Legacy: Arthurian Saga (124 page)

So they stood staring. As for the awe
that frosted the air, like the cold wind that comes before a ghost,
I was used to that. I walked through the motionless crowd to the
King's door, and the guard moved aside without a challenge, but
before the chamberlain could lay a hand to the door it opened, and
Bedwyr came out.

Bedwyr was a quiet, dark boy, a month
or two younger than Arthur. His father was Ban, the King of Benoic,
and a cousin of a king of Brittany. The two boys had been close
friends since childhood, when Bedwyr had been sent to Galava to
learn the arts of war from Ector's master-at-arms, and to share the
lessons I gave Emrys (as Arthur was then called) at the shrine in
the Wild Forest. He was already showing himself to be that strange
contradiction, a born fighting man who is also a poet, at home
equally with action and with the world of fancy and music. Pure
Celt, you might say, where Arthur, like my father the High King
Ambrosius, was Roman. I might have expected to see in Bedwyr's face
the same awe left by the events of the miraculous night as in the
faces of the humbler men present, but I could see only the
aftermath of joy, a sort of uncomplicated happiness, and a sturdy
trust in the future.

He stood aside for me, smiling. "He's
alone now."

"Where will you sleep?"

"My father is lodging in the west
tower."

"Good night, then, Bedwyr."

But as I moved to pass him he
prevented me. He bent quickly and took my hand, then snatched it to
him and kissed it. "I should have known you would see that it all
came right. I was afraid, for a few minutes there in the hall, when
Lot and his jackals started that treacherous fracas --"

"Hush," I said. He had spoken softly,
but there were ears to hear. "That's over for the present. Leave
it. And go straight to your father in the west tower. Do you
understand?"

The dark eyes glimmered. "King Lot
lodges, they tell me, in the eastern one?"

"Exactly."

"Don't worry. I've already had the
same warning from Emrys. Good night, Merlin."

"Good night, and a peaceful sleep to
us all. We need it."

He grinned, sketched a half-salute,
and went. I nodded to the waiting servant and went in. The door
shut behind me.

The royal rooms had been cleared of
the apparatus of sickness, and the great bed stripped of its
crimson covers. The floor tiles were freshly scoured and polished,
and over the bed lay new unbleached sheets, and a rug of wolfskin.
The chair with the red cushion and the dragon worked on the back in
gold stood there still, with its footstool and the tall tripod lamp
beside it. The windows were open to the cool September night, and
the air from them sent the lamp-flames sideways and made strange
shadows on the painted walls.

Arthur was alone. He was over by a
window, one knee on a stool that stood there, his elbows on the
sill. The window gave, not on the town, but on the strip of garden
that edged the river. He gazed out into the dark, and I thought I
could see him drinking, as from another river, deep draughts of the
fresh and moving air. His hair was damp, as if he had just washed,
but he was still in the clothes he had worn for the day's
ceremonies; white and silver, with a belt of Welsh gold set with
turquoises and buckled with enamel-work. He had taken off his
sword-belt, and the great sword Caliburn hung in its sheath on the
wall beyond the bed. The lamplight smouldered in the jewels of the
hilt; emerald, topaz, sapphire. It flashed, too, from the ring on
the boy's hand; Uther's ring carved with the Dragon
crest.

He heard me, and turned. He looked
rarefied and light, as if the winds of the day had blown through
him and left him weightless. His skin had the stretched pallor of
exhaustion, but his eyes were brilliant and alive. About him,
already there and unmistakable, was the mystery that falls like a
mantle on a king. It was in his high look, and the turn of his
head. Never again would "Emrys" be able to lurk in shadow. I
wondered afresh how through all those hidden years we had kept him
safe and secret among lesser men.

"You wanted me," I said.

"I've wanted you all day. You promised
to be near me while I went through this business of hatching into a
king. Where were you?"

"Within call, if not within reach. I
was at the shrine -- the chapel -- till almost sunset. I thought
you'd be busy."

He gave a little crack of laughter.
"You call it that? It felt like being eaten alive. Or perhaps like
being born...and a hard birth at that. I said 'hatching,' didn't I?
Suddenly to find oneself a prince is hard enough, but even that is
as different from being a king as the egg is from the day-old
chick."

"At least make it an
eaglet."

"In time, perhaps. That's been the
trouble, of course. Time, there's been no time. One moment to be
nobody -- someone's unacknowledged bastard, and glad to be given
the chance to get within shouting distance of a battle, with maybe
a glimpse of the King himself in passing; the next -- having drawn
a couple of breaths as prince and royal heir -- to be High King
myself, and with such a flourish as no king can ever have had
before. I still feel as if I'd been kicked up the steps of the
throne from a kneeling position right down on the
floor."

I smiled. "I know how you feel, more
or less. I was never kicked half as high, but then I was a great
deal lower down to start with. Now, can you slow down sufficiently
to get some sleep? Tomorrow will be here soon enough. Do you want a
sleeping potion?"

"No, no, when did I ever? I'll sleep
as soon as you've gone. Merlin, I'm sorry to ask you to come here
at this late hour, but I had to talk to you, and there's been no
chance till now. Nor will there be tomorrow."

He came away from the window as he
spoke, and crossed to a table where papers and tablets were lying.
He picked up a stilus, and with the blunt end smoothed the wax. He
did it absently, his head bent so that the dark hair swung forward,
and the lamplight slid over the line of his cheek and touched the
black lashes fringing the lowered lids. My eyes blurred. Time ran
back. It was Ambrosius my father who stood there, fidgeting with
the stilus and saying to me: "If a king had you beside him, he
could rule the world..."

Well, his dream came true, and the
time was now. I blinked memory away, and waited for the day-old
King to speak.

"I've been thinking," he said
abruptly. "The Saxon army was not utterly destroyed, and I have had
no firm report yet about Colgrim himself, or Badulf. I think they
both got safely away. We may hear within the next day or so that
they have taken ship and gone, either home across the sea or back
to the Saxon territories in the south. Or they may simply have
taken refuge in the wild lands north of the Wall, and be hoping to
regroup when they have gathered strength again." He looked up. "I
have no need to pretend to you, Merlin. I am not a seasoned
warrior, and I've no means of judging how decisive that defeat was,
or what the possibilities are of a Saxon recovery. I've taken
advice, of course. I called a quick council at sunset, when the
other business was concluded. I sent for -- that is, I would have
liked you to be there, but you were still up at the chapel. Coel
couldn't be there, either...You'd know he was wounded, of course;
you probably saw him yourself? What are his chances?"

"Slight. He's an old man, as you know,
and he got a nasty slash. He bled too much before help got to
him."

"I was afraid of it. I did go to see
him, but was told he was unconscious, and they were afraid of
inflammation of the lungs...Well, Prince Urbgen, his heir, came in
his stead, with Cador, and Caw of Strathclyde. Ector and Ban of
Benoic were there, too. I talked it over with them, and they all
say the same thing: someone will have to follow Colgrim up. Caw has
to go north again as soon as may be; he has his own frontier to
hold. Urbgen must stay here in Rheged, with his father the king at
death's door. So the obvious choice would be Lot or Cador. Well, it
cannot be Lot, I think you will agree there: For all his oath of
fealty, there in the chapel, I won't trust him yet, and certainly
not within reach of Colgrim."

"I agree. You'll send Cador, then? You
can surely have no more doubts of him?"

Cador, Duke of Cornwall, was indeed
the obvious choice. He was a man in the prime of his strength, a
seasoned fighter, and loyal. I had once mistakenly thought him
Arthur's enemy, and indeed he had had cause to be; but Cador was a
man of sense, judicious and far-sighted, who could see beyond his
hatred of Uther to the larger vision of a Britain united against
the Saxon Terror. So he had supported Arthur. And Arthur, up there
in the Perilous Chapel, had declared Cador and his sons the heirs
to the kingdom.

So Arthur said merely: "How could I?"
and scowled for a moment longer at the stilus. Then he dropped it
on the table, and straightened. "The thing is, with my own
leadership so new -- " He looked up then, and saw me smiling. The
frown vanished, to be replaced by a look I knew: eager, impetuous,
the look of a boy, but behind it a man's will that would burn its
way through any opposition. His eyes danced. "Yes, you're right, as
usual. I'm going myself."

"And Cador with you?"

"No. I think I must go without him.
After what happened, my father's death, and then the -- " he
hesitated -- "then what happened up in the chapel yonder...if there
is to be more fighting, I must be there myself, to lead the armies,
and be seen to finish the work we started."

He paused, as if still expecting
question or protest, but I made none.

"I thought you would try to prevent
me."

"No. Why? I agree with you. You have
to prove yourself to be above luck."

"That's it exactly." He thought for a
moment. "It's hard to put it into words, but ever since you brought
me to Luguvallium and presented me to the King, it has seemed --
not like a dream exactly, but as if something were using me, using
all of us..."

"Yes. A strong wind blowing, and
carrying us all with it."

"And now the wind has died down," he
said, soberly, "and we are left to live Life by our own strength
only. As if -- well, as if it had all been magic and miracles, and
now they had gone. Have you noticed, Merlin, that not one man has
spoken of what happened up yonder in the shrine? Already it's as if
it had happened well in the past, in some song or
story."

"One can see why. The magic was real,
and too strong for many of those who witnessed it, but it has
burned down into the memories of all who saw it, and into the
memory of the folk who made the songs and legends. Well, that is
for the future. But we are here now, and with the work still to do.
And one thing is certain; only you can do it. So you must go ahead
and do it in your own way."

The young face relaxed. His hands
flattened on the table as he leaned his weight on them. For the
first time it could be seen that he was very tired, and that it was
a kind of relief to let the weariness sweep over him, and with it
the need for sleep.

"I should have known you would
understand. So you see why I must go myself, without Cador. He
didn't like it, I confess, but he saw the point in the end. And to
be honest, I would have liked him with me...But this is something I
must do alone. You might say it's as much for my own reassurance as
for the people's. I can say that to you."

"Do you need reassurance?"

A hint of a smile. "Not really. In the
morning I shall probably be able to believe everything that
happened on the battlefield, and know it for real, but now it's
still like being in the edges of a dream. Tell me, Merlin, can I
ask Cador to go south to escort Queen Ygraine, my mother, from
Cornwall?"

"There's no reason why not. He is Duke
of Cornwall, so since Uther's death her home at Tintagel must fall
under his protection. If Cador was able to sink his hatred of Uther
into the common weal, he must long ago have been able to forgive
Ygraine for her betrayal of his father. And now you have declared
his sons your heirs to the High Kingdom, so all scores are paid.
Yes, send Cador."

He looked relieved. "Then all's well.
I've already sent a courier to her, of course, with the news. Cador
should meet her on the road. They will be in Amesbury by the time
my father's body arrives there for burial."

"Do I take it, then, that you want me
to escort the body to Amesbury?"

"If you will. I cannot possibly go
myself, as I should, and it must be royally escorted. Better you,
perhaps, who knew him, than I, who am so recently royal. Besides,
if he is to lie beside Ambrosius in the Dance of the Hanging
Stones, you should be there to see the king-stone shifted and the
grave made. You'll do that?"

"Certainly. It should take us, going
in a seemly way, about nine days."

"By that time I should be there
myself." A sudden flash.

"With average luck, that is. I'm
expecting word soon, about Colgrim. I'll be going after him in
about four hours' time, as soon as it's full light. Bedwyr goes
with me," he added, as if that should be a comfort and a
reassurance.