by Jane Yolen
Artos smiled back and then carefully stood with the old man in his arms. He was amazed at how frail Linn was. His bones, Artos thought, must be as hollow as the wing bones of a bird.
There was a door in the cave wall and Linn signaled him toward it. Carrying the old apothecary through the doorway, Artos marveled at the runes carved in the lintel. Past the door was a warren of hallways and rooms. From somewhere ahead he heard the chanting of many men.
Artos looked down at the old man and whispered to him. “Yes. I understand. You are the dragon, indeed. And I am the dragon’s boy. But I will not let you die just yet. I have not finished getting my wisdom.”
Smiling broadly, the old man turned toward him like a baby rooting at its mother’s breast, found the seed cakes, ate one of them and then, with a gesture both imperious and fond, stuffed the other in Artos’ mouth.
So in the greatest church of London (whether it were Paul’s or not the French book maketh no mention) all the estates were long or day in the church for to pray. And when matins and the first mass were done, there was seen in the churchyard, against the high altar, a great stone four square, like unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that saiden thus:—WHOSO PULLETH OUT THIS SWORD OF THIS STONE AND ANVIL, IS RIGHTWISE KING BORN OF ALL ENGLAND.
—Le Morte D’Arthur
by Sir Thomas Malory
The Sword and the Stone
“WOULD YOU BELIEVE A sword in a stone, my liege?” the old necromancer asked. “I dreamed of one last night. Stone white as whey with a sword stuck in the top like a knife through butter. It means something. My dreams always mean something. Do you believe that stone and that sword, my lord?”
The man on the carved wooden throne sighed heavily, his breath causing the hairs of his mustache to flap. “Merlinnus, I have no time to believe in a sword in a stone. Or on a stone. Or under a stone. I’m just too damnably tired for believing today. And you always have dreams.”
“This dream is different, my liege.”
“They’re always different. But I’ve just spent half a morning pacifying two quarreling dux bellorum. Or is it bellori?”
“Belli,” muttered the mage, shaking his head.
“Whatever. And sorting out five counterclaims from my chief cook and his mistresses. He should stick to his kitchen. His affairs are a mess. And awarding grain to a lady whose miller maliciously killed her cat. Did you know, Merlinnus, that we actually have a law about cat killing that levies a fine of the amount of grain that will cover the dead cat completely when it is held up by the tip of its tail and its nose touches the ground? It took over a peck of grain.” He sighed again.
“A large cat, my lord,” mumbled the mage.
“A very large cat indeed,” agreed the king, letting his head sink into his hands. “And a very large lady. With a lot of very large and important lands. Now what in Mithras’ name do I want a sword and a stone for when I have to deal with all that?”
“In Christ’s name, my lord. Christ’s name. Remember, we are Christians now.” The mage held up a gnarled forefinger. “And it is a sword in a stone.”
“You are the Christian,” the king said. “I still drink bull’s blood with my men. It makes them happy, though the taste of it is somewhat less than good claret.” He laughed mirthlessly. “And yet I wonder how good a Christian you are, Merlinnus, when you still insist on talking to trees. Oh, there are those who have seen you walking in your wood and talking, always talking, even though there is no one there. Once a Druid, always a Druid, so Sir Kai says.”
“Kai is a fool,” answered the old man, crossing himself quickly as if marking the points of the body punctuated his thought.
“Kai is a fool, indeed, but even fools have ears and eyes. Go away, Merlinnus, and do not trouble me with this sword on a stone. I have more important things to deal with.” He made several dismissing movements with his left hand while summoning the next petitioner with his right. The petitioner, a young woman with a saucy smile and a bodice bouncing with promises, moved forward. The king smiled back.
Merlinnus left and went outside, walking with more care than absolutely necessary, to the grove beyond the castle walls where his favorite oak grew. He addressed it rather informally, they being of a long acquaintance.
“Salve, amice frondifer, greetings, friend leaf bearer. What am I to do with that boy? When I picked him out it was because the blood of a strong-minded and lusty king ran in his veins, though on the sinister side. Should I then have expected gratitude and imagination to accompany such a heritage? Ah, but unfortunately I did. My brains must be rotting away with age. Tell me, e glande nate, sprout of an acorn, do I ask too much? Vision! That’s what is missing, is it not?”
A rustle of leaves, as if a tiny wind puzzled through the grove, was his only answer.
Merlinnus sat down at the foot of the tree and rubbed his back against the bark, easing an itch that had been there since breakfast. He tucked the skirt of his woolen robe between his legs and stared at his feet. He still favored the Roman summer sandals, even into late fall, because closed boots tended to make the skin crackle between his toes like old parchment. And besides, in the heavy boots, his feet sweated and stank. But he always felt cold now, winter and summer. So he wore a woolen robe year-round.
“Did I address him incorrectly, do you think? These new kings are such sticklers for etiquette. An old man like me finds that stuff boring. Such a waste of time, and time is the one commodity I have so little of.” He rubbed a finger alongside his nose.
“I thought to pique his interest, to get him wondering about a sword that is stuck in a stone like a knife in a slab of fresh beef. A bit of legerdemain, that, and I’m rather proud of it actually. You see, it wasn’t just a dream. I’ve done it up in my tower room. Anyone with a bit of knowledge can read the old Latin building manuals and construct a ring of stones. Building the baths under the castle was harder work. But that sword in the stone—yes, I’m rather proud of it. And what that young king has got to realize is that he needs to do something more than rule on cases of quarreling dukes and petty mistresses and grasping rich widows. He has to …” stopping for a minute to listen to the wind again through trees, Merlinnus shook his head and went on. “He has to fire up these silly tribes, give them something magical to rally them. I don’t mean him to be just another petty chieftain. Oh, no. He’s to be my greatest creation, that boy.” He rubbed his nose again. “My last creation, I’m afraid. If this one doesn’t work out, what am I to do?”
The wind, now stronger, soughed through the trees.
“I was given just thirty-three years to bind this kingdom, you know. That’s the charge, the geas laid on me: thirty-three years to bind it per crucem et quercum, by cross and by oak. And this, alas, is the last year.”
A cuckoo called down from the limb over his head.
“The first one I tried was that idiot Uther. Why, his head was more wood than thine.” The old man chuckled to himself. “And then there were those twins from the Hebrides who enjoyed games so much. Then that witch, Morgana. She made a pretty mess of things. I even considered—at her prompting—her strange, dark little son. Or was he her nephew? I forget which. When one has been a lifelong celibate as I, one tends to dismiss such frequent and casual couplings and their messy aftermaths as unimportant. But that boy had a sly, foxy look about him. Nothing would follow him but a pack of dogs. And then I found this one right under my nose. In some ways he’s the dullest of the lot, and yet in a king dullness can be a virtue. If the crown is secure.”
A nut fell on his head, tumbled down his chest, and landed in his lap. It was a walnut, which was indeed strange since he was sitting beneath an oak. Expecting magic, the mage looked up. There was a little red squirrel staring down at him. Merlinnus cracked the nut between two stones, extracted the meat, and held up half to the squirrel.
&n
bsp; “Walnuts from acorn trees,” he said. As soon as the squirrel had snatched away its half of the nut meat, the old man drifted off into a dream-filled sleep.
“Wake up, wake up, old one.” It was the shaking, not the sentence, that woke him. He opened his eyes. A film of sleep lent a soft focus to his vision. The person standing over him seemed haloed in mist.
“Are you all right, grandfather?” The voice was soft, too.
Merlinnus sat up. He was, he guessed, too old to be sleeping out of doors. The ground cold had seeped into his bones. Like an old tree, his sap ran sluggishly. But being caught out by a youngster made him grumpy. “Why shouldn’t I be all right?” he answered, more gruffly than he meant.
“You are so thin, grandfather, and you sleep so silently. I feared you dead. One should not die in a sacred grove. It offends the Goddess.”
“Are you then a worshipper of the White One?” he asked, carefully watching the stranger’s hands. No true worshipper would answer that question in a straightforward manner, but would instead signal the dark secret with an inconspicuous semaphore. But all that the fingers signed were concern for him. Forefinger, fool’s finger, physic’s finger, ear finger were silent of secrets. Merlinnus sighed and struggled to sit upright.
The stranger put a hand under his arm and back and gently eased him into a comfortable position. Once up, Merlinnus took a better look. The stranger was a boy with that soft lambent cheek not yet coarsened by a beard. His eyes were the clear blue of speedwells. The eyebrows were dark swallow wings, sweeping high and back toward luxuriant and surprisingly gold hair caught under a dark cap. He was dressed in homespun, but neat and clean. His hands, clasped before him, were small and well formed.
Sensing the mage’s inspection, the boy spoke. “I have come in the hopes of becoming a page at court.”
Catamite! Merlinnus thought but did not speak it aloud. The Romans had much to answer for. It was not all roadways and baths.
But, as if anticipating the old man’s rising disgust, the boy added, “I wish to learn the sword and lance, and I have sworn myself to purity till I be pledged.”
Merlinnus’ mouth screwed about a bit but at last settled into a passable smile. Perhaps he could find some use for the boy. A wedge properly placed had been known to split a mighty tree. And he had so little time. “What is your name, boy?”
“I am called …” there was a hesitation, scarcely noticeable. “Gawen.”
Merlin’s smiled broadened. “Ah, but we have already a great knight by a similar name. He is praised as one of the king’s Three Fearless Men.”
“Fearless in bed, certainly,” the boy answered. “The hollow man.” Then, as if to soften his words, he added, “Or so it is said where I come from.”
So, Merlinnus thought, there may be more to this than a child come to court. Aloud, he said, “And where do you come from?”
The boy looked down and smoothed the homespun where it lay against his thighs. “The coast.”
Refusing to comment that the coast was many miles long both north and south, Merlinnus said sharply, “Do not condemn a man with another’s words. And do not praise him that way, either.”
The boy did not answer.
“Purity in tongue must proceed purity in body,” the mage added for the boy’s silence annoyed him. “That is my first lesson to you.”
A small sulky voice answered him. “I am too old for lessons.”
“None of us is too old,” said Merlinnus, wondering why he felt so compelled to go on and on. Then, as if to soften his criticism, he added, “Even I learned something today.”
“And that is …?”
“It has to do with the Matter of Britain,” the mage said, “and is therefore beyond you.”
“Why beyond me?”
“Give me your hand.” He held his own out, crabbed with age.
Gawen reluctantly put his small hand forward, and the mage ran a finger across the palm, slicing the lifeline where it forked early.
“I see you are no stranger to work. The calluses tell me that. But what work it is I do not know.”
Gawen withdrew his hand and smiled brightly, his mouth wide, mobile, telling of obvious relief.
Merlinnus wondered what other secrets the hand might have told him could he have read palms as easily as a village herb wife. Then, shaking his head, he stood.
“Come. Before I bring you into court, let us go and wash ourselves in the river.”
The boy’s eyes brightened. “You can bring me to court?”
With more pride than he felt and more hope than he had any right to feel, Merlinnus smiled.” Of course, my son. After all, I am the High King’s mage.”
They walked companionably to the river which ran noisily between stones. Willows on the bank wept their leaves into the swift current. Merlinnus used the willow trunks for support as he sat down carefully on the bank. He eased his feet, sandals and all, into the cold water. It was too far and too slippery for him to stand.
“Bring me enough to bathe with,” he said, pointing to the water. It could be a test of the boy’s quick-wittedness.
Gawen stripped off his cap, knelt down, and held the cap in the river. Then he pulled it out and wrung the water over the old man’s hands.
Merlinnus liked that. The job had been done, and quickly, with little wasted motion. Another boy might have plunged into the river, splashing like an untrained animal. Or asked what to do.
The boy muttered, “De matri a patre.”
Startled, Merlinnus looked up into the clear, untroubled blue eyes. “You know Latin?”
“Did I … did I say it wrong?”
“From the mother to the father.”
“That is what I meant.” Gawen’s young face was immediately transformed by the wide smile. “The … the brothers taught me.”
Merlinnus knew only two monasteries along the coast and they were very far away. The sisters of Quintern Abbey were much closer, but they never taught boys. This child, thought the mage, has come a very long way indeed. Aloud, he said, “They taught you well.”
Gawen bent down again, dipped the cap once more, and this time used the water to wash his own face and hands. Then he wrung the cap out thoroughly, but did not put it back on his head. Cap in hand, he faced the mage. “You will bring me to the High King, then?”
A sudden song welled up in Merlinnus’ breast, a high hallelujah so unlike any of the dark chantings he was used to under the oaks. “I will,” he said.
As they neared the castle, the sun was setting. It was unusually brilliant, rain and fog being the ordinary settings for evenings in early fall. The high tor, rumored to be hollow, was haloed with gold and loomed up behind the topmost towers.
Gawen gasped at the high timbered walls.
Merlinnus smiled to himself but said nothing. For a child from the coast, such walls must seem near miraculous. But for the competent architect who planned for eternity, mathematics was miracle enough. He had long studied the writing of the Roman builders, whose prose styles were as tedious as their knowledge was great. He had learned from them how to instruct men in the slotting of breastwork timbers. All he had needed was the ability to read—and time. Yet time, he thought bitterly, for construction as with everything else had all but run out for him. Still, there was this boy—and this now.
“Come,” said the mage. “Stand tall and enter.”
The boy squared his shoulders, and they hammered upon the carved wooden doors together.
Having first checked them out through the spyhole, the guards opened the doors with a desultory air that marked them at the end of their watch.
“Ave, Merlinnus,” said one guard with an execrable accent. It was obvious he knew that much Latin and no more. The other guard was silent.
Gawen was silent as well, but his small silence was filled with wonder. Merlinnus glanced slantwise and saw the boy taking in the great stoneworks, the Roman mosaic panel on the entry wall, all the fine details he had insisted upon. He remem
bered the argument with Morgana when they had built that wall.
“An awed emissary,” he had told her, “is already half won over.”
At least she had had the wit to agree, though later those same wits had been addled by drugs and wine and the gods only knew what other excesses. Merlinnus shook his head. It was best to look forward not back when you have so little time. Looking backward was an old man’s drug.
He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, feeling the fine bones beneath the jerkin. “Turn here,” he said softly.
They turned into the long, dark walkway where the walls were niched for the slide of three separate portcullises. No invaders could break in this way. Merlinnus was proud of the castle’s defenses.
As they walked, Gawen’s head was constantly aswivel: left, right, up, down. Wherever he had come from had left him unprepared for this. At last the hall opened into an inner courtyard where pigs, poultry, and wagons vied for space.
Gawen breathed out again. “It’s like home,” he whispered.
“Eh?” Merlinnus let out a whistle of air like a skin bag deflating.
“Only finer, of course.” The quick answer almost satisfying, but not quite. Not quite. And Merlinnus was not one to enjoy unsolved puzzles.
“To the right,” the old man growled, shoving his finger hard into the boy’s back. “To the right.”
They were ushered into the throne room without a moment’s hesitation. This much, at least, a long memory and a reputation for magic making and king making brought him.
The king looked up from the paper he was laboriously reading, his finger marking his place. He always, Merlinnus noted with regret, read well behind that finger for he had come to reading as a grown man, and reluctantly, his fingers faster in all activities than his mind. But he was well-meaning, the mage reminded himself. Just a bit sluggish on the uptake. A king should be faster than his advisors, though he seem to lean upon them; quicker than his knights, though he seem to send them on ahead.