Ah, but that delay… another month or more before I could see Ganieda again.
'We have tarried this long,' Gwendolau said, 'a little longer will make no difference. And it furthers our purpose admirably.'
Oh, well, there was nothing to be done. It was perhaps the first time in my life that I felt the cramp of kingcraft hindering my plans. It would not be the last.
We talked long into the night. Gwendolau and Avallach were still talking when I went to my bed, and Baram, who never had much to say at any time, had given up long ago and was snoring softly in the corner as I crept from the room. I dreamed of Ganieda that night, and of a great hound with blazing eyes that kept me from her.
The next day Avallach and I went fishing as we used to do when I was a child. Sitting in the long boat with him, the sun pouring gold on the water, the reeds alive with coots and moorhens, brought that time back to me once more. The day was cool, for the sun had not gained its full strength, and a fitful spring breeze stirred the waves now and again. There was not much fishing done, but that was never the point.
Grandfather wanted to know all about what I had seen and done. For one who never moved beyond the boundaries of his own realm, he knew a surprising amount about the affairs of the larger world. Of course, in Elphin he had a constant and reliable source of news, and he always welcomed the traders that happened along the way.
When we returned to the palace, Collen was waiting for his regular audience with Avallach – a custom begun during the long winter months when Avallach, confined to his litter, had invited the priest to read to him from the holy text – a book of the Gospels which Dafyd had recently acquired from Rome. The reading had proven so beneficial to them both, they had continued it. Indeed, the brothers occasionally said mass in the great hall for the Fisher King and his people.
After recovering from his surprise, Collen greeted me warmly and we talked briefly about my 'ordeal' among the Hill Folk, before he excused himself to attend Avallach, saying, 'You must come to the Shrine when you can.'
'I will,' I promised, and did so the next afternoon. The Shrine of the Saviour God stands to this day on a little hill above the soft, marshy ground of the lowlands in that region. In spring flood the Tor and Shrine Hill are virtual islands; occasionally, the ancient causeway leading from the Tor is under water as well. But this year the rains had not been so heavy and the causeway remained dry.
The Shrine was much as I remembered it; the mud-daubed walls were newly washed white with lime, and its high-peaked thatched roof only a little darker with age. Someone had plaited the reed thatch into the shape of a cross at the roofs crown, and a fair-sized single-room dwelling for the priests stood well down on the shoulder of the hill away from the Shrine, but these were the only changes I noticed as I approached.
I tethered my horse at the bottom of the hill and approached on foot. Collen came out of the priest's dwelling, followed by two young brothers who could not have been much older than myself. They grinned and shook my hands in the Gaulish greeting, but, besides a murmured welcome, said nothing.
'They are shy,' explained Collen. 'They have heard about you,' he added cryptically. 'From Hafgan.'
I could guess that Hafgan had told them about the dance of the stones. We walked together to the Shrine.
There is a peculiar joy of the flesh that is like no other, a joy that is as much longing as gladness. It is, I think, the yearning of bone and blood for the exultation that the spirit knows when approaching its true habitation. The body knows it is dust, and will return to dust in the end, and it grieves for itself. The spirit, however, knows itself to be eternal and glories in this knowledge. Both strain after the glory they rightfully possess, or will possess in time.
But unlike the spirit, the flesh's hope is tenuous. Therefore, in those rare times when it senses the truth – that it will be made incorruptible, that it will inherit all that the spirit owns, that the two shall become one – then, in those rarest of moments, it revels in a joy too sweet for words. This is the joy I felt upon entering the Shrine. Here, where good men had sanctified a heathen land with their prayers and, later, with the blood of their veins, that special joy could be found. Here in this holy place I could feel the peace breathed out upon this world from that other, higher world above.
The Shrine was clean-swept and smelling of oil, candles, and incense. The altar was a slab of stone on two stone pillars; it was very old. The silence of the Shrine was deep and serene, and as I stood in the centre of the single room, with the sunlight streaming in through the cross-shaped window onto the altar, I watched the dust motes descend slanting beams of yellow light, like tiny angels drifting earthward on errands of mercy.
Watching this, I apprehended minute and subtle shiftings in the light and shadow of the shrine. There was movement and flux, a discernable ebb and flow to these seemingly static properties. Could it be that the Powers Dafyd described, the Principalities, the Rulers of Darkness in the high places were even now encroaching on this most holy place?
As if in response to this encroachment, the single beam of light narrowed and gathered, growing finer.and more intense, burning into the altar stone. The stone blazed where the light struck it, and the shadows retreated. But, even as I looked, the circle of white-gold light thickened, taking on substance and shape: the substance of silvery metal, the shape of a wine cup of the sort used in a marriage feast. The object was plain and simply made, possessing no great value of itself.
Yet, the Shrine was suddenly filled with a fragrance at once so sweet and fresh that I thought of all the golden summer days I had known, and all the meadows of wildflowers ever ridden through, and every soft moonlit night-breeze that ever drifted through my window. To look upon the cup was to sense an unutterable peace, whole and unassailable, the abiding calm of endless, enduring authority, vigilant and present – if unseen – and supreme in its strength.
It came into my mind that to hold the cup would be to possess, in-part, this peace. I stepped nearer to the altar and put out my hand. The light of the cup flared, and the image faded as my hand closed around it.
There was nothing left but the sunlight streaming in through the window above the altar and my hand on the cold stone. The shadows deepened and drew closer, stealing the last of the fading radiance. And I felt my own strength flow away like water poured out onto dry ground.
Great Light, preserve your Shrine, and clothe its servants with wisdom and might; gird them for the struggle ahead!
Footsteps sounded behind me and Collen entered the cool, dark room. He peered carefully at my face – there must have been some lingering sign of my vision – but said nothing. Perhaps he knew what it was I had seen.
'Indeed, this is a holy place,' I told him. 'For that reason the Darkness will try all the harder to destroy it.'
So that my words would not alarm him, I said, 'But never fear, brother, it cannot succeed. The Lord of this place is stronger than any power on earth; the Darkness will not prevail.'
Then we prayed together. I shared the simple meal the brothers had prepared and talked of my travels, and their work at the Shrine, before heading back to the palace.
I spent the next days rediscovering Ynys Avallach. As I visited once more the places of my childhood, the thought came to me that this kingdom, this realm of the Faery could not endure. It was too fragile, too dependent on the strength and amity of the world of men. When that failed, the Fair Folk would vanish.
The thought did not cheer me.
One morning I found my mother in her room, kneeling at a wooden chest. I had seen the chest countless times before, but never open. It was, I knew, a relic of Atlantis made of gopher wood, inlaid with ivory, and carved with the figures of fanciful creatures with the heads and forequarters of bulls and the hindquarters of sea serpents.
'Come in, Merlin,' she said as I came to stand in the doorway. I went to her and sat down in the chair beside the chest. She had lifted out several small, neatly-wrapped bundles, a rather
long, narrow bundle tied with strips of leather among them.
'I am looking for something,' she said, and continued to sift the contents of the chest.
One of the items on the floor beside her was a book. I lifted it gently and opened its brittle pages. The first bore a painting of a great island all in green and gold on a sea of stunning blue. 'Is this Atlantis?' I asked.
'It is,' she said, taking the book in her hands. She stroked the page with her fingertips, lightly, as if touching the face of a loved one. 'My mother's greatest possession was her library. She had many books – some you have seen. But this one stands above them all because it was her treasure; it was the last she received.' Charis turned the pages and peered at the foreign script and sighed. Looking at me, she smiled. 'I do not even know what it is about. I never learned. I saved it because of the painting.'
'It is indeed a treasure,' I told her. My eye fell on the narrow bundle beside her. I picked it up and untied the lacing. A moment later the gleaming hilt of a sword was revealed to me. Carefully, but with some haste, I stripped away the oiled leather and soon held a long, shimmering blade, light and quick as thought itself, the weapon of a dream made for the hand of a god, beautiful, cold, and deadly.
'Was this my father's?' I asked, watching the light slide like water over the exquisite thing.
She sat back on her heels, shaking her head lightly. 'No, it is Avallach's, or was meant to be. I had it made for him by the High King's armourers in Poseidonis, the finest craftsmen in the world. The Atlantean artisans, I was told, perfected a method of strengthening the steel – a secret they guarded zealously.
'I bought the sword for Avallach, it was to be a peace offering between us.'
'What happened?'
My mother lifted a hand to the sword. 'It was a difficult time. He was ill… his injury… he did not want it; he said it mocked him.' She touched her fingertips to the shining blade. 'But I kept it anyway. I suppose I thought I would find a use for it. It is very valuable, after all.'
Lofting high the wonderful weapon, stabbing the air with short thrusts, I said, 'Perhaps its time has not yet come.'
It was just something that came to my head and I said it. But Charis nodded seriously. 'No doubt that is why I saved it.'
The grip was formed by the intertwined bodies of two crested serpents whose emerald and ruby encrusted heads became the pommel. Just below the red-gold hilt, I traced the script engraved there. 'What do these figures mean?'
Charis held the sword across her palms. 'It says, "Take Me Up",' she replied, turning the blade, 'and here: "Cast Me Aside".'
A curious legend for a king's weapon. By what power had she chosen those words? Did she sense in some way, however obscurely, the role that her gift would play in the dire and glorious events that birthed our nation?
'What will you do with it now?' I asked.
'What do you think I should do with it?'
'A sword like this could win a kingdom.'
'Then take it, my son, and win your kingdom with it.' Kneeling before me, she held it out to me.
I reached for the sword, but something prevented me. After a moment, I said, 'No, no, it is not for me. At least, not yet. Perhaps one day I will need such a weapon.'
Charis accepted this without question. 'It will be here for you,' she said, and began wrapping it up again.
I wanted to stop her, to strap that elegant length of cold steel to my hip, to feel its splendid weight filling my hand. But it was not yet time. I knew that, and so I let it be.
TWELVE
So it was that I found myself once more in the saddle – this time on the way to Llyonesse. Before starting out, however, I managed a short stay at Caer Cam to visit my grandfather Elphin. To say they were happy to see me would be to tell a lie through gross understatement. They were ecstatic. Rhonwyn, still as beautiful as ever I remembered her, fussed over me and fed me to bursting – when I was not lifting jars with Elphin and Cuall.
Our talk turned to matters of concern. Here, like everywhere else, men were mindful of Maximus' taking the purple, and his departure to Gaul with the troops. And they had a grim opinion of what that meant.
Cuall summed up their attitude when, after the beer jar had gone round four or five times, he remarked, 'I love die man – I will fight anyone who says different. But,' he leaned forward for emphasis, 'taking almost the whole of the British host is dangerous and foolhardy. He is grasping too high, is Maximus. Aye, but he always was a grasper.'
'Nothing good can come of it,' agreed Turl, CualTs son, who was now one of Elphin's battlechiefs. 'There will be much blood spilled over this, and for what? So Maximus can wear a laurel crown.' He snorted loudly. 'All for a handful of leaves!'
'They came through here OP the way to the docks at Londinium,' explained Elphin. 'The Emperor asked me to join him. He would have made me a governor.' Elphin smiled wistfully, and I saw how much that might have meant to him. 'I could not go -'
'You speak no Latin!' hooted Cuall. 'I can just see you in one of those ridiculous togas – how could you ever abide it?'
'No,' Elphin laughed, 'I could not abide it.'
Rhonwyn hovered near and refilled the jar from a pitcher. 'My husband is too modest. He would make a wonderful governor,' she bent and kissed his head, 'and an even better emperor.'
'At least I would not be tempted to go borrowing trouble beyond these shores. What's wrong with an emperor making his capital right here?' Lord Elphin spread his hands to the land around him. 'Think of it! A British emperor, holding the whole of the island for his capital – now, that would be a force to reckon with!'
'Aye,' agreed Cuall, 'Maximus has made a grave mistake.'
'Then he will pay with his life,' growled Turl. Bone and blood, he was his father's son.
'And we will pay with ours,' said Elphin. 'That is the shame of it. The innocent will pay – our children and grandchildren will pay.'
The talk had turned gloomy, so Rhonwyn sought to lighten it. 'What was it like with the Hill Folk, Myrddin?'
'Do they really eat their children?' asked Turl.
'Do not be daft, boy,' Cuall reprimanded, then added, 'But, I heard they can turn iron into gold.'
'Their goldcraft is remarkable,' I told him. 'But they value their children more than gold, more even than their own lives. Children are truly the only wealth they know.'
Rhonwyn, who had never born a living child, understood how this could be, and agreed readily. 'We had a little Gern that used to come to Diganhwy in the summer to trade for spun wool. She used thin sticks of gold which she broke into pieces for her goods. I have not thought of her in all these years, but I remember her as if it were yesterday. She healed our chieftain's wife of fever and cramps with a bit of bark and mud.'
'They know many secrets,' I said. 'Still, for all that they will not long remain in this world. There is no place for them. Already the tallfolk squeeze them out – taking the good grazing land, pushing them further and further north and west into the rocky wastes.'
'What will happen to them?' wondered Rhonwyn.
I paused, remembering Gern-y-fhain's words, which I spoke: 'There is a land in the west, which Mother made and put aside for her firstborn. Long ago, when men began to wander on the earth, Mother's children were enticed to stray and then forgot the way back to the Fortunate Land. But one day they will remember and they will find their way back.' I ended by saying, 'The Prytani believe that a sign will tell them when it is time to return, and one will arise from among them to lead the way. They believe that day is soon here.'
'The things you say, Myrddin,' remarked Cuall, shaking his grey head slowly. 'It puts me in mind of another young man I used to know.' He reached out a heavy hand and ruffled my hair.
Cuall was no great thinker, but his loyalty, once earned, was stronger than death itself. In older times, a great king might boast a warband numbering six hundred warriors; but give me just twelve like Cuall to ride at my side and I could rule an empire.
'How long can you stay, Myrddin?' asked Elphin.
'Not long,' I answered, and told him of my journey to Llyonesse and Goddeu for Avallach. 'We must leave in a few days' time.'
'Llyonesse,' muttered Turl. 'We have been hearing strange things from that region.' He rolled his eyes significantly.
'What strange things?' I asked.
'Signs and wonders. A great sorceress has taken residence there,' said Turl, looking to the others for confirmation. When it was not forthcoming, he shrugged. 'That is what I hear.'
'You believe too much of what you hear,' his father told him.
'You will stay the night at least,' said Rhonwyn.
'Oh, tonight, and tomorrow night as well – if you can find a place for me.'
'Why, have we no stable? No cow byre?' She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me. 'Of course, I will find a place for you, Myrddin Bach.'
The time passed far too quickly, and soon I was waving my farewell to Caer Cam, with only one regret – aside from not having enough time to spend there. And that was that I had missed seeing Blaise. Elphin told me that, since Hafgan's death, Blaise had been travelling a great deal and was seldom at the caer. He said the druid had told him there was strife within the Brotherhood and that Blaise had his hands full trying to avert bloodshed. Beyond that, Elphin knew no more.
The day after I returned from Caer Cam, we started for Llyonesse. Now I had never been to Belyn's realm in the southern lowlands, and knew little about it other than that it was Belyn's realm and that Maildun, Charis' brother and my uncle, lived there with him. The Llyonesse branch of the Fisher King's family was seldom mentioned; other than Avallach's hint of a longstanding disagreement between them – and that I had only recently found out – I knew nothing at all about what sort of man his brother Belyn might be, or what sort of reception we might expect.
We travelled through country in the first blush of summer, green and promising a good harvest hi time to come. It was a rough country, however, and grazing grass was short, the hills steeper, the soil rocky and thin. It did not boast the luxury of the Summerlands, or of Dyfed.
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