Merlin

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  It was not likely that my mother would let me out of her sight for a moment that night, nor for many days to come. But I assured him that we would talk soon. “There is much to say, Merlin,” said Charis. “I have so much to tell you, but now that you are here I can remember none of it.”

  “We are together. Nothing else matters now.”

  A great platter of meat and bread addressed me, and a horn of mead. I sipped the warm liquid and began to eat. “You have grown, my son. The last time I saw you—” Her voice faltered, and she dropped her eyes. “Eat. You are hungry. I have waited this long, I can wait a little longer.”

  After a few bites, I forgot my hunger and turned to her. She was watching me as if she had never seen me before. “Have I changed so much?”

  “Yes and no. You are no longer the boy you were, true. But you are my son and I will always see you the same, come what may.” She squeezed my hand. “It is so good to have you here with me once more.”

  “If you knew how often I thought of this moment in the last three years—”

  “And if you knew how many nights I lay awake thinking of you, wondering where you were, what you were doing.”

  “I wept for the worry I caused you. I prayed for a way to reach you. That’s why, when Elac saw the searchers in the valley, I sent my clothes, and the broken arrow. I meant it as a sign.”

  “Oh, I took it as more than a sign, as confirmation. I knew you were alive and well—”

  “How?”

  “In the same way I would have known if you had been hurt or killed. A mother, I believe, can always tell. When they brought me your clothes I knew—even though the men who found them did not want to show me the bundle. They thought it meant that you were dead; that the bhean sidhe had killed you and were taunting your friends, or some such thing. I knew otherwise. I knew you must have had good reason to do what you had done.” She paused and sighed. “What happened, Merlin? We came back for you. We searched. We found the water skins, found where you had huddled in the fog…What happened?”

  And so I began to tell her about all that had taken place since that strange night. I talked and she listened to every word, and the distance between us simply shrank away to nothing, so that in the end it seemed almost as if I had never been away at all.

  I must have talked long into the night, for when I finished everyone else had gone and the torches in their sconces were guttering out and the fire on the hearth was a heap of red embers.

  “I have talked the night away,” I told her. “But there is still so much to tell.”

  “And I will hear it. But I have been selfish—you are tired from your journey. Come, you must rest now. We will talk again tomorrow.” She leaned forward in her chair and hugged me for a long time. When she released me she kissed my cheek and said, “How many times have I wanted to do that?”

  We stood, and she led me from the hall to the chamber that had been made ready for me. I kissed her once more. “I love you too, Mother. Forgive me for causing you such pain.”

  She smiled. “Sleep well, Merlin, my son. I love you, and I am happy you have come home.”

  I went into my room then and slept like the dead.

  10

  Maelwys was better than his word, for the next day there was indeed a feast. The servants began preparing the hall as soon as we had broken fast. Maelwys and Charis and I sat before the hearth in our chairs and talked about all that had taken place in my absence—until the doors of the hall were opened and some of the serving girls came running in from the snow outside, laughing, their arms full of holly and green ivy. They proceeded to plait the holly and ivy together and then draped it around the hall—hanging it above the doors and torch sconces.

  Their happy chatter distracted us, and when I asked what they were about, Maelwys laughed and said, “Have you forgotten what day it is?”

  “Well, it is not long past midwinter’s—what day is it?”

  “Why, it is the day of the Christ Mass. It has become the custom of this house to observe the holy days. We celebrate tonight your return, and the birth of the Savior God.”

  “Yes,” agreed Charis, “and there is a surprise in it for you: Dafyd is coming to perform the mass. He will be overjoyed to see you. His prayers have not ceased since he learned of your disappearance.”

  “Dafyd coming here?” I wondered. “But that is a far distance to come. He may not make it at all.”

  Maelwys answered, “Not so far. He has begun building an abbey but a half-day’s ride from this very place. He will be here.”

  “Is the shrine at Ynys Avallach empty once more?” The thought did not cheer me. I loved the little round building with its high, narrow, cross-shaped window. It was a most holy place; my soul always felt at peace there.

  Charis shook her head lightly. “By no means. Collen is there and two others with him. Maelwys offered Dafyd lands for a chapel here and an abbey nearby if he would come and build them.”

  “The work is nearly complete,” announced Maelwys proudly. “The first of his brood will begin arriving with the spring planting.”

  A thought passed between Maelwys and Charis, and the king rose from his chair. “Excuse me, Myrddin; I must attend to the preparations for this evening’s celebration.” He paused, beaming at me, “By the Light of Heaven, it is good to see you again—it is this much like seeing your father.”

  With that, he was off on his errands. “He is a good friend to us, Merlin,” observed my mother, watching him stride across the hall.

  Indeed, I never doubted it. But her words seemed offered as an excuse.

  “That is true,” I allowed.

  “And he loved your father…” Her voice had changed, becoming softer, almost apologetic.

  “True again.” I watched her face for a clue to the meaning of her words.

  “I did not have the heart to hurt him. You must understand. And I admit that I was lonely. You were gone so long— missing so long. I stayed here the first winter after you were taken…It seemed right, and Maelwys is so happy…”

  “Mother, what are you saying?” I had already guessed.

  “Maelwys and I were married last year.” She watched me for my reaction.

  Hearing her say the words, I felt the uncanny sensation that it had happened before, or that I had known it from the first. Perhaps that night when I had glimpsed her in the flames of Gern-y-fhain’s fire I knew it. I nodded, feeling a tightness in my chest. “I understand,” I told her.

  “He wanted it, Merlin. I could not hurt him. Because of me, he never took a wife, hoping that one day…”

  “Are you happy?” I asked.

  She was silent some moments. “I am content,” she said at last. “He loves me very much.”

  “I see.”

  “Still, there is happiness to be found in contentment.” She looked away and her voice broke. “I have never stopped loving Taliesin, and I never will. But I have not betrayed him, Merlin; I want you to understand. In my way, I have remained true to your father. It is not for myself that I do this; it is for Maelwys.”

  “You owe me no explanations or apologies.”

  “It is good to be loved by someone—even if you cannot return that love completely. I am fond of Maelwys, but Taliesin has my heart always. Maelwys understands.” She nodded once to underscore that fact. “I told you he was a good man.”

  “I know that.”

  “You are not angry?” She turned back, searching me with her eyes. Her hair shone in the soft winter light, and her eyes were large and, at that moment, full of uncertainty. It could not have been easy for her to do what she had done. But I felt that there was a rightness to it.

  “How should I be angry? Anything that brings such happiness cannot be a bad thing. Let love increase—is that not what Dafyd says?”

  She smiled sadly. “You sound like Taliesin. That is just what he would have said.” She dropped her eyes, and a tear squeezed from beneath her lashes. “Oh, Merlin, sometimes I miss him so muc
h…so very much.”

  I reached for her hand. “Tell me about the Kingdom of Summer.” She looked up. “Please, it has been so long since I heard you tell it, Mother. I want to hear you say the words again.”

  She nodded and straightened in her chair, closed her eyes, and waited for a moment in silence for memory to return, then began to recite the words I had heard from the time I was a babe in arms.

  “There is a land shining with goodness where each man protects his brother’s dignity as his own, where war and want have ceased and all races live under the same law of love and honor.

  “It is a land bright with truth, where a man’s word is his pledge, and falsehood is banished, where children sleep safe in their mothers arms and never know fear or pain. It is a land where kings extend their hands in justice rather than reach for the sword; where mercy, kindness and compassion flow like deep water over the land, and men revere virtue, revere truth, revere beauty, above comfort, pleasure, or selfish gain. A land where peace reigns in the hearts of men, where faith blazes like a beacon from every hill, and love like a fire from every hearth, where the True God is worshiped and his ways acclaimed by all…

  “There is a golden realm of light, my son. And it is called the Kingdom of Summer.”

  * * *

  We put on thick woolen cloaks and joined Maelwys for a ride into Maridunum where he passed among his people, visiting their houses, giving gifts of gold coins and silver denarii to the widows and those hard-pressed by life. He gave, not as some lords give who expect to buy allegiance or secure future gain with a gift, but out of concern for their need and out of his own true nobility. And there was not one among them that did not bless him in the name of their god.

  “I was born Eiddon Vawr Vrylic,” he told me as we rode back. “But your father gave me the name I wear now: Maelwys. It was the greatest gift he could have bestowed.”

  “I remember it well,” said my mother. “We had just come to Maridunum…”

  “He sang as I have never heard man sing. If only I could describe it to you, Myrddin: to hear him was to open the heart to heaven, to free the spirit within to soar with eagles and run with the stag. Just to hear his voice in song was to satisfy all the nameless longings of the soul, to savor peace and taste joy too sweet for words.

  “I wish you could have heard him as I did. Ah, but when he finished that night, I went to him to give him a gold chain or some such and in return he gave me a name: ‘Arise, Maelwys,’ he said, I recognize you.’ I told him that was not my name and he replied, ‘Eiddon the Generous it is today, but one day all men will call you Maelwys, Most Noble.’ And so it is.”

  “Indeed, it is. He may have given you the name, but you have earned it in your own right,” I told him.

  “I wish you had known him,” Maelwys said. “Had I the power, that is the one gift I would most like to give you.”

  We rode the rest of the way back to the villa in silence, not sorrowfully, but simply reflecting on the past and on the events that had led us to where we now stood. The short winter day faded quickly in a flare of grey-gold among empty black branches. As we entered the foreyard, some of Maelwys’ men returned from hunting in the hills. They had been away since dawn and had a red stag slung between two of the horses. Gwendolau and Baram were with them, as I might have guessed they would be.

  I realized with a twinge of shame that I had neglected to introduce my friends. “Maelwys, Charis,” I began as they came up, “these men before you are responsible for returning me safely…”

  One glance at my mother’s face and I stopped cold. “Mother, what is it?”

  She stared as if transfixed, her body rigid, breath coming in rapid gasps.

  I touched her arm. “Mother?”

  “Who are you?” Her voice sounded strained, unnatural.

  Gwendolau smiled reassuringly and began a small movement with his hand, but the gesture died in the air. “Forgive me—”

  “Tell me who you are!” Charis demanded. The blood had drained from her face.

  Maelwys opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, then looked to me for help.

  “We had to know for certain,” replied Gwendolau. “Please, my lady, we meant no harm.”

  What did he mean?

  “Just tell me,” replied Charis, her tone low, almost menacing.

  “I am Gwendolau, son of Custennin, son of Meirchion, King of Skatha…”

  “Skatha,” she shook her head slowly, dazedly, “how long since I have heard that name.”

  Skatha…From somewhere deep in my brain the memory surfaced: one of the Nine Kingdoms of Lost Atlantis. And I remembered other things Avallach had told me in his stories. At the time of the Great War, Meirchion had sided with Belyn and Avallach. Meirchion had helped Belyn steal the ships from Seithenin—the ships that had eventually landed the remnant of Atlantis on the rock-bound shores of the Island of the Mighty.

  How was it that I, who had grown up among the Fair Folk, failed to recognize them when I encountered them in Goddeu? Oh, I had sensed something—just hearing them speak had inspired a vague sensation of homecoming; I remembered the feeling, and at the same time, wondering why I had come there. I should have guessed.

  “We did not intend to deceive you, Princess Charis,” explained Gwendolau. “But we had to be certain, you see. When my father heard that Avallach was alive, and that he was here—well, he wanted to be certain. It was important to see how things stood.”

  “Meirchion,” Charis whispered. “I had no idea…We never heard.”

  “Nor did we,” Gwendolau said. “We have been living in the forest these many years. We tend our own, keep to ourselves. My father was born here, as I was. I know no other life. When Myrddin came, we thought…” He left the thought unspoken. “But we had to make sure.”

  My mind staggered under the weight of understanding. If Meirchion had survived with some of his people, who else? How many others?

  Gwendolau continued, “Sadly, my grandfather did not survive. He died not long after coming here. Many others died also, before him and after in those first years.”

  “It was the same with us,” offered Charis, softening.

  They fell silent then, simply gazing at each other, as if seeing in one another the ghosts of all those lost.

  “You must go to Avallach,” Charis said at length, “this spring, as soon as the weather allows. He will want to see you. I will take you there.”

  “It would be an honor, lady,” replied Gwendolau courteously. “And one my father would wish to repay in kind.”

  Maelwys, who had held his tongue all this time, finally spoke. “You were welcome in my house before, but as you are of my wife’s people you are doubly welcome now. Stay with us, friends, until we can travel to Ynys Avallach together.”

  It is a strange thing to meet someone from one’s homeland long after becoming resigned to never seeing home again. It is a singular experience, mingling both pleasure and pain in equal measure.

  Grooms came to take the horses, and we dismounted and returned to the hall. As we walked up the long ramp to the villa’s entrance, I saw how much Gwendolau and Baram looked like the people of Ynys Avallach and Llyonesse. They were the very appearance of men from Avaliach’s court. I wondered how I could have been so blind, but reflected that perhaps I had not seen the similarity before because I was not meant to see it. Perhaps their true appearance had been hidden from me, or disguised in some subtle way. That was something I thought about for a long time.

  Another surprise awaited me in the hall. We trooped in to find the hall ablaze with light, shining with torches and rushlights by the hundred, and old Pendaran standing in the center of the hall with candles in both hands, talking to a man in a long, dark cloak, while servants bustled to and fro on brisk errands.

  A gust of frosty air came in with us, and the two turned to meet us.

  “Dafyd!”

  The priest made the sign of the cross and clasped his hands in thanksgiving and then held out
his arms to me. “Myrddin, oh, Myrddin, let Jesu be praised! You have come back…Oh, let me look at you, lad…Bless me, but you have grown into a man, Myrddin. Thank the Good Lord for your safe return.” He smiled broadly and pounded me on the back as if to reassure himself that the flesh before him was indeed solid.

  “I was just telling him,” said Lord Pendaran, “just this very moment.”

  “I have returned, Dafyd, my friend.”

  “Look at you, lad. Jesu have mercy, but you are easy on the eyes. Your sojourn has done you no harm.” He turned my hands and rubbed the palm. “Hard as the slate in the hills. And here you come wrapped in wolfskin. Myrddin, where have you been? What happened to you? When I heard you were missing, I felt as if my heart had been carved out. What is this Pendaran tells me about the Hill Folk?”

  “You deserve a full accounting,” I replied. “I will tell you all.”

  “But it must wait for a time yet,” said Dafyd. “I have a mass to prepare—”

  “And a feast after,” put in Pendaran, rubbing his hands with childish glee.

  “We will talk soon,” I promised.

  He gazed at me with shining eyes. “It is happiness itself to see you, Myrddin. God is indeed good.”

  * * *

  I do not believe I ever heard a more heartfelt mass spoken than Dafyd’s Christ Mass that night. The love in the man, the grace and kindness shone from him as from a hilltop beacon, and kindled in his congregation a knowledge of true worship. The hall with the holly and ivy, and the glowing rushlights bright like stars, light glinting off every surface, warmth enfolding us, love upholding us, joy flowing from each one to every other.

  Upon reading from the sacred text, Dafyd lifted his face and spread his arms to us. “Rejoice!” he called. “Again I say rejoice! For the King of Heaven is king over us, and his name is Love.

  “Let me tell you of love: love is patient and long enduring; it is kind, never envying, never ambitious for itself, never putting on airs, or displaying itself haughtily; it boasts not.