Chapter 56
Of all the astonishing sights I had seen in my life, the greatest shock I ever received was to find Camelot deserted.
Destruction lay everywhere. My horse picked over piles of wood and shattered lances, past weapons and cloth discarded from looted merchants.
Red-and-white banners flashed among the detritus, torn and muddied where they had been pulled down and trampled.
Not a soul remained: residents, knights, guards, the visitors who would come from far and wide just to see the golden marvel upon its hill, the kingdom’s beating heart.
It was an empty carapace now, a place abandoned to time.
As I reached the central crossroads, there came a sudden clatter of hooves and a pair of riderless horses careered into view, one black and the other bright white, sweat-sheened and foaming as if they had been running forever.
Blood soaked the pale horse’s chest, but they galloped on by, oblivious to anything but their need to flee.
Heart racing, I reached out with my senses to glean any other hidden threats—feral beasts, lurking men—but all was silent beyond the reverberation of hoofbeats fading through the empty streets.
I pushed on up the hill towards the castle, across the clogged and filthy moat, and passed under the soot-scorched barbican to reach Camelot’s main courtyard.
There too I found ruin: stones streaked with mud and manure, the avenue of cherry trees chopped down.
Over the door, the rearing dragon had been slung with ropes and half toppled, bent steel groaning its death throes in the wind.
I dismounted under the shadow of its claws and walked into the grand Entrance Hall.
The circular atrium resembled a badly kept barracks: piles of straw bunched on the tiled floor, rough blankets strewn about, rats picking through scraps of cheese and bird bones.
A pyre of blackened wood stood in the centre, built for warmth or a failed burning, I could not tell.
I kept moving, along the Seneschal’s gallery and past Sir Kay’s former Great Chamber, where the doors had been wrenched off their hinges, piles of his carefully organized records dumped from the shelves.
I winced, imagining how he would feel to see his diligent work scattered and disrespected, then remembered he was at war anyway, with his blood up, fighting for his life and his brother, loyal to the end.
Finally, I reached the enormous doorway, slung open to memories both good and bad. Where the time had gone I could not fathom, but I had not entered Camelot’s Great Hall in eighteen years. Those last, desperate days before I learned Accolon was dead.
Chaos greeted my sight: the long tables and benches slung across the room, food decaying on surfaces, knives protruding from scarred and filthy tabletops.
An army of jackdaws marched along the rows, pecking at rotting meat.
As I walked towards the dais, they flew up in rasping irritation to the nests they had made in the rafters.
Hazy jewel-coloured light still drifted through the high arched windows and the glazed recess at the back of the room, behind where High Table had always been.
A few panes had been smashed, letting in moans of wind that rustled the royal banners hanging from the ceiling, too high for any raging, thwarted usurper to tear down.
Nonetheless, Mordred’s destruction had been thorough.
Two thirds of my way towards the dais, I found myself blocked by a tremendous barrier—great chunks of curved wood, jagged at the edges and stacked tall.
I found a gap between two piles and stepped through, eyes catching upon the once colourful surface, neatly delineated sections painted with knightly scenes, each headed with ornate gold lettering.
I moved closer, trying to read what it said.
“My table,” came a sudden voice. “Broken beyond repair.”
I swung towards the sound and saw the dais behind a forest of discarded furniture. Upon the central steps, fiery in the light, sat my brother.
“Arthur,” I gasped. “Thank goodness.”
I ran to him, but he didn’t look at me, his eyes fixed upon the splintered wood.
“People often expected my Round Table to be a solid circle,” he said in a faraway voice.
“Not many realized that it would need to be a ring to seat so many knights, lest no room be large enough to contain it. Still, how glorious it looked—brightly painted, garlanded with silk and flowers, the Ladies’ Table and Queen’s Knights on the inner side.
Gold plate and goblets placed in precise lines.
Perfect, exactly as I had envisioned it. ”
As he spoke, my initial relief at finding him drained away.
He still gleamed like a king, but his gold armour was battle-scarred, gauntlets discarded, greaves dented and dragon-head pauldrons missing teeth, mail streaked with dirt.
He didn’t appear injured, but his aspect was stooped and exhausted, my senses unable to discern his state of mind.
I sat down beside him. “I never saw the Round Table,” I said. “I wish I had.”
He tried to smile, but it was weighted with regret.
“For a while, everything happened within this table. When petitions came, calls for help that I would answer, new allies waiting to be made, it was here they stood, in the centre of the kingdom. Quests of wonder and greatness began and ended here. The most magnificent knights the world will ever see sat side by side in great love and friendship.”
I followed his gaze to the pile of fractured wood, and saw Arthur’s name in gold, bordered with crowns. The name beside his was expected, but still gave me a jolt to see.
Sir Lancelot du Lac, silver and unsullied. At his King’s right hand.
“I’m sorry, Arthur,” I said.
“Look at it now,” he said. “Shattered, ruined, all splinters. My world in pieces.”
His voice cracked and to my horror his face crumpled into despair. Swiftly, I reached for him and pulled his quaking body into my arms, holding my brother as he cried—for his ruined kingdom, his great purpose, for his lost friends, family and love. For himself.
I would have stayed there, bearing him up for all the hours it took, but Arthur never did like to wallow in his feelings for long. He lifted his head from my shoulder, drew back, dried his eyes with the heel of his palm, then put his hand over mine in wordless thanks.
“My God, you’re freezing,” I said. “We need to get you warm.”
I got up and filled a brazier with any wood not from the Round Table.
To access magic in this palace of destruction was to feel it dragged through my veins, but there was just enough elemental connection to conjure a flame in my hand.
I lit the kindling until it burned steadily, then pulled the small bonfire to the dais steps.
A soft beam of light caught my eye from the floor—the sunlit hilt of Excalibur, discarded in the shadows at his feet. Arthur saw me notice the sword and closed his eyes.
I sat down and took his hands in mine, seeking injury.
Thankfully, there was none, but neither was he unafflicted.
I sent a stream of warm healing through him, but his core held a profound cold that went far beyond the physical.
Within, he was utterly devastated, an ailment not even my miraculous hands could fix.
“Talk to me,” I said. “How did you come to be here?”
He spoke through chattering teeth. “I came immediately after the battle at Salisbury Plain. I needed to be alone, to consider everything.” He looked out across the upturned furniture, the holes smashed out of the once-magnificent windows.
“It was the only place I wanted to come, and this is what greeted me.”
There were no words fit to comfort him for the annihilation that lay before us. “What happened at Salisbury Plain?” I asked.
He gave a tremendous shudder. “It’s over. There was no conclusion.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I squeezed his arm, willing him to feel it through the layers of samite and steel. “You live and breathe still, against what the stars foretold. You survived your final battle and are unchained from prophecy.”
He looked down at his sword-strong hands. “What does it matter if I survived, when so many others died? At what cost, my own life?”
“Of course it is difficult,” I replied. “War is always a tragedy. But your knights fight for you because they are loyal and want to stand by your side. In these uncertain times when faith is bought and sold, those doing battle alongside you chose it, and are proud.”
Abruptly, Arthur stilled and regarded me with a regal seriousness. Firelight illuminated the streaks on his face—mud, yes, but something darker, redder: blood across his forehead, speckled on his cheekbones; a smudged slash along his jaw, staining his beard. His eyes were silver with tears.
“Morgan,” he said. “Yvain is dead.”
I felt as though I had been plunged into an ice floe, numbed from scalp to toes. The air left my lungs, leaving me able only to stammer one word.
“How?”
Arthur sighed. “He had been leading a battalion to tremendous success. They defeated an onslaught of opposition soldiers—Yvain himself vanquished several of Mordred’s most powerful allies in hard-fought duels. Then, when dusk began to fall… ”
His words caught and he stopped. I wanted to shake the rest from him, but his pause was not faltering or afraid—it was measured, purposeful.
In the midst of our despair, I watched my brother pull himself upright, gathering the fortitude he knew I would soon need to lean on.
He put his arm around my shoulders and drew us close.