by Mary Stewart
"But will it be safe to take him back? If Uther's sending him here now because of enemies at home, are you sure it will be better then?"
"It's a risk that will have to be taken. I want to be near the child as he grows. It should be in Britain, and therefore it must be in secret. There are bad times coming, Hoel, for us all. I cannot yet see what will happen, beyond these facts; that this boy — this bastard if you like — will have enemies, even more than Uther has. You call him bastard; so will other men with ambition. His secret enemies will be more deadly even than the Saxons. So he must be hidden until the time comes for him to take the crown, and then he must take it with no cast of doubt, and be raised King in the sight of all Britain."
"'He must be?' You have seen things, then?" But before I could answer he shied quickly away from the strange ground, and cleared his throat. "Well, I'll keep him safe for you, as well as I may. Just tell me what you want. You know your own business, always did. I'll trust you to keep me right with Uther." He gave his great laugh. "I remember how Ambrosius used to say that your judgment in matters of policy, even when you were a youngling, was worth ten of any bedroom emperor's." My father, naturally, had said no such thing, and in any case would hardly have said it to Hoel, who had a fair reputation himself as a lover, but I took it as it was intended, and thanked him. He went on: "Well, tell me what you want. I confess I'm puzzled...These enemies you talk of, won't they guess he's in Brittany? You say Uther made no secret of his plans, and when the time comes for the royal ship to sail and it's seen that you and the child aren't on it, won't they simply think he was sent over earlier, and search first for him here in Brittany?"
"Probably. But by that time he'll be disposed of in the place I've arranged for him, and that's not the kind of place where Uther's nobles would think of looking. And I myself will be gone."
"What place is that? Am I to know?"
"Of course. It's a small village near your boundary, north, towards Lanascol."
"What?" He was startled, and showed it. One of the hounds stirred and opened an eye. "North? At the edge of Gorlan's land? Gorlan is no friend to the Dragon."
"Nor to me," I said. "He's a proud man, and there is an old score between his house and my mother's. But he has no quarrel with you?"
"No, indeed," said Hoel fervently, with the respect of one fighting man for another.
"So I believed. So Gorlan isn't likely to make forays into the edge of your territory. What's more, who would dream that I would hide the child so near him? That with all Brittany to choose from, I'd leave him within bowshot of Uther's enemy? No, he'll be safe. When I leave him, I'll do so with a quiet mind. But that's not to say I'm not deeply in your debt." I smiled at him. "Even the stars need help at times."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Hoel gruffly. "We mere kings like to think we have our parts to play. But you and your stars might make it a bit easier for us, perhaps? Surely, in all that great forest north of here, there must be safer places than the very edge of my lands?"
"Possibly, but it happens that I have a safe house there. The one person in both the Britains who'll know exactly what to do with the child for the next four years, and will care for him as she would for her own."
"She?"
"Yes. My own nurse, Moravik. She's a Breton born, and after Maridunum was sacked in Camlach's war she left South Wales and went home. Her father owned a tavern north of here at a place called Coll. Since he'd grown too old for work, a fellow called Brand kept it for him. Brand's wife was dead, and soon after Moravik returned home she and Brand married, just to keep things right in the sight of God...and, knowing Moravik, I'm not just talking about the inn's title deeds...They keep the place still. You must have passed it, though I doubt if you'd ever stop there — it stands where two streams join and a bridge crosses them. Brand's a retired soldier of your own, and a good man — and in any case will do as Moravik bids him." I smiled. "I never knew a man who didn't, except perhaps my grandfather."
"Ye-es." He still sounded doubtful, "I know the village, a handful of huts by the bridge, that's all...As you say, hardly a likely place to hunt a High King's heir. But an inn? Isn't that in itself a risk? With men — Gorlan's, too, since it's a time of truce — coming and going from the road?"
"So, no one will question your messengers or mine. My man Ralf will stay there to guard the boy, and he'll need to stay abreast of news, and get messages to you from time to time, and to me."
"Yes. Yes, I see. And when you take the child there, what's your story?"
"No one will think twice about a traveling harper plying his trade on a journey. And Moravik has put a story round that will explain the sudden appearance of Ralf and the baby and his nurse. The story, if anyone questions it, will be that the girl, Branwen, is Moravik's niece, who bore a child to her master over in Britain. Her mistress cast her from the house, and she had no other place to go, but the man gave her money for the passage to her aunt's house in Brittany, and paid the traveling singer and his man to escort her. And the singer's man, meanwhile, will decide to leave his master and stay with the girl."
"And the singer himself? How long will you stay there?"
"Only as long as a traveling singer might, then I'll move on and be forgotten. By the time anyone even thinks to look farther for Uther's child, how can they find him? No one knows the girl, and the baby is only a baby. Every house in the country has one or more to show."
He nodded, chewing it over this way and that, and asked a few more questions. Finally he admitted: "It will serve, I suppose. What do you want me to do?"
"You have watchers in the kingdoms that march with yours?"
He laughed shortly. "Spies? Who hasn't?"
"Then you'll hear quickly enough if there's any hint of trouble from Gorlan or anyone else. And if you can arrange for some quick and secret contact with Ralf, should it be necessary — ?"
"Easy. Trust me. Anything I can do, short of war with Gorlan..." He gave his deep chuckle again. "Eh, Merlin, it's good to see you. How long can you stay?"
"I'll take the boy north tomorrow, and with your permission will go unescorted. I'll come back as soon as I see all is safe. But I'll not come here again. You might be expected to receive a traveling singer once, but not actually to encourage him."
"No, by God!"
I grinned. "If this weather holds, Hoel, could the ship stay for me for a few days?"
"For as long as you like. Where do you plan to go?"
"Massilia first, then overland to Rome. After that, eastwards."
He looked surprised. "You? Well, here's a start! I'd always thought of you being as fixed as your own misty hills. What put that into your head?"
"I don't know. Where do ideas come from? I have to lose myself for a few years, till the child needs me, and this seemed to be the way. Besides, there was something I heard." I did not tell him that it had only been the wind in the bowstrings. "I've had a mind lately to see some of the lands I learned about as a boy."
We talked on then for a while. I promised to send letters back with news from the eastern capitals, and, as far as I could, I gave him points of call to which he would send his own tidings and Ralf's about Arthur.
The fire died down and he roared for a servant. When the man had been and gone —
"You'll have to go and sing in the hall soon," said Hoel. "So if we've got all clear, we'll leave it at that, shall we?" He leaned back in his chair. One of the hounds got to its feet and pushed against his knee, asking for a caress. Over the sleek head the King's eyes gleamed with amusement. "Well now, you've still to give me the news from Britain. And the first thing you can do is to tell me the inside story of what happened nine months ago."
"If you in your turn will tell me what the public story is."
He laughed. "Oh, the usual stories that follow you as closely as your cloak flapping in the wind. Enchantments, flying dragons, men carried through the air and through walls, invisibly. I'm surprised, Merlin, that you take the trouble to come
by ship like an ordinary man, when your stomach serves you so ill. Come now, the story."
It was very late when I got back to our lodging. Ralf was waiting, half asleep in the chair by the fire in my room. He jumped up when he saw me, and took the harp from me.
"Is all well?"
"Yes. We go north in the morning. No, thank you, no wine. I drank with the King, and they made me drink again in the hall."
"Let me take your cloak. You look tired. Did you have to sing to them?"
"Certainly." I held out a handful of silver and gold pieces, and a jewelled pin. "It's nice to think, isn't it, that one can earn one's keep so handsomely? The jewel was from the King, a bribe to stop me singing, otherwise they'd have had me there yet. I told you this was a cultured country. Yes, cover the big harp. I'll take the other with me tomorrow." Then as he obeyed me: "What of Branwen and the baby?"
"Went to bed three hours since. She's lying with the women. They seem very pleased to have a baby to look after." He finished on a note of surprise which made me laugh.
"Did he stop crying?"
"Not for an hour or two. They didn't seem to mind that, either."
"Well, no doubt he'll start again at cock-crow, when we rouse them. Now go to bed and sleep while you can. We start at first light."
13
There is a road leading almost due north out of the town of Kerrec, the old Roman road which runs straight as a spearcast across the bare, salty grassland. A mile out of town, beyond the ruined posting station, you can see the forest ahead of you like a slow tidal wave approaching to swallow the salt flats. This is a vast stretch of woodland, deep and wild. The road spears straight into it, aiming for the big river that cuts the country from east to west. When the Romans held Gallia there was a fort and settlement beyond the river, and the road was built to serve it; but now the river marks the boundary of Hoel's kingdom, and the fort is one of Gorlan's strongholds. The writ of neither king runs far into the forest, which stretches for countless hilly miles, covering the rugged center of the Breton peninsula. What traffic there is keeps to the road; the wild land is served only by the tracks of charcoal-burners and woodcutters and men who move secretly outside the law. At the time of which I write the place was called the Perilous Forest, and was reputed to be magicbound and haunted. Once leave the road and plunge into the tracks that twist through the tangled trees, and you could travel for days and hardly see the sun.
When my father had held command in Brittany under King Budec, his troops had kept order even in the forest, as far as the river where King Budec's land ended and King Gorlan's began. They had cut the trees well back to either side of the road, and opened up some of the subsidiary tracks, but this had been neglected, and now the saplings and the bushes had crowded in. The paved surface of the road had long since been broken by winter, and here and there it crumbled off into patches of ironhard mud that in soft weather would be a morass.
We set out on a grey, cold day, with the wind tasting faintly of salt. But though the wind blew damp from the sea it brought no rain with it, and the going was fair enough. The huge trees stood on either hand like pillars of metal, holding a weight of low, grey sky. We rode in silence, and after a few miles the thickly encroaching growth of the underwood forced us, even on this road, to ride in single file. I was in the lead, with Branwen behind me, and Ralf in the rear leading the packmule. I had been conscious for the first hour or so of Ralf's tension, the way his head turned from side to side as he watched and listened; but we saw and heard nothing except the quiet winter life of the forest; a fox, a pair of roe deer, and once a shadowy shape that might have been a wolf slipping away among the trees. Nothing else; no sound of horses, no sign of men.
Branwen showed no hint of fear. When I glanced back I saw her always serene, sitting the neat-footed mule stolidly, with an unmoved calm that held no trace of uneasiness. I have said little about Branwen, because I have to confess that I remember very little about her. Thinking back now over the span of years, I see only a brown head bent over the baby she carried, a rounded cheek and downcast eyes and a shy voice. She was a quiet girl who — though she talked easily enough to Ralf — rarely addressed me of her own will, being painfully in awe of me both as prince and enchanter. She seemed to have no inkling of any risk or danger in our journey, nor did she seem stirred — as most girls would have been — by the excitement of traveling abroad to a new country. Her imperturbable calm was not due to confidence in myself or Ralf; I came to see that she was meek and biddable to the point of stupidity, and her devotion to the baby was such as to blind her to all else. She was the kind of woman whose only life is in the bearing and rearing of children, and without Arthur she would, I am sure, have suffered bitterly over the loss of her own baby. As it was, she seemed to have forgotten this, and spent the hours in a kind of dreamy contentment that was exactly what Arthur needed to make the discomforts of the journey tolerable.
Towards noon we were deep in the forest. The branches laced thick overhead, and in summer would have shut out the sky like a pitched shield, but above the bare boughs of winter we could see a pale and shrouded point of light where the sun struggled to be through. I watched for a sheltered place where we could leave the road without showing too many traces, and presently, just as the baby woke and began to fret, saw a break in the undergrowth and turned my horse aside.
There was a path, narrow and winding, but in the sparse growth of winter it was passable. It led into the forest for a hundred paces or so before it divided, one path leading on deeper among the trees, the other no more than a deertrod — winding steeply up to skirt the base of a rocky spur. We followed the deertrod. This picked its way through fallen boulders tufted with dead and rusty fern, then led upwards round a stand of pines, and faded into the bleached grass of a tiny clearing above the rock. Here, in a hollow, the sun came with a faint warmth. We dismounted, and I spread a saddlecloth in the most sheltered spot for the girl, while Ralf tethered the horses below the pines and threw down feed from the hay nets. Then we sat ourselves down to eat. I sat at the lip of the hollow, with my back against a tree, a post from which I could see the main path running below the rock. Ralf stayed with Branwen. It had been a long time since we had broken our fast, and we were all hungry. The baby, indeed, had begun to yell lustily as the mule scrambled up the steep path. Now he found his cries stifled against the girl's nipple, and fell silent, sucking busily.
The forest was very quiet. Most wild creatures lie still at noon. The only thing moving was a carrion crow, which flapped heavily down onto a pine above us, and began to caw. The horses finished their feed and dozed, hip-shotten, heads low. The baby still fed, but more slowly, drowsing into milky sleep. I leaned back against the stem of the tree. I could hear Branwen murmuring to Ralf. He said something, and I heard her laugh, then through the murmur of the two young voices I caught another, distant, sound. Horses, at the trot.
At my word the boy and girl fell abruptly silent. Ralf was on his feet in the blink of an eye, and kneeling beside me to watch the path below. I signed Branwen to stay where she was. I need not have troubled; she had turned a wondering look on us, then the baby hiccupped, and she held him to her shoulder, patting him, all her attention on him again. Ralf and I knelt at the edge of the clearing, watching the path below.
The horses — there were two of them by the sound of it — could not be wood-cutters' beasts nor the slow train of the charcoal-burners. Trotting horses, in the Perilous Forest, meant only one thing, trouble. And travelers who carried, as we did, gold for the baby's keep were quarry for any outlaws and disaffected men. Hampered as we were by Branwen and Arthur, both fighting and flight were impossible. Nor was it easy, with the baby, to keep silent and let danger pass by so closely. I had made it clear to Ralf that whatever happened he was to stay with the girl and, at the least hint of danger, leave it to me to devise some way of drawing the danger away. Ralf had protested, mutinied, then finally seen the sense of it and sworn to obey.
; So now when I whispered, "Only two, I think. If they don't come up this way, they'll not see us. Get to the horses. And for God's sake tell the girl to keep the baby quiet," he merely nodded, melting back from my side. He stooped to whisper to Branwen, and I saw her nod placidly, shifting the child to her other breast. Ralf slipped like a shadow among the pines where the horses stood. I waited, watching the path.
The riders were approaching. There was no other sound except the crow, still cawing high in the pine tree. Then I saw them. Two horses, trotting single file; poor beasts, heavy bred and none too well fed by the look of them, careless how they put their feet, and having to be hauled up by their cursing riders at every hole or root across the path. It was a fair enough guess that the men were outlaws. They were as unkempt as their beasts, and looked half savage, and dangerous. They were dressed in what looked like old uniforms, and on the arm of one of them was a dirty badge, half torn away. It looked like Gorlan's. The fellow in the rear rode carelessly, lolling in the saddle as if half drunken, but the man in front pricked at the alert, as such men learn to do, his head moving from side to side like that of a questing dog. He held a bow at the ready. Through the rotten leather of the sheath at his thigh I saw the long knife, burnished to a killing point.
They were almost below me. They were passing. There had been no sound from the baby, nor from our horses, hidden among the pines. Only the carrion crow, balancing high in the sunshine, scolded noisily.
I saw the fellow with the bow lift his head. He said something over his shoulder, in a thick accent I could not catch. He grinned, showing a row of rotten teeth, then lifted his bow, notched it, and sent an arrow whizzing into the pine. It hit. The crow shot upwards off the bough with a yell, then fell, transfixed. It landed within two paces of Branwen and the child, flapped for a second or two, then lay still.
