Legacy: Arthurian Saga (169 page)

Ninian looked thoughtfully after him.
"Yes, it was a true dream. The dark leader on the white horse, with
the white shield shining, and no blazon on it but the light of the
sky. It was Arthur beyond doubt. Who exactly is Heuil, and why does
the King want an excuse to cut him down?"

"He's one of the sons of Caw of
Strathclyde, who has been king on Dumbarton Rock since before I can
remember. He's very old, and has sired nineteen sons on various
women. There may be daughters, too, but those wild northern men
make little of their girls. The youngest of the brood, Gildas, has
recently been sent to my old friend Blaise, whom you know of, to
learn to read and write. He, at least, will be a man of peace. But
Heuil is the wildest of a wild breed. He and Arthur have always
disliked one another. They fell out and fought, once, over a girl,
when Arthur was a boy in the north country. Since then, with Caw's
health failing, the King has seen Heuil as a danger to the balance
of peace in the north. He would do anything, I think, to harm
Arthur, even ally himself with the Saxons. Or so Arthur believes.
But now that Heuil has taken to rapine and murder, he can be hunted
down and destroyed, and the greater danger will be
averted."

"And the King takes an army north,
just like that, on your word?" There was awe in his face now, but
not the awe of kings or their counsels. He was, for the first time,
feeling the power in himself.

I smiled. "No, on yours. If I seemed
to take the credit for the seeing I am sorry. But the matter was
urgent, and he might not have believed you as readily."

"Of course not. But you saw it,
too?"

"I saw nothing."

He looked startled. "But you believed
me straight away."

"Of course. Because I did not share
it, it doesn't mean it was not a true dream."

He looked worried, then rather scared.
"But, Merlin, do you mean that you knew nothing about this before I
told you my dream? I mean, about Heuil's turning pirate...I should
say, his intention to turn pirate? That you sent the King off to
the north on my word alone?"

"That is what I mean, yes."

A silence, while worry, apprehension,
excitement, and then joy showed in his face as clearly as the
reflection of light and cloud blowing across the waters of his
native lake. He was still taking in the implications of power. But
when he spoke he surprised me. Like Arthur, he saw straight past
those implications to others, that were my concern, not his. And
his next words were an exact echo of Arthur's. "Merlin, do you
mind?"

I answered him as simply. "Perhaps. A
little, now. But soon, not at all. It's a harsh gift, and perhaps
it is time that the god handed it on to you, and left me in peace
to sit in the sun and watch the doves on the wall."

I smiled as I spoke, but there was no
answering glimmer in his face. He did a strange thing then. He
reached for my hand, lifted it to his cheek, then dropped it and
went back upstairs to his room without another word or look. I was
left standing there in the sun, remembering another, much younger
boy, riding downhill from the cave of Galapas, with the visions
swirling in his head, and tears on his face, and all the lonely
pain and danger hanging in the clouds ahead of him. Then I went
indoors to my own room, and read beside the fire till Mora brought
the midday meal.

8

Arthur rode out next day for the
north, and thereafter we got no more news. Ninian went about the
place with a half-dazed look, compounded, I think, of wonder at
himself and the "true vision," and at me for not seeming distressed
at the way it had passed me by. For myself, I admit I was divided;
looking back on that day, I knew that I had been lingering in the
edges of the poisoned dream that was my sickness; but even after
Arthur's visit and acceptance of Ninian's prophecy, nothing had
come to me out of the dark, either of proof or denial. For all that
I seemed to feel, in the rich quiet of the days, a tranquil
approval. It was like watching a shadow that slowly, as the distant
clouds move, withdraws from one field or forest, and passes on to
shroud the next. I had been shown, gently enough, where happiness
now lay; so I took it, preparing the boy Ninian to be as I had
been, and myself for some future half seen and guessed at many
times, but now seen more clearly and no longer dreaded, but moved
toward, as a beast moves toward its winter sleep.

Ninian, more even than before, seemed
to withdraw into himself. On one or two occasions, lying wakeful in
the night, I heard him cross the garth soft-footed, and then run,
like a young thing released, down the valley to the road. Twice,
even, I sought to follow him in vision, but he must have taken care
to cloud himself from me, for I saw no farther than the roadway,
then the slight figure running, running, into the mist that lay
between Applegarth and the Island. It did not trouble me that he
had secrets, any more than it troubled me to hear him and the girl
Mora talking -- sometimes at great length -- in the still-room or
the kitchen. I had never counted myself lively company, and with
age tended to be even more withdrawn. It only pleased me that the
young people should find common interests, and keep each other
contented in my service.

For service it was. I worked the boy
harder than any slave. This is the way of love, I find; one longs
so fervently for the beloved to achieve the best ends that he is
spared nothing. And that I loved Ninian there could no longer be
any doubt; the boy was myself, and through him I would go on
living. As long as the King should need the vision and the power of
a King's prophet, he would find it, as ready to his hand as the
royal sword.

One evening we built the fire up high
against the chill wind of April, and sat beside it, watching the
flames. Ninian settled straight down in his usual place, on the rug
before the hearth, chin on fist, the grey eyes narrowed against the
flames. Gradually, on the fine pale skin, the gleam of sweat
showed, a film which caught the firelight and limned his face with
a pure line, damping the edges of his hair, and fringing the black
lashes with rainbows. I, as lately more and more often, found
myself watching him, rather than reaching after my own power. It
was a mixture of deep contentment, and a cruelly disturbing love
that I made no attempt either to check or to understand. I had
learned the lessons of the past; I went with the time, believing
that I was master enough of myself and my thoughts to do the boy no
harm.

There was a change in his face.
Something moved there, a reflection of grief or distress or pain,
like something seen faintly in a glass. Sweat was running into his
eyes, but he neither blinked nor moved.

It was time I went with him. I stopped
watching him, and turned my eyes to the fire.

I saw Arthur straight away. He was
sitting his big white horse at the edge of the sea. It was a
pebbled strand, and I recognized the crag-fast castle above:
Rheged's sea-tower, which commands the Ituna estuary. It was dusk,
and the stormy sky piled indigo clouds behind a grey sea lighter
than its own horizon. Foam-filled waves dashed down on the stones
and raced hissing up the shore, to die in creamy froth and drag
back through hissing pebbles. The white stallion stood fast, with
the foam swirling round his fetlocks; his splashed and gleaming
flanks, and Arthur's grey cloak blown with the horse's mane, looked
part of the scene, as if the King had ridden out of the
sea.

A man, a peasant by the look of him,
was by Arthur's bridle, talking earnestly, and pointing seaward.
The King followed the gesture, then sat straight in the saddle, his
hand to his eyes. I saw what he was looking at: a light, far out
toward the horizon, tossing with the tossing sea. The King asked a
question, and the man pointed again, this time inland. The King
nodded, something passed from hand to hand, then he turned his
stallion's head and lifted an arm. The white horse went up the sea
at a gallop, and through the thickening mists of the vision I could
see the troopers pressing after him. Just before the vision faded I
saw, at the head of the cliff, lights pricking out in the
tower.

I came back to the firelit room to
find that Ninian was there before me. He was kneeling, or rather
crouching, on the rug, with his head in his hands.

"Ninian?"

No movement but a slight shake of the
head. I gave him a moment or two, then reached for the cordial I
kept to hand.

"Come. Drink this."

He sipped, and his eyes thanked me,
but still he did not speak.

I watched him for a few minutes in
silence, then said: "So it seems that the King has reached the
shores of the Ituna, and has found out about the pirates. He rests
in Rheged's sea-tower, and with morning, I have no doubt, he will
be hard on Heuil's tracks. So what is it? Arthur is safe, your
vision was true, and he is doing what he set out to do."

Still nothing, but that look of white
distress. I said quickly: "Come, Ninian, don't take it to heart so.
For Arthur this is a small matter. The only hard thing about it is
that he must punish Heuil without offending his brothers; and even
that won't be too difficult. It's a long time since Heuil --
metaphorically speaking -- spat on his father's hearthstone and
went out to do his mischiefs in his own way. So even if old Caw is
still alive, I doubt if he'll repine; and as for the elder sons,
I've no doubt Heuil's death would come as a relief." I added, more
sharply: "If it was tragedy you saw, or disaster, it's all the more
important to speak of it. Caw's death we expected; whose, then?
Morgan, the King's sister? Or Count Ector?"

"No." His voice sounded strange, like
an instrument meant for music that is blown through by a gritty
wind. "I did not see the King at all."

"You mean you saw nothing? Look,
Ninian, this happens. You remember that it happened the other day,
even to me. You must not let it distress you. There will be many
times when nothing will come to you. I've told you before, you must
wait for the god. He chooses the time, not you."

He shook his head. "It isn't that. I
did see. But not the High King. Something else."

"Then tell me." He gave me a desperate
look. "I can't."

"Look, my dear, as you do not choose
what you are shown, so neither do you choose what you will
tell.

There may come a time when you use
your judgment in the halls of kings, but with me you tell me all
that you see."

"I cannot!" I waited.

"Now. You saw in the
flames?"

"Yes."

"Did what you saw contradict what came
before, or what I think I have just seen?"

"No."

"Then if you are keeping silent out of
fear of me, or fear that I may be angry for some reason
--"

"I have never been afraid of
you."

"Then," I said patiently, "there can
surely be no reason to keep silent, and every reason to tell me
what you think you saw. It may not be the tragedy you so obviously
think it is. You may be interpreting it wrongly. Has that not
occurred to you?"

A flash of hope, soon shut out. He
took a shaky breath, and I thought he would speak, then he bit his
lip and remained silent. I wondered if he had foreseen my death. I
leaned forward and took his face in my hands and forced it up
towards me. His eyes came reluctantly up to meet mine. "Ninian. Do
you think I cannot go where you have just gone? Will you put me to
that trouble and stress, or will you obey me now? What was it that
you saw in the flame?"

His tongue came out to wet dry lips,
and then he spoke, in a whisper, as if he was afraid of the
sound.

"Did you know that Bedwyr is not with
the High King? That he stayed behind in Camelot?"

"No, but I could have guessed it. It
was obvious that the King must leave one of his chief captains to
keep his stronghold and guard the Queen."

"Yes." He licked his lips again.
"That's what I saw. Bedwyr in Camelot -- with the Queen. They were
-- I think they are --"

He stopped. I took my hands away, and
his eyes fell, how thankfully, away from mine.

There was only one way to interpret
his distress. "Lovers?"

"I think so. Yes. I know they are."
Then, in a rush now: "Merlin, how could she do this thing? After
all that has happened -- after all he has done for her! The Melwas
affair -- everyone knows what happened there! And Bedwyr, how could
he so betray the King? The Queen -- a woman to look aside from such
a man, such a King...If only I could believe that this was no true
dream! But I know it's true!" He stared at me, with eyes still
dilated with the dream. "And, Merlin, in God's name, what must we
do?"

I said slowly: "That I cannot tell you
yet. But put it from you if you can. This is one burden that you
must not be asked to share with me."

"Will you tell him?"

"I am his servant. What do you
think?"

He bit his lips again, staring into
the fire, but this time, I knew, seeing nothing. His face was white
and wretched. I remember feeling vaguely surprised that he should,
apparently, blame Guinevere more for her weakness than Bedwyr for
his treachery. He said at length: "How could you tell him such a
thing?"