by Mary Stewart
None of this would have deterred me from riding alone with Cadal from Maridunum to London. No outlaw or thief would have faced a look from me, let alone risked a curse. Since events at Dinas Brenin, Killare, and Amesbury my fame had spread, growing in song and story until I hardly recognized my own deeds. Dinas Brenin had also been renamed; it had become Dinas Emrys, in compliment to me as much as to commemorate Ambrosius' landing, and the strong-point he had successfully built there. I lived, too, as well as I ever had in my grandfather's palace or in Ambrosius' house. Offerings of food and wine were left daily below the cave, and the poor who had nothing else to bring me in return for the medicines I gave them, brought fuel, or straw for the horses' bedding, or their labor for building jobs or making simple furniture. So winter had passed in comfort and peace, until on a sharp day in early March Uther's messenger, having left the escort in the town, came riding up the valley.
It was the first dry day after more than two weeks of rain and sleety wind, and I had gone up over the hill above the cave to look for the first growing plants and simples. I paused at the edge of a clump of pines to watch the solitary horseman cantering up the hill. Cadal must have heard the hoofbeats; I saw him, small below me, come out of the cave and greet the man, then I saw his pointing arm indicating which way I had gone. The messenger hardly paused. He turned his beast uphill, struck his spurs in, and came after me.
He pulled up a few paces away, swung stiffly out of the saddle, made the sign, and approached me.
He was a brown-haired young man of about my own age, whose face was vaguely familiar. I thought I must have seen him around Uther's train somewhere. He was splashed with mud to the eyebrows, and where he was not muddy his face was white with fatigue. He must have got a new horse in Maridunum for the last stage, for the animal was fresh, and restive with it, and I saw the young man wince as it threw its head up and dragged at the reins.
"My lord Merlin. I bring you greetings from the King, in London."
"I am honored," I said formally.
"He requests your presence at the feast of his coronation. He has sent you an escort, my lord. They are in the town, resting their horses."
"Did you say 'requests'?"
"I should have said 'commands,' my lord. He told me I must bring you back immediately."
"This was all the message?"
"He told me nothing more, my lord. Only that you must attend him immediately in London."
"Then of course I shall come. Tomorrow morning, when you have rested the horses?"
"Today, my lord. Now."
It was a pity that Uther's arrogant command was delivered in a slightly apologetic way. I regarded him.
"You have come straight to me?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Without resting?"
"Yes."
"How long has it taken you?"
"Four days, my lord. This is a fresh horse. I am ready to go back today." Here the animal jerked its head again, and I saw him wince.
"Are you hurt?"
"Nothing to speak of. I took a fall yesterday and hurt my wrist. It's my right wrist, not my bridle hand."
"No, only your dagger hand. Go down to the cave and tell my servant what you have told me, and say he is to give you food and drink. When I come down I shall see to your wrist." He hesitated. "My lord, the King was urgent. This is more than an invitation to watch the crowning."
"You will have to wait while my servant packs my things and saddles our horses. Also while I myself eat and drink. I can bind up your wrist in a few minutes. And while I am doing it you can give me the news from London, and tell me why the King commands me so urgently to the feast. Go down now; I shall come in a short while."
"But, sir --"
I said: "By the time Cadal has prepared food for the three of us I shall be with you. You cannot hurry me more than that. Now go."
He threw me a doubtful look, then went, slithering on foot down the wet hill-side and dragging the jibbing horse after him. I gathered my cloak round me against the wind, and walked past the end of the pine wood and out of sight of the cave.
I stood at the end of a rocky spur where the winds came freely down the valley and tore at my cloak. Behind me the pines roared, and under the noise the bare blackthorns by Galapas' grave rattled in the wind. An early plover screamed in the grey air. I lifted my face to the sky and thought of Uther and London, and the command that had just come. But nothing was there except the sky and the pines and the wind in the blackthorns. I looked the other way, down towards Maridunum.
From this height I could see the whole town, tiny as a toy in the distance. The valley was sullen green in the March wind. The river curled, grey under the grey sky. A wagon was crossing the bridge. There was a point of color where a standard flew over the fortress. A boat scudded down-river, its brown sails full of the wind. The hills, still in their winter purple, held the valley cupped as one might hold in one's palms a globe of glass...
The wind whipped water to my eyes, and the scene blurred. The crystal globe was cold in my hands. I gazed down into it. Small and perfect in the heart of the crystal lay the town with its bridge and moving river and the tiny, scudding ship. Round it the fields curved up and over, distorting in the curved crystal till fields, sky, river, clouds held the town with its scurrying people as leaves and sepals hold a bud before it breaks to flower. It seemed that the whole countryside, the whole of Wales, the whole of Britain could be held small and shining and safe between my hands, like something set in amber. I stared down at the land globed in crystal, and knew that this was what I had been born for. The time was here, and I must take it on trust.
The crystal globe melted out of my cupped hands, and was only a fistful of plants I had gathered, cold with rain. I let them fall, and put up the back of a hand to wipe the water from my eyes. The scene below me had changed; the wagon and the boat had gone; the town was still.
I went down to the cave to find Cadal busy with his cooking pots, and the young man already struggling with the saddles of our horses.
"Let that alone," I told him. "Cadal, is there hot water?"
"Plenty. Here's a start and a half, orders from the King. London, is it?" Cadal sounded pleased, and I didn't blame him.
"We were due for a change, if you ask me. What is it, do you suppose? He" -- jerking his head at the young man -- "doesn't seem to know, or else he's not telling. Trouble, by the sound of it."
"Maybe. We'll soon find out. Here, you'd better dry this." I gave him my cloak, sat down by the fire, and called the young man to me. "Let me see that arm of yours now."
His wrist was blue with bruising, and swollen, and obviously hurt to the touch, but the bones were whole. While he washed I made a compress, then bound it on. He watched me half apprehensively, and tended to shy from my touch, and not only, I thought, with pain. Now that the mud was washed off and I could see him better, the feeling of familiarity persisted even more strongly. I eyed him over the bandages. "I know you, don't I?"
"You wouldn't remember me, my lord. But I remember you. You were kind to me once." I laughed. "Was it such a rare occasion? What's your name?"
"Ulfin."
"Ulfin? It has a familiar sound...Wait a moment. Yes, I have it. Belasius' boy?"
"Yes. You do remember me?"
"Perfectly. That night in the forest, when my pony went lame, and you had to lead him home. I suppose you were around underfoot most of the time, but you were about as conspicuous as a field mouse. That's the only time I remember. Is Belasius over here for the coronation?"
"He's dead."
Something in his tone made me cock an eye at him over the bandaged wrist. "You hated him as much as that? No, don't answer, I guessed as much back there, young as I was. Well, I shan't ask why. The gods know I didn't love him myself, and I wasn't his slave. What happened to him?"
"He died of a fever, my lord."
"And you managed to survive him? I seem to remember something about an old and barbarous custom --"
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"Prince Uther took me into his service. I am with him now -- the King."
He spoke quickly, looking away. I knew it was all I would ever learn. "And are you still so afraid of the world, Ulfin?"
But he would not answer that. I finished tying the wrist. "Well, it's a wild and violent place, and the times are cruel. But they will get better, and I think you will help to make them so. There, that's done. Now get yourself something to eat. Cadal, do you remember Ulfin? The boy who brought Aster home the night we ran into Uther's troops by Nemet?"
"By the dog, so it is." Cadal looked him up and down. "You look a sight better than you did then. What happened to the druid? Died of a curse? Come along then, and get something to eat. Yours is here, Merlin, and see you eat enough for a human being for a change, and not just what might keep one of your precious birds alive."
"I'll try," I said meekly, and then laughed at the expression on Ulfin's face as he looked from me to my servant and back again.
We lay that night at an inn near the crossroads where the way leads off north for the Five Hills and the gold mine. I ate alone in my room, served by Cadal. No sooner had the door shut behind the servant who carried the dishes than Cadal turned to me, obviously bursting with news.
"Well, there's a pretty carry-on in London, by all accounts."
"One might expect it," I said mildly. "I heard someone say Budec was there, together with most of the kings from across the Narrow Sea, and that most of them, and half the King's own nobles, have brought their daughters along with an eye to the empty side of the throne." I laughed. "That should suit Uther."
"They say he's been through half the girls in London already," said Cadal, setting a dish down in front of me. It was Welsh mutton, with a good sauce made of onions, hot and savory.
"They'd say anything of him." I began to help myself. "It could even be true."
"Yes, but seriously, there's trouble afoot, they say. Woman trouble."
"Oh, God, Cadal, spare me. Uther was born to woman trouble."
"No, but I mean it. Some of the escort were talking, and it's no wonder Ulfin wouldn't. This is real trouble. Gorlois's wife."
I looked up, startled. "The Duchess of Cornwall ? This can't be true."
"It's not true yet. But they say it's not for want of trying."
I drank wine. "You can be sure it's only rumor. She's more than half as young again as her husband, and I've heard she's fair. I suppose Uther pays her some attention, the Duke being his second in command, and men make all they can of it, Uther being who he is. And what he is."
Cadal leaned his fists on the table and looked down at me. He was uncommonly solemn. "Attention, is it? They say he's never out of her lap. Sends her the best dishes at table each day, sees she's served first, even before he is, pledges her in front of everybody in the hall every time he raises his goblet. Nobody's talking of anything else from London to Winchester. I'm told they're laying bets in the kitchen."
"I've no doubt. And does Gorlois have anything to say?"
"Tried to pass it over at first, they say, but it got so that he couldn't go on pretending he hadn't noticed. He tried to look as if he thought Uther was just doing the pair of them honor, but when it came to sitting the Lady Ygraine -- that's her name -- on Uther's right, and the old man six down on the other side" He paused.
I said, uneasily: "He must be crazed. He can't afford trouble yet -- trouble of any kind, let alone this, and with Gorlois of all people. By all the gods, Cadal, it was Cornwall that helped Ambrosius into the country at all, and Cornwall who put Uther where he is now. Who won the battle of Damen Hill for him?"
"Men are saying that, too."
"Are they indeed?" I thought for a moment, frowning. "And the woman? What -- apart from the usual dunghill stuff -- do they say about her?"
"That she says little, and says less each day. I've no doubt Gorlois has plenty to say to her at night when they're alone together. Anyway, I'm told she hardly lifts her eyes in public now, in case she meets the King staring at her over his cup, or leaning across at the table to look down her dress."
"That is what I call dunghill stuff, Cadal. I meant, what is she like?"
"Well, that's just what they don't say, except that she's silent, and as beautiful as this, that and the other thing." He straightened. "Oh, no one says she gives him any help. And God knows there's no need for Uther to act like a starving man in sight of a dish of food; he could have his platter piled high any night he liked. There's hardly a girl in London who isn't trying to catch that eye of his."
"I believe you. Has he quarreled with Gorlois? Openly, I mean?"
"Not so that I heard. In fact, he's been over-cordial there, and he got away with it for the first week or so; the old man was flattered. But Merlin, it does sound like trouble; she's less than half Gorlois' age and spends her life mewed up in one of those cold Cornish castles with nothing to do but weave his war-cloaks and dream over them, and you may be sure it's not of an old man with a grey beard."
I pushed the platter aside. I remember I still felt wholly unconcerned about what Uther was doing. But Cadal's last remark came a little too near home for comfort. There had been another girl, once, who had had nothing to do but sit at home and weave and dream...
I said abruptly: "All right, Cadal. I'm glad to know. I just hope we can keep clear of it ourselves. I've seen Uther mad for a woman before, but they've always been women he could get. This is suicide."
"Crazed, you said. That's what men are saying, too," said Cadal slowly. "Bewitched, they call it." He looked down at me half-sideways. "Maybe that's why he sent young Ulfin in such a sweat to make sure you'd come to London. Maybe he wants you there, to break the spell?"
"I don't break," I said shortly. "I make."
He stared for a moment, shutting his mouth on what, apparently, he had been about to say. Then he turned away to lift the jug of wine. As he poured it for me, in silence, I saw that his left hand was making the sign. We spoke no more that night.
4
As soon as I came in front of Uther I saw that Cadal had been right. Here was real trouble.
We reached London on the very eve of the crowning. It was late, and the city gates were shut, but it seemed there had been orders about us, for we were hustled through without question, and taken straight up to the castle where the King lay. I was scarcely given time to get out of my mud-stained garments before I was led along to his bedchamber and ushered in. The servants withdrew immediately and left us alone.
Uther was ready for the night, in a long bedgown of dark brown velvet edged with fur. His high chair was drawn to a leaping fire of logs, and on a stool beside the chair stood a pair of goblets and a lidded silver flagon with steam curling gently from the spout. I could smell the spiced wine as soon as I entered the room, and my dry throat contracted longingly, but the King made no move to offer it to me. He was not sitting by the fire. He was prowling restlessly up and down the room like a caged beast, and after him, pace for pace, his wolfhound followed him.
As the door shut behind the servants he said abruptly, as he had said once before: "You took your time."
"Four days? You should have sent better horses." That stopped him in his tracks. He had not expected to be answered. But he said, mildly enough: "They were the best in my stables."
"Then you should get winged ones if you want better speed than we made, my lord. And tougher men. We left two of them by the way." But he was no longer listening. Back in his thoughts, he resumed his restless pacing, and I watched him. He had lost weight, and moved quickly and lightly, like a starving wolf. His eyes were sunken with lack of sleep, and he had mannerisms I had not seen in him before; he could not keep his hands still. He wrung them together behind him, cracking the finger-joints, or fidgeted with the edges of his robe, or with his beard.
He flung at me over his shoulder: "I want your help."
"So I understand." He turned at that. "You know about it?" I lifted my shoulders. "Nobody talks of anyt
hing else but the King's desire for Gorlois' wife. I understand you have made no attempt to hide it. But it is more than a week now since you sent Ulfin to fetch me. In that time, what has happened? Are Gorlois and his wife still here?"
"Of course they are still here. They cannot go without my leave."
"I see. Has anything yet been said between you and Gorlois?"
"No."
"But he must know."
"It is the same with him as with me. If once this thing comes to words, nothing can stop it. And it is the crowning tomorrow. I cannot speak with him."
"Or with her?"
"No. No. Ah, God, Merlin, I cannot come near her. She is guarded like Danaë." I frowned. "He has her guarded, then? Surely that's unusual enough to be a public admission that there's something wrong?"
"I only mean that his servants are all round her, and his men. Not only his bodyguard -- many of his fighting troops are still here, that were with us in the north. I can only come near her in public, Merlin. They will have told you this."
"Yes. Have you managed to get any message to her privately?"
"No. She guards herself. All day she is with her women, and her servants keep the doors. And he -- " He paused. There was sweat on his face. "He is with her every night."
He flung away again with a swish of the velvet robe, and paced, soft-footed, the length of the room, into the shadows beyond the firelight. Then he turned. He threw out his hands and spoke simply, like a boy.
"Merlin, what shall I do?"
I crossed to the fire-place, picked up the jug and poured two goblets of the spiced wine. I held one out to him. "To begin with, come and sit down. I cannot talk to a whirlwind. Here."
He obeyed, sinking back in the big chair with the goblet between his hands. I drank my own, gratefully, and sat down on the other side of the hearth.
Uther did not drink. I think he hardly knew what he had between his hands. He stared at the fire through the thinning steam from the goblet. "As soon as he brought her in and presented her to me, I knew. God knows that at first I thought it was no more than another passing fever, the kind I've had a thousand times before, only this time a thousand stronger --"
