Nevertheless, the summer ended and I returned to Ynys Avallach with Blaise and an escort of warriors. I remember riding through bright autumn days, passing fields ripening to harvest and small, prosperous settlements where we were greeted warmly and fed.
My mother was overjoyed to see me home at last, but I sensed a sadness in her, too. And I noticed that her eyes followed my every move, and lingered on my face. Had I changed somehow in those few months at Caer Cam?
'You are growing so fast, my little Hawk,' she told me. 'Soon you will fly this nest.'
'I will never leave here. Where would I go?' I asked, genuinely puzzled. The thought of leaving had never occurred to me.
Charis shrugged lightly, 'Oh, you will find a place somewhere and make it your own. You must, you see, if you are to be the Lord of Summer.'
So that was on her mind. 'Is it not a real place, Mother?' She smiled a little sadly and shook her head. 'No – that is, not yet. It is up to you, my soul, to create the Kingdom of Summer.'
'I thought the Summerlands -'
'No,' she shook her head again, but the sadness had passed and I saw the light of the vision come up in her eyes, 'the Summerlands are not the Kingdom, though your father may have intended them to be. The Kingdom of Summer is wherever the Summer Lord resides. It only waits for you to claim it, Hawk.'
We talked about the Kingdom of Summer then, but our talk was different now. No longer was the Kingdom a story such as a mother might tell a child; it had changed. From that time I began to think of it as a realm that did exist in some way and only waited to be called into being. And for the first time I understood that my destiny, like my father's, was woven thread and strand into his vision of that golden land.
That autumn I resumed my studies with Dafyd, the priest at the shrine. I read from his holy texts, badly patched and faded as they were, and we discussed what I read. At the same time, I continued my lessons with Blaise who instructed me in the druid arts. I could not imagine giving up either endeavour and in the following years gave myself mind and soul to my study, as I gave body and heart to my weapons each summer at Caer Cam.
I confess it was not easy; I often felt pulled in all directions despite my various tutors' attempts to ensure that I should not. Never did a boy have more caring teachers. Still, it is inevitable, I suppose, when someone desires so much so badly. My teachers were aware of my discomfort and felt it themselves.
'You need not drive yourself so hard, Myrddin,' Blaise told me one drizzly, miserable winter evening as I sat struggling with a long recitation entitled the Battle of the Trees. 'There are other things than being a bard, you know. Look around you, not everyone is.'
'My father, Taliesin, was a bard. Hafgan says he was the greatest bard who ever lived.'
'So he believes.'
'You do not believe it?'
He laughed. 'Who could disagree with the Chief Druid?'
'You have not answered the question, Blaise.'
'Very well,' he paused and reflected long before answering. 'Yes, your father was the greatest bard among us; and more, he was my brother and friend. But,' he held up a cautionary finger, 'Taliesin was… ' again a long pause, and a slight lifting of the shoulders as he stepped away from saying what was in his mind, 'but it is not everyone who can be what he was, or do the things that he did.'
'I will be a bard. I will work harder, Blaise. I promise.'
He shook his head and sighed. 'It is not a question of working harder, Hawk.'
'What do you want me to do?' I whined. 'Just tell me.'
His dark eyes were soft with sympathy; he was trying to help me in the best way he knew. 'Your gifts are different, Merlin. You cannot be your father.'
If they did not act in me at that moment, his words would come back to me many times.
'I will be a bard, Blaise.'
I am Merlin, and I am immortal. A quirk of birth? A gift from my mother? The legacy of my father? I do not know how it is but I know that it is true. Neither do I know the source of {the words that fill my head and fall from my lips like firedrops onto the tinder of men's hearts.
The words, the images: what is, what was and will be… I have but to look. A bowl of black oak water, the glowing embers of a fire, smoke, clouds, the faces of men themselves – I have but to look and the mists grow thin and I peer a little way along the scattered paths of time.
Was there ever a time such as this?
Never! And that is both the glory and the terror of it. If men knew what it was that loomed before them, within reach of even the lowest – they would quail, they would faint, they would cover their heads and stop their mouths with their cloaks | for screaming. It is their blessing and their curse that they do i not know. But I know; I, Merlin, have always known.
TWO
'The boy has the eyes of a preying bird,' Maximus said, resting his hand on my head and gazing down into my face. He should know; his own eyes had something of the predator as well. 'I do not believe I have ever seen eyes of such colour in a man before – like yellow gold.' His smile was dagger sharp. 'Tell me, Merlinus, what do you see with those golden eyes of yours?'
An odd question to ask a child of seven. But an image formed itself in my mind:
A sword – not the short, broad gladius of the legionary, but the long, tapering length of singing lightning of the Celt. The hilt was handsome bronze wrapped in braided silver with a great amethyst of imperial purple in the pommel. The jewel was engraved with the Eagle of the Legion, fierce and proud, catching sunlight in its dark heart and smouldering with a deep and steady fire.
'I see a sword,' I said. 'The hilt is silver and bears a purple gem carved like an eagle. It is an emperor's sword.'
Both Maximus and Lord Elphin – my father's father, who stood beside me – looked on me with wonder, as though I had spoken a prophecy great and terrible in its mystery. I merely told them what I saw.
Magnus Maximus, Commander of the Legions of Britain, gazed thoughtfully at me. 'What else do you see, lad?'
I closed my eyes. 'I see a ring of kings; they are standing like stones in a stone circle. A woman kneels in their midst, and she holds the Sword of Britain in her hands. She is speaking, but no one hears her. No one listens. I see the blade rusting and forgotten.'
Although Romans were always keen for an omen, I do not think he expected such an answer from me. He stared for a moment; I felt his fingers go slack in my hair, and then he turned away abruptly. 'King Elphin! You look fit as ever. This soft land has not softened you, I see.' He and my grandfather walked off, arms linked: two old friends met and recognized as equals.
We were there at Caer Cam the morning he arrived. I was training the pony Elphin had given me, desperate to break the wily creature to the halter so that I could ride it home in a few days' time. The little black-and-white animal seemed more goat than horse and what had begun as a simple trial with a braided rope harness soon grew to an all-out war of wills with mine suffering the worst of it.
The sun was lowering and the evening mist rising in the valley. Wood pigeons were winging to their nests, and swallows swooped and dived through the still, light-filled air. Then I heard it – a sound to make me stop rock still and listen: a rhythmic drumming in the earth, a deep, resonant rumble rolling over the land.
Cuall, my grandfather's battlechief, was watching me and became concerned. 'What is it, Myrddin Bach? What is wrong?' Myrddin Bach, he called me: Little Hawk.
I did not answer, but turned my face towards the east and, dropping the braided length of leather, ran to the ramparts, calling as I ran, 'Hurry! Hurry! He is coming!'
If I had been asked who was coming, I could not have made an answer. But the instant I peered between the sharpened stakes I knew that someone very important would soon arrive, for in the distance, as we looked down along the valley, we could see the long, snaking double line of a column of men moving northwest. The rumble I had heard was the booming cadence of their marching drums and the steady plod of their feet on t
he old hard track.
I looked and saw the failing sunlight bright on their shields and on the eagle standards going before them. Dust trailed into the dusky sky at the rear of the column where the supply wagons came trundling on. There must have been a thousand men or more moving in those two long lines. Cuall took one look and sent one of the warband racing for Lord Elphin.
'It is Macsen,' confirmed Elphin, when he arrived.
'Thought as much,' replied Cuall cryptically.
'It has been a long time,' said my grandfather. 'We must make ready to welcome him.'
'You think he will turn aside?'
'Of course. It will soon be~dark and he will need a place to sleep. I will send an escort to bring him.'
'I will see to it, lord,' offered Cuall, and he strode away across the caer. Grandfather and I returned to the survey of the valley road.
'Is he a king?' I asked, though I knew he must be for I had never known anyone to travel with such an enormous warband.
'A king? No, Myrddin Bach, he is Dux Bntanniarum and answers only to Imperator Gratian himself.'
I searched my scant Latin… dux… 'Duke'?
'Like a battlechief,' Elphin explained, 'but far greater; he commands all Roman forces in the Island of the Mighty. Some say he will be Imperator himself one day, although from what I have seen of emperors a dux with a cohort at his back wields more power where it counts.'
Not long after Cuall and ten of Elphin's warband rode out, a party of about thirty men returned. The strangers were strange indeed to my eyes: big, thick-limbed men in hardened leather or metal breastplates, carrying short bulky swords and ugly iron-tipped javelins, their legs wrapped in red wool which was tied to mid-thigh by the straps of their heavy hob-nailed sandals.
The riders pounded up the twisting path to the gates of the caer and I ran round the ramparts to meet them. The timber gates swung open and the iron-shod horses galloped into the caer. Between two standard bearers rode Maximus, his handsome red cloak stained and dusty, his sun-darkened face brown as walnut, a short fringe of a black beard on his chin.
He reined the horse to a halt and dismounted as Elphin came to greet him. They embraced like friends long absent from one another, and I realized that my grandfather was a man of some renown. Seeing him next to the powerful stranger my heart soared. He was no longer my grandfather but a king in his own right.
As other horsemen entered the caer Elphin turned to me and beckoned me to him. I stood at stiff attention while the Duke of Britain inspected me closely, his sharp, black eyes probing as spearpoints. 'Hail, Merlinus,' he said in a voice husky with fatigue and road dust, 'I greet you in the name of our Mother, Rome.'
Then Maximus took my hand in his, and when he withdrew it I saw a gold victory coin shining there.
That was my first introduction to Magnus Maximus, Dux Britanniarum. And it was before him then and there that I spoke my first prophecy.
There was feasting that night. After all, it is not every day that the Duke of Britain visits. The drinking horns circled the hall, and I was dizzy trying to keep them filled. Through a timber hall dark with the smoke of roasting meat and loud with the chatter of warriors and soldiers regaling one another with lies of their exploits on the twin fields of bed and battle, I wandered, a jar of mead in my hands to refill the empty horns, cups, and bowls. I thought myself most fortunate to be included in a warrior's feast – even if only as a serving boy.
Later, when the torches and tallow lamps burned low, Hafgan, Chief Bard to my grandfather, brought out his harp and told the tale of the Three Disastrous Plagues. This brought forth great gales of laughter. And I laughed with the rest, happy to be included with the men on this auspicious night, and not sent down to the boys' house with the others.
What a night! Rich and raucous and full, and I understood that to be a king with a great hall filled with fearless companions was the finest thing a man could achieve, and I vowed that one day this fine thing would be mine.
I did not speak to Maximus again while he stayed with Lord Elphin, though he and my grandfather talked at length the next day before the Duke departed and returned to his troops waiting in the valley. I say I did not speak to him, but when his horse was brought to him and he swung up into the saddle, Maximus saw me and raised his hand slowly, touching the back of his hand to his forehead. It is a sign of honour and respect – an unusual gesture with which to favour a child. No one else saw it, nor were they meant to.
He said farewell to my grandfather – they clasped one another's arms in the way of kinsmen – and he rode away with his commanders. From on top of the earthen bank outside the palisade I watched the column form up and move on through the Cam valley a short time later, following the Eagle standard.
I never saw Maximus again. And it was to be many, many years before I finally beheld the sword and realized that it had been his sword I had seen that day. That is why Maximus had looked at me the way he did. And that is why he saluted me.
This is where it begins:
First there is a sword, the Sword of Britain. And the sword is Britain.
THREE
In the spring of my eleventh year, I travelled with Blaise and Hafgan to Gwynedd and Yr Widdfa, the Region of Snows, in the mountainous north-west. It was a long journey and difficult, but necessary, for Hafgan was going home to die.
He told no one about this, as he found the prospect of leaving his people unspeakably sad. It was the leaving, not the dying he minded; Hafgan had long ago made his peace with Gfod, and knew death to be the narrow door to another, higher life. And, though saying farewell to his kinsmen grieved him deeply, yet he yearned to see again the land of his youth before he died, so the journey became necessary.
Elphin insisted on sending an escort; if he had not done so Avallach surely would have. Given his own way, Hafgan would have forgone this honour; but he relented, since it was not for him that the warriors rode with us.
There were nine in the escort, making a total of twelve in all as we made ready to set out that day not long after Beltane, the fire festival marking the beginning of spring. Hafgan and the escort had come to Ynys Avallach where Blaise and I waited, eager to be off. On the morning of our leaving, I rose early and pulled on my tunic and trousers and ran down to the courtyard to find my mother dressed in riding garb, complete with short cloak and tall riding boots, her hair braided and bound in the white leather thong of the bull ring.
She held the reins of a mist-grey stallion and my first thought was that the horse must be for me. Hafgan stood nearby and they were talking together quietly, waiting for the others to appear. I greeted them and mentioned that I had preferred my black-and-white pony instead.
'Instead? Whatever can you mean?' Charis asked. 'Instead of the stallion, of course.' I pointed out that I was fond of the pony and planned on riding it.
My mother laughed and said, 'You are not the only person ever to master throwing a leg over the back of a horse.'
It was only then that I took in her appearance. 'You would go, too?'
'It is time I saw the place where your father grew up,' she explained, 'and besides, Hafgan has asked me and I can think of nothing I would enjoy more. We have been talking just now of stopping in Dyfed. I would like to see Maelwys and Pendaran again, and I could show you where you were born – would you like that?"
Whether I liked it or not she meant to go, and did. The imagined inconvenience to my notion of playing the warrior never materialized – my mother was more than a match for the rigours of the journey. We did not dawdle or slacken our pace because of her, and, as the familiar landscape sparked her memory with a thousand remembrances of my father, she recalled in vivid detail those first days of their life together. I listened to her and forgot all about pretending to be a fierce battlechief.
We crossed shining Mor Hafren and came to Caer Legionis, Fort of the Legions. The enormous fortress, like so many others in the land, long abandoned and falling into ruin, stood derelict and empty, shunned
by the nearby town which still boasted a Magistrate. I had never seen a Roman city before and could find nothing of advantage in its straight streets and houses crowded too close to one another. Aside from the impressive spectacle of a forum and an arena, what I could see of the town inspired little hope for the improvement of life. A city is an unnatural place.
The country beyond was fair to look upon: smooth, lofty hills and winding glens with stone-edged streams and wide flats of grassland ideal for grazing herds of cattle and sheep, and the hardy, sure-footed little horses they bred and sold in horse markets as far away as Londinium and Eboracum.
At Maridunum – where my parents had fled after their marriage, and where I was born – our reception was warm and enthusiastic. King Pendaran considered himself something of a grandfather to both my mother and myself, and was overjoyed to see us. He clasped me heartily by both arms and said, 'I held you, Jad, when you were no bigger than a cabbage.' His fringe of white hair feathered in the wind and he appeared in imminent danger of blowing away. Was this the fearsome Red Sword I had heard about?
Maelwys, his oldest son, ruled in Dyfed, however, and with Pendaran's clucking approval declared a feast upon our arrival and the lords under him, with their retinues, crowded his hall that night.
The lords of the Demetae and Silures were long established in the land and powerful. They had fiercely protected their independence, despite three hundred years of Roman meddling in their affairs – a feat ironically accomplished by forming early and advantageous alliances with the ruling houses of Rome itself, marrying well and wisely, and using their power to keep the Emperor and his minions at a safe distance. Like a rock in the sea, they had allowed the Empire to wash over them; but now that the tide was receding the rock stood unchanged.
Wealthy and proud of their wealth, they lacked any hint of the vanity that so often derives from riches. Simple men, adhering to the ways of their people and resisting change, they had kept alive the true Celtic spirit of their fathers. A few might live in sprawling villas of Roman design, or wear the title of Magistrate; one or another might have comfortably worn the purple, but the eyes that looked upon me in the hall that night saw the world little changed since the day of Bran the Blessed, whom they claimed had settled his tribe in these very hills.
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