came and sat down heavily beside me. ‘Have you anything to give a poor beggarman?’ he asked. I shook my head, for I had nothing. He went on. ‘Then at least give me some of your time. Time costs nothing and a young man like yourself has enough of it to spare. You have a long life ahead of you, longer than you know, longer even than you may want. Since the High King Utha died I have wandered this land from end to end. I see around me nothing but ruin and desolation. Everywhere I find greed and famine, hand in hand and prospering. I see a kingdom divided and weakened. I see lords and kings squabbling like sparrows amongst themselves. And, as they fight, the Picts and the Scots come down from the north country, pillaging and burning at will, and the Irish and the cursed Saxons pour in their hordes from across the seas and we are defenceless before them. They take our towns, our villages, our farms. They burn our churches, they enslave our people and we can do nothing, for the heart has gone out of us. We are a people entirely without hope.’ He looked around him. ‘You see this valley of bluebells? It all began here a thousand, two thousand years ago maybe, with just one fine bluebell that grew strong and proud. And then one by one others sprang up around it and a valley of thicket and bramble was turned into this paradise on Earth. You can grow to be just such a flower, and then others would follow you. It only takes one. Think no more of dying, young man. Look around you, and wonder what one flower can do and know then what one man can do. All Britain could be as fine as this wood. You may be the first bluebell, you may be the one.’ He smiled gently at me out of his dark eyes and ruffled the hair about the deerhound’s neck. ‘I need only look into a man’s eyes and I can see his soul. I see in you the seed of greatness. Let it grow.’
After we had talked some more together he put his head back against the tree and we slept. When I woke he was gone and the dog Bercelet with him. At first I thought that the beggarman must have been part of my dream, but then I saw the bluebells flattened where he had sat and his staff left behind, leaning against the trunk of an ash tree. I was on my feet at once, the staff in my hand and calling after him. But only the cackle of a mocking jay answered me.
I stayed for some days more in the hidden bluebell valley, hoping the beggarman and his hound might return. But they did not. I fed on the brown trout that bunched in the shady shadows of the stream, offering themselves for a meal. I ate greedily, and as my strength returned, my spirit too revived. I left the wood behind me and made for home.
I had been gone for a month, maybe it was more, and they had given me up for dead. Father clung to me and cried. ‘Never again think you are not my son,’ he said. ‘Kay I bred, and love him as a man must always love his son. But you, I chose to love and I love you both as a son and as a friend also.’ But even as he hugged me, I saw the steely glint of envy in Kay’s eye and I knew I had no friend for a brother, nor ever would have.
The years passed and I kept always in my mind the meeting with the beggarman among the bluebells – I kept his staff too – and I heard more and more of those marauding Saxons who were driving our good people from their homes and how there was no one king strong enough to stand against them. Those they did not kill they harried and chased into the valleys and forests of Wales. The people came with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had nowhere to shelter, no food to eat. We did what we could for them but it was never enough. I heard tales of fire and slaughter and terrible cruelty. Only the south of Britain and Wales itself still stood out against the invader. But for how long? I wondered.
For me there was a new urgency in my battle training. Daily I sparred with sword and spear against Father, against Kay, against anyone who would teach me more. In these mock battles, Kay sought often to provoke me – always when Father was not there, I noticed – calling me his ‘bastard brother’, but I turned aside the jibes with a smile, as a shield might glance away a thrusting sword.
One winter’s day when I was about fifteen, word came to the castle that the Lord Archbishop of Britain was calling every knight in the kingdom to London. Here it would be decided at last, once and for all, who should be the High King of all Britain and lead the struggle against the Saxons. It was the last chance for all of us, Father was convinced of it; and far though it was to travel, and dangerous too, we had to go where we were needed. ‘And you will come with us, Arthur,’ said Father. ‘Though you are not yet a knight, I should like you with us.’
‘He can ride as our servant then,’ Kay mocked. ‘Can’t he, Father?’
‘Will you never learn to curb your wicked tongue?’ Father said. ‘Must you shame me every time you open your mouth?’ He turned to me. ‘No, Arthur, you come as our squire, not as our servant. It will be your first time away from Wales, and your first time in London.’
And so we all three came to London the week before Christmas and took lodgings not far from the great Abbey church. I saw little of Father, who was always away meeting the Archbishop and the other kings and knights and lords. During the day, Kay kept me so busy grooming the horses and polishing the armour that I had no time even to see the city. Kay was true to his word. I was no squire to him, but rather the meanest of servants. He showed me off amongst his friends. If I wasn’t his ‘bastard brother’ I was his ‘bastard servant’. Father was rarely with us, so there was no rein now on his viciousness.
Father would return each evening to the lodgings and the story was always the same. They could not agree. Each king, each lord, each knight had his own faction, and the past bitterness left no room for harmony. They howled at each other like tomcats. It was hopeless, Father said.
Christmas day came and a hard frost with it. The bells of the great Abbey ran out over the city, drawing us all to Mass. There in the Abbey we kneeled and prayed together for deliverance from the Saxons. The Archbishop prayed for all of us: ‘Jesus, Son of God, defend us and keep us. We pray you provide for us, find for us a leader, someone who will bind us together and give us heart to fight. Give us, dear Lord, the faith to hope again. Give us a sign. Help us, sweet Jesus.’ And the chorus of ‘Amen’ echoed in unison through the Abbey. I looked at the bowed heads around me and thought of the bluebells in the hidden wood in Wales so far away, and of the beggarman whose staff I had always kept beside me ever since. I had it with me then.
I came out of the Abbey after Mass was over and saw a large crowd gathering at the far end of the churchyard under a great yew tree. I was intrigued and began walking towards them, when Kay and some of his friends came running past me, blundering into me and knocking me to my knees. ‘On your feet, bastard brother,’ he called out. ‘Get back to the lodgings at once and prepare my armour and horse, as a servant should. Bring them to me at the tournament field by three o’clock. And don’t be late.’ Then he was gone into the crowd, his belly-laughing cronies with him.
I left the Abbey behind me and joined the bustle of the city streets. Everyone, it seemed, was making for the Abbey churchyard. I was like a trout swimming against the stream. As I walked back to our lodgings through the crowds on that Christmas Day, I yearned for the wild woods of Wales, for peace and quiet, for larks and bluebells. I lay on my bed in my room and dreamed I was there again, the beggarman beside me with Bercelet, his great drooling hound, and the silver stream running softly over the stones. I fell into a deep sleep.
I was woken by the bells of the Abbey ringing out – one, two, three – three o’clock. It’s always the same. When you’re in too much of a hurry, horses never do as you want them to. They would shift about as I saddled them. They trod on my toes, blew out their stomachs so I could not tighten their girthstraps. I lashed Kay’s armour on to his horse, mounted mine and set off. More than once his horse broke free of the leading rein; and more than once his armour fell off and I had to stop to pick it up again. I galloped the horses through the empty streets and we clattered over the bridge. I could hear ahead of me the roar of the crowd. The tournament had already begun.
Kay was waiting for me at the gate, his friends gathered around him. His face was dark with anger. ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded.
‘I’m
