It was said afterwards, no one knows by whom, that at the moment of meeting, as the two men, on foot now, and white with the sweat and dust of the battlefield, knew one another, Mordred checked in his stride and stroke. Arthur, the veteran, did not. His spear took his son straight and clean beneath the rib-cage.
Blood gushed down the spear shaft in a hot stream over Arthur's hand. He loosed the shaft, and reached for his sword. Mordred lurched forward like a spitted boar. The butt of the shaft struck the ground. He leaned on it, and, still carried forward by the weight of the half-checked stroke, came within sword's length of his father. Arthur's hand, slippery with blood, fumbled momentarily on Caliburn's grip, and in that moment Mordred's sword swung, even as he fell dying, in a hard and deadly blow to the side of the King's head.
Mordred pitched down then into the pool of his own blood. Arthur stood for a few seconds still, his sword dropping from his bloodied hand, his other hand moving numbly as if in an attempt to ward off some slight and trivial blow; then slowly his body bent and buckled, and he, too, fell, and his blood joined with Mordred's on the ground.
The clouds broke, and like a waterfall the rain came down.
EPILOGUE
The cool stream on his face brought Mordred back for a moment into the dark. It was quiet, too, all sounds hushed and far, like distant water lapping on a pebbled shore.
A cry somewhere nearby. "The King! The King!"
A bird calling. The hens were coming down the shingle for food. A gull screaming, but in words now: "The King! The King!"
Then, and this made him sure it was a dream, the voices of women. He could see nothing, feel nothing, but near him was the rustle of a gown and a gust of women's scent. Voices eddied across him, but no one touched him. A woman's voice said:
"Lift him carefully. Here. Yes, yes, my lord, lie still. All will be well."
And the King's voice, too faint to hear, followed — surely? — by Bedwyr's: "It is here. I have it safely. The Lady will keep it for you till you need it again."
Again the voices of women, and the first voice, strongly: "I shall take him to Applegarth, where we shall see to the healing of his wounds."
Then the rain, and the creak of rowlocks, and the sound of women's weeping fading into the lapping of the lake water and the hiss of the rain falling.
His cheek was on a cushion of thyme. The rain had washed the blood away, and the thyme smelled sweetly of summer.
The waves lapped. The oars creaked. The seabirds cried. A porpoise rolled, sleek in the sun. Away on the horizon he could see the golden edge of the kingdom where, since he was a small child, he had always longed to go.
THE LEGEND
I have used fragments from two sources, the "history" written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century, and the romance of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, written in the fifteenth.
Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History of the Kings of Britain
In the time of the emperor Leo, Lucius Hiberius, procurator of the Roman republic, sent a message to King Arthur demanding that he pay tribute to Rome, and commanding him to appear before the Senate to answer for his failure to do so. Refusal would mean that the Romans would attack Britain, and restore her to the Roman republic.
Arthur's reply was to gather together an army and sail to Brittany, where, with his cousin King Hoel, he sent word around asking his allies to join him. Meanwhile he sent ambassadors to Lucius Hiberius informing him that he would not pay the tribute, but would fight. "Thereupon the ambassadors depart, the Kings depart, the barons depart, nor are they slow to perform what they had been bidden to do."
Meanwhile ill news was brought to Arthur and Hoel. Hoel's niece, the Princess Helena, had been seized by a monstrous giant, who had fled with her to the top of St. Michael's Mount. Arthur himself, with Kay and Bedivere, set out to deal with the monster. They saw a fire of wood blazing on the Mount, and another on a smaller island nearby. Bedivere, sent to spy things out, found a small boat and rowed across to the islet, where, as he landed, he heard the ullaloo of a woman wailing, and found, by the fire, an old woman weeping beside a new grave-mound. The giant had killed the princess, and gone back to his lair on St. Michael's Mount. Bedivere reported to Arthur, who thereupon tackled the monster in his hilltop lair, and killed him in single combat.
King Arthur then gathered his army and marched with his allies to Autun in Burgundy to meet the army of the Romans. He sent an embassy ahead to Lucius Hiberius to bid him withdraw, or he, Arthur, would give battle as he had sworn. Gawain was with the embassy, and the younger knights, spoiling for a fight, egged Gawain on to start a quarrel. Which he did, and after some high words killed one Gaius Quintilianus, nephew of Hiberius himself. So battle was joined. Bedivere and Kay were killed, but Arthur was victorious, and pressed on eastward, intending to go on to Rome and make himself emperor.
But at this point he heard that his nephew Mordred, to whom he had committed the charge of his kingdom during his absence, had set the crown on his own head, and taken Queen Guinevere to wife, in spite of her former marriage.
Mordred had also sent Cheldric, duke of the Saxons, into Germany, to enlist others of his countrymen and take them back to Britain to swell Mordred's army. For this, more land was to be granted to the Saxons. Mordred had also gathered together the Scots, Picts and Irish and was preparing to resist Arthur's return to Britain.
Arthur, hastening back, landed at Richborough, and there defeated Mordred's troops, but in the fighting Gawain was killed. Mordred fled, but took his stand again at Winchester, where he had lodged the Queen. She fled in fear to a convent near Caerleon, and there took the veil. Arthur and Mordred fought again near Winchester, and again Mordred broke and fled towards Cornwall, where, in the final battle on the River Camel, both he and Arthur fell.
Arthur, who was carried to the island of Avilion for the healing of his hurts, left his kingdom to Constantine of Cornwall. One of Constantine's first acts was to seek out both of Mordred's sons and murder them "by a cruel death" at the sanctuary altar.
Sir Thomas Malory's
Le Morte D'Arthur
1. When Arthur heard of Mordred's birth, he sent for all the children born in the same month, in the hope of finding Mordred and destroying him. The ship in which the children were placed foundered, but Mordred was cast up, and taken in by a good man, who nourished him till he was fourteen, then took him to the court.
2. When Queen Morgause's sons knew that she had taken Sir Lamorak for her lover, Gawain and his brothers sent for her to a castle near Camelot, intending there to trap and kill Lamorak. One night, while Lamorak was with the queen, Gaheris seized his chance, and, creeping fully armed to their bedside, seized his mother by the hair and struck off her head. Because Lamorak was unarmed Gaheris could not kill him. Lamorak had no choice but to flee, but eventually the Orkney brothers, with Mordred, tracked him down and killed him.
3. Some time later Sir Tristram, challenged by Agravain and Gaheris, refused to fight them, recognizing them by their device as Arthur's nephews. "It is shame," he said, "that Sir Gawain and ye be come of so great a blood that ye four brethren be named as ye be, for ye be called the greatest destroyers and murderers of good knights that be now in this realm." The brothers shouted insults at the Cornish knight, on which he turned to ride away. Agravain and Gaheris promptly attacked him from behind. Tristram, forced to fight, struck Agravain on the head, causing a grievous wound, and also knocked Gaheris out of the saddle. Gareth, speaking later with Tristram, declared himself at odds with his brothers: "I meddle not of their matters, therefore there is none of them that loveth me. And for I understand that they be murderers of good knights I left their company."