Bernard Cornwell - Warlord 3 - Excalibur

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CHARACTERS

AELLE A Saxon King

AGRICOLA Warlord of Gwent

AMHAR Bastard son of Arthur, twin to Loholt

ARGANTE Princess of Demetia, daughter of Oengus mac Airem

ARTHUR Bastard son of Uther, warlord of Dumnonia, later Governor of Siluria

ARTHUR-BACH Arthur’s grandchild, son of Gwydre and Morwenna

BALIG Boatman, brother-in-law to Derfel

BALIN One of Arthur’s warriors

BALISE Once a Druid of Dumnonia

BORS Lancelot’s champion and cousin

BROCHVAEL King of Powys after Arthur’s time

BUDIC King of Broceliande, married to Arthur’s sister Anna

BYRTHIG King of Gwynedd

CADDWG Boatman and sometime servant of Merlin

CEINWYN Sister of Cuneglas, Derfel’s partner

CERDIC A Saxon King

CILDYDD Magistrate of Aquae Sulis

CLOVIS King of the Franks

CULHWCH Arthur’s cousin

CUNEGLAS King of Powys

CYWWYLLOG One-time lover of Mordred, servant to Merlin

DAFYDD The clerk who translates Derfel’s story

DERFEL (pronounced Dervel) The narrator, one of Arthur’s warriors, later a

monk

DIWRNACH King of Lleyn

EACHERN One of Derfel’s spearmen

EINION Son of Culhwch

EMRYS Bishop of Durnovaria, later Bishop of Silurian Isca

ERCE A Saxon, Derfel’s mother

FERGAL Argante’s Druid

GALAHAD Half-brother to Lancelot, one of Arthur’s warriors

GAWAIN Prince of Broceliande, son of King Budic

GUINEVERE Arthur’s wife

GWYDRE Arthur and Guinevere’s son

HYGWYDD Arthur’s servant

IGRAINE Queen of Powys after Arthur’s time. Married to Brochvael

ISSA Derfel’s second-in-command

LANCELOT Exiled King of Benoic, now allied to Cerdic

LANVAL One of Arthur’s warriors

LIOFA Cerdic’s champion

LLADARN Bishop in Gwent

LOHOLT Bastard son of Arthur, twin to Amhar

MARDOC Son of Mordred and Cywyllog

MERLIN Druid of Dumnonia

MEURIG King of Gwent, son of Tewdric

MORDRED King of Dumnonia

MORFANS ‘The Ugly’, one of Arthur’s warriors

MORGAN Arthur’s sister, married to Sansum

MORWENNA Derfel and Ceinwyn’s daughter, married to Gwydre

NIALL Commander of Argante’s Blackshield guard

NIMUE Merlin’s priestess

OENGUS MAC AIREM King of Demetia, leader of the Blackshields

OLWEN THE SILVER Follower of Merlin and Nimue

PERDDEL Cuneglas’s son, later King of Powys

PEREDUR Lancelot’s son

PYRLIG Derfel’s bard

SAGRAMOR Commander of one of Arthur’s warbands

SANSUM Bishop of Durnovaria, later Bishop at Dinnewrac monastery

SCARACH Issa’s wife

SEREN (I) Derfel and Ceinwyn’s daughter

SEREN (2) Daughter of Gwydre and Morwenna, Arthur’s granddaughter

TALIESIN ‘Shining Brow’, a famous bard

TEWDRIC Once King of Gwent, now a Christian hermit

TUDWAL Monk at Dinnewrac monastery

UTHER Once King of Dumnonia, Mordred’s grandfather, Arthur’s father

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PART ONE

The Fires of Mai Dun

Women, how they do haunt this tale. When I began writing Arthur’s story I thought it would be a tale

of men; a chronicle of swords and spears, of battles won and frontiers made, of ruined treaties and

broken kings, for is that not how history itself is told? When we recite the genealogy of our kings we do

not name their mothers and grandmothers, but say Mordred ap Mordred ap Uther ap Kustennin ap

Kynnar and so on all the way back to the great Beli Mawr who is the father of us all. History is a story

told by men and of men’s making, but in this tale of Arthur, like the glimmer of salmon in peat-dark

water, the women do shine.

Men do make history, and I cannot deny that it was men who brought Britain low. There were

hundreds of us, and all of us were armed in leather and iron, and hung with shield and sword and spear,

and we thought Britain lay at our command for we were warriors, but it took both a man and a woman to

bring Britain low, and of the two it was the woman who did the greater damage. She made one curse and

an army died, and this is her tale now for she was Arthur’s enemy.

‘Who?’ Igraine will demand when she reads this.

Igraine is my Queen. She is pregnant, a thing that gives us all great joy. Her husband is King Brochvael

of Powys, and I now live under his protection in the small monastery of Dinnewrac where I write

Arthur’s story. I write at the command of Queen Igraine, who is too young to have known the Emperor.

That is what we called Arthur, the Emperor, Amherawdr in the British tongue, though Arthur himself

rarely used the title. I write in the Saxon tongue, for I am a Saxon, and because Bishop Sansum, the saint

who rules our small community at Dinnewrac, would never allow me to write Arthur’s tale. Sansum hates

Arthur, reviles his memory and calls him traitor, and so Igraine and I have told the saint that I am writing a

gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Saxon tongue and, because Sansum neither speaks Saxon nor can

read any language, the deception has seen the tale safe this far.

The tale grows darker now and harder to tell. Sometimes, when I think of my beloved Arthur, I see his

noontime as a sun-bright day, yet how quickly the clouds came! Later, as we shall see, the clouds parted

and the sun mellowed his landscape once more, but then came the night and we have not seen the sun

since.

It was Guinevere who darkened the noonday sun. It happened during the rebellion when Lancelot,

whom Arthur had thought a friend, tried to usurp the throne of Dumnonia. He was helped in this by the

Christians who had been deceived by their leaders, Bishop Sansum among them, into believing that it was

their holy duty to scour the country of pagans and so prepare the island of Britain for the second coming

of the Lord Jesus Christ in the year 500. Lancelot was also helped by the Saxon King Cerdic who

launched a terrifying attack along the valley of the Thames in an attempt to divide Britain. If the Saxons

had reached the Severn Sea then the British kingdoms of the north would have been cut off from those of

the south, yet, by the grace of the Gods, we defeated not only Lancelot and his Christian rabble, but

Cerdic also. But in the defeat Arthur discovered Guinevere’s treachery. He found her naked in another

man’s arms, and it was as though the sun had vanished from his sky.

‘I don’t really understand,’ Igraine said to me one day in late summer.

‘What, dear Lady, do you not understand?’ I asked.

‘Arthur loved Guinevere, yes?’

‘He did.’

‘So why could he not forgive her? I forgave Brochvael over Nwylle.’ Nwylle had been Brochvael’s

lover, but she had contracted a disease of the skin which had disfigured her beauty. I suspect, but have

never asked, that Igraine used a charm to bring the disease to her rival. My Queen might call herself a

Christian, but Christianity is not a religion that offers the solace of revenge to its adherents. For that you

must go to the old women who know which herbs to pluck and what charms to say under a waning

moon.

‘You forgave Brochvael,’ I agreed, ‘but would Brochvael have forgiven you?’

She shuddered. ‘Of course not! He’d have burned me alive, but that’s the law.’

‘Arthur could have burned Guinevere,’ I said, ‘and there were plenty of men who advised him to do

just that, but he did love her, he loved her passionately, and that was why he could neither kill her nor

forgive her. Not at first, anyway.’

‘Then he was a fool!’ Igraine said. She is very young and has the glorious certainty of the young.

‘He was very proud,’ I said, and maybe that did make Arthur a fool, but so it did the rest of us. I

paused, thinking. ‘He wanted many things,’ I went on, ‘he wanted a free Britain and the Saxons

defeated, but in his soul he wanted Guinevere’s constant reassurance that he was a good man. And when

she slept with Lancelot it proved to Arthur that he was the lesser man. It wasn’t true, of course, but it

hurt him. How it hurt. I have never seen a man so hurt. She tore his heart.’

‘So he imprisoned her?’ Igraine asked me.

‘He imprisoned her,’ I said, and remembered how I had been forced to take Guinevere to the shrine

of the Holy Thorn at Ynys Wydryn where Arthur’s sister, Morgan, became her jailer. There was never

any affection between Guinevere and Morgan. One was a pagan, the other a Christian, and the day I

locked Guinevere into the shrine’s compound was one of the few times I ever saw her weep. ‘She will

stay there,’ Arthur told me, ‘till the day she dies.’

‘Men are fools,’ Igraine declared, then gave me a sidelong glance. ‘Were you ever unfaithful to

Ceinwyn?’

‘No,’ I answered truthfully.

‘Did you ever want to be?’

‘Oh, yes. Lust does not vanish with happiness, Lady. Besides, what merit is there in fidelity if it is

never tested?’

‘You think there is merit in fidelity?’ she asked, and I wondered which young, handsome warrior in her

husband’s caer had taken her eye. Her pregnancy would prevent any nonsense for the moment, but I

feared what might happen after. Maybe nothing.

I smiled. ‘We want fidelity in our lovers, Lady, so is it not obvious that they want it in us? Fidelity is a

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摘要：

CHARACTERSAELLEASaxonKingAGRICOLAWarlordofGwentAMHARBastardsonofArthur,twintoLoholtARGANTEPrincessofDemetia,daughterofOengusmacAiremARTHURBastardsonofUther,warlordofDumnonia,laterGovernorofSiluriaARTHUR-BACHArthur’sgrandchild,sonofGwydreandMorwennaBALIGBoatman,brother-in-lawtoDerfelBALINOneofArthur’...

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Bernard Cornwell - Warlord 3 - Excalibur

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