The Last Enchantment (33 page)

The pain lifted. I could breathe and see. I got up and walked after them, out into the air. Those left in the hall drew back and let me through. No one spoke to me, or dared to question. I mounted the rampart and looked outward. The sentry on duty there moved away, not like a soldier, but sidling. The whites of his eyes showed. Word had gone round fast. I hunched my cloak against the wind and stayed where I was.

They had gone, so small a troop to throw against the might of the final Saxon bid forBritain . The gallop dwindled into the night and was gone. Somewhere in that darkness to the north the Tor was standing up into the black sky. No light, nothing. Beyond it, no light. Nor south, nor east; no light anywhere, or warning fires. Only my word.

A sound somewhere in the blowing darkness. For a moment I took it for an echo of that distant gallop; then, hearing in it, faintly, the cry and clash of armies, I thought that vision had returned to me. But my head was clear, and the night, with all its sounds and shadows, was mortal night.

Then the sounds wheeled closer, and went streaming overhead, high in the black air. It was the wild geese, the pack of heaven's hounds, the Wild Hunt that courses the skies with Llud, King of the Otherworld, in time of war and storm. They had risen from theLake waters, and now came overhead, flighting the dark. Straight from the silent Tor they came, to wheel over Caer Camel, then back across the slumberingIsland , the noise of their voices and the galloping wings lost at length down the reaches of the night toward Badon.

With the dawn, beacon lights blazed across the land. But whoever led the Saxon hordes to Badon must hardly have set foot on its bloody soil when, out of the dark, more swiftly even than birds could have flown or fire signalled, the High King Arthur and his own picked knights fell on them and destroyed them, smashing the barbarian power utterly, for his day, and for the rest of his generation.

So the god came back to me, Merlin his servant. Next day I left Caer Camel, and rode out to look for a place where I could build myself a house.

To the east of Caer Camel the land is rolling and wooded, ridges and hills of gentle green, with here and there, among the bushes and ferns of the summits, traces of old dwelling-places or fortifications of past time.

One such place I had noticed before, and now, casting about among the hills and valleys, I looked at it once more, and found it good. It was a solitary spot, in a fold between two hills, where a spring welled from the turf and sent a tiny brook tumbling down to meet a valley stream. A long time ago men had lived there. When the sun fell aright you could see the soft outline of ancient walls beneath the turf. That settlement had vanished long since, but since then some other settler, in harder times, had built himself a tower, the main part of which still stood. It had been built, moreover, with Roman stone taken from Caer Camel. The squared shapes of the chiselled stone showed still clean-edged beneath the encroaching saplings and those stinging ghosts that cluster wherever man has been, the nettles. Even these weeds were not unwelcome; they are sovereign for many ailments, and I intended, as soon as the house was done, to plant a garden, which is the chief of the arts of peace.

And peace we had at last. The news of the victory at Badon reached me even before I had paced out the dimensions of my new home. From the account Arthur sent me of the battle it seemed certain that this must be the final victory of the campaign, and now the King was imposing terms, being set on the decisive fixing of his kingdom's boundaries. There was no reason to suppose, his message ran, that there would be any further attack or even resistance for some time to come. I, not having seen the battlefield, but knowing what I knew, prepared to build for a time of peace, where I might live in the solitude I loved and needed, at due remove from the busy center where Arthur would be.

Meanwhile it would be wise to get hold of all the masons and craftsmen I should require before Arthur's own great schemes for his city began to burgeon. They came, shook their heads over my plans, then set cheerfully to work to build what I wanted.

This was a small house, a cottage, if you will, set in the hollow of the hillside, and facing south and west, away from Caer Camel, toward the distant swell of the downs. The place was sheltered from north and east, and, by a curve of the hill below, from the few passers-by on the valley road. I had the tower rebuilt on its old pattern, and the new house constructed against this, single-storeyed, with behind it a square courtyard or garth in the Roman style. The tower formed a corner of this between my own dwelling and the kitchen quarters. At the side opposite the house were workshops and sheds for storage. On the north side of the garth was a high wall coped with tiles, against which I hoped to set some of the more delicate plants. I had long thought of doing what now the masons shook their heads over: the wall was built double, and the hypocaust led warm air into it. Not only in winter would the vines and peaches be safe, but the whole garth would, I thought, benefit from the warmth, as well as from the sunlight it would catch and hold. This was the first time I had seen such an idea put into practice, but later it was done at Camelot, and at Arthur's other palace at Caerleon. A miniature aqueduct led water from the spring into a well at the garth's center.

The men, finding it a pleasant change from the years of military building, worked quickly. We had an open winter that year. I rode to Bryn Myrddin to oversee the moving of my books and certain of the medical stores, then spent Christmas at Camelot with Arthur. The carpenters went into my house early in the New Year, and the work was done and the men free in time to start the permanent building at Camelot in the spring.

I still had no servant of my own, and now had to set myself to find one — not an easy task, for few men can settle happily in the kind of solitude I crave, and my ways have never been those of the ordinary master. The hours I keep are strange ones; I require little food or sleep, and have great need of silence. I could have bought a slave who would have had to put up with whatever I wanted, but I have never liked bought service. But this time, as always before, I was lucky. One of the local masons had an uncle who was a gardener; he had given him, he said, an account of the building of the heated wall, and the uncle had shaken his head and muttered something about newfangled foreign nonsense, but had since evinced the liveliest curiosity about every stage of the building. His name was Varro. He would be glad to come, said the mason, and his daughter, who could cook and clean, would come with him.

So it was settled. Varro started the clearing and digging straight away, and the girl Mora began to scrub and air, and then, in one of those lucid and lovely spells of early weather, with primroses already showing under the budding hawthorns, and lambs couched warm beside the ewes in the hollows of flowering whin, I stabled my horse and unpacked my big harp, and was home.

Soon after, Arthur came to see me. I was in the garth, sitting in the sunshine on a bench between the pillars of the miniature colonnade. I was busy sorting seeds collected last summer and packed away in twists of parchment. Beyond the walls I heard the stamp and jingle of the King's escort, but he came in alone. Varro went past with a stare and a salute, carrying his spade. I got to my feet as Arthur raised a hand in greeting.

"It's very small," were his first words, as he looked about him.

"Enough. It's only for me."

"Only!" He laughed, then pivoted on his heel. "Mmm...if you like dog-kennels, and it seems you do, then I must say it's very pleasant. So that's the famous wall, is it? The masons were telling me about it. What are you planting there?"

I told him, and then took him on a tour of my little garth. Arthur, who knew as much about gardens as I about warfare, but who was always interested in making, looked and touched and questioned; he spent a lot of time at the heated wall, and on the construction of the small aqueduct that fed the well.

"Vervain, Camomile, Comfrey, Marigold..." He turned over the labelled packets of seed lying on the bench. "I remember Drusilla used to grow marigolds. She gave me some concoction of them when I had the toothache." He looked round him again. "Do you know, there is already something of the same peace here that one had at Galava. If only for my sake, you were right in refusing to live in Camelot. I'll feel I have a refuge here, when things are pressing on me."

"I hope you will. Well, that's all here. I'll have my flowers here, and an orchard outside. There were a few old trees here already, and they seem to be doing well. Would you like to come in now and see the house?"

"A pleasure," he said, in a tone so suddenly formal that I glanced at him, to see that his attention was not on me at all, but on Mora, who had come out of a doorway and was shaking a cloth in the breeze. Her gown was blown close against her body, and her hair, which was pretty, flew in a bright tangle round her face. She stopped to push it back, saw Arthur, blushed and giggled, then ran indoors again. I saw a bright eye peep through a crack, then she caught me watching, and withdrew. The door shut. It was apparent that the girl had no idea who the young man was who had eyed her so boldly.

He was grinning at me. "I am to be married in a month, so you can stop watching me like that. I shall be the most model of married men."

"I am sure of it. Was I watching you? It's no concern of mine, but I should warn you that the gardener is her father."

"And a tough fellow he looks. All right, I'll keep my blood cool until May. God knows it's landed me in trouble before, and will again."

" 'A model married man?'"

"I was talking about my past. You warned me that it would reach into my future." He said it lightly; the past, I guessed, was well behind him now. I doubted if thoughts of Morgause still troubled his sleep. He followed me into the house and, while I found wine and poured it, went on another of his prowling tours of discovery.

There were only two rooms. The living-chamber took two-thirds of the length of the house, and its full width, with windows both ways, on garth and hill. The doorway opened on the colonnade that edged the garth. Today for the first time the door stood open to the mild air, and sunlight fell warmly across the terra-cotta tiles of the floor. At the end of the room was the place for the fire, with a wide chimney to take the smoke outside. InBritain we need fires as well as heated floors. The hearthstone was of slate, and the walls, of well-finished stone, were hung with rich rugs I had brought back with me from my travels in the East. Table and stools were oak, from the same tree, but the great chair was of elm wood, as also the chest under the window, which held my books. A door at the end of the room led to my bedchamber, which was simply furnished with bed and clothes chest. With some memory, perhaps, of childhood, I had planted a pear tree outside the window.

All this I showed him, then took him to the tower. The door to this led off the colonnade in the corner of the garth. On the ground floor was the workroom or still-room, where the herbs were dried, and medicines made up. There was no furniture but a big table, and stools and cupboards, and the small brick stove with its oven and charcoal burner. A stone stair against one wall led to the upper room. This was the chamber I meant to use as my private study. Here there was nothing as yet but a work-table and chair, a couple of stools and a cupboard with tablets and the mathematical instruments I had brought fromAntioch . A brazier stood in one corner. I had had a window made looking out to the south, and this was covered with neither horn nor curtain. I do not readily feel the cold.

Arthur moved round the tiny room, stooping, peering, opening boxes and cupboards, leaning on his fists to gaze out of the window, filling the small space with his immense vitality, so that even the stout, Roman-built walls seemed barely to contain him.

In the main chamber, once more, he took a goblet from me and raised it. "To your new home. What will you call it?"

"Applegarth."

"I like that. It's right. To Applegarth then, and your long life here!"

"Thank you. And to my first guest."

"Am I? I'm glad. May there be many more, and may they all come in peace." He drank and set the goblet down, looking about him again. "Already it is full of peace. Yes, I begin to see why you chose it...but are you sure it is all you want? You know, and I know, that the whole of my kingdom is yours by right, and I do assure you I'd let you have half of it for the asking."

"I'll let you keep it for the present. It's been too much trouble for me to envy you overmuch. Have you time to sit for a while? Will you eat? The very idea will frighten Mora into an epilepsy, because you can be sure she has been out to ask her father who the young stranger is, but I'm certain she can find something —"

"Thank you, no, I've eaten. Have you just the two servants? Who cooks for you?"

"The girl."

"Well?"

"Eh? Oh, well enough."

"Which means you haven't even noticed. For God's sake!" said Arthur. "Let me send you a cook. I don't like to think of you eating nothing but peasant messes."

"Please, no. The two of them round me by day are all I want, and even they go to their own home at night. I do very well, I assure you."

"All right. But I wish you would let me do something, give you something."

"When I find something I want, be sure I'll ask you for it. Now tell me how the building is going. I'm afraid I've been too occupied with my dog-kennel to pay much attention. Will it be ready for your wedding?"

He shook his head. "By summer, perhaps, it might be fit to bring a queen to. But for the wedding I'll go back to Caerleon. It will be in May. Will you be there?"

"Unless it's your wish that I should be there, I would prefer to stay here. I begin to feel I've had too much travelling in the past few years."

"As you wish. No, no more wine, thank you. One thing I wanted to ask you. You remember, when first the idea of my marriage was mooted — the first marriage — you seemed to have some doubts about it. I understood that you had had some sort of presentiment of disaster. If so, you were right. Tell me, please