by Lavie Tidhar
10
That night, as they ride back to Dinas Emrys, he sees something miraculous in the skies. A bird of light, or so it seems, a glowing red object trailing through the heavens, with a long scaly tail and wings of flame, and it’s moving fast.
‘A dragon,’ Uther breathes. He watches the being of flame as it traverses the night. ‘This is a sign, Merlin, and I shall take it for my name and for my emblem.’ He raises high his sword. ‘Uther Pendragon!’ he shouts, and his men raise their arms in turn and echo his cry.
But Merlin has other thoughts regarding the nature of this celestial apparition. And he watches this comet, this star stone, as it travels to the horizon until it disappears somewhere over Britain, and still he waits. Then comes a sight the likes of which he’d never seen, far in the distance, a huge, mushroom-shaped cloud rising, with flames inside it. Then comes the sound, this terrible roar, until the horses lose their balance in fright and Uther barely holds on to his mount, then shouts, in ecstasy – ‘Hear the dragon’s roar! Pendragon! Pendragon!’
And his men join in, all but for those two who were trampled underfoot and now are left to feed the crows – ‘Pendragon! Pendragon! Long live Uther! Long live the king!’
They ride on, in frenzy, to Dinas Emrys. There they light great fires, and roast pigeons and sheep, and get roaring drunk. A banner is hastily made and raised to the top of the tower. The serving girls are passed from hand to hand.
The wizard climbs the spiral staircase to the tower. The Milky Circle’s myriad of stars are obscured above by smoke and dust. The air is cold. They wouldn’t notice, down below, not now, not with the fires and the drink. But later. The wizard thinks, it is going to be a cold winter. He looks out into the dark. He’d love to know where the thing had landed. There would be traces left, an impact crater. He summons birds: a wren, a tit, a warbler and a raven. He sends them forth to be his eyes and ears. He hopes they will come back.
Merlin stares into the dark. It’s lonely at the top of the tower. Down below they chant, ‘Pendragon!’
The wizard broods.
11
That winter turns out long and cold and dark and dust covers the sky. It’s cold and dark the world over, messengers confirm. Few ships arrive that year in Britain and there is little to trade, and the people of the land starve as crops fail. ‘The sun gave forth its light without brightness,’ writes Procopius from Caesarea. In the capital and port cities of Byzantium a deadly plague kills millions. And the birds Merlin sent out never return. The location of the fallen star stone’s lost to him.
It is a long and bitter year, with the sun permanently in eclipse. The people starve and Uther quells rebellions, for hungry people have nothing left to lose. The king is not dispirited, but he is frustrated. ‘Is there no magic you can do?’ he demands of his wizard.
But Merlin mutely shakes his head, then says, ‘This thing will pass.’
‘I want to believe you,’ Uther says. ‘I do.’
There is little to do throughout that long year but close in and wait. Even the king subsists on gruel, in Dinas Emrys the stores of grains are all but depleted. They say some people have resorted to cannibalism. If so, there’s naught the king can do. He shrugs. ‘The flesh is not so bad once you get used to it,’ he says. Merlin forgets, sometimes, where Uther comes from. It is a world where only ruthlessness survives.
That summer it snows in mid-day. The corpses of birds litter the fields and fish rot on the seashore. ‘This can’t go on,’ the king says in frustration. He summons augurs, druids, priests of Christ. None can help but cast aspersions or demand a sacrifice. In the north beyond the sea the Norsemen bury hoards of gold to try and buy the sunlight back from heathen gods. A wandering Jew far from his home in Persia makes his way to Uther’s court. He says, ‘Perhaps the fault is not with God but is a matter of natural philosophy.’ He says, ‘Did not Aristotle argue that the Prime Mover is not the efficient cause of action in the universe, and plays no part in its construction or arrangement? If so’ – this merchant says, warming to his subject – ‘perhaps this blight is but a grain of dust that clogs the orderly mechanism of Physis, of nature, which soon must revert back to its prior form? For though the vagaries of the material cause are subject to circumstance, and thus to change, nevertheless every object has a nature, attributes that is, which make it behave in its customary fashion. And so—’
But Uther, bored, dismisses the traveller, though the man and Merlin speak long into the night on all manners of santa natura.
That summer is a miserable one, and the winter that follows promises nothing but more hunger and death. Yet spring comes suddenly. The sunlight brightens and the dust eases in the sky and it is warm again. Flowers bloom over the slopes of the snowy mountains, and fish return to the shallows and what crops the farmers planted grow. That year brings promise with it, life is renewed, the earth is healed. A summit is planned between the kings of Britain, to be held in Tintagel. And so with spring returned they ride once more across the land, to Cornwall.
12
Halfway they stop at Caer Odor, the Fort on the Chasm. The Roman villas are abandoned, but near the gorge a settlement of Christians persists, and a wooden cross is erected high over the Avon. These new religionists bring food and drink to Uther and his men. Their priest is learned, a man of letters, who is comfortable in Latin.
‘And have you considered the word of the Saviour from Galilee?’ he asks the king. The priest brings out a sacred book, called the New Covenant, and attempts to engage the king in discussion of the rise of Christ, and the rebellion of the Jews against the Romans, and of tales of many miracles, such as when the Saviour spoke to and calmed a storm, or when he cast out demons into a herd of swine and drove them to the sea, where they promptly drowned. But the king yawns, for he has little interest in distant Palestine and far-fetched tales of fancy, and besides there is the matter of Pellinore.
Pellinore lies sickened in a room inside the fort. His bloated body is distained, his skin is stretched and taut over his glistening belly. He groans and sweats, hot and cold in turns, he cannot grow comfortable.
This condition had arisen since the boy was bit, and it had grown in stages, all through that long and terrible year, until now he can no longer ride a horse or hold a sword or fetch or carry for his master. And a noise arises from inside his stomach, an awful keening sound that drives even hardened men to fright, so that they stay well away from Pellinore.
‘I can’t go on,’ whispers the boy, ‘please, lord, put an ending to my suffering.’
Uther stares at him in annoyance. Pellinore has royal blood. He turns to his wizard.
‘Will he live or die?’ he says.
‘This affliction has a cure, my liege.’
‘Then cure it.’
Merlin sighs, for he has seen such things before, if only rarely. And so he summons towels, boiled water, soap. He lights a candle in the room. The night is dark, there is no moon. His shadow hovers right beside him. He burns herbs that send forth a pleasant aroma.
‘Not long now, Pellinore,’ he says.
‘Help me, Merlin.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’
He takes the knife. The young man’s eyes stare at the blade in horror.
‘Bite on this,’ the wizard says. He sticks a piece of wood between the young man’s teeth. This job’s unpleasant, Merlin thinks. And yet a job’s a job.
He removes Pellinore’s garments. Pellinore’s belly glistens so awfully. The skin is so pale it is near translucent, and within it Merlin sees the thing moving inside. Big, now. That awful keening sound.
‘Hush, Thing,’ says Merlin. He speaks soothingly to the belly. He sings the creature songs to calm it down. He lifts the knife. Places the tip against the skin, and presses.
Pellinore screams. Merlin cuts, gently, carefully, tears open Pellinore’s belly. He pulls at the flaps of fat and skin. A gush of mucous liquid, blood and slime pours out onto the floor, the awful keening sound retur
ns in earnest as Merlin reaches deep within the recesses of Pellinore’s makeshift womb and puts his fingers round the creature. He lifts it up – it’s large – it’s heavy – it’s made of Pellinore’s own flesh and blood and bones. It comes away with a wet sucking sound. Pellinore screams. The beast kicks Merlin in the chest. He falls back and the beast squats on his chest and thrusts its face at him, hissing.
‘Get it off me,’ Merlin says, ‘get it off me!’
Pellinore sits up upon his sickbed. The beast hisses in contempt at Merlin and leaps into Pellinore’s arms. Pellinore holds it in his arms, weeping. He strokes its hide. The beast purrs. Merlin scrambles away from them both, disgusted.
‘The beast will have to die,’ he says.
‘No! Never!’ cries Pellinore. The beast turns and glares at Merlin. That awful screeching sound again. Merlin covers his ears to try to block it out. He staggers. The beast leaps to the window. It knocks the candle on the floor. It looks back at Pellinore.
‘Go…’ says Pellinore. ‘I’ll find you. Wherever you go, I will find you.’
The beast coos. It turns its head and looks at Merlin, and spits. He moves, just in time to avoid the poison, which hits the wall and hisses as it eats through stone. The beast screams in rage and loss. Then it jumps out of the high window, into the night, and vanishes from sight.
‘No!’ cries Pellinore. He settles on his sickbed, desolate. A shaken Merlin rises, goes to him. He tries to summon some professional pride. He picks a thread and needle.
‘This will hurt,’ he says. He begins to sew the stomach shut. The flesh, he sees, knits together neatly. This is not nature that has caused this.
‘You’ll heal,’ he says.
‘But I’ll never be whole.’
Such despair in his eyes. Merlin turns away.
‘There’ll be a scar,’ he says.
At the door, he hesitates. He turns to look. Pellinore is lying back. His breathing’s better, his colour’s back. Merlin says, ‘You’ll be alright?’
‘I’ll live.’
‘Yes,’ Merlin says.
He goes.
*
In the morning when he comes to check on Pellinore, the man’s no longer there.
13
They cross the border into Cornwall on a sunny day in summer. A glorious day. Falcons and razorbills and puffins in the skies, and elms and oaks as far as the eye can see, and bees buzzing lazily amidst the flowers, and the smell of grass trodden on by hooves, and the horse’s tails wagging and the fresh smell of their shit, and the men lolling in the saddles, drunk on the heat and the light, and in the distance the cries of seagulls and the smell of salt and tar.
Uther breathes it all in. This rich land, and all the fish in the sea and all the birds in the sky should be his. He covets every castle, every hamlet, every field and every foundry, every head of cattle, every working aqueduct, every road and every tree and every fucking soul that ever lived upon this land.
His hand grips the pommel of his sword. His thoughts are dark and filled with murder. He would see this land riven by plague and washed in blood if it is not to be his.
Yet his it will be.
They ride to the sea. Tintagel Castle sits atop an island, a dark, malevolent force of nature as impervious to attack as the moon. Surrounded by open sea, its only link to the mainland is by a tall and graceful footbridge, heavily guarded on both sides. The castle rises high into the air. Its stonework has enchantment woven into it. Guard towers watch the four winds, land and sea. The men of Tintagel are armed with catapults and scorpions. When Uther and his entourage approach, already they can see the banners of King Leir, whose men and horses wait in their encampment, watched over by the forces of Gorlois.
‘Gorlois, Gorlois!’ Pendragon says. ‘Would that I spit and roast the fat bastard on a fire!’
‘Patience, lord,’ his wizard mutters. Uther snorts contempt. They come to the place and stop. The men dismount. Pendragon’s banner’s raised.
‘You are expected, lord. Please, follow me.’
Uther strides along the narrow bridge. The wind runs its fingers on his short-cropped hair. The sea spray leaps into the air far down below. He watches rocks. He watches mermaids singing in the depths. He watches seagulls crying as they hunt. His thoughts are bloodied, but he masks them with a smile. His wizard follows meekly, and a handful of his men. The rest stay on the mainland.
They reach the island. They enter. He feels as though he’s entering the belly of a dragon. Inside it is cavernous, filled with light. Soft music plays, tuba, tibia and horn, a lute and lyre. A children’s choir sings, so beautifully. ‘The little angels,’ murmurs Uther. Their singing fills the air.
That night there is a great big feast to rival ancient Rome’s. There’s wine from Gaul and Greece, and spitted ewes and suckling pig and dormice, there are oysters and cherries and carrots and crabs. There are musicians playing, and the Grand Hall is filled with the sweet singing voices of the children. Servers move like charmed and captive angels amidst the throng of British kings, fetching and carrying, and the smell of burning herbs pleasantly fills the air. Merlin eats like a starved gutter rat, for once. There’s so much concentrated power in the hall that his stomach rumbles. He feeds on cheese and bread and a preserve of grapes, and drinks the wine, but watered. He watches Leir, a man with dangerous blood. That king catches his eye and nods in recognition, and Merlin looks away.
But Uther has no mind for peace talks, and no eye, this once, for his rivals. Uther Pendragon has no eye for the serving girls for once, he pays no heed to the enchanting music, and he barely notices the piece of bloodied cow flesh he is desultorily chewing on.
At the head of the table sits their host, Gorlois. And beside Gorlois sits his queen.
And what a woman! Not too tall and not too slender, but fine all the same, with a full head of hair, long and rich, a woman blossoming in womanhood, a mother only made more fetching in her changes, with a welcoming smile and a graceful way of gesturing, and a pleasing voice and a calm demeanour, and she wears a crown of slim gold and tourmaline that frames her face.
But it’s her eyes that capture Uther, her eyes that make him unable to pull away. There’s something deep and haunting and unknowable behind her eyes, he thinks, as though some of her blood, a ways back, is of the good folk. And how Gorlois parades her!
‘This is my queen, Igraine, my wife, the mother of my little princesses—’
How Uther loathes this fat lord of Cornwall!
And how, oh how, does he desire the man’s wife!
‘A pleasure, lady.’
‘Be welcome in our castle, lord.’
But welcome he is not. He knows it and she knows it just as well. The next few days are busy with discussions. The kings negotiate. They must discuss this climate change that’s happened, the famine on the land that’s now averted, at long last, the state of roads and ancient boundaries, the rising threat of Saxons coming from the north.
‘There must be peace,’ declares King Leir, ‘there’s plenty land for each of us to have.’
‘There must be peace,’ says lord Gorlois, ‘there’s more for any one of us to have.’
And Uther sits there, listening to them all: Gorlois and Leir and the others, Eldol of Gleawecastre, and Outham the Old, and Conan Meriadoc. And he says what they wish him to say. That there will be peace, there must be peace upon this land.
And how, he thinks, will there be peace when every scarecrow with a sword is lord of someplace or another? They’re children, squabbling over rubbish heaps. A king there can be only one. He knows it, and they know it too. Still, they persist in this fiction.
Uther makes his excuses early. Once more he traverses the narrow bridge over the sea. And Gorlois’ men watch him go. His men wait on the mainland. They have been growing restless, playing dice and catching mice and sparring with the other kings’ men.
‘We should leave, lord,’ Merlin says.
‘Yes,’ Uther says. ‘We sho
uld.’
But they do not go far. A small band, and seasoned soldiers all. They route around and backtrack, and shelter on a wooded hill to watch the road.
King Leir leaves first. Back to the ridings. His men surround him. They vanish quickly – ‘In a hurry,’ Uther says, in satisfaction.
‘What is the meaning of it, lord?’ says Merlin.
‘Leir knows the wind’s direction,’ Uther says. ‘He’ll burrow deep when he gets home, and he’ll be kept awake waiting for ambush all the way there.’
‘War, my lord? Are we ready for more war?’
‘Hush, Merlin. We are mere observers.’
The rest depart the keep, the last being Meriadoc. Uther watches, broods. They kip under the trees, always on watch. They watch the castle. Tintagel, impenetrable, bewitched.
‘What is it, lord?’
But Merlin knows. The way a dog can scent its master.
‘Igraine,’ he says.
‘Igraine,’ says Uther.
‘But lord…’
They wait and watch. It isn’t long, then, that Gorlois emerges, two, three days after the confabulation. He’s lord of Land’s End, after all. His business takes him all about his land. Thus he departs, calm in the knowledge that his castle and his wife remain secure, for none can breach those stony walls, and none can reach the island save by his say so.
‘Now, Merlin…’ Uther says. ‘I wonder if I may have a word.’
*
This is how it happens, you see. This is how the boy’s conceived, a starry night, the moon swims in the blue-black sky, a seagull dives against the setting sun.