Legacy: Arthurian Saga (28 page)

"When did you tell her who you
were?"

"When she told me why she could not
leave Maridunum and go with me. I had thought till then that she
was perhaps one of the Queen's ladies -- from her ways and her talk
I knew she had been bred in a king's house. Perhaps she saw the
same in me. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except that I
was a man, and she a woman. From the first day, we both knew what
would happen. You will understand how it was when you are older."
Again the smile, this time touching mouth as well as eyes. "This is
one kind of knowledge I think you will have to wait for, Merlin.
The Sight won't help you much in matters of love."

"You asked her to go with you -- to
come back here?"

He nodded. "Even before I knew who she
was. After I knew, I was afraid for her, and pressed her harder,
but she would not come with me. From the way she had spoken I knew
she hated and feared the Saxons, and feared what Vortigern was
doing to the kingdoms, but still she would not come. It was one
thing, she said, to do what she had done, but another to go across
the seas with the man who, when he came back, must be her father's
enemy. We must end it, she said, as the year was ending, and then
forget."

He was silent for a minute, looking
down at his hands.

I said: "And you never knew she had
borne a child?"

"No. I wondered, of course. I sent a
message the next spring, but got no answer. I left it then, knowing
that if she wanted me, she knew -- all the world knew -- where to
find me. Then I heard -- it must have been nearly two years later
-- that she was betrothed. I know now that this was not true, but
then it served to make me dismiss it from my mind." He looked at
me. "Do you understand that?"

I nodded. "It may even have been true,
though not in the way you'd understand it, my lord. She vowed
herself to the Church when I should have no more need of her. The
Christians call that a betrothal."

"So?" He considered for a moment.
"Whatever it was, I sent no more messages. And when later on there
was mention of a child, a bastard, it hardly crossed my mind that
it could be mine. A fellow came here once, a traveling eye-doctor
who had been through Wales, and I sent for him and questioned him,
and he said yes, there was a bastard boy at the palace of such and
such an age, red-haired, and the King's own."

"Dinias," I said. "He probably never
saw me. I was kept out of the way...And my grandfather did
sometimes explain me away to strangers as his own. He had a few
scattered around, here and there."

"So I gathered. So the next rumor of a
boy -- possibly the King's bastard, possibly his daughter's -- I
hardly listened to. It was all long past, and there were pressing
things to do, and always there was the same thought -- if she had
borne a child to me, would she not have let me know? If she had
wanted me, would she not have sent word?"

He fell silent, then, back in his own
thoughts. Whether I understood it all then, as he talked, I do not
now recollect. But later, when the pieces shook together to make
the mosaic, it was clear enough. The same pride which had forbidden
her to go with her lover had forbidden her, once she discovered her
pregnancy, to call him back. And it helped her through the months
that followed. More than that; if -- by flight or any other means
-- she had betrayed who her lover was, nothing would have stopped
her brothers from traveling to Budec's court to kill him. There
must -- knowing my grandfather -- have been angry oaths enough
about what they would do to the man who had fathered her bastard.
And then time moved on, and his coming grew remote, and then
impossible, as if he were indeed a myth and a memory in the night.
And then the other long love stepped in to supersede him, and the
priests took over, and the winter tryst was forgotten. Except for
the child, so like his father; but once her duty to him was done,
she could go to the solitude and peace which -- all those years ago
-- had sent her riding alone up the mountain valley, as later I was
to ride out alone by the same path, and looking perhaps for the
same things.

I jumped when he spoke again. "How
hard a time of it did you have, as a no-man's-child?"

"Hard enough."

"You believe me when I say I didn't
know?"

"I believe anything you tell me, my
lord."

"Do you hate me for this, very much,
Merlin?" I said slowly, looking down at my hands: "There is one
thing about being a bastard and a no-man's-child. You are free to
imagine your father. You can picture for yourself the worst and the
best; you can make your father for yourself, in the image of the
moment. From the time I was big enough to understand what I was, I
saw my father in every soldier and every prince and every priest.
And I saw him, too, in every handsome slave in the kingdom of South
Wales."

He spoke very gently, above me. "And
now you see him in truth, Merlin Emrys. I asked you, do you hate me
for the kind of life I gave you?"

I didn't look up. I answered, with my
eyes on the flames: "Since I was a child I have had the world to
choose from for a father. Out of them all, Aurelius Ambrosius, I
would have chosen you."

Silence. The flames leapt like a
heartbeat.

I added, trying to make it light:
"After all, what boy would not choose the King of all Britain for
his father?"

His hand came hard under my chin
again, turning my head aside from the brazier and my eyes from the
flames. His voice was sharp. "What did you say?"

"What did I say?" I blinked up at him.
"I said I would have chosen you."

His fingers dug into my flesh. "You
called me King of all Britain."

"Did I?"

"But this is -- " He stopped. His eyes
seemed to be burning into me. Then he let his hand drop, and
straightened. "Let it go. If it matters, the god will speak again."
He smiled down at me.

"What matters now is what you said
yourself. It isn't given to every man to hear this from his grown
son. Who knows, it may be better this way, to meet as men, when we
each have something to give the other. To a man whose children have
been underfoot since infancy, it is not given, suddenly, to see
himself stamped on a boy's face as I am stamped on
yours."

"Am I so like?"

"They say so. And I see enough of
Uther in you to know why everyone said you were mine."

"Apparently he didn't see it," I said.
"Is he very angry about it, or is he only relieved to find I'm not
your catamite after all?"

"You knew about that?" He looked
amused. "If he'd think with his brains instead of his body
sometimes he'd be the better for it. As it is, we deal together
very well. He does one kind of work, as I another, and if I can
make the way straight, he'll make a king after me, if I have no
--"

He bit off the word. In the queer
little silence that followed I looked at the floor.

"Forgive me." He spoke quietly, equal
to equal. "I spoke without thought. For so long a time I have been
used to the idea that I had no son."

I looked up. "It's still the truth, in
the sense you mean. And it's certainly the truth as Uther will see
it."

"Then if you see it the same way, my
path is the smoother."

I laughed. "I don't see myself as a
king. Half a king, perhaps, or more likely a quarter -- the little
bit that sees and thinks, but can't do. Perhaps Uther and I between
us might make one, if you go? He's larger than life already,
wouldn't you say?"

But he didn't smile. His eyes had
narrowed, with an arrested look. "This is how I have been thinking,
or something like it. Did you guess?"

"No sir, how could I?" I sat up
straight as it broke on me: "Is this how you thought you might use
me? Of course I realize now why you kept me here, in your house,
and treated me so royally, but I've wanted to believe you had plans
for me -- that I could be of use to you. Belasius told me you used
every man according to his capacity, and that even if I were no use
as a soldier, you would still use me somehow. This is
true?"

"Quite true. I knew it straight away,
before I even thought you might be my son, when I saw how you faced
Uther that night in the field, with the visions still in your eyes,
and the power all over you like a shining skin. No, Merlin, you
will never make a king, or even a prince as the world sees it, but
when you are grown I believe you will be such a man that, if a king
had you beside him, he could rule the world. Now do you begin to
understand why I sent you to Belasius?"

"He is a very learned man," I said
cautiously.

"He is a corrupt and a dangerous man,"
said Ambrosius directly. "But he is a sophisticated and clever man
who has traveled a good deal and who has skills you will not have
had the chance to master in Wales. Learn from him. I don't say
follow him, because there are places where you must not follow him,
but learn all you can."

I looked up, then nodded. "You know
about him." It was a conclusion, not a question. "I know he is a
priest of the old religion. Yes."

"You don't mind this?"

"I cannot yet afford to throw aside
valuable tools because I don't like their design," he
said.

"He is useful, so I use him. You will
do the same, if you are wise."

"He wants to take me to the next
meeting."

He raised his brows but said
nothing.

"Will you forbid this?" I
asked.

"No. Will you go?"

"Yes." I said slowly, and very
seriously, searching for the words: "My lord, when you are looking
for...what I am looking for, you have to look in strange places.
Men can never look at the sun, except downwards, at his reflection
in things of earth. If he is reflected in a dirty puddle, he is
still the sun. There is nowhere I will not look, to find
him."

He was smiling. "You see? You need no
guarding, except what Cadal can do." He leaned back against the
edge of the table, half sitting, relaxed now and easy. "Emrys, she
called you. Child of the light. Of the immortals. Divine. You knew
that's what it meant?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you know it was the same as
mine?"

"My name?" I asked,
stupidly.

He nodded. "Emrys...Ambrosius; it's
the same word. Merlinus Ambrosius -- she called you after
me."

I stared at him. "I -- yes, of course.
It never occurred to me." I laughed.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Because of our names. Ambrosius,
prince of light...She told everyone that my father was the prince
of darkness. I've even heard a song about it. We make songs of
everything, in Wales."

"Someday you must sing it to me." Then
he sobered suddenly. His voice deepened. "Merlinus Ambrosius, child
of the light, look at the fire now, and tell me what you see."
Then, as I looked up at him, startled, he said urgently: "Now,
tonight, before the fire dies, while you are weary and there is
sleep in your face. Look at the brazier, and talk to me. What will
come to Britain ? What will come to me, and to Uther? Look now,
work for me, my son, and tell me."

It was no use; I was awake, and the
flames were dying in the brazier; the power had gone, leaving only
a room with rapidly cooling shadows, and a man and a boy talking.
But because I loved him, I turned my eyes to the embers. There was
utter silence, except for the hiss of ash settling, and the tick of
the cooling metal.

I said: "I see nothing but the fire
dying down in the brazier, and a burning cave of coal."

"Go on looking." I could feel the
sweat starting on my body, the drops trickling down beside my nose,
under my arms, into my groin till my thighs stuck together. My
hands worked on one another, tight between my knees till the bones
hurt. My temples ached. I shook my head sharply to clear it, and
looked up. "My lord, it's no use. I'm sorry, but it's no use. I
don't command the god, he commands me. Someday it may be I shall
see at will, or when you command me, but now it comes itself, or
not at all." I spread my hands, trying to explain. "It's like
waiting below a cover of cloud, then suddenly a wind shifts it and
it breaks, and the light stabs down and catches me, sometimes full,
sometimes only the flying edge of the pillars of sunlight. One day
I shall be free of the whole temple. But not yet. I can see
nothing." Exhaustion dragged at me. I could hear it in my voice.
"I'm sorry, my lord. I'm no use to you. You haven't got your
prophet yet."

"No," said Ambrosius. He put a hand
down, and as I stood, drew me to him and kissed me. "Only a son,
who has had no supper and who is tired out. Go to bed, Merlin, and
sleep the rest of the night without dreaming. There is plenty of
time for visions. Good night."

I had no more visions that night, but
I did have a dream. I never told Ambrosius. I saw again the cave on
the hillside, and the girl Niniane coming through the mist, and the
man who waited for her beside the cave. But the face of Niniane was
not the face of my mother, and the man by the cave was not the
young Ambrosius. He was an old man, and his face was
mine.