Legacy: Arthurian Saga (158 page)

That settlement had vanished long
since, but since then some other settler, in harder times, had
built himself a tower, the main part of which still stood. It had
been built, moreover, with Roman stone taken from Caer Camel. The
squared shapes of the chiseled stone showed still clean-edged
beneath the encroaching saplings and those stinging ghosts that
cluster wherever man has been, the nettles. Even these weeds were
not unwelcome; they are sovereign for many ailments, and I
intended, as soon as the house was done, to plant a garden, which
is the chief of the arts of peace.

And peace we had at last. The news of
the victory at Badon reached me even before I had paced out the
dimensions of my new home. From the account Arthur sent me of the
battle it seemed certain that this must be the final victory of the
campaign, and now the King was imposing terms, being set on the
decisive fixing of his kingdom's boundaries. There was no reason to
suppose, his message ran, that there would be any further attack or
even resistance for some time to come. I, not having seen the
battlefield, but knowing what I knew, prepared to build for a time
of peace, where I might live in the solitude I loved and needed, at
due remove from the busy center where Arthur would be.

Meanwhile it would be wise to get hold
of all the masons and craftsmen I should require before Arthur's
own great schemes for his city began to burgeon. They came, shook
their heads over my plans, then set cheerfully to work to build
what I wanted.

This was a small house, a cottage, if
you will, set in the hollow of the hillside, and facing south and
west, away from Caer Camel, toward the distant swell of the downs.
The place was sheltered from north and east, and, by a curve of the
hill below, from the few passers-by on the valley road. I had the
tower rebuilt on its old pattern, and the new house constructed
against this, single-storied, with behind it a square courtyard or
garth in the Roman style.

The tower formed a corner of this
between my own dwelling and the kitchen quarters. At the side
opposite the house were workshops and sheds for storage. On the
north side of the garth was a high wall coped with tiles, against
which I hoped to set some of the more delicate plants. I had long
thought of doing what now the masons shook their heads over: the
wall was built double, and the hypocaust led warm air into it. Not
only in winter would the vines and peaches be safe, but the whole
garth would, I thought, benefit from the warmth, as well as from
the sunlight it would catch and hold. This was the first time I had
seen such an idea put into practice, but later it was done at
Camelot, and at Arthur's other palace at Caerleon. A miniature
aqueduct led water from the spring into a well at the garth's
center.

The men, finding it a pleasant change
from the years of military building, worked quickly. We had an open
winter that year. I rode to Bryn Myrddin to oversee the moving of
my books and certain of the medical stores, then spent Christmas at
Camelot with Arthur. The carpenters went into my house early in the
New Year, and the work was done and the men free in time to start
the permanent building at Camelot in the spring.

I still had no servant of my own, and
now had to set myself to find one -- not an easy task, for few men
can settle happily in the kind of solitude I crave, and my ways
have never been those of the ordinary master. The hours I keep are
strange ones; I require little food or sleep, and have great need
of silence. I could have bought a slave who would have had to put
up with whatever I wanted, but I have never liked bought service.
But this time, as always before, I was lucky. One of the local
masons had an uncle who was a gardener; he had given him, he said,
an account of the building of the heated wall, and the uncle had
shaken his head and muttered something about newfangled foreign
nonsense, but had since evinced the liveliest curiosity about every
stage of the building. His name was Varro. He would be glad to
come, said the mason, and his daughter, who could cook and clean,
would come with him.

So it was settled. Varro started the
clearing and digging straight away, and the girl Mora began to
scrub and air, and then, in one of those lucid and lovely spells of
early weather, with primroses already showing under the budding
hawthorns, and lambs couched warm beside the ewes in the hollows of
flowering whin, I stabled my horse and unpacked my big harp, and
was home.

Soon after, Arthur came to see me. I
was in the garth, sitting in the sunshine on a bench between the
pillars of the miniature colonnade. I was busy sorting seeds
collected last summer and packed away in twists of parchment.
Beyond the walls I heard the stamp and jingle of the King's escort,
but he came in alone. Varro went past with a stare and a salute,
carrying his spade. I got to my feet as Arthur raised a hand in
greeting.

"It's very small," were his first
words, as he looked about him.

"Enough. It's only for me."

"Only!" He laughed, then pivoted on
his heel. "Mmm...if you like dog-kennels, and it seems you do, then
I must say it's very pleasant. So that's the famous wall, is it?
The masons were telling me about it. What are you planting
there?"

I told him, and then took him on a
tour of my little garth. Arthur, who knew as much about gardens as
I about warfare, but who was always interested in making, looked
and touched and questioned; he spent a lot of time at the heated
wall, and on the construction of the small aqueduct that fed the
well.

"Vervain, Camomile, Comfrey,
Marigold..." He turned over the labeled packets of seed lying on
the bench. "I remember Drusilla used to grow marigolds. She gave me
some concoction of them when I had the toothache." He looked round
him again. "Do you know, there is already something of the same
peace here that one had at Galava. If only for my sake, you were
right in refusing to live in Camelot. I'll feel I have a refuge
here, when things are pressing on me."

"I hope you will. Well, that's all
here. I'll have my flowers here, and an orchard outside. There were
a few old trees here already, and they seem to be doing well. Would
you like to come in now and see the house?"

"A pleasure," he said, in a tone so
suddenly formal that I glanced at him, to see that his attention
was not on me at all, but on Mora, who had come out of a doorway
and was shaking a cloth in the breeze. Her gown was blown close
against her body, and her hair, which was pretty, flew in a bright
tangle round her face. She stopped to push it back, saw Arthur,
blushed and giggled, then ran indoors again. I saw a bright eye
peep through a crack, then she caught me watching, and withdrew.
The door shut. It was apparent that the girl had no idea who the
young man was who had eyed her so boldly.

He was grinning at me. "I am to be
married in a month, so you can stop watching me like that. I shall
be the most model of married men."

"I am sure of it. Was I watching you?
It's no concern of mine, but I should warn you that the gardener is
her father."

"And a tough fellow he looks. All
right, I'll keep my blood cool until May. God knows it's landed me
in trouble before, and will again."

"A 'model' married man?"

"I was talking about my past. You
warned me that it would reach into my future." He said it lightly;
the past, I guessed, was well behind him now. I doubted if thoughts
of Morgause still troubled his sleep. He followed me into the house
and, while I found wine and poured it, went on another of his
prowling tours of discovery.

There were only two rooms. The
living-chamber took two-thirds of the length of the house, and its
full width, with windows both ways, on garth and hill. The doorway
opened on the colonnade that edged the garth. Today for the first
time the door stood open to the mild air, and sunlight fell warmly
across the terra-cotta tiles of the floor. At the end of the room
was the place for the fire, with a wide chimney to take the smoke
outside.

In Britain we need fires as well as
heated floors. The hearthstone was of slate, and the walls, of
well-finished stone, were hung with rich rugs I had brought back
with me from my travels in the East. Table and stools were oak,
from the same tree, but the great chair was of elm wood, as also
the chest under the window, which held my books. A door at the end
of the room led to my bedchamber, which was simply furnished with
bed and clothes chest. With some memory, perhaps, of childhood, I
had planted a pear tree outside the window.

All this I showed him, then took him
to the tower. The door to this led off the colonnade in the corner
of the garth. On the ground floor was the workroom or still-room,
where the herbs were dried, and medicines made up. There was no
furniture but a big table, and stools and cupboards, and the small
brick stove with its oven and charcoal burner. A stone stair
against one wall led to the upper room. This was the chamber I
meant to use as my private study. Here there was nothing as yet but
a work-table and chair, a couple of stools and a cupboard with
tablets and the mathematical instruments I had brought from
Antioch. A brazier stood in one corner. I had had a window made
looking out to the south, and this was covered with neither horn
nor curtain. I do not readily feel the cold.

Arthur moved round the tiny room,
stooping, peering, opening boxes and cupboards, leaning on his
fists to gaze out of the window, filling the small space with his
immense vitality, so that even the stout, Roman-built walls seemed
barely to contain him.

In the main chamber, once more, he
took a goblet from me and raised it. "To your new home. What will
you call it?"

"Applegarth."

"I like that. It's right. To
Applegarth then, and your long life here!"

"Thank you. And to my first
guest."

"Am I? I'm glad. May there be many
more, and may they all come in peace." He drank and set the goblet
down, looking about him again. "Already it is full of peace. Yes, I
begin to see why you chose it...but are you sure it is all you
want? You know, and I know, that the whole of my kingdom is yours
by right, and I do assure you I'd let you have half of it for the
asking."

"I'll let you keep it for the present.
It's been too much trouble for me to envy you overmuch. Have you
time to sit for a while? Will you eat? The very idea will frighten
Mora into an epilepsy, because you can be sure she has been out to
ask her father who the young stranger is, but I'm certain she can
find something --"

"Thank you, no, I've eaten. Have you
just the two servants? Who cooks for you?"

"The girl."

"Well?"

"Eh? Oh, well enough."

"Which means you haven't even noticed.
For God's sake!" said Arthur. "Let me send you a cook. I don't like
to think of you eating nothing but peasant messes."

"Please, no. The two of them round me
by day are all I want, and even they go to their own home at night.
I do very well, I assure you."

"All right. But I wish you would let
me do something, give you something."

"When I find something I want, be sure
I'll ask you for it. Now tell me how the building is going. I'm
afraid I've been too occupied with my dog-kennel to pay much
attention. Will it be ready for your wedding?"

He shook his head. "By summer,
perhaps, it might be fit to bring a queen to. But for the wedding
I'll go back to Caerleon. It will be in May. Will you be
there?"

"Unless it's your wish that I should
be there, I would prefer to stay here. I begin to feel I've had too
much traveling in the past few years."

"As you wish. No, no more wine, thank
you. One thing I wanted to ask you. You remember, when first the
idea of my marriage was mooted -- the first marriage -- you seemed
to have some doubts about it. I understood that you had had some
sort of presentiment of disaster. If so, you were right. Tell me,
please -- this time, have you any such doubts?"

They tell me that when I guard my
face, no man can read what is in my mind. I met his eyes level.
"None. Need you ask me? Have you any doubts yourself?"

"None." The flash of a smile. "At
least, not yet. How could I, when I am told that she is perfection
itself? They all say she is lovely as a May morning, and they tell
me this, that and the other thing. But then, they always do. It
will suffice if she has a sweet breath and a compliant temper...Oh,
and a pretty voice. I find that I care about voices. All this
granted, it couldn't be a better match. As a Welshman, Merlin, you
ought to agree."

"Oh, I do. I agree with everything
Gwyl said, there in the hall. When do you go to Wales to bring her
to Caerleon?"

"I can't go myself; I have to ride
north in a week's time. I'm sending Bedwyr again, and Gereint with
him, and -- to do her honor, since I can't go myself -- King Melwas
of the Summer Country."

I nodded, and the conversation turned
then on the reasons for his journey north. He was going, I knew,
mainly to look at the defensive work in the northeast. Tydwal,
Lot's kinsman, held Dunpeldyr now, ostensibly on behalf of Morgause
and Lot's eldest son, Gawain, though it was doubtful if the queen's
family would ever leave Orkney.