Merlin's Harp

by Anne Eliot Crompton

  Stitched in bright, soft threads on a huge dark canvas, Mark bent over Tristam and Yseult, asleep on the ground. A shaft of goldthreaded light picked out the King and the guilty pair, while all around them curled a cavern of dark threads, framed in golden light and blue-threaded vines.

  Mark bent low, studying the sleeping faces. He saw Tristam's unsheathed sword asleep between the lovers, guarding them from each other. Silver threads defined the sword, and a silver aura around it.

  His own sword in hand, Mark paused. You could see his dark eyes brood, wondering. A moment more, and he would back away, sheath his sword, and leave the lovers in peace, for now.

  I had wondered before now about this scene. Did the lovers truly keep the sword between them? Were they trying to conquer the powerful love-spell that doomed them? Or had they heard the hoofbeats of Mark's charger in the wood? Had they cast the sword between them and feigned sleep, rather than fight Tristam's Lord, whom he should have loved more than life?

  I tore my fascinated gaze from the tapestry. I had seen pictures in Lady Villa. I was no longer amazed by Human art; though I had never seen any on this scale before, yet I was able to look away and examine Queen's Hall, open before me.

  Several large tables and looms stood about, and baskets of wools and flax; and a crowd of richly dressed women, who gossiped across flashing distaffs. They silenced as we entered and looked at me eagerly. Their auras, discernible in the soft, indoor light, quivered like leashed hounds shown a scent. They thought I might be about to join them, to spin or card and tell them news of the larger world.

  I glided past them on the young page's heels.

  My pouch dragged heavily again. Another keepsake had stirred to life. The page led me to the far window where a woman sat spinning alone in a shaft of sunlight.

  The Queen looked at me. The distaff stilled in her hand and dropped into her embroidered lap. I stood before her, smiling closed-mouthed; she stared at me, sensuous lips fallen a little apart.

  Her body had firmed. Her long plait, draped over one sloping shoulder, still gleamed bronze. Green and orange, faint in the sunlight, her narrow aura clung to her form and nestled in the folds of her white tunic and embroidered overgown. Looking straight at me, she thought, This small person. I have seen her before, maybe in a dream? This little dark one is dangerous.

  Spread-kneed she sat in the sun staring at me, her lap a flowered meadow between mountains, her distaff forgotten. The braided strands of her hair I yet carried in my pouch weighed me down so that standing straight was becoming difficult.

  I said, "My Lady. I am Niviene of the Lake, Merlin's assistant. You know my brother, Sir Lugh—Lancelot."

  Lugh's background was mysterious. No one here questioned him about it, and I hoped no one would question his sister. But at the name Lancelot, Gwenevere started. A red splotch glowed in her gold-freckled face. From her body arose a great cloud of scent, as though one had stepped into a garden of rose and honeysuckle. The women behind me gasped as one, then quickly fell to chattering like sparrows. Gwenevere raised a hand to her throat. Huskily she said, "You are welcome…Viviene… of the Lake."

  "Niviene, my Lady."

  "Are you staying with us long?"

  "As long as I am needed."

  I suspected I would not see much more of Gwenevere during my stay, and in that I was right. She feared and avoided me, though she could never remember where we had met before. But I learned what I needed to know from her there and then, in that brief meeting. I read every flicker of her pale lashes, every quick breath; I read her mind.

  In her mind lived one entity, one concern: Lancelot. Not Lancelot/Lugh in himself, a being apart from her, but Lancelot/ Gwenevere, a relationship. As for Arthur and his Peace, they meant no more to her than a fine sunny day, a pleasant background for more important matters.

  I could not reach out to her in words. Her narrow, focused mind was impervious to words. I could not plant thoughts directly into her mind; they bounced off the surface of her constant concern with Lancelot/Gwenevere. She had something like an energyshield around her mind. The energy trapped within could have made her powerful. But Gwenevere did not guess that. More than my childhood friend Elana, Gwenevere was blind and deaf to the spirit.

  I watched her, listened to her brief, meaningless talk, and thought, A pity she has no child. Sterility has twisted her heart thin, like her braid in my pouch. A pity she has no care for Arthur, or his people, but lives totally in her lovely body. A pitiful truth.

  Later I returned to our hut under the great round earthen rampart that guarded Arthur's dun. The rampart had one obvious gated, guarded entrance-tunnel. There were also several hidden, unguarded tunnels, some incomplete. An hour's work with ax and pick could open one of these to the outer world. The hut assigned to us mages was built across such an incomplete tunnel. Its door faced the street and the dun; a back door opened into the tunnel. I swept in by the front door, gestured to Merlin and Aefa, and marched on out the back door, into the dark tunnel. Any word said in the hut could be heard in the street but no sound escaped from back here under the rampart. Here, we thought, was the place for magic, spells and sorcery.

  Cunning Aefa brought a taper out with her, so I saw their eyes question me as we stood close together.

  I said to Merlin, "It is as you say. The woman is mad."

  Merlin nodded. He drew his knife and sketched a magic circle in the dirt floor around us. "Come, friends," he said. "Invoke the Goddess with me. Either this Lancelot/Gwenevere madness will end or Arthur's Peace will end. It is only a matter of time."

  We three worked hard. We did our best. But when we returned to the forest six moons later, the Lancelot/Gwenevere madness still flowed in full flood.

  6

  History

  For years Merlin, Aefa, and I traveled to the kingdom when needed. Sometimes we spent moons there, sometimes days. Mellias, Lugh's groom, sometimes returned with us to the forest. Lugh—Lancelot—never did. Whenever I came home to the villa the Lady would look past me, wanting to see Lugh. But this was a want, not a hope. She knew he would never come back.

  Slowly, I began to enjoy the kingdom. As experience softened the sharp edge of fear, I almost enjoyed the adventure of travel. Riding in open country I always dressed as a boy. Once in a while a canny Human would look down at me from his charger, or up at me as I sat my pony, and cross his fingers between us. Then I would laugh inside myself for sheer, delicious glee. The Humans' evil God Satan worked as my ally, though we never met.

  Within Arthur's dun, I basked in the deep respect his jostling Human herd accorded me. Giants stood aside to let me pass; brightgowned ladies hushed their chatter at my approach—this although I lived in Merlin's wicker hut under the rampart on bread, ale, and wild greens. These folk who worshipped material things, whose true God was greed, yet feared my power.

  Arthur deferred to me, though I lived under his hand, surrounded by knights who would lop off my head at his nod. Arthur treated me as courteously as he had in my forest, years ago. Naturally I had no care for Arthur. But I had not drowned my body with my heart in the Fey lake. Whenever I passed near Arthur, I remembered the white doe and the nightingale, and was conscious of my body's response.

  Early in our travels, Merlin took me to Arimathea Monastery. That spring morning I felt a peace and serenity that reminded me almost of home. I relaxed slightly, noticing birds nesting on low branches and hares quiet in their forms. We rode toward the monastery, a circle of thatched huts, through blooming apple trees, fat, tended trees such as I had never seen. Clear notes of music dropped on us like rain as chapel bells warned the monks of our approach.

  By Human standards, monks are not fearsome folk. Why should they be? They walk unarmed, threatening none. They keep few treasures in their huts that other Humans might covet. (And greed is usually the ground of Human violence.) Most Humans respect their spiritual power. (At least, the Angles I have known respect it. They say the Saxons are different.)


  So no tense, armed men rushed from barns, huts or fields to confront us. Quiet men stepped through doors, downed tools, shaded their eyes, and smiled at us (though I noticed a few sketched the sign in the air that my Human lover had sketched between us, five long years before).

  These men walked gently and spoke softly, almost like Fey. When they moved into shadow I saw their auras, mild, peaceable colors, rippling like summer brooks. One or two had large white auras like Merlin's, or like the Lady's. Most of their auras told me that these men were celibate. Some of them were virgins. I thought they must learn great magic here—a monastery must be a school of magic, as the Children's Guard was a school of forest lore—for why would anyone remain celibate, if not to practice magic?

  I dismounted slowly, glancing about uneasily—not apprehensive of the monks themselves, but of the aura of their powerful magic; and soon I felt it brush against us, a perceptible spiritual wind. Merlin saw me glance over my shoulder. He finger-signed, It comes from the central hut.

  The chapel. I turned my mind there, and sure enough, that was the source of the wind. Steadily it blew from there, from the thatched roof, from the strange wooden figure that rose over the smoke hole: two…poles…crossed, one over the other. It reminded me of the Lady conversing with spirits, standing erect, arms and legs extended, inviting east and west to meet in her body.

  On that first visit I did not go into the chapel. I did so on later visits, and so I came to see the carved wooden Gods and the everburning lamp; but inside the chapel the magic pooled like a deep lake with me at its bottom, and I never stayed there long.

  We had come to Arimathea to see Merlin's old friend and schoolmate, Abbot Gildas.

  Abbot Gildas was a small, lean man whose bushy red hair was salted with white. His red eyebrows twitched, bunched, and stretched with every thought that flickered through his quick mind. Sitting cross-legged under his curving hut-wall, I could watch Gildas happily for hours as he listened to Merlin's songs, tales, and poems, and answered with his own, all the time twitching or frowning, grinning or growling. I found him endlessly entertaining.

  He sat at a table with parchment, quill and ink before him. Merlin sat on a stool beside him, Enchanter on his knee, and even when song was uncalled for, his even-length fingers wandered the strings. There was no moment of silence in Gildas's hut when we were there, but only talk, laughter, angry hisses, song, and Enchanter's rippling, tinkling comments.

  I was the only silent being there; my part was to leap up at a small gesture from either Gildas or Merlin and run out to the cookhut for more ale. Apart from this service I seemed to disappear and be forgotten, which well suited my Fey nature. I watched and listened like a Guard child in a tree, happy to receive, without giving, information.

  I was known as Merlin's servant boy, Niv. Strangely, though we returned to Arimathea several times a year for fifteen years, Gildas never seemed to expect Niv to grow up. Niv remained the eternal child, useful for ale runs. Otherwise unconsidered.

  Sometimes when Merlin told a story Gildas would bend over his parchment, dip his quill in ink and mark the parchment. Over several visits I observed this, growing more and more curious; finally one day I rose, stood at Gildas's shoulder and looked down at the ink marks. I must have thought myself truly invisible and beyond Gildas's observation.

  Merlin said, "Niv, Gildas is writing a book." I signed, What?

  Merlin went on. "To those who can read, those ink marks speak. Monks yet unborn will read in Gildas's book of what happened in the kingdom before their time."

  I signed, Why?

  Gildas half-turned on his stool and looked up at me. The way his nostrils quivered, I saw that he had smelled as well as seen me. Quickly I skipped back. Gildas turned back. "Merlin, this boy should learn to read."

  "You forget, friend. I have not that art myself."

  "You should learn to read too!"

  Merlin began to argue that reading might destroy his memory; Gildas produced feats of memory to disprove this theory; the two men argued, and Niv sank again into his invisible corner, glad to be forgotten.

  Another time, Merlin sang for Gildas the Battle of Badon. Enchanter thrummed and drummed. Merlin's voice whispered and roared. He did not notice—but I did—how Gildas's brows and beard twitched, how his eyes flashed and his gnarled hands flexed.

  Merlin had just reached the climax, where Arthur kills nine hundred Saxons with his magic sword Caliburn, when Gildas leapt up and shouted, "Sing me no more of this Arthur!"

  Merlin looked up at him. Enchanter twanged once more and was silent. In excessively mild tones, Merlin remarked, "I have noted before now in this hut a certain lack of enthusiasm for the King. But you must write of him in your book. Arthur will be our history."

  "Not in my book!" Gildas cried. "That cursed name is not mentioned in my book!"

  "Hm," said Merlin. "And after all the tales I have told you! All that breath wasted…" As if absently he caressed Enchanter, and sweet notes drowned out Gildas's harsh breathing. "This is because of your brother, I suppose. Whom Arthur killed."

  "No! My brigand brother deserved his fate!"

  "Well. I am glad to see you so fair-minded. But why, then—"

  "You know how Arthur paid for that Badon battle! And all the other battles!"

  "Paid for…? I never thought about it."

  Neither had I. Even now, after all my experience with Humans, I am still surprised by greed, and the vast importance of pence and gold in Human affairs. Very few Humans will take a step that does not enrich them. I know this but tend to forget it because it seems so unnatural to me. In the case of war, for instance, I would suppose men would fight for their lives, homes, and freedom without being paid. I would suppose that chargers and swords and shields and lives would be given freely. But no; men will fight freely when the enemy stands at their door, but not when he waits in the next village.

  Abbot Gildas enlightened us as to Arthur's means of funding his militia. "He robbed the monasteries, brother!"

  "Ah." Merlin stroked his beard. "You monks take a vow of poverty, am I wrong?"

  "Don't be a child! Niv over there knows monks have to eat!"

  "And drink good ale." Merlin nodded.

  "And keep the tapers burning in the chapel! And keep decently clothed!"

  "So for this you leave Arthur out of history?"

  "What other revenge can I take?"

  Merlin smiled. "You surprise me, Gildas, seeking revenge!"

  "Well. I am only Human."

  "But you will find it hard to leave Arthur out entirely. You will have little history left."

  "What little I have will be a moral history!"

  "But consider, friend Gildas; Arthur—"

  "Do not name him again to me!"

  "—The King, by fighting back Saxons, allows your monastery to flourish. Yours and all the others. Your Christian church grows like a vine in his shadow. Without his sword Caliburn in their way, the Saxons would have hung you on a tree for Odin by now."

  Gildas twitched his brows and muttered, and finally changed the subject.

  As we rode away, I suggested to Merlin, "Why do you not ask Gildas to teach you to write? There is power in that."

  Merlin growled like a bothered bear. "We are not brothers, Gildas and I."

  "He calls you so."

  "We are old friends who followed the path of wisdom together since boyhood. But there comes a fork in that path where we part company. Niviene, have you noticed the sign that some of the brothers draw in the air when they see us?"

  "The sign against evil."

  "Ah, indeed! That is a sign against the 'Father of the Lies,' the 'Prince of Darkness,' the foul fiend himself!"

  "In truth?"

  "The brothers know I am half Fey and that I deal with the Fey, who are devils."

  I felt again the familiar delight in power. "I did not know we were so dangerous! I am deeply flattered, Merlin!"

  "If they knew you were Fey…" Merlin shudd
ered. "For that matter, if they knew you were female…"

  "What would they do?"

  "Well…I do not think they would harm us."

  "You do not think so." Merlin's words sobered me. I felt now a prickling of unease.

  "But they would certainly cast us out of their midst forever."

  "Ah. Is that all?"

  "And they would burn herbs in Gildas's hut to purify the air. And they might burn Gildas's book, though he is the Abbot."

  "But they would not burn us."

  "I cannot be sure of that."

  So even Gildas and his brothers, who spoke softly and walked gently, almost like Fey, could turn and rend like the rest of their savage kind.

  During another visit, Gildas spoke to enlighten me. "Chivalry," he said, "is the knights' rule of life. Monks have their rule to guide them in serving God. Knights have their rule to guide them in serving their chief. Or their duke. Or their king. A knight would no more offend his king than a monk would sin against God." Gildas's red eyebrows twitched. "How is it you are so ignorant of the world, Niv? Where have you been all your life?"