by Mary Stewart
"So all through that winter he came to me. And he came at night. I was never alone in my chamber, but he came through doors and windows and walls, and lay with me. I never saw him again, but heard his voice and felt his body. Then, in the summer, when I was heavy with child, he left me." She paused.
"They will tell you how my father beat me and shut me up, and how when the child was born he would not give him a name fit for a Christian prince, but, because he was born in September, named him for the sky-god, the wanderer, who has no house but the woven air. But I called him Merlin always, because on the day of his birth a wild falcon flew in through the window and perched above the bed, and looked at me with my lover's eyes."
Her glance crossed mine then, a brief flash. This, then, was true. And the Emrys, too, she had given me that in spite of them; she had kept that much of him for me after all.
She had looked away. "I think, my lord King, that what I have told you will not altogether surprise you. You must have heard the rumors that my son was not as ordinary boys -- it is not possible always to be silent, and I know there have been whispers, but now I have told you the truth, openly; and so I pray you, my lord Vortigern, to let my son and me go back in peace to our respective houses of religion."
When she had finished there was silence. She bowed her head and pulled up her hood again to hide her face. I watched the King and the men behind him. I thought to see him angry, frowning with impatience, but to my surprise his brows smoothed out, and he smiled. He opened his mouth to answer my mother, but the Queen forestalled him. She leaned forward, licking her red lips, and spoke for the first time, to the priests.
"Maugan, is this possible?"
It was the tall man, the bearded high priest, who answered her. He spoke without hesitation, bland and surprisingly emphatic.
"Madam, it is possible. Who has not heard of these creatures of air and darkness, who batten on mortal men and women? In my studies, and in many of the books I have read, I have found stories of children being born into the world in this fashion." He eyed me, fondling his beard, then turned to the King. "Indeed, my lord, we have the authority of the ancients themselves. They knew well that certain spirits, haunting the air at night between the moon and the earth, cohabit at their will with mortal women, in the shape of men. It is certainly possible that this royal lady -- this virtuous royal lady -- was the victim of such a creature. We know -- and she has said herself -- that this was rumored for many years. I myself spoke with one of her waiting-women who said that the child could surely be begotten of none but the devil, and that no man had been near her. And of the son himself, when he was a child, I heard many strange things. Indeed, King Vortigern, this lady's story is true."
No one looked any longer at Niniane. Every eye in the place was on me. I could see in the King's face nothing that was not at once ferocious and innocent, a kind of eager satisfaction like a child's, or a wild beast's when it sees its prey loitering nearer. Puzzled, I held my tongue and waited. If the priests believed my mother, and Vortigern believed the priests, then I could not see where danger could come from. No faintest hint had turned men's thoughts towards Ambrosius. Maugan and the King seemed to hurry with eager satisfaction down the path that my mother had opened for them.
The King glanced at my guards. They had moved back from me, no doubt afraid to stand so near a demon's child. At his sign they closed in again. The man on my right still held his sword drawn, but down by his side and out of my mother's view. It was not quite steady. The man on my left surreptitiously loosened his own blade in its sheath. Both men were breathing heavily, and I could smell fear on them.
The priests were nodding sagely, and some of them, I noticed, held their hands in front of them in the sign to ward off enchantment. It seemed that they believed Maugan, they believed my mother, they saw me as the devil's child. All that had happened was that her story had confirmed their own belief, the old rumors. This, in fact, was what she had been brought here for. And now they watched me with satisfaction, but also with a kind of wary fear.
My own fear was leaving me. I thought I began to see what they wanted. Vortigern's superstition was legendary. I remembered what Dinias had told me about the stronghold that kept falling down, and the reports of the King's soothsayers that it was bewitched. It seemed possible that, because of the rumors of my birth, and possibly because of the childish powers I had shown before I left home, to which Maugan had referred, they thought I could advise or help them. If this was so, and they had brought me here because of my reputed powers, there might be some way in which I could help Ambrosius right from the enemy's camp. Perhaps after all the god had brought me here for this, perhaps he was still driving me. Put yourself in his path...Well, one could only use what was to hand. If I had no power to use, I had knowledge.
I cast my mind back to the day at King's Fort, and to the flooded mine in the core of the crag, to which the dream had led me. I would certainly be able to tell them why their foundations would not stand. It was an engineer's answer, not a magician's. But, I thought, meeting the oyster eyes of Maugan as he dry-washed those long dirty hands before him, if it was a magician's answer they wanted, they should have it. And Vortigern with them.
I lifted my head. I believe I was smiling. "King Vortigern!"
It was like dropping a stone into a pool, the room was so still, so centered on me. I said strongly: "My mother has told you what you asked her. No doubt you will tell me now in what way I can serve you, but first I must ask you to keep your royal promise and let her go."
"The Lady Niniane is our honored guest." The King's reply seemed automatic. He glanced at the open arcade that faced the river, where the white lances of the rain hissed down across a dark grey sky. "You are both free to go whenever you choose, but this is no time to begin the long journey back to Maridunum. You will surely wish to lie the night here, Madam, and hope for a dry day tomorrow?" He rose, and the Queen with him. "Rooms have been prepared, and now the Queen will take you there to rest and make ready to sup with us. Our court here, and our rooms, are a poor makeshift, but such as they are, they are at your service. Tomorrow you will be escorted home."
My mother had stood when they did. "And my son? You still have not told us why you brought us here for this?"
"Your son can serve me. He has powers which I can use. Now, Madam, if you will go with the Queen, I will talk to your son and tell him what I want of him. Believe me, he is as free as you are. I constrained him only until you told me the truth I wished to hear. I must thank you now for confirming what I had guessed." He put out a hand. "I swear to you, Lady Niniane, by any god you like, that I do not hold his birth against him, now or ever."
She regarded him for a moment, then bowed her head and, ignoring his gesture, came down to me, holding out both her hands. I crossed to her and took them in my own. They felt small and cold. I was taller than she was. She looked up at me with the eyes that I remembered; there was anxiety in them, and the dregs of anger, and some message urgently spoken in silence.
"Merlin, I would not have had you know it this way. I would have spared you this." But this was not what her eyes were saying.
I smiled down at her, and said carefully: "Mother, you told me nothing today that shocked me. Indeed, there's nothing you could tell me about my birth that I do not already know. Set yourself at rest."
She caught her breath and her eyes widened, searching my face. I went on, slowly: "Whoever my father was, it will not be held against me. You heard what the King promised. That is all we need to know."
Whether she got this part of the message I could not guess. She was still taking in what I had said first. "You knew? You knew?"
"I knew. You surely don't imagine that in all the years I've been away from you, and with the kind of studies I've undertaken, I never found out what parentage I had? It's some years now since my father made himself known to me. I assure you, I've spoken with him, not once but many times. I find nothing in my birth of which I need to be asham
ed."
For a moment longer she looked at me, then she nodded, and the lids drooped over her eyes. A faint color had come up into her face. She had understood me.
She turned away, pulling her hood up again to hide her face, and put her hand on the King's arm. She went from the room, walking between him and the Queen, and her two women followed them. The priests remained, clucking and whispering and staring. I took no notice of them, but watched my mother go.
The King paused in the doorway, and I heard his voice bidding my mother goodbye. There was a crowd waiting in the outer porch. They made way for Rowena and my mother, and the half-dozen women who were there followed them. I heard the swish of their dresses and the light voices of the women fade into the sound of the rain. Vortigern stood still in the doorway, watching them go. Outside the rain fell with a noise like a running river. It was darkening fast.
The King swung round on his heel and came back into the hall, with his fighting men behind him.
9
They crowded round me, muttering noisily, but holding back in a circle, like hounds before they close in for the kill. Death was back in the hall; I could feel it, but could not believe or understand it. I made a movement as if to follow my mother, and the swords of my guards lifted and quivered. I stood still.
I said sharply, to the King: "What's this? You gave your word. Are you so quickly forsworn?"
"Not forsworn. I gave my word that you should serve me, that I would never hold your birth against you. This is true. It is because of what I know about you, because you are the child of no man, that I have had you brought to me today. You will serve me, Merlin, because of your birth."
"Well?"
He mounted the steps to the throne and sat down again. His movements were slow and deliberate. All the men of the court had crowded in with him, and with them the torch-bearers. The hall filled with smoky light and the rustle and creak of leather and the clank of mail. Outside the rain hissed down.
Vortigern leaned forward, chin on fist. "Merlin, we have learned today what in part we already suspected, that you are the child of no man, but of a devil. As such, you require mercy from no man. But because your mother is a king's daughter, and therefore something is due to you, I shall tell you why I brought you here. You know perhaps that I am building a stronghold here on the rock they call the Fortress?"
"Everyone knows it," I said, "and everyone knows that it will not stand, but falls down whenever it reaches man height."
He nodded. "And my magicians and wise men here, my advisers, have told me why. The foundations have not been properly laid."
"Well," I said, "that sounds remarkably like sense to me."
There was a tall old man to the King's right, beside the priests. His eyes were a bright angry blue under jutting white brows. He was watching me fixedly, and I thought I saw pity in his look. As I spoke, he put a hand up to his beard as if to hide a smile.
The King seemed not to have heard me. "They tell me," he said, "that a king's stronghold should be built on blood."
"They are talking, of course, in metaphors?" I said politely.
Maugan suddenly struck his staff on the floor of the dais. "They are talking literally!" he shouted. "The mortar should be slaked with blood! Blood should be sprinkled on the foundations. In ancient times no king built a fortress without observing this rite. The blood of a strong man, a warrior, kept the walls standing."
There was a sharp pause. My heart had begun to beat in slow, hard strokes that made the blood tingle in my limbs. I said, coldly: "And what has this to do with me? I am no warrior."
"You are no man, neither," said the King harshly. "This is the magic, Merlin, that they have revealed to me, that I should seek out a lad who never had a father, and slake the foundations with his blood."
I stared at him, then looked round the ring of faces. There was shifting and muttering, and few eyes met mine, but I could see it in all their faces, the death I had smelled ever since I entered the hall. I turned back to the King.
"What rubbish is this? When I left Wales, it was a country for civilized men and for poets, for artists and for scholars, for warriors and kings who killed for their country, cleanly and in daylight. Now you talk of blood and human sacrifice. Do you think to throw modern Wales back to the rites of ancient Babylon and Crete?"
"I do not speak of 'human' sacrifice," said Vortigern. "You are the son of no man. Remember this."
In the stillness the rain lashed into the bubbling puddles on the ground outside. Someone cleared his throat. I caught the fierce blue glance of the old warrior. I had been right; there was pity there. But even those who pitied me were not going to raise a hand against this stupidity.
It had all come clear at last, like lightning breaking. This had been nothing to do with Ambrosius, or with my mother. She was safe enough, having merely confirmed what they wanted confirmed. She would even be honored, since she had provided what they desired. And Ambrosius had never even entered their thoughts. I was not here as his son, his spy, his messenger; all they wanted was the "devil's child" to kill for their crude and dirty magic.
And, ironically enough, what they had got was no devil's child, not even the boy who once had thought to have power in his hands. All they had got was a human youth with no power beyond his human wits. But by the god, I thought, those might yet be enough...I had learned enough, power or no power, to fight them with their own weapons.
I managed to smile, looking beyond Maugan at the other priests. They were still making the sign against me, and even Maugan hugged his staff against his breast as if it had the power to protect him. "And what makes you so sure that my father the devil will not come to my aid?"
"Those are only words, King. There's no time to listen." Maugan spoke quickly and loudly, and the other priests pressed forward with him round the King's chair. They all spoke at once.
"Yes, kill him now. There's no time to waste. Take him up to the crag and kill him now. You shall see that the gods will be appeased and the walls stand steady. His mother will not know, and even if she does, what can she do?"
There was a general movement, like hounds closing in. I tried to think, but I was empty even of coherent thought. The air stank and darkened. I could smell blood already, and the sword blades, held openly now against me, flashed in the torchlight. I fixed my eyes on the fireshot metal, and tried to empty my mind, but all I could see was the picked skeleton of Galapas, high on the hill in the sunlight, with the wings of the birds over him...
I said, to the swords: "Tell me one thing. Who killed Galapas?"
"What did he say? What did the devil's son say?" The question buzzed through the hall. A harsh voice said, loudly: "Let him speak." It was the old grey-bearded warrior.
"Who killed Galapas, the magician who lived on Bryn Myrddin above Maridunum?"
I had almost shouted it. My voice sounded strange, even to me. They fell silent, eyeing one another sideways, not understanding. Vortigern said: "The old man? They said he was a spy."
"He was a magician, and my master," I said. "And he taught me, Vortigern."
"What did he teach you?"
I smiled. "Enough. Enough to know that these men are fools and charlatans. Very well, Vortigern. Take me up to the crag and bring your knives with you, you and your soothsayers. Show me this fortress, these cracking walls, and see if I cannot tell you, better than they, why your fort will not stand. 'No man's child'!" I said it with contempt. "These are the things they conjure up, these foolish old men, when they can think of nothing else. Does it not occur to you, King, that the son of a spirit of darkness might have a magic that outstrips the spells of these old fools? If what they say is true, and if my blood will make these stones stand, then why did they watch them fall not once, not twice, but four times, before they could tell you what to do? Let me but see the place once, and I will tell you. By the God of gods, Vortigern, if my dead blood could make your fortress stand, how much better could my living body serve you?"
; "Sorcery! Sorcery! Don't listen to him! What does a lad like him know of such matters?" Maugan began to shout, and the priests to cluck and chatter. But the old warrior said gruffly and sharply: "Let him try. There's no harm in that. Help you must have, Vortigern, be it from god or devil. Let him try, I say." And round the hall I heard the echoes from the fighting men, who would have no cause to love the priests: "Let him try."
Vortigern frowned in indecision, glancing from Maugan to the warriors, then at the grey arches where the rain fell. "Now?"
"Better now," they said. "There is not much time."
"No," I said clearly, "there is not much time." Silence again, all eyes on me. "The rain is heavy, Vortigern. What kind of king is it whose fortress is knocked down by a shower of rain? You will find your walls fallen yet again. This comes of building in the dark, with blind men for counselors. Now take me to the top of your crag, and I will tell you why your walls have fallen. And if you listen to me instead of to these priests of darkness, I will tell you how to rebuild your stronghold in the light."
As I spoke, like the turning off of a tap, the downpour stopped. In the sudden quiet, men's mouths gaped. Even Maugan was dumb. Then like the pulling aside of a dark curtain, the sun came out.
I laughed. "You see? Come, King, take me to the top of the crag, and I will show you in sunlight why your walls fell down. But tell them to bring the torches. We shall need them."
10
Before we had fairly reached the foot of the crag I was proved right. The workmen could be seen crowded to the edge of the rock above, waiting for the King, and some of them had come down to meet him. Their foreman came panting up, a big man with rough sacking held gripped round his shoulders like a cloak, still sluicing with wet. He seemed hardly to have realized that the rain had stopped. He was pale, his eyes red-rimmed as if he had lacked sleep for nights. He stopped three paces away, eyeing the King nervously, and dashing the wet back of a hand across his face.