Legacy: Arthurian Saga (146 page)

A glint of amusement. "Yes, that was a
foolish question, wasn't it? I meant, can you tell me what they
mean, other men's dreams?"

"I doubt it. When my own mean
something, they are clear beyond doubt. Why, has your sleep been
troubled?"

"For many nights now." He hesitated,
shifting the things on the table. "It seems a trivial thing to
trouble over, but the dream is so vivid, and it's always the
same..."

"Tell me."

"I am alone, and out hunting. No
hounds, just myself and my horse, hard on the track of a stag. This
part varies a bit, but I always know that the chase has been going
on for many hours. Then, just as we seem to be catching up with the
stag, it leaps into a brake of trees and vanishes. At the same
moment my horse falls dead beneath me. I am thrown to the turf.
Sometimes I wake there, but when I go back to sleep again, I am
still lying on the turf, by the bank of a stream, with the dead
horse beside me. Then suddenly I hear sounds coming, a whole pack
of them, and I sit up and look about me. Now, I have had the dream
so many times that even while dreaming, I know what to expect, and
I am afraid...It is not a pack of hounds that comes, but one beast
-- a strange beast, which, though I have seen it so many times, I
can't describe. It comes crashing through the bracken and
underbrush, and the noise it makes is like thirty couple of hounds
questing. It takes no heed of me or my horse, but stops at the
stream and drinks, and then goes on and is lost in the
forest."

"Is that the end?" I asked, as he
paused.

"No. The end varies, too, but always,
after the questing beast, comes a knight, alone and on foot, who
tells me that he also has killed a horse under him in the quest.
Each time -- each night it happens -- I try to ask him what the
beast is, and what is the quest, but just as he is about to tell
me, my groom comes up with a fresh horse for me, and the knight,
seizing it without courtesy, mounts and prepares to ride away. And
I find myself laying hands on his rein to stop him, and begging him
to let me undertake the quest, 'for,' I say, 'I am the High King,
and it is for me to undertake any quest of danger.' But he strikes
my hand aside, saying, 'Later. Later, when you need to, you may
find me here, and I shall answer for what I have done.' And he
rides away, leaving me alone in the forest. Then I wake, still with
this sense of fear. Merlin, what does it mean?"

I shook my head. "That I can't tell
you. I might be glib with you, and say that this was a lesson in
humility: that even the High King does not need to take all
responsibility --"

"You mean stand back and let you take
the blame for the massacre? No, that's too clever by half,
Merlin!"

"I said I was being glib, didn't I? I
have no idea what your dream meant. Probably nothing more than a
mixture of worry and indigestion. But one thing I can tell you, and
it's the same one that I keep repeating: what dangers lie in front
of you, you will surmount, and reach glory; and whatever has
happened, whatever you have done, or will do, you will die a
worshipful death. I shall fade and vanish like music when the harp
is dead, and men will call my end shameful. But you will live on,
in men's imagination and hearts. Meanwhile, you have years, and
time enough. So tell me what happened in Linnuis."

We talked for a long time. Eventually
he came back to the immediate future.

"Until the ways open with spring, we
can get on with the work here at Caerleon. You'll stay here for
that. But in the spring I want you to start work on my new
headquarters." I looked a query, and he nodded. "Yes, we spoke of
this before. What was right in Vortigern's time, or even in
Ambrosius', will not serve in a year or so from this. The picture
is changing, over to the east. Come to the map and let me show
you...That man of yours now, Gereint, there's a find. I've sent for
him. He's the kind of man I need by me. The information he sent to
Linnuis was beyond price. He told you about Eosa and Cerdic? We're
gathering what information we can, but I'm sure he is right. The
latest news is that Eosa is back in Germany, and he's promising the
sun, moon, and stars, as well as a settled Saxon kingdom, to any
who will join him..."

For a while we discussed Gereint's
information, and Arthur told me what had newly come from those
sources. Then he went on: "He's right about the Gap, too, of
course. We started work up there as soon as I got your reports. I
sent Torre up...I believe the next push will come from the north.
I'm expecting word from Caw and from Urbgen. But in the long run it
will be here, in the southwest, that we have to make the stand for
good and all. With Rutupiae as their base, and the Shore behind
them, call it 'kingdom' or not, the big threat must come this way,
here and here..." His finger was moving on the relief map of clay.
"We came back this way from Linnuis. I got an idea of the lie of
the land. But no more now, Merlin. They're making new maps for me,
and we can sit over them later. Do you know the country
thereabouts?"

"No. I have traveled that road, but my
mind was on other things."

"There's little haste yet. If we can
start in April, or May, and you work your usual miracle, that
should be soon enough. Think about it for me, and then go and look
when the time comes. Will you do that?"

"Willingly. I have already
looked...no, I meant in my mind. I've remembered something. There's
a hill that commands this whole tract of country here...As far as I
remember, it's flat-topped, and big enough to house an army, or a
city, or whatever you want of it. And high enough. You can see Ynys
Witrin from it -- the Isle of Glass -- and all the signal chain,
and again clear for many miles both to south and west."

"Show me," he said sharply.

"Somewhere here." I placed a finger.
"I can't be exact, and I don't think the map is, either. But I
think this must be the stream it lies on."

"Its name?"

"I don't know its name. It's a hill
with the stream curling round it, and the stream is called, I
think, the Camel. The hill was a fortress before the Romans ever
came to Britain, so even the early Britons must have seen it as a
strategic point. They held it against the Romans."

"Who took it?"

"Eventually. Then they fortified it in
their turn and held it."

"Ah. Then there is a road."

"Surely. This one, perhaps, that runs
past the Lake from the Glass Isle."

So I showed him on the map, and he
looked, and talked, and went on the prowl again, and then the
servants brought supper and lights and he straightened, pushing the
hair back out of his eyes, and came up out of his planning as a
diver comes up out of water.

"Well, it will have to wait till
Christmas is past. But go as soon as you can, Merlin, and tell me
what you think. You shall have what help you need, you know that.
And now sup with me, and I'll tell you about the fight at the
Blackwater. I've told it already so many times that it's grown till
I hardly recognize it myself. But once more, to you, is not
unseemly."

"Obligatory. And I promise you that I
shall believe every word."

He laughed. "I always knew I could
rely on you."

2

It was on a sweet, still day of spring
when I turned aside from the road and saw the hill called
Camelot.

That was its name later; now it was
known as Caer Camel, after the small stream that wound through the
level lands surrounding it, and curved around near its base. It
was, as I had told Arthur, a flat-topped hill, not high, but high
enough over the surrounding flatlands to give a clear view on every
hand, and steep-sided enough to allow for formidable defenses. It
was easy to see why the Celts, and after them the Romans, had
chosen it as a stronghold. From its highest point the view in
almost every direction is tremendous. To the east a few rolling
hills block the vision, but to south and west the eye can travel
for miles, and northward also, as far as the coast. On the
northwest side the sea comes within eight miles or so, the tides
spreading and filtering through the marshy flatlands that feed the
great Lake where stands the Isle of Glass. This island, or group of
islands, lies on its glassy water like a recumbent goddess; indeed
it has from time immemorial been dedicated to the Goddess herself,
and her shrine stands close beside the king's palace. Above it the
great beacon top of the Tor is plainly visible, and, many miles
beyond that, right on the coast of the Severn Channel, may be seen
the next beacon point of Brent Knoll.

The hills of the Glass Isle, with the
low and waterlogged levels surrounding them, are known as the
Summer Country. The king was a man called Melwas, young, and a
staunch supporter of Arthur; he gave me lodging during my first
surveys of Caer Camel, and seemed pleased that the High King should
plan to form his main stronghold at the edge of his territory. He
was deeply interested in the maps I showed him, and promised help
of every kind, from the loan of local workmen to a pledge of
defense, should that be needed, while the work was in
progress.

King Melwas had offered to show me the
place himself, but for my first survey I preferred to be alone, so
managed to put him off with civilities of some kind. He and his
young men rode with me for the first part of the way, then turned
aside into a track that was little more than a causeway through the
marshlands, and went cheerfully off to their day's sport. That is a
great country for hunting; it teems with wildfowl of every land. I
saw a lucky omen in the fact that almost as soon as they left me,
King Melwas flew his falcon at a flock of immigrant birds coming in
from the southeast, and within seconds the hawk had killed cleanly
and come straight back to the master's fist. Then, with shouting
and laughter, the band of young men rode off among the willows, and
I went on my way alone.

I had been right in supposing that a
road would lead to the once-Roman fortress of Caer Camel. The road
leaves Ynys Witrin by a causeway which skirts the base of the Tor,
spans a narrow arm of the Lake, and reaches a strip of dry, hard
land stretching toward the east. There it joins the old Fosse Way,
then after a while turns south again for the village at the foot of
Caer Camel. This had originally been a Celtic settlement, then the
vicus to the Roman fortress, its occupants scraping some sort of
living from the soil; and retiring uphill within walls in times of
danger. Since the fortress had decayed, their lives had been hard
indeed. As well as the ever-present danger to the south and east,
they even had, in bad years, to beat off the people of the Summer
Country, when the wetlands around Ynys Witrin ceased to provide
anything but fish and marsh birds, and the young men craved
excitement beyond the confines of their own territory. There was
little to be seen as I rode between the tumbledown huts with their
rotting thatch; here and there eyes watched me from a dark doorway,
or a woman's voice called shrilly to her child. My horse splashed
through the mud and dung, forded the Camel knee-deep, then at last
I turned him uphill through the trees, and took the steep curve of
the chariot-way at a plunging canter.

Even though I knew what to expect, I
was amazed at the size of the summit. I came up through the ruins
of the southwest gateway into a great field, tilted to southward,
but sloping sharply ahead of me toward a ridge with a high point
west of center. I walked my horse slowly toward this. The field, or
rather plateau, was scarred and pitted with the remains of
buildings, and surrounded on all sides by deep ditching, and the
relics of revetments and fortified walls. Whins and brambles matted
the broken walls, and mole-hills had heaved up the cracked
paving-stones. Stone lay everywhere, good Roman stone, squared in
some local quarry. Beyond the ruined outworks the sides of the hill
went down steeply, and on them trees, once lopped to ground level,
had put out saplings and thickets of suckers. Between these the
scarps were quilted with a winter network of bramble and thorn. A
beaten pathway through sprouting fern and nettle led to a gap in
the north wall. Following this, I could see where, half down the
northern hillside, a spring lay deep among the trees. This must be
the Lady's Well, the good spring dedicated to the Goddess. The
other spring, the main water supply for the fortress, lay halfway
up the steep road to the northeast gateway, at the hill's opposite
corner from the chariot road I had taken. It seemed that cattle
were still watered there: as I watched, I saw a herd, slow-moving,
come up through the steep gap, and spread out to graze in the
sunshine, with a faint, off-note chiming of bells. Their herd
following them, a slight figure whom at first I took for a boy,
then saw, from the way he moved, using his staff to lean upon, that
it was an old man.

I turned my horse's head that way, and
walked him carefully through the tumble of stonework. A magpie got
up and flew, scolding. The old man looked up. He stopped short,
startled, and, I thought, apprehensive. I raised a hand to him in a
sign of greeting. Something about the solitary and unarmed horseman
must have reassured him, for after a moment he moved to a low wall
that lay full in the sun, and sat down to wait for me.

I dismounted, letting my horse graze.
"Greetings, father."