Merlin's Booke

by Jane Yolen

  The mage bowed low and then, with a wink, began drawing a series of colored scarves from behind the soldier’s ear. They were all shades of red: crimson, pink, vermilion, flame, scarlet, carmine, and rose.

  “For your lady,” Ambrosius said, holding out the scarves.

  The soldier laughed aloud and took them. “The lady’s colors. She will be pleased. Though not, I think, his lordship.”

  “The white soldiers, then, are his?” asked Ambrosius.

  Ignoring the question, the soldier said, “Be in the kitchen by nones. We ring the bells here. The duke is most particular.”

  “Is dinner included?” asked Viviane.

  “Yes, mistress,” the soldier replied. “You shall eat what the cook eats.” He turned and left.

  “Then let us hope,” said Viviane to his retreating back, “that we like what the cook likes.”

  Merlin dreamed that night and woke screaming but could not recall exactly what he had dreamed. The mage’s hand was on his brow and Viviane wrung out cool water onto a cloth for him.

  “Too much excitement for one day,” she said, making a clucking sound with her tongue.

  “And too many meat pies,” added the mage, nodding.

  The morning of the second day of the holy day fair came much too soon. And noisily. When Merlin went to don his green-and-gold suit, Ambrosius stayed him.

  “Save that for the lady’s performance. I need you in your old cotte to go around the fair. And remember—use your ears and eyes.”

  Nodding, Merlin scrambled into his old clothes. They had been tidied up by Viviane, but he was aware, for the first time, of how really shabby and threadbare they were. Ambrosius slipped him a coin.

  “You earned this. Spend it as you will. But not on food, boy. We will feast enough at the duke’s expense.”

  Clutching the coin, Merlin escaped into the early morning crowds. In his old clothes, he was unremarked, just another poor lad eyeing the wonders at the holy day fair.

  At first he was seduced by the stalls. The variety of foods and cloth and toys and entertainments were beyond anything he had ever imagined. But halfway around the second time, he remembered his charge. Eyes and ears. He did not know exactly what Ambrosius would find useful but he was determined to uncover something.

  “It was between the Meadowlands Jugglers and a stall of spinach pies,” he told Ambrosius later, wrinkling his nose at the thought of spinach baked in a flakey crust. “A white plumed soldier and a red were quarreling. It began with name calling. Red called white, ‘Dirty men of a dirty duke,’ and white countered with ‘Spittle of the Lady Cock.’ And they would have fallen to, but a ball from the jugglers landed at their feet and the crowd surged over to collect it.”

  “So there is no love lost between the two armies,” mused Ambrosius. “I wonder if they were the cause of the twisted earth around the city walls.”

  “And after that I watched carefully for pairs of soldiers. They were everywhere matched, one red and one white. And the names between them bounced back and forth like an apple between boys.”

  The mage pulled on his beard thoughtfully. “What other names did you hear?”

  “She was called Dragonlady, Lady Death, and the Open Way.”

  Ambrosius laughed. “Colorful. And one must wonder how accurate.”

  “And the duke was called Pieless, the Ewe’s Own Lover, and Draco,” said Merlin, warming to his task.

  “Scurrilous and the Lord knows how well-founded. But two dragons quarreling in a single nest? It will make an unsettling performance at best. One can only wonder why two such creatures decided to wed.” Ambrosius worked a coin across his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. It was a sign he was thinking.

  “Surely, for love?” whispered Merlin.

  Viviane, who had been sitting quietly, darning a colorful petticoat, laughed. “Princes never marry for love, little hawk. For money, for lands, for power—yes. Love they find elsewhere or not at all. That is why I would never be a prince.”

  Ambrosius seemed not to hear her, but Merlin took in every word and savored the promise he thought he heard.

  They arrived at the old castle as the bells chimed nones. And the castle was indeed old; its keep from the days of the Romans was mottled and pocked but was still the most solid part of the building. Even Merlin, unused as he was to the ways of builders, could see that the rest was of shoddy material and worse workmanship.

  “The sounds of building we heard from far off must be a brand-new manor being constructed,” said Ambrosius. “For the new-wedded pair.”

  And indeed the cook, whose taste in supper clearly matched Viviane’s, agreed. “The duke’s father fair beggared our province fighting off imagined invaders, and his son seems bent on finishing the job. He even invited the bloody-minded Saxons in to help.” He held up his right hand and made the sign of horns and spat through it. “Once, though you’d hardly credit it, this was a countryside of lucid fountains and transparent rivers. Now it’s often dry as dust, though it was one of the prettiest places in all Britain. And if the countryside is in tatters, the duke’s coffers are worse. That is why he has made up his mind to marry the Lady Renwein. She has as much money as she has had lovers, so they say, and that is not the British way. But the duke is besotted with both her counte and her coinage. And even I must admit she has made a difference. Why, they are building a new great house upon the site of the old Roman barracks. The duke is having it constructed on the promise of her goods.”

  Viviane made no comment but kept eating. Ambrosius, who always ate sparingly before a performance, listened intently, urging the cook on with well-placed questions. Following Viviane’s actions, Merlin stuffed himself and almost made himself sick again. He curled up in a corner near the hearth to sleep. The last thing he heard was the cook’s continuing complaint.

  “I know not when we shall move into the new house. I long for the larger hearth promised, for now with the red guards to feed as well as the duke’s white—and the Saxon retainers—I need more. But the building goes poorly.”

  “Is that so?” interjected Ambrosius.

  “Aye. The foundation does not hold. What is built up by day falls down by night. There is talk of witchcraft.”

  “Is there?” Ambrosius asked smoothly.

  “Aye, the Saxons claim it against us. British witches, they cry. And they want blood to cleanse it.”

  “Do they?”

  A hand on his shoulder roused Merlin, but he was still partially within the vivid dream.

  “The dragons …” he murmured and opened his eyes.

  “Hush,” came Ambrosius’ voice. “Hush—and remember. You called out many times in your sleep: dragons and castles, water and blood, but what it all means you kept to yourself. So remember the dream, all of it. And I will tell you when to spin out the tale to catch the conscience of Carmarthen in its web. If I am right …” He touched his nose.

  Merlin closed his eyes again and nodded. He did not open them again until Viviane began fussing with his hair, running a comb through the worst tangles and pulling at his cotte. She tied a lover’s knot of red and white ribbands around his sleeve, then moved back.

  “Open your eyes, boy. You are a sight.” She laughed and pinched one cheek.

  The touch of her hand made his cheeks burn. He opened his eyes and saw the kitchen abustle with servants. The cook, now too busy to chat with them further, was working at the hearth, basting and stirring and calling out a string of instructions to his overworked crew. “Here, Stephen, more juice. Wine up to the tables and hurry, Mag—they are pounding their feet upon the floor. The soup is hot enough, the tureens must be run up, and mind the handles. Use a cloth, Nan, stupid girl. And where are the sharp knives? These be dull as Saxon wit. Come, Stephen, step lively; the pies must come out the oast or they burn. Now!”

  Merlin wondered that he could keep it all straight.

  The while Ambrosius in one corner limbered up his fingers, having already checked out his
apparatus and Viviane, sitting down at the table, began to tune her harp. Holding it on her lap, her head cocked to one side, she sang a note then tuned each string to it. It was a wonder she could hear in all that noise—the cook shouting, Stephen clumping around and bumping into things. Nan whining, and Mag cursing back at the cook—but she did not seem to mind, her face drawn up with passionate intensity.

  Into the busyness strode a soldier. When he came up to the hearth, Merlin could see it was the same one who had first tendered them the invitation to perform. His broad, homey face was split by a smile, wine and plenty of hot food having worked their own magic.

  “Come, mage. And you, singer. We are ready when you are.”

  Ambrosius gestured to three large boxes. “Will you lend a hand?”

  The soldier grunted.

  “And my boy comes, too,” said Ambrosius.

  Putting his head to one side as if considering, the soldier asked, “Is he strong enough to carry these? He looks small and puling.”

  “He can carry if he has to, but he is more than that to us.”

  The soldier laughed. “You will have no need of a tambourine boy to pass among the gentlefolk and soldiers. Her ladyship will see that you are well enough paid.”

  Ambrosius stood very tall and dropped his voice to a deep, harsh whisper. “I have performed in higher courts than this. I know what is fit for fairs and what is fit for a great hall. You know not to whom you speak.”

  The soldier drew back.

  Viviane smiled but carefully, so that the soldier could not see it, and played three low notes on the harp.

  Merlin did not move. It was as if for a moment the entire kitchen had turned to stone.

  Then the soldier gave a short, barking laugh, but his face was wary. “Do not mock me, mage. I saw him do nothing but pick up coins.”

  “That is because he only proffers his gifts for people of station. I am but a mage, a man of small magics and tricks that fool the eye. But the boy is something more.” He walked toward Merlin slowly, his hand outstretched.

  Still Merlin did not move, though imperceptibly he stood taller. Ambrosius put his hand on Merlin’s shoulders.

  “The boy is a reader of dreams,” said the mage. “What he dreams comes true.”

  “Is this so?” asked the soldier, looking around.

  “It is so,” said Viviane.

  Merlin closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, they were the color of an ocean swell, blue-green washed with gray. “It is so,” he said at last.

  From the hearth where he was basting the joints of meat, the cook called out, “It is true that the boy dreamed here today. About two dragons. I heard him cry out in his sleep.”

  The soldier, who had hopes of a captaincy, thought a moment, then said, “Very well, all three of you come with me. Up the stairs. Now.” He cornered young Stephen to carry the mage’s boxes, and marched smartly out the door.

  The others followed quickly, though Merlin hung back long enough to give the other boy a hand.

  Viviane sang first, a medley of love songs that favored the duke and his lady in turn. With the skill of a seasoned entertainer, she inserted the Lady Renwein’s name into her rhyme, but called the duke in the songs merely “The Duke of Carmarthen town.” (Later she explained to Merlin that the only rhymes she had for the duke’s name were either scurrilous or treasonous, and sang a couple of verses to prove it.) Such was her ability, each took the songs as flattering, though Merlin thought he detected a nasty undertone in them that made him uncomfortable. But Viviane was roundly applauded and at the end of her songs, two young soldiers picked her up between them and set her upon, their table for an encore. She smiled prettily at them, but Merlin knew she hated their touch, for the smile was one she reserved for particularly messy children, drunken old men—and swine.

  Deftly beginning his own performance at the moment Viviane ended hers, Ambrosius was able to cover any unpleasantness that might occur if one of the soldiers dared take liberties with Viviane as she climbed down from the tabletop. He began with silly tricks—eggs, baskets, even a turtle was plucked from the air or from behind an unsuspecting soldier’s ear. The tortoise was the one the mage had found when they had been fishing.

  Then Ambrosius moved on to finer tricks, guessing the name of a soldier’s sweetheart, finding the red queen in a deck of cards missing yet discovering it under the Lady Renwein’s plate, and finally making Viviane disappear and reappear in a series of boxes through which he had the soldiers thrust their swords.

  The last trick brought great consternation to the guards, especially when blood appeared to leak from the boxes, blood which when examined later proved to be juices from the meat which Viviane had kept in a flask. And when she reappeared, whole, unharmed, and smiling once the swords had been withdrawn from the box, the great hall resounded with huzzahs.

  The duke smiled and whispered to the Lady Renwein. She covered his hand with hers. When he withdrew his hand, the duke held out a plump purse. He jangled it loudly.

  “We are pleased to offer you this, Ambrosius.”

  “Thank you, my lord. But we are not done yet,” said the mage with a bow which, had it been a little less florid, would have been an insult. “I would introduce you to Merlin, our dream reader, who will tell you of a singular dream he had this day in your house.”

  Merlin came to the center of the room. He could feel his legs trembling. Ambrosius walked over to him and, turning his back to the duke, whispered to the boy. “Do not be afraid. Tell the dream and I will say what it means.”

  “Will you know?” asked Merlin.

  “My eyes and ears know what needs be said here,” said Ambrosius, “whatever the dream. You must trust me.”

  Merlin nodded and Ambrosius moved aside. The boy stood with his eyes closed and began to speak.

  “I dreamed a tower of snow that in the day reached high up into the sky but at night melted to the ground. And there was much weeping and wailing in the country because the tower would not stand.”

  “The castle!” the duke gasped, but Lady Renwein placed her hand gently on his mouth.

  “Hush, my lord,” she whispered urgently. “Listen. Do not speak yet. This may be merely a magician’s trick. After all, they have been in Carmarthen for two days already and surely there is talk of the building in the town.”

  Merlin, his eyes still closed, seemed not to hear them, but continued. “And then one man arose, a mage, who advised that the tower of icy water be drained in the morning instead of building atop it. It was done as he wished, though the soldiers complained bitterly of it. But at last the pool was drained and lo! there in the mud lay two great hollow stones as round and speckled and veined as gray eggs.

  “Then the mage drew a sword and struck open the eggs. In the one was a dragon the color of wine, its eyes faceted as jewels. In the other a dragon the color of maggots, with eyes as tarnished as old coins.

  “And when the two dragons saw that they were revealed, they turned not on the soldiers nor the mage but upon one another. At first the white dragon had the best of it and pushed the red to the very edge of the dry pool, but it so blooded its opponent that a new pool was formed, the color of the ocean beyond the waves. But then the red rallied and pushed the white back, and it slipped into the bloody pool and disappeared, never to be seen again whole.

  “And the man who advised began to speak once more, but I awoke.”

  At that, Merlin opened his eyes and they were the blue of speedwells on a summer morn.

  The Lady Renwein’s face was dark and disturbed. In a low voice she said, “Mage, ask him what the dream means.”

  Ambrosius bowed very low this time, for he saw that while the duke might be easily cozzened, the Lady Renwein was no fool. When he stood straight again, he said, “The boy dreams, my lady, but he leaves it to me to make sense of what he dreams. Just as did his dear, dead mother before him.”

  Merlin, startled, looked at Viviane. She rolled her eyes up
to stare at the broad beams of the ceiling and held her mouth still.

  “His mother was a dream reader, too?” asked the duke.

  “She was, though being a woman, dreamed of more homey things: the names of babes and whether they be boys or girls, and when to plant, and so forth.”

  The Lady Renwein leaned forward. “Then say, mage, what this dream of towers and dragons means.”

  “I will, my lady. It is not unknown to us that you have a house that will not stand. However, what young Merlin has dreamed is the reason for this. The house or tower of snow sinks every day into the ground; in the image of the dream, it melts. That is because there is a pool beneath it. Most likely the Romans built the conduits for their baths there. With the construction, there has been a leakage underground. The natural outflow has been damaged further by armies fighting. And so there has been a pooling under the foundation. Open up the work, drain the pool, remove or reconstruct the Roman pipes, and the building will stand.”

  “Is that all?” asked the duke, disappointment in his voice. “I thought that you might say the red was the Lady Renwein’s soldiers, the white mine or some such.”

  “Dreams are never quite so obvious, my lord. They are devious messages to us, truth …” he paused for a moment and put his hands on Merlin’s shoulders, “truth on the slant.”

  Lady Renwein was nodding. “Yes, that would make sense. About the drains and the Roman pipes, I mean. Not the dream. You need not have used so much folderol in order to give us good advice.”

  Ambrosius smiled and stepped away from Merlin and made another deep bow. “But my lady, who would have listened to a traveling magician on matters of … shall we say … state?”

  She smiled back.

  “And besides,” Ambrosius added, “I had not heard this dream until this very moment. I had given no thought before it to your palace or anything else of Carmarthen excepting the fair. It is the boy’s dream that tells us what to do. And, unlike his mother of blessed memory, I could never guess a baby’s sex before it was born lest she dreamed it. And she, the minx, never mentioned that she was carrying a boy to me, nor did she dream of him till after he was born when she, dying, spoke of him once. ‘He will be a hawk among princes,’ she said. So I named him Merlin.”