The atmosphere on the battlefield had begun to change the moment the king had fallen to his knees; Arthur heard consternation all around him, battle cries turning into shouts of genuine fear. He hadn’t been particularly fond of the king – he hadn’t really known him – but it felt as if England had died in his arms somehow, the country as he knew it extinguished.
‘Let go,’ Sidney was saying, and Arthur didn’t quite understand what he meant – let go emotionally? Did Sidney want him to cry? – but then he realised that he was still holding on to the king’s hand as three of his knights tried to claim his body.
‘Gabriel,’ Arthur said suddenly, as he watched the men lift the king’s prone form and then put their heads down to barrel through the fray. Sidney wasn’t paying attention; somebody had just tried to stab him, and he was retaliating in kind. A spray of mud and blood hit Arthur full in the face as the man toppled heavily down beside him; Arthur retched, heaving up absolutely nothing, and Sidney grabbed him and hauled him to his feet. ‘Gabriel,’ Arthur tried again. ‘Where’s Gabriel? He’s – he’s king.’
‘No idea,’ grunted Sidney as they began to move. ‘We really have to go. It’s a bloody miracle we’ve lasted this long with you so useless.’
Some of the king’s men seemed to be attempting to flee back up towards the castle; Arthur watched as one scrambled to his feet, only to be sent back down into the mud with a hand-axe to the back of the head. It was like looking at a particularly violent painting, he thought, or watching a play; his mind couldn’t comprehend that any of it was real.
‘Not good,’ Sidney said, looking around at the open panic on the faces of the crown’s men. ‘Shit. This is going to go south pretty soon, Art. Time to run.’
‘No,’ Arthur said, dazed, feeling as if he were dreaming. ‘Look.’
A fresh wave of men was riding across the drawbridge and down the hill from the castle, unbloodied, unscathed, sure and resolute as they cantered towards the chaos. The rain eased; the clouds seemed to part. Leading them in gleaming gold armour, his helm flashing in the sun, was the scarlet-haired King of England.
A cheer went up from those fighting for Camelot, and it was as if they had suddenly been imbued with new strength; where they had been staggering, they were suddenly upright. Fleeing men stopped in their tracks and turned back towards the battle. Arthur saw a man who had been knocked to the ground, and appeared for all intents and purposes very dead, use his foot to hook his attacker’s ankle and then drive his sword up through the man’s neck when he fell.
‘It’s all right,’ Arthur said, his eyes wide. ‘It’s going to be all right. And Gabriel is … Wait.’ He kept staring as the castle guard – for he could see that’s who they were now – reached the battle and began fighting in earnest.
‘Yeah,’ Sidney said grimly. ‘That’s what I was just thinking.’ The purported King of England was under extremely heavy guard and wasn’t particularly good at holding his sword – not that anybody seemed to notice, as they started to beat Lord Willard’s men back.
‘What the hell is she doing?’ Arthur breathed. He was trying not to think about the implications of this act – trying not to assume the worst. It was becoming more difficult by the second.
‘Look, she’s turning around,’ Sidney said, ‘I think—’
Something enormous slammed into the back of both of them; it sent them sprawling into the mud. Arthur felt blinding pain jolt up his bad wrist as it tried valiantly to break his fall. Don’t be broken, you piece-of-shit arm, he thought furiously, flexing his fingers and finding that they still seemed to work. The horse that had hit them seemed to have coped surprisingly well with the ordeal; it scrambled to its feet and took off across the battlefield, heading for the safety of the trees.
Lying in the mud once again, Arthur wondered why bards and warriors always seemed to leave this part out of their war stories; fighting was just blood, and mud, and falling down and down again until somebody put a sword in your back to keep you down forever. He felt something in his mouth, and spat it out in horror – but it was just the pendant on his necklace.
‘Sid,’ Arthur said indistinctly. ‘I should be dead by now.’
‘Yes,’ Sidney groaned, rolling towards him.
‘Right. Thought so. And didn’t you say this necklace was—’
‘It’s not the bloody necklace,’ Sidney said through gritted teeth. ‘I’m not doing all this for you to give the credit to a piece of sodding jewellery. It’s me. I’m protecting you. Get up.’
Arthur wasn’t listening to him; he was squinting at a dark shape that had appeared suddenly next to his head. ‘Does this … does this bird look agitated to you?’
‘Birds can’t look agitated.’
The crow in question was standing right next to Arthur, doing a strange little dance – it kept turning its head from side to side, skipping away a few steps and then returning.
‘Oh,’ said Sidney. ‘That bird looks extremely agitated.’
As soon as he’d said it, the crow took flight, swooping low over the piles of discarded swords and broken bodies; watching it go, Arthur saw something glinting in amongst the mud beneath its path.
‘Oh, shit,’ he said.
‘Oh, shit,’ Sidney said, with much more feeling; somebody had just attempted to kill Arthur again, which was becoming a bit of a hazard, and he had staggered to his feet to repel them. ‘Just go, Art.’
Arthur knew, deep down, that Sidney meant for him to get as far away from the fighting as possible. He knew that he was being a hindrance rather than a help; that with him out of the way, Sidney might actually survive – nay, thrive – in this battle. Arthur should have been doing everything in his power to make it to the edge of the field, and away.
He decided to wilfully misunderstand Sidney’s instructions.
Arthur had always known that he wasn’t a good person, even without his father constantly telling him so. Recent acts of theoretical bravery, he reasoned, had been the last resort of a desperate man. It wasn’t bravery that was on his mind as he crawled – really crawled, up to his shoulders in mud, more swamp creature than man – towards the thing he was sure he had seen in the middle of the field. He wasn’t doing it because he was brave – he was doing it for purely selfish reasons.
If Gabriel were to die – and if Gwen were to follow, having inexplicably decided to throw herself into the heat of battle in borrowed armour – then he’d never get to berate them for thinking so little of him. And he really, really couldn’t have that.
When he reached Gabriel’s body, it was almost entirely obscured by someone recently deceased; Arthur used the very last ounce of his strength to push the corpse away, bracing himself for what he was about to see.
One of Gabriel’s arms was so mangled beneath his crumpled armour that it barely looked like a limb at all. The other was theoretically still clutching his sword, but his grip had gone slack around the pommel. His skin was waxen, making the copper of his hair look impossibly bright where it was stuck in matted whorls to his damp forehead. His eyes were mostly closed, a thin crescent of white visible beneath his lashes.
‘Gabriel,’ Arthur croaked; somebody staggered past them, and Arthur instinctively threw himself down on top of the king’s broken body, to shield him from view. ‘Gabriel.’
Gabriel didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. Arthur couldn’t tell if he was breathing, or if it was just wishful thinking.
Someone fell next to them; Arthur watched as blood came cascading out of a man’s open mouth, soaking his beard, and then turned away, finally feeling hot tears stinging his eyes.
‘Fuck, Gabriel,’ he choked, looking desperately around for Sidney and seeing nobody he knew. ‘I’ve already done this once today, I’m not bloody doing it again. Seriously. Just – you can be dead later. Sid can’t drag both of us out of here, and he’s going to be a prick about it, but I know he’ll do the right thing, even if it kills him. He’s a stubborn arsehole, a complete pillock, but he’s – well, I love him. Just don’t be dead, and it’ll be worth it when he rescues you instead of me, and I promise I’ll just lie down here in the – in the mud, and the shit, and the blood – and I’ll die quietly, I swear.’
Arthur dragged himself up on to his elbows, staring down at Gabriel’s lifeless face. It was such a nice face. It really was a shame he was never going to see it again.
‘Gabriel,’ Arthur said, giving him a little shake, his own tears creating tracks in the mud on Gabriel’s cheeks. ‘You’re king, Gabriel. Your father is dead, and I just – everybody needs you to get up, and be alive, and be king. I know you don’t fancy it, but listen – it’s too late for that now.’
‘Excellent,’ said a strangely calm voice from somewhere above Arthur’s head. ‘I was just about ready to give up hope, but – I see you found him for me.’
Lord Willard was standing there, his sword raised. Arthur didn’t even bother acknowledging him. He looked again for Sidney – Sidney was always there, even when it seemed impossible – but his heart sank when he saw his best friend’s face ten feet away, frowning in concentration, still locked in battle with somebody else. He was much too far away to be of any use now.
‘Sorry,’ Arthur said faintly, more to Sidney than to anybody else; he stole one more second of staring at him, wishing that they could lock eyes one last time, that Arthur could somehow impart everything he wanted to say with a look. But Sidney didn’t turn.
Arthur pressed his forehead to Gabriel’s, and closed his eyes, and waited for the killing blow.
It didn’t come.
Arthur heard Lord Willard make a strange sound – a ridiculous sound really, halfway between amusement and surprise – and when Arthur turned over to see what had inspired it, he saw something he knew he’d remember for the rest of his life: Lady Bridget Leclair, caked in mud from head to toe, launching herself at Lord Willard, with Excalibur Nine raised high above her head. Arthur didn’t even see where she hit him; he was staring at her face, wondering if he were already dead and Bridget had come to drag them all into the next life.
Arthur expected Lord Willard to get back up. He would get back up, and they would start this charade all over again, the pain and the tears and the death and the falling over – it felt like it would never end, that they would just keep on doing it forever, trapped in a purgatory made of churned and cloying mud.
But it really was over. Because Lord Willard wasn’t getting up. Lord Willard, unless Arthur was very much mistaken, was dead.
Bridget stood, her chest heaving, staring down at him as if she couldn’t believe it either. Arthur could hear Sidney shouting something, but it seemed inconsequential; everything seemed inconsequential, with the last remains of the crown and the coup lying broken on the ground in front of him.
Sidney did sound quite insistent though, and as he got closer, Arthur realised what he was shouting.
‘Bridget – shit, Bridget – on your left!’