Merlin pc-2

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Baram leaned closer, but said nothing.

  'Has been established?' I asked. 'What does that mean?'

  The Emperor Maximus has put him there,' Tegwr answered bluntly. 'To hold the land, they say. Gave it to him outright› him and his tribe, if they would live there and hold the land.'

  'Very generous of our emperor,' replied Maelwys.

  'Generous, aye, and crack-brained.' Tegwr shook his head violently, showing what he thought of the idea.

  'The land is empty and that is not good. Someone has to hold it – to keep the Irish out, if for no other reason," I pointed out.

  'Cunedda is Irish!' Tegwr exploded. The other chief spat and cursed under his breath. 'And he is there!'

  'That cannot be,' said Baram. 'If it is, it cannot be good.'

  There was something of familiarity in Baram's spare tone. 'You know him?' asked Maelwys.

  'We know of him.'

  'And what you know is not good?'

  Baram nodded darkly, but said nothing.

  'Speak man,' said Tegwr, 'this is no time to clamp jaws and bite tongue.'

  'We hear he has three wives and a brood of sons.'

  'Brood is right!' laughed Baram mirthlessly. 'Viper's brood, more like. Cunedda came to the north many years ago and seized land there. Since then there has been nothing but trouble. Yes, we know him and have no love for him, or his grasping sons.'

  'Why would Maximus wish to establish him among us? Why not one of our own?' wondered Maelwys. 'Elphin ap Gwyddno, perhaps.' He gestured towards me. 'It was their land first.'

  'My grandfather would thank you for the thought,' I replied, 'but he would not go back. There is too much pain in the place for my people; they would never be happy there again. Once, when I was quite small, Maximus asked Elphin to go back and received his answer then.'

  'That is no reason to bring in a hound like Cunedda,' sneered Tegwr.

  Take the Irish to keep the other Irish out,' mused Maelwys.

  'You will have to watch him,' warned Baram. 'He is an old man now – some of his sons have sons. But he is cunning as an old boar, and as mean. His sons are little better; there are eight of them, and tight-fisted to a man, whether with sword or purse. But I will say this, they look out for their own. If holding the land is what they are to do, hold it they will.'

  'Small comfort that is,' muttered Tegwr.

  Baram shrugged. He had, after his fashion, spoken a whole month's worth and would say no more.

  In my own estimation, no matter what Tegwr and those like him might think, Cunedda's coming was no bad thing in itself. The land had to be held and worked and protected. In the time since Elphin had been driven out, no one else had claimed Gwynedd – even those who had overrun it had no lasting interest in it; they cared only for the wealth it promised.

  There could be, as Elphin realized, no return to the past. Better to have a known rascal like Cunedda – who could be relied upon to look out for his own interests, if nothing else – than an unknown rascal. Granting land to Cunedda could be a masterstroke of diplomacy and defence. Maximus might then more easily gut the garrison for his move to Gaul, having done what he could for the region by bringing in a strong clan to protect it. For his part, the old boar would be flattered and gratified to be so recognized by the Emperor; he might even mend his ruthless ways in an effort to win the respect of his neighbours.

  Time would tell.

  The others drifted into talk of other concerns, so I excused myself and took the harp to my room where I set about tuning it and trying my hand. So long had it been since I had last held a harp – in fact, the last time had been on the night I sang in Maelwys' hall.

  A beautiful instrument, the harp is crafted by bardic artisans using tools and skills guarded, honed, and improved over a thousand years. The finest wood: heart of oak or walnut, carefully, gracefully cut, shaped, and smoothed by hand. Polished with a preserving lacquer and strung with brass or gut, a well-made harp sings of itself; in the wandering wind it hums. But let the hand of a bard touch those bright strings and it leaps into song.

  There is a saying among bards that all songs ever to be made lie sleeping in the heart of the harp and only await the harper's touch to awaken them. I have felt this to be true, for often the songs themselves seem to teach the fingers to play.

  After a time, the feel of my fingers on the strings began to come back to me. I tried playing one of the songs I liked best and managed to get through it with only a few hesitations.

  For some reason, cradling the harp, Ganieda came to my mind. I had thought about her often since leaving Custennin's forest stronghold. Even though it had been in her father's mind to send Gwendolau with me, that did not lessen her concern for me. Did she, like her father, also guess I shared ancestry with the Fair Folk? Was that what attracted her to me, and I to her?

  Oh, yes, I was attracted to her: smitten with that dark beauty, some might say, from the moment I saw her plunging recklessly through the wood in pursuit of that monstrous boar. First the sound of their chase and the sight of the beast thrashing through the stream, and then… Ganieda, suddenly appearing in the light, spear in hand, eyes bright, intense, fevered determination shaping her lovely features.

  Ganieda of the Fair Folk – was it coincidence? Had chance alone brought us together? Or something beyond chance?

  However it was, our lives could not go on as before. Soon or late, there would be a decision. In my heart of hearts I knew the answer already, and hoped I knew it aright.

  The harp brought these things to my mind. Music, I suppose, was part of the beauty I associated, even then, with Ganieda. Already, though we scarcely knew each other, she was part of me and had a place in my thoughts and in my heart.

  Did you know that, Ganieda? Did you feel it, too?

  ELEVEN

  Pendaran Gleddyvrudd, King of the Demetae and Silures in Dyfed, had grown weedy with the years, his muscles like rawhide cords beneath a skin of bleached vellum. His eyes were keen and bright, serving a mind that was, in its way, still alert and quick. But in his last years he had become simple. This he had in common with many whom age strips of guile and pretence.

  A day or two after visiting Dafyd's chapel, I came in from walking with my mother and found him sitting in his customary place by the hearth. He had an iron poker in his hand and was jabbing at the spent logs, cracking them into embers.

  'Ah! Myrddin, lad. The others have had you to themselves long enough. It is my turn now. Come here.'

  Mother excused herself and I settled myself into the chair opposite him on the hearth. 'Events are galloping, eh, Myrddin? But then they always are.'

  'Yes,' I agreed. 'You have seen a great many things come to pass in your lifetime.' Gleddyvrudd, the word meant Red Sword, and I wondered what kind of king he had been to win himself that name.

  'More than most men, true.' He winked, and stirred the embers with the poker in his hand.

  'What do you think about Maximus becoming emperor?' I asked, curious to hear what he would say.

  'Bah!' He wrinkled his face with distaste. 'Upstart, you mean. What does he want to be emperor for?'

  'Perhaps he thinks he can win peace for us, look out for our interests.'

  Pendaran shook his bald head. 'Peace! So he takes the legions and marches off to Gaul first thing – why does he want to do that, I ask you?' He sighed. 'I will tell you, shall I? Vanity, lad. Our Emperor Maximus is a vain man, too easily led by men's good opinion of him.'

  'He is a great soldier.'

  'Never believe it! A real soldier would stay home and protect his own and not go looking for a fight on foreign shores. Who will he fight over there? Saecsens? Ha! He will go for Gratian's throat.' He gave a derisive laugh. 'Oh, that is what we need – two strutting peacocks pecking each other's eyes out while the Sea Wolves run through us as if we were sheep in a pen.'

  'If he achieves peace in Gaul, he will certainly come back with more troops for us and put a stop to it.'

  'Hoo
!' Pendaran hooted with glee. 'Do not believe it! He will carve up that runt Gratian and then he will fix his eyes on Rome. Mark me, Myrddin, we have seen the last of Maximus. Have you ever known a man to return from Rome? Once across the water, he is gone. A pity he took all our best fighting men with him.' He shook his head sadly, as a father might for a wayward son.

  'A great pity that; a very great pity,' he continued. 'Stupid vanity! It will be his death and ours, too! Stupid man.'

  Old Red Sword's grasp of the situation was surprisingly accurate. He had lived long and had learned not to be distracted by appearances and political manoeuvring. What is more, he showed me that I had placed too much hope in an ambitious man's idealism.

  'But you, Myrddin, look at you. I wish Salach were here. He would want to see you.'

  'Where is your youngest son?'

  Taken the orders, he has. Dafyd arranged for him to become a priest. He has gone to Gaul to receive the learning.' He sighed, 'It must take a lot of learning to be a priest; he has been gone a long time.'

  I had never met Salach, although I had heard of him. He had been there when my father was killed. 'You must be very proud of him. It is a fine thing to be a priest.'

  'Proud I am,' he agreed. 'A priest and a king in the same family. We are fortunate.' He turned his bright eyes on me. 'What about you; Myrddin? What will you become?'

  I smiled and shook my head. 'Who can say, Grandfather?' My use of the word pleased him. He smiled and reached out to pat my arm.

  'Ah, well, you have time yet to decide. Plenty of time.' He stood abruptly. 'I am going to sleep now.' And off he went.

  I watched him go, wondering why his question left me feeling unsettled. And it came into my head that I. must see Blaise very soon.

  Events, as Pendaran said, were galloping. While I had dreamed away in my hollow hill, the world had continued turning and the affairs of men had continued apace: more violent incursions by Pict and Scot and Saecsen; an emperor proclaimed; armies gathered; garrisons abandoned; people moving on the land… Now I was in the thick of it, and felt that somehow, in some way, something was required of me, but I had no idea what it was.

  Perhaps Blaise could help me find the answer. In any event, it had been nearly four years since I had last seen him and I missed him – and not Blaise only, but Elphin and Rhonwyn, Cuall and all the others at Caer Cam. This was not the only time I had thought about them since my disappearance, but there was an urgency now that I had not experienced before.

  Unfortunately, I had no choice but to wait until spring opened the land to travel once more.

  One moon passed and then another. With Gwendolau, and others, I rode Maelwys' hunting runs, or rambled the hills around Maridunum. The days were short, but left long nights to enjoy one another's company around the fire, playing chess or talking. Also, I began singing again as my skill and confidence with the harp returned. Needless to say, my songs and tales were welcome in the hall where my father had sung so many years before. In all it was a good time for resting and gathering strength for the year ahead. I tried to rein in my impatience and not begrudge my inactivity, but to value this quiet time for its own sake.

  In this I was only partially successful. The ferment in my heart and head made it seem as if I were standing rooted in place while the world flew by me in a dizzy race.

  Nevertheless, the day came at last when we bade Pendaran and Dafyd farewell and started towards Ynys Avallach and the Summerlands. For me, it was a journey back to another time: all remained precisely as I remembered it. Nothing had changed, or seemed likely to change, ever.

  Maelwys travelled with us, and Gwendolau, Baram, and some of Maelwys' men as escort. Oh, we were a bold company, though, whether ranged along the road two-by-two, as we most often were, or encamped in a wooded glade in the first flush of spring. The days took whig and one day, just after midday, I saw it: the Tor, rising from the mist-clouded waters of the lake at its feet. And on the Tor the palace of Avallach the Fisher King.

  Even at a fair distance I was struck by the strangeness of the palace – the place I had grown up! That the home of my childhood should appear almost alien to me struck me like a physical blow. Had I been so long in the world of mortal men that I had forgotten the grace and refinement of the Fair Folk?

  It was inconceivable that such beauty, such elegance and symmetry, could fade from my mind in that tune. Seeing the palace in this way was like seeing it for the first time: the tall, sloping walls with their narrow, pinnacled towers; the high-arched roofs and domes within; the massive gateposts with their flowing banners.

  Indeed, the palace belonged to another world. I saw my home much the way any stranger on the road might view it when coming upon it in the mist. And I understood how easily one might believe the tales of magical beings and strange enchantments. Was the palace itself not a thing of enchantment? Half-hidden in the mists, remote on its looming Tor, and surrounded by reed-fringed waters, now shining blue, now grey slate and troubled, Ynys Avallach seemed an Otherworldly place.

  But if the palace appeared strange to my eyes, the person of Avallach did not. At our approach the gates were opened and the king himself met us on the road. He shouted to see me, and I leaped from my horse and ran to his embrace.

  What a reunion that was! Avallach had not changed – I eventually learned he never would – but I think I half-expected that the home of my childhood would have changed as much as I had. Everything was just the same as the day I left it.

  Avallach greeted the rest of the party with equal enthusiasm – but stopped when he beheld Gwendolau and Baram. He turned to Charis and she stepped beside him. 'Yes, Father,' she said softly, 'they are Fair Folk also; they are Meirchion's people.'

  The Fisher King raised his hand to his head. 'Meirchion, my old ally. It is long since I heard that name… ' He stared at the strangers, then burst into a grin. 'Welcome! Welcome, friends! I am glad you are here. Come into my hall, there is much I want to hear from you!'

  That night Gwendolau, Baram, Maelwys and I, held audience with Avallach in his high chamber. The Fisher King's malady came on him again, so he retreated to his chamber where he lay propped up on his red silk pallet, face white against the dark curls of his beard.

  He listened to Gwendolau's recitation of the events that had brought them to Ynys Avallach, shaking his head slowly, his eyes holding the vision of a time and place now lost for ever.

  There were two ships, I have been told,' Gwendolau said. 'They were separated at sea – one reached this island. We never learned what happened to the other ship, although it was hoped we would discover one day. That is why, when my father met Myrddin – well, he thought the others had been found at last.' Gwendolau paused, then brightened. 'Still, finding you is just as good. I am only sorry Meirchion did not live to see it.'

  'I, too, am sorry Meirchion is dead; there is so much we could say to one another,' he said sadly. 'Did he ever speak about the war?'

  'I was not yet born when he died,' replied Gwendolau. 'Baram knew him.'

  'Tell me,' said Avallach to Baram, 'for I would know.'

  It was some moments before Baram replied. 'He spoke of it seldom. He was not proud of his part in it… ' Baram paused eloquently. 'But he allowed that without the ships we would never have survived.'

  'We understand that your brother, King Belyn, was also saved,' said Gwendolau.

  'Yes, with a few of his people. They settled in the south, in Llyonesse. My son Maildun rules there with him.' Avallach frowned and added, 'There was trouble between us and it has been many years since we have spoken to one another.'

  'So the Lady Charis has told us,' affirmed Gwendolau. 'She also spoke of another ship, I believe.'

  Avallach nodded slowly. There was another ship – Kian, my oldest son, and Elaine, Belyn's queen… ' He sighed. 'But it, like everything else, was lost.'

  It had been a long time since I had thought about that lost ship. Kian and Belyn had stolen ships from the enemy fleet and had rescued t
he survivors of Atlantis' destruction. Kian had turned aside to save Belyn's wife, Elaine, and had never been seen again.

  As a child I had heard of it, of course, but it belonged with all the other lost things of that lost world. But now, sitting in the king's chamber with Avallach and Gwendolau, I began wondering anew whether that ship was truly lost. Might it, like Meirchion's ship, have made landfall somewhere? Might there be, like Custennin's forest stronghold, another colony of survivors somewhere?

  Gwendolau and Baram's presence made the possibility seem almost a certainty. If another Fair Folk settlement existed, where would it be found?

  'My father has instructed me to offer you bonds of friendship by whatever token you esteem. He extends the hospitality of his hearth to you and yours now and for all time to come.'

  "Thank you, Prince Gwendolau; I am honoured,' Avallach accepted graciously. 'I should like to prove that hospitality for myself, but as you see,' he lifted a hand to indicate his condition, 'travelling is not possible for me. Still, that must not interfere with the bonds of friendship – allow me to send an emissary to accept in my stead.'

  'Lord, that will not be necessary,' Gwendolau assured him.

  'Nevertheless, it shall be done.' Avallach turned his eyes to me. 'What about you, Merlin? Will you serve me in this?'

  'Certainly, Grandfather,' I answered. Indeed, I had been wondering how I might find a way back to Goddeu and Ganieda. Suddenly, it seemed as if I were half-way there.

  'But first,' continued Avallach, turning back to Gwendolau, 'I would have you speak to Belyn. I know he would be grateful for the information you bring. Would you consider going to him?'

  Gwendolau glanced at Baram, who, as usual, gave no sign of what he thought or felt.

  'I know you are anxious to return home, but having come this far…'

  'Do not think of it,' replied Gwendolau. 'My father would approve, and, in any event, it is only a small delay.'