The Last Enchantment (16 page)

It was not country I had known before. I had come this way, as I had told Arthur, because I had a call to make. One of my father's secretaries, whom I had known first inBrittany and thereafter inWinchester and Caerleon, had come north after Ambrosius' death, to retirement of a sort here inNorthumbria . The pension he received from my father had let him buy a holding near Vindolanda, in a sheltered spot beside theAgricolan Road , with a couple of strong slaves to work it. There he had settled, growing rare plants in his favoured garden, and writing, so I had been told, a history of the times he had lived through. His name was Blaise.

We lodged in the old part of the town, at a tavern within the purlieus of the original fortress. Beltane, with sudden, immovable obstinacy, had refused to pay the toll extracted at the bridge, so we crossed at the ford some half-mile downstream, then turned along the river past the forge, coming into the town by its old east gate.

Night was falling when we got there, so we put up at the first tavern we found. This was a respectable place not far from the main market square. Late though the hour was, there was still plenty of coming and going. Servants were gossiping at the cistern while they filled their water jars; through the laughter and talk came the cool splash of a fountain; in some house nearby a woman was singing a weaving-song.

Beltane was in high glee at the prospects for trading on the morrow, and in fact started business that same night, when the tavern filled up after supper-time. I did not stay to see how he did. Ulfin reported a bath house still in commission near the old west wall, so I spent the evening there and then retired, refreshed, to bed.

Next morning Ulfin and I breakfasted together in the shade of the huge plane tree which grew beside the inn. It promised to be a hot day.

Early as we were, Beltane and the boy were before us. The goldsmith had already set up his stall in a strategic place near the cistern; which meant merely that he, or rather Ninian, had spread some rush matting on the ground, and on that had laid out such gauds as might appeal to the eyes and purses of ordinary folk. The fine work was carefully hidden away in the lining of the bags.

Beltane was in his element, talking incessantly to any passerby who paused even for a moment to look at the goods: a complete lesson in jewelcraft was given away, so to speak, with every piece. The boy, as usual, was silent. He patiently rearranged the items that had been handled and carelessly dropped back on the matting, and he took the money, or sometimes exchange-goods such as food or cloth.

Betweentimes he sat cross-legged, stitching at the frayed straps of his sandals, which had given a lot of trouble on the road.

"Or this one, madam?" Beltane was saying, to a round-faced woman with a basket of cakes on her arm.

"This we call cell-work, or inclosed work, very beautiful, isn't it? I learned the art inByzantium , and believe me, even inByzantium itself you'd never see finer...And this very same design, I've seen it done in gold, worn by the finest ladies in the land. This one? Why, it's copper, madam — and priced accordingly, but it's every bit as good — the same work in it, as you can well see...Look at those colours. Hold it up to the light, Ninian. How bright and clear they are, and see how the bands of copper shine, holding the colours apart...Yes, copper wire, very delicate; you have to lay it in pattern, and then you run the colours in, and the wire acts as a wall, you might say, to contain the pattern. Oh, no, madam, not jewels, not at that price! It's glass, but I'll warrant you've never seen jewels with colours finer. I make the glass myself, and very skilled work it is, too, in my little 'etna' there — that's what I call my smelting stove — but you've not time this morning, I can see that, madam. Show her the little hen, Ninian, or maybe you prefer the horse...that's it, Ninian...Now, madam, are the colours not beautiful? I doubt if anywhere in the length and breadth of the land you would find work to equal this, and all for a copper penny. Why, there's as much copper, nearly, in the brooch as there is in the penny you'll give me for it..."

Ulfin appeared then, leading the mules. It had been arranged that he and I would make the short journey to Vindolanda, and return on the morrow, while Beltane and the boy pursued their trade in the town. I paid for the breakfast, then, rising, went across to take leave of them.

"You're going now?" Beltane spoke without taking his eyes off the woman, who was turning a brooch over in her hand. "Then a good journey to you, Master Emrys, and we hope to see you back tomorrow night...No, no, madam, we have no need of your cakes, delicious though they look. A copper penny is the price today. Ah, I thank you. You will not regret it. Ninian, pin the brooch on for the lady...Like a queen, madam, I do assure you. Indeed, Queen Ygraine herself, that's the highest in the land, might envy you. Ninian" — this as the woman moved away, his voice changing to the habitual nagging tone he used to the boy — "don't stand there with your mouth watering! Take the penny now and get yourself a pair of new shoes. When we go north I cannot have you hobbling and lagging with flapping soles as you did all the way —"

"No!" I did not even realize that I had spoken, till I saw them staring. Even then I did not know what impelled me to add: "Let the boy have his cakes, Beltane. The sandals will suffice, and see, he is hungry, and the sun is shining."

The goldsmith's short-sighed eyes were puckered as he stared up at me against the light. At length, a little to my surprise, he nodded, with a gruff "All right, get along," to the boy. Ninian gave me a shining look, then ran off into the crowd after the market-woman. I thought Beltane was going to question me, but he did not. He began to set the goods straight again, saying merely: "You're right, I have no doubt.

Boys are always starving, and he's a good lad and faithful. He can go barefoot if he has to, but at least let him have his belly full. It isn't often we get sweet stuff, and the cakes smelled like a feast, so they did."

As we rode west along the riverside Ulfin asked, with sharp concern in his voice:

"What is it, my lord? Is something ailing you?"

I shook my head, and he said no more, but he must have known I was lying, because I myself could feel the tears cold on my cheeks in the summer wind.

Master Blaise received us in a snug little house of sand-coloured stone, built round a small courtyard with apple trees trained up the walls, and roses hiding the squared modern pillars.

The house had once, long ago, belonged to a miller; a stream ran past, its steep fall controlled by shallow water-steps, its walled banks set with little ferns and flowers. Some hundred paces below the house, the stream vanished under a hanging canopy of beech and hazel. Above this woodland, on the steep slope behind the house, full in the sun, was the walled garden that held the old man's treasured plants.

He knew me straight away, though it was many years since we had met. He lived alone, but for his two gardeners and a woman who, with her daughter, cared for the house and cooked for him. She was bidden to get beds ready, and bustled off to do some scolding over the kitchen braziers. Ulfin went to see our mules stabled, and Blaise and I were free to talk.

Light lingers late in the north, so after supper we went out to the terrace over the stream. The warmth of the day breathed still from the stones, and the evening air smelled of cypress and rosemary. Here and there in the tree-hung shadows the pale shape of a statue glimmered. A thrush sang somewhere, a richer echo of the nightingale. At my elbow the old man (magister artii, as he now liked to style himself) was talking of the past, in a pure Roman Latin with no trace of accent. It was an evening borrowed fromItaly : I might have been a young man again, on my youthful travels.

I said as much, and he beamed with pleasure.

"I like to think so. One tries to hold to the civilized values of one's prime. You knew I studied there as a young man, before I was privileged to enter your father's service? Those years, ah, yes, those were the great years, but as one grows older, perhaps one tends to look back too much, too much."

I said something civil about this being of advantage to an historian, and asked if he would honour me with a reading from his work. I had noticed the lighted lamp standing on a stone table by the cypresses, and the rolls lying handily beside it.

"Would you really care to hear it?" He moved that way readily. "Some parts of it, I am sure, would interest you enormously. And it is a part that you can help me to add to, I believe. As it chances, I have it here with me, this roll, yes, this is the one...Shall we sit? The stone is dry, and the evening tolerably mild. I think we shall come to no harm out here by the roses —"

The section he chose to read was his account of the events after Ambrosius returned to Greater Britain; he had been close to my father for most of that time, while I had been involved elsewhere. After he had finished reading he put his questions, and I was able to supply details of the final battle with Hengist at Kaerconan and the subsequent siege ofYork , and the work of settlement and rebuilding that came after.

I filled in for him, too, the campaign that Uther had waged against Gilloman inIreland . I had gone with Uther while Ambrosius stayed inWinchester ; Blaise had been with him there, and it was to Blaise that I had owed the account of my father's death while I was overseas.

He told me about it again. "I can still see it, that great bedchamber atWinchester , with the doctors, and the nobles standing there, and your father lying against the pillows, near to death, but sensible, and talking to you as if you were there in the room. I was beside him, ready to write down anything that was needed, and more than once I glanced down to the foot of the King's bed, half thinking to see you there. And all the while you were voyaging back from the Irish wars, bringing the great stone to lay on his grave."

He fell to nodding then, as old men do, as if he would go back for ever to the stories of times gone by. I brought him back to the present. "And how far have you gone with your account of the times?"

"Oh, I try to set down all that passes. But now that I am out of the center of affairs, and have to depend on the talk from the town, or on anyone who calls to see me, it is hard to know how much I miss. I have correspondents, but sometimes they are lax, yes, the young men are not what they were...It's a great chance that brings you here, Merlin, a great day for me. You will stay? As long as you wish, dear boy; you'll have seen that we live simply, but it's a good life, and there is still so much to talk about, so much...And you must see my vines. Yes, a fine white grape, that ripens to a marvellous sweetness if the year is a good one. Figs do well here, and peaches, and I have even had some success with a pomegranate tree fromItaly ."

"I can't stay this time, I'm afraid." I spoke with genuine regret. "I have to go north in the morning. But if I may, I'll come back before long — and with plenty to tell you, too, I promise you! There are great things afoot now, and you will be doing men a service if you will put them down. Meantime, if I can, would you like me to send letters from time to time? I hope to be back at Arthur's side before winter, and it will keep you in touch."

His delight was patent. We talked for a little longer, then, as the night-flying insects began to crowd to the lamp, we carried it indoors, and parted for the night.

My bedchamber window looked out over the terrace where we had been sitting. For a long time before I lay down to sleep I leaned my elbows on the sill, looking out and breathing the night scents that came in wave after wave on the breeze. The thrush had stopped singing, and now the soft hush of falling water filled the night. A new moon lay on its back, and stars were out. Here, away from lights and sounds of town or village, the night was deep, the black sky stretching, fathomless, away among the spheres, to some unimaginable world where gods walked, and suns and moons showered down like petals falling.

Some power there is that draws men's eyes and hearts up and outward, beyond the heavy clay that fastens them to earth. Music can take them, and the moon's light, and, I suppose, love, though I had not known it then, except in worship.

The tears were there again, and I let them fall. I knew now what cloud it was that had lain over my horizon ever since that chance meeting on the moorland road. How, I did not know, but the boy Ninian

— so young and quiet, and with a grace in look and motion that gave the lie to the ugly slave-burn on his arm — he had had about him the mark of a coming death. This, once seeing, any man might have wept for, but I was weeping, too, for myself; for Merlin the enchanter, who saw, and could do nothing; who walked his own lonely heights where it seemed that none would ever come near to him. In the boy's still face and listening eyes, that night on the moor when the birds had called, I had caught a glimpse of what might have been. For the first time, since those days long ago when I had sat at Galapas' feet to learn the arts of magic, I had seen someone who might have learned worthily from me. Not as others had wanted to learn, for power or excitement, or for the prosecution of some enmity or private greed; but because he had seen, darkly with a child's eyes, how the gods move with the winds and speak with the sea and sleep in the gentle herbs; and how God himself is the sum of all that is on the face of the lovely earth. Magic is the door through which mortal man may sometimes step, to find the gates in the hollow hills, and let himself through into the halls of that other world. I could, but for that shining edge of doom, have opened those gates for him, and, when I needed it no longer, have left him the key.

And now he was dead. I had known it, I think, after I had spoken in the market-place. My sharp, unthinking protest had been made for no reason that I knew; the knowledge came later. And always, when I spoke like that, men did unquestioningly as I bade them. So at least the boy had had his cakes, and the day's sunshine.

I turned away from the thin, brightening moon, and lay down.

"At least he had the cakes, and the day's sunshine." Beltane the goldsmith told us about it as we shared supper at the town's tavern the next evening. He was unusually silent, for him, and seemed stunned, clinging to our company as, in spite of his sharp tongue, he must have clung to the boy's.