The Story of Silence

by Alex Myers

  Silence was ready to spring from behind the tree, when Merlin, in his scuttling, encountered the wineskin. He pressed it to his mouth and squeezed with all his might. His cheeks pouched out and he swallowed, and squeezed, again and again and again. The skin was half empty when he groaned, aawwoouu, and collapsed, face in the dirt.

  At that, Silence picked up the rope in one hand, his sword in the other, and rushed to Merlin’s side. The old man hadn’t stirred a whisker, so Silence sheathed his sword and grabbed the wizard’s wrists, binding them tightly with rope. Even bloated as he was, the old man weighed next to nothing, so Silence hefted him over his shoulder, at which Merlin croaked, ‘Oh, it’s you. About time.’ And he passed out before Silence could ask what he meant.

  So this was Merlin, Silence thought as he slung him across Wind’s back and set out. From what Silence could tell, he was skinny, flatulent, and grimy. The wisdom that was perpetually ascribed to him was, at this point in time, limited to intermittent moaning and nonsensical bursts of speech. Feeling some pity for the old man, Silence kept his pace slow and thus they were still well within the bounds of Gwenelleth when he stopped the horses and made camp for the night. He hauled Merlin off Wind’s back, gave both horses oats, and lit a small fire. He watered the horses at the nearby stream, unpacked the sack of provisions and concocted a mushy sort of stew. Absorbed in this small task, he was startled to hear a cogent voice behind him. ‘Well, well, well. Cador’s child, if I’m not mistaken.’

  Silence turned around. Merlin had worked himself into a sitting position, his bound hands propped on his knees, which were pulled close to his chest. ‘You’re awake,’ Silence said. ‘And, yes, I’m Cador’s son.’ He was about to say, how did you know? But Merlin interrupted him.

  ‘No, no. I don’t think so. Haw! If you were his son, I’d be free as a bird and you’d be cursing whatever being sent you on this quest. Haw!’

  Silence frowned at Merlin. ‘Earl Cador was my father.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Therefore I am Earl Cador’s son.’ He dared this dirty, naked old man, who lately had been lolling across the back of a horse with little more sentience than a sack of turnips, to dispute the fact that he was a boy. If all the men with whom he fought and trained and sweated and travelled couldn’t discern this, why should this half-beast?

  ‘Your logic is flawed. And here I thought that, though you are as handsome as your sire, you had more brains. Earl Cador is your father. Therefore you are Earl Cador’s child.’ He spoke like a priest spelling out a simple lesson. ‘Oh, don’t bristle so! I didn’t say you were Cador’s daughter. I didn’t say you were a girl. I said child. Isn’t that enough?’

  Silence sat down heavily, stunned. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I’m Merlin,’ the old man mock-whispered. ‘I’m a prophet. I know everything. Well. Nearly so.’

  ‘Then why did you let yourself get caught?’

  ‘Let? Let?’ The old man threw his head back and laughed like a crow. ‘Haw! Haw! Haw! Who was that goatherd who knew how to set the trap?’ He stared at Silence and Silence stared back.

  Oh. The old man’s beard was white and tangled. And his hair fell grey and matted down his back. But those were the same bright blue eyes, shining now with amusement, and the same weather-reddened cheeks, and definitely the same talon-like yellow toenails. ‘You …’ Silence breathed. ‘Why on earth …’

  ‘I’d stir that stew if I were you,’ Merlin said and Silence picked up the spoon and scraped the pot before adding more water. ‘Why, indeed? How long ago did your father find me here?’

  Silence stirred and counted back. He was now seventeen and his father had killed the dragon before marrying Silence’s mother. ‘Seventeen years ago, give or take.’

  ‘For twenty plus seventeen years I have lived in the forest of Gwenelleth. Lived as a beast for all but a few days a year when I reverted to a man – brief respites when I could eat and talk, though many were spent in service to others, eh?’

  ‘But you can talk now. You seem to be …’

  ‘Normal? Why, yes. Haw! You broke the curse. You do know the story, don’t you?’

  ‘You stole some woman away from her husband, whom you cursed, and trained the woman in magic … she was a queen, wasn’t she? And she betrayed you and cursed you in turn, making you live as an animal, with only a day or two a year in which you could speak, so that you could apologize to her. That was your only chance of breaking your curse, unless a maiden freed you from it.’

  ‘That’s a heinous abbreviation that does away with all the drama and romance, but, yes, that is an accurate summary of my plight. Don’t ever become a minstrel, child.’

  ‘I was a minstrel,’ Silence said.

  Merlin shook his head. ‘What has the world come to? In my day … never mind that. So, yes, now the curse is broken.’

  Silence stared at Merlin, confused.

  The old man continued. ‘The curse is broken because you are …’

  Silence still stared.

  ‘You are not the queen, so you must be …’

  ‘A maiden?’ Silence whispered, aghast.

  ‘Unless I’m much mistaken?’ Merlin replied. ‘Handsome as you are, and beautiful too. A woman and a man. A man as much a woman. Proof that we are all a little both, a little neither. Proof that rules hold us less tightly than we imagine! Nature speaks to us all in our own individual riddles. Haw!’

  The old man’s words landed harder than any sword stroke on any pell. Both. Not failing. Not deceiving. Both. It was not a disappointment or a lessening. It was addition, not subtraction. Silence was bard and knight. Noble and honest. Man and … woman. Silence had to be both; to be anything else would be ignoble, untrue, against Nature and against Nurture. In that glen, beneath those oaks, Silence felt themselves grow. Not taller. Not thicker. But truer. As a tree grows towards the sunlight, they were a person growing towards their truth.

  Silence’s voice came out unsteady when they tried to speak. ‘So I have broken the curse?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Merlin coughed a little bit. ‘It’s rather nice to have my wits and voice back. I’ve been quite looking forward to this.’

  ‘Are you saying I didn’t capture you? You allowed yourself to be caught?’

  ‘Caught. Freed. However you’d like to term it. No doubt, my former minstrel, my maiden-in-denial, my man-in-waiting, you’d prefer to tell the story that through your cunning you trapped Merlin the wizard and brought him back to court.’

  ‘No.’ Silence shook their head. ‘I don’t tell lies. Besides, minstrels usually tell other people’s stories, not their own.’

  ‘Ah. That’s what you might think. But in telling other people’s stories – in how we tell them, in how we shape them – we tell our own. I think the stew is ready.’

  Silence filled a bowl and handed it to Merlin. ‘How can you be hungry after all that you ate earlier?’ they asked as Merlin wolfed down the stew.

  ‘Twenty and seventeen years of grass and roots and nuts and mushrooms. I’m starving. Why do you think I let myself get caught? It is so pleasant to be able to talk and think …’

  ‘How did you manage to appear as the goatherd?’ Silence felt as though Merlin, naked and dirty though he may be, was running about a league ahead of them.

  ‘Oh, there are ways to scrape together magic, especially when one is desperate. Call in old favours, you know. It was a small charm to change semblance. And you’ll notice that the goatherd didn’t say that much. And he could only eat the food you gave him. Hmmm, hmmmm. And perhaps you remember visits from certain crows at certain moments of doubt in your youth? Haw!’

  ‘That was you? I thought it might have been.’

  ‘Friends of mine. Checking on you. You’re of much interest, yes, yes.’

  Merlin ran his spoon along the bottom of the bowl, looking longingly into the cook-pot, which Silence had already scraped bare. He sighed, set his bowl down, wrapped the cloak around himself – an awkward job with
bound hands – and promptly fell snoringly asleep. Sleep took longer to claim Silence, who lay on their back, staring at the stars, feeling themselves deep in their father’s shadow.

  Morning came and Silence readied Wind and Bold as Merlin gobbled a hunk of bread. ‘I have a few spare bits of clothing,’ Silence said, digging in their saddlebags. ‘And a sharp knife, if you’d like to cut your hair …’

  Merlin lifted his matted locks, as if becoming aware of them for the first time. ‘Haw!’

  ‘There’s a stream there, you could …’

  ‘Bathe? Yes, that might make me a more palatable companion. Haw! But think about it, child. If I trim my hair and clean my body and put on clothes, when you bring me to the noble king, what will they think? They’ll say, that can’t be Merlin, the wild madman of the woods of Gwenelleth! This Silence must have brought us an imposter. That’s what they’ll say, no matter how wise and prophetic I am. No, no. Much better to look the part.’

  Silence helped him, naked and dishevelled, onto Wind’s back. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’ They nudged Bold and headed north. A faster pace today than yesterday, now that Merlin was alert and able to ride. If Silence had to guess, they’d say the man kept himself upright through magic, and barely at that. ‘But if you wanted to be caught, then should I loosen your hands?’ They felt rather bad about keeping the old fellow tied up.

  ‘Perhaps I wanted to be caught by you, to be set free of the curse. And now that the curse is lifted, I’m inclined to run away.’

  ‘You aren’t making much of an effort to escape. Besides, as a wizard, couldn’t you undo the ropes with a spell?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, holding his hands up in front of him. ‘You’re right. I have no intention of escaping. I’d like to visit Winchester. And I have the strangest feeling. A sort of tugging, right below my heart. You ever get that feeling? Like something much larger is pulling at your core?’

  Silence considered this. ‘Yes,’ they said. ‘As I ride into battle. And when I ran away from home. What does it mean?’

  ‘For me, that I must do what I am pulled to do. And I feel strongly pulled to go to Winchester and see this king and his queen. Hmmm. And see what they do with you as well. So no, I will not run away.’

  Silence nudged Bold closer to Wind. ‘At least let me loosen the rope.’

  ‘Haw! For one who has fought and killed and ought to have been hardened, you are foolishly kind. Think it through. If you untied my hands, and I ran away – which I wouldn’t do – you’d curse yourself for not tying my hands. And forever after, you’d have to say that, yes, you caught Merlin the wizard but didn’t tie his hands and so he ran away from you. Unbearable. Think how that would haunt you. The shame of it. Better to tie me up.’

  They cleared the edge of the woods by midday and rejoined the track that led north-easterly. Merlin turned his face towards the sun, basking in it.

  Silence did a mental inventory of their supplies – to keep their head from reeling. They had food enough for the next few days. They had thought they might stay at an inn – now that they were an earl, they felt it matched their rank to have a bed rather than sleep in the rough – but they were hesitant to parade Merlin through town, and reluctant to have to answer everyone’s questions. They scratched their cheek and considered the gaunt old man, naked and uncaring atop his horse. Why this queasy fear in their stomach? Because Merlin knew Silence’s Nature.

  More. Because Silence now felt their Nature to be true. For the first time, Silence was not denying it, but embracing it. This was a part of who Silence was.

  They brooded on this, imagining what Merlin would say when Silence presented him to the king. Could Silence claim to have caught him through their own guile? Or would everyone know that they were a maiden? (They were. It’s true. But they were also more than that … and Silence knew that to everyone else, except perhaps Merlin, to be a maiden was to be lesser. And that was not true.) They were pinched in a vice – they had to hope that Merlin would reveal the truth of the queen’s lies without mentioning Silence’s Nature. That shouldn’t be impossible for one as wise as Merlin.

  They’d soon eaten the last of the bread and dried meat (Merlin had quite an appetite for an old man), so Silence steered them towards a village. As they rode past crofts and hovels, cottages and shops, the peasants and townspeople pointed at Merlin and stared, some laughing, some shouting out. Merlin, in reply, did little except laugh, now and then breaking out in such raucous guffaws that tears streamed down his face. When Silence emerged from the chandlery with a sack of provisions, they found the old man doubled up in the saddle, wheezing and gasping as he giggled.

  ‘What,’ Silence said, as all the townspeople stared, ‘could possibly be so funny?’

  ‘Oh, my child. That man,’ Merlin said, pointing with his bound hands down the hill, to where a track led away from town. ‘He was carrying, quite proudly, a new pair of shoes. Oh, he looked so happy! But he’ll never wear them. Not once! He’ll die before he puts them on. Haw! He’ll die before he gets home!’

  At that, a few of the townspeople grumbled and a pair of boys dashed off after the peasant to tell him what the naked and grubby stranger was saying. Silence tied the bag of provisions to Wind, checked that all was ready, and was about to mount up – though Merlin was laughing so hard he thought it would be impossible for him to ride – when the boys returned at a run.

  ‘It’s true, it’s true!’ one of the boys gasped. ‘Gelb is dead! Right there on the road. Stone cold dead!’

  ‘He put a curse on him! That old man’s a devil!’ one of the villagers shouted, a cry that met with shouts of agreement.

  ‘Now, then,’ Silence said, but it was Merlin whose voice was heard.

  ‘I mean you no evil, good folk. I only speak the truth. Sometimes the truth is sad. Poor Gelb. Sometimes the truth is happy. You want to know why else I laughed?’ Uneasily, the crowd paused. ‘See back there?’ Merlin jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That beggar man standing with his bowl outstretched, asking for alms?’

  ‘Aye. That’s Wink. He begs there every day. Lazy bastard,’ one of the villagers said.

  ‘The irony!’ Merlin exclaimed. ‘He asks for so little and yet stands atop so much. Dig where he stands, I tell you, and you’ll find a chest laden with gold and silver.’

  It took barely a second, and all the townspeople had dashed away, some to grab shovels and picks, and others to scrabble with their bare hands, crying and exclaiming as they pushed and grabbed at the dirt.

  ‘Let’s be off,’ Merlin said, wiping tears from his eyes with his bound hands.

  ‘Will they find treasure?’ Silence asked.

  ‘Of course. Like you, I speak only truth. And it will cause them happiness, at least in the moment of discovery. Great joy, to behold the sparkling mass of gold. And it will cause them great grief, as they’ll tear each other to bits fighting over whose gold it is. In the end, the king will seize it all, of course. Haw! So it goes. A blessing is a curse, and a curse is a blessing.’

  Silence nudged Bold along. The sooner they got to Winchester, the sooner this would all be over.

  ‘Now, you’re scarcely the courageous and confident knight of a few days ago, I have to say. What’s bothering you, child?’

  Where to begin? Half-formed thoughts and fears had swirled in Silence’s mind ever since they’d trapped Merlin. And finding this wretched prophet was supposed to be the solution to their problems! ‘What will happen when we get back to court?’

  ‘Ah, yes. It will happen. Best not to worry about the future.’

  ‘But you know what will happen!’ Silence exclaimed. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Everyone thinks that will make it better, if they know in advance. I assure you, it only makes it worse.’

  ‘I want to know.’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ Merlin said in a tired voice.

  ‘Because then I can figure out how to change what will happen, if I don’t like it …’

&
nbsp; ‘Exactly. But if you could change it, wouldn’t that be the future I foresaw?’

  ‘Oh,’ Silence said.

  ‘Either prophecy works or it doesn’t. Just once, I’d like someone to say: I want you to tell me the future so that I can best prepare myself, body and soul, for the events that are to come. But no. Always wanting to meddle.’

  ‘Then what’s the point of magic?’

  ‘Magic and prophecy are different,’ Merlin said. ‘I happen to be a soothsayer who is also a wizard who is also a bard. Three-in-one. Not a bad deal, eh?’

  Silence grunted. ‘I don’t believe the future can’t be changed.’

  ‘There’s some courage returning. Good for you! I admit, prophecy is frustrating. But magic … ah, magic.’ Merlin worked with his skinny legs, driving Wind closer to Bold, so that Merlin’s bare knees brushed against Silence’s leggings. ‘I don’t say this to many, but I think you’d like magic.’

  ‘And why is that?’

  ‘Haw! So reluctant. Most people would jump at the chance if Merlin said they might have a knack for magic.’

  ‘Well, it’s because I’m a knight. Because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. Being a knight is completeness to me; no need for magic.’

  ‘All you’ve wanted to be? You must have tried to be a minstrel, no? But that’s scarcely what matters. You may be good at stories and bardsong but you’re misreading your entire life. It just seems that you’ve been trying to become a knight. That’s the outside. But inside? Not at all. Inside, you’re trying to deny your Nature.’

  Silence waved a dismissive hand. ‘That wasn’t my choice.’ They let the truth of that ring for a moment. It hadn’t been their choice. And yet it had driven so much of how they’d lived. They took a steadying breath and tried to explain. ‘There’s what you are and what you become.’