Merlin's Blade

by Robert Treskillard

  Neither of the strangers moved, yet a blue light began to glow from the object between them.

  The scornful man on the left jumped back. “What is happening to it?” he cried, yanking off the covering.

  Blue flames leaped from the object’s surface, lighting up the woods and blinding Merlin completely for a moment. His face and hands turned hot, as if a fire raged just beyond the bush. Then he felt cold, as if winter had filled the land with snow and ice. After that the heat rushed back, followed by the cold. Merlin regarded the strange object with awe. What could it be?

  “Beware, it tells us! … Beware!” the second voice said, now changing to a whisper. “Enemies are present.”

  Both men drew knives, the metal reflecting the strange light.

  Garth yelped and darted away.

  Merlin chased after him, ignoring the shouts from behind. Ducking his head and covering his face with his free arm to avoid unseen branches, he ran headlong through the forest. Branches scraped and scratched him all the way. Twice he tripped. Once he ran into a tree. And all the time he listened desperately for Garth.

  But the boy ran too fast, and each turn Merlin made to avoid a tree found him more turned around. He stopped to orient himself by the sun, but his half blindness and the thick-leafed canopy prevented him.

  In the distance, the horses whinnied in fright. He ran toward the sound, which grew louder by the step. Finally, his lip bleeding, his tunic torn, and his arms covered in cuts, he burst out onto the main track not four paces from the wagon.

  The horses reared up in terror.

  “Get in!” Garth shouted.

  Merlin gave the frightened horses a wide berth, grabbed on to the wagon, which rolled back and forth, and pulled himself up to the box.

  As Garth yanked on the reins in an attempt to control the horses, Merlin tried to see what was frightening them, though his scarred eyes prevented him. When the wagon jerked backward, Merlin grabbed on to the front rail and accidentally snagged one of the reins. Distant voices called from the woods.

  The horses reared up again.

  “Give ‘em back!” Garth yelled, disentangling the leather straps from Merlin’s fingers. The boy snapped the reins down as hard as he could, and the wagon shot forward. “Are they followin’ us?”

  “You don’t know? Can’t you look?”

  “Why’d you talk? Why’d you let ‘em know we were hidin’?”

  “It was your stomach that growled.”

  They hit a bump, and the wagon rocked sideways. The goat tried to jump up onto the seat, his sharp hooves scraping across Merlin’s leggings. Merlin pushed him down. “I was just asking who they were.”

  “I don’t know who they were.”

  “Then why are we going so fast? Slow down.”

  “ ‘Cause the horses are scared.”

  Yet Merlin heard the reins snap every few moments. “You should’ve eaten your roasted eggs.”

  “I woulda had a leg o’ lamb if it wasn’t for you.” The wagon picked up speed as the road bent downhill, but Garth still kept at the reins. “What was that thing we saw?”

  “You tell me.”

  Garth didn’t answer as they careened down the hillside, slowing only enough to take the switchback corners. Merlin saw the ruddy blur of Garth’s head turning, presumably to steal a glance behind them.

  “Are they chasing us?” Merlin asked.

  Garth scanned the hillside again. “Y-yes … no!”

  The hollow thump of the Fowaven bridge sounded under the wheels as the wagon burst across. After they climbed up the hill beyond the bridge, Garth cracked the reins faster and faster. Mud flicked onto Merlin’s face.

  “Slow down, I said! This isn’t our wagon, remember?”

  “I know, I know … but that man wanted us to take it.”

  “You told me it was Natalenya. Have you been telling the truth?”

  “Yer always thinkin’ about her, aren’t you?”

  Merlin’s face felt hot. “You better not have stolen this wagon, you hear? My father and I caught a thief yesterday and sent him to Tregeagle.”

  Garth hesitated before answering. “Sure … sure. I promise!”

  The wagon raced by the large stone cross on the right side of the road that marked the entrance of the abbey grounds.

  “Slow down!” Merlin shouted, for the horses had been worked into a lather of frenzied speed. He reached out, found Garth’s jerking arms, and pulled on the reins. “Stop! Slow down!”

  Confused, the horses careened to the right, off the road.

  The wagon slammed over a bump, and Merlin bit his tongue.

  The two jolted side to side as the beasts raced downhill. Merlin heard the sound of hammering in the distance.

  Garth yanked the reins free from Merlin. “We’re gonna hit the new buildin’ —”

  The wagon tilted on the hillside, and Merlin rammed into Garth.

  “Look out!” Garth screamed.

  “What?”

  The shadow of a building loomed up on his right. People shouted and dove away from the thundering horses. Garth turned them aside just in time to avoid hitting the structure.

  But not entirely. The back right wheel of the wagon caught a post. The wagon slammed to a stop, and the horses fell in a tangled heap.

  A huge crack came from the roof, and Merlin turned his head just in time to see a support breaking away.

  The whole structure trembled, then tipped and fell. It smashed into the back corner of the wagon and flipped it on its side, sending Merlin, Garth, and the livestock to the ground in a heap of limbs, hooves, and feathers. Charcoal flew everywhere, with most of it heaped in a big, dusty mound. As the soot settled, the workers and monks gathered to investigate. Abbot Prontwon found the pair and pulled them safely from the wreckage.

  Merlin stood blinking at the scene around him. He could hear Garth peeling the shell off a roasted egg.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE TRIAL

  Merlin’s hand paused on the latch of the magister’s front door. “Open it,” his father, Owain, said. “You’ve got to face up to what’s happened.”

  Merlin swallowed and pushed the door open, feeling upon it the bronze Roman eagle. Was it this very morning he’d had such high hopes of talking to Natalenya? And now here he was, about to stand trial before her father, Tregeagle, because Garth had stolen the wagon and lied about it.

  How could the boy have been so thoughtless?

  Merlin’s father led him into the great hall. Pine logs blazed on the open hearth, scenting the air. Despite the warmth of the room, Merlin shivered, and it wasn’t from the lingering chill of their evening walk. Judgment waited for him in the next room.

  Merlin felt such shame for trusting Garth’s lies … hah! As if Natalenya would have given permission to take the wagon. As if she’d ever want to talk to him … the only young man in the village with a face full of scars.

  Merlin felt his father’s thick hand pat him on the back. “You’ll get to tell your story first, since Abbot Prontwon hasn’t brought that troublemaker yet.”

  “Garth is my friend. Right now he’s my only friend.” Merlin’s back tensed, and even without clear sight, he could imagine the anger furrowing his father’s brow.

  “Not anymore,” Owain said.

  A servant acknowledged their presence and went to alert Tregeagle.

  Merlin followed his father over to the fire. If his chances of talking with Natalenya had been remote this morning, tonight they seemed hopeless.

  His heart like lead, he listened to the sound of the servant girl as she marched down one of the hallways, then knocked on a door. Tregeagle’s gruff voice answered, and moments later, the servant returned to them, her footfalls across the stone floor sounding to Merlin like a drum announcing his doom.

  “The master is ready to see you.”

  Merlin tucked his hands under his legs and felt the hard edge of the seat. Never had he been interrogated like this. If only Tregeagle’s words
were as pleasant as the smell of coriander and honey that filled the magister’s room.

  “My sons tell a different tale. Why should I believe you?”

  Merlin’s father — his tas, as all fathers were called in Kernow — coughed nearby, and his presence brought Merlin a small measure of comfort. He sat up a little straighter and placed his hands in his lap. “Because, sir —”

  “Because you stole my property?” Tregeagle interrupted his pacing and rapped his knuckles on the wooden table between them. “Because you marred the fine coats of my horses?”

  “Because sir, if —”

  “Because you knocked my son down and kicked him?”

  Actually, Rondroc had knocked Merlin down first, but Merlin had already established that Tregeagle didn’t want to hear anything of that sort. Maybe if he apologized for the wagon. “I’m sorry for —”

  “So you admit it!” Tregeagle resumed his pacing, his tunic a white blur wrapped with a shining golden belt.

  “Be fair, Tregeagle,” Merlin’s father said, his deep voice echoing in the room. “He said nothing of the kind.”

  Tregeagle raised his hand. “If you insist on speaking, Owain, tell me why your filthy charcoal filled the leather seats of my painted coach? Was this your clever idea?”

  Merlin’s father sighed. “You know it wasn’t, magister. Our horse is lame, and my char-pile got low at the smithy. So the abbey sent Garth to help guide Merlin to fetch charcoal with my wheelbarrow —”

  “For the record, what is this new boy’s proper name?” Tregeagle sat down, slid a parchment onto the table, and scratched ink across the page with his quill.

  Merlin spoke up. “His name is Garthwys, sir.”

  “Which would that be in Latin, Garthius or Garthwysus?”

  “Either, I guess. He got impatient and thought —”

  Tregeagle coughed. “He thought? Obviously there has been precious little of that from either of you. Three wheels broken, the sides damaged, and one of the axles bent. Is this friend of yours incompetent?”

  Far from it, Merlin thought. Garth was good at most things. He could play his bagpipe. He could fish, as that had been his father’s trade before Garth was orphaned. And Merlin knew he could drive horses well enough, at least when he wanted to.

  Tregeagle stood again, shoving his chair into the wall with a bang, and leaned over the table. “Use your tongue, boy, or I shall call my lictor in to cut it from your mouth.”

  “Garth knows how to drive a wagon, sir.”

  “Then why did the fool crash it at the abbey?”

  Merlin fidgeted in his seat. “Something scared us, sir. We were bringing the coal back when we smelled roasting meat. Garth was hungry—well, he’s always hungry — and he ran off into the woods and left me holding the reins.”

  Tregeagle retrieved his chair and sat down again, the wood creaking loudly. “So who was roasting meat in the woods? Some vagrant?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I followed Garth, and we must have been near the old stone circle —”

  Tregeagle clicked his teeth together. “The stone circle? It’s been a long time since any of the druidow” — his voice betrayed a sneer — “dared show their faces around Kernow. So you held the reins. Did you try to drive the horses?”

  Merlin clenched his fists under the table. “I’m half blind, but not half stupid. There were two men, and they had something strange with them, something heavy and dark. There were flames … blue flames. And the men drew blades on us. Garth and I ran back to the wagon all spooked. He drove the horses hard till we neared the abbey.”

  What appeared to be a knife flashed before Merlin, and Tregeagle’s deft hands played with it. “Scared of a blade, you say? Tell me what happened at the abbey. Any monks involved? Did anyone damage the wagon on purpose?”

  Merlin swallowed, for the blade gleamed in the evening light that slanted through the shutters. “Nothing of the kind, sir. I thought we would crash, so I tried to get Garth to stop the horses. Only we left the road and —”

  “How did the dear abbot react?” Tregeagle sharpened the knife, sliding and scraping it against a rock.

  “Prontwon was irate, but Dybris calmed him down —”

  Tregeagle slammed the rock on the table. “And who is this Dybris who ignores my loss? His name is not on the tax register.”

  “He’s a priest who has been at the abbey only a month, sir. He brought Garth along with him.”

  Tregeagle sat for a while, drumming his fingers pensively on the table. “In my opinion, what you have told me is a preposterous lie.” He bit off some cake and leaned forward, fresh honey on his breath. “Tell me. What really scared Garth?”

  “I’ve already told you, sir.”

  Tregeagle raised his hand as if to strike.

  Merlin flinched as the shadow drew close.

  His father stood. “Leave my son alone. He’s told you what he knows. Get your answers from Garth.”

  Tregeagle pulled his hand away. When he spoke again, something in his voice made Merlin’s stomach clench with fear for his friend. “Since both of you are of no further use, I plan to do exactly that. Send the urchin in, and expect my judgment soon.”

  Merlin sighed as his father guided him down the hallway to the great hall. The voice of Abbot Prontwon echoed from the room ahead. “When it’s our turn — Garth, listen up — what will you say?”

  Garth mumbled something, but Merlin couldn’t make it out.

  “Are you ready to confess what you have done?”

  “Must we put him through this again?” Dybris interrupted.

  “Yes, we must. The falsehoods shall stop.”

  A harp sounded from some other room, and both monks quieted.

  Merlin stopped walking, his heart thumping. Natalenya played the harp, but it was possible her mother, Trevenna, played as well.

  “That,” Prontwon said, “is the sound of heaven, which I want Garth to hear one day in our Father’s feasting hall.”

  “He has told the truth. What more can we ask?”

  “We love and forgive. But the magister renders justice.”

  Owain prompted Merlin forward once more, and he entered the hall just as Prontwon, moving more nimbly than his bulk seemed to allow, slipped out of his chair and fell on his knees before Garth.

  “Garth, hear me.” Prontwon’s voice almost broke. “We will uphold you, but you must love the truth no matter the price!”

  Merlin’s father coughed loudly, and at the same time the harp music quieted. Merlin turned his head, trying to discover where it had come from.

  Prontwon and Dybris stood. “How did it go?” the abbot asked.

  In turn, Merlin took hold of their hands and gave a quick kiss to the back of each one. Then he shook his head.

  “Tregeagle’s in a foul mood,” Merlin’s father grumbled.

  Prontwon placed a hand on Merlin’s shoulder. “I guessed as much. We are all sorry for the difficulty this has caused.” He turned to Garth. “Come on, boy. It is time.”

  Dybris pulled the boy’s arm until he stood. Garth’s feet scraped down the hall as he followed the two monks.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE JUDGMENT

  Merlin’s father led him to the open hearth in the center of the great hall. “Sit here. I’m stepping outside for some fresh air. Call me when Tregeagle’s ready to give his judgment.”

  Owain’s footsteps echoed across the tile, the door opened and shut, and Merlin stood alone with the fire sparking its pine aroma into the air. He closed his eyes and prayed that Christ would uphold Garth.

  A harp tune echoed through the hall again.

  Merlin lifted his head and listened carefully.

  The beautiful notes originated to his right, from some other room. He tapped his staff across the floor until he found a wall; then he followed it with his hand. Sensing light and a draft of pleasant air, he halted before he stepped in front of the open doorway, hoping he couldn’t be seen. The music lifted his spirits,
and he wondered if his own mother had ever played an instrument.

  The harpist sang … with Natalenya’s voice, high and sweet like a bird after a rain shower as it fluttered about the bushes near the smithy.

  The wind did take my love away,

  Over the seas and far away.

  He’s blown to south and blown to north;

  He’s blown so far from my own hearth.

  Come home my love, come home today.

  Over the seas and hills to stay.

  Ne’er blown to east nor blown to west;

  Ne’er blown to make my love a jest.

  In deepest winter I am numb;

  In spring I wait for him to come.

  The summer dove doth always wait

  For autumn rains to come so late.

  The wind did take my love away,

  Over the seas and far away.

  He’s blown from me and blown so far;

  He’s gone an’ died in Gaulish war.

  Natalenya ceased her singing. “Dyslan, stop spying. Go away!”

  Merlin froze. Did she mean him? Or was Natalenya’s younger brother nearby?

  He heard shuffling, the echo of the harp being set down. And footsteps.

  Merlin put his back against the cold wall.

  The footsteps grew louder.

  He wanted to hide but couldn’t, considering his poor eyesight.

  Natalenya walked around the corner. Her dark hair smelled of roses, and her green dress was a beautiful blur.

  “Oh … Merlin.”

  “I …”

  “Are you here to talk with Father about the accident?” she asked.

  “Yes, I …”

  “Your foot was sticking through the doorway. Come in and sit down.” She took his arm and guided him through the room to a chair, where he sat stiffly.

  “I practice here in my father’s library. Do you like harp music?”

  “Yes, I …” He trailed off, at a loss for words now that she was speaking to him.

  “My grandmother taught me that song. Grandfather died in Gaul fighting with Constantine’s army. It makes me think of him.”

  Swallowing hard, Merlin asked, “Would you play more?”