Merlin

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  The crops were well in when she finally set out. I sent her with thirty of my warband, and she took four of her women for company. Half as many would have sufficed, but I was of a mind to be cautious and Maelwys agreed, insisting that it was better safe than sorry. “I would do the same if I stood in your place,” he told me.

  It was still early in what was coming to be known as the warring season, so the actual risk of the travelers running into trouble on the road was not great. Also, I had devised a route that kept them well away from the coasts. The only likely danger would be when they reached the Wall, and by then Gwendolau would have met them and they would be a force of fifty or more. There was no danger.

  So Ganieda left Maridunum one bright morning with her escort and I watched her go, feeling the warmth of her lips on my mouth as she turned her mount and joined the others, leaving the yard and striking off along the old road.

  Oh, it was a jolly band. And why not? Ganieda was going home to have our baby and the world was a wondrous place. She waved farewell to me until she was out of sight; and I waved, too, until the flank of the hill took her from view. Then I said a prayer for her safety—not the first, nor the last, mind you—and went about my duties.

  A balmy summer followed close on the heels of spring. The thirty returned in due time with the report that all had been well on the road and after. They had seen Ganieda to her father’s house and stayed there to rest the horses for a few days before turning back. Custennin was delighted to have his daughter home and sent his regards and the message that all was well with him and his realm. It was a quiet summer for them; there had been no raids.

  I was relieved, at last, and turned my attention to finishing my tasks so that I might ride after her as soon as may be.

  Maelwys and I worked hard dawn to dusk every day, and retired to our beds exhausted. More than once Pelleas had to wake me from my chair at the table so that I could stumble to my chamber. Charis had charge of the king’s household and servants, so that we could collapse each night with food in our bellies without having to think about that too, or I fear we might have starved.

  The watchtowers along the coast were mostly finished and the relay towers inland well begun; the new men had received their first summer’s training; our horse herd had been increased by twenty-eight sturdy colts, and a few hides of land cleared for future grazing.

  You see, already I was thinking of horses, breeding for size, strength, courage and endurance. It was to be a fight won on horseback by a force of mounted fighting men like the old Roman ala.

  Well, we had an early autumn and at last I could leave. I chose thirty to go with me. Rather, I took thirty from the three hundred who clamored to be allowed to ride at my side. I have no idea why I took that many. It had been in my mind to take only a third of that number, but when the time came, the choice was not so easily made and I had not the heart to turn them away.

  It took but a day to gather supplies and provisions, and we set out for Celyddon.

  The days were indeed golden. It had been a good summer, and bountiful crops were coming under the scythe everywhere; the herds appeared healthy and well-grown; every holding and settlement boasted new dwellings, and occasionally even a hall. The fear that had grown in the land with the last few years had receded a good deal, given even a brief respite from the worrying raids. Everywhere men were encouraged and hopeful.

  After many days on the trail we came to Yr Widdfa, a bleak and forsaken land when compared to the rich south. But even here summer had worked its manifold miracles and the flocks had swelled their numbers, and men were content. We camped one star-filled night in a high mountain pass and awakened to frost on the mountain heather. We saddled our snorting mounts and started down that morning into the stepped lowlands falling away toward the Wall.

  The day was dazzling clear, and I could see Celyddon’s dark mass spreading on the far horizon. A few more days and we would reach its outermost fringe. A few days after that and I would sleep once more in Ganieda’s arms.

  When we reached the forest I sent scouts on ahead to announce our arrival. Custennin would welcome the news, I knew, and so would Ganieda.

  Oh, my soul was restlessness itself. Our long separation had been harder on me than I knew, for the thought of holding her again filled me with an exquisite ache. My saddle became a prison, and time could not pass quickly enough. I slept little; thoughts of Ganieda and our child made me fretful in my desire to be with her. I had so much to tell her about all that had happened in her absence. I believe I would have ridden through the night, if that were possible in tangled Celyddon.

  My torment was sweet, but it was torment all the same.

  At last, however, at last the day of arrival dawned and I was awake before anyone else, knowing that if we rode hard we could reach Custennin’s palace by midday. The scouts would have reached them the night before, I reckoned, and Ganieda would be waiting. I meant to make her wait as short as possible.

  The wood awakened around us as we rode through the night-quiet forest along the narrow track. We stopped a little after sunrise and broke fast—I allowed the men to dismount, but only while they ate and then it was back in the saddle and hurrying on.

  At midday we reached the crest of the last hill, where the track widened somewhat as it wound down through the forest toward Goddeu. We could not see Custennin’s stronghold, of course, but we were close.

  The first warning came a little while later.

  We had stopped at a stream to rest and water the horses before continuing on the last stretch of the journey. A few of my men had crossed the stream to give more room to those behind; and they had spread out along the bank.

  I heard a shout as I knelt, scooping water to my mouth.

  “Lord Myrddin!” My name echoed in the close wood. “Lord Myrddin!”

  “Here I am,” I answered. “What is it?”

  One of my fourth-year warriors came running to me. “Lord Myrddin, I have found something you should see.”

  “What is it, Balach?” I read nothing, save concern, from the look on his face.

  “Mantracks in the mud, lord.” He raised his arm to point downstream from us. “Just there.”

  “How many?”

  “I would not like to say. My lord should see for himself.”

  “Show me where they are.”

  He led me downstream to the place he had indicated. I splashed my way through the water to the other side of the stream, and there on the muddy bank I saw the footprints of a score or more men. There were no footprints on the opposite bank—the group had not crossed the stream, they had come out of it…

  Saecsens!

  It was something Saecsens did when traveling in heavily forested country: follow the natural pathway of the stream. This is how they traversed difficult country unknown to them…

  And now they had come to Celyddon.

  What is more they were ahead of us—how far ahead I could only guess. The tracks were still fairly fresh, not more than a few hours old. Unfamiliar with the land, they would go slowly. We might overtake them on horseback. Great Light, help us catch them!

  I gave the order to mount up at once, and told my warriors to ready their arms and to remain alert to an ambush. Then we rode.

  Our precautions seemed unnecessary. We saw no more tracks and if I had not seen them myself, I would have thought Balach had imagined them. Although we stopped from time to time simply to listen, we heard nothing but the light chatter of squirrels and the scolding of crows.

  We rode on toward Goddeu, and despite the apparent peace of the wood, deep foreboding drew over me—a dread to make my heart leaden in my chest. Fear came at me from out of the sun-filled forest—whispers of disquiet, of hushed alarm.

  I raced ahead.

  Then the horses grew nervous. I believe they can smell blood at a fair distance.

  Well in front of the warband now, I crested a knoll and came into view of Goddeu, quiet beside the mirror-smooth lake. The sun sho
ne full on the trail ahead, and I saw the bodies there.

  I spurred my horse forward to the place and flung myself from my saddle. It was a party of women…

  Oh, Good God, no!

  Ganieda!

  I knelt and turned over the first one. A maid with dark braids. Her throat had been severed.

  The next had been pierced through the heart, and the front of her white mantle was stained deepest crimson. The body was still warm.

  Ganieda, my soul, where are you?

  I stumbled unseeing to a knot of tumbled corpses. What the brutal Saecsen axes had done to those once-beautiful bodies made me weep and gnash my teeth. Some had been ravaged before being murdered, and their clothing had been torn from their limbs. For the love of God—the ugly wounds between their legs! All had died horribly.

  May heaven shut me out forever—I wish that I had died that day!

  There were seven young women in that group, but Ganieda was not among them. Oh, please, loving Father! My heart grasped that tiny hope as I lurched on. Behind me the first of the warband were thundering up.

  I do not know what made me turn from the track. Perhaps the soft shimmer of pale blue among the shadows…

  I walked toward the fallen tree, an old stump long dead. There on the far side were two more women slumped across the body of a third. I lifted them aside, gently, gently…

  Ganieda’s women had died protecting their lady with their own bodies.

  But the barbarians had seen Ganieda was pregnant. Oh, they had made great sport of killing her.

  Great Light, I cannot bear it!

  Oh, Annwas, I see her body before me…I feel its fleeting warmth in my hands…I taste again her blood on my lips as I kiss her cold cheek…I cannot bear it…Please, do not make me tell it!

  But you want to hear. You want to hear me say the thing most hateful to me of all I know…Very well, I will tell it all so that all may know my anguish and my shame.

  Ganieda had taken many wounds. Her mantle was sodden with thickening blood and rent in several places as they had tried to strip her naked. One lovely breast had been carved from her body, and her proud, swelling stomach had been run through with the point of a sword…Loving God, please, no! Stabbed—not once but again, and again, and yet again.

  My legs would not hold me. I fell across the body of my beloved, a great cry of grief tearing from my throat. I raised myself and held Ganieda’s beautiful face in my hands. It was not beautiful anymore, but twisted in horrific agony, bespattered with blood, her clear eyes cloudy and unseeing.

  Beasts! Barbarians!

  And then I saw it: protruding from one of the stomach wounds…Dearest God!…Reaching for life it would never know was a tiny, unborn hand. Blue and still, minutely veined, its tiny wrist extending from the wall of the dead womb…the hand of my babe, my darling child…

  12

  Thunder boomed in my head. Voices like angry hornets buzzed loud in my ears. BEASTS! BARBARIANS! The ground rolled away on every side like the swelling sea. I stumbled, fell, picked myself up and ran. Merciful Father, I ran, vomiting bile, gagging, choking, running on.

  Behind me came a shout, and the ringing scrape of men drawing steel. The horn sounded: The Saecsens had been sighted.

  Farewell, Ganieda, my soul; I loved you better than my life.

  * * *

  It was a different Merlin who turned to meet the foe that day. My sword was in my hand, whirling, flashing—the regal blade of Avallach—and my horse was careening headlong into a company of Saecsen warriors, but I have no memory of drawing sword or reining horse to the fight.

  Merlin was no longer present; I stood off and watched from a very great distance as an unthinking, unfeeling body performed the practiced actions of war.

  The body was mine, but Merlin had fled.

  I saw faces rise before me…grim faces mouthing strange curses to unknown gods…hate-filled faces vanishing beneath flailing hooves…hideous faces writhing on severed heads as my sword carried them off…

  The battle frenzy was on me; I burned with it. And the enemy felt the white heat of my killing rage. None could stand against me, and as the enemy force was a small one, it was easily overcome.

  As the rest of my warband gathered to me, some of them wiping blood from their weapons, I sat in the saddle, staring blankly into the sun, my sword resting on my thigh.

  I felt a hand on my arm. “Lord Merlin,” began Pelleas, “what is it?” His voice was as tender as a mother’s with a fevered child. “What did you see?”

  The smoke from Custennin’s stronghold ascended before us, and on the wind came the sound of shouting in the distance. I lifted the reins in my hands and urged my mount forward. “Lord Merlin?” Pelleas asked, but I did not answer. I could not speak; besides, what answer could I make?

  The barbarians we had engaged on the road had been returning to watch the ford—perhaps to ambush anyone on the trail and prevent them from coming to Custennin’s aid. Their main party had gone ahead to attack Goddeu.

  Even as my warband took this in, I was away, my horse pounding down the slope toward the lake that lay between us and Custennin’s timber halls. As before, my body moved of its own accord. I knew nothing of what I did—only that which one man might observe of a stranger.

  I was first to the fight, throwing myself into the thick of it. If there was a conscious thought at all, I believe it was that one of the Saecsens’ hated axes would swiftly find my heart.

  They had fired the first buildings they came to. Smoke rolled through the air, black and thick. Fair Folk lay dead on the ground, mostly women overtaken while hastening to the safety of the hall. I dropped six enemy before they knew I was among them, and five more Saecsens died before they could lift blade against me.

  It was a band of forty all told; and with my thirty and those of Custennin’s men who were not away on a day’s hunting with Gwendolau, we easily outnumbered the enemy and made short work of them.

  In truth, it was over almost before it began. My men had dismounted and were cleaning their weapons and looking among the dead for the wounded, beginning to assess the damage and take account of the losses when we heard horses thundering into the settlement.

  Gwendolau and his hunting party had seen the smoke, and they had ridden the hooves off their horses’ returning to the defense of their home. They came flying in all alather, Gwendolau at their head with Baram at his side. He took in the situation before him, even as he drew his horse to a halt. He looked to his father first—who was standing with a hand on the collar of one of his dogs, trying to keep the animal from further worrying the throatless corpse before him—and then he saw me.

  “Myrddin! You—” he began. The quick smile of relief faded as the implication of what he saw hit him. Not even Custennin had guessed as yet. “No!” he cried, startling those around him anew. “Ganieda!”

  He ran to me, seizing the bridle strap. “Myrddin, she was going out to greet you! She was so happy, she—” He turned horror-filled eyes to the way we had come, thinking, I suppose, to see her returning safely behind us and knowing he would not.

  He looked to me for an answer, but I sat mute before him, the brother of my beloved, who was no less brother to me.

  Custennin came forward. Whether he also knew what had happened to his daughter, I will never know. For in the same instant we heard a sound to make the blood run cold:

  A low, booming horn, like a hunting horn, but lower, meaner, a brutal, hateful, rasping sound, created to inspire terror and despair in those who must face it. It was the first time I had heard it—though not the last, dear God in heaven, not the last—yet, though I had never heard it, I knew well enough what it was…

  The great battlehorn of the Saecsen warhost.

  We fifty turned as one man to see our doom sweeping down the hill to meet us: a massed Saecsen battlehost five hundred strong!

  They ran to join battle, screaming as they came. I swear the ground trembled beneath their pounding feet! Som
e of the younger warriors had not encountered Saecsens in full battle array before—it was still rare enough then—and they saw the half-naked, fearless barbarians flying toward us, war axes glinting cruelly in the hard light, their powerful legs racing, racing like death to embrace us, their long wheat-colored braids flying as they came.

  I heard more than one man curse the day of his birth and prepare to die when he beheld that awful sight.

  We were outmanned ten to one—it took no scholar to reckon that! But we were a mounted warband. And a battle-trained horse is an incalculable asset in a fight, especially against Saecsens and their like who fight only on foot.

  The fear all had felt at seeing the enemy was thrust aside as men remounted and readied themselves for the attack. Gwendolau called my name, but I did not respond, for I was already spurring my horse forward. I intended to meet the whole Saecsen host alone.

  There were shouts for me to rein up, to halt and wait—and then Gwendolau took command and organized the charge, dividing our small force into two groups to try to split the onrushing wave. Our only hope lay in penetrating their battleline—smashing through once and again, again and again, wearing at them, taking as many as we could out of the fight each time, but never allowing them to close on us or surround us. We were too few, and they were too many—we could not survive a pitched battle.

  As for me, I had no hope at all. I had no plan, no volition but to ride and fight and kill, to slay as many of my beloved’s murderers as possible before being slain myself. I tell you I did not care to live; I did not care to continue breathing the air of this world if my Ganieda was not also alive to breathe it.

  Lord Death, you have taken my heart and soul, you must also take me!

  The wind of my passing whistled along the upraised blade in my hand. My mount’s iron-shod hooves dug into the soft ground and flung the turf skyward. My cloak flew out behind me like a great wing and I screamed…