Lugh spread begging hands. "Caleb, you can heal me of these rages! You can teach me peace!"
From his pony, Merlin groaned impatiently.
Caleb muttered, "I eat no meat. I do no harm."
"I, too, will do no harm."
"I pray from noon till dark."
"I will not disturb you."
"Why? Why would you give up the world and stay with me?"
And Lugh said, "I have lost the world. I have lost King, and honor, and love. I may as well turn to God."
Caleb laughed. The dull cloud rolled a little away as laughter swayed his thin form. He said with relief, "You will not remain here long."
"I will!" Lugh insisted. (He did not realize how little Caleb wanted his company! He would have done better to agree that his stay would be short; but Lugh was never perceptive.) "I will stay here forever and eat nuts and mushrooms and preach to the birds!" A small excitement brightened his face as hermiting took on an adventurous hue. "And you will heal me, Caleb! I shall know peace!"
Caleb looked around for help, to sky, earth, and the silent trees. He was inspired. "This life is not all prayer. Will you gather wood and scavenge food?"
Lugh swallowed. This thought of work and scavenging came hard to Arthur's best knight. But he said, "I will."
Caleb looked up to the brightening tree tops. "Lord," he prayed aloud, "grant us a sign. If this unhappy friend should stay with me, grant us a sign."
His voice echoed from the close trees and died away. I waited to see what magic Caleb could call up; and almost instantly, the bracken behind me rustled and snapped. I whirled. The horses shifted and blew.
Through the underbrush pushed a great white creature, crowned with branches. Regal as Arthur, a white stag stepped quietly into Caleb's clearing.
Caleb laughed for joy. "Cervus!" he called, as to a welcome friend. "Cervus, show us the Lord's will!"
The stag scanned us all with calm, dark eyes. Against the undergrowth he shone like a snow statue, and his star-sparkled, orange aura twinkled wide around him; animal spirit mingled with higher spirit. He dipped his antlers and came toward us.
The horses drew back uneasily at his approach. Slowly he passed between Mellias and me, pausing to point his antlers inquiringly at each of us. Close to, he smelled like any autumn stag, of grassy sweat and semen. But as he paced toward Caleb the natural orange faded from his aura, leaving only a starry foam. Cervus moved now in a dream, forgetting his true nature, governed by spirit.
Caleb asked more softly, "Cervus, shall this man remain with us?" And he pointed at Lugh.
Head low, mighty antlers swinging, Cervus approached Lugh.
Lugh clapped hand to knife.
Good! I thought, Good! Let Lugh stab Cervus, and come away with us!
Now Cervus stood before Lugh, head turned slightly to look him eye to eye. Lugh stepped back. Slowly, he lifted hand from knife. Slowly, Cervus stepped forward and rested his heavy head on Lugh's shoulder.
Resigned, Caleb came and embraced man and stag. "It is the Lord's will," he declared sadly, rubbing Cervus's neck like that of a horse. "You shall stay with us, Lancelot. May God heal you of your rages."
12
Counsel Oak
On a shaded stone table between wood and pasture we found three small loaves of bread, one of them warm. I slid down from the gray charger Lugh no longer needed and seized the loaves. They had been left here for the poor, the homeless or the Good Folk. We were all three.
Mellias helped Merlin down from the charger where I had held him before me. We settled down by the stone and dressed his wound while the hobbled horses grazed.
When we lifted Caleb's bandage, the wound sickened us. It reeked. The wound itself had turned black and crackly. Around it, Merlin's side oozed pus. We needed more than Fey determination to stay here beside it; to not sneak quickly away, grab the ponies, and disappear.
Mellias looked at me over Merlin's lolling head. Our eyes met and we nodded.
Caleb had known. His last words to me were, "My old friend longs to reach a certain tree, one Counsel Oak. You know this tree?"
"I know it well."
"Do not spare him on the journey. Ride there, direct and swift."
"But his wound…"
"Will not matter."
So I knew in what case Merlin stood. I had the word of a healer more skilled than myself.
Otter Mellias went off to seek water. Merlin sat leaning against the stone table, panting and twitching. Beside him, I sat on my heels, looking out over pastureland to the smoke of a hidden village. Sheep drifted far out; their calls trembled the air. On the edge of hearing, a shepherd's pipe sang.
Close by, the hobbled charger limped after grass. In his saddlebag, Enchanter and the Holy Grail clanged gently.
"Merlin," I said, "you said the Holy Grail would heal the world. Can it not heal you?"
Painfully, Merlin chuckled. "Oh Niviene! Grown up long ago and still an innocent!"
I bit back an angry retort. Merlin sighed and went on, feebly. "I invented the Holy Grail to discredit the Christians. I thought…when no Holy Grail ever appeared…shining…magically engraved…they might think again about their religion. But now I see…that was my worst mistake. For I have made mistakes, Niviene."
I said, to comfort him, "You are half Human, after all."
"Niv, I charmed Lugh and Gwenevere to love each other."
I sat stunned. I could think of no response. Finally, I stammered, "Whatever for?"
"I thought Arthur would cast her off. Her stars were wrong. She was wrong for his Peace…but Arthur closed his eyes. Like King Mark."
"Yes."
"And now my mistake has cost him his crown."
"Arthur still wears his crown."
Merlin rolled his head against the stone: No. "At this moment he rides to battle against nephew Mordred for the crown."
"So that's why we've seen no sign of him!"
"He has more than us to worry him." Merlin closed his eyes and seemed to nap uneasily, twitching and starting and rolling his head. The distant sheep drifted closer, and the voices of shepherd children mingled with their bleats.
Eyes closed, Merlin said, "Niv, go to the battle for me. Do for Arthur what I would do."
"Where?"
"I'll tell you all…later." I wondered if later he would be able to speak, or even sign. He sighed deeply. "Mordred was also my mistake. I brought him back from Morgan's Hill."
"Yes. Don't talk anymore. Just rest."
He shook his head, grimaced. "And…about Mordred…Niv, you must forgive me."
I turned my eyes from the sheep and the distance to stare at Merlin. Never does Fey say to Fey, "Forgive." This is a purely Human concept. Slow with wonder, I asked, "I? Forgive you? For what?"
"You will learn. When you learn…forgive."
As the flock came closer, the herd children saw us. They wielded furious staves and whistled their dogs to turn the sheep aside. We were strangers, perhaps desperate folk—maybe even the fearful Fey, for whom bread was left on the stone table.
Merlin gasped, "The Holy Grail was my worst mistake of all. I invented it to…confound the Christians. But it confirmed them."
"How is that, Merlin?"
"Had it been found. Had a grail been found and named and placed on an altar. Then even Humans would see that it was only a thing. Just a material object."
"Not if it worked miracles." Human faith can work its own miracles. Hand a dying Human a handful of hair, tell him it came from the head of Joseph of Arimathea, and he may well recover.
Teeth clenched, Merlin hitched himself higher up against the table. He turned misted eyes toward the bleating flock, but I did not think he could see much. "It would remain a thing…and one day, finally, they would see that, and cease to worship it…and what it stood for. But…the Grail will never be found. I will not be here to find it."
"It's over there in your saddlebag."
"They would never accept that one, Niv. Not that dented, w
orn dish."
"Then why did you take it from Caleb?"
"I did not take it from Caleb! I persuaded him to give it for the healing of the world."
"But why? Why?"
"Because that Grail is holy. Did you not feel its power?"
"Merlin, I knew you were lying when I felt no power in it. I felt only…love. Human love."
"Yes. The holiest power in the world. That Grail will heal your life, and perhaps Arthur's life. And that healing will spread."
The Grail would heal my life? I hardly knew that my life was wounded. I listened, entranced, to Merlin's stumbling, halting words.
"In time, Niv…in the course of time, flowing like water…like the Fey river…all life flows together. Like streams into the river. The time will come…when Angle, Saxon, Roman will mean nothing. Even Fey and Human will mean nothing…They will all flow together…and divide into yet new streams…and those will flow together…like water, Niv. Life is like water."
And as Merlin paused, panting, I seemed to see the Fey river as though I floated above it. I saw streams join it here and there, and lose themselves in its flood. I saw streams flow from it, branch away and join it again.
Merlin said, "Life is one, Niv. Separation is only for a while. So when the Grail blesses you, it blesses the world."
I could see that Saxon and Angle might, one far day, be one. But Fey and Human? Would the Goddess pour clear and muddy waters together?
Then I saw Her in the distance, feet on earth, head above the clouds. She poured water from two jugs together, and the mingled stream ran upon the earth like down-pouring rain, and She thought nothing of it. Less than nothing. In the same way I myself might scoop water from a stream with no thought that tiny beings might live in it; or, if I thought it, I would not mind. The water beings lived their life, and I lived mine.
So far above us, away from us, the Goddess lives, even as She lives also within us. I shivered, and pulled myself back out of the vision.
"How?" I asked Merlin. "How will the Grail bless me?"
"You will bury it with me as a sacrifice. You will bury me as a sacrifice, and my Enchanter. Three of us together. Then you will be blessed and healed."
"Bury…Bury you?"
"In Counsel Oak. You know the great lightning rift in his side. In there. Me. Enchanter. The Holy Grail. Silence, Niviene. Mellias comes."
Turning, I saw the Otter approach like a breath of breeze, his small feet barely pressing grass. Carefully held in both hands, he brought water in a leaf-bottle.
"Merlin, little is hidden from Mellias. He has his own mysterious power."
Merlin tried to smile. "Not so mysterious. The greatest power in the world. He stole a spark of it from the Humans."
But Merlin spoke no more of burial, sacrifice, or forgiveness while Mellias tended him.
* * *
Under Counsel Oak his yellow leaves lay piled. Autumn sun smiled down between bare, massive branches. Mellias and I laid Merlin down at his feet and ourselves sank down to rest.
When he first glimpsed a smudge on the golden horizon, Mellias had said, "There's home!" Merlin had slumped back against me. Together we swayed to the steady pace of the gray charger; and suddenly Merlin's blood flowed black over us both, soaking tunics and trousers.
I knew he had held back the bleeding by sheer power till now, when home was in sight; now we must make haste, or Merlin might never come to Counsel Oak alive.
Mellias galloped ahead to signal the Children's Guard to hold their poisoned darts. The gray charger paced steadily past harvesters and Midsummer Tor and on to East Edge. There, Mellias had gathered children willing to help us. They had a raft waiting for us in the river. I rode into forest shade and the Goddess embraced me.
Merlin had warned me, "Your mother will not be there." I had answered, "I know." I had known since I dreamed of her entering Counsel Oak. "No matter," Merlin gasped. "The Goddess will greet us." And with the forest air, with the rich smells of mushroom and nut, dead leaf and mold, Her arms came around us.
The children helped Merlin to the raft and took the charger in payment. We left him in their midst, small brown imps climbing his mane, dancing on his back and sliding down his sides. He was the largest, most docile animal they had ever seen. I hoped they would do him no harm. We turned the ponies loose.
I steadied Merlin on the raft and Mellias poled upriver, pushing through flocks of ducks and swans that hardly moved to let us pass.
When the Fey lay down their bones like autumn leaves, they wander alone into deep thickets. Their bones are seldom found. So had my mother wandered away while I busied myself with Arthur's Peace.
Merlin had a Human plan. Not for him the secret thicket, the lost bones remembered only by the Goddess. No. Merlin had come here to Counsel Oak at great pain and by great power to make the ancient tree his tomb, his memorial, such as Humans love.
With his last strength he crawled into the black cavern that lightning had carved long ago. He folded himself cross-legged, leaned his head back against the black wood and reached out skeletal hands. At the gesture, his blood leaked again. I had not thought the body contained so much blood as Merlin had shed.
"Enchanter," he whispered.
Mellias handed him the old harp. It seemed to leap like a child into his hands. He held it as though ready to play, and groaned, "Now. The Holy Grail."
I took the tarnished, battered dish from the saddlebag. A moment I held it, feeling the love it had absorbed over Human generations. Only the Goddess could know how many loving hands had heaped feasts upon it—or spread crumbs to look like feasts—and offered it to hungry families. Only She knew all the hands that had dipped into it, crumbled bones now.
I gave it to Merlin, who placed it to be his breastplate.
He whispered, "Children. Listen."
I found it very hard to lean over Merlin, feeling the approach of Death just behind me. Mellias must have found it harder. But we leaned, and listened.
Merlin mumbled, "Hermit Caleb gave us his nut mast in this Grail…cheerfully…keeping none for himself…Now I take this Holy Grail to the Goddess…for world-healing.
"Enchanter goes with me to the Goddess.
"I give my bones to the Goddess, who gave them.
"Niviene, my daughter. When your heart returns to you, your power will return in full. Go now to Arthur, as I have told you; and when you find Mordred, forgive me."
I said softly, "Merlin, whatever wrong you have done cannot be changed. It is in the past."
"Only remember, child, that I was not always wise."
"I will, Merlin."
"And remember that I love you."
Love. Forgiveness. These were hard concepts for me, who had remained steadfastly Fey. Perhaps Mellias understood them better.
"I loved you best," Merlin said, and closed his weary eyes. "Now… seal the cavern."
In my dream, when the Lady passed into the cavern it healed and sealed itself behind her. This time, in true daylight, Mellias and I had to seal it. Roughly, quickly, we piled leaves into and over the entrance. In only moments Merlin's bone-white face disappeared under yellow leaves. The Holy Grail still shone through. We covered that. Merlin's even fingers, resting on the harp strings, vanished last.
We stood back, panting slightly. Then Mellias turned, strode to the lake shore, and came back with an armful of mud caught in reeds. This he slapped over the leaves.
We finished the sealing with mud, and with earth dug with our hands, and over all we laid stones. (Later, unknown hands leaned one great flat rock across the cavern, such as Humans raise over a chief's grave.)
Gasping now, trembling from the work, we sank to rest under Counsel Oak. Otter Mellias seemed to sleep instantly. I lay awake, thinking over Merlin's last words.
Daughter, he had called me.
Merlin was a poet, and he spoke poetically. But in truth I had always felt for Merlin what I think a Human daughter feels for her father. The accident of our even-lengthed
fingers formed a bond between us. Merlin was so often there as I grew up, standing like a shade tree over the Lady and me. I remembered him baking oatcakes on stones while the Lady rocked small me in her lap, the three of us like a family. I remembered him carrying me into the forest after my first ride, when I could not walk.
I swallowed hard and my eyes blurred. If I thought more along this line I might weep, as I had wept in Arimathea Orchard.
Merlin's Harp Page 18