The Road to Avalon (3 page)

The stocky brown-haired man nodded and picked up both sets of reins. He glanced once at Arthur before he led the animals away.

“Come,” said Merlin, and strode toward the great front door. Arthur followed.

The large double door opened into an imposing vestibule. Beyond the vestibule was a great mosaic-tiled room, with a marble dais at one end. The throne room of the princes of the Durotriges, Arthur thought with a mixture of derision and awe. He followed Merlin across the room and into another room that opened off it. This room was much smaller and distinctly more cozy. It was furnished with wicker chairs and leather stools, and an old couch leaned against the far wall. This floor too was of varicolored mosaic tile.

“Sit down,” Merlin said, and gestured to one of the wicker chairs. “I’ll find Ector and be right back.”

Arthur sat warily on the edge of the indicated chair.

A long time seemed to pass. Then a voice spoke to him in Latin from the doorway and he looked up to find a small girl regarding him solemnly.

“I don’t speak Latin,” he said shortly.

The child came into the room. “I’m Morgan,” she said in British. “Who are you?”

“Arthur,” he replied, and looked at Merlin’s daughter.

Her gown had grass stains on the skirt and her hair was hanging untidily down her back. It was light brown and it badly needed a comb. He looked at her face and met the biggest, most luminous brown eyes he had ever seen. The child crossed the room and pulled up a stool next to his chair. “Was that your pony Marcus brought to the stable?” she inquired, seating herself.

“Yes.”

“He’s nice. We can give him an apple later, if you like.”

He didn’t know that ponies liked apples. “You must have a lot of extra apples,” he commented, and she laughed.

There was a heavy step outside the door, and then Merlin was back, bringing with him a tall broad-shouldered man with graying brown hair and a noticeable limp. “Oh, here you are, Morgan,” her father said. “Have you met Arthur?”

“Yes.” Morgan kissed her father on the cheek and Merlin said, “Ector, this is Flavius’ son. His name is Arthur.”

The man bestowed a smile upon him and said kindly, “Welcome to Avalon, Arthur.”

Arthur watched the two men with a steady, unblinking stare, and nodded.

“It’s almost time for dinner,” Merlin said briskly. “I want a bath first, though. The roads are still full of mud. I’ll show you to your bedroom, Arthur, and you can change your clothes.”

The boy’s face never altered, but he took a step forward. Then he felt a small hand slip into his own. “I’ll show him, Father,” Morgan offered. “He can have the bedroom next to mine.”

There was a pause; then Merlin answered, “Very well. Show Arthur the bedroom, and then you can direct him to the baths if he wants, Morgan.”

“I will.” Arthur felt a strong tug on his arm. “Come along, Arthur,” Morgan said. Then, when they were in the next room, “I want to show you my dog.”

Morgan’s dog was a mongrel, with one ear half chewed off. “Isn’t he wonderful?” she asked as the dog came to thrust its muzzle lovingly into her hand. Her brown eyes were looking at Arthur with perfect naturalness and trust. She might have known him all her life.

Arthur had expected the daughter of a house like this to have a purebred. He caressed the dog’s head gently and asked, “What’s his name?”

“Horatius.”

“Hello there, Horatius,” the boy said, and squatted easily on his heels. The dog nuzzled him.

“I found him wandering in the woods one day,” Morgan explained. “He was hungry and he’d obviously been in a couple of fights. Do you have a dog?”

He shook his head. He would not have brought a dog home to live with Esus.

“Horatius likes you. You can share him if you like.”

He raised his head sharply and looked at her. “Why should you share your dog with me?”

The big brown eyes looked serenely back. No eyes had ever looked at him like that before, as if they were looking just at
him,
and liking what they saw. “Because he likes you,” she answered simply. “He’s afraid of most people. I think he must have been cruelly mistreated once. But he likes you.”

Her words made him feel strange. “Your bedroom is next door,” she said.
“I’ll
show
you.”

His own room. There was actually a bed, a wooden platform with a mattress and blankets and pillows. The floor was red tile. There was a brazier for warmth.

“It’s very nice,” he managed.

She looked at him solemnly. “Are you going to live here now, Arthur?”

He answered cautiously, trying it out. “Yes. I am.”

She smiled. He had never seen such a smile. “Oh, good,” she said. “Then you can be my friend.”

It was impossible not to respond to that radiant look. “Yes,” he said. And felt something hard and tight and hurtful in his chest begin to relax.

He met Cai at dinner, a tall, big-boned boy with very steady hazel eyes. In deference to Arthur they all spoke British. They were dressed in British garb as well, and sat at the table on benches in the British fashion, but Arthur sensed that this was not really a Celtic household.

Their usual speech was obviously Latin. And the villa itself was nothing a Celt would have built. There was a whole wing devoted just to baths! The princes of the Durotriges had evidently embraced Rome with a whole heart.

Morgan sat on the bench beside him, dressed now in a clean blue gown and white wool tunic. Her hair was neatly combed and hung down her back to her waist. Her small hand with its fragile wrist dipped into the meat platter. Arthur followed suit.

Merlin was talking. “Tomorrow Cai can take you around the estate, Arthur. Show you the farms, the stables and orchards, all that sort of thing.”

Cai nodded. “Be happy to,” he said pleasantly to Arthur. Merlin looked at his grandson as well. The boy’s face was perfectly expressionless.

“May I come too?” asked Morgan.

Cai sighed. “Morgan, whenever you come somewhere with me you are sure to find a bird with a broken wing or a cat with a cut paw, and then we have to come home so you can take care of it.”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to leave a wounded animal, Cai,” Morgan said reasonably.

“No. But why is it
you
who always find them?”

“I don’t know.” Morgan was clearly puzzled by this herself. “I just do.” She asked again, “Please, Cai, may I come?”

Cai was saying, “Oh, I suppose so,” when Merlin chanced to look once again at Arthur.

The boy was watching Morgan, and on his mouth there was a very faint smile.

Chapter 3

M
ERLIN
looked at the three children who were seated around the large library table of polished wood. The spring sun slanted in through the window and pooled on the darker inlay in front of Arthur. Dust motes danced in the air, watched by Morgan with concentrated interest. The two boys watched Merlin. As Merlin’s eyes touched Arthur’s face, he realized, with a small shock of surprise, that it was almost two years ago to the day that he had brought the boy to Avalon.

In two years that sullen young savage had made great strides. He had learned to speak and read and write in fluent Latin and today was embarking on the course of study for which he had been brought to Avalon. Merlin was going to teach his grandson to be a leader of men.

Cai was to be included in the lessons as well. Merlin was fond of Ector’s son; also, it would look distinctly odd if he singled Arthur out for special attention. The rumor already was that Arthur was Merlin’s son. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing for the boy to think; nor was it far from the actual truth.

Merlin’s eyes went from Arthur’s face to Morgan. His daughter, of course, had no business at all being in this class. She should be with the women, learning how to weave and sew. But she wanted to do everything that Arthur did, and Merlin had given in to her without much protest. There was no doubt that Arthur was easier to handle when Morgan was present. Alone, he was reserved, impenetrable almost. With Morgan he was a different boy: relaxed and approachable. And so here she sat, his ten-year-old daughter, about to learn how to be a leader of men.

The boys were still watching him. “Today,” he said pleasantly, “we are about to begin a series of lessons that will teach you both,” he could not seriously include Morgan in this discussion, “how best to be of service to your country.” He paused. “The high king has been fighting the Saxons for over eleven years now, and still they come, pushing always from the east, trying to overwhelm us, to take Britain for themselves. In a few years you boys will be of an age to fight. Well and good. But the high king does not need just fighters. He needs leaders. Men who know how to command other men.

“This is what I wish to teach you, the art of competent leadership.” He looked into Cai’s serious hazel eyes and then into the cool gray gaze of his grandson. “I learned leadership myself from a master,” he continued. “I learned from Constantine, the Comes Britanniarum, the Count of Britain, one of the greatest of Roman soldiers.”

The children had heard often enough of Merlin’s old commander, the Count of Britain.

“May we ask questions, sir?” It was Arthur’s voice, still a boy’s voice but with a cool and detached note that made it sound as if it belonged to someone much older.

“Yes.”

“I have wondered how, if Constantine were such a great soldier, the empire spared him to Britain.”

Merlin leaned back in his chair and stretched his shoulders. “A fair enough question,” he agreed. “Britain was hardly one of the empire’s first priorities, after all. Why, then, you wonder, should Rome send us one of her finest soldiers?”

At Arthur’s almost imperceptible nod, he went on. “Very well. Constantine is as good a place as any to start.” He frowned a little, fixed his eyes on the little splash of sunlight on the table, and began.

“Constantine came from a great Roman military family. When he was about your age,” and his eyes briefly scanned the politely attentive face of his grandson, “he was sent to Constantinople to attend the Emperor Theodosius’ Imperial School. This was a school for future Roman generals, and it included all the finest highborn barbarian princes, as well as Romans like Constantine. Alaric the Goth was one of the pupils.”

“Alaric!” It was Cai’s quick exclamation. “Do you mean the Alaric who sacked Rome?”

“Yes,” said Merlin dryly. “I do.”

“He learned his lessons too well,” said Morgan. She was gazing now at her father, her small chin propped on her hand. She had begun to pay attention once Merlin started to talk about Constantine.

“So it would seem,” Arthur murmured, and cast her a look of affectionate amusement.

Merlin went back to gazing at the splash of sunlight. “The Imperial School flourished until the year 394,” he continued. “That was the year of the Battle of Aquileia against the traitor Arbogast. Constantine, along with most of the other boys from the school, fought in that terrible battle.” He looked from the sun spot to Cai and then to Arthur. “We will study that battle someday,” he promised.

Arthur’s black eyebrows rose fractionally and he nodded.

Merlin continued. “Constantine’s brave leadership at Aquileia caught the eye of the great Roman general Stilicho. He became a prodigy of Stilicho’s and rose high in the ranks of the army. Then, in 408, Stilicho was treacherously executed by the Emperor Honorius, and Constantine was banished from Rome. In 410, as you know”—he cocked an eyebrow at Morgan—“Alaric sacked Rome. The last of our own legions were recalled from Britain, and we were left to defend ourselves as best we could against the Saxons and the painted people from the north. Britain continued to beg the empire for help, however, and in 415 Honorius created the position of the Count of Britain. The count’s job was to assist the native British tribes defend what was left of Rome in Britain. In order to do this, Honorius detached a mobile field army from his legions in Gaul and sent it to Britain under the command of the count.”

Merlin raised one elegantly groomed eyebrow. “The job of Count of Britain was not, as you correctly surmised, Arthur, a desirable one and so it was given to a man who had fallen from imperial favor: Constantine.”

“Was Constantine successful in pushing back the barbarians?” asked Morgan.

“He was successful against the Saxons, but then the painted people began to raid across the wall. We went north, to try to push them back . . . ”

Merlin broke off. Even after all these years, it hurt him to speak of that terrible time. He had been eighteen years old when he first joined Constantine and he had loved the Roman more than any other man in the world. “Constantine was betrayed,” he said in a hard, cold voice. “It was said he was killed in a Pictish raid, but that was not true. It was the Celts. He was killed by one of Vortigern’s men. I could never prove it, but I know it is so. The Celts were afraid Constantine would restore the empire in Britain, and so they killed him and set up one of their own, Vortigern, as high king. If I had not gotten Constantine’s sons, Ambrosius and Uther, away to Armorica, they would have been killed too.”

The rest of the lesson was spent in recounting the history of Vortigern’s rule and Ambrosius’ triumphant return. The children were satisfactorily attentive and Merlin dismissed them two hours before dinner.

Morgan and Arthur went to their usual place by the river. They had constructed a platform in a beech tree the previous year, and they loved to sit there, high above the ground, screened from view by the beech’s branches, and watch the river, read, or talk. Morgan had changed into breeches and she and Arthur sat now, crossed-legged and identically dressed, throwing dice and talking.

“Poor Father,” Morgan said as she idly rolled the dice in her palm. “I think he finds it very frustrating not to be on better terms with Uther.”

“I think so too,” Arthur returned. They spoke in British, as they invariably did when they were alone. Arthur’s thick black hair slid down across his forehead and he pushed it back with a quick, characteristic gesture. “Why isn’t he, Morgan?”