Legacy: Arthurian Saga (98 page)

It stood in a wilderness of tumbled
stones, but I knew that near it, dug into the side of the little
valley beyond the gate, and running in almost beneath the tower
itself, was the temple of Mithras; and on the thought I found that
my feet had led me, with no will of my own, down the path which led
to the Mithraeum door.

There were steps here, cracked and
slippery. Halfway down the flight one tread thrust upwards
vertically, half blocking the stairway, and at the foot was a pile
of mud and shards, fouled by rats and prowling dogs. The place
stank of damp and dirt and some ancient noisomeness that might have
been spilled blood. On the ruined wall above the steps some
roosting birds had whitened the stones; the dung was greening over
now with slime. A jackdaw's perch, perhaps? A raven of Mithras? A
merlin? I trod cautiously forward over the slimy flags, and paused
in the temple doorway.

It was dark, but some sunlight had
followed me in, and there was enough light from a hole broken in
the roof somewhere, so that I could see dimly. The temple was as
filthy and forlorn as the stairway that led to it. Only the
strength of the vaulted roof had saved the place from falling in
under the weight of the hillside above. The furnishings had gone
long since, the braziers, benches, carvings; this, like the scoured
ruin overhead, was a shell empty of its tenant. The four lesser
altars had been broken and defaced, but the central altar stood
there still, fixed and massive, with its carved dedication to the
unconquered god, MITHRAE INVICTO, but above the altar, in the apse,
axe and hammer and fire had obliterated the story of the bull and
the conquering god. All that remained of the picture of the
bull-slaying was an ear of wheat, down in one corner, its carving
still sharp and new and miraculously unspoiled. The air, sour with
the smell of some fungus, caught at the lungs.

It seemed fitting to say a prayer to
the god departed. As I spoke aloud, something in the echo of my
voice came, not like an echo, but an answer. I had been wrong. The
place was not yet empty. It had been holy, and was stripped of its
holiness; but something was still held down to that cold altar. The
sour smell was not the smell of fungus. It was unlit incense, and
cold ashes, and unsaid prayers.

I had been his servant once. There was
no one here but I. Slowly, I walked forward into the center of the
temple, and held out my open hands. Light, and color, and fire.
White robes and chanting. Fires licking upwards like light blowing.
The bellow of a dying bull and the smell of blood. Outside
somewhere the sun blazing and a city rejoicing to welcome its new
king, and the sound of laughter and marching feet. Round me incense
pouring heavy and sweet, and a voice that said through it, calm and
small: "Throw down my altar. It is time to throw it
down."

I came to myself coughing, with the
air round me swirling thick with dust, and the sound of a crash
still echoing round and round the vaulted chamber. The air trembled
and rang. At my feet lay the altar, hurled over on its back into
the curve of the apse.

I stared, dazed still and with
swimming sight, at the hole it had torn in the floor where it had
stood. My head sang with the echo; the hands I held stiffly before
me were filthy, and one of them showed a bleeding gash. The altar
was heavy, of massive stone, and in my right mind I would never
have laid hands to it; but here it lay at my feet, with the echo of
its fall dying in the roof, followed by the whisper of settling
masonry as the crumbled pavement began to slide down into the hole
where the altar had stood.

Something showed in the depths of the
hole: a hard straight edge and a corner too sharp for stone. A box.
I knelt down and reached for it.

It was of metal, and very heavy, but
the lid lifted easily. Whoever had buried it had trusted the god's
protection rather than a lock. Inside, my hands met canvas cloth,
long rotten, which tore; then inside that again, wrappings of oiled
leather. Something long and slender and supple; here at last it
was. Gently, I took the wrappings off the sword and held it naked
across my hands.

A hundred years since they had put it
here, those men who had made their way back from Rome. It shone in
my hands, as bright and dangerous and beautiful as on the day it
had been made. It was no wonder, I thought, that already in that
hundred years it had become a thing of legend. It was easy to
believe that the old smith, Weland himself, who was old before the
Romans came, might have made this last artifact before he faded
with the other small gods of wood and stream and river, into the
misty hills, leaving the crowded valleys to the bright gods of the
Middle Sea. I could feel the power from the sword running into my
palms, as if I held them in water where lightning struck. Whoso
takes this sword from under this stone is rightwise King born of
all Britain...The words were clear as if spoken, bright as if
carved on the metal. I, Merlin, only son of Ambrosius the King, had
taken the sword from the stone. I, who had never given an order in
battle, nor led so much as a troop; who could not handle a war
stallion, but rode a gelding or a quiet mare. I, who had never even
lain with a woman. I, who was no man, but only eyes and a voice. A
spirit, I had said once, a word. No more.

The sword was not for me. It would
wait. I wrapped the beautiful thing up again in the filthy
wrappings, and knelt to replace it. I saw that the box was deeper
than I had thought; there were other objects there. The rotten
canvas had fallen away to show the shape, gleaming in the dimness,
of a wide-mouthed dish, a krater such as I had seen on my travels
in countries east of Rome. It seemed to be of red gold, studded
with emeralds. Beside it, still half muffled in wrappings, gleamed
the bright edge of a lancehead. The rim of a platter showed,
crusted with sapphire and amethyst.

I leaned forward to lay the sword back
in its place. But before I could do it, without any warning, the
heavy lid of the box fell shut with a crash. The noise set the
echoes drumming again, and brought down with it a cascade of stone
and plaster from the apse and the crumbling walls above. It
happened so quickly that in the single moment of my own sharp
recoil the box, hole and all had vanished from view under the
rubble.

I was left kneeling there in the
choking cloud of dust, with the shrouded sword held fast in my
filthy and bleeding hands. From the apse, the last of the carving
had vanished. It was only a curved wall, showing blank, like the
wall of a cave.

11

The ferryman at the Deva knew the holy
man of whom the smith had spoken. It seemed he lived in the hills
above Ector's fortress, at the edge of the great tract of mountain
land they call the Wild Forest.

Though I no longer felt myself to need
the hermit's guidance, it would do no harm to talk to him, and his
cell -- a chapel, the ferryman called it -- lay on my way, and
might give me lodging until I considered how best to present myself
at Count Ector's gates.

Whether or not the possession of the
sword had in fact carried power with it, I traveled fast and
easily, and with no more alarms. A week after leaving Segontium we
-- the mare and I -- cantered easily along the green margin of a
wide, calm lake, making for a light which showed pale in the early
dusk, high as a star among the trees on the other shore. It was a
long way round the lake, and it was full dark when at last I
trotted the tired mare up the forest track into a clearing and saw,
against the soft and living darkness of the forest, the solid wedge
of the chapel roof.

It was a smallish oblong building set
back against the trees at the far side of a large clearing. All
round the open space the pines stood in a dark and towering wall,
but above was a roof of stars, and beyond the pines, on every side,
the glimmer of the snowclad heights that cupped this corrie high in
the hills. To one side of the clearing, in a basin of mossy rock,
stood a still, dark pool; one of those springs that well up
silently from below, forever renewing itself without sound. The air
was piercingly cold, and smelled of pines.

There were mossed and broken steps
leading up to the chapel door. This was open, and inside the
building the light burned steadily. I dismounted and led the mare
forward. She pecked against a stone, her hoof rapping sharply. You
would have thought that anyone living in this solitary place would
have come out to investigate, but there was no sound, no movement.
The forest hung still. Only, far overhead, the stars seemed to move
and breathe as they do in the winter air. I slipped the mare's
bridle off over her ears, and left her to drink at the well.
Gathering my cloak round me, I trod up the mossy steps, and entered
the chapel.

It was small, oblong in shape, with a
highish barrel roof; a strange building to find in the wild heart
of the forest, where at most one might have expected a rough-built
hut, or at least a cave, or dwelling contrived among the stones.
But this had been built as a shrine, a holy place for some god to
dwell in. The floor was of stone flags, clean and unbroken. In the
center, opposite the door, stood the altar, with a thick curtain of
some worked stuff hung behind it. The altar itself was covered with
a clean, coarse cloth, on which stood the lighted lamp, a simple,
country-made thing which nevertheless gave a strong and steady
light. It had recently been filled with oil, and the wick was
trimmed and unsmoking. To one side of the altar, on the step, was a
stone bowl of the kind I had seen used for sacrifice; it had been
scoured white, and held sweet water. To the other side stood a
lidded pot of some dark metal, pierced, such as the Christians use
to burn incense. The air of the chapel still held, faintly, the
sweet gummy smell. Three bronze lamps, triple-branched, stood unlit
against a wall.

The rest of the chapel was bare.
Whoever kept it, whoever had lighted the lamp and burned the
incense, slept elsewhere. I called aloud: "Is anyone there?" and
waited for the echoes to run up into the roof and die. No
answer.

My dagger was in my hand; it had
sprung there without conscious thought on my part. I had met this
kind of situation before, and it had only meant one thing; but that
had been in Vortigern's time, the time of the Wolf. Such a man as
this hermit, living alone in a solitary place, trusted to the place
itself, its god and its holiness, to protect him. It should have
been enough, and in my father's time had certainly been so. But
things had changed, even in the few years since his death. Uther
was no Vortigern, but it seemed sometimes that we were sliding back
to the time of the Wolf. The times were wild and violent, and
filled with alarms of war; but more than this, faiths and loyalties
were changing faster than men's minds could grow to apprehend them.
There were men about who would kill even at the altar's horns. But
I had not thought there were any such in Rheged, when I chose it
for Arthur's sanctuary.

Struck by an idea, I stepped carefully
past the altar and drew back the edge of the curtain. My guess had
been right; there was a space behind the curtain, a semicircular
recess which was apparently used as storage room; dimly the
lamplight showed a clutter of stools and oil jars and sacred
vessels. At the back of the recess a narrow doorway had been cut in
the wall.

I went through. It was here,
obviously, that the keeper of the place lived. There was a small
square chamber built on the end of the chapel, with a low window
deeply recessed, and another door giving, presumably, straight on
the forest. I felt my way across in the dimness and pushed the door
open. Outside the starlight showed me the rampart of pine trees
crowding close, and to one side a lean to shed, with its
overhanging roof sheltering a stack of fuel. Nothing
else.

Leaving the door wide, I surveyed what
I could see of the room. There was a wooden bed with skins and
blankets piled on it, a stool, and a small table with a cup and
platter where the remains of a meal lay half-eaten. I picked up the
cup; it was half full of thin wine. On the table a candle had
burned down into a mess of tallow. The smell of the dead candle
still hung there, mixed with the smell of the wine and the dead
embers on the hearth. I put a finger to the tallow; it was still
soft.

I went back into the chapel. I stood
by the altar, and shouted again. There were two windows, one to
either side, high in the wall; they were unglazed, open on the
forest. If he was not too far away, he would surely hear me. But
again there was no reply.

Then, huge and silent as a ghost, a
great white owl swept in through one window and sailed across the
lamplit space. I caught a glimpse of the cruel beak, the soft
wings, the great eyes, blind and wise, then it was gone with no
more sound than a spirit makes. It was only the dillyan wen, the
white owl which haunts every tower and ruin in the country, but my
flesh crept on my bones. From outside came the long, sad, terrible
cry of the owl, and after it, like an echo, the sound of a man
moaning.

Without his moaning I would not have
found him till daylight. He was robed and hooded in black, and he
lay face down under the dark trees at the edge of the clearing,
beyond the spring. A jug fallen from his hand showed what his
errand had been. I stooped and gently turned him over. He was an
old man, thin and frail, with bones that felt as brittle as a
bird's. When I had made sure that none was broken, I picked him up
in my arms and carried him back indoors. His eyes were half open,
but he was still unconscious; in the lamplight I could see how one
side of his face was dragged down as if statuary had run his hand
down suddenly over the clay, blurring the outline. I put him into
his bed, wrapped warm. There was kindling left by the hearth, and
what looked like a winterstone ready among the ashes. I brought
more fuel, then made fire and, when the stone was warm, drew it
out, wrapped it in cloth, and put it to the old man's feet. For the
moment there was nothing more that could be done for him, so after
I had seen to the mare I made a meal for myself, then settled by
the dying fire to watch through the rest of the night.