Legacy: Arthurian Saga (49 page)

8

Like a drunkard who, as long as there
is no wine to be had, thinks himself cured of his craving, I had
thought myself cured of the thirst for silence and solitude. But
from the first morning of waking on Bryn Myrddin, I knew that this
was not merely a refuge, it was my place. April lengthened into
May, and the cuckoos shouted from hill to hill, the bluebells
unfurled in the young bracken, and evenings were full of the sound
of lambs crying, and still I had never once gone nearer the town
than the crest of a hill two miles north where I gathered leaves
and cresses. Cadal went down daily for supplies and for what news
was current, and twice a messenger rode up the valley, once with a
bundle of sketches from Tremorinus, once with news from Winchester
and money from my father -- no letter, but confirmation that
Pascentius was indeed massing troops in Germany, and war must
surely come before the end of summer.

For the rest I read, and walked on the
hills, and gathered plants and made medicines. I also made music,
and sang a number of songs which made Cadal look sideways at me
over his tasks and shake his head. Some of them are still sung, but
most are best forgotten. One of the latter was this, which I sang
one night when May was in town with all her wild clouds of blossom,
and greybell turned to bluebell along the brakes.

I stood still with all my dignity
round me like a robe, and under it my body fretting like a horse
that feels curb and spur at the same time. I wondered if she were
going to kiss my hand again, and if so, what I would do. "Keri!
What are you doing here?"

"Why, gathering bluebells." The wide
innocence of her look robbed the words of pertness. She held them
up, laughing at me across them. God knows what she could see in my
face. No, she was not going to kiss my hand. "Didn't you know I'd
left St. Peter's?"

"Yes, they told me. I thought you must
have gone to some other nunnery."

"No, never that. I hated it. It was
like being in a cage. Some of them liked it, it made them feel
safe, but not me. I wasn't made for such a life."

"They tried to do the same thing to
me, once," I said.

"Did you run away, too?"

"Oh, yes. But I ran before they shut
me up. Where are you living now, Keri?" She did not seem to have
heard the question. "You weren't meant for it, either? Being in
chains, I mean?"

"Not those chains." I could see her
puzzling over this, but I was not sure what I had meant myself, so
held my tongue, watching her without thought, feeling only the
strong happiness of the moment.

"I was sorry about your mother," she
said. "Thank you, Keri."

"She died just after you'd left. I
suppose they told you all about it?"

"Yes. I went to the nunnery as soon as
I came back to Maridunum." She was silent for a moment, looking
down. She pointed a bare toe in the grass, a little shy dancing
movement which set the golden apples at her girdle jingling. "I
knew you had come back. Everyone's talking about it."

"Are they?"

She nodded. "They told me in the town
that you were a prince as well as a great magician..." She looked
up then, her voice fading to doubt, as she eyed me. I was wearing
my oldest clothes, a tunic with grass stains that not even Cadal
could remove, and my mantle was burred and pulled by thorns and
brambles. My sandals were of canvas like a slave's; it was useless
to wear leather through the long wet grass. Compared even with the
plainly dressed young man she had seen before, I must look like a
beggar. She asked, with the directness of innocence: "Are you still
a prince, now that your mother is gone?"

"Yes. My father is the High
King."

Her lips parted. "Your father? The
King? I didn't know. Nobody said that."

"Not many people know. But now that my
mother is dead, it doesn't matter. Yes, I am his son."

"The son of the High King..." She
breathed it, with awe. "And a magician, too. I know that's
true."

"Yes. That is true."

"You once told me you
weren't."

I smiled. "I told you I couldn't cure
your toothache."

"But you did cure it."

"So you said. I didn't believe
you."

"Your touch would cure anything," she
said, and came close to me.

The neck of her gown hung slack. Her
throat was pale as honeysuckle. I could smell her scent and the
scent of the bluebells, and the bittersweet juice of the flowers
crushed between us. I put out a hand and pulled at the neck of the
gown, and the drawstring snapped. Her breasts were round and full
and softer than anything I had imagined. They rounded into my hands
like the breasts of my mother's doves. I believe I had expected her
to cry out and pull away from me, but she nestled towards me
warmly, and laughed, and put her hands up behind my head and dug
her fingers into my hair and bit me on the mouth. Then suddenly she
let her whole weight hang against me so that, reaching to hold her,
plunging clumsily into the kiss, I stumbled forward and fell to the
ground with her under me and the flowers scattering round us as we
fell.

It took me a long time to understand.
At first it was laughter and snatched breathing and all that burns
down into the imagination in the night, but still held down hard
and steady because of her smallness and the soft sounds she made
when I hurt her. She was slim as a reed and soft with it, and you
would have thought it would make me feel like a duke of the world,
but then suddenly she made a sound deep in her throat as if she was
strangling, and twisted in my arms as I have seen a dying man twist
in pain, and her mouth came up like something striking, and
fastened on mine.

Suddenly it was I who was strangling;
her arms dragged at me, her mouth sucked me down, her body drew me
into that tight and final darkness, no air, no light, no breath, no
whisper of waking spirit. A grave inside a grave. Fear burned down
into my brain like a white hot blade laid across the eyes. I opened
them and could see nothing but the spinning light and the shadow of
a tree laid across me whose thorns tore like spikes. Some shape of
terror clawed my face. The thorn-tree's shadow swelled and shook,
the cave-mouth gaped and the walls breathed, crushing me. I
struggled back, out, tore myself away and rolled over apart from
her, sweating with fear and shame.

"What's the matter?" Even her voice
sounded blind. Her hands still moved over the space of air where I
had been.

"I'm sorry, Keri. I'm
sorry."

"What do you mean? What's happened?"
She turned her head in its fallen flurry of gold. Her eyes were
narrow and cloudy. She reached for me. "Oh, if that's all, come
here. It's all right, I'll show you, just come here."

"No." I tried to put her aside gently,
but I was shaking. "No, Keri. Leave me. No."

"What's the matter?" Her eyes opened
suddenly wide. She pushed herself up on her elbow. "Why, I do
believe you've never done it before. Have you? Have
you?"

I didn't speak.

She gave a laugh that seemed meant to
sound gay, but came shrilly. She rolled over again and stretched
out her hands. "Well, never mind, you can learn, can't you? You're
a man, after all. At least, I thought you were..." Then, suddenly
in a fury of impatience: "Oh, for God's sake. Hurry, can't you? I
tell you, it'll be all right."

I caught her wrists and held them.
"Keri, I'm sorry. I can't explain, but this is...I must not, that's
all I know. No, listen, give me a minute."

"Let me go!"

I loosened her and she pulled away and
sat up. Her eyes were angry. There were flowers caught in her
hair.

I said: "This isn't because of you,
Keri, don't think that. It has nothing to do with you--"

"Not good enough for you, is that it?
Because my mother was a whore?"

"Was she? I didn't even know." I felt
suddenly immensely tired. I said carefully: "I told you this was
nothing to do with you. You are very beautiful, Keri, and the first
moment I saw you I felt -- you must know what I felt. But this is
nothing to do with feeling. It is between me and -- it is something
to do with my -- " I stopped. It was no use. Her eyes watched me,
bright and blank, then she turned aside with a little flouncing
movement and began to tidy her dress. Instead of "power," I
finished: " -- something to do with my magic."

"Magic." Her lip was thrust out like a
hurt child's. She knotted her girdle tight with a sharp little tug,
and began to gather up the fallen bluebells, repeating spitefully:
"Magic. Do you think I believe in your silly magic? Did you really
think I even had the toothache, that time?"

"I don't know," I said wearily. I got
to my feet.

"Well, maybe you don't have to be a
man to be a magician. You ought to have gone into that monastery
after all."

"Perhaps." A flower was tangled in her
hair and she put a hand up to pull it out. The fine floss glinted
in the sun like gossamer. My eye caught the blue mark of a bruise
on her wrist. "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

She neither answered nor looked up,
and I turned away. "Well, goodbye, Keri." I had gone perhaps six
steps when her voice stopped me. "Prince --" I turned. "So you do
answer to it?" she said. "I'm surprised. Son of the High King, you
say you are, and you don't even leave me a piece of silver to pay
for my gown?"

I must have stood staring like a
sleepwalker. She tossed the gold hair back over her shoulder and
laughed up at me. Like a blind man fumbling, I felt in the purse at
my belt and came out with a coin. It was gold. I took a step back
towards her to give it to her. She leaned forward, still laughing,
her hands out, cupped like a beggar's. The torn gown hung loose
from the lovely throat. I flung the coin down and ran away from
her, up through the wood.

Her laughter followed me till I was
over the ridge and down in the next valley and had flung myself on
my belly beside the stream and drowned the feel and the scent of
her in the rush of the mountain water that smelled of
snow.

9

In June Ambrosius came to Caerleon,
and sent for me. I rode up alone, arriving one evening well past
supper-time, when the lamps had been lit and the camp was quiet.
The King was still working; I saw the spill of light from
headquarters, and the glimmer on the dragon standard outside. While
I was still some way off I heard the clash of a salute, and a tall
figure came out whom I recognized as Uther.

He crossed the way to a door opposite
the King's, but with his foot on the bottom step saw me, stopped,
and came back.

"Merlin. So you got here. You took
your time, didn't you?"

"The summons was hasty. If I am to go
abroad, there are things I have to do."

He stood still. "Who said you were to
go abroad?"

"People talk of nothing else. It's
Ireland, isn't it? They say Pascentius has made some dangerous
allies over there, and that Ambrosius wants them destroyed quickly.
But why me?"

"Because it's their central stronghold
he wants destroyed. Have you ever heard of Killare?"

"Who hasn't? They say it's a fortress
that's never been taken."

"Then they say the truth. There's a
mountain in the center of all Ireland, and they say that from the
summit of it you can see every coast. And on top of that hill
there's a fortress, not of earth and palisades, but of strong
stones. That, my dear Merlin, is why you."

"I see. You need engines."

"We need engines. We have to attack
Killare. If we can take it, you can reckon that there'll be no
trouble there for a few years to come. So I take Tremorinus, and
Tremorinus insists on taking you."

"I gather the King isn't
going?"

"No. Now I'll say good night; I have
business to attend to, or I would ask you in to wait. He's got the
camp commandant with him, but I don't imagine they'll be
long."

On this, he said a pleasant enough
good night, and ran up the steps into his quarters, shouting for
his servant before he was well through the door.

Almost immediately, from the King's
doorway, came the clash of another salute, and the camp commandant
came out. Not seeing me, he paused to speak to one of the sentries,
and I stood waiting until he had done.

A movement caught my eye, a furtive
stir of shadow where someone came softly down a narrow passage
between the buildings opposite, where Uther was housed. The
sentries, busy with the commandant, had seen nothing. I drew back
out of the torchlight, watching. A slight figure, cloaked and
hooded. A girl. She reached the lighted corner and paused there,
looking about her. Then, with a gesture that was secret rather than
afraid, she pulled the hood closer about her face. It was a gesture
I recognized, as I recognized the drift of scent on the air, like
honeysuckle, and from under the hood the lock of hair curling, gold
in the torchlight.

I stood still. I wondered why she had
followed me here, and what she hoped to gain. I do not think it was
shame I felt, not now, but there was pain, and I believe there was
still desire. I hesitated, then took a step forward and
spoke.