Legacy: Arthurian Saga 1-4

by Mary Stewart

  So we journeyed for another hour or so, when suddenly the valley took a turn to the north-west, and there ahead of me, joining it from a neighbor valley, ran the open belt of green that spoke of a road. And I could hear, clear on the winter's stillness, the metallic clang of a hammer.

  There was no sign of the settlement, but where the road met the river the woods were very thick, and I knew that any village in these parts would be built on some hillock or rising ground from which men might defend themselves. The smith, in his solitary forge down by the water, need have no such fears. Such men are too useful, and have nothing worth the taking, and besides, there is still about them some of the old awe that hangs over the places where roads and waters meet.

  The smith himself might indeed have been another of the Old Ones. He was a small man, bent by his trade, but immensely broad of shoulder, with arms knotted with muscle and covered with a pelt as thick as a bear's. His hands, broad and cracked, were almost as black as his hair.

  He looked up from his work as my shadow fell across the doorway. I greeted him, then tied the mare to a ring by the door and sat down to wait, glad of the heat of the fire which was being blown to a blaze by a boy in a leather apron. The smith answered my greeting, with a sharp stare from under his brows, then without pausing in the rhythm of his work, went back to his hammering. He was making a share. With a hiss of steam and the gradual dulling of the strokes, the share slowly greyed and cooled to its cutting edge. The smith muttered something to the boy at the bellows, who let the air run out, then, picking up the water bucket, left the forge. The smith, setting down his hammer, straightened and stretched. He hooked a wine skin down from the wall and drank, then wiped his mouth. The expert eyes ran over the mare. "Did you bring the shoe?" I had half expected him to speak the Old Tongue, but it was plain Welsh. "Otherwise it'll take more time than you like to spare, I dare say. Or will I just take the other three off?"

  I grinned. "And pay me for them?"

  "I'd do it for nothing," said the smith, showing a black-toothed grin.

  I handed him the cast shoe. "Put this back on and there's a penny in it for you."

  He took the thing and examined it, turning it slowly in those horny hands. Then he nodded, and picked up the mare's foot.

  "Going far?"

  Part of a smith's payment was, of course, whatever news his customers could give him. I had expected this, and had a story ready. He rasped and listened, while the mare stood quietly between us, head down and ears slack. After a while the boy came back with a full bucket and tipped water into the tub. He had taken a long time, and he breathed as if he had been hurrying. If I thought about it at all, I imagined that he had seized, boy-like, the opportunity to spend as long over the errand as he could, and had had to hurry back. The smith made no comment, other than to grunt at him to get back to his bellows, and soon the fire roared up, and the shoe began to glow to red heat.

  I suppose I should have been more alert, though to be here at all was a risk I had had to take. And there had been a chance that the troopers asking for the rider with the strawberry mare had not passed this way. But it seemed that they had.

  What with the roar of the furnace and the clanging hammer I heard nothing of any approach, just saw, suddenly, the shadows between me and the doorway, then the four men standing there. They were all armed, and they all held their weapons ready, as if they were fully prepared to use them. Two of them held spears, none the less deadly for being homemade, one had a woodsman's hacking knife, its blade honed to a bright edge that would go through living oak, and the fourth held, with some expertness, a Roman short sword.

  The last one was the spokesman. He greeted me civilly enough, while the smith held his hammering, and the boy stared.

  "Who are you, and where are you bound for?"

  I answered him in his own dialect, and without moving from where I sat. "My name is Emrys, and I am traveling north. I have had to come out of my way because, as you see, my mare has cast a shoe."

  "Where are you from?"

  "From the south, where we do not send armed men against a stranger who passes through our village. What are you afraid of, coming four to one?"

  He growled something, and the two with the spears grounded them, shuffling their feet. But the swordsman stood firm.

  "You speak our language too well to be a stranger. I think you are the man we have been told to look for. Who are you?"

  "No stranger to you, Brychan," I said calmly. "Did you get that sword at Kaerconan, or did we take it when we cut Vortigern's troops to pieces at the crossroads by Bremia?"

  "Kaerconan?" The swordpoint wavered and fell. "You fought there, for Ambrosius?"

  "I was there, yes."

  "And at Bremia? With Duke Gorlois?" The point dropped completely. "Wait, you said your name was Emrys? Not Myrddin Emrys, the prophet that won the battle for us, and then doctored our hurts? Ambrosius' son?"

  "The same."

  The men of my race do not easily bend the knee, but as he slid his sword back into his belt and showed his blackened teeth in a wide grin of pleasure, the effect was the same. "By all the gods, so it is! I didn't know you, sir. Put your weapons up, you fools, can't you see he's a prince, and no meat of ours?"

  "Small blame to them if they can't see any such thing," I said, laughing. "I'm neither prince nor prophet now, Brychan, braud. I'm traveling secretly, and I need help...and silence."

  "You shall have anything we can give you, my lord." He had caught my involuntary glance towards the smith and the staring boy, and added quickly: "There's no man here will say a word, look you. No, nor boy neither."

  The boy nodded, swallowing. The smith said gruffly: "If I'd known who you were —"

  "You'd not have sent your boy scampering off to take the news to the village?" I said. "No matter. If you are a King's man as Brychan is, I can trust you."

  "We are all King's men here," said Brychan harshly, "but if you were Uther's worst enemy, instead of his brother's son and the winner of his battles, I would help you, and so would my kinsmen and every man in these parts. Who was it saved this arm of mine after Kaerconan? It's thanks to you that I was able to carry this sword against you today." He clapped the hilt at his belt. I remembered the arm; one of the Saxon axes had driven deep into the flesh, hacking a collop of muscle and laying the bone bare. I had stitched the arm and treated it; whether it was the virtue of the medicine, or Brychan's faith in anything "the King's prophet" might do, the arm had healed. A great part of its strength was gone for ever, but it served him. "And as for the rest of us," he finished, "we're all your men, my lord. You're safe here, and your secrets with you. We all know where the future of these lands lies, and that's in your hands, Myrddin Emrys. If we'd known you were the 'traveler' those soldiers were seeking, we'd have held them here till you came — aye, and killed them if you'd so much as nodded your head." He gave a fierce look round him, and the others nodded, muttering their agreement. Even the smith grunted some sort of assent, and brought his hammer clanging down as if it was an axe on an enemy's neck.

  I said something to them, of thanks and acknowledgement. I was thinking that I had been out of the country too long; for too long had been talking with statesmen and lords and princes. I had begun to think as they were thinking. It was not only the nobles and the fighting kings who would help Arthur to the high throne and maintain him there; it was the folk of Britain, rooted in the land, feeding it and drawing life from it like its own trees, who would lift him there and fight for him. It was the faith of the people, from the high lands to the low, that would make him High King of all the realms and islands in a full sense which my father had dreamed of but had been unable to achieve in the short time allowed him. It had been the dream, too, of Maximus, the would-be emperor who had seen Britain as the foremost in a yoke of nations pulling the same way against the cold wind from the north. I looked at Brychan with his disabled arm, at his kinsmen, poor men of a poor village they would die to defend, at the smith an
d his ragged boy, and thought of the Old Ones keeping faith in their cold caves with the past and the future, and thought: this time it will be different. Macsen and Ambrosius tried it with force of arms, and laid the paving stones. Now, God and the people willing, Arthur will build the palace. And then, suddenly: that it was time I left courts and castles and went back into the hills. It was from the hills that help would come.

  Brychan was speaking again. "Will you not come to the village with us now, my lord? Leave the smith here to finish your mare, and come yourself up to my house, and rest and eat and give us your news. We are sharp set, all of us, to know why troopers should come seeking you, with money in their hands, and as urgent about it as if there was a kingdom at stake."

  "There is. But not for the High King."

  "Ah," he said. "They would have had us believe they were King's troops, bur I thought they were not. Whose, then?"

  "They serve Urien of Gore."

  The men exchanged glances. Brychan's look was bright with intelligence. "Urien, eh? And why should Urien pay for news of you? Or maybe it was news of Prince Arthur he'd be paying for?"

  "The two are the same," I said, nodding. "Or soon will be. He wants to know where I am going."

  "So he can follow you to the boy's hiding-place. Yes. But how would that profit Urien of Gore? He's a small man, and not likely to get bigger. Or — wait, I have it, of course. It would profit his kinsman, Lot of Lothian?"

  "I think so. I've been told that Urien is Lot's creature. You may be sure he is working for him."

  Brychan nodded, and said slowly: "And King Lot is promised to a lady that's like to be Queen if Arthur dies...So he's paying troops to find where the boy is kept? My lord, that adds up to something I don't like the smell of."

  "Nor I. We may be wrong, Brychan, but my bones tell me we are right. And there may be others besides Lot and Urien. Were these men the only ones? You had no Cornishmen pass this way?"

  "No, my lord. Rest easy, if any others come this way, they'll get no help!" He gave a short bark of laughter. "I'd trust your bones sooner than most men's pledged word. We'll see no danger follows you to the little prince...If any pursuit of you comes through Gwynedd we'll see that it bogs down as surely as a stag's scent fails when he takes to water. Trust us, my lord. We're your men, as we were your father's. We know nothing of this prince you hold in your hand for us, but if he's yours, and you tell us to follow him and serve him, then, Myrddin Emrys, we'll be his men as long as we can hold swords. That's a promise, and it's for you that we make it."

  "Then I'll accept it for him, and give you my thanks." I got to my feet. "Brychan, it would be better if I did not come to the village with you, but there is something you could do for me now, if you will. I need food for the next few days, and wine for my flask, and fodder for the mare. I have money. Could you get these for me?"

  "Nothing easier, and you can put away your money. Did you take money of me when you mended my arm? Give us an hour, and we'll get all you want, and no word said. The boy can come with us — folk are used to seeing him bring goods down to the forge. He'll bring what you need."

  I thanked him again, and we talked for a little longer, while I gave him what news there was from the south; then they took their leave. It is a matter of fact that, then or at any time, none of them, down to the boy, said a word to any man about my visit.

  The boy had not yet returned from the village when the smith finished his job. I paid him his fee and commended him on his work. He took this as no more than his due, and, though he must have heard all that had passed between Brychan and me, showed no awe of me. Indeed, I have never seen why any man skilled in his trade, and surrounded by the articles of his craft, should be in awe of princes. Their task differs, that is all.

  "Which way do you ride?" he asked me. Then, as I hesitated: "I told you not to fear me. If that magpie Brychan and his brothers can be silent, then so can I. I serve the road and all men on it, and I'm no more a King's man than any smith who is bound to serve the road, but I spoke to Ambrosius once. And my grandfather's grandfather, why, he shod the horse of the Emperor Maximus himself." He mistook the reason for the look on my face. "Aye, you may well stare. That's a long time ago. But even then, my granda told me, this anvil had been worked by father and son and father and son further back than the oldest man in the village could remember. Why, it's said hereabouts that the first smith who set up his iron here had been taught his trade by Weland Smith himself. So who else would the Emperor come to? Look,"

  He pointed at the door, which was set wide open, back against the wall. It was made of oak, adzed smooth as beaten silver, and age and weather had so bleached and polished it that its surface was bone pale, meshed and rippled like grey water. From a hook nearby hung a bag of iron nails, and then a rack of branding irons. All over the silky wood of the door were the scars of brands where the generations of smiths had tried them as they were fashioned.

  An A caught my eye, but the brand was new, still charred and black. Beneath it and overlaid by it was some sign that looked like a bird flying; then an arrow, and an eye, and one or two cruder signs scrawled in with red-hot metal by idle jesters waiting for the smith to finish a job. But to one side, clear of them all, faded so that they were only dark silver on light, were the letters M.I. Just below these was a deeper scar on the door, a half-moon indented, with the marks of nails. It was at this that the smith was pointing. "They say that's where the Emperor's stallion kicked out, but I don't believe it. When I and mine handle a horse, be he the wildest stallion straight off the hills, he doesn't kick. But that, there, above it, that's true enough. That brand was made here, for the horses Macsen Wledig took east with him, the time he killed the King of Rome."

  "Smith," I said, "that is the only part of your legend that is false. The King of Rome killed Maximus, and took his sword. But the men of Wales brought it back here to Britain. Was the sword made here, too?"

  He was a long time replying, and I felt my heart quicken as I waited. But at last he said, reluctantly: "If it was, I have never heard of it." It was obvious that it had cost him a struggle not to add the sword to the forge's credit, but he had told me the truth.

  "I was told," I said, "that somewhere in the forest is a man who knows where the Emperor's sword is hidden. Have you heard of this, or do you know where I can find it?"

  "No, how should I? They say there is a holy man a long way north of here who knows everything. But he lives north of the Deva, in another country."

  "That is the way I was riding," I said. "I shall seek him out."

  "Then if you don't want to meet yon soldiers, don't go by the road. Six miles north of here there's a crossroads, where the road for Segontium heads west. Keep by the river from here, and it'll take you clear across the corner till the westbound road crosses it."

  "But I'm not going to Segontium. If I bear too far to the west"

  "You leave the river where it meets the road again. Straight across from the ford the track runs up into the forest, through a shaw of hollies, and after that it's plain enough to see. It'll carry you on northwards, and never a glimpse of a road you'll see till you reach the Deva. If you ask the ferryman there about the holy man in the Wild Forest, he'll tell you the way. You go by the river. It's a good track, and impossible to miss."

  I have found that people never say this unless, in fact, the way is very easy to miss. However, I said nothing and, the boy arriving at that moment with the provisions, helped him stow them. As we did so he whispered: "I heard what he said, lord. Don't listen to him. It's a bad track to follow, and the river's high. Stay with the road."

  I thanked him and gave him a coin for his pains. He went back to his bellows, and I turned to take my leave of the smith, who had vanished into some dark and cluttered recess at the back of the smithy. I could hear the clattering of metal, and his whistling between his broken teeth. I called out above it. "I'm on my way now. My thanks." Then my breath caught in my throat. Suddenly, back in the dark clutter b
ehind the chimney, the newly leaping flame had lit the outline of a face.

  A stone face; a familiar face once seen at every crossways. One of the first Old Ones, the god of going, the other Myrddin whose name was Mercury, or Hermes, lord of the high roads and bearer of the sacred snake. As one born in September, he was mine. He lay back now, the old Herm who had once stood out in the open watching the passersby, head propped against the wall, the moss and lichen on him long since dried to powdered grey. Clearly under the blurred and fretted lines of carving I recognized the flat face rimmed with beard, the blank eyes as oval and bulging as grapes, the hands clasped across the belly, the once protruding genitals smashed and mutilated.

  "If I had known you were there, Old One," I said, "I would have poured the wine for you."

  The smith had reappeared at my elbow. "He gets his rations, never fear. There's none who serves the road would dare neglect him."

  "Why did you bring him in?"

  "He never stood here. He was at the ford I told you of, where the old track that they call Elen's Causeway crossed the river Seint. When the Romans built their new road to Segontium they put their post station right in front of him. So he was brought here, I never heard how."

  I said slowly: "At the ford you told me of? Then I think I must go that way after all." I nodded to the smith, then raised a hand in salute to the god. "Go with me now," I said to him, "and help me find this way which it is impossible to miss."

  He went with me for the first part of the way; indeed, so long as the track clung to the river's bank it could hardly be missed. But towards late afternoon, when the dim winter sun hung low to its setting, a mist began to gather and hang near the water, thickening with dusk into a damp and blinding fog. It might have been possible to follow the sound of water, though under the mist this was misleading, sometimes loud and near at hand, at others muted and deceivingly distant; but where the river took a bend, the track cut straight across, and twice, following this, I found myself astray and picking a way through the deep forest with no sign or sound of the river. In the end, astray for the third time, I dropped the reins on Strawberry's neck, and let her pick her own way, reflecting that, ironically, had I risked the road I would have been safe enough. I would have heard the troopers approaching, and have been safe from their eyes had I withdrawn only a few yards into the fogbound forest.