by Whyte, Jack
"Very well, Master Merlyn," I said, successfully stifling a sigh. "Let me start from the beginning.
"We set out to find you last year and it was already late autumn by the time we left Auxerre. Bishop Germanus had set out for Italia before that, to meet with the Pope and the other bishops, but before he left he gave me lengthy and explicit instructions about coming here and finding you, and he made it very clear to me that there was an urgency governing my mission to bring you his word."
From that point I went on to tell him about our entire voyage: our landing at Glevum, our arrival in Camulod, and finding Bishop Enos in Verulamium.
"Bishop Enos had his men out looking for you," I said in conclusion, "but it took a long, long time to locate you, since you apparently had no slightest wish to be found."
Now Merlyn shrugged. "Why should I? The wars were ended and our home was safe again for the first time in years. I had been deeply involved in much of what had happened and had lost too many close friends and loved ones during the conflict without ever having time to grieve over any of their deaths. I felt then that it was time for me to withdraw, as far away as possible from everything, and be by myself for a while.
"Besides, in addition to my mourning, I had other matters to think about and decisions of some import to conclude, none of which would have been made easier by having other people around me. Had I expected or anticipated your arrival I would, of course, have returned earlier than I did, but Germanus had assured me that he would be coming in person this year and I took him absolutely at his word, never imagining that he might have superior orders that would preclude his coming here."
I nodded, accepting the truth of that. "Well, it seems it was our fate to remain in Verulamium to endure what everyone has assured me was the longest, harshest and most brutal winter anyone can remember."
"That is true. I have never witnessed anything comparable to it. We had one like it many years ago, when I was young, and it killed many of the oldest and least healthful of our people here in Camulod, including my great-aunt Luceiia Britannicus. But even that winter, brutal as it was, was shorter and less savage than this one just past. Coming from Gaul, it must have been an unpleasant surprise for you."
I nodded. "My young assistant, Bors, had never seen snow before. He comes from Iberia, to the southeast of Gaul on the shores of the Middle Sea, where he was born and bred to an unvarying climate of high heat and desert sunshine. He was thrilled by the first snow here, the newness of it, but that wore off quickly and left only the fact of a winter such as he had never imagined. The first two months of snow and ice and chill almost killed him. He wore more clothing during that time than any other three men in our group, and it required great effort at any time of day to prize him away from the fireside to do his daily tasks. He may never overcome his distaste for Britain's climate now."
Merlyn smiled. "Some of our own people feel the same way, and they were born here. A single trip to Africa, or to any of the warmer climes to the southward, can spoil a person forever afterwards in their expectations of Britain. And after the winter had passed, you had to wait for your friend to heal?"
"We did, and were frustrated by the knowledge of time wasted. And then one night, in the blackest hours of the middle watch, Bishop Germanus came and sat on the edge of my cot. I knew he was there and I could see him clearly despite the darkness. I even felt his weight pulling my cot to one side as he sat down, and yet I could see myself as well, asleep on my cot and completely unaware of him. He reached down and shook me by the shoulder, but I was deeply asleep and merely sought to turn away from his grasp. He shook me again, and then a third time, whispering my name urgently, as though he wished not to be overheard by anyone else. It seemed to me I was standing apart, by the top of the bed, looking down at both of them—Germanus growing impatient with my unconsciousness and me, refusing to awaken. I remember wondering how the sleeping figure that was me could possibly be so unaware of what was going on, and then it came to me that I had been astir before dawn the previous day and had worked in the stables with Bors, almost without stopping, from then until I fell into bed late that night.
"Eventually, however, Germanus took my left hand and dug the point of his thumbnail into the very base of mine. That woke me up, quickly. I came up out of darkness snarling, aware of the pain in my hand and preparing to defend myself, only to find Germanus's hand flat against my chest, pushing me down as he called my name again, bidding me wake up. Then, when he was satisfied I was awake and aware of him, but before I could even think to question him about his being there, he spoke to me.
" 'Clothar,' he said, 'listen to me. Listen closely, for I have but little time. You must find Merlyn Britannicus, quickly. That is the only reason now for you to be in Britain. Find Merlyn. Give him the information that you carry from me. Go, now, and do as I bid you.' And then he placed his outstretched hand over my eyes and sent me back to sleep, and the part of me that stood as witness watched him rise and walk out of the tent. And even although he had carried no light, the tent darkened into blackness as he passed out through the flaps. In the blackness that remained then I grew dizzy and fell into I know not what. But I awoke the next morning with every detail of the dream brilliantly clear in my mind and went searching for Bishop Enos immediately."
The man across from me, whom I still could not regard as the Merlyn Britannicus I had envisioned, nodded his head slowly, sucking his upper lip down into his mouth to where he could grasp and nibble it between his teeth. "Hmm," he mused, "that is what Enos told me in his letter, although he lacked the details you have just supplied. Tell me." He fixed me with a sharp gaze. "Do you believe the visitation really happened? You have already said that it was no more than a dream, and yet you acted upon it. You left Verulamium and came west. What do you really believe?"
I answered cautiously but firmly, choosing my words with great care. "I believed it at the time. I believed it was, as you say, a visitation, a vision of some kind. I had no understanding of what I had seen, or dreamed, or imagined, or of how it came to pass, and all the logic of my training told me that such things are quite impossible. And yet our faith teaches us to believe in miracles, and I have no difficulty in believing in those things when they involve holy and devout people in extraordinary circumstances." I stopped and searched for words to express what I wanted to say next. "There are many stories told in Gaul of miracles performed by Germanus. Were you aware of that?"
"No," he said. "I did not know that, but it hardly surprises me. Is it true?"
I shrugged. "It's true that there are stories told of it. Whether or not there is truth in the stories is beyond me. But people over there speak of him as being saintly, and I truly believe he is. He himself, however, will have nothing to do with such tales. He has sworn to me in person that there is no substance to any of those reports. He says that people merely perceive what they wish to perceive and will bend truth and facts to suit their own requirements. I asked him once, when he was in full flight over this, if he was denying the existence of miracles, and of course he was not. He corrected me immediately and with great passion on that. But what he was denying—and he was adamant on this—was his personal ability to perform miracles or to contribute to anything that might ever be described in any way as being miraculous.
"I continued to believe, throughout the months that followed my dream, that contrary to logic and to all the laws of probability and possibility, Bishop Germanus came into my tent that night and spoke to me. I believed it happened. And I believed he had come there to tell me I had to come here, seeking you. And thus, I suppose I believed I had experienced a miracle. It was a wonderful sensation, although almost frightening, for as long as it lasted."
"And do you no longer believe it was a miracle?" Merlyn was looking at me now through narrowed eyes, and I shrugged dismissively in response.
"How can I, now that I know the truth? Miracles are miraculous, Master Merlyn. They are supernatural occurrences originated and performed
by God Himself, often through human intermediaries. They are ungovernable and inexplicable under the laws or the expectations of mankind—Bishop Germanus's own words. That says to me, by extension, that they must therefore be incapable of error. If that visitation had been truly miraculous—had Germanus somehow found, or been divinely granted, the ability to travel mentally and incorporeally to Britain for the sole purpose of visiting me in my sleep—then how could he not have known that the coronation ceremony, which was his primary concern, would take place in Verulamium and not in Camulod?
"My dream of Germanus sent me off across Britain seeking you after you had already made extensive preparations to have everything take place in Verulamium, for all the best and most logical and obvious of reasons. Your letter to Enos, outlining your wishes in what was to take place within his jurisdiction, as well as describing all the arrangements that you had already set in motion long before then, must have arrived in Verulamium within mere days of my departure. In other words, your letter had been written and sent off to Enos, and all your arrangements had been decided upon and their organization delegated to those responsible for them, long before I had my miraculous dream. Ergo et igitur, as my old teacher Cato would have said, there can be no talk of miracles in this, because a Germanus possessed of miraculous powers would have known what you proposed to do, and would have been aware of everything you had arranged. He would not have dispatched me on such a worthless chase as the one I have been pursuing ever since then."
Merlyn had been sitting with an elbow on the arm of his chair, supporting his chin on his hand as he gazed at me and listened to my rant. Now he sat up straighter, releasing a deep, pent-up breath. "Is that really what you think Germanus did? Do you honestly believe he would send you off on a worthless chase?"
"No, Master Merlyn, not at all. What I believe now is that I had a vivid dream that night, and because the details of it remained with me the next morning—which is unusual in itself— I chose to allow myself to become obsessed with what I had dreamt. All the foolishness that has followed since then has been my own fault, attributable to my own overheated imagination and to nothing else."
He sat looking at me, unblinking, for a count of ten heartbeats, then grunted deep in his chest. "Hmm. So you believe that everything you have done since leaving Verulamium has been futile, a waste of time."
It was more a statement than a question, but I felt myself rearing back in surprise. "How could it be otherwise? Our pursuit of you, sir, achieved nothing but disappointment and ever-increasing frustration. Acting on the single trustworthy report we had received about where you might be found—a report from a wandering priest who had not known we were seeking you—I traveled directly from Verulamium to Caerdyff, in Cambria. I arrived there to find that you had departed more than a month earlier, to travel west along the coast to the Pendragon stronghold at Carmarthen. I followed you then to Carmarthen, by road, only to find that you had long since left there, too, again by sea, accompanied this time by the Pendragon clan chiefs and their warriors, to sail across the river estuary to Glevum, on your way home to Camulod. But that departure, I discovered, had occurred even before our original arrival in Caerdyff, and so our entire journey to Carmarthen had been futile and we were already more than a month—almost two months, in fact—behind you.
"Even then, however, I would have followed you directly, but your departure with the Pendragon levies had stripped the entire coastline of large vessels, and we wasted four more days trying in vain to find a ship capable of carrying us and our horses. And so we had to make our way back by land, along the entire length of the south Cambrian coast and up the river until we could find a way to cross to Glevum, losing more time and distance with every day that passed. By the time we finally arrived at Glevum, with several more days yet ahead of us before we would reach Camulod, we had lost twelve more days in addition to the time that had elapsed between your leaving Carmarthen and our reaching there.
"I had estimated by then that we were at least two months behind you, and as it transpired, I was correct. We were two and a half months late. And I have since found out—because everyone we met along the road is bursting with the tidings and talking about the wondrous and magical events that ensued—that in the course of those two months you returned to Camulod and then traveled immediately onward to Verulamium with the Pendragon clans in the wake of Arthur's armies, which had marched there earlier. And once there, you crowned Arthur Pendragon as Riothamus, High King of Britain, with God Himself apparently blessing the event and bestowing upon the new King a miraculous new sword.
"You then sent the new King off to fight a great battle, at the head of the largest army ever assembled in Britain since the Romans first arrived with Julius Caesar. He won the battle, of course, and it was a great victory, which people think will be but the first of many, and flushed with the fruits of success, all of you have now returned home to Camulod, where I am finally permitted to find you and meet you to present my respects and admit my shame at having been so far removed from everything of importance that has happened in this land since I first set foot in it nigh on a year ago."
The anger that had been smoldering inside me was now threatening to spill over, and I was aware that I needed to bite down on my ill humor. Evidently the man across from me felt the same way, because he raised one hand quickly, palm outward, stemming my flow of words with a peremptory gesture born of years of command. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Merlyn met me eye to eye.
"Germanus is dead."
I blinked hard, I remember, because I felt I had been staring for too long and my eyes had begun to tingle strangely, and then I shook my head, slightly confused, and cleared my throat. "What . . . ? Forgive me, what did you say?"
"Germanus is dead. He died in Italia, after his meeting with the Pope and his fellow bishops. The word was brought to us a month ago, in a letter sent to Bishop Enos by Ludovic, Germanus's secretary. You know the man?" I could only nod, the import of what Merlyn was telling me beginning to penetrate my awareness. "Aye, I thought you might He has been with Germanus for more than thirty years."
"Forty," I whispered. "Ludovic has been with the bishop for forty-three years. He is the bishop's secretary, but they are close friends, too. They started out as students of law together, Germanus told me. He became a successful advocate, but Ludovic quickly found that he preferred building cases to disputing them in open court, and so the two men became associates and remained together ever afterwards."
"I knew they were close, but I would never have suspected such a long friendship. Forty-three years is more than half a lifetime. Anyway, Ludovic knew how important our affairs here in Britain were to Germanus, and so he took the time to write a long letter to Bishop Enos, describing the bishop's final days and the circumstances surrounding his death, and he described in detail several of the conversations he himself had had with Germanus concerning our activities here and the coronation we were planning. As you know, Germanus firmly believed that the salvation of the Church in Britain will depend upon the emergence of Camulod as a military force under Arthur, and neither Bishop Enos nor I can see any reason to doubt the accuracy of his expectations."
Merlyn stopped talking and sat watching me closely while I struggled to absorb all that I had just learned. Finally he leaned slightly towards me, his gaze still fixed on mine, and asked, "How do you feel?"
Even in my daze I recognized the futility of the question. I remembered having asked it myself of other people in pain, in just the same hapless way because there are times when you have to ask, and those are the only words that come anywhere close to framing the concern you are trying to express. I gulped and nodded my head, waving one hand in a small gesture to indicate that I was well and needed no help. It was a lie, of course, and we both knew that, but it served as an acknowledgment that my mind was still functioning. Merlyn accepted it and resumed speaking, still leaning towards me with the same narrow-eyed gaze.
"I want you no
w to think again about your dream, Clothar, in the light of what I have just told you. From all the information I have been able to gather—from Ludovic's letter and from the eyewitness account of the priest who brought the letter to us— Germanus must have died very close to the time when you dreamed of his presence in your tent. I mean very close, Clothar . . . perhaps that selfsame night, and at the very hour you saw him, for he died in the deepest part of the night. His death occurred on the last night in March. Your dream, you said, occurred at the end of March or the beginning of April. I would like you to think more closely about that now, because it is of great import. I have asked Enos if he can remember when it was, but he was not in Verulamium at the time and did not return until several days later. He recalls only that you were excited by the dream and impatient to be on your way, and that you had waited for his return purely out of courtesy."
I frowned, thinking about that. "I remembered the dream itself, no more. The particular night of its occurrence was unimportant."
"Well, do you believe now that it might have been important after all?"
I felt myself frowning harder, knowing what he was now suggesting, but I was far from convinced that this theory of his might have merit. "How so?"
"How so? How so? Because, my young friend, if your dream occurred the night Germanus died, then he might really have been there in your tent, and for a purpose."
I sat gazing at this man about whom I had heard so much and who now appeared to be disappointingly normal and quite incapable of performing any of the heroic exploits I had heard attributed to him. "That is nonsense," I said eventually. "What possible purpose could he have for doing such a thing?"
"How is it nonsense?"
"I have already explained all of that, Master Merlyn, and even although it makes me sound ill mannered to say so, I thought I had made myself perfectly clear. If any of what happened that night had been real—if Germanus really had come to me in a dream—he would have known that everything was changing and that he was sending me off on a useless journey."