Legacy: Arthurian Saga (112 page)

After the emergency cases had been
dealt with at the orchard dressing station, the medical units had
also moved back to the town, where a hospital had been set up, I
went with them, and dealt with a steady stream of cases all
afternoon and evening. Our losses had not been heavy as such things
commonly go, but still the burial parties would be hard at work all
night, watched by the wolves and the gathering ravens. From the
marshes came the distant flicker of flames, where the Saxon dead
were burning. I finished work in the hospital at about midnight,
and was in an outer room, watching while Paulus packed my
instruments away, when I heard someone coming quickly across the
court outside, and was aware of a stir near the door behind
me.

Call me an old fool if you like,
remembering back through the years to what never happened, and you
may be more than half right; but it was not only love which made me
recognize his coming before I even turned my head. A current of
fresh sweet air blew with him, cutting through the fumes of drugs
and the stench of sickness and fear. The very lamps burned
brighter.

"Merlin?" He spoke softly, as one does
in a sickroom, but the excitement of the day was still in his
voice. I looked at him smiling, then more sharply.

"Are you hurt? You young fool, why
didn't you come to me sooner? Let me see."

He drew back the arm in its stiffened
sleeve. "Can't you tell black Saxon blood when you see it? I never
had a scratch. Oh, Merlin, what a day! And what a King! To go out
in the field crippled and in a chair -- that's real courage, far
more than it takes to ride into a fight with a good horse and a
good sword. I'll swear I never even had to think...it was so
easy...Merlin, it was splendid! It's what I was born for -- I know
it now! And did you see what happened? What the King did? His
sword? I'll swear it pulled me forward of its own will, not
mine...And then the shouting and the way the soldiers moved
forward, like the sea. I never even had to use a spur on
Canrith...Everything moved so fast, and yet so slowly and clearly,
every moment seemed to last forever. I never knew one could be
blazing hot and icecold all at the same moment, did
you?"

He did not wait for answers, but
talked on, fast and sparkling, his eyes alight still with the
thrill of battle and the overwhelming experience of the day. I
hardly listened, but I watched him, and watched the faces of the
orderlies and servants, and of those men who were still awake and
near enough to hear us. I saw it begin: even so, after battle,
Ambrosius' very presence had given the wounded strength, and the
dying comfort. Whatever it was he had had about him, Arthur had the
same; I was to see it often in the future; it seemed that he shed
brightness and strength round him where he went, and still had it
ever renewed in himself. As he grew older, I knew it would be
renewed more hardly and at a cost, but now he was very young, with
the flower of manhood still to come. After this, I thought, who
could maintain that youth itself made him unfit for kingship? Not
Lot, stiffened in his ambition, grimly scheming for a dead king's
throne. It was Arthur's very youth which had whistled up today the
best that men had in them, as a huntsman calls up the following
pack, or an enchanter whistles up the wind.

He recognized, in one of the beds, a
man who had fought near him, and went softly down the hospital room
to speak to him, and then to others. Two of them, at least, I heard
him call by name.

Give him the sword, my dream had said,
and his own nature will do the rest. Kings are not created out of
dreams and prophecies: before ever you began to work for him, he
was what you see now. All you have done is to guard him while he
grew. You, Merlin, are a smith like Weland of the Mack forge; you
made the sword and gave it a cutting edge, but it carves its own
way.

"I saw you up there beside the apple
tree," said Arthur gaily. He had followed me out of the hospital
room, and I had stopped in the anteroom to give instructions to a
night orderly. "The men were saying it was an omen. That when you
were there, above us on the hill, the fight was as good as won. And
it's true, because through it all, even when I wasn't thinking, I
could feel you watching me. Quite close beside me, too. It was like
a shield at one's back. I even thought I heard --"

He stopped in midsentence. I saw his
eyes widen and fix on something beyond me. I looked to see what had
gagged him. Morgause would be two and twenty now, and she was even
lovelier than when I had last seen her. She wore grey, a long plain
gown of dovecolor which should have made her look like a nun, but
somehow did not. She wore no jewels, and needed none. Her skin was
pale as marble, and the long eyes that I remembered were gold-green
under the tawny lashes. Her hair, as befitted a woman still unwed,
fell loose and shining over her shoulders, and was bound back from
her brow with a broad band of white.

"Morgause!" I said, startled. "You
should not be here!" Then I remembered her skills, and saw behind
her two women and a page carrying boxes and linen cloths. She must
have been working, as I had, among the wounded; or possibly she
still attended the King, and had been with him. I added, quickly:
"No, I see; forgive me, and forgive my lack of greeting. Your skill
is welcome here. Tell me, how is the King?"

"He has recovered, my lord, and is
resting. He seems well enough, and his spirits are good. It seems
it was a notable fight. I wish I might have seen it." She glanced
past me then at Arthur, an interested, summing look. It was obvious
that she recognized him as the youth who had won everyone's praise
that day, but it seemed that the King had not yet told her who he
was. There was no hint of such a knowledge in her face or voice as
she made him a reverence. "Sir."

The color was up in Arthur's face,
bright as a banner. He stammered some kind of greeting, suddenly
sounding no more than an awkward boy; he whose boyhood had never
been awkward. She took it coolly, then turned her eyes back to me,
dismissing him as a woman of twenty dismisses a child. I thought:
No, she does not know yet. She said, in that light, sweet voice:
"My lord Merlin, I came with a message to you from the King. Later,
when you have rested, he would like to speak with you."

I said doubtfully: "It's very late.
Would he not be better to sleep?"

"I think he would sleep better if he
spoke with you first. He was impatient to see you as soon as he
came back from the field, but he needed to rest, so I gave him a
draught, and he slept then. He's awake now. Can you come within the
hour?"

"Very well."

She curtsied again with lowered eyes,
and went, as quietly as she had come.

3

I supped alone with Arthur. I had been
allotted a room whose window overlooked a strip of garden on the
river bank; the garden was a terrace enclosed by gates and high
walls. Arthur's room adjoined mine, and both were approached
through an anteroom where guards stood armed. Uther was taking no
chances. My room was large and well appointed, and a servant waited
there with food and wine. We spoke little while we ate. I was tired
and hungry, and Arthur showed his usual appetite, but after his
flow of exalted spirits he had fallen strangely quiet, probably, I
thought, out of deference to me. For my part I could think of
little else but the coming interview with Uther, and of what the
morrow might bring; at that moment I could bring nothing to them
myself but a sort of weariness of the spirit, which I told myself
was no more than reaction from a long journey and a hard day. But I
thought it was more than that, and felt like a man who comes out of
a sunlit plain into boggy ground, where mist hangs
heavy.

Ulfin, Uther's body-servant, came to
take me to the King. From the way his look lingered on Arthur I
could see he knew the truth, but he said nothing of it as he led me
through the corridors to the King's chamber. Indeed he seemed to
have little room in his mind for anything but anxiety about the
King's health. When I was ushered into Uther's presence, I could
see why. Even since the morning, the change was startling. He was
in bed, propped in a furred bedgown against pillows, and, shorn of
the kingly trappings of armor and scarlet and gold tissue, anyone
could see how mortally wasted his body was. Now I could see his
death clearly in his face. It would not be tonight, nor should it
be tomorrow, but it must come soon; and this, I told myself, must
be the cause of the formless dread that was weighing on me. But,
though weak and weary, the King seemed pleased to see me, and eager
to talk, so I pushed my foreboding aside. Even with tonight and
tomorrow, Uther and I and whatever was working for us should have
time to see our soaring star riding high and safe to his bright
zenith.

He talked first of the battle, and of
the day's events. It was evident that all his doubts were set
aside, and that (though he would not admit it) he was regretting
the lost years since Arthur had come near manhood. He plied me with
questions, and, though afraid of taxing him too much, I could see
that he would rest better when he knew all I had to tell him. So,
as clearly and quickly as I could, I told him the story of the past
years, all the details of the boy's life in the Wild Forest that
could not be put into the reports I had sent him. I told him, too,
what suspicions and certainties I had had about Arthur's enemies;
when I spoke about Lot he made no sign, but he heard me out without
interruption. Of the sword of Maximus I said nothing. The King had
himself today publicly put his own sword into his son's hand; he
could not have declared more openly that the boy was his favored
heir. Macsen's sword, when there was need for it, would be given by
the god. Between the two gifts was still a dark gap of fate through
which I could not see; there was no need to trouble the King with
it.

When I had done he lay back on his
pillows a while in silence, his eyes on a far corner of the room,
deep in thought. Then he spoke.

"You were right, Merlin. Even where it
was hard to understand, and where not understanding I condemned
you, you were right. The god had us all in his hand. And doubtless
it was the god himself who put it in my mind to deny my son and
leave him in your care, to be brought in safety and secrecy to such
manhood as this. At least it has been granted me to see what manner
of man I begot on that wild night at Tintagel, and what kind of a
king will come after me. I should have trusted you better, bastard,
as my brother did. I don't need to tell you that I am dying, do I?
Gandar hums and haws and begs the question, but you'll admit the
truth, King's prophet?"

The question was peremptory, requiring
an answer. When I said, "Yes," he smiled briefly, with a look
almost of satisfaction. I found myself liking Uther better now than
I ever had before, seeing him bring this kind of bleak courage to
his coming death. This was what Arthur had recognized in him today,
the kingly quality to which he had come late, but not too late. It
could be that now, almost in the moment of fulfillment of the past
years, he and I found ourselves united in the person of the
boy.

He nodded. The strain of the day and
night was beginning to show, but his look was friendly and his
manner still crisp. "Well, we've cleared the past. The future is
with him, and with you. But I'm not dead yet, and I'm still High
King. The present is with me. I sent for you to tell you that I
shall proclaim Arthur my heir tomorrow at the victory feast.
There'll never be a better moment. After what happened today no one
can argue his fitness; he has already proved himself in public,
more, in the sight of the army. Even if I wished to, I doubt if I
could keep his secret any longer; rumor has run through the camp
like a fire through straw. He knows nothing yet?"

"It seems not. I would have thought he
would begin to guess, but it seems not. You'll tell him yourself
tomorrow?"

"Yes. I'll send for him in the
morning. For the rest of the time, Merlin, stay by him and keep him
close."

He spoke then about his plans for the
morrow. He would talk with Arthur, and then in the evening, when
everyone had recovered from the fighting, and erased the scars of
battle, Arthur would be brought with glory and acclaim in front of
the nobles at the victory feast. As for Lot -- he came to it flatly
and without excuse -- there was doubt as to what Lot would do, but
he had lost too much public credit over his delay in the battle,
and even as the betrothed of the King's daughter he would hardly
dare (Uther insisted) stand up in public against the High King's
own choice. He said nothing about the darker possibility, that Lot
might even have thrown his weight onto the Saxons' side of the
balance; he saw the delay only as a bid for credit -- that Lot's
intervention should seem to carry the British to victory! I
listened, and said nothing. Whatever the truth of that, the trouble
would soon be other men's, and not the King's.

He spoke then of Morgian, his
daughter. The marriage, firmly contracted as it was, must go
through; it could hardly be broken now without offering a mortal
and dangerous insult to Lot and the northern kings who hunted with
him. And as things had fallen out, it would be safer so; Lot would
by the same token not dare to refuse the marriage, and by accepting
it would bind himself publicly to Arthur; an Arthur already (months
before the marriage) proclaimed, accepted, and established. Uther
had almost said "and crowned," but let the sentence drift. He was
looking tired now, and I made a move to leave him, but one of the
thin hands lifted, and I waited. He did not speak for a few
moments, but lay back with closed eyes. Somewhere a draught crept
through the room, and the candles guttered. The shadows wavered,
throwing dark across his face. Then the light steadied, and I could
see his eyes, still bright in their deep sockets, watching
me.