by Alys Clare
She looked flatteringly pleased by his small compliment. ‘Yes they are,’ she agreed. ‘I’m glad you like it.’ Then, unfastening her pack, she said, ‘I want to wash out some of Meggie’s and my clothes, then I’m going to bathe.’
He sensed that an unspoken invitation hung in the air. Aware of having worn the same undergarments for rather too long, he said, ‘Is it all right if I do the same? I have a change of linen in my pack.’
‘Of course.’ Then, blushing and for all the world like some urban housewife, she said, ‘Give me the garments; I’ll launder them for you.’
She took him outside and showed him to the place where the people bathed. A stream came hurrying down out of the forest and a pool had formed where an upthrusting band of rock ran across the stream bed. Josse stood hesitant on the edge of the water; Meggie was already wriggling out of her clothes.
Joanna laughed softly. ‘It’s all right, Josse. Everyone bathes here and the sight of a naked body isn’t going to upset or embarrass anyone.’
Except me, he thought. But Meggie was paddling into the water and it looked as if it might be quite deep on the far side; Josse quickly removed tunic, shirt and hose, then, trying not to think about it, waded into the pool after his daughter.
When, having finished her washing, Joanna joined them there some time later, Josse had forgotten his awkwardness and was thoroughly enjoying himself. Even the presence of others did not spoil it; Joanna nodded a greeting to the man, the two women and the youth who came to bathe with them and Josse, copying her, did not so much as glance down to make sure that the water adequately concealed his private parts.
Out there in the wildwood, it just did not seem to matter.
Chapter 10
Twelve of them, including Josse, Joanna and Hauthe, sat down to eat the evening meal. They sat on benches and on the ground around the wide outdoor hearth. The food was simple – flat bread, goat’s milk cheese, small, sweet onions and a dish of mixed stewed vegetables strongly flavoured with garlic – but there was plenty of it. Accompanying it was cider out of earthenware jars, sparkling and sweet and fragrant with the strong scent of apples.
When the food had been cleared away, Huathe signalled that the people should stay where they were. Then he rose to his feet and walked forward to stand beside the embers of the fire, roughly in the middle of the circle of his audience. Then he said, ‘Here are Beith and her daughter Meggie, who were with us in the early spring of last year. With her is Josse, who has accompanied her from England. All three are our guests and are to be accorded a welcome.’ There was a brief murmur of conversation and Huathe waited until it had died down before continuing. ‘They have come for a particular purpose, which I shall now outline to you.’
Joanna had been prepared for something like this. Knowing the ways of her people as she was beginning to, she had expected that the unusual mission that had brought her and Josse to the Brocéliande would not be treated as some hushed-up secret. They had not broadcast it back home in the forest but then the community there was so very much more numerous . . . She waited to hear what Huathe would say.
His announcement was brief and to the point: ‘An unscrupulous man is making money fraudulently,’ he began. ‘In a forest in the south of England, he claims to have found the bones of Merlin.’ There was a gasp from someone in the circle, quickly suppressed. ‘He has invited the credulous to view the bones, implying that their various hurts and sicknesses will be cured. There is a charge for viewing this grave and all profits are going into the young man’s pocket.’ Indicating Josse with a wave of his hand, Huathe went on: ‘The man Josse here represents the Abbey of Hawkenlye, a place where the needy receive genuine care. The rival attraction referred to as Merlin’s Tomb is taking people away from the Abbey’s true healing to seek help where there is none to be had.’
Huathe paused to let his people digest what he had told them so far. Then he said, ‘It has been decreed that we show Josse the place in the forest here that is commonly known as Merlin’s Fountain and which, according to local legend, is the true burial place of the great enchanter.’
‘But—’ a man’s voice began.
Huathe turned to face the speaker. ‘Yes? You wish to comment?’
‘The spring of Barenton is Nime’s place,’ the man said nervously. ‘It is she who blesses the precious water and whose power we feel up there.’
Huathe smiled. ‘We know that, or perhaps I should say that is what we understand,’ he said patiently. ‘There is power there; that is undeniable. We should accept that, to others, the source of this power may have a different name. To Outworlders, who are not blessed with the understanding of the forces of this Earth that has been bestowed upon us, it is perhaps easier to understand if the power is dressed in the guise of a man.’
‘But Merlin—’ the man began.
Huathe fixed his bright eyes on to the speaker. ‘It is enough for the present to acknowledge that to many people, the spring of Barenton is the dwelling place of the figure known as Merlin,’ he said firmly. ‘Tomorrow, Beith and I will take Josse up to the spring in the forest and give him a small sample of its power. Then he may return to the Abbey at Hawkenlye and report that the tomb in the woods there in the south-east corner of England cannot be the burial place of Merlin, since he and his magic lie here in the Brocéliande, where one has but to approach the place of his interment to feel his power.’
The protester in the seated circle bowed his head. ‘As you wish, Huathe,’ he said meekly.
‘That is decided, then,’ Huathe murmured. ‘So be it.’
Joanna was awake early the next morning. She lay for some time, feeling Josse’s comfortable, warm bulk at her back. Then, as the light waxed, she got up, went to wash and then woke Josse. She offered him some food – she wasn’t hungry, for the knot of tension in her belly was making her feel slightly queasy – and he ate his way through two pieces of bread and a hunk of cheese.
Meggie was to be left with one of the women in the settlement. As Joanna was clearing away the breakfast, there was a soft tap on the door and Meggie’s temporary guardian put her head in. With a smile Joanna led the child up to the woman, who crouched down and spoke kindly to her. Then, as the woman led her away to play with another child sitting outside a nearby hut – the woman’s own daughter, presumably – Joanna made herself turn away. She’ll be fine, she told herself. And Josse and I won’t be away long.
Josse was brushing crumbs off his tunic. She grinned. ‘You look very handsome,’ she said. ‘I see you’ve done your best to smarten yourself up for the occasion.’
He ran a hand over his hair. ‘Should I wear my hat?’
Now she laughed aloud. ‘Dear Josse, no. There’s no need for that. If you’re ready, we’ll go and find Huathe.’
Soon afterwards Huathe was leading the way off along the path that led into the deep forest. Joanna, senses alert, stared about her, remembering it all so well from her previous visit. The year was much more advanced this time – high summer as opposed to early spring, when her first, powerful impressions had been formed – which made everything look different. The trees were thickly leafed and the vistas in among them consequently much reduced. There was the same sense of watchfulness, however; that uncanny and slightly unnerving awareness of unseen eyes steadily regarding her that had affected her so powerfully before.
They were climbing steadily and now and again the stream that ran from the summit of the hill could be seen over to their right; it could be heard all the time. Joanna felt the power of the place steadily overcome her. Watching Josse, whose apprehension she could feel coming off him in waves, she wanted to go to him and take his hand. But he might see such a gesture as suggesting that she thought him weak and needed her strength, so she held back.
Josse, I never think you’re weak, she said to him silently. Quite the reverse.
They came to the top of the low hill and once more she looked out on the clearing. There was the mighty oak that stood alone in the glade; ther
e the long white banner lifting and fluttering on the slight breeze; there the hawthorn bush that so resembled a crouched old man. There was the great granite slab that guarded the spring . . . and there was the fountain itself, the clear, cold water ever bubbling up out of the earth to pool briefly before trickling away down the hillside.
Huathe touched Josse’s arm, making him jump; Joanna saw him start. ‘There, Josse, is the power place,’ he said softly. ‘See the large, flat stone? It is granite and it is the spot where the forces that govern this special clearing are concentrated. The unwary’ – dropping his voice, he leaned confidentially closer to Josse – ‘they come to scare themselves, jumping on the slab and then, when the unexpected happens and frightens them silly, wishing they had had more sense.’
‘What happens?’ Josse whispered.
Huathe smiled. ‘Oh, they see visions of terrible things. The visions are produced within their own heads; they see what they expect to see, and one man’s demons are different from another’s. We help those for whom the terrors prove ungovernable. We understand a little of the power of this place and we are happy to share what knowledge we have in order to help people who have been affected by it.’
‘And this – this slab marks the burial place of Merlin the Enchanter?’ Josse asked. ‘I heard one of your people mention another name, although it was not familiar to me and I cannot now remember what it was.’
‘It is not important,’ Huathe said smoothly. He will not mention the name of power, Joanna thought with a private smile, not when he has gone to such pains to make sure Josse has forgotten it. ‘To the inhabitants of this land – ourselves excluded – this is indeed the tomb of Merlin, by whom they mean the mystery figure who was the legendary King Arthur’s magician, seer and sage. Merlin, so the story goes, found his way here to the forest pools and the spring of Barenton where the fair folk came to bathe, and here he met Viviane, descendant of the goddess of the hunt, whom he knew had been made to love him just as he loved her. According to his own prediction, he would be enslaved by his love for her. She showered him with questions, for she had heard tell of his power and was hungry to learn. In exchange for her promise of love he made magic, causing a castle to rise out of the very earth, surrounded by fair lawns and fruit trees where birds sang unbearably sweet songs. Their love for each other grew and, in time, he taught her all that he knew, including the knowledge of how she might keep him for ever more a prisoner of love. Some say that, such was his love for her, he went willingly to his perpetual imprisonment; whether or not that is true, for good or for ill she pent him up beneath a great granite slab over which stands guardian a hawthorn tree that, over time, has taken on the appearance of a stooped old man.’
Joanna, under the spell of Huathe’s skilful, hypnotic tone, felt her eyes drawn to the spot where the hawthorn stood above the spring. Josse, similarly affected, actually walked a few hesitant steps towards it.
‘Then Merlin was a real person?’ he said doubtfully. Joanna felt a stab of sympathy for him; the conflict between logic and the force of Huathe’s seductive tale was not an easy one.
Huathe hesitated. ‘In a way, yes he was,’ he said carefully. ‘Legends, Josse, tend to arise out of the need of the people who create them. King Arthur represents the common identity of a threatened race who were driven to the western edges of northern Europe; he is their hero and his magician is the figure to whom they turn for aid, support, wisdom and learning. He was, after all, Arthur’s teacher and, by extension, he becomes the teacher of the people, the bestower of wisdom and arcane knowledge.’
‘But—’ With a shrug Josse stopped, clearly at a loss.
‘Most races have some tradition by which their forefathers received instruction from a godlike figure back in the infancy of the tribe,’ Huathe went on. ‘If you like, Josse, look upon Merlin as simply that: the personification of the mystical process by which knowledge comes.’
‘So you’re saying,’ Josse murmured slowly, as if still puzzling it out, ‘that it doesn’t really matter what you call this – this person who imparts wisdom? That he – or she, I suppose – may be called by a variety of names but always serves the same function?’
‘Yes!’ Huathe said delightedly. ‘Precisely that, and the name of this person – this being, perhaps, for she or he is commonly accorded godlike status – will vary according to the mythology of the people.’
‘Then—’ Josse’s frown deepened, then cleared. ‘There is a power of some sort buried in this hilltop, under that granite slab, and some people call it by the name of Merlin.’ Huathe made as if to speak but, with a look of apology, Josse held up a hand. ‘And therefore, as far as my own mission is concerned, I may report back that insofar as Merlin can be said to exist, then he lies buried not in the Great Wealden Forest close by Hadfeld but on top of a rounded hill in the Brocéliande.’ He shot Huathe a quick glance. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ Huathe agreed.
‘And because it’s a power that’s buried and not a person, then actually there is no physical entity to be buried, either in the British forest or anywhere else!’ Josse finished triumphantly. ‘Have I got it right?’
Huathe smiled, tentatively at first and then more broadly. ‘Yes.’ Laughing, he added, ‘Oh, Josse, what a relief to have someone who so readily understands!’
‘I don’t understand,’ Josse said flatly. ‘But my comprehension isn’t important. What is important is that I now know that they are not Merlin’s bones buried in the Hadfeld tomb.’ He flashed Huathe a brief smile. ‘I don’t believe he lies buried anywhere and, since right at this moment I’m not feeling any sense of awe or dread, I have to admit I’m also very dubious about the power that you say is interred here.’
Huathe watched Josse silently. Joanna, barely able to breathe, sent him a silent, urgent message: Oh, be careful!
For a few tense moments nothing happened.
Then Huathe stepped over to the vast granite slab. He put out a hand and lightly touched the hawthorn bush, bowing as if giving it due reverence. He seemed to be murmuring under his breath, or perhaps chanting; Joanna heard the quick hum of words that she did not understand. Then he jumped up on to the slab and, standing up tall and straight, threw out both his arms.
Now surely even Josse must have felt the power for Joanna was almost crushed by it, driven to her knees with her arms crossed over her head as she tried to shield herself from what felt like a sudden downward pressure as if the fierce, wild wind of a storm front were coming straight down from the sky. There was an intense flash as fire scoured across the treetops and she thought she heard the sound of rushing water; risking a quick terrified glance, it seemed to her that the gentle trickle of the spring had become a torrent, uncontrolled and endlessly renewing itself until all the land would be drowned. And from the ground beneath her there came a sound as of rocks breaking open, of deep cataclysmic chasms rending the very earth.
There was something else, too: a dazzling, pulsing energy throbbed in the air, steadily waxing until, brilliant as the heart of the sun, it overcame thought, emotion, even sense until finally she knew that in its presence she was nothing.
She fell forward on to the ground and buried her face in her hands.
After an endless time silence fell and she heard Huathe say gently, ‘Enough.’
Slowly she straightened up. Josse was lying on his side a short distance away; she ran over to him, cradling him in her arms. He opened his eyes and stared up at her; he looked stunned. ‘Josse, dearest, I—’ she began.
But Huathe strode over and, with a gesture, commanded her to stop. Then, eyes on Josse, he said, ‘That was the power that is pent up in this hilltop. It comprises Air, Fire, Water and Earth. What you experienced at the end was the Quintessence, which is the fifth force and that elemental matter from which everything is made that is made and that permeates everything that is of the heavens and the earth.’
Josse was struggling to sit up. He looked, Joanna thought with vast relief, as if
he had suffered no lasting hurt. He was glaring at Huathe and he did not look at all happy. ‘And that’s what the ignorant refer to as the power of Merlin the Enchanter?’ he demanded.
‘It is,’ Huathe acknowledged.
Josse put both hands up to his temples, rubbing at the skin as if his head ached. Joanna would not have been at all surprised if it did; hers was pounding like a ceremonial drum beat. Then he lowered his hands and very slowly stood up. His brown eyes fixed on Huathe’s, he said with a faint smile, ‘Very well. I believe you now. There is something here.’
But Huathe did not return the smile. Instead, his expression deeply disturbed, he turned to Joanna. Leaning down so that his mouth was close to her ear, he whispered, ‘The power must not be abused, for it is terrible in its wrath. Nime was right to pen it up.’ Then, standing up again and addressing Josse: ‘You must find a way to stop the sacrilege that is being perpetrated in your British forest.’ He paused, lowering his head and screwing up his eyes for a moment as if he too were in pain. Then he continued, ‘You, Josse, are the one whose task it is. It is you who must convince those who have to be convinced that this presumptuous new Merlin’s Tomb is nothing but a moneymaking sham perpetrated by a foolish young man who is risking his life by dabbling with powers that he does not understand.’
Silence fell. Joanna, realising that her tension had prevented her breathing except in shallow little gasps, let her shoulders slump and then took a deep, restorative breath. Poor Josse, she thought. He suffers, and yet still he does not really know what it is that inhabits this place. But does he understand enough to fulfil his mission? Fleetingly she wondered which of her people had come up with the idea of bringing Josse here and why; had they believed Josse would have a look, be terrified out of his wits and rush home claiming not only to have seen the real Merlin’s Tomb but to have felt its dangerous power? Surely not, for Josse’s nature and quality were known to them – to some of them, at least – and they would therefore know he would not have reacted in that way.