Legacy: Arthurian Saga (12 page)

"You do not. What are you
doing?"

"He's stunned. If we leave him here
he'll freeze to death in an hour. I'm taking him."

"Take care! That's a grown falcon
--"

"He'll not hurt me." I picked up the
merlin; he had fluffed his feathers out against the cold, and felt
soft as a young owl in my hands. I pulled my leather sleeve down
over my left wrist, and he took hold of this, gripping fiercely.
The eyelids were fully open now, and the wild dark eyes watched me.
But he sat still, with shut wings. I heard Cerdic muttering to
himself as he bent to retrieve my things from the place where I had
taken my meal. Then he added something I had never heard from him
before. "Come on then, young master."

The merlin stayed docile on my wrist
as I fell in at the back of my grandfather's train for the ride
home to Maridunum.

10

Nor did it attempt to leave me when we
reached home. I found, on examining it, that some of its wing
feathers had been damaged in that hurtling crash after the
ring-dove, so I mended them as Galapas had taught me, and after
that it sat in the pear tree outside my window, accepting the food
I gave it, and making no attempt to fly away.

I took it with me when next I went to
see Galapas. This was on the first day of February, and the frost
had broken the night before, in rain. It was a grey leaden day,
with low cloud and a bitter little wind among the rain. Draughts
whistled everywhere in the palace, and curtains were fast drawn
across the doors, while people kept on their woolen cloaks and
huddled over the braziers. It seemed to me that a grey and leaden
silence hung also over the palace; I had hardly seen my grandfather
since we had returned to Maridunum, but he and the nobles sat
together in council for hours, and there were rumors of quarrelling
and raised voices when he and Camlach were closeted together. Once
when I went to my mother's room I was told she was at her prayers
and could not see me. I caught a glimpse of her through the
half-open door, and I could have sworn that as she knelt below the
holy image she was weeping.

But in the high valley nothing had
changed. Galapas took the merlin, commended my work on its wings,
then set it on a sheltered ledge near the cave's entrance, and bade
me come to the fire and get warm. He ladled some stew out of the
simmering pot, and made me eat it before he would listen to my
story. Then I told him everything, up to the quarrels in the palace
and my mother's tears.

"It was the same cave, Galapas, that
I'll swear! But why? There was nothing there. And nothing else
happened, nothing at all. I've asked as best I could, and Cerdic
has asked about among the slaves, but nobody knows what the kings
discussed, or why my grandfather and Camlach have fallen out. But
he did tell me one thing; I am being watched. By Camlach's people.
I'd have come to see you sooner, except for that. They've gone out
today, Camlach and Alun and the rest, so I said I was going to the
water-meadow to train the merlin, and I came up here."

Then as he was still silent, I
repeated, worried into urgency: "What's happening, Galapas? What
does it all mean?"

"About your dream, and your finding of
the cavern, I know nothing. About the trouble in the palace, I can
guess. You knew that the High King had sons by his first wife,
Vortimer and Katigern and young Pascentius?"

I nodded.

"Were none of them there at
Segontium?"

"No."

"I am told that they have broken with
their father," said Galapas, "and Vortimer is raising troops of his
own. They say he would like to be High King, and that Vortigern
looks like having a rebellion on his hands when he can least afford
it. The Queen's much hated, you know that; Vortimer's mother was
good British, and besides, the young men want a young
king."

"Camlach is for Vortimer, then?" I
asked quickly, and he smiled. "It seems so." I thought about it for
a little. "Well, when wolves fall out, don't they say the ravens
come into their own?" As I was born in September, under Mercury,
the raven was mine.

"Perhaps," said Galapas. "You're more
likely to be clapped in your cage sooner than you expected." But he
said it absently, as if his mind were elsewhere, and I went back to
what concerned me most.

"Galapas, you've said you know nothing
about the dream or the cavern. But this -- this must have been the
hand of the god." I glanced up at the ledge where the merlin sat,
broodingly patient, his eyes half shut, slits of
firelight.

"It would seem so."

I hesitated. "Can't we find out what
he -- what it means?"

"Do you want to go into the crystal
cave again?"

"N-no, I don't. But I think perhaps I
should. Surely you can tell me that?"

He said heavily, after a few moments:
"I think you must go in, yes. But first, I must teach you something
more. You must make the fire for yourself this time. Not like that
-- " smiling, as I reached for a branch to stir the embers. "Put
that down. You asked me before you went away to show you something
real. This is all I have left to show you. I hadn't
realized...Well, let that go. It's time. No, sit still, you have no
more need of books, child. Watch now."

Of the next thing, I shall not write.
It was all the art he taught me, apart from certain tricks of
healing. But as I have said, it was the first magic to come to me,
and will be the last to go. I found it easy, even to make the
ice-cold fire and the wild fire, and the fire that goes like a whip
through the dark; which was just as well, because I was young to be
taught such things, and it is an art which, if you are unfit or
unprepared, can strike you blind.

It was dark outside when we had done.
He got to his feet.

"I shall come back in an hour and wake
you."

He twitched his cloak down from where
it hung shrouding the mirror, put it round him, and went
out.

The flames sounded like a horse
galloping. One long, bright tongue cracked like a whip. A log fell
down with a hiss like a woman's sigh, and then a thousand twigs
crackled like people talking, whispering, chattering of
news...

It faded all into a great brilliant
blaze of silence. The mirror flashed. I picked up my cloak, now
comfortably dry, and climbed with it into the crystal cave. I
folded it and lay down on it, with my eyes fixed on the wall of
crystal arching over me. The flames came after me, rank on bright
rank, filling the air, till I lay in a globe of light like the
inside of a star, growing brighter and ever brighter till suddenly
it broke and there was darkness...

The galloping hoofs sparked on the
gravel of the Roman road. The rider's whip cracked and cracked
again, but the horse was already going full tilt, its nostrils wide
and scarlet, its breath like steam in the cold air. The rider was
Camlach. Far behind him, almost half a mile behind now, were the
rest of the young men of his party, and still further behind them,
leading his lamed and dripping horse, came the messenger who had
taken the news to the King's son.

The town was alive with torches, men
running to meet the galloping horse, but Camlach paid no heed to
them. He drove the spiked spurs into the horse's sides, and
galloped straight through the town, down the steep street, and into
the outer yard of the palace. There were torches there, too. They
caught the quick glint of his red hair as he swung from the horse
and flung the reins into the hands of a waiting slave. The soft
riding boots made no sound as he ran up the steps and along the
colonnade that led to his father's room. The swift black figure was
lost for a moment in shadow under the arch, then he flung the door
wide and went through.

The messenger had been right. It had
been a quick death. The old man lay on the carved Roman bed, and
over him someone had thrown a coverlet of purple silk. They had
somehow managed to prop his jaw, for the fierce grey beard jutted
ceilingwards, and a little head-rest of baked clay beneath his neck
held his head straight, while the body slowly froze iron-hard.
There was no sign, the way he lay, that the neck was broken.
Already the old face had begun to fall away, to shrink, as death
pared the flesh down from the jut of the nose till it would be left
simply in planes of cold candlewax. The gold coins that lay on his
mouth and shut eyelids glimmered in the light of the torches at the
four corners of the bed.

At the foot of the bed, between the
torches, stood Niniane. She stood very still and upright, dressed
in white, her hands folded quietly in front of her with a crucifix
between them, her head bent. When the door opened she did not look
up, but kept her eyes fixed on the purple coverlet, not in grief,
but almost as if she were too far away for thought.

To her side, swiftly, came her
brother, slim in his black clothes, glinting with a kind of furious
grace that seemed to shock the room.

He walked right up to the bed and
stood over it, staring down at his father. Then he put down a hand
and laid it over the dead hands clasped on the purple silk. His
hand lingered there for a moment, then drew back. He looked at
Niniane. Behind her, a few paces back in the shadows, the little
crowd of men, women, servants, shuffled and whispered. Among them,
silent and dry-eyed, Mael and Duach stared. Dinias, too, all his
attention fixed on Camlach.

Camlach spoke very softly, straight to
Niniane. "They told me it was an accident. Is this
true?"

She neither moved nor spoke. He stared
at her for a moment, then with a gesture of irritation, looked
beyond her, and raised his voice.

"One of you, answer me. This was an
accident?"

A man stepped forward, one of the
King's servants, a man called Mabon. "It's true, my lord." He
licked his lips, hesitating.

Camlach showed his teeth. "What in the
name of the devils in hell's the matter with you all?" Then he saw
where they were staring, and looked down at his right hip, where,
sheathless, his short stabbing dagger had been thrust through his
belt. It was blood to the hilt. He made a sound of impatience and
disgust and, pulling it out, flung it from him, so that it
skittered across the floor and came up against the wall with a
small clang that sounded loud in the silence.

"Whose blood did you think?" he asked,
still with that lifted lip. "Deer's blood, that's all. When the
message came, we had just killed. I was twelve miles off, I and my
men." He stared at them, as if daring them to comment. No one
moved. "Go on, Mabon. He slipped and fell, the man told me. How did
it happen?"

The man cleared his throat. "It was a
stupid thing, sir, a pure accident. Why, no one was even near him.
It was in the small courtyard, the way through to the servants'
rooms, where the steps are worn. One of the men had been carrying
oil around to fill the lamps. He'd spilled some on the steps, and
before he got back to wipe it up the King came through, in a bit of
a hurry. He -- he hadn't been expected there at the time. Well, my
lord, he treads in the oil, and goes straight down on his back, and
hits his head on the stone. That's how it happened, my lord. It was
seen. There's those that can vouch for it."

"And the man whose fault it
was?"

"A slave, my lord."

"He's been dealt with?"

"My lord, he's dead."

While they had been talking, there had
been a commotion in the colonnade, as the rest of Camlach's party
arrived and came hurrying along to the King's room after him. They
had pressed into the room while Mabon was speaking, and now Alun,
approaching the prince quietly, touched his arm.

"The news is all round the town,
Camlach. There's a crowd gathering outside. A million stories going
round -- there'll be trouble soon. You'll have to show yourself and
talk to them."

Camlach flicked him a glance, and
nodded. "Go and see to it, will you? Bran, go with him, and Ruan.
Shut the gates. Tell the people I'm coming out soon. And now, the
rest of you, out."

The room emptied. Dinias lingered in
the doorway, got not even a glance, and followed the rest. The door
shut.

"Well, Niniane?"

In all this time she had never looked
at him. Now she raised her eyes. "What do you want of me? It's true
as Mabon tells you. What he didn't say was that the King had been
fooling with a servant-girl and was drunk. But it was an accident,
and he's dead...and you with all your friends were a good twelve
miles away. So you're King now, Camlach, and there is no man can
point a finger at you and say: 'He wanted his father
dead.'"

"No woman can say that to me either,
Niniane."

"I have not said it. I'm just telling
you that the quarrels here are over. The kingdom's yours -- and now
it's as Alun says, you had better go and speak to the
people."

"To you first. Why do you stand like
that, as if you didn't care either way? As if you were scarcely
with us here?"

"Perhaps because it's true. What you
are, brother, and what you want, does not concern me, except to ask
you one thing."

"And that is?"