'So I thought to test him at the altar. It seemed to me no one given to evil could abide the presence of the Grail.'

Gereint nodded with sage admiration. 'You are a very Druid yourself, Lord Gwalchavad. I would never have thought of that.'

'I only wish it had been Peredur,' I replied, and thought again how very close we had come to believing the lie. It could easily have gone the other way, and now we would certainly be dead and the chapel undefended.

As if to draw me out of my unhappy reverie, Bors awoke just then with a groan and sat up holding his head. 'Be easy, brother,' I said, bending over him quickly. 'All is well. The wicked thing is gone. Rest a little.'

'Mmm,' he said, craning his neck around. 'It feels like a wall has fallen on my head. Here, help me stand.' I took him by the arm and he made to get up, but fell back again at once, his eyes squeezed shut against the pain. 'Ahh! No, no – on second thought, I think I will sit here a little longer.'

'There is no hurry,' I told him. 'Let us fetch you a drink. Here, Gereint, take the bowl and bring Bors some water.'

The young warrior retrieved the bowl from beside the altar and started for the door. 'You should go with him,' Bors said, rubbing his neck.

'It is only outside,' Gereint protested.

'Go,' Bors insisted. 'I am well enough to sit here by myself. Go.'

'I could do with a drink, too,' I said, and told Gereint, 'Come, then, show me the well.'

Gereint led me out and around to the rear of the chapel. The ground was lumpy with mossy stones, and rose to a small, tidy outcropping a short distance away.

'Here!' called Gereint, springing up the rocks. 'The well is just here.'

The well, as Gereint called it, was actually a small pool; sometime in the past it had been edged with unshaped stones to form a low wall around its oval perimeter. From a metal peg driven into one of the stones dangled the bronze chain which had secured the bowl Gereint had used to fetch water to help clean the desecration from the altar.

We dipped water and, as we drank, began speculating about how the chapel and the well had come to be here. 'This must have been a joyous place once,' Gereint mused, gazing over the clearing.

'I would like to have seen it in happier times.'

'Was there ever such a time?' he wondered.

'The Grail was offered here,' I replied. 'Whoever built this church must have known it as a holy place.'

Oh, yes, I thought, but this is Llyonesse, the blighted land, desolate, barren, and beset with strange airs and weird creatures. Perhaps it was not always so. This little chapel still survives to tell a different tale, after all. Perhaps there is yet some better hope for Llyonesse.

'We should go back before Bors wonders what has happened to us,' I said and, leaning low over the water, refilled the bowl, and we hurried back to the chapel.

Bors had moved himself to the near wall and sat against it. Accepting the bowl, he drank his fill, set the vessel aside, and professed himself refreshed and ready to resume his duty as Grail Guardian.

As if in answer to this declaration, Gereint cocked his head to one side, half turned towards the door, and said, 'Did you hear that?'

'I heard nothing,' I confessed.

'Nor I,' said Bors.

'Listen!' Gereint whispered. Drawing his sword, he stepped lightly to the door and out. I followed close behind, and we scanned the chapel yard. I saw nothing, and was about to say as much when Gereint raised the point of his sword and said, 'There they are.'

Until he spoke, I had seen nothing but the dark shapes of the trees rising above the thick gloom of the encircling thorn wall. But even as he raised his sword I saw the heads and shoulders of three warriors emerge from the darkness of the hedge and step into the clearing. I saw the long spears rising above the large round yellow shields they carried, and knew we were in for a fight.

THIRTY-SEVEN

'Bring Bors,' I commanded. 'Tell him to prepare for battle.'

'Bors is ready,' the big warrior said, taking his place beside me as three more enemy warriors joined the first three already advancing towards us across the clearing. More were coming from the thorn hedge.

Within the space of six heartbeats, we were surrounded. There must have been twenty or more foemen, each armed with a spear and a shield; some wore pointed helms and others the metal shirts of Saecsen men, but most were naked to the waist, and I could see the pallor of their flesh as they advanced into the half-light of the clearing.

If it was not bad enough that we were woefully outnumbered, we had but two swords between us – Bors' and Gereint's – and I had only a knife. 'Two blades and a dagger are not much against twenty,' I observed, wishing I had not lost my spear.

'This blade is yours, lord,' replied Gereint, delivering it into my hand.

'Keep it, lad,' I told him, but he would not hear that.

Darting forth, he ran a few paces into the clearing, stooped, snatched something from the ground, and returned, bearing the sword we had taken from the false Peredur. 'It is a good weapon,' said Gereint, swinging the blade to get the feel of its heft and balance. 'It will serve.'

'Good man,' commended Bors approvingly. Turning his attention to the advancing warband, he said, 'Shoulder to shoulder, brothers. Keep your backs to the chapel, and do not allow any of them to get behind us.'

Silently, silently, they advanced, shield to shield, forming a bristling wall around us. Then, without so much as a whispered command, the spears swung level and they prepared to attack.

'Now!' I cried, and we three sprang forward as one, slashing with our swords and shouting. I was able to cut the spearheads off two shafts with as many chops; Bors and Gereint fared just as well. When we broke off our foray, six of the enemy had lost the use of their weapons.

If I expected the loss of their spears would daunt them, however, I was sadly mistaken, for they came on regardless, holding their headless spear shafts as if the lack of a killing blade were of no account.

We waded into them, three Cymbrogi, undaunted, united in heart and mind. Shoulder to shoulder we stood to our work, and the bodies toppled like corded wood beneath the woodcutter's axe. Time and time again we struck, the steel in our hands pealing like the ringing of bells. The enemy now clambered over the corpses of their kinsmen to reach us, and still we cut them down… and still they came.

'It is no use,' complained Bors as the enemy regrouped for another assault. 'They will not break ranks.'

'Perhaps we can change their minds,' I suggested. Scanning the enemy ranged before us, I saw where several advancing foemen carried the shafts of spears from which the blades had been lopped. 'There!' I shouted, pointing with my sword. 'Follow me!'

With that we all three ran for the spot I had marked. The foemen stood their ground, apparently unconcerned that their spears had no heads. They held their ground, but since their weapons were blunt, it was an easy matter to cut them down. Three fell without so much as a murmur, and we were rewarded with a momentary confusion as the enemy jostled one another to repair the gap in their shield wall.

Hacking hard to my right, I was able to kill another enemy warrior, and Gereint yet another. We then turned to help Bors, who was struggling to fend off two more. These went down under a frenzied attack by Gereint, who rolled beneath their shields and stabbed them as they tried to loft their spears to strike.

Thus we suddenly found ourselves standing alone as the enemy fell back to re-form the wall once more.

'This is the calmest battle I have ever fought,' Bors observed. 'I have never been in a fight where I was not deaf from the clatter.'