Legacy: Arthurian Saga (9 page)

I led Aster into the pen, took off his
saddle and bridle and hung them up, then threw down fodder from a
saddle-bag, barred the entrance with a stout branch, and walked
briskly up to the cave.

Galapas was not there, but that he had
gone only recently was attested by the fact that the brazier which
stood inside the cave mouth had been banked down to a glow. I
stirred it till the flames leapt, then settled near it with a book.
I had not come today by arrangement, but had plenty of time, so
left the bats alone, and read peacefully for a while.

I don't know what made me, that day
out of all the days I had been there alone, suddenly put the book
aside, and walk back past the veiled mirror to look up at the cleft
through which I had fled five years ago. I told myself that I was
only curious to see if it was as I had remembered it, or if the
crystals, like the visions, were figments of my imagination;
whatever the reason, I climbed quickly to the ledge, and dropping
on my hands and knees by the gap, peered in.

The inner cave was dead and dark, no
glimmer reaching it from the fire. I crawled forward cautiously,
till my hands met the sharp crystals. They were all too real. Even
now not admitting to myself why I hurried, with one eye on the
mouth of the main cave and an ear open for Galapas' return, I
slithered down from the ledge, snatched up the leather riding
jerkin which I had discarded and, hurrying back, thrust it in front
of me through the gap. Then I crawled after.

With the leather jerkin spread on the
floor, the globe was comparatively comfortable. I lay still. The
silence was complete. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I
could see the faintest grey glimmer from the crystals, but of the
magic that the light had brought there was no sign.

There must have been some crack open
to the air, for even in that dark confine there was a slight
current, a cold thread of a draught. And with it came the sound I
was listening for, the footsteps of someone approaching over the
frosty rock...

When Galapas came into the cave a few
minutes later I was sitting by the fire, my jerkin rolled up beside
me, poring over the book. Half an hour before dusk we put our books
aside. But still I made no move to go. The fire was blazing now,
filling the cave with warmth and flickering light. We sat for a
while in silence.

"Galapas, there's something I want to
ask you."

"Yes?"

"Do you remember the first day I came
here?"

"Very clearly."

"You knew I was coming. You were
expecting me."

"Did I say so?"

"You know you did. How did you know I
would be here?"

"I saw you in the crystal
cave."

"Oh, that, yes. You moved the mirror
so that the candlelight caught me, and you saw my shadow. But
that's not what I was asking you. I meant, how did you know I was
going to come up the valley that day?"

"That was the question I answered,
Merlin. I knew you were coming up the valley that day, because,
before you came, I saw you in the cave."

We looked at one another in silence.
The flames glowed and muttered between us, flattened by the little
draught that carried the smoke out of the cave. I don't think I
answered him at first, I just nodded. It was something I had known.
After a while I said, merely: "Will you show me?"

He regarded me for a moment more, then
got to his feet. "It is time. Light the candle." I obeyed him. The
little light grew golden, reaching among the shadows cast by the
flickering of the fire. "Take the rug off the mirror." I pulled at
it and it fell off into my arms in a huddle of wool. I dropped it
on his bed beside the wall. "Now go up on the ledge, and lie
down."

"On the ledge?"

"Yes. Lie on your belly, with your
head towards the cleft, so that you can see in."

"Don't you want me to go right
in?"

"And take your jerkin to lie
on?"

I was halfway up to the ledge. I
whipped round, to see him smiling. "It's no use, Galapas, you know
everything."

"Someday you will go where even with
the Sight I cannot follow you. Now lie still, and watch." I lay
down on the ledge. It was wide and flat and held me comfortably
enough, prone, with my head pillowed on my bent arms, and turned
towards the cleft. Below me, Galapas said softly: "Think of
nothing. I have the reins in my hand; it is not for you yet. Watch
only." I heard him move back across the cave towards the
mirror.

The cave was bigger than I had
imagined. It stretched upwards further than I could see, and the
floor was worn smooth. I had even been wrong about the crystals;
the glimmer that reflected the torchlight came only from puddles on
the floor, and a place on one wall where a thin slither of moisture
betrayed a spring somewhere above.

The torches, jammed into cracks in the
cave wall, were cheap ones, of rag stuffed into cracked horns --
the rejects from the workshops. They burned sullenly in the bad
air. Though the place was cold, the men worked naked save for
loincloths, and sweat ran over their backs as they hacked at the
rock-face, steady ceaseless tapping blows that made no noise, but
you could see the muscles clench and jar under the torchlit sweat.
Beneath a knee-high overhang at the base of the wall, flat on their
backs in a pool of seepage, two men hammered upwards with
shortened, painful blows at rock within inches of their faces. On
the wrist of one of them I saw the shiny pucker of an old
brand.

One of the hewers at the face doubled
up, coughing, then with a glance over his shoulder stifled the
cough and got back to work. Light was growing in the cave, coming
from a square opening like a doorway, which gave on a curved tunnel
down which a fresh torch -- a good one -- came.

Four boys appeared, filthy with dust
and naked like the others, carrying deep baskets, and behind them
came a man dressed in a brown tunic smudged with damp. He had the
torch in one hand and in the other a tablet which he stood studying
with frowning brows while the boys ran with their baskets to the
rock-face and began to shovel the fallen rock into them. After a
while the foreman went forward to the face and studied it, holding
his torch high. The men drew back, thankful it seemed for the
respite, and one of them spoke to the foreman, pointing first at
the workings, then at the seeping damp at the far side of the
cave.

The boys had shovelled and scrabbled
their baskets full, and dragged them back from the face. The
foreman, with a shrug and a grin, took a silver coin from his pouch
and, with the gambler's practiced flick, tossed it. The workmen
craned to see. Then the man who had spoken turned back to the face
and drove the pick in.

The crack widened, and dust rushed
down, blotting out the light. Then in the wake of the dust came the
water.

"Drink this," said Galapas.

"What is it?"

"One of my brews, not yours; it's
quite safe. Drink it."

"Thanks. Galapas, the cave is crystal
still. I -- dreamed it differently."

"Never mind that now. How do you
feel?"

"Odd...I can't explain. I feel all
right, only a headache, but -- empty, like a shell with the snail
out of it. No, like a reed with the pith pulled out."

"A whistle for the winds. Yes. Come
down to the brazier." When I sat in my old place, with a cup of
mulled wine in my hands, he asked: "Where were you?" I told him
what I had seen, but when I began to ask what it meant, and what he
knew, he shook his head. "I think this has already gone past me. I
do not know. All I know is that you must finish that wine quickly
and go home. Do you realize how long you lay there dreaming? The
moon is up."

I started to my feet. "Already? It
must be well past supper-time. If they're looking for me
--"

"They will not be looking for you.
Other things are happening. Go and find out for yourself -- and
make sure you are part of them."

"What do you mean?"

"Only what I say. Whatever means you
have to use, go with the King. Here, don't forget this." He thrust
my jerkin into my arms. I took it blindly, staring. "He's leaving
Maridunum?"

"Yes. Only for a while. I don't know
how long."

"He'll never take me."

"That's for you to say. The gods only
go with you, Myrddin Emrys, if you put yourself in their path. And
that takes courage. Put your jerkin on before you go out, it's
cold." I shoved a hand into the sleeve, glowering. "You've seen all
this, something that's really happening, and I -- I was looking
into the crystals with the fire, and here I've got a hellish
headache, and all for nothing...Some silly dream of slaves in an
old mine. Galapas, when will you teach me to see as you
do?"

"For a start, I can see the wolves
eating you and Aster, if you don't hurry home." He was laughing to
himself as if he had made a great jest, as I ran out of the cave
and down to saddle the pony.

8

It was a quarter moon, which gave just
enough light to show the way. The pony danced to warm his blood,
and pulled harder than ever, his ears pricked towards home,
scenting his supper. I had to fight to hold him in, because the way
was icy, and I was afraid of a fall, but I confess that -- with
Galapas' last remark echoing uncomfortably in my head -- I let him
go downhill through the trees a good deal too fast for safety,
until we reached the mill and the level of the towpath.

There it was possible to see clearly.
I dug my heels in and galloped him the rest of the way.

As soon as we came in sight of town I
could see that something was up. The towpath was deserted -- the
town gates would have been locked long since -- but the town was
full of lights. Inside the walls torches seemed to be flaring
everywhere, and there was shouting and the tramp of feet. I slipped
from the saddle at the stableyard gate, fully prepared to find
myself locked out, but even as I reached to try it the gate opened,
and Cerdic, with a shaded lantern in his hand, beckoned me
in.

"I heard you coming. Been listening
all evening. Where've you been, lover-boy? She must have been good
tonight."

"Oh, she was. Have they been asking
for me? Have they missed me?"

"Not that I know of. They've got more
to think about tonight than you. Give me the bridle, we'll put him
in the barn for now. There's too much coming and going in the big
yard."

"Why, what's going on? I heard the
noise a mile off. Is it a war?"

"No, more's the pity, though it may
end up that way. There's a message come this afternoon, the High
King's coming to Segontium, and he'll lie there for a week or two.
Your grandfather's riding up tomorrow, so everything's to be got
ready mighty sharp."

"I see." I followed him into the barn,
and stood watching him unsaddle, while half-absently I pulled straw
from the pile and twisted a wisp for him. I handed this across the
pony's withers.

"King Vortigern at Segontium?
Why?"

"Counting heads, they say." He gave a
snort of laughter as he began to work the pony over. "Calling in
his allies, do you mean? Then there is talk of war?"

"There'll always be talk of war, so
long as yon Ambrosius sits there in Less Britain with King Budec at
his back, and men remember things that's better not spoken
of."

I nodded. I could not remember
precisely when I had been told, since nobody said it aloud, but
everyone knew the story of how the High King had claimed the
throne. He had been regent for the young King Constantius who had
died suddenly, and the King's younger brothers had not waited to
prove whether the rumors of murder were true or false; they had
fled to their cousin Budec in Less Britain, leaving the kingdom to
the Wolf and his sons. Every year or so the rumors sprang up again;
that King Budec was arming the two young princes; that Ambrosius
had gone to Rome; that Uther was a mercenary in the service of the
Emperor of the East, or that he had married the King of Persia's
daughter; that the two brothers had an army four hundred thousand
strong and were going to invade and burn Greater Britain from end
to end; or that they would come in peace, like archangels, and
drive the Saxons out of the eastern shores without a blow. But more
than twenty years had gone by, and the thing had not happened. The
coming of Ambrosius was spoken of now as if it were accomplished,
and already a legend, as men spoke of the coming of Brut and the
Trojans four generations after the fall of Troy, or Joseph's
journey to Thorny Hill near Avalon. Or like the Second Coming of
Christ -- though when I had once repeated this to my mother she had
been so angry that I had never tried the joke again.

"Oh, yes," I said, "Ambrosius coming
again, is he? Seriously, Cerdic, why is the High King coming to
North Wales ?"

"I told you. Doing the rounds,
drumming up a bit of support before spring, him and that Saxon
Queen of his." And he spat on the floor.

"Why do you do that? You're a Saxon
yourself."

"That's a long time ago. I live here
now. Wasn't it that flaxen bitch that made Vortigern sell out in
the first place? Or at any rate you know as well as I do that since
she's been in the High King's bed the Northmen have been loose over
the land like a heath fire, till he can neither fight them nor buy
them off. And if she's what men say she is, you can be sure none of
the King's true-born sons'll live to wear the crown." He had been
speaking softly, but at this he looked over his shoulder and spat
again, making the sign. "Well, you know all this -- or you would,
that is, if you listened to your betters more often, instead of
spending your time with books and such like, or chasing round with
the People from the hollow hills."