Legacy: Arthurian Saga (53 page)

"Yes."

His head came up sharply. "You say you
knew on Killare that my brother was dying, yet you said nothing to
me?"

"It would have served no purpose. You
could not have returned any sooner for knowing that he lay sick. As
it was, you journeyed with a quiet mind, and at Caerleon, when he
died, I told you."

"By the gods, Merlin, it was not for
you to judge whether to speak or not! You are not King. You should
have told me."

"You were not King either, Uther
Pendragon. I did as he bade me."

I saw him make a quick movement, then
he stilled himself. "That is easy to say." But from his voice I
knew that he believed me, and was in awe of me and of the place.
"And now that we are here, and waiting for the dawn, and whatever
it is you have to show me, I think one or two things must be made
clear between us. You cannot serve me as you served my brother. You
must know that. I want none of your prophecies. My brother was
wrong when he said that we would work together for Britain. Our
stars will not conjoin. I admit I judged you too harshly, there in
Brittany and at Killare; for that I am sorry, but now it is too
late. We walk different ways."

"Yes. I know."

I said it without any particular
expression, simply agreeing, and was surprised when he laughed,
softly, to himself. A hand, not unfriendly, dropped on my shoulder.
"Then we understand one another. I had not thought it would be so
easy. If you knew how refreshing that is after the weeks I've had
of men suing for help, men crawling for mercy, men begging for
favors...And now the only man in the kingdom with any real claim on
me will go his own way, and let me go mine?"

"Of course. Our paths will still
cross, but not yet. And then we will deal together, whether we will
or no."

"We shall see. You have power, I admit
it, but what use is that to me? I don't need priests." His voice
was brisk and friendly, as if he were willing away the strangeness
of the night. He was rooted to earth, was Uther. Ambrosius would
have understood what I was saying, but Uther was back on the human
trail like a dog after blood. "It seems you have served me well
enough already, at Killare, and here with the Hanging Stones. You
deserve something of me, if only for this."

"Where I can be, I shall be at your
service. If you want me, you know where to find me."

"Not at my court?"

"No, at Maridunum. It's my
home."

"Ah, yes, the famous cave. You deserve
a little more of me than that, I think."

"There is nothing that I want," I
said. There was a little more light now. I saw him slant a look at
me. "I have spoken to you tonight as I have spoken to no man
before. Do you hold the past against me, Merlin the
bastard?"

"I hold nothing against you, my
lord."

"Nothing?"

"A girl in Caerleon. You could call
her nothing." I saw him stare, then smile. "Which time?"

"It doesn't matter. You'll have
forgotten, anyway."

"By the dog, I misjudged you." He
spoke with the nearest to warmth I had yet heard from him. If he
knew, I thought, he would have laughed.

I said: "I tell you, it doesn't
matter. It didn't then, and less than that now."

"You still haven't told me why you
dragged me here at this time. Look at the sky; it's getting on for
dawn -- and not a moment too soon, the horses will be getting
cold." He raised his head towards the east. "It should be a fine
day. It will be interesting to see what sort of job you've made of
this. I can tell you now, Tremorinus was insisting, right up to the
time I got your message, that it couldn't be done. Prophet or no
prophet, you have your uses, Merlin."

The light was growing, the dark
slackening to let it through. I could see him more clearly now,
standing with head up, his hand once more stroking his chin. I
said: "It's as well you came by night, so that I knew your voice. I
shouldn't have known you in daylight. You've grown a full
beard."

"More kingly, eh? There was no time to
do anything else on campaign. By the time we got to the Humber..."
He started to tell me about it, talking, for the first time since I
had known him, quite easily and naturally. It may have been that
now I was, of all his subjects, the only one kin to him, and blood
speaks to blood, they say. He talked about the campaign in the
north, the fighting, the smoking destruction the Saxons had left
behind them. "And now we spend Christmas at Winchester. I shall be
crowned in London in the spring, and already --"

"Wait." I had not meant to interrupt
him quite so peremptorily, but things were pressing on me, the
weight of the sky, the shooting light. There was no time to search
for the words that one could use to a king. I said quickly: "It's
coming now. Stand with me at the foot of the stone."

I moved a pace from him and stood at
the foot of the long king-stone, facing the bursting east. I had no
eyes for Uther. I heard him draw breath as if in anger, then he
checked himself and turned with a glitter of jewels and flash of
mail to stand beside me. At our feet stretched the
stone.

In the east night slackened, drew back
like a veil, and the sun came up. Straight as a thrown torch, or an
arrow of fire, light pierced through the grey air and laid a line
clear from the horizon to the king-stone at our feet. For perhaps
twenty heartbeats the huge sentinel trilithon before us stood black
and stark, framing the winter blaze. Then the sun lifted over the
horizon so quickly that you could see the shadow of the linked
circle move into its long ellipse, to blur and fade almost
immediately into the wide light of a winter's dawn.

I glanced at the King. His eyes, wide
and blank, were on the stone at his feet. I could not read his
thoughts. Then he lifted his head and looked away from me at the
outer circle where the great stones stood locked across the light.
He took a slow pace away from me and turned on his heel, taking in
the full circle of the Hanging Stones. I saw that the new beard was
reddish and curled; he wore his hair longer, and a gold circle
flashed on his helm. His eyes were blue as woodsmoke in the fresh
light.

They met mine at last. "No wonder you
smile. It's very impressive."

"That's with relief," I said. "The
mathematics of this have kept me awake for weeks."

"Tremorinus told me." He gave me a
slow, measuring look. "He also told me what you had
said."

"What I had said?"

"Yes. 'I will deck his grave with
nothing less than the light itself.'"

I said nothing.

He said slowly: "I told you I knew
nothing of prophets or priests. I am only a soldier, and I think
like a soldier. But this -- what you have done here -- this is
something I understand. Perhaps there is room for us both, after
all. I told you I spend Christmas at Winchester. Will you ride back
with me?"

He had asked me, not commanded me. We
were speaking across the stone. It was the beginning of something,
but something I had not yet been shown. I shook my head. "In the
spring, perhaps. I should like to see the crowning. Be sure that
when you need me I shall be there. But now I must go
home."

"To your hole in the ground? Well, if
it's what you want...Your wants are few enough, God knows. Is there
nothing you would ask of me?" He gestured with his hand to the
silent circle. "Men will speak poorly of a King who does not reward
you for this."

"I have been rewarded."

"At Maridunum, now. Your grandfather's
house would be more suitable for you. Will you take it?"

I shook my head. "I don't want a
house. But I would take the hill."

"Then take it. They tell me men call
it Merlin's Hill already. And now it's full daylight, and the
horses will be cold. If you had ever been a soldier, Merlin, you
would know that there is one thing more important even than the
graves of kings: not to keep the horses standing."

He clapped me on the shoulder again,
turned with a swirl of the scarlet cloak, and strode to his waiting
horse. I went to find Cadal.

3

When Easter came I still had no mind
to leave Bryn Myrddin (Uther, true to his word, had given me the
hill where the cave stood, and people already associated its name
with me, rather than with the god, calling it Merlin's Hill) but a
message came from the King, bidding me to London. This time it was
a command, not a request, and so urgent that the King had sent an
escort, to avoid any delay I might have incurred in waiting for
company. It was still not safe in those days to ride abroad in
parties smaller than a dozen or more, and one rode armed and
warily. Men who could not afford their own escort waited until a
party was gathered, and merchants even joined together to pay
guards to ride with them. The wilder parts of the land were still
full of refugees from Octa's army, with Irishmen who had been
unable to get a passage home, and a few stray Saxons trying
miserably to disguise their fair skins, and unmercifully hunted
down when they failed. These haunted the edges of the farms,
skulking in the hills and moors and wild places, making sudden
savage forays in search of food, and watching the roads for any
solitary or ill-armed traveler, however shabby. Anyone with cloak
or sandals was a rich man and worth despoiling.

None of this would have deterred me
from riding alone with Cadal from Maridunum to London. No outlaw or
thief would have faced a look from me, let alone risked a curse.
Since events at Dinas Brenin, Killare, and Amesbury my fame had
spread, growing in song and story until I hardly recognized my own
deeds. Dinas Brenin had also been renamed; it had become Dinas
Emrys, in compliment to me as much as to commemorate Ambrosius'
landing, and the strong-point he had successfully built there. I
lived, too, as well as I ever had in my grandfather's palace or in
Ambrosius' house. Offerings of food and wine were left daily below
the cave, and the poor who had nothing else to bring me in return
for the medicines I gave them, brought fuel, or straw for the
horses' bedding, or their labor for building jobs or making simple
furniture. So winter had passed in comfort and peace, until on a
sharp day in early March Uther's messenger, having left the escort
in the town, came riding up the valley.

It was the first dry day after more
than two weeks of rain and sleety wind, and I had gone up over the
hill above the cave to look for the first growing plants and
simples. I paused at the edge of a clump of pines to watch the
solitary horseman cantering up the hill. Cadal must have heard the
hoofbeats; I saw him, small below me, come out of the cave and
greet the man, then I saw his pointing arm indicating which way I
had gone. The messenger hardly paused. He turned his beast uphill,
struck his spurs in, and came after me.

He pulled up a few paces away, swung
stiffly out of the saddle, made the sign, and approached
me.

He was a brown-haired young man of
about my own age, whose face was vaguely familiar. I thought I must
have seen him around Uther's train somewhere. He was splashed with
mud to the eyebrows, and where he was not muddy his face was white
with fatigue. He must have got a new horse in Maridunum for the
last stage, for the animal was fresh, and restive with it, and I
saw the young man wince as it threw its head up and dragged at the
reins.

"My lord Merlin. I bring you greetings
from the King, in London."

"I am honored," I said
formally.

"He requests your presence at the
feast of his coronation. He has sent you an escort, my lord. They
are in the town, resting their horses."

"Did you say 'requests'?"

"I should have said 'commands,' my
lord. He told me I must bring you back immediately."

"This was all the message?"

"He told me nothing more, my lord.
Only that you must attend him immediately in London."

"Then of course I shall come. Tomorrow
morning, when you have rested the horses?"

"Today, my lord. Now."

It was a pity that Uther's arrogant
command was delivered in a slightly apologetic way. I regarded
him.

"You have come straight to
me?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Without resting?"

"Yes."

"How long has it taken
you?"

"Four days, my lord. This is a fresh
horse. I am ready to go back today." Here the animal jerked its
head again, and I saw him wince.

"Are you hurt?"

"Nothing to speak of. I took a fall
yesterday and hurt my wrist. It's my right wrist, not my bridle
hand."

"No, only your dagger hand. Go down to
the cave and tell my servant what you have told me, and say he is
to give you food and drink. When I come down I shall see to your
wrist." He hesitated. "My lord, the King was urgent. This is more
than an invitation to watch the crowning."

"You will have to wait while my
servant packs my things and saddles our horses. Also while I myself
eat and drink. I can bind up your wrist in a few minutes. And while
I am doing it you can give me the news from London, and tell me why
the King commands me so urgently to the feast. Go down now; I shall
come in a short while."