The Pendragon Legend

by Antal Szerb

“But the little boy was taken away by an old man in black. The midnight rider.”

  “The midnight rider is the Earl of Gwynedd. As I told you. I know it. Or if not the Earl himself, his double.”

  “Or a different Earl of Gwynedd,” I said.

  “Since that day the Earl has never been at home. He prowls about. Sick. With a guilty conscience. The boy isn’t hidden here. Somewhere in the mountains.”

  “Nothing of the sort. I have seen, with my own eyes, that the Earl and the midnight rider are two different people.”

  “Do not trust what your eyes tell you, Doctor. Try to put yourself in my shoes … I know I must say the words of exorcism over him. But in such a way that he is not aware of it. He’d be very offended, and, after all, the Llanvygan living is in his power and I am totally dependent on him.”

  Just then my hypersensitive ears picked up the sound of a motor horn. I abandoned the mad vicar and ran towards the castle.

  There, outside the front door, stood the little Rover.

  I dashed inside, to find Cynthia eating her breakfast. She was in radiant spirits and greeted me loudly.

  “Cynthia, where were you?”

  She looked at me in surprise.

  “Excuse me … when did you become so very inquisitive?”

  “Forgive me, my dear, do forgive me, my only … We’ve been almost dead with worry. Osborne phoned your aunt, and she said she hadn’t sent for you, and that you’d left her yesterday morning. We thought … we really thought, you’d walked into Morvin’s trap.”

  She laughed.

  “Not in the least. What should Morvin want from me? I’m in excellent health, and I’ve had a marvellous time. But, since you are so curious, I might as well tell you. After I left Aunt Doris I went to see my lady friend. It turned out that it was she who sent the telegram, because she was missing me so much and she wanted to entice me down to London whatever way she could. I found her at home, as beautiful as ever. And she was just about to go and spend her Sunday at Llandudno. So we went there together, and I had the day with her. And now I’m here … So, are you happy now?”

  And then something quite appalling happened. I am normally as circumspect as an engineer with particularly short sight, but I threw inhibition to the winds, hurled myself at her and covered her in kisses. It was such a relief to know she was all right.

  She disentangled herself, thoroughly discomposed. Before her mouth had even recovered the usual shape for speech, she informed me she had been reading a study of Ivan the Terrible.

  Soon it was time for lunch.

  It is something I truly cannot help, but I adore women who eat heartily and with real pleasure. One of Cynthia’s major shortcomings was that she considered it undignified, as a spiritual being, to surrender to the pleasures of food. She ate with a faraway expression on her face, like a woman at her needlework. The fork appeared to find its way to her mouth by pure accident. It might just as easily have fluttered away, like a little butterfly.

  Lene was precisely the reverse. She didn’t eat: she fed herself. In a fever of excitement she refuelled the large and ever-developing organism, glowing with vitality, that was her body. I could see that the Earl, despite his best efforts, couldn’t bear to watch her. And how much wine she drank! (These were the dangerously full-bodied reds of southern France.) She grew steadily louder, holding forth about her university experiences, and I waited in fear and trembling for her to get round to the more erotic of these, and the self-evident nature of Moralische.

  Osborne and I sat there, like orphans huddled in a storm. But the Earl seemed to take a sort of masochistic pleasure in her brashness, and he questioned her constantly, encouraging her to talk.

  “You haven’t said how you like the castle,” he remarked.

  “In short, I can only say I don’t. First of all, those columns at the entrance. Why so many? The place isn’t going to fall down. Each storey is in a different style. And all this furniture. Queen Anne in one room, Chippendale in another: it’s a mess. There’s no single motif, no metaphysic holding it together. And tell me, why such a huge building? Sixty rooms … it’s utterly irrational.”

  “I think you could say the same about the wives of oriental kings. They had three hundred and sixty five, not because they needed them, but because they were kings.”

  After lunch we younger ones went for a walk down the long avenue leading from the castle to the village.

  Coming towards us, very slowly, was a strange figure. He was walking with a stick, and was followed by several others, all rather small. With my short-sightedness I could not make out who they were, and only started to pay real attention when my companions, whose eyes were sharper, stopped to discuss the situation.

  “What sort of procession is it?” asked Osborne. “Perhaps you can tell us, Cynthia. Is there some sort of Welsh festival today?”

  “It’s the Pied Piper of Hamlyn and his retinue of children,” Lene suggested.

  “No,” exclaimed Osborne. “Look, it’s Pierce Gwyn Mawr, the old prophet Habakkuk. My, he does look in a bad way.”

  We quickened our pace to meet him, and now I too could make him out quite clearly. The poor man was even more prophet-like than before. His appearance was exactly what you would have expected of John the Baptist, clad in the traditional attire of one crying out in the wilderness. Except for a rag around his loins he was stark naked—not something you expect to see in broad daylight in these islands. The stout branch in his hand served as a walking stick; the grey shock of his beard and hair flew in every direction. It was a disturbing, fantastic, strangely threatening sight, complete with the obligatory wisps of straw in the hair that every self-respecting lunatic in Britain has sported since the days of King Lear.

  He was followed by a procession of village children. But this was not mockery: they were really frightened, ready to take to their heels at the first hostile gesture from the prophet.

  Osborne called out to him:

  “Hey there, Pierce Gwyn Mawr. What’s new in the world?”

  The prophet gave no reply. Though he looked towards us, I don’t think he saw us. His eyes were flickering and ecstatic; they also seemed, to me, to be filled with a supernatural fear, the universal fear felt by children and madmen of a world possessed by demons. I can’t say this for certain of course, being no expert in the reading of eyes.

  Then, when Cynthia said something to him in Welsh, he stopped, appeared to recognise her, and a very specific terror seemed to engulf him. But he still made no reply.

  She repeated her question. He spun round and, with astonishing nimbleness, sprinted towards the village with the children at his heels.

  “For Heaven’s sake, Cynthia,” I asked, “what did you say to frighten him so badly?”

  “Nothing,” she said, clearly shaken. “I only asked if he was hungry.”

  “Interesting,” said Lene. “It sounded as if you were asking what it was like in Hell.”

  “The Welsh language has a wonderful sound,” said Osborne. “It’s quite different. From another world. For example, can you imagine a language in which the word for beer is ‘cwrw’?”

  By now my mind was making rapid connections, and it left me feeling uneasy again. So far as I knew, Pierce Gwyn Mawr was the only person apart from the Earl who had spoken with the midnight rider. The Castle Lake …

  We joined the urgent migration to the village. Halfway there, the Earl overtook us in his open-topped tourer.

  “Have you seen Pierce Gwyn Mawr?” he asked.

  “Yes. He went down to the village.”

  We climbed on board.

  In the main street we found a large throng. Everyone was talking; everyone was excited and nervous. As the Earl approached a respectful silence fell and they made way for him.

  We climbed out.

  “Which of you has seen old Pierce Gwyn Mawr?”

  “We all have,” said a farmer. “He jumped over the churchyard wall and vanished.”

  We set of
f at speed in that direction, and the Rev Dafyd Jones came into view.

  “He’s disappeared,” he said. “Vanished. As if swallowed by the graves.”

  We carried on towards the burial ground. As we passed the front of the church we spotted John Griffith, leaning with his back against the door and waving triumphantly.

  “I’ve got him,” he shouted. “I’ve got him. I’m not letting him out.”

  “Of course,” the vicar cried. “The side door opens on to the graveyard. I didn’t realise it was open.”

  The old man was sitting in a pew, exhausted. His head was slumped forwards, his body motionless. The vicar addressed him in Welsh; he slowly raised his head and stared around vaguely. At first he seemed not to see anything, then he noticed the Earl and his face twisted into a mask.

  With an astonishing, ape-like agility he jumped up, leapt over several pews and made for the exit. But Lene was waiting by the door. She grabbed him round the neck and held him firmly until the others arrived and surrounded him.

  “Get a good grip on him,” the Earl said to Griffith and another guard from the house whose presence I hadn’t noticed before.

  The two men seized the old prophet, bundled him out of the church and lifted him into the car. The Earl climbed in, waved us goodbye, and drove off back to the castle.

  We were left standing outside the church gazing after them. The prophet’s arrest had all the strangeness of a medieval prerogative being exercised. The others were completely flummoxed by it. By now however I had a theory. I’m never at a loss for these little explanations, and the intensive training of recent weeks had further developed my deductive propensities.

  The prophet was the last man to see the midnight rider. He would have been acting as his servant while he was in residence up at Pendragon. Something dreadful must have happened to cause him to leave, his mind utterly deranged: the abducted child, Giles de Rais … And his feelings of horrified revulsion now extended to all the Pendragons, including Cynthia.

  When we arrived back at the castle we were told that the Earl was preparing to set out on a journey.

  “Miss Lene, I really am most sorry to leave while you are here as our guest. I have to go to Caerbryn. Osborne, would you have my mail forwarded there? I’m staying with old Mansfield, at Oaklea Farm.”

  “My dear Earl,” Lene retorted. “I am distraught that my feminine charms seem to have so little power over you. But quite apart from that, I must caution you, in your own interests, not to leave Llanvygan just now. Consider, there are sixty rooms here, and thirty unemployed persons with halberds. And I’m here too. Here, we can look after you. But on a farm … Who is going with you?”

  “No one. Old Mansfield will take excellent care of me. I’ve stayed with him many times.”

  “These Puritan tendencies. But aren’t you worried about your enemies making use of the opportunity? I can’t tell if this is sheer indifference or just stupidity. You’re amazingly casual about it.”

  He smiled.

  “It’s where I’ll be best hidden from those enemies. So, unless you write and tell Morvin, he’ll never know where I am. What’s more, I’m being so careful I’m not even telling Rogers where I’m going. Now, do I have your permission?”

  “Go then, and God go with you. But I must warn you, I shall call on you there.”

  “I’d be delighted.”

  I believed I knew the reason for the Earl’s rapid departure. He must have learnt from the prophet where the midnight rider had based himself since leaving Pendragon. He was going to find him; no doubt with the intention of saving the little boy. For that, he was prepared to face whatever irrational, unknowable, immortal danger lay ahead.

  We young people stayed on in the castle. We certainly enjoyed our time. Morvin seemed to have been forgotten, and the other, more mysterious, threat was so irrational it was hard to focus on, and I didn’t take it very seriously.

  The next morning Osborne came up to me.

  “Doctor, would you like to go for a little spin in the car? We should be out looking round the countryside. Let’s put our trust in the luck of idiots: we might even hit upon Morvin’s traces somewhere. If his people are in any of the villages round here we’re sure to find out. If of course they really are in Wales. We haven’t heard of them for some days now.”

  “With pleasure,” I replied. “But shouldn’t we take Lene with us?”

  “Er … Miss Kretzsch said she was going to lie in this morning. Perhaps just the two of us.”

  We drove round all the local places of note. We went to Corwen, to the railway station, and even to Abersych, where the child was abducted. We found a large number of policemen there, and were told that they were following a definite lead.

  What would happen if they actually caught him? Such a mountain of absurdities would come spilling down into this complacent world of ours that everyone would be talking about it … The Earl would be required to give evidence, as would Osborne, and perhaps even myself. Maloney’s death would come into question … The Earl would never survive the scandal. The thought of such things bandied about in the London papers to entertain the man on the Clapham omnibus … We went back for lunch, without having discovered anything of the slightest interest.

  Waking from my post-prandial nap, I went for a stroll in the park, where I bumped into Lene. She was in high spirits, and devouring enormous peaches from a basket she had found on one of the garden tables. Briefly suspending the refuelling process, she took me by the arm and led me further into the park.

  We sat down beside a little stream. The spot was enchanting.

  “It’s so lovely,” she said. “It really fits my mood today. I’m so happy here.”

  “I haven’t heard you say that very often. You mean, you actually like it here?”

  “Very much. Such nice, uncomplicated people. The Earl is quite batty, but he has a beautiful head. The girl is very pretty, and very sweet, though she’s horribly conventional. I’m surprised she doesn’t bore you. But that’s not the point—you know I never poke my nose into your affairs. But I feel really good about myself. It finally happened.”

  “What did?”

  “Why do you think I came to Llanvygan?”

  “To save the Earl’s life?”

  “That too. But only by the way. I mean, why should I bother about the Earl of Gwynedd or any other old aristocrat? They aren’t my sort.”

  “You’re telling me you came because of Osborne.”

  “You see, you aren’t so dumb after all. And I can tell you, as my old friend and ally, that my trip here has not been in vain. Last night … ”

  “Oh, Lene, congratulations. Compared with Osborne, an innocent theologian of forty-five is a sex-crazed Italian from the deep South.”

  “Not bad, hey?”

  “Fantastic! But confess: Osborne only surrendered under extreme duress. You must have threatened him with a revolver.”

  “I didn’t go that far, but it certainly wasn’t easy. If you’re interested in the details, I’ll tell you. You know how reserved Osborne was with me, until yesterday. Or, not exactly reserved: he just treated me in the same very polite way he did his male friends. If I were as easily offended as my mother’s generation were, I’d have been cut to the quick. But thank God I’m not one of your supersensitive females. In fact I was rather glad he treated me as a man. I knew that the mere fact that he didn’t find me repulsive was no small achievement.

  “All the same, when I took his hand he blushed scarlet and started to lecture me on the dramatic works of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. I thought: just you wait, I’ll get you in the end. I’d worked out over time that women’s wiles cut no ice with him. In his innocence he just didn’t notice. That time in London, when we were dressing up in funny costume, it was a waste of time parading myself before him in my flimsy underwear. Whenever I started to undress he was desperate to get away. But when I told him it didn’t bother me, he just lit a cigarette and stayed put. After that, he fo
und it quite natural to see me naked. But I could see from his face that there was nothing in the way of manly desire stirring in him. As far as I was concerned, his innocence was all the more provocative.

  “It went against the grain, but I even tried sentimentality. I said all the usual things: how lonely I was, how sad my evenings, how no one had truly loved me, and oh, how heavy my heart was. He listened, very sympathetically, and promised me that when we got back to Oxford he’d introduce me to some really top people—he thinks everyone else is as great a snob as he is—but until then I should make a study of the contemporary English novel, since a good book was the best friend one could have.

  “And that’s how I came to Llanvygan. I was really ashamed of myself. In the time it had taken I could have become the mistress of a French king and enjoyed limitless power, or seduced a couple of ambassadors. Last night, when I managed to get him out here in the park, my hopes were really high. You know how the English love nature …

  “I suggested we sit on the grass, but he was afraid it might be damp, so we found a bench. I leant my head on his shoulder and started kissing his ear. He sat there in total silence, very polite. When I got bored with that, he told me with a smile that it was no doubt a German custom, and probably very ancient. I said I didn’t know about that, but anyway it was a nice one. ‘Interesting,’ he said, in a contemplative sort of way. I asked him if he’d like to kiss me. ‘Oh, yes, he would,’ he said, again very politely, and gave me a peck on the forehead. ‘If I were a man,’ I told him, ‘I’d rather kiss someone on the lips.’ He thought that would be unhygienic. Then he asked me if I’d rather be a man. ‘What about you?’ I retorted.

  “That rather shook him, but I could see this wasn’t getting us anywhere. Then I had a stroke of genius. I said I wanted to climb a tree, and would he help me? I clambered up on to a branch, with his support. Then I swung out, gave a loud scream, and fell on top of him. Now if I fall on anyone, with my build …

  “We both ended up on the ground. So that was how I got to the point where kissing was possible—at the cost of a few bruises. My ribs were aching, but the goal was in sight.