The Last Enchantment (15 page)

Ulfin looked up sharply, but I said merely: "How?"

"By my trade. I have my own brand of magic. And for all they say Merlin is master of so much, mine is one skill you can't pretend to if you haven't had the training. And that" — with the same cheerful complacency — "takes a lifetime."

"May we know what it is?" The question was mere courtesy. This patently was the moment of revelation he had been working for.

"I'll show you." He swallowed the last crumb of bannock, wiped his mouth delicately, and took another drink of wine. "Ninian! Ninian! You'll have time for your dreaming soon! Get the pack out, and feed the fire. We want light."

Ulfin reached behind him and threw a fresh faggot on. The flames leaped high. The boy fetched a bulky roll of soft leather, and knelt beside me. He undid the ties and unrolled the thing along the ground in the firelight.

It went with a flash and a shimmer. Gold caught the rich and dancing light, enamels in black and scarlet, pearly shell, garnet and blue glass — bedded or pinned along the kidskin were pieces of jewellery, beautifully made. I saw brooches, pins, necklaces, amulets, buckles for sandals or belts, and one little nest of enchanting silver acorns for a lady's girdle. The brooches were mostly of the round sort he was wearing, but one or two were of the old bow design, and I saw some animals, and one very elaborate curly dragonlike creature done with great skill in garnet set with cell-work and filigree.

I looked up to see Beltane watching me eagerly. I gave him what he wanted. "This is splendid work.

Beautiful. It is as fine as any I have seen."

He glowed with simple pleasure. Now that I had placed him, I could let myself be easy. He was an artist, and artists live on praise as bees on nectar. Nor do they much concern themselves in anything beyond their own art; Beltane had been barely interested in my own calling. His questions were harmless enough, a travelling salesman probing for news; and with the events at Luguvallium still a story for every fireside, what finer morsel of news could there be than some hint of Merlin's whereabouts? It was certain that he had no idea who he was talking to. I asked a few questions about the work, these out of genuine interest; I have always learned where I could about any man's skills. His answers soon showed me that he had certainly made the jewels himself; so the service for which the wine had been a reward was also explained.

"Your eyesight," I said. "You spoiled it with this work?"

"No, no. My eyesight is poor, but it is good for close work. In fact, it has been my blessing as an artist.

Even now, when I am no longer young, I can see details very finely, but your face, my good sir, is by no means clear; and as for these trees around us, for such I take them to be..." He smiled and shrugged.

"Hence my keeping this idle dreamer of a boy. He is my eyes. Without him I could hardly travel as I do, and indeed, I am lucky to have got here safely, even with his eyes, the little fool. This is no country to leave the roads and venture across bogland."

His sharpness was a matter of routine. The boy Ninian ignored it; he had taken the chance of showing me the jewellery to stay near the fire.

"And now?" I asked the goldsmith. "You have shown me work fit for kings' courts. Too good, surely, for the marketplace? Where are you taking it?"

"Need you ask? To Dunpeldyr, in Lothian. With the king newly wed, and the queen as lovely as mayflowers and sorrelbuds, there will surely be trade for such as I."

I stretched my hand to the warmth of the blaze. "Ah, yes," I said. "He married Morgause in the end.

Pledged to one princess and married to another. I heard something of that. You were there?"

"I was indeed. And small blame to King Lot, that's what everyone was saying. The Princess Morgan is fair enough, and right enough a king's daughter, but the other one — well, you know how the talk goes.

No man, let alone a man like Lot of Lothian, could come within arm's length of that lady and not lust to bed her."

"Your eyesight was good enough for that?" I asked him. I saw Ulfin smile.

"I didn't need eyesight." He laughed robustly. "I have ears, and I hear the talk that goes around, and once I got near enough to smell the scent she uses, and catch the colour of her hair in the sunlight, and hear her pretty voice. So I got my boy to tell me what she looked like, and I made this chain for her. Do you think her lord will buy it of me?"

I fingered the lovely thing; it was of gold, each link as delicate as floss, holding flowers of pearl and citrine set in filigree. "He would be a fool if he did not. And if the lady sees it first, he certainly will."

"I reckon on that," he said, smiling. "By the time I get to Dunpeldyr, she should be well again, and thinking of finery. You knew, did you? She was brought to bed two full weeks ago, before her time."

Ulfin's sudden stillness made a pause of silence as loud as a shout. Ninian looked up. I felt my own nerves tighten. The goldsmith sensed the sharpening of the attention he was getting, and looked pleased.

"Had you not heard?"

"No. Since we passed Isurium we have not lodged in towns. Two weeks ago? This is certain?"

"Certain, sir. Too certain, maybe, for some folks' comfort." He laughed. "Never have I seen so many folk counting on their fingers that never counted before! And count as they may, with the best will in the world, they make it September for the child's conceiving. That," said the little gossip, "would be at Luguvallium, when King Uther died."

"I suppose so," I said indifferently. "And King Lot? The last I heard, he was gone to Linnuis, to join Arthur there."

"He did, that's true. He'll hardly have got the news yet. We got it ourselves when we lay for a night at Elfete, on the east road. That was the way her courier took. He had some tale of avoiding trouble by going that way, but it's my belief he'd been told to take his time. By the time King Lot gets news of the birthing, it'll be a more decent interval since the wedding day."

"And the child?" I asked idly. "A boy?"

"Aye, and from all accounts a sickly one, so with all his hasteLot still may not have got himself an heir."

"Ah, well," I said, "he has time." I turned the subject. "Are you not afraid to travel as you do, with so much valuable cargo?"

"I confess I have had fears about it," he admitted. "Yes, yes, indeed. You must understand that commonly, when I shut my workshop, and take to the roads for summer, I carry with me only such stuff as the folks like to buy in the markets, or, at best, gauds for merchants' wives. But luck was against me, and I could not get these jewels done in time to show them to Queen Morgause before she went north, so needs must I carry them after her. Now my luck is to fall in with an honest man like yourself; I don't need to be a Merlin to tell such things...I can see you're honest, and a gentleman like myself. Tell me, will my luck hold tomorrow? May we have your company, my good sir, as far asCorBridge ?"

I had made up my mind already about that. "As far as Dunpeldyr if you will. I'm bound there. And if you stop by the way to sell your wares, that suits me, too. I recently had a piece of news that tells me there is no haste for me to be there."

He was delighted, and fortunately did not see Ulfin's look of surprise. I had already decided that the goldsmith might be useful to me. I judged that he would hardly have outstayed the spring weather inYork

, making up the rich jewels he had shown me, without some sort of assurance that Morgause would at least look at them. As he talked cheerfully on, needing very little encouragement to tell me more about the happenings inYork , I found that I had been right. Somehow he had managed to engage the interest of Lind, Morgause's young handmaid, and had persuaded her, in return for a pretty trinket or two, to speak of his wares to the queen. Beltane himself had not been sent for, but Lind had taken one or two of his pieces to show her mistress, and had assured the goldsmith of Morgause's interest. He told me all about it at some length. For a while I let him talk on, then said casually: "You said something about Morgause and Merlin. Did I understand that she had soldiers out looking for him? Why?"

"No, you misunderstood me. I was speaking in jest. When I was inYork , listening as I do to the talk of the place, I heard someone say that Merlin and she had quarrelled at Luguvallium, and that she spoke of him now with hatred, where before she had spoken with envy of his art. And lately, of course, everyone was wondering where he had gone. Queen or no, little harm could she do a man like that!"

And you, I thought, are luckily short of sight, otherwise I should have to be wary of a perceptive and garrulous little man. As it was, I was glad I had fallen in with him. I was still thinking about it, but idly, as finally even he decided it was time to sleep, and we let the fire go low and rolled ourselves in our blankets under the trees. His presence would give credence to my disguise, and he could be, if not my eyes, my ears and information at the court of Morgause. And Ninian, who acted as his eyes? The cold breeze stirred my nape again, and my idle calculations dis-limned like a shadow when the sun goes in. What was this? Foreknowledge, the half-forgotten stirring of a kind of power? But even that speculation died as the night breeze hushed through the delicate birch boughs and the last faggot sank to ash. The dreamless night closed in. About the sickly child at Dunpeldyr I would not think at all, except to hope that it would not thrive, and so leave me no problem.

But I knew that the hope was vain.

It is barely thirty miles from Vinovia to the town at theCorBridge , but it took us six days' journeying.

We did not keep to the road, but travelled by circuitous and sometimes rough ways, visiting every village and farmstead, however humble, that lay between us and the bridge.

With no reason for haste, the journey passed pleasantly. Beltane obviously took great pleasure in our company, and Ninian's lot was made easier by the use of mules to carry his awkward packs. The goldsmith was as garrulous as ever, but he was a good-hearted man, and moreover a meticulous and honest craftsman, which is something to respect. Our wandering progress was made slower than ever by the time he took over his work — repair-work, mostly, in the poorer places; in the bigger villages, or at taverns, he was of course occupied all the time.

So was the boy, but on the journeys between settlements, and in the evenings by the camp fire, we struck up a strange kind of friendship. He was always quiet, but after he found that I knew the ways of birds and beasts, that a detailed knowledge of plants went with my physician's skill, and that I could, at night, even read the map of the stars, he kept near me whenever he could, and even brought himself to question me. Music he loved, and his ear was true, so I began to teach him how to tune my harp. He could neither read nor write, but showed, once his interest was engaged, a ready intelligence that, given time and the right teacher, could be made to blossom. By the time we reachedCorBridge I was beginning to wonder if I could be that teacher, and if Ninian could be brought — his master permitting — to serve me. With this in mind, I kept my eyes open whenever we passed some quarry or farmstead, in case there might be some likely slave I could buy to serve Beltane, and persuade him to release the boy.

From time to time the small cloud oppressed me still, the hovering chill of some vague foreboding that made me restless and apprehensive; trouble was there at my whistle, looking for somewhere to strike.

After a while I gave up trying to see where that stroke might fall. I was certain that it could not concern Arthur, and if it was to concern Morgause, then there would be time enough to let it worry me. Even in Dunpeldyr I thought I should be safe enough: Morgause would have other things on her mind, not least the return of her lord, who could count on his fingers as well as any man.

And the trouble might be no deep matter, but the trivial annoyance of a day, soon forgotten. It is hard to tell, when the gods trail the shadows of foreknowledge across the light, whether the cloud is one that will blot out a king's realm, or make a child cry in its sleep.

At length we came toCorBridge , in the rolling country just south of the Great Wall. In Roman times the place was called Corstopitum. There was a strong fort there, well placed whereDere Street , from the south, crossed the great east-west road of Agricola. In time a civilian settlement sprang up in this favoured spot, and soon became a thriving township, accepting all the traffic, civil and military, from the four quarters ofBritain . Nowadays the fort is a tumbledown affair, much of its stone having been pillaged for new buildings, but west of it, on a curve of rising ground edged by the Cor Burn, the new town still grows and prospers, with houses, inns, and shops, and a thriving market which is the liveliest relic of its prosperity in Roman times.

The fine Roman bridge, which gives the place its modern name, still stands, spanning theTyne at the point where the Cor Burn runs into it from the north. There is a mill there, and the bridge's timbers groan all day under the loads of grain. Below the mill is a wharf where shallow-draught barges can tie up. The Cor is little more than a stream, relying on its steep tumble of water to drive the mill wheel, but the great River Tyne is wide and fast, flowing here over bright shingle between its gracious banks of trees. Its valley is broad and fertile, full of fruit trees standing deep in growing corn. From this flowery and winding tract of green the land rises toward the north to rolling moorland, where, under the windy stretches of sky, sudden blue lakes wink in the sun. In winter it is a bleak country, where wolves and wild men roam the heights, and come sometimes over-close to the houses; but in summer it is a lovely land, with forests full of deer, and fleets of swans sailing the waters. The air over the moors sparkles with bird-song, and the valleys are alive with skimming swallows and the bright flash of kingfishers. And along the edge of the whinstone runs the Great Wall of the Emperor Hadrian, rising and dipping as the rock rises and dips. It commands the country from its long cliff-top, so that from any point of it fold upon fold of blue distance fades away east or westward, till the eye loses the land in the misty edge of the sky.