by Mary Stewart
"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 wine-jug. 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 spillin
g 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."
He looked surprised. "You're my master."
"I bought you for money, and gave you back the freedom you were born with. What sort of a debt is that?"
He merely looked without understanding, and presently said: "There, all's ready, lord. You will want your thick boots, and the sheepskin cloak. Shall I get Strawberry ready while you dress?"
"In a moment," I said. "Come here. Look at me. I have promised you that you will be safe here. This is true; I have seen no danger coming, not for you. But once I am clear away, if you are afraid, go down to the mill and stay there."
"Yes, lord."
"Don't you believe me?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you afraid?"
He hesitated, swallowing. Then he said: "The music they spoke of, lord. What was it? Was it really from the gods?"
"In a way. My harp speaks sometimes, of itself, when the air moves. I think that's what they heard and, because they were guilty, they were afraid."
He glanced over to the corner where the big harp stood. I had had it sent across from Brittany, and since I had come home had used it constantly, restoring the other to its place. "That one? How could it, lord, muffled like that against the air?"
"No, not that one. That harp stays dumb until I touch it. I meant the little one I travelled with. I made it myself, here in this cave with Galapas the magician to help me."
He wetted his lips. You could see that this was hardly a reassurance. "I've not seen it since we got home. Where do you keep it?"
"I was going to show you anyway, before I left. Come, boy, there's no need for you to fear it. You've carried it yourself a thousand times. Now, get me a torch, and come and see."
I led him to the back of the main chamber. I had never shown him the crystal cave, and, because I kept my chest of books and my table across the rough rock-slope that led to the ledge, he had never climbed that way and found it. Now I motioned him to help me shift the table, and holding the torch high, mounted to the shadowy ledge where the crystal cave lay hidden. I knelt down at the entrance and beckoned him forward beside me.
The torch in my hand threw firelight, glimmering through moving smoke, round the globed walls of crystal. Here as a boy I had seen my first visions in the leap and flash of moving flame. Here I had seen myself begotten, the old King dead, the tower of Vortigern built on water, the dragon of Ambrosius leaping to victory. Now the globe was empty but for the harp which stood there, with its shadow thrown clear round the sparkling walls.
I glanced down at the boy's face. Awe was stirring in it, even at the empty globe and the empty shadows.
"Listen," I said. I said it loudly, and as my voice stirred the still air the harp whispered, and the music ran humming round and round the crystal walls.
"I was going to show you the cave," I said. "If ever you want to hide, hide here. I did myself, as a boy. Be sure the gods will watch over you, and you will be safe. Where safer, than right in God's hand, in his hollow hill? Now, go and see to Strawberry. I'll bring the harp down myself. It's time I was gone."
* * *
When morning came I was fifteen miles away, riding north through the oak forest which lies along the valley of the Cothi. There is no road there, only tracks, but I knew them well, and I knew the glass-blowers' hut deep in the wood. At this time of the year it would be empty.
I and my mare shared its shelter half that December day. I watered her at the stream, and threw fodder that I had brought into a corner of the hut. I myself was not hungry. There was something else for me to feed on; that deep excited feeling of lightness and power which I recognized. The time had been right, and something lay ahead of me. I was on my way.
I drank a mouthful of wine, wrapped myself warmly in Abba's sheepskins, and fell asleep as soundly and thoughtlessly as a child.
I dreamed again of the sword, and I knew, even through the dream, that this came straight from the god. Ordinary dreams are never so clear; they are jumbles of desires and fears, things seen and heard, and felt though unknown. This came clear, like a memory.
I saw the sword close for the first time, not vast and dazzling, like the sword of stars over Brittany, or dim and fiery as it had shimmered against the dark wall in Ygraine's chamber. It was just a sword, beautiful in the way of a weapon, with the jewels on the hilt set in gold scrollwork, and the blade glimmering and eager, as if it would fight of itself. Weapons are named for this; some are eager fighters, some dogged, some unwilling; but all are alive.
This sword was alive; it was drawn, gripped in the hand of an armed man. He was standing by a fire, a camp fire lit apparently in the middle of a darkened plain, and he was the only person to be seen in all that plain. A long way behind him I saw, dim against the dark, the outline of walls and a tower. I thought of the mosaic I had seen in Ahdjan's house, but it was not Rome this time. The outline of the tower was familiar, but I could not remember where I had seen it, nor even be sure that I had not seen it only in dreams.
He was a tall man, cloaked, and the dark cloak fell in a long heavy line from shoulder to heel. The helmet hid his face. His head was bent, and he held the sword naked across his hands. He was turning it over and over, as if weighing its balance, or studying the runes on the blade. The firelight flashed and darkened, flashed and darkened, as the blade turned. I caught one word, KING, and then again, KING, and saw the jewels sparking as the sword turned. I saw then that the man had a circle of red gold on his helmet, and that his cloak was purple. Then as he moved the firelight lit the ring on his finger. It was a gold ring carved with a dragon.
I said: "Father? Sir?" but, as sometimes happens in dreams, I could make no sound. But he looked up. There were no eyes under the peak of the helmet. Nothing. The hands that held the sword were the hands of a skeleton. The ring shone on bone.
He held the sword out to me, flat across the skeleton hands. A voice that was not my father's said: "Take it." It was not a ghost's voice, or the voice of bidding that comes with vision: I have heard these, and there is no blood in them; it is as if the wind breathed through an empty horn. This was a man's voice, deep and abrupt and accustomed to command, with a rough edge to it such as comes from anger, or sometimes from drunkenness; or sometimes, as now, from fatigue.
I tried to move, but I could not, any more than I could speak. I have never feared a spirit, but I feared this man. From the blank of shadow below the helmet came the voice again, grim, and with a faint amusement, that crept along my skin like the brush of a wolf's pelt felt in the dark. My breath stopped and my skin shivered. He said, and now I clearly heard the weariness in the voice: "You need not fear me. Nor should you fear the sword. I am not your father, but you are my seed. Take it, Merlinus Ambrosius. You will find no rest until you do."
I approached him. The fire had dwindled, and it was almost dark. I put my hands out for the sword, and he reached to lay it across them. I held still, though my flesh shrank from touching his bony fingers; but they were not there to touch. As the sword left his grip it fell, through his hands and through mine, and between us to the ground. I knelt, groping in the darkness, but my hand met nothing. I could feel his breath above me, warm as a living man's, and his cloak brushed my cheek. I heard him say: "Find it. There is no one else who can find it." Then my eyes were open and it was full noon, and the strawberry mare was nuzzling at me where I lay, with her mane
brushing my face.
8
DECEMBER IS CERTAINLY NO TIME for travelling, especially for one whose business does not allow him to use the roads. The winter woods are open and clear of undergrowth, but there are many places in the remoter valleys where there is no clear going save along the stream-side, and that is tortuous and rough, and the banks are apt to be dangerously broken — or even washed right away — with floods and bad weather. Snow, at least, I was spared, but on the second day out of Bryn Myrddin the weather worsened to a cold wind with flurries of sleet, and there was ice in all the ways.
Going was slow. On the third day, towards dusk, I heard wolves howling somewhere up near the snow-line. I had kept to the valleys, travelling in deep forest still, but now and again where the forest thinned I had caught glimpses of the hilltops, and they were white with fresh snow. And there was more to come; the air had the smell of snow, and the soft cold bite on one's cheek. The snow would drive the wolves down lower. Indeed, as dark drew in and the trees crowded closer I thought I saw a shadow slipping away between the trunks, and there were sounds in the underbrush which might have been made by harmless creatures such as deer or fox; but I noticed that Strawberry was uneasy; her ears flattened repeatedly, and the skin on her shoulders twitched as if flies were settling there.
I rode with my chin on my shoulder and my sword loose in its sheath. "Mevysen" — I spoke to my Welsh mare in her own language — "when we find this great sword that Macsen Wledig is keeping for me, you and I will no doubt be invincible. And find it we must, it seems. But just at the moment I'm as scared of those wolves as you are, so we'll go on till we find some place that's defensible with this poor weapon and my poorer skill, and we'll sit the night out together, you and I."
The defensible place was a ruinous shell of a building deep in the forest. Literally a shell; it was all that remained of a smallish erection the shape of a kiln, or a beehive. Half of it had fallen away, leaving the standing part like an egg broken endways, the curving half-dome backed against the wind and offering some sort of protection from the intermittent sleet. Most of the fallen masonry had been removed — probably stolen for building stone — but there was still a ragged rampart of broken stuff behind which it was possible to take shelter, and conceal myself and the mare.