by Mary Stewart
The rest was easy to supply. It was true that this had happened before, with no chance of ill, so the troopers spurred after the Queen at no more than a hand-gallop. They could hear her mare thudding through the thick forest ahead of them, and the swish and crackling of the bushes and dead stuff underfoot. The forest thickened; the two soldiers slowed to a canter, ducking the boughs which still swung from the Queen's passing, and guiding their horses through the tangle of fallen wood and water-logged holes that made the forest floor such dangerous terrain. Half cursing, half laughing, and wholly occupied, it was some minutes before they realized that they could no longer hear the Queen's mare. The tangled underbrush showed no trace of a horse's passing. They pulled up to listen. Nothing but the distant scolding of a jay. They shouted, and got no answer. Annoyed rather than alarmed, they separated, riding one in the direction of the jay's scolding, the other still deeper into the forest.
"I'll spare you the rest," said Cei. "You know how it is. After a bit they foregathered, and by then, of course, they were alarmed. They shouted some more, and the grooms heard them, and went in and joined the search. Then after a while they heard the mare again. She was going hard, they said, and they heard her whinnying. They struck their spurs in and went after her."
"Yes?" I settled the injured arm into the freshly tied sling, and he thanked me.
"That's better. I'm grateful. Well, they found the mare three miles off, lame, and trailing a broken rein, but no sign of the Queen. They sent the women back with one of the grooms, and they went on searching. Bedwyr and I took troops out, and for the rest of the day we've been quartering the forest as best we could, but nothing." He lifted his good hand. "You know what that country's like. Where it isn't a tangle of tree and scrub that would stop a fire-breathing dragon, it's marsh where a horse or a man would sink over his head. And even in the forest there are ditches as deep as a man, and too wide to leap. That's where I came to grief. Dead fir boughs spread over a hole, for all the world like a wolf-trap. I'm lucky to have got away with just this. My horse got a spike in the belly, poor beast. It's doubtful if he'll be good for much again."
"The mare," I said. "Had she fallen? Was she mired?"
"To the eyeballs, but that means nothing. She must have galloped through marsh and mire for an hour. The saddlecloth was torn, though. I think she must have fallen; I can't see the Queen falling off her else — unless she was swept off by a bough. Believe me, we must have searched every brake and ditch in the forest. She'll be lying unconscious somewhere...if not worse. God, if she had to do such a thing, why couldn't she do it when the King was at home?"
"Of course you have sent to him?"
"Bedwyr sent a rider before we left Camelot. There are more men out there now. It's getting too dark to find her, but if she's been lying unconscious, and comes round, maybe they'll hear her calling. What else can we do? Bedwyr's got men down there now with dragnets. Some of those pools are deep, and there are currents in that river to the west..." He left it there. His rather stupid blue eyes stared at me, as if begging me to do a miracle. "After I took my toss he sent me back to you. Merlin, will you come with me now, and show us where to look for the Queen?"
I looked down at my hands, then at the fire, dying now to small flames that licked round a greying log. I had not put my powers to the test since Badon. And how long before that since I had dared to call on the least of them? Nor flames, nor dream, nor even the glimmer of Sight in the crystal or the water-drops: I would not importune God for the smallest breath of the great wind. If he came to me, he came. It was for him to choose the time, and for me to go with it.
"Or even just tell me, now?" Cei's voice cracked, imploring.
Time was, I thought, when I would only have had to look at the fire, like this, to lift a hand, like this...
The small flames hissed, and leaped a foot high, wrapping the grey log with glazing scarves of light, and throwing out a heat that seared the skin.Sparks jumped, stung, with the old welcome, quickening pain. The light, the fire, the whole living world flowed upward, bright and dark, flame and smoke and trembling vision, carrying me with it.
A sound from Cei flicked my attention back to him. He was on his feet, backed away from the blaze. Through the ruddy light pouring over him I saw that he had gone pale. There was sweat on his face. He said hoarsely: "Merlin —"
He was already fading, drowned in flame and darkness. I heard myself say: "Go. Get my horse ready. And wait for me."
I did not hear him go. I was already far from the firelit room, borne on the cool and blazing river that dropped me, light as a leaf loosened by the wind, in the darkness at the gates of the Otherworld.
The caves went on and on for ever, their roofs lost in darkness, their walls lit with some strange subaqueous glow that outlined every ridge and boss of rock. From arches of stone hung stalactites, like moss from ancient trees, and pillars of rock rose from the stone floor to meet them. Water fell somewhere, echoing, and the swimming light rippled, reflecting it.
Then, distant and small, a light showed; the shape of a pillared doorway, formal and handsome. Beyond it something — someone — moved. In the moment when I wanted to go forward and see I was there without effort, a leaf on the wind, a ghost in a stormy night.
The door was the gateway to a great hall lighted as if for a feast. Whatever I had seen moving was no longer there; merely the great spaces of blazing light, the coloured pavement of a king's hall, the pillars gilded, the torches held in dragon-stands of gold. Golden seats I saw, ranged round the gleaming walls, and silver tables. On one of these lay a chessboard, of silver, dark and light, with pieces of silver gilt standing, as if half through an interrupted game. In the center of the vast floor stood a great chair of ivory. In front of this was a golden chessboard, and on it a dozen or so gold chessmen, and one half-finished, lying with a rod of gold and a file where someone had been working to carve them.
I knew then that this was no true vision, but a dream of the legendary hall of Llud-Nuatha, King of the Otherworld. To this palace had they all come, the heroes of song and story. Here the sword had lain, and here the grail and the lance might one day be dreamed of and lifted. Here Macsen had seen his princess, the girl whom in the world above he had married, and on whom he had begotten the line of rulers whose latest scion was Arthur.
Like a dream at morning, it had gone. But the great caves were still there, and in them, now, a throne with a dark king seated, and by him a queen, half-visible in shadows. Somewhere a thrush was singing, and I saw her turn her head, and heard her sigh.
Then through it all I knew that I, Merlin, this time of all the times, did not want to see the truth. Knowing it already, perhaps, beneath the level of conscious thought, I had built for myself the Palace of Llud, the hall of Dis and his prisoned Persephone. Behind them both lay the truth, and, as I was the god's servant and Arthur's, I had to find it. I looked again.
The sound of water, and a thrush singing. A dim room, but not lofty, or furnished with silver and gold; a curtained room, well lighted, where a man and a woman sat at a little inlaid table and played at chess. She seemed to be winning. I saw him frown, and the tense set of his shoulders as he hunched over the board, considering his move. She was laughing. He lifted his hand, hesitating, but withdrew it again and sat awhile, quite still. She said something, and he glanced aside, then turned to adjust the wick of one of the lamps near him. As he looked away from the board, her hand stole out and she moved a piece, neat as a thief in the market-place. When he looked back she was sitting, demure, hands in lap. He looked, stared, then laughed aloud and moved. His knight scooped her queen from the board. She looked surprised, and threw up her hands, pretty as a picture, then began to set the chessmen afresh. But he, suddenly all impatience, sprang to his feet and, reaching across the board, took her hands in his own and pulled her toward him. Between them the board fell over, and the chessmen spilled to the floor. I saw the white queen roll near his foot, with the red king over her. The white
king lay apart, tumbled face downward. He looked down, laughed again, and said something in her ear. His arms closed round her. Her robe scattered the chessmen, and his foot came down on the white king. The ivory smashed, splintering.
With it the vision splintered, broke in shadow that wisped, greying, back into lamplight, and the last glimmer from the dying fire.
I got stiffly to my feet. Horses were stamping outside, and somewhere in the garth a thrush was singing. I took my cloak from its hook and wrapped it round me. I went out. Cei was fidgeting by the horses, biting his nails. He hurried to meet me.
"You know?"
"A little. She is alive, and unhurt."
"Ah! Christ be thanked for this! Where, then?"
"I don't know yet, but I shall. A moment, Cei. Did you find the merlin?"
"What?" blankly.
"The Queen's falcon. The merlin she flew and followed into the forest."
"Not a sign. Why? Would it have helped?"
"I hardly know. Just a question. Now take me to Bedwyr."
3
Mercifully, Cei asked no more questions, being fully occupied with his horse as we slithered and bounded, alternately, over the difficult ground. Though, in spite of the rain, there was still sufficient light to see the way, it was not easy to pick a quick and safe route across the tract of water-logged land that was the shortest way between Applegarth and the forest where the Queen had vanished.
For the last part of the way we were guided by distant torchlight, and men's voices, magnified and distorted by water and wind. We found Bedwyr up to the thighs in water three or four paces out from the bank of a deep, still runnel edged with gnarled alders and the stumps of ancient oaks, some cut long ago for timber, and others blasted with time and storm, and growing again in the welter of smashed branches.
Near one of these the men were gathered. Torches had been tied to the dead boughs, and two other men with torches were out beside Bedwyr in the stream, lighting the work of dragging. On the bank, a short way along from the oak stump, lay a pile of sodden debris running with water, which glinted in the torchlight. Each time, one could guess, the nets would come up heavily weighted from the bottom, and each time all the men present would strain forward under the torchlight to see, with dread, if the net held the drowned body of the Queen.
One such load had just been tipped out as Cei and I approached, our horses slithering to a thankful stop on the very brink of the water. Bedwyr had not seen us. I heard his voice, rough with fatigue, as he showed the net-men where next to sink the drags. But the men on the bank called out, and he turned, then, seizing a torch from the man beside him, came splashing toward us.
"Cei?" He was too far gone with worry and exhaustion to see me there. "Did you see him? What did he say? Wait, I'll be with you in a moment." He turned to shout over his shoulder: "Carry on, there!"
"No need," I said. "Stop the work, Bedwyr. The Queen is safe."
He was just below the bank. His face, upturned in the torchlight, was swept with such a light of relief and joy that one could have sworn the torches burned suddenly brighter. "Merlin? Thank the gods for that! You found her, then?"
Someone had led our horses back. All around us now the men crowded, with eager questions. Someone put a hand down to Bedwyr, who came leaping up the bank, and stood there with the muddy water running off him.
"He had a vision." This was Cei, bluntly. The men went quiet at that, staring, and the questions died to an awed and uneasy muttering. But Bedwyr asked simply:
"Where is she?"
"I can't tell you that yet, I'm afraid." I looked around me. To the left the muddy channel wound deeper into the darkness of the forest, but westward, to the right, a space of evening light could be seen through the trees where it opened out into a marshy lake. "Why were you dragging here? I understood the troopers didn't know where she fell."
"It's true they neither heard nor saw it, and she must have fallen some time before they got on the track of her mare again. But it looks very much as if the accident happened here. The ground's got trampled over now, so you can't see anything much, but there were signs of a fall, the horse shying, probably, and then bursting away through these branches. Bring the torch nearer, will you? There, Merlin, see? The marks on the boughs and a shred of cloth that must have come from her cloak...There was blood, too, smeared on one of the snags. But if you say she's safe..." He put up a weary hand to push the hair from his eyes. It left a streak of mud right down his cheek. He took no notice.
"The blood must have been the mare's," said someone from behind me. "She was scratched about the legs."
"Yes, that would be it," said Bedwyr. "When we picked her up she was lame, and with a broken rein. Then when we found the marks here on the bank and among the branches, I thought I saw — I was afraid I knew what had happened. I thought the mare had shied and fallen, and thrown the Queen into the water. It's deep here, right under the bank. I reckoned she might have held on to the rein and tried to get the mare to pull her out, but the rein broke, and then the mare bolted. Or else the rein got caught on one of the snags, and it was only some time later that the mare could break loose and bolt. But now...What did happen?"
"That I can't tell you. What matters now is to find her, and quickly. And for that, we must have King Melwas' help. Is he here, or any of his people?"
"None of his men-at-arms, no. But we fell in with three or four of the marsh-dwellers, good fellows, who showed us some of the ways through the forest." He raised his voice, turning. "The Mere men, are they here still?"
It seemed that they were. They came forward, reluctant and over-awed, pushed by their companions. Two men, smallish and broad-shouldered, bearded and unkempt, and with them a stripling boy — the son, I guessed, of the younger man. I spoke to the elder.
"You come from Mere, in the Summer Country?"
He nodded, his fingers twisting nervously in front of him at a fold of his sodden tunic.
"It was good of you to help the High King's men. You shall not be the losers by it, I promise you. Now, you know who I am?" Another nod, more twisting of the hands. The boy swallowed audibly. "Then don't be afraid, but answer my questions if you can. Do you know where King Melwas is now?" "Not rightly, my lord, no." The man spoke slowly, almost like one using a foreign language. These marsh people are silent folk, and, when about their own business, use a dialect peculiar to themselves. "But you'll not find him at his palace on the Island, that I do know. Seen him away hunting, we did, two days gone.’Tis a thing he does, now and again, just him and one of the lords, or maybe two."
"Hunting? In these forests?" "Nay, master, he went fowling. Just himself, and one to row the boat." "And you saw him go? Which way?" "Southwest again." The man pointed. "Down there where the causeway runs into the marsh. The land's
dry in places thereabouts, and there be wild geese grazing in plenty. There's a lodge he has, a main beyond, but he won't be there now. It's empty since this winter past, and no servants in it. Besides, the news came up the water this dawning that the young King was on his way home from Caer-y-n'a Von with a score of sail, so he would be putting in at the Island, maybe with the next tide. And our King Melwas surely must be there to greet him?"
This was news to me, and, I could see, to Bedwyr. It is a constant mystery how these remote dwellers in the marshes get their news so quickly. Bedwyr looked at me. "There was no beacon lighted on the Tor when news came about the Queen. Did you see it, Merlin?"
"No. Nor any other. The sails can't have been sighted yet. We should go now, Bedwyr. We'll ride for the Tor." "You mean to speak with Melwas, even before we seek the Queen?"
"I think so. If you would give the orders? And see these men recompensed for their help?" In the bustle that followed, I touched Bedwyr's arm and took him aside. "I can't talk now, Bedwyr. This is a high matter, and dangerous. You and I must go alone to seek the Queen. Can you manage this without being questioned?"
He frowned, searching my face, but said immediately:
"Of course. But Cei? Will he accept that?" "He's injured. Besides, if Arthur is due, Cei should be back in Camelot." "That's true. And the rest can ride for the Island, to wait for the tide. It'll be dark enough soon for us to slip away from them." The day's strain hacked abruptly through his voice. "Are you going to tell me what this is all about?"
"I'll explain as we ride. But I want no one else to hear, not even Cei."
A few minutes later we were on our way. I rode between Cei and Bedwyr, with the men clattering behind us. They were talking lightheartedly among themselves, wholly reassured, it seemed, by my word that all was well. I myself, though still knowing only what the dream allowed me, felt curiously light and easy, riding at the urgent pace Bedwyr set through the treacherous ground, without thought or care, not even feeling saddle or bridle-rein. It was not a new feeling, but it was many years since it had come to me; the god's will streaming past, and myself going with it, a spark blown between the lasting stars. I did not know what lay ahead of us in that watery dusk, but only that the Queen and her adventure were but a small part of the night's destiny, shadows already blown aside by this great forward surge of power.
My memory of that ride is all confusion now. Cei's party left us, and shortly afterwards we found boats, and Bedwyr embarked half the party by the short route across the Lake. The rest he divided, some by the shore road, others by the causeway that led directly to the wharf. The rain had stopped now, and mist lay everywhere with the night coming; above it the sky was filling with stars, as a net with flashing silver fish. More torches were lit, and the flat ferries crammed with men and horses were poled slowly through misty water that streamed with reflected light like smoke. As the troops on shore broke and reformed, their horses shoulder-deep in the rolling mist, we saw the glimmer of a distant torch mounting the Tor. Arthur's sails had been sighted.