Legacy: Arthurian Saga (106 page)

"You told me the gods were driving us
that night at Tintagel," he said. "I am no familiar of the gods, as
you are, but I can think of no youth I have known who is worthier
to take up the High King's sword when he has to lay it
down."

All reports bore this out. When I went
down to the village for supplies, or to the tavern for gossip, I
heard plenty about Ector's fosterson "Emrys." Even then his was a
personality that gathers legend as a dripstone gathers
lime.

I heard a man say once, in the crowded
tavern room: "I tell you this, if you told me he was one of the
Dragon's breed, a bastard of the High King that's gone, I'd believe
it you."

There were nods, and someone said:
"Well, why not? He could be a bastard of Uther's, couldn't he? It's
always surprised me that there aren't more of those around. He was
one for the women, sure enough, before his sickness put the fear of
hell on him,"

Someone else said: "If there were
more, you can be sure he'd have acknowledged them."

"Aye, indeed," said the fellow who had
spoken first. "That's true. He never showed any more shame than the
farm bull, and why should he? They say that the girl he got in
Brittany -- Morgause, was it? -- is high in his favor at court, and
goes everywhere with him. Those are all we know of, the two girls,
and the prince that's being reared at some foreign
court."

Then the talk passed, as it often did
these days, to the succession, and the young Prince Arthur growing
up somewhere in the foreign kingdom to which Merlin the enchanter
had secretly spirited him away.

Though how long he might be kept
hidden I could not guess. Watching him come riding up the forest
track, or diving and wrestling with Bedwyr in the summer waters of
the lake, or drinking in the wonders I showed him as the earth
absorbs rain, it was a marvel to me that everyone did not see, as I
could, the kingship shining from him as it had shone in that
moment's flashing vision from the sword in the
altarstone.

6

Then came the year that, even now, is
called the Black Year. It was the year after Arthur's thirteenth
birthday. The Saxon leader Octa died at Rutupiae, of some infection
caught in the long imprisonment; but his cousin Eosa went to
Germany, and there met Octa's son Colgrim, and it was not hard to
guess at their counsels. The King of Ireland crossed the sea, but
not to the Irish Shore; where Cador waited for him at Deva, and
Maelgon of Gwynedd behind the scrambled-up fortifications of
Segontium; but his sails were watched from Rheged's shore as he
made landfall in Strathclyde and was received kindly by the Pictish
kings there. These latter had had a treaty with Britain since
Macsen's time, renewed with Ambrosius; but what answer they would
make now to Ireland's proposals no man could guess.

Other troubles hit nearer home and
more immediately. It was a year of starvation. The spring was long
and cold and wet, the fields everywhere flooded, long past the time
when corn should have been sown and growing. Cattle disease was
everywhere in the south, and in Galava even the hardy blue-fleeced
hill sheep died, their feet rotted away so that they could not move
on the fells to feed themselves. Late frost blasted the fruit buds,
and even as the green corn grew, it turned brown and rotted in the
stagnant fields. Strange tales came north. A druid had run mad and
attacked Uther for leading the country away from the Old Religion;
and a Christian bishop stood up in church and railed against him
for being a pagan. There was a story of an attempt on the King's
life, and of the hideous way in which the King had punished the men
responsible.

So spring and summer wore through, in
disaster, and by the beginning of autumn the country lay like a
waste land. People died of starvation. Folk talked of a curse laid
on the country; but whether God was angry because the country
shrines still claimed their sacrifices, or whether the old gods of
hill and woodland exacted vengeance for neglect, no one was sure.
All that was certain was that there was a blight on the land, and
the King ailed. There was a meeting of nobles in London demanding
that Uther should name his heir. But it seemed -- Ector told me
this -- as if he still feared, not knowing friend from foe; all he
would say was that his son lived and thrived, and would be
presented to the nobles at the next Easter feast. Meanwhile his
daughter Morgian passed her twelfth birthday, and would be taken
north for her wedding at Christmas.

With the autumn the weather changed,
and a mild, dry season set in. It was too late to help the crops or
the dying cattle, but grateful to men starved of the sun, and the
bright weather came in time to ripen some of the fruit that the
spring storms and the summer rot had left on the trees. In the Wild
Forest the mists curled through the pines in the early morning, and
the September dews glittered everywhere on the cobwebs. Ector left
Galava to meet with Rheged and his allies at Luguvallium. The King
of Ireland had sailed for home and there was still peace in
Strathclyde, but the defense line along the Ituna Estuary from
Alauna to Luguvallium was to be manned, and there was talk of Ector
as its commander. Cei went with his father. Arthur, scarce three
months from his fourteenth birthday, tall enough for sixteen, and
already (according to Ralf) a notable swordsman, fretted visibly,
and grew daily more silent. He spent all his days now in the
forest, often with me (though not so much as formerly), but most of
the time, Ralf told me, hunting or taking breakneck rides through
the rough country.

"If only the King would make some
move," said Ralf to me. "The boy will kill himself else. It's as if
he knew that there was something in the future for him, something
unguessed at, but that gives him no peace. I'm afraid he'll break
his neck before it happens. That new horse of his -- Canrith he
calls it -- I wouldn't care to get astride it myself, and that's
the truth. I can't think what possessed Ector to give it to him; a
guilt gift perhaps."

I thought he was right. The white
stallion had been left for Arthur when Ector took Cei up to
Luguvallium with him. Bedwyr had gone, too, though he was no older
than Arthur. Ector was hard put to it to explain to Arthur why he
could not go. But until Uther spoke, we could do
nothing.

The full moon came, the September moon
that they call the harvester. It shone out in a dry mild night over
the rotting fields, doing no good that anyone could see except
light the outlaws who crept out of their fastnesses to pillage the
outlying farms, or the troops who were constantly on the move these
days to one or the other point of threat.

I could not sleep. My head ached, and
phantoms crowded close, as they do when they bring vision; but
nothing came forward into light or shape; nothing spoke. It was
like suffering the threat of thunder, as close as the blankets that
wrapped me, but without the lightning to break it, or the cleansing
rain to bring a clear sky. When day broke at last, grey and misty,
I rose, took bread, and a handful of olives from the crock, and
went down through the forest to the lake, to wash the aching of the
night away.

It was a quiet morning, so still that
you could not tell where the mist ended and the surface of the lake
began. The water met the flattened shingle of the beach without
movement and without sound. Behind me the forest stood wrapped in
the mist, its scents still sleeping. It seemed a kind of
desecration to break the hush and plunge into that virgin water,
but the fresh chill of it washed away the clinging strands of the
night, and when I came out and was dry again and dressed, I ate my
breakfast with pleasure, then settled down with my fishing rod to
wait for the morning rise, and hope for a breeze at sun-up to
ruffle the glassy water. The sun came up at last, pale through the
mist, but brought no breeze with it. The tops of the trees swam up
out of the greyness, and at the far side of the lake the dark
forest lifted, cloudy, towards the smoking hilltops. The water was
bloomed with mist, like a pearl. No ring or ripple broke the glassy
water, no sign of a breeze to come. I had just decided that I might
as well go, when I heard something coming fast through the forest
at my back. Not a horseman; too light for that, and coming too fast
through the brake.

I stayed as I was, half-turned,
waiting. A prickling ran up the skin of my back, and I remembered
the night's sleepless pain. The tingling ran into my fingers; I
found I was clutching the rod until it hurt the flesh. All night,
then, this had been coming. All night this had been waiting to
happen. All night? If I was not mistaken, I had been waiting for
this for fourteen years.

Fifty paces along the lakeside from
where I sat, a stag broke cover. He saw me immediately, and stopped
short, head high, poised to break the other way. He was white. In
contrast the wide branches on his brow looked like polished bronze,
and his eyes showed red as garnet. But he was real; there were
stains of sweat on the white hide, and the thick hair of belly and
neck was tagged with damp. A trail of yellow loosestrife had caught
round his neck, and hung there like a collar. He looked back over
his shoulder, then, stiff-legged, leaped from the bank into the
water, and in two more bounds was shoulder-deep and swimming
straight out into the lake.

The polished water broke and arrowed
back. The splash was echoed by a crashing deep in the forest.
Another beast coming, headlong. I had been wrong in thinking that
nothing could come through the forest as fast as a fleeing deer.
Arthur's white hound, Cabal, broke from the trees exactly where the
stag had broken, and hurled himself into the water. Seconds later
Arthur himself, on the stallion Canrith, burst out after
it.

He checked his horse on the shore,
bringing it up rearing, fetlock deep. He had his bow strung ready
in his hand. He pulled the stallion sideways and raised the bow,
sighting from the back of the plunging horse. But deer swim low;
only the stag's head showed above water, a wedge spearing away
fast, its antlers flat behind it on the surface like boughs
trailing. The hound, swimming strongly, was in line with it. Arthur
lowered the bow, and turned the stallion back to breast the bank.
In the moment before his spurs struck he saw me. He shouted
something, and came cantering along the shingle.

His face was blazing with excitement.
"Did you see him? Snow-white, and a head like an emperor! I never
saw the like in my life! I'm going round. Cabal was closing, he'll
hold him till I get there. Sorry I spoiled your
fishing."

"Emrys --"

He checked impatiently.
"What?"

"Look. He's making for the
island."

He swung to look where I pointed. The
stag had vanished into the mist, and the hound with him. There was
no sign of them but the fading ripples flattening towards the
shore.

"The island, is it? Are you
sure?"

"Certain."

"All the devils of hell," he said
angrily. "What a cursed piece of luck! I thought I had him when
Cabal sprang him so close." He hung on the rein, hesitating,
staring out over the clouded lake while the stallion fretted,
sidling. I suppose he was as much in awe of the place as anyone
brought up in that valley. Then he set his mouth, curbing Canrith
sharply. "I'm going to the island. I can say goodbye to the stag, I
suppose -- that was too good to be true -- but I'm damned if I lose
Cabal. Bedwyr gave him to me, and I've no mind to lose him to Bilis
or anyone else, either in this world or the other." He put two
fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly. "Cabal! Cabal! Here,
sir, here!"

"It's no good, you'll hardly turn him
now."

"No." He took a breath. "Well, there's
nothing for it, it'll have to be the island. If your magic will
reach that far, Myrddin, send it with me now."

"It's with you always, you know that.
You're not going to swim him across, are you?"

"He'll go," said Arthur, a little
breathlessly, as he forced the reluctant stallion towards the
water. "It's too far to go round. If that beast rakes to the crags,
and Cabal follows it --"

"Why not take the boat? It's quicker,
and that way you can bring Cabal back."

"Yes, but the wretched thing'll need
bailing. It always does."

"I bailed it this morning. It's quite
ready."

"Did you? That's the first bit of luck
today! You were going out, then? Will you come with me?"

"No. I'll stay here. Come now, Emrys,
go and find your hound."

For a moment boy and horse were quite
still. Arthur stared down at me, something showing in his face that
was half speculation, half awe, but which was quickly swallowed up
in the larger impatience. He slid off the stallion's back and
pushed the reins into my hand. Then he unstrung his bow and slung
it across his shoulder and ran to the boat. This was a primitive
flat-bottomed affair which usually lay beached in a reedy inlet a
short way along the shore. He launched it with one flying shove,
and jumped in. I stood on the shingle, holding the horse, watching
him. He poled it out through the shallows, then had the oars out,
and began to row.

I pulled the rolled cloth from behind
the horse's saddle, slung it over the animal's steaming back, then
tethered him where he could graze, and went back to my seat at the
edge of the lake. The sun was well up now, and gaining power. A
kingfisher flashed by. Gauze-winged flies danced over the water.
There was a smell of wild mint, and a dabchick crept out from a
tangle of water forget-me-not. A dragonfly, tiny, with a scarlet
body, clung pulsing to a reed. Under the sun the mist moved gently,
smoking off the glassy water, shifting and restless like the
phantoms of the night, like the smoke of the enchanted
fire...