Enemy of God Read online

  BERNARD CORNWELL

  Enemy of God

  The Warlord Chronicles: II

  A NOVEL OF ARTHUR

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  PART FOUR

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  ENEMY OF GOD

  Before becoming a full-time writer Bernard Cornwell worked as a television producer in London and Belfast. He now lives in Massachusetts with his American wife. He is the author of the hugely successful Sharpe series of historical novels.

  Penguin publish his bestselling contemporary thrillers Sea Lord, Wildtrack, Crackdown, StormChild and Scoundrel, and the historical novel Redcoat. Penguin also publish his mythimbued Arthurian romance, The Warlord Chronicles, which consists of The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur.

  For more information about Bernard Cornwell’s books, please visit his official website: www.bernardcornwell.net.

  Enemy of God is for Susan Watt, its onlie begetter

  Foreword

  Enemy of God is the second novel of the Warlord series, and immediately follows the events described in The Winter King. In that book the King of Dumnonia and High King of Britain, Uther, dies and is succeeded by his lamed baby grandson, Mordred. Arthur, a bastard son of Uther’s, is appointed one of Mordred’s guardians and in time becomes the most important of those guardians. Arthur is determined to fulfil the oath he swore to Uther that Mordred, when he comes of age, will occupy Dumnonia’s throne.

  Arthur is also determined to bring peace to the warring British kingdoms. The major conflict is between Dumnonia and Powys, but when Arthur is invited to marry Ceinwyn, a Princess of Powys, it seems that war can be avoided. Instead Arthur elopes with the penniless Princess Guinevere and that insult to Ceinwyn brings on years of war that are ended only when Arthur defeats King Gorfyddyd of Powys at the Battle of Lugg Vale. Powys’s throne then passes to Cuneglas, Ceinwyn’s brother, who, like Arthur, wants peace between the Britons so that they can concentrate their spears against the common enemy, the Saxons (the Sais).

  The Winter King, like the present book, was narrated by Derfel (pronounced Dervel), a Saxon slave boy who grew up in Merlin’s household and became one of Arthur’s warriors. Arthur sent Derfel to Armorica (today’s Brittany) where he fought in the doomed campaign to preserve the British kingdom of Benoic against Frankish invaders. Among Benoic’s refugees who return to Britain is Lancelot, King of Benoic, whom Arthur now wants to marry to Ceinwyn and place on the throne of Siluria. Derfel has fallen in love with Ceinwyn.

  Derfel’s other love is Nimue, his childhood friend who has become Merlin’s helpmate and lover. Merlin is a Druid and the leader of the faction in Britain that wants to restore the island to its old Gods, to which end he is pursuing a Cauldron, one of the Thirteen Treasures of Britain, a quest which for Merlin and Nimue far outranks any battle against other kingdoms or invaders. Opposing Merlin are the Christians of Britain, one of whose leaders is Bishop Sansum who lost much of his power when he defied Guinevere. Sansum is now in disgrace and serving as Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Thorn at Ynys Wydryn (Glastonbury).

  The Winter King ended with Arthur winning the great battle at Lugg Vale. Mordred’s throne is safe, the southern British kingdoms are allied and Arthur, though not a king himself, is their undisputed leader.

  Characters

  ADE

  Mistress to Lancelot

  AELLE

  A Saxon king

  AGRICOLA

  Warlord of Gwent, who serves King Tewdric

  AILLEANN

  Once Arthur’s mistress, mother of his twin sons Amhar and Loholt

  AMHAR

  Bastard son of Arthur and Ailleann

  ARTHUR

  Warlord of Dumnonia, guardian of Mordred

  BALIN

  One of Arthur’s warriors

  BAN

  Once King of Benoic (a kingdom in Brittany), father of Lancelot

  BEDWIN

  Bishop in Dumnonia and chief councillor

  BORS

  Lancelot’s cousin, his champion

  BROCHVAEL

  King of Powys after Arthur’s time

  BYRTHIG

  Edling (Crown Prince) of Gwynedd, later King

  CADOC

  A Christian bishop, reputed saint, a recluse

  CADWALLON

  King of Gwynedd

  CADWY

  Rebellious prince in Isca

  CALLYN

  Champion of Kernow

  CAVAN

  Derfel’s second-in-command

  CEI

  Arthur’s childhood companion, now one of his warriors

  CEINWYN

  Princess of Powys, sister of Cuneglas

  CERDIC

  A Saxon king

  CULHWCH

  Arthur’s cousin, one of his warriors

  CUNEGLAS

  King of Powys, son of Gorfyddyd

  CYTHRYN

  Dumnonian magistrate, a councillor

  DERFEL CADARN

  The narrator, born a Saxon, one of Arthur’s warriors, later a monk

  DIAN

  Derfel’s youngest daughter

  DINAS

  A Silurian Druid, twin to Lavaine

  DIWRNACH

  Irish King of Lleyn, a country formerly called Henis Wyren

  EACHERN

  One of Derfel’s spearmen

  ELAINE

  Lancelot’s mother, widowed wife of Ban

  EMRYS

  Bishop in Dumnonia, succeeds Bedwin

  ERCE

  Derfel’s mother, also called Enna

  GALAHAD

  Lancelot’s half-brother, a Prince of (lost) Benoic

  GORFYDDYD

  King of Powys killed at Lugg Vale, father to Cuneglas and Ceinwyn

  GUINEVERE

  Arthur’s wife

  GUNDLEUS

  Once King of Siluria, killed after Lugg Vale

  GWENHWYVACH

  Guinevere’s sister, a Princess of (lost) Henis Wyren

  GWLYDDYN

  Servant to Merlin

  GWYDRE

  Son of Arthur and Guinevere

  HELLEDD

  Cuneglas’s wife, Queen of Powys

  HYGWYDD

  Arthur’s servant

  IGRAINE

  Queen of Powys after Arthur’s time, married to Brochvael

  IORWETH

  Druid of Powys

  ISEULT

  Queen of Kernow, married to Mark

  ISSA

  One of Derfel’s spearmen, later his second-in-command

  LANCELOT

  Exiled King of Benoic

  LANVAL

  One of Arthur’s warriors

  LAVAINE

  A Silurian Druid, twin to Dinas

  LEODEGAN

  Exiled King of Henis Wyren, father to Guinevere and Gwenhwyvach

  LIGESSAC

  Traitor in exile

  LOHOLT

  Arthur’s bastard son, twin to Amhar

  LUNETE

  Once Derfel’s lover, now an attendant to Guinevere

  MAELGWYN

  Monk at Dinnewrac

  MALAINE

  Druid in Powys

  MALLA

  Sagramor’s Saxon wife

  MARK

  King of Kernow, father of Tristan

  MELWAS

  Exiled King of the Belgae

  MERLIN

  The chief Druid of Dumnonia

  MEURIG

  Edling (Crown Prince) of Gwent, later King

  MORDRED

  King of Dumnonia, son of Norwenna

  MORFANS

  ‘The Ugly’, one of Arthur’s warriors

  MORGAN<
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  Arthur’s elder sister, once Merlin’s chief priestess

  MORWENNA

  Derfel’s eldest daughter

  NABUR

  Christian magistrate in Durnovaria

  NIMUE

  Merlin’s lover and chief priestess

  NORWENNA

  Mordred’s mother, killed by Gundleus

  OENGUS MAC AIREM

  Irish King of Demetia, a land once called Dyfed

  PEREDUR

  Son to Lancelot and Ade

  PYRLIG

  Derfel’s bard

  RALLA

  Merlin’s servant, married to Gwlyddyn

  SAGRAMOR

  Arthur’s Numidian commander, Lord of the Stones

  SANSUM

  Bishop in Dumnonia, later Derfel’s superior at Dinnewrac

  SCARACH

  Issa’s wife

  SEREN

  Derfel’s second daughter

  TANABURS

  A Silurian Druid, killed by Derfel after Lugg Vale

  TEWDRIC

  King of Gwent, father of Meurig, later a Christian recluse

  TRISTAN

  Edling (Crown Prince) of Kernow, son of Mark

  TUDWAL

  Novice monk at Dinnewrac

  UTHER

  The dead High King of Dumnonia, Mordred’s grandfather

  Places

  Names marked * are fictional

  ABONA

  Avonmouth, Avon

  AQUAE SULIS

  Bath, Avon

  BENOIC

  A kingdom, lost to the Franks, in Brittany (Armorica)

  BODUAN

  Garn Boduan, Gwynedd

  BROCELIANDE

  The surviving British kingdom in Armorica

  BURRIUM

  Gwent’s capital. Usk, Gwent

  CAER AMBRA*

  Amesbury, Wiltshire

  CAER CADARN*

  South Cadbury, Somerset

  CAER GEI*

  Gwynedd’s capital. North Wales

  CAER SWS

  Powys’s capital. Caersws, Powys

  CALLEVA

  Silchester, Hampshire

  CORINIUM

  Cirencester, Gloucestershire

  CWM ISAF

  Near Newtown, Powys

  DINNEWRAC*

  A monastery in Powys

  DOLFORWYN

  Near Newtown, Powys

  DUN CEINACH*

  Haresfield Beacon, near Gloucester

  DUNUM

  Hod Hill, Dorset

  DURNOVARIA

  Dorchester, Dorset

  ERMID’S HALL*

  Near Street, Somerset

  GLEVUM

  Gloucester

  HALCWM*

  Salcombe, Devon

  ISCA Dumnonia

  Exeter, Devon

  ISCA Siluria

  Caerleon, Gwent

  LINDINIS

  Ilchester, Somerset

  LLOEGYR

  That part of Britian occupied by the Saxons, literally ‘the lost lands’. In modern Welsh Lloegr means England

  LLYN CERRIG BACH

  The Lake of Little Stones, now Valley Airfield, Anglesey

  LUGG VALE*

  Mortimer’s Cross, Hereford & Worcester

  MAGNIS

  Kenchester, Hereford & Worcester

  NIDUM

  Neath, Glamorgan

  PONTES

  Staines, Surrey

  RATAE

  Leicester

  THE STONES

  Stonehenge

  THE TOR

  Glastonbury Tor, Somerset

  VENTA

  Winchester, Hampshire

  VINDOCLADIA

  Roman Fort near Wimborne Minster, Dorset

  YNYS MON

  Anglesey

  YNYS TREBES*

  The lost capital of Benoic, Mont Saint-Michel, Brittany

  YNYS WIT

  Isle of Wight

  YNYS WYDRYN

  Glastonbury, Somerset

  PART ONE

  The Dark Road

  TODAY I HAVE BEEN thinking about the dead.

  This is the last day of the old year. The bracken on the hill has turned brown, the elms at the valley’s end have lost their leaves and the winter slaughter of our cattle has begun. Tonight is Samain Eve.

  Tonight the curtain that separates the dead from the living will quiver, fray, and finally vanish. Tonight the dead will cross the bridge of swords. Tonight the dead will come from the Otherworld to this world, but we shall not see them. They will be shadows in darkness, mere whispers of wind in a windless night, but they will be here.

  Bishop Sansum, the saint who rules our small community of monks, scoffs at this belief. The dead, he says, do not have shadowbodies, nor can they cross the sword bridge, but instead they lie in their cold graves and wait for the final coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is proper, he says, for us to remember the dead and to pray for their immortal souls, but their bodies are gone. They are corrupt. Their eyes have melted to leave dark holes in their skulls, worms liquefy their bellies, and mould furs their bones. The saint insists that the dead do not trouble the living on Samain Eve, yet even he will take care to leave a loaf of bread beside the monastery hearth this night. He will pretend it is carelessness, but all the same there will be a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water beside the kitchen ashes tonight.

  I shall leave more. A cup of mead and a piece of salmon. They are small gifts, but all I can afford, and tonight I shall place them in the shadows by the hearth then go to my monk’s cell and welcome the dead who will come to this cold house on its bare hill.

  I shall name the dead. Ceinwyn, Guinevere, Nimue, Merlin, Lancelot, Galahad, Dian, Sagramor; the list could fill two parchments. So many dead. Their footsteps will not stir a rush on the floor nor frighten the mice that live in the monastery’s thatched roof, but even Bishop Sansum knows that our cats will arch their backs and hiss from the kitchen corners as the shadows that are not shadows come to our hearth to find the gifts that deter them from working mischief.

  So today I have been thinking about the dead.

  I am old now, maybe as old as Merlin was, though not nearly so wise. I think that Bishop Sansum and I are the only men living from the great days and I alone remember them fondly. Maybe some others still live. In Ireland, perhaps, or in the wastes north of Lothian, but I do not know of them, though this much I do know: that if any others do live, then they, like me, cower from the encroaching darkness like cats shrinking from this night’s shadows. All that we loved is broken, all that we made is pulled down and all that we sowed is reaped by the Saxons. We British cling to the high western lands and talk of revenge, but there is no sword that will fight a great darkness. There are times, too frequent now, when all I want is to be with the dead. Bishop Sansum applauds that wish and tells me it is only right that I should yearn to be in heaven at God’s right hand, but I do not think I shall reach the saints’ heaven. I have sinned too much and thus fear hell, but still hope, against my faith, that I will pass to the Otherworld instead. For there, under the apple trees of four-towered Annwn, waits a table heaped with food and crowded with the shadowbodies of all my old friends. Merlin will be cajoling, lecturing, grumbling and mocking. Galahad will be bursting to interrupt and Culhwch, bored with so much talk, will steal a larger portion of beef and think no one notices. And Ceinwyn will be there, dear lovely Ceinwyn, bringing peace to the turmoil roused by Nimue.

  But I am still cursed by breath. I live while my friends feast, and as long as I live I shall write this tale of Arthur. I write at the behest of Queen Igraine, the young wife of King Brochvael of Powys who is the protector of our small monastery. Igraine wanted to know all I can remember of Arthur and so I began to write these tales down, but Bishop Sansum disapproves of the task. He says Arthur was the Enemy of God, a spawn of the devil, and so I am writing the tales in my native Saxon tongue that the saint does not speak. Igraine and I have told the saint that I am writing
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in the enemy’s language and maybe he believes us, or maybe he is biding his time until he can prove our falsehood and then punish me.

  I write each day. Igraine comes frequently to the monastery to pray that God will grant her womb the blessing of a child, and when her prayers are done she takes the finished skins away and has them translated into British by the clerk of Brochvael’s justice. I think she changes the story then, making it match the Arthur she wants rather than the Arthur who was, but perhaps that does not matter for who will ever read this tale? I am like a man building a wall of mud and wattle to resist an imminent flood. The darkness comes when no man will read. There will just be Saxons.

  So I write about the dead and the writing passes the time until I can join them; the time when Brother Derfel, a humble monk of Dinnewrac, will again be Lord Derfel Cadarn, Derfel the Mighty, Champion of Dumnonia and beloved friend of Arthur. But now I am just a cold old monk scribbling memories with my one remaining hand. And tonight is Samain Eve and tomorrow is a new year. The winter is coming. The dead leaves lie in shining drifts against the hedgerows, there are redwings in the stubble, gulls have flown inland from the sea and woodcock gather under the full moon. It is a good season, Igraine tells me, to write of old things and so she has brought me a fresh pile of skins, a flask of newly mixed ink and a sheaf of quills. Tell me of Arthur, she says, of golden Arthur, our last and best hope, our king who never was a king, the Enemy of God and the scourge of Saxons. Tell me of Arthur.