Hollow Hills (37 page)

"With pleasure." I turned and pointed up one of the tracks which led out of the glade. "Will that one do?

I don't know where it goes, but it might suffice to lose you."

"If it doesn't kill me," he said resignedly. "Of course it had to be that one, didn't it? In the normal way I'd just call that a bad guess, but seeing it's you —"

"It was only a random choice, I assure you. I'm sorry. Is it so dangerous?"

"Well, if I'm supposed to be looking for Arthur there, it's guaranteed to keep me out of the way for quite some time." He gathered the reins, miming hasty agreement for the benefit of the unseen watcher. "No, seriously, my lord —"

" 'Myrddin.' No lord of yours now, nor of any man's."

"Myrddin, then. No, it's a rough track but it's rideable — just. What's more, it's just the way that devil's cub would have chosen to take...I told you, nothing you do can ever be quite random." He laughed.

"Yes, it's good to have you back. I feel as if the world had been lifted off my shoulders. These last few years have been pretty full ones, believe me!"

"I believe you." He mounted, saluting, and I stepped back. He went across the glade at a canter, and then the sound of hoofs dwindled up the ferny track and was gone.

The boy was sitting on the table's edge, eating bread and honey. The honey was running off his chin. He slid to his feet when he saw me, wiped the honey off with the back of his hand, licked the hand and swallowed.

"Do you mind very much? There seemed to be plenty, and I was starving."

"Help yourself. There are dried figs in that bowl on the shelf."

"Not just now, thank you. I've had enough. I'd better water Star now, I think. I heard Ralf go."

As we led the horse across to the spring, he told me: "I call him Star for that white star on his forehead.

Why did you smile then?"

"Only because when I was younger than you I had a pony called Aster; that means Star in Greek. And like you, I escaped from home one day and rode up into the hills and came across a hermit living alone

— it was a cave he lived in, not a chapel, but it was just as lonely — and he gave me honey cakes and fruit."

"You mean you ran away?"

"Not really. Only for the day. I just wanted to get away alone. One has to, sometimes."

"Then you did understand? Is that why you sent Ralf away, and didn't tell him I was here? Most people would have told him straight away. They seem to think I need looking after," said Arthur in a tone of grievance. The horse lifted a streaming muzzle and blew the drops from its nostrils and turned from the water. We began to walk back across the clearing. He looked up. "I haven't thanked you yet. I'm much obliged to you. Ralf won't get into trouble, you know. I never tell when I give them the slip. My guardian would be angry, and it's not their fault. Ralf will come back this way, and I'll go with him then. And don't worry yourself, either; I won't let him harm you. It's always me he blames, anyway." That sudden grin again. "It's always my fault, as a matter of fact. Cei is older than me, but I get all the ideas."

We had reached the shed. He made as if to hand me the reins, then, as he had done before, stopped in mid-gesture, led the horse in himself and tied him up. I watched from the doorway.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Emrys. What's yours?"

"Myrddin. And, oddly enough, Emrys. But then that's a common name where I come from. Who is your guardian?"

"Count Ector. He's Lord of Galava." He turned from his task, his cheeks flushed. I could see he was waiting for the next question, the inevitable question, but I did not ask it. I had spent twelve years myself having to tell every man who spoke to me that I was the bastard of an unknown father: I did not intend to force this boy through the same confession. Though there were differences. If I was any judge, he had better defenses already than I had had at twice his age. And as the well-guarded foster son of the Count of Galava, he did not have to live, as I had, with bastard shame. But then, I thought again, watching him, the differences between this child and myself went deeper: I had been content with very little, not guessing my power; this boy would never be content with less than all.

"And how old are you?" I asked him. "Ten?"

He looked pleased. "As a matter of fact I've just had my ninth birthday."

"And can ride already better than I do now."

"Well, you're only a — " He bit it off, and went scarlet.

"I only started work as a hermit at Christmas," I said mildly. "I've really ridden around the place quite a lot."

"What doing?"

"Travelling. Even fighting, when I had to."

"Fighting? Where?"

As we talked I had led him round to the front entrance of the chapel, and up the steps. These were mossed with age, and steep, and I was surprised at the child's lightness of foot as he trod up them beside me. He was a tall boy, sturdily built, with bones that gave promise of strength. There was another kind of promise, too, Uther's sort; he would be a handsome man. But the first impression one got of Arthur was of a controlled swiftness of movement almost like a dancer's or a skilled swordsman's. There was something in it of Uther's restlessness, but it was not the same; this sprang from some deep inner core of harmony. An athlete would have talked of co-ordination, an archer of a straight eye, a sculptor of a steady hand. Already in this boy, they came together in the impression of a blazing but controlled vitality.

"What battles were you in? You would be young, even when the Great Wars were being fought? My guardian says that I will have to wait until I am fourteen before I go to war. It's not fair, because Cei is three years older, and I can beat him three times out of four. Well, twice perhaps...Oh!"

As we went in through the chapel doorway the bright sunlight behind us had thrown our shadows forward, so that at first the altar had been hidden. Now, as we moved, the light reached it, the strong light of early morning, by some freak falling straight on the carved sword so that the blade seemed to lift clear and shining from its shadows on the stone.

Before I could say a word he had darted forward and reached for the hilt. I saw his hand meet the stone, and the shock of it go through his flesh. He stood like that for seconds, as if tranced, then dropped the hand to his side and stepped back, still facing the altar.

He spoke without looking at me. "That was the queerest thing. I thought it was real. I thought, 'There is the most beautiful and deadly sword in the world, and it is for me.' And all the time it wasn't real."

"Oh, it's real," I said. Through the dazzling swirl of sun-motes I saw the boy, hazed with brightness, turn to stare at me. Behind him the altar shimmered white with the ice-cold fire. "It's real enough. Some day it will lie on this very altar, in the sight of all men. And he who then dares to touch and lift it from where it lies shall..."

"Shall what? What shall he do, Myrddin?"

I blinked, shook the sun from my eyes, and steadied myself. It is one thing to watch what is happening elsewhere on middle-earth; it is quite another to see what has not yet come out of the heavens. This last, which men call prophecy, and which they honour me for, is like being struck through the entrails by that whip of God that we call lightning. But even as my flesh winced from it I welcomed it as a woman welcomes the final pang of childbirth. In this flash of vision I had seen it as it would happen in this very place; the sword, the fire, the young King. So my own quest through the Middle Sea, the painful journey to Segontium, the shouldering of Prosper's tasks, the hiding of the sword in Caer Bannog — now I knew for certain that I had read the god's will aright. From now, it was only waiting.

"What shall I do?" the voice demanded, insistent.

I do not think the boy was conscious of the change in the question. He was fixed, serious, burning. The end of the lash had caught him, too. But it was not yet time. Slowly, fighting the other words away, I gave him all he could understand.

I said: "A man hands on his sword to his son. You will have to find your own. But when the time comes, it will be there for you to take, in the sight of all men."

The Otherworld drew back then, and let me through, back into the clear April morning. I wiped the sweat from my face and took a breath of sweet air. It felt like a first breath. I pushed back the damp hair and gave my head a shake. "They crowd me," I said irritably.

"Who do?"

"Oh," I said, "those who keep wake here." His eyes watched me, at stretch, ready for wonders. He came slowly down the altar steps. The stone table behind him was only a table, with a sword rudely carved. I smiled at him. "I have a gift, Emrys, which can be useful and very powerful, but which is at times inconvenient, and always damnably uncomfortable."

"You mean you can see things that aren't there?"

"Sometimes."

"Then you're a magician? Or a prophet?"

"A little of both, shall we say. But that is my secret, Emrys. I kept yours."

"I shan't tell anyone." That was all, no promises, no oaths, but I knew he would keep to it. "You were telling the future then? What did it mean?"

"One cannot always be sure. Even I am not always sure. But one thing for certain, some day, when you are ready, you will find your own sword, and it will be the most beautiful and deadly sword in the world.

But now, just for the moment, would you find me a drink of water? There's a cup beside the spring."

He brought it, running. I thanked him and drank, then handed it back. "Now, what about those dried figs? Are you still hungry?"

"I'm always hungry."

"Then next time you come, bring your rations with you. You might pick a bad day."

"I'll bring you food if you want it. Are you very poor? You don't look it." He considered me again, head aslant. "At least, perhaps you do, but you don't speak as if you were. If there's anything you'd like, I'll try and get it for you."

"Don't trouble yourself. I have all I need, now," I said.

Ralf came back duly, with questions in his eyes, but none on his lips except those he might ask a stranger.

He came too soon for me. There were nine years to get through, and judgments to make. And too soon, I could see, for the boy, though he received Ralf with courtesy, and then stood silent under the lash of that eloquent young man's tongue. I gathered from Arthur's expression that if it had not been for my presence he might have been thrashed by more than words. I understood that he lived under hard discipline: that kings must be brought up harder than other men he must have known, but not that the rule applied to him. I wondered what rule applied to Cei, and what Arthur thought the discrimination meant.

He took it well, and when it was finished and I offered Ralf the appeasement of wine, went meekly enough to serve it.

When at length he was sent to lead the horses out, I said quickly to Ralf: "Tell Count Ector I would rather not come down to the castle. He'll understand that. The risks are too great. He'll know where we can meet in safety, so I'll leave it to him to suggest a place. Would he normally come up here, or might that make people wonder?"

"He never came before, when Prosper was here."

"Then I'll come down whenever he sends a message. Now, Ralf, there's not much time, but tell me this.

You've no reason to suppose that anyone has suspected who the boy is? There's been no one watching about the place, nothing suspicious at all?"

"Nothing."

I said slowly: "Something I saw, when you first brought him over from Brittany. On the journey across by the pass, your party was attacked. Who were they? Did you see?"

He stared. "You mean up there by the rocks between here and Mediobogdum? I remember it well. But how did you know that?"

"I saw it in the fire. I watched constantly then. What is it, Ralf? Why do you look so?"

"It was a queer thing," he said slowly. "I've never forgotten it. That night, when they attacked us, I thought I heard you call my name. A warning, clear as a trumpet, or a dog barking. And now you say you were watching." He shifted his shoulders as if at a sudden draught, then grinned. "I'd forgotten about you, my lord. I'll have to get used to it again, I suppose. Do you still watch us? It could be an awkward thought, at times."

I laughed. "Not really. If there was danger it would come through to me, I think. Otherwise it seems I can leave it to you. But come, tell me, did you ever find out who it was attacked you that night?"

"No. They wore no blazon. We killed two of them, and there was nothing on them to show whose men they were. Count Ector thought they must be outlaws or robbers. I think so, too. At any rate there's been nothing since then, nothing at all."

"I thought not. And now there must be nothing to connect Myrddin the hermit with Merlin the enchanter.

What has been said about the new holy man of the chapel in the green?"

"Only that Prosper had died and that God had sent a new man at the appointed time, as he has always done. That the new man is young, and quiet-seeming, but not as quiet as he seems."

"And just what do they mean by that?"

"Just what they say. You don't always bear yourself just like a humble hermit, sir."

"Don't I? I can't think why not; it's what I normally am. I must guard myself."

"I believe you mean that." He was smiling, as if amused. "I shouldn't worry, they just think you must be holier than most. It's always been a haunted place, this, and more so now, it seems. There are stories of a spirit in the shape of a huge white bird that flies in men's faces if they venture too far up the track, and —

oh, all the usual tales you always get about hauntings, silly country stories, things one can't believe. But two weeks back — did you know that a troop of men was riding this way from somewhere near Alauna, and a tree fell across the way, with no wind blowing, and no warning?"

"I hadn't heard that. Was anyone hurt?"

"No. There's another path; they used that."

"I see."

He was watching me curiously. "Your gods, my lord?"

"You might call them that. I hadn't realized I was to be so closely guarded."