Legacy: Arthurian Saga (31 page)

The cob plodded on. Here was the
orchard, the apple trees already swelling with buds, the grass
springing rough and green round the little terrace where Moravik
would sit and spin, while I played at her feet. And here, now, was
the place I had jumped over the wall the night I ran away; here was
the leaning apple tree where I had left Aster tethered. The wall
was broken, and I could see in across the rough grass where I had
run that night, from my room where Cerdic's body lay on its funeral
pyre. I pulled the cob to a halt and craned to see further. I must
have made a clean sweep that night: the buildings were all gone, my
room, and along with it two sides of the outer court. The stables,
I saw, were still the same; the fire had not reached them, then.
The two sides of the colonnade that had been destroyed had been
rebuilt in a modern style that seemed to bear no relation to the
rest, big rough stones and crude building, square pillars holding
up a timber roof, and square, deep windows. It was ugly, and looked
comfortless; its only virtue would be that it was weatherproof. You
might as well, I thought, settling back in the saddle and putting
the cob in motion, live in a cave...

"What are you grinning at?" asked
Cadal.

"Only at how Roman I've become. It's
funny, my home isn't here any more. And to be honest I don't think
it's in Less Britain either."

"Where, then?"

"I don't know. Where the Count is,
that's for sure. That will be this sort of place, I suppose, for
some time to come." I nodded towards the walls of the old Roman
barracks behind the palace. They were in ruins, and the place was
deserted. So much the better, I thought; at least it didn't look as
if Ambrosius would have to fight for it. Give Uther twenty-four
hours, and the place would be as good as new. And here was St.
Peter's, apparently untouched, showing no sign either of fire or
spear. "You know something?" I said to Cadal, as we left the shadow
of the nunnery wall and headed along the path towards the mill. "I
suppose if I have anywhere I can call a home, it's the cave of
Galapas."

"Doesn't sound all that Roman to me,"
said Cadal. "Give me a good tavern any day and a decent bed and
some mutton to eat, and you can keep all the caves there
are."

Even with this sorry horse, the way
seemed shorter than I remembered it. Soon we had reached the mill,
and turned up across the road and into the valley. Time fell away.
It seemed only yesterday that I had come up this same valley in the
sunshine, with the wind stirring Aster's grey mane. Not even
Aster's -- for there under the same thorn tree was surely the same
half-wit boy watching the same sheep as on my very first ride. As
we reached the fork in the path, I found myself watching for the
ring-dove. But the hillside was still, except for the rabbits
scattering among the young bracken.

Whether the cob sensed the end of his
journey, or whether he merely liked the feel of grass under his
feet and a light weight on his back, he seemed to quicken his step.
Ahead of me now I could see the shoulder of the hill beyond which
lay the cave.

I drew rein by the hawthorn
grove.

"Here we are. It's up there, above the
cliff." I slipped out of the saddle and handed the reins to Cadal.
"Stay here and wait for me. You can come up in an hour." I added,
on an afterthought: "And don't be alarmed if you see what you think
is smoke. It's the bats coming out of the cave."

I had almost forgotten Cadal's sign
against the evil eye. He made it now, and I laughed and left
him.

3

Before I had climbed round the little
crag to the lawn in front of the cave, I knew.

Call it foresight; there was no sign.
Silence, of course, but then there usually had been silence as I
approached the cave. This silence was different. It was only after
some moments that I realized what it was. I could no longer hear
the trickle of the spring.

I mounted to the top of the path, came
out on the sward, and saw. There was no need to go into the cave to
know that he was not there, and never would be again.

On the flat grass in front of the
cave-mouth was a scatter of debris. I went closer to
look.

It had been done not so very long ago.
There had been a fire here, a fire quenched by rain before
everything could properly be destroyed. There was a pile of sodden
rubbish -- half-charred wood, rags, parchment gone again to pulp
but with the blackened edges still showing. I turned the nearest
piece of scorched wood over with my foot; from the carving on it I
knew what it was; the chest that had held his books. And the
parchment was all that remained of the books themselves.

I suppose there was other stuff of his
among the wreck of rubbish. I didn't look further. If the books had
gone, I knew everything else would have gone too. And Galapas with
them.

I went slowly towards the mouth of the
cave. I paused by the spring. I could see why there had been no
sound; someone had filled in the basin with stones and earth and
more wreckage thrown out of the cave. Through it all the water
welled still, sluggishly, oozing in silence over the stone lip and
down to make a muddy morass of the turf. I thought I could see the
skeleton of a bat, picked clean by the water.

Strangely enough, the torch was still
on the ledge high beside the mouth of the cave, and it was dry.
There was no flint or iron, but I made fire and, holding the torch
before me, went slowly inside.

I think my flesh was shivering, as if
a cold wind blew out of the cave and went by me. I knew already
what I should find.

The place was stripped. Everything had
been thrown out to burn. Everything, that is, except the bronze
mirror. This, of course, would not burn, and I suppose it had been
too heavy to be looted. It had been wrenched from the wall and
stood propped against the side of the cave, tilted at a drunken
angle. Nothing else. Not even a stir and whisper from the bats in
the roof. The place echoed with emptiness.

I lifted the torch high and looked up
towards the crystal cave. It was not there.

I believe that for a couple of pulses
of the torchlight I thought he had managed to conceal the inner
cave, and was in hiding. Then I saw.

The gap into the crystal cave was
still there, but chance, call it what you will, had rendered it
invisible except to those who knew. The bronze mirror had fallen so
that, instead of directing light towards the gap, it directed
darkness. Its light was beamed and concentrated on a projection of
rock which cast, clear across the mouth of the crystal cave, a
black wedge of shadow. To anyone intent only on the pillage and
destruction in the cave below, the gap would be hardly visible at
all.

"Galapas!" I said, trying it out on
the emptiness. "Galapas?"

There was the faintest of whispers
from the crystal cave, a ghostly sweet humming like the music I had
once listened for in the night. Nothing human; I had not expected
it. But still I climbed up to the ledge, knelt down and peered
in.

The torchlight caught the crystals,
and threw the shadow of my harp, trembling, clear round the lighted
globe. The harp stood, undamaged, in the center of the cave.
Nothing else, except the whisper dying round the glittering walls.
There must be visions there, in the flash and counterflash of
light, but I knew I would not be open to them. I put a hand down to
the rock and vaulted, torch streaming, back to the floor of the
cave. As I passed the tilted mirror I caught a glimpse of a tall
youth running in a swirl of flame and smoke. His face looked pale,
the eyes black and enormous. I ran out on to the grass. I had
forgotten the torch, which flamed and streamed behind me. I ran to
the edge of the cliff, and cupped a hand to my mouth to call Cadal,
but then a sound from behind me made me whip round and look
upwards.

It was a very normal sound. A pair of
ravens and a carrion crow had risen from the hill, and were
scolding at me.

Slowly this time, I climbed the path
that led up past the spring and out on the hillside above the cave.
The ravens went higher, barking. Two more crows made off low across
the young bracken. There was a couple still busy on something lying
among the flowering blackthorn.

I whirled the torch and flung it
streaming to scatter them. Then I ran forward.

There was no telling how long he had
been dead. The bones were picked almost clean. But I knew him by
the discolored brown rags that flapped under the skeleton, and the
one old broken sandal which lay flung nearby among the April
daisies. One of the hands had fallen from the wrist, and the clean,
brittle bones lay near my foot. I could see where the little finger
had been broken, and had set again, crookedly. Already through the
bare rib-cage the April grass was springing. The air blew clean and
sunlit, smelling of flowering gorse.

The torch had been stubbed out in the
fresh grass. I stooped and picked it up. I should not have thrown
it at them, I thought. His birds had given him a seemly
way-going.

A step behind me brought me round, but
it was only Cadal.

"I saw the birds go up," he said. He
was looking down at the thing under the blackthorn bushes.
"Galapas?"

I nodded.

"I saw the mess down by the cave. I
guessed."

"I hadn't realized I had been here so
long."

"Leave this to me." He was stooping
already. "I'll get him buried. Go you and wait down where we left
the horse. I can maybe find some sort of tool down yonder, or I
could come back --"

"No. Let him lie in peace under the
thorn. We'll build the hill over him and let it take him in. We do
this together, Cadal."

There were stones in plenty to pile
over him for a barrow, and we cut sods with our daggers to turf it
over. By the end of summer the bracken and foxgloves and young
grasses would have grown right over and shrouded him. So we left
him.

As we went downhill again past the
cave I thought of the last time I had gone this way. I had been
weeping then, I remembered, for Cerdic's death, for my mother's
loss and Galapas', for who knew what foreknowledge of the future?
You will see me again, he had said, I promise you that. Well, I had
seen him. And someday, no doubt, his other promise would come true
in its own fashion.

I shivered, caught Cadal's quick look,
and spoke curtly. "I hope you had the sense to bring a flask with
you. I need a drink."

4

Cadal had brought more than a flask
with him, he had brought food -- salt mutton and bread, and last
season's olives in a bottle with their own oil. We sat in the lee
of the wood and ate, while the cob grazed near us, and below in the
distance the placid curves of the river glimmered through the April
green of the fields and the young wooded hills. The mist had
cleared, and it was a beautiful day.

"Well," said Cadal at length, "what's
to do?"

"We go to see my mother. If she's
still there, of course." Then, with a savagery that broke through
me so suddenly that I had hardly known it was there: "By Mithras,
I'd give a lot to know who did that up yonder!"

"Why, who could it be except
Vortigern?"

"Vortimer, Pascentius, anyone. When a
man's wise and gentle and good," I added bitterly, "it seems to me
that any man's, every man's hand is against him. Galapas could have
been murdered by an outlaw for food, or a herdsman for shelter, or
a passing soldier for a drink of water."

"That was no murder."

"What, then?"

"I meant, that was done by more than
one. Men in a pack are worse than lone ones. At a guess, it was
Vortigern's men, on their way up from the town."

"You're probably right. I shall find
out."

"You think you'll get to see your
mother?"

"I can try."

"Did he -- have you any messages for
her?" It was, I suppose, the measure of my relationship with Cadal
that he dared to ask the question.

I answered him quite simply. "If you
mean did Ambrosius ask me to tell her anything, no. He left it to
me. What I do tell her depends entirely on what's happened since I
left. I'll talk to her first, and judge how much to tell her after
that. Don't forget, I haven't seen her for a long time, and people
change. I mean, their loyalties change. Look at mine. When I last
saw her I was only a child, and I have only a child's memories --
for all I know I misunderstood her utterly, the way she thought and
the things she wanted. Her loyalties may lie elsewhere -- not just
the Church, but the way she feels about Ambrosius. The gods know
there'd be no blame to her if she had changed. She owed Ambrosius
nothing. She took good care of that."

He said thoughtfully, his eyes on the
green distance threaded by the glinting river: "The nunnery hadn't
been touched."

"Exactly. Whatever had happened to the
rest of the town, Vortigern had let St. Peter's be. So you see I've
to find out who is in which camp before I give any messages. What
she hasn't known about for all these years, it won't hurt her to go
on not knowing for as many more days. Whatever happens, with
Ambrosius coming so soon, I mustn't take the risk of telling her
too much."