Hollow Hills (26 page)

"I'm sorry, master. Master, are you ill? Master?"

I shook myself awake. My vision cleared. The steam had thinned, and the last of it was wisping away through the window. The girl's hands were still again, folded as before; she had shaken her hair back, and was watching me curiously. Stilicho had lifted the bowl from the burner, and peered at me across it, anxious and scared.

"Master, it's one you mix yourself. You said there was no harm in it..."

"No harm at all. But another time, watch what you're doing." I looked down at the girl. "I'm sorry, did I frighten you? It's nothing, a headache, I get them sometimes. Sudden, and soon gone. Now I must go. I leave London at the end of the week. If you need my help before then, send to me and I shall be glad to come." I smiled, and reached out a hand to touch her hair. "No, don't look so downcast, child. It's a hard gift to have, and not for young maids."

She curtsied to me again as I went out, the small lovely face hidden once more behind the curtaining hair.

I think this was the only time in my life that I saw Bryn Myrddin not as the home I was eager to reach, but as a mere halting place on a journey. And once I had arrived in Maridunum, instead of welcoming the familiar quiet of the valley, the company of my books, the time to think and to work with my music and my medicines, I found myself fretting to be away, all my being straining northwards to where the boy lived who was to be my life from this time on.

All I knew of him, apart from the cryptic reassurances which had come to me through Hoel and Ector, was that he was healthy and strong, though smaller for his age than Cei, Ector's own son, had been. Cei was eleven years old now, to Arthur's eight, and as familiar to my visions as the young prince. I had watched Arthur scuffling with the older boy, riding a horse that to my coward's eye looked far too big for him, playing at swordsmanship with staves, and then with swords: I suppose these must have been blunted, but all I saw was the dangerous flash of the metal, and here, though Cei had the strength and the longer reach, I could see that Arthur was quick as a sword himself. I watched the pair of them fishing, climbing, racing through the edge of the Wild Forest in a vain bid to escape Ralf who (with the help of Ector's two most trusted men) rode guard on Arthur at all times, day or night. All this I watched in the fire, in the smoke or the stars, and once where there were none of these and the message was straining to be through, in the side of a precious crystal goblet which Ahdjan was displaying to me in his palace by the Golden Horn. He must have wondered at my sudden inattention, but probably put it down to indigestion after one of his lavish meals, which to an Eastern host is rather a compliment than otherwise.

I could not even be sure that I should recognize Arthur when I saw him, nor could I tell what kind of boy he had grown to be. Daring I could see, and gaiety, and stubborn strength, but of his real nature I could be no judge; visions may fill the mind's eye, but it takes blood to engage the heart. I had not even heard him speak. Nor had I as yet any clear idea how to enter his life when I did reach the north country, but every night of my journey from London to Bryn Myrddin I walked outside under the stars, searching for what they had to tell me, and always the Bear hung there straight ahead of me, glittering, speaking of the dark north and cool skies and the smell of pines and mountain water.

Stilicho's reaction when he saw the cave where I lived was not what I expected. When I had left home to go on my travels, since I was to be away for so long, I had hired help to look after the place for me. I had left money with the miller on the Tywy, asking him to send one of his servants up from time to time; it was apparent that this had been done, for the place was clean, dry and well provisioned. There was even fresh bedding for the horses, and we had barely dismounted before the girl from the mill came panting after us up the track with goats' milk and fresh bread and five or six newly caught trout. I thanked her, and then, because I would not let Stilicho clean the fish at the holy well, asked her to show him where the runaway water trickled down below the cliff. While I checked over my sealed jars and bottles, making sure that the lock on my chest was untouched and that the books and instruments within were undamaged, I could hear the two young voices outside still clacking busily as the mill wheel, with a good deal of laughter as each tried to make the other understand the foreign tongue.

When at length the girl went and the boy came in with the fish neatly gutted and split ready for roasting, he seemed happily prepared to find the place as convenient and comfortable as any of the houses we had stayed in on my travels. At first I put this down in some amusement to the compensation he had just discovered, but I found later that he had in fact been born and reared in just such a cave in his own country, where people of the lower sort are so poor that the owners of a well-placed and dry cavern count themselves lucky, and often have to fight like foxes to keep their den to themselves. Stilicho's father, who had sold him with rather less thought than one would give to an unwanted puppy, had been well able to spare him out of a family of thirteen; his room in the cave had been more valuable than his presence. As a slave, his quarters had been in the stables, or more usually out in the yard, and even since he had been in my service I was aware that I had lodged in places where the grooms were worse housed than the horses. The chamber he had occupied in London was the first he had ever had to himself. To him my cave on Bryn Myrddin was spacious and even luxurious, and now it promised further pleasures which did not often come the way of a young slave in the sharp competition of the servants' quarters.

So he settled in cheerfully, and word soon got round that the enchanter was back in his hill, and the folk came for drugs, and paid as they had always done with food and comforts. The miller's girl, whose name was Mai, seized every opportunity to come up the valley with food from the mill, and sometimes with the people's offerings which she brought for them. Stilicho, in his turn, made a practice of calling at the mill every time he went down to the town for me. And before very long it appeared that Mai had made him welcome in every way known to her. One night when I could not sleep I went out onto the lawn beside the holy well to look at the stars, and heard, in the night's quiet, the horses moving and stamping restlessly in their shed below the cliff. It was a night bright with stars and a white scythe of a moon, so I did not need a torch, but called softly to Stilicho to follow me and trod quickly down to the thorn grove to find out what was disturbing the beasts. It was only when I saw, through the half-opened door, the two young bodies coupling in the straw, that I realized Stilicho was there before me. I withdrew without being seen, and went back to my own bed to think.

A few days later when I talked to the boy, and told him that I planned to go north soon, but wanted no one to know of it, so would leave him behind to cover my retreat, he was enthusiastic, and fervent in protestations of faithfulness and secrecy. I was sure I could trust him; another gift he had besides his facility with drugs, he was a marvellous liar. I am told that this, too, is a gift of his people. My only fear was that he might lie too well, like his horse-trading father, and cheat himself and me into trouble. But it was a risk I had to take, and I judged him too loyal to me, and too happy in his life at Bryn Myrddin, to put it at risk. When he asked (trying not to sound too eager) when I would be gone, I could only tell him that I was waiting for a time, and a sign. As always, he accepted what I said, simply and without question. He would as soon have questioned a priestess mouthing in her shrine — they hold the Old Religion in Sicily — or Hephaistos himself when he breathed flame from the mountains. I had found that he believed every tale the people told of me, and would have shown no surprise if I had vanished in a puff of smoke or conjured gold from thin air. I suspected that, like Gaius, he made the most of his status as my servant; certainly Mai was terrified of me, and could not be persuaded to set foot beyond the thorn grove. Which was just as well for the plans I had in mind.

It was no magic sign that I was waiting for. If I had been certain it was safe, I would have set off for the north soon after I had reached home from London. But I knew that I would be watched. Uther would almost certainly continue to have me spied upon. There was no danger in this — not, that is, from the King; but if one man can buy a spy's loyalty, so can another, and there must be many others who, even only for curiosity, would be watching me. So I curbed my impatience, stayed where I was, and went about my business, waiting for the watchers to show themselves.

One day I sent Stilicho down with the horses to the forge at the edge of the town. Both animals had been shod for the journey from London, and though normally the shoes would have been removed before winter, I wanted my own mare left shod in preparation for my journey. Her girth buckles, too, were in need of repair, so Stilicho had ridden down, and was to do some errands in the town while the smith looked after the animals.

It was a day of frost, dry and still, but with the kind of thick sky that cuts the rays from the sun and lets it hang red and cold and low. I went over the hilltop to the hut of Abba the shepherd. His son Ban, the simpleton, had cut his hand a few days ago on a stake, and the wound had festered. I had cut the swelling and bound it with salve, but I knew that Ban could be trusted no more than a bandaged dog, and would worry the thing off if it hurt him.

I need not have troubled; the bandage was still in place, and the wound healing fast and neatly. Ban — I have noticed this with simple folk — mended like a child or a wild animal. Which was just as well, since he was one of those men who can hardly pass a week without injuring themselves in some way. After I had tended the hand I stayed. The hut was in a sheltered part of the valley, and Abba's sheep were all in fold. As sometimes happens, there were early lambs due, though it was only December. I stayed to help Abba with a hard lambing where the simpleton's hand would not have served him. By the time the twin lambs were curled, dry and sleeping, on Ban's knee near the fire, with the ewe watching nearby, the short winter's day had drawn to a red dusk. I took my leave, and walked home over the hilltop. The way took me across my own valley higher up, and it was dark when I reached the pine wood above the cave. The sky had cleared, the night was still and brightly starred, with a blurred moon throwing blue shadows on the frost. And shadows I saw, moving. I stopped dead, and stood to watch.

Four men, on the flat lawn outside my cave. From the thorn thicket below the cliff came the movement and clink of their tethered horses. I could hear the mutter of the men's voices as they huddled together, conferring. Two of them had swords in their hands.

Every moment the moonlight strengthened and fresh stars showered out into the frosty sky. Far away at the foot of the valley I heard the bark of a dog. Then, faintly, the clip of hoofs coming at a gentle pace.

The intruders below me heard it, too. One of them gave a low command, and the group turned and made at speed for the path which would take them down to the grove.

They had barely reached the head of the path when I spoke from directly above them. "Gentlemen?"

You would have thought I had fallen straight from heaven in a chariot of flame. I suppose it was alarming enough, to be addressed out of the dark by a man they thought they had just heard riding up the valley some half-mile away. Besides, any man who sets out to spy on a magician starts more than half terrified, and ready to believe any marvel. One of them cried out in fear, and I heard a stifled oath from the leader.

In the starlight their faces, upturned, looked grey as the frost.

I said: "I am Merlin. What do you want with me?"

There was a silence, in which the hoof-beats came nearer, quickening as the horses scented home and supper. I caught a movement below me as if they were half minded to turn and run. Then the leader cleared his throat. "We come from the King."

"Then put up your foolish swords. I will come down."

When I reached them I saw they had obeyed me, but their hands hovered not far from their weapons, and they huddled close together.

"Which of you is the leader?"

The biggest of them stepped forward. He was civil, but with truculence behind it. He had not relished that moment of fear. "We were waiting for you, Prince. We bring messages from the King."

"With swords drawn? Well, you are only four to one, after all."

"Against enchantment," said the man, nettled.

I smiled. "You should have known that my enchantment would never work against King's men. You could have been sure of your welcome." I paused. Their feet shuffled in the frost. One of them muttered something, half curse, half invocation, in his own dialect. I said: "Well, this is hardly the place to talk. My home is open to all comers, as you see. Why did you not kindle the fire and light the lamps and wait for me in comfort?"

More shuffling. They exchanged glances. No one answered. Clearly where we stood, the scuffled frost showed their tracks up to the cave mouth. So, they had been inside. "Well," I said, "be welcome now."

I crossed to the holy well where the wooden image of the god stood, barely visible in its dark niche. I lifted down the cup, poured for him and drank. I invited the leader with a gesture. He hesitated, then shook his head. "I am a Christian. What god is that?"

"Myrddin," I said, "the god of high places. This was his hill before it was mine. He lends it to me, but he watches it still."

I saw the movement I had been waiting for among the men. Hands were behind backs as they made the sign against enchantment. One of them, then another, came forward to take the cup, drink, and spill for the god. I nodded at them. "It does not do to forget that the old gods still watch from the air and wait in the hollow hills. How else did I know you were here?"

"You knew?"

"How not? Come in." I turned in the cave mouth, holding back the boughs that half screened the entrance. None of them moved, except the leader, and he took one step only, then hesitated. "What's the matter?" I asked him. "The cave is empty, isn't it? Or isn't it? Did you find something amiss when you went in, that you are afraid to tell me?"