Merlin

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  When spring came again to the Island of the Mighty, the fhain traveled back to the south. They chose a rath in a different place, hoping for better grazing than they had had the previous year.

  Our summer place was not far from the Wall—where the mountains enfold hidden valleys and settlements are rare. Twice that summer, when I rode hunting with Teirn, we saw troops hurrying along the ancient ridgeways. Crouching beside our ponies we watched them pass, and I sensed the upheaval in those troubled spirits; like a disturbance in the air, I felt the roiling, churning chaos as they marched by.

  That was not the only indication I had of the great and terrible events proceeding along their ordained courses in the world of men…I also heard the Voices.

  This began soon after the second sighting of the troops. We were returning to the rath with the day’s kill and had stopped to allow the ponies to drink from a stream. The sun was standing low; the sky was aglow with yellow flame. I drooped my arms across my pony’s neck—we were both sweating and tired. There was not a breath of wind in the glen, and the blackflies were thick and bothersome. I was simply resting, watching the sunlight dance on the rippling water, when the buzz of the flies seemed to form itself into words.

  “…make them understand…nearer now than ever…few years, perhaps…southeast…Lindum and Luguvallium are with us…bide, Constantius. It will not be forever…”

  The words were spoken softly. A mere whisper on the breeze—but there was no breeze. The air was dead.

  I looked across at Teirn to see if he heard it, too. But he remained squatting at the water’s edge, cupping water to his mouth. If he heard anything he gave no sign.

  “…six hundred is all…orders, my friend, orders…Imperator!…more in tribute…this year than last…Mithras help us!…bleed us dry?…here is the seal, take it…then it is agreed…cannot turn aside…Ave Imperator!”

  The words came in gasps and snatches, many different voices, overlapping one another in a gabble of confusion. But they were voices and I had no doubt that somewhere, far or near, the words had been spoken. Although there was no sense to what I heard, I knew from the tone that a thing of momentous import was taking place.

  I thought about this for a long time that night and after. What did it mean? What could it mean?

  But that, I regret, I was not to discover until much later.

  Not that I could have done anything about it. I was very much a part of Hawk Fhain now. I had altogether stopped thinking about running away—having come, like Gern-y-fhain, to believe that my stay with the Hill Folk was meant to be. Perhaps I was not the Gift they thought I was; but indeed they were a gift to me, for I was learning much that would stand me in good stead the rest of my life.

  Thus, it is no simple matter to describe my sojourn among the People of the Hawk. Even for me, the words I speak show themselves hollow, broken things beside the brimming reality that lives in my heart: the colors!—autumn fern like copper shining from the fire; and in the spring, whole mountainsides clothed in imperial purple; greens as tender and fresh as the dawn of creation, rich as God’s own idea of green; the myriad shifting blues of sea and sky and running water; the matchless white of snow new-fallen; the grey of lowering thundercloud; the excellent black of night’s soft wing…

  And more: sun-bright days of infinite light and pleasure; star-bright nights of deep, deep slumber, seasons of goodness and right, each moment etched in elegant symmetry upon the soul; the slow Earth moving through its inexorable cycle of birth and rebirth, keeping faith with the Creator, fulfilling its ancient and honorable promise.

  Great Light, I could not have loved you better than I did then.

  For I saw, and I understood. I saw the order of creation; I understood the rhythm of life. The Hill Folk lived close to the order; they felt the rhythm in their blood. They had no need to understand it—they were part of it as it was part of them—but through them I learned to feel it; through them I became part of it, too.

  My kinsmen, my brothers! The debt that I owe you can never be repaid, but know that I have never forgotten you, and as long as men hear and remember the old stories, as long as words have meaning, you will live, even as you live in my heart.

  I stayed with the Hawk People another year, one more winter and spring and summer, one more Beltane and Lughnasadh, and then I knew it was time for me to return to my own. As the days began to shorten, I grew uneasy—a light flutter of the stomach when I looked to the south, a slight lift of the heart when I thought of home, the tingle of expectation that in far-off courts the future substance of my life was being shaped, that somewhere someone was waiting for me to appear.

  I endured these various sensations in silence, but Gern-y-fhain knew. She could tell that my time was short, and one night after supper called me outside. I took her arm, and we walked in silence up the hill to stand in the stone circle. She squinted up at the twilight sky and then at me. “Myrddin-brother, you are a man now.”

  I waited for what she had to say.

  “You will leave fhain.”

  I nodded. “Soon.”

  She smiled a smile so sweet and sad that it pierced my soul with its tenderness. “Go your way, wealth of my heart.”

  Tears rose to my eyes and my throat tightened. “I cannot leave without your song in my ears, Gern-y-fhain.”

  That pleased her. “Will sing you home, Myrddin-wealth. Will be a special song.” She began composing it that night.

  Vrisa came to me the next day. She and Gern-y-fhain had been talking, and she wanted me to know that she understood. “You would make a good husband, Myrddin-brother. I am a good wife.”

  That was true. She would have been a good wife to any man. “I do thank you, Vrisa-sister. But—” I turned my eyes to the southern hills.

  “Needs must go back to your tallfolk rath,” she sighed. Then, taking my hand, she raised it to her lips, kissed it, and placed it against her breast. Beneath the warmth of her soft flesh, I could feel the beating of her heart.

  “We are alive, Mryddin-brother,” she said softly. “We are not skyfolk or Ancient Ones that have no life. We are blood and bone and spirit, not bhean sidhe. We are Prytani, Firstborn of Mother’s Child-Wealth.” She nodded solemnly, covering my hand with both of hers. “You know this now.”

  Indeed, I never doubted it. She was so beautiful, yes, and so alive, so much a part of her world that I was tempted to stay and become her husband. Quite possibly I would have, too, but the road stretched out before me and I could already see myself on it.

  I kissed her and she smiled, brushing back a lock of black hair. “I will carry you in my heart always, Vrisa-sister,” I told her.

  Three nights later we celebrated Samhain, Night of the Peace Fire, thanking our Parents for the blessing of a good year. As the moon crested the hills, Gern-y-fhain lit the bonfire in the stone circle and I saw other fires on other distant hilltops round about. We ate roast lamb and garlic and wild onions, and there was much talking and laughing, and I sang them a song in my own tongue, which they enjoyed even though they understood nothing of it. I wanted to leave them with something of my own.

  When I finished, Gern-y-fhain rose and paced slowly around the bonfire three times in a sunwise circle. She came to stand over me and stretched her hands over my head. “Listen, People of the Hawk, this is the Leaving Song for Myrddin-brother.”

  She raised her hands to the moon and began to sing. The tune was the old changeless melody of the hills, but the words were newly composed in my honor, recounting my life with the fhain. She sang it all: the night I had come to them, and my near-sacrifice; my struggles with their language; our firelight lessons together; the incident with the tallfolk; the herding, the lambing, the hunting, the eating, the living.

  When she finished, all sat in quiet respect. I rose to my feet and embraced her, and then, one by one, the fhain came to say farewell—each taking my hands and kissing them in blessing. Teirn gave me a spear he had made, and Nolo presented me with a new bow
and a quiver of arrows, saying, “Do take this, Myrddin-brother. You will need it on your way.”

  “I do thank you, fhain-brother Nolo. I will use it gladly.”

  Elac was next. “Myrddin-brother, as you are big as a mountain—” In truth, I had grown in my time with them and now towered over them all. “—you will be cold in winter. Do take this cloak.” He wrapped a handsome wolfskin cloak around my shoulders.

  “I do thank thee, fhain-brother Elac. I will wear it with pride.”

  Vrisa came last. She took my hands and kissed them. “You are a man now, Myrddin-brother,” she said softly. “You will need good gold for a wife.” She removed two golden bracelets from her arm and placed one on each wrist and then hugged me close.

  If she had asked me to stay, I would have done so. But the matter was settled; she and the other women slipped away among the standing stones, and in a little while the men went to them so that their eager lovemaking would ensure another fruitful year. I returned to the rath with Gem-y-fhain, who offered me a blessing cup of heather beer, which I drank and then went to sleep.

  Heavyhearted, I left my Hill Folk family the next morning. They stood outside the rath and waved me away, the dogs and children running alongside my black pony as I made my way down the hill. I came to the stream in the valley where the children and dogs stopped, for they would not cross the water, and I looked back to see that the fhain had vanished. All that remained was the hilltop and the grey, sunless sky beyond.

  I was in the tallfolk world once again.

  8

  I traveled south and east, hoping to strike the old Roman road that extended north of the Wall as far as Aderydd—or farther, for all I knew. This would lead me to Deva, City of Legions in the north, and the mountains of Gwynedd and the place where I had last seen my people. I had no better thought than to return to the hills and glens around Yr Widdfa where I had last seen the men searching for me. I never doubted whether there would be anyone there; I was certain of it, as I was certain of the sun rising in the east. They would search until they received word or sign that I was dead; without that they would search forever.

  I had only to cross their path. Time was growing short, however; one day soon the weather would break, and the searchers would return home for the winter. Already the days were crisp and the sunlight thin. If I did not find them soon, I would have to ride all the way to Maridunum—a most difficult and dangerous journey for one alone.

  By riding from before sunrise until well after sunset, I was able to traverse the wide, empty land with some speed. The fhain had come far north with the seasons. I did not realize how far north until I saw the great Celyddon Forest raising its black hump before me on the horizon. Apparently, we had skirted the forest to the west a year ago when traveling to winter quarters. And though the quickest route to the south lay through the forest’s dark heart, I was loath to take it.

  But time was no friend to me with winter coming on. So, with my spear in my hand and my bow ready, I turned toward the forest track, hoping to pass through in three or four days.

  The first day and night proved uneventful. I rode along pathways aflame with autumn color—burning reds and golds, yellows that glowed in the falling light. Only the swish and crack of my pony’s hoofs in the dry leaves, and the occasional shriek of a bird or natter of a squirrel marked our passing. Among the great stands of oak and ash, their iron-bark boles hoary and bearded with green moss, spreading elm and rowan, slender pine and massive yew, silence reigned and gave us to know with every step that we were intruders there.

  The second day began with a mist that turned to a weepy, sodden rain which soon drenched me to the skin. Wet and cold, I pursued my miserable way until I came to a fern-grown clearing beside a racing stream. As I sat deciding where to cross, the rain stopped and the cloud-cover thinned so that the sun appeared a pale white disk. I slid from the pony’s back, led it through the pungent fern to the water’s edge and gave it to drink.

  I suppose the clearing with its patch of sky above seemed a convivial place, so I started shrugging off my soaking clothing and spreading it on the rocks along the streambed in anticipation of the sun. And I was not disappointed.

  But as the clouds parted, I heard a crashing in the wood nearby. I dropped instinctively into my invisible posture. The noise increased, coming directly toward me, and of course I recognized the sound: a boar in full flight with a hunter right behind.

  A moment later a gigantic old tusker broke through the underbrush not a dozen paces upstream. On the great beast’s hide were criss-crossed scars marked in white tufts against the bristling black. And, like the battlechief that it was, the fearsome creature did not pause in its heedless, headlong flight, but plunged straight into the water, thrashed across in a frothing spray, and disappeared into the wood on the other side.

  Right behind came the rider. The instant the horse cleared the underbrush and leaped to the bank the sun broke through the swift-scattering cloud and a shaft of light struck like a spear heaved from on high, illuminating a most unusual sight: a mount the color of grey morning mist—a handsome animal, long-legged and graceful, by appearances more hart than horse, white mane flying, nostrils flared to the scent of the boar. And a rider, slender and fierce, eyes wide with the excitement of the chase, hair like midnight streaming unbound behind, the sun striking the polished facets of a sliver breastplate, slender arm hefting a long, silver boarspear so thin it appeared a frozen moonbeam caught in her hand.

  In an instant, I knew this hunter to be the raven-haired girl I had seen while firegazing.

  A heartbeat later, I doubted whether I had seen her at all, for the horse gathered its legs and leaped the stream as lightly as a bird taking flight. Horse and rider landed on the opposite shore and disappeared into the greengrowth on the other side, hot on the trail of the boar.

  If not for the sound of the continuing chase, I might have dreamed them. But as the crackling and thumping of the hunt receded into the wood, I snatched up my clothes and threw them on again, led my pony across the stream, and rode after.

  The trail was not at all difficult to follow. Still, they moved surprisingly fast, for I did not catch another glimpse of hunter or game until nearly tumbling over them in a grassy bowl in the dim forest.

  The huge boar lay on its belly, legs collapsed under it, the slender shaft protruding through the massive hump of its shoulder into its chest where the leaf-shaped blade had cleft its heart; the great tusks were curved and yellow, the cunning little eyes glittered bright with bloodlust. The girl still sat her mount, and the grey horse snorted its triumph and raked the ground with a delicate forehoof.

  She did not turn to me at first, although I surely made a fearful din as I burst blindly through the yew hedge; her attention was absorbed in the kill. It was a prize worthy of a champion and no mistake. Mind, I have seen boars of all sizes, and I also have seen experienced spearmen quail at the sight of a charging tusker. But I have never seen a boar so big, nor a maid so coolly composed.

  Was it courage or arrogance?

  The exultant glimmer in her eye, the set of her jaw, the regal posture…there was power in every comely line of her. I was in the presence of a woman, however young—she could not have been above fifteen summers—who chanced everything, quailed at nothing, admitted no defeat.

  Only when she had drunk deep of the sight of her kill did she deign to notice me. “You intrude, stranger.” Her speech, after the singing Prytani tongue, sounded odd in my ears; but I understood, for it was very like the speech of Llyonesse.

  I inclined my head, accepting her appraisal. "Forgive me, I am indeed a stranger."

  "That," she pointed out, "is not your transgression."

  She crooked a leg over her mount and slipped to the ground, then walked to the boar and stood gazing at it with pleasure. "This one fought well."

  "I do not wonder. By the look of him, many have tried to bring him down and failed."

  This pleased her. "I did not fail.
" She loosed a wild war whoop of sheer pleasure. The cry echoed through the wood and faded, whereupon she turned to me. "What do you here?" Her manner implied that the entire forest belonged to her.

  "As you see, I am a traveler."

  "As I see, you are a dirty boy in reeking wolfskins." She wrinkled her nose imperially. "You do not look a traveler to me."

  "Accept that I am."

  "I believe you." She turned suddenly and, placing a booted foot against the boar's shoulder hump, pulled sharply on the spear and drew it out. The silver shaft dripped dark red blood. She observed this for a moment and then began wiping the spear on the beast's hide.

  "That skin will make a fine trophy," I remarked, stepping closer.

  She leveled the spear at me. "So would yours, wolf boy."

  "Is everyone hereabouts as ill-mannered as you?"

  She laughed, a light fillip in the air. "I am admonished." Her tone denied her words entirely. She returned the spear to its holder on her saddle. "Will you stand there like a stump, or will you help me carry back my kill?"

  Truly, I did not see how the monster before us could be carried back without a wagon, nor heaved into a wagon without the help of a half-dozen brawny men. Certainly, neither horse could carry the weight. But the girl was not dismayed. She removed a hand axe from behind her saddle and directed me to start felling a few of the slender birches from a stand across the hollow from where we stood.

  I did as I was told, and together we began hacking the branches from the trees and lashing the clean poles together with rawhide strips to form a crude litter. The work went quickly and pleasantly for me, for I had the opportunity of observing her graceful body in motion.

  She had removed her silver breastplate while I was cutting the trees and now worked beside me in a light blue riding tunic and checked kilt of the sort that many of the remote hill tribes wore. Her boots were soft doeskin, and at her wrists and throat were narrow silver bands set with blue stones. Long-limbed and slender, her skin smooth and delicate as milk, she nevertheless gave herself to her work with a passion I suspected she lavished on all things that happened to capture her interest.