by Whyte, Jack
He stood blinking at me in the dimness, too surprised by my words even to look about him. I gave him no time to respond. "I thought I had trained you better than that. Why did you come to the door?"
His lips moved several times before he could frame his words. "I—You had been in here a long time. I thought—"
"No, Clovis, you did not think. You came because you were concerned for me. Concerned that something might have befallen me. And what if something had? What if I had surprised an enemy in here and had been killed? You opened that door with no blade in your hand. That could have been the death of you, too. And Pharus and Lars might have died before they could even throw back their cloaks, let alone draw their swords. That kind of carelessness invites death."
He stared at me for long moments, biting his lower lip gently, then nodded. "You're right, Father."
"I know I am. Now look about you, now that you are here. This is what we came to find."
His guileless face registered renewed surprise, and I watched his eyes scan the tiny room, noting how they passed across the dusty bed and then wavered before snapping back to what he thought he had seen. I heard the sibilant hiss as he sucked in a shocked, sharp breath that stuck in his throat.
The figure on the cot, beneath the rumpled, dust-coated bedding of animal skins, had been dead for a long time. There was no way to tell how long, but all signs of putrefaction had long since dried up and withered into dust, leaving only a skeleton partially covered with scraps of dried skin. The vault of the rib cage was barely discernible beneath the coverings, and the hair that had once adorned the skull had fallen free and now lay scattered in wispy clumps like silken, ash white cobwebs. Clovis swallowed hard and licked his lips, vainly trying to moisten them, then looked sideways at me.
"Did you expect . . . this?"
I answered him without removing my gaze from the bald dome of the partly covered skull. "I had hoped otherwise, but I feel no surprise. He was an old man even when I last saw him, and that was nigh on twenty-five years ago. Had he lived until now, he would have been more than eighty years old." I stepped towards the bed, avoiding the two large bundles that lay between it and me, and knelt on one knee, bending forward to remove the bear skin that covered the lower part of the skull, and as I lifted it to bare the smooth, almost toothless jaws, my mind supplied a memory of the face that had once covered these grinning bones. "Farewell, old friend," I whispered, and covered his head completely. "We will bury you decently now."
"Who was he, Father?"
I looked up at my youngest son, noting his hushed voice and seeing the curiosity and wonder in his wide eyes, and then I pushed myself to my feet and looked back again at the lumpy shapes of the bones beneath the bed skins.
"A friend, Clovis, and more than that, trusted above all others save one, yet trusted equally with that one. A dear and priceless friend, although his very name struck terror into other people's souls. The man who fleshed these bones was a hero in the truest sense, greater than any hero you have ever dreamed of. Larger than life itself and more marvelous than any tale could tell of him."
I stooped again and tucked the dusty coverings more securely around the ethereal form on the bed. "In addition to that, he was the sole man in Britain who had perhaps more integrity and honour than the King himself; a champion, born of the noblest blood of ancient Rome . . . as well as a teacher and a mentor greater than any I have ever known, including the blessed Germanus." Again I straightened up, my eyes still fixed on the body's outline. "Above all else, however, first and last, he was my friend, although he forced me to abandon all my friends and thereby saved my life. This is Merlyn, Clovis."
I heard a strangled, gurgling gasp. My son's face was now filled with fear and horror. "He was a leper!"
I fought to swallow my sudden, unreasonable anger. It was I myself who had told Clovis of the leprosy, but I had no control over the fear the very mention of the dread disease could generate. I willed myself to smile, disparaging his fear without demeaning him. "At least you didn't say he was a sorcerer. Most people did, and many thought he was both: leper and sorcerer, cursed by Heaven." The lad stood motionless, gazing at me wide eyed, and I stepped closer to him, placing one arm about his shoulders and sweeping the other towards the bed. "He has been dead for years, Clovis, you can see that, so any threat of leprosy that ever was is long since gone. And he was never a sorcerer, despite what silly people say. You have nothing to fear from Merlyn, nor would you have were he alive and sitting here today, so take that awestruck look off your face. We have work to do here."
My son swallowed and made an effort to empty his face of fear. "What kind of work, Father?"
"A burial, for one thing. And we have to make a litter to carry those." I gestured to the two large bundles lying between us and the bed. "If you look, I think you'll find they are for me."
He blinked, frowning, then bent over to peer at the bundles before stretching out one hand to tug a small oblong package free from the leather strips that bound the larger. He held it up to his eyes, squinting in the gloom of the tiny room as his lips formed the letters of the single word written on it.
"Hastatus? What does that mean?"
"It means I'm right. That was his name for me. It means spearman in the old Roman tongue."
"No, that's lancearius."
"Aye, it is now, but a lancearius is a spear thrower and he's a cavalryman, throwing from horseback. The old word was hastatus, and the hastatus was an infantryman. He held on to his spear. Had he thrown it, he would have left himself weaponless."
Clearly mystified, Clovis frowned and held the package out to me. I took it, hefting it in my hand and gauging the weight of it as being equal to four, perhaps six sheets of parchment.
"Spearman," he repeated, as though testing the sound of the word.
"Aye, Spearman. Sometimes he shortened it to Spear—Hasta."
"I thought the old word for a spear was pilum."
I glanced at him again, surprised to hear that he had even heard of the weapon. "It was, but the pilum was a different kind of spear from the hasta, heavy and cumbersome with a long, thin iron neck—a rod that made up half the length of the thing. It was too heavy to throw far, a defensive weapon, designed to be thrust into an enemy's shield. The pilum would bite deep and then the iron rod would bend and the weight of the thing would drag the man's shield down, making it useless. The hasta, on the other hand, was a fighting spear, designed to be held by its wielder. Nowadays the lancearius uses a light throwing spear, a javelin. I used to be very good at throwing them myself, and that's how I got the name. It's a long story and someday I'll tell you about it.
"In the meantime I want to read this, and I would like to be alone while I do it, so take those tools from the corner there, if you would, and set your friends to digging a grave as close to the lakeside as may be, yet far enough above the waterline to overlook the scene and remain dry. Select the site yourself. But tell no one who we will bury there." I raised a pointing finger to him and lowered my voice. "I mean that, Clovis. I need you to be discreet in this. No mention of Merlyn's name. Say only that we found a dead man here, long dead—no hint of who he is or might have been." He nodded, and I inclined my head, accepting his agreement. "Good. We'll lay him down above this little lake of his and pray for him, then let him rest in solitude and dignity. But if any one of our companions should even guess at who lies here, word will get out, inevitably, and my old friend's rest might be disturbed at some future time by idle fortune seekers . . . although God knows there's little in the way of fortune to be found in this place. Go now, and when you've found the best spot you can find, come back and tell me before you start them digging."
He looked at me for a moment longer and then collected an old, rusted mattock and a spade from where they had sat unused for years, festooned with cobwebs.
When I was alone again I looked about me one more time, scanning the small room's few contents and furnishings. Merlyn's life here had been spar
tan. Two ancient cloaks hung from pegs behind the door, and the only other item in the place, apart from bed, table and a single chair, was a battered wooden chest, a footlocker, at the end of the bed. I opened it and found it held nothing more than a few folded old garments. I lowered the lid gently and then sat on it while I slid my thumb along the flap that edged the letter that bore my name, hearing the dried wax of its seal crack and fall to the floor. There were five sheets inside, written in the wavering scrawl of an old man's hand. I held them up to catch the light from the small window and I began to read.
Hasta:
Greetings, dear friend. I hope you will read these words someday and think on me with kindness.
I have lost track of time. Strange now, for me even to think of that after so many years. When I was young, time was the most important and demanding element in life. But then things changed when the world and all I knew in it fell into Chaos. Since then I have been alone, and time has no significance to one in perpetual solitude. The days pass unremarked and become months, then years, and one thinks more of seasons than of days. New snow, or green buds, mark the passage of the years, and one year is much like another. Only now, when the need to think of time has returned to me with thoughts of you, do I realize that I have no knowledge of where or when I am, or of how long I have been in this same, empty place. When last I thought of it, I had been here, pursuing my task, for a decade and a half. But I lost track of such things soon after that, when I fell ill of a fevered wound dealt me by a visiting bear. I spent I know not how long a time after that in some nether world, from which I returned eventually, alive but weak and confused. Since then, I have not bothered to attempt to mark the passage of time.
You may be dead by now, even as I write these words. Or perhaps you are grown too old to journey here to find the things I leave for you. I do not know, so I can only write and hope it is not so. I know that I am very old—older than I had ever thought to be. The sight of my hand, writing, shrunk to a claw and covered with thin, shiny, blemished, sagging skin that shows the bones beneath, tells me that I am ancient. (My other hand is fingerless today, but without pain. It serves to keep the parchment steady as I write.) Yet it surprises me to think that I know not how old you are today. Young enough to remain alive, and strong enough to come and find my bones and these my words? I know not.
No matter. I must place my trust in God and in His wish to have my tale made known. He has sustained me for long enough to finish my task, so I must believe that He has His reasons for keeping me alive to complete it. The fruits of that labour lie before you now, if you are reading this. Two of three bundles, as well protected against time and weather as my one-handed efforts can achieve.
The largest of these three contains the written words of Caius Britannicus and Publius Varrus, as well as my own tale of my young life. The smaller bundle holds my thoughts on what happened here in Arthur's final days, and in the days before you and we met. I have not sought to write of the time when you were here with us, since you yourself can achieve that more fully than I.
The third, most precious bundle I have hidden where only you will know to seek it, in the spot you helped me to prepare on the summer afternoon when first you found my valley here among the hills. You will know what it contains as soon as you see the shape and feel the weight of it. Do what you will with it, for it now belongs to you. Its destiny achieved, it is become a mere tool, albeit the very finest of its kind that ever was. But with his death, whatever magic it contained was spent, vanished with his lustrous soul into another time and place.
And yet be wary. Call it not by name. It will attract attention of itself, even in Gaul. Name its name aloud, and you will be inviting grief and strife and misery from covetous creatures who would stop at nothing to possess the thing.
You will also find the two items that you helped me place in the spot of which I write. Destroy them for me now, if you will, for they are packed with evil tools—poisons and vehicles of death in many guises. I have used some of them myself, at times, and know their potency, but I spent years in learning how to know and use them, and with my death they now pose lethal danger to any finding them, including you yourself Be highly cautious. Handle none of them. I would burn them myself, but I have waited and deferred too long and now I have too little strength to deal with them. Should you not arrive, they will molder and rot, eventually, unfound. But if you come, burn them and complete the task for me.
My blessings upon you and on your sons, if a sorcerous old leper may bestow such gifts. I trust your wife is well, and that she is the wife whose husband fell to set you both at liberty.
And now, at last, this is complete and I am free. I am so very tired. It is winter again, and a harsh one. The snow lies thick outside and my little lake is frozen hard, its backing wall thick with sheets and ropes of ice. It only remains for me now to bind this missive and lay it with the others. Should someone else than you find it, it may remain unread, since none here, save me, can read today. But should they pull apart the other bundles, they will find more to read— far more—and they might well destroy what lies here, burning or scattering it all. So be it. They will not find the third gift I leave for you.
Now I shall go outside, one last, cold time, and gather wood for my fire, and I shall eat the last of some good rabbit stew I made but yesterday, and after that I will lie down on my old cot and sleep the sleep I have long wished for.
Farewell, Hastatus! May your lance fly straight and true forever, and may God grant you the power to tell of what we both knew here in Britain. Your friend,
Caius Merlyn Britannicus —
How long since I have used, or seen, that name! Excalibur!
No shred of doubt existed in my mind that this was what lay in the third treasure set aside for me. He had been careful not to name it in bald words, but Merlyn had known that there had been no need. I was the only one besides himself who knew about the hiding place, the cave that I had helped him excavate behind the hanging slab of rock at the back of the hut, at the lake's farthest end. He had found it by accident one day, more of a recess than a cave, in truth: a natural space left between the hillside and the enormous broken slab that was the farthest end of the long stone cliff face that formed the rear of the little lake. A steady sheet of water flowed silently down that rock face from a source hidden on the steep, densely overgrown hillside above, and gave the tiny vale much of its magical, almost supernatural beauty.
Naturally, being Merlyn, he had seen the little hollow, screened by hanging roots and a huge clump of bramble bushes, as an asset that might be useful someday, and had labored long and hard thereafter to widen and deepen it, digging out the soft shale hillside behind the slab until he had formed a dry, enclosed space in which two men could stand upright; a space that might someday be used to conceal anything valuable, including his own life, from unwelcome eyes. I had helped him, on my first visit to this valley, to carry two iron-bound wooden chests there. He had told me at the time that they were filled with the poisonous leavings of two Egyptian warlocks called Caspar and Memnon, who had once served the villainous Lot of Cornwall and had died in Camulod for the murder of Merlyn's own father, Picus Britannicus. But he had made no move to open them to show me what they held, and I had not asked him to. And there, too, he had concealed Excalibur, years later.
I had often wondered what had become of the sword after Arthur's death. Now I knew, and I felt no surprise. Indeed, I should have known that Merlyn would have found a way to keep it safe, aware that its legendary brightness might have been put to evil purposes in the wrong hands. And thinking thus, I wondered, too, if there could be any right hands to own it, once its true possessor was dead. But now it was mine, by Merlyn's decree, passed on in trust to me and mine, albeit with a warning not to reveal its name or its true provenance. In Gaul, far removed from Britain and its memories, that might be possible, providing I contained my knowledge safe inside myself.
"Father?" I had not heard the door openi
ng behind me. "I have found the place, I think. Would you like to come and look before we start digging?"
I folded up the sheets in my hand and went outside, where Clovis led me to the grave site he had chosen. It was perfect, situated on a little knoll overlooking the placid surface of the tiny lake, and doubly appropriate because I knew it housed a double grave already. Merlyn would share his final resting place with his own beloved wife and unborn son, laid in this selfsame mound more than sixty summers earlier. The rest of our party stood about there, silently watching me, their faces showing curiosity. I nodded in approval of the site, then raised my hand.
"I knew this place, long years ago," I said, moving my eyes from face to face, "and it holds many happy memories for me. It also holds possessions I had never hoped to see again; things that I had thought and hoped were safe here, in its hidden isolation. Treasures," I added, seeing the sudden stirring of interest that the word evoked. I paused, watching them closely. "But treasures that have no worth to anyone but me. I'll show them to you, and ask you to carry them for me. I will even share them with you, should you so desire. How many here can read?"
All of their faces twisted into scowls and only one besides Clovis raised his hand. "Lars? I had no idea. Where did you learn?"
Lars, a heavyset warrior, immense across the chest and shoulders, shrugged and dipped his head as though suddenly shy. "In boyhood," he growled in his great, rumbling voice. "My father had a crippled scribe whose task it was to teach me. But that was long ago."
"And do you still read, today?"
He looked me in the eye, defiantly, as though I might challenge him to prove his next words. "I could . . . had I the time or the will."