Legacy: Arthurian Saga (96 page)

The last one was the spokesman. He
greeted me civilly enough, while the smith held his hammering, and
the boy stared.

"Who are you, and where are you bound
for?"

I answered him in his own dialect, and
without moving from where I sat. "My name is Emrys, and I am
traveling north. I have had to come out of my way because, as you
see, my mare has cast a shoe."

"Where are you from?"

"From the south, where we do not send
armed men against a stranger who passes through our village. What
are you afraid of, coming four to one?"

He growled something, and the two with
the spears grounded them, shuffling their feet. But the swordsman
stood firm.

"You speak our language too well to be
a stranger. I think you are the man we have been told to look for.
Who are you?"

"No stranger to you, Brychan," I said
calmly. "Did you get that sword at Kaerconan, or did we take it
when we cut Vortigern's troops to pieces at the crossroads by
Bremia?"

"Kaerconan?" The swordpoint wavered
and fell. "You fought there, for Ambrosius?"

"I was there, yes."

"And at Bremia? With Duke Gorlois?"
The point dropped completely. "Wait, you said your name was Emrys?
Not Myrddin Emrys, the prophet that won the battle for us, and then
doctored our hurts? Ambrosius' son?"

"The same."

The men of my race do not easily bend
the knee, but as he slid his sword back into his belt and showed
his blackened teeth in a wide grin of pleasure, the effect was the
same. "By all the gods, so it is! I didn't know you, sir. Put your
weapons up, you fools, can't you see he's a prince, and no meat of
ours?"

"Small blame to them if they can't see
any such thing," I said, laughing. "I'm neither prince nor prophet
now, Brychan, braud. I'm traveling secretly, and I need help...and
silence."

"You shall have anything we can give
you, my lord." He had caught my involuntary glance towards the
smith and the staring boy, and added quickly: "There's no man here
will say a word, look you. No, nor boy neither."

The boy nodded, swallowing. The smith
said gruffly: "If I'd known who you were --"

"You'd not have sent your boy
scampering off to take the news to the village?" I said. "No
matter. If you are a King's man as Brychan is, I can trust
you."

"We are all King's men here," said
Brychan harshly, "but if you were Uther's worst enemy, instead of
his brother's son and the winner of his battles, I would help you,
and so would my kinsmen and every man in these parts. Who was it
saved this arm of mine after Kaerconan? It's thanks to you that I
was able to carry this sword against you today." He clapped the
hilt at his belt. I remembered the arm; one of the Saxon axes had
driven deep into the flesh, hacking a collop of muscle and laying
the bone bare. I had stitched the arm and treated it; whether it
was the virtue of the medicine, or Brychan's faith in anything "the
King's prophet" might do, the arm had healed. A great part of its
strength was gone forever, but it served him. "And as for the rest
of us," he finished, "we're all your men, my lord. You're safe
here, and your secrets with you. We all know where the future of
these lands lies, and that's in your hands, Myrddin Emrys. If we'd
known you were the 'traveler' those soldiers were seeking, we'd
have held them here till you came -- aye, and killed them if you'd
so much as nodded your head." He gave a fierce look round him, and
the others nodded, muttering their agreement. Even the smith
grunted some sort of assent, and brought his hammer clanging down
as if it was an axe on an enemy's neck.

I said something to them, of thanks
and acknowledgement. I was thinking that I had been out of the
country too long; for too long had been talking with statesmen and
lords and princes. I had begun to think as they were thinking. It
was not only the nobles and the fighting kings who would help
Arthur to the high throne and maintain him there; it was the folk
of Britain, rooted in the land, feeding it and drawing life from it
like its own trees, who would lift him there and fight for him. It
was the faith of the people, from the high lands to the low, that
would make him High King of all the realms and islands in a full
sense which my father had dreamed of but had been unable to achieve
in the short time allowed him. It had been the dream, too, of
Maximus, the would-be emperor who had seen Britain as the foremost
in a yoke of nations pulling the same way against the cold wind
from the north. I looked at Brychan with his disabled arm, at his
kinsmen, poor men of a poor village they would die to defend, at
the smith and his ragged boy, and thought of the Old Ones keeping
faith in their cold caves with the past and the future, and
thought: this time it will be different. Macsen and Ambrosius tried
it with force of arms, and laid the paving stones. Now, God and the
people willing, Arthur will build the palace. And then, suddenly:
that it was time I left courts and castles and went back into the
hills. It was from the hills that help would come.

Brychan was speaking again. "Will you
not come to the village with us now, my lord? Leave the smith here
to finish your mare, and come yourself up to my house, and rest and
eat and give us your news. We are sharp set, all of us, to know why
troopers should come seeking you, with money in their hands, and as
urgent about it as if there was a kingdom at stake."

"There is. But not for the High
King."

"Ah," he said. "They would have had us
believe they were King's troops, bur I thought they were not.
Whose, then?"

"They serve Urien of Gore."

The men exchanged glances. Brychan's
look was bright with intelligence. "Urien, eh? And why should Urien
pay for news of you? Or maybe it was news of Prince Arthur he'd be
paying for?"

"The two are the same," I said,
nodding. "Or soon will be. He wants to know where I am
going."

"So he can follow you to the boy's
hiding-place. Yes. But how would that profit Urien of Gore? He's a
small man, and not likely to get bigger. Or -- wait, I have it, of
course. It would profit his kinsman, Lot of Lothian?"

"I think so. I've been told that Urien
is Lot's creature. You may be sure he is working for
him."

Brychan nodded, and said slowly: "And
King Lot is promised to a lady that's like to be Queen if Arthur
dies...So he's paying troops to find where the boy is kept? My
lord, that adds up to something I don't like the smell
of."

"Nor I. We may be wrong, Brychan, but
my bones tell me we are right. And there may be others besides Lot
and Urien. Were these men the only ones? You had no Cornishmen pass
this way?"

"No, my lord. Rest easy, if any others
come this way, they'll get no help!" He gave a short bark of
laughter. "I'd trust your bones sooner than most men's pledged
word. We'll see no danger follows you to the little prince...If any
pursuit of you comes through Gwynedd we'll see that it bogs down as
surely as a stag's scent fails when he takes to water. Trust us, my
lord. We're your men, as we were your father's. We know nothing of
this prince you hold in your hand for us, but if he's yours, and
you tell us to follow him and serve him, then, Myrddin Emrys, we'll
be his men as long as we can hold swords. That's a promise, and
it's for you that we make it."

"Then I'll accept it for him, and give
you my thanks." I got to my feet. "Brychan, it would be better if I
did not come to the village with you, but there is something you
could do for me now, if you will. I need food for the next few
days, and wine for my flask, and fodder for the mare. I have money.
Could you get these for me?"

"Nothing easier, and you can put away
your money. Did you take money of me when you mended my arm? Give
us an hour, and we'll get all you want, and no word said. The boy
can come with us -- folk are used to seeing him bring goods down to
the forge. He'll bring what you need."

I thanked him again, and we talked for
a little longer, while I gave him what news there was from the
south; then they took their leave. It is a matter of fact that,
then or at any time, none of them, down to the boy, said a word to
any man about my visit.

The boy had not yet returned from the
village when the smith finished his job. I paid him his fee and
commended him on his work. He took this as no more than his due,
and, though he must have heard all that had passed between Brychan
and me, showed no awe of me. Indeed, I have never seen why any man
skilled in his trade, and surrounded by the articles of his craft,
should be in awe of princes. Their task differs, that is
all.

"Which way do you ride?" he asked me.
Then, as I hesitated: "I told you not to fear me. If that magpie
Brychan and his brothers can be silent, then so can I. I serve the
road and all men on it, and I'm no more a King's man than any smith
who is bound to serve the road, but I spoke to Ambrosius once. And
my grandfather's grandfather, why, he shod the horse of the Emperor
Maximus himself." He mistook the reason for the look on my face.
"Aye, you may well stare. That's a long time ago. But even then, my
grand dad told me, this anvil had been worked by father and son and
father and son further back than the oldest man in the village
could remember. Why, it's said hereabouts that the first smith who
set up his iron here had been taught his trade by Weland Smith
himself. So who else would the Emperor come to? Look,"

He pointed at the door, which was set
wide open, back against the wall. It was made of oak, adzed smooth
as beaten silver, and age and weather had so bleached and polished
it that its surface was bone pale, meshed and rippled like grey
water. From a hook nearby hung a bag of iron nails, and then a rack
of branding irons. All over the silky wood of the door were the
scars of brands where the generations of smiths had tried them as
they were fashioned.

An A caught my eye, but the brand was
new, still charred and black. Beneath it and overlaid by it was
some sign that looked like a bird flying; then an arrow, and an
eye, and one or two cruder signs scrawled in with red-hot metal by
idle jesters waiting for the smith to finish a job. But to one
side, clear of them all, faded so that they were only dark silver
on light, were the letters M.I. Just below these was a deeper scar
on the door, a half-moon indented, with the marks of nails. It was
at this that the smith was pointing. "They say that's where the
Emperor's stallion kicked out, but I don't believe it. When I and
mine handle a horse, be he the wildest stallion straight off the
hills, he doesn't kick. But that, there, above it, that's true
enough. That brand was made here, for the horses Macsen Wledig took
east with him, the time he killed the King of Rome."

"Smith," I said, "that is the only
part of your legend that is false. The King of Rome killed Maximus,
and took his sword. But the men of Wales brought it back here to
Britain. Was the sword made here, too?"

He was a long time replying, and I
felt my heart quicken as I waited. But at last he said,
reluctantly: "If it was, I have never heard of it." It was obvious
that it had cost him a struggle not to add the sword to the forge's
credit, but he had told me the truth.

"I was told," I said, "that somewhere
in the forest is a man who knows where the Emperor's sword is
hidden. Have you heard of this, or do you know where I can find
it?"

"No, how should I? They say there is a
holy man a long way north of here who knows everything. But he
lives north of the Deva, in another country."

"That is the way I was riding," I
said. "I shall seek him out."

"Then if you don't want to meet yon
soldiers, don't go by the road. Six miles north of here there's a
crossroads, where the road for Segontium heads west. Keep by the
river from here, and it'll take you clear across the corner till
the westbound road crosses it."

"But I'm not going to Segontium. If I
bear too far to the west"

"You leave the river where it meets
the road again. Straight across from the ford the track runs up
into the forest, through a shaw of hollies, and after that it's
plain enough to see. It'll carry you on northwards, and never a
glimpse of a road you'll see till you reach the Deva. If you ask
the ferryman there about the holy man in the Wild Forest, he'll
tell you the way. You go by the river. It's a good track, and
impossible to miss."

I have found that people never say
this unless, in fact, the way is very easy to miss. However, I said
nothing and, the boy arriving at that moment with the provisions,
helped him stow them. As we did so he whispered: "I heard what he
said, lord. Don't listen to him. It's a bad track to follow, and
the river's high. Stay with the road."

I thanked him and gave him a coin for
his pains. He went back to his bellows, and I turned to take my
leave of the smith, who had vanished into some dark and cluttered
recess at the back of the smithy. I could hear the clattering of
metal, and his whistling between his broken teeth. I called out
above it. "I'm on my way now. My thanks." Then my breath caught in
my throat. Suddenly, back in the dark clutter behind the chimney,
the newly leaping flame had lit the outline of a face.