Page 68 of The Quest for Excalibur
Was I only saying this because I hoped it would happen? Because the legends told me it would? If only I didn’t know anything at all. Far better to be ignorant.
He smiled, as though reassured. “Then it’s true.” His hand touched mine. “Your instincts are correct. We ride the road to a battle that will echo down the years, and survive into your time in legend, if not in history. We ride the road of destiny.”
A bit melodramatic.
I fell silent, gazing at Arthur up ahead. He and Cei were deep in conversation, their horses jogtrotting from time to time in their excitement to be riding into battle. Horses always know their riders’ moods.
Alezan laid her ears back at Merlin’s horse and I turned her head away, keeping a tighter rein. “Supposing my instincts aren’t right?” I kept my voice low as I put into words my biggest fear.
Merlin, who appeared to have also been studying Arthur’s upright back, returned his gaze to me. “You doubt yourself so much?”
I scowled. “I’m not the one with the Sight. No matter what I think–believe– no matter whether Morgana worming her way inside my head had anything to do with it.Youare the one with the Sight. So, what doyousee happening? Am I right or am I wrong? Surely you can tell me?”
He smiled again, that bloody irritating non-commital smile of his. “I’ve looked, but I cannot see.”
Angry that he could smile and remain so calm over a matter of life and death, my hands were too heavy on the reins and Alezan, ever sensitive, danced sideways. I straightened her up. “Well, look again,” I hissed at him. “What’s the use of having someone with the Sight advising us, if when we need you to see, you never can?”
He sighed. “I’ve told you before that I have no control over what I see. I can’t do it to order.” He edged his horse closer. “If what you fear about Medraut is true, then this is not the battle where Arthur dies. Remember that.”
I bit my lip. He had it right, but was any of what I’d told him about Medraut true? Could I rely on legends to interpret history? To tell me about a future that was really the past? Some medieval writer could have made up all of Medraut’s story and he could be destined to just be a harmless, if rather unpleasant, nonentity. Nennius could have been wrong. Gildas could have been a liar, which seemed very likely given what I knew of him. Even Bede. There might never be a Camlann.
Badon, in just a few days’ time, might be where Arthur died.
Chapter Thirty-Three
As we crossedthe wide expanse of the grazing grounds, the lead horses of the column broke into a steady canter, and mine and Merlin’s, toward the rear, followed suit. Needless to say, I’d given my saddle a thorough checking to make sure all the stitching was in perfect order. In fact, I’d done it every day since my accident. And Arthur’s saddle, too. And Llacheu’s, Cei’s and Amhar’s. No one I loved was going to have an injury caused by faulty saddlery if I could help it.
We traveled the way Roman cavalry had done, only we possessed an advantage over them. We had stirrups, thanks to me. This not only increased the maneuverability of a mounted warrior, but also made long distance riding much more comfortable. Legs didn’t have to dangle, and trotting no longer needed to be avoided.
Nevertheless, we cantered a mile, rode at a walk for a mile, then got off and walked on our own two feet for another mile, which helped a lot in preventing riders’ stiffness, and rested our horses and saved their backs. Although with every rider being so experienced, even the heaviest, like Cei, rode lightly in the saddle.
The second time we dismounted, Arthur came to walk his horse alongside mine, a spring in his step and a gleam of excitement in his eyes, as though whatever lay ahead might be something wonderful.Men.Dark Age men in particular.
The grazing lands still spread wide in all directions, a little parched from the unseasonal lack of rain, the wetlands clearly visible in their verdant hollows. Thanks to the stillness of the day, the smoke from the countless rooftops of scattered farms rose straight up in twisting columns. “I see we’re not traveling via Caer Baddan,” I said, waving a hand forty-five degrees to my left, northward, and decidingnotto broach the subject of our son. “If we were, we’d be heading that way.”
He nodded. “Well noticed. We haven’t time to take the road. We have to get to Dinas Badan by the fastest route, and at this time of year it’s faster to go across country than to use the old roads. We’ll pass to the north of the plain of Sarum, avoiding the marshy bottoms.”
Salisbury Plain. In my old world some of the Plain was used by the army for maneuvers, the rest of it long reclaimed as arable fields by farmers. What would it look like now, in its youth?
I found out by mid-afternoon: very little different to the grazing land around Din Cadan. Our way took us by the northern foothills of the rolling downland, some of it dotted with the raised humps of burial barrows of a long-gone people. Countless small farms nestled in the more sheltered wooded valleys, and thousands of grazing animals kept the grass nibbled short. Similar to the Salisbury Plain I knew, after all, but without the tarmac roads and marching pylons. I knew which I preferred.
Evening brought us to a place I’d once known well. Avebury.
A truly massive bank, grassed over now but once pure white chalk, encircled a well-grazed area a good three hundred and fifty yards across. Workers in the distant past had excavated an impressive ditch and thrown up the chalk to construct the outer bank. In my old world, this ditch and bank were still large, but here, without fifteen hundred years of further erosion, they must have possessed nearly their orginal dimensions.
But it was what lay inside that took my breath away as we rode through the southern entrance at the close of day. A vast, nearly complete circle of stones ran around the interior just inside the ditch. Massive rocks, taller than a mounted man, that had been somehow dragged here and set up for who knew what reason by men whose only tools were stone. Before the Iron Age, before the Bronze age even, Neolithic farmers had thought to build this enormous temple, if that was what it was. Barely any of it remained in my time, having been broken up and used for building the village that occupied the center.
Two further circles stood within the outer ring, each a good hundred yards across, and within one of them a horseshoe of larger stones reared upright. How my father would have loved to see Avebury in all its former glory.
“Built by giants,” Arthur, who was riding by my side and must have seen my look of wonder, remarked. “Long before men lived here in Britain. I’ve seen other circles like this one. No normal man could have set these stones up.” He glanced toward Merlin. “Not unless he had a powerful man of magic in his employ.”
As good an explanation as I was going to get. Even in my old world, theories abounded about how primitive man had moved stones weighing several tons. If I told either of them the current ideas, they wouldn’t have believed me anyway.
The sun had sunk low in the west, casting the long shadows of the stones across short grass dotted with sheep droppings. No sheep to be seen, though, which was probably lucky for them, as a bit of roast mutton would have been very attractive to our men. And me. My stomach rumbled at the distant memory of the bread and cheese I’d eaten at mid-day.
The last rays of light, blazing between the branches of the trees that clustered outside the bank, gilded the ancient stones where they stood in their timeless circle like sentinels to another world.
Arthur reined in his horse. “We’ll make our camp here. It’s late and this place is sheltered. A good spot to stop.”
