XLIVA great sadness had fallen on Artos. He walked now like an old and suffering man. The gods had placed a heavy load upon his shoulders. Whoever came near him seemed to suffer, and those whom he loved, most of all. Artos thought of his dead father, Uther Pendragon, poisoned in Lis Pengwern; of his dear woman and her son, Anir, crushed to death in Caerwent; of Lystra, who had brought some joy to his body though little to his heart, gored by the bull in Caer Leon; of Medrawt, his blood-brother, bleeding in the sand of the amphitheatre. All who called him friend were doomed for that friendship, he thought.
He spoke to his comrades, Bedwyr and Cei. “What ritual cleansing is there, my friends, to wash the doom from me?”
Bedwyr was not knowledgeable in such matters. He said, “All I know is t
