Legacy: Arthurian Saga (120 page)

I said: "He went alone to Caer Bannog
and lifted it from its place below the lake."

Silence. There was no one here who did
not know what that meant. I saw hands moving to make the sign
against enchantment. Cador stirred. "It is true. I myself saw
Arthur come back from Caer Bannog with the thing in his hand,
wrapped in an old scabbard as if it had lain in hiding for a
hundred years."

"Which it had," I said into the
silence. "Listen, my lords, and I will tell you what sword this is.
It is the sword which Macsen Wledig took to Rome, and which was
brought back to Britain by his people and hidden until it should
please the gods to lead a King's son to find it. Must I remind you
of the prophecy? It was not my prophecy, it was made before I was
born; that the sword should come by water and by land, treasured in
darkness and locked in stone, until he should come who is rightwise
king born of all Britain, and lift it from its hiding place. And
there it has lain, my lords, safe in Caer Bannog, in Bilis' castle,
until by magic signs sent from the gods did Arthur find it, and
lifted it easily into his hand."

"Show us!" they cried. "Show
us!"

"I shall show you. The sword lies now
on the altar in the chapel of the Wild Forest where I laid it. It
shall lie there till Arthur lifts it in the sight of you
all."

Lot was beginning to be afraid; they
were against him now, and by his actions he had confirmed himself
as Arthur's enemy. But so far I had spoken quietly, without power,
and he still saw a chance. The obstinacy which had driven him, and
the stupidity of his own hope of power, sustained him now. "I have
seen that sword, the sword in the altar of the Green Chapel. Many
of you have seen it! It is Macsen's sword, yes, but it is made of
stone!"

I moved then. I lifted my arms high.
From somewhere, a breeze ran in through the open windows and
stirred the colored hangings so that behind Arthur the scarlet
Dragon clawed up the golden banner, and sent my shadow towering
like the Dragon's shadow, with arms raised like wings. The power
was here. I heard it in my voice.

"And from the stone has he lifted it,
and will lift it again, in the sight of you all. And from this day
on, the chapel shall be called the Chapel Perilous, for if any man
who is not the rightful King shall so much as touch the sword, it
shall burn like levin in his hand."

Someone in the crowd said strongly:
"If he has indeed got the sword of Macsen, he got it by God's gift,
and if he has Merlin beside him, then by any god he follows, I
follow him!"

"And I," said Cador.

"And I! And I!" came the shouts from
the hall. "Let us all see this magic sword and this perilous
altar!"

Every man was on his feet. The
shouting rose and echoed in the roof. "Arthur! Arthur!"

I dropped my arms. "Now, Arthur, it is
now."

He had not once looked at me, but he
heard my thought, and I felt the power going out of me towards him.
I could see it growing round him as he stood there, and every man
in the hall could see it too. He raised a hand, and they waited for
him. His voice came clear and firm: no boy's voice, but that of a
man who has fought his first decisive battles, there in the field,
and here in the hall.

"My lords. You saw how fate sent me to
my father without a sword, as was fitting. Now treachery has broken
the weapon he would have given me, and treachery has tried to take
with it my birthright that is proven in front of you all, and was
attested by my father the High King in open hall. But as Merlin has
told you, God had already put another, greater weapon into my hand,
and I shall indeed take it up in front of you all, as soon as I may
come with all this company, to the Perilous Chapel."

He paused. It is not easy to speak
after the gods have spoken. He finished simply, cool water after
the flames. The torches had died to red and my shadow had dwindled
from the wall. The Dragon banner hung still.

"My lords, we shall ride there in the
morning. But now it is seemly that we should attend the High King,
and see his body laid in kingly fashion, and guards set, before it
can be taken to its resting place. Then those who will may take up
their swords and spears, and ride with me."

He finished. Cador came striding up
the hall and with him Ector, and Gwyl, and Bedwyr's father King
Ban, and a score of others. I stepped quietly back, leaving Arthur
standing there alone, with the King's guard behind him. I made a
sign, and servants stooped to lift and carry out the chair where,
all this time, the dead King had sat stiffening, with no man
looking his way save only Ulfin, who was weeping.

10

As soon as I left the hall I sent a
servant running with a message that a swift horse was to be made
ready for me. Another fetched my sword and cloak, and very soon,
without attracting much notice, I was able to slip quietly through
the thronged corridors and out to the courtyard. The horse was
there, ready. I thought I recognized it, then saw from its housings
that it was Ralf's big chestnut. Ralf himself waited at its head,
his face strained and anxious. Beyond the high walls of the
courtyard the town hummed like a tumbled skep of bees, and lights
were everywhere.

"What's this?" I asked him. "Didn't
they get my message right? I go alone."

"So they said. The horse is for you.
He's faster than your own, and sure on his feet, and he knows the
forest tracks. And if you do meet trouble -- " He left the sentence
unfinished, but I understood him. The horse was trained to battle,
and would fight for me like an extra arm.

"Thank you," I took the reins from
him, and mounted. "They're expecting me at the gate?"

"Yes. Merlin" -- he still kept a hand
on the reins -- "let me come with you. You shouldn't ride alone.
You've a bad enemy there who'll stop at nothing."

"I know that. You'll serve me better
by staying here and seeing that no one rides after me. Are the
gates shut?"

"Yes, I saw to it. No rider but you
leaves this place now until Arthur and the others ride out. But
they tell me that there were two men slipped out before the company
left the hall."

I frowned. "Lot's?"

"No one seems clear on that. They said
they were messengers taking the news of the King's death
south."

"No messenger was sent," I said
curtly. I had ordered this myself. The news of the High King's
death, with the fear and uncertainty it would engender, must not be
carried beyond the walls until there could go with it news of a new
King and a new crowning.

Ralf nodded. "I know. These two got
through just before the order came. It could just be someone hoping
for a purse -- one of the chamberlains, perhaps, sending word south
as soon as it happened. But it could just as soon be Lot's men, you
know it could. What could he be planning? To break Macsen's sword,
as he broke Uther's?"

"You think he could?"

"N-no. But if he can do nothing, then
why are you riding up there now? Why not wait and ride up with the
prince?"

"Because it's true that Lot will stop
at nothing now to destroy Arthur's claim. He's worse than ambitious
now, he's frightened. He'll do anything to discredit me, and shake
men's faith in the sword as God's gift. So I must go. God does not
defend himself. Why are we here, if not to fight for
him?"

"You mean -- ? I see. They could
desecrate the shrine, or destroy the altar...If they could even
prevent your being there to receive the King...And they may kill
the servant you left to tend the shrine. Is that it?"

"Yes." He took the chestnut by the
bit, so roughly that it jibbed, snorting. "Then do you think that
Lot would hesitate to murder you?"

"No. But I don't think he'll succeed.
Now let me go, Ralf. I shall be safe enough."

"Ah." There was relief in his voice.
"You mean there are no more deaths in the stars
tonight?"

"There is death for someone. It's not
for me, but I'll take no one with me, to put more at risk. Which is
why you are not coming, Ralf."

"Oh, God, if that's all --" I laid the
reins on the chestnut's neck and it gathered itself, sidling. "We
had this fight once before, Ralf, and I gave way. But not tonight.
I can't force you to obey me; you are not mine now. But you are
Arthur's, and your duty is to stay with him and bring him safely to
the chapel. Now let me go. Which gate?"

There was a stretched pause, then he
stepped back. "The south. God go with you, my dear lord." He turned
his head and called an order to the guard. The courtyard gate swung
open, and crashed shut again behind my galloping horse.

There was half a moon, shadow-edged,
thin silver. It lit the familiar track along the valley. The
willows along the river's edge stood humped above blue shadows. The
river ran fast, full with rain. The sky sparkled with stars, and
brighter than any of them burned the Bear. Then moon, stars and
river were blotted from sight as the chestnut, feeling my heels,
stretched his great stride and carried me at his sure gallop into
the blackness of the Wild Forest.

For the first part of the way the
track went straight and smooth, and here and there through breaks
in the leafage the pale moon sifted down, throwing a faint grey
light to the forest floor. Roots, ribbing the pathway, rapped under
the horse's hoofs. I lay low on his neck to avoid the sweeping
branches. Presently the track began to climb, gently at first, then
steep and twisting as the forest ran up into the foothills. Here
and there the way bent sharply to avoid crags which thrust up among
the crowded trees. Somewhere deep down on the left was the noise of
a mountain stream, fed like the river with the autumn rains. Save
for the horse's thudding gallop there was no sound. The trees hung
still. No breeze could penetrate so far into the thick darkness.
Nothing else stirred. If deer, or wolf, or fox were abroad that
night, I never saw them.

The way grew steeper. The chestnut,
sure-footed, breasted the rough track with heaving ribs and stride
at last slackening to a heavy canter. Not far now. A gap in the
boughs above let starlight through, and I could see ahead where a
twist of the path took it round like a tunnel into yet thicker
blackness. An owl cried, away to the left. From the right, another
answered. The sounds burst in my brain like a war cry as the
chestnut took the bend, and I hauled at his mouth, throwing my
whole weight back on the rein. A better horseman could have stopped
him in time. But not I, and I had left it just too late. He pulled
to a plunging, trampling stop, but traveling as he was his hoofs
ploughed up the muddy track, and he hurtled half-sideways towards
the tree which lay fallen full across the way. A pine, dry and
long-dead, with its branches thrusting out pointed and rigid as the
spikes of a cavalry trap. Too high and too dense to jump, even had
it lain in the open moonlight and not just at the darkest bend in
the track. The place was well chosen. To one side of the track
there was a steep and rocky drop forty feet to the rush of the
stream; to the other a thicket of thorn and holly, too dense for a
horseman to thrust through. There was no space even to swerve. Had
we gone round the corner at a gallop, the horse would have been
speared on the boughs, and I myself flung headlong against their
crippling spikes.

If the enemy lay hidden, expecting me
to gallop hard onto the spikes, there might be a few seconds in
which we could get back from the ambush and off the track into deep
forest. I turned the chestnut sharply and lashed the reins down. He
came round fast, rearing, scoring his side along the wall of thorns
and driving the sharp end of some branch deep into my thigh. Then
suddenly, as if spurred, he snorted and hurled himself forward.
Under us the path broke open with a crashing of boughs. A black pit
gaped. The horse lurched, pitched half down, then went over in a
thrashing of hoofs. I was flung clear over his shoulder into the
space between the pit and the fallen tree. I lay for a moment
half-stunned, while the horse, with a heave and a scramble,
floundered out of the shallow pit and stood trembling, while two
men, daggers in hand, broke out of the forest and came
running.

I had been flung into the deepest of
the dark shadow, and I suppose I was lying so still that for the
moment I was invisible. The noise the stream made drowned most
other sounds, and they may have thought I had been flung straight
down into the gully. One of them ran to the edge, peering
downwards, while the other pushed past the horse and came warily
forward to the edge of the pit. They had not had time to dig this
deep enough, only deep enough to lame the horse and to throw me.
Now in the black darkness it acted as a kind of protection,
preventing them both from jumping me at once. The one near me
called out to his fellow, but the rush of water below us drowned
the words. Then he took a cautious step forward past the pit
towards me. I saw the faint glimmer of the weapon in his hand. I
rolled, got him by the ankle, and heaved. He yelled, pitching
forward half into the hole, then twisted free, slashed sideways
with his dagger, and rolled away quickly to his feet. The other
threw a knife. It struck the tree behind me and fell somewhere. One
weapon the less. But now they knew where I was. They drew back
beyond the pit, one to each side of the track. In the hand of one
man I saw the glint of a sword, but could see nothing of the other.
There was no sound but the rush of water. At least the narrowness
of the path, while it made for a good ambush, had effectively
stopped them bringing up their own horses. Mine was dead lame.
Their beasts must be tethered somewhere behind them in the trees.
It was impossible to scramble through the fallen pine behind me;
they would have caught and speared me there in seconds. Nor could I
get through the wall of thorn. All that was left was the gully; if
I could get down there unseen, somehow get past them and back into
the open forest, perhaps even find their horses...