Legacy: Arthurian Saga (170 page)

"I don't know that yet. Time will show
me."

He lifted his head. "You're not
surprised." It sounded like an accusation.

"No. I think I knew, that night when
he swam across to Melwas' lodge in the lake. And afterwards, when
she nursed him...And I remember how, when she first came to
Caerleon for her wedding, Bedwyr was the only one of the knights
who would not look at her, nor she at him. I think they had already
felt it, on the journey from Northgalis, before ever she saw the
King." I added: "And you might say that I was told clearly enough
many years ago, when they were still boys together, and no woman
had yet come, as women will, to disturb their lives."

He got abruptly to his feet. "I'll go
to bed," he said, and left me.

Alone, I went back into the flames. I
saw them almost straight away. They were standing on the western
terrace, where I had talked with Arthur. Now the palace was in
darkness, but for the dispersed sparkle of the stars, and one shaft
of lamplight that lay slanting over the tiles between the tubs of
budding rose-trees.

They were standing silent and
stock-still. Their hands were locked in each other's, and they were
staring at one another with a kind of wildness. She looked afraid,
and tears stood on her cheeks; his face was haunted, as if the
white shadow sapped his spirit. Whatever kind of love had them in
its claws, it was a cruel one, and, I knew, neither of them as yet
had dared to let it kill their faithfulness.

I watched, and pitied, then turned
from the smoking logs and left them to their privacy.

9

Eight weeks later the King came home.
He had caught up with Heuil, beaten him in fair fight, burned his
ships, and levied a fine which would keep him singing small for
some time to come.

Once again he had crushed back his
instincts in favor of policy. He had been met on his journey north
with the tidings that Caw of Strathclyde had died, quietly in his
bed. Quietly, that is, for Caw; he had spent the day hunting and
half the night feasting, then, when the inevitable penalties struck
his ninety-year-old body in the small hours of the dawning, had
died, surrounded by such of his sons and their mothers as could get
to the death-bed in time. He had also named his heir, the second
son Gwarthegydd (the eldest had been badly maimed in fighting some
years back). The messenger who brought Arthur the news also carried
assurances of Gwarthegydd's friendship. So Arthur, till he had met
and spoken with Gwarthegydd, and seen how he stood with his brother
Heuil, would not put the friendship at risk.

He need not have been so careful. It
was said that when Gwarthegydd heard the news of Heuil's defeat he
let out a guffaw almost as hearty as his father's great bellow, and
drank down a full horn of mead to Arthur's health. So the King rode
north with Urbgen and Ector into Dumbarton and sat down with
Gwarthegydd for nine days, and watched him crowned at the end of
it. Then, well satisfied, he rode south again. He went by the east
road to Elmet, found the Vale and the Saxon lands quiet, then
crossed the country by the Pennine Gap to Caerleon. There he stayed
for a month, and in the first days of June came home to
Camelot.

It was time. Again and again in the
fire I had seen the lovers, tossed between desire and faith, Bedwyr
finedrawn and silent, the Queen with great eyes and nervous hands.
They were never again alone: always with them her ladies sat and
sewed, or his men rode in attendance. But they would sit or ride a
little way apart from the rest, and talk and talk, as if in speech,
and now and again a light and desperate touch, there was comfort to
be had.

And they watched day and night for
Arthur's coming: Bedwyr, because he could not quit his post of
torment without the King's leave; Guinevere with the forebodings of
a lonely young woman who is half in awe of her husband, but has to
depend on him for protection and comfort and what companionship he
has time to give.

He was home in Camelot for ten days or
so before he came to see me. It was a soft bright morning in June.
I had risen soon after dawn, as was my habit, and went walking
across the rolling hilltops above the house. I went alone; there
was usually no sign of Ninian until Mora called him to breakfast. I
had walked for an hour, thinking, and pausing from time to time to
gather the plants I was looking for, when, beyond a fold of the
downs, I heard hoof-beats, coming easily. Don't ask me how I knew
it was Arthur; one hoof-beat is very like another, and there was no
foresight in the air that day; but love has stronger wings than
vision, and I merely turned and waited for him, in the lee of one
of the groves of thorn that here and there break the pale sweep of
the high downlands. The thorn trees crowned the edge of a little
valley where ran a track as old as the land itself. Up this,
presently, I saw him coming, sitting at ease on a pretty bay mare,
and with his young hound, Cabal's successor, at heel.

He lifted a hand to me, turned the
mare up the slope, then slid from the saddle, and greeted me with a
smile.

"Well, so you were right. As if I had
to tell you that! And now I suppose I don't even have to tell you
what happened? Have you ever thought, Merlin, what a dull thing it
is to have a prophet who knows everything before it has happened?
Not only can I never lie to you, but I can hardly even come to you
afterwards and boast about it."

"I'm sorry. But I assure you, this
time, your prophet waited for your dispatches just as eagerly as
anyone else. Thank you for sending the letters...How did you find
me? Have you been to Applegarth?"

"I was on the way there, but a fellow
with an oxcart -- one of the sawyers -- said he had seen you come
this way. Are you going farther? I'll walk with you if I
may."

"Of course. I was just going to turn
for home...Your letters were very welcome, but I still want to hear
everything at first hand. It's strange to think that old Caw has
gone at last. He's been sitting on that crag of his at Dumbarton
for as long as I can remember. Do you think Gwarthegydd can hold
his own now?"

"Against the Irish and the Saxons,
yes, I wouldn't doubt him there. How he makes out with the
seventeen other claimants to the kingdom is another matter." He
grinned. "Sixteen, I suppose, since I clipped Heuil's wings for
him."

"Make if fifteen. You can hardly count
young Gildas, since he went to serve Blaise as his
clerk."

"That's true. A clever boy, that, and
was always Heuil's shadow. I fancy that when Blaise dies he'll be
headed for a monastery. Perhaps it's as well. Like his brother, he
has never loved me."

"Then it's to be hoped he can be
trusted with the master's papers. You should get some of your own
scribes to set your records down."

He cocked a brow at me. "What's this?
A prophet's warning?"

"Nothing of the kind. A passing
thought, merely. So Gwarthegydd is your man? There was a time when
he threw Caw off and wooed the Irish kings."

"He was younger then, and Caw's hand
was heavy. That's over. I think he will be well enough. What really
matters at this stage is that he agrees with Urbgen..."

He talked on, telling me all the
burden of the weeks away, while we walked slowly back across the
downs with the mare following, and the great hound coursing, nose
down, in widening circles round our path.

In essence, I thought, listening,
nothing had changed. Not yet. Less and less did he need to come to
me for counsel, but, as always since his boyhood, he needed the
chance to talk over -- to himself as much as to me -- the course of
events, and the problems of the newly built concourse of kingdoms
as they arose. Usually, at the end of an hour or two, after a
conversation to which I might have contributed much, or sometimes
nothing at all, I could both hear and see that the knots were in a
fair way to being unraveled. Then he would rise suddenly, stretch,
give me farewell, and go; an abrupt disappearance with anyone else,
but between us there was no need for more. I was the strong tree on
which the eagle alighted in passing, for rest or thought. But now
the oak showed a withered bough or two. How long would it take the
sapling to be up to his weight?

He had come to the end of his
narrative. Then, as if my thoughts had communicated themselves to
him, he gave me a long look, with trouble in it. "Now, about you.
How have you been during these last weeks? You look tired. Have you
been ill again?"

"No. My health need not trouble
you."

"I've thought more than once about my
last visit to you. You said that it was this -- " he hesitated over
it, " -- your assistant who 'saw' Heuil and his rabble at their
work."

"Ninian. Yes, it was."

"And you yourself saw
nothing?"

"Yes," I said. "Nothing."

"So you told me. I still find that
strange. Don't you?"

"I suppose so. But if you remember, I
wasn't well that day. I suppose I had not fully recovered from that
chill I caught."

"He's been with you -- how
long?"

"He came in September. That makes it,
what? Nine months?"

"And you have taught him all you
know?" I smiled. "Hardly. But I have taught him a good deal. You
need never lack a prophet, Arthur." He did not smile in response.
He was looking deeply troubled. He walked on across the flinty
turf, with the mare's nose at his shoulder, and the hound running
ahead. It was quartering the acres of furze with their loads of
scented yellow blossom. Wherever it went it dislodged the tiny blue
butterflies in clouds, and scattered the glossy scarlet of the
ladybirds. There had been a plague of them that spring, and the
furze bushes held them in their hundreds, like berries on the
thorn.

Arthur was silent for a space,
frowning at his thoughts. Then he came, apparently, to a sudden
decision. "Do you trust him?"

"Ninian? Of course. Why
not?"

"What do you know about
him?"

"As much as I need to," I said,
perhaps a little stiffly. "I told you how he came to me. I was
certain then, and I am still certain, that it was the god who drew
us together. And I could not have an apter pupil. Everything I have
to teach him he is more than eager to learn. I don't have to drive
him; I have to hold him back." I glanced at him. "Why I would have
thought you had seen the proof of his aptitude. His vision was
true."

"Oh, I don't doubt his aptitude." He
spoke dryly. I caught the faintest of emphasis on the last
word.

"What then? What are you trying to
say?" Even I was not prepared for the degree of cold surprise in my
voice. He said quickly: "I'm sorry, Merlin. But I have to say this.
I doubt his intentions toward you." Though he had signaled the
blow, it still struck with paralyzing force. I felt the blood leave
my heart. I stopped and faced him. Around us the scent of the gorse
rose, sweet and strong. With it, unconsciously, I recognized thyme
and sorrel and the crushed fescue as the bay mare put her head down
and tore at a mouthful of grass.

I am not lightly made angry, least of
all by Arthur. It was only a moment or two before I could say,
levelly: "Whatever you have to say, you had certainly better say
now. Ninian is more than my assistant, he bids fair to be my second
self. If I have ever been a staff to your hand, Arthur, he will be
such another when I am dead. Whether or not you like the boy -- and
why should you not, you hardly know him? -- you may have to accept
him so. I shall not live forever, and he has the power. He has
power already, and it will grow."

"I know. That is what troubles me." He
looked away from me again. I could not judge if it was because he
could not face me. "Don't you see, Merlin? He has the power. It was
he who had the vision. And you did not. You say you were tired, you
had been ill. But when did your god ever take that into account?
This was no trivial 'seeing'; it was not something that normally
you would have missed. Because of it I was already there, on the
borders of Rheged, when Caw died, and was able to support
Gwarthegydd and prevent God knows how much trouble among those
warring princes. So why did no vision come to you?"

"Must I keep repeating it? I
--"

"Yes, you were ill. Why?"

Silence. A breeze came across the
miles of downland, smelling of honey. Under it, through the immense
stillness of the day, the grasses rustled. The mare cropped
eagerly; the hound had come back to its master's feet and sat
there, tongue lolling. Arthur stirred, and began to speak again,
but I forestalled him.

"What are you saying?...No, don't
answer. I know quite well what you are saying. That I have taken in
this unknown boy, become infatuated, opened to him all the secret
lore of drugs, and something of magic, and now he schemes to take
my place and usurp my power. That he cannot be acquitted of using
my own drugs against me. Is that it?"

Something of a smile touched his lips,
though without lightening his grim look. "You never did deal in
ambiguities, did you?"

"I never hid the truth, least of all
from you."

"But then, my dear, you do not always
see the truth."