Legacy: Arthurian Saga (79 page)

12

The wind stayed fair for Brittany, and
we came in sight of the Wild Coast at dawn on the fifth day. Here
the sea is never quiet; the cliffs, high and dangerous, towered
black with the early light behind them and the teeth of the sea
gnawing white at the base; but once round Vindanis Point the seas
flattened and ran calmer, and I was even able to leave my cabin in
time to watch our arrival at the wharf south of Kerrec which my
father and King Budec had built years back when the invasion force
was being assembled here.

The morning was still, with a touch of
frost and a thin mist pearling the fields. The country hereabouts
is flat, field and moorland stretching inland where the wind scours
the grass with salt, and for miles nothing grows but pine and
wind-bitten thorn. Thin streams wind between steep mudbanks down to
the bays and inlets that bite everywhere into the coast, and at low
tide the flats teem with shellfish and are loud with the cries of
wading birds. For all its dour seeming it is a rich country, and
had provided a haven not only for Ambrosius and Uther when
Vortigern murdered their brother the King, but for hundreds of
other exiles who fled from Vortigern and the threat of the Saxon
Terror. Even then, they found parts of the country already peopled
by the Celts of Britain. When the Emperor Maximus, a century
before, had marched on Rome, those British troops who survived his
defeat had straggled back to the refuge of this friendly land. Some
had gone home, but a great many had remained to marry and settle;
my kinsman, King Hoel, came of one such family. The British had
indeed settled in such numbers that men called the peninsula
Britain also, dubbing it Less Britain, as their homeland was known
as Greater Britain. The language spoken here was still recognizably
the same as that of home, and men worshipped the same gods, but the
memories of older gods still visibly held the land, and the place
was strange. I saw Branwen gazing out over the ship's rail with
wide eyes and wondering face, and even Ralf, who had traveled here
before as my messenger, had a look of awe as we drew nearer the
wharf and saw, beyond the huts and the piles of casks and bales,
the first ranks of the standing stones.

These line the fields of Less Britain,
rank on rank, like old grey warriors waiting, or armies of the
dead. They have stood there, men say, since time began. No one
knows why, or how they came there. But I had long known that they
were raised, not by giants or gods or even enchanters, but by human
engineers whose skill lives on only in song. These skills I
learned, when as a boy I lived in Brittany, and men called it
magic. For all I know they may be right. One thing is certain,
though men's hands lifted the stones, and are long since dust under
their roots, the gods they served still walk there. When I have
gone between the stones at night, I have felt eyes on my
back.

But now the sun was up, gilding the
granite surfaces, and throwing the shadows of the stones slanting
blue across the frost. The wharfside was already busy; carts stood
ready for loading, and men and boys ran about the business of tying
up and unloading the ship. We were the only passengers, but no one
cast more than a glance at the travelers in their decent, sober
clothes; the musician with the harp in his baggage and his wife and
baby beside him, with his servant in attendance. Ralf had lifted
the baby from Branwen's arms, and supported her as she trod
gingerly down the gangplank. She was silent and pale, and leaned
heavily on him. I saw, as he bent over her, how -- suddenly, it
seemed -- he had grown from boy to man. He would be turned sixteen
now, and though Branwen was perhaps a year older than he, Ralf
might well be taken for her husband, rather than I. He looked brisk
and bright, sleek as a springtime cockerel in his neat new clothes.
He was the only one of our party, I thought sourly, feeling the
wharf tilt and sway under me as if it had still been the heaving
deck, who had weathered the passage well.

The escort he had arranged was waiting
for us. Not the escort of troops which King Hoel had wanted to
provide, but simply a mule litter for Branwen and the child, with a
muleteer and one other man, who had brought horses for Ralf and
myself. This man came forward now to greet me. From his bearing I
judged him to be an officer, but he was not in uniform, and there
was nothing to show that the escort came from the King. Nor
apparently had the officer been told anything about us, beyond the
fact that we were to be led into town and housed there until the
King should send for us.

He greeted me civilly, but without the
courtesies of rank. "You are welcome, sir. The King sends his
greetings, and I am here to escort you into town. I trust you had a
good voyage?"

"They tell me so," I said, "but
neither I nor the lady are inclined to believe them."

He grinned. "I thought she looked a
little green. I know how she feels. I'm not a great one for the
sea, myself. And you, sir? Can you ride as far as the town? It's
little more than a mile."

"I can try," I said. We exchanged
courtesies while Ralf helped Branwen into the litter and drew the
curtains against the morning chill. As she settled herself into the
warmth the baby woke and began to cry.

He had very good lungs, had Arthur. I
suppose I must have winced. I saw a gleam of amusement in the
officer's face, and said dryly: "Are you married?"

"Yes, indeed."

"I used to think sometimes what I
might be missing. Now I begin to know."

He laughed at that. "One can always
escape. It's the best reason I know for being a soldier. Will you
mount, sir?"

He and I rode side by side on the way
into the town. Kerrec was a sizeable settlement, half civil, half
military, walled and moated, clustered round a central hill where
the King's stronghold lay. Near the ramp which led up to the castle
gate was the house where my father had lived during his years of
exile, while he and King Budec assembled and trained the army which
had invaded Britain to claim it back for him, her rightful
King.

And now, perhaps, her next and greater
King was here at my side, still yelling lustily, muffled in a
litter, and being carried over the wooden bridge that spanned the
moat, and in through the gate of the town.

My companion was silent beside me.
Behind us the others rode at ease; they chatted among themselves,
the sound of their voices and the sharp clop of the horses' hoofs
on the cobbles and the jingling of bits sounding loud in the still
and misty daybreak. The town was just waking. Cocks crowed from
yards and middens; here and there doors were opened and women,
shawled against the cold, could be seen moving with pails or
armfuls of kindling to start the day's work.

I was glad of my companion's silence
as I looked about me. Even in the five years since I had left it
the place seemed to have changed completely. I suppose one cannot
pull a standing army out of a town where it has been built and
trained for years, and not leave an echoing shell. The army,
indeed, had been mainly quartered outside the walls, and the camps
had long since been dismantled and gone back to grassland. But in
the town, though King Budec's own troops remained, the orderly
bustle and the air of purpose and expectancy which had
characterized the place in my father's time had gone. In the street
of the engineers, where I had served my apprenticeship with
Tremorinus, there were a few workshops open and already clanging in
the early dawn, but the air of high purpose had gone with the crowd
and the clamor, and something almost like desolation had taken its
place. I was glad that the way to our lodging did not pass my
father's house.

We were lodged with a decent couple,
who made us welcome; Branwen and the baby were carried straight off
to some women's fastness, while I was shown to a good room where a
fire blazed and breakfast was spread waiting beside it. A servant
carried the baggage in, and would have stayed to wait on me, but
Ralf dismissed him and served the meal himself. I bade him eat with
me, and he did so, cheerful and brisk as if the last week or so had
been spent holidaying, and when we had done asked if I wanted to go
out to explore the town. I gave him leave, but said that I would
stay within doors. I am a strong man, and do not readily tire, but
it takes more than a mile on dry land and a good breakfast to
dispel the grinding sickness and exhaustion of a winter voyage. So
I bade Ralf merely see to it that Branwen and the child were
comfortable, and, after he had gone, composed myself to rest and
wait for the King's summons.

It came at lamplighting, and Ralf with
it, wide-eyed, with a robe over his arm of soft combed wool dyed a
rich dark blue, with a border worked in gold and silver
thread.

"The King sent this for you. Will you
wear it?"

"Certainly. It would be an insult to
do anything else."

"But it's a prince's robe. People will
wonder who you are."

"Not a prince's, no. A singer's robe
of honor. This is a civilized country, Ralf, like my own. It's not
only princes and soldiers who are held in high esteem. When will
King Hoel receive me?"

"In an hour's time, he says. He will
receive you alone, before you sing in the hall. What are you
laughing at?"

"King Hoel being cunning from
necessity. There's only one catch about going as a singer to Hoel's
court; he happens to be tone deaf. But even a tone deaf king will
receive a traveling singer, to get his news. So he receives me
alone. Then if the barons in his hall want to hear me, he doesn't
have to sit through it."

"He sent that harp along, though."
Ralf nodded to the instrument which stood shrouded near the
lamp.

"He sent it, yes, but it was never
his; it's my own." He looked at me in surprise. I had spoken more
curtly than I had meant to. All day the silent harp had stood
there, untouched, but speaking to me of memories, of most, indeed,
that I had ever had of happiness. As a boy here in Kerrec, in my
father's house, I had played it almost nightly. I added: "It was
one I used here, years ago. Hoel's father must have kept it for me.
I don't suppose it's been touched since I last played it. I'd
better try it before I go. Uncover it, will you?"

A scratch at the door then heralded a
slave with a ewer of steaming water. While I washed, and combed my
hair, then let the slave help me into the sumptuous blue robe, Ralf
uncovered the harp and set it ready.

It was bigger than the one I had
brought with me. That was a knee harp, easy to transport; this was
a standing harp, with a greater range and a tone which would reach
the corners of a King's hall. I tuned it carefully, then ran my
fingers over the strings.

To remember love after long sleep; to
turn again to poetry after a year in the market place, or to youth
after resignation to drowsy and stiffening age; to remember what
once you thought life could hold, after telling over with muddied
and calculating fingers what it has offered; this is music, made
after long silence. The soul flexes its wings, and, clumsy as any
fledgling, tries the air again. I felt my way, groping back through
the chords, for the passion that slept there in the harp,
exploring, testing as a man tests in the dark ground which once he
knew in daylight. Whispers, small jags of sound, bunches of notes
dragged sharply. The wires thrilled, catching the firelight, and
the long running chords lapsed into the song.

There was a hunter at the
moon's dark.

Who sought to lay a net of
gold in the marshes.

A net of gold, a net heavy
as gold.

And the tide came in and
drowned the net.

Held it invisible, deep, and the
hunter waited, crouching by the water in the moon's dark. They
came, the birds fighting the dark, hundred on hundred, a king's
army. They landed on the water, a fleet of ships, of king's ships,
proud with silver, silver masted, Swift ships, fierce in battle,
crowding the water in the moon's dark. The net was heavy beneath
them, hidden, waiting to catch them. But he lay still, the young
hunter, with idle hands. Hunter, draw in your net. Your children
will eat tonight, and your wife will praise you, the cunning
hunter. He drew in his net, the young hunter, drew it tight and
fast. It was heavy, and he drew it to shore, among the reeds. It
was heavy as gold, but nothing was there but water. There was
nothing in it but water, heavy as gold, and one grey feather, From
the wing of a wild goose. They had gone, the ships, the armies,
into the moon's dark. And the hunter's children were hungry, and
his wife lamented.

But he slept dreaming, holding the
wild goose feather.

King Hoel was a big, thick-bodied man
in his middle thirties. During the time I had spent in Kerrec --
from my twelfth to my seventeenth year -- I had seen very little of
him. He had been a lusty and dedicated fighting man, while I was
only a youth, and busy with my studies in hospital and workshop.
But later he had fought with my father's troops in Greater Britain,
and there we had come to know and to like one another. He was a man
of big appetites and, as such men often are, good natured and
tending to laziness. Since I had last seen him he had put on flesh,
and his face had the flush of good living, but I had no doubt he
would be as stalwart as ever in the field.