by Mary Stewart
"But that was not all, my lord. The bats came down, yes, out of the roof, somewhere in the dark, and went past us into the air. It was like a plume of smoke, and the air stank. But after they had gone by us we heard another sound. It was music."
Stilicho, standing close to me, stared from them to me, wide-eyed in the dusk. I saw they were making the sign again.
"Music all around us," said the man. "Soft, like whispering, running round and round the wall of the cave in an echo. I'm not ashamed, my lord, we came out of that cave, and we did not dare go in again. We waited for you outside."
"With swords drawn against enchantment. I see. Well, there is no need to wait longer in the cold. Will you not come in now? I assure you that you will not be harmed, so long as you do not raise a hand against me or my servant. Stilicho, go in and kindle the fire. Now, gentlemen? No, don't try to go. Remember you have not yet given me the King's message."
Finally, between threats and reassurance, they came in, treading very softly indeed, and not speaking above a whisper. The leader consented to sit with me, but none of the others would come in as far, preferring to sit between the fire and the mouth of the cave. Stilicho hurried to warm wine with spices, and hand it round. Now that they were in the light I could see that they were not dressed in the uniform of the King's regular troops; there was neither badge nor blazon to be seen; they might be taken for the armed troops of any petty leader. They certainly carried themselves like soldiers, and though they paid Crinas no obvious deference, it was apparent that there was some difference of rank between them. I surveyed them. The leader sat stolidly, but the others fidgeted under my gaze, and I saw one of them, a thin, smallish man with black hair and a pale face, still surreptitiously making the sign.
At length I spoke: "You have come, you tell me, with messages from the King. Did he charge you with a letter?"
Crinas answered me. He was a big man, reddish fair, with light eyes. Some Saxon blood, perhaps; though there are red Celts as fair as this. "No, sir. Only to convey his greetings, and ask after his son's welfare."
"Why?"
He repeated my question in apparent surprise. "Why, my lord?"
"Yes, why? I have been gone from the court four months. In that time the King has had reports. Why should he send you now, and to me? He knows the child is not here. It seems obvious" — I lingered on the word, looking from one to the other of the armed men — "that he could not be safe here. The King also knew that I would wait at Bryn Myrddin for a while before I left to join Prince Arthur. I expect to be spied on, but I find it hard to believe that he sent you with such a message."
The three beyond the fire looked at one another. A broad fellow with a red, pimpled face shifted his swordbelt forward nervously, his hand playing unthinkingly with the hilt. I saw Stilicho's eyes on him; then he moved round with the winejug to stand nearby. Crinas held my eyes for a moment in silence, then nodded. "Well, sir, all right. You've smoked us out. I didn't hope to get away with a thin tale like that, not with you. It was all I could think of at a jump, when you surprised us like that."
"Very well. You are spies. I still want to know why?"
He lifted his broad shoulders. "You know, sir, who better, what kings are. It wasn't for us to question when we were told to come here and look the place over without letting you see us." Behind him the others nodded, agreeing anxiously. "And we did no harm, my lord. We never came into the cave. That much was true."
"No, and you told me why not."
He turned up a hand. "Well, sir, I don't say but you do right to be angry. I'm sorry. This isn't our normal business, as you'll guess, but orders are orders."
"What were you ordered to find out?"
"Nothing special, just ask around, and take a look at the place, and find out when you were going." A quick look sideways, to see how I was taking it. "It was my understanding that there was a lot you hadn't told the King, and he wanted to find out. Did you know he had you followed from the minute you left London?"
Another grain of truth. "I guessed it," I said.
"Well, there you are." He managed to say it as if it explained everything. "It's a way kings have, trusting nobody and wanting to know everything. It's my belief — if you'll excuse me for saying it, my lord —"
"Go on."
"I think the King didn't believe what you told him about where you were keeping the young prince. Maybe he thought you'd shift him, and keep him hidden, like before. So he sent us on the quiet, hoping we'd find some clue."
"Perhaps. Wanting knowledge is a disease of kings. And speaking of that, is there any worsening of the King's health which might have made him suddenly anxious for news?"
I saw, as clearly as if he had said it, that he wished he had thought of this himself. He hesitated, then decided that where it could be told, the truth was safer. "As to that, my lord, we've no information, and I've not seen him myself lately. But they say the sickness has passed, and he's back in the field."
This tallied with what I had been told. I said nothing for a while, but watched them thoughtfully, Crinas drank, with an assumption of ease, but his eyes on me were wary. At length I said: "Well, you have done as you were bidden, and found out what the King wanted. I am still here, and the child is not. The King must trust me for the rest. As, for when I am going, I will tell him in my own good time."
Crinas cleared his throat. "That's an answer we'd sooner not take, sir." His voice came overloud, like a braggart's, but he was not bluffing. The others shared his fear, but without his measure of courage; though this was no comfort to me; I knew that frightened men are dangerous. One of the troopers — the small fellow with black eyes shifting in a face pale with nerves — leaned forward and plucked at his leader's sleeve. I caught the mutter of, "Better go. Don't forget who he is...Quite enough now...Make him angry."
I said crisply: "I am not angry. You are doing your duty, and it is not your fault if the King trusts no one, but must have each story ratified twice over. You may tell him this" — I paused as if for thought, and saw them craning — "that his son is where I told him, safe and thriving, and that I am only waiting for good weather to make the voyage."
"Voyage?" Crinas asked sharply.
I lifted my brows. "Come now. I thought all the world knew where Arthur was. In any case, the King will understand."
One of the men said hoarsely: "Yes, we knew, but it was only a whisper. Then it's true about the island?"
"Quite true."
"HyBrasil?" asked Crinas. "That's a myth, my lord, saving your presence."
"Did I give it a name? I am not responsible for the whispers. The place has many names, and enough stories are told about it to fill the Nine Books of Magic...And every man who sees it sees something different. When I took Arthur there —"
I paused to drink, as a singer wets his throat before touching the chords. The three in front of me were all attention now. I did not look at Crinas, but spoke past him, giving my voice the tale-teller's extra pitch and resonance.
"You all know that the child was handed to me three nights after he was born. I took him to a safe place, then when the time was right and the world quiet, I carried him westwards, to a coast I know. There, below the cliffs, is a bay of sand where the rocks stand up like the fangs of wolves, and no boat or swimmer can live when the tide is breaking round them. To right and left of the bay the sea has driven arches through the cliff. The rocks are purple and rose-colored and pale as turquoise in the sun, and on a summer's evening when the tide is low and the sun sinking, men see on the horizon land that comes and goes with the light. It is the Summer Isle, which (they say) floats and sinks at the will of heaven, the Island of Glass through which the clouds and stars can be seen, but which for those who dwell there is full of trees and grass and springs of sweet water..."
The pale-faced man was straining forward, open-mouthed, and I saw the shoulders of another shift under his woollen cloak as if with cold. Stilicho's eyes were like shieldbosses.
"..
.It is the Isle of Maidens, where kings are carried at their endings. And there will come a day —"
"My lord! I have seen it myself!" That the pale man should interrupt a prophet apparently on the point of prophecy showed a nerve scraped raw. "I have seen it myself! When I was a boy I saw it! Clear, as clear as the Cassiterides on a fair day after rain. But it seemed an empty land."
"It is not empty. And it is not only there when men like you can see it. It can be found even in winter, for those who know how to find it. But there are not many who can travel to it and then return."
Crinas had listened without moving, his face expressionless. "Then he's on Cornish land?"
"You know it too?"
There was no hint of mockery in my voice, but he said with a snap: "I do not," and set down his empty cup and made ready to rise. I saw his hand go to his swordbelt. "Is this the message we have to take back to the King?"
At a movement of his head the others rose with him. Stilicho set the winejug down with a clatter, but I shook my head at him and laughed. "It would go hard with you, I think, if that were all. And hard with me, to have fresh spies set on me. For all our sakes, I'll set his mind at rest. Will you bear a letter back to London for me?"
Crinas stood still a moment, his eyes fast on mine. Then he relaxed, his thumb hooking harmlessly in his belt. When I heard his breath of relief I knew how near he had been to questioning me further in the only way he knew. "Willingly, sir."
"Then wait a while longer, Sit down again. Fill their cups, Stilicho."
The letter to Uther was brief. I began by asking after his health, then wrote that, according to my private sources of information, the prince was well. As soon as the spring came, I told him, I intended to travel and see the boy myself. Meantime I would watch him in my own way, and send the King all the news there was.
After I had sealed the message I took it back into the outer cave. The men had been talking quickly among themselves in undertones, while Stilicho hovered with the winejug. They broke off as I came in, and got to their feet. I handed the letter to Crinas.
"Anything else I have to say is in that letter. He will be satisfied." I added: "Even if your mission did not work out precisely to orders, you have nothing to fear from the King. Leave me now, and the god of going watch you on your way."
They went at last, perhaps not so grateful as they might have been for my parting invocation. As they hurried out across the frost I saw the quick sidelong glances into the shadows, and the hunching of cloaks close round their shoulders as if the night were breathing on their backs. As they passed the holy well every one of them made a sign, and I do not think that the last — Crinas' — was the sign of the Cross.
7
The sound of their horses' hoofs dwindled down the valley track. Stilicho came racing back from the cliff above the grove.
"They've all gone." His eyes were wide, dilated not only with the frosty dark. "My lord, I thought they were going to kill you."
"It was possible. They were brave men, and they were frightened. It's a risky combination, especially as one of them was a Christian."
He was on to that as quickly as a house dog on to a rat. "Meaning he didn't believe you?"
"Meaning just that. He was sure he didn't believe me, but he wouldn't have staked anything on its being a lie. Now find me some food, Stilicho, will you? It doesn't matter what, but hurry, and put together what you can for a journey. I'll see to my clothes myself. Is the mare ready?"
"Why, yes, lord, but — you're going tonight?"
"As soon as I can. This is the chance I have been waiting for. They've shown themselves, and by the time they find that the trail I gave them is false I shall be gone — vanished to the island beyond the west...Now, you know what to do; we've talked of it many times."
This was true. We had planned that, when I went, Stilicho would remain at Bryn Myrddin, fetching and carrying supplies as usual, keeping up for as long as he could the illusion that I was still at home. I had built up a store of medicines, and for some time now had let him compound the simpler ones himself and dispense them to the poor folk who came up the valley, so they would not suffer by my absence, and it would be a little time before anyone would raise a question. We might not gain much time in this way, but I should gain enough. Once I was across the nearer hills and had reached the valley tracks in the forest, I would be hard indeed to follow.
So now Stilicho merely nodded, and ran to do as I bade him. In a very short time food was ready, and while I ate he packed together what I would need for the journey. I could see he was bursting with questions, so I let him talk. I could talk to him haltingly in his own tongue, but mainly he got along with his fluent but heavily accented Latin. Since we had left Constantinopolis most of his natural lively spirits had flowed in my direction; he had to talk to someone, and it would have been cruelty to insist on the silent respect which Gaius had tried to instill. Besides, this is not my way. So, as he hurried about his tasks, the questions came eagerly.
"My lord, if that man Crinas didn't really believe in the Isle of Glass, and he had to have the information about the prince, why did he go away?"
"To read my letter. He thinks the truth will be in that."
His eyes widened. "But he'll never dare open a letter to the King! Did you write the truth in it?"
I raised my brows at him. "The truth? Don't you believe in the Isle of Glass, either?"
"Oh, yes. Everyone knows about that." He was solemn. "Even in Sicily we knew of the invisible island beyond the west. But that's not where you're going now, I'd stake anything on that!"
"Why so sure?"
He gave me a limpid look. "You, lord? Across the Western Sea? In winter? I'll believe anything, but not that! If you could use magic instead of a ship, we'd have journeyed more easily in the Middle Sea. Do you remember the storm off Pylos?"
I laughed. "With no magic but mandragora...Too well, I remember it. No, Stilicho, I gave nothing away in the letter. That letter will never get to the King. They weren't King's men."
"Not King's men?" He paused, open-mouthed, to stare, then remembered himself and stooped again over the saddlebag he was packing. "How do you know? Did you know them?"
"No. But Uther doesn't use troops to spy; how could he hope to keep them secret? These are troops, sent — as Crinas told me — to ask questions in the market and the taverns in Maridunum, and then to search this place while we were out of it, and find, if not the prince, some clue to him. They weren't even spies. What spy would dare go back to his master and say he had been discovered, but had been given a letter to carry for his victim, with the information in it? I tried to make it easy for them, and it's possible they think they deceived me, but in any case they had to take the chance and get their hands on the letter. I give Crinas best, he's a quick thinker. When I caught them at it, he did well enough. It wasn't his fault that the other man gave him away."
"What do you mean, lord?"
"The small man with the pale face. I heard him say something in his own tongue. I doubt if Crinas heard it. He was speaking in Cornish. So later I spoke of the Isle of Glass, and described the bay, and he knew of that, too, and the Cassiterides. They are islands off the Cornish coast, ones in which even Crinas must believe."
"Cornish?" asked the boy, trying the word.
"From Cornwall, in the south-west."
"Queen's men, then?" Stilicho had not spent all his time in London in the stillroom with Morgause. He listened almost as much as he talked, and had regaled me continually since we left Uther's court with what "they" were saying about every subject under the sun. "They said she was still in the south-west after the last lying in."
"That's true. And she might use Cornishmen for secret work, but I think not. Neither the King nor the Queen keep Cornish troops close to them these days."
"There are Cornish troops at Caerleon. I heard it in the town."
I looked up sharply. "Are there indeed? Under whom?"
"I didn't hear. I
could find out." He was looking at me eagerly, but I shook my head.
"No. The less you know about it, the better. Leave it now. They'll stop watching me for the length of time it takes to read that letter, and by the time they find someone who can read Greek —"
"Greek?"
"The King has a Greek secretary," I said blandly. "I didn't see why I should make it easy. And I doubt if they know I suspect them. They'll be in no hurry. Besides, I put something in the letter to make them think I would stay here until spring."
"Will they come back?"
"I doubt it. What are they to do? Come back to tell me they read the King's letter, and are not King's men? As long as they think I'm here, they will be afraid to do that, in case I report to the King. They dare not kill me, and they dare not let me find out who they are. They will keep away. As it is, the next time you go into Maridunum, see that a message is sent to the garrison commander to watch for these Cornishmen, and tell him to report what has happened to the King. We may as well use his spies to guard us from the others...There, I've finished. You've packed the food? Fill the flask now, will you?
Meanwhile, if anyone does come up here, what is your story?"
"That you have been out daily on the hillside, and that you went last towards Abba's valley, and that I think you must be staying to help him with the sheep." He looked up doubtfully. "They won't believe me."
"Why not? You're an accomplished liar. Be careful, you're spilling that wine."
"A prince help with the sheep? It's not very likely."
"I've done stranger things," I said. "They'll believe you. In any case, it's true. Where do you think I got the bloodstains on my old cloak today?"
"Killing someone, I thought."
He was quite serious. I laughed. "That doesn't happen often, and usually by mistake."
He shook his head in unbelief, and stoppered the wine. "If those men had drawn swords on you, my lord, would you have stopped them with magic?" "I hardly needed magic, with your dagger so ready. I haven't thanked you yet for your courage, Stilicho. It was well done."