Legacy: Arthurian Saga (25 page)

"And does Ambrosius know?"

"Ambrosius is a King's man, too." We
walked for a few paces in silence. "Well, and what comes to me,
Belasius?"

"Nothing."

"Isn't it sacrilege to spy on your
secrets?"

"You're safe enough," he said dryly.
"Ambrosius has a long arm. Why do you look like that?" I shook my
head. I could not have put it into words, even to myself. It was
like suddenly having a shield put into your hand when you are naked
in battle. He said: "You weren't afraid?"

"No."

"By the Goddess, I think that's true.
Ambrosius was right, you have courage."

"If I have, it's hardly the kind that
you need admire. I thought once that I was better than other boys
because there were so many of their fears I couldn't share or
understand. I had others of my own, of course, but I learned to
keep them to myself. I suppose that was a kind of pride. But now I
am beginning to understand why, even when danger and death lie
openly waiting in the path, I can walk straight by
them."

He stopped. We were nearly at the
grove. "Tell me why."

"Because they are not for me. I have
feared for other men, but never in that way for myself. Not yet. I
think what men fear is the unknown. They fear pain and death,
because these may be waiting round any corner. But there are times
when I know what is hidden, and waiting, or when -- I told you -- I
see it lying straight in the pathway. And I know where pain and
danger lie for me, and I know that death is not yet to come; so I
am not afraid. This isn't courage." He said slowly: "Yes. I knew
you had the Sight."

"It comes only sometimes, and at the
god's will, not mine." I had said too much already; he was not a
man to share one's gods with. I said quickly, to turn the subject:
"Belasius, you must listen to me. None of this is Ulfin's fault. He
refused to tell us anything, and would have stopped me if he
could."

"You mean that if there is any paying
to be done, you're offering to do it?"

"Well, it seems only fair, and after
all, I can afford to." I laughed at him, secure behind my invisible
shield.

"What's it to be? An old-fashioned
religion like yours must have a few minor penalties held in
reserve? Shall I die of the cramps in my sleep tonight, or get
ripped by a boar next time I ride in the forest without my black
dog?"

He smiled for the first time. "You
needn't think you'll escape quite freely. I've a use for you and
this Sight of yours, be sure of that. Ambrosius is not the only one
who uses men for what they are worth, and I intend to use you. You
have told me you were led here tonight; it was the Goddess herself
who led you, and to the Goddess you must go." He dropped an arm
round my shoulders. "You are going to pay for this night's work,
Merlin Emrys, in coin that will content her. The Goddess is going
to hunt you down, as she does all men who spy on her mystery -- but
not to destroy you. Oh, no; not Actaeon, my apt little scholar, but
Endymion. She will take you into her embrace. In other words, you
are going to study until I can take you with me to the sanctuary,
and present you there."

I would have liked to say, "Not if you
wrapped my guts round every tree in the forest," but I held my
tongue. Take power where it is offered, he had said, and --
remembering my vigil by the ash tree -- there had been power there,
of a kind. We should see. I moved -- but courteously -- from under
the arm round my shoulders, and led the way up into the
grove.

If Ulfin had been frightened before,
he was almost speechless with terror when he saw me with his
master, and realized where I had been.

"My lord...I thought he had gone
home...Indeed, my lord, Cadal said --"

"Hand me my cloak," said Belasius,
"and put this thing in the saddle-bag."

He threw down the white robe which he
had been carrying. It fell loosely, unfolding, near the tree Aster
was tied to, and as it dropped near him, the pony shied and
snorted. At first I thought this was just at the ghostly fall of
white near his feet, but then I saw, black on the white, dimmed
even as it was by the darkness of the grove, the stains and
splashing, and I smelled, even from where I stood, the smoke and
the fresh blood.

Ulfin held the cloak up mechanically.
"My lord" -- he was breathless with fear and the effort of holding
the restive horse at the same time -- "Cadal took the pack horse.
We thought my lord Merlin had gone back to the town. Indeed, sir, I
was sure myself that he had gone that way. I told him nothing. I
swear --"

"There's a saddle-bag on Cadal's mare.
Put it there." Belasius pulled his cloak on and fastened it, then
reached for the reins.

"Hand me up."

The boy obeyed, trying, I could see,
not only to excuse himself, but to gauge the strength of Belasius'
anger. "My lord, please believe me, I said nothing. I'll swear it
by any gods there are."

Belasius ignored him. He could be
cruel, I knew; in fact, in all the time I knew him he never once
spared a thought for another's anxiety or pain: more exactly, it
never occurred to him that feeling could exist, even in a free man.
Ulfin must have seemed at that moment less real to him than the
horse he was controlling. He swung easily to the saddle, saying
curtly, "Stand back." Then to me, "Can you manage the mare if we
gallop? I want to get back before Cadal finds you're not home, and
sets the place by the ears."

"I can try. What about
Ulfin?"

"What about him? He'll walk your pony
home, of course." He swung his horse round, and rode out between
the pine boughs. Ulfin had already run to bundle up the
bloodstained robe and stuff it in the brown mare's saddle-bag. He
hurried now to give me his shoulder, and somehow between us I
scrambled into the saddle and settled myself. The boy stood back,
silent, but I had felt how he was shaking. I suppose that for a
slave it was normal to be so afraid. It came to me that he was even
afraid to lead my pony home alone through the forest.

I hung on the rein for a moment and
leaned down. "Ulfin, he's not angry with you; nothing will happen.
I swear it. So don't be afraid."

"Did you...see anything, my
lord?"

"Nothing at all." In the way that
mattered this was the truth. I looked down at him
soberly.

"A blaze of darkness," I said, "and an
innocent moon. But whatever I might have seen, Ulfin, it would not
have mattered. I am to be initiated. So you see why he is not
angry? That is all. Here, take this."

I slid my dagger from its sheath and
flicked it to quiver point down in the pine needles. "If it makes
you easier," I said, "but you won't need it. You will be quite
safe. Take it from me. I know. Lead my pony gently, won't you?" I
kicked the mare in the ribs and headed her after
Belasius.

He was waiting for me -- that is to
say he was going at an easy canter, which quickened to a
hand-gallop as I caught him up. The brown mare pounded behind him.
I gripped the neck-strap and clung like a burr.

The track was open enough for us to
see our way clearly in the moonlight. It sliced its way uphill
through the forest to a crest from which, momentarily, one could
see the glimmer of the town's lights. Then it plunged downhill
again, and after a while we rode out of the forest on to the salt
plains that fringed the sea.

Belasius neither slackened speed nor
spoke. I hung on to the mare, watched the track over her shoulder,
and wondered whether we would meet Cadal coming back for me with an
escort, or if he would come alone.

We splashed through a stream,
fetlock-deep, and then the track, beaten flat along the level turf,
turned right in the direction of the main road. I knew where we
were now; on our ride out I had noticed this track branching off
just short of a bridge at the forest's edge. In a few minutes we
would reach the bridge and the made road.

Belasius slackened his horse's pace
and glanced over his shoulder. The mare thudded alongside, then he
put up a hand and drew rein. The horses slowed to a
walk.

"Listen."

Horses. A great many horses, coming at
a fast trot along the paved road. They were making for the town. A
man's voice was briefly raised. Over the bridge came a flurry of
tossing torches, and we saw them, a troop riding close. The
standard in the torchlight showed a scarlet dragon.

Belasius' hand came hard down on my
rein, and our horses stopped.

"Ambrosius' men," he said, at least
that is what he began to say when, clear as cock-crow, my mare
whinnied, and a horse from the troop answered her.

Someone barked an order. The troop
checked. Another order, and horses headed our way at the gallop. I
heard Belasius curse under his breath as he let go my
rein.

"This is where you leave me. Hang on
now, and see you guard your tongue. Even Ambrosius' arm cannot
protect you from a curse." He lashed my mare across the quarters,
and she jumped forward, nearly unseating me. I was too busy to
watch him go, but behind me there was a splash and a scramble as
the black horse jumped the stream and was swallowed by the forest
seconds before the soldiers met me and wheeled to either side to
escort me back to their officer.

The grey stallion was fidgeting in the
blaze of torches under the standard. One of my escorts had hold of
the mare's bit, and led me forward.

He saluted. "Only the one, sir. He's
not armed."

The officer pushed up his visor. Blue
eyes widened, and Uther's too-well-remembered voice said: "It had
to be you, of course. Well, Merlin the bastard, what are you doing
here alone, and where have you been?"

11

I didn't answer straight away. I was
wondering how much to say. To any other officer I might have told a
quick and easy half-truth, but Uther was likely to ride me hard,
and for anyone who had been at a meeting both "secret and illegal,"
Uther was not just any officer, he was dangerous. Not that there
was any reason for me to protect Belasius, but I did not owe
information -- or explanation -- to anyone but Ambrosius. In any
case, to steer aside from Uther's anger came naturally.

So I met his eyes with what I hoped
was an expression of frankness. "My pony went lame, sir, so I left
my servant to walk him home, and took my servant's horse to ride
back myself." As he opened his mouth to speak, I hoisted the
invisible shield that Belasius had put into my hand. "Usually your
brother sends for me after supper, and I didn't wish to keep him
waiting."

His brows snapped down at my mention
of Ambrosius, but all he said was: "Why that way, at this hour? Why
not by the road?"

"We'd gone some way into the forest
when Aster hurt himself. We had turned east at the crossways into
the logging track, and there was a path branching south from that
which looked like a quicker way home, so we took it. The moonlight
made it quite easy to see."

"Which path was this?"

"I don't know the forest, sir. It
climbed the ridge and then down to a ford about a mile
downstream."

He considered me for a moment,
frowning. "Where did you leave your servant?"

"A little way along the second path.
We wanted to be quite sure that it was the right way before he let
me come on alone. He'll be about climbing the ridge now, I should
think." I was praying, confusedly but sincerely, to whatever god
might be listening, that Cadal was not at the moment riding back
from town to find me.

Uther regarded me, sitting his
fidgeting horse as if it did not exist. It was the first time I had
realized how like his brother he was. And for the first time, too,
I recognized something like power in him, and understood, young as
I was, what Ambrosius had told me about his brilliance as a
captain. He could judge men to a hairsbreadth. I knew he was
looking straight through me, scenting a lie, not knowing where, or
why, but wondering. And determined to find out...

For once he spoke quite pleasantly,
without heat, even gently.

"You're lying, aren't you?
Why?"

"It's quite true, my lord. If you look
at my pony when he comes in --"

"Oh, yes, that was true. I've no doubt
I'll find he's lame. And if I send men back up the path they'll
find Cadal leading him home. But what I want to know --" I said
quickly: "Not Cadal, my lord; Ulfin. Cadal had other duties, and
Belasius sent Ulfin with me."

"Two of a kind?" The words were
contemptuous.

"My lord?"

His voice cracked suddenly with
temper. "Don't bandy words with me, you little catamite. You're
lying about something, and I want to know what. I can smell a lie a
mile off." Then he looked past me, and his voice changed. "What's
that in your saddle-bag?" A jerk of his head at one of the soldiers
flanking me. A corner of Belasius' robe was showing. The man thrust
his hand into the bag and pulled it out. On the soiled and crumpled
white the stains showed dark and unmistakable. I could smell the
blood even through the bubbling resin of the torches.