The Hundreth Tear: Part XXXVII

And so at last we'd come home to Camelot.

Merlin did as he had promised and spoke with Arthur about Amr and other things. No one saw either of them for nearly two days as they shut themselves up in Arthur's study and had food sent in from the kitchens. Any who tried to question the servants who brought the trays back and forth found that Merlin's reputation was more than enough to silence even the loosest tongue.

Even I couldn't get a hint of what they spoke about there together.

It was maddening.

Near the end of the second day the door opened, Merlin and Arthur stepped out into the corridor and shook hands. Merlin murmured something, patted Arthur on the back, and strode away to the entrance to his tower. Arthur went to find Guinevere.

The next morning, Camelot woke to find Merlin gone once again and his door locked with a strangely glowing seal showing two dragons fighting. For a time, every hedge wizard and mage in Britain seemed to parade through Camelot's halls and try their hand at opening that door. None ever succeeded. Eventually they stopped coming, or if they did they seemed to forget why they came to Camelot in the first place and became involved in other pursuits.

Arthur never told me what he and Merlin talked about in that last encounter. But looking back on what came later, I suspect he was being prepared for what our future held. At any rate, we never saw Merlin again.

Or at least I never did. Strangely enough, I've missed the curmudgeon.

*******

Medraut did indeed find other and more hurtful ways to deal with Arthur than by making me a target. But others among his faction were less inclined to be merciful, and the whispering began again that I'd had a part in causing the deaths of Arthur's sons. I ignored them, although I must admit there were a few decent songs about me that were rather amusing.

Medraut sowed his seeds among the folk of Camelot and in time they came to fruition. It was a bitter harvest, that. Instead of following Arthur to the throne when the king passed, Medraut found he could not control those who followed him. I won't go into retelling that whole sad tale of Guinevere and Lancelot; suffice to say that whether it was true or not, it led to the sundering of the Round Table.

In the fighting that followed I took a bad wound to the head and when I was no where to be found after the battle, it was assumed I'd been killed. Luckily for me, that was not the case. I'd been taken with other wounded to a nearby abbey, but the swelling of my face and the bandages over it had hid my identity from those who Arthur had sent to find me until Bedivere and Lucian took up the hunt and tracked me down at last.

And so it was that we three came late to that final battlefield to bear witness to the combat between Arthur and Medraut and watch helplessly as they killed each other and each other's dreams.

I helped the others carry him down to the shore and the boat that waited to bear Arthur across the water to Avalon. Night was falling, and my vision was blurred with tears, but it seemed to me one of the four women was that woman Arianrhod who'd been there when Amr died. But she neither spoke nor acknowledged us, and we in truth didn't care about that.

Arthur was gone.

The Dark descended once more upon Britain with a vengeance in the form of the Saxons. The remnants of Britain's nobility fought on, but gradually the larger numbers of Saxon settlers grew until we were pushed back to the west into Wales and Cornwall.

Somehow, the Saxons never found Camelot castle. While those who were once part of Arthur's court or who are of British blood traveled back and forth there regularly, no Saxon army ever laid siege to its walls.

I think Merlin might have had something to do with that.

As for me, my head wound had put an end to my days as a warrior, and like many others of Arthur's men I turned to the solace of a religious life and came back here to this abbey where I had once lain wounded. Some of my fellow monks might be amused to learn that the mild mannered Brother Caius was once the sharp-tongued Kai of Camelot.

I dream at night of Camelot. Sometimes to my shame, I dream of Morgaine. But most often I dream of Amr and Lleu and Medraut, and time and again I see Medraut with that bottle. If only I'd stopped him. Not for Amr's sake alone, but for Camelot. It haunts me that if I'd stayed that night, perhaps Amr might not have left Camelot as he did, and I'd not have uttered those words that finally put Medraut on a course that destroyed all Arthur had worked to achieve.

So ends my tale. My sight is not what once it was and one of the novices has been kind enough to write these words down on paper for me. On the morrow he'll have them sent to the librarian at Camelot to be hidden in whatever way he chooses. Let some future reader find them when the time comes for the full truth be known.

They say Arthur rests at Avalon, regaining his strength until he can come again. God grant that this is so. It's been many years now since that final battle, but I do not doubt that if he should appear tomorrow to reclaim his throne, those of the old Companions who are left would once more rally to his side, even as old and infirm as we may now be.

We'd fight once more for Arthur's dream and for Camelot.