A sword blade suddenly glittered by my beard. Galahad held it, and Galahad smiled gently at me.
‘Don’t move, my friend,’ he said. He knew the power of oaths. He knew, too, that I would not kill Arthur, but he was trying to spare me Nimue’s vengeance. ‘If Derfel moves,’ he called to Nimue, ‘I shall cut his throat.’
‘Cut it!’ she screamed. ‘This is a night for the death of kings’ sons!’
‘Not my son,’ Arthur said.
‘You are no King, Arthur ap Uther,’ Merlin spoke at last. ‘Did you think I would kill Gwydre?’
‘Then why is he here?’ Arthur asked. He had one arm around Gwydre, while the other held his reddened sword. ‘Why is he here?’ Arthur demanded again, more angrily. For once Merlin had nothing to say and it was Nimue who answered. ‘He is here, Arthur ap Uther,’
she said with a sneer, ‘because the death of that miserable creature may not suffice.’ She pointed at Mardoc who was wriggling helplessly on the gallows. ‘He is the son of a King, but not the rightful heir.’
‘So Gwydre would have died?’ Arthur asked.
‘And come to life!’ Nimue said belligerently. She had to shout to be heard above the angry splintering noise of the fires. ‘Do you not know the power of the Cauldron? Place the dead in the bowl of Clyddno Eiddyn and the dead walk again, they breathe again, they live.’ She stalked towards Arthur, a madness in her one eye. ‘Give me the boy, Arthur.’
‘No.’ Arthur pulled Llamrei’s rein and the mare leapt away from Nimue. She turned on Merlin. ‘Kill him!’ she screamed, pointing at Mardoc. ‘We can try him at least. Kill him!’
‘No!’ I shouted.
‘Kill him!’ Nimue screeched, and then, when Merlin made no move, she ran towards the gallows. Merlin seemed unable to move, but then Arthur turned Llamrei again and headed Nimue off. He let his horse ram her so that she tumbled to the turf.
‘Let the child live,’ Arthur said to Merlin. Nimue was clawing at him, but he pushed her away and, when she came back, all teeth and hooked hands, he swung the sword close to her head and that threat calmed her.
Merlin moved the bright blade so that it was close to Mardoc’s throat. The Druid looked almost gentle, despite his blood-soaked sleeves and the long blade in his hand. ‘Do you think, Arthur ap Uther, that you can defeat the Saxons without the help of the Gods?’ he asked. Arthur ignored the question. ‘Cut the boy down,’ he commanded.
Nimue turned on him. ‘Do you wish to be cursed, Arthur?’
‘I am cursed,’ he answered bitterly.
‘Let the boy die!’ Merlin shouted from the ladder. ‘He’s nothing to you, Arthur. A by-blow of a King, a bastard born to a whore.’
‘And what else am I?’ Arthur shouted, ‘but a by-blow of a King, a bastard born to a whore?’
‘He must die,’ Merlin said patiently, ‘and his death will bring the Gods to us, and when the Gods are here, Arthur, we shall put his body in the Cauldron and let the breath of life return.’
Arthur gestured at the horrid, life-drained body of Gawain, his nephew. ‘And one death is not enough?’
‘One death is never enough,’ Nimue said. She had run around Arthur’s horse to reach the gallows where she now held Mardoc’s head still so that Merlin could slit his throat. Arthur walked Llamrei closer to the gallows. ‘And if the Gods do not come after two deaths, Merlin,’
he asked, ‘how many more?’
‘As many as it needs,’ Nimue answered.
‘And every time,’ Arthur spoke loudly, so we could all hear him, ‘that Britain is in trouble, every time there is an enemy, every time there is a plague, every time that men and women are frightened, we shall take children to the scaffold?’
‘If the Gods come,’ Merlin said, ‘there will be no more plague or fear or war.’
‘And will they come?’ Arthur asked.
‘They are coming!’ Nimue screamed. ‘Look!’ And she pointed upwards with her free hand, and we all looked and I saw that the lights in the sky were fading. The bright blues were dimming to purple black, the reds were smoky and vague, and the stars were brightening again beyond the dying curtains. ‘No!’
Nimue wailed, ‘no!’ And she drew out the last cry into a lament that seemed to last for ever. Arthur had taken Llamrei right up to the gallows. ‘You call me the Amherawdr of Britain,’ he said to Merlin, ‘and an emperor must rule or cease to be emperor, and I will not rule in a Britain where children must be killed to save the lives of adults.’
‘Don’t be absurd!’ Merlin protested. ‘Sheer sentimentality!’
‘I would be remembered,’ Arthur said, ‘as a just man, and there is already too much blood on my hands.’
‘You will be remembered,’ Nimue spat at him, ‘as a traitor, as a ravager, as a coward.’
‘But not,’ Arthur said mildly, ‘by the descendants of this child,’ and with that he reached up and slashed with his sword at the rope that held Mardoc’s ankles. Nimue screamed as the boy fell, then she leapt at Arthur again with her hands hooked like claws, but Arthur simply backhanded her hard and fast across the head with the flat of his sword blade so that she spun away dazed. The force of the blow could easily be heard above the crackling of flames. Nimue staggered, slack-jawed and with her one eye unfocused, and then she dropped.
‘Should have done that to Guinevere,’ Culhwch growled to me.
Galahad had left my side, dismounted, and now freed Mardoc’s bonds. The child immediately began screaming for his mother.
‘I never could abide noisy children,’ Merlin said mildly, then he shifted the ladder so that it rested beside the rope holding Gawain to the beam. He climbed the rungs slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said as he clambered upwards, ‘whether the Gods have come or not. You all of you expected too much, and maybe they are here already. Who knows? But we shall finish without the blood of Mordred’s child,’ and with that he sawed clumsily at the rope holding Gawain’s ankles. The body swayed as he cut so that the blood-soaked hair slapped at the Cauldron’s edge, but then the rope parted and the corpse dropped heavily into the blood that splashed up to stain the Cauldron’s rim. Merlin climbed slowly down the ladder, then ordered the Blackshields who had been watching the confrontation to fetch the great wicker baskets of salt that were standing a few yards away. The men scooped the salt into the Cauldron, packing it tight around Gawain’s hunched and naked body.
‘What now?’ Arthur asked, sheathing his sword.
‘Nothing,’ Merlin said. ‘It is over.’
‘Excalibur?’ Arthur demanded.
‘She is in the southernmost spiral,’ Merlin said, pointing that way, ‘though I suspect you will have to wait for the fires to burn out before you can retrieve her.’