Legacy: Arthurian Saga (176 page)

The day wanes, the wind dies. They are
gone, the bright ones. Only I remain.

What use to call to me who have
neither shield nor star? What use to kneel to me who am only the
shadow of his shadow, only the shadow of a star that fell long
ago.

No song comes brand-fire-new and
finished from the first playing, so that now I cannot recall just
on which occasion, as I was singing it, I became conscious of an
unusual sound that had been, as it were, tapping at the door of my
brain for several staves. I let the chords die, laid a hand along
the strings, and listened.

The beating of my heart sounded loud
in the still, dead air of the cave. Below it went another
throbbing, a distant beat coming seemingly from the heart of the
hill. I can hardly be blamed, shut as I had been for too long from
the ordinary traffic of the world, if the first thoughts that came
crowding were winged with instinct born of ancient beliefs -- Llud
of the Otherworld, the horses of the Wild Hunt, all the shadows
dwelling in the hollow hills...Death for me at long last, on this
still evening at the end of summer? Then, in less time than it
takes for two short breaths, I had arrived at the truth -- and it
was already too late.

It was the traveler I had waited for,
and at length despaired of; he had ridden up above the cave, and
halted by the cliff where the lantern opened on the air, and had
heard the music. There was a pause, broken only by the sharp strike
of nervous hoofs on stone as the horse fretted, held and sidling.
Then a man's voice, calling out: "Is there anyone
there?"

I had already laid the harp aside and,
with what speed I could, was scrambling through the half-dark
toward the cave below him. As I went I tried to call out, but it
was a moment or so before my thudding heart and dry throat would
let me answer. Then I cried out: "It is I, Merlin! Don't be afraid,
I'm no ghost. I'm alive, and trapped here. Break a way out for me,
in the King's name!"

My voice was drowned by the sudden
confusion of noise from above. I could guess what had happened. The
horse, sensing, as beasts do, some strangeness -- a man below
ground, the unnatural sounds coming apparently from the fissure in
the cliff, even my anxiety -- gave a long, pealing whinny and
plunged, scattering stones and small gravel and setting other
echoes rattling. I shouted again, but either the rider did not hear
or he took the horse's fear for an instinct truer than his own;
there was another sharp clatter of hoofs and cascading stones, then
the beating gallop retreated, faster than it had come. I could not
blame the rider, whoever he was; even if he did not know whose tomb
lay beneath him, he must have known the hill was sacred, and to
hear music from the ground, at dusk, on the crest of such a
hill...

I went back to pick up the harp. It
was undamaged. I put it aside, and with it the hope of rescue, then
set myself grimly to prepare what could, for want of a worse word,
be called my supper.

3

It was perhaps two nights after this,
or maybe three, when something woke me in the night. I opened my
eyes on total darkness, wondering what had disturbed me. Then I
heard the sound. Stealthy scrapings, rattling of stone, the patter
of earth falling. They came from the lantern, high in the inner
cave. Some beast, I thought, badger or fox or even wolf, scratching
its way toward the smell of food. I drew the covers round me, and
turned over and shut my eyes again.

But the sounds went on, stealthy,
persistent, and now impatient, a fierce scrabbling among the stones
that spoke of more than animal purpose. I sat up again, taut with
sudden hope. Perhaps the horseman had come back? Or he had told his
story, and some other, braver soul had come to investigate? I took
breath to shout, then paused. I did not want to scare this one away
like the first. I would wait for him to speak to me.

He did not; he was intent merely on
scraping his way in through the opening in the cliff. More stuff
fell, and I heard the chink of a crowbar, and then, unmistakably, a
smothered curse. A man's voice, rough-spoken. There was a pause, as
if he was listening, then once again the sounds began, and this
time he was using some sort of heavy tool, a mattock or a spade, to
dig his way in.

Not for worlds would I have shouted
now. No one bent simply on investigating a strange story would do
so in such stealthy secrecy; the obvious thing to do would be what
the horseman had done, to call out first, or to wait quietly and
listen, before attempting to force a way into the lantern. What was
more, no innocent man would have come, for choice, alone and at
night.

A few moments' reflection brought me
the probable truth. This was a grave-robber; some outlaw, perhaps,
who had heard rumors of a royal grave in Merlin's Hill, and who had
doubtless had a look at the cave mouth, decided it was too
thoroughly blocked, and had settled on the shaft as being the
easier and less conspicuous way of entry. Or perhaps a local man
who had watched the rich procession pass, and who had known for
years of the cliff and its precarious entry to the hill. Or even a
soldier -- one of those who, after the ceremonies, had helped to
block the cave mouth, and who had been haunted since by
recollections of the riches there entombed.

Whoever he was, he must be a man of
few nerves. He would be fully prepared to find a corpse laid here;
to brave the stench and sight of a body some weeks dead; even to
lay hands on it and rob it of its jewels before he tumbled it from
the gem-encrusted pall and gold-fringed pillow. And if he should
find, instead of a corpse, a living man? An old man, weakened by
these long days underground; a man, moreover, whom the world
believed to be dead? The answer was simple. He would kill me, and
still rob my tomb. And I, stripped of my power, had no
defenses.

I rose silently from the bed, and made
my way through to the shaft. The digging sounds went on, steadily
now, and through the widened opening at the top of the shaft I
could see light. He had some sort of lantern there, which dealt him
light enough. It would also prevent him from noticing the faint
glimmer of a rush-light from below. I went back to the main
chamber, kindled a light carefully behind a screen, then set about
the only preparations I could make.

If I lay in wait for him with a knife
(I had no dagger, but there were knives for preparing food) or with
some heavy implement, it was by no means certain that I would be
quick enough, or powerful enough, to stun him; and such an attack
would make my own end certain. I had to find another way. I
considered it coldly. The only weapon I had was one that in times
past I had found to be more powerful than either dagger or cudgel.
The man's own fear.

I took the blankets off the bed and
folded them out of sight. I spread the jeweled pall over, smoothed
it, and set the velvet pillow in place. The gold candlesticks still
stood where they had been put, at the four corners of the bed.
Beside the bed I set the gold goblet that had held the wine, and
the silver platter studded with garnets. I took the gold coins, the
ferry man's fee, from where I had laid them, wrapped myself in the
king's mantle that they had left for me, blew out the light, and
lay down on the pall.

A rending sound from the shaft, a
scatter of rubble onto the cavern floor, and with it a rush of
fresh night air, told me that he was through. I shut my eyes,
placed the gold coins on the lids, smoothed the long folds of my
mantle, then crossed my arms on my breast, controlled my breathing
as best I could, and waited.

It was perhaps the hardest thing I
have ever done. Often before I had faced danger, but never without
knowing one way or the other what the risks were. Always before, in
times of stress or terror -- the fight with Brithael, the Ambush in
the Wild Forest -- I had known there was pain to face, but in the
end victory and safety and a cause won; now I knew nothing. This
stealthy murder in the dark, for a few jewels, might indeed be the
ignominious end which the gods, with their sidelong smiles, had
showed me in the stars as my "burial quick in the tomb." It was as
they willed. But, I thought (not coolly at all), if I have ever
served you, God my god, let me smell the sweet air once more before
I die.

There was a soft thud as he landed in
the shaft. He must have a rope with him, tied to one of the trees
that grew from the cliff. I had been right; he was alone. Faintly,
under the weight of the gold on my eyelids, I could see the warming
of the dark that meant he had brought his lantern with him. Now he
was feeling his way, carefully, across the uneven floor toward the
chamber where I lay. I could smell his sweat, and the reek of the
cheap lantern; which meant, I thought with satisfaction, that he
would not catch the lingering odours of food and wine, or the smell
of the recently doused rush-light. And his breathing gave him away;
with even greater satisfaction I knew that, bravado or no, he was
afraid.

He saw me, and stopped in his tracks.
I heard his breath go in as a death-rattle. He had nerved himself,
one would guess, to face a decaying corpse, but here was a body
like that of a living or newly dead man. For seconds he stood,
hesitating, breathing hard, then, remembering perhaps what he had
heard of the embalmers' art, he cursed again softly under his
breath, and tiptoed forward. The light shook and swung in his
hand.

With the smell and sound of his fear
my own calmness grew. I breathed smoothly and shallowly, trusting
to the wavering of his lantern and its smoking light not to let him
see that the corpse moved. For an age, it seemed, he stood there,
but at last, with another sharp rattle of breath and an abrupt
movement like a horse under the spur, he forced himself forward to
my side. A hand, unsteady and damp with cold sweat, plucked the
gold coins off my eyelids.

I opened my eyes.

In that one brief flash, before
movement or blink or breath, I took it all in: the dark Celtic face
lit by the horn lantern, the coarse clothing of some peasant levy,
the pitted skin slithering with sweat, the greedy slack mouth and
the stupid eyes, the knife in his belt, razor-sharp.

I said, calmly: "Welcome to the hall
of the dead, soldier."

And from its dark corner, at the sound
of my voice, the harp whispered something, on a sweet, fading
note.

The gold coins fell, ringing, and
rolled away into darkness. The lantern followed, to be smashed into
smoking oil on the floor. He let out a yell of fear such as I have
not often heard in my long life, and once again, from the darkness,
came the mockery of the harp. Yelling again, he took to his heels
and ran, stumbling blindly out of the cave and making for the
shaft. He must have made a first vain attempt to climb his rope; he
cried out again as he fell heavily back to the rock-strewn floor.
Then fear lent him strength; I heard the sobbing breaths of effort
receding upward as he swarmed to the top. His footsteps ran and
slipped down the hillside. Then the sounds died, and I was alone
again, and safe.

Safe, in my grave. He had taken the
rope. In fear, perhaps, that the enchanter's ghost could swarm
after him and follow, he had dragged it up after him. The gap he
had made showed a ragged window of sky, where a star shone, remote
and pure and indifferent. Cool air blew in, and the cold,
unmistakable smell of dawn coming. I heard a thrush from the
cliff-top.

God had answered me. I had smelled the
sweet air again, and heard the sweet bird. And life was as far from
me as before.

I went back into the inner chamber
and, as if nothing had happened, began my preparations for another
day.

And another. And a third. On the third
day, having eaten and rested and written and calmed my mind as far
as I could, I once more examined the chimney shaft. The wretched
grave-robber had left me a shred of new hope: the pile of fallen
stones was higher by almost three feet, and though he had pulled
his rope up after him, he had left me another, which I found lying,
loosely coiled, at the base of the shaft. But the hopes that this
raised were soon proved false; the rope was of poor quality, a cord
no more than four or five cubits in length. I could only assume
that he had intended to tie his spoils together -- he could never
have hoped to carry even one of the candlesticks out with him on
his climb -- fasten them to the main rope's end, and draw them
after him. I calculated that even to bear away the four
candlesticks, the thief would have had to make four journeys up and
down the shaft. The cord would never, even had it been long enough
to throw and loop over some rocky projection, have been strong
enough to bear my weight. Nor could I -- scanning yet again the
damp and crumbling side of the chimney -- see any such safe
projection or foothold. It was possible that a young man or an
agile boy might have managed the climb, but although I had been a
strong man all my life, with a strong man's endurance, I had never
been an athlete, and now, with age and illness and privation, the
climb was beyond me.

One other thing the thief had done:
where, before, I would have had to reach the high lantern and then
set to work to dig and scrabble a way through -- an impossible task
without tools and ladder -- now the way lay open. All I had to do
was get to it. And I had a length of good cord. It would come hard,
I thought, if I could not contrive some kind of scaffolding which
would take me as far as the sloping section of the chimney, and
from there, perhaps, I might be able to rig some kind of makeshift
ladder. Much of the cave's furnishing had gone, but there was still
the bed, a stool or two, and a table, the casks, and a stout bench
forgotten in a corner. If I could find some way to break them up,
fasten the pieces together with cord, or with torn strips of
blanket, wedge them with sherds from the storage jars...