Legacy: Arthurian Saga

Legacy:

Arthurian Saga

by

Mary Stewart

* * * *

Published By:

KGStudios

KGStudios holds exclusive
worldwide rights to digitally distribute this title.

Legacy:

Arthurian Saga

Copyright © 2009 by Mary
Stewart

S
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The Crystal Cave

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The Hollow Hills

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The Last Enchantment

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The Wicked Day

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Epilogue

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The Legend

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Author's Note

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About The Author

EDWIN MUIR:
MERLIN

O Merlin in your crystal
cave

Deep in the diamond of the
day,

Will there ever be a singer

Whose music will smooth away

The furrow drawn by Adam's
finger

Across the memory and the
wave?

Or a runner who'll outrun

Man's long shadow driving
on,

Break through the gate of
memory

And hang the apple on the
tree?

Will your magic ever show

The sleeping bride shut in her
bower,

The day wreathed in its mound of
snow

and Time locked in his
tower?

Prologue

The prince of
darkness

I am an old man now, but then I was
already past my prime when Arthur was crowned King. The years since
then seem to me now more dim and faded than the earlier years, as
if my life were a growing tree which burst to flower and leaf with
him, and now has nothing more to do than yellow to the
grave.

This is true of all old men, that the
recent past is misted, while distant scenes of memory are clear and
brightly colored. Even the scenes of my far childhood come back to
me now sharp and high-colored and edged with brightness, like the
pattern of a fruit tree against a white wall, or banners in
sunlight against a sky of storm.

The colors are brighter than they
were, of that I am sure. The memories that come back to me here in
the dark are seen with the new young eyes of childhood; they are so
far gone from me, with their pain no longer present, that they
unroll like pictures of something that happened, not to me, not to
the bubble of bone that this memory used to inhabit, but to another
Merlin as young and light and free of the air and spring winds as
the bird she named me for.

With the later memories it is
different; they come back, some of them, hot and shadowed, things
seen in the fire. For this is where I gather them. This is one of
the few trivial tricks -- I cannot call it power -- left to me now
that I am old and stripped at last down to man. I can see
still...not clearly or with the call of trumpets as I once did, but
in the child's way of dreams and pictures in the fire. I can still
make the flames burn up or die; it is one of the simplest of magic,
the most easily learned, the last forgotten. What I cannot recall
in dream I see in the flames, the red heart of the fire or the
countless mirrors of the crystal cave.

The first memory of all is dark and
fireshot. It is not my own memory, but later you will understand
how I know these things. You would call it not memory so much as a
dream of the past, something in the blood, something recalled from
him, it may be, while he still bore me in his body. I believe that
such things can be. So it seems to me right that I should start
with him who was before me, and who will be again when I am gone.
This is what happened that night. I saw it, and it is a true
tale.

It was dark, and the place was cold,
but he had lit a small fire of wood, which smoked sullenly but gave
a little warmth. It had been raining all day, and from the branches
near the mouth of the cave water still dripped, and a steady
trickle overflowed the lip of the well, soaking the ground below.
Several times, restless, he had left the cave, and now he walked
out below the cliff to the grove where his horse stood
tethered.

With the coming of dusk the rain had
stopped, but a mist had risen, creeping knee-high through the trees
so that they stood like ghosts, and the grazing horse floated like
a swan. It was a grey, and more than ever ghostly because it grazed
so quietly; he had torn up a scarf and wound fragments of cloth
round the bit so that no jingle should betray him. The bit was
gilded, and the torn strips were of silk, for he was a king's son.
If they had caught him, they would have killed him. He was just
eighteen.

He heard the hoofbeats coming softly
up the valley. His head moved, and his breathing quickened. His
sword flicked with light as he lifted it. The grey horse paused in
its grazing and lifted its head clear of the mist. Its nostrils
flickered, but no sound came. The man smiled. The hoofbeats came
closer, and then, shoulder-deep in mist, a brown pony trotted out
of the dusk. Its rider, small and slight, was wrapped in a dark
cloak, muffled from the night air. The pony pulled to a halt, threw
up its head, and gave a long pealing whinny. The rider, with an
exclamation of dismay, slipped from its back and grabbed for the
bridle to muffle the sound against her cloak. She was a girl, very
young, who looked round her anxiously until she saw the young man,
sword in hand, at the edge of the trees.

"You sound like a troop of cavalry,"
he said.

"I was here before I knew it.
Everything looks strange in the mist."

"No one saw you? You came
safely?"

"Safely enough. It's been impossible
the last two days. They were on the roads night and
day."

"I guessed it." He smiled. "Well, now
you are here. Give me the bridle." He led the pony in under the
trees, and tied it up. Then he kissed her.

After a while she pushed him away. "I
ought not to stay. I brought the things, so even if I can't come
tomorrow -- " She stopped. She had seen the saddle on his horse,
the muffled bit, the packed saddle-bag. Her hands moved sharply
against his chest, and his own covered them and held her
fast.

"Ah," she said, "I knew. I knew even
in my sleep last night. You're going."

"I must. Tonight."

She was silent for a minute. Then all
she said was: "How long?"

He did not pretend to misunderstand
her. "We have an hour, two, no more."

She said flatly: "You will come back."
Then as he started to speak: "No. Not now, not any more. We have
said it all, and now there is no more time. I only meant that you
will be safe, and you will come back safely. I tell you, I know
these things. I have the Sight. You will come back."

"It hardly needs the Sight to tell me
that. I must come back. And then perhaps you will listen to
me."

"No." She stopped him again, almost
angrily. "It doesn't matter. What does it matter? We have only an
hour, and we are wasting it. Let us go in."

He was already pulling out the jeweled
pin that held her cloak together, as he put an arm round her and
led her towards the cave.

"Yes, let us go in."

BOOK I THE DOVE
1

The day my uncle Camlach came home, I
was just six years old. I remember him well as I first saw him, a
tall young man, fiery like my grandfather, with the blue eyes and
reddish hair that I thought so beautiful in my mother. He came to
Maridunum near sunset of a September evening, with a small troop of
men. Being only small, I was with the women in the long,
old-fashioned room where they did the weaving. My mother was
sitting at the loom; I remember the cloth; it was of scarlet, with
a narrow pattern of green at the edge. I sat near her on the floor,
playing knuckle-bones, right hand against left. The sun slanted
through the windows, making oblong pools of bright gold on the
cracked mosaics of the floor; bees droned in the herbs outside, and
even the click and rattle of the loom sounded sleepy. The women
were talking among themselves over their spindles, but softly,
heads together, and Moravik, my nurse, was frankly asleep on her
stool in one of the pools of sunlight.

When the clatter, and then the shouts,
came from the courtyard, the loom stopped abruptly, and with it the
soft chatter from the women. Moravik came awake with a snort and a
stare. My mother was sitting very straight, head lifted, listening.
She had dropped her shuttle. I saw her eyes meet
Moravik's.

I was halfway to the window when
Moravik called to me sharply, and there was something in her voice
that made me stop and go back to her without protest. She began to
fuss with my clothing, pulling my tunic straight and smoothing my
hair, so that I understood the visitor to be someone of importance.
I felt excitement, and also surprise that apparently I was to be
presented to him; I was used to being kept out of the way in those
days. I stood patiently while Moravik dragged the comb through my
hair, and over my head she and my mother exchanged some quick,
breathless talk which, hardly heeding, I did not understand. I was
listening to the tramp of horses in the yard and the shouting of
men, words here and there coming clearly in a language neither
Welsh nor Latin, but Celtic with some accent like the one of Less
Britain, which I understood because my nurse, Moravik, was a
Breton, and her language came to me as readily as my
own.