Legacy: Arthurian Saga (105 page)

"They say there will be war again
soon," said Arthur, "and I am too young to go." He mourned over it,
openly, like a dog which is bidden to stay at home on a hunting
morning. It was three months before his tenth birthday.

It was not all talk of war and high
matters, of course. There were days when the boys played like young
puppies, running and wrestling, racing their horses along the
riverside, swimming naked in the lake and scaring every fish within
miles, or taking bows with Ralf up to the hills to look for hares
or pigeons. Sometimes I went with them, but hunting was not a sport
I cared for. It was different when it occurred to me to rummage out
the old hermit's fishing rod and take it to try the waters of the
lake. We would pass the time happily there, Arthur fishing with
more fury than success, myself watching him, and talking. Bedwyr
did not care for fishing, and on these occasions went with Ralf,
but Arthur, even on the days when wind or weather made fishing
useless, seemed to prefer to stay with me rather than go with Ralf
or even Bedwyr to look for sport in the forest.

Looking back, I do not remember now
that I ever paused to question this. The boy was my whole life, my
love for him so much a part of every day that I was content to take
the time as it came, accepting straight from the gods the fact that
the boy seemed to like above all else to be with me. I told myself
merely that he needed to escape from the crowded household, from
the patronage of an elder brother preparing now for a position
which he himself could never hope for, and also a chance to be with
Bedwyr in a world of imagination and brave deeds where he felt
himself to belong. I would not allow myself to ascribe it to love,
and if I had guessed the nature of the love, could have offered no
comfort then.

Bedwyr stayed at Galava for more than
a year, leaving for home in the autumn before Arthur's eleventh
birthday. He was to return the following summer. After he had gone
Arthur moped visibly for a week, was unwontedly quiet for another,
then recovered his spirits with a bound, and rode up to see me, in
defiance of the weather, rather more often than before.

I have no idea what reasons Ector gave
for letting him come so often. Probably he needed no reason: as a
rule the boy rode out daily except in the foulest weather, and if
nothing was volunteered as to where he went, nothing would be
asked. It became known, as it was bound to, that he came often to
the Green Chapel where the wise man lived, but if people thought
about it at all, they commended the boy's sense in seeking out a
man known for his learning, and let it be. I never attempted to
teach Arthur in the way that Galapas, my master, had taught me. He
was not interested in reading or figuring, and I made no attempt to
press them on him; as King, he would employ other men in these
arts. What formal learning he needed, he received from Abbot Martin
or others of the community. I detected in him something of my own
ear for languages, and found that, besides the Celtic of the
district where he lived, he had retained a smattering of Breton
from his babyhood, and Ector, mindful of the future, had been at
pains to correct his northern accent into something which the
British of all parts would understand. I decided to teach him the
Old Tongue, but was amazed to find that he already knew enough of
it to follow a sentence spoken slowly. When I asked where he had
learned it he looked surprised and said: "From the hill people, of
course. They are the only ones who speak it now."

"And you have spoken with
them?"

"Oh, yes. When I was little once I was
out with one of the soldiers and he was thrown and hurt himself,
and two of the hill people came to help me. They seemed to know who
I was."

"Did they indeed?"

"Yes. After that I saw them quite
often, here and there, and I learned to speak with them a little.
But I'd like to learn more."

Of my other skills, music and
medicine, and all the knowledge I had so gladly amassed about the
beasts and birds and wild things, I taught him nothing. He would
have no need of them. He cared only about beasts to hunt them, and
there, already, he knew almost as much as I about the ways of wild
deer and wolf and boar. Nor did I share with him much of my
knowledge about engines; here again it would be other men who would
make and assemble them; he needed only to learn their uses, and
most of this he was taught along with the arts of war he learned
from Ector's soldiers. But as Galapas had done with me, I taught
him how to make maps and read them, and I showed him the map of the
sky.

One day he said to me: "Why do you
look at me sometimes as if I reminded you of someone
else?"

"Do I?"

"You know you do. Who is
it?"

"Myself, a little."

His head came up from the map we were
studying. "What do you mean?"

"I told you, when I was your age I
used to ride up into the hills to see my friend Galapas. I was
remembering the first time he taught me to read a map. He made me
work a great deal harder than ever I make you."

"I see." He said no more, but I
thought he was downcast. I wondered why he should imagine I could
tell him anything about his parentage; then it occurred to me that
he might expect me to "see" such things at will. But he never asked
me.

5

There was no war that year, or the
next. In the spring after Arthur's twelfth birthday Octa and Eosa
at last broke from prison, and fled south to take refuge behind the
boundaries of the Federated Saxons. The whisper went that they had
been helped by lords who professed themselves loyal to Uther. Lot
could not be blamed directly, nor Cador; no one knew who were the
traitors, but rumors were rife, and helped to swell the feeling of
unease throughout the country. It seemed as if Ambrosius' forceful
uniting of the kingdoms were to go for nothing: each petty king,
taking Lot's example, carved and kept his own boundaries. And
Uther, no longer the flashing warrior men had admired and feared,
depended too much on the strength of his allies, and turned a blind
eye to the power they were amassing.

The rest of that year passed quietly
enough, but for the usual tale of forays from north and south of
the wild debatable land to either side of Hadrian's Wall, and
summer landings on the east coast which were not (it was said)
wholeheartedly repelled by the defenders there. Storms in the Irish
Sea kept the west peaceful, and Cador, I was told, had made a
beginning on the fortifications at Segontium. King Uther, heedless
of the advisers who told him that when trouble came it would come
first from the north, stayed between London and Winchester,
throwing his energies into keeping the Saxon Shore patrolled and
Ambrosius' Wall fortified, with his main force ready to move and
strike wherever the invaders broke the boundaries. Indeed there
seemed little to turn him yet towards the north: the talk of a
great alliance of invaders was still only talk, and the small raids
continued along the southern coast throughout the year, keeping the
King down there to combat them. The Queen left Cornwall at this
time, and moved to Winchester with all her train. Whenever the King
could, he joined her there. It was observed, of course, that he no
longer frequented other women as he had been used to do, but no
rumor of impotence had gone around: it seemed as if the girls who
had known of it had seen it simply as a passing phase of his
illness, and said nothing. When it was seen now that he spent all
his time with the Queen, the story went round that he had taken
vows of fidelity. So, though the girls might mourn their lover,
those citizens rejoiced who had been wont to lock their daughters
away when word went round that the King was coming, and praised him
for adding goodness to his powers as a fighting man.

These latter he certainly seemed to
have recovered, though there were stories of the uncertain temper
he showed, and of sudden ferocities in the treatment of defeated
enemies. But on the whole this was welcomed as a sign of strength
at a time when strength was needed.

I myself seemed to have managed to
drop safely out of sight. If people wondered from time to time
where I had gone, some said that I had crossed the Narrow Sea again
and resumed my travels, others, that I had retired once more into a
new solitude to continue my studies. I heard from Ralf and Ector --
and sometimes, innocently, from Arthur -- that there were rumors of
me from all parts of the country. It was said that when the King
first fell sick, Merlin had appeared immediately in a golden ship
with a scarlet sail and ridden to the palace to heal him, and
afterwards vanished into the air. He had been seen next at Bryn
Myrddin, though none had seen him ride there. (This in spite of the
fact that I had changed horses at the usual places, and stayed
every night in a public tavern.) And since then, the talk went,
Merlin the enchanter had been wont to appear and vanish here and
there all over the country. He had healed a sick woman near Aquae
Sulis, and a week later had been seen in the Caledonian Forest,
four hundred miles away. The host of tales grew, coined by idle
folk anxious for the importance that such "news" would give them.
Sometimes, as had happened before, wandering healers or would be
prophets would style themselves "another Merlin," or even use my
very name: this inspired trust in the healers, and if the patient
recovered, did no harm. If the patient died, folk tended to say
simply, "It cannot have been Merlin after all; his magic would have
succeeded." And since the false Merlin would by that time have
completely vanished, my reputation would survive the imposture. So
I kept my secret, and lost nothing. Certainly no wandering
suspicion lighted on the quiet keeper of the Green
Chapel.

I had contrived from time to time to
send messages of reassurance to the King. My chief fear was that he
would grow impatient, and either send for the boy too soon, or by
some hasty inadvertence betray Ector or myself to the people who
watched him. But he remained silent. Ector, speaking of it to me,
wondered if the King still thought the danger of treachery too
great to have the boy by him in London, or if he still hoped
against bitter hope that someday he would get another son. Myself I
think it was neither. He was beset, was Uther, with treachery and
trouble and the lack of the fine health that he was used to; and
besides, the Queen started to ail that winter. He had neither time
nor mind to give to the young stranger who was waiting to take what
he himself found it harder and harder to hold.

As for the Queen, there had been many
times during the years when I had wondered at her silence. Ralf
had, through means of his own, kept secretly in touch with his
grandmother who served Ygraine, and through her had assured the
Queen of her son's well-being. But from all accounts Ygraine,
though she loved her daughter Morgian, and would have loved her son
as dearly, was able to watch -- indifferently enough, it seemed --
her children used as tools of royal policy. Morgian and Arthur
were, to her, pledges only of her love for the King, and having
given them birth, she turned back to her husband's side. Arthur she
had barely seen, and was content to know that one day he would
emerge from his fastness safe and strong, in the King's time of
need. Morgian, to whom she had given all the mother-love of which
she was capable, was to be sent (without a backward glance, said
Marcia in a letter to Ralf) to the marriage bed which would join
the cold northern kingdom and its grim lord to Uther's side in the
coming struggle. When I had tried to show Arthur something of the
all-consuming sexual love which had obsessed Uther and Ygraine, I
had spoken only half the truth. She was Uther's first, then she was
Queen; and though she was the bearer of princes, she cared no more
than the hawk does when its fledglings fly. As things stood, for
her sake, it was better so; and, I thought, for Arthur too. All he
needed now, he had from Ector and his gentle wife.

I kept no contact with Bryn Myrddin,
but in some roundabout way Ector got news for me. Stilicho had
married Mai, the miller's girl, and the child was a boy. I sent my
felicitations and a gift of money, and a threat of various dire
enchantments should he let either of his new family touch the books
and the instruments that remained at the cave. Then I forgot about
them.

Ralf married, too, during my second
summer in the Wild Forest. His reason was not the same as
Stilicho's; he had wooed the girl long enough, and only found his
happiness in her bed after a Christian wedding. Even if I had not
known the girl was virtuous, and that Ralf had been fretting after
her like a curbed colt for a year or more, I could have guessed it
from his relaxed and glowing strength as the weeks went by. She was
a beautiful girl, gay and good, and with her maidenhead gave him
all her worship. As for Ralf, he was a normal young man and had
looked here and there, as young men will, but after his marriage I
never knew him to look aside again, though he was handsome, and in
later years was not unnaturally high in the King's favor and found
many who tried to use him as a stepping stone to power as much as
to pleasure. But he was never to be used.

I believe that there were those in
Galava who wondered why such an able young gentleman was kept
riding guard on Ector's fosterson when even young Cei joined his
father and the troops whenever there was an alarm, but Ralf had a
high temper, and a fine self-assurance these days, and had,
besides, the Count's orders to quote. It might have been hard if
his wife had taunted him, but she was soon with child, and too
thankful to have him tied at home near her ever to question it.
Ralf himself fretted a little, I know, but he confessed to me once
when we were alone that if he could only see Arthur acknowledged
and set in his rightful place beside the High King, he would count
it a good life's work.