Legacy: Arthurian Saga (104 page)

"Well, the boy was baptized a
Christian. It's thought that Prosper served God in the later years,
but it's well known that the Green Chapel has housed other gods
than the true Christ in its time. What do you do now, up there in
the forest?"

"I believe in giving due honor to
whatever god confronts you," I said. "That's common sense in these
days, as well as courtesy. Sometimes I think the gods themselves
have not yet got it clear. The chapel is open to the air and the
forest, and they come in who will."

"And Arthur?"

"In a Christian household, Arthur will
owe duty to Christ's God. What he does on the field of battle may
be another matter. I don't know yet which god will give the boy his
sword -- though I doubt if Christ was much of a swordsman. But we
shall see. May I pour you more wine?"

"What? Oh, thank you." Ector blinked,
wetted his lips, and changed the subject, "Ralf was saying you'd
asked about that ambush at Mediobogdum five years back. They were
robbers, no more. Why do you ask? Have you reason to think that
someone's interested now?"

"I had some small trouble on the way
north," I said. "Ralf tells me there has been nothing
here."

"Nothing. I've been twice myself to
Winchester and once to London, and there's never a soul so much as
questioned me, which they'd have been quick to do if anyone had
thought the boy might be anywhere in the north."

"Lot has never approached you or shown
interest?"

Another quick look. "Him, eh? Well,
nothing would surprise me there, Some of the trouble we've been
having in these parts might easily have been avoided if that same
gentleman had minded his kingdom's business instead of paying court
to a throne."

"So they say that, do they? It's the
King's place he's after, not just a place at the King's
side?"

"Whatever he's after, they're handfast
now, he and Morgian: they'll be married as soon as the girl is
twelve years old. There's no way out of that union now, even if
Uther wanted to end it."

"And you don't like it?"

"No one does, up in this part of the
country. They say that Lot's stretching his borders all the time,
and not always with the sword. There's talk of meetings. If he gets
too much power by the time the High King fails, we might well find
ourselves back in the time of the Wolf. The Saxons coming every
spring and burning and raping as far as the Pennine Way, aye, and
the Irish coming down to join them, and more of our men taking to
the high hills and what cold comfort they can find
there."

"How recently did you see the
King?"

"Three weeks past. When he lay at York
he sent for me, and asked privately about the boy."

"How did he look?"

"Well enough, but the cutting edge was
gone. You understand me?"

"Very well. Was Cador of Cornwall with
him?"

"No. He was still at Caerleon then. I
have heard since --"

"At Caerleon?" I asked sharply. "Cador
himself was there?"

"Yes," said Ector, surprised. "He'd be
there just before you left home. Did you not know?"

"I should have known," I said. "He
sent a party of armed men to search my home on Bryn Myrddin, and to
watch my movements. I gave them the slip, I think, but what I
didn't reckon on was being watched by two parties at the same time.
Urien of Gore had men there in Maridunum, too, and they traced me
north into Gwynedd." I told him about Crinas, and Urien's party,
and he listened, frowning. I asked him: "You haven't heard reports
of any such up here? They'd ask no questions openly, but wait and
watch, and listen."

"No. If there were strangers, it would
have been reported. You must have shaken them off. Be easy, Cador's
men will never come this way. He's in Segontium now, did you
know?"

"When I was there I heard he was
expected. Do you know if he plans to make his headquarters at
Segontium, now Uther's put him in charge of the Irish Shore
defenses? Has there been talk of reinvesting it?"

"There was talk, yes, but I doubt if
it will ever come to anything. That's a task that'll take more time
and money than Uther is likely to spare, or to have, just yet. If I
can make a guess, Cador will garrison Segontium and the frontier
fortresses, and base himself inland where he can keep his forces
moving to the points of attack. Perhaps at Deva. Rheged himself is
in Luguvallium. We do what we can."

"And Urien? I trust he's fixed on the
east, where he belongs?"

"Well dug in on his rock," said Ector,
with grim satisfaction. "And one thing's for sure. Until Lot
marries Morgian with every bishop in the realm in attendance, and
proof positive of consummation, he won't stir a hand to bring Uther
down, or let Urien do so, either. Nor will he find Arthur. If they
haven't had a sniff of the boy in nine years, they'll never pick
the scent up now. So be easy. By the time Morgian is twelve, and
ready for bedding, Arthur will be fourteen, and coming to the time
when the King has promised to bring him before the kingdom. It will
be time then to deal with Lot and Urien, and if the time comes
before then, why, it is with God."

On that we parted, and I rode back
alone to the shrine.

4

After this Arthur, sometimes with the
other two boys, but usually just with Bedwyr, rode up to the chapel
to see me two or three times a week. Cei was a big fair-haired boy,
with a look of his father, and his manner to Arthur was a compound
of patronage and hectoring affection which must have been galling
at times to the younger boy. But Arthur seemed fond of his
fosterbrother, and eager to share with him the pleasure (for so he
seemed to find it) of his visits to me. Cei enjoyed the tales I had
to tell of foreign lands and the histories of fighting and
conquests and battle, but he grew quickly tired of discussing the
way the people lived and governed their countries, and the talk of
their legends and beliefs, which Arthur loved. As time went by Cei
stayed more often at home, going (the other two told me) on sport
or business with his father; hunting sometimes, or on patrol, or
accompanying Count Ector on his occasional visits to his neighbors.
After the first year, I rarely saw Cei at all.

Bedwyr was quite different, a quiet
boy of Arthur's own age, gentle and dreamy as a poet, and a natural
follower. He and Arthur were like two sides of the same apple.
Bedwyr trailed, doglike in devotion, after the other boy; he made
no attempt to hide his love for Arthur, but there was nothing soft
about him, for all his gentle ways and poet's eyes. He was a plain
boy, with his nose flattened in some fight, and badly set, and the
scar of some nursery burn on his cheek. But he had character and
kindness, and Arthur loved him. As the son of Ban, a petty king,
Bedwyr was the superior even of Cei, and as far as any of the boys
knew, right out of Arthur's star. But this never occurred to either
Bedwyr or Arthur; the one offered devotion, the other accepted
it.

One day I said to them: "Do you know
the story of Bisclavaret, the man who became a wolf?" Bedwyr,
without troubling to answer, brought the harp out from under its
shroud, and put it gently by me. Arthur, prone on the bed with chin
on fist and eyes brilliant in the firelight -- it was a chill
afternoon of late spring said impatiently: "Oh, let be. Never mind
the music. The story." Then Bedwyr curled beside him on the
blankets, and I tuned the strings and started.

It is an eerie tale, and Arthur took
it with sparkling face, but Bedwyr grew quieter than ever, all
eyes. It was growing dark when they went home, with a husky servant
that day for escort. Arthur, alone with me next day, told me how
Bedwyr had woken in the night with the nightmare. "But do you know,
Myrddin, when we were on the way home yesterday, when he must have
been full of the story, we saw something slink off beyond the trees
and we thought it was a wolf, and Bedwyr made me ride between him
and Leo. I know he was frightened, but he said it was his right to
protect me, and I suppose it was, since he is a king's son, and I
--"

He stopped. It was as near as he had
ever got to the boggy ground. I said nothing, but
waited.

" -- and I was his friend."

I talked to him then about the nature
of courage, and the moment passed. I remember what he said
afterwards of Bedwyr. I was to remember it many times in later
years, when, on even less certain ground, the trust between him and
Bedwyr held true.

He said now, seriously, as if at nine
years old he knew: "He is the bravest companion, and the truest
friend in all the world."

Ector and Drusilla had, of course,
taken care to see that Arthur knew all that was good to know about
his father and the Queen. He knew, too, as much as everyone in the
country knew about the young heir who waited -- in Brittany, in the
Isle of Glass, in Merlin's tower? -- to succeed to the kingdom. He
told me once, himself, the story that was current about the "rape
at Tintagel." The legend had lost nothing in the telling. By now,
it seemed, men believed that Merlin had spirited the King's party,
horses and all, invisibly within the walls of the stronghold, and
out again in the broad light of next morning.

"And they say," finished Arthur, "that
a dragon curled on the turrets all night, and in the morning Merlin
flew off on him, in a trail of fire."

"Do they? It's the first I heard of
that."

"Don't you know the story?" asked
Bedwyr. "I know a song," I said, "which is closer to the truth than
anything you've heard up here. I got it from a man who'd once been
in Cornwall."

Ralf was there that day, listening
silently, amused. I raised my brows at him and he shook his head
slightly. I had not thought he would have let Arthur know he came
from Tintagel, and indeed I doubt if anyone now would have guessed.
He spoke as nearly as might be with the accent of the
north.

So I told the boys the story, the
truth as I knew it -- and who knew better? -- without the extra
trimmings of fantasy that time and ignorance had added to it. And
God knows it was magical enough without; God's will and human love
driving forward together in the black night under the light of the
great star, and the seed sown which would make a king.

"So God had his way, and the King
through him, and men -- as men always do -- made mistakes and died
for them. And in the morning the enchanter rode away alone, to
nurse his broken hand."

"No dragon?" This from
Bedwyr.

"No dragon," I said. "I prefer the
dragon," said Bedwyr firmly. "I shall go on believing the dragon.
Riding away alone, that's a let down. A real enchanter wouldn't do
that, would he, Ralf?"

"Of course not," said Ralf, getting to
his feet. "But we must. Look, it's dusk already." He was ignored.
"I'll tell you what I don't understand," said Bedwyr, "and that's a
King who would risk setting the whole kingdom at blaze for a woman.
Keeping faith with your peers is surely more important than having
any woman. I'd never risk losing anything that really mattered,
just for that."

"Nor would I," said Arthur slowly. He
had been thinking hard about it, I could see. "But I think I
understand it, all the same. You have to reckon with
love."

"But not to risk friendship for it,"
said Bedwyr quickly. "Of course not," said Arthur. I could see that
he was thinking in general terms, where Bedwyr meant one
friendship, one love. Ralf began to speak again, but at that moment
something, a shadow, swept silently across the lamplight. The boys
hardly glanced up; it was only the white owl, sailing silently in
through the open window to its perch in the beams. But its shadow
went across my skin like a hand of ice, and I shivered. Arthur
looked up quickly. "What is it, Myrddin? It's only the owl. You
look as if you'd seen a ghost."

"It was nothing," I said. "I don't
know."

I did not know, either, then, but I
know now. We had been speaking Latin, as we usually did, but the
word he had used for the shadow across the light was the Celtic
one, guenhwyvar.

Be sure I told them, too, about their
own country, and about the times recently past, of Ambrosius and
the war he had fought against Vortigern, and how he had knit the
kingdoms together into one, and made himself High King, and brought
to the length and breadth of the land justice, with a sword at its
back, so that for a short span of years men could go peacefully
about their affairs anywhere in the country, and not be molested;
or if they were, could seek, and get, the King's justice equally
for high or low. Others had given them the stories as history; but
I had been there, and closer to affairs than most, being at the
High King's side and, in some cases, the architect of what had
happened. This, of course, they could not be allowed to guess: I
told them merely that I had been with Ambrosius in Brittany, and
thereafter at the battle of Kaerconan, and through the next years
of the rebuilding. They never asked how or why I was there, and I
think this was out of delicacy, in case I should be forced to
confess how I had served in some humble capacity as assistant to
the engineers, or even as a scribe. But I still remember the
questions Arthur poured out about the way the Count of Britain --
as Ambrosius then styled himself -- had assembled, trained and
equipped his army, how he had shipped it across the Narrow Sea to
the land of the Dumnonii where he had set up his standard as High
King before he swept northwards to burn Vortigern out of Doward,
and finally to smash the vast army of the Saxons at Kaerconan.
Every detail of organization, training, and strategy I had to
recall for him as best I could, and every skirmish of which I could
tell them anything was fought over and over again by the two boys,
poring over maps drawn in the dust.