The Crystal Cave

by Mary Stewart

  "Till then, my lord."

  I left him then, and, with Ulfin following, went after Ralf and the King across the shingle to the foot of the black cliff.

  7

  I DO NOT THINK THAT NOW, EVEN in daylight, I could find the path again without a guide, let alone climb it. Ralf went first, with the King's hand on his shoulder, and in my turn I held a fold of Uther's mantle, and Ulfin of mine. Mercifully, close in as we were to the face of the castle rock, we were protected from the wind: exposed, the climb would have been impossible; we would have been plucked off the cliff like feathers. But we were not protected from the sea. The waves must have been rushing up forty feet, and the master waves, the great sevenths, came roaring up like towers and drenched us with salt fully sixty feet above the beach.

  One good thing the savage boiling of the sea did for us, its whiteness cast upwards again what light came from the sky. At last we saw, above our heads, the roots of the castle walls where they sprang from the rock. Even in dry weather the walls would have been unscalable, and tonight they were streaming with wet. I could see no door, nothing breaking the smooth streaming walls of slate. Ralf did not pause, but led us on under them towards a seaward corner of the cliff. There he halted for a moment, and I saw him move his arm in a gesture that meant "Beware." He went carefully round the corner and out of sight. I felt Uther stagger as he reached the corner himself and met the force of the wind. He checked for a moment and then went on, clamped tight to the cliff's face. Ulfin and I followed. For a few more hideous yards we fought our way along, faces in to the soaking, slimy cliff, then a jutting buttress gave us shelter, and we were stumbling suddenly on a treacherous slope cushiony with sea-pink, and there ahead of us, recessed deep in the rock below the castle wall, and hidden from the ramparts above by the sharp overhang, was Tintagel's emergency door.

  I saw Ralf give a long look upwards before he led us in under the rock. There were no sentries above. What need to post men on the seaward ramparts? He drew his dagger and rapped sharply on the door, a pattern of knocks which we, standing as we were at his shoulder, scarcely heard in the gale.

  The porter must have been waiting just inside. The door opened immediately. It swung silently open for about three inches, then stuck, and I heard the rattle of a chain bolt. In the gap a hand showed, gripping a torch. Uther, beside me, dragged his hood closer, and I stepped past him to Ralf's elbow, holding my mantle tightly to my mouth and hunching my shoulders against the volleying gusts of wind and rain.

  The porter's face, half of it, showed below the torch. An eye peered. Ralf, well forward into the light, said urgently: "Quick, man. A pilgrim. It's me back, with the Duke."

  The torch moved fractionally higher. I saw the big emerald on Uther's finger catch the light, and said curtly, in Brithael's voice: "Open up, Felix, and let us get in out of this, for pity's sake. The Duke had a fall from his horse this morning, and his bandage is soaking. There are just the four of us here. Make haste."

  The chain bolt came off and the door swung wide. Ralf put a hand to it so that, ostensibly holding it for his master, he could step into the passage between Felix and Uther as the King entered.

  Uther strode in past the bowing man, shaking the wet off himself like a dog, and returning some half-heard sound in answer to the porter's greeting. Then with a brief lift of the hand which set the emerald flashing again, he turned straight for the steps which led upwards on our right, and began quickly to mount them.

  Ralf grabbed the torch from the porter's hand as Ulfin and I pressed in after Uther. "I'll light them up with this. Get the door shut and barred again. I'll come down later and give you the news, Felix, but we're all drenched as drowned dogs, and want to get to a fire. There's one in the guard-room, I suppose?"

  "Aye." The porter had already turned away to bar the door. Ralf was holding the torch so that Ulfin and I could go past in shadow.

  I started quickly up the steps in Uther's wake, with Ulfin on my heels. The stairs were lit only by a smoking cresset which burned in a bracket on the wall of the wide landing above us. It had been easy.

  Too easy. Suddenly, above us on the landing, the sullen light was augmented by that from a blazing torch, and a couple of men-at-arms stepped from a doorway, swords at the ready.

  Uther, six steps above me, paused fractionally and then went on. I saw his hand, under the cloak, drop to his sword. Under my own I had my weapon loose in its sheath.

  Ralf's light tread came running up the steps behind us.

  "My lord Duke!"

  Uther, I could guess how thankfully, stopped and turned to wait for him, his back to the guards.

  "My lord Duke, let me light you — ah, they've a torch up there." He seemed only then to notice the guards above us, with the blazing light. He ran on and up past Uther, calling lightly: "Holà, Marcus, Sellic, give me that torch to light my lord up to the Duchess. This wretched thing's nothing but smoke."

  The man with the torch had it held high, and the pair of them were peering down the stairs at us. The boy never hesitated. He ran up, straight between the swords, and took the torch from the man's hand. Before they could reach for it, he turned swiftly to douse the first torch in the tub of sand which stood near the guard-room door. It went out into sullen smoke. The new torch blazed cleanly, but swung and wavered as he moved so that the shadows of the guards, flung gigantic and grotesque down the steps, helped to hide us. Uther, taking advantage of the swaying shadows, started again swiftly up the flight. The hand with Gorlois' ring was half up before him to return the men's salutes. The guards moved aside. But they moved one to each side of the head of the steps, and their swords were still in their hands.

  Behind me, I heard the faint whisper as Ulfin's blade loosened in its sheath. Under my cloak, mine was half-drawn. There was no hope of getting past them. We would have to kill them, and pray it made no noise. I heard Ulfin's step lagging, and knew he was thinking of the porter. He might have to go back to him while we dealt with the guards.

  But there was no need. Suddenly, at the head of the second flight of steps, a door opened wide, and there, full in the blaze of light, stood Ygraine. She was in white, as I had seen her before; but not this time in a night-robe. The long gown shimmered like lake water. Over one arm and shoulder, Roman fashion, she wore a mantle of soft dark blue. Her hair was dressed with jewels. She stretched out both her hands, and the blue robe and the white fell away from wrists where red gold glimmered.

  "Welcome, my lord!" Her voice, high and clear, brought both guards round to face her. Uther took the last half dozen steps to the landing in two leaps, then was past them, his cloak brushing the sword-blades, past Ralf's blazing torch, and starting quickly up the second flight of steps.

  The guards snapped back to attention, one each side of the stair-head, their backs to the wall. Behind me I heard Ulfin gasp, but he followed me quietly enough as, calmly and without hurry, I mounted the last steps to the landing. It is something, I suppose, to have been born a prince, even a bastard one; I knew that the sentries' eyes were nailed to the wall in front of them by the Duchess's presence as surely as if they were blind. I went between the swords, and Ulfin after me.

  Uther had reached the head of the stairway. He took her hands, and there in front of the lighted door, with his enemies' swords catching the torchlight below him, the King bent his head and kissed Ygraine. The scarlet cloak swung round both of them, engulfing the white. Beyond them I saw the shadow of the old woman, Marcia, holding the door.

  Then the King said: "Come," and with the great cloak still covering them both, he led her into the firelight, and the door shut behind them.

  So we took Tintagel.

  8

  WE WERE WELL SERVED THAT NIGHT, Ulfin and I. The chamber door had hardly shut, leaving us islanded halfway up the flight between the door and the guards below, when I heard Ralf's voice again, easy and quick above the slither of swords being sheathed:

  "Gods and angels, what a night's work! And I still have
to guide him back when it's done! You've a fire in the room yonder? Good. We'll have a chance to dry off while we're waiting. You can get yourselves off now and leave this trick to us. Go on, what are you waiting for? You've had your orders — and no word of this, mark you, to anyone that comes."

  One of the guards, settling his sword home, turned straight back into the guard-room, but the other hesitated, glancing up towards me. "My lord Brithael, is that right? We go off watch?"

  I started slowly down the stairs. "Quite right. You can go. We'll send the porter for you when we want to leave. And above all, not a word of the Duke's presence. See to it." I turned to Ulfin, big-eyed on the stairs behind me. "Jordan, you go up to the chamber door yonder and stand guard. No, give me your cloak. I'll take it to the fire."

  As he went thankfully, his sword at last ready in his hand, I heard Ralf crossing the guard-room below, underlining my orders with what threats I could only guess at. I went down the steps, not hurrying, to give him time to get rid of the men.

  I heard the inner door shut, and went in. The guardroom, brightly lit by the torch and the blazing fire, was empty save for ourselves.

  Ralf gave me a smile, gay and threadbare with nerves. "Not again, even to please my lady, for all the gold in Cornwall!"

  "There will be no need again. You have done more than well, Ralf. The King will not forget."

  He reached up to put the torch in a socket, saw my face, and said anxiously: "What is it, sir? Are you ill?"

  "No. Does that door lock?" I nodded at the shut door through which the guards had gone.

  "I have locked it. If they had had any suspicion, they would not have given me the key. But they had none, how could they? I could have sworn myself just now that it was Brithael speaking there, from the stairs. It was — like magic." The last word held a question, and he eyed me with a look I knew, but when I said nothing, he asked merely: "What now, sir?"

  "Get you down to the porter now, and keep him away from here." I smiled. "You'll get your turn at the fire, Ralf, when we have gone."

  He went off, light-footed as ever, down the steps. I heard him call something, and a laugh from Felix. I stripped off my drenched cloak and spread it, with Ulfin's, to the blaze. Below the cloak my clothes were dry enough. I sat for a while, holding my hands before me to the fire. It was very still in the firelit chamber, but outside the air was full of the surging din of the waters and the storm tearing at the castle walls.

  My thoughts stung like sparks. I could not sit still. I stood and walked about the little chamber, restlessly. I listened to the storm outside and, going to the door, heard the murmur of voices and the click of dice as Ralf and Felix passed the time down by the gate. I looked the other way. No sound from the head of the stairs, where I could just see Ulfin, or perhaps his shadow, motionless by the chamber door...

  Someone was coming softly down the stairs; a woman, shrouded in a mantle, carrying something. She came without a sound, and there had been neither sound nor movement from Ulfin. I stepped out on to the landing, and the light from the guard-room came after me, firelight and shadow.

  It was Marcia. I saw the tears glisten on her cheeks as she bent her head over what lay in her arms. A child, wrapped warm against the winter night. She saw me and held her burden out to me. "Take care of him," she said, and through the shine of the tears I saw the treads of the stairway outline themselves again behind her. "Take care of him..."

  The whisper faded into the flutter of the torch and the sound of the storm outside. I was alone on the stairway, and above me a shut door. Ulfin had not moved.

  I lowered my empty arms and went back to the fire. This was dying down, and I made it burn up again, but with small comfort to myself, for again the light stung me. Though I had seen what I wanted to see, there was death somewhere before the end, and I was afraid. My body ached, and the room was stifling. I picked up my cloak, which was almost dry, slung it round me, and crossed the landing to where in the outer wall was a small door under which the wind drove like a knife. I thrust the door open against the blast, and went outside.

  At first, after the blaze of the guard-room, I could see nothing. I shut the door behind me and leaned back against the damp wall, while the night air poured over me like a river. Then things took shape around me. In front and a few paces away was a battlemented wall, waist high, the outer wall of the castle. Between this wall and where I stood was a level platform, and above me a wall rising again to a battlement, and beyond this the soaring cliff and the walls climbing it, and the shape of the fortress rising above me step by step to the peak of the promontory. At the very head of the rise, where we had seen the lighted window, the tower now showed black and lightless against the sky.

  I went forward to the battlement and leaned over. Below was an apron of cliff, which would in daylight be a grassy slope covered with sea-pink and white campion and the nests of seabirds. Beyond it and below, the white rage of the bay. I looked down to the right, the way we had come. Except for the driving arcs of white foam, the bay where Cadal waited was invisible under darkness.

  It had stopped raining now, and the clouds were running higher and thinner. The wind had veered a little, slackening. It would drop towards dawn. Here and there, high and black beyond the racing clouds, the spaces of the night were filled with stars.

  Then suddenly, directly overhead, the clouds parted, and there, sailing through them like a ship through running waves, the star.

  It hung there among the dazzle of smaller stars, flickering at first, then pulsing, growing, bursting with light and all the colours that you see in dancing water. I watched it wax and flame and break open in light, then a racing wind would fling a web of cloud across it till it lay grey and dull and distant, lost to the eye among the other, minor stars. Then, as the swarm began their dance again it came again, gathering and swelling and dilating with light till it stood among the other stars like a torch throwing a whirl of sparks. So on through the night, as I stood alone on the ramparts and watched it; vivid and bright, then grey and sleeping, but each time waking to burn more gently, till it breathed light rather than heat, and towards morning hung glowing and quiet, with the light growing round it as the new day promised to come in clear and still.

  I drew breath, and wiped the sweat from my face. I straightened up from where I had leaned against the ramparts. My body was stiff, but the ache had gone. I looked up at Ygraine's darkened window where, now, they slept.

  9

  I WALKED SLOWLY BACK ACROSS THE platform towards the door. As I opened it I heard from below, clear and sharp, a knocking on the postern gate.

  I took a stride through to the landing, pulling the door quietly shut behind me, just as Felix came out of the lodge below, and made for the postern. As his hand went out to the chain-bolt, Ralf whipped out behind him, his arm raised high. I caught the glint in his fist of a dagger, reversed. He jumped cat-footed, and struck with the hilt. Felix dropped where he stood. There must have been some slight sound audible to the man outside, above the roaring of the sea, for his voice came sharply: "What is it? Felix?" And the knocking came again, harder than before.

  I was already halfway down the flight. Ralf had stooped to the porter's body, but turned as he saw me coming, and interpreted my gesture correctly, for he straightened, calling out clearly:

  "Who's there?"

  "A pilgrim."

  It was a man's voice, urgent and breathless. I ran lightly down the rest of the flight. As I ran I was stripping my cloak off and winding it round my left arm. Ralf threw me a look from which all the gaiety and daring had gone. He had no need even to ask the next question; we both knew the answer.

  "Who makes the pilgrimage?" The boy's voice was hoarse.

  "Brithael. Now open up, quickly."

  "My lord Brithael! My lord — I cannot — I have no orders to admit anyone this way..." He was watching me as I stooped, took Felix under the armpits, and dragged him with as little noise as I could, back into the lodge and out of sig
ht. I saw Ralf lick his lips. "Can you not ride to the main gate, my lord? The Duchess will be asleep, and I have no orders —"

  "Who's that?" demanded Brithael. "Ralf, by your voice. Where's Felix?"

  "Gone up to the guard-room, sir."

  "Then get the key from him, or send him down." The man's voice roughened, and a fist thudded against the gate. "Do as I say, boy, or by God I'll have the skin off your back. I have a message for the Duchess, and she won't thank you for holding me here. Come now, hurry up!"

  "The — the key's here, my lord. A moment." He threw a desperate look over his shoulder as he made a business of fumbling with the lock. I left the unconscious man bundled out of sight, and was back at Ralf's shoulder, breathing into his ear:

  "See if he's alone first. Then let him in."

  He nodded, and the door opened on its chain-bolt. Under cover of the noise it made I had my sword out, and melted into the shadow behind the boy, where the opening door would screen me from Brithael. I stood back against the wall. Ralf put his eye to the gap, then drew back, with a nod at me, and began to slide the chain out of its socket. "Excuse me, my lord Brithael." He sounded abject and confused. "I had to make sure... Is there trouble?"

  "What else?" Brithael thrust the door open so sharply that it would have thudded into me if Ralf had not checked it. "Never mind, you did well enough." He strode in and stopped, towering over the boy. "Has anyone else been to this gate tonight?"