Legacy: Arthurian Saga (165 page)

The color washed into her face. She
only came up as high as my throat. I have seen eyes like hers on a
young deer pulled down and waiting for the spear. She murmured
something, and fell dumb. To cover it, and give her time, I turned
to Melwas and his mother, and went smoothly into a courtly,
over-elaborate speech, thanking them for their care of Queen
Guinevere. It had become patent, while I was speaking, that Melwas'
mother still had no idea that anything might be wrong. While her
son watched me with a bold look glossing over that mixture of
wariness and bravado, the old queen answered me with equally
courtly thanks, messages for Arthur, compliments for Guinevere,
and, finally, a pressing offer of hospitality. At that the young
Queen looked up, briefly, then her eyelids hid her eyes again. As I
declined, I saw her hands relax. I guessed that there had been no
chance, since that parting in the marshes, for Melwas to speak with
her and try to find out what she had told Arthur. I think, indeed,
that he was going to insist on our staying, but something in my
eyes stopped him, and then his mother, accepting the decision, came
with obvious eagerness to the question that interested
her.

"We looked for you that night, Prince
Merlin. I understand that you were led by your vision to find the
Queen, before even my son got back to the Island with the news.
Will you not tell us, my lord, what this vision was?"

Melwas had jerked to attention. His
bold look defied me to elaborate. I smiled, and my gaze bore his
down. Without my prompting, the old woman had asked the very
question that I wanted. I raised my voice.

"Willingly, lady. It is true that I
had a vision, but whether it came from the gods of air and silence
who have spoken to me in the past, or from the Mother Goddess to
whose worship the shrine beyond those apple trees is sacred, I
cannot tell. But I had a vision that led me straight through the
marshland like a fledged arrow to its mark. It was a double vision,
a bright dream through which the dreamer passes to a darker dream
below; a reflection seen in deep water where the surface color lies
like glass over the dark world beneath. The visions were confused,
but their meaning was clear. I would have followed them more
quickly, but I think the gods willed it otherwise."

Guinevere's head came up at that, and
her eyes widened. Again, in Melwas', that spark of doubt. It was
the old queen who asked: "How otherwise? They did not want the
Queen found? What riddle is this, Prince Merlin?"

"I shall tell you. But first I will
tell you about the dream that came to me. I saw a king's hall paved
with marble, and pillared with silver and gold, where no servants
waited, but where the lamps and tapers burned with scented smoke,
bright as day..." I had let my voice take on the rhythm of the bard
who sings in hall; its resonance filled the room and carried the
words right out through the colonnade to the silent crowds outside.
Fingers moved to make the sign against strong magic; even
Guinevere's. The old queen listened with evident satisfaction and
pleasure; it was to be remembered that she was the chief patroness
of the Goddess's sacred shrine. As for Melwas, as I spoke I watched
him move from suspicion and apprehension into bewilderment, and,
finally, awe.

To everyone there, already, the dream
had taken on a familiar pattern, the archetype of every man's
journey into the world from which few travelers return.

"...And on the precious table a set of
gold chessmen, and nearby a great chair with arms curled like
lions' heads, waiting for the King, and a stool of silver with
doves' claws, waiting for the Lady. So I knew it for Llud's hall,
where the sacred vessel is kept, and where once the great sword
hung that now hangs on Arthur's wall in Camelot. And from overhead,
in the sky beyond the hollow hill, I heard them galloping, the Wild
Hunt, where the knights of the Otherworld course down their prey,
and carry them deep, deep, into the jeweled halls of no return. But
just as I began to wonder if the god was telling me the Queen was
dead, the vision changed --"

To my right was a window, high in the
wall. Outside was a prospect of sky, cloudy above the tops of the
orchard trees. The budding apple boughs showed lighter, in their
young sorrel-and-green, than the slaty sky. The poplars stood pale
like spears. But there had been that breath of change in the
morning; I felt it still; I kept my eye on that indigo cloud, and
spoke again, more slowly.

"...And I was in an older hall, a
deeper cavern. I was in the Underworld itself, and the dark King
was there, who is older even than Llud, and by him sat the pale
young Queen who was left from the bright fields of Enna and carried
out of the warm world to be the Queen of Hell; Persephone, daughter
of Demeter, the Mother of all that grows on the face of the
earth"

The cloud was moving slowly, slowly.
Beyond the budding boughs I could see the edge of its shadow
drawing its veil aside. From somewhere a breeze came wandering to
shiver the tall poplars that edged the orchard.

Most of the people there would not
know the story, so I told it, to the obvious satisfaction of the
old queen, who must, like all devotees of the Mother's cult, be
feeling the cold threat of change even here in this, its ancient
stronghold. Once, when Melwas, doubting my drift, would have
spoken, she silenced him with a gesture, and (herself perhaps with
more instinctive understanding) put out a hand and drew the Queen
closer to her side. I looked neither at the dark Melwas nor at
Guinevere, pale and wondering, but watched the high window out of
the side of my eye, and told the old tale of Persephone's abduction
by Hades, and the long, weary search for her that Demeter, the
Mother Goddess, undertook, while the earth, robbed of its spring
growth, languished in cold and darkness.

Beyond the window the poplars, brushed
with the early light, bloomed suddenly golden.

"And when the vision died I knew what
I had been told. Your Queen, your young and lovely Queen, was alive
and safe, succored by the Goddess and waiting only to be carried
home. And with her coming, spring will come at last, and the cold
rains will cease, and we shall have a land growing rich once again
to harvest, in the peace brought by the High King's sword, and the
joy brought by the Queen's love for him. This was the dream I had,
and which I, Merlin, prince and prophet, interpret to you." I spoke
straight past Melwas to the old queen. "So I beg you now, madam, to
let me take the Queen home, with honor and with joy."

And at that moment, the blessed sun
came bursting out and laid a shaft of light clear across the floor
to the Queen's feet, so that she stood, all gold and white and
green, in a pool of sunshine.

We rode home through a brilliant day
smelling of primroses. The clouds had packed away, and the Lake
showed blue and glittering under its golden willows. An early
swallow hawked for flies, close over the bright water. And the
Spring Queen, refusing the litter we had brought for her, rode
beside me.

She spoke only once, and then
briefly.

"I lied to you that night. You
knew?"

"Yes."

"You do see, then? You really do? You
see all?"

"I see a great deal. If I set out to
look, and if God wills it, I see."

The color came into her face, and her
look lightened, as if something had set her free. Before, I had
believed her innocent; now I knew it. "So you, too, have told my
lord the truth. When he did not come for me himself, I was
afraid."

"You have no need to be, now or ever.
I think you need never doubt that he loves you. And I can tell you,
too, Guinevere my cousin, that even if you never bear an heir for
Britain, he will not put you aside. Your name will stand alongside
his, as long as he is remembered."

"I will try," she said, so softly that
I could hardly hear it. Then the towers of Camelot came in sight,
and she was silent, bracing herself against what was to
come.

So the seeds of legend were sown.
During the golden weeks of spring that followed, I was more than
once to hear men talking under their breaths of the "rape" of the
Queen, and how she had been taken down almost to the dark halls of
Llud, but brought back by Bedwyr, chiefest of Arthur's knights. So
the sting of the truth was drawn; no shame attached to Arthur, none
even to the Queen; and to Bedwyr was credited the first of his many
glories, the story growing, and its hero gaining in stature, as his
hurts healed and at last were well.

As for Melwas, in the way these things
have, if the "Dark King" of the Underworld became linked in men's
minds with the dark-avised king whose stronghold was the Tor, it
was still without blame to Guinevere. What Melwas thought nobody
knew. He must have realized that Guinevere had told Arthur the
truth. He may have grown tired of being cast as the villain of the
story, and of waiting (as everyone was waiting) for the High King
to move against him. He may even have cherished hopes, still, that
he might in some dim future come to possess the Queen.

Whatever the case, it was he who made
the next move, and by doing so gave Arthur his way. One morning he
rode to Camelot, and, perforce leaving his armed escort outside the
council hall, took his seat in the Chair of Complaining.

The council hall had been built on the
style of a smaller hall that Arthur had seen on one of the visits
paid to the Queen's father in Wales. That had been merely a larger
version of the daub-and-wattle round house of the Celts; this in
Camelot was a big circular building, impressively built to last,
with ribs of dressed stone, and between them walls of narrow Roman
brick from the long-abandoned kilns nearby. There were vast double
doors of oak, carved with the Dragon, and finely gilded. Inside,
the place was open, with a fine floor of tiles laid out from the
center, like a spider's web. And like the outer ring of a web, the
walls were not curved, but sectioned off with flat
paneling.

These panels were covered with matting
of a fine golden straw to keep out the draughts, but in time would
be ablaze with needlework; Guinevere already had her maids set to
it. Against each of these sections stood a tall chair, with its own
footstool, and the King's was no higher than the next man's. This
place was to be, he said, a hall for free discussion between the
High King and his peers, and a place where any of the King's
leaders could bring their problems. The only thing that marked
Arthur's chair was the white shield that hung above it; in time,
perhaps, the Dragon would shimmer there in gold and scarlet. Some
of the other panels already showed the blazons of the Companions.
The seat opposite the King's was blank. This was the one taken by
anyone with a grievance to be settled by the court. Arthur had
called it the Chair of Complaining. But in later years I heard it
called the Perilous Chair, and I think the name was coined after
that day.

I was not present when Melwas tabled
his complaint. Though I had at that time a place in the Round Hall
(as it came to be called), I seldom took it. If his peers were
equal there to the King, then the King must be seen to match them
in knowledge, and to give his judgments without leaning on the
advice of a mentor. Any discussions Arthur and I had were held in
private.

We had talked over the Melwas affair
for many hours before it came to the council table. To begin with,
Arthur seemed sure that I would try to stop him from fighting
Melwas, but here was a case where the cold view and the hot
coincided. To Arthur it would be satisfying and to me expedient
that Melwas should suffer publicly for his actions. The lapse of
time, and Arthur's silence, with the legend I had invoked, ensured
that Guinevere's honor would not be in question; the people had
taken her once more into their love, and wherever she went flowers
strewed the way with blessings thrown like petals. She was their
Queen -- their darling's darling -- who had almost been taken from
them by death, and had been saved by Merlin's magic. So the story
went among the common folk. But among the more worldly there were
those who looked for the King to move against Melwas, and who would
have been quick to despise him had he failed. He owed it to
himself, as man and as King. The discipline he had imposed on
himself over the Queen's rape had been severe. Now, when he found
that I agreed with him, he turned, with a fierce joy, to
planning.

He could, of course, have summoned
King Melwas to the council hall on a trumped-up excuse, but this he
would not do. "If we harass him until he makes a complaint himself,
it comes to much the same thing in the sight of God," he said
dryly, "but in terms of my conscience -- or my pride, if you like
-- I will not use a false charge in the Round Hall. It must be
known as a place were no man need fear to come before me, unless he
himself is false."

So harass him we did. Situated as the
Island was, between the High King's stronghold and the sea, it was
easy enough to find causes. Somehow or another there came to be
constant arguments about harbor dues, rights of free way, levies
and taxes arbitrarily imposed and hotly contested. Any of the petty
kings would have grown restive under the constant stream of minor
vexations, but Melwas was even quicker to protest than most.
According to Bedwyr (to whom I owed an account of the council
meeting), it was apparent from the start that Melwas guessed he had
been deliberately brought before the King to answer the older, more
dangerous charge. He seemed eager to do so, but naturally enough
allowed no hint of this to come into words: that must have meant
his certain death for treason by the vote of the whole Council. So
the grievances over dues and taxes, the arguments over the right
levies for the protection offered by Camelot, took their long-drawn
and tedious course, while the two men watched one another as
swordsmen do, and at last came to the heart of the
matter.