The Crystal Cave Read online

  If they had ever discovered me I think I might have received a worse punishment than whipping: I must have listened, innocently enough, to dozens of secret councils, and certainly to some very private goings-on, but that side of it never occurred to me. And it was natural enough that nobody should give a thought to the dangers of eavesdropping; in the old days the flues had been cleaned by boy-slaves, and nobody much beyond the age of ten could ever have got through some of the workings; there were one or two places where even I was hard put to it to wriggle through. I was only once in danger of discovery: one afternoon when Moravik supposed I was playing with the boys and they in turn thought I was safe under her skirts, the red-haired Dinias, my chief tormentor, gave a younger boy such a shove from the roof-tree where they were playing that the latter fell and broke a leg, and set up such a howling that Moravik, running to the scene, discovered me absent and set the palace by the ears. I heard the noise, and emerged breathless and dirty from under the boiler, just as she started a hunt through the bath-house wing. I lied my way out of it, and got off with boxed ears and a scolding, but it was a warning; I never went into the hypocaust again by daylight, only at night before Moravik came to bed, or once or twice when I was wakeful and she was already abed and snoring. Most of the palace would be abed, too, but when there was a feast, or when my grandfather had guests, I would listen to the noise of voices and the singing; and sometimes I would creep as far as my mother's chamber, to hear the sound of her voice as she talked with her women. But one night I heard her praying, aloud, as one does sometimes when alone, and in the prayer was my name, "Emrys," and then her tears. After that I went another way, past the Queen's rooms, where almost every evening Olwen, the young Queen, sang to her harp among her ladies, until the King's tread came heavily down the corridor, and the music stopped.

  But it was for none of these things that I went. What mattered to me — I see it clearly now — was to be alone in the secret dark, where a man is his own master, except for death.

  Mostly I went to what I called my "cave." This had been part of some main chimney-shaft, and the top of it had crumbled, so that one could see the sky. It had held magic for me since the day I had looked up at midday and had seen, faint but unmistakable, a star. Now when I went in at night I would curl up on my bed of stolen stable-straw and watch the stars wheeling slowly across, and make my own bet with heaven, which was, if the moon should show over the shaft while I was there, the next day would bring me my heart's desire.

  The moon was there that night. Full and shining, she stood clear in the center of the shaft, her light pouring down on my upturned face so white and pure that it seemed I drank it in like water. I did not move till she had gone, and the little star that dogs her.

  On the way back I passed under a room that had been empty before, but which now held voices.

  Camlach's room, of course. He and another man whose name I did not know, but who, from his accent, was one of those who had ridden in that day; I had found that they came from Cornwall. He had one of those thick, rumbling voices of which I caught only a word here and there as I crawled quickly through, worming my way between the pillars, concerned only not to be heard.

  I was right at the end wall, and feeling along it for the arched gap to the next chamber, when my shoulder struck a broken section of flue pipe, and a loose piece of fireclay fell with a rattle.

  The Cornishman's voice stopped abruptly. "What's that?"

  Then my uncle's voice, so clear down the broken flue that you would have thought he spoke in my ear.

  "Nothing. A rat. It came from under the floor. I tell you, the place is falling to pieces." There was the sound of a chair scraping back, and footsteps going across the room, away from me. His voice receded. I thought I heard the chink and gurgle of a drink being poured. I began slowly, slowly, to edge along the wall towards the trap.

  He was coming back.

  "...And even if she does refuse him, it will hardly matter. She won't stay here — at any rate, no longer than my father can fight the bishop off and keep her by him. I tell you, with her mind set on what she calls a higher court, I've nothing to fear, even if he came himself."

  "As long as you believe her."

  "Oh, I believe her. I've been asking here and there, and everyone says the same." He laughed. "Who knows, we may be thankful yet to have a voice at that heavenly court of hers before this game's played out. And she's devout enough to save the lot of us, they tell me, if she'll only put her mind to it."

  "You may need it yet," said the Cornishman.

  "I may."

  "And the boy?"

  "The boy?" repeated my uncle. He paused, then the soft footsteps resumed their pacing. I strained to hear. I had to hear. Why it should have mattered I hardly knew. It did not worry me overmuch to be called bastard, or coward, or devil's whelp. But tonight there had been that full moon.

  He had turned. His voice carried clearly, careless, indulgent even.

  "Ah, yes, the boy. A clever child, at a guess, with more there than they give him credit for... and nice enough, if one speaks him fair. I shall keep him close to me. Remember that, Alun; I like the boy..."

  He called a servant in then to replenish the wine-jug, and under cover of this, I crept away.

  * * *

  That was the beginning of it. For days I followed him everywhere, and he tolerated, even encouraged me, and it never occurred to me that a man of twenty-one would not always welcome a puppy of six for ever trotting at his heels. Moravik scolded, when she could get hold of me, but my mother seemed pleased and relieved, and bade her let me be.

  2

  IT HAD BEEN A HOT SUMMER, and there was peace that year, so for the first few days of his homecoming Camlach idled, resting or riding out with his father or the men through the harvest fields and the valleys where the apples already dropped ripe from the trees.

  South Wales is a lovely country, with green hills and deep valleys, flat water-meadows yellow with flowers where cattle grow sleek, oak forests full of deer, and the high blue uplands where the cuckoo shouts in springtime, but where, come winter, the wolves run, and I have seen lightning even with the snow.

  Maridunum lies where the estuary opens to the sea, on the river which is marked Tobius on the military maps, but which the Welsh call Tywy. Here the valley is flat and wide, and the Tywy runs in a deep and placid meander through bog and water-meadow between the gentle hills. The town stands on the rising ground of the north bank, where the land is drained and dry; it is served inland by the military road from Caerleon, and from the south by a good stone bridge with three spans, from which a paved street leads straight uphill past the King's house, and into the square. Apart from my grandfather's house, and the barrack buildings of the Roman-built fortress where he quartered his soldiers and which he kept in good repair, the best building in Maridunum was the Christian nunnery near the palace on the river's bank. A few holy women lived there, calling themselves the Community of St. Peter, though most of the townspeople called the place Tyr Myrddin, from the old shrine of the god which had stood time out of mind under an oak not far from St. Peter's gate. Even when I was a child, I heard the town itself called Caer-Myrddin ["dd" is pronounced "th" as in thus. Myrddin is, roughly, Murthin. Caer-Myrddin is the modern Carmarthen.]: it is not true (as they say now) that men call it after me. The fact is that I, like the town and the hill behind it with the sacred spring, was called after the god who is worshipped in high places. Since the events which I shall tell of, the name of the town has been publicly changed in my honour, but the god was there first, and if I have his hill now, it is because he shares it with me.

  My grandfather's house was set among its orchards right beside the river. If you climbed — by way of a leaning apple-tree — to the top of the wall, you could sit high over the towpath and watch the river-bridge for people riding in from the south, or for the ships that came up with the tide.

  Though I was not allowed to climb the trees for apples — being force
d to content myself with the windfalls — Moravik never stopped me from climbing to the top of the wall. To have me posted there as sentry meant that she got wind of new arrivals sooner than anyone else in the palace. There was a little raised terrace at the orchard's end, with a curved brick wall at the back and a stone seat protected from the wind, and she would sit there by the hour, dozing over her spindle, while the sun beat into the corner so hotly that lizards would steal out to lie on the stones, and I called out my reports from the wall.

  One hot afternoon, about eight days after Camlach's coming to Maridunum, I was at my post as usual. There was no coming and going on the bridge or the road up the valley, only a local grain-barge loading at the wharf, watched by a scatter of idlers, and an old man in a hooded cloak who loitered, picking up windfalls along under the wall.

  I looked over my shoulder towards Moravik's corner. She was asleep, her spindle drooping on her knee, looking, with the white fluffy wool, like a burst bulrush. I threw down the bitten windfall I had been eating, and tilted my head to study the forbidden tree-top boughs where yellow globes hung clustered against the sky. There was one I thought I could reach. The fruit was round and glossy, ripening almost visibly in the hot sun. My mouth watered. I reached for a foothold and began to climb.

  I was two branches away from the fruit when a shout from the direction of the bridge, followed by the quick tramp of hoofs and the jingle of metal, brought me up short. Clinging like a monkey, I made sure of my feet, then reached with one hand to push the leaves aside, peering down towards the bridge. A troop of men was riding over it, towards the town. One man rode alone in front, bareheaded, on a big brown horse.

  Not Camlach, or my grandfather; and not one of the nobles, for the men wore colours I did not know. Then as they reached the nearer end of the bridge I saw that the leader was a stranger, black-haired and black-bearded, with a foreign-looking set to his clothes, and a flash of gold on his breast. His wristguards were golden, too, and a span deep. His troop, as I judged, was about fifty strong.

  King Gorlan of Lanascol. Where the name sprang from, clear beyond mistake, I had no idea. Something heard from my labyrinth, perhaps? A word spoken carelessly in a child's hearing? A dream, even? The shields and spear-tips, catching the sun, flashed into my eyes. Gorlan of Lanascol. A king. Come to marry my mother and take me with him overseas. She would be a queen. And I...

  He was already setting his horse at the hill. I began to half-slither, half-scramble, down the tree.

  And if she refuses him? I recognized that voice; it was the Cornishman's. And after him my uncle's: Even if she does, it will hardly matter... I've nothing to fear, so even if he came himself...

  The troop was riding at ease across the bridge. The jingle of arms and the hammering of hoofs rang in the still sunlight.

  He had come himself. He was here.

  A foot above the wall-top I missed my footing and almost fell. Luckily my grip held, and I slithered safely to the coping in a shower of leaves and lichen just as my nurse's voice called shrilly:

  "Merlin? Merlin? Save us, where's the boy?"

  "Here — here, Moravik — just coming down."

  I landed in the long grass. She had left her spindle and, kilting up her skirts, came running.

  "What's the to-do on the river road? I heard horses, a whole troop by the noise — Saints alive, child, look at your clothes! If I didn't mend that tunic only this week, and now look at it! A tear you could put a fist through, and dirt from head to foot like a beggar's brat!"

  I dodged as she reached for me. "I fell. I'm sorry. I was climbing down to tell you. It's a troop of horse — foreigners! Moravik, it's King Gorlan from Lanascol! He has a red cloak and a black beard!"

  "Gorlan of Lanascol? Why, that's barely twenty miles from where I was born! What's he here for, I wonder?"

  I stared. "Didn't you know? He's come to marry my mother."

  "Nonsense."

  "It's true!"

  "Of course it's not true! Do you think I wouldn't know? You must not say these things, Merlin, it could mean trouble. Where did you get it?"

  "I don't remember. Someone told me. My mother, I think."

  "That's not true and you know it."

  "Then I must have heard something."

  "Heard something, heard something. Young pigs have long ears, they say. Yours must be for ever to the ground, you hear so much! What are you smiling at?"

  "Nothing."

  She set her hands on her hips. "You've been listening to things you shouldn't. I've told you about this before. No wonder people say what they say."

  I usually gave up and edged away from dangerous ground when I had given too much away, but excitement had made me reckless. "It's true, you'll find it's true! Does it matter where I heard it? I really can't remember now, but I know it's true! Moravik —"

  "What?"

  "King Gorlan's my father, my real one."

  "What?" This time the syllable was edged like the tooth of a saw.

  "Didn't you know? Not even you?"

  "No, I did not. And no more do you. And if you so much as breathe this to anyone — How do you know the name, even?" She took me by the shoulders and gave me a sharp little shake. "How do you even know this is King Gorlan? There's been nothing said of his coming, even to me."

  "I told you. I don't remember what I heard, or where. I just heard his name somewhere, that's all, and I know he's coming to see the King about my mother. We'll go to Less Britain, Moravik, and you can come with us. You'll like that, won't you? It's your home. Perhaps we'll be near —"

  Her grip tightened, and I stopped. With relief I saw one of the King's body-servants hurrying towards us through the apple-trees. He came up panting.

  "He's to go before the King. The boy. In the great hall. And hurry."

  "Who is it?" demanded Moravik.

  "The King said to hurry. I've been looking everywhere for the boy —"

  "Who is it?"

  "King Gorlan from Brittany."

  She gave a little hiss, like a startled goose, and dropped her hands. "What's his business with the boy?"

  "How do I know?" The man was breathless — it was a hot day and he was stout — and curt with Moravik, whose status as my nurse was only a little higher with the servants than my own. "All I know is, the Lady Niniane is sent for, and the boy, and there'll be a beating for someone, by my reckoning, if he's not there by the time the King's looking round for him. He's been in a rare taking since the outriders came in, that I can tell you."

  "All right, all right. Get back and say we'll be there in a few minutes."

  The man hurried off. She whirled on me and grabbed at my arm. "All the sweet saints in heaven!" Moravik had the biggest collection of charms and talismans of anyone in Maridunum, and I had never known her pass a wayside shrine without paying her respects to whatever image inhabited it, but officially she was a Christian and, when in trouble, a devout one. "Sweet cherubim! And the child has to choose this afternoon to be in rags! Hurry, now, or there'll be trouble for both of us." She hustled me up the path towards the house, busily calling on her saints and exhorting me to hurry, determinedly refusing even to comment on the fact that I had been right about the newcomer. "Dear, dear St. Peter, why did I eat those eels for dinner and then sleep so sound? Today of all days! Here" — she pushed me in front of her into my room — "get out of those rags and into your good tunic, and we'll know soon enough what the Lord has sent for you. Hurry, child!"

  The room I shared with Moravik was a small one, dark, and next to the servants' quarters. It always smelled of cooking smells from the kitchen, but I liked this, as I liked the old lichened pear tree that hung close outside the window, where the birds swung singing in the summer mornings. My bed stood right under this window. The bed was nothing but plain planks set across wooden blocks, no carving, not even a head or foot board. I had heard Moravik grumble to the other servants when she thought I wasn't listening, that it was hardly a fit place to house a king's gra
ndson, but to me she said merely that it was convenient for her to be near the other servants; and indeed I was comfortable enough, for she saw to it that I had a clean straw mattress, and a coverlet of wool every bit as good as those on my mother's bed in the big room next to my grandfather. Moravik herself had a pallet on the floor near the door, and this was sometimes shared by the big wolfhound who fidgeted and scratched for fleas beside her feet, and sometimes by Cerdic, one of the grooms, a Saxon who had been taken in a raid long since, and had settled down to marry one of the local girls. She had died in childbed a year later, and the child with her, but he stayed on, apparently quite content. I once asked Moravik why she allowed the dog to sleep in the room, when she grumbled so much about the smell and the fleas; I forget what she answered, but I knew without being told that he was there to give warning if anyone came into the room during the night. Cerdic, of course, was the exception; the dog accepted him with no more fuss than the beating of his tail upon the floor, and vacated the bed for him. In a way, I suppose, Cerdic fulfilled the same function as the watchdog, and others besides. Moravik never mentioned him, and neither did I. A small child is supposed to sleep very soundly, but even then, young as I was, I would wake sometimes in the middle of the night, and lie quite still, watching the stars through the window beside me, caught like sparkling silver fish in the net of the pear tree's boughs. What passed between Cerdic and Moravik meant no more to me than that he helped to guard my nights, as she my days.