Prologue

“I would have reckoned we'd see some sign of the battle, even from out this far, my lord.”

Lancelot could only nod his head to the quartermaster in assent, hands tight against the gunnel's edge, holding his body steady against the constant rocking of the vessel. The white cliffs looked as imposing as they always have, but of battle there was little sign. They were still too far out to have a clear view of the beach at the base, but Lancelot thought he could see the wreckage of boats, the remains of Arthur's fleet, perhaps. It was hard to tell, but his mind's eye was filling in the gaps his vision and poor light left behind.

Stepping back from the rail, he looked again at the crumpled letter in his hand. He had kept it with him since receiving it from his castellan. Gawain's letter, written on his deathbed. Oh, how damned fate laughs at us all in the end, he thought, as he read it for the hundredth time that day.

“Sir Lancelot, for all the love that ever was between us, make no tarrying, but come over the sea in all the goodly haste that though may have with knights and rescue that noble King who made thee knight, for he is full straitly beset by a false traitor who is my half brother, Mordred.”

“I never hated you, brother,” Lancelot whispered. “Never.”

“Pardon, my lord?” came a voice over his shoulder.

Lancelot glanced up to see one of the mate's looking at him expectantly. The crew was in awe of the legendary knight, ever eager to address his every need or comfort. Like so many, they saw only the shine and never the tarnish.

“Nothing, good man. Please, carry on.”

“Aye, my lord. Captain says we'll make land by dawn.”

“My thanks, then. Please, don't let me keep you from your duties,” said the knight, but the man was already moving on his duties.

Turning back to look again at the cliffs, Lancelot prayed his fears were wrong.

The water was freezing as he waded ashore. The small boats couldn't land at the beach due to the wrecked fleet that barred its path. Hundreds of ships battered to little more than kindling, the stench from the dead barely masked by the constant spray of salt water from the waves breaking on the battered hulks.

The fact that the dead still tarried here in their watery graves was a poor sign. Regardless of who the victor had been, these bodies would have been recovered. The wrecks were adorned with the livery of both sides of the conflict. Lancelot prayed this meant the battle was still being fought further inland. When he saw Bedevere alone on the beach, staring out at the waves, he knew all was lost.

But he had to know.

“Bedevere!” he called. “Here, man! It's Lancelot! Where's Arthur? How stands Camelot?”

Sir Bedevere, the Mighty Marshall of Camelot, wielder of the magic lance who fought the Giant at Mont Michael, sat still and said nothing. If he even noticed Lancelot splashing up on the beach, he gave no sign. Face slack, he simply stared out at the open sea, his mind still seeing something long gone.

“Bedevere,” said Lancelot softly, as he came upon his old friend. “What happened here, man? Where is Arthur?”

At the mention of his liege, Bedevere finally acknowledged his former comrade. He looked up at Lancelot. His face was ashen and still crusted with sand and salt and blood. Gaunt with hunger, his throat dry with thirst, he could only give a small moan as he pointed out towards the sea.

“Is he drowned? No, Bedevere, I don't believe that! Arthur's fate was stronger than these tides. Where is he? What happened here?”

Bedevere opened his mouth to speak, his voice, that once commanded the most powerful army in the world, was now barely a whisper. “The women came for him, took him away.”

“The women?” questioned Lancelot. “What women? Jenny? Did Jenny come?”

As if burned, the wounded knight pulled away with a hiss a the mention of Guenivere's name. His eyes hardened and a small strength returned to his voice. “No.”

Lancelot, down on his knees now, held Bedevere by the shoulders and looked into his empty eyes. “It's me, brother. Lancelot. Please, tell me what has happened. Did we take the field? Did Arthur prevail?”

Slowly, like the dawn light burning away a heavy fog, Lancelot saw his old friend slowly return from the gentle world of dream to this hard world of sand and salt.

“That's it, Bedevere, come back to me. We're here at Dover, down by the beach. You landed here, yes?”

“Yes,” whispered Bedevere. “We landed here, and battled that black bastard all the way up to the plain.”

“So Arthur lived? He prevailed?”

“No,” said the broken knight. “He died. He died and then the ladies came and took him away.”

It was then that the real world finally washed away that of dream, and Bedevere was racked by giant sobs. He cried for his brothers, his kingdom, and his king as Lancelot held him close. For quite some time the two men held each other. The only survivors of Camelot's dark demise.

They stayed on the beach another day as they waited for Bedevere's strength to return. Lancelot created a shelter to house the big man and fed him what small provisions he had brought. After eating a small bit of the cheese and wine, Bedevere finally slept. Lancelot then waived off the vessel, ordering them to return to France and to pass word to his staff at Joyeaux Garde that he would remain.

Throughout that day, Bedevere would moan and flail in his sleep, fighting a battle in dreams, and Lancelot would rush to his side with a gentle hand and comforting words. Lancelot would listen to the man relive the battle as he sat outside tending the fire. The mutterings and wails of his friend only deepening his discomfort. He was afraid of what he would see when they climbed the cliffs.

At dawn the second day, as the knights broke their fast on the last of Lancelot's rations, Bedevere looked across at his friend. “He didn't hold you responsible. At the end. He didn't. Neither of them.”

“Thank you, my friend. But their feelings matter not. I failed them. I was created and placed on this Earth to preserve Arthur and Camelot. It was my purpose, and I failed.” Lancelot looked out at the shattered fleet, up at the white cliffs, and then back at his friend. “I dared to try and carve out a piece of this world for myself, and in doing so I destroyed it all. How did it all get so out of hand? I never wanted this. Never...”

“Maybe so, Lance, but things are rarely how we wish them.”

“No, they rarely are,” Lancelot said. Coming to his feet, he looked towards the path up the cliffs. “Are you ready?”

“No,” said Bedevere with a mirthless grin. “But I'll come with you.”

The way up the cliffs was a slow one, but the two men were in no hurry. As Bedevere grew tired, Lancelot helped him on. Neither thought to call a halt. While hard, the climb was less a physical journey than a spiritual one, as if that small stretch of beach was more than the transition between the stone and the sea, but a resting point between the world of fantasy and reality. Down there, the world has stopped still and one could pretend that just over the ridge the walls of Camelot stood intact, Arthur's colors flying on the post. As they gained on the ridge, the reality of war crept in to force the fantasy way. The carrion birds cawed and the smell of death began to win its own war with the brine of the sea. By the time the two men reached the ridge, they were ready.

Lancelot was no stranger to battle, but even so he was shocked by the state of the field. Thousands dead, the mud their last embrace and the carrion birds their only attendants. Horses and men piled atop one another, the stench of shit and rot covering it all like death's blanket. The old warrior felt the sheer devastation in his gut while his mind still struggled to catalog the destruction. Surely, this was the battle the destroyed the shining jewel of civilization. Nothing less could extinguish Camelot's bright light.

Turning away, Lancelot looked to Bedevere. “Show me where he died.”

“Aye,” said the battered knight as he stepped over a young page's body on his way across the field.

Lancelot followed his friend across the wretched field. At first he would constantly look about, trying to see what had become of old friends. Searching in vain for someone still alive. But soon, after seeing Bor's body pierced by a spear and pinned by arrows, he could bear it no longer. He looked only at Bedevere's back as the two made their way across the unkept graveyard.

Finally, Bedevere stopped and pointed down at the earth. There was was remained of Sir Lucan, whom Bedevere said had borne Arthur's colors at the end, but there was no Arthur. “Where is Arthur, then?” Lancelot blurted out, his grief overcoming his breeding.

“I told you,” Bedever growled, “ the ladies came and got Arthur and took him out to sea. This is where he took his death fighting that damn bastard.”

Lancelot's eyes followed Bedevere's finger out to a patch of blackened grass where Mordred lay. Unlike the rest of the dead, Mordred was almost perfectly preserved. Never looted, his armor remained intact, the spear that killed him still thrusting upward into the sky.

“Not even the crows want a piece of that one.”