Someone interrupted us then. When I left him he was already going, word by word, through some laborious draft of the new statutes for the city.

 

 

7

 

          The road from Winchester to Caerleon is a good one, and the weather was fine and dry, so we did not halt in Sarum, but held on northwards while the light lasted, straight across the Great Plain.

          A short way beyond Sarum lies the place where Ambrosius was born. I cannot even call to mind now what name it had gone by in the past, but already it was being called by his name, Amberesburg, or Amesbury. I had never been that way, and had a mind to see it, so we pressed on, and arrived just before sunset. I, together with the officers, was given comfortable lodging with the head man of the town -- it was little more than a village, but very conscious now of its standing as the King's birthplace. Not far away was the spot where, many years ago, some hundred or more British nobles had been treacherously massacred by the Saxons and buried in a common grave. This place lay some way west of Amesbury, beyond the stone circle that men call the Giants' Dance, or the Dance of the Hanging Stones.

          I had long heard about the Dance and had been curious to see it, so when the troop reached Amesbury, and were preparing to settle in for the night, I made my excuses to my host, and rode out westwards alone over the open plain. Here, for mile on mile, the long plain stretches without hill or valley, unbroken save for clumps of thorn-trees and gorse, and here and there a solitary oak stripped by the winds. The sun sets late, and this evening as I rode my tired horse slowly westwards the sky ahead of me was still tinged with the last rays, while behind me in the east the clouds of evening piled slate-blue, and one early star came out.

          I think I had been expecting the Dance to be much less impressive than the ranked armies of stones I had grown accustomed to in Brittany, something, perhaps, on the scale of the circle on the druids' island. But these stones were enormous, bigger than any I had ever seen; and their very isolation, standing as they did in the center of that vast and empty plain, struck the heart with awe.

          I rode some of the way round, slowly, staring, then dismounted and, leaving my horse to graze, walked forward between two standing stones of the outer circle. My shadow, thrown ahead of me between their shadows, was tiny, a pygmy thing. I paused involuntarily, as if the giants had linked hands to stop me.

          Ambrosius had asked me if this had been "an arrow out of the dark." I had told him yes, and this was true, but I had yet to find out why I had been brought here. All I knew was that, now I was here, I wished myself away. I had felt something of the same thing in Brittany as I first passed among the avenues of stone; a breathing on the back of the neck as if something older than time were looking over one's shoulder; but this was not quite the same. It was as if the ground, the stones that I touched, though still warm from the spring sunlight, were breathing cold from somewhere deep below.

          Half reluctantly, I walked forward. The light was going rapidly, and to pick one's way into the center needed care. Time and storm -- and perhaps the gods of war -- had done their work, and many of the stones were cast down to lie haphazard, but the pattern could still be discerned. It was a circle, but like nothing I had seen in Brittany, like nothing I had even imagined. There had been, originally, an outer circle of the huge stones, and where a crescent of these still stood I saw that the uprights were crowned with a continuous lintel of stones as vast as themselves, a great linked curve of stone, standing like a giants' fence across the sky. Here and there others of the outer circle were still standing, but most had fallen, or were leaning at drunken angles, with the lintel stones beside them on the ground. Within the bigger circle was a smaller one of uprights, and some of the outer giants had fallen against these and brought them flat. Within these again, marking the center, was a horse-shoe of enormous stones, crowned in pairs. Three of these trilithons stood intact; the fourth had fallen, and brought its neighbour down with it. Echoing this once again was an inner horse-shoe of smaller stones, nearly all standing. The center was empty, and crossed with shadows.

          The sun had gone, and with its going the western sky drained of colour, leaving one bright star in a swimming sea of green. I stood still. It was very quiet, so quiet that I could hear the sound of my horse cropping the turf, and the thin jingle of his bit as he moved. The only other sound was the whispering chatter of nesting starlings among the great trilithons overhead. The starling is a bird sacred to druids, and I had heard that in past time the Dance had been used for worship by the druid priests. There are many stories about the Dance, how the stones were brought from Africa, and put up by giants of old, or how they were the giants themselves, caught and turned to stone by a curse as they danced in a ring. But it was not giants or curses that were breathing the cold now from the ground and from the stones; these stones had been put here by men, and their raising had been sung by poets, like the old blind man of Brittany. A lingering shred of light caught the stone near me; the huge knob of stone on one sandstone surface echoed the hole in the fallen lintel alongside it. These tenons and sockets had been fashioned by men, craftsmen such as I had watched almost daily for the last few years, in Less Britain, then in York, London, Winchester. And massive as they were, giants' building as they seemed to be, they had been raised by the hands of workmen, to the commands of engineers, and to the sound of music such as I had heard from the blind singer of Kerrec.

          I walked slowly forward across the circle's center. The faint light in the western sky threw my shadow slanting ahead of me, and etched, momentarily in fleeting light, the shape of an axe, two-headed, on one of the stones. I hesitated, then turned to look. My shadow wavered and dipped. I trod in a shallow pit and fell, measuring my length.

          It was only a depression in the ground, the kind that might have been made, years past, by the falling of one of the great stones. Or by a grave...

          There was no stone nearby of such a size, no sign of digging, no one buried here. The turf was smooth, and grazed by sheep and cattle, and under my hands as I picked myself up slowly, were the scented, frilled stars of daisies. But as I lay I had felt the cold strike up from below, in a pang as sudden as an arrow striking, and I knew that this was why I had been brought here.

          I caught my horse, mounted and rode the two miles back to my father's birthplace.

          ***

          We reached Caerleon four days later to find the place completely changed. Ambrosius intended to use it as one of his three main stations along with London and York, and Tremorinus himself had been working there. The walls had been rebuilt, the bridge repaired, the river dredged and its banks strengthened, and the whole of the east barrack block rebuilt. In earlier times the military settlement at Caerleon, circled by low hills and guarded by a curve of the river, had been a vast place; there was no need for even half of it now, so Tremorinus had pulled down what remained of the western barrack blocks and used the material on the spot to build the new quarters, the baths, and some brand-new kitchens. The old ones had been in even worse condition than the bathhouse at Maridunum, and now, "You'll have every man in Britain asking to be posted here," I told Tremorinus, and he looked pleased.

          "We'll not be ready a moment too soon," he said. "The rumour's going round of fresh trouble coming. Have you heard anything?"

          "Nothing. But if it's recent news I wouldn't have had it. We've been on the move for nearly a week. What kind of trouble? Not Octa again, surely?"

          "No, Pascentius." This was Vortimer's brother who had fought with him in the rebellion, and fled north after Vortimer's death. "You knew he took ship to Germany? They say he'll come back."

          "Give him time," I said, "you may be sure he will. Well, you'll send me any news that comes?"

          "Send you? You're not staying here?"

          "No. I'm going on to Maridunum. It's my home, you know."

          "I had forgotten. Well, perhaps we'll see something of you; I'll be here myself a bit longer -- we've started work on the church now." He grinned. "The bishop's been at me like a gadfly: it seems I should have been thinking of that before I spent so much time on the things of this earth. And there's talk, too, of putting up some kind of monument to the King's victories. A triumphal arch, some say, the old Roman style of thing. Of course they're saying here in Caerleon that we should build the church for that -- the glory of God with Ambrosius thrown in. Though myself I think if any bishop should get the credit of God's glory and the King's combined it should be Gloucester -- old Eldad laid about him with the best of them. Did you see him?"

          "I heard him."

          He laughed. "Well, in any case you'll stay tonight, I hope? Have supper with me."

          "Thanks. I'd like to."

          We talked late into the night, and he showed me some of his plans and designs, and seemed flatteringly anxious that I should come back from Maridunum to see the various stages of the building. I promised, and next day left Caerleon alone, parrying an equally flattering and urgent request from the camp commandant to let him give me an escort. But I refused, and in the late afternoon came, alone, at last in sight of my own hills. There were rain clouds massing in the west, but in front of them, like a bright curtain, the slanting sunlight. One could see on a day like this why the green hills of Wales had been called the Black Mountains, and the valleys running through them the Valleys of Gold. Bars of sunlight lay along the trees of the golden valleys, and the hills stood slate-blue or black behind them, with their tops supporting the sky.

          I took two days for the journey, going easily, and noticing by the way, how the land seemed already to have got back its bloom of peace. A farmer building a wall barely looked my way as I rode by, and a young girl minding a flock of sheep smiled at me. And when I got to the mill on the Tywy, it seemed to be working normally; there were grain sacks piled in the yard, and I could hear the clack-clack-clack of the turning wheel.

          I passed the bottom of the path which led up to the cave, and held on straight for the town. I believe I told myself that my first duty and concern was to visit St. Peter's to ask about my mother's death, and to see where she was buried. But when I got from my horse at the nunnery gate and lifted a hand to the bell, I knew from the knocking of my heart that I had told myself a lie.

          I could have spared myself the deception; it was the old portress who let me in, and who led me straight, without being asked, through the inner court and down to the green slope near the river where my mother was buried. It was a lovely place, a green plot near a wall where pear trees had been brought early into blossom by the warmth, and where, above their snow, the white doves she had loved were rounding their breasts to the sun. I could hear the ripple of the river beyond the wall, and down through the rustling trees the note of the chapel bell.

          The Abbess received me kindly, but had nothing to add to the account which I had received soon after my mother's death, and had passed on to my father. I left money for prayers, and for a carved stone to be made, and when I left, it was with her silver and amethyst cross tucked into my saddle-bag. One question I dared not ask, even when a girl who was not Keri brought wine for my refreshment. And finally, with my question unasked, I was ushered to the gate and out into the street. Here I thought for a moment that my luck had changed, for as I was untying my horse's bridle from the ring beside the gate I saw the old portress peering at me through the grille -- remembering, no doubt, the gold I had given her on my first visit. But when I produced money and beckoned her close to shout my question in her ear, and even, after three repetitions, got through to her, the only answer was a shrug and the one word, "Gone," which -- even if she had understood me -- was hardly helpful. In the end I gave it up. In any case, I told myself, this was something that had to be forgotten. So I rode out of town and back over the miles to my valley with the memory of her face burned into everything I saw, and the gold of her hair lying in every shaft of the slanting sunlight.

          Cadal had rebuilt the pen which Galapas and I had made in the hawthorn brake. It had a good roof and a stout door, and could easily house a couple of big horses. One -- Cadal's own, I supposed -- was already there.

          Cadal himself must have heard me riding up the valley, because, almost before I had dismounted, he came running down the path by the cliff, had the bridle out of my hand, and, lifting both my hands in his, kissed them.

          "Why, what's this?" I asked, surprised. He need have had no fears for my safety; the messages I had sent him had been regular and reassuring. "Didn't you get the message I was coming?"

          "Yes, I got it. It's been a long time. You're looking well."

          "And you. Is all well here?"

          "You'll find it so. If you must live in a place like this, there's ways and ways of making it fit. Now get away up, your supper's ready." He bent to unbuckle the horse's girths, leaving me to go up to the cave alone.

          He had had a long time in which to do it, but even so it came with a shock like a miracle. It was as it had always been, a place of green grass and sunlight. Daisies and heartsease starred the turf between the green curls of young bracken, and young rabbits whisked out of sight under the flowering blackthorn. The spring ran crystal clear, and crystal clear through the water of the well could be seen the silver gravel at the bottom. Above it, in its ferny niche, stood the carved figure of the god; Cadal must have found it when he cleared the rubbish from the well. He had even found the cup of horn. It stood where it had always stood. I drank from it, sprinkled the drops for the god, and went into the cave.

          My books had come from Less Britain; the great chest was backed against the wall of the cave, where Galapas' box had been. Where his table had stood there was another, which I recognized from my grandfather's house. The bronze mirror was back in place. The cave was clean, sweet-smelling and dry. Cadal had built a hearth of stone, and logs were laid ready across it to light. I half expected to see Galapas sitting beside the hearth, and, on the ledge near the entrance, the falcon which had perched there on the night a small boy left the cave in tears. Deep among the shadows above the ledge at the rear was the gash of deeper shadow which hid the crystal cave.

          That night, lying on the bed of bracken with the rugs pulled round me, I lay listening, after the dying of the fire, to the rustle of leaves outside the cave, and, beyond that, the trickle of the spring. They were the only sounds in the world. I closed my eyes and slept as I had not slept since I was a child.

 

 

8

 

          Like a drunkard who, as long as there is no wine to be had, thinks himself cured of his craving, I had thought myself cured of the thirst for silence and solitude. But from the first morning of waking on Bryn Myrddin, I knew that this was not merely a refuge, it was my place. April lengthened into May, and the cuckoos shouted from hill to hill, the bluebells unfurled in the young bracken, and evenings were full of the sound of lambs crying, and still I had never once gone nearer the town than the crest of a hill two miles north where I gathered leaves and cresses. Cadal went down daily for supplies and for what news was current, and twice a messenger rode up the valley, once with a bundle of sketches from Tremorinus, once with news from Winchester and money from my father -- no letter, but confirmation that Pascentius was indeed massing troops in Germany, and war must surely come before the end of summer.

          For the rest I read, and walked on the hills, and gathered plants and made medicines. I also made music, and sang a number of songs which made Cadal look sideways at me over his tasks and shake his head. Some of them are still sung, but most are best forgotten. One of the latter was this, which I sang one night when May was in town with all her wild clouds of blossom, and greybell turned to bluebell along the brakes.

 

                      The land is grey and bare, the trees naked as bone,

                      Their summer stripped from them; the willow's hair,

                      The beauty of blue water, the golden grasses,

                      Even the bird's whistle has been stolen,

                      Stolen by a girl, robbed by a girl lithe as willow.

 

                      Blithe she is as the bird on the May bough,

                      Sweet she is as the bell in the tower,

                      She dances over the bending rushes

                      And her steps shine on the grey grass.

 

                      I would take a gift to her, queen of maidens,

                      But what is left to offer from my bare valley?

                      Voices of wind in the reeds, and jewel of rain,

                      And fur of moss on the cold stone.

                      What is there left to offer but moss on the stone?

                      She closes her eyes and turns from me in sleep.

 

          The next day I was walking in a wooded valley a mile from home looking for wild mint and bitterweed, when, as if I had called her, she came up the path through the bluebells and bracken. For all I know, I may have called her. An arrow is an arrow, whichever god looses it.

          I stood still by a clump of birches, staring as if she would vanish; as if I had indeed conjured her up that moment from dream and desire, a ghost in sunlight. I could not move, though my whole body and spirit seemed to leap at once to meet her. She saw me, and laughter broke in her face, and she came to me, walking lightly. In the chequer of dancing light and shadow as the birch boughs moved she still seemed insubstantial, as if her step would hardly stir the grasses, but then she came closer and it was no vision, but Keri as I remembered her, in brown homespun and smelling of honeysuckle. But now she wore no hood; her hair was loose over her shoulders, and her feet were bare. The sun glanced through the moving leaves, making her hair sparkle like light on water. She had her hands full of bluebells.

          "My lord!" The small, breathless voice was full of pleasure.

          I stood still with all my dignity round me like a robe, and under it my body fretting like a horse that feels curb and spur at the same time. I wondered if she were going to kiss my hand again, and if so, what I would do. "Keri! What are you doing here?"

          "Why, gathering bluebells." The wide innocence of her look robbed the words of pertness. She held them up, laughing at me across them. God knows what she could see in my face. No, she was not going to kiss my hand. "Didn't you know I'd left St. Peter's?"

          "Yes, they told me. I thought you must have gone to some other nunnery."

          "No, never that. I hated it. It was like being in a cage. Some of them liked it, it made them feel safe, but not me. I wasn't made for such a life."

          "They tried to do the same thing to me, once," I said.

          "Did you run away, too?"

          "Oh, yes. But I ran before they shut me up. Where are you living now, Keri?"

          She did not seem to have heard the question. "You weren't meant for it, either? Being in chains, I mean?"

          "Not those chains."

          I could see her puzzling over this, but I was not sure what I had meant myself, so held my tongue, watching her without thought, feeling only the strong happiness of the moment.

          "I was sorry about your mother," she said.

          "Thank you, Keri."

          "She died just after you'd left. I suppose they told you all about it?"

          "Yes. I went to the nunnery as soon as I came back to Maridunum."

          She was silent for a moment, looking down. She pointed a bare toe in the grass, a little shy dancing movement which set the golden apples at her girdle jingling. "I knew you had come back. Everyone's talking about it."

          "Are they?"

          She nodded. "They told me in the town that you were a prince as well as a great magician..." She looked up then, her voice fading to doubt, as she eyed me. I was wearing my oldest clothes, a tunic with grass stains that not even Cadal could remove, and my mantle was burred and pulled by thorns and brambles. My sandals were of canvas like a slave's; it was useless to wear leather through the long wet grass. Compared even with the plainly dressed young man she had seen before, I must look like a beggar. She asked, with the directness of innocence: "Are you still a prince, now that your mother is gone?"

          "Yes. My father is the High King."

          Her lips parted. "Your father? The King? I didn't know. Nobody said that."

          "Not many people know. But now that my mother is dead, it doesn't matter. Yes, I am his son."

          "The son of the High King..." She breathed it, with awe. "And a magician, too. I know that's true."

          "Yes. That is true."

          "You once told me you weren't."

          I smiled. "I told you I couldn't cure your toothache."

          "But you did cure it."

          "So you said. I didn't believe you."

          "Your touch would cure anything," she said, and came close to me.

          The neck of her gown hung slack. Her throat was pale as honeysuckle. I could smell her scent and the scent of the bluebells, and the bittersweet juice of the flowers crushed between us. I put out a hand and pulled at the neck of the gown, and the drawstring snapped. Her breasts were round and full and softer than anything I had imagined. They rounded into my hands like the breasts of my mother's doves. I believe I had expected her to cry out and pull away from me, but she nestled towards me warmly, and laughed, and put her hands up behind my head and dug her fingers into my hair and bit me on the mouth. Then suddenly she let her whole weight hang against me so that, reaching to hold her, plunging clumsily into the kiss, I stumbled forward and fell to the ground with her under me and the flowers scattering round us as we fell.

          ***

          It took me a long time to understand. At first it was laughter and snatched breathing and all that burns down into the imagination in the night, but still held down hard and steady because of her smallness and the soft sounds she made when I hurt her. She was slim as a reed and soft with it, and you would have thought it would make me feel like a duke of the world, but then suddenly she made a sound deep in her throat as if she was strangling, and twisted in my arms as I have seen a dying man twist in pain, and her mouth came up like something striking, and fastened on mine.

          Suddenly it was I who was strangling; her arms dragged at me, her mouth sucked me down, her body drew me into that tight and final darkness, no air, no light, no breath, no whisper of waking spirit. A grave inside a grave. Fear burned down into my brain like a white hot blade laid across the eyes. I opened them and could see nothing but the spinning light and the shadow of a tree laid across me whose thorns tore like spikes. Some shape of terror clawed my face. The thorn-tree's shadow swelled and shook, the cave-mouth gaped and the walls breathed, crushing me. I struggled back, out, tore myself away and rolled over apart from her, sweating with fear and shame.

          "What's the matter?" Even her voice sounded blind. Her hands still moved over the space of air where I had been.

          "I'm sorry, Keri. I'm sorry."

          "What do you mean? What's happened?" She turned her head in its fallen flurry of gold. Her eyes were narrow and cloudy. She reached for me. "Oh, if that's all, come here. It's all right, I'll show you, just come here."

          "No." I tried to put her aside gently, but I was shaking. "No, Keri. Leave me. No."

          "What's the matter?" Her eyes opened suddenly wide. She pushed herself up on her elbow. "Why, I do believe you've never done it before. Have you? Have you?"

          I didn't speak.

          She gave a laugh that seemed meant to sound gay, but came shrilly. She rolled over again and stretched out her hands. "Well, never mind, you can learn, can't you? You're a man, after all. At least, I thought you were..." Then, suddenly in a fury of impatience: "Oh, for God's sake. Hurry, can't you? I tell you, it'll be all right."

          I caught her wrists and held them. "Keri, I'm sorry. I can't explain, but this is...I must not, that's all I know. No, listen, give me a minute."

          "Let me go!"

          I loosed her and she pulled away and sat up. Her eyes were angry. There were flowers caught in her hair.

          I said: "This isn't because of you, Keri, don't think that. It has nothing to do with you -- "

          "Not good enough for you, is that it? Because my mother was a whore?"

          "Was she? I didn't even know." I felt suddenly immensely tired. I said carefully: "I told you this was nothing to do with you. You are very beautiful, Keri, and the first moment I saw you I felt -- you must know what I felt. But this is nothing to do with feeling. It is between me and -- it is something to do with my -- " I stopped. It was no use. Her eyes watched me, bright and blank, then she turned aside with a little flouncing movement and began to tidy her dress. Instead of "power," I finished: " -- something to do with my magic."

          "Magic." Her lip was thrust out like a hurt child's. She knotted her girdle tight with a sharp little tug, and began to gather up the fallen bluebells, repeating spitefully: "Magic. Do you think I believe in your silly magic? Did you really think I even had the toothache, that time?"

          "I don't know," I said wearily. I got to my feet.

          "Well, maybe you don't have to be a man to be a magician. You ought to have gone into that monastery after all."

          "Perhaps." A flower was tangled in her hair and she put a hand up to pull it out. The fine floss glinted in the sun like gossamer. My eye caught the blue mark of a bruise on her wrist. "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

          She neither answered nor looked up, and I turned away. "Well, goodbye, Keri."

          I had gone perhaps six steps when her voice stopped me. "Prince -- "

          I turned.

          "So you do answer to it?" she said. "I'm surprised. Son of the High King, you say you are, and you don't even leave me a piece of silver to pay for my gown?"

          I must have stood staring like a sleepwalker. She tossed the gold hair back over her shoulder and laughed up at me. Like a blind man fumbling, I felt in the purse at my belt and came out with a coin. It was gold. I took a step back towards her to give it to her. She leaned forward, still laughing, her hands out, cupped like a beggar's. The torn gown hung loose from the lovely throat. I flung the coin down and ran away from her, up through the wood.

          Her laughter followed me till I was over the ridge and down in the next valley and had flung myself on my belly beside the stream and drowned the feel and the scent of her in the rush of the mountain water that smelled of snow.

 

 

9

 

          In June Ambrosius came to Caerleon, and sent for me. I rode up alone, arriving one evening well past supper-time, when the lamps had been lit and the camp was quiet. The King was still working; I saw the spill of light from headquarters, and the glimmer on the dragon standard outside. While I was still some way off I heard the clash of a salute, and a tall figure came out whom I recognized as Uther.

          He crossed the way to a door opposite the King's, but with his foot on the bottom step saw me, stopped, and came back. "Merlin. So you got here. You took your time, didn't you?"

          "The summons was hasty. If I am to go abroad, there are things I have to do."

          He stood still. "Who said you were to go abroad?"

          "People talk of nothing else. It's Ireland, isn't it? They say Pascentius has made some dangerous allies over there, and that Ambrosius wants them destroyed quickly. But why me?"

          "Because it's their central stronghold he wants destroyed. Have you ever heard of Killare?"

          "Who hasn't? They say it's a fortress that's never been taken."

          "Then they say the truth. There's a mountain in the center of all Ireland, and they say that from the summit of it you can see every coast. And on top of that hill there's a fortress, not of earth and palisades, but of strong stones. That, my dear Merlin, is why you."

          "I see. You need engines."

          "We need engines. We have to attack Killare. If we can take it, you can reckon that there'll be no trouble there for a few years to come. So I take Tremorinus, and Tremorinus insists on taking you."

          "I gather the King isn't going?"

          "No. Now I'll say good night; I have business to attend to, or I would ask you in to wait. He's got the camp commandant with him, but I don't imagine they'll be long."

          On this, he said a pleasant enough good night, and ran up the steps into his quarters, shouting for his servant before he was well through the door.

          Almost immediately, from the King's doorway, came the clash of another salute, and the camp commandant came out. Not seeing me, he paused to speak to one of the sentries, and I stood waiting until he had done.

          A movement caught my eye, a furtive stir of shadow where someone came softly down a narrow passage between the buildings opposite, where Uther was housed. The sentries, busy with the commandant, had seen nothing. I drew back out of the torchlight, watching. A slight figure, cloaked and hooded. A girl. She reached the lighted corner and paused there, looking about her. Then, with a gesture that was secret rather than afraid, she pulled the hood closer about her face. It was a gesture I recognized, as I recognized the drift of scent on the air, like honeysuckle, and from under the hood the lock of hair curling, gold in the torchlight.

          I stood still. I wondered why she had followed me here, and what she hoped to gain. I do not think it was shame I felt, not now, but there was pain, and I believe there was still desire. I hesitated, then took a step forward and spoke.

          "Keri?"

          But she paid no attention. She slid out from the shadows and, quickly and lightly, ran up the steps to Uther's door. I heard the sentry challenge, then a murmur, and a soft laugh from the man.

          When I drew level with Uther's doorway it was shut. In the light of the torch I saw the smile still on the sentry's face.

          ***

          Ambrosius was still sitting at his table, his servant hovering behind him in the shadows.

          He pushed his papers aside and greeted me. The servant brought wine and poured it, then withdrew and left us alone.

          We talked for a while. He told me what news there was since I had left Winchester; the building that had gone forward, and his plans for the future. Then we spoke of Tremorinus' work at Caerleon, and so came to the talk of war. I asked him for the latest about Pascentius, "for," I said, "we have been waiting weekly to hear that he had landed in the north and was harrying the countryside."

          "Not yet. In fact, if my plans come to anything, we may hear nothing more of Pascentius until the spring, and then we shall be more than prepared. If we allow him to come now, he may well prove more dangerous than any enemy I have yet fought."

          "I've heard something about this. You mean the Irish news?"

          "Yes. The news is bad from Ireland. You know they have a young king there, Gilloman? A young firedrake, they tell me, and eager for war. Well, you may have heard it, the news is that Pascentius is contracted to Gilloman's sister. You see what this could mean? Such an alliance as that might put the north and west of Britain both at risk together."

          "Is Pascentius in Ireland? We heard he was in Germany, gathering support."

          "That is so," he said. "I can't get accurate information about his numbers, but I'd say about twenty thousand men. Nor have I yet heard what he and Gilloman plan to do." He lifted an eyebrow at me, amused. "Relax, boy, I haven't called you here to ask for a prediction. You made yourself quite clear at Kaerconan; I'm content to wait, like you, on your god."

          I laughed. "I know. You want me for what you call 'real work.' "

          "Indeed. This is it. I am not content to wait here in Britain while Ireland and Germany gather their forces and then come together on both our coasts like a summer storm, and meet in Britain to overwhelm the north. Britain lies between them now, and she can divide them before ever they combine to attack."

          "And you'll take Ireland first?"

          "Gilloman," he said, nodding. "He's young and inexperienced -- and he is also nearer. Uther will sail for Ireland before the month's end." There was a map in front of him. He half turned it so that I could see. "Here. This is Gilloman's stronghold; you'll have heard of it, I don't doubt. It is a mountain fortress called Killare. I have not found a man who has seen it, but I am told it is strongly fortified, and can be defended against any assault. I am told, indeed, that it has never fallen. Now, we can't afford to have Uther sit down in front of it for months, while Pascentius comes in at the back door. Killare must be taken quickly, and it cannot -- they tell me -- be taken by fire."

          "Yes?" I had already noticed that there were drawings of mine on the table among the maps and plans.

          He said, as if at a tangent: "Tremorinus speaks very highly of you."

          "That's good of him." Then, at my own tangent: "I met Uther outside. He told me what you wanted."

          "Then will you go with him?"

          "I'm at your service, of course. But sir" -- I indicated the drawings -- "I have made no new designs. Everything I have designed has already been built here. And if there is so much hurry -- "

          "Not that, no. I'm asking for nothing new. The machines we have are good -- and must serve. What we have built is ready now for shipping. I want you for more than this." He paused. "Killare, Merlin, is more than a stronghold, it is a holy place, the holy place of the Kings of Ireland. They tell me the crest of the hill holds a Dance of stone, a circle such as you knew in Brittany. And on Killare, men say, is the heart of Ireland and the holy place of Gilloman's kingdom. I want you, Merlin, to throw down the holy place, and take the heart out of Ireland."

          I was silent.

          "I spoke of this to Tremorinus," he said, "and he told me I must send for you. Will you go?"

          "I have said I will. Of course."

          He smiled, and thanked me, not as if he were High King and I a subject obeying his wish, but as if I were an equal giving him a favour. He talked then for a little longer about Killare, what he had heard of it, and what preparations he thought we should make, and finally leaned back, saying with a smile: "One thing I regret. I'm going to Maridunum, and I should have liked your company, but now there is no time for that. You may charge me with any messages you care to."

          "Thank you, but I have none. Even if I had been there, I would hardly have dared to offer you the hospitality of a cave."

          "I should like to see it."

          "Anyone will tell you the way. But it's hardly fit to receive a King."

          I stopped. His face was lit with a laughter that all at once made him look twenty again. I set down my cup. "I am a fool. I had forgotten."

          "That you were begotten there? I thought you had. I can find my way to it, never fear."

          He spoke then about his own plans. He himself would stay in Caerleon, "for if Pascentius attacks," he told me, "my guess is that he will come down this way" -- his finger traced a line on the map -- "and I can catch him south of Carlisle. Which brings me to the next thing. There was something else I wanted to discuss with you. When you last came through Caerleon on your way to Maridunum in April, I believe you had a talk with Tremorinus?"

          I waited.

          "About this." He lifted a sheaf of drawings -- not mine -- and handed them across. They were not of the camp, or indeed of any buildings I had seen. There was a church, a great hall, a tower. I studied them for a few minutes in silence. For some reason I felt tired, as if my heart were too heavy for me. The lamp smoked and dimmed and sent shadows dancing over the papers. I pulled myself together, and looked up at my father. "I see. You must be talking about the memorial building?"

          He smiled. "I'm Roman enough to want a visible monument."

          I tapped the drawings. "And British enough to want it British? Yes, I heard that, too."

          "What did Tremorinus tell you?"

          "That it was thought some kind of monument to your victories should be erected, and to commemorate your kingship of a united kingdom. I agreed with Tremorinus that to build a triumphal arch here in Britain would be absurd. He did say that some churchmen wanted a big church built -- the bishop of Caerleon, for instance, wanted one here. But surely, sir, this would hardly do? If you build at Caerleon you'll have London and Winchester, not to mention York, thinking it should have been there. Of them all, I suppose, Winchester would be the best. It is your capital."

          "No. I've had a thought about this myself. When I travelled up from Winchester, I came through Amesbury..." He leaned forward suddenly. "What's the matter, Merlin? Are you ill?"

          "No. It's a hot night, that's all. A storm coming, I think. Go on. You came through Amesbury."

          "You knew it was my birthplace? Well, it seemed to me that to put my monument in such a place could give no cause for complaint -- and there is another reason why it's a good choice." He knitted his brows. "You're like a sheet, boy. Are you sure you're all right?"

          "Perfectly. Perhaps a little tired."

          "Have you supped? It was thoughtless of me not to ask."

          "I ate on the way, thank you. I have had all I needed. Perhaps -- some more wine -- "

          I half rose, but before I could get to my feet he was on his, and came round the table with the jug and served me himself. While I drank he stayed where he was, near me, sitting back against the table's edge. I was reminded sharply of how he had stood this way that night in Brittany when I discovered him. I remember that I held it in my mind, and in a short while was able to smile at him.

          "I am quite well, sir, indeed I am. Please go on. You were giving me the second reason for putting your monument at Amesbury."

          "You probably know that it is not far from there that the British dead lie buried, who were slain by Hengist's treachery. I think it fitting -- and I think there is no man who will argue with this -- that the monument to my victory, to the making of one kingdom under one King, should also be a memorial for these warriors." He paused. "And you might say there is yet a third reason, more powerful than the other two."

          I said, not looking at him, but down into the cup of wine, and speaking quietly: "That Amesbury is already the site of the greatest monument in Britain? Possibly the greatest in the whole West?"

          "Ah." It was a syllable of deep satisfaction. "So your mind moves this way, too? You have seen the Giants' Dance?"

          "I rode out to it from Amesbury, when I was on my way home from Winchester."

          He stood up at that and walked back round the table to his chair. He sat, then leaned forward, resting his hands on the table. "Then you know how I am thinking. You saw enough when you lived in Brittany to know what the Dance was once. And you have seen what it is now -- a chaos of giant stones in a lonely place where the sun and the winds strike." He added more slowly, watching me: "I have talked of this to Tremorinus. He says that no power of man could raise those stones."

          I smiled. "So you sent for me to raise them for you?"

          "You know they say it was not men who raised them, but magic."

          "Then," I said, "no doubt they will say the same again."

          His eyes narrowed. "You are telling me you can do it?"

          "Why not?"

          He was silent, merely waiting. It was a measure of his faith in me that he did not smile.

          I said: "Oh, I've heard all the tales they tell, the same tales they told in Less Britain of the standing stones. But the stones were put there by men, sir. And what men put there once, men can put there again."

          "Then if I don't possess a magician, at least I possess a competent engineer?"

          "That's it."

          "How will you do it?"

          "As yet, I know less than half of it. But it can be done."

          "Then will you do this for me, Merlin?"

          "Of course. Have I not said I am here only to serve you as best I can? I will rebuild the Giants' Dance for you, Ambrosius."

          "A strong symbol for Britain." He spoke broodingly now, frowning down at his hands. "I shall be buried there, Merlin, when my time comes. What Vortigern wanted to do for his stronghold in darkness, I shall do for mine in the light; I shall have the body of her King buried under the stones, the warrior under the threshold of all Britain."

          Someone must have drawn the curtains back from the door. The sentries were out of sight, the camp silent. The stone doorposts and the heavy lintel lying across them framed a blue night burning with stars. All round us the vast shadows reared, giant stones linked like pleached trees where some hands long since bone had cut the signs of the gods of air and earth and water. Someone was speaking quietly; a king's voice; Ambrosius' voice. It had been speaking for some time; vaguely, like echoes in the dark, I heard it.

          "...and while the King lies there under the stone the Kingdom shall not fall. For as long and longer than it has stood before, the Dance shall stand again, with the light striking it from the living heaven. And I shall bring back the great stone to lay upon the grave-place, and this shall be the heart of Britain, and from this time on all the kings shall be one King and all the gods one God. And you shall live again in Britain, and for ever, for we will make between us a King whose name will stand as long as the Dance stands, and who will be more than a symbol; he will be a shield and a living sword."

          It was not the King's voice; it was my own. The King was still sitting on the other side of the map-strewn table, his hands still and flat on the papers, his eyes dark under the straight brows. Between us the lamp dimmed, flickering in a draught from under the shut door.

          I stared at him, while my sight slowly cleared. "What did I say?"

          He shook his head, smiling, and reached for the wine jug. I said irritably: "It comes on me like a fainting fit on a pregnant girl. I'm sorry. Tell me what I said?"

          "You gave me a kingdom. And you gave me immortality. What more is there? Drink now, Ambrosius' prophet."

          "Not wine. Is there water?"

          "Here." He got to his feet. "And now you must go and sleep, and so must I. I leave early for Maridunum. You are sure you have no messages?"

          "Tell Cadal he is to give you the silver cross with the amethysts."

          We faced one another in a small silence. I was almost as tall as he. He said, gently: "So now it is goodbye."

          "How does one say goodbye to a King who has been given immortality?"

          He gave me a strange look. "Shall we meet again, then?"

          "We shall meet again, Ambrosius."

          It was then I knew that what I had prophesied for him was his death.

 

 

10

 

          Killare, I had been told, is a mountain in the very center of Ireland. There are in other parts of this island mountains which, if not as great as those of our own country, could still merit the name. But the hill of Killare is no mountain. It is a gentle conical hill whose summit is, I suppose, no more than nine hundred feet high. It is not even forested, but clothed over with rough grass, with here and there a copse of thorn-trees, or a few single oaks.

          Even so, standing where it does, it looms like a mountain to those approaching it, for it stands alone, the only hill at the center of a vast plain. On every hand, with barely the least undulation, the country stretches flat and green; north, south, east, west, it is the same. But it is not true that you can see the coasts from that summit; there is only the interminable view on every hand of that green gentle country, with above it a soft and cloudy sky.

          Even the air is mild there. We had fair winds, and landed on a long, grey strand on a soft summer morning, with a breeze off the land smelling of bog myrtle and gorse and salt-soaked turf. The wild swans sailed the loughs with the half-grown cygnets, and the peewits screamed and tumbled over the meadows where their young nestled down between the reeds.

          It was not a time, or a country, you would have thought, for war. And indeed, the war was soon over. Gilloman, the king, was young -- they said not more than eighteen -- and he would not listen to his advisers and wait for a good moment to meet our attack. So high was his heart that, at the first news of foreign troops landing on the sacred soil of Ireland, the young king gathered his fighting men together, and threw them against Uther's seasoned troops. They met us on a flat plain, with a hill at our backs and a river at theirs. Uther's troops stood the first wild, brave attack without giving ground even a couple of paces, then advanced steadily in their turn, and drove the Irish into the water. Luckily for them, this was a wide stream, and shallow, and, though it ran red that evening, many hundreds of Irishmen escaped. Gilloman the king was one of them, and when we got the news that he had fled west with a handful of trusted followers, Uther, guessing he would be making for Killare, sent a thousand mounted troops after him, with instructions to catch him before he reached the gates. This they just managed to do, coming up with him barely half a mile short of the fortress, at the very foot of the hill and within sight of the walls. The second battle was short, and bloodier than the first. But it took place in the night, and in the confusion of the mêlée Gilloman himself escaped once more, and galloped away with a handful of men, this time nobody knew where. But the thing was done; by the time we, the main body of the army, came to the foot of Mount Killare, the British troops were already in possession, and the gates were open.

          A lot of nonsense has been talked about what happened next. I myself have heard some of the songs, and even read one account which was set down in a book. Ambrosius had been misinformed. Killare was not strong-built of great stones; that is to say, the outer fortifications were as usual of earthworks and palisades behind a great ditch, and inside that was a second ditch, deep, and with spikes set. The central fortress itself was certainly stone-walled, and the stones were big ones, but nothing that a normal team, with the proper tackle, could not handle easily. Inside this fortress wall were houses, of the most part built of wood, but also some strong places underground, as we have in Britain. Higher yet stood the innermost ring, a wall round the crest of the hill like a crown round the brow of a king. And inside this, at the very center and apex of the hill, was the holy place. Here stood the Dance, the circle of stones that was said to contain the heart of Ireland. It could not compare with the Great Dance of Amesbury, being only a single circle of unlinked stones, but it was impressive enough, and still stood firm with much of the circle intact, and two capped uprights near the center where other stones lay, seemingly without pattern, in the long grass.

          I walked up alone that same evening. The hillside was alive with the bustle and roar, familiar to me from Kaerconan, of the aftermath of battle. But when I passed the wall that hedged the holy place, and came out towards the crest of the hill, it was like leaving a bustling hall for the quiet of some tower room upstairs. Sounds fell away below the walls, and as I walked up through the long summer grass, there was almost silence, and I was alone.

          A round moon stood low in the sky, pale still, and smudged with shadow, and thin at one edge like a worn coin. There was a scatter of small stars, with here and there the shepherd stars herding them, and across from the moon one great star alone, burning white. The shadows were long and soft on the seeding grasses.

          A tall stone stood alone, leaning a little towards the east. A little further was a pit, and beyond that again a round boulder that looked black in the moonlight. There was something here. I paused. Nothing I could put a name to, but the old, black stone itself might have been some dark creature hunched there over the pit's edge. I felt the shiver run over my skin, and turned away. This, I would not disturb.

          The moon climbed with me, and as I entered the circle she lifted her white disc over the cap-stones and shone clear into the center of the ring. My footsteps crunched, dry and brittle, over a patch of ground where fires had recently been lit. I saw the white shapes of bones, and a flat stone shaped like an altar. The moonlight showed carving on one side, crude shapes twisted, of ropes or serpents. I stooped to run a finger over them. Nearby a mouse rustled and squeaked in the grass. No other sound. The thing was clean, dead, godless. I left it, moving on slowly through the moon-thrown shadows. There was another stone, domed like a beehive, or a navel-stone. And here an upright fallen, with the long grass almost hiding it. As I passed it, searching still, a ripple of breeze ran through the grasses, blurring the shadows and dimming the light like mist. I caught my foot on something, staggered, and came down to my knees at the end of a long flat stone which lay almost hidden in the grass. My hands moved over it. It was massive, oblong, uncarved, simply a great natural stone on to which now the moonlight poured. It hardly needed the cold at my hands, the hiss of the bleached grasses under the sudden run of wind, the scent of daisies, to tell me that this was the stone. All round me, like dancers drawing back from a center, the silent stones stood black. On one side the white moon, on the other the king-star, burning white. I got slowly to my feet and stood there at the foot of the long stone, as one might stand at the foot of a bed, waiting for the man in it to die.

          ***

          It was warmth that woke me, warmth and the voices of men near me. I lifted my head. I was half-kneeling, half-lying with my arms and the upper part of my body laid along the stone. The morning sun was high, and pouring straight down into the center of the Dance. Mist smoked up from the damp grass, and its white wreaths hid the lower slopes of the hill. A group of men had come in through the stones of the Dance, and were standing there muttering among themselves, watching me. As I blinked, moving my stiff limbs, the group parted and Uther came through, followed by half a dozen of his officers, among whom was Tremorinus. Two soldiers pushed between them what was obviously an Irish prisoner; his hands were tied and there was a cut on one cheek where blood had dried, but he held himself well and I thought the men who guarded him looked more afraid than he.

          Uther checked when he saw me, then came across as I got stiffly to my feet. The night must have shown still in my face, for in the group of officers behind him I saw the look I had grown used to, of men both wary and amazed, and even Uther spoke a fraction too loudly.

          "So your magic is as strong as theirs."

          The light was too strong for my eyes. He looked vivid and unreal, like an image seen in moving water. I tried to speak, cleared my throat, and tried again. "I'm still alive, if that's what you mean."

          Tremorinus said gruffly: "There's not another man in the army would have spent the night here."

          "Afraid of the black stone?"

          I saw Uther's hand move in an involuntary gesture as if it sprang of itself to make the sign. He saw I had noticed, and looked angry. "Who told you about the black stone?"

          Before I could answer, the Irishman said suddenly: "You saw it? Who are you?"

          "My name is Merlin."

          He nodded slowly. He still showed no sign of fear or awe. He read my thought, and smiled, as if to say, "You and I, we can look after ourselves."

          "Why do they bring you here like this?" I asked him.

          "To tell them which is the king-stone."

          Uther said: "He has told us. It's the carved altar over there."

          "Let him go," I said. "You have no need of him. And leave the altar alone. This is the stone."

          There was a pause. Then the Irishman laughed. "Faith, if you bring the King's enchanter himself, what hope has a poor poet? It was written in the stars that you would take it, and indeed, it is nothing but justice. It's not the heart of Ireland that that stone has been but the curse of it, and maybe Ireland will be all the better to see it go."

          "How so?" I asked him. Then, to Uther: "Tell them to loose him."

          Uther nodded, and the men loosed the prisoner's hands. He rubbed his wrists, smiling at me. You would have thought we two were alone in the Dance. "They say that in times past that stone came out of Britain, out of the mountains of the west, in sight of the Irish Sea, and that the great King of all Ireland, Fionn Mac Cumhaill was his name, carried it in his arms one night and walked through the sea with it to Ireland, and set it here."

          "And now," I said, "we carry it a little more painfully back to Britain."

          He laughed. "I would have thought the great magician that's yourself would have picked it up in one hand."

          "I'm no Fionn," I said. "And now if you are wise, poet, you will go back to your home and your harp, and make no more wars, but make a song about the stone, and how Merlin the enchanter took the stone from the Dance of Killare and carried it lightly to the Dance of the Hanging Stones at Amesbury."

          He saluted me, laughing still, and went. And indeed he did walk safely down through the camp and away, for in later years I heard the song he made.

          But now his going was hardly noticed. There was a pause while Uther frowned down at the great stone, seeming to weigh it in his mind. "You told the King that you could do this thing. Is that true?"

          "I said to the King that what men had brought here, men could take away."

          He looked at me frowningly, uncertainly, still a little angry. "He told me what you said. I agree. It doesn't need magic and fine words, only a team of competent men with the right engines. Tremorinus!"

          "Sir?"

          "If we take this one, the king-stone, there will be no need to trouble overmuch with the rest. Throw them down where you can and leave them."

          "Yes, sir. If I could have Merlin -- "

          "Merlin's team will be working on the fortifications. Merlin, get started, will you? I give you twenty-four hours."

          ***

          This was something the men were practiced at; they threw down the walls and filled in the ditches with them. The palisades and houses, quite simply, we put to the flame. The men worked well, and were in good heart. Uther was always generous to his troops, and there had been goods in plenty to be looted, arm-rings of copper and bronze and gold, brooches, and weapons well made and inlaid with copper and enamel, in a way the Irish have. The work was finished by dusk, and we withdrew from the hill to the temporary camp which had been thrown up on the plain at the foot of the slope.

          It was after supper when Tremorinus came to me. I could see the torches and the fires still lit at the top of the hill, throwing what was left of the Dance into relief. His face was grimy, and he looked tired.

          "All day," he said bitterly, "and we've raised it a couple of feet, and half an hour ago the props cracked, and it's gone back again into its bed. Why the hell did you have to suggest that stone? The Irishman's altar would have been easier."

          "The Irishman's altar would not have done."

          "Well, by the gods, it looks as if you aren't going to get this one either! Look, Merlin, I don't care what he says, I'm in charge of this job, and I'm asking you to come and take a look. Will you?"

          The rest is what the legends have been made of. It would be tedious now to relate how we did it, but it was easy enough; I had had all day to think about it, having seen the stone and the hillside, and I had had the engines in my mind since Brittany. Wherever we could we took it by water -- downriver from Killare to the sea, and thence to Wales and still as far as possible by river, using the two great Avons, with little more than a score of dry miles to cross between them. I was not Fionn of the Strong Arm, but I was Merlin, and the great stone travelled home as smoothly as a barge on an untroubled water, with me beside it all the way. I suppose I must have slept on that journey, but I cannot remember doing so. I went wakeful, as one is at a death-bed, and on that one voyage of all those in my life, I never felt the movement of the sea, but sat (they tell me) calm and silent, as if in my chair at home. Uther came once to speak to me -- angry, I suppose, that I had done so easily what his own engineers could not do -- but he went away after a moment, and did not approach me again. I remember nothing about it. I suppose I was not there. I was watching still between day and night in the great bedchamber at Winchester.

          The news met us at Caerleon. Pascentius had attacked out of the north with his force of German and Saxon allies, and the King had marched to Carlisle and defeated him there. But afterwards, safely back at Winchester, he had fallen ill. About this, rumours were rife. Some said that one of Pascentius' men had come in disguise to Winchester where Ambrosius lay abed of a chill, and had given him poison to drink. Some said the man had come from Eosa. But the truth was the same; the King was very sick at Winchester.

          The king-star rose again that night, looking, men said, like a fiery dragon, and trailing a cloud of lesser stars like smoke. But it did not need the omen to tell me what I had known since that night on the crest of Killare, when I had vowed to carry the great stone from Ireland, and lay it upon his grave.

          So it was that we brought the stone again to Amesbury, and I raised the fallen circles of the Giants' Dance into their places for his monument. And at the next Easter-time, in the city of London, Uther Pendragon was crowned King.

 

 

BOOK V -- THE COMING OF THE BEAR

 

 

1

 

          Men said afterwards that the great dragon star which blazed at Ambrosius' death, and from which Uther took the royal name of Pendragon, was a baleful herald for the new reign. And indeed, at the start, everything seemed to be against Uther. It was as if the falling of Ambrosius' star was the signal for his old enemies to rise again and crowd in from the darkened edges of the land to destroy his successor. Octa, Hengist's son, and Eosa his kinsman, counting themselves freed by Ambrosius' death from their promise to stay north of his borders, called together what force they could still muster for attack, and as soon as the call went out, every disaffected element rose to it. Warriors greedy for land and plunder crowded over afresh from Germany, the remnants of Pascentius' Saxons joined with Gilloman's fleeing Irish, and with whatever British thought themselves passed over by the new King. Within a few weeks of Ambrosius' death Octa, with a large army, was scouring the north like a wolf, and before the new King could come up with him had destroyed cities and fortresses clear down from the Wall of Hadrian to York. At York, Ambrosius' strong city, he found the walls in good repair, the gates shut, and men ready to defend themselves. He dragged up what siege engines he had, and settled down to wait.

          He must have known that Uther would catch up with him there, but his numbers were such that he showed no fear of the British. Afterwards they reckoned he had thirty thousand men. Be that as it may, when Uther came up to raise the siege with every man he could muster, the Saxons outnumbered the British by more than two to one. It was a bloody engagement, and a disastrous one. I think myself that Ambrosius' death had shaken the kingdom; for all Uther's brilliant reputation as a soldier, he was untried as supreme commander, and it was already known that he had not his brother's calmness and judgement in the face of odds. What he lacked in wisdom, he made up in bravery, but even that would not defeat the odds that came against him that day at York. The British broke and ran, and were saved only by the coming of dusk, which at that time of year fell early. Uther -- with Gorlois of Cornwall, his second in command -- managed to rally his remaining force near the top of the small hill called Damen. This was steep, and offered cover of a kind, cliffs and caves and thick hazelwoods, but this could only be a temporary refuge from the Saxon host which triumphantly circled the base of the hill, waiting for morning. It was a desperate position for the British, and called for desperate measures. Uther, grimly encamped in a cave, called his weary captains together while the men snatched what rest they could, and with them thrashed out a plan for outwitting the huge host waiting for them at the foot of the hill. At first nobody had much idea beyond the need to escape, but someone -- I heard later that it was Gorlois -- pointed out that to retreat further was merely to postpone defeat and the destruction of the new kingdom: if escape was possible, then so was attack, and this seemed feasible if the British did not wait until daylight, but used what element of surprise there was in attacking downhill out of the dark and long before the enemy expected it. Simple tactics, indeed, that the Saxons might have expected from men so desperately trapped, but Saxons are stupid fighters, and as I have said before, lacking in discipline. It was almost certain that they would expect no move till dawn, and that they slept soundly where they had lain down that night, confident of victory, and with any luck three parts drunken on the stores they had taken.

          To do the Saxons justice, Octa had posted scouts, and these were wide enough awake. But Gorlois' plan worked, helped by a little mist which crept before dawn up from the low ground and surrounded the base of the hill like a veil. Through this, twice as large as life, and in numbers altogether deceiving, the British came in a silent, stabbing rush at the first moment when there was light enough to see one's way across the rocks. Those Saxon outposts who were not cut down in silence, gave the alarm, but too late. Warriors rolled over, cursing, snatching their weapons up from where they lay beside them, but the British, silent no longer, swept yelling across the half-sleeping host, and cut it to pieces. It was finished before noon, and Octa and Eosa taken prisoner. Before winter, with the north swept clear of Saxons, and the burned longboats smoking quietly on the northern beaches, Uther was back in London with his prisoners behind bars, making ready for his coronation the following spring.

          His battle with the Saxons, his near defeat and subsequent sharp, brilliant victory, was all that the reign needed. Men forgot the bale of Ambrosius' death, and talked of the new King like a sun rising. His name was on everyone's lips, from the nobles and warriors who crowded round him for gifts and honours, to the workmen building his palaces, and the ladies of his court flaunting new dresses like a field of poppies in a colour called Pendragon Red.

          I saw him only once during these first weeks. I was at Amesbury still, superintending the work of raising the Giants' Dance. Tremorinus was in the north, but I had a good team, and after their experience with the king-stone at Killare, the men were eager to tackle the massive stones of the Dance. For the raising of the uprights, once we had aligned the stones, dug the pits and sunk the guides, there was nothing that could not be done with rope and shear-legs and plumb-line. It was with the great lintels that the difficulty lay, but the miracle of the building of the Dance had been done countless years before, by the old craftsmen who had shaped those gigantic stones to fit as surely one into the other as wood dovetailed by a master carpenter. We had only to find means to lift them. It was this which had exercised me all those years, since I first saw the capped stones in Less Britain, and began my calculations. Nor had I forgotten what I had learned from the songs. In the end I had designed a wooden crib of a kind which a modern engineer might have dismissed as primitive, but which -- as the singer had been my witness -- had done the task before, and would again. It was a slow business, but it worked. And I suppose it was a marvellous enough sight to see those vast blocks rising, stage by stage, and settling finally into their beds as smoothly as if they had been made of tallow. It took two hundred men to each stone as it was moved, drilled teams who worked by numbers and who kept up their rhythms, as rowers do, by music. The rhythms of the movement were of course laid down by the work, and the tunes were old tunes that I remembered from my childhood; my nurse had sung them to me, but she never sang the words that the men sometimes set to them. These tended to be lively, indecent, and intensely personal, and mostly concerning those in high places. Neither Uther nor I was spared, though the songs were never sung deliberately in my hearing. Moreover, when outsiders were present, the words were either correct or indistinguishable. I heard it said, long afterwards, that I moved the stones of the Dance with magic and with music. I suppose you might say that both are true. I have thought, since, that this must have been how the story started that Phoebus Apollo built with music the walls of Troy. But the magic and the music that moved the Giants' Dance, I shared with the blind singer of Kerrec.

          Towards the middle of November the frosts were sharp, and the work was finished. The last camp fire was put out, and the last wagon-train of men and materials rolled away south back to Sarum. Cadal had gone ahead of me into Amesbury. I lingered, holding my fidgeting horse, until the wagons had rolled out of sight over the edge of the plain and I was alone.

          The sky hung over the silent plain like a pewter bowl. It was still early in the day, and the grass was white with frost. The thin winter sun painted long shadows from the linked stones. I remembered the standing stone, and the white frost, the bull and the blood and the smiling young god with the fair hair. I looked down at the stone. They had buried him, I knew, with his sword in his hand. I said to him: "We shall come back, both of us, at the winter solstice." Then I left him and mounted my horse, and rode towards Amesbury.

 

 

2

 

          News came of Uther in December; he had left London and ridden to Winchester for Christmas. I sent a message, got no reply, and rode out once more with Cadal to where the Giants' Dance stood frostbound and lonely in the center of the plain. It was the twentieth of December.

          In a fold of the ground just beyond the Dance we tethered our horses and lit a fire. I had been afraid that the night might be cloudy, but it was crisp and clear, with the stars out in their swarms, like motes in moonlight.

          "Get some sleep, if you can in this cold," said Cadal. "I'll wake you before dawn. What makes you think he'll come?" Then, when I made no reply: "Well, you're the magician, you should know. Here, just in case your magic won't put you to sleep, you'd better put the extra cloak on. I'll wake you in time, so don't fret yourself."

          I obeyed him, rolling myself in the double thickness of wool, and lying near the fire with my head on my saddle. I dozed rather than slept, conscious of the small noises of the night surrounded by the immense stillness of that plain; the rustle and crack of the fire, the sound of Cadal putting new wood on it, the steady tearing sound of the horses grazing at hand, the cry of a hunting owl in the air. And then, not long before dawn, the sound I had been expecting; the steady beat of the earth beneath my head which meant the approach of horses.

          I sat up. Cadal, blear-eyed, spoke morosely. "You've an hour yet, I reckon."

          "Never mind. I've slept. Put your ear to the ground, and tell me what you hear."

          He leaned down, listened for perhaps five heartbeats, then was on his feet and making for our horses. Men reacted quickly in those days to the sound of horsemen in the night. I checked him. "It's all right. Uther. How many horses do you reckon?"

          "Twenty, perhaps thirty. Are you sure?"

          "Quite sure. Now get the horses saddled and stay with them. I'm going in."

          It was the hour between night and morning when the air is still. They were coming at a gallop. It seemed that the whole of the frozen plain beat with the sound. The moon had gone. I waited beside the stone.

          He left the troop some little way off, and rode forward with only one companion. I did not think they had yet seen me, though they must have seen the flicker of Cadal's dying fire in the hollow. The night had been bright enough with starlight, so they had been riding without torches, and their night sight was good; the two of them came on at a fast canter straight for the outer circle of the Dance, and at first I thought they would ride straight in. But the horses pulled up short with a crunch and slither of frost, and the King swung from the saddle. I heard the jingle as he threw the reins to his companion. "Keep him moving," I heard him say, and then he approached, a swift striding shadow through the enormous shadows of the Dance.

          "Merlin?"

          "My lord?"

          "You choose your times strangely. Did it have to be the middle of the night?" He sounded wide awake and no more gracious than usual. But he had come.

          I said: "You wanted to see what I have done here, and tonight is the night when I can show you. I am grateful that you came."

          "Show me what? A vision? Is this another of your dreams? I warn you -- "

          "No. There's nothing of that here, not now. But there is something I wanted you to see which can only be seen tonight. For that, I'm afraid we shall have to wait a little while."

          "Long? It's cold."

          "Not so long, my lord. Till dawn."

          He was standing the other side of the king-stone from me, and in the faint starlight I saw him looking down at it, with his head bent and a hand stroking his chin. "The first time you stood beside this stone in the night, men say you saw visions. Now they tell me in Winchester that as he lay dying he spoke to you as if you were there in his bedchamber, standing at the foot of the bed. Is this true?"

          "Yes."

          His head came up sharply. "You say you knew on Killare that my brother was dying, yet you said nothing to me?"

          "It would have served no purpose. You could not have returned any sooner for knowing that he lay sick. As it was, you journeyed with a quiet mind, and at Caerleon, when he died, I told you."

          "By the gods, Merlin, it was not for you to judge whether to speak or not! You are not King. You should have told me."

          "You were not King either, Uther Pendragon. I did as he bade me."

          I saw him make a quick movement, then he stilled himself. "That is easy to say." But from his voice I knew that he believed me, and was in awe of me and of the place. "And now that we are here, and waiting for the dawn, and whatever it is you have to show me, I think one or two things must be made clear between us. You cannot serve me as you served my brother. You must know that. I want none of your prophecies. My brother was wrong when he said that we would work together for Britain. Our stars will not conjoin. I admit I judged you too harshly, there in Brittany and at Killare; for that I am sorry, but now it is too late. We walk different ways."

          "Yes. I know."

          I said it without any particular expression, simply agreeing, and was surprised when he laughed, softly, to himself. A hand, not unfriendly, dropped on my shoulder. "Then we understand one another. I had not thought it would be so easy. If you knew how refreshing that is after the weeks I've had of men suing for help, men crawling for mercy, men begging for favours...And now the only man in the kingdom with any real claim on me will go his own way, and let me go mine?"

          "Of course. Our paths will still cross, but not yet. And then we will deal together, whether we will or no."

          "We shall see. You have power, I admit it, but what use is that to me? I don't need priests." His voice was brisk and friendly, as if he were willing away the strangeness of the night. He was rooted to earth, was Uther. Ambrosius would have understood what I was saying, but Uther was back on the human trail like a dog after blood. "It seems you have served me well enough already, at Killare, and here with the Hanging Stones. You deserve something of me, if only for this."

          "Where I can be, I shall be at your service. If you want me, you know where to find me."

          "Not at my court?"

          "No, at Maridunum. It's my home."

          "Ah, yes, the famous cave. You deserve a little more of me than that, I think."

          "There is nothing that I want," I said.

          There was a little more light now. I saw him slant a look at me. "I have spoken to you tonight as I have spoken to no man before. Do you hold the past against me, Merlin the bastard?"

          "I hold nothing against you, my lord."

          "Nothing?"

          "A girl in Caerleon. You could call her nothing."

          I saw him stare, then smile. "Which time?"

          "It doesn't matter. You'll have forgotten, anyway."

          "By the dog, I misjudged you." He spoke with the nearest to warmth I had yet heard from him. If he knew, I thought, he would have laughed.

          I said: "I tell you, it doesn't matter. It didn't then, and less than that now."

          "You still haven't told me why you dragged me here at this time. Look at the sky; it's getting on for dawn -- and not a moment too soon, the horses will be getting cold." He raised his head towards the east. "It should be a fine day. It will be interesting to see what sort of job you've made of this. I can tell you now, Tremorinus was insisting, right up to the time I got your message, that it couldn't be done. Prophet or no prophet, you have your uses, Merlin."

          The light was growing, the dark slackening to let it through. I could see him more clearly now, standing with head up, his hand once more stroking his chin. I said: "It's as well you came by night, so that I knew your voice. I shouldn't have known you in daylight. You've grown a full beard."

          "More kingly, eh? There was no time to do anything else on campaign. By the time we got to the Humber..." He started to tell me about it, talking, for the first time since I had known him, quite easily and naturally. It may have been that now I was, of all his subjects, the only one kin to him, and blood speaks to blood, they say. He talked about the campaign in the north, the fighting, the smoking destruction the Saxons had left behind them. "And now we spend Christmas at Winchester. I shall be crowned in London in the spring, and already -- "

          "Wait." I had not meant to interrupt him quite so peremptorily, but things were pressing on me, the weight of the sky, the shooting light. There was no time to search for the words that one could use to a king. I said quickly: "It's coming now. Stand with me at the foot of the stone."

          I moved a pace from him and stood at the foot of the long king-stone, facing the bursting east. I had no eyes for Uther. I heard him draw breath as if in anger, then he checked himself and turned with a glitter of jewels and flash of mail to stand beside me. At our feet stretched the stone.

          In the east night slackened, drew back like a veil, and the sun came up. Straight as a thrown torch, or an arrow of fire, light pierced through the grey air and laid a line clear from the horizon to the king-stone at our feet. For perhaps twenty heartbeats the huge sentinel trilithon before us stood black and stark, framing the winter blaze. Then the sun lifted over the horizon so quickly that you could see the shadow of the linked circle move into its long ellipse, to blur and fade almost immediately into the wide light of a winter's dawn.

          I glanced at the King. His eyes, wide and blank, were on the stone at his feet. I could not read his thoughts. Then he lifted his head and looked away from me at the outer circle where the great stones stood locked across the light. He took a slow pace away from me and turned on his heel, taking in the full circle of the Hanging Stones. I saw that the new beard was reddish and curled; he wore his hair longer, and a gold circle flashed on his helm. His eyes were blue as woodsmoke in the fresh light.

          They met mine at last. "No wonder you smile. It's very impressive."

          "That's with relief," I said. "The mathematics of this have kept me awake for weeks."

          "Tremorinus told me." He gave me a slow, measuring look. "He also told me what you had said."

          "What I had said?"

          "Yes. 'I will deck his grave with nothing less than the light itself.' "

          I said nothing.

          He said slowly: "I told you I knew nothing of prophets or priests. I am only a soldier, and I think like a soldier. But this -- what you have done here -- this is something I understand. Perhaps there is room for us both, after all. I told you I spend Christmas at Winchester. Will you ride back with me?"

          He had asked me, not commanded me. We were speaking across the stone. It was the beginning of something, but something I had not yet been shown. I shook my head. "In the spring, perhaps. I should like to see the crowning. Be sure that when you need me I shall be there. But now I must go home."

          "To your hole in the ground? Well, if it's what you want...Your wants are few enough, God knows. Is there nothing you would ask of me?" He gestured with his hand to the silent circle. "Men will speak poorly of a King who does not reward you for this."

          "I have been rewarded."

          "At Maridunum, now. Your grandfather's house would be more suitable for you. Will you take it?"

          I shook my head. "I don't want a house. But I would take the hill."

          "Then take it. They tell me men call it Merlin's Hill already. And now it's full daylight, and the horses will be cold. If you had ever been a soldier, Merlin, you would know that there is one thing more important even than the graves of kings: not to keep the horses standing."

          He clapped me on the shoulder again, turned with a swirl of the scarlet cloak, and strode to his waiting horse. I went to find Cadal.

 

 

3

 

          When Easter came I still had no mind to leave Bryn Myrddin (Uther, true to his word, had given me the hill where the cave stood, and people already associated its name with me, rather than with the god, calling it Merlin's Hill) but a message came from the King, bidding me to London. This time it was a command, not a request, and so urgent that the King had sent an escort, to avoid any delay I might have incurred in waiting for company.

          It was still not safe in those days to ride abroad in parties smaller than a dozen or more, and one rode armed and warily. Men who could not afford their own escort waited until a party was gathered, and merchants even joined together to pay guards to ride with them. The wilder parts of the land were still full of refugees from Octa's army, with Irishmen who had been unable to get a passage home, and a few stray Saxons trying miserably to disguise their fair skins, and unmercifully hunted down when they failed. These haunted the edges of the farms, skulking in the hills and moors and wild places, making sudden savage forays in search of food, and watching the roads for any solitary or ill-armed traveller, however shabby. Anyone with cloak or sandals was a rich man and worth despoiling.

          None of this would have deterred me from riding alone with Cadal from Maridunum to London. No outlaw or thief would have faced a look from me, let alone risked a curse. Since events at Dinas Brenin, Killare, and Amesbury my fame had spread, growing in song and story until I hardly recognized my own deeds. Dinas Brenin had also been renamed; it had become Dinas Emrys, in compliment to me as much as to commemorate Ambrosius' landing, and the strong-point he had successfully built there. I lived, too, as well as I ever had in my grandfather's palace or in Ambrosius' house. Offerings of food and wine were left daily below the cave, and the poor who had nothing else to bring me in return for the medicines I gave them, brought fuel, or straw for the horses' bedding, or their labour for building jobs or making simple furniture. So winter had passed in comfort and peace, until on a sharp day in early March Uther's messenger, having left the escort in the town, came riding up the valley.

          It was the first dry day after more than two weeks of rain and sleety wind, and I had gone up over the hill above the cave to look for the first growing plants and simples. I paused at the edge of a clump of pines to watch the solitary horseman cantering up the hill. Cadal must have heard the hoofbeats; I saw him, small below me, come out of the cave and greet the man, then I saw his pointing arm indicating which way I had gone. The messenger hardly paused. He turned his beast uphill, struck his spurs in, and came after me.

          He pulled up a few paces away, swung stiffly out of the saddle, made the sign, and approached me.

          He was a brown-haired young man of about my own age, whose face was vaguely familiar. I thought I must have seen him around Uther's train somewhere. He was splashed with mud to the eyebrows, and where he was not muddy his face was white with fatigue. He must have got a new horse in Maridunum for the last stage, for the animal was fresh, and restive with it, and I saw the young man wince as it threw its head up and dragged at the reins.

          "My lord Merlin. I bring you greetings from the King, in London."

          "I am honoured," I said formally.

          "He requests your presence at the feast of his coronation. He has sent you an escort, my lord. They are in the town, resting their horses."

          "Did you say 'requests'?"

          "I should have said 'commands,' my lord. He told me I must bring you back immediately."

          "This was all the message?"

          "He told me nothing more, my lord. Only that you must attend him immediately in London."

          "Then of course I shall come. Tomorrow morning, when you have rested the horses?"

          "Today, my lord. Now."

          It was a pity that Uther's arrogant command was delivered in a slightly apologetic way. I regarded him. "You have come straight to me?"

          "Yes, my lord."

          "Without resting?"

          "Yes."

          "How long has it taken you?"

          "Four days, my lord. This is a fresh horse. I am ready to go back today." Here the animal jerked its head again, and I saw him wince.

          "Are you hurt?"

          "Nothing to speak of. I took a fall yesterday and hurt my wrist. It's my right wrist, not my bridle hand."

          "No, only your dagger hand. Go down to the cave and tell my servant what you have told me, and say he is to give you food and drink. When I come down I shall see to your wrist."

          He hesitated. "My lord, the King was urgent. This is more than an invitation to watch the crowning."

          "You will have to wait while my servant packs my things and saddles our horses. Also while I myself eat and drink. I can bind up your wrist in a few minutes. And while I am doing it you can give me the news from London, and tell me why the King commands me so urgently to the feast. Go down now; I shall come in a short while."

          "But, sir -- "

          I said: "By the time Cadal has prepared food for the three of us I shall be with you. You cannot hurry me more than that. Now go."

          He threw me a doubtful look, then went, slithering on foot down the wet hill-side and dragging the jibbing horse after him. I gathered my cloak round me against the wind, and walked past the end of the pine wood and out of sight of the cave.

          I stood at the end of a rocky spur where the winds came freely down the valley and tore at my cloak. Behind me the pines roared, and under the noise the bare blackthorns by Galapas' grave rattled in the wind. An early plover screamed in the grey air. I lifted my face to the sky and thought of Uther and London, and the command that had just come. But nothing was there except the sky and the pines and the wind in the blackthorns. I looked the other way, down towards Maridunum.

          From this height I could see the whole town, tiny as a toy in the distance. The valley was sullen green in the March wind. The river curled, grey under the grey sky. A wagon was crossing the bridge. There was a point of colour where a standard flew over the fortress. A boat scudded down-river, its brown sails full of the wind. The hills, still in their winter purple, held the valley cupped as one might hold in one's palms a globe of glass...

          The wind whipped water to my eyes, and the scene blurred. The crystal globe was cold in my hands. I gazed down into it. Small and perfect in the heart of the crystal lay the town with its bridge and moving river and the tiny, scudding ship. Round it the fields curved up and over, distorting in the curved crystal till fields, sky, river, clouds held the town with its scurrying people as leaves and sepals hold a bud before it breaks to flower. It seemed that the whole countryside, the whole of Wales, the whole of Britain could be held small and shining and safe between my hands, like something set in amber. I stared down at the land globed in crystal, and knew that this was what I had been born for. The time was here, and I must take it on trust.

          The crystal globe melted out of my cupped hands, and was only a fistful of plants I had gathered, cold with rain. I let them fall, and put up the back of a hand to wipe the water from my eyes. The scene below me had changed; the wagon and the boat had gone; the town was still.

          I went down to the cave to find Cadal busy with his cooking pots, and the young man already struggling with the saddles of our horses.

          "Let that alone," I told him. "Cadal, is there hot water?"

          "Plenty. Here's a start and a half, orders from the King. London, is it?" Cadal sounded pleased, and I didn't blame him. "We were due for a change, if you ask me. What is it, do you suppose? He" -- jerking his head at the young man -- "doesn't seem to know, or else he's not telling. Trouble, by the sound of it."

          "Maybe. We'll soon find out. Here, you'd better dry this." I gave him my cloak, sat down by the fire, and called the young man to me. "Let me see that arm of yours now."

          His wrist was blue with bruising, and swollen, and obviously hurt to the touch, but the bones were whole. While he washed I made a compress, then bound it on. He watched me half apprehensively, and tended to shy from my touch, and not only, I thought, with pain. Now that the mud was washed off and I could see him better, the feeling of familiarity persisted even more strongly. I eyed him over the bandages. "I know you, don't I?"

          "You wouldn't remember me, my lord. But I remember you. You were kind to me once."

          I laughed. "Was it such a rare occasion? What's your name?"

          "Ulfin."

          "Ulfin? It has a familiar sound...Wait a moment. Yes, I have it. Belasius' boy?"

          "Yes. You do remember me?"

          "Perfectly. That night in the forest, when my pony went lame, and you had to lead him home. I suppose you were around underfoot most of the time, but you were about as conspicuous as a field mouse. That's the only time I remember. Is Belasius over here for the coronation?"

          "He's dead."

          Something in his tone made me cock an eye at him over the bandaged wrist. "You hated him as much as that? No, don't answer, I guessed as much back there, young as I was. Well, I shan't ask why. The gods know I didn't love him myself, and I wasn't his slave. What happened to him?"

          "He died of a fever, my lord."

          "And you managed to survive him? I seem to remember something about an old and barbarous custom -- "

          "Prince Uther took me into his service. I am with him now -- the King."

          He spoke quickly, looking away. I knew it was all I would ever learn. "And are you still so afraid of the world, Ulfin?"

          But he would not answer that. I finished tying the wrist. "Well, it's a wild and violent place, and the times are cruel. But they will get better, and I think you will help to make them so. There, that's done. Now get yourself something to eat. Cadal, do you remember Ulfin? The boy who brought Aster home the night we ran into Uther's troops by Nemet?"

          "By the dog, so it is." Cadal looked him up and down. "You look a sight better than you did then. What happened to the druid? Died of a curse? Come along then, and get something to eat. Yours is here, Merlin, and see you eat enough for a human being for a change, and not just what might keep one of your precious birds alive."

          "I'll try," I said meekly, and then laughed at the expression on Ulfin's face as he looked from me to my servant and back again.

          ***

          We lay that night at an inn near the crossroads where the way leads off north for the Five Hills and the gold mine. I ate alone in my room, served by Cadal. No sooner had the door shut behind the servant who carried the dishes than Cadal turned to me, obviously bursting with news.

          "Well, there's a pretty carry-on in London, by all accounts."

          "One might expect it," I said mildly. "I heard someone say Budec was there, together with most of the kings from across the Narrow Sea, and that most of them, and half the King's own nobles, have brought their daughters along with an eye to the empty side of the throne." I laughed. "That should suit Uther."

          "They say he's been through half the girls in London already," said Cadal, setting a dish down in front of me. It was Welsh mutton, with a good sauce made of onions, hot and savoury.

          "They'd say anything of him." I began to help myself. "It could even be true."

          "Yes, but seriously, there's trouble afoot, they say. Woman trouble."

          "Oh, God, Cadal, spare me. Uther was born to woman trouble."

          "No, but I mean it. Some of the escort were talking, and it's no wonder Ulfin wouldn't. This is real trouble. Gorlois's wife."

          I looked up, startled. "The Duchess of Cornwall? This can't be true."

          "It's not true yet. But they say it's not for want of trying."

          I drank wine. "You can be sure it's only rumour. She's more than half as young again as her husband, and I've heard she's fair. I suppose Uther pays her some attention, the Duke being his second in command, and men make all they can of it, Uther being who he is. And what he is."

          Cadal leaned his fists on the table and looked down at me. He was uncommonly solemn. "Attention, is it? They say he's never out of her lap. Sends her the best dishes at table each day, sees she's served first, even before he is, pledges her in front of everybody in the hall every time he raises his goblet. Nobody's talking of anything else from London to Winchester. I'm told they're laying bets in the kitchen."

          "I've no doubt. And does Gorlois have anything to say?"

          "Tried to pass it over at first, they say, but it got so that he couldn't go on pretending he hadn't noticed. He tried to look as if he thought Uther was just doing the pair of them honour, but when it came to sitting the Lady Ygraine -- that's her name -- on Uther's right, and the old man six down on the other side -- " He paused.

          I said, uneasily: "He must be crazed. He can't afford trouble yet -- trouble of any kind, let alone this, and with Gorlois of all people. By all the gods, Cadal, it was Cornwall that helped Ambrosius into the country at all, and Cornwall who put Uther where he is now. Who won the battle of Damen Hill for him?"

          "Men are saying that, too."

          "Are they indeed?" I thought for a moment, frowning. "And the woman? What -- apart from the usual dunghill stuff -- do they say about her?"

          "That she says little, and says less each day. I've no doubt Gorlois has plenty to say to her at night when they're alone together. Anyway, I'm told she hardly lifts her eyes in public now, in case she meets the King staring at her over his cup, or leaning across at the table to look down her dress."

          "That is what I call dunghill stuff, Cadal. I meant, what is she like?"

          "Well, that's just what they don't say, except that she's silent, and as beautiful as this, that and the other thing." He straightened. "Oh, no one says she gives him any help. And God knows there's no need for Uther to act like a starving man in sight of a dish of food; he could have his platter piled high any night he liked. There's hardly a girl in London who isn't trying to catch that eye of his."

          "I believe you. Has he quarrelled with Gorlois? Openly, I mean?"

          "Not so that I heard. In fact, he's been over-cordial there, and he got away with it for the first week or so; the old man was flattered. But Merlin, it does sound like trouble; she's less than half Gorlois' age and spends her life mewed up in one of those cold Cornish castles with nothing to do but weave his war-cloaks and dream over them, and you may be sure it's not of an old man with a grey beard."

          I pushed the platter aside. I remember I still felt wholly unconcerned about what Uther was doing. But Cadal's last remark came a little too near home for comfort. There had been another girl, once, who had had nothing to do but sit at home and weave and dream...

          I said abruptly: "All right, Cadal. I'm glad to know. I just hope we can keep clear of it ourselves. I've seen Uther mad for a woman before, but they've always been women he could get. This is suicide."

          "Crazed, you said. That's what men are saying, too," said Cadal slowly. "Bewitched, they call it." He looked down at me half-sideways. "Maybe that's why he sent young Ulfin in such a sweat to make sure you'd come to London. Maybe he wants you there, to break the spell?"

          "I don't break," I said shortly. "I make."

          He stared for a moment, shutting his mouth on what, apparently, he had been about to say. Then he turned away to lift the jug of wine. As he poured it for me, in silence, I saw that his left hand was making the sign. We spoke no more that night.

 

 

4

 

          As soon as I came in front of Uther I saw that Cadal had been right. Here was real trouble.

          We reached London on the very eve of the crowning. It was late, and the city gates were shut, but it seemed there had been orders about us, for we were hustled through without question, and taken straight up to the castle where the King lay. I was scarcely given time to get out of my mud-stained garments before I was led along to his bedchamber and ushered in. The servants withdrew immediately and left us alone.

          Uther was ready for the night, in a long bedgown of dark brown velvet edged with fur. His high chair was drawn to a leaping fire of logs, and on a stool beside the chair stood a pair of goblets and a lidded silver flagon with steam curling gently from the spout. I could smell the spiced wine as soon as I entered the room, and my dry throat contracted longingly, but the King made no move to offer it to me. He was not sitting by the fire. He was prowling restlessly up and down the room like a caged beast, and after him, pace for pace, his wolfhound followed him.

          As the door shut behind the servants he said abruptly, as he had said once before:

          "You took your time."

          "Four days? You should have sent better horses."

          That stopped him in his tracks. He had not expected to be answered. But he said, mildly enough: "They were the best in my stables."

          "Then you should get winged ones if you want better speed than we made, my lord. And tougher men. We left two of them by the way."

          But he was no longer listening. Back in his thoughts, he resumed his restless pacing, and I watched him. He had lost weight, and moved quickly and lightly, like a starving wolf. His eyes were sunken with lack of sleep, and he had mannerisms I had not seen in him before; he could not keep his hands still. He wrung them together behind him, cracking the finger-joints, or fidgeted with the edges of his robe, or with his beard.

          He flung at me over his shoulder: "I want your help."

          "So I understand."

          He turned at that. "You know about it?"

          I lifted my shoulders. "Nobody talks of anything else but the King's desire for Gorlois' wife. I understand you have made no attempt to hide it. But it is more than a week now since you sent Ulfin to fetch me. In that time, what has happened? Are Gorlois and his wife still here?"

          "Of course they are still here. They cannot go without my leave."

          "I see. Has anything yet been said between you and Gorlois?"

          "No."

          "But he must know."

          "It is the same with him as with me. If once this thing comes to words, nothing can stop it. And it is the crowning tomorrow. I cannot speak with him."

          "Or with her?"

          "No. No. Ah, God, Merlin, I cannot come near her. She is guarded like Danaë."

          I frowned. "He has her guarded, then? Surely that's unusual enough to be a public admission that there's something wrong?"

          "I only mean that his servants are all round her, and his men. Not only his bodyguard -- many of his fighting troops are still here, that were with us in the north. I can only come near her in public, Merlin. They will have told you this."

          "Yes. Have you managed to get any message to her privately?"

          "No. She guards herself. All day she is with her women, and her servants keep the doors. And he -- " He paused. There was sweat on his face. "He is with her every night."

          He flung away again with a swish of the velvet robe, and paced, soft-footed, the length of the room, into the shadows beyond the firelight. Then he turned. He threw out his hands and spoke simply, like a boy.

          "Merlin, what shall I do?"

          I crossed to the fire-place, picked up the jug and poured two goblets of the spiced wine. I held one out to him. "To begin with, come and sit down. I cannot talk to a whirlwind. Here."

          He obeyed, sinking back in the big chair with the goblet between his hands. I drank my own, gratefully, and sat down on the other side of the hearth.

          Uther did not drink. I think he hardly knew what he had between his hands. He stared at the fire through the thinning steam from the goblet. "As soon as he brought her in and presented her to me, I knew. God knows that at first I thought it was no more than another passing fever, the kind I've had a thousand times before, only this time a thousand stronger -- "

          "And been cured of," I said, "in a night, a week of nights, a month. I don't know the longest time a woman has ever held you, Uther, but is a month, or even three, enough to wreck a kingdom for?"

          The look he gave me, blue as a sword-flash, was a look from the old Uther I remembered. "By Hades, why do you think I sent for you? I could have wrecked my kingdom any time in these past weeks had I been so minded. Why do you think it has not yet gone beyond folly? Oh, yes, I admit there has been folly, but I tell you this is a fever, and not the kind I have had before, and slaked before. This burns me so that I cannot sleep. How can I rule and fight and deal with men if I cannot sleep?"

          "Have you taken a girl to bed?"

          He stared, then he drank. "Are you mad?"

          "Forgive me, it was a stupid question. You don't sleep even then?"

          "No." He set down the goblet beside him, and knitted his hands together. "It's no use. Nothing is any use. You must bring her to me, Merlin. You have the arts. This is why I sent for you. You are to bring her to me so that no one knows. Make her love me. Bring her here to me, while he is asleep. You can do it."

          "Make her love you? By magic? No, Uther, this is something that magic cannot do. You must know that."

          "It is something that every old wife swears she can do. And you -- you have power beyond any man living. You lifted the Hanging Stones. You lifted the king-stone where Tremorinus could not."

          "My mathematics are better, that is all. For God's sake, Uther, whatever men say of that, you know how it was done. That was no magic."

          "You spoke with my brother as he died. Are you going to deny that now?"

          "No."

          "Or that you swore to serve me when I needed you?"

          "No."

          "I need you now. Your power, whatever it is. Dare you tell me that you are not a magician?"

          "I am not the kind that can walk through walls," I said, "and bring bodies through locked doors." He made a sudden movement, and I saw the feverish brightness of his eyes, not this time with anger, but I thought with pain. I added: "But I have not refused to help you."

          The eyes sparked. "You will help me?"

          "Yes, I will help you. I told you when last we met that there would come a time when we must deal together. This is the time. I don't know yet what I must do, but this will be shown to me, and the outcome is with the god. But one thing I can do for you, tonight. I can make you sleep. No, be still and listen...If you are to be crowned tomorrow, and take Britain into your hands, tonight you will do as I say. I will make you a drink that will let you sleep, and you'll take a girl to your bed as usual. It may be better if there is someone besides your servant who will swear you were in your own chamber."

          "Why? What are you going to do?" His voice was strained.

          "I shall try to talk with Ygraine."

          He sat forward, his hands tight on the arms of the chair. "Yes. Talk to her. Perhaps you can come to her where I cannot. Tell her -- "

          "A moment. A little while back you told me to 'make her love you.' You want me to invoke any power there is to bring her to you. If you have never spoken to her of your love, or seen her except in public, how do you know she would come to you, even if the way were free? Is her mind clear to you, my lord King?"

          "No. She says nothing. She smiles, with her eyes on the ground, and says nothing. But I know. I know. It is as if all the other times I played at love were only single notes. Put together, they make the song. She is the song."

          There was a silence. Behind him, on a dais in the corner of the room, was the bed, with the covers drawn back ready. Above it, leaping up the wall, was a great dragon fashioned of red gold. In the firelight it moved, stretching its claws.

          He said suddenly: "When we last talked, there in the middle of the Hanging Stones, you said you wanted nothing from me. But by all the gods, Merlin, if you help me now, if I get her, and in safety, then you can ask what you will. I swear it."

          I shook my head, and he said no more. I think he saw that I was no longer thinking of him; that other forces pressed me, crowding the firelit room. The dragon flamed and shimmered up the dark wall. In its shadow another moved, merging with it, flame into flame. Something struck at my eyes, pain like a claw. I shut them, and there was silence. When I opened them again the fire had died, and the wall was dark. I looked across at the King, motionless in his chair, watching me. I said, slowly: "I will ask you one thing, now."

          "Yes?"

          "That when I bring you to her in safety, you shall make a child."

          Whatever he had expected, it was not this. He stared, then, suddenly, laughed. "That's with the gods, surely?"

          "Yes, it is with God."

          He stretched back in his chair, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "If I come to her, Merlin, I promise you that whatever I have power to do, I shall do. And anything else you bid me. I shall even sleep tonight."

          I stood up. "Then I shall go and make the draught and send it to you."

          "And you'll see her?"

          "I shall see her. Good night."

          ***

          Ulfin was half asleep on his feet outside the door. He blinked at me as I came out.

          "I'm to go in now?"

          "In a minute. Come to my chamber first and I'll give you a drink for him. See he takes it. It's to give him sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day."

          There was a girl asleep in a corner, wrapped in a blue blanket on a huddle of pillows. As we passed I saw the curve of a bare shoulder and a tumble of straight brown hair. She looked very young.

          I raised my brows at Ulfin, and he nodded, then jerked his head towards the shut door with a look of enquiry.

          "Yes," I said, "but later. When you take him the drink. Leave her sleeping now. You look as if you could do with some sleep yourself, Ulfin."

          "If he sleeps tonight I might get some." He gave a flicker of a grin at me. "Make it strong, won't you, my lord? And see it tastes good."

          "Oh, he'll drink it, never fear."

          "I wasn't thinking of him," said Ulfin. "I was thinking of me."

          "Of you? Ah, I see, you mean you'll have to taste it first?"

          He nodded.

          "You have to try everything? His meals? Even love potions?"

          "Love potions? For him?" He stared, open-mouthed. Then he laughed. "Oh, you're joking!"

          I smiled. "I wanted to see if you could laugh. Here we are. Wait now, I won't be a minute."

          Cadal was waiting for me by the fire in my chamber. This was a comfortable room in the curve of a tower wall, and Cadal had kept a bright fire burning and a big cauldron of water steaming on the iron dogs. He had got out a woollen bedgown for me and laid it ready across the bed.

          Over a chest near the window lay a pile of clothes, a shimmer of gold cloth and scarlet and fur. "What's that?" I asked, as I sat down to let him draw off my shoes.

          "The King sent a robe for tomorrow, my lord." Cadal, with an eye on the boy who was pouring the bath, was formal. I noticed the boy's hand shaking a little, and water splashed on the floor. As soon as he had finished, obedient to a jerk of Cadal's head, he scuttled out.

          "What's the matter with that boy?"

          "It isn't every night you prepare a bath for a wizard."

          "For God's sake. What have you been telling him?"

          "Only that you'd turn him into a bat if he didn't serve you well."

          "Fool. No, a moment, Cadal. Bring me my box. Ulfin's waiting outside. I promised to make up a draught."

          Cadal obeyed me. "What's the matter? His arm still bad?"

          "It's not for him. For the King."

          "Ah." He made no further comment, but when the thing was done and Ulfin had gone, and I was stripping for the bath, he asked: "It's as bad as they say?"

          "Worse." I gave him a brief version of my conversation with the King.

          He heard me out, frowning. "And what's to do now?"

          "Find some way to see the lady. No, not the bedgown; not yet, alas. Get me a clean robe out -- something dark."

          "Surely you can't go to her tonight? It's well past midnight."

          "I shall not go anywhere. Whoever is coming, will come to me."

          "But Gorlois will be with her -- "

          "No more now, Cadal. I want to think. Leave me. Good night."

          When the door had shut on him I went across to the chair beside the fire. It was not true that I wanted time to think. All I needed was silence, and the fire. Bit by bit, slowly, I emptied my mind, feeling thought spill out of me like sand from a glass, to leave me hollow and light. I waited, my hands slack on the grey robe, open, empty. It was very quiet. Somewhere, from a dark corner of the room, came the dry tick of old wood settling in the night. The fire flickered. I watched it, but absently, as any man might watch the flames for comfort on a cold night. I did not need to dream. I lay, light as a dead leaf, on the flood that ran that night to meet the sea.

          Outside the door there were sounds suddenly, voices. A quick tap at the panel, and Cadal came in, shutting the door behind him. He looked guarded and a little apprehensive.

          "Gorlois?" I asked.

          He swallowed, then nodded.

          "Well, show him in."

          "He asked if you had been to see the King. I said you'd been here barely a couple of hours, and you had had time to see nobody. Was that right?"

          I smiled. "You were guided. Let him come in now."

          Gorlois came in quickly, and I rose to greet him. There was, I thought, as big a change in him as I had seen in Uther; his big frame was bent, and for the first time one saw straight away that he was old.

          He brushed aside the ceremony of my greeting. "You're not abed yet? They told me you'd ridden in."

          "Barely in time for the crowning, but I shall see it after all. Will you sit, my lord?"

          "Thanks, but no. I came for your help, Merlin, for my wife." The quick eyes peered under the grey brows. "Aye, no one could ever tell what you were thinking, but you've heard, haven't you?"

          "There was talk," I said carefully, "but then there always was talk about Uther. I have not heard anyone venture a word against your wife."

          "By God, they'd better not! However, it's not that I've come about tonight. There's nothing you could do about that -- though it's possible you're the only person who could talk some sense into the King. You'll not get near him now till after the crowning, but if you could get him to let us go back to Cornwall without waiting for the end of the feast...Would you do that for me?"

          "If I can."

          "I knew I could count on you. With things the way they are in the town just now, it's hard to know who's a friend. Uther's not an easy man to gainsay. But you could do it -- and what's more, you'd dare. You're your father's son, and for my old friend's sake -- "

          "I said I'd do it."

          "What's the matter? Are you ill?"

          "It's nothing. I'm weary. We had a hard ride. I'll see the King in the morning early, before he leaves for the crowning."

          He gave a brief nod of thanks. "That's not the only thing I came to ask you. Would you come and see my wife tonight?"

          There was a pause of utter stillness, so prolonged that I thought he must notice. Then I said: "If you wish it, yes. But why?"

          "She's sick, that's why, and I'd have you come and see her, if you will. When her women told her you were here in London, she begged me to send for you. I can tell you, I was thankful when I heard you'd come. There's not many men I'd trust just now, and that's God's truth. But I'd trust you."

          Beside me a log crumbled and fell into the heart of the fire. The flames shot up, splashing his face with red, like blood.

          "You'll come?" asked the old man.

          "Of course." I looked away from him. "I'll come immediately."

 

 

5

 

          Uther had not exaggerated when he said that the Lady Ygraine was well guarded. She and her lord were lodged in a court some way west of the King's quarters, and the court was crowded with Cornwall men at arms. There were armed men in the antechamber too, and in the bedchamber itself some half dozen women. As we went in the oldest of these, a greyhaired woman with an anxious look, hurried forward with relief in her face.

          "Prince Merlin." She bent her knees to me, eyeing me with awe, and led me towards the bed.

          The room was warm and scented. The lamps burned sweet oil, and the fire was of applewood. The bed stood at the center of the wall opposite the fire. The pillows were of grey silk with gilt tassels, and the coverlet richly worked with flowers and strange beasts and winged creatures. The only other woman's room that I had seen was my mother's, with the plain wooden bed and the carved oak chest and the loom, and the cracked mosaics of the floor.

          I walked forward and stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at Gorlois' wife.

          If I had been asked then what she looked like I could not have said. Cadal had told me she was fair, and I had seen the hunger in the King's face, so I knew she was desirable; but as I stood in the airy scented room looking at the woman who lay with closed eyes against the grey silk pillows, it was no woman that I saw. Nor did I see the room or the people in it. I saw only the flashing and beating of the light as in a globed crystal.

          I spoke without taking my eyes from the woman in the bed. "One of her women stay here. The rest go. You too, please, my lord." He went without demur, herding the women in front of him like a flock of sheep. The woman who had greeted me remained by her mistress's bed. As the door shut behind the last of them, the woman in the bed opened her eyes. For a few moments of silence we met each other eye to eye. Then I said: "What do you want of me, Ygraine?"

          She answered crisply, with no pretense: "I have sent for you, Prince, because I want your help."

          I nodded. "In the matter of the King."

          She said straightly: "So you know already? When my husband brought you here, did you guess I was not ill?"

          "I guessed."

          "Then you can also guess what I want from you?"

          "Not quite. Tell me, could you not somehow have spoken with the King himself before now? It might have saved him something. And your husband as well."

          Her eyes widened. "How could I talk to the King? You came through the courtyard?"

          "Yes."

          "Then you saw my husband's troops and men at arms. What do you suppose would have happened had I talked to Uther? I could not answer him openly, and if I had met him in secret -- even if I could -- half London would have known it within the hour. Of course I could not speak to him or send him a message. The only protection was silence."

          I said slowly: "If the message was simply that you were a true and faithful wife and that he must turn his eyes elsewhere, then the message could have been given to him at any time and by any messenger."

          She smiled. Then she bent her head.

          I took in my breath. "Ah. That's what I wished to know. You are honest, Ygraine."

          "What use to lie to you? I have heard about you. Oh, I know better than to believe all they say in the songs and stories, but you are clever and cold and wise, and they say you love no woman and are committed to no man. So you can listen, and judge." She looked down at her hands, where they lay on the coverlet, then up at me again. "But I do believe that you can see the future. I want you to tell me what the future is."

          "I don't tell fortunes like an old woman. Is this why you sent for me?"

          "You know why I sent for you. You are the one man with whom I can seek private speech without arousing my husband's anger and suspicion -- and you have the King's ear." Though she was but a woman, and young, lying in her bed with me standing over her, it was as if she were a queen giving audience. She looked at me very straight. "Has the King spoken to you yet?"

          "He has no need to speak to me. Everyone knows what ails him."

          "And will you tell him what you have just learned from me?"

          "That will depend."

          "On what?" she demanded.

          I said slowly: "On you yourself. So far you have been wise. Had you been less guarded in your ways and your speech there would have been trouble, there might even have been war. I understand that you have never allowed one moment of your time here to be solitary or unguarded; you have taken care always to be where you could be seen."

          She looked at me for a moment in silence, her brows raised. "Of course."

          "Many women -- especially desiring what you desire -- would not have been able to do this, Lady Ygraine."

          "I am not 'many women.' " The words were like a flash. She sat up suddenly, tossing back the dark hair, and threw back the covers. The old woman snatched up a long blue robe and hurried forward. Ygraine threw it round her, over her white nightrobe, and sprang from the bed, walking restlessly over towards the window.

          Standing, she was tall for a woman, with a form that might have moved a sterner man than Uther. Her neck was long and slender, the head poised gracefully. The dark hair streamed unbound down her back. Her eyes were blue, not the fierce blue of Uther's, but the deep, dark blue of the Celt. Her mouth was proud. She was very lovely, and no man's toy. If Uther wanted her, I thought, he would have to make her Queen.

          She had stopped just short of the window. If she had gone to it, she might have been seen from the courtyard. No, not a lady to lose her head.

          She turned. "I am the daughter of a king, and I come from a line of kings. Cannot you see how I must have been driven, even to think the way I am thinking now?" She repeated it passionately. "Can you not see? I was married at sixteen to the Lord of Cornwall; he is a good man; I honour and respect him. Until I came to London I was half content to starve and die there in Cornwall, but he brought me here, and now it has happened. Now I know what I must have, but it is beyond me to have it, beyond the wife of Gorlois of Cornwall. So what else would you have me do? There is nothing to do but wait here and be silent, because on my silence hangs not only the honour of myself and my husband and my house, but the safety of the kingdom that Ambrosius died for, and that Uther himself has just sealed with blood and fire."

          She swung away to take two quick paces and back again. "I am no trashy Helen for men to fight over, die over, burn down kingdoms for. I don't wait on the walls as a prize for some brawny victor. I cannot so dishonour both Gorlois and the King in the eyes of men. And I cannot go to him secretly and dishonour myself in my own eyes. I am a lovesick woman, yes. But I am also Ygraine of Cornwall."

          I said coldly: "So you intend to wait until you can go to him in honour, as his Queen?"

          "What else can I do?"

          "Was this the message I had to give him?"

          She was silent.

          I said: "Or did you get me here to read you the future? To tell you the length of your husband's life?"

          Still she said nothing.

          "Ygraine," I said, "the two are the same. If I give Uther the message that you love and desire him, but that you will not come to him while your husband is alive, what length of life would you prophesy for Gorlois?"

          Still she did not speak. The gift of silence, too, I thought. I was standing between her and the fire. I watched the light beating round her, flowing up the white robe and the blue robe, light and shadow rippling upwards in waves like moving water or the wind over grass. A flame leapt, and my shadow sprang over her and grew, climbing with the beating light to meet her own climbing shadow and join with it, so that there across the wall behind her reared -- no dragon of gold or scarlet, no firedrake with burning tail, but a great cloudy shape of air and darkness, thrown there by the flame, and sinking as the flame sank, to shrink and steady until it was only her shadow, the shadow of a woman, slender and straight, like a sword. And where I stood, there was nothing.

          She moved, and the lamplight built the room again round us, warm and real and smelling of applewood. She was watching me with something in her face that had not been there before. At last she said, in a still voice: "I told you there was nothing hidden from you. You do well to put it into words. I had thought all this. But I hoped that by sending for you I could absolve myself, and the King."

          "Once a dark thought is dragged into words it is in the light. You could have had your desire long since on the terms of 'any woman,' as the King could on the terms of any man." I paused. The room was steady now. The words came clearly to me, from nowhere, without thought. "I will tell you, if you like, how you may meet the King's love on your terms and on his, with no dishonour to yourself or him, or to your husband. If I could tell you this, would you go to him?"

          Her eyes had widened, with a flash behind them, as I spoke. But even so she took time to think. "Yes." Her voice told me nothing.

          "If you will obey me, I can do this for you," I said.

          "Tell me what I must do."

          "Have I your promise, then?"

          "You go too fast," she said dryly. "Do you yourself seal bargains before you see what you are committed to?"

          I smiled. "No. Very well then, listen to me. When you feigned illness to have me brought to you, what did you tell your husband and your women?"

          "Only that I felt faint and sick, and was no more inclined for company. That if I was to appear beside my husband at the crowning, I must see a physician tonight, and take a healing draught." She smiled a little wryly. "I was preparing the way, too, not to sit beside the King at the feast."

          "So far, good. You will tell Gorlois that you are pregnant."

          "That I am pregnant?" For the first time she sounded shaken. She stared.

          "This is possible? He is an old man, but I would have thought -- "

          "It is possible. But I -- " She bit her lip. After a while she said calmly: "Go on. I asked for your counsel, so I must let you give it."

          I had never before met a woman with whom I did not have to choose my words, to whom I could speak as I would speak to another man. I said: "Your husband can have no reason to suspect you are pregnant by any man but himself. So you will tell him this, and tell him also that you fear for the child's health if you stay longer in London, under the strain of the gossip and the King's attentions. Tell him that you wish to leave as soon as the crowning is over. That you do not wish to go to the feast, to be distinguished by the King, and to be the center of all the eyes and the gossip. You will go with Gorlois and the Cornish troops tomorrow, before the gates shut at sunset. The news will not come to Uther until the feast."

          "But" -- she stared again -- "this is folly. We could have gone any time this past three weeks if we had chosen to risk the King's anger. We are bound to stay until he gives us leave to go. If we go in that manner, for whatever reason -- "

          I stopped her. "Uther can do nothing on the day of the crowning. He must stay here for the days of feasting. Do you think he can give offense to Budec and Merrovius and the other kings gathered here? You will be in Cornwall before he can even move."

          "And then he will move." She made an impatient gesture. "And there will be war, when he should be making and mending, not breaking and burning. And he cannot win: if he is the victor in the field, he loses the loyalty of the West. Win or lose, Britain is divided, and goes back into the dark."

          Yes, she would be a queen. She was on fire for Uther as much as he for her, but she could still think. She was cleverer than Uther, clear-headed, and, I thought, stronger too.

          "Oh, yes, he will move." I lifted a hand. "But listen to me. I will talk to the King before the crowning. He will know that the story you told Gorlois was a lie. He will know that I have told you to go to Cornwall. He will feign rage, and he will swear in public to be revenged for the insult put on him by Gorlois at the crowning...And he will make ready to follow you to Cornwall as soon as the feast is over -- "

          "But meanwhile our troops will be safely out of London without trouble. Yes, I see. I did not understand you. Go on." She drove her hands inside the sleeves of the blue robe, and clasped her elbows, cradling her breasts. She was not so ice-calm as she looked, the Lady Ygraine. "And then?"

          "And you will be safely at home," I said, "with your honour and Cornwall's unbroken."

          "Safely, yes. I shall be in Tintagel, and even Uther cannot come at me there. Have you seen the stronghold, Merlin? The cliffs of that coast are high and cruel, and from them runs a thin bridge of rock, the only way to the island where the castle stands. This bridge is so narrow that men can only go one at a time, not even a horse. Even the landward end of the bridge is guarded by a fortress on the main cliff, and within the castle there is water, and food for a year. It is the strongest place in Cornwall. It cannot be taken from the land, and it cannot be approached by sea. If you wish to shut me away for ever from Uther, this is the place to send me."

          "So I have heard. This will be, then, where Gorlois will send you. If Uther follows, lady, would Gorlois be content to wait inside the stronghold with you for a year like a beast in a trap? And could his troops be taken in with him?"

          She shook her head. "If it cannot be taken, neither can it be used as a base. All one can do is sit out the siege."

          "Then you must persuade him that unless he is content to wait inside while the King's troops ravage Cornwall, he himself must be outside, where he can fight."

          She struck her hands together. "He will do that. He could not wait and hide and let Cornwall suffer. Nor can I understand your plan, Merlin. If you are trying to save your King and your kingdom from me, then say so. I can feign sickness here, until Uther finds he has to let me go home. We could go home without insult, and without bloodshed."

          I said sharply: "You said you would listen. Time runs short."

          She was still again. "I am listening."

          "Gorlois will lock you in Tintagel. Where will he go himself to face Uther?"

          "To Dimilioc. It is a few miles from Tintagel, up the coast. It is a good fortress, and good country to fight from. But then what? Do you think Gorlois will not fight?" She moved across to the fireside and sat down, and I saw her steady her hands deliberately, spreading the fingers on her knee. "And do you think the King can come to me in Tintagel, whether Gorlois is there or no?"

          "If you do as I have bid you, you and the King may have speech and comfort one of the other. And you will do this in peace. No" -- as her head came up sharply -- "this part of it you leave with me. This is where we come to magic. Trust me for the rest. Get yourself only to Tintagel, and wait. I shall bring Uther to you there. And I promise you now, for the King, that he shall not give battle to Gorlois, and that after he and you have met in love, Cornwall shall have peace. As to how this will be, it is with God. I can only tell you what I know. What power is in me now, is from him, and we are in his hands to make or to destroy. But I can tell you this also, Ygraine, that I have seen a bright fire burning, and in it a crown, and a sword standing in an altar like a cross."

          She got to her feet quickly, and for the first time there was a kind of fear in her eyes. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed her lips again and turned back towards the window. Again she stopped short of it, but I saw her lift her head as if longing for the air. She should have been winged. If she had spent her youth walled in Tintagel it was no wonder she wanted to fly.

          She raised her hands and pushed back the hair from her brows. She spoke to the window, not looking at me. "I will do this. If I tell him I am with child, he will take me to Tintagel. It is the place where all the dukes of Cornwall are born. And after that I have to trust you." She turned then and looked at me, dropping her hands. "If once I can have speech with him...even just that...But if you have brought bloodshed to Cornwall through me, or death to my husband, then I shall spend the rest of my life praying to any gods there are that you, too, Merlin, shall die betrayed by a woman."

          "I am content to face your prayers. And now I must go. Is there someone you can send with me? I'll make a draught for you and send it back. It will only be poppy; you can take it and not fear."

          "Ralf can go, my page. You'll find him outside the door. He is Marcia's grandson, and can be trusted as I trust her." She nodded to the old woman, who moved to open the door for me.

          "Then any message I may have to send you," I said, "I shall send through him by my man Cadal. And now good night."

          When I left her she was standing quite still in the center of the room, with the firelight leaping round her.

 

 

6

 

          We had a wild ride to Cornwall.

          Easter that year had fallen as early as it ever falls, so we were barely out of winter and into spring when, on a black wild night, we halted our horses on the clifftop near Tintagel, and peered down into the teeth of the wind. There were only the four of us, Uther, myself, Ulfin, and Cadal. Everything, so far, had gone smoothly and according to plan. It was getting on towards midnight on the twenty-fourth of March.

          Ygraine had obeyed me to the letter. I had not dared, that night in London, to go straight from her quarters to Uther's chamber, in case this should be reported to Gorlois; but in any case Uther would be asleep. I had visited him early next morning, while he was being bathed and made ready for the crowning. He sent the servants away, except for Ulfin, and I was able to tell him exactly what he must do. He looked the better for his drugged sleep, greeted me briskly enough, and listened with eagerness in the bright, hollow eyes.

          "And she will do as you say?"

          "Yes. I have her word. Will you?"

          "You know that I will." He regarded me straightly. "And now will you not tell me about the outcome?"

          "I told you. A child."

          "Oh, that." He hunched an impatient shoulder. "You are like my brother; he thought of nothing else...Still working for him, are you?"

          "You might say so."

          "Well, I must get one sooner or later, I suppose. No, I meant Gorlois. What will come to him? There's a risk, surely?"

          "Nothing is done without risk. You must do the same as I, you must take the time on trust. But I can tell you that your name, and your kingdom, will survive the night's work."

          A short silence. He measured me with his eyes. "From you, I suppose that is enough. I am content."

          "You do well to be. You will outlive him, Uther."

          He laughed suddenly. "God's grief, man, I could have prophesied that myself! I can give him thirty years, and he's no stay-at-home when it comes to war. Which is one good reason why I refuse to have his blood on my hands. So, on that same account..."

          He turned then to Ulfin and began to give his orders. It was the old Uther back again, brisk, concise, clear. A messenger was to go immediately to Caerleon, and troops to be despatched from there to North Cornwall. Uther himself would travel there straight from London as soon as he was able, riding fast with a small bodyguard to where his troops would be encamped. In this way the King could be hard on Gorlois' heels, even though Gorlois would leave today, and the King must stay feasting his peers for four more long days. Another man was to ride out immediately along our proposed route to Cornwall, and see that good horses were ready at short stages all the way.

          So it came about as I had planned. I saw Ygraine at the crowning, still, composed, erect, and with downcast eyes, and so pale that if I had not seen her the night before, I myself would have believed her story true. I shall never cease to wonder at women. Even with power, it is not possible to read their minds. Duchess and slut alike, they need not even study to deceive. I suppose it is the same with slaves, who live with fear, and with those animals who disguise themselves by instinct to save their lives. She sat through the long, brilliant ceremony, like wax which at any moment may melt to collapse; then afterwards I caught a glimpse of her, supported by her women, leaving the throng as the bright pomp moved slowly to the hall of feasting. About halfway through the feast, when the wine had gone round well, I saw Gorlois, unremarked, leave the hall with one or two other men who were answering the call of nature. He did not come back.

          Uther, to one who knew the truth, may not have been quite so convincing as Ygraine, but between exhaustion and wine and his ferocious exultation at what was to come, he was convincing enough. Men talked among themselves in hushed voices about his rage when he discovered Gorlois' absence, and his angry vows to take vengeance as soon as his royal guests had gone. If that anger were a little over-loud and his threats too fierce against a Duke whose only fault was the protection of his own wife, the King had been intemperate enough before for men to see this as part of the same picture. And so bright now was Uther's star, so dazzling the luster of the crowned Pendragon, that London would have forgiven him a public rape. They could less easily forgive Ygraine for having refused him.

          So we came to Cornwall. The messenger had done his work well, and our ride, in hard short stages of no more than twenty miles apiece, took us two days and a night. We found our troops waiting encamped at the place selected -- a few miles in from Hercules Point and just outside the Cornish border -- with the news that, however she had managed it, Ygraine was fast in Tintagel with a small body of picked men, while her husband with the rest of his force had descended on Dimilioc, and sent a call round for the men of Cornwall to gather to defend their Duke. He must know of the presence of the King's troops so near his border, but no doubt he would expect them to wait for the King's coming, and could have as yet no idea that the King was already there.

          We rode secretly into our camp at dusk, and went, not to the King's quarters, but to those of a captain he could trust. Cadal was there already, having gone ahead to prepare the disguises which I meant us to wear, and to await Ralf's message from Tintagel when the time was ripe.

          My plan was simple enough, with the kind of simplicity that often succeeds, and it was helped by Gorlois' habit, since his marriage, of riding back nightly where he could -- from Dimilioc or his other fortresses -- to visit his wife. I suppose there had been too many jests about the old man's fondness, and he had formed the habit (Ralf had told me) of riding back secretly, using the private gate, a hidden postern to which access was difficult unless one knew the way. My plan was simply to disguise Uther, Ulfin, and myself to pass, if we were seen, as Gorlois and his companion and servant, and ride to Tintagel by night. Ralf would arrange to be on duty himself at the postern, and would meet us and lead us up the secret path. Ygraine had by some means persuaded Gorlois -- this had been the greatest danger -- not to visit her himself that night, and would dismiss all her women but Marcia. Ralf and Cadal had arranged between them what clothes we should wear: the Cornwall party had ridden from London in such a hurry on the night of the coronation feast that some of their baggage had been left behind, and it had been simple to find saddle-cloths with the blazon of Cornwall, and even one of Gorlois' familiar war cloaks with the double border of silver.

          Ralf's latest message had been reassuring; the time was ripe, the night black enough to hide us and wild enough to keep most men within doors. We set off after it was full dark, and the four of us slipped out of camp unobserved. Once clear of our own lines we went at a gallop for Tintagel, and it would have been only the keen eye of suspicion which could have told that this was not the Duke of Cornwall with three companions, riding quickly home to his wife. Uther's beard had been greyed, and a bandage came down one side of his face to cover the corner of his mouth, and give some reason -- should he be forced to talk -- for any strangeness in his speech. The hood of his cloak, pulled down low as was natural on such a fierce night, shadowed his features. He was straighter and more powerful than Gorlois, but this was easy enough to disguise, and he wore gauntlets to hide his hands, which were not those of an old man. Ulfin passed well enough as one Jordan, a servant of Gorlois whom we had chosen as being the nearest to Ulfin's build and colouring. I myself wore the clothes of Brithael, Gorlois' friend and captain: he was an older man than I, but his voice was not unlike mine, and I could speak good Cornish. I have always been good at voices. I was to do what talking proved necessary. Cadal came with us undisguised; he was to wait with the horses outside and be our messenger if we should need one.

          I rode up close to the King and set my mouth to his ear. "The castle's barely a mile from here. We ride down to the shore now. Ralf will be there to show us in. I'll lead on?"

          He nodded. Even in the ragged, flying dark I thought I saw the gleam of his eyes. I added: "And don't look like that, or they'll never think you're Gorlois, with years of married life behind you."

          I heard him laugh, and then I wheeled my horse and led the way carefully down the rabbit-ridden slope of scrub and scree into the head of the narrow valley which leads down towards the shore.

          This valley is little more than a gully carrying a small stream to the sea. At its widest the stream is not more than three paces broad, and so shallow that a horse can ford it anywhere. At the foot of the valley the water drops over a low cliff straight to a beach of slaty shingle. We rode in single file down the track, with the stream running deep down on the left, and to our right a high bank covered with bushes. Since the wind was from the south-west and the valley was deep and running almost north, we were sheltered from the gale, but at the top of the bank the bushes were screaming in the wind, and twigs and even small boughs hurtled through the air and across our path. Even without this and the steepness of the stony path and the darkness, it was not easy riding; the horses, what with the storm and some tension which must have been generated by the three of us -- Cadal was as solid as a rock, but then he was not going into the castle -- were wild and white-eyed with nerves. When, a quarter of a mile from the sea, we turned down to the stream and set the beasts to cross it, mine, in the lead, flattened its ears and balked, and when I had lashed it across and into a plunging canter up the narrow track, and a man's figure detached itself from the shadows ahead beside the path, the horse stopped dead and climbed straight up into the air till I felt sure it would go crashing over backwards, and me with it.

          The shadow darted forward and seized the bridle, dragging the horse down. The beast stood, sweating and shaking.

          "Brithael," I said. "Is all well?"

          I heard him exclaim, and he took a pace, pressing closer to the horse's shoulder, peering upwards in the dark. Behind me Uther's grey hoisted itself up the track and thudded to a halt. The man at my horse's shoulder said, uncertainly: "My lord Gorlois...? We did not look for you tonight. Is there news, then?"

          It was Ralf's voice. I said in my own: "So we'll pass, at least in the dark?"

          I heard his breath go in. "Yes, my lord...For the moment I thought it was indeed Brithael. And then the grey horse...Is that the King?"

          "For tonight," I said, "it is the Duke of Cornwall. Is all well?"

          "Yes, sir."

          "Then lead the way. There is not much time."

          He gripped my horse's bridle above the bit and led him on, for which I was grateful, as the path was dangerous, narrow and slippery and twisting along the steep bank between the rustling bushes; not a path I would have wished to ride even in daylight on a strange and frightened horse. The others followed, Cadal's mount and Ulfin's plodding stolidly along, and close behind me the grey stallion snorting at every bush and trying to break his rider's grip, but Uther could have ridden Pegasus himself and foundered him before his own wrists even ached.

          Here my horse shied at something I could not see, stumbled, and would have pitched me down the bank but for Ralf at its head. I swore at it, then asked Ralf: "How far now?"

          "About two hundred paces to the shore, sir, and we leave the horses there. We climb the promontory on foot."

          "By all the gods of storm, I'll be glad to get under cover. Did you have any trouble?"

          "None, sir." He had to raise his voice to make me hear, but in that turmoil there was no fear of being heard more than three paces off. "My lady told Felix herself -- that's the porter -- that she had asked the Duke to ride back as soon as his troops were disposed at Dimilioc. Of course the word's gone round that she's pregnant, so it's natural enough she'd want him back, even with the King's armies so close. She told Felix the Duke would come by the secret gate in case the King had spies posted already. He wasn't to tell the garrison, she said, because they might be alarmed at his leaving Dimilioc and the troops there, but the King couldn't possibly be in Cornwall for another day at soonest...Felix doesn't suspect a thing. Why should he?"

          "The porter is alone at the gate?"

          "Yes, but there are two guards in the guard-room."

          He had told us already what lay inside the postern. This was a small gate set low in the outer castle wall, and just inside it a long flight of steps ran up to the right, hugging the wall. Halfway up was a wide landing, with a guardroom to the side. Beyond that the stairs went up again, and at the top was the private door leading through into the apartments.

          "Do the guards know?" I asked.

          He shook his head. "My lord, we didn't dare. All the men left with the Lady Ygraine were hand-picked by the Duke."

          "Are the stairs well lighted?"

          "A torch. I saw to it that it will be mostly smoke."

          I looked over my shoulder to where the grey horse came ghostly behind me through the dark. Ralf had had to raise his voice to make me hear above the wind which screamed across the top of the valley, and I would have thought that the King would be waiting to know what passed between us. But he was silent, as he had been since the beginning of the ride. It seemed he was indeed content to trust the time. Or to trust me.

          I turned back to Ralf, leaning down over my horse's shoulder. "Is there a password?"

          "Yes, my lord. It is pilgrim. And the lady has sent a ring for the King to wear. It is one the Duke wears sometimes. Here's the end of the path, can you see? It's quite a drop to the beach." He checked, steadying my horse, then the beast plunged down and its hoofs grated on shingle. "We leave the horses here, my lord."

          I dismounted thankfully. As far as I could see, we were in a small cove sheltered from the wind by a mighty headland close to our left, but the seas, tearing past the end of this headland and curving round to break among the offshore rocks, were huge, and came lashing down on the shingle in torrents of white with a noise like armies clashing together in anger. Away to the right I saw another high headland, and between the two this roaring stretch of white water broken by the teeth of black rocks. The stream behind us fell seawards over its low cliff in two long cascades which blew in the wind like ropes of hair. Beyond these swinging waterfalls, and in below the overhanging wall of the main cliff, there was shelter for the horses.

          Ralf was pointing to the great headland on our left. "The path is up there. Tell the King to come behind me and to follow closely. One foot wrong tonight, and before you could cry help you'd be out with the tide as far as the western stars."

          The grey thudded down beside us and the King swung himself out of the saddle. I heard him laugh, that same sharp, exultant sound. Even had there been no prize at the end of the night's trail, he would have been the same. Danger was drink and dreams alike to Uther.

          The other two came up with us and dismounted, and Cadal took the reins. Uther came to my shoulder, looking at the cruel race of water. "Do we swim for it now?"

          "It may come to that, God knows. It looks to me as if the waves are up to the castle wall."

          He stood quite still, oblivious of the buffeting of wind and rain, with his head lifted, staring up at the headland. High against the stormy dark, a light burned.

          I touched his arm. "Listen. The situation is what we expected. There is a porter, Felix, and two men-at-arms in the guard-room. There should be very little light. You know the way in. It will be enough, as we go in, if you grunt your thanks to Felix and go quickly up the stair. Marcia, the old woman, will meet you at the door of Ygraine's apartments and lead you in. You can leave the rest to us. If there is any trouble, then there are three of us to three of them, and on a night like this there'll be no sound heard. I shall come an hour before dawn and send Marcia in for you. Now we shall not be able to speak again. Follow Ralf closely, the path is very dangerous. He has a ring for you and the password. Go now."

          He turned without a word and trod across the streaming shingle to where the boy waited. I found Cadal beside me, with the reins of the four horses gathered in his fist. His face, like my own, was streaming with wet, his cloak billowing round him like a storm cloud.

          I said: "You heard me. An hour before dawn."

          He, too, was looking up at the crag where high above us the castle towered. In a moment of flying light through the torn cloud I saw the castle walls, growing out of the rock. Below them fell the cliff, almost vertical, to the roaring waves. Between the promontory and the mainland, joining the castle to the mainland cliff, ran a natural ridge of rock, its sheer side polished flat as a sword-blade by the sea. From the beach where we stood, there seemed to be no way out but the valley; not mainland fortress, nor causeway, nor castle rock, could be climbed. It was no wonder they left no sentries here. And the path to the secret gate could be held by one man against an army.

          Cadal was saying: "I'll get the horses in there, under the overhang, in what shelter there is. And for my sake, if not for yon lovesick gentleman's, be on time. If they as much as suspicion up yonder that there's something amiss, it's rats in a trap for the lot of us. They can shut that bloody little valley as sharp as they can block the causeway, you know that? And I wouldn't just fancy swimming out the other way, myself."

          "Nor I. Content yourself, Cadal, I know what I'm about."

          "I believe you. There's something about you tonight...The way you spoke just now to the King, not thinking, shorter than you'd speak to a servant. And he said never a word, but did as he was bid. Yes, I'd say you know what you're about. Which is just as well, master Merlin, because otherwise, you realize, you're risking the life of the King of Britain for a night's lust?"

          I did something which I had never done before; which I do not commonly do. I put a hand out and laid it over Cadal's where it held the reins. The horses were quiet now, wet and unhappy, huddling with their rumps to the wind and their heads drooping.

          I said: "If Uther gets into the place tonight and lies with her, then before God, Cadal, it will not matter as much as the worth of a drop of that sea-foam there if he is murdered in the bed. I tell you, a King will come out of this night's work whose name will be a shield and buckler to men until this fair land, from sea to sea, is smashed down into the sea that holds it, and men leave earth to live among the stars. Do you think Uther is a King, Cadal? He's but a regent for him who went before and for him who comes after, the past and future King. And tonight he is even less than that: he is a tool, and she a vessel, and I...I am a spirit, a word, a thing of air and darkness, and I can no more help what I am doing than a reed can help the wind of God blowing through it. You and I, Cadal, are as helpless as dead leaves in the waters of that bay." I dropped my hand from his. "An hour before dawn."

          "Till then, my lord."

          I left him then, and, with Ulfin following, went after Ralf and the King across the shingle to the foot of the black cliff.

 

 

7

 

          I do not think that now, even in daylight, I could find the path again without a guide, let alone climb it. Ralf went first, with the King's hand on his shoulder, and in my turn I held a fold of Uther's mantle, and Ulfin of mine. Mercifully, close in as we were to the face of the castle rock, we were protected from the wind: exposed, the climb would have been impossible; we would have been plucked off the cliff like feathers. But we were not protected from the sea. The waves must have been rushing up forty feet, and the master waves, the great sevenths, came roaring up like towers and drenched us with salt fully sixty feet above the beach.

          One good thing the savage boiling of the sea did for us, its whiteness cast upwards again what light came from the sky. At last we saw, above our heads, the roots of the castle walls where they sprang from the rock. Even in dry weather the walls would have been unscalable, and tonight they were streaming with wet. I could see no door, nothing breaking the smooth streaming walls of slate. Ralf did not pause, but led us on under them towards a seaward corner of the cliff. There he halted for a moment, and I saw him move his arm in a gesture that meant "Beware." He went carefully round the corner and out of sight. I felt Uther stagger as he reached the corner himself and met the force of the wind. He checked for a moment and then went on, clamped tight to the cliff's face. Ulfin and I followed. For a few more hideous yards we fought our way along, faces in to the soaking, slimy cliff, then a jutting buttress gave us shelter, and we were stumbling suddenly on a treacherous slope cushiony with sea-pink, and there ahead of us, recessed deep in the rock below the castle wall, and hidden from the ramparts above by the sharp overhang, was Tintagel's emergency door.

          I saw Ralf give a long look upwards before he led us in under the rock. There were no sentries above. What need to post men on the seaward ramparts? He drew his dagger and rapped sharply on the door, a pattern of knocks which we, standing as we were at his shoulder, scarcely heard in the gale.

          The porter must have been waiting just inside. The door opened immediately. It swung silently open for about three inches, then stuck, and I heard the rattle of a chain bolt. In the gap a hand showed, gripping a torch. Uther, beside me, dragged his hood closer, and I stepped past him to Ralf's elbow, holding my mantle tightly to my mouth and hunching my shoulders against the volleying gusts of wind and rain.

          The porter's face, half of it, showed below the torch. An eye peered. Ralf, well forward into the light, said urgently: "Quick, man. A pilgrim. It's me back, with the Duke."

          The torch moved fractionally higher. I saw the big emerald on Uther's finger catch the light, and said curtly, in Brithael's voice: "Open up, Felix, and let us get in out of this, for pity's sake. The Duke had a fall from his horse this morning, and his bandage is soaking. There are just the four of us here. Make haste."

          The chain bolt came off and the door swung wide. Ralf put a hand to it so that, ostensibly holding it for his master, he could step into the passage between Felix and Uther as the King entered.

          Uther strode in past the bowing man, shaking the wet off himself like a dog, and returning some half-heard sound in answer to the porter's greeting. Then with a brief lift of the hand which set the emerald flashing again, he turned straight for the steps which led upwards on our right, and began quickly to mount them.

          Ralf grabbed the torch from the porter's hand as Ulfin and I pressed in after Uther. "I'll light them up with this. Get the door shut and barred again. I'll come down later and give you the news, Felix, but we're all drenched as drowned dogs, and want to get to a fire. There's one in the guard-room, I suppose?"

          "Aye." The porter had already turned away to bar the door. Ralf was holding the torch so that Ulfin and I could go past in shadow.

          I started quickly up the steps in Uther's wake, with Ulfin on my heels. The stairs were lit only by a smoking cresset which burned in a bracket on the wall of the wide landing above us. It had been easy.

          Too easy. Suddenly, above us on the landing, the sullen light was augmented by that from a blazing torch, and a couple of men-at-arms stepped from a doorway, swords at the ready.

          Uther, six steps above me, paused fractionally and then went on. I saw his hand, under the cloak, drop to his sword. Under my own I had my weapon loose in its sheath.

          Ralf's light tread came running up the steps behind us.

          "My lord Duke!"

          Uther, I could guess how thankfully, stopped and turned to wait for him, his back to the guards.

          "My lord Duke, let me light you -- ah, they've a torch up there." He seemed only then to notice the guards above us, with the blazing light. He ran on and up past Uther, calling lightly: "Holà, Marcus, Sellic, give me that torch to light my lord up to the Duchess. This wretched thing's nothing but smoke."

          The man with the torch had it held high, and the pair of them were peering down the stairs at us. The boy never hesitated. He ran up, straight between the swords, and took the torch from the man's hand. Before they could reach for it, he turned swiftly to douse the first torch in the tub of sand which stood near the guard-room door. It went out into sullen smoke. The new torch blazed cleanly, but swung and wavered as he moved so that the shadows of the guards, flung gigantic and grotesque down the steps, helped to hide us. Uther, taking advantage of the swaying shadows, started again swiftly up the flight. The hand with Gorlois' ring was half up before him to return the men's salutes. The guards moved aside. But they moved one to each side of the head of the steps, and their swords were still in their hands.

          Behind me, I heard the faint whisper as Ulfin's blade loosened in its sheath. Under my cloak, mine was half-drawn. There was no hope of getting past them. We would have to kill them, and pray it made no noise. I heard Ulfin's step lagging, and knew he was thinking of the porter. He might have to go back to him while we dealt with the guards.

          But there was no need. Suddenly, at the head of the second flight of steps, a door opened wide, and there, full in the blaze of light, stood Ygraine. She was in white, as I had seen her before; but not this time in a night-robe. The long gown shimmered like lake water. Over one arm and shoulder, Roman fashion, she wore a mantle of soft dark blue. Her hair was dressed with jewels. She stretched out both her hands, and the blue robe and the white fell away from wrists where red gold glimmered.

          "Welcome, my lord!" Her voice, high and clear, brought both guards round to face her. Uther took the last half dozen steps to the landing in two leaps, then was past them, his cloak brushing the sword-blades, past Ralf's blazing torch, and starting quickly up the second flight of steps.

          The guards snapped back to attention, one each side of the stair-head, their backs to the wall. Behind me I heard Ulfin gasp, but he followed me quietly enough as, calmly and without hurry, I mounted the last steps to the landing. It is something, I suppose, to have been born a prince, even a bastard one; I knew that the sentries' eyes were nailed to the wall in front of them by the Duchess's presence as surely as if they were blind. I went between the swords, and Ulfin after me.

          Uther had reached the head of the stairway. He took her hands, and there in front of the lighted door, with his enemies' swords catching the torchlight below him, the King bent his head and kissed Ygraine. The scarlet cloak swung round both of them, engulfing the white. Beyond them I saw the shadow of the old woman, Marcia, holding the door.

          Then the King said: "Come," and with the great cloak still covering them both, he led her into the firelight, and the door shut behind them.

          So we took Tintagel.

 

 

8

 

          We were well served that night, Ulfin and I. The chamber door had hardly shut, leaving us islanded halfway up the flight between the door and the guards below, when I heard Ralf's voice again, easy and quick above the slither of swords being sheathed:

          "Gods and angels, what a night's work! And I still have to guide him back when it's done! You've a fire in the room yonder? Good. We'll have a chance to dry off while we're waiting. You can get yourselves off now and leave this trick to us. Go on, what are you waiting for? You've had your orders -- and no word of this, mark you, to anyone that comes."

          One of the guards, settling his sword home, turned straight back into the guard-room, but the other hesitated, glancing up towards me. "My lord Brithael, is that right? We go off watch?"

          I started slowly down the stairs. "Quite right. You can go. We'll send the porter for you when we want to leave. And above all, not a word of the Duke's presence. See to it." I turned to Ulfin, big-eyed on the stairs behind me. "Jordan, you go up to the chamber door yonder and stand guard. No, give me your cloak. I'll take it to the fire."

          As he went thankfully, his sword at last ready in his hand, I heard Ralf crossing the guard-room below, underlining my orders with what threats I could only guess at. I went down the steps, not hurrying, to give him time to get rid of the men.

          I heard the inner door shut, and went in. The guardroom, brightly lit by the torch and the blazing fire, was empty save for ourselves.

          Ralf gave me a smile, gay and threadbare with nerves. "Not again, even to please my lady, for all the gold in Cornwall!"

          "There will be no need again. You have done more than well, Ralf. The King will not forget."

          He reached up to put the torch in a socket, saw my face, and said anxiously: "What is it, sir? Are you ill?"

          "No. Does that door lock?" I nodded at the shut door through which the guards had gone.

          "I have locked it. If they had had any suspicion, they would not have given me the key. But they had none, how could they? I could have sworn myself just now that it was Brithael speaking there, from the stairs. It was -- like magic." The last word held a question, and he eyed me with a look I knew, but when I said nothing, he asked merely: "What now, sir?"

          "Get you down to the porter now, and keep him away from here." I smiled. "You'll get your turn at the fire, Ralf, when we have gone."

          He went off, light-footed as ever, down the steps. I heard him call something, and a laugh from Felix. I stripped off my drenched cloak and spread it, with Ulfin's, to the blaze. Below the cloak my clothes were dry enough. I sat for a while, holding my hands before me to the fire. It was very still in the firelit chamber, but outside the air was full of the surging din of the waters and the storm tearing at the castle walls.

          My thoughts stung like sparks. I could not sit still. I stood and walked about the little chamber, restlessly. I listened to the storm outside and, going to the door, heard the murmur of voices and the click of dice as Ralf and Felix passed the time down by the gate. I looked the other way. No sound from the head of the stairs, where I could just see Ulfin, or perhaps his shadow, motionless by the chamber door...

          Someone was coming softly down the stairs; a woman, shrouded in a mantle, carrying something. She came without a sound, and there had been neither sound nor movement from Ulfin. I stepped out on to the landing, and the light from the guard-room came after me, firelight and shadow.

          It was Marcia. I saw the tears glisten on her cheeks as she bent her head over what lay in her arms. A child, wrapped warm against the winter night. She saw me and held her burden out to me. "Take care of him," she said, and through the shine of the tears I saw the treads of the stairway outline themselves again behind her. "Take care of him..."

          The whisper faded into the flutter of the torch and the sound of the storm outside. I was alone on the stairway, and above me a shut door. Ulfin had not moved.

          I lowered my empty arms and went back to the fire. This was dying down, and I made it burn up again, but with small comfort to myself, for again the light stung me. Though I had seen what I wanted to see, there was death somewhere before the end, and I was afraid. My body ached, and the room was stifling. I picked up my cloak, which was almost dry, slung it round me, and crossed the landing to where in the outer wall was a small door under which the wind drove like a knife. I thrust the door open against the blast, and went outside.

          At first, after the blaze of the guard-room, I could see nothing. I shut the door behind me and leaned back against the damp wall, while the night air poured over me like a river. Then things took shape around me. In front and a few paces away was a battlemented wall, waist high, the outer wall of the castle. Between this wall and where I stood was a level platform, and above me a wall rising again to a battlement, and beyond this the soaring cliff and the walls climbing it, and the shape of the fortress rising above me step by step to the peak of the promontory. At the very head of the rise, where we had seen the lighted window, the tower now showed black and lightless against the sky.

          I went forward to the battlement and leaned over. Below was an apron of cliff, which would in daylight be a grassy slope covered with sea-pink and white campion and the nests of seabirds. Beyond it and below, the white rage of the bay. I looked down to the right, the way we had come. Except for the driving arcs of white foam, the bay where Cadal waited was invisible under darkness.

          It had stopped raining now, and the clouds were running higher and thinner. The wind had veered a little, slackening. It would drop towards dawn. Here and there, high and black beyond the racing clouds, the spaces of the night were filled with stars.

          Then suddenly, directly overhead, the clouds parted, and there, sailing through them like a ship through running waves, the star.

          It hung there among the dazzle of smaller stars, flickering at first, then pulsing, growing, bursting with light and all the colours that you see in dancing water. I watched it wax and flame and break open in light, then a racing wind would fling a web of cloud across it till it lay grey and dull and distant, lost to the eye among the other, minor stars. Then, as the swarm began their dance again it came again, gathering and swelling and dilating with light till it stood among the other stars like a torch throwing a whirl of sparks. So on through the night, as I stood alone on the ramparts and watched it; vivid and bright, then grey and sleeping, but each time waking to burn more gently, till it breathed light rather than heat, and towards morning hung glowing and quiet, with the light growing round it as the new day promised to come in clear and still.

          I drew breath, and wiped the sweat from my face. I straightened up from where I had leaned against the ramparts. My body was stiff, but the ache had gone. I looked up at Ygraine's darkened window where, now, they slept.

 

 

9

 

          I walked slowly back across the platform towards the door. As I opened it I heard from below, clear and sharp, a knocking on the postern gate.

          I took a stride through to the landing, pulling the door quietly shut behind me, just as Felix came out of the lodge below, and made for the postern. As his hand went out to the chain-bolt, Ralf whipped out behind him, his arm raised high. I caught the glint in his fist of a dagger, reversed. He jumped cat-footed, and struck with the hilt. Felix dropped where he stood. There must have been some slight sound audible to the man outside, above the roaring of the sea, for his voice came sharply: "What is it? Felix?" And the knocking came again, harder than before.

          I was already halfway down the flight. Ralf had stooped to the porter's body, but turned as he saw me coming, and interpreted my gesture correctly, for he straightened, calling out clearly:

          "Who's there?"

          "A pilgrim."

          It was a man's voice, urgent and breathless. I ran lightly down the rest of the flight. As I ran I was stripping my cloak off and winding it round my left arm. Ralf threw me a look from which all the gaiety and daring had gone. He had no need even to ask the next question; we both knew the answer.

          "Who makes the pilgrimage?" The boy's voice was hoarse.

          "Brithael. Now open up, quickly."

          "My lord Brithael! My lord -- I cannot -- I have no orders to admit anyone this way..." He was watching me as I stooped, took Felix under the armpits, and dragged him with as little noise as I could, back into the lodge and out of sight. I saw Ralf lick his lips. "Can you not ride to the main gate, my lord? The Duchess will be asleep, and I have no orders -- "

          "Who's that?" demanded Brithael. "Ralf, by your voice. Where's Felix?"

          "Gone up to the guard-room, sir."

          "Then get the key from him, or send him down." The man's voice roughened, and a fist thudded against the gate. "Do as I say, boy, or by God I'll have the skin off your back. I have a message for the Duchess, and she won't thank you for holding me here. Come now, hurry up!"

          "The -- the key's here, my lord. A moment." He threw a desperate look over his shoulder as he made a business of fumbling with the lock. I left the unconscious man bundled out of sight, and was back at Ralf's shoulder, breathing into his ear:

          "See if he's alone first. Then let him in."

          He nodded, and the door opened on its chain-bolt. Under cover of the noise it made I had my sword out, and melted into the shadow behind the boy, where the opening door would screen me from Brithael. I stood back against the wall. Ralf put his eye to the gap, then drew back, with a nod at me, and began to slide the chain out of its socket. "Excuse me, my lord Brithael." He sounded abject and confused. "I had to make sure...Is there trouble?"

          "What else?" Brithael thrust the door open so sharply that it would have thudded into me if Ralf had not checked it. "Never mind, you did well enough." He strode in and stopped, towering over the boy. "Has anyone else been to this gate tonight?"

          "Why, no, sir." Ralf sounded scared -- as well he might -- and therefore convincing. "Not while I've been here, and Felix said nothing...Why, what's happened?"

          Brithael gave a grunt, and his accoutrements jingled as he shrugged. "There was a fellow down yonder, a horseman. He attacked us. I left Jordan to deal with him. There's been nothing here, then? No trouble at all?"

          "None, my lord."

          "Then lock the gate again and let none in but Jordan. And now I must see the Duchess. I bring grave news, Ralf. The Duke is dead."

          "The Duke?" The boy began to stammer. He made no attempt to shut the gate, but left it swinging free. It hid Brithael from me still, but Ralf was just beside me, and in the dim light I saw his face go pinched and blank with shock. "The Duke -- d-dead, my lord? Murdered?"

          Brithael, already moving, checked and turned. In another pace he would be clear of the door which hid me from him. I must not let him reach the steps and get above me.

          "Murdered? Why, in God's name? Who would do that? That's not Uther's way. No, the Duke took the chance before the King got here, and we attacked the King's camp tonight, out of Dimilioc. But they were ready. Gorlois was killed in the first sally. I rode with Jordan to bring the news. We came straight from the field. Now lock that gate and do as I say."

          He turned away and made for the steps. There was room, now, to use a sword. I stepped out from the shadow behind the door.

          "Brithael."

          The man whirled. His reactions were so quick that they cancelled out my advantage of surprise. I suppose I need not have spoken at all, but again there are certain things a prince must do. It cost me dear enough, and could have cost me my life. I should have remembered that tonight I was no prince; I was fate's creature, like Gorlois whom I had betrayed, and Brithael whom I now must kill. And I was the future's hostage. But the burden weighed heavy on me, and his sword was out almost before mine was raised, and then we stood measuring one another, eye to eye.

          He recognized me then, as our eyes met. I saw the shock in his, and a quick flash of fear which vanished in a moment, the moment when my stance and my drawn sword told him that this would be his kind of fight, not mine. He may have seen in my face that I had already fought harder than he, that night.

          "I should have known you were here. Jordan said it was your man down there, you damned enchanter. Ralf! Felix! Guard -- ho there, guard!"

          I saw he had not grasped straight away that I had been inside the gate all along. Then the silence on the stairway, and Ralf's quick move away from me to shut the gate told its own story. Fast as a wolf, too quickly for me to do anything, Brithael swept his left arm with its clenched mailed fist smashing into the side of the boy's head. Ralf dropped without a sound, his body wedging the gate wide open.

          Brithael leapt back into the gateway. "Jordan! Jordan! To me! Treachery!"

          Then I was on him, blundering somehow through his guard, breast to breast, and our swords bit and slithered together with whining metal and the clash of sparks.

          Rapid steps down the stairs. Ulfin's voice: "My lord -- Ralf -- "

          I said, in gasps: "Ulfin...Tell the King...Gorlois is dead. We must get back...Hurry..."

          I heard him go, fast up the stairs at a stumbling run. Brithael said through his teeth: "The King? Now I see, you pandering whoremaster."

          He was a big man, a fighter in his prime, and justly angry. I was without experience, and hating what I must do, but I must do it. I was no longer a prince, or even a man fighting by the rules of men. I was a wild animal fighting to kill because it must.

          With my free hand I struck him hard in the mouth and saw the surprise in his eyes as he jumped back to disengage his sword. Then he came in fast, the sword a flashing ring of iron round him. Somehow I ducked under the whistling blade, parried a blow and held it, and lashed a kick that took him full on the knee. The sword whipped down past my cheek with a hiss like a burn. I felt the hot sting of pain, and the blood running. Then as his weight went on the bruised knee, he trod crookedly, slipped on the soaked turf and fell heavily, his elbow striking a stone, and the sword flying from his hand.

          Any other man would have stepped back to let him pick it up. I went down on him with all the weight I had, and my own sword shortened, stabbing for his throat.

          It was light now, and growing lighter. I saw the contempt and fury in his eyes as he rolled away from the stabbing blade. It missed him, and drove deep into a spongy tuft of sea-pink. In the unguarded second as I fought to free it, his tactics shifted to match mine, and with that iron fist he struck me hard behind the ear, then, wrenching himself aside, was on his feet and plunging down the dreadful slope to where his own sword lay shining in the grass two paces from the cliff's edge.

          If he reached it, he would kill me in seconds. I rolled, bunching to get to my feet, flinging myself anyhow down the slimy slope towards the sword. He caught me half on to my knees. His booted foot drove into my side, then into my back. The pain broke in me like a bubble of blood and my bones melted, throwing me flat again, but I felt my flailing foot catch the metal, and the sword jerked from its hold in the turf to skid, with how gentle a shimmer, over the edge. Seconds later, it seemed, we could hear, thin and sweet through the thunder of the waves, the whine of metal as it struck the rocks below.

          But before even the sound reached us he was on me again. I had a knee under me and was dragging myself up painfully. Through the blood in my eyes I saw the blow coming, and tried to dodge, but his fist struck me in the throat, knocking me sideways with a savagery that spread-eagled me again on the wet turf with the breath gone from my body and the sight from my eyes. I felt myself roll and slip and, remembering what lay below, blindly drove my left hand into the turf to stop myself falling. My sword was still in my right hand. He jumped for me again, and with all the weight of his big body brought both feet down on my hand where it grasped the sword. The hand broke across the metal guard. I heard it go. The sword snapped upwards like a trap springing and caught him across his outstretched hand. He cursed in a gasp, without words, and recoiled momentarily. Somehow, I had the sword in my left hand. He came in again as quickly as before, and even as I tried to drag myself away, he made a quick stride forward and stamped again on my broken hand. Somebody screamed. I felt myself thrash over, mindless with pain, blind. With the last strength I had I jabbed the sword, hopelessly shortened, up at his straddled body, felt it torn from my hand, and then lay waiting, without resistance, for the last kick in my side that would send me over the cliff.

          ***

          I lay there breathless, retching, choking on bile, my face to the ground and my left hand driven into the soft tufts of sea-pink, as if it clung to life for me. The beat and crash of the sea shook the cliff, and even this slight tremor seemed to grind pain through my body. It hurt at every point. My side pained as though the ribs were stove in, and the skin had been stripped from the cheek that lay pressed hard into the turf. There was blood in my mouth, and my right hand was a jelly of pain. I could hear someone, some other man a long way off, making small abject sounds of pain.

          The blood in my mouth bubbled and oozed down my chin into the ground, and I knew it was I who was groaning. Merlin the son of Ambrosius, the prince, the great enchanter. I shut my mouth on the blood and began to push and claw my way to my feet.

          The pain in my hand was cruel, the worst of all; I heard rather than felt the small bones grind where their ends were broken. I felt myself lurching as I got to my knees, and dared not try to stand upright so near the cliff's edge. Below me a master wave struck, thundered, fountained up into the greying light, then fell back to crash into the next rising wave. The cliff trembled. A sea-bird, the first of the day, sailed overhead, crying.

          I crawled away from the edge and then stood up.

          Brithael was lying near the postern gate, on his belly, as if he had been trying to crawl there. Behind him on the turf was a wake of blood, glossy on the grass like the track of a snail. He was dead. That last desperate stroke had caught the big vein in the groin, and the life had pumped out of him as he tried to crawl for help. Some of the blood that soaked me must be his.

          I went on my knees beside him and made sure. Then I rolled him over and over till the slope took him, and he went after his sword into the sea. The blood would have to take care of itself. It was raining again, and with luck the blood would be gone before anyone saw it.

          The postern gate stood open still. I reached it somehow and stood, supporting myself with a shoulder against the jamb. There was blood in my eyes, too. I wiped it away with a wet sleeve.

          Ralf had gone. The porter also. The torch had burnt low in its socket and the smoky light showed the lodge and stairway empty. The castle was quiet. At the top of the stairway the door stood partly open, and I saw light there and heard voices. Quiet voices, urgent but unalarmed. Uther's party must still be in control; there had been no alarm given.

          I shivered in the dawn chill. Somewhere, unheeded, the cloak had dropped from my arm. I didn't trouble to look for it. I let go of the gate and tried standing upright without support. I could do it. I started to make my way down the path towards the bay.

 

 

10

 

          There was just light enough to see the way; light enough, too, to see the dreadful cliff and the roaring depths below. But I think I was so occupied with the weakness of my body, with the simple mechanics of keeping that body upright and my good hand working and the injured hand out of trouble, that I never once thought of the sea below or the perilous narrowness of the strip of safe rock. I got past the first stretch quickly, and then clawed my way, half crawling, down the next steep slide across the tufted grasses and the rattling steps of scree. As the path took me lower, the seas came roaring up closer beside me, till I felt the spray of the big waves salt with the salt blood on my face. The tide was full in with morning, the waves still high with the night's wind, shooting icy tongues up the licked rock and bursting beside me with a hollow crash that shook the very bones in my body, and drenched the path down which I crawled and stumbled.

          I found him halfway up from the beach, lying face downwards within an inch of the edge. One arm hung over the brink, and at the end of it the limp hand swung to the shocks of air disturbed by the waves. The other hand seemed to have stiffened, hooked to a piece of rock. The fingers were black with dried blood.

          The path was just wide enough. Somehow I turned him over, pulling and shifting him as best I could till he was lying close against the cliff. I knelt between him and the sea.

          "Cadal. Cadal."

          His flesh was cold. In the near-darkness I could see that there was blood on his face, and what looked like thick ooze from some wound up near the hair. I put my hand to it; it was a cut, but not enough to kill. I tried to feel the heartbeat in his wrist, but my numbed hand kept slipping on the wet flesh and I could feel nothing. I pulled at his soaked tunic and could not get it open, then a clasp gave way and it tore apart, laying the chest bare.

          When I saw what the cloth had hidden I knew there was no need to feel for his heart. I pulled the sodden cloth back over him, as if it could warm him, and sat back on my heels, only then attending to the fact that men were coming down the path from the castle.

          Uther came round the cliff as easily as if he were walking across his palace floor. His sword was ready in his hand, the long cloak gathered over his left arm. Ulfin, looking like a ghost, came after him.

          The King stood over me, and for some moments he did not speak. Then all he said was:

          "Dead?"

          "Yes."

          "And Jordan?"

          "Dead too, I imagine, or Cadal would not have got this far to warn us."

          "And Brithael?"

          "Dead."

          "Did you know all this before we came tonight?"

          "No," I said.

          "Nor of Gorlois' death?"

          "No."

          "If you were a prophet as you claim to be, you would have known." His voice was thin and bitter. I looked up. His face was calm, the fever gone, but his eyes, slaty in the grey light, were bleak and weary.

          I said briefly: "I told you. I had to take the time on trust. This was the time. We succeeded."

          "And if we had waited until tomorrow, these men, aye, and your servant here as well, would still be living, and Gorlois dead and his lady a widow...And mine to claim without these deaths and whisperings."

          "But tomorrow you would have begotten a different child."

          "A legitimate child," he said swiftly. "Not a bastard such as we have made between us tonight. By the head of Mithras, do you truly think my name and hers can withstand this night's work? Even if we marry within the week, you know what men will say. That I am Gorlois' murderer. And there are men who will go on believing that she was in truth pregnant by him as she told them, and that the child is his."

          "They will not say this. There is not a man who will doubt that he is yours, Uther, and rightwise King born of all Britain."

          He made a short sound, not a laugh, but it held both amusement and contempt. "Do you think I shall ever listen to you again? I see now what your magic is, this 'power' you talk of...It is nothing but human trickery, an attempt at statecraft which my brother taught you to like and to play for and to believe was your mystery. It is trickery to promise men what they desire, to let them think you have the power to give it, but to keep the price secret, and then leave them to pay."

          "It is God who keeps the price secret, Uther, not I."

          "God? God? What god? I have heard you speak of so many gods. If you mean Mithras -- "

          "Mithras, Apollo, Arthur, Christ -- call him what you will," I said. "What does it matter what men call the light? It is the same light, and men must live by it or die. I only know that God is the source of all the light which has lit the world, and that his purpose runs through the world and past each one of us like a great river, and we cannot check or turn it, but can only drink from it while living, and commit our bodies to it when we die."

          The blood was running from my mouth again. I put up my sleeve to wipe it away. He saw, but his face never changed. I doubt if he had even listened to what I said, or if he could have heard me for the thunder of the sea. He said merely, with that same indifference that stood like a wall between us:

          "These are only words. You use even God to gain your ends. 'It is God who tells me to do these things, it is God who exacts the price, it is God who sees that others should pay...' For what, Merlin? For your ambition? For the great prophet and magician of whom men speak with bated breath and give more worship than they would a king or his high priest? And who is it pays this debt to God for carrying out your plans? Not you. The men who play your game for you, and pay the price. Ambrosius. Vortigern. Gorlois. These other men here tonight. But you pay nothing. Never you."

          A wave crashed beside us and the spume showered the ledge, raining down on Cadal's upturned face. I leaned over and wiped it away, with some of the blood. "No," I said.

          Uther said, above me: "I tell you, Merlin, you shall not use me. I'll no longer be a puppet for you to pull the strings. So keep away from me. And I'll tell you this also. I'll not acknowledge the bastard I begot tonight."

          It was a king speaking, unanswerable. A still, cold figure, with behind his shoulder the star hanging clear in the grey. I said nothing.

          "You hear me?"

          "Yes."

          He shifted the cloak from his arm, and flung it to Ulfin, who held it for him to put on. He settled it to his shoulders, then looked down at me again. "For what service you have rendered, you shall keep the land I gave you. Get back, then, to your Welsh mountains, and trouble me no more."

          I said wearily: "I shall not trouble you again, Uther. You will not need me again."

          He was silent for a moment. Then he said abruptly: "Ulfin will help you carry the body down."

          I turned away. "There is no need. Leave me now."

          A pause, filled with the thunder of the sea. I had not meant to speak so, but I was past caring, or even knowing, what I said. I only wanted him gone. His sword-point was level with my eyes. I saw it shift and shimmer, and thought for a moment that he was angry enough to use it. Then it flashed up and was rammed home in its housings. He swung round and went on his way down the path. Ulfin edged quietly past without a word, and followed his master. Before they had reached the next corner the sea had obliterated the sound of their footsteps.

          I turned to find Cadal watching me.

          "Cadal!"

          "That's a king for you." His voice was faint, but it was his own, rough and amused. "Give him something he swears he's dying for, and then, 'Do you think I can withstand this night's work?' says he. A fine old night's work he's put in, for sure, and looks it."

          "Cadal -- "

          "You, too. You're hurt...your hand? Blood on your face?"

          "It's nothing. Nothing that won't mend. Never mind that. But you -- oh, Cadal -- "

          He moved his head slightly. "It's no use. Let be. I'm comfortable enough."

          "No pain now?"

          "No. It's cold, though."

          I moved closer to him, trying to shield his body with my own from the bursting spray as the waves struck the rock. I took his hand in my own good one. I could not chafe it, but pulled my tunic open and held it there against my breast. "I'm afraid I lost my cloak," I said. "Jordan's dead, then?"

          "Yes." He waited for a moment. "What -- happened up yonder?"

          "It all went as we had planned. But Gorlois attacked out of Dimilioc and got himself killed. That's why Brithael and Jordan rode this way, to tell the Duchess."

          "I heard them coming. I knew they'd be bound to see me and the horses. I had to stop them giving the alarm while the King was still..." He paused for breath.

          "Don't trouble," I said. "It's done with, and all's well."

          He took no notice. His voice was the merest whisper now, but clear and thin, and I heard every word through the raging of the sea.

          "So I mounted and rode up a bit of the way to meet them the other side of the water...then when they came level I jumped the stream and tried to stop them." He waited for a moment. "But Brithael...that's a fighter, now. Quick as a snake. Never hesitated. Sword straight into me and then rode over me. Left me for Jordan to finish."

          "His mistake."

          His cheek-muscles moved slightly. It was a smile. After a while he asked: "Did he see the horses after all?"

          "No. Ralf was at the gate when he came, and Brithael just asked if anyone had been up to the castle, because he'd met a horseman below. When Ralf said no he accepted it. We let him in, and then killed him."

          "Uther." It was an assumption, not a question. His eyes were closed.

          "No. Uther was still with the Duchess. I couldn't risk Brithael taking him unarmed. He would have killed her, too."

          The eyes flared open, momentarily clear and startled. "You?"

          "Come, Cadal, you hardly flatter me." I gave him a grin. "Though I'd have done you no credit, I'm afraid. It was a very dirty fight. The King wouldn't even know the rules. I invented them as I went along."

          This time it really was a smile. "Merlin...little Merlin, that couldn't even sit a horse...You kill me."

          The tide must be on the turn. The next wave that thundered up sent only the finest spray which fell on my shoulders like mist. I said: "I have killed you, Cadal."

          "The gods..." he said, and drew a great, sighing breath. I knew what that meant. He was running out of time. As the light grew I could see how much of his blood had soaked into the soaking path. "I heard what the King said. Could it not have happened without...all this?"

          "No, Cadal."

          His eyes shut for a moment, then opened again. "Well," was all he said, but in the syllable was all the acquiescent faith of the past eight years. His eyes were showing white now below the pupil, and his jaw was slack. I put my good arm under him and raised him a little. I spoke quickly and clearly:

          "It will happen, Cadal, as my father wished and as God willed through me. You heard what Uther said about the child. That alters nothing. Because of this night's work Ygraine will bear the child, and because of this night's work she will send him away as soon as he is born, out of the King's sight. She will send him to me, and I shall take him out of the King's reach, and keep him and teach him all that Galapas taught me, and Ambrosius, and you, even Belasius. He will be the sum of all our lives, and when he is grown he will come back and be crowned King at Winchester."

          "You know this? You promise me that you know this?" The words were scarcely recognizable. The breath was coming now in bubbling gasps. His eyes were small and white and blind.

          I lifted him and held him strongly against me. I said, gently and very clearly: "I know this. I, Merlin, prince and prophet, promise you this, Cadal."

          His head fell sideways against me, too heavy for him now as the muscles went out of control. His eyes had gone. He made some small muttering sound and then, suddenly and clearly, he said, "Make the sign for me," and died.

          I gave him to the sea, with Brithael who had killed him. The tide would take him, Ralf had said, and carry him away as far as the western stars.

          ***

          Apart from the slow clop of hoofs, and the jingle of metal, there was no sound in the valley. The storm had died. There was no wind, and when I had ridden beyond the first bend of the stream, I lost even the sound of the sea. Down beside me, along the stream, mist hung still, like a veil. Above, the sky was clear, growing pale towards sunrise. Still in the sky, high now and steady, hung the star.

          But while I watched it the pale sky grew brighter round it, flooding it with gold and soft fire, and then with a bursting wave of brilliant light, as up over the land where the herald star had hung, rose the young sun.

 

 

THE LEGEND OF MERLIN

 

          Vortigern, King of Britain, wishing to build a fortress in Snowdon, called together masons from many countries, bidding them build a strong tower. But what the stonemasons built each day collapsed each night and was swallowed up by the soil. So Vortigern held council with his wizards, who told him that he must search for a lad who never had a father, and when he had found him should slay him and sprinkle his blood over the foundations, to make the tower hold firm. Vortigern sent messengers into all the provinces to look for such a lad, and eventually they came to the city that was afterwards called Carmarthen. There they saw some lads playing before the gate, and being tired, sat down to watch the game. At last, towards evening, a sudden quarrel sprang up between a couple of youths whose names were Merlin and Dinabutius. During the quarrel Dinabutius was heard to say to Merlin: "What a fool must thou be to think thou art a match for me! Here am I, born of the blood royal, but no one knows what thou art, for never a father hadst thou!" When the messengers heard this they asked the bystanders who Merlin might be, and were told that none knew his father, but that his mother was daughter of the King of South Wales, and that she lived along with the nuns in St. Peter's Church in that same city.

          The messengers took Merlin and his mother to King Vortigern. The King received the mother with all the attention due to her birth, and asked her who was the father of the lad. She replied that she did not know. "Once," she said, "when I and my damsels were in our chambers, one appeared to me in the shape of a handsome youth who, embracing me and kissing me, stayed with me some time, but afterwards did as suddenly vanish away. He returned many times to speak to me when I was sitting alone, but never again did I catch sight of him. After he had haunted me in this way for a long time, he lay with me for some while in the shape of a man, and left me heavy with child." The King, amazed at her words, asked Maugantius the soothsayer whether such a thing might be. Maugantius assured him that such things were well known, and that Merlin must have been begotten by one of the "spirits there be betwixt the moon and the earth, which we do call incubus daemons."

          Merlin, who had listened to all this, then demanded that he should be allowed to confront the wizards. "Bid thy wizards come before me, and I will convict them of having devised a lie." The King, struck by the youth's boldness and apparent lack of fear, did as he asked and sent for the wizards. To whom Merlin spoke as follows: "Since ye know not what it is that doth hinder the foundation being laid of this tower, ye have given counsel that the mortar thereof should be slaked with my blood, so that the tower should stand forthwith. Now tell me, what is it that lieth hid beneath the foundation, for somewhat is there that doth not allow it to stand?" But the wizards, afraid of showing ignorance, held their peace. Then said Merlin (whose other name is Ambrosius): "My lord the King, call thy workmen and bid them dig below the tower, and a pool shalt thou find beneath it that doth forbid thy walls to stand." This was done, and the pool uncovered. Merlin then commanded that the pool should be drained by conduits; two stones, he said, would be found at the bottom, where two dragons, red and white, were lying asleep. When the pool was duly drained, and the stones uncovered, the dragons woke and began to fight ferociously, until the red had defeated and killed the white. The King, amazed, asked Merlin the meaning of the sight, and Merlin, raising his eyes to heaven, prophesied the coming of Ambrosius and the death of Vortigern. Next morning, early, Aurelius Ambrosius landed at Totnes in Devon.

          After Ambrosius had conquered Vortigern and the Saxons and had been crowned King he brought together master craftsmen from every quarter and asked them to contrive some new kind of building that should stand for ever as a memorial. None of them were able to help him, until Tremorinus, Archbishop of Caerleon, suggested that the King should send for Merlin, Vortigern's prophet, the cleverest man in the kingdom, "whether in foretelling that which shall be, or in devising engines of artifice." Ambrosius forthwith sent out messengers, who found Merlin in the country of Gwent, at the fountain of Galapas where he customarily dwelt. The King received him with honour, and first asked him to foretell the future, but Merlin replied: "Mysteries of such kind be in no wise to be revealed save only in sore need. For if I were to utter them lightly or to make laughter, the spirit that teaches me would be dumb and would forsake me in the hour of need." The King then asked him about the monument, but when Merlin advised him to send for the "Dance of the Giants that is in Killare, a mountain in Ireland," Ambrosius laughed, saying it was impossible to move stones that everyone knew had been set there by giants. Eventually, however, the King was persuaded to send his brother Uther, with fifteen thousand men, to conquer Gilloman, King of Ireland, and bring back the Dance. Uther's army won the day, but when they tried to dismantle the giant circle of Killare and bring down the stones, they could not shift them. When at length they confessed defeat, Merlin put together his own engines, and by means of these laid the stones down easily, and carried them to the ships, and presently brought them to the site near Amesbury where they were to be set up. There Merlin again assembled his engines, and set up the Dance of Killare at Stonehenge exactly as it had stood in Ireland. Shortly after this a great star appeared in the likeness of a dragon, and Merlin, knowing that it betokened Ambrosius' death, wept bitterly, and prophesied that Uther would be King under the sign of the Dragon, and that a son would be born to him "of surpassing mighty dominion, whose power shall extend over all the realms that lie beneath the ray (of the star)..."

          The following Easter, at the coronation feast, King Uther fell in love with Ygraine, wife of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall. He lavished attention on her, to the scandal of the court; she made no response, but her husband, in fury, retired from the court without leave, taking his wife and men at arms back to Cornwall. Uther, in anger, commanded him to return, but Gorlois refused to obey. Then the King, enraged beyond measure, gathered an army and marched into Cornwall, burning the cities and castles. Gorlois had not enough troops to withstand him, so he placed his wife in the castle of Tintagel, the safest refuge, and himself prepared to defend the castle of Dimilioc. Uther immediately laid siege to Dimilioc, holding Gorlois and his troops trapped there, while he cast about for some way of breaking into the castle of Tintagel to ravish Ygraine. After some days he asked advice from one of his familiars called Ulfin. "Do thou therefore give me counsel in what wise I may fulfill my desire," said the King, "for, and I do not, of mine inward sorrow shall I die." Ulfin, telling him what he knew already -- that Tintagel was impregnable -- suggested that he send for Merlin. Merlin, moved by the King's apparent suffering, promised to help. By his magic arts he changed Uther into the likeness of Gorlois, Ulfin into Jordan, Gorlois' friend, and himself into Brithael, one of Gorlois' captains. The three of them rode to Tintagel, and were admitted by the porter. Ygraine taking Uther to be her husband the Duke, welcomed him, and took him to her bed. So Uther lay with Ygraine that night, "and she had no thought to deny him in aught he might desire." That night, Arthur was conceived.

          But in the meantime fighting had broken out at Dimilioc, and Gorlois, venturing out to give battle, was killed. Messengers came to Tintagel to tell Ygraine of her husband's death. When they found "Gorlois," apparently still alive, closeted with Ygraine, they were speechless, but the King then confessed the deception, and a few days later married Ygraine.

          Uther Pendragon was to reign fifteen more years. During those years he saw nothing of his son Arthur, who on the night of his birth was carried down to the postern gate of Tintagel and delivered into the hands of Merlin, who cared for the child in secret until the time came for Arthur to inherit the throne of Britain.

          Throughout Arthur's long reign Merlin advised and helped him. When Merlin was an old man he fell dotingly in love with a young girl, Vivian, who persuaded him, as the price of her love, to teach her all his magic arts. When he had done so she cast a spell on him which left him bound and sleeping; some say in a cave near a grove of whitethorn trees, some say in a tower of crystal, some say hidden only by the glory of the air around him. He will wake when King Arthur wakes, and come back in the hour of his country's need.

 

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

 

          No novelist dealing with Dark Age Britain dares venture into the light without some pen-service to the Place-Name Problem. It is customary to explain one's usage, and I am at once less and more guilty of inconsistency than most. In a period of history when Celt, Saxon, Roman, Gaul and who knows who else shuttled to and fro across a turbulent and divided Britain, every place must have had at least three names, and anybody's guess is good as to what was common usage at any given time. Indeed, the "given time" of King Arthur's birth is somewhere around 470 A.D., and the end of the fifth century is as dark a period of Britain's history as we have. To add to the confusion, I have taken as the source of my story a semi-mythological, romantic account written in Oxford by a twelfth-century Welshman [Or (possibly) Breton], who gives the names of places and people what one might call a post-Norman slant with an overtone of clerical Latin. Hence in my narrative the reader will find Winchester as well as Rutupiae and Dinas Emrys, and the men of Cornwall, South Wales, and Brittany instead of Dumnonii, Demetae, and Armoricans.

          My first principle in usage has been, simply, to make the story clear. I wanted if possible to avoid the irritating expedient of the glossary, where the reader has to interrupt himself to look up the place-names, or decide to read straight on and lose himself mentally. And non-British readers suffer further; they look up Calleva in the glossary, find it is Silchester, and are none the wiser until they consult a map. Either way the story suffers. So wherever there was a choice of names I have tried to use the one that will most immediately put the reader in the picture: for this I have sometimes employed the device of having the narrator give the current crop of names, even slipping in the modern one where it does not sound too out of place. For example: "Maesbeli, near Conan's Fort, or Kaerconan, that men sometimes call Conisburgh." Elsewhere I have been more arbitrary. Clearly, in a narrative whose English must be supposed in the reader's imagination to be Latin or the Celtic of South Wales, it would be pedantic to write of Londinium when it is so obviously London; I have also used the modern names of places like Glastonbury and Winchester and Tintagel, because these names, though mediaeval in origin, are so hallowed by association that they fit contexts where it would obviously be impossible to intrude the modern images of (say) Manchester or Newcastle. These "rules" are not, of course, intended as a criticism of any other writer's practice; one employs the form the work demands; and since this is an imaginative exercise which nobody will treat as authentic history, I have allowed myself to be governed by the rules of poetry: what communicates simply and vividly, and sounds best, is best.

          The same rule of ear applies to the language used throughout. The narrator, telling his story in fifth-century Welsh, would use in his tale as many easy colloquialisms as I have used in mine; the servants Cerdic and Cadal would talk some kind of dialect, while, for instance, some sort of "high language" might well be expected from kings, or from prophets in moments of prophecy. Some anachronisms I have deliberately allowed where they were the most descriptive words, and some mild slang for the sake of liveliness. In short, I have played it everywhere by ear, on the principle that what sounds right is acceptable in the context of a work of pure imagination.

          For that is all The Crystal Cave claims to be. It is not a work of scholarship, and can obviously make no claim to be serious history. Serious historians will not, I imagine, have got this far anyway, since they will have discovered that the main source of my story-line is Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain.

          Geoffrey's name is, to serious historians, mud. From his Oxford study in the twelfth century he produced a long, racy hotch-potch of "history" from the Trojan War (where Brutus "the King of the Britons" fought) to the seventh century A.D., arranging his facts to suit his story, and when he got short on facts (which was on every page), inventing them out of the whole cloth. Historically speaking, the Historia Regum Brittaniae is appalling, but as a story it is tremendous stuff, and has been a source and inspiration for the great cycle of tales called the Matter of Britain, from Malory's Morte d'Arthur to Tennyson's Idylls of the King, from Parsifal to Camelot.

          The central character of the Historia is Arthur, King of the first united Britain. Geoffrey's Arthur is the hero of legend, but it is certain that Arthur was a real person, and I believe the same applies to Merlin, though the "Merlin" that we know is a composite of at least four people -- prince, prophet, poet and engineer. He appears first in legend as a youth. My imaginary account of his childhood is coloured by a phrase in Malory: "the well of Galapas, [So 'fontes galabes' is sometimes translated] where he wont to haunt," and by a reference to "my master Blaise" -- who becomes in my story Belasius. The Merlin legend is as strong in Brittany as in Britain.

          One or two brief notes to finish with.

          I gave Merlin's mother the name Niniane because this is the name of the girl (Vivian/Niniane/Nimue) who according to legend seduced the enchanter in his dotage and so robbed him of his powers, leaving him shut in his cave to sleep till the end of time. No other women are associated with him. There is so strong a connection in legend (and indeed in history) between celibacy, or virginity, and power, that I have thought it reasonable to insist on Merlin's virginity.

          Mithraism had been (literally) underground for years. I have postulated a local revival for the purpose of my story, and the reasons given by Ambrosius seem likely. From what we know of the real Ambrosius, he was Roman enough to follow the "soldiers' god." [Bede, the 7th C. historian, calls him "Ambrosius, a Roman." (Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation.)]

          About the ancient druids so little is known that (according to the eminent scholar I consulted) they can be considered "fair game." The same applies to the megaliths of Carnac (Kerrac) in Brittany, and to the Giants' Dance of Stonehenge near Amesbury. Stonehenge was erected around 1500 B.C., so I only allowed Merlin to bring one stone from Killare. At Stonehenge it is true that one stone -- the largest -- is different from the rest. It comes originally, according to the geologists, from near Milford Haven, in Wales. It is also true that a grave lies within the circle; it is off center, so I have used the midwinter sunrise rather than the midsummer one towards which the Dance is oriented.

          All the places I describe are authentic, with no significant exception but the cave of Galapas -- and if Merlin is indeed sleeping there "with all his fires and travelling glories around him," one would expect it to be invisible. But the well is there on Bryn Myrddin, and there is a burial mound on the crest of the hill.

          It would seem that the name "merlin" was not recorded for the falcon columbarius until mediaeval times, and the word is possibly French; but its derivation is uncertain, and this was sufficient excuse for a writer whose imagination had already woven a series of images from the name before the book was even begun.

          Where Merlin refers to the potter's mark A.M., the A would be the potter's initial or trade mark; the M stands for Manu, literally "by the hand of."

          The relationship between Merlin and Ambrosius has (I believe) no basis in legend. A ninth-century historian, Nennius, from whom Geoffrey took some of his material, called his prophet "Ambrosius." Nennius told the story of the dragons in the pool, and the young seer's first recorded prophecy. Geoffrey, borrowing the story, calmly equates the two prophets: "Then saith Merlin, that is also called Ambrosius..." This throwaway piece of "nerve," as Professor Gwyn Jones calls it, [Introduction to the Everyman ed. of History of the Kings of Britain] gave me the idea of identifying the "prince of darkness" who fathered Merlin -- gave me, indeed, the main plot of The Crystal Cave.

          My greatest debt is obviously to Geoffrey of Monmouth, master of romance. Among other creditors too numerous to name and impossible to repay, I should like especially to thank Mr. Francis Jones, County Archivist, Carmarthen; Mr. and Mrs. Morris of Bryn Myrddin, Carmarthen; Mr. G. B. Lancashire of The Chase Hotel, Ross-on-Wye; Brigadier R. Waller, of Wyaston Leys, Monmouthshire, on whose land lie Lesser Doward and the Romans' Way; Professor Hermann Bruck, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, and Mrs. Bruck; Professor Stuart Piggott of the Department of Archaeology at Edinburgh University; Miss Elizabeth Manners, Headmistress of Felixstowe College; and Mr. Robin Denniston, of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London.

 

          February 1968 -- February 1970. M.S.

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 

          Edwin Muir's poem "Merlin" is reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd., from the Collected Poems, 1921-58.

          The poem on page 241 is a free translation of verses appearing in Barzaz Breiz; Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, by the Vicomte de la Villemarqué (Paris, 1867).

          The Legend of Merlin is based on the translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain which was first published in the Everyman's Library, Vol. 577, by J. & M. Dent in 1912.

 

 

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

          Mary Stewart, one of the most popular novelists writing today, was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England, but home was wherever her father, a clergyman of the Church of England, was called.

          After boarding-school, she received a B.A. with honours in Literature from Durham University and went on for her M.A. At the beginning of World War II, she was asked to return to her Alma Mater as a lecturer, and gave six lectures a week, eked out her small salary by teaching sixth form at a boys' public school, and spent three night-shifts a week in the Royal Observer Corps until hostilities ended.

          It was at a dance celebrating V-E Day that she met a young Geology professor named Stewart; within two months they were married. Professor Stewart, F.R.S., is now Head of the Department of Geology in the University of Edinburgh and is on the Council of Scientific Policy. Mrs. Stewart has had a meteoric career of her own, beginning with the publication in 1954 of her first novel, Madam, Will You Talk?, and culminating in this magical story about Merlin, the enchanter: The Crystal Cave. In 1968 she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.