Legacy: Arthurian Saga (102 page)

"I believe you." He mounted, saluting,
and I stepped back. He went across the glade at a canter, and then
the sound of hoofs dwindled up the ferny track and was
gone.

The boy was sitting on the table's
edge, eating bread and honey. The honey was running off his chin.
He slid to his feet when he saw me, wiped the honey off with the
back of his hand, licked the hand and swallowed.

"Do you mind very much? There seemed
to be plenty, and I was starving."

"Help yourself. There are dried figs
in that bowl on the shelf."

"Not just now, thank you. I've had
enough. I'd better water Star now, I think. I heard Ralf
go."

As we led the horse across to the
spring, he told me: "I call him Star for that white star on his
forehead. Why did you smile then?"

"Only because when I was younger than
you I had a pony called Aster; that means Star in Greek. And like
you, I escaped from home one day and rode up into the hills and
came across a hermit living alone it was a cave he lived in, not a
chapel, but it was just as lonely -- and he gave me honey cakes and
fruit."

"You mean you ran away?"

"Not really. Only for the day. I just
wanted to get away alone. One has to, sometimes."

"Then you did understand? Is that why
you sent Ralf away, and didn't tell him I was here? Most people
would have told him straight away. They seem to think I need
looking after," said Arthur in a tone of grievance. The horse
lifted a streaming muzzle and blew the drops from its nostrils and
turned from the water. We began to walk back across the clearing.
He looked up. "I haven't thanked you yet. I'm much obliged to you.
Ralf won't get into trouble, you know. I never tell when I give
them the slip. My guardian would be angry, and it's not their
fault. Ralf will come back this way, and I'll go with him then. And
don't worry yourself, either; I won't let him harm you. It's always
me he blames, anyway." That sudden grin again. "It's always my
fault, as a matter of fact. Cei is older than me, but I get all the
ideas."

We had reached the shed. He made as if
to hand me the reins, then, as he had done before, stopped in
mid-gesture, led the horse in himself and tied him up. I watched
from the doorway.

"What's your name?" I
asked.

"Emrys. What's yours?"

"Myrddin. And, oddly enough, Emrys.
But then that's a common name where I come from. Who is your
guardian?"

"Count Ector. He's Lord of Galava." He
turned from his task, his cheeks flushed. I could see he was
waiting for the next question, the inevitable question, but I did
not ask it. I had spent twelve years myself having to tell every
man who spoke to me that I was the bastard of an unknown father: I
did not intend to force this boy through the same confession.
Though there were differences. If I was any judge, he had better
defenses already than I had had at twice his age. And as the
well-guarded foster son of the Count of Galava, he did not have to
live, as I had, with bastard shame. But then, I thought again,
watching him, the differences between this child and myself went
deeper: I had been content with very little, not guessing my power;
this boy would never be content with less than all.

"And how old are you?" I asked him.
"Ten?"

He looked pleased. "As a matter of
fact I've just had my ninth birthday."

"And can ride already better than I do
now."

"Well, you're only a -- " He bit it
off, and went scarlet.

"I only started work as a hermit at
Christmas," I said mildly. "I've really ridden around the place
quite a lot."

"What doing?"

"Traveling. Even fighting, when I had
to."

"Fighting? Where?"

As we talked I had led him round to
the front entrance of the chapel, and up the steps. These were
mossed with age, and steep, and I was surprised at the child's
lightness of foot as he trod up them beside me. He was a tall boy,
sturdily built, with bones that gave promise of strength. There was
another kind of promise, too, Uther's sort; he would be a handsome
man. But the first impression one got of Arthur was of a controlled
swiftness of movement almost like a dancer's or a skilled
swordsman's. There was something in it of Uther's restlessness, but
it was not the same; this sprang from some deep inner core of
harmony. An athlete would have talked of co-ordination, an archer
of a straight eye, a sculptor of a steady hand. Already in this
boy, they came together in the impression of a blazing but
controlled vitality.

"What battles were you in? You would
be young, even when the Great Wars were being fought? My guardian
says that I will have to wait until I am fourteen before I go to
war. It's not fair, because Cei is three years older, and I can
beat him three times out of four. Well, twice
perhaps...Oh!"

As we went in through the chapel
doorway the bright sunlight behind us had thrown our shadows
forward, so that at first the altar had been hidden. Now, as we
moved, the light reached it, the strong light of early morning, by
some freak falling straight on the carved sword so that the blade
seemed to lift clear and shining from its shadows on the
stone.

Before I could say a word he had
darted forward and reached for the hilt. I saw his hand meet the
stone, and the shock of it go through his flesh. He stood like that
for seconds, as if tranced, then dropped the hand to his side and
stepped back, still facing the altar.

He spoke without looking at me. "That
was the queerest thing. I thought it was real. I thought, 'There is
the most beautiful and deadly sword in the world, and it is for
me.' And all the time it wasn't real."

"Oh, it's real," I said. Through the
dazzling swirl of sun-motes I saw the boy, hazed with brightness,
turn to stare at me. Behind him the altar shimmered white with the
icecold fire. "It's real enough. Someday it will lie on this very
altar, in the sight of all men. And he who then dares to touch and
lift it from where it lies shall..."

"Shall what? What shall he do,
Myrddin?"

I blinked, shook the sun from my eyes,
and steadied myself. It is one thing to watch what is happening
elsewhere on middle-earth; it is quite another to see what has not
yet come out of the heavens. This last, which men call prophecy,
and which they honor me for, is like being struck through the
entrails by that whip of God that we call lightning. But even as my
flesh winced from it I welcomed it as a woman welcomes the final
pang of childbirth. In this flash of vision I had seen it as it
would happen in this very place; the sword, the fire, the young
King. So my own quest through the Middle Sea, the painful journey
to Segontium, the shouldering of Prosper's tasks, the hiding of the
sword in Caer Bannog -- now I knew for certain that I had read the
god's will aright. From now, it was only waiting.

"What shall I do?" the voice demanded,
insistent.

I do not think the boy was conscious
of the change in the question. He was fixed, serious, burning. The
end of the lash had caught him, too. But it was not yet time.
Slowly, fighting the other words away, I gave him all he could
understand.

I said: "A man hands on his sword to
his son. You will have to find your own. But when the time comes,
it will be there for you to take, in the sight of all
men."

The Otherworld drew back then, and let
me through, back into the clear April morning. I wiped the sweat
from my face and took a breath of sweet air. It felt like a first
breath. I pushed back the damp hair and gave my head a shake. "They
crowd me," I said irritably.

"Who do?"

"Oh," I said, "those who keep wake
here." His eyes watched me, at stretch, ready for wonders. He came
slowly down the altar steps. The stone table behind him was only a
table, with a sword rudely carved. I smiled at him. "I have a gift,
Emrys, which can be useful and very powerful, but which is at times
inconvenient, and always damnably uncomfortable."

"You mean you can see things that
aren't there?"

"Sometimes."

"Then you're a magician? Or a
prophet?"

"A little of both, shall we say. But
that is my secret, Emrys. I kept yours."

"I shan't tell anyone." That was all,
no promises, no oaths, but I knew he would keep to it. "You were
telling the future then? What did it mean?"

"One cannot always be sure. Even I am
not always sure. But one thing for certain, someday, when you are
ready, you will find your own sword, and it will be the most
beautiful and deadly sword in the world. But now, just for the
moment, would you find me a drink of water? There's a cup beside
the spring."

He brought it, running. I thanked him
and drank, then handed it back. "Now, what about those dried figs?
Are you still hungry?"

"I'm always hungry."

"Then next time you come, bring your
rations with you. You might pick a bad day."

"I'll bring you food if you want it.
Are you very poor? You don't look it." He considered me again, head
aslant. "At least, perhaps you do, but you don't speak as if you
were. If there's anything you'd like, I'll try and get it for
you."

"Don't trouble yourself. I have all I
need, now," I said.

3

Ralf came back duly, with questions in
his eyes, but none on his lips except those he might ask a
stranger.

He came too soon for me. There were
nine years to get through, and judgments to make. And too soon, I
could see, for the boy, though he received Ralf with courtesy, and
then stood silent under the lash of that eloquent young man's
tongue. I gathered from Arthur's expression that if it had not been
for my presence he might have been thrashed by more than words. I
understood that he lived under hard discipline: that kings must be
brought up harder than other men he must have known, but not that
the rule applied to him. I wondered what rule applied to Cei, and
what Arthur thought the discrimination meant. He took it well, and
when it was finished and I offered Ralf the appeasement of wine,
went meekly enough to serve it.

When at length he was sent to lead the
horses out, I said quickly to Ralf: "Tell Count Ector I would
rather not come down to the castle. He'll understand that. The
risks are too great. He'll know where we can meet in safety, so
I'll leave it to him to suggest a place. Would he normally come up
here, or might that make people wonder?"

"He never came before, when Prosper
was here."

"Then I'll come down whenever he sends
a message. Now, Ralf, there's not much time, but tell me this.
You've no reason to suppose that anyone has suspected who the boy
is? There's been no one watching about the place, nothing
suspicious at all?"

"Nothing."

I said slowly: "Something I saw, when
you first brought him over from Brittany. On the journey across by
the pass, your party was attacked. Who were they? Did you see? He
stared. "You mean up there by the rocks between here and
Mediobogdum? I remember it well. But how did you know
that?"

"I saw it in the fire. I watched
constantly then. What is it, Ralf? Why do you look so?"

"It was a queer thing," he said
slowly. "I've never forgotten it. That night, when they attacked
us, I thought I heard you call my name. A warning, clear as a
trumpet, or a dog barking. And now you say you were watching." He
shifted his shoulders as if at a sudden draught, then grinned. "I'd
forgotten about you, my lord. I'll have to get used to it again, I
suppose. Do you still watch us? It could be an awkward thought, at
times."

I laughed. "Not really. If there was
danger it would come through to me, I think. Otherwise it seems I
can leave it to you. But come, tell me, did you ever find out who
it was attacked you that night?"

"No. They wore no blazon. We killed
two of them, and there was nothing on them to show whose men they
were. Count Ector thought they must be outlaws or robbers. I think
so, too. At any rate there's been nothing since then, nothing at
all."

"I thought not. And now there must be
nothing to connect Myrddin the hermit with Merlin the enchanter.
What has been said about the new holy man of the chapel in the
green?"

"Only that Prosper had died and that
God had sent a new man at the appointed time, as he has always
done. That the new man is young, and quiet-seeming, but not as
quiet as he seems."

"And just what do they mean by
that?"

"Just what they say. You don't always
bear yourself just like a humble hermit, sir."

"Don't I? I can't think why not; it's
what I normally am. I must guard myself."

"I believe you mean that." He was
smiling, as if amused. "I shouldn't worry, they just think you must
be holier than most. It's always been a haunted place, this, and
more so now, it seems. There are stories of a spirit in the shape
of a huge white bird that flies in men's faces if they venture too
far up the track, and -- oh, all the usual tales you always get
about hauntings, silly country stories, things one can't believe.
But two weeks back -- did you know that a troop of men was riding
this way from somewhere near Alauna, and a tree fell across the
way, with no wind blowing, and no warning?"