Legacy: Arthurian Saga (137 page)

"No. Two travelers were reported, but
there was no hint of who they might be."

"Or where they were bound?"

"No, sir."

I was satisfied. "Need I insist that
no one is to know who I am? You will not include this interview in
your report."

"That's understood. Sir --"

"What is it?"

"About this report of yours on Tribuit
and Lake Fort. You said that surveyors would be coming up. It
occurs to me that I could save them a good deal of time if I sent
working parties over immediately. They could start on the
preliminaries -- clearing, gathering turf and timber, quarrying,
digging the ditches...If you would authorize the work?"

"I? I have no authority."

"No authority?" He repeated blankly,
then began to laugh. "No, I see. I can hardly start quoting
Merlin's authority, or people might ask how it came my way. And
they might remember a certain humble traveler who peddled herbs and
simples...Well, since that same traveler brought me a letter from
the High King, my own authority will doubtless suffice."

"It's had to do so for long enough," I
agreed, and took my leave, well satisfied.

9

So we journeyed north. Once we had
joined the main road north from York, the way they call Dere
Street, going was easy, and we made fair speed. Sometimes we lodged
in taverns, but, the weather being fine and hot, more often than
not we would ride on as long as the light lasted, then made camp in
some flowering brake near the road. Then after supper I would make
music for myself, and Ulfin would listen, dreaming his own dreams
while the fire died to white ash, and the stars came
out.

He was a good companion. We had known
one another since we were boys, I with Ambrosius in Brittany, where
he gathered the army that was to conquer Vortigern and take
Britain, Ulfin as servant -- slave-boy -- to my tutor Belasius. His
life had been a hard one with that strange cruel man, but after
Belasius' death Uther had taken the boy into his service, and there
Ulfin had soon risen to a place of trust. He was now about
five-and-thirty years old, brown-haired and grey-eyed, very quiet,
and self-contained in the way of men who know they must live their
lives out alone, or as the companions of other men. The years as
Belasius' catamite had left their mark.

One evening I made a song, and sang it
to the low hills north of Vinovia, where the busy small rivers wind
deep in their forested valleys, but the great road strides across
the higher land, through leagues of whin and bracken, and over the
long heather moorlands where the only trees are pine and alder and
groves of silver birch.

We were camped in one such coppice,
where the ground was dry underfoot, and the slender birch boughs
hung still in the warm evening, tenting us with silk.

This was the song. I called it a song
of exile, and I have heard versions of it since, elaborated by some
famous Saxon singer, but the first was my own: He who is
companionless seeks oftentimes the mercy the grace of the creator,
God. Sad, sad the faithful man who outlives his lord. He sees the
world stand waste as a wall blown on by the wind, as an empty
castle, where the snow sifts through the window-frames, drifts on
the broken bed and the black hearth-stone.

Alas, the bright cup! Alas, the hall
of feasting! Alas the sword that kept the sheep-fold and the
apple-orchard safe from the claw of the wolf! The wolf-slayer is
dead. The law-giver, the law-upholder is dead, while the sad wolf's
self, with the eagle, and the raven, come as kings,
instead.

I was lost in the music, and when at
length I laid the last note to rest and looked up, I was taken
aback to see two things: one that Ulfin, sitting on the other side
of the fire, was listening rapt, with tears on his face; the other,
that we had company. Neither Ulfin nor I, enclosed in the music,
had noticed the two travelers approaching us over the soft mosses
of the moorland way.

Ulfin saw them in the same moment that
I did, and was on his feet, knife ready. But it was obvious that
there was no harm in them, and the knife was back in its sheath
before I said, "Put up," or the foremost of the intruders smiled,
and showed a placating hand.

"No harm, masters, no harm. I've
always been fond of a bit of music, and you've got quite a talent
there, you have indeed."

I thanked him, and, as if the words
had been an invitation, he came nearer to the fire and sat, while
the boy who was with him thankfully humped the packs off his
shoulders and sank down likewise. He stayed in the background, away
from the fire, though with the darkness of late evening a cool
little breeze had sprung up, making the warmth of the burning logs
welcome.

The newcomer was a smallish man,
elderly, with a neat greying beard and unruly brows over myopic
brown eyes. His dress was travel-worn but neat, the cloak of good
cloth, the sandals and belt of soft-cured leather. Surprisingly,
his belt buckle was of gold -- or else thickly gilded -- and worked
in an elaborate pattern. His cloak was fastened with a heavy disk
brooch, also gilded, with a design beautifully worked, a curling
triskele set in filigree within a deeply fluted rim. The boy, whom
at first I took to be his grandson, was similarly dressed, but his
only jewel was something that looked like a charm worn on a thin
chain at his neck. Then he reached forward to unroll the blankets
for the night, and as his sleeve slid back I saw on his forearm the
puckered scar of an old brand. A slave, then; and from the way he
stayed back from the fire's warmth, and silently busied himself
unpacking the bags, he was one still. The old man was a man of
property.

"You don't mind?" The latter was
addressing me. Our own simple clothes and simpler way of life --
the bedding rolls under the birches, the plain plates and drinking
horns, and the worn saddlebags we used for pillows -- had told him
that here were travelers no more than his equals, if that. "We got
out of our way a few miles back, and were thankful to hear your
singing and see the light of the fire. We guessed you might not be
too far from the road, and now the boy tells me it lies just over
yonder, thanks be to Vulcan's fires! The moorlands are all very
well by daylight, but after dark treacherous for man or
beast..."

He talked on, while Ulfin, at a nod
from me, rose to fetch the wine-flask and offer it to him. But the
newcomer demurred, with a hint of complacency.

"No, no. Thank you, my good sir, but
we have food. We need not trouble you -- except, if you will allow
it, to share your fire and company for the night? My name is
Beltane, and my servant here is called Ninian."

"We are Emrys and Ulfin. Please be
welcome. Will you not take wine? We carry enough."

"I also. In fact, I shall take it ill
if you don't both join me in a drink of it. Remarkable stuff, I
hope you'll agree..." Then over his shoulder: "Food, boy, quickly,
and offer these gentlemen some of the wine that the commandant gave
me."

"Have you come far?" I asked him. The
etiquette of the road does not allow you to ask a man directly
where he has come from or whither he is bound, but equally it is
etiquette for him to tell you, even though his tale may be patently
untrue.

Beltane answered without hesitation,
through the chicken leg the boy had handed him.

"From York. Spent the winter there.
Usually get out before this onto the road, but waited there...Town
very full..." He chewed and swallowed, adding more clearly: "It was
a propitious time. Business was good, so I stayed on."

"You came by Catraeth?" He had spoken
in the British tongue, so, following suit, I gave the place its old
name. The Romans called it Cataracta.

"No. By the road east of the plain. I
do not advise it, sir. We were glad to turn onto the moor tracks to
strike across for Dere Street at Vinovia. But this fool" -- a hitch
of a shoulder at the slave -- "missed the milestone. I have to
depend on him; my sight is poor, except for things as near to me as
this bit of fowl. Well, Ninian was counting the clouds, as usual,
instead of watching the way, and by dusk-fall we had no idea where
we were, or if we had passed the town already. Are we past it now?
I fear we must be."

"I'm afraid so, yes. We passed through
it late in the afternoon. I'm sorry. You have business
there?"

"My business lies in every
town."

He sounded remarkably unworried. I was
glad of this, for the boy's sake. The latter was at my elbow with
the wine-flask, pouring with grave concentration; Beltane, I
judged, was all bark and bustle; Ninian showed no trace of fear. I
thanked him, and he glanced up and smiled. I saw then that I had
misjudged Beltane; his strictures, indeed, looked to be justified;
it was obvious that the boy's thoughts, in spite of the seeming
concentration on his tasks, were leagues away; the sweet, cloudy
smile came from a dream that held him. His eyes, in the
shadow-light of moon and fire, were grey, rimmed with darkness like
smoke. Something about them, and about the absent grace of his
movements, was surely familiar...I felt the night air breathing on
my back, and the hairs on my nape lifted like the fur of a
night-prowling cat.

Then he had turned away without
speaking, and was stooping beside Ulfin with the flask.

"Try it, sir," Beltane urged me. "It's
good stuff. I got it from one of the garrison officers at
Ebor...God knows where he laid hands on it, but it's better not to
ask, eh?" The ghost of a wink, as he chewed once more at his
chicken.

The wine was certainly good, rich,
smooth and dark, a rival to any I had tasted even in Gaul orItaly.
I complimented Beltane on it, wondering as I spoke what service
could have elicited payment like this.

"Aha!" he said, with that same
complacency. "You're wondering what I could have done to chisel
stuff like this out of him, eh?"

"Well, yes, I was," I admitted,
smiling. "Are you a magician, that you can read
thoughts?"

He chuckled. "Not that kind. But I
know what you're thinking now, too."

"Yes?"

"You're busy wondering if I'm the
King's enchanter in disguise, I'll warrant! You'd think it might
take his kind of magic to charm a wine like that out of
Vitruvius...And Merlin travels the roads the same as I do; a simple
tradesman you'd take him for, they say, with maybe one slave for
company, maybe not even that. Am I right?"

"About the wine, yes, indeed. I take
it, then, that you are more than just a 'simple
tradesman'?"

"You could say so." Nodding,
self-important. "But about Merlin, now. I hear he's left Caerleon.
No one knew where he was bound, or on what errand, but that's
always the way with him. They were saying in York that the High
King would be back in Linnuis before the turn of the moon, but
Merlin disappeared the day after the crowning." He looked from me
to Ulfin. "Have you had any news of what's afoot?"

His curiosity was no more than the
natural newsmongering of the traveling tradesman. Such folk are
great bringers and exchangers of news; they are made welcome for it
everywhere, and reckon on it as a valuable
stock-in-trade.

Ulfin shook his head. His face was
wooden. The boy Ninian was not even listening. His head was turned
away toward the scented dark of the moorlands. I could hear the
broken, bubbling call of some late bird stirring on its nest; joy
came and went in the boy's face, a flying gleam as evanescent as
starlight on the moving leaves above us. Ninian had his refuge, it
seemed, from a garrulous master and the day's drudgery.

"We came from the west, yes, from
Deva," I said, giving Beltane the information he angled for. "But
what news I have is old. We travel slowly. I am a doctor, and can
never move far without work."

"So? Ah, well," said Beltane, biting
with relish into a barley bannock, "no doubt we will hear something
when we get to the Cor Bridge. You're bound that way, too? Good,
good. But you needn't fear to travel with me! I'm no enchanter, in
disguise or otherwise, and even if Queen Morgause's men were to
promise gold, or threaten death by fire, I could make shift to
prove it!"

Ulfin looked up sharply, but I said
merely: "How?"

"By my trade. I have my own brand of
magic. And for all they say Merlin is master of so much, mine is
one skill you can't pretend to if you haven't had the training. And
that" -- with the same cheerful complacency -- "takes a
lifetime."

"May we know what it is?" The question
was mere courtesy. This patently was the moment of revelation he
had been working for.

"I'll show you." He swallowed the last
crumb of bannock, wiped his mouth delicately, and took another
drink of wine. "Ninian! Ninian! You'll have time for your dreaming
soon! Get the pack out, and feed the fire. We want
light."

Ulfin reached behind him and threw a
fresh faggot on. The flames leaped high. The boy fetched a bulky
roll of soft leather, and knelt beside me. He undid the ties and
unrolled the thing along the ground in the firelight.

It went with a flash and a shimmer.
Gold caught the rich and dancing light, enamels in black and
scarlet, pearly shell, garnet and blue glass -- bedded or pinned
along the kidskin were pieces of jewelry, beautifully made. I saw
brooches, pins, necklaces, amulets, buckles for sandals or belts,
and one little nest of enchanting silver acorns for a lady's
girdle. The brooches were mostly of the round sort he was wearing,
but one or two were of the old bow design, and I saw some animals,
and one very elaborate curly dragonlike creature done with great
skill in garnet set with cell-work and filigree.