Legacy: Arthurian Saga (69 page)

Now, the Queen's messenger told me,
the King of Rheged, with Ector of Galava and Ban of Benoic, had
joined with Lot and Urien to clear the north of trouble, and for
the time being they had succeeded. On the whole the news was
cheering. The harvest had been good everywhere, so hunger would not
drive any more Saxons across before winter closed the seaways. We
should have peace for a time; enough time for Uther to settle any
unrest caused by the quarrel with Cornwall and his new marriage, to
ratify such alliances as Ambrosius had made, and to strengthen and
extend his system of defenses.

At length the messenger took his
leave. I wrote no letters, but sent news of Ralf to his
grandmother, and a message of compliance to the Queen, with thanks
for the gift of money she had sent me by the messenger's hand to
provide for my journey. Then the young man rode off cheerfully down
the valley towards the good company and the better supper that
awaited him at the inn. It remained now for me to tell
Ralf.

This was more difficult even than I
had expected. His face lit when I told him about the messenger, and
he looked eagerly about for the man, seeming very disappointed when
he found that he had already gone.

Messages from his grandmother he
received almost impatiently, but plied me with questions about the
fighting south of Vindocladia, listening with such eagerness to all
I could tell him of that and the larger news that it was obvious
that his forced inaction in Maridunum fretted him far more than he
had shown. When I came to the Queen's summons he showed more
animation than I had seen in him since he had come to
me.

"How long before we set
out?"

"I did not say 'we' would set out. I
shall go alone."

"Alone?" You would have thought I had
struck him. The blood sprang under the thin skin and he stood
staring with his mouth open. Eventually he said, sounding stifled:
"You can't mean that. You can't."

"I'm not being arbitrary, believe me.
I'd like to take you, but you must see it isn't
possible."

"Why not? You know everything here
will be perfectly safe; in any case, you've left it before. And you
can't travel alone. How would you go on?"

"My dear Ralf. I've done it
before."

"Maybe you have, but you can't deny
I've served you well since I've been here, so why not take me? You
can't just go to Tintagel -- back to where things are happening --
and leave me here! I warn you" he took a breath, eyes blazing, all
his careful courtesy collapsing in ruins -- "I warn you, my lord,
if you go without me, I shan't be here when you come
back!"

I waited till his gaze fell, then said
mildly: "Have some sense, boy. Surely you see why I can't take you?
The situation hasn't changed so much since you had to leave
Cornwall. You know what would happen if any of Cador's men
recognized you, and everyone knows you round about Tintagel. You'd
be seen, and the word would go round."

"I know that. Do you still think I'm
afraid of Cador? Or of the King?"

"No. But it's foolish to run into
danger when one doesn't need to. And the messenger certainly seemed
to think there was still danger."

"Then what about you? Won't you be in
danger, too?"

"Possibly. I shall have to go
disguised, as it is. Why do you think I've been letting my beard
grow all this while?"

"I didn't know. I never thought about
it. Do you mean you've been expecting the Queen to send for
you?"

"I didn't expect this summons, I
admit," I said. "But I know that, come Christmas, when the child is
born, I must be there."

He stared. "Why?"

I regarded him for a moment. He was
standing near the mouth of the cave, against the sunset, just as he
had come in from his trip across the hill to the shepherd's hut. He
was still clutching the osier basket which had held the salves. It
held a small bundle now, wrapped in a clean linen cloth. The
shepherd's wife, who lived across in the next valley, sent bread up
weekly to her man; some of this Abba regularly sent on to me. I
could see the boy's fists clenched bone-white on the handle of the
basket. He was tense, as angry and fretting as a fighting dog held
back in the slips. There was something more here, I was sure, than
homesickness, or disappointment at missing an adventure.

"Put that basket down, for goodness'
sake," I said, "and come in. That's better. Now, sit down. It's
time that you and I talked. When I accepted your service, I did not
do so because I wanted someone to scour the cooking pots and carry
gifts from Abba's wife on baking day. Even if I am content with my
life here on Bryn Myrddin, I'm not such a fool as to think it
contents you -- or would do so for long. We are waiting, Ralf, no
more. We have fled from danger, both of us, and healed our hurts,
and now there is nothing to do but wait."

"For the Queen's childbed?
Why?"

"Because as soon as he is born, the
Queen's son will be given to me to care for."

He was silent for a full minute before
he said, sounding puzzled: "Does my grandmother know
this?"

"I think she suspects that the child's
future lies with me. When I last spoke with the King, on that night
at Tintagel, he told me he would not acknowledge the child who
would be born. I think this is why the Queen has sent for
me."

"But...not to acknowledge his eldest
son? You mean he will send him away? Will the Queen agree? A baby
-- surely they would never send it to you? How could you keep it?
And how can you even know it will be a boy?"

"Because I had a vision, Ralf, that
night in Tintagel. After you had let us in through the postern
gate, while the King was with Ygraine, and Ulfin kept guard outside
the chamber, you diced with the porter in the lodge by the postern.
Do you remember?"

"How could I ever forget? I thought
that night would never end."

I did not tell him that it had not
ended yet. I smiled. "I think I felt the same, while I waited alone
in the guardroom. It was then that I saw -- was shown -- for
certain why God had required me to do as I had done, shown for sure
that my prophecies had been true. I heard a sound on the stairs,
and went out of the guardroom onto the landing. I saw Marcia, your
grandmother, coming down the steps towards me from the Queen's
room, carrying a child. And though it was only March, I felt the
chill of midwinter, and then I saw the stairs and the shadows clear
through her body, and knew it was a vision. She put the child into
my arms and said, 'Take care of him.' She was weeping. Then she
vanished, and the child too, and the winter's chill went with her.
But this was a true picture, Ralf. At Christmas I shall be there,
waiting, and Marcia will hand the Queen's son into my
care."

He was silent for a long time. He
seemed awed by the vision. But then he said, practically: "And I?
Where do I come into this? Is this why my grandmother told me to
stay with you and serve you?"

"Yes. She saw no future for you near
the King. So she made sure you would be near his son."

"A baby?" His voice was blank. He
sounded horrified, and far from flattered. "You mean that if the
King won't acknowledge the child, you'll have to keep it? I don't
understand. Oh, I can see why my grandmother concerns herself, and
even why you do, but not why she dragged me into it! What sort of
future does she think there is in looking after a king's bastard
that won't be acknowledged?"

"Not a king's bastard," I said. "A
king."

There was silence but for the
fluttering of the fire. I had not spoken with power, but with the
full certainty of knowledge. He stared, open-mouthed, and
shaken.

"Ralf," I said, "you came to me in
anger, and you stayed from duty, and you have served me as well and
as faithfully as you knew how. You were no part of my vision, and I
don't know if your coming here, or the wounds that held you here
with me, were part of God's plan; I have had no message from my
gods since Gorlois died. But I do know now, after these last weeks,
that there is no one I would sooner choose to help me. Not with the
kind of service you have given till now: when this winter comes it
isn't a servant I shall need; I shall need a fighting man who is
loyal, not to me or to the Queen, but to the next High King." He
was pale, and stammering. "I had no idea. I thought...I
thought..."

"That you were suffering a kind of
exile? In a way, we both were. I told you it was a waiting time." I
looked down at my hands. It was dark now outside the cave; the sun
had gone, and dusk drew in. "Nor do I know clearly what lies ahead,
except danger and loss and treachery, and in the end some
glory."

He sat quiet, without moving, till I
roused myself from my thoughts and smiled at him. "So now, perhaps,
you will accept that I don't doubt your courage?"

"Yes. I'm sorry I spoke as I did. I
didn't understand." He hesitated, chewing his lip, then sat
forward, hands on knees. "My lord, you really don't know why the
Queen has sent for you now?"

"No."

"But because you know that your vision
of the birth was a true one, you know that you will go safely this
time to Cornwall, and return?"

"You could say so."

"Then if your magic is always true,
might it not be because I go with you to protect you that you make
the journey safely?"

I laughed. "I suppose it's a good
quality in a fighting man, never to admit defeat. But can't you
see, taking you would only be taking two risks instead of one.
Because my bones tell me I shall be safe, it doesn't mean that you
will."

"If you can be disguised, so can I. If
you even say that we must go as beggars and sleep in the
ditches...whatever the danger..." He swallowed, sounding all at
once very young. "What is it to you if I run a risk? You are to be
safe, you told me so. So taking me can't endanger you, and that's
all that matters. Won't you let me take my own risks?
Please?"

His voice trailed away. Silence again,
and the fire flickering. Time was, I thought, not without
bitterness, when I would only have had to watch the flames to find
the answer there. Would he be safe? Or would I carry the burden of
yet another death? But all that the firelight showed me was a youth
who needed to find manhood. Uther had denied it to him; I could not
let my conscience do the same.

At length I said heavily: "I told you
once that men must stand by their own deeds. I suppose that means I
have no right to stop you taking your own risks. Very well, you may
come...No, don't thank me. You'll dislike me thoroughly enough
before we're done. It will be a damned uncomfortable journey, and
before we set out, you'll have work to do that won't suit
you."

"I'm used to that," he said, and
straightened, laughing. He was shining, excited, the gaiety that I
remembered back in his face.

"But you don't mean you're going to
teach me magic?"

"I do not. But I shall have to teach
you a little medicine, whether you like it or not. I shall be a
traveling eye doctor; it's a good passport anywhere, and one can
pay one's way easily without spending the Queen's gold abroad where
questions might be asked. So you will have to be my assistant, and
that means learning to mix the salves properly."

"Well, if I must, but God help the
patients! You know I can't tell one herb from the
other."

"Never fear, I wouldn't let you touch
them. You can leave me to select the plants. You'll just prepare
them."

"And if any of Cador's men show signs
of recognizing us, just try some of my salves on them," he said
buoyantly. "Talk about magic, it'll be easy. The eye doctor's
skilled assistant will simply strike them blind."

6

We came to the inn at
Camelford two days before the middle of September.

The Camel valley is winding, with
steep sides clothed with trees. For the last part of the way we
followed the track along the waterside. The trees were closely
crowded, and the path where we rode was so thickly padded with moss
and small, dark-green ferns that our horses' hoofs made no sound.
Beside us the river wrangled its way down through granite boulders
that glittered in the sun. Around and above us the dense hangers of
oak and beech were turning yellow, and acorns crunched among the
dead leaves where the horses trod. Nuts ripened in the thickets;
the willows trailed amber leaves in the tugging shallows; and
wherever the bright sun splashed through the boughs it shimmered on
the spiders' webs of autumn furred and glittering, sagging deep
with dew.

Our journey had been uneventful. Once
south of the Severn and beyond hourly danger of recognition, we had
ridden at ease, and in pleasant stages. The weather, as so often in
September, was warm and bright, but with a crisp feel to the air
that made riding a pleasure. Ralf had been in high spirits all the
way, in spite of poor clothes, an undistinguished horse (bought
with some of the Queen's gold) and the work he had had to do for me
making the washes and ointments with which I largely paid our way.
We were only questioned once, by a troop of King's men who came on
us just short of Hercules Point. Uther kept the old Roman camp
there garrisoned as a strongpoint, and by the purest mischance we
fell foul of a scouting party which was making its way home by the
moorland track we followed. We were taken to the camp and
questioned, though it seemed this was merely a matter of form as,
after a cursory look at our baggage, my story was accepted. We were
sent on our way with our flasks refilled with the ration wine, the
richer for a copper coin given me by a man off duty who followed us
out of camp and begged a pot of salve from me.