Legacy: Arthurian Saga (64 page)

Those deft fingers gently turned my
head on the pillow, and parted my hair to sponge the bruises. "Have
you never seen him before?"

"Never. I hadn't imagined him so
young."

"Not so young. He must be two and
twenty."

"But to have done so much. They say
his father the High King Ambrosius never took a step, in the last
year or two, without talking it over with him. They say he sees the
future in a candle flame and can win a battle from a hilltop a mile
away."

"They would say anything, of him." The
doctor's voice was prosaic and calm. Brittany, I thought, I must
have known him in Brittany. The smooth Latin had some overtone I
remembered, without knowing how. "But certainly Ambrosius valued
his advice."

"Is it true he rebuilt the Giants'
Dance near Amesbury, that they call the Hanging Stones?"

"That's true enough. When he was a lad
with his father's army in Brittany he studied to be an engineer. I
remember him talking to Tremorinus -- that was the army's chief
engineer -- about lifting the Hanging Stones. But that wasn't all
he studied. Even as a youth he knew more about medicine than most
men I've met who practice it for a livelihood. I can't think of any
man I'd rather have by me in a field hospital. God knows why he
chooses to shut himself away in that godforsaken corner of Wales
now -- at least, one can guess why. He and King Uther never got on.
They say Uther was jealous of the attention his brother the King
paid Merlin. At any rate, after Ambrosius' death, Merlin went
nowhere and saw no one, till this business of Uther and Gorlois'
Duchess. And it seems as if that's brought him trouble
enough...Bring the bowl nearer, while I clean his face. No, here.
That's right."

"That's a sword cut, by the look of
it."

"A glancing scratch from the point,
I'd say. It looks worse than it is, with all the blood. He was
lucky there. Another inch and it would have caught his eye. There.
It's clean enough; it won't leave a scar."

"He looks like death, Gandar. Will he
recover?"

"Of course. How not?" Even through the
lulling of the nepenthe, I recognized the quick professional
reassurance as genuine. "Apart from the ribs and the hand, it's
only cuts and bruising, and I would guess a sharp reaction from
whatever has been driving him the last few days. All he needs is
sleep. Hand me that ointment there, please. In the green
jar."

The salve was cool on my cut cheek. It
smelled of valerian. Nard, in the green jar...I made it at home.
Valerian, balm, oil of spikenard...The smell of it took me dreaming
out among the mosses at the river's edge, where water ran
sparkling, and I gathered the cool cress and the balsam and the
golden moss...

No, it was water pouring at the other
side of the room. He had finished, and had gone to wash his hands.
The voices came from farther off.

"Ambrosius' bastard, eh?" The
foreigner was still curious. "Who was his mother, then?"

"She was a king's daughter, Southern
Welsh, from Maridunum in Dyfed. They say he got the Sight from her.
But not his looks; he's a mirror of the late King, more than Uther
ever was. Same coloring, black eyes, and that black hair. I
remember the first time I saw him, back inBrittany when he was a
boy; he looked like something from the hollow hills. Talked like
it, too, sometimes; that is, when he talked at all. Don't let his
quiet ways fool you; it's more than just book-learning and luck and
a knack of timing; there's power there, and it's real."

"So the stories are true?"

"The stories are true," said Gandar
flatly. "There. He'll do now. No need to stay with him. Get some
sleep. I'll do the rounds myself, and come and take a look at him
again before I go to bed. Good night."

The voices faded. Others came and went
in the darkness, but these were voices without blood, belonging to
the air. Perhaps I should have waited and waked to listen, but I
lacked the courage. I reached for sleep and drew it round me like a
blanket, muffling pain and thought together in the merciful
dark.

When I opened my eyes again it was to
darkness lit by calm candlelight. I was in a small chamber with a
barrel roof of stone and rough-hewn walls where the once bright
paint had darkened and flaked away with damp and neglect. But the
room was clean. The floor of Cornish slate had been well scrubbed,
and the blankets that covered me were fresh-smelling and thick, and
richly worked in bright patterns.

The door opened quietly, and a man
came in. At first, against the stronger light beyond the doorway, I
could only see him as a man of middle height, broad shouldered and
thickly built, dressed in a long plain robe, with a round cap on
his head. Then he came forward into the candlelight, and I saw that
it was Gandar, the chief physician who traveled with the King's
armies. He stood over me, smiling.

"And about time."

"Gandar! It's good to see you. How
long have I slept?"

"Since dusk yesterday, and now it's
past midnight. It was what you needed. You looked like death when
they brought you in. But I must say it made my job a lot easier to
have you unconscious."

I glanced down at the hand which lay,
neatly bandaged, on the coverlet in front of me. My body was stiff
and sore inside its strapping, but the fierce pain had died to a
dull aching. My mouth was swollen, and tasted still of blood
mingled with the sick-sweet remnants of the drug, but my headache
had gone, and the cut on my face had stopped hurting.

"I'm thankful you were here to do it,"
I said. I shifted the hand a little to ease it, but it was no use.
"Will it mend?"

"With the help of youth and good
flesh, yes. There were three bones broken, but I think it's clean."
He looked at me curiously.

"How did you come by it? It looked as
if a horse had trodden on you and then kicked your ribs in. But the
cut on your face, that was a sword, surely?"

"Yes. I was in a fight."

His brows went up. "If that was a
fight, then it wasn't fought by any rules I ever heard of. Tell me
-- wait, though, not yet. I'm on fire to know what happened -- we
all are -- but you must eat first." He went to the door and called,
and presently a servant came in with a bowl of broth and some
bread. I could not manage the bread at first, but then sopped a
little of it in the broth, and ate that. Gandar pulled a stool up
beside the bed, and waited in silence till I had finished. At
length I pushed the bowl aside, and he took it from me and set it
on the floor.

"Now do you feel well enough to talk?
The rumors are flying about like stinging gnats. You knew that
Gorlois was dead?"

"Yes." I looked about me. "I'm in
Dimilioc itself, I take it? The fortress surrendered, then, after
the Duke was killed?"

"They opened the gates as soon as the
King got back from Tintagel. He'd already had the news of the
skirmish, and the Duke's death. It seems that the Duke's men,
Brithael and Jordan, rode to Tintagel as soon as the Duke fell, to
take the Duchess the news. But you'd know that; you were there." He
stopped short, as he saw the implications. "So that was it!
Brithael and Jordan -- they ran into you and Uther?"

"Not into Uther, no. They never saw
him; he was still with the Duchess. I was outside with my servant
Cadal -- you remember Cadal? -- guarding the doors. Cadal killed
Jordan, and I killed Brithael." I smiled, wryly, with my stiff
mouth. "Yes, you may well stare. He was well beyond my weight, as
you can see. Do you wonder I fought foul?"

"And Cadal?"

"Dead. Do you think otherwise that
Brithael would have got to me?"

"I see." His gaze told again, briefly,
the tally of my hurts. When he spoke, his voice was dry. "Four men.
With you, five. It's to be hoped the King counts it worth the
price."

"He does," I said. "Or he will
soon."

"Oh, aye, everyone knows that. Give
him time only to tell the world that he is guiltless of Gorlois'
death, and to get him buried with honor, so that he can marry the
Duchess. He's gone back to Tintagel already, did you know? He must
have passed you on the road."

"He did," I said dryly. "Within a yard
or two."

"But didn't he see you? Or surely --
he must have known you were hurt?" Then my tone got through to him.
"You mean he saw you, like that, and left you to ride here alone?"
I could see that he was shocked, rather than surprised. Gandar and
I were old acquaintances, and I had no need to tell him what my
relationship had been with Uther, even though he was my father's
brother. From the very beginning, Uther had resented his brother's
love for his bastard son, and had half feared, half despised my
powers of vision and prophecy. He said hotly: "But when it was done
in his service --"

"Not his, no. What I did, I did
because of a promise I made to Ambrosius. It was a trust' he left
with me, for his kingdom." I left it at that. One did not speak to
Gandar of gods and visions. He dealt, like Uther, with things of
the flesh. "Tell me," I said, "those rumors you were talking of.
What are they? What do people think happened at
Tintagel?"

He gave a half-glance over his
shoulder. The door was shut, but he lowered his voice. "The story
goes that Uther had already been in Tintagel, with the Duchess
Ygraine, and that it was you who took him there and put him in the
way of entering. They say you changed the King by enchantment into
a likeness of the Duke, and got him past the guards and into the
Duchess's bedchamber. They say more than that; they say she took
him to her bed, poor lady, thinking he was her husband. And that
when Brithael and Jordan took her the news of Gorlois' death, there
was 'Gorlois' sitting large as life beside her at breakfast. By the
Snake, Merlin, why do you laugh?"

"Two days and nights," I said, "and
the story has grown already. Well, I suppose that is what men will
believe, and go on believing. And perhaps it is better than the
truth."

"What is the truth, then?"

"That there was no enchantment about
our entry into Tintagel, only disguise, and human
treachery."

I told him the story then, exactly as
it had happened, with the tale I had given the goatherd. "So you
see, Gandar, I sowed that seed myself. The nobles and the King's
advisers must know the truth, but the common folk will find the
tale of magic, and a blameless Duchess, better to believe -- and,
God knows, easier -- than the truth."

He was silent for a while. "So the
Duchess knew."

"Or we would not have got in," I said.
"It shall not be said, Gandar, that this was a rape. No, the
Duchess knew."

He was silent again, for rather
longer. Then he said, heavily:

"Treachery is a hard word."

"It is a true one. The Duke was my
father's friend, and he trusted me. It would never have occurred to
him that I would help Uther against him. He knew how little I cared
for Uther's lusts. He could not guess that my gods demanded that I
should help him satisfy this one. Even though I could not help
myself, it was still treachery, and we shall suffer for it, all of
us."

"Not the King." He said it positively.
"I know him. I doubt if the King will feel more than a passing
guilt. You are the one who is suffering for it, Merlin, just as you
are the one who calls it by its name."

"To you," I said. "To other men this
will remain a story of enchantment, like the dragons which fought
at my bidding under Dinas Emrys, and the Giants' Dance which
floated on air and water to Amesbury. But you have seen how Merlin
the King's enchanter fared that night." I paused, and shifted my
hand on the coverlet, but shook my head at the question in his
face. "No, no, let be. It's better already. Gandar, one other truth
about that night must be known. There will be a child. Take it as
hope, or take it as prophecy, you will see that, come Christmas, a
boy will be born. Has he said when he will marry her?"

"As soon as it's decent. Decent!" He
repeated the word on a short bark of laughter, then cleared his
throat. "The Duke's body is here, but in a day or two they'll carry
him to Tintagel to bury him. Then, after the eight days' mourning,
Uther is to marry the Duchess."

I thought for a moment. "Gorlois had a
son by his first wife. Cador, he was called. He must be about
fifteen. Have you heard what is to become of him?"

"He's here. He was in the fight,
beside his father. No one knows what has passed between him and the
King, but the King gave an amnesty to all the troops that fought
against him in the action at Dimilioc, and he has said, besides,
that Cador will be confirmed Duke of Cornwall."

"Yes," I said. "And Ygraine's son and
Uther's will be King."

"With Cornwall his bitter
enemy?"

"If he is," I said wearily, "who is to
blame him? The payment may well be too long and too heavy, even for
treachery."

"Well," said Gandar, suddenly brisk,
gathering his robe about him, "that's with time. And now, young
man, you'd better get some more rest. Would you like a
draught?"

"Thank you, no."