by Mary Stewart
I rode with my chin on my shoulder and my sword loose in its sheath. "Mevysen" -- I spoke to my Welsh mare in her own language -- "when we find this great sword that Macsen Wledig is keeping for me, you and I will no doubt be invincible. And find it we must, it seems. But just at the moment I'm as scared of those wolves as you are, so we'll go on till we find some place that's defensible with this poor weapon and my poorer skill, and we'll sit the night out together, you and I."
The defensible place was a ruinous shell of a building deep in the forest. Literally a shell; it was all that remained of a smallish erection the shape of a kiln, or a beehive. Half of it had fallen away, leaving the standing part like an egg broken endways, the curving halfdome backed against the wind and offering some sort of protection from the intermittent sleet. Most of the fallen masonry had been removed -- probably stolen for building stone -- but there was still a ragged rampart of broken stuff behind which it was possible to take shelter, and conceal myself and the mare.
I dismounted, and led her in. She picked her way between the mossed stones, shook her wet neck, and was soon settled quietly enough with her nosebag, under the dry curve of the dome. I set a heavy rock on the end of her rope, then pulled the dead fronds of some fern from a dry corner under the wall, dried her damp hide with it, and covered her. She seemed to have lost her fears, and munched steadily. I made myself as comfortable as I could with one saddlebag for a dry seat, and what remained to me of food and wine. I would have dearly liked to light a fire, as much against the wolves as for comfort, but there might be other enemies than wolves looking for me by now, so, with my sword ready to hand, I huddled into my sheepskins and ate my cold rations and fell at last into a waking doze which was the nearest to sleep that danger and discomfort would allow.
And dreamed again. No dream, this time, of kings or swords or stars moving, but a dream halfwaking, broken and uneasy, of the small gods of small places; gods of hills and woods and streams and crossways; the gods who still haunt their broken shrines, waiting in the dusk beyond the lights of the busy Christian churches, and the dogged rituals of the greater gods of Rome. In the cities and the crowded places men have forgotten them, but in the forests and the wild hill country the folk still leave offerings of food and drink, and pray to the local guardians of the place who have dwelled there time out of mind. The Romans gave them Roman names, and let them be; but the Christians refuse to believe in them, and their priests berate the poorer folk for clinging to the old ways -- and no doubt for wasting offerings which would do better at some hermit's cell than at some ancient holy place in the forest. But still the simple folk creep out to leave their offerings, and when these vanish by morning, who is to say that a god has not taken them?
This, I thought, dreaming, must be such a place. I was in the same forest, and the apse of stone where I sat was the same, even to the rampart of mossed boulders in front of me. It was dark, and my ears were filled with the roaring of the upper boughs where the night wind poured across the forest. I heard nothing approaching, but beside me the mare stirred and breathed gustily into the fodder-bag, and lifted her head, and I looked up to see eyes watching me from the darkness beyond the rampart.
Held by sleep, I could not move. In equal silence, and very swiftly, others came. I could discern them only as shadows against the cold darkness; not wolves, but shadows like men; small figures appearing one by one, like ghosts, and with no more sound, until they ringed me in, eight of them, standing shoulder to shoulder across the entrance to my shelter. They stood there, not moving or speaking, eight small shadows, as much part of the forest and the night as the gloom cast by the trees. I could see nothing except -- when high over the bare trees a cloud swept momentarily clear of the winter stars -- the gleam of watching eyes. No movement, no word. But suddenly, without any conscious change, I knew I was awake. And they were still there.
I did not reach for my sword. Eight to one is not a kind of odds that makes sense, and besides, there are other ways to try first. But even those I never got a chance to use. As I moved, taking breath to speak, one of them said something, a word that was blown away in the wind, and the next thing I knew I was being thrown back forcibly against the wall behind me, while rough hands forced a gag into my mouth, and my hands were pulled behind my back and the wrists bound tightly together. They half lifted, half dragged me out of the walled shelter, and flung me down outside with my back against the bruising stones that formed the rampart. One of them produced flint and iron, and after a long struggle managed to set light to the twist of rag stuck in a cracked ox horn which did duty as a torch; the thing burned sullenly with a feeble and stinking light, but with its help they set to work to hunt through the saddlebags, and examine the mare herself with careful curiosity. Then they brought the torch to where I sat with two of them standing over me and, thrusting the reeking rag almost into my face, examined me much as they had done the mare.
It seemed clear from the fact that I was still alive that they were not simple robbers; indeed, they took nothing from the saddlebags, and though they disarmed me of sword and dagger, they did not search me further. I began to fear, as they looked me over closely with nods and grunted comments of satisfaction, that they had actually been looking for me. But in that case, I thought, if they had wanted to know my destination, or had been paid to find it out, they would have done better to stay invisible, and follow me. No doubt I would have led them in the end to Count Ector's doorstep.
Their comments told me nothing about their business with me, but they did tell me something as important: these men spoke in a tongue I had never heard before, but all the same I knew it; the Old Tongue of the Britons, which my master Galapas had taught me.
The Old Tongue has still something the same form as our own British language, but the people who speak it have for so long lived away from other men that their speech has altered, adding its own words and changing its accent until now it takes study and a good ear to follow it at all. I could hear the familiar inflections, and here and there a word recognizable as the Welsh of Gwynedd, but the accent had changed, slurred and strange through five hundred years of isolation, with words surviving that had long fallen out of use in other dialects, and sounds added like the echoes of the hills themselves, and of the gods and wild creatures that dwell there.
It told me who these men must be. They were the descendants of those tribesmen who had, long since, fled to the remoter hills, leaving the cities and the cultivable lands to the Romans, and after them to Cunedda's federates from Guotodin, and had roosted, like homeless birds, in the high tracts of the forest where living was scarce and no better men would dispute it with them. Here and there they had fortified a hilltop and held it, but in most cases any hill that could be so fortified was desirable to conquerors, so was eventually stormed or starved out and taken. So, hilltop by hilltop, the remnants of the unconquered had retreated, till there was left to them only the crags and caves and the bare land which the snow locked in winter. There they lived, seen by none except by chance, or when they wished it. It was they, I guessed, who crept down by night to take the offerings from the country shrines. My waking dream had been true enough. These, perhaps, were all who could be seen by living eyes, of the dwellers in the hollow hills.
They were talking freely -- as freely as such folk ever do -- not knowing I could understand them. I kept my eyelids lowered, and listened.
"I tell you, it must be. Who else would be traveling in the forest on a night like this? And with a strawberry mare?"
"That's right. Alone, they said, with a red roan mare."
"Maybe he killed the other, and stole the mare. He's hiding, that's certain. Why else lie out here in winter without a fire, and the wolves coming down this low?"
"It's not the wolves he's afraid of. Depend on it, this is the man they were wanting."
"And paying for."
"They said he was dangerous. He didn't look it to me."
"He had a sword drawn ready."
"But he never picked it up."
"We were too quick for him."
"He had seen us. He had time. You shouldn't have taken him like that, Cwyll. They didn't say take him.
They said find him and follow him."
"Well, it's too late now. We've taken him. What do we do? Kill him?"
"Llyd will know."
"Yes. Llyd will know."
They did not speak as I have reported it, but in snatches one across the other, brief phrases bandied to and fro in that strange, sparse language. Presently they left me where I lay between my two guards, and withdrew a short distance. To wait, I supposed, for Llyd.
Some twenty minutes later he came, with two companions; three more shadows suddenly no longer part of the forest's blackness. The others crowded round him, talking and pointing, and presently he seized the torch -- which was now little more than a singed rag smelling of pitch -- and strode towards me. The others crowded after, they stood in a half circle round me as they had stood before. Llyd held the torch high, and it showed me my captors, not clearly, but enough to know them again. They were small men, dark-haired, with surly lined faces beaten by weather and hard living to a texture like gnarled wood. They were dressed in roughly tanned skins, and breeches of thick, coarse-woven cloth dyed the browns and greens and murreys that you can make with the mountain plants. They were variously armed, with clubs, knives, stone axes chipped to a sheen, and -- the one who had given the orders until Llyd came -- with my sword.
Llyd said: "They have gone north. There is no one in the forest to hear or see. Take the gag out."
"What's the use?" It was the fellow holding my sword who spoke. "He doesn't know the Old Tongue. Look at him. He does not understand. When we spoke just now of killing him he did not look afraid."
"What does that tell us except that he is brave, which we know already? A man attacked and tied as he is might well be expecting death, but there is no fear in his eyes. Do as I say. I know enough to ask him his name and where he is bound for. Take out the gag. And you, Pwul, and Areth, see if you can find dry stuff to burn. Let us have good light to see him by."
One of the two beside me reached for the knot, and got the gag loosened. It had cut my mouth at the corner, and was foul with blood and spittle, but he thrust it into his pouch. Theirs was a degree of poverty that wasted nothing. I wondered how much "they" had offered to pay for me. If Crinas and his followers had tracked me this far and set the hill-dwellers to watch me and discover where I was bound, Cwyll's hasty action had spoiled that plan. But it had also spoiled mine. Even if they decided now to let me go, so that they could follow me in secret, my journey was fruitless. Forewarned though I was, I could never elude these watchers. They see everything that moves in the forest, and they can send messages as quickly as the bees. I had known all along that the forest would be full of watchers, but normally they stay out of sight and mind their own concerns. Now I saw that my only hope of reaching Galava unbetrayed was to enlist them. I waited to hear what their leader had to say.
He spoke slowly, in bad Welsh. "Who are you?"
"A traveler. I go north to the house of an old friend."
"In winter?"
"It was necessary."
"Where..." He searched for the words. "...where do you come from?"
"Maridunum."
This, it appeared, tallied with what "they" had told them. He nodded. "Are you a messenger?"
"No. Your men have seen what I carry."
One of them said quickly, in the Old Tongue: "He carries gold. We saw it. Gold in his belt, and some stitched in the mare's girth."
The leader regarded me. I could not read his face; it was about as transparent as oak bark. He said over his shoulder, without taking his eyes off me: "Did you search him?" He was speaking his own language.
"No. We saw what was in his pouch when we took his weapons."
"Search him now."
They obeyed him, not gently. Then they stood back and showed him what they had found, crowding to look by the light of the meager torch. "The gold; look how much. A brooch with the Dragon of the King's house. Not a badge; feel the weight, it is gold. A brand with the Raven of Mithras. And he rides from Maridunum towards the north, and secretly." Cwyll pulled my cloak again across the exposed brand and stood up. "It must be the man the soldiers told us about. He is lying. He is the messenger. We should let him go and follow him."
But Llyd spoke slowly, staring down at me. "A messenger carrying a harp, and the sign of the Dragon, and the brand of the Raven? And he rides alone out of Maridunum? No. There is only one man it can be; the magician from Bryn Myrddin."
"Him?" This was the man who held my sword. It went slack, suddenly, in his grasp, and I saw him swallow and take a fresh grip. "Him, the magician? He is too young. Besides, I have heard of that magician. They say he is a giant, with eyes that freeze you to the marrow. Let him go, Llyd, and we will follow him, as the soldiers asked us."
Cwyll said, uncomfortably: "Yes, let him go. Kings are nothing to us, but a magician is unchancy to harm."
The others crowded close, curious and uneasy.
"A magician? They said nothing about that, or we would never have touched him."
"He's no magician, see how he's dressed. Besides, if he knew magic, he could have stopped us."
"He was asleep. Even enchanters have to sleep."
"He was awake. He saw us. He did nothing."
"We gagged him first."
"He is not gagged now, and see, he says nothing."
"Yes, let him go, Llyd, and we will get the money the soldiers offered. They said they would pay us well."
More mutters, and nods of assent. Then one man said, thoughtfully: "He has more on him than they offered us."
Llyd had not spoken for some time, but now he broke angrily across the talk. "Are we thieves? Or hirelings to give information for gold? I told you before, I will not blindly do as the soldiers asked us, for all their money. Who are they that we, the Old Ones, should do their work? We will do our own. There are things here that I should like to know. The soldiers told us nothing. Perhaps this man will. I think there are great matters afoot. Look at him; that is no man's messenger. That is a man who counts among men. We will untie him, and talk. Light the fire, Areth."
While he had been talking the two he had bidden had brought together a pile of boughs and fallen stuff, and built a pyre ready for lighting. But there could have been no dry twig in the forest that night. Though the sleet showers had stopped some while back, all was dripping wet, and the ground felt spongy as if it must be soaked right to the earth's center.
Llyd made a sign to the two who guarded me. "Untie his hands. And one of you, bring food and drink."
One of them hurried off, but the other hesitated, fingering his knife. Others crowded round, arguing. Llyd's authority, it seemed, was not that of a king, but of an accepted leader whose companions have the right to query and advise. I caught fragments of what they were saying, and then Llyd clearly: "There are things we must know. Knowledge is the only power we have. If he will not tell us of his own will, then we shall have to make him..."
Areth had managed to set the damp stuff smouldering, but it gave neither heat nor light, only an intermittent gusting of smoke, acrid and dirty, which blew into all quarters as the wind wandered, making the eyes smart and choking the breath.
It was time, I thought, that I made an end. I had learned enough. I said, clearly, in the Old Tongue: "Stand back from the fire, Areth."
There was a sudden complete silence. I did not look at them, I fixed my eyes on the smoking logs. I blotted out the bite of my bound wrists, the pain of my bruises, the discomfort of my soaked clothes. And, as easily as a breath taken and then released on the night air, the power ran through me, cool and free. Something dropped through the dark, like a fire arrow, or a shooting star. With a flash, a shower of white sparks that looked like burning sleet, the logs caught, blazing. Fire poured down through the sleet, caught, gulped, billowed
up again gold and red and gloriously hot. The sleet hissed in onto the fire, and, as if it had been oil, the fire fed on it, roaring. The noise of it filled the forest and echoed like horses galloping.
I took my eyes from it at last, and looked about me. There was no one there. They had vanished as if they had indeed been spirits of the hills. I was alone in the forest, lying against the tumbled rocks, with the steam rising already from my drying clothes, and the bonds biting painfully into my wrists.
Something touched me from behind. The blade of a stone knife. It slid between the flesh of my wrists and the ropes, sawing at my bonds. They gave way. Stiffly, I flexed my shoulders and began to chafe the bruised wrists. There was a thin cut, bleeding, where the knife had caught me. I neither spoke nor looked behind me, but sat still, chafing my wrists and hands.
From somewhere behind me a voice spoke. It was Llyd's. He spoke in the Old Tongue.
"You are Myrddin called Emrys or Ambrosius, son of Ambrosius the son of Constantius who sprang from the seed of Macsen Wledig?"
"I am Myrddin Emrys."
"My men took you in error. They did not know."
"They know now. What will you do with me?"
"Set you on your journey when you choose to go."
"And meanwhile question me, and force me to tell you of the grave matters that concern me?"
"You know we can force you to do nothing. Nor would we. You will tell us what you wish, and go when you wish. But we can watch for you while you sleep, and we have food and drink. You are welcome to what we have to offer."
"Then I accept it. Thank you. Now, you have my name. I have heard yours, but you must give it to me yourself."
"I am Llyd. My ancestor was Llyd of the forests. There is no man here who is not descended from a god."