The Hollow Hills

by Mary Stewart

  She received me in her own chamber, a long room above the curtain wall, with a deep circular recess where the turret stood at the north-west corner. There were windows in the long wall facing south-west, and through these the sunlight fell freely, but the Queen was sitting by one of the narrow turret windows, through which came the breeze of the soft September afternoon, and the eternal noise of the sea on the rocks below. So much was still here, then, of the Ygraine I remembered. It was like her, I thought, to choose the wind and the sea sounds, rather than the sunlight. But even here, in spite of the light and air, one got the feeling of a cage: this was the room in which the young wife of Gorlois the old Duke had passed those pent years before the fateful trip to London where she had met the King. Now, after that brief flight, she was penned again, by her love for the King, and by the weight of his child. I never loved a woman, except one, but I have pitied them. Now, looking at the Queen, young, beautiful, and with her heart's desire, I pitied her even as I feared her for what she might say to me.

  She was alone. I had been led by a chamberlain through the outer room where the women span and weaved and gossiped. Bright eyes looked at me in momentary curiosity, and the chattering was stilled, only to begin again as soon as I had passed. There was no recognition in their faces, only perhaps here and there some disappointment at the sight of so ordinary and humble a fellow. No diversion here. To them I was a messenger, to be received by the Queen in the King's absence; that was all.

  The chamberlain rapped on the door of the inner chamber and then withdrew. Marcia, Ralf's grandmother, opened the door. She was a grey-haired woman with Ralf's eyes in a lined and anxious face, but in spite of her age she bore herself as straight as a girl. Though she was expecting me, I saw her eyes rest on me for a moment without recognition, then with a flicker of surprise. Even Ygraine looked startled for a moment, then she smiled and held out her hand.

  "Prince Merlin. Welcome." Marcia curtsied to the air somewhere between me and the Queen, and withdrew. I went forward to kneel and kiss the Queen's hand.

  "Madam."

  She raised me kindly. "It was good of you to come so quickly for such a strange summons. I hope the journey was easy?"

  "Very easy. We are well lodged with Maeve and Caw, and so far no one has recognized me, or even Ralf. Your secret is safe."

  "I must thank you for taking so much care of it. I promise you I'd not have known you until you spoke."

  I fingered my chin, smiling. "As you see, I've been preparing for some time."

  "No magic this time?"

  "As much as there was before," I said.

  She looked at me straightly then, the beautiful dark-blue eyes meeting mine in the way I remembered, and I saw that this was still the old Ygraine, direct as a man, and with the same high pride. The heavy stillness was just an overlay, the milky calm that seems to come on women in pregnancy. Beneath the stillness, the placidity, was the old fire. She spread her hands out. "Looking at me now, do you still tell me that when you spoke to me that night in London, and promised me the King's love, there was no magic there?"

  "Not in the ruse that brought the King to you, madam. In what happened after, perhaps."

  " 'Perhaps'?" There was a quick lift to her voice that warned me. Ygraine might be a Queen, with mettle as high as a man's, but she was a woman nearing her seventh month. My fears were my own, and must stay my own. I hesitated, searching for words, but she went on quickly, burningly, as if to convince herself across my silence: "When you first spoke with me and told me you could bring the King to me, there was magic there, I know there was. I felt it, and I saw it in your face. You told me that your power came from God, and that in obeying you I was God's creature, even as you were. You said that because of the magic that would bring Uther to me, the kingdom should have peace. You spoke of crowns and altars... And now, see, I am Queen, with God's blessing, and I am heavy with the King's child. Dare you tell me now that you deceived me?"

  "I did not deceive you, madam. That was a time full of visions, and a passion of dreams and desires. We are quit of those now, and we are sober, and it is daylight. But magic is here, growing in you, and this time it is fact, not vision. He will be born at Christmas, they tell me."

  " 'He'? You sound very sure."

  "I am sure."

  I saw her press her lips together as if at a sudden spasm of pain, then she looked away from me, down at her hands which lay folded across her belly. When she spoke, she spoke calmly, straight to her hands, or to what they covered. "Marcia told me of the messages she sent to you in the summer. But you must have known, without her telling you, the way my lord the King thinks of this matter."

  I waited, but she seemed to expect an answer. "He told me himself," I said. "If he's still of the same mind now as he was then, he won't acknowledge the child as his heir."

  "He is still of the same mind." Her eyes came swiftly up to mine again. "Don't misunderstand me, he has not the faintest doubt of me, nor ever had. He knows that I was his from the first moment I saw him, and that from that moment, on one excuse or another, I never lay with the Duke. No, he does not doubt me; he knows the child is his. And for all his high speech" — there was the glimmer of a smile, and suddenly her voice was indulgent, the voice of a woman speaking of her child or of a loved husband — "and for all his rough denials, he knows your power and fears it. You told him a child would come out of that night, and he would trust your word, even if he could not trust mine. But none of this alters the way he feels about it. He blames himself — and you, and even the child — for the Duke's death."

  "I know."

  "If he had waited, he says, Gorlois would still have died that night, and I would have been Queen, and the child conceived in wedlock, so that no one could question his parentage or call him bastard."

  "And you, Ygraine?"

  She was silent for a long time. She turned that lovely head of hers and gazed out of the window, where the sea birds swung and tilted, crying, on the wind. I saw, I am not sure how, that her calm was that of a soldier who has won one battle, and rests before the next. I felt my nerves tighten. I did not hold Ygraine lightly, should the battle be with me.

  She said, very quietly: "What the King says may well be true. I don't know. But what's done is done, and it is the child who must concern me now. This is why I sent for you." A pause. I waited. She faced me again. "Prince Merlin, I fear for the child."

  "At the King's hands?" I asked.

  This was too straight, even for Ygraine. Her eyes were cold, and her voice. "This is insolence, and folly, too. You forget yourself, my lord."

  "I?" I spoke as coldly. "It is you who forget, madam. If my mother had been wed to Ambrosius when he begot me, Uther would not now be King, nor would I have helped him to your bed to beget the child you carry. There should be no talk of insolence or folly from you to me. I know, who better, what chance there is in Britain for a prince conceived out of wedlock and unacknowledged by his sire."

  She had flushed as red as she was pale before. Her eyes dropped from mine, their anger dying. She spoke simply, like a girl. "You are right, I had forgotten. I ask your pardon. I'd forgotten, too, what it was like to talk freely. There is no one here besides Marcia and my lord, and I cannot talk to Uther about the child."

  I had been standing all this while; now I turned aside to bring up a chair and set it near her in the turret embrasure. I sat down. Things had changed between us, suddenly, as when a wind changes. I knew then that the battle was not with me, but with herself, her own woman's weakness. She was watching me now as a woman in pain watches her doctor. I said gently: "Well, I am here. And I am listening. What did you send for me to tell me?"

  She drew in her breath. When she spoke her voice was calm, but no more than a whisper. "That If this child is a boy, the King will not allow me to rear him. If it's a girl I may keep her, but a boy so begotten cannot be acknowledged as a prince and legitimate heir, so he must not remain here, even as a bastard." Visibly, she steadied hers
elf. "I told you, Uther does not doubt me. But because of what happened that night, my husband's death, and all the talk of magic, he swears that men may still believe that the Duke and not himself begot this child. There will be other sons, he says, whose begetting no man will question, and among them he will find the heir to the High Kingdom."

  "Ygraine," I said, "I know what a heavy thing it is — however it happens — for a woman to lose her child. Perhaps there is no heavier grief. But I think the King is right. The boy should not remain here to be reared as a bastard in times so wild and uncertain. If there should be other heirs, declared and acknowledged by the King, they might count him a danger to themselves, and certainly they would be a danger for him. I know what I'm talking about; this is what happened in my own childhood. And I, as a royal bastard, found fortune as this prince may never find it; I had my father's protection."

  A pause. She nodded without speaking, her eyes once again on the hands that lay in her lap.

  "And if the child is to be sent away," I said, "it's better that he should be taken straight from the birth chamber, before you have had time even to hold him. Believe me" — I spoke quickly, though she had not moved — "this is true. I'm speaking now as a doctor."

  She moistened her lips. "Marcia says the same."

  I waited a moment, but she said no more. I started to speak, found my voice come hoarsely, and cleared my throat. In spite of myself, my hands tightened on the arms of my chair. But my voice was calm and steady as I came to the core of the interview. "Has the King told you where the child is to be fostered?"

  "No. I told you it wasn't easy to talk to him about it. But when he last spoke of it he said he would take counsel; and he spoke of Brittany."

  "Brittany?" For all my care, the word came out with a cutting edge. I fought to recover my calm. My hands had clenched on the chair, and I relaxed them and held them still. So, my doubts were real. Oddly enough, the knowledge hardened me. If I must fight the King as well as Ygraine — yes, and my Delphic gods as well — then I would do so. As long as I could see the ground to fight from... "So Uther will send him to King Budec?"

  "It seems so." She seemed to have noticed nothing strange in my manner. "He sent a messenger a month ago. That was just before I sent to ask you to come. Budec is the obvious choice, after all."

  This was true. King Budec of Less Britain was a cousin of the King's. It was he who, some thirty years ago, had taken my father and the young Uther under his protection when the usurper Vortigern murdered their elder brother King Constans, and in his capital of Kerrec they had assembled and trained the army which had won the High Kingdom back from Vortigern. But I shook my head. "Too obvious. If anyone should look for the boy to harm him, they'll guess where to go. Budec can't protect him all the time. Besides —"

  "Budec cannot care for my child as he should be cared for!" The words came forcibly, stopping me short, but the interruption was not uncivil. It came almost like a cry. It was plain that she had not heard a word I had said. She was fighting herself, choosing words. "He is old, and besides, Brittany is a long way off, and less secure even than this Saxon-ridden land. Prince Merlin, I — Marcia and I — we think that you — " The hands suddenly twisted together in her lap. Her voice changed. "There is no one else we can trust, And Uther — whatever Uther says, he knows that his kingdom, or any part of it, would be safe in your hands. You are Ambrosius' son, and the child's closest kinsman. Everyone knows your power, and fears it — the child would be safe with you to protect him. It's you who must take him, Merlin!" She was begging me now. "Take him safe, somewhere away from this cruel coast, and rear him for me. Teach him as you were taught, and rear him as a King's son should be reared, and then when he is grown, bring him back and let him take his place as you did, at the next King's side."

  She faltered. I must have been staring at her like a fool. She fell quiet, twisting her hands. There was a long silence, filled with the scent of the salt wind and the crying of the gulls. I had not been aware of rising, but I found myself standing at the window with my back to the Queen, staring out at the sky, Below the turret wall the gulls wheeled and mewed in the wind, and far below, at the foot of the black cliff, the sea dashed and whitened. But I saw and heard nothing. My hands were pressed down hard on the stone of the sill, and when at length I lifted them and straightened they showed a mottled bar of bloodless flesh where the stone had bitten in. I began to chafe them, only now feeling the small hurt as I turned back to meet the Queen's eyes. She too had hold of herself again, but I saw strain in her face, and a hand plucked at her gown.

  I said flatly: "Do you think you can persuade the King to give him to me?"

  "No. I don't think so. I don't know." She swallowed. "Of course I can talk to him, but —"

  "Then why send for me to ask me this, if you have no power to sway the King?"

  She was white, and her lips worked together, but she kept her head up and faced me. "I thought that if you agreed, my lord, you could — you would —"

  "I can do nothing with Uther now. You should know that." Then, in sudden, bitter comprehension: "Or did you send for me as you did last time, hoping for magic to order, as if I were an old spell-wife, or a country druid? I would have thought, madam — " I stopped. I had seen the flinching in her eyes, and the drawn pallor round her mouth, and I remembered what she carried in her. My anger died. I turned up a hand, speaking gently: "Very well. If it can be done, Ygraine, I will do it, even if I have to talk to Uther myself to remind him of his promise."

  "His promise? What did he promise you, and when?"

  "When he first sent for me, and told me of his love for you, he swore to obey me in anything, if only he could have his way." I smiled at her. "It was meant as a bribe rather than a promise, but no matter, we'll hold it to him as a royal oath."

  She began to thank me, but I stopped her. "No, no, keep your thanks. I may not succeed with the King; you know how little he loves me. You were wise to send secretly, and you'll be wiser not to let him know we talked of this together."

  "He shan't know from me."

  I nodded. "Now, for the child's sake and your own, you must put your fears aside. Leave this to me. Even if we can't move the King, I promise you that wherever the child is fostered, I shall make it my business to watch over him. He will be kept safely, and reared as a King's son should be reared. Will that content you?"

  "If it has to, yes."

  She drew a long breath then and moved at last, rising from her chair and, still gracefully in spite of her bulk, pacing down the long room to one of the far windows. I made no move to follow her. She stood there for a while with her back to me, in silence. When at length she turned, she was smiling. She lifted a hand to beckon me and I went to her.

  "Will you tell me one thing, Merlin?"

  "If I can."

  "That night when we spoke in London, before you brought the King to me here. You talked of a crown, and a sword standing in an altar like a cross. I have wondered so much about it, thinking... Tell me now, truly. Was it my crown you saw? Or did you mean that this child — this boy who has cost so much — that he will be King?"

  I should have said to her: "Ygraine, I do not know. If my vision was true, if I was a true prophet, then he will be King. But the Sight has left me, and nothing speaks to me in the night or in the fire, and I am barren. I can only do as you do, and take the time on trust. But there is no going back. God will not waste all the deaths."

  But she was watching me with the eyes of a woman in pain, so I said to her: "He will be King."

  She bent her head and stood silent for a few moments, watching the sunlight on the floor, not as if thinking, but as if listening to what stirred within her. Then she looked up at me again.

  "And the sword in the altar?"

  I shook my head. "Madam, I don't know. It has not come yet. If I am to know, I will be shown."

  She put out a hand. "One more thing..." From something in her voice, I knew that this mattered most to her. Not
knowing what was coming, I braced myself to lie. She said: "If I must lose this child... Shall I have others, Merlin?"

  "That is three things you have asked me, Ygraine."

  "You won't answer?"

  I had spoken only to gain time, but at the flash of fear and doubt in her eyes I was glad to tell her the truth. "I would answer you, madam, but I do not know."

  "How is that?" she asked sharply.

  I lifted my shoulders. "That again I cannot answer. Further than this boy you carry, I have not seen. But it seems probable, since he is to be King, that you will have no other sons. Girls, maybe, to bring you comfort."

  "I shall pray for it," she said simply, and led the way back to the embrasure. She gestured me to sit. "Will you not take a cup of wine with me now, before you leave? I've received you poorly, I'm afraid, after asking such a journey of you, but I was in torment until I had talked with you. Won't you sit down with me now for a little while, and tell me what the news is with you?"

  So I stayed a short while longer and, after I had given her my meager news, I asked where Uther was bound with his troops. She told me that he was heading, not for his capital at Winchester as I had supposed, but northwards to Viroconinm, where he had called a council of leaders and petty kings from the north and north-east. Viroconium is the old Roman town which lies on the border of Wales, with the mountains of Gwynedd between it and the threat of the Irish Shore. It was still at this time a market center, and the roads were well maintained. Once out of the Dumnonian Peninsula, Uther could make good speed north by the Glevum Bridge. He might even, if the weather stayed fair and the country quiet, be back for the Queen's lying-in. For the moment, Ygraine told me, the Saxon Shore was quiet; after Uther's victory at Vindocladia the invaders had retired on the hospitality of the federated tribes. There was no clear news from the north, but the King (she told me) feared some kind of concerted action there in the spring between the Picts of Strathclyde and the invading Angles: the meeting of the Kings at Viroconium had been called in an attempt to thrash out some kind of united plan of defense.