Legacy: Arthurian Saga (37 page)

The priests were nodding sagely, and
some of them, I noticed, held their hands in front of them in the
sign to ward off enchantment. It seemed that they believed Maugan,
they believed my mother, they saw me as the devil's child. All that
had happened was that her story had confirmed their own belief, the
old rumors. This, in fact, was what she had been brought here for.
And now they watched me with satisfaction, but also with a kind of
wary fear.

My own fear was leaving me. I thought
I began to see what they wanted. Vortigern's superstition was
legendary. I remembered what Dinias had told me about the
stronghold that kept falling down, and the reports of the King's
soothsayers that it was bewitched. It seemed possible that, because
of the rumors of my birth, and possibly because of the childish
powers I had shown before I left home, to which Maugan had
referred, they thought I could advise or help them. If this was so,
and they had brought me here because of my reputed powers, there
might be some way in which I could help Ambrosius right from the
enemy's camp. Perhaps after all the god had brought me here for
this, perhaps he was still driving me. Put yourself in his
path...Well, one could only use what was to hand. If I had no power
to use, I had knowledge.

I cast my mind back to the day at
King's Fort, and to the flooded mine in the core of the crag, to
which the dream had led me. I would certainly be able to tell them
why their foundations would not stand. It was an engineer's answer,
not a magician's. But, I thought, meeting the oyster eyes of Maugan
as he dry-washed those long dirty hands before him, if it was a
magician's answer they wanted, they should have it. And Vortigern
with them.

I lifted my head. I believe I was
smiling. "King Vortigern!"

It was like dropping a stone into a
pool, the room was so still, so centered on me. I said strongly:
"My mother has told you what you asked her. No doubt you will tell
me now in what way I can serve you, but first I must ask you to
keep your royal promise and let her go."

"The Lady Niniane is our honored
guest." The King's reply seemed automatic. He glanced at the open
arcade that faced the river, where the white lances of the rain
hissed down across a dark grey sky. "You are both free to go
whenever you choose, but this is no time to begin the long journey
back to Maridunum. You will surely wish to lie the night here,
Madam, and hope for a dry day tomorrow?" He rose, and the Queen
with him. "Rooms have been prepared, and now the Queen will take
you there to rest and make ready to sup with us. Our court here,
and our rooms, are a poor makeshift, but such as they are, they are
at your service. Tomorrow you will be escorted home."

My mother had stood when they did.
"And my son? You still have not told us why you brought us here for
this?"

"Your son can serve me. He has powers
which I can use. Now, Madam, if you will go with the Queen, I will
talk to your son and tell him what I want of him. Believe me, he is
as free as you are. I constrained him only until you told me the
truth I wished to hear. I must thank you now for confirming what I
had guessed." He put out a hand. "I swear to you, Lady Niniane, by
any god you like, that I do not hold his birth against him, now or
ever."

She regarded him for a moment, then
bowed her head and, ignoring his gesture, came down to me, holding
out both her hands. I crossed to her and took them in my own. They
felt small and cold. I was taller than she was. She looked up at me
with the eyes that I remembered; there was anxiety in them, and the
dregs of anger, and some message urgently spoken in
silence.

"Merlin, I would not have had you know
it this way. I would have spared you this." But this was not what
her eyes were saying.

I smiled down at her, and said
carefully: "Mother, you told me nothing today that shocked me.
Indeed, there's nothing you could tell me about my birth that I do
not already know. Set yourself at rest."

She caught her breath and her eyes
widened, searching my face. I went on, slowly: "Whoever my father
was, it will not be held against me. You heard what the King
promised. That is all we need to know."

Whether she got this part of the
message I could not guess. She was still taking in what I had said
first. "You knew? You knew?"

"I knew. You surely don't imagine that
in all the years I've been away from you, and with the kind of
studies I've undertaken, I never found out what parentage I had?
It's some years now since my father made himself known to me. I
assure you, I've spoken with him, not once but many times. I find
nothing in my birth of which I need to be ashamed."

For a moment longer she looked at me,
then she nodded, and the lids drooped over her eyes. A faint color
had come up into her face. She had understood me.

She turned away, pulling her hood up
again to hide her face, and put her hand on the King's arm. She
went from the room, walking between him and the Queen, and her two
women followed them. The priests remained, clucking and whispering
and staring. I took no notice of them, but watched my mother
go.

The King paused in the doorway, and I
heard his voice bidding my mother goodbye. There was a crowd
waiting in the outer porch. They made way for Rowena and my mother,
and the half-dozen women who were there followed them. I heard the
swish of their dresses and the light voices of the women fade into
the sound of the rain. Vortigern stood still in the doorway,
watching them go. Outside the rain fell with a noise like a running
river. It was darkening fast.

The King swung round on his heel and
came back into the hall, with his fighting men behind
him.

9

They crowded round me, muttering
noisily, but holding back in a circle, like hounds before they
close in for the kill. Death was back in the hall; I could feel it,
but could not believe or understand it. I made a movement as if to
follow my mother, and the swords of my guards lifted and quivered.
I stood still.

I said sharply, to the King: "What's
this? You gave your word. Are you so quickly forsworn?"

"Not forsworn. I gave my word that you
should serve me, that I would never hold your birth against you.
This is true. It is because of what I know about you, because you
are the child of no man, that I have had you brought to me today.
You will serve me, Merlin, because of your birth."

"Well?"

He mounted the steps to the throne and
sat down again. His movements were slow and deliberate. All the men
of the court had crowded in with him, and with them the
torch-bearers. The hall filled with smoky light and the rustle and
creak of leather and the clank of mail. Outside the rain hissed
down.

Vortigern leaned forward, chin on
fist. "Merlin, we have learned today what in part we already
suspected, that you are the child of no man, but of a devil. As
such, you require mercy from no man. But because your mother is a
king's daughter, and therefore something is due to you, I shall
tell you why I brought you here. You know perhaps that I am
building a stronghold here on the rock they call the
Fortress?"

"Everyone knows it," I said, "and
everyone knows that it will not stand, but falls down whenever it
reaches man height."

He nodded. "And my magicians and wise
men here, my advisers, have told me why. The foundations have not
been properly laid."

"Well," I said, "that sounds
remarkably like sense to me."

There was a tall old man to the King's
right, beside the priests. His eyes were a bright angry blue under
jutting white brows. He was watching me fixedly, and I thought I
saw pity in his look. As I spoke, he put a hand up to his beard as
if to hide a smile.

The King seemed not to have heard me.
"They tell me," he said, "that a king's stronghold should be built
on blood."

"They are talking, of course, in
metaphors?" I said politely.

Maugan suddenly struck his staff on
the floor of the dais. "They are talking literally!" he shouted.
"The mortar should be slaked with blood! Blood should be sprinkled
on the foundations. In ancient times no king built a fortress
without observing this rite. The blood of a strong man, a warrior,
kept the walls standing."

There was a sharp pause. My heart had
begun to beat in slow, hard strokes that made the blood tingle in
my limbs. I said, coldly: "And what has this to do with me? I am no
warrior."

"You are no man, neither," said the
King harshly. "This is the magic, Merlin, that they have revealed
to me, that I should seek out a lad who never had a father, and
slake the foundations with his blood."

I stared at him, then looked round the
ring of faces. There was shifting and muttering, and few eyes met
mine, but I could see it in all their faces, the death I had
smelled ever since I entered the hall. I turned back to the
King.

"What rubbish is this? When I left
Wales, it was a country for civilized men and for poets, for
artists and for scholars, for warriors and kings who killed for
their country, cleanly and in daylight. Now you talk of blood and
human sacrifice. Do you think to throw modern Wales back to the
rites of ancient Babylon and Crete?"

"I do not speak of 'human' sacrifice,"
said Vortigern. "You are the son of no man. Remember
this."

In the stillness the rain lashed into
the bubbling puddles on the ground outside. Someone cleared his
throat. I caught the fierce blue glance of the old warrior. I had
been right; there was pity there. But even those who pitied me were
not going to raise a hand against this stupidity.

It had all come clear at last, like
lightning breaking. This had been nothing to do with Ambrosius, or
with my mother. She was safe enough, having merely confirmed what
they wanted confirmed. She would even be honored, since she had
provided what they desired. And Ambrosius had never even entered
their thoughts. I was not here as his son, his spy, his messenger;
all they wanted was the "devil's child" to kill for their crude and
dirty magic.

And, ironically enough, what they had
got was no devil's child, not even the boy who once had thought to
have power in his hands. All they had got was a human youth with no
power beyond his human wits. But by the god, I thought, those might
yet be enough...I had learned enough, power or no power, to fight
them with their own weapons.

I managed to smile, looking beyond
Maugan at the other priests. They were still making the sign
against me, and even Maugan hugged his staff against his breast as
if it had the power to protect him. "And what makes you so sure
that my father the devil will not come to my aid?"

"Those are only words, King. There's
no time to listen." Maugan spoke quickly and loudly, and the other
priests pressed forward with him round the King's chair. They all
spoke at once.

"Yes, kill him now. There's no time to
waste. Take him up to the crag and kill him now. You shall see that
the gods will be appeased and the walls stand steady. His mother
will not know, and even if she does, what can she do?"

There was a general movement, like
hounds closing in. I tried to think, but I was empty even of
coherent thought. The air stank and darkened. I could smell blood
already, and the sword blades, held openly now against me, flashed
in the torchlight. I fixed my eyes on the fireshot metal, and tried
to empty my mind, but all I could see was the picked skeleton of
Galapas, high on the hill in the sunlight, with the wings of the
birds over him...

I said, to the swords: "Tell me one
thing. Who killed Galapas?"

"What did he say? What did the devil's
son say?" The question buzzed through the hall. A harsh voice said,
loudly: "Let him speak." It was the old grey-bearded
warrior.

"Who killed Galapas, the magician who
lived on Bryn Myrddin above Maridunum?"

I had almost shouted it. My voice
sounded strange, even to me. They fell silent, eyeing one another
sideways, not understanding. Vortigern said: "The old man? They
said he was a spy."

"He was a magician, and my master," I
said. "And he taught me, Vortigern."

"What did he teach you?"

I smiled. "Enough. Enough to know that
these men are fools and charlatans. Very well, Vortigern. Take me
up to the crag and bring your knives with you, you and your
soothsayers. Show me this fortress, these cracking walls, and see
if I cannot tell you, better than they, why your fort will not
stand. 'No man's child'!" I said it with contempt. "These are the
things they conjure up, these foolish old men, when they can think
of nothing else. Does it not occur to you, King, that the son of a
spirit of darkness might have a magic that outstrips the spells of
these old fools? If what they say is true, and if my blood will
make these stones stand, then why did they watch them fall not
once, not twice, but four times, before they could tell you what to
do? Let me but see the place once, and I will tell you. By the God
of gods, Vortigern, if my dead blood could make your fortress
stand, how much better could my living body serve you?"

"Sorcery! Sorcery! Don't listen to
him! What does a lad like him know of such matters?" Maugan began
to shout, and the priests to cluck and chatter. But the old warrior
said gruffly and sharply: "Let him try. There's no harm in that.
Help you must have, Vortigern, be it from god or devil. Let him
try, I say." And round the hall I heard the echoes from the
fighting men, who would have no cause to love the priests: "Let him
try."