I retrieved the manuscript from under the shipmaster's bunk. “And I thought,” I said bitterly, 'that you were a Christian trying to discover the wingspan of angels."
“Don't be perverse, Derfel! Everyone knows the wingspan must vary according to the angel's height and weight.” He unwound the scroll again and peered at its contents. “I sought this treasure everywhere. Even in Rome! And all the while that silly old fool Ban had it catalogued as the eighteenth volume of Silius Italicus. It proves he never read the whole thing, even though he did claim it was wonderful. Still, I don't suppose anyone's read the whole thing. How could they?” He shuddered.
“No wonder it took you over five years to find it,” I said, thinking how many people had missed him during that time.
“Nonsense. I only learned of the scroll's existence a year ago. Before that I was searching for other things: the Horn of Bran Galed, the Knife of Laufrodedd, the Throwboard of Gwenddolau, the Ring of Eluned. The Treasures of Britain, Derfel…” He paused, glancing at the sealed chest, then looked back to me. “The Treasures are the keys of power, Derfel, but without the secrets in this scroll they're just so many dead objects.” There was a rare reverence in his voice, and no wonder, for the Thirteen Treasures were the most mysterious and sacred talismans of Britain. One night in Benoic, when we had been shivering in the dark and listening for Franks among the trees, Galahad had scorned the very existence of the Treasures by doubting whether they could have survived the long years of Roman rule, but Merlin had always insisted that the old Druids, facing defeat, had hidden them so deep that no Roman would ever find them. His life's work was the collection of the thirteen talismans; his ambition was the final awesome moment when they would be put to use. That use, it seemed, was described in the lost scroll of Caleddin.
“So what does the scroll tell us?” I asked eagerly.
“How would I know? You won't give me time to read it. Why don't you go and be useful? Splice an oar or whatever it is sailors do when they're not drowning.” He waited till I had reached the door. “Oh, and one other thing,” he added abstractedly.
I turned to see he was again gazing at the opening lines of the heavy scroll. “Lord?” I prompted him.
“I just wanted to thank you, Derfel,” he said carelessly. “So, thank you. I always hoped you'd be useful some day.”
I thought of Ynys Trebes burning and of Ban dead. “I failed Arthur,” I said bitterly.
“Everyone fails Arthur. He expects too much. Now go.”
I had supposed that Lancelot and his mother Elaine would sail west to Broceliande, there to join the mass of refugees hurled from Ban's kingdom by the Franks, but instead they sailed north to Britain. To Dumnonia.
And once in Dumnonia they travelled to Durnovaria, reaching the town a full two days before Merlin, Galahad and I landed, so we were not there to see their entry, though we heard all about it for the town rang with admiring tales of the fugitives.
Benoic's royal party had travelled in three fast ships, all of which had been provisioned ahead of Ynys Trebes's fall and in whose holds were crammed the gold and silver that the Franks had hoped to find in Ban's palace. By the time Queen Elaine's party reached Durnovaria the treasure had been hidden away and the fugitives were all on foot, some of them shoeless, all ragged and dusty, their hair tangled and crusted with sea salt, and with blood caked on their clothes and on the battered weapons they clutched in nerveless hands. Elaine, Queen of Benoic, and Lancelot, now King of a Lost Kingdom, limped up the town's principal street to beg like indigents at Guinevere's palace. Behind them was a motley mixture of guards, poets and courtiers who, Elaine pitifully exclaimed, were the only survivors of the massacre. “If only Arthur had kept his word,” she wailed to Guinevere, 'if only he had done just half of all that he promised!"
“Mother! Mother!” Lancelot clutched her.
“All I want to do is die, my dear,” Elaine declared, 'as you so nearly did in the fight.“ Guinevere, of course, rose splendidly to the occasion. Clothes were fetched, baths filled, food cooked, wine poured, wounds bandaged, stories heard, treasure given and Arthur summoned. The stories were wonderful. They were told all over the town and by the time we reached Durnovaria the tales had spread to every corner of Dumnonia and were already flying over the frontiers to be retold in countless British and Irish feasting halls. It was a great tale of heroes; how Lancelot and Bors had held the Merman Gate and how they had carpeted the sands with Prankish dead and glutted the gulls with Prankish offal. The Franks, the tales said, had been shrieking for mercy, fearing that bright Tanlladwyr would flash in Lancelot's hand again, but then some other defenders, out of Lancelot's sight, gave way. The enemy was inside the city and if the fight had been grim before, now it became ghastly. Enemy after enemy fell as street after street was defended, yet not all the heroes of antiquity could have stemmed that rush of iron-helmed foes who swarmed from the encircling sea like so many demons released from Manawydan's nightmares. Back went the outnumbered heroes, leaving the streets choked with enemy dead; still more enemies came and back the heroes went, back to the palace itself where Ban, good King Ban, leaned on his terrace to search the horizon for Arthur's ships. ”They will come!" Ban had insisted,
'for Arthur has promised."
The King, the story said, would not leave the terrace for if Arthur came and he were not there, what would men say? He insisted he would stay to greet Arthur, but first he kissed his wife, embraced his heir, then wished them both fair winds for Britain before turning to gaze for the rescue that never came. It was a mighty tale, and next day, when it seemed that no more ships would come from far Armorica, the tale changed subtly. Now it was the men of Dumnonia, the forces led by Culhwch and Derfel, who had allowed the enemy into Ynys Trebes. “They fought,” Lancelot assured Guinevere, 'but they could not hold."
Arthur, who had been campaigning against Cerdic's Saxons, rode hard for Durnovaria to welcome his guests. He arrived just hours before our sad party trudged unremarked up the road that ran from the sea past the great grassy ramparts of Mai Dun. One of the guards on the city's southern gate recognized me and let us in. “You're just in time,” he said.
“For what?” I asked.
“Arthur's here. They're going to tell the tale of Ynys Trebes.”
“Are they now?” I glanced across the town towards the palace on its western hill. “I'd like to hear that,” I said, then I led my companions into the town. I hurried towards the crossroads in the centre, curious to inspect the chapel Sansum had built for Mordred, but to my surprise there was neither chapel nor temple on the site, just a waste space where ragweed grew. “Nimue,” I said, amused.
“What?” Merlin asked me. He was cowled so that no one would recognize him.
“A self-important little man,” I said, 'was going to build a church here. Guinevere summoned Nimue to stop him."
“So Guinevere is not entirely without sense?” Merlin asked.
“Did I say she was?”
“No, dear Derfel, you did not. Shall we go on?” We turned up the hill towards the palace. It was evening and the palace slaves were putting torches into beckets about the courtyard where, heedless of the damage they were causing to Guinevere's roses and water channels, a crowd had gathered to see Lancelot and Arthur. No one recognized us as we came through the gate. Merlin was hooded, while Galahad and I wore the cheek pieces of our wolf-tailed helmets closed across our faces. We squeezed with Culhwch and a dozen other men into the arcade at the very back of the crowd. And there, as night fell, we heard the tale of Ynys Trebes's fall.