The Hollow Hills

by Mary Stewart

  "No dragon?" This from Bedwyr.

  "No dragon," I said.

  "I prefer the dragon," said Bedwyr firmly. "I shall go on believing the dragon. Riding away alone, that's a let-down. A real enchanter wouldn't do that, would he, Ralf?"

  "Of course not," said Ralf, getting to his feet. "But we must. Look, it's dusk already."

  He was ignored. "I'll tell you what I don't understand," said Bedwyr, "and that's a King who would risk setting the whole kingdom at blaze for a woman. Keeping faith with your peers is surely more important than having any woman. I'd never risk losing anything that really mattered, just for that."

  "Nor would I," said Arthur slowly. He had been thinking hard about it, I could see. "But I think I understand it, all the same. You have to reckon with love."

  "But not to risk friendship for it," said Bedwyr quickly.

  "Of course not," said Arthur. I could see that he was thinking in general terms, where Bedwyr meant one friendship, one love.

  Ralf began to speak again, but at that moment something, a shadow, swept silently across the lamplight. The boys hardly glanced up; it was only the white owl, sailing silently in through the open window to its perch in the beams. But its shadow went across my skin like a hand of ice, and I shivered.

  Arthur looked up quickly. "What is it, Myrddin? It's only the owl. You look as if you'd seen a ghost."

  "It was nothing," I said. "I don't know."

  I did not know, either, then, but I know now. We had been speaking Latin, as we usually did, but the word he had used for the shadow across the light was the Celtic one, guenhwyvar.

  * * *

  Be sure I told them, too, about their own country, and about the times recently past, of Ambrosius and the war he had fought against Vortigern, and how he had knit the kingdoms together into one, and made himself High King, and brought to the length and breadth of the land justice, with a sword at its back, so that for a short span of years men could go peacefully about their affairs anywhere in the country, and not be molested; or if they were, could seek, and get, the King's justice equally for high or low. Others had given them the stories as history; but I had been there, and closer to affairs than most, being at the High King's side and, in some cases, the architect of what had happened. This, of course, they could not be allowed to guess: I told them merely that I had been with Ambrosius in Brittany, and thereafter at the battle of Kaerconan, and through the next years of the rebuilding. They never asked how or why I was there, and I think this was out of delicacy, in case I should be forced to confess how I had served in some humble capacity as assistant to the engineers, or even as a scribe. But I still remember the questions Arthur poured out about the way the Count of Britain — as Ambrosius then styled himself — had assembled, trained and equipped his army, how he had shipped it across the Narrow Sea to the land of the Dumnonii where he had set up his standard as High King before he swept northwards to burn Vortigern out of Doward, and finally to smash the vast army of the Saxons at Kaerconan. Every detail of organization, training, and strategy I had to recall for him as best I could, and every skirmish of which I could tell them anything was fought over and over again by the two boys, poring over maps drawn in the dust.

  "They say there will be war again soon," said Arthur, "and I am too young to go." He mourned over it, openly, like a dog which is bidden to stay at home on a hunting morning. It was three months before his tenth birthday.

  * * *

  It was not all talk of war and high matters, of course. There were days when the boys played like young puppies, running and wrestling, racing their horses along the riverside, swimming naked in the lake and scaring every fish within miles, or taking bows with Ralf up to the hills to look for hares or pigeons. Sometimes I went with them, but hunting was not a sport I cared for. It was different when it occurred to me to rummage out the old hermit's fishing rod and take it to try the waters of the lake. We would pass the time happily there, Arthur fishing with more fury than success, myself watching him, and talking. Bedwyr did not care for fishing, and on these occasions went with Ralf, but Arthur, even on the days when wind or weather made fishing useless, seemed to prefer to stay with me rather than go with Ralf or even Bedwyr to look for sport in the forest.

  Looking back, I do not remember now that I ever paused to question this. The boy was my whole life, my love for him so much a part of every day that I was content to take the time as it came, accepting straight from the gods the fact that the boy seemed to like above all else to be with me. I told myself merely that he needed to escape from the crowded household, from the patronage of an elder brother preparing now for a position which he himself could never hope for, and also a chance to be with Bedwyr in a world of imagination and brave deeds where he felt himself to belong. I would not allow myself to ascribe it to love, and if I had guessed the nature of the love, could have offered no comfort then.

  Bedwyr stayed at Galava for more than a year, leaving for home in the autumn before Arthur's eleventh birthday. He was to return the following summer. After he had gone Arthur moped visibly for a week, was unwontedly quiet for another, then recovered his spirits with a bound, and rode up to see me, in defiance of the weather, rather more often than before.

  I have no idea what reasons Ector gave for letting him come so often. Probably he needed no reason: as a rule the boy rode out daily except in the foulest weather, and if nothing was volunteered as to where he went, nothing would be asked. It became known, as it was bound to, that he came often to the Green Chapel where the wise man lived, but if people thought about it at all, they commended the boy's sense in seeking out a man known for his learning, and let it be.

  I never attempted to teach Arthur in the way that Galapas, my master, had taught me. He was not interested in reading or figuring, and I made no attempt to press them on him; as King, he would employ other men in these arts. What formal learning he needed, he received from Abbot Martin or others of the community. I detected in him something of my own ear for languages, and found that, besides the Celtic of the district where he lived, he had retained a smattering of Breton from his babyhood, and Ector, mindful of the future, had been at pains to correct his northern accent into something which the British of all parts would understand. I decided to teach him the Old Tongue, but was amazed to find that he already knew enough of it to follow a sentence spoken slowly. When I asked where he had learned it he looked surprised and said: "From the hill people, of course. They are the only ones who speak it now."

  "And you have spoken with them?"

  "Oh, yes. When I was little once I was out with one of the soldiers and he was thrown and hurt himself, and two of the hill people came to help me. They seemed to know who I was."

  "Did they indeed?"

  "Yes. After that I saw them quite often, here and there, and I learned to speak with them a little. But I'd like to learn more."

  Of my other skills, music and medicine, and all the knowledge I had so gladly amassed about the beasts and birds and wild things, I taught him nothing. He would have no need of them. He cared only about beasts to hunt them, and there, already, he knew almost as much as I about the ways of wild deer and wolf and boar. Nor did I share with him much of my knowledge about engines; here again it would be other men who would make and assemble them; he needed only to learn their uses, and most of this he was taught along with the arts of war he learned from Ector's soldiers. But as Galapas had done with me, I taught him how to make maps and read them, and I showed him the map of the sky.

  One day he said to me: "Why do you look at me sometimes as if I reminded you of someone else?"

  "Do I?"

  "You know you do. Who is it?"

  "Myself, a little."

  His head came up from the map we were studying. "What do you mean?"

  "I told you, when I was your age I used to ride up into the hills to see my friend Galapas. I was remembering the first time he taught me to read a map. He made me work a great deal harder than ever I
make you."

  "I see." He said no more, but I thought he was downcast. I wondered why he should imagine I could tell him anything about his parentage; then it occurred to me that he might expect me to "see" such things at will. But he never asked me.

  5

  THERE WAS NO WAR THAT YEAR, or the next. In the spring after Arthur's twelfth birthday Octa and Eosa at last broke from prison, and fled south to take refuge behind the boundaries of the Federated Saxons. The whisper went that they had been helped by lords who professed themselves loyal to Uther. Lot could not be blamed directly, nor Cador; no one knew who were the traitors, but rumours were rife, and helped to swell the feeling of unease throughout the country. It seemed as if Ambrosius' forceful uniting of the kingdoms were to go for nothing: each petty king, taking Lot's example, carved and kept his own boundaries. And Uther, no longer the flashing warrior men had admired and feared, depended too much on the strength of his allies, and turned a blind eye to the power they were amassing.

  The rest of that year passed quietly enough, but for the usual tale of forays from north and south of the wild debatable land to either side of Hadrian's Wall, and summer landings on the east coast which were not (it was said) wholeheartedly repelled by the defenders there. Storms in the Irish Sea kept the west peaceful, and Cador, I was told, had made a beginning on the fortifications at Segontium. King Uther, heedless of the advisers who told him that when trouble came it would come first from the north, stayed between London and Winchester, throwing his energies into keeping the Saxon Shore patrolled and Ambrosius' Wall fortified, with his main force ready to move and strike wherever the invaders broke the boundaries. Indeed there seemed little to turn him yet towards the north: the talk of a great alliance of invaders was still only talk, and the small raids continued along the southern coast throughout the year, keeping the King down there to combat them. The Queen left Cornwall at this time, and moved to Winchester with all her train. Whenever the King could, he joined her there. It was observed, of course, that he no longer frequented other women as he had been used to do, but no rumour of impotence had gone around: it seemed as if the girls who had known of it had seen it simply as a passing phase of his illness, and said nothing. When it was seen now that he spent all his time with the Queen, the story went round that he had taken vows of fidelity. So, though the girls might mourn their lover, those citizens rejoiced who had been wont to lock their daughters away when word went round that the King was coming, and praised him for adding goodness to his powers as a fighting man.

  These latter he certainly seemed to have recovered, though there were stories of the uncertain temper he showed, and of sudden ferocities in the treatment of defeated enemies. But on the whole this was welcomed as a sign of strength at a time when strength was needed.

  I myself seemed to have managed to drop safely out of sight. If people wondered from time to time where I had gone, some said that I had crossed the Narrow Sea again and resumed my travels, others, that I had retired once more into a new solitude to continue my studies. I heard from Ralf and Ector — and sometimes, innocently, from Arthur — that there were rumours of me from all parts of the country. It was said that when the King first fell sick, Merlin had appeared immediately in a golden ship with a scarlet sail and ridden to the palace to heal him, and afterwards vanished into the air. He had been seen next at Bryn Myrddin, though none had seen him ride there. (This in spite of the fact that I had changed horses at the usual places, and stayed every night in a public tavern.) And since then, the talk went, Merlin the enchanter had been wont to appear and vanish here and there all over the country. He had healed a sick woman near Aquae Sulis, and a week later had been seen in the Caledonian Forest, four hundred miles away. The host of tales grew, coined by idle folk anxious for the importance that such "news" would give them. Sometimes, as had happened before, wandering healers or would-be prophets would style themselves "another Merlin," or even use my very name: this inspired trust in the healers, and if the patient recovered, did no harm. If the patient died, folk tended to say simply, "It cannot have been Merlin after all; his magic would have succeeded." And since the false Merlin would by that time have completely vanished, my reputation would survive the imposture. So I kept my secret, and lost nothing. Certainly no wandering suspicion lighted on the quiet keeper of the Green Chapel.

  I had contrived from time to time to send messages of reassurance to the King. My chief fear was that he would grow impatient, and either send for the boy too soon, or by some hasty inadvertence betray Ector or myself to the people who watched him. But he remained silent. Ector, speaking of it to me, wondered if the King still thought the danger of treachery too great to have the boy by him in London, or if he still hoped against bitter hope that some day he would get another son.

  Myself I think it was neither. He was beset, was Uther, with treachery and trouble and the lack of the fine health that he was used to; and besides, the Queen started to ail that winter. He had neither time nor mind to give to the young stranger who was waiting to take what he himself found it harder and harder to hold.

  As for the Queen, there had been many times during the years when I had wondered at her silence. Ralf had, through means of his own, kept secretly in touch with his grandmother who served Ygraine, and through her had assured the Queen of her son's well-being. But from all accounts Ygraine, though she loved her daughter Morgian, and would have loved her son as dearly, was able to watch — indifferently enough, it seemed — her children used as tools of royal policy. Morgian and Arthur were, to her, pledges only of her love for the King, and having given them birth, she turned back to her husband's side. Arthur she had barely seen, and was content to know that one day he would emerge from his fastness safe and strong, in the King's time of need. Morgian, to whom she had given all the mother-love of which she was capable, was to be sent (without a backward glance, said Marcia in a letter to Ralf) to the marriage bed which would join the cold northern kingdom and its grim lord to Uther's side in the coming struggle. When I had tried to show Arthur something of the all-consuming sexual love which had obsessed Uther and Ygraine, I had spoken only half the truth. She was Uther's first, then she was Queen; and though she was the bearer of princes, she cared no more than the hawk does when its fledglings fly. As things stood, for her sake, it was better so; and, I thought, for Arthur too. All he needed now, he had from Ector and his gentle wife.

  I kept no contact with Bryn Myrddin, but in some roundabout way Ector got news for me. Stilicho had married Mai, the miller's girl, and the child was a boy. I sent my felicitations and a gift of money, and a threat of various dire enchantments should he let either of his new family touch the books and the instruments that remained at the cave. Then I forgot about them.

  Ralf married, too, during my second summer in the Wild Forest. His reason was not the same as Stilicho's; he had wooed the girl long enough, and only found his happiness in her bed after a Christian wedding. Even if I had not known the girl was virtuous, and that Ralf had been fretting after her like a curbed colt for a year or more, I could have guessed it from his relaxed and glowing strength as the weeks went by. She was a beautiful girl, gay and good, and with her maidenhead gave him all her worship. As for Ralf, he was a normal young man and had looked here and there, as young men will, but after his marriage I never knew him to look aside again, though he was handsome, and in later years was not unnaturally high in the King's favour and found many who tried to use him as a stepping stone to power as much as to pleasure. But he was never to be used.

  I believe that there were those in Galava who wondered why such an able young gentleman was kept riding guard on Ector's foster-son when even young Cei joined his father and the troops whenever there was an alarm, but Ralf had a high temper, and a fine self-assurance these days, and had, besides, the Count's orders to quote. It might have been hard if his wife had taunted him, but she was soon with child, and too thankful to have him tied at home near her ever to question it. Ralf himself fretted
a little, I know, but he confessed to me once when we were alone that if he could only see Arthur acknowledged and set in his rightful place beside the High King, he would count it a good life's work.

  "You told me the gods were driving us that night at Tintagel," he said. "I am no familiar of the gods, as you are, but I can think of no youth I have known who is worthier to take up the High King's sword when he has to lay it down."

  All reports bore this out. When I went down to the village for supplies, or to the tavern for gossip, I heard plenty about Ector's foster-son "Emrys." Even then his was a personality that gathers legend as a drip-stone gathers lime.

  I heard a man say once, in the crowded tavern room: "I tell you this, if you told me he was one of the Dragon's breed, a bastard of the High King that's gone, I'd believe it you."

  There were nods, and someone said: "Well, why not? He could be a bastard of Uther's, couldn't he? It's always surprised me that there aren't more of those around. He was one for the women, sure enough, before his sickness put the fear of hell on him,"

  Someone else said: "If there were more, you can be sure he'd have acknowledged them."

  "Aye, indeed," said the fellow who had spoken first. "That's true. He never showed any more shame than the farm bull, and why should he? They say that the girl he got in Brittany — Morgause, was it? — is high in his favour at court, and goes everywhere with him. Those are all we know of, the two girls, and the prince that's being reared at some foreign court."

  Then the talk passed, as it often did these days, to the succession, and the young Prince Arthur growing up somewhere in the foreign kingdom to which Merlin the enchanter had secretly spirited him away.

  Though how long he might be kept hidden I could not guess. Watching him come riding up the forest track, or diving and wrestling with Bedwyr in the summer waters of the lake, or drinking in the wonders I showed him as the earth absorbs rain, it was a marvel to me that everyone did not see, as I could, the kingship shining from him as it had shone in that moment's flashing vision from the sword in the altar-stone.