30. Shreds and shambles

"More bread, Arthur?"

"Yes, thank you."

Arthur took the bread and winced when his hand touched the fingers holding it.

Uther didn't even notice. Reassured and calmed by his firm belief that his son had been under the evil sorceress' spell so far, he was convinced that he had nothing to fear from Arthur. In fact Arthur's father was absolutely sure about his son feeling nothing but gratitude towards the man who'd freed him from the witch's clutches.

So Uther continued stuffing his face, chatting animatedly across his dinner table, mostly at the twelve year old boy who adored his grandfather's every word, deeply flattered by the invitation to join them.

Arthur was mostly silent.

Through the open widows came the sounds of servants clearing away the remnants of the afternoon's execution.

At some time, Galahad dove into his red berry compote with much gusto under Uther's benign smile.

In that same minute, Arthur recognized the typical sweeping sounds of strong brooms. "Would you excuse me for a moment, please" he murmured. He reached the bathing chamber only just in time before the knowledge that Galahad was having dessert while the servants swept up his mother's ashes emptied his stomach completely.

On his return, Galahad was nowhere to be seen.

"I sent him off to bed" Uther volunteered. "He couldn't keep his eyes open." His broad smile wavered after one look at his son's white face and if Arthur hadn't been preoccupied, he could have seen that his father's joyful surety suddenly faltered.

But he had no eyes for Uther's awkwardness. "I would want to see him" he said, already retreating towards the door. "Where ….?"

"Not now, if you please Arthur!" Uther used a sharp tone, leaving no doubt that that had been an order. When his son stopped obediently, he moderated his tone at once. "Honestly Arthur, I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk to you in private …. if you're not too tired, that is."

Arthur stared at him with a blank face. Too tired? Had the man just asked him if he was too tired? "No" he finally shook his head, "but Galla shouldn't be left alone, sometimes he ….."

"He's a fine boy" Uther interrupted hastily. "But he's not well, is he?"

"No" Arthur agreed, apprehension making him cautious. "His hearing, and his eye-sight, are weak. Since birth."

Uther nodded, his smug self-satisfaction visible even beneath the thick layer of not altogether feigned worry and sympathy. "So his own mother did not stick at harming her child in order to harm you."

"Guinivere did nothing of the kind" Arthur retorted sharply, before he pressed his lips together. He couldn't afford scandalizing his father. Whatever it was that stood between Galahad and a third pyre – it was only as reliable as Uther Pendragon's selfish whims.

Fortunately, Uther blamed the sharp repartee on his son's exhaustion. "I know this must come to you as a shock, my boy" he went on, speaking quickly, in a hurry to put it behind him, "but not only has she left you without a fit heir, but she also betrayed you. It grieves me to tell you, that this filthy sorceress was also an adulteress. I have it from his own mouth; this scoundrel Lancelot had reason to believe that the boy is his son." Uther looked away and coughed lightly. "Although it is obvious that Galahad is a Pendragon" he added lamely.

"Tell me something I don't know" Arthur thought, with a fleeting amusement. Uther felt very superior with his great revelations, which in truth were all snow from yesteryear. But there was little to be gained from telling him so, therefore Arthur pretended to be shocked. "Lancelot said Galahad is his son?" he asked with an aghast voice and a suitably distorted face.

"The nerve, eh?" Uther agreed eagerly, only too happy that this conversation was running so smoothly. "I must admit, at first I believed it, too, but the moment I set eyes on your Galla I saw that he's the spitting image of my father. The black devil they called him. You son's even got the Pendragon birth mark on his back, the fighting dragon."

Arthur stood motionless. Paralyzed.

Not for a second he doubted the truth of Uther's words. The man was an accomplished liar, but he wouldn't make this up, not when it came to his own, precious blood-line.

Something ran through Arthur's veins, if it was ice or fire he couldn't make out. His nausea returned and he closed his eyes. "Oh Gods, Lance. For nothing! Our quarrel, Guinivere's abduction, the alliance that killed you, the slaughterhouse at Badon Hill – for NOTHING!"

An irresistible urge to laugh out loudly tickled the inside of his throat, irritating, seductive. "All these deaths, Lance: Severinus, Erec, you, the woman we both loved, all the men on the battlefield – your marriage in shambles, as much as mine, Malcolm's love dead and buried, Leon's family too – their lives, our lives - murdered, butchered, for a lie, a mere figment of our imagination…"

In the next moment, the pain hit him like a physical blow "Forgive me, Guinivere, I'm so sorry, forgive me, oh please forgive me …. what did it matter, this one night of confusion, how could I allow it to destroy everything …..how could I ever allow for this madness to happen, because of such a trifle..."

Again, the hysterics threatened to overwhelm him.

It was such an outrageous idea, the mere concept was so utterly preposterous, so hilariously, inconceivably ridiculous, that he simply couldn't get his mind around it.

Streams of blood, crushed hopes, dreams destroyed, more than just one life's work gone to pieces – and somewhere in this hell-hole of a castle, the twelve year old youngster, sleeping peacefully, perhaps dreaming of a mother who would never return, of a homecoming to a Camelot that was about to be ripped apart, until no stone was left on another, by a man who must have groomed and cherished his dream of revenge for the better part of two decades….

Arthur winced when his shoulders were roughly grabbed and he was forced down on a chair. It took a moment of focussing to notice Uther was talking frantically to him. More effort was needed to understand that his father had seen him swaying on his feet, on the brink of collapse. "I'm so sorry, my son, but after all these years of deception it is imperative that you finally accept the truth" Uther rambled on. "You have been betrayed. Used. Misled, if you want to put it that way. Otherwise you'd never turned against me, I know that now."

And in an instant, Arthur's resolve to restrain himself at all cost, for Galla's sake, was gone. Oh yes, he still knew the game, but he was no longer able to play it. The words and moves eluded him. "I wish I knew what you're talking about" he venomously spat.

In fact, he knew it well enough. Before his very eyes, his father conjured up a huge ego-maniacal make-belief, a horrible self-delusion, with Uther Pendragon in the role of the all-time hero and everybody else in the part of the fiendish magical villain. All Hail to Uther Pendragon, once more forming the world in the image of his own greatness and perfection, with no thought for those who paid the price; no idea of the damage he did, of the suffering he caused, not in the past, not now, not ever.

Arthur's wrath was wasted on a man oblivious to reality. Uther sighed, visibly vexed, but controlling himself as a patient father of an insolent child is supposed to control himself. "You best catch up on some sleep" he said. "We have all the time in the world to talk. Tomorrow, and the day after. Naturally I will have to retake Camelot before I can get you to join me, but it shouldn't be too long."

Arthur rose and stepped away, out of Uther's reach. "If you think Leon and the Branguards will open the gates for you and your bunch of mercenaries, with palm twigs in one hand and a white flag in the other, think again."

"Perhaps not for me, not at first, that is. But for your son, that's quite another cup of wine. Especially in your absence."

Again, Arthur forgot both weariness and tactics, and flared up. "You won't take Galahad, and that's final. You may have used me all my life, you can use me again, there's not much I can do about it, but you'll leave the boy alone!"

"As you said, there's not much you can do to stop me."

"Now we're seeing eye to eye" Arthur sneered. "I didn't believe in your pretty speeches anyway."

"How dare you….."

"You've made a gross miscalculation, father. You can parade me or Galla in front of the citadel as long as you like, the Branguards have the law of the land on their side. Malcolm's eldest is heir to the Crown, Galahad isn't fit to be Crown Prince, and I am your prisoner. Force me into signing any paper that takes your fancy, torture me as much as you like, my word counts for nothing!"

"Last thing I heard you are the High King of Albion."

"Yes, dear father. Me. And after me comes Malcolm's son. Or no one. Albion will go to pieces before the other Kingdoms surrender to you and your army of cut throats!"

Uther drew himself up; his son could virtually see him gulp down the rage bubbling up inside him. "Let's not argue, Arthur. It's a bad moment. I know you loved her. Believe it or not, I understand your feelings. When Morgana and you turned against me, I…." he broke off with a shuddering breath. "We'll talk again in the morning, when you're rested. Good night."

"Talk to me or don't, it'll change nothing."

"I said, good night, Arthur."

"Where is my son?" Arthur flinched at the sound of his own words. More than 12 years, and for the first time ever 'my son' sounded good and right. It was idiotic, especially in this moment, when everything he'd ever had and been hung in the balance - It was self-centred and absurd that it should matter so much, a child was a child – but it did matter, it mattered the world to him. A piece of Guinivere left alive, of the love they'd had, and it was his. Lancelot had no part in it.

Uther sat down heavily in a chair, slumped, a picture of misery, for all to see but for his son. Arthur had no eyes for Uther Pendragon's sufferings. "The guard will lead you to him" Uther said with an effort. "For the boy's sake, Arthur – I didn't tell him anything about his mother. You're his father, you decide what's best for him."

"Is that a threat?"

"Merely a word of advice. From one father to another. Although Galla is less complicated than you."

"You are pathetic" Arthur snorted. "How I could ever admire you, even worship you, it's beyond me."

"No use discussing ancient history then" Uther retorted, soberly now. "But even so, two grown up men with common interests should come to some mutual understanding. I'll see you in the morning."

In answer to Uther's earlier call, two bulky guards entered the room, an unmistakable sign that the conversation was over. Arthur nodded curtly at his father, and followed them out.

The soldiers had no trouble with their prisoner at all. Arthur walked between them, lost in thought, until they reached a room in the west wing.

Galla hadn't been to bed yet. It had been an interesting evening, confusing as well as fascinating, and he yearned to talk to his father. As soon as he spotted Arthur in the door-frame, he jumped up and ran to him.

The guards never knew what hit them. The first went down with a knife in his heart, while the other lost his footing when Arthur kicked against his knees from behind. Even as the man fell, the second knife cut his throat open almost down to the neck.

Galahad stood in total shock, his eyes wide, with trembling limbs, whilst the men's blood pooled before his feet. Biting Lancelot in the heat of the moment, swearing to have his head cut off, was one thing. But he had never seen someone dying. Nothing in his sheltered life, as the monks' pet novice, had ever prepared him for a sight like this. For the smell. Or his father's face the second he went in for the kill. It was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen.

Arthur shoved the remaining of the two knifes he'd stolen at the dinner table into his belt, took one of the soldiers' swords, and grabbed his son's wrist. "Let's go."

But Galahad didn't budge. White as a sheet he stared at the bloodied fingers that enclosed his hand before he raised his gaze to his father's face.

"Galla, for God's sake, MOVE!"

The boy shook his head, slowly at first, then more and more frantic. He tried to get away, pulled at the hand that held him.

Arthur reached out and slapped the boy's face with all his strength. Both he and Galla yelped with pain and surprise, the boy holding his burning face while Arthur cradled his right wrist.

"Papa…." Galahad whined.

"Move your ass, my boy, or I'll give you the thrashing of your life" Arthur hissed, and took Galla's arm once more.

Sobbing quietly, Gallahad put one foot before the other and Arthur felt faint with relief. "I'll explain everything later, Galla, just trust me. We must get out of here."

"But…. but why …."

"LATER, Galla."

"Where's grandfather?"

"Outside, waiting for us" Arthur lied. "We have been betrayed. We are no longer safe inside the stronghold. Here, take this." Arthur gave Galla the knife. "Our objective is to get out of here unseen, all right? No heroics."

Galahad nodded. Somewhere in the back of his head, a voice nagged on and on about this being not a game, these two men were dead, and murder was a mortal sin. There was a second voice saying that this was it. Lame, stupid Prince Galahad with his father, the best warrior of Albion, fighting for what was good and right. Whatever that was. Hell, his father was the High King, he could do as he saw fit.

For the first time in his life, Galla felt like a royal Prince of Camelot. At the same time, he felt sick and abused. Was that what Princes did? Was that how they had to feel?

He would do his father proud. But not himself.

It was just as well Galla didn't know his father wished his son were 1 000 miles away from this place.

Arthur strained his ears for the sound of marching boots, and he wasn't disappointed. As soon as they left the west wing, they barely avoided a patrol in the main corridor.

Hidden behind a row of columns and a curtain, a place hardly suitable to make them invisible for long, Arthur cursed his idiocy. As he had been unconscious when they had brought him in, he didn't even know where the gates were.

"This way" Galla whispered. "To the main gates."

"How would you know?" Belatedly Arthur remembered that Galla's ears weren't as sharp as his.

He shouldn't have worried.

"I'm short sighted, father, not blind!" the boy said, badly insulted. "I can lip-read, you know, when I'm close enough. To spot something as huge as the castle gates from horseback is no problem."

Against his will, Arthur grinned. His son, all right. There was a little warrior beneath that monk's coat after all. "Any idea how we get there?" he asked, and the boy bristled with pride. "They all thought I'm a wimp, so I could roam the castle at will, fetching and carrying" he muttered enthusiastically. "There's a narrow passage behind the wall. From the kitchen, there's a door to the pigsty, and from there, to the outer walls."

"Idyllic" the High King said. To Arthur's superior taste, the close neighbourhood of kitchen and pigsty was tantamount to abomination. Almost unimaginable that Lance had found the absence of his servants from the main corridor more fashionable than the absence of blowflies from his cooking place! "Let's go and find your pigs."

Finding and using the indeed narrow pathway posed no difficulty, but when they came to the kitchen's entrance, Arthur heard voices. A woman, apparently of mature age and countenance, used all the considerable power of her voice and lungs to insult some others. "Wrenches" Arthur and Galla heard her yell. "Dimwits. Daughters of whores and lepers, the lot of you."

And that was only the beginning of the unchaste tirade. The High King barely resisted temptation to press his hands on Galla's ears.

"That's Marina" Galahad giggled into his father's red hot ears. "She's an old lazy bone. Wants the maids to do the cleaning without her."

"Cleaning?" asked Arthur, whose heart sank. How long would that take? And killing some hapless women in front of Galla….

"It's late, right?" his boy answered. Unaware of his father's thoughts, he pulled himself together as gallantly as possible, as if this whole thing was nothing but an everyday training lesson for the noble Prince of Camelot. "For breakfast tomorrow, the slabs and plates must be clean, and the ovens. Just you wait, any moment now the she-devil will be off to her warm bed, and the maids will do likewise. Tomorrow they'll panic, and the scullery girl will have her ears boxed for no fault of hers. It's unfair, but that's how it is." Galla nodded to himself, his expression being one of serenity and age-old wisdom, and Arthur bit his lip until it hurt.

A wimp, perhaps, when it came to sword fighting, and perhaps as blind as a mole or as deaf as a snake, too, but Gosh, the boy had brains and courage enough for a battalion of squires and knights.

Gwen would have been proud.

Galla looked at his father in surprise when Arthur inhaled sharply. As if he had hurt himself.

Grown-ups were funny people sometimes. Imagine, the High King of Albion feeling pity for an unjustly treated scullery girl!

Shortly after that, the kitchen fell silent.

Arthur waited for a moment before he opened the door, cautiously, inch by inch.

The huge room was a smelly mess, as Galla had predicted, - and it was deserted.

"They all sleep on the other side of the corridor" Galahad said. "They won't hear us if we're quiet."

"How many guards are at the door?" Arthur wanted to know.

"Guards? At a kitchen door to the pigsty?"

"Don't be childish, Galla. If there's a connection from here to the outer wall, there must be guards somewhere."

"In Camelot, perhaps. Not here. Bad for their boots, you know."

"Lancelot du Lac once was a knight of the Round Table" Arthur hissed indignantly.

"Who was much more interested in pestering Mama than running his estate" Galla shrugged. "This way."

Arthur couldn't believe it; they sneaked through the pigs' mud – not comfortable, but deserted, too – past the stables (nobody there but a sleeping groom or two) up to the inner wall, and its exit to the herb and vegetable garden. From where he stood, Arthur recognized the orchard where he'd met Guinivere.

The memory virtually jumped on him, her voice so clear, her image so real as if she was standing in front of him, smiling, whispering his name.

"You remember the little door in the outer wall?" Galla said, impatiently hopping from one foot to the other.

"Yes" Arthur said with an effort, "of course."

"You must find it, I hardly ever find it quickly behind all the brushwood. It's heavily barred, but it is locked from the inside, by three bolts. No keys, you see?"

"You're sure?" Arthur said, or rather, wanted to say, when the stronghold's alarm bell rang, loud and shrill through the otherwise quiet night, making it utterly clear that their time had ran out. The King grabbed Galla's arm and they ran through the dark, close to the wall, in a frenzied search for this damn, almost invisible little door.

From the palace, then from the yard, came the sound of screaming voices, harsh commands, eventually of neighing horses. Torches flickered through the dark. The search parties fanned out.

Galla stumbled, regained his footing, and stumbled again. He fell, yelping with pain. "My foot…"

Arthur supressed the curse that was already on his lips. He pulled his son to his feet, turned him, and pushed him face first into the nearest row of bushes. "Whatever happens, Galla, you stay put. I'll come back later for you."

"Papa, wait…"

"I promise I'll be back."

"No, wait."

"Galla…"

"Papa, I've found the door." Really, sometimes adults were too stupid for their own good.

"With your eyes?"

"No, Papa. With my forehead!"

Arthur was swallowed up by the dense brushwood in an instant. The bolts looked ancient and rusty, but they were in fact well oiled. Arthur took the time to shut the door behind him, and to ram a piece of wood underneath it. Should someone try it from the inside without too close a look at it, he might think it still locked.

"Quick, Galla. Into the woods. We must lie low until they're past us."

"But how will grandfather find us?"

"He will, don't worry."

Galla submitted to his father's orders, at least for now. Papa's story had more than one hole; as always logic and warriors made strange bedfellows. But Galahad knew how to bide his time, once they were safe they had all the time in the world to work things out. For example, why his father and grandfather were perfectly fine and at ease with him, but not with each other. Quite the contrary, in fact. As if grandfather was desperate because Papa hated him.

So the boy was quite content to walk in his father's wake while Arthur was searching for a suitable hiding place. After some minutes, during which Arthur got more and more tensed, thinking of the soldiers roaming the whole area in search for them, they reached a peaceful, little clearing with mostly rocky ground, with something that might be the entrance of a cave on its left side.

Arthur weighed their chances. It looked perfect, but on the other hand: Wouldn't these henchmen know the terrain close to their castle like the backs of their hands, at least some of them?

Something rustled behind his back, moved through the bushes, and a small rabbit shot out of his hiding, across the clearing, and back into the safety of the forest.

Not even Galahad could be blind and deaf enough to miss the scene's significance.

He was off with a small yelp. "Grandfather…."

"Galla, don't! Come back!" Arthur ran after his son, despairing of the boy, thinking that sparing Galahad even the basics of military training had been an all-time blunder.

He stopped at the sight of his son lying on the ground, apparently unconscious.

"Drop it" a familiar voice said from behind. Wheezily. The voice of a very old man.

"Drop the sword, Pendragon!" Armand of Morgwyn said again.

Arthur loosened his hold on the sword hilt, let it slide, grabbed it again, and darted round. He missed Armand's neck by an inch, pushed forward, forced the other to retreat clumsily, towards the place where Galla lay. "Arthur, watch it" Armand shouted, as a second man came for him from the dark, blade raised high, ready for an attack against the High King's unprotected head.

Arthur evaded the onslaught, his feet dancing on the ground. He raised his own sword to fend off the other's blade, while Armand got into safety.

The two swords connected, and the attacker pressed down. Arthur could hardly believe his luck, this man was a bloody greenhorn, strong, determined, but with hardly any knowledge of the sword art. The High King twisted his blade the tiniest bit in order to catch the other's hilt and disarm him. Instead of doing the only sensible thing, stepping back, getting his sword free for another attack, the brute pressed harder, and Arthur had all the leeway he needed to finish this idiot off. He let his sword slide down further, just a millimetre, into the perfect position.

The sound of both his wrists snapping at once was audible to both of them. Arthur cried out with the sudden pain, and the sword fell from his limp fingers. The other had no difficulties pushing him against the nearest tree, and putting his blade to Arthur's neck.

The man's expression of triumph turned into one of horror when Armand cut his throat from behind. "Do you see reason now?" Morgwyn asked a stunned Arthur. "The forest is crawling with Uther's men. They catch you and your son, how many chances to run will you get, eh? But of course, you could fight them, a whole army single-handedly, if only you had this!"

Arthur gritted his teeth when he saw what Armand held in his hand. Even though the blade was wrapped up in some veils and scarfs, Excalibur's hilt was gleaming in the starlight.

"I must inform Your Majesty that you, as a fighter, aren't worth a farthing without your famous sword" Armand said. Seeing Arthur's helpless rage, he grinned. "Unfortunately I have found out, to my greatest chagrin, that Excalibur isn't worth a farthing without you, My Lord."

Arthur heard that more soldiers from the stronghold approached the clearing. Dogs barked, a lot of dogs.

"Seems as if we're born allies, you and I" Armand said jokingly. "Me or your father, Arthur – what shall it be?"