Legacy: Arthurian Saga (48 page)

I think I had been expecting the Dance
to be much less impressive than the ranked armies of stones I had
grown accustomed to in Brittany, something, perhaps, on the scale
of the circle on the druids' island. But these stones were
enormous, bigger than any I had ever seen; and their very
isolation, standing as they did in the center of that vast and
empty plain, struck the heart with awe.

I rode some of the way round, slowly,
staring, then dismounted and, leaving my horse to graze, walked
forward between two standing stones of the outer circle. My shadow,
thrown ahead of me between their shadows, was tiny, a pygmy thing.
I paused involuntarily, as if the giants had linked hands to stop
me.

Ambrosius had asked me if this had
been "an arrow out of the dark." I had told him yes, and this was
true, but I had yet to find out why I had been brought here. All I
knew was that, now I was here, I wished myself away. I had felt
something of the same thing in Brittany as I first passed among the
avenues of stone; a breathing on the back of the neck as if
something older than time were looking over one's shoulder; but
this was not quite the same. It was as if the ground, the stones
that I touched, though still warm from the spring sunlight, were
breathing cold from somewhere deep below.

Half reluctantly, I walked forward.
The light was going rapidly, and to pick one's way into the center
needed care. Time and storm -- and perhaps the gods of war -- had
done their work, and many of the stones were cast down to lie
haphazard, but the pattern could still be discerned. It was a
circle, but like nothing I had seen in Brittany, like nothing I had
even imagined. There had been, originally, an outer circle of the
huge stones, and where a crescent of these still stood I saw that
the uprights were crowned with a continuous lintel of stones as
vast as themselves, a great linked curve of stone, standing like a
giants' fence across the sky. Here and there others of the outer
circle were still standing, but most had fallen, or were leaning at
drunken angles, with the lintel stones beside them on the ground.
Within the bigger circle was a smaller one of uprights, and some of
the outer giants had fallen against these and brought them flat.
Within these again, marking the center, was a horse-shoe of
enormous stones, crowned in pairs. Three of these trilithons stood
intact; the fourth had fallen, and brought its neighbor down with
it. Echoing this once again was an inner horse-shoe of smaller
stones, nearly all standing. The center was empty, and crossed with
shadows.

The sun had gone, and with its going
the western sky drained of color, leaving one bright star in a
swimming sea of green. I stood still. It was very quiet, so quiet
that I could hear the sound of my horse cropping the turf, and the
thin jingle of his bit as he moved. The only other sound was the
whispering chatter of nesting starlings among the great trilithons
overhead. The starling is a bird sacred to druids, and I had heard
that in past time the Dance had been used for worship by the druid
priests. There are many stories about the Dance, how the stones
were brought from Africa, and put up by giants of old, or how they
were the giants themselves, caught and turned to stone by a curse
as they danced in a ring. But it was not giants or curses that were
breathing the cold now from the ground and from the stones; these
stones had been put here by men, and their raising had been sung by
poets, like the old blind man of Brittany. A lingering shred of
light caught the stone near me; the huge knob of stone on one
sandstone surface echoed the hole in the fallen lintel alongside
it. These tenons and sockets had been fashioned by men, craftsmen
such as I had watched almost daily for the last few years, in Less
Britain, then in York, London, Winchester. And massive as they
were, giants' building as they seemed to be, they had been raised
by the hands of workmen, to the commands of engineers, and to the
sound of music such as I had heard from the blind singer of
Kerrec.

I walked slowly forward across the
circle's center. The faint light in the western sky threw my shadow
slanting ahead of me, and etched, momentarily in fleeting light,
the shape of an axe, two-headed, on one of the stones. I hesitated,
then turned to look. My shadow wavered and dipped. I trod in a
shallow pit and fell, measuring my length.

It was only a depression in the
ground, the kind that might have been made, years past, by the
falling of one of the great stones. Or by a grave...

There was no stone nearby of such a
size, no sign of digging, no one buried here. The turf was smooth,
and grazed by sheep and cattle, and under my hands as I picked
myself up slowly, were the scented, frilled stars of daisies. But
as I lay I had felt the cold strike up from below, in a pang as
sudden as an arrow striking, and I knew that this was why I had
been brought here.

I caught my horse, mounted and rode
the two miles back to my father's birthplace.

We reached Caerleon four days later to
find the place completely changed. Ambrosius intended to use it as
one of his three main stations along with London and York, and
Tremorinus himself had been working there. The walls had been
rebuilt, the bridge repaired, the river dredged and its banks
strengthened, and the whole of the east barrack block rebuilt. In
earlier times the military settlement at Caerleon, circled by low
hills and guarded by a curve of the river, had been a vast place;
there was no need for even half of it now, so Tremorinus had pulled
down what remained of the western barrack blocks and used the
material on the spot to build the new quarters, the baths, and some
brand-new kitchens. The old ones had been in even worse condition
than the bathhouse at Maridunum, and now, "You'll have every man in
Britain asking to be posted here," I told Tremorinus, and he looked
pleased.

"We'll not be ready a moment too
soon," he said. "The rumor's going round of fresh trouble coming.
Have you heard anything?"

"Nothing. But if it's recent news I
wouldn't have had it. We've been on the move for nearly a week.
What kind of trouble? Not Octa again, surely?"

"No, Pascentius." This was Vortimer's
brother who had fought with him in the rebellion, and fled north
after Vortimer's death.

"You knew he took ship to Germany ?
They say he'll come back."

"Give him time," I said, "you may be
sure he will. Well, you'll send me any news that comes?"

"Send you? You're not staying
here?"

"No. I'm going on to Maridunum. It's
my home, you know."

"I had forgotten. Well, perhaps we'll
see something of you; I'll be here myself a bit longer -- we've
started work on the church now." He grinned. "The bishop's been at
me like a gadfly: it seems I should have been thinking of that
before I spent so much time on the things of this earth. And
there's talk, too, of putting up some kind of monument to the
King's victories. A triumphal arch, some say, the old Roman style
of thing. Of course they're saying here in Caerleon that we should
build the church for that -- the glory of God with Ambrosius thrown
in. Though myself I think if any bishop should get the credit of
God's glory and the King's combined it should be Gloucester -- old
Eldad laid about him with the best of them. Did you see
him?"

"I heard him."

He laughed. "Well, in any case you'll
stay tonight, I hope? Have supper with me."

"Thanks. I'd like to."

We talked late into the night, and he
showed me some of his plans and designs, and seemed flatteringly
anxious that I should come back from Maridunum to see the various
stages of the building. I promised, and next day left Caerleon
alone, parrying an equally flattering and urgent request from the
camp commandant to let him give me an escort. But I refused, and in
the late afternoon came, alone, at last in sight of my own hills.
There were rain clouds massing in the west, but in front of them,
like a bright curtain, the slanting sunlight. One could see on a
day like this why the green hills of Wales had been called the
Black Mountains, and the valleys running through them the Valleys
of Gold. Bars of sunlight lay along the trees of the golden
valleys, and the hills stood slate-blue or black behind them, with
their tops supporting the sky. I took two days for the journey,
going easily, and noticing by the way, how the land seemed already
to have got back its bloom of peace. A farmer building a wall
barely looked my way as I rode by, and a young girl minding a flock
of sheep smiled at me. And when I got to the mill on the Tywy, it
seemed to be working normally; there were grain sacks piled in the
yard, and I could hear the clack-clack-clack of the turning
wheel.

I passed the bottom of the path which
led up to the cave, and held on straight for the town. I believe I
told myself that my first duty and concern was to visit St. Peter's
to ask about my mother's death, and to see where she was buried.
But when I got from my horse at the nunnery gate and lifted a hand
to the bell, I knew from the knocking of my heart that I had told
myself a lie.

I could have spared myself the
deception; it was the old portress who let me in, and who led me
straight, without being asked, through the inner court and down to
the green slope near the river where my mother was buried. It was a
lovely place, a green plot near a wall where pear trees had been
brought early into blossom by the warmth, and where, above their
snow, the white doves she had loved were rounding their breasts to
the sun. I could hear the ripple of the river beyond the wall, and
down through the rustling trees the note of the chapel
bell.

The Abbess received me kindly, but had
nothing to add to the account which I had received soon after my
mother's death, and had passed on to my father. I left money for
prayers, and for a carved stone to be made, and when I left, it was
with her silver and amethyst cross tucked into my saddle-bag. One
question I dared not ask, even when a girl who was not Keri brought
wine for my refreshment. And finally, with my question unasked, I
was ushered to the gate and out into the street. Here I thought for
a moment that my luck had changed, for as I was untying my horse's
bridle from the ring beside the gate I saw the old portress peering
at me through the grille -- remembering, no doubt, the gold I had
given her on my first visit. But when I produced money and beckoned
her close to shout my question in her ear, and even, after three
repetitions, got through to her, the only answer was a shrug and
the one word, "Gone," which -- even if she had understood me -- was
hardly helpful. In the end I gave it up. In any case, I told
myself, this was something that had to be forgotten. So I rode out
of town and back over the miles to my valley with the memory of her
face burned into everything I saw, and the gold of her hair lying
in every shaft of the slanting sunlight.

Cadal had rebuilt the pen which
Galapas and I had made in the hawthorn brake. It had a good roof
and a stout door, and could easily house a couple of big horses.
One -- Cadal's own, I supposed -- was already there.

Cadal himself must have heard me
riding up the valley, because, almost before I had dismounted, he
came running down the path by the cliff, had the bridle out of my
hand, and, lifting both my hands in his, kissed them.

"Why, what's this?" I asked,
surprised. He need have had no fears for my safety; the messages I
had sent him had been regular and reassuring. "Didn't you get the
message I was coming?"

"Yes, I got it. It's been a long time.
You're looking well."

"And you. Is all well
here?"

"You'll find it so. If you must live
in a place like this, there's ways and ways of making it fit. Now
get away up, your supper's ready." He bent to unbuckle the horse's
girths, leaving me to go up to the cave alone.

He had had a long time in which to do
it, but even so it came with a shock like a miracle. It was as it
had always been, a place of green grass and sunlight. Daisies and
heartsease starred the turf between the green curls of young
bracken, and young rabbits whisked out of sight under the flowering
blackthorn. The spring ran crystal clear, and crystal clear through
the water of the well could be seen the silver gravel at the
bottom. Above it, in its ferny niche, stood the carved figure of
the god; Cadal must have found it when he cleared the rubbish from
the well. He had even found the cup of horn. It stood where it had
always stood. I drank from it, sprinkled the drops for the god, and
went into the cave.

My books had come from Less Britain;
the great chest was backed against the wall of the cave, where
Galapas' box had been. Where his table had stood there was another,
which I recognized from my grandfather's house. The bronze mirror
was back in place. The cave was clean, sweet-smelling and dry.
Cadal had built a hearth of stone, and logs were laid ready across
it to light. I half expected to see Galapas sitting beside the
hearth, and, on the ledge near the entrance, the falcon which had
perched there on the night a small boy left the cave in tears. Deep
among the shadows above the ledge at the rear was the gash of
deeper shadow which hid the crystal cave.

That night, lying on the bed of
bracken with the rugs pulled round me, I lay listening, after the
dying of the fire, to the rustle of leaves outside the cave, and,
beyond that, the trickle of the spring. They were the only sounds
in the world. I closed my eyes and slept as I had not slept since I
was a child.