The Crystal Cave Page 12

  If the ship had swung more slowly I would have been crushed as she ground against the wharf-side, or drowned as I reached the bottom of the loop, but she went like a horse shying. As she jarred the edge of the wharf I was just above it, and the jerk loosened what was left of my grip and flung me clear. I missed the bollard by inches, and landed sprawling on the frost-hard ground in the shadow of a wall.

  2

  THERE WAS NO TIME TO WONDER whether I was hurt. I could hear the slap of bare feet on the deck above me as the watch raced along to see what had happened. I bunched, rolled, and was on my feet and running before his bobbing lantern reached the side. I heard him shout something, but I had already dodged round the corner of the buildings, and was sure he had not seen me. Even if he had, I thought I was safe enough. He would check my prison first, and even then I doubted if he would dare leave the ship. I leaned for a moment or two against the wall, hugging the rope burns on my hands, and trying to adjust my eyes to the night.

  Since I had come from near-darkness in my prison, this took no more than a few seconds, and I looked quickly about me to get my bearings.

  The shed that hid me was the end one of the row, and behind it — on the side away from the wharf — was the road, a straight ribbon of gravel, making for a cluster of lights some distance away. This no doubt was the town. Nearer, just where the road was swallowed by darkness, was a dim and shifting gleam, which must be the tail light of the last wagon. Nothing else moved.

  It was a fairly safe guess that any wagons so guarded were bound for Ambrosius' headquarters. I had no idea whether I could get to him, or even into any town or village, but all I wanted at this stage was to find something to eat, and somewhere warm where I could hide and eat it, and wait for daylight. Once I got my bearings, no doubt the god would lead me still.

  He would also have to feed me. I had originally meant to sell one of my brooches for food, but now, I thought, as I jogged in the wake of the wagons, I would have to steal something. At the very worst, I still had a hunk of barley bread. Then somewhere to hide until daylight... If Ambrosius was at "a meeting," as Marric had said, it would be worse than useless to go to his headquarters and ask to see him now. Whatever my sense of my own importance, it did not stretch to privileged treatment by Ambrosius' soldiers if I turned up dressed like this in his absence. Come daylight, we should see.

  It was cold. My breath puffed, grey on the black and icy air. There was no moon, but the stars were out like wolves' eyes, glaring. Frost glittered on the stones of the road, and rang under the hoofs and wheels ahead of me. Mercifully there was no wind, and my blood warmed with running, but I dared not catch up with the convoy, which went slowly, so that from time to time I had to check and hang back, while the freezing air bit through the ragged sacks and I flailed my arms against my body for warmth.

  Fortunately there was plenty of cover; bushes, sometimes in crouching clusters, sometimes singly, hunched as they had frozen in the path of the prevailing wind, still reaching after it with stiff fingers. Among them great stones stood, rearing sharp against the stars. I took the first of these for a huge milestone, but then saw others, in ranks, thrusting from the turf like storm-blasted avenues of trees. Or like colonnades where gods walked — but not gods that I knew. The starlight struck the face of the stone where I had paused to wait, and something caught my eye, a shape rudely carved in the granite, and etched by the cold light like lampblack. An axe, two-headed. The standing stones stretched away from me into darkness like a march of giants. A dry thistle, broken down to the stalk, stabbed my bare leg. As I turned away I glanced at the axe again. It had vanished.

  I ran back to the road, clamping my teeth against the shivering. It was the cold, of course, that made me shiver; what else? The wagons had drawn ahead again, and I ran after, keeping to the turf at the road's edge, though this in fact seemed as hard as the gravel. The frost broke and squeaked under my sandals. Behind me the silent army of stones marched dwindling into the dark, and before me now were the lights of a town and the warmth of its houses reaching out to meet me. I think it was the first time that I, Merlin, had run towards light and company, run from solitude as if it were a ring of wolves' eyes driving one nearer the fire.

  It was a walled town. I should have guessed it, so near the sea. There was a high earthwork and above that a palisade, and the ditch outside the earthwork was wide and white with ice. They had smashed the ice at intervals, so that it would not bear; I could see the black stars and the crisscross map of cracks just skinning over with grey glass as the new ice formed. There was a wooden bridge across to the gate, and here the wagons halted, while the officer rode forward to speak to the guards, and the men stood like rocks while the mules stamped and blew and jingled their harness, eager for the warmth of the stable.

  If I had had any idea of jumping on the back of a wagon and being carried in that way, I had had to abandon it. All the way to the town the soldiers had been strung out in a file to either side of the convoy, with the officer riding out to one side where he could scan the whole. Now, as he gave the order to advance and break step for the bridge, he wheeled his horse and rode back himself to the tail of the column, to see the last cart in. I caught a glimpse of his face, middle-aged, bad-tempered and catarrhal with cold. Not the man to listen patiently, or even to listen at all. I was safer outside with the stars and the marching giants.

  The gate thudded shut behind the convoy, and I heard the locks drive home.

  * * *

  There was a path, faintly discernible, leading off eastward along the edge of the ditch. When I looked that way I saw that, some way off, so far that they must mark some kind of settlement or farm well beyond the limits of the town, more lights showed.

  I turned along the path at a trot, chewing at my chunk of barley bread as I went.

  The lights turned out to belong to a fair-sized house whose buildings enclosed a courtyard. The house itself, two storeys high, made one wall of the yard, which was bounded on the other three sides by single-storey buildings — baths, servants' quarters, stables, bakehouse — the whole enclosure high-walled and showing only a few slit windows well beyond my reach. There was an arched gateway, and beside this in an iron bracket set at the height of a man's reach, a torch spluttered, sulky with damp pitch. There were more lights inside the yard, but I could hear no movement or voices. The gate, of course, was shut fast.

  Not that I would have dared go in that way, to meet some summary fate at the porter's hands. I skirted the wall, looking hopefully for a way to climb in. The third window was the bakehouse; the smells were hours old, and cold, but still would have sent me swarming up the wall, save that the window was a bare slit which would not have admitted even me.

  The next was a stable, and the next also... I could smell the horse-smells and beast-smells mingling, and the sweetness of dried grass. Then the house, with no windows at all facing outwards. The bathhouse, the same. And back to the gate.

  A chain clanged suddenly, and within a few feet of me, just inside the gate, a big dog gave tongue like a bell. I believe I jumped back a full pace, then flattened myself against the wall as I heard a door open somewhere close. There was a pause, while the dog growled and someone listened, then a man's voice said something curt, and the door shut. The dog grumbled to itself for a bit, snuffling at the foot of the gate, then dragged its chain back to the kennel, and I heard it settling again into its straw.

  There was obviously no way in to find shelter. I stood for a while, trying to think, with my back pressed to the cold wall that still seemed warmer than the icy air. I was shaking so violently now with the cold that I felt as if my very bones were chattering. I was sure I had been right to leave the ship, and not to trust myself to the troops' mercy, but now I began to wonder if I dared knock at the gate and beg for shelter. I would get rough shrift as a beggar, I knew, but if I stayed out here I might well die of cold before morning.

  Then I saw, just beyond the torchlight's reach, the low black shap
e of a building that must be a cattle shed or shippon, some twenty paces away and at the corner of a field surrounded by low banks crowned with thorn bushes. I could hear cattle moving there. At least there would be their warmth to share, and if I could force my chattering teeth through it, I still had a heel of barley bread.

  I had taken a pace away from the wall, moving, I could have sworn, without a sound, when the dog came out of his kennel with a rush and a rattle, and set up his infernal baying again. This time the house door opened immediately, and I heard a man's step in the yard. He was coming towards the gate. I heard the rasp of metal as he drew some weapon. I was just turning to run when I heard, clear and sharp on the frosty air, what the dog had heard. The sound of hoofs, full gallop, coming this way.

  Quick as a shadow, I ran across the open ground towards the shed. Beside it a gap in the bank made a gateway, which had been blocked with a dead thorn-tree. I shoved through this, then crept — as quietly as I could, not to disturb the beasts — to crouch in the shed doorway, out of sight of the house gate.

  The shed was only a small, roughly built shelter, with walls not much more than man-height, thatched over, and crowded with beasts. These seemed to be young bullocks for the most part, too thronged to lie down, but seemingly content enough with each other's warmth, and some dry fodder to chew over. A rough plank across the doorway made a barrier to keep them in. Outside, the field stretched empty in the starlight, grey with frost, and bounded with its low banks ridged with those hunched and crippled bushes. In the center of the field was one of the standing stones.

  Inside the gateway, I heard the man speak to silence the dog. The sound of hoofs swelled, hammering up the iron track, then suddenly the rider was on us, sweeping out of the dark and pulling his horse up with a scream of metal on stone and a flurry of gravel and frozen turf, and the thud of the beast's hoofs right up against the wood of the gate. The man inside shouted something, a question, and the rider answered him even in the act of flinging himself down from the saddle.

  "Of course it is. Open up, will you?"

  I heard the door grate as it was dragged open, then the two men talking, but apart from a word here and there, could not distinguish what they said. It seemed, from the movement of the light, that the porter (or whoever had come to the gate) had lifted the torch down from its socket. Moreover, the light was moving this way, and both men with it, leading the horse.

  I heard the rider say, impatiently: "Oh, yes, it'll be well enough here. If it comes to that, it will suit me to have a quick getaway. There's fodder there?"

  "Aye, sir. I put the young beasts out here to make room for the horses."

  "There's a crowd, then?" The voice was young, clear, a little harsh, but that might only be cold and arrogance combined. A patrician voice, careless as the horsemanship that had all but brought the horse down on its haunches in front of the gate.

  "A fair number," said the porter. "Mind now, sir, it's through this gap. If you'll let me go first with the light..."

  "I can see," said the young man irritably, "if you don't shove the torch right in my face. Hold up, you." This to the horse as it pecked at a stone.

  "You'd best let me go first, sir. There's a thorn bush across the gap to keep them in. If you'll stand clear a minute, I'll shift it."

  I had already melted out of the shed doorway and round the corner, where the rough wall met the field embankment. There were turfs stacked here, and a pile of brushwood and dried bracken that I supposed were winter bedding. I crouched down behind the stack.

  I heard the thorn-tree being lifted and flung aside. "There, sir, bring him through. There's not much room, but if you're sure you'd as soon leave him out here —"

  "I said it would do. Shift the plank and get him in. Hurry, man, I'm late."

  "If you leave him with me now, sir, I'll unsaddle for you."

  "No need. He'll be well enough for an hour or two. Just loosen the girth. I suppose I'd better throw my cloak over him. Gods, it's cold... Get the bridle off, will you? I'm getting in out of this..."

  I heard him stride away, spurs clinking. The plank went back into place, and then the thorn-tree. As the porter hurried after him I caught something that sounded like, "And let me in at the back, where the father won't see me."

  The big gate shut behind them. The chain rattled, but the dog stayed silent. I heard the men's steps crossing the yard, then the house door shut on them.

  3

  EVEN IF I HAD DARED TO RISK the torchlight and the dog, to scramble over the bank behind me and run the twenty paces to the gate, there would have been no need. The god had done his part; he had sent me warmth and, I discovered, food.

  No sooner had the gate shut than I was back inside the shippon, whispering reassurance to the horse as I reached to rob him of the cloak. He was not sweating much; he must have galloped only the mile or so from the town, and in that shed among the crowded beasts he could take no harm from cold; in any case, my need came before his, and I had to have that cloak. It was an officer's cloak, thick, soft, and good. As I laid hold of it I found, to my excitement, that my lord had left me not only his cloak, but a full saddle-bag as well. I stretched up, tiptoe, and felt inside.

  A leather flask, which I shook. It was almost full. Wine, certainly; that young man would never carry water. A napkin with biscuits in it, and raisins, and some strips of dried meat.

  The beasts jostled, dribbling, and puffed their warm breath at me. The long cloak had slipped to trail a corner in the dirt under their hoofs. I snatched it up, clutched the flask and food to me, and slipped out under the barrier. The pile of brushwood in the corner outside was clean, but I would hardly have cared if it had been a dung-heap. I burrowed into it, wrapped myself warmly in the soft woollen folds, and steadily ate and drank my way through everything the god had sent me.

  * * *

  Whatever happened, I must not sleep. Unfortunately it seemed that the young man would not be here for more than an hour or two; but this with the bonus of food should be time enough to warm me so that I might bed down in comfort till daylight. I would hear movement from the house in time to slip back to the shed and throw the cloak into place. My lord would hardly be likely to notice that his marching rations had gone from his saddle-bag.

  I drank some more wine. It was amazing how even the stale ends of the barley bread tasted the better for it. It was good stuff, potent and sweet, and tasting of raisins. It ran warm into my body, till the rigid joints loosened and melted and stopped their shaking, and I could curl up warm and relaxed in my dark nest, with the bracken pulled right up over me to shut out the cold.

  * * *

  I must have slept a little. What woke me I have no idea; there was no sound. Even the beasts in the shed were still.

  It seemed darker, so that I wondered if it were almost dawn, when the stars fade. But when I parted the bracken and peered out I saw they were still there, burning white in the black sky.

  The strange thing was, it was warmer. Some wind had risen, and had brought cloud with it, scudding drifts that raced high overhead, then scattered and wisped away so that shadow and starlight broke one after the other like waves across the frost-grey fields and still landscape, where the thistles and stiff winter grasses seemed to flow like water, or like a cornfield under the wind. There was no sound of the wind blowing.

  Above the flying veils of cloud the stars were brilliant, studding a black dome. The warmth and my curled posture in the dark must (I thought) have made me dream of security, of Galapas and the crystal globe where I had lain curled, and watched the light. Now the brilliant arch of stars above me was like the curved roof of the cave with the light flashing off the crystals, and the passing shadows flying, chased by the fire. You could see points of red and sapphire, and one star steady, beaming gold. Then the silent wind blew another shadow across the sky with light behind it, and the thorn trees shivered, and the shadow of the standing stone.

  I must be buried too deep and snug in my bed to hear
the rustle of the wind through grass and thorn. Nor did I hear the young man pushing his way through the barrier that the porter had replaced across the gap in the bank. For, suddenly, with no warning, he was there, a tall figure striding across the field, as shadowy and quiet as the wind.

  I shrank, like a snail into its shell. Too late now to run and replace the cloak. All I could hope was that he would assume the thief had fled, and not search too near. But he did not approach the shed. He was making straight across the field, away from me. Then I saw, half in, half out of the shadow of the standing stone, the white animal grazing. His horse must have broken loose. The gods alone knew what it found to eat in that winter field, but I could see it, ghostly in the distance, the white beast grazing beside the standing stone. And it must have rubbed the girth till it snapped; its saddle, too, was gone.

  At least in the time he would take to catch it, I should be able to get away... or better still, drop the cloak near the shed, where he would think it had slid from the horse's back, and then get back to my warm nest till he had gone. He could only blame the porter for the animal's escape; and justly; I had not touched the bar across the doorway. I raised myself cautiously, watching my chance.

  The grazing animal had lifted its head to watch the man's approach. A cloud swept across the stars, blackening the field. Light ran after the shadow across the frost. It struck the standing stone. I saw that I had been wrong; it was not the horse. Nor — my next thought — could it be one of the young beasts from the shed. This was a bull, a massive white bull, full-grown, with a royal spread of horns and a neck like a thunder-cloud. It lowered its head till the dewlap brushed the ground, and pawed once, twice.