choose the day of their death, embracing a blow they knew would take them quickly. But this … this changes as the end of your time of imprisonment nears. Then you begin to hope again. You begin to think of a life where you will not have to meet death every day, and that is a dangerous thing.”

Merlin nodded in understanding.

“As fate would have it, Khalid was bound to release both Sir Percival and me in the same week, and as our last month approached, we pledged to remain vigilant that we might survive and live out our days in this—” Capussa smiled and made a gesture that took in the armed camp “peaceful land.”

After the chorus of laughter ended, Capussa returned to his tale. “Then fate cast us a boon, or so it seemed. In that last month, the plague came to the City of Syene, and the ruling Vizier forbid public gatherings. Although Khalid was enraged at being denied the gold that he might otherwise have earned from the Knight's blood, his rage was tempered by his new obsession—Sumayya.”

“Sumayya?” Keil interjected.

Capussa paused for a moment and stared into the night sky as the circle of listeners, which had grown to over forty men and boys, waited in silence for him to continue.

“Yes, my young friend, Sumayya. She was a Moorish princess. She was, it was said, the most beautiful woman in all of Egypt, and some claimed, in all the lands of the Moor.”

“Did you see her?” Keil said in a whisper.

“Keil, would you like to be the next log on that fire?” Tylan growled.

“No sir.”

“Then be silent.”

Capussa smiled. “I did indeed, but only her face, and as for that I will say this: I have never seen nor dreamed of such beauty, and I, my friends, have traveled through many a land and seen many a woman. Why, I could tell you stories …” Capussa said, shaking his head. “Ah, but that is for another day.”

A look of disappointment crossed Bray's face, and he took a long draught of wine.

“As is the way of it,” Capussa continued, “every man of wealth and power in the land sought Sumayya's hand, and although her father, a wealthy Emir, could have traded his daughter to the wealthiest and most powerful suitor, he would not. He let it be known that Sumayya would choose her own husband. This meant that all of Khalid's gold would avail him nothing in his quest for this woman's hand, for you see,” Capussa leaned forward, as if to tell a secret, “Khalid looked rather like a cross between a vulture and a rat.”

The description drew a howl of laughter from the crowd.

“Yet, Khalid would not be denied this prize. He believed that he had within his hands the means to make this beauteous young woman accept his hand in marriage, for he had Sir Percival.”

“Sir Percival?” Keil said, confused.

“Sir Percival,” Capussa answered with a solemn nod. “You see, Sumayya's father would often come to the games in the arena and wager on the fights, and although she hated the bloodshed, as a dutiful daughter, she came as well. Over time, the princess came to admire Sir Percival for the honor, courage, and mercy he displayed in the arena, and it is said she even prayed for his life before each battle. Now Khalid, being a clever man, saw an opportunity in this. He asked Sumayya if she would like to meet Sir Percival, and indeed, the princess did. And so it came to pass that Sumayya spent many an afternoon with Sir Percival.”

Merlin's eyes widened ever so slightly when he heard this, and Capussa smiled inwardly, knowing even the old Roman was mesmerized by the story. As he drew out his silver flask to take a drink, the Numidian remembered listening to the stories his father had told around the village fire when he returned from his long sea voyages. The man was a master, weaving a spell over his listeners that left them begging for more when the tale came to an end.

After taking a drink from his flask, the Numidian continued with his tale.

“The princess was always veiled when she met the Knight, and the meetings took place in the presence of her father, Khalid, and many guards. However, what Sumayya and Sir Percival spoke of was not known to Sumayya's father and Khalid, for Sumayya was as learned as she was beautiful. She, like the Knight, spoke the language of the Romans, a language the Emir and Khalid did not understand. So the two of them were able to keep their words secret.”