The Crystal Cave Read online

  "Nothing," I said. "I should have known. Go on. No one lived there then?"

  "No one. By the time we got there I suppose I was delirious; I remember nothing. She hid me in the cave, and my horse too, out of sight. There had been food and wine in my saddle-bag, and I had my cloak and a blanket. It was late afternoon by then, and when she rode home she heard that the two dead men had already been found, with their horses straying nearby. The troop had been riding north; it wasn't likely that anyone in the town knew there should have been three corpses found. So I was safe. Next day she rode up to the cave again, with food and medicines... And the next day, too." He paused. "And you know the end of the story."

  "When did you tell her who you were?"

  "When she told me why she could not leave Maridunum and go with me. I had thought till then that she was perhaps one of the Queen's ladies — from her ways and her talk I knew she had been bred in a king's house. Perhaps she saw the same in me. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered, except that I was a man, and she a woman. From the first day, we both knew what would happen. You will understand how it was when you are older." Again the smile, this time touching mouth as well as eyes. "This is one kind of knowledge I think you will have to wait for, Merlin. The Sight won't help you much in matters of love."

  "You asked her to go with you — to come back here?"

  He nodded. "Even before I knew who she was. After I knew, I was afraid for her, and pressed her harder, but she would not come with me. From the way she had spoken I knew she hated and feared the Saxons, and feared what Vortigern was doing to the kingdoms, but still she would not come. It was one thing, she said, to do what she had done, but another to go across the seas with the man who, when he came back, must be her father's enemy. We must end it, she said, as the year was ending, and then forget."

  He was silent for a minute, looking down at his hands.

  I said: "And you never knew she had borne a child?"

  "No. I wondered, of course. I sent a message the next spring, but got no answer. I left it then, knowing that if she wanted me, she knew — all the world knew — where to find me. Then I heard — it must have been nearly two years later — that she was betrothed. I know now that this was not true, but then it served to make me dismiss it from my mind." He looked at me. "Do you understand that?"

  I nodded. "It may even have been true, though not in the way you'd understand it, my lord. She vowed herself to the Church when I should have no more need of her. The Christians call that a betrothal."

  "So?" He considered for a moment. "Whatever it was, I sent no more messages. And when later on there was mention of a child, a bastard, it hardly crossed my mind that it could be mine. A fellow came here once, a travelling eye-doctor who had been through Wales, and I sent for him and questioned him, and he said yes, there was a bastard boy at the palace of such and such an age, red-haired, and the King's own."

  "Dinias," I said. "He probably never saw me. I was kept out of the way... And my grandfather did sometimes explain me away to strangers as his own. He had a few scattered around, here and there."

  "So I gathered. So the next rumour of a boy — possibly the King's bastard, possibly his daughter's — I hardly listened to. It was all long past, and there were pressing things to do, and always there was the same thought — if she had borne a child to me, would she not have let me know? If she had wanted me, would she not have sent word?"

  He fell silent, then, back in his own thoughts. Whether I understood it all then, as he talked, I do not now recollect. But later, when the pieces shook together to make the mosaic, it was clear enough. The same pride which had forbidden her to go with her lover had forbidden her, once she discovered her pregnancy, to call him back. And it helped her through the months that followed. More than that; if — by flight or any other means — she had betrayed who her lover was, nothing would have stopped her brothers from travelling to Budec's court to kill him. There must — knowing my grandfather — have been angry oaths enough about what they would do to the man who had fathered her bastard. And then time moved on, and his coming grew remote, and then impossible, as if he were indeed a myth and a memory in the night. And then the other long love stepped in to supersede him, and the priests took over, and the winter tryst was forgotten. Except for the child, so like his father; but once her duty to him was done, she could go to the solitude and peace which — all those years ago — had sent her riding alone up the mountain valley, as later I was to ride out alone by the same path, and looking perhaps for the same things.

  I jumped when he spoke again. "How hard a time of it did you have, as a no-man's-child?"

  "Hard enough."

  "You believe me when I say I didn't know?"

  "I believe anything you tell me, my lord."

  "Do you hate me for this, very much, Merlin?"

  I said slowly, looking down at my hands: "There is one thing about being a bastard and a no-man's-child. You are free to imagine your father. You can picture for yourself the worst and the best; you can make your father for yourself, in the image of the moment. From the time I was big enough to understand what I was, I saw my father in every soldier and every prince and every priest. And I saw him, too, in every handsome slave in the kingdom of South Wales."

  He spoke very gently, above me. "And now you see him in truth, Merlin Emrys. I asked you, do you hate me for the kind of life I gave you?"

  I didn't look up. I answered, with my eyes on the flames: "Since I was a child I have had the world to choose from for a father. Out of them all, Aurelius Ambrosius, I would have chosen you."

  Silence. The flames leapt like a heartbeat.

  I added, trying to make it light: "After all, what boy would not choose the King of all Britain for his father?"

  His hand came hard under my chin again, turning my head aside from the brazier and my eyes from the flames. His voice was sharp. "What did you say?"

  "What did I say?" I blinked up at him. "I said I would have chosen you."

  His fingers dug into my flesh. "You called me King of all Britain."

  "Did I?"

  "But this is — " He stopped. His eyes seemed to be burning into me. Then he let his hand drop, and straightened. "Let it go. If it matters, the god will speak again." He smiled down at me. "What matters now is what you said yourself. It isn't given to every man to hear this from his grown son. Who knows, it may be better this way, to meet as men, when we each have something to give the other. To a man whose children have been underfoot since infancy, it is not given, suddenly, to see himself stamped on a boy's face as I am stamped on yours."

  "Am I so like?"

  "They say so. And I see enough of Uther in you to know why everyone said you were mine."

  "Apparently he didn't see it," I said. "Is he very angry about it, or is he only relieved to find I'm not your catamite after all?"

  "You knew about that?" He looked amused. "If he'd think with his brains instead of his body sometimes he'd be the better for it. As it is, we deal together very well. He does one kind of work, as I another, and if I can make the way straight, he'll make a king after me, if I have no —"

  He bit off the word. In the queer little silence that followed I looked at the floor.

  "Forgive me." He spoke quietly, equal to equal. "I spoke without thought. For so long a time I have been used to the idea that I had no son."

  I looked up. "It's still the truth, in the sense you mean. And it's certainly the truth as Uther will see it."

  "Then if you see it the same way, my path is the smoother."

  I laughed. "I don't see myself as a king. Half a king, perhaps, or more likely a quarter — the little bit that sees and thinks, but can't do. Perhaps Uther and I between us might make one, if you go? He's larger than life already, wouldn't you say?"

  But he didn't smile. His eyes had narrowed, with an arrested look. "This is how I have been thinking, or something like it. Did you guess?"

  "No sir, how could I?" I sat up straight as it
broke on me: "Is this how you thought you might use me? Of course I realize now why you kept me here, in your house, and treated me so royally, but I've wanted to believe you had plans for me — that I could be of use to you. Belasius told me you used every man according to his capacity, and that even if I were no use as a soldier, you would still use me somehow. This is true?"

  "Quite true. I knew it straight away, before I even thought you might be my son, when I saw how you faced Uther that night in the field, with the visions still in your eyes, and the power all over you like a shining skin. No, Merlin, you will never make a king, or even a prince as the world sees it, but when you are grown I believe you will be such a man that, if a king had you beside him, he could rule the world. Now do you begin to understand why I sent you to Belasius?"

  "He is a very learned man," I said cautiously.

  "He is a corrupt and a dangerous man," said Ambrosius directly. "But he is a sophisticated and clever man who has travelled a good deal and who has skills you will not have had the chance to master in Wales. Learn from him. I don't say follow him, because there are places where you must not follow him, but learn all you can."

  I looked up, then nodded. "You know about him." It was a conclusion, not a question.

  "I know he is a priest of the old religion. Yes."

  "You don't mind this?"

  "I cannot yet afford to throw aside valuable tools because I don't like their design," he said. "He is useful, so I use him. You will do the same, if you are wise."

  "He wants to take me to the next meeting."

  He raised his brows but said nothing.

  "Will you forbid this?" I asked.

  "No. Will you go?"

  "Yes." I said slowly, and very seriously, searching for the words: "My lord, when you are looking for... what I am looking for, you have to look in strange places. Men can never look at the sun, except downwards, at his reflection in things of earth. If he is reflected in a dirty puddle, he is still the sun. There is nowhere I will not look, to find him."

  He was smiling. "You see? You need no guarding, except what Cadal can do." He leaned back against the edge of the table, half sitting, relaxed now and easy. "Emrys, she called you. Child of the light. Of the immortals. Divine. You knew that's what it meant?"

  "Yes."

  "Didn't you know it was the same as mine?"

  "My name?" I asked, stupidly.

  He nodded. "Emrys... Ambrosius; it's the same word. Merlinus Ambrosius — she called you after me."

  I stared at him. "I — yes, of course. It never occurred to me." I laughed.

  "Why do you laugh?"

  "Because of our names. Ambrosius, prince of light... She told everyone that my father was the prince of darkness. I've even heard a song about it. We make songs of everything, in Wales."

  "Some day you must sing it to me." Then he sobered suddenly. His voice deepened. "Merlinus Ambrosius, child of the light, look at the fire now, and tell me what you see." Then, as I looked up at him, startled, he said urgently: "Now, tonight, before the fire dies, while you are weary and there is sleep in your face. Look at the brazier, and talk to me. What will come to Britain? What will come to me, and to Uther? Look now, work for me, my son, and tell me."

  It was no use; I was awake, and the flames were dying in the brazier; the power had gone, leaving only a room with rapidly cooling shadows, and a man and a boy talking. But because I loved him, I turned my eyes to the embers. There was utter silence, except for the hiss of ash settling, and the tick of the cooling metal.

  I said: "I see nothing but the fire dying down in the brazier, and a burning cave of coal."

  "Go on looking."

  I could feel the sweat starting on my body, the drops trickling down beside my nose, under my arms, into my groin till my thighs stuck together. My hands worked on one another, tight between my knees till the bones hurt. My temples ached. I shook my head sharply to clear it, and looked up. "My lord, it's no use. I'm sorry, but it's no use. I don't command the god, he commands me. Some day it may be I shall see at will, or when you command me, but now it comes itself, or not at all." I spread my hands, trying to explain. "It's like waiting below a cover of cloud, then suddenly a wind shifts it and it breaks, and the light stabs down and catches me, sometimes full, sometimes only the flying edge of the pillars of sunlight. One day I shall be free of the whole temple. But not yet. I can see nothing." Exhaustion dragged at me. I could hear it in my voice. "I'm sorry, my lord. I'm no use to you. You haven't got your prophet yet."

  "No," said Ambrosius. He put a hand down, and as I stood, drew me to him and kissed me. "Only a son, who has had no supper and who is tired out. Go to bed, Merlin, and sleep the rest of the night without dreaming. There is plenty of time for visions. Good night."

  * * *

  I had no more visions that night, but I did have a dream. I never told Ambrosius. I saw again the cave on the hillside, and the girl Niniane coming through the mist, and the man who waited for her beside the cave. But the face of Niniane was not the face of my mother, and the man by the cave was not the young Ambrosius. He was an old man, and his face was mine.

  BOOK III — THE WOLF

  1

  I WAS FIVE YEARS WITH AMBROSIUS in Brittany. Looking back now, I see that much of what happened has been changed in my memory, like a smashed mosaic which is mended in later years by a man who has almost forgotten the first picture. Certain things come back to me plain, in all their colours and details; others — perhaps more important — come hazy, as if the picture had been dusted over by what has happened since, death, sorrow, changes of the heart. Places I always remember well, some of them so clearly that I feel even now as if I could walk into them, and that if I had the strength to concentrate, and the power that once fitted me like my robe, I might even now rebuild them here in the dark as I rebuilt the Giants' Dance for Ambrosius, all those years ago.

  Places are clear, and ideas, which came to me so new and shining then, but not always the people: sometimes now as I search my memory I wonder if here and there I have confused them one with another, Belasius with Galapas, Cadal with Cerdic, the Breton officer whose name I forget now with my grandfather's captain in Maridunum who once tried to make me into the kind of swordsman that he thought even a bastard prince should want to be.

  But as I write of Ambrosius, it is as if he were here with me now, lit against this darkness as the man with the cap was lit on that first frost-enchanted night in Brittany. Even without my robe of power I can conjure up against the darkness his eyes, steady under frowning brows, the heavy lines of his body, the face (which seems so young to me now) engraved into hardness by the devouring, goading will that had kept his eyes turned westward to his closed kingdom for the twenty-odd years it took him to grow from child to Comes and build, against all the odds of poverty and weakness, the striking force that grew with him, waiting for the time.

  It is harder to write of Uther. Or rather it is hard to write of Uther as if he were in the past, part of a story that has been over these many years. Even more vividly than Ambrosius he is here with me; not here in the darkness — it is the part of me that was Myrddin that is here in the darkness. The part that was Uther is out there in the sunlight, keeping the coasts of Britain whole, following the design I made for him, the design that Galapas showed to me on a summer's day in Wales.

  But there, of course, it is no longer Uther of whom I write. It is the man who was the sum of us, who was all of us — Ambrosius, who made me; Uther, who worked with me; myself, who used him, as I used every man who came to my hand, to make Arthur for Britain.

  * * *

  From time to time news came from Britain, and occasionally with it — through Gorlois of Cornwall — news of my home.

  It seemed that after my grandfather's death, Camlach had not immediately deserted the old alliance with his kinsman Vortigern. He had to feel himself more secure before he would dare break away to support the "young men's party," as Vortimer's faction was called. Indeed
, Vortimer himself had stopped short of open rebellion, but it seemed clear that this must come eventually. King Vortigern was back between the landslide and the flood; if he was to stay King of the British he must call on his Saxon wife's countrymen for help, and the Saxon mercenaries year by year increased their demands till the country was split and bleeding under what men openly called the Saxon Terror, and — in the West especially, where men were still free — rebellion only waited for a leader of leaders. And so desperate was Vortigern's situation becoming that he was forced against his better judgement to entrust the armed forces in the West more and more to Vortimer and his brothers, whose blood at least carried none of the Saxon taint.

  Of my mother there was no news, except that she was safe in St. Peter's. Ambrosius sent her no message. If it came to her ears that a certain Merlinus Ambrosius was with the Count of Brittany, she would know what to think, but a letter or message direct from the King's enemy would endanger her unnecessarily. She would know, said Ambrosius, soon enough.

  In fact it was five years before the break came, but the time went by like a tide-race. With the possibility of an opening developing in Wales and Cornwall, Ambrosius' preparations accelerated. If the men of the West wanted a leader he had every intention that it should be, not Vortimer, but himself. He would bide his time and let Vortimer be the wedge, but he and Uther would be the hammer that drove after it into the crack. Meanwhile hope in Less Britain ran high; offers of troops and alliances poured in, the countryside shook to the tramp of horses and marching feet, and the streets of the engineers and armourers rang far into the night as men redoubled their efforts to make two weapons in the time that before it had taken to make one. Now at last the break was coming, and when it came Ambrosius must be ready, and with no chance of failure. One does not wait half a lifetime gathering the material to make a killing spear, and then loose it at random in the dark. Not only men and materials, but time and spirit and the very wind of heaven must be right for him, and the gods themselves must open the gate. And for this, he said, they had sent me to him. It was my coming just at such a time with words of victory, and full of the vision of the unconquered god, which persuaded him (and even more important, the soldiers with him) that the time was at last approaching when he could strike with the certainty of victory. So — I found to my fear — he rated me.