That one! See him? Look at the span of his shoulders, Wolf. See how he sits his saddle—as if he was part of the beast he rides. A magnificent man. Cai, yes, that is his name: a name that kindles fear in the heart of the foeman.
Here is another! See him, Wolf? A champion among champions he is. His cloak is blood-red, and his shield bears the cross of the Christ. His is a name the harpers will sing for a thousand years: Bedwyr, Bright Avenger.
And those two there! Oh, look—have you ever seen such dread purpose, such grim grace? Sons of Thunder. That one is called Gwalchmai, Hawk of May. The other is Gwalchaved, Hawk of Summer. They are twins, one in heart, one in mind, one in action—as alike as two may be and still be two. There is no matching the swiftness of their blades.
Each of these men is worthy of the rank of king; each is a lord in his own land. Who is there to lead such men? Who can be their battle lord? Where is the man to be king over kings?
I do not see him, Wolf. I do not see him for a long time yet.
No, these men do not live now, and not for many years. Their time is not come. We have time yet to find a chieftain for them, Wolf. And we will…we must.
* * *
The day after Taliesin’s visit—a day, a year, does it matter?—I saw the hermit as he promised. Squatting before my miserable cave high up in the mountain, I saw him coming a long way off. He was climbing, following the trickle of my spring as it wends down into the valley to join one of Celyddon’s myriad streams.
He came on foot, and slowly, so that I had time to observe him. His cloak was dun, his feet were shod in high boots, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat on his head to keep off the sun. A strange hermit, I thought, to travel in such array.
As he approached, I saw that his steps were purposeful, deliberate. His was not the aimless gait of a wandering wayfarer, he knew his destination—it was this very cave, and him who lived within. He had come to Hart Fell to find Mad Merlin.
Find him, he did.
“I give you good greeting, friend,” he called when he saw me watching him.
I waited until he came closer—there was no use shouting at him. “Will you sit? There is water if you thirst.”
He stood a moment, looking around. At last his eyes came to rest on me. They were sky-blue, and just as cold and empty as the heaven above him. “I would not shun a cup of water.”
“The spring is there,” I told him, indicating where the water ran from the rock. “I said nothing about a cup.”
He smiled and went to the spring, bent, and sucked in a few mouthfuls of water—enough for appearance’s sake, I thought, not enough to satisfy real thirst. And yet he had no water skin with him.
When he sat down again, he removed his hat and I saw hair as yellow as flax—like that of a Saecsen prince. But his speech was good Briton. “Tell me, friend, what do you up here?”
“I might ask the same of you,” I grunted by way of answer.
“It is no secret,” he said, laughing. “I have come to find a man.”
“And have you found him?”
“Yes.”
“How fortunate for you.”
He smiled broadly. “You are the one they call Merlin Ambrosius—Myrddin, the Emrys. Are you not?”
“Who would call me that?”
“Perhaps you are not aware of the things men are saying about you.”
“Perhaps it does not interest me what men say.”
He laughed again, as if the sound should win me. But the laughter, like the smile, did not touch his eyes. “Come now, you must be somewhat curious. They are saying you are a king of the Fair Folk, that you are divine. They say you are a mighty warrior, invincible.”
“Do they say also that I am mad?”
“Are you mad?”
“Yes.”
“No madman would speak so rationally,” he assured me. “Perhaps you only feign madness.”
“Why would any man feign that which is most hateful to him?”
“To make himself seem mad, I suppose,” the wanderer answered thoughtfully.
“Which would be madness itself, would it not?”
The stranger laughed again, and instantly I hated the sound. “Speak plainly now,” I said, challenging him. “What do you want of me?”
He met my challenge with his empty smile. “Just to speak with you a little.”
“You have come a long way for nothing, then. I do not wish to speak to anyone.”
“Perhaps you would not mind listening,” he replied, picking up a stick. He scratched in the dirt for a few moments, then looked up at me suddenly and, finding my eyes on him, said, “I am not without influence in this world. I could do things for you.”
“Do this for me then, if your influence extends so far: go away.”
“I could do great things for you, Myrddin Emrys. Tell me what you want—anything you desire, Myrddin, I will do it, or see that it is done.”
“I have told you what I desire.”
He moved closer. “Do you know who I am?”
“Should I?”
“Perhaps not, but I know who you are. I know you, Myrddin. You see, I am an Emrys too.”
At his words, a slow, inexorable dread crept over me. I felt very old and very weak. He reached out to me, and his touch was cold as stone. “I can help you, Myrddin,” he went on. “Let me help you.”
“I need no one’s help. This place is a palace,” I told him, lifting my hand to my barren surroundings. “I have all I need.”
“I can give you all you desire.”
“I desire peace,” I snapped. “Can you give me that?”
“I can give you forgetting—it amounts to the same thing in the end.”
Forgetting…That would be a blessing. The hateful images pursue me, they haunt my waking, they steal my sleep. To forget—ah, but at what price?
“It seems to me that I might forget the good along with the bad,” I told him.
The stranger grinned happily and shrugged. “Good, bad—what of that? It is all the same in the end.” He leaned still closer. “I can do more for you. I can give you power, Myrddin. Authority such as you have never dreamed existed. It can be yours.”
“I am content with such power as I have—why should Merlin the Wild need more?”
His answer was quick, and I wondered how many others he had tempted with his vapid promises. Oh yes, I knew who he was now. My time with Dafyd was never in vain. And though I was no longer certain of the Guiding Hand, I could see no sense in going over to the Enemy.
“Myrddin,” he said, making my name a mockery on his lips, “it is such a little thing for me to do. I would do it in an instant. Look…” He raised his stick and pointed across Celyddon’s dark folds to the east. “There is where the sun rises, Myrddin. There is where the heart of the empire beats.” And I seemed to see, glimmering on the far horizon, the imperial city with its strong walls and palaces. “As emperor, you would rule the world. You could destroy the hated Saecsens once and for all. Think of all the suffering you could save. One wave of your hand, Myrddin—that is all it would take.” He held out his hand to me.
“Come with me, Myrddin, together we could make you the greatest emperor this world has ever seen. You would be rich beyond all riches; your name would last forever.”
“But Myrddin would not,” I told him. “You would see to that as well. Be gone; I am tired.”
“Are you such an honorable man?” he spat contemptuously. “Are you so righteous?”
“Words, words. I claim nothing.”
“Myrddin…look at me. Why will you not look at me? We are friends, you and I. Your Lord has left you, Myrddin. It is time to find one more trustworthy. Come with me.” His fingers were nearly touching mine now. “Come, but we must go at once.”
“Why is it that when you speak I hear only the vacant howl of the tomb?”
That made him angry. His face changed and he was formidable.
“You think you are better than I am? I will destroy you, Myr
ddin.”
“As you destroyed Morgian?”
His eyes gleamed maliciously. “She is beautiful, is she not?”
“Death wears many faces,” I said, “but its stench is always the same.”
The heat of his anger leapt up instantly. “I give you one last chance—in fact, I give you Morgian, my finest creation.” He assumed a soothing aspect as he thought of this new tactic. “She is yours, Merlin. Do what you like with her. Yes, you will be her master. Take her. You can even kill her if you wish. Destroy her like she destroyed your father.”
Black anger swarmed before my eyes like wasps. My body began to shake, and I tasted bile on my tongue. I jumped to my feet. “You destroyed my father!” I cried, hearing my voice echo in the long valley below. I stood and put two fingers in my mouth and whistled high and long. “Leave while you can.”
“You cannot send me away,” the creature said. “I go when and where I will.”
At that moment, the she-wolf came running up the trail, snarling, ears flat to her head, fangs bared.
He laughed. “Do not think to frighten me away. Nothing on Earth can harm me.”
“No? In the name of Jesu the Christ be gone!”
The wolf closed on him. He turned and dodged as she leapt, jaws slashing for his throat. Still, he had moved, and was already fleeing back down the mountainside as Wolf gathered herself for a second leap. She would have given chase, but I called her to my side, where, still snarling, I patted her head until the hackles melted into her back and she was calm once more.
* * *
So my first visitor left me without a farewell. I was still trembling when Wolf growled once more, low in her throat, a warning growl. I looked down the defile, thinking to see the stranger returning. And there was someone approaching, but even from a fair distance I could tell it was another.
He was a gaunt stick of a creature, rough-featured and hairy, wearing pelts of at least six different beasts. He stumped up the mountainside with the long, regular strides of one used to long journeys afoot, looking neither right nor left, but coming on apace.
And well he might, for a storm had sprung up out of nothing, as it can do in the mountains. Rags of black clouds were flying down the mountainside, and I could taste rain on the cooling wind. Mist rolled over the rocks, taking the visitor from my sight.
I waited, comforting the she-wolf at my side. “Be still, Wolf; we will hear what this one has come to say. Perhaps this guest will be more to our liking.” Although that did not appear likely, because of Taliesin’s promise I was of a mind to see it through.
He came in sight again, stepping from the mist when he drew near, and hailed us in a bold voice. “Hail, Wild Man of the Wood! I bring you greetings from the world of men.”
“Sit down, friend; there is water if you thirst.”
“Water will serve where wine is scarce,” he replied. I watched him as he scooped water into his hand and slurped it up noisily. He did not appear a man overused to holding the guest cup, but what of that? Did I look a King of Dyfed?
“It is thirsty work, climbing this slate mountain of yours, Myrddin.”
“How do you know my name—if it is my name?”
“Oh, I have known you for a very long time. Should a servant not know his master?”
I stared at him. His face was long and horsy, his brows black, his cheeks red from the sun and wind. His hair hung to his shoulders, loose like a woman’s. I know I had never seen him before.
“You speak of masters and servants. What makes you think I have anything to do with either?” I asked, and then asked a more pertinent question. “How did you know where to find me?”
“The one who sent me told me where to find you.” That was all he said, but his words made my heart leap within me.
“Who sent you?”
“A friend.”
“Does this friend have a name?”
“Everyone has a name—as you well know.” He scooped up more water and then wiped his hands on his skin jerkin. “My name, for instance, is Annwas Adeniawc.”
A most unusual name—it meant Ancient Winged Servant. “I see no wings, and you are not so ancient as your name implies. And there are indeed many masters in this world, and even more servants.”
“All mortals serve, Myrddin. Immortals also. But I have not come to talk about me—I have come to talk about you.”
“Then you have come for no purpose.” The words were out before I could stop them. Do not send him away, Taliesin had said. I need not have worried, for my visitor took no notice of my rudeness.
“Once loosened, the tongue wags on, does it not?” This was said with great good humor. Annwas apparently enjoyed himself. He glanced around my scree-covered abode, and then turned his eyes to the west, over the vast, rumpled bearskin of Celyddon. “Men say the light dies in the west,” he remarked casually. “But if I told you it rises there, would you believe it?”
“Would it matter very much what I believed?”
“Myrddin…” He shook his head lightly. “I should have thought that all these years of solitary meditation would have taught you something about the power of belief.”
“Has it been many years then?”
“More than a few.”
“Why come to me now?”
The narrow bones of his shoulders hunched in a shrug. “My Lord wills it.”
“Am I to know your lord?”
“But you do know him, Myrddin. At least, you once did.” Annwas turned to look at me directly. I felt sympathy flowing out from him. He bent his long frame and settled cross-legged on the bare ground. “Tell me now,” he said softly. “Tell me about the battle.”
It was then that the rain began.
11
The first drops splattered over us, but neither of us moved. The storm grew, staining the sky violet and black like a wound—from which the rain gushed like blood.
“The battle, Myrddin; I have come to hear you tell it.” Annwas held my gaze in his and made no move, despite the rain.
It was a moment before I could speak. “What battle would that be?” I asked, dreading the answer. Darkness swirled around me, around the mountain itself in the form of a midnight mist that boiled out of nowhere. A rising wind began wailing among the crag, driving the rain.
“I think you know,” said Annwas gently.
“And it seems to me you know a great many things no man can possibly know of another!” I glared at him, feeling the wrath seethe in my soul once again. The wind screamed my defiance.
“Tell me,” he insisted gently, but his insistence was firm as rock. “It will come easier once you begin.”
“Leave me, damn you!” I hated him for making me exhume those long-dead bones. The she-wolf leapt to her feet, snarling. Annwas lifted his hand to her, and she subsided with a whimper.
“Myrddin,” the voice was soft as a mother’s crooning to her babe, “you will be healed. But first we must cut out the disease that poisons your soul.”
“I am happy as I am,” I gasped. Breath came hard to me. The wind howled now, and cold rain fell in stinging sheets upon us.
Annwas Adeniawc reached out his bony hand and touched my arm. “No one is happy in hell, Myrddin. You have carried your burden long enough. It is time to lay it down.”
“Burden it may be, but it is all I have left!” I screamed, tears of rage and pain mingling with the rain on my face.
The hermit rose and went into my cave. I sat where I was until he called me. When I looked, there was a fire burning brightly just inside the entrance. “Come in from the rain,” Annwas said. “I will cook us something to eat while we talk.”
How long has it been since I had warm food in my belly? I wondered, and found myself going in to join him. I do not know where he found the small pot to hold the meaty stew, nor where he got the meat, nor the grain to make the bread. But as I watched him prepare the meal, and smelled it cooking, the fight went out of me and I began, haltingly, to tell him…and, God help m
e, I told him everything:
* * *
Ganieda went north that spring, to her father’s house in Celyddon. It seems a woman needs to be near her own when a babe is born. I was against it, but my wife could be a most persuasive woman, and in the end Ganieda had her way.
I arranged the journey, taking every precaution, seeing to every detail personally, for I knew I would not be able to travel with her. She sought to reassure me. “It will be lovely in Goddeu in the summer. You come when you can, my soul. Elma will be so surprised.” She kissed me. “You are right to have a care for the journey, but nothing will happen to me.”
“It is not an afternoon’s ride in the woods, Ganieda.”
“No, no, it is not. And you are right to remind me. But I am not so far along with child that sitting a horse will be a hardship.” She stood up straight and smoothed her mantle over her still-flat stomach. “See? I have not even begun to show. Besides, I am a most fearsome hand with a spear, am I not, love? I will be safe.”
Jesu, I should have gone with her!
“Anyway, I could not for one moment imagine having a baby without Elma to help me,” she continued. Elma was midwife to her mother, and the nearest thing to a mother Ganieda remembered. And, as I said, a woman needs to be with her own when the birth pangs begin. “You worry for nothing, Myrddin. Gwendolau rides to meet us. And if I do not leave soon, he will be here even before I start out.”
“Better still,” I remarked.
“Come with me then.”
“Ah, Ganieda, you know I cannot. The towers, the horses, the warband must be trained—”
She stepped close and put her hands on my shoulders as she settled lightly in my lap where I sat in my chair. “Come with me, husband.”
I sighed. We had had this discussion before. “I will follow as soon as I can,” I told her. It was only a few months. Ganieda had to set out now while she could still make the journey safely and in some comfort. I was to follow when my summer’s work was finished, joining her in the autumn. The babe would not be born until deep winter, so there was plenty of time for us to be together once I arrived in Goddeu.
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