Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [216]
So I took horse, and rode eastward through the hills; nor did I return to Caerleon for many years, nor knew I anything of what befell in Arthur’s court . . . but that is a tale for another time.
8
In the summer of the next year, the Saxons were massing off the coast, and Arthur and his men spent all the year in gathering an army for the battle they knew must come. Arthur led his men into battle and drove the Saxons back, but it was not the decisive battle and victory for which he had hoped; they were damaged indeed, and it would take them more than a year to recover, but he had not enough horses and men to defeat them firmly and for all time, as he hoped to do. At this battle he took a wound, which seemed not serious; but it festered and inflamed and he had to spend much of the autumn bedfast—the first snow flurries were coming over the walls of Caerleon before he could walk a little about the courtyard, leaning on a stick, and he would bear the scars to his grave.
“It will be full spring before I can sit a horse again,” he observed gloomily to Gwenhwyfar, who stood close to the courtyard wall, her blue cloak wrapped tight around her.
“It may well be,” Lancelet said, “and longer, my dear lord, if you take cold in your wound before it is full healed. Come within doors, I beg you—look, there is snow on Gwenhwyfar’s cloak.”
“And in your beard, Lance—or is that only the first grey?” Arthur asked, teasing, and Lancelet laughed.
“Both, I suppose—there you have the advantage of me, my king, your beard is so fair the grey will not show when it comes. Here, lean on my arm.”
Arthur would have waved him away, but Gwenhwyfar said, “No, take his arm, Arthur, you will undo all our fine leechcraft if you fall—and the stones are slippery underfoot, with this snow melting as it comes down.”
Arthur sighed and leaned on his friend’s arm. “Now have I had a taste of what it must be like to be old.” Gwenhwyfar came and took his other arm, and he laughed. “Will you love me and uphold me like this when indeed there is grey in my beard and hair and when I go on a stick like the Merlin?”
“Even when you are ninety, my lord,” said Lancelet, laughing with him. “I can see it well, Gwenhwyfar holding you by one arm and I by the other as our ancient steps totter toward your throne—we will all be ninety or thereabout!” Abruptly he sobered. “I am troubled about Taliesin, my lord, he grows feeble and his eyes are failing. Should he not go back to Avalon and rest his last years in peace?”
“No doubt he should,” said Arthur. “But he says he will not leave me alone, with only the priests for councillors—”
“What better councillors than the priests could you have, my lord?” Gwenhwyfar flared. She resented the unearthly word Avalon; it frightened her to think that Arthur was sworn to protect their heathenish ways.
They came into the hall where a fire was burning, and Arthur made a gesture of annoyance as Lancelet eased him into his chair. “Aye, set the old man by the fire and give him his posset—I marvel that you let me wear shoes and hose instead of a bedgown!”
“My dear lord—” Gwenhwyfar began, but Lancelet laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t fret yourself, kinswoman, all men are so, peevish when they are ill—he knows not when he is well off, being nursed by fair women and tended with dainty foods and clean linen and those possets he scorns. . . . I have lain with a wound in a field camp, nursed by a sour old man too lame to fight, and lying in my own shit because I could not shift myself and no one came near to help me, with nothing brought but some sour beer and hard bread to soak in it. Stop grumbling, Arthur, or I shall try to see to it that you nurse your wound in manly fashion as befits a true soldier!”
“Aye, and he would do it, too,” said Arthur, with an affectionate smile at his friend. “You go not in much fear of your king, Prince Galahad—” He took the horn spoon from his wife’s hand and began to eat the concoction of warmed wine with bread and honey soaked in it. “Aye, this is good and warming—it has spices in it, has it not,