Merlin's Ring

by H. Warner Munn

  “We meet for the last time, Sir Hawk. You need me no longer and my Queen commands me to her side. I would I could embrace you, but there is iron in your blood and steel at your belt. This is goodbye.”

  “I know you have been near me when I have not seen you. I know you have aided me in ways I dimly comprehend and cannot repay. Must you go? There are others who need you—who will never forget you and your kind.”

  “Earth is still beautiful to me, but it was once so much more fair. I am the last to flit. I stayed so long because of you. Astophar will be a delectable pleasaunce, but this was home!

  “Sir Hawk, tell your kin to prize above fine jewels that which we bequeath to them. It is Man’s World now.”

  Distant, faint, there drifted down from somewhere high a jubilant but peremptory bugling. The horns of Elveron for the last time stirring nostalgic echoes in the air of Earth.

  “They are calling. I must go. Farewell, comrade. Farewell, Sir Hawk. Another comes to visit you.”

  Huon faded like a mist, in the very act of unslinging his cithern.

  In his place the pale-green butterfly spiraled into the sky. As distant as a voice in dream he heard that elfin chord accompanying the receding words:

  “Let us make a wreath in memory Twine in a sprig of rosemary If we hang it on the Fairy Tree Who knows what revenant we may see?”

  He knew the voice. He twined the wreath. He placed it high upon a branch and the wind blew through it, scattering its fragrance.

  There was a hush. The sunlight took on a splendor. Everything seemed new and beautiful, as though the world had just been touched with glory.

  He felt the lightest touch imaginable upon his cheek. It was like the evanescent wafting of air set in motion by a butterfly’s wing, but it felt like a kiss.

  He heard a soft whisper—or was it only a wishful fancy?

  “Dear Basque!” He smelled the faintest aroma of wood-smoke all around him.

  Then there was nothing left of the magic moment but a haunting memory of bright laughter, the clash of steel, and a brave banner floating free in the sunlight of a long summer.

  There were dates to remember. 1449. A year of present joy and remembered grief.

  Gwalchmai stood beside Lieutenant-General Dunois and watched the English garrison ride out and lay down their arms before the surrendered city of Rouen.

  He could not cast away the thought that here at last stood the army that could have saved Jeanne. Why had it come so late?

  1450. In that year, the English were defeated at For-migny and ran again before French artillery, as they did on the seventeenth of June, 1452. Their aged general, Talbot, was slain on that date at the battle of Castillon. Guyenne was lost, Bordeaux fell, and the Hundred Years’ War came to an end.

  The English, as the Maid had warned, had lost all that they had possessed in France. Only the dead now remained , there.

  1455! The year De Rais had striven for! The year long awaited! The greatest year of all for Gwalchmai.

  An immense crowd filled the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

  Through the concourse and into the assembly moved an aged woman, slowly, haltingly—supported on either hand by her two sons to set forth her claim and plea for justice and to hurl defiance at her dilatory King.

  Popular opinion is a yeasty thing and it takes long to rise, but there had been time and talk and searching of souls.

  De Rais’ leaven had worked at last. His millions had not been spent in vain.

  Through the long corridor, opened for her through the multitude, the three relatives came. Here walked Jean and Pierre, brothers of the Maid, to give their testimony as to their sister’s virtue and integrity; here was their mother and hers, called Isabelle Romee now, because of her pilgrimage to the Pope.

  Only the father and husband, Jacques d’Arc, was not with them. He had died of a broken heart.

  There were tears of pity among the onlookers, as they saw how feebly Isabelle approached the group of prelates, doctors, and professors who were to pass judgment upon her plea. Their hearts thrilled to hear the strength in her voice as, in sudden anger, she pressed aside the arms of her sons and stood alone before the judges.

  It was no little thing to face those who had condemned her daughter, even though she was backed by Papal commissioners, but they quailed before her flashing eyes. She threw back her coif and mourning veil, that they might see her face plainly.

  It was the strong, wrinkled visage of a hard-working peasant woman, calm with an inherent majesty and confidence—a true woman of the people, the very face of France. In it, Gwalchmai thought he recognized something of the strength of Nikky, the courage and determination of Corenice.

  She began hi a low voice, which quickly became animated;

  “I had a daughter, born hi lawful wedlock”—a little sob, quickly suppressed. She stopped to gather strength, and went on. “—whom I had furnished worthily with the sacraments of baptism and confirmation and had reared in the fear of God and respect for the tradition of the Church. As far as her age and the simplicity of her condition allowed, for she had grown up amid fields and pastures, she was much in the church. She received every month, after due confession, the sacraments of the Eucharist, despite her youth, and gave herself up to fasts and orisons with great devotion and fervor.

  “The wants at that time were great that the people suffered and she held great pity for them in her heart. Yet although she did never think, conceive, or do anything what-ever that set her out of the path of the faith, or spoke against it, certain enemies… had her arraigned in religious trial.

  “Despite her disclaimers and appeals, both tacit and expressed, and without any succor given to her innocence, in a trial perfidious, violent, iniquitous, and without shadow of right, they condemned her in a fashion damnable and criminal.”

  She paused, seeking words, and swayed as she stood. Her sons took her arms, but she shook them aside and went on, proudly meeting the sympathetic gaze of the court.

  Her voice rang out like an accusing trumpet. “And then they put her to death very cruelly by fire—for the damnation of their souls and hi notorious, infamous damage done to me, Isabelle, and mine!”

  The rest was anticlimax.

  The crowd went wild. Women wept, men stood and shouted, “Justice! We will have justice!” There was a monstrous uproar and stamping of feet. Order was regained with no little trouble.

  Finally the Trial of Rehabilitation continued, unimpeded by interruptions.

  Many gave testimony hi the Maid’s favor. La Hire, and De Rais were both dead, but D’Aulon was there and spoke fervently in behalf of his beloved charge. Lieutenant-General Dunois gave evidence as to her military skill and generalship; D’Alencon, her “pretty Duke,” spoke warmly on her qualities of honor, courage, and tenderness to the defeated.

  Depositions were read, offered by a hundred people who had known her as a child, testifying to her goodness and devoutness and her virtuous life.

  Even the judges who had condemned her now spoke in her favor. It seemed that after so long a time they could remember nothing evil against her, for their memories failed them often.

  Apparently the flagrant sin of wearing man’s clothing was no longer of paramount importance. Now it appeared that it was forbidden to women only so far as it might serve as a temptation to pride and license. Yet it was this very point. Bishop Cauchon had so constantly stressed and with such venom that it had finally brought about her death.

  Six months later, the verdict of vindication was read pub-licly in Rouen, at the very spot where the fatal pyre had stood, and in all the other cities and towns of consequence in the Kingdom.

  There was one who did not hear it. Bishop Cauchon had died long since, an embittered and unhappy man. The dogs could not drink his blood, as De Rais had promised they should, but the next best thing was done. His bones were disinterred and flung into a sewer, by an enraged group of Jeanne’s friends.

  Gwalchmai wished that Gilles
could have been there also.

  It was in that good year of 1456 that Gwalchmai set about his journeying northward. His promise to De Rais had been accomplished at last. Now he was free to travel where Corenice had told him they should come together, never to be separated again—the land of ice and fire.

  27 tJuCerlin Explains

  —Doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs. —Tennyson: Locksley Hall, line 27

  A little boat came in on a black lava beach, not far from the Bay of Reeking Smokes. Gwalchmai stepped ashore and looked about him. The raven came down from the short mast and perched upon his shoulder.

  He pushed the boat off and watched it float away. Then he turned his back upon it and went up into the hills. He walked aimlessly for a long time. Just before dark he found a cave and set about making it habitable. He was weary of war and battle-shock and of life itself. He would have welcomed the peace of death.

  But while a man lives, he must obey the rules of life. He built a little fire to warm himself; he gathered grass for a bed and spread his blankets there; he cooked some oat porridge and ate his last small piece of dried meat. Then he lay down upon his bed and waited.

  If there was to be a fulfillment of the promise that had been made to him, it should be soon. He did not have long to wait.

  He became conscious that he was not alone. The entrance to the cave was not much obscured, but someone had entered. He sat up.

  “Is it you, Godfather? Have you come to grant me oblivion? I have failed you in all things. I have been a careless apprentice, a poor magician, a sinful man, an emissary who was unable to complete his mission. You would do well to hold me in your contempt.”

  A phantom became visible. Its appearance solidified and took on a firm and definite shape. Merlin, in his robes of a Mage.

  “It has not been failure in your life, but a great success, my godson. Once I told you that if you could instruct me in the meaning of life I would expound to you the mystery of death. Can you do it now? What have you learned from your long life?”

  Gwalchmai hung his head. “Godfather, for all my years, I am very young before you. I have learned little and I am certain of nothing. What I have learned may be of no importance.

  “I know that the body is only the house for the soul and in itself is of little worth, for I have known many and loved a few and it was not the love of the body that brought jjlad-ness to me.”

  “That is something to know. Go on.”

  “As to the meaning of life, I know nothing. Mine, it seems, has had neither purpose nor meaning. The good are trodden upon, the evil triumph, virtue goes unrewarded, the innocent suffer. The purpose of all this escapes me. Life seems a random, accidental thing and its events no more than a madman’s dream.”

  “Did you ever use the ring as a speculum and look ahead in time to see what was to come?”

  “I only know what I saw on the walls of Arthur’s tomb.”

  ^Then let me show you what the world would have been without you. If you had not come here to be buried in the ice and resurrected by your sweetheart—Thyra, who was inhabited by her to save you, would have wed Biarki to whom she had been promised. She would have been treated brutally and died young, without issue.

  “Flann would have remained a thrall all his life long and would not have become a father.

  “Mairtre would never have been born. Because of her nonexistence, Arngrim, the Varangian, could not have married her and become the ancestor of the man whom you have been brought here a second time to meet Thus, the wheel for you has come full round.

  “Had you not wandered as you did and met your love again in the body of the Welsh girl, whom you knew as Nikky, you would not have had the child by her who became the ancestor of the Maid of Orleans, who turned back the tide of English conquest, made France a nation, and changed the history of Europe and the world!

  “Let me show you what would have befallen, except for you and your Corenice.”

  Merlin placed his hand over Gwalchmai’s eyes.

  He saw in vivid pictures and in rapid succession vignettes as upon a long scroll that displayed an alternate history in which, as there had been no son of Gwalchmai’s, there had been no Isabelle to marry Jacques d’Arc and thus no Jeanne. Without her encouragement, the Dauphin’s heart failed him. He fled the country and exiled himself as he had planned.

  Deserted, Orleans fell. France became an English appendage, from which base English armies swept south into Spain, dislodging the Moors and making Spain an English colony. They followed the Moors. North Africa became part of their growing empire, exploited ruthlessly. War followed war.

  Jerusalem fell to an Elizabethan crusade and the riches of the Middle East, Asia Minor, India, and Persia came pouring into the treasure house England became. There were other wars, which went on without end.

  In the north and east, Duke Philip, “the Grand-Duke of the West,” whose possessions extended from the Alps to the North Sea, used his enormous and growing strength to extend his holdings deeper into Scandinavia, seizing Norway and Sweden. All his lands were milked of their manpower.

  A second uneasy alliance was formed with England to crush Germany.

  The combined armies met and destroyed the rising power of Muscovy and later they turned against each other, in civil strife and mutual antagonism that rendered Europe a wasteland, before England emerged predominant and enforced an English peace over a desert inhabited by cannibals.

  Gwalchmai thrust aside Merlin’s hand. “Such horrors!” he panted. “Such slaughter! So many burning cities! Such ruin! I could not have believed any people to be capable of such cruelties and oppression.”

  “Great power breeds great arrogance and injustice. It was necessary that English power be humbled at this time and no other. It will never be forgotten that a seventeen-year-old girl threw down the gage to the finest generals in Europe, told them what she would accomplish, and did it!

  “Almost all that ninety years of war and conquest won for England the Maid took away in a single week. Since then, as you know, the remainder has been lost to them. The English will be busy at home with their own problems. Philip will be drained of his power. The nations they would have dominated will develop in different ways.

  “Now, when England and France go into this New World, which I and your father found, they can go as equals and what they make of it will be up to them. The future still remains mutable, but because of you and” your dear one, that which you saw in the mural in Arthur’s tomb will surely come to pass.“

  “Then I have been only a tool?”

  “Even as myself. Are we not all God’s tools?”

  “Why was it necessary that Jeanne die?”

  “She, who was called the Daughter of God, was promised that, by her suffering, she would win a great victory. She did not know what that victory was to be; she won it without knowing. How can the world forget her now and the lesson that she taught? Great victories are bought with a great price. She had faith that never wavered. You must have no less.”

  “If there is indeed a purpose in all this, why must it be accomplished by so much struggle and pain?”

  “The Maid answered your question when she said, ‘God will give the victory, if only men will fight.’ No part of your long journey has been mere aimless wandering; nothing you have done but has been a tiny section of an intricate plan.

  “In the great gamble that is life, we are all no more than pieces of small account Yet, the game cannot be played without us. Nor is it well that the pieces should understand the meaning of the game or who the contestants may be.”

  “I am sorry I could not have been a better apprentice to all your teachings.”

  Merlin laughed. “In my apprenticeship I was a sore trial to my master, Blaise. I was so inept that the children threw stones at me and cried me down!. It was a long time before I was eligible to take my examinations and be admitted to the Fraternity of Magicians.”

  “You are well respected now
. Everywhere I showed it, your ring was recognized with deference.”

  Merlin was pleased. “It, also, has served its purpose. In the main, you used it well, although I think sometimes you could have done without its help. You could become a potent mage in your own right”

  Gwalchmai shook his head. “I am done with magic. I have forsworn war, I wish you would take my sword and place it where it may be at hand, if another champion needs it when Arthur draws his.”

  “I will see that it is placed where it will be available. Now can you tell me more? What do you think you have learned?”

  Gwalchmai considered. He said slowly, “I have known four women above all others in my life. From Thyra, I learned the meaning of courage and trust From Nikky, I was given humor and devotion, From Uyume, delicate affection and undying patience. From Jeanne, I was shown, for the first time, the importance of steadfastness and faith.

  “And from them all, through Corenice, the understanding of a love such as no other man has ever had.”

  “Then you need never fear death, for death is only of the body, and love transcends it all, and the body is nothing, as you already know.

  “Now I will leave you, for one is waiting who longs to have me depart. She will wait with you, until the other, for whom you must await, has come. Then you shall be set free of your vow. God bless you both.”

  He laid his hand upon Gwalchmai’s forehead, this time in benediction. When Gwalchmai opened his eyes, Merlin was gone, but he was not alone.

  There was a whisper in his ear, a kiss upon his lips, a warm clasping about him. The arms he could not see did not let him go. It seemed that he sank into their embrace.

  The strangeness he had felt so briefly at Tiffauges, before the eidolon of Barran-Sathanas, was repeated. He knew that he was no longer the individual he had been and it was a joy to be so accepted.

  This was a symbiosis of two souls that far superseded any possible physical union. He and Corenice understood each other’s inmost thoughts, partook of each other’s lives. They were truly one.