Legacy: Arthurian Saga (107 page)

The shore, the scarlet dragonfly, the
white horse grazing, the cloudy forest at my back, faded, became
phantoms themselves. I watched, my eyes wide and fixed on that
silent and sightless cloud of pearl. He was rowing hard, chin on
shoulder as he neared the island. It loomed first as a swimming
shape of shadow, growing to a shoreline hung over with the low
boughs of trees. Behind the trees, misty and unreal, the shapes of
rocks soared like a great castle brooding on its crag. Where the
strand met the water lay a line of gleaming silver, drawn sharp
between the island and its image. The cloudy trees and the high
towers of the crags floated weightless on the water, phantoms
themselves in the phantom mist.

The boat forged ahead. Arthur glanced
over his shoulder, calling the hound's name.

"Cabal! Cabal!"

The call echoed loudly across the
water, swam up the high crags, and died. There was no sign of
either hound or stag. He bent to his oars again, sending the light
boat leaping through the water.

Its bottom grated on shingle. He
jumped out. He pulled it up and trod up through the narrow verge of
grass. The light was stronger now as the sun rose higher,
reflecting from white mist and white water. Over the shore the
boughs of birch and rowan reached low, still heavy with moisture.
The rowan berries were red as flame, and glossy. The turf was
powdered with daisies and speedwell and small yellow pimpernel.
Late foxgloves crowded down the banks, their spires thrusting
through the trails of blackberry. Meadowsweet, rusting over with
autumn, filled the air with its thick honeyscent.

The boy thrust the hanging boughs
aside, plunged through the bramble trails, and stood squarely on
the flowery turf, narrowing his eyes at the crags above him. He
called again, and again the sound echoed away emptily, and died.
The mist was lifting faster now, rolling upwards towards the tops,
showing the lower reaches of rock bathed in a clear but swimming
light. Suddenly he stiffened, gazing upwards. Midway up the crags,
along what looked no more than a seam in the rock, the white stag
cantered easily, light as a drift of the mist that wreathed away to
air below it.

Arthur ran forward up the slope. His
footsteps on the thick turf made no sound. He brushed waisthigh
through brakes of yellowing fern, sending the bright drops
scattering, and came out at the foot of the cliff.

He paused again, looking about him. He
seemed held by the same awe that had touched him earlier. He
looked, not afraid, but as a man looks who knows that by a movement
he may start something of which he cannot see the end. He craned
his neck, searching the towering crags above him. There was no sign
of the white stag, but the rocks looked more than ever like a
castle crowned with the sun. He took a breath, shaking his head as
if he came out of water, then he spoke again, but quietly. "Cabal?
Cabal?"

From somewhere very near him, bursting
the awed silence, came the baying of the hound. There was something
in it of excitement, something of fear. It came from the cliff. The
boy looked round him, sharply. Then, behind the green curtain of
the trees, he saw the cave. As he started forward Cabal bayed
again, not in fear or pain, but like a beast questing. With no more
hesitation, Arthur plunged into the darkness of the
cave.

He could never say afterwards how he
found his way. I think he must have picked up the torch and flint I
had left there, and lit it, but he remembers nothing of that.
Perhaps what he does remember is the truth: there seemed, he said,
to be everywhere some faintly diffused and swimming light, as if
reflected from the burnished surface of the pool deep in the
pillared cave.

There, beyond the shining pool, the
sword lay on its table. From the rock above a trickle of water had
run and dripped, the lime on it hardening through the years until
the oiled leather of the wrappings, though proof enough to keep the
metal bright, had hardened under the dripping till it felt like
stone. In this the thing had rested, the crust of lime forming to
hide all but its shape, the long slenderness of the weapon and the
hilt formed like a cross.

It still looked like a sword, but a
stone one, some random accident of dripping limestone. Perhaps he
remembered the other hilt he had grasped in the Green Chapel, or
perhaps for a moment he, too, saw the future break open in front of
him. With an action too quick for thought, and too instinctive to
prevent, he laid his hand to the hilt.

He spoke to me, as if I stood beside
him. Indeed, I suppose I was as near to him, and as real, as the
white hound that crouched, whining at the pool's edge.

"I pulled at it, and it came clear of
the stone. It is the most beautiful sword in the world. I shall
call it Caliburn."

The mist had gone from the forest now,
sucked up by the sun. But it still lay over the island; this was
invisible, floating on its sea of pearl. I did not know how much
time had passed. The sun was hot, beating down on the lake cupped
in its hills. My eyes ached from the glare of water. I blinked
them, moved, and stretched my stiff limbs. There was a movement
behind me; a sudden trampling, as if the white stallion had got
loose. I turned quickly. Thirty paces away, softly as a cloud,
Cador of Cornwall rode out of the wood on a grey horse, with a
troop at his back.

7

I believe that the thought uppermost
in my mind was anger that I had not been warned. I was not only
thinking of Arthur's guardians among the hill people; but even for
me, Merlin, there had been no hint of danger in the sky, and the
vision which had blanketed the troop's approach from my eyes and
hearing had held nothing but light and promise leaping at last
towards fulfillment. The only mitigation of my anger was that
Arthur had not been found with me, and the only faint hope of
safety lay in maintaining my character as hermit and trusting that
Cador would not recognize me, and would ride on before the boy
returned from the island.

All this went through my mind in the
space it took Cador to raise a hand to halt the men behind him, and
for me to pick up the discarded fishing rod and get to my feet.
With some lie already forming on my lips I turned humbly to face
Cador as he rode forward, to halt his grey ten paces off. Then all
hope of remaining unrecognized vanished as behind him among the
troop I saw Ralf with a gag in his mouth, and a trooper on either
side of him. I straightened. Cador bent his head, saluting me as
low as he would have done the King. "Well met, Prince
Merlin."

"Is it well met?" I was savagely
angry. "Why have you taken my servant? He's none of yours now.
Loose him."

He made a sign, and the troopers
released Ralf's arms. He tore the gag from his mouth.

"Are you hurt?" I asked
him.

"No." He was angry too, and bitter.
"I'm sorry, sir. They fell on me as I was riding up through the
forest. When they recognized me, they thought you might be near.
They gagged me so that I could not give warning. They wanted to
take you unawares."

"Don't blame yourself. It was no fault
of yours." I had myself under control now, groping all the while
for the shreds of the vision which had fled. Where was Arthur now?
Still on the island, with Cabal and the wonderful sword? Or already
on his way back through the mist? But I could see nothing except
what was here, in plain daylight, and I knew that the spell was
broken and I could not reach him. I turned on Cador. "You go about
your business strangely, Duke! Why did you lay hands on Ralf? You
could have found me here any time you cared to ride this way. The
forest is free to everyone, and the Green Chapel is open day and
night. I would not have run from you."

"So you are the hermit of the chapel
in the green?"

"I am he."

"And Ralf serves you?"

"He serves me."

He signed to his men to stay where
they were, and himself rode forward, nearer where I stood. The
white stallion screamed and plunged as the grey horse passed it.
Cador drew to a halt beside me, and looked down, his brows raised.
"And that horse? Is it yours? A strange choice for a
hermit?"

I said acidly: "You know it is not
mine. If you caught Ralf in the forest, then no doubt you saw one
of Count Ector's sons as well. They were riding together. The boy
came here to fish. I don't know how long he'll be; he often stays
away half the day." I turned decisively away from the Water. "Ralf,
wait here for him. And you, my lord Duke, since you were so urgent
to see me that you mishandled my servant, will you come with me now
to the chapel, and say what you have to say in privacy? And you can
tell me, too, what -- besides this private hunt of yours -- brings
you and the men of Cornwall so far north?"

"War brings me; war, and the King's
command. I doubt if even here you have been too isolated to know of
Colgrim's threats? But you might say it was a happy chance that
made me ride this way." He smiled, and added, pleasantly: "And this
was hardly a private hunt. Did you not know, Prince Merlin, that
men have been searching the length and breadth of the land to find
you?"

"I was aware of it. I did not choose
to be found. Now, Duke, will you come with me? Leave Ralf to wait
here for the boy --"

"Count Ector's son, eh?" He had made
no move to follow me away from the water's edge. He sat his big
horse easily, still smiling. His manner was confident and assured.
"And you really expect me to ride with you and leave Ralf to wait
for this -- son of Count Ector? No doubt to spirit him away for
another span of years? Believe me, Prince --"

From the water, sharply, came Cabal's
bark, the warning of a hound alert to danger. Then a word from
Arthur, silencing the hound. The sound of oars as the boat jumped
forward, suddenly driven hard through the water. Cador swung his
horse to face the sound, and in spite of myself I moved with him.
My look must have been grim, for two of his officers spurred
forward.

"Keep them back," I said sharply, and
he flashed me a look and then lifted a hand. The men stopped short,
a spearcast off. I spoke quietly, for Cador alone: "If you don't
want Ector at your throat, with all Rheged behind him -- yes, and
Colgrim sweeping in to pick the fragments apart -- let Ralf and the
boy go now. Anything you have to say can be said to me. I shall not
try to escape you. But for my life, Duke Cador, the King himself
will answer."

He hesitated, glancing from the misty
lake to where his troopers stood. They had pricked to the alert. I
did not think they had recognized me, or realized what quarry their
Duke was hunting today; but they had seen his interest in the
sounds from behind the mist, and though they stayed where they were
near the edge of the wood, the spears stirred and rattled like a
reedbed in the wind.

"As to that -- " began Cador, but he
was interrupted.

The boat ran out of the mist's edge
and cut through the shallows. Seconds before it grounded Cabal,
with a growl in his throat, flung himself over the thwart and made
for the shore. One of the officers swung his horse round and drew
his sword. Cador heard it, and shouted something. The man
hesitated, and the hound, leaping up the bank, silent now, went in
a rush for Cador himself. The grey horse reared back. The hound
missed his grab, caught the edge of the saddlecloth. It tore, and a
piece came away in his jaws.

Behind me, Arthur yelled at the hound
and ran the boat hard ashore. Ralf jumped forward, intending, I
could see, to grab Cabal, but the troopers nearest him spurred
forward and crossed their spears with a clash, holding him back.
Cabal tossed the torn cloth over his shoulder and turned snarling
to attack the men who held Ralf. One of them hefted his spear
ready, and swords flashed out. Cador barked an order. The swords
went up. The Duke lifted, not his sword, but his whip, and spurred
the big grey round as the hound gathered himself to
spring.

I took a stride forward under the
whip, gripped the hound's collar, and threw my weight against his.
I could scarcely hold him. Arthur's voice came fiercely, "Cabal!
Back!" and even as the hound's pull slackened the boy jumped from
the boat and in two strides was between me and Cador with the new
sword naked and shining in his hand.

"You," he panted, "sir -- whoever you
are..." The sword's point slanted up at the Duke's breastbone.
"Keep back! If you touch him, I swear I'll kill you, even if you
had a thousand men at your back."

Cador slowly lowered the whip. I let
Cabal go, and he sank to the ground behind Arthur,
growling.

Arthur stood squarely in front of me,
angry and undoubtedly dangerous. But the Duke did not even seem to
notice the sword or its threat. His eyes were on the boy's face.
They flicked to mine, momentarily, then back to the boy.

All this had passed in a few
breathless seconds. The Duke's men were still moving forward, the
officers ranging to his side. As someone shouted an order, I shot a
hand out and caught Arthur's arm and swung him round to face me,
with his back to the Cornishmen.

"Emrys! What folly is this? There is
no danger here, except from your hound. You should control him
better. Take him now, and get yourself straight back to Galava with
Ralf."