Legacy: Arthurian Saga (139 page)

We lodged in the old part of the town,
at a tavern within the purlieus of the original fortress. Beltane,
with sudden, immovable obstinacy, had refused to pay the toll
extracted at the bridge, so we crossed at the ford some half-mile
downstream, then turned along the river past the forge, coming into
the town by its old east gate.

Night was falling when we got there,
so we put up at the first tavern we found. This was a respectable
place not far from the main market square. Late though the hour
was, there was still plenty of coming and going. Servants were
gossiping at the cistern while they filled their water jars;
through the laughter and talk came the cool splash of a fountain;
in some house nearby a woman was singing a weaving-song. Beltane
was in high glee at the prospects for trading on the morrow, and in
fact started business that same night, when the tavern filled up
after supper-time. I did not stay to see how he did. Ulfin reported
a bath house still in commission near the old west wall, so I spent
the evening there and then retired, refreshed, to bed.

Next morning Ulfin and I breakfasted
together in the shade of the huge plane tree which grew beside the
inn. It promised to be a hot day.

Early as we were, Beltane and the boy
were before us. The goldsmith had already set up his stall in a
strategic place near the cistern; which meant merely that he, or
rather Ninian, had spread some rush matting on the ground, and on
that had laid out such gauds as might appeal to the eyes and purses
of ordinary folk. The fine work was carefully hidden away in the
lining of the bags.

Beltane was in his element, talking
incessantly to any passerby who paused even for a moment to look at
the goods: a complete lesson in jewelcraft was given away, so to
speak, with every piece. The boy, as usual, was silent. He
patiently rearranged the items that had been handled and carelessly
dropped back on the matting, and he took the money, or sometimes
exchange-goods such as food or cloth. Between times he sat
cross-legged, stitching at the frayed straps of his sandals, which
had given a lot of trouble on the road.

"Or this one, madam?" Beltane was
saying, to a round-faced woman with a basket of cakes on her arm.
"This we call cell-work, orenclosed work, very beautiful, isn't it?
I learned the art in Byzantium, and believe me, even in Byzantium
itself you'd never see finer...And this very same design, I've seen
it done in gold, worn by the finest ladies in the land. This one?
Why, it's copper, madam -- and priced accordingly, but it's every
bit as good -- the same work in it, as you can well see...Look at
those colors. Hold it up to the light, Ninian.

How bright and clear they are, and see
how the bands of copper shine, holding the colors apart...Yes,
copper wire, very delicate; you have to lay it in pattern, and then
you run the colors in, and the wire acts as a wall, you might say,
to contain the pattern. Oh, no, madam, not jewels, not at that
price! It's glass, but I'll warrant you've never seen jewels with
colors finer. I make the glass myself, and very skilled work it is,
too, in my little 'etna' there -- that's what I call my smelting
stove -- but you've not time this morning, I can see that, madam.
Show her the little hen, Ninian, or maybe you prefer the
horse...that's it, Ninian...Now, madam, are the colors not
beautiful? I doubt if anywhere in the length and breadth of the
land you would find work to equal this, and all for a copper penny.
Why, there's as much copper, nearly, in the brooch as there is in
the penny you'll give me for it..."

Ulfin appeared then, leading the
mules. It had been arranged that he and I would make the short
journey to Vindolanda, and return on the morrow, while Beltane and
the boy pursued their trade in the town. I paid for the breakfast,
then, rising, went across to take leave of them.

"You're going now?" Beltane spoke
without taking his eyes off the woman, who was turning a brooch
over in her hand. "Then a good journey to you, Master Emrys, and we
hope to see you back tomorrow night...No, no, madam, we have no
need of your cakes, delicious though they look. A copper penny is
the price today. Ah, I thank you. You will not regret it. Ninian,
pin the brooch on for the lady...Like a queen, madam, I do assure
you. Indeed, Queen Ygraine herself, that's the highest in the land,
might envy you. Ninian" -- this as the woman moved away, his voice
changing to the habitual nagging tone he used to the boy -- "don't
stand there with your mouth watering! Take the penny now and get
yourself a pair of new shoes. When we go north I cannot have you
hobbling and lagging with flapping soles as you did all the way
--"

"No!" I did not even realize that I
had spoken, till I saw them staring. Even then I did not know what
impelled me to add: "Let the boy have his cakes, Beltane. The
sandals will suffice, and see, he is hungry, and the sun is
shining."

The goldsmith's short-sighed eyes were
puckered as he stared up at me against the light. At length, a
little to my surprise, he nodded, with a gruff "All right, get
along," to the boy. Ninian gave me a shining look, then ran off
into the crowd after the market-woman. I thought Beltane was going
to question me, but he did not. He began to set the goods straight
again, saying merely: "You're right, I have no doubt. Boys are
always starving, and he's a good lad and faithful. He can go
barefoot if he has to, but at least let him have his belly full. It
isn't often we get sweet stuff, and the cakes smelled like a feast,
so they did."

As we rode west along the riverside
Ulfin asked, with sharp concern in his voice: "What is it, my lord?
Is something ailing you?"

I shook my head, and he said no more,
but he must have known I was lying, because I myself could feel the
tears cold on my cheeks in the summer wind.

Master Blaise received us in a snug
little house of sand-colored stone, built round a small courtyard
with apple trees trained up the walls, and roses hiding the squared
modern pillars.

The house had once, long ago, belonged
to a miller; a stream ran past, its steep fall controlled by
shallow water-steps, its walled banks set with little ferns and
flowers. Some hundred paces below the house, the stream vanished
under a hanging canopy of beech and hazel. Above this woodland, on
the steep slope behind the house, full in the sun, was the walled
garden that held the old man's treasured plants.

He knew me straight away, though it
was many years since we had met. He lived alone, but for his two
gardeners and a woman who, with her daughter, cared for the house
and cooked for him. She was bidden to get beds ready, and bustled
off to do some scolding over the kitchen braziers. Ulfin went to
see our mules stabled, and Blaise and I were free to
talk.

Light lingers late in the north, so
after supper we went out to the terrace over the stream. The warmth
of the day breathed still from the stones, and the evening air
smelled of cypress and rosemary. Here and there in the tree-hung
shadows the pale shape of a statue glimmered. A thrush sang
somewhere, a richer echo of the nightingale. At my elbow the old
man (magister artii, as he now liked to style himself) was talking
of the past, in a pure Roman Latin with no trace of accent. It was
an evening borrowed from Italy: I might have been a young man
again, on my youthful travels.

I said as much, and he beamed with
pleasure.

"I like to think so. One tries to hold
to the civilized values of one's prime. You knew I studied there as
a young man, before I was privileged to enter your father's
service? Those years, ah, yes, those were the great years, but as
one grows older, perhaps one tends to look back too much, too
much."

I said something civil about this
being of advantage to an historian, and asked if he would honor me
with a reading from his work. I had noticed the lighted lamp
standing on a stone table by the cypresses, and the rolls lying
handily beside it.

"Would you really care to hear it?" He
moved that way readily.

"Some parts of it, I am sure, would
interest you enormously. And it is a part that you can help me to
add to, I believe. As it chances, I have it here with me, this
roll, yes, this is the one...Shall we sit? The stone is dry, and
the evening tolerably mild. I think we shall come to no harm out
here by the roses --"

The section he chose to read was his
account of the events after Ambrosius returned to Greater Britain;
he had been close to my father for most of that time, while I had
been involved elsewhere. After he had finished reading he put his
questions, and I was able to supply details of the final battle
with Hengist at Kaerconan and the subsequent siege of York, and the
work of settlement and rebuilding that came after. I filled in for
him, too, the campaign that Uther had waged against Gilloman in
Ireland. I had gone with Uther while Ambrosius stayed in
Winchester; Blaise had been with him there, and it was to Blaise
that I had owed the account of my father's death while I was
overseas.

He told me about it again. "I can
still see it, that great bedchamber at Winchester, with the
doctors, and the nobles standing there, and your father lying
against the pillows, near to death, but sensible, and talking to
you as if you were there in the room. I was beside him, ready to
write down anything that was needed, and more than once I glanced
down to the foot of the King's bed, half thinking to see you there.
And all the while you were voyaging back from the Irish wars,
bringing the great stone to lay on his grave."

He fell to nodding then, as old men
do, as if he would go back forever to the stories of times gone by.
I brought him back to the present. "And how far have you gone with
your account of the times?"

"Oh, I try to set down all that
passes. But now that I am out of the center of affairs, and have to
depend on the talk from the town, or on anyone who calls to see me,
it is hard to know how much I miss. I have correspondents, but
sometimes they are lax, yes, the young men are not what they
were...It's a great chance that brings you here, Merlin, a great
day for me. You will stay? As long as you wish, dear boy; you'll
have seen that we live simply, but it's a good life, and there is
still so much to talk about, so much...And you must see my vines.
Yes, a fine white grape, that ripens to a marvellous sweetness if
the year is a good one. Figs do well here, and peaches, and I have
even had some success with a pomegranate tree from
Italy..."

"I can't stay this time, I'm afraid."
I spoke with genuine regret. "I have to go north in the morning.
But if I may, I'll come back before long -- and with plenty to tell
you, too, I promise you! There are great things afoot now, and you
will be doing men a service if you will put them down. Meantime, if
I can, would you like me to send letters from time to time? I hope
to be back at Arthur's side before winter, and it will keep you in
touch."

His delight was patent. We talked for
a little longer, then, as the night-flying insects began to crowd
to the lamp, we carried it indoors, and parted for the
night.

My bedchamber window looked out over
the terrace where we had been sitting. For a long time before I lay
down to sleep I leaned my elbows on the sill, looking out and
breathing the night scents that came in wave after wave on the
breeze. The thrush had stopped singing, and now the soft hush of
falling water filled the night. A new moon lay on its back, and
stars were out. Here, away from lights and sounds of town or
village, the night was deep, the black sky stretching, fathomless,
away among the spheres, to some unimaginable world where gods
walked, and suns and moons showered down like petals falling. Some
power there is that draws men's eyes and hearts up and outward,
beyond the heavy clay that fastens them to earth. Music can take
them, and the moon's light, and, I suppose, love, though I had not
known it then, except in worship.

The tears were there again, and I let
them fall. I knew now what cloud it was that had lain over my
horizon ever since that chance meeting on the moorland road. How, I
did not know, but the boy Ninian -- so young and quiet, and with a
grace in look and motion that gave the lie to the ugly slave-burn
on his arm -- he had had about him the mark of a coming death.
This, once seeing, any man might have wept for, but I was weeping,
too, for myself; for Merlin the enchanter, who saw, and could do
nothing; who walked his own lonely heights where it seemed that
none would ever come near to him. In the boy's still face and
listening eyes, that night on the moor when the birds had
called,

I had caught a glimpse of what might
have been. For the first time, since those days long ago when I had
sat at Galapas' feet to learn the arts of magic, I had seen someone
who might have learned worthily from me. Not as others had wanted
to learn, for power or excitement, or for the prosecution of some
enmity or private greed; but because he had seen, darkly with a
child's eyes, how the gods move with the winds and speak with the
sea and sleep in the gentle herbs; and how God himself is the sum
of all that is on the face of the lovely earth. Magic is the door
through which mortal man may sometimes step, to find the gates in
the hollow hills, and let himself through into the halls of that
other world. I could, but for that shining edge of doom, have
opened those gates for him, and, when I needed it no longer, have
left him the key.