Legacy: Arthurian Saga (101 page)

Such stories are not always to be
dismissed as shepherds' tales. I had thought about it often, this
other "isle of glass" that I found now almost on my doorstep, and
wondered if its reputation would make it a safe hiding-place for
Macsen's sword. It would be some years yet before the boy Arthur
could take and lift the sword of Britain, and meanwhile it was
neither safe nor fitting that it should be hidden in the roof of a
beasts' shed out there in the forest. It was a marvel, I had
sometimes thought, that it did not set light to the thatch. If it
was indeed the King's sword of Britain, and Arthur was to be the
King who would lift it, it must lie in a place as holy and as
haunted as the shrine where I myself had found it. And when the day
came the boy must be led to it himself, even as I had been led. I
was the god's instrument, but I was not the god's hand.

So I had wondered about the island.
And then, one day, I was sure.

I went down to the village again in
March for my monthly supplies. When I rode back along the lake side
the sun was setting, and a light mist wreathed along the water's
surface. It made the island seem a long way off, and floating, so
that one might well imagine it ghostly, and ready to sink under a
random foot. The sun, sinking in splendor, caught the crags, and
sent them flaming up from the dark hangers of trees behind. In this
light the strange formations of the rock looked like high embattled
towers, the crest of a sunlit castle standing above the trees. I
looked, thinking of the legends, then looked again, and reined
Strawberry in sharply and sat staring. There, across the flat sheen
of the lake, above the floating mist, was the tower of my dream
again, Macsen's Tower, whole once more and built out of the sunset.
The tower of the sword.

I took the sword across next day. The
mist was thicker than ever, and hid me from anyone who might have
been there to see. The island lay less than two hundred paces from
the south shore of the lake. I would have swum the mare across, but
found that she could go through breast high. The lake was still as
glass, and as silent. We forged across with no more splashing than
the wild deer make, and saw no living thing but a pair of diver
ducks, and a heron beating slowly past in the mist.

I left the mare grazing, and carried
the sword up through the trees till I reached the foot of the
towered crags. I think I knew what I would find. Bushes and young
trees grew thickly along the scree at the foot of the cliffs, but
the boughs were barely budding, and through them I could see an
opening, giving on a narrow passageway which led steeply downwards
into the cliffs. I had brought a torch with me. I lit it, then went
quickly down the steep passage, and found myself in a deep inner
cavern where no light came.

In front of my feet lay a sheet of
water, black and still, flooring half the cavern. Beyond the pool,
against the back of the cavern, stood a low block of stone; I could
not tell if it was a natural ledge, or if men's hands had squared
it, but it stood there like an altar, and to one side of it a bowl
had been hollowed in the stone. This was full of water, which in
the smoky torchlight looked red as blood. Here and there from the
roof water welled slowly, dripping down. Where it struck the
surface of the pool the water broke with the sound of a plucked
harp-string, its echo rippling away with the widening rings of
torchlight. But where it dripped dull on stone it had not, as you
might expect, worn the rock into hollows, but had built pillars,
and above these from the dripping rocks hung solid stone icicles
that had grown to meet the pillars below. The place was a temple,
pillared in pale marble and floored with glass. Even I, who was
here by right, and hedged with power, felt my scalp
tingle.

By land and water shall it go home,
and be hidden in the floating stone until by fire it shall be
raised again. So had the Old Ones said, and they would have
recognized this place as I did; as the dead fisherman did who came
back from the Otherworld raving of the halls of the dark King.
Here, in Bilis' antechamber, the sword would be safe till the youth
came who had the right to lift it.

I waded forward through the pool. The
floor sloped and the water deepened. Now I could see how the dark
passageway ran on, back and down behind the stone table, until the
roof met the water's surface and the passage vanished below the
level of the lake. Ripples ringed and lapsed against the rock, and
the echoes ran round the walls and broke between the pillars. The
water was ice-cold. I laid the sword, still wrapped as I had found
it on the stone table. I went back across the pool. The place sang
with echoes. I stood still, while they sank to a humming murmur and
then died. My very breathing sounded all at once too loud, an
intrusion. I left the sword to its silent waiting, and went quickly
back up towards daylight. The shadows parted and let me
through.

2

April came, when Ector was expected
home. For the first week of the month it rained and blew, weather
like winter, so that the forest roared like the sea and the
draughts through the shrine kept the nine lights plunging sidelong
and smoking. The white owl watched from the place where she sat her
eggs in the roof.

Then I woke in the night to silence.
The wind had dropped, the pines were still. I rose and threw my
cloak about me and went out. Outside the moon was high, and there
in the north the Bear wheeled so low and brilliant that one felt
one could reach up and touch it, were it not that its touch would
burn. My blood ran light and free; my body felt rinsed and new
clean as the forest. For the rest of the night I slept no more than
a lover does, and at first light rose and broke my fast and went to
saddle Strawberry.

The sun rose brilliant in a clear sky,
and its early light poured into the glade. Yesterday's rain lay
thick and glittering on the grasses and the new young curls of
fern; it dripped and steamed from the pines so that their scent
pierced the air. Beyond their bloomed crests the encircling hills
smoked white towards the sky.

I let the mare out of the shed, and
was carrying the saddle over to her when suddenly she lifted her
head from her grazing, and put her ears up. Seconds later I heard
what she had heard, the beat of hoofs, coming at a fast gallop, far
too fast for safety on a twisting path seamed with roots and
overhung by branches. I set the saddle down, and waited.

A neat black horse, galloped hard on a
tight rein, burst out of the forest, came to a sliding stop three
paces from me, and the boy who had been lying along his back like a
leech slid, all in the same movement, to the ground. The horse was
sweating hard, and the bit dripped foam. Red showed inside the
blown nostrils. That neat-footed gallop and the collected stop had
been a matter of hard control, then. Nine years old? At his age I
had been riding a fat pony which had to be kicked to a
trot.

He gathered the reins competently in
one hand and held the horse still when it tried to thrust past him
to the water. He did it absently; his attention was all on
me.

"Are you the new holy man?"

"Yes."

"Prosper was a friend of
mine."

"I'm sorry."

"You don't much look like a hermit.
Are you really keeping the chapel now?"

"Yes."

He chewed his lip thoughtfully,
regarding me. It was a look of appraisal, a weighing up. Under it,
as under no other I had encountered, I could feel my muscles clench
themselves to hold nerves and heartbeats steady. I waited. I knew
that, as ever, my face gave nothing away. What he must be seeing
was merely a harmless-looking man, unarmed, saddling an
undistinguished horse for his routine ride down the valley for
supplies.

He came apparently to a decision. "You
won't tell anyone you saw me?"

"Why, who's looking for
you?"

His lips parted, surprised. I got the
impression that I had been supposed to say: "Very well, sir." Then
he turned his head sharply, and I heard it, too. Hoofs coming, soft
on the mossy ground. Fast, but not so fast as the hard-ridden
black.

"You haven't seen me, remember?" I saw
his hand start towards his pouch, then stop halfway. He grinned,
and the sudden flash startled me: till that moment he had been so
like Uther, but that sudden lighting of the face was Ambrosius',
and the dark eyes were Ambrosius', too. Or mine.

"I'm sorry." He said it politely, but
very fast. "I do assure you I'm not doing anything wrong. At least,
not very. I'll let him catch me soon. But he won't let me ride the
way I like to." He grabbed the saddle, ready to mount.

"If you ride like that on these
tracks," I said, "I don't blame him. Do you need to go? Get inside
there while I throw him off the scent, and I'll put your horse
somewhere to cool off."

"I knew you weren't a holy man," he
said, in the tone of someone conveying a compliment, and throwing
me the reins, he vanished through the back doorway.

I led the black horse across to the
shed, and shut the door on him. I stood there for a moment or two,
breathing deeply as a man does when he comes out of rough water,
steadying myself. Ten years, waiting for this. I had broken
Tintagel's defenses for Uther, and killed Brithael its captain,
with a steadier pulse than I had now. Well, he was here, and we
should see. I went to the edge of the clearing to meet
Ralf.

He was alone, and furious. His big
chestnut came up the track at a slamming canter, with Ralf crouched
low on its neck. There was a thin scarlet mark on one cheek where a
branch had whipped his face.

The sun was full on the clearing, and
he must have been dazzled. I thought for a moment he was going to
ride right over me. Then he saw me, and reined his horse hard to
its haunches.

"Hey, you! Did a boy ride through here
a few minutes ago?"

"Yes." I spoke softly, and put my hand
up to the rein. "But hold a moment --"

"Out of the way, fool!" The chestnut,
feeling the spurs go home, reared violently, tearing the rein from
my hand. On the same breath Ralf said, thunderstruck: "My lord!"
and hauled the horse sideways. The striking hoofs missed me by
inches. Ralf came out of the saddle as lightly as the boy Arthur,
and reached for my hand to kiss it.

I drew it back quickly. "No. And get
off your knee, man. He's here, so watch what you do."

"Sweet Christ, my lord, I nearly ran
you down! The sun in my eyes -- I couldn't see who it
was!"

"So I imagined. A rather rough
welcome, though, for the new hermit, Ralf? Are those the usual
manners of the north?"

"My lord -- my lord, I'm sorry. I was
angry..." Then, honestly: "Only because he fooled me. And even when
I sighted the young devil I couldn't come up with him. So I..."
Then what I had said got through to him. His voice trailed off, and
he stood back, taking me in from head to foot as if he could hardly
believe his eyes. "The new hermit? You? You mean you are the
'Myrddin' of the shrine?...Of course! How stupid of me, I never
connected him with you...And I'm sure no one else has -- I haven't
heard so much as a hint that it might be Merlin himself
--"

"I hope you never will. All I am now
is the keeper of the shrine, and so I shall remain, as long as it's
necessary."

"Does Count Ector know?"

"Not yet. When is he due
home?"

"Next week."

"Tell him then."

He nodded, and then laughed, the
surprise giving way to excitement, and what looked like pleasure.
"By the Rood, it's good to see you again, my lord! Are you well?
How have you fared? How did you come here? And now -- what will
happen now?"

The questions came pouring out. I put
up a hand, smiling. "Look," I said quickly, "we'll talk later.
We'll arrange a time. But now, will you go and lose yourself for an
hour or so, and let me make the boy's acquaintance on my
own?"

"Of course. Will two hours do? You'll
get a lot of credit for that -- I'm not usually thrown off his
track so easily." He glanced round the glade, but with his eyes
only, not moving his head. The place was still in the morning sun,
and silent but for the cock thrush singing. "Where is he? In the
chapel? Then in case he's watching us, you'd better do some
misdirecting."

"With pleasure." I turned and pointed
up one of the tracks which led out of the glade. "Will that one do?
I don't know where it goes, but it might suffice to lose
you."

"If it doesn't kill me," he said
resignedly. "Of course it had to be that one, didn't it? In the
normal way I'd just call that a bad guess, but seeing it's you
--"

"It was only a random choice, I assure
you. I'm sorry. Is it so dangerous?"

"Well, if I'm supposed to be looking
for Arthur there, it's guaranteed to keep me out of the way for
quite some time." He gathered the reins, miming hasty agreement for
the benefit of the unseen watcher. "No, seriously, my lord
--"

" 'Myrddin.' No lord of yours now, nor
of any man's."

"Myrddin, then. No, it's a rough track
but it's rideable -- just. What's more, it's just the way that
devil's cub would have chosen to take...I told you, nothing you do
can ever be quite random." He laughed. "Yes, it's good to have you
back. I feel as if the world had been lifted off my shoulders.
These last few years have been pretty full ones, believe
me!"