Merlin's Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  And it was here, about half an hour after they had come to the fresh air and salt spray, that Martin saw Daniel pursuing a broken-winged gull. The black-headed bird was weaving across the sand and Daniel was following the creature exactly, reaching for it. When it suddenly jumped, half flying for a few yards before descending again, the boy followed it with his gaze!

  Martin walked stiffly towards his son, his heart thundering. ‘Daniel?’ Daniel looked round and grinned.

  ‘What colour’s the bird, Daniel?’

  ‘Black and white,’ the boy said. ‘Broken wing.’

  ‘Can you see it? Can you see the bird?’

  ‘See it,’ Daniel whispered. ‘Bird shadow. Like Mummy shadow. Like Daddy shadow. See it.’

  ‘My God! At last!’

  He waved a hand in front of Daniel’s eyes and the boy followed the movement, gaze bright, breath sweet as his father kissed him, joyfully, ecstatically. Then he looked towards the rocks. ‘Mummy shadow crying.’

  Rebecca’s head in her hands. She was shuddering silently. Martin ran to her, sat next to her, lifted her chin to peer at the tears. ‘Beck?’

  ‘Christ, Martin. It gets worse. It keeps getting worse. I can feel it going. The world is shrinking. Oh Christ, everything is shrinking, everything’s going dark, everything’s starting to look like shadow.’

  5

  The boy played with his cars, running them across the stone floor using the small radio-control panel, his fingers working the switches confidently and accurately. He was getting tall for his age. He would soon be six, though he looked older, perhaps because he had grown fast in the last few years. He could not see colours, but he could see shades of grey. He was beginning to talk very coherently, almost gabbling, at times, as if catching up for lost conversations, though his conversation was self-centred, occasionally brutal, rarely questioning.

  Martin felt very frightened of him.

  It was hard, now, to deny that there was some close link between Daniel and Rebecca. He had dismissed Flynn’s letter, the slow stealing of song, as quackery: the Australian had put crazy ideas into the head of a vulnerable, suggestible woman. Now, though, he regretted that impatience. Now he was afraid.

  Rebecca could not bear to spend time around her son, and Daniel had noticed this. Sometimes he expressed concern in an ordinary and childlike way: he cried for his mother. She spent an hour with him each evening, rubbing her eyes, squinting as he played, telling him stories in a voice that was becoming hushed, using words that seemed to sit thickly on her tongue. She complained of a permanent headache and constant tinnitus, the sound of surging waves in her hearing.

  Each evening, when she could bear no more, she made an excuse and went to her room, the third bedroom, now converted to her study since music no longer meant anything to her. One day when Daniel ran up the stairs and pushed the door open, calling for Rebecca, Martin heard her scream abuse and throw a heavy book. Daniel scampered into the living room and hid below the cushions on the sofa, crying softly.

  She was ashen-faced when she came to bed that night, skin glistening with dried tears. She stumbled to the bed and stared vaguely at Martin. She undressed slowly. He thought she was drunk, the way she tottered, the way she held her head as she unbuttoned her dress, awkwardly, loosely, then sat down heavily to peel off her stockings.

  ‘Beck?’

  ‘Blind,’ she whispered and started to shake. She crawled under the covers, a naked, cold body, trembling like a frightened cat. She clung to Martin, sought his mouth with hers, held the kiss urgently, eyes closed.

  ‘Love me. Now. Love me.’

  ‘Beck …’

  ‘Love me! Quickly!’

  Her hands were on him, stroking, tugging. Her touch was icy and Martin shivered, feeling unaroused and frightened by this blind and passionate urgency. He eased her fingers from his body, pushed her down gently and moved across her, cradling her face as he kissed her softly, warming the freezing skin below him.

  ‘Hold me now. Hold me gently,’ he whispered.

  As they loved, her breathing became calmer. Eyes closed, she gripped him with fierce fingers, nails drawing blood from his back, teeth clamping on his shoulder as she made quiet sounds, then whispered, ‘Can’t take this. Daniel. Can’t take this. This is us. Can’t take this away.’

  ‘Oh Beck …’

  ‘Don’t stop. This is … Good. So good …’

  Someone was running along the landing. Hot and quite breathless, Martin paused for a moment, listening to the heavy footfall.

  The door to the bedroom was flung open. He twisted in alarm, staring at the tall figure that stood there, dark against the glowing nightlight.

  Angrily, Martin shouted at the boy: ‘Daniel! Back to bed. Now!’

  ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’

  ‘Daniel! I said back to bed! Now!’

  Rebecca began to cry. The boy stood obstinately in the doorway. Martin kicked the covers off and walked quickly and furiously to his son, his hand coming up to strike the lad, who watched him defiantly.

  ‘Yes. Hit me. Hit me hard. Why not?’

  The boy’s face was a mask of anger and defiance. Naked, Martin dropped to a crouch and held Daniel by the shoulders.

  ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you asleep?’

  ‘I don’t like what you’re doing to mummy.’

  ‘None of your business. Go back to bed. Go to sleep.’

  Daniel glanced across his father’s shoulder and grinned. Then he suddenly hugged Martin, whispering in his ear, ‘He’s wrong. He’s wrong. I can have it all.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean? Who’s he?’

  But already Daniel had turned and was scampering back along the landing, to his room, to his own bed.

  Martin closed the bedroom door. There was no key for the lock and on a vague impulse he moved a chair and wedged it below the brass door-knob.

  In bed again, Rebecca was propped on her elbow, staring into the distance.

  ‘Where were we?’ Martin asked gently. She shook her head. Then, as if with great effort, she said, ‘Stay. Close. Keep him. Away.’

  ‘Beck, what’s wrong? You sound as if you’re drunk.’

  ‘Words. Effort. All gone. Going. Knew it. Would happen. Flynn right. Oh God …’

  She fell back heavily, crying silently. Martin lay down below the covers and held her close to him for the rest of the night.

  In the morning, Rebecca seemed almost her old perky self. She sat on the edge of the bed and peered around the room through her lenses.

  ‘All grey,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘No colour, now. Daniel has all colour now.’

  She dressed easily and went downstairs. The boy was standing in the inglenook by the wood fire, leaning against the brick wall, hands in his pockets. As she bent to stoke up the embers he watched her silently. No words were exchanged. Martin watched this from the stairs, then came into the kitchen to make breakfast. Rebecca put on her coat and went to the back door.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Something,’ she said and smiled, peering at him. ‘To do,’ she added. ‘Alone.’

  ‘Where’s mummy going?’ Daniel asked. ‘I don’t like mummy going off alone. What’s she up to? Why doesn’t she stay here and play with me?’

  ‘What do you want for breakfast?’

  ‘Anything and everything,’ Daniel said loudly. ‘I like lots of everything. Hot bread, eggs, melted cheese, oranges. Just give me everything.’ Then: ‘Where’s Mummy going? She shouldn’t leave the house.’

  ‘Shut up. Sit down. Read a comic book. Eat when the food comes.’

  ‘Don’t be rude to me.’

  ‘It’s too early in the morning, Daniel. Shut up. Read. Wait for breakfast.’

  ‘Where’s mummy going?’

  ‘Bugger mummy! Did you hear what I said? I’ve not slept a wink all night. Now be a kind and thoughtful son, and shut up, and wait for your eggs!’

  ‘Two eggs. And fried
bread and tomatoes. And bacon.’

  ‘What are you, English? That’s what the English eat.’ He remembered quickly that there was an English boy attending the local school for a few weeks, and Daniel was fascinated by him. ‘Very unhealthy. You’ll make do with what I give you.’

  6

  After he had taken Daniel to school, Martin went back to the house, but instead of working on his designs he prowled restlessly along the path, up to the church, then back again. All over Broceliande the flocks of starlings and sparrows were crowding the sky as they returned from the south to flow in great speckled floods about the canopy and the villages. The air was fresh, scented with new growth.

  On impulse, Martin followed the forest road, and turned off along the track that took him to the old bosker’s edgewood mansion.

  He stood by the fence, looking first at the grizzled remains of last summer’s catch. There were no new carcases here, and there were streaks of green on the iron and oilskins on the hut. No smoke rose from the chimney, and the path to the door was fresh with yellow weeds.

  ‘Conrad?’

  Martin called, then called again, waiting hesitantly at the edge of the shack before stepping forward to pull back the oilskin door and peer into the foetid gloom.

  ‘Conrad? Are you here? I’m looking for Rebecca.’

  There was movement in the shafting light from the only window, a sudden shift of body mass below the piled furs on the bed. As his eyes accustomed to the gloom, and his nose to the stink in the place, Martin moved towards the farther end of the habitation. It was cold in here, the fire grey with ash, long dead.

  ‘Conrad!’ The old man’s face became clear suddenly, pale against the yellow of the pillows. He was like a skull, his eyes fully sunken into the bone, his lips no more than thin lines defining the grinning face of death. In hands that were like white spiders he clutched the wooden panel of one of his pictures, hugging it to his breast through the blankets, as if holding a lover.

  ‘My God. You need help. You need a doctor.’

  ‘Do I?’ the ghostly figure wheezed, and then made a sound that Martin was sure was a laugh. ‘Isn’t she beautiful? Oh Lord, how I would love to see her now.’ He peered with difficulty at the smudged crayon drawing.

  Martin gently teased the piece of wood from the trembling hands. He cradled it and stared at the crude drawing of the girl in full face. The colours were scratched where nails had probed and stroked the slim and smiling features of the long-gone girl.

  ‘I dream of her all the time,’ Conrad said. ‘But it’s such a long march home. I don’t think I have the strength. Do I have the strength? Please tell me. I can’t be sure unless you tell me.’

  The bosker was leaning up from the bed, his face a frightening mask of need, of questioning, of seeking – his eyes blazed with urgency, his mouth trembled. Martin was shocked, deeply saddened. He had realised suddenly that he was present at the end of the woodsman’s life.

  Quietly he said, ‘No, my friend. No you don’t. You don’t have the strength. I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s no way home for me?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’

  But as if he had heard some welcome words Conrad’s breath hissed from his lungs in a pleasure of release, and he lay back, his watery gaze upon the dust that spiralled in the light from the window. His fingers again clawed across the crayon face.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’d thought as much. But I tried. Oh Lord, I did try. Not one minute of one hour of any day in all of my life since I marched here, since I walked the circle here, not one moment have I abandoned her, and I think of her now, and God bless her, she has certainly done the good thing and sustained me, although I don’t suppose she knows it. I am so tired, Martin. I hardly have the strength to lift an arm. But I must go and listen to the boats. That is where I belong, now. Will you take me to the lake? Please? You asked about Rebecca. She was here. Yes. Will you take me to the lake? I’ll tell you about Rebecca as we go. Will you take me?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll get your clothes. I’d sooner take you to the infirmary.’

  ‘No. Please don’t. It’s outside the circle, else I would have gone there years ago. It would make me happy to hear the travellers’ boats again, to hear the water. Thank you anyway.’

  Some hours later, by the lake, Conrad crawled into his crude shelter, padded up the furs and the pillow he had brought with him and settled back to die. Martin built a wood fire and stacked a good amount of tinder in arm’s reach, below the hide canopy. The lake was very still, very quiet, dragonflies humming among the rushes. There was a chill touch to the air, in this sheltered place, even though the sky was bright, luxuriant and calm.

  Conrad’s gaze never left the far wood, across the mere.

  ‘There’s a battle being fought. You should have gone away, as Eveline was keen to tell you. If you hadn’t stayed, the battle could never have been joined.’

  Martin cast the line again, a hook with a grub on the end of a willow rod, watching the small weight splash as it struck the surface of the lake. He was determined to catch a fish and give the old bosker a taste of fresh food.

  ‘What battle?’

  ‘The age-old battle,’ Conrad wheezed, half laughing. ‘You know how it goes: I want the power that you have. I want to be strong though it will make you weak. Nothing has changed for thousands of years. Sometimes the battle is fought on whole landscapes, sometimes in the small kitchen of a warm and cosy house. Martin, you really should have gone away. Eveline knew what she was talking about. She was frightened for you, and for Rebecca, and all you have done by staying here is let the fight be fought again.’

  ‘I don’t understand—’

  The weight was tugged, the line snagged. Martin jumped up and held the willow rod tightly, dragging it in against the pull, reaching out to wind the coarse line around his hand.

  ‘Which fight?’

  ‘The fight for magic,’ Conrad murmured. ‘Don’t pull too hard.’

  The fish struggled but was completely hooked. Silver and green thrashed on the scummy lake, eyes flashed angrily from jutting jaws. It was a pike.

  ‘Greedy bastard!’ Martin taunted from the shore. ‘But you’ll make food for three days.’

  ‘It’s quite a monster,’ Conrad agreed excitedly, sitting up, grinning as the struggle continued. ‘Let him have a little slack, give him a false sense of security. When he drags back he’ll stop, hoping to be abandoned. Jerk the line and the hook’ll fix deeper, right in the bone. He’ll be lost then. You can let him die in the lake, or wind him in slowly, but not too fast. It’s a strong line, but that fish has a kick like a mule, and a mule can break a line like this.’

  ‘Who’s fighting for magic? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. You’re on the outside. The battle is not between Rebecca and Daniel – it’s between enchanter and enchanter …’

  Martin was stunned into silence for a moment, hearing the words, half understanding them, not quite ready to accept the deeper, stronger truth. Eventually he said, almost disbelievingly, ‘Do you mean Merlin? You really think it’s Merlin doing this?’

  ‘He’s trapped, across the lake,’ Conrad said quietly, pointing vaguely to the distant shore where the trees crowded and the crows flew. ‘His prison lies across the lake, just on the other side. When the lake came back into existence, it brought him close again. The woman too. Vivien! The screaming man, the wily enchantress. With the old enchanter’s knowledge as the prize! I don’t know how the strategy is working. All I know – don’t pull so hard!’ he snapped, as Martin’s line was tugged. ‘You’ll lose him, and I want to taste this monster. Better … better! Ease him in, just ease him in …’

  ‘All you know?’

  ‘All I know is that Broceliande – the two warring lovers – is in your son and in your sister.’

  ‘She’s not my sister. No blood link at all.’

  ‘Whatever she is. In Rebecca. Your
mother sensed the possession all those years ago, when your brother died. I’m sure of it. That’s why she sent you both away. But you came back, and now the wood has Rebecca, and her son. The power has them both. She came here, God knows why. Rebecca. She came here to the lake, then she came to my lodge and sat with me. She’s blind, you know. And nine parts deaf, now.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She’s lost song, she’s lost story, she’s losing language. It’s all going into the boy. Or rather, to the traveller inside the boy.’

  ‘To Vivien?’

  ‘To Vivien.’ The pike thrashed suddenly, then was still. Frightened by the ideas that the bosker had put in his head, tired of the struggle out on the lake, Martin jerked the line angrily. The fish – it was two feet long, and gleamed purple as it broke the surface – rose into the air then fell back, but a second jerk on the line, the line cutting into his skin now and drawing blood, that second jerk snared the beast and it fell quiet.

  He wound it in, cut the hook out of its mouth, cut off its head and tail. He gutted the monster, scraped the scales and pushed two pieces of willow through the carcase, propping it over the fire on a crude spit.

  ‘How do I stop it?’

  ‘The fight? You can’t. It’s too late. You were a fool. You were warned.’ And he added quietly, ‘There’s no way home for you either.’

  ‘That doesn’t help.’

  ‘Nothing can help.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. There’s a transference going on. Language, sight, song … the boy is taking it from Rebecca. Or is he? Is it possible that Rebecca is just reacting in an hysterical way?’

  ‘She sees shadows, now,’ Conrad said. ‘Only shadows. She hears only first words, hears only the oldest songs, the shadow songs. She’s lost the first part of the fight. Daniel has drawn her out, he caught her unawares. Now she has a chance, though. This is only the middle game. Do you play chess? She has by no means lost. Leave them alone, leave them to end the struggle, one of them will win, one of them will be whole, nothing you can do will help shift the balance. So don’t start choosing. You’ll be left with one of them, and one only. If you interfere, you risk losing them both.’