Legacy: Arthurian Saga (80 page)

I started by speaking of his father
King Budec and the changes that had come, and we talked for a while
of past times.

"Ah, yes, those were good years." He
stared, chin on fist, into the fire. He had received me in his
private chamber, and after we had been served with wine, had
dismissed the servants. His two deerhounds lay stretched on the
skins at his feet, dreaming still of the chase they had had that
day. His hunting spears, freshly cleaned, stood against the wall
behind his chair, their blades catching the firelight. The King
stretched his massive shoulders, and spoke wistfully. "I wonder,
when will such years come again?"

"You are talking of the fighting
years?"

"I am talking of Ambrosius' years,
Merlin."

"They will come again, with your help
now." He looked puzzled, then startled, and uneasy. I had spoken
prosaically enough, but he had caught the implications. Like Uther,
he was a man who liked everything normal, open and ordinary. "You
mean the child? The bastard? After all we've heard about it, he'll
be the one to succeed Uther?"

"Yes. I promise you."

He fidgeted with his cup, and his eyes
slid away from mine. "Ah, yes. Well, we shall keep him safely. But
tell me, why the secrecy? I had a letter from Uther asking me
openly enough to care for the boy. Ralf couldn't tell me much more
than was in the letters he brought. I'll help, of course, every way
I can, but I don't want a quarrel with Uther. His letter to me made
it pretty clear that this boy's only his heir in default of a
better claim."

"That's true. Don't be afraid, I don't
want a quarrel, either, between you and Uther. One doesn't throw a
precious morsel down between two fighting-dogs and expect it to
survive. Until there is a boy with what Uther calls a better claim,
he's as anxious as I am to keep this one safe. He knows what I'm
doing, up to a point."

"Ah." He cocked an eye at me,
intrigued. I had been right about him. He might be well disposed
towards Britain, but he was not above doing a quietly back-handed
turn to Britain's King.

"Up to what point?"

"The time when the baby is weaned, and
grown enough to need men's company and to be taught men's arts.
Four years, perhaps, or less. After that I shall take him back from
you, and he must go home to Britain. If Uther asks where he is, he
will have to be told, but until he does -- well, there's no need to
seek him out, is there? Myself, I doubt if Uther will question you
at all. I think he would forget this child if he could. In any
case, if there is blame, it is mine. He put the boy in my charge,
to rear as I thought fit."

"But will it be safe to take him back?
If Uther's sending him here now because of enemies at home, are you
sure it will be better then?"

"It's a risk that will have to be
taken. I want to be near the child as he grows. It should be in
Britain, and therefore it must be in secret. There are bad times
coming, Hoel, for us all. I cannot yet see what will happen, beyond
these facts; that this boy -- this bastard if you like -- will have
enemies, even more than Uther has. You call him bastard; so will
other men with ambition. His secret enemies will be more deadly
even than the Saxons. So he must be hidden until the time comes for
him to take the crown, and then he must take it with no cast of
doubt, and be raised King in the sight of all Britain."

"'He must be?' You have seen things,
then?" But before I could answer he shied quickly away from the
strange ground, and cleared his throat. "Well, I'll keep him safe
for you, as well as I may. Just tell me what you want. You know
your own business, always did. I'll trust you to keep me right with
Uther." He gave his great laugh. "I remember how Ambrosius used to
say that your judgment in matters of policy, even when you were a
youngling, was worth ten of any bedroom emperor's." My father,
naturally, had said no such thing, and in any case would hardly
have said it to Hoel, who had a fair reputation himself as a lover,
but I took it as it was intended, and thanked him. He went on:
"Well, tell me what you want. I confess I'm puzzled...These enemies
you talk of, won't they guess he's in Brittany? You say Uther made
no secret of his plans, and when the time comes for the royal ship
to sail and it's seen that you and the child aren't on it, won't
they simply think he was sent over earlier, and search first for
him here in Brittany?"

"Probably. But by that time he'll be
disposed of in the place I've arranged for him, and that's not the
kind of place where Uther's nobles would think of looking. And I
myself will be gone."

"What place is that? Am I to
know?"

"Of course. It's a small village near
your boundary, north, towards Lanascol."

"What?" He was startled, and showed
it. One of the hounds stirred and opened an eye. "North? At the
edge of Gorlan's land? Gorlan is no friend to the
Dragon."

"Nor to me," I said. "He's a proud
man, and there is an old score between his house and my mother's.
But he has no quarrel with you?"

"No, indeed," said Hoel fervently,
with the respect of one fighting man for another.

"So I believed. So Gorlan isn't likely
to make forays into the edge of your territory. What's more, who
would dream that I would hide the child so near him? That with all
Brittany to choose from, I'd leave him within bowshot of Uther's
enemy? No, he'll be safe. When I leave him, I'll do so with a quiet
mind. But that's not to say I'm not deeply in your debt." I smiled
at him. "Even the stars need help at times."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Hoel
gruffly. "We mere kings like to think we have our parts to play.
But you and your stars might make it a bit easier for us, perhaps?
Surely, in all that great forest north of here, there must be safer
places than the very edge of my lands?"

"Possibly, but it happens that I have
a safe house there. The one person in both the Britains who'll know
exactly what to do with the child for the next four years, and will
care for him as she would for her own."

"She?"

"Yes. My own nurse, Moravik. She's a
Breton born, and after Maridunum was sacked in Camlach's war she
left South Wales and went home. Her father owned a tavern north of
here at a place called Coll. Since he'd grown too old for work, a
fellow called Brand kept it for him. Brand's wife was dead, and
soon after Moravik returned home she and Brand married, just to
keep things right in the sight of God...and, knowing Moravik, I'm
not just talking about the inn's title deeds...They keep the place
still. You must have passed it, though I doubt if you'd ever stop
there -- it stands where two streams join and a bridge crosses
them. Brand's a retired soldier of your own, and a good man -- and
in any case will do as Moravik bids him." I smiled. "I never knew a
man who didn't, except perhaps my grandfather."

"Ye-es." He still sounded doubtful, "I
know the village, a handful of huts by the bridge, that's all...As
you say, hardly a likely place to hunt a High King's heir. But an
inn? Isn't that in itself a risk? With men -- Gorlan's, too, since
it's a time of truce -- coming and going from the road?"

"So, no one will question your
messengers or mine. My man Ralf will stay there to guard the boy,
and he'll need to stay abreast of news, and get messages to you
from time to time, and to me."

"Yes. Yes, I see. And when you take
the child there, what's your story?"

"No one will think twice about a
traveling harper plying his trade on a journey. And Moravik has put
a story round that will explain the sudden appearance of Ralf and
the baby and his nurse. The story, if anyone questions it, will be
that the girl, Branwen, is Moravik's niece, who bore a child to her
master over in Britain. Her mistress cast her from the house, and
she had no other place to go, but the man gave her money for the
passage to her aunt's house in Brittany, and paid the traveling
singer and his man to escort her. And the singer's man, meanwhile,
will decide to leave his master and stay with the girl."

"And the singer himself? How long will
you stay there?"

"Only as long as a traveling singer
might, then I'll move on and be forgotten. By the time anyone even
thinks to look farther for Uther's child, how can they find him? No
one knows the girl, and the baby is only a baby. Every house in the
country has one or more to show."

He nodded, chewing it over this way
and that, and asked a few more questions. Finally he admitted: "It
will serve, I suppose. What do you want me to do?"

"You have watchers in the kingdoms
that march with yours?"

He laughed shortly. "Spies? Who
hasn't?"

"Then you'll hear quickly enough if
there's any hint of trouble from Gorlan or anyone else. And if you
can arrange for some quick and secret contact with Ralf, should it
be necessary -- ?"

"Easy. Trust me. Anything I can do,
short of war with Gorlan..." He gave his deep chuckle again. "Eh,
Merlin, it's good to see you. How long can you stay?"

"I'll take the boy north tomorrow, and
with your permission will go unescorted. I'll come back as soon as
I see all is safe. But I'll not come here again. You might be
expected to receive a traveling singer once, but not actually to
encourage him."

"No, by God!"

I grinned. "If this weather holds,
Hoel, could the ship stay for me for a few days?"

"For as long as you like. Where do you
plan to go?"

"Massilia first, then overland to
Rome. After that, eastwards."

He looked surprised. "You? Well,
here's a start! I'd always thought of you being as fixed as your
own misty hills. What put that into your head?"

"I don't know. Where do ideas come
from? I have to lose myself for a few years, till the child needs
me, and this seemed to be the way. Besides, there was something I
heard." I did not tell him that it had only been the wind in the
bowstrings. "I've had a mind lately to see some of the lands I
learned about as a boy."

We talked on then for a while. I
promised to send letters back with news from the eastern capitals,
and, as far as I could, I gave him points of call to which he would
send his own tidings and Ralf's about Arthur.

The fire died down and he roared for a
servant. When the man had been and gone --

"You'll have to go and sing in the
hall soon," said Hoel. "So if we've got all clear, we'll leave it
at that, shall we?" He leaned back in his chair. One of the hounds
got to its feet and pushed against his knee, asking for a caress.
Over the sleek head the King's eyes gleamed with amusement. "Well
now, you've still to give me the news from Britain. And the first
thing you can do is to tell me the inside story of what happened
nine months ago."

"If you in your turn will tell me what
the public story is."

He laughed. "Oh, the usual stories
that follow you as closely as your cloak flapping in the wind.
Enchantments, flying dragons, men carried through the air and
through walls, invisibly. I'm surprised, Merlin, that you take the
trouble to come by ship like an ordinary man, when your stomach
serves you so ill. Come now, the story."

It was very late when I got back to
our lodging. Ralf was waiting, half asleep in the chair by the fire
in my room. He jumped up when he saw me, and took the harp from
me.

"Is all well?"

"Yes. We go north in the morning. No,
thank you, no wine. I drank with the King, and they made me drink
again in the hall."

"Let me take your cloak. You look
tired. Did you have to sing to them?"

"Certainly." I held out a handful of
silver and gold pieces, and a jeweled pin. "It's nice to think,
isn't it, that one can earn one's keep so handsomely? The jewel was
from the King, a bribe to stop me singing, otherwise they'd have
had me there yet. I told you this was a cultured country. Yes,
cover the big harp. I'll take the other with me tomorrow." Then as
he obeyed me: "What of Branwen and the baby?"

"Went to bed three hours since. She's
lying with the women. They seem very pleased to have a baby to look
after." He finished on a note of surprise which made me
laugh.

"Did he stop crying?"

"Not for an hour or two. They didn't
seem to mind that, either."

"Well, no doubt he'll start again at
cock-crow, when we rouse them. Now go to bed and sleep while you
can. We start at first light."

13

There is a road leading almost due
north out of the town of Kerrec, the old Roman road which runs
straight as a spearcast across the bare, salty grassland. A mile
out of town, beyond the ruined posting station, you can see the
forest ahead of you like a slow tidal wave approaching to swallow
the salt flats. This is a vast stretch of woodland, deep and wild.
The road spears straight into it, aiming for the big river that
cuts the country from east to west. When the Romans held Gallia
there was a fort and settlement beyond the river, and the road was
built to serve it; but now the river marks the boundary of Hoel's
kingdom, and the fort is one of Gorlan's strongholds. The writ of
neither king runs far into the forest, which stretches for
countless hilly miles, covering the rugged center of the Breton
peninsula. What traffic there is keeps to the road; the wild land
is served only by the tracks of charcoal-burners and woodcutters
and men who move secretly outside the law. At the time of which I
write the place was called the Perilous Forest, and was reputed to
be magicbound and haunted. Once leave the road and plunge into the
tracks that twist through the tangled trees, and you could travel
for days and hardly see the sun.