Legacy: Arthurian Saga (54 page)

"But, sir --"

I said: "By the time Cadal has
prepared food for the three of us I shall be with you. You cannot
hurry me more than that. Now go."

He threw me a doubtful look, then
went, slithering on foot down the wet hill-side and dragging the
jibbing horse after him. I gathered my cloak round me against the
wind, and walked past the end of the pine wood and out of sight of
the cave.

I stood at the end of a rocky spur
where the winds came freely down the valley and tore at my cloak.
Behind me the pines roared, and under the noise the bare
blackthorns by Galapas' grave rattled in the wind. An early plover
screamed in the grey air. I lifted my face to the sky and thought
of Uther and London, and the command that had just come. But
nothing was there except the sky and the pines and the wind in the
blackthorns. I looked the other way, down towards
Maridunum.

From this height I could see the whole
town, tiny as a toy in the distance. The valley was sullen green in
the March wind. The river curled, grey under the grey sky. A wagon
was crossing the bridge. There was a point of color where a
standard flew over the fortress. A boat scudded down-river, its
brown sails full of the wind. The hills, still in their winter
purple, held the valley cupped as one might hold in one's palms a
globe of glass...

The wind whipped water to my eyes, and
the scene blurred. The crystal globe was cold in my hands. I gazed
down into it. Small and perfect in the heart of the crystal lay the
town with its bridge and moving river and the tiny, scudding ship.
Round it the fields curved up and over, distorting in the curved
crystal till fields, sky, river, clouds held the town with its
scurrying people as leaves and sepals hold a bud before it breaks
to flower. It seemed that the whole countryside, the whole of
Wales, the whole of Britain could be held small and shining and
safe between my hands, like something set in amber. I stared down
at the land globed in crystal, and knew that this was what I had
been born for. The time was here, and I must take it on
trust.

The crystal globe melted out of my
cupped hands, and was only a fistful of plants I had gathered, cold
with rain. I let them fall, and put up the back of a hand to wipe
the water from my eyes. The scene below me had changed; the wagon
and the boat had gone; the town was still.

I went down to the cave to find Cadal
busy with his cooking pots, and the young man already struggling
with the saddles of our horses.

"Let that alone," I told him. "Cadal,
is there hot water?"

"Plenty. Here's a start and a half,
orders from the King. London, is it?" Cadal sounded pleased, and I
didn't blame him.

"We were due for a change, if you ask
me. What is it, do you suppose? He" -- jerking his head at the
young man -- "doesn't seem to know, or else he's not telling.
Trouble, by the sound of it."

"Maybe. We'll soon find out. Here,
you'd better dry this." I gave him my cloak, sat down by the fire,
and called the young man to me. "Let me see that arm of yours
now."

His wrist was blue with bruising, and
swollen, and obviously hurt to the touch, but the bones were whole.
While he washed I made a compress, then bound it on. He watched me
half apprehensively, and tended to shy from my touch, and not only,
I thought, with pain. Now that the mud was washed off and I could
see him better, the feeling of familiarity persisted even more
strongly. I eyed him over the bandages. "I know you, don't
I?"

"You wouldn't remember me, my lord.
But I remember you. You were kind to me once." I laughed. "Was it
such a rare occasion? What's your name?"

"Ulfin."

"Ulfin? It has a familiar sound...Wait
a moment. Yes, I have it. Belasius' boy?"

"Yes. You do remember me?"

"Perfectly. That night in the forest,
when my pony went lame, and you had to lead him home. I suppose you
were around underfoot most of the time, but you were about as
conspicuous as a field mouse. That's the only time I remember. Is
Belasius over here for the coronation?"

"He's dead."

Something in his tone made me cock an
eye at him over the bandaged wrist. "You hated him as much as that?
No, don't answer, I guessed as much back there, young as I was.
Well, I shan't ask why. The gods know I didn't love him myself, and
I wasn't his slave. What happened to him?"

"He died of a fever, my
lord."

"And you managed to survive him? I
seem to remember something about an old and barbarous custom
--"

"Prince Uther took me into his
service. I am with him now -- the King."

He spoke quickly, looking away. I knew
it was all I would ever learn. "And are you still so afraid of the
world, Ulfin?"

But he would not answer that. I
finished tying the wrist. "Well, it's a wild and violent place, and
the times are cruel. But they will get better, and I think you will
help to make them so. There, that's done. Now get yourself
something to eat. Cadal, do you remember Ulfin? The boy who brought
Aster home the night we ran into Uther's troops by
Nemet?"

"By the dog, so it is." Cadal looked
him up and down. "You look a sight better than you did then. What
happened to the druid? Died of a curse? Come along then, and get
something to eat. Yours is here, Merlin, and see you eat enough for
a human being for a change, and not just what might keep one of
your precious birds alive."

"I'll try," I said meekly, and then
laughed at the expression on Ulfin's face as he looked from me to
my servant and back again.

We lay that night at an inn near the
crossroads where the way leads off north for the Five Hills and the
gold mine. I ate alone in my room, served by Cadal. No sooner had
the door shut behind the servant who carried the dishes than Cadal
turned to me, obviously bursting with news.

"Well, there's a pretty carry-on in
London, by all accounts."

"One might expect it," I said mildly.
"I heard someone say Budec was there, together with most of the
kings from across the Narrow Sea, and that most of them, and half
the King's own nobles, have brought their daughters along with an
eye to the empty side of the throne." I laughed. "That should suit
Uther."

"They say he's been through half the
girls in London already," said Cadal, setting a dish down in front
of me. It was Welsh mutton, with a good sauce made of onions, hot
and savory.

"They'd say anything of him." I began
to help myself. "It could even be true."

"Yes, but seriously, there's trouble
afoot, they say. Woman trouble."

"Oh, God, Cadal, spare me. Uther was
born to woman trouble."

"No, but I mean it. Some of the escort
were talking, and it's no wonder Ulfin wouldn't. This is real
trouble. Gorlois's wife."

I looked up, startled. "The Duchess of
Cornwall ? This can't be true."

"It's not true yet. But they say it's
not for want of trying."

I drank wine. "You can be sure it's
only rumor. She's more than half as young again as her husband, and
I've heard she's fair. I suppose Uther pays her some attention, the
Duke being his second in command, and men make all they can of it,
Uther being who he is. And what he is."

Cadal leaned his fists on the table
and looked down at me. He was uncommonly solemn. "Attention, is it?
They say he's never out of her lap. Sends her the best dishes at
table each day, sees she's served first, even before he is, pledges
her in front of everybody in the hall every time he raises his
goblet. Nobody's talking of anything else from London to
Winchester. I'm told they're laying bets in the
kitchen."

"I've no doubt. And does Gorlois have
anything to say?"

"Tried to pass it over at first, they
say, but it got so that he couldn't go on pretending he hadn't
noticed. He tried to look as if he thought Uther was just doing the
pair of them honor, but when it came to sitting the Lady Ygraine --
that's her name -- on Uther's right, and the old man six down on
the other side" He paused.

I said, uneasily: "He must be crazed.
He can't afford trouble yet -- trouble of any kind, let alone this,
and with Gorlois of all people. By all the gods, Cadal, it was
Cornwall that helped Ambrosius into the country at all, and
Cornwall who put Uther where he is now. Who won the battle of Damen
Hill for him?"

"Men are saying that, too."

"Are they indeed?" I thought for a
moment, frowning. "And the woman? What -- apart from the usual
dunghill stuff -- do they say about her?"

"That she says little, and says less
each day. I've no doubt Gorlois has plenty to say to her at night
when they're alone together. Anyway, I'm told she hardly lifts her
eyes in public now, in case she meets the King staring at her over
his cup, or leaning across at the table to look down her
dress."

"That is what I call dunghill stuff,
Cadal. I meant, what is she like?"

"Well, that's just what they don't
say, except that she's silent, and as beautiful as this, that and
the other thing." He straightened. "Oh, no one says she gives him
any help. And God knows there's no need for Uther to act like a
starving man in sight of a dish of food; he could have his platter
piled high any night he liked. There's hardly a girl in London who
isn't trying to catch that eye of his."

"I believe you. Has he quarreled with
Gorlois? Openly, I mean?"

"Not so that I heard. In fact, he's
been over-cordial there, and he got away with it for the first week
or so; the old man was flattered. But Merlin, it does sound like
trouble; she's less than half Gorlois' age and spends her life
mewed up in one of those cold Cornish castles with nothing to do
but weave his war-cloaks and dream over them, and you may be sure
it's not of an old man with a grey beard."

I pushed the platter aside. I remember
I still felt wholly unconcerned about what Uther was doing. But
Cadal's last remark came a little too near home for comfort. There
had been another girl, once, who had had nothing to do but sit at
home and weave and dream...

I said abruptly: "All right, Cadal.
I'm glad to know. I just hope we can keep clear of it ourselves.
I've seen Uther mad for a woman before, but they've always been
women he could get. This is suicide."

"Crazed, you said. That's what men are
saying, too," said Cadal slowly. "Bewitched, they call it." He
looked down at me half-sideways. "Maybe that's why he sent young
Ulfin in such a sweat to make sure you'd come to London. Maybe he
wants you there, to break the spell?"

"I don't break," I said shortly. "I
make."

He stared for a moment, shutting his
mouth on what, apparently, he had been about to say. Then he turned
away to lift the jug of wine. As he poured it for me, in silence, I
saw that his left hand was making the sign. We spoke no more that
night.

4

As soon as I came in front of Uther I
saw that Cadal had been right. Here was real trouble.

We reached London on the very eve of
the crowning. It was late, and the city gates were shut, but it
seemed there had been orders about us, for we were hustled through
without question, and taken straight up to the castle where the
King lay. I was scarcely given time to get out of my mud-stained
garments before I was led along to his bedchamber and ushered in.
The servants withdrew immediately and left us alone.

Uther was ready for the night, in a
long bedgown of dark brown velvet edged with fur. His high chair
was drawn to a leaping fire of logs, and on a stool beside the
chair stood a pair of goblets and a lidded silver flagon with steam
curling gently from the spout. I could smell the spiced wine as
soon as I entered the room, and my dry throat contracted longingly,
but the King made no move to offer it to me. He was not sitting by
the fire. He was prowling restlessly up and down the room like a
caged beast, and after him, pace for pace, his wolfhound followed
him.

As the door shut behind the servants
he said abruptly, as he had said once before: "You took your
time."

"Four days? You should have sent
better horses." That stopped him in his tracks. He had not expected
to be answered. But he said, mildly enough: "They were the best in
my stables."

"Then you should get winged ones if
you want better speed than we made, my lord. And tougher men. We
left two of them by the way." But he was no longer listening. Back
in his thoughts, he resumed his restless pacing, and I watched him.
He had lost weight, and moved quickly and lightly, like a starving
wolf. His eyes were sunken with lack of sleep, and he had
mannerisms I had not seen in him before; he could not keep his
hands still. He wrung them together behind him, cracking the
finger-joints, or fidgeted with the edges of his robe, or with his
beard.

He flung at me over his shoulder: "I
want your help."

"So I understand." He turned at that.
"You know about it?" I lifted my shoulders. "Nobody talks of
anything else but the King's desire for Gorlois' wife. I understand
you have made no attempt to hide it. But it is more than a week now
since you sent Ulfin to fetch me. In that time, what has happened?
Are Gorlois and his wife still here?"