Arthur II Book IV Chapter 21

 The return of Arthur.

21.

The life on the run was a hard one for the couple; one who was saved from the fire. Lancelot looked to his lover since the rescue had remained quiet most times and demanded to be alone.

“Leave me be.” Guinevere had retreated to her misery after the long hard ride from Camelot. They had ridden north and the west into the unexplored land. It was a miserable cold land but they found their refuge in the disused hut. Lancelot had set up the fire and hunted a boar which he had roasted.

“I had looked for you at the ….” Lancelot tried to strike a conversation.

“Leave me be. I regret we ever met.” Guinevere looked at her own hands while seated by the fireplace. “I regretted, even more, agreeing to marry Arthur. It was all Lady Igraine’s fault.”

“No, Guinevere. You can’t blame the past. It’s the time to come that we need to think about.” Lancelot looked at her. “You are free now. You can go anywhere you want to be. I will be there to protect you. We don’t …”

“I was a Queen. I was bowed to by everyone who meets me. I was served as a Queen. Now I am a ….” Guinevere cried out her tears. “I am not anyone now. I am no different from the person I was when in captivity.”

“Do you know what was it like then?” Guinevere looked at Lancelot. “You worry about every step you take or what they take upon you. I was ….”

“Be afraid no more, my love.” Lancelot rushed forth to hold her but she pushed him away.

“I am not afraid. I just dreaded those moments even up to my wedding to Arthur. He was old. And I was pure. He did not know what was really to love. He was a brute.”

Lancelot looked at her. He knew that she was upset. He stepped away and contemplated his position. He has a wedded lover in Joyous neglected by him. He had affection but it waned off him. He was in mixed feelings then.

“You must go back to Elaine. She needs you too.” Guinevere told him then. He was infuriated that she would say that after the length of time he had spent with her.

“What is with you, Guinevere? I have sac…. I have not been with Elaine because I love you. And I took the challenge to rescue you from a fiery death and here you mocked me to forego what we went through. How can you?”

“It’s not to forego but a foregone conclusion that we cannot be together. Much as I love you, we are not destined to be together. Not since that night at the creek. I was wrong. Or we were wrong.” Guinevere sighed. “I should have stayed away from Camelot.”

“I should have stayed away from you,” Lancelot said.

The silence between the two carried on through the night.

It was also silenced on the battlefield at Normandy, where Arthur and his knights camped on the hill facing King Lot and his army on the other hill. According to his scouts, Arthur was halved in strength compared to the other side.

“King Lot held double the mounted knights. And his mercenaries are more than a thousand.” The scouts reported.

“What of his foot soldiers?” Arthur asked 

“We have no sight of them and was repelled before we could see that strength.” King Lot having a mix of local knights and mercenaries from Gaul and the colder borders up North and his foot soldiers unknown but assumed in the thousand.

“Did you see Lancelot there?” Arthur had pursued the battle for he knew Lancelot was from Normandy and may return there. And if Lancelot was there, so would Guinevere.

“No, Arthur. He is not seen at all.”

“Then I am wrong. Perish the thought, we will do battle here.” Arthur knew that he was outnumbered. He sat at the small table, without his trusted knights next to him except for Belvedere to offer him advice. He felt the loneliness then without Percival and Lamorak to figure out the strategy needed for the coming battle at dawn. Tristan had joined him but the knight was too raw to plan and was assigned the task of checking the perimeters.

The battlefield will be the valley in between the hills, which was a low sloping terrain on both sides. Arthur held two hundred knights on horses which may be the ideal front attack galloping at the other but his scouts told him that the other side has also knights on horses. He thought of a frontal attack with the foot soldiers with their spears leveled as they did in the Legion. They will be backed by the archers whom he held about a hundred. The foot soldiers if met by the riders could form the testudo but his army then had not done that formation before. He could send the mercenaries recruited on the journey there; the few hundred soldiers were undisciplined and harder to control. Belvedere had brought fifty of his men but he told Arthur the local Chiefs are hard to rein in on their strategy.

“They are here for the loot, and not for Camelot,” Belvedere reported to Arthur.

“I would expect that from them. They are not at their borders. They are nothing to call theirs but what they can carry back.” Arthur looked at Belvedere. “We are no more the Legion.”

“Aye…” Belvedere sighed. He does miss the life with the Legionnaires although many are still in the army, they have lacked their cohesive feeling with individual knighthood driving their ambition.

“We will battle in strength. We move with the mercenaries as usual in the fore and then our knights to break the resistance before we slammed them with the foot soldiers. The archers will be lent support by harassing the flank of the enemy from reinforcing.”

“Arthur, you speak of an army thrice our size but we are now half a Legion.” Belvedere reminded the other. “We need to work on having a reserve.”

“We don’t have a reserve.” Arthur looked at Belvedere.

‘My men can be that. We can circle them and attack from the flank. We leave tonight.” Belvedere offered the option. Arthur thought of it and then agreed.

An agreement could not be reached between Jaseth and Mordred. They argued at the Hall in the castle at Camelot.

“How could you say yourself to be the King? Arthur had left you to be the caretaker and not the King or even in wait.” Jaseth confronted the young knight.

“Arthur is dead. He left Camelot to me.” Mordred looked at Jaseth.

“How… You have changed Mordred. You are not the one I once knew. You…” Jaseth looked away. “I …”

“Jaseth, he is our son.” Jaseth heard the voice that long remained in his heart. He looked up and saw Morgan standing there.

“Morgan…. How could it be? Where have you been?” Jaseth for the first time in public removed his helmet. “I had searched for you.”

“I was away. I had to … I was with Mordred. Our son….” Morgan looked at Jaseth and then towards Mordred. “Jaseth is your father.”

“He is…” Mordred was stunned by the revelation. The man he was with when he arrived turned out to his father.

“No…. I need to talk to you alone, Morgan.” Jaseth looked at Morgan. She nodded and they convened their talk outside. He walked with her outside to the balcony leaving his halberd leaning at the table.

“Morgan, tell me the truth now.” Jaseth looked at Morgan. She did as he had requested, without hiding anything back on her background. Jaseth was shocked at the revelation that he had fathered a child with a witch.

“You have placed me in a difficult fix. I have devoted my life to hunting demons and witches but here I am linked to you.” Jaseth looked at her. “You are a witch.”

“No, I am a woman for you. It’s who we are to each other that matters. This heart and soul belong to you. And from it, our son was born.” Morgan looked at the man she loved.

“No, I cannot accept that. You lied to me. You made me … you deceive me.” Jaseth looked at Mordred still in the Hall. “I have no collection of us …. being together.”

“You… were asleep.” Morgan looked down. “I …”

“You mean you bewitched me then. How could you?”

“I did not. You were truly asleep. You were tired then. I …” Morgan explained herself once more.

“Lies, witch. I cannot be… I must go now. I …” Jaseth took his leave of the lady. Morgan stood there with anger in her expression.

“Jaseth, you will not leave me.” Morgan lashed out with the spell that threw the knight into the Hall. Jaseth crouched up and turned to look at Morgan.

“I am not whom you may call on,” Jaseth told her. He grabbed his halberd and then stood up. “I will return and when I do, prepare to battle me as the Green Knight.”

Mordred looked at the departing knight and then towards his mother.

“What did happen there?”

“I was mistaken. He is not your father.” Morgan replied. She saw the fear in the knights. She needed to assure them of her power.

“Behold, whoever commands Camelot, commands the dragons.” The twin dragon appeared before the knights. They were of two shades; one was red and the other blue.

“The dragons were the guardian of the ground where Camelot stands now. They were here long before the castle. They were subdued by Merlin through deceit and then they took to the lake. Now they are back here and will guard Camelot for us.” Morgause smiled. “I had the assistance of the Black Lord to send me the dragons.”

“Who is the Black Lord, Morgause?” Mordred asked.

“I will answer that in due time but right now, you have the battle to win.” Morgause ignored the question raised. She knew that more questions will be raised but the time to answer was not then.

However, more questions were raised when Merlin turned up at Arthur’s camp just before the battle.

“Why are you here, druid?” Arthur looked at the druid.

“Arthur, Camelot is in peril. Mordred had taken over your role. He is the King now.” Merlin told Arthur.