It was Arthur who broke the tension. ‘Food,’ he said gruffly. ‘If we have to wait six hours, then we might as well eat.’
There was small conversation during that meal, and most of what there was concerned King Meurig of Gwent and the terrible possibility that he would keep his spearmen out of the coming war. If, I kept thinking, there would be war at all, and I constantly glanced out of the window to where the flames leapt and the smoke boiled. I tried to gauge the passing of the hours, but in truth I had no idea whether one hour passed or two before the meal ended and we were once again standing beside the big open window to gaze at Mai Dun where, for the first time ever, the Treasures of Britain had been assembled. There was the Basket of Garanhir which was a willow-woven dish that might carry a loaf and some fishes, though the weave was now so ragged that any respectable woman would long ago have consigned the basket to the fire. The Horn of Bran Galed was an ox horn that was black with age and chipped at its tin-rimmed edges. The Chariot of Modron had been broken over the years and was so small that none but a child could ever ride in it, if indeed it could ever be reassembled. The Halter of Eiddyn was an ox halter of frayed rope and rusted iron rings that even the poorest peasant would hesitate to use. The Knife of Laufrodedd was blunt and broad-bladed and had a broken wooden handle, while the Whetstone of Tudwal was an abraded thing any craftsman would be ashamed to possess. The Coat of Padarn was threadbare and patched, a beggar’s garment, but still in better repair than the Cloak of Rhegadd which was supposed to grant its wearer invisibility, but which was now scarcely more than a cobweb. The Dish of Rhygenydd was a flat wooden platter cracked beyond all use, while the Throwboard of Gwenddolau was an old, warped piece of wood on which the gaming marks had worn almost clean away. The Ring of Eluned looked like a common warrior-ring, the simple metal circles that spearmen liked to make from their dead enemy’s weapons, but all of us had thrown away better-looking warrior-rings than the Ring of Eluned. Only two of the Treasures had any intrinsic value. One was the Sword of Rhydderch, Excalibur, that had been forged in the Otherworld by Gofannon himself, and the other was the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. Now all of them, the tawdry and the splendid alike, were ringed by fire to signal to their distant Gods.
The sky was still clearing, though some clouds were still heaped above the southern horizon where, as we went deeper into that night of the dead, lightning began to flicker. That lightning was the first sign of the Gods and, in fear of them, I touched the iron of Hywelbane’s hilt, but the great flashes of light were far, far away, perhaps above the distant sea or even further off above Armorica. For an hour or more the lightning raked the southern sky, but always in silence. Once a whole cloud seemed lit from within, and we all gasped and Bishop Emrys made the sign of the cross.
The distant lightning faded, leaving only the great fire raging within Mai Dun’s ramparts. It was a signal fire to cross the Gulf of Annwn, a blaze to reach into the darkness between the worlds. What were the dead thinking, I wondered? Was a horde of shadow-souls clustering around Mai Dun to witness the summoning of the Gods? I imagined the reflections of those flames flickering along the steel blades of the bridge of swords and maybe reaching into the Otherworld itself and I confess I was frightened. The lightning had vanished, and nothing now seemed to be happening other then the great fire’s violence, but all of us, I think, were aware that the world trembled on the brink of change. Then, sometime in the passing of those hours, the next sign came. It was Galahad who first saw it. He crossed himself, stared out of the window as though he could not believe what he was seeing, then pointed up above the great plume of smoke that was casting a veil across the stars. ‘Do you see it?’ he asked, and we all pressed into the window to gaze upwards.
And I saw that the lights of the night sky had come.
We had all seen such lights before, though not often, but their arrival on this night was surely significant. At first there was just a shimmering blue haze in the dark, but slowly the haze strengthened and grew brighter, and a red curtain of fire joined the blue to hang like a rippled cloth among the stars. Merlin had told me that such lights were common in the far north, but these were hanging in the south, and then, gloriously, abruptly, the whole space above our heads was shot through with blue and silver and crimson cascades. We all went down into the courtyard to see better, and there we stood awestruck as the heavens glowed. From the courtyard we could no longer see the fires of Mai Dun, but their light filled the southern sky, just as the weirder lights arched gloriously above our heads.
‘Do you believe now, Bishop?’ Culhwch asked.
Emrys seemed unable to speak, but then he shuddered and touched the wooden cross hanging about his neck. ‘We have never,’ he said quietly, ‘denied the existence of other powers. It is just that we believe our God to be the only true God.’
‘And the other Gods are what?’ Cuneglas asked.
Emrys frowned, unwilling at first to answer, but honesty made him speak. ‘They are the powers of darkness, Lord King.’
‘The powers of light, surely,’ Arthur said in awe, for even Arthur was impressed. Arthur, who would prefer that the Gods never touched us at all, was seeing their power in the sky and he was filled with wonderment. ‘So what happens now?’ he asked.
He had put the question to me, but it was Bishop Emrys who answered. ‘There will be death, Lord,’
he said.
‘Death?’ Arthur asked, unsure that he had heard correctly.
Emrys had gone to stand under the arcade, as though he feared the strength of the magic that flickered and flowed so bright across the stars. ‘All religions use death, Lord,’ he said pedantically, ‘even ours believes in sacrifice. It is just that in Christianity it was the Son of God who was killed so that no one again would ever need to be knifed on an altar, but I can think of no religion that does not use death as part of its mystery. Osiris was killed,’ he suddenly realized he was speaking of Isis’s worship, the bane of Arthur’s life, and hurried on, ‘Mithras died, too, and his worship requires the death of bulls. All our Gods die, Lord,’ the Bishop said, ‘and all religions except Christianity recreate those deaths as part of their worship.’
‘We Christians have gone beyond death,’ Galahad said, ‘into life.’
‘Praise God we have,’ Emrys agreed, making the sign of the cross, ‘but Merlin has not.’ The lights in the sky were brighter now; great curtains of colours through which, like threads in a tapestry, flickers of white light streaked and dropped. ‘Death is the most powerful magic,’ the Bishop said disapprovingly. ‘A merciful God would not allow it, and our God ended it by his own Son’s death.’
‘Merlin doesn’t use death,’ Culhwch said angrily.
‘He does,’ I spoke softly. ‘Before we went to fetch the Cauldron he made a human sacrifice. He told me.’
‘Who?’ Arthur asked sharply.
‘I don’t know, Lord.’
‘He was probably telling stories,’ Culhwch said, gazing upwards, ‘he likes to do that.’
‘Or more likely he was telling the truth,’ Emrys said. ‘The old religion demanded much blood, and usually it was human. We know so little, of course, but I remember old Balise telling me that the Druids were fond of killing humans. They were usually prisoners. Some were burned alive, others put into death pits.’
‘And some escaped,’ I added softly, for I myself had been thrown into a Druid’s death pit as a small child and my escape from that horror of dying, broken bodies had led to my adoption by Merlin. Emrys ignored my comment. ‘On other occasions, of course,’ he went on, ‘a more valuable sacrifice was required. In Elmet and Cornovia they still speak of the sacrifice made in the Black Year.’