King of the Scepter'd Isle (Song of Earth) (3 page)

And then: “This is my daughter Guinevere,” said the vision of the king.

Into the chamber walked a fair, pale girl.

The real Gwen smiled, enchanted. “Bravo!” murmured the real Lodegrance.

“I can see
why King Arthur is in love,” said Merlin. “Your daughter is the fairest lady I have seen in all England.”

“Thank you, Merlin. I find myself well satisfied with the match too. Arthur is a worthy man for Gwen’s hand. Indeed, he could have all my lands, if he needed them. But he has enough land of his own, so I will give him something else.”

“And what is that, Sire?”

“It is the Round Table, which Uther Pendragon gave me. It seats a hundred and fifty knights. I can let Arthur have a hundred knights to go with it, but I’m fifty short after beating off the Irish last autumn. I’m sure Arthur can raise the other fifty.”

“Arthur will be highly pleased,” said Merlin, and departed.

It took a fortnight to prepare for the departure of Guinevere and the hundred knights. The villagers set to work with a will, seamstresses working on Guinevere’s wedding dress, ostlers preparing the horses and harness, carpenters dismantling the Round Table and loading it into carts. Meanwhile in the castle there was a fortnight of feasting and celebration, music and dancing, and Guinevere was the belle of the occasion.

By the time Guinevere and her escort departed, Nyneve’s audience was as exhausted as if they’d danced for a fortnight themselves.

The storytellers fell silent. The images faded. The audience returned to the present, blinking like people coming in from the dark.

“That was amazing,” said King Lodegrance.

“Wonderful,” Gwen sighed.

“But I must tell you I never knew King Uther, if there was such a man; and I have no Round Table.”

“It’s just a story,” said Nyneve, “I think. But it’s had quite an effect on people. Tristan’s based his whole behavior on it, and built a Round Table himself. Even Baron Menheniot’s introduced the idea of chivalry to his court. With some difficulty,
because they’re a rough bunch of people. Anyway, it seems to be spreading around, the way Avalona hoped it would. Or,” she said, correcting herself, “the way Avalona
knew
it would. She knows everything.”

“Well …” The king yawned and stretched thick arms. “It’s long past midnight. I must thank both of you for a very entertaining evening. You lived up to all the reports I’d heard.”

“Are you going to continue the story tomorrow night?” asked Gwen.

“We must leave in the morning,” said Merlin testily. It was well past his bedtime, and lack of sleep made him irritable.

“I’ll tell you the rest when you come to Mara Zion, Gwen,” said Nyneve.

She awakened the next morning to gray daylight and a tap on the door.

“Who’s that?” She’d bolted the door in case Merlin came shuffling into her chamber during the night, on the pretext of sleepwalking.

“It’s me, Gwen. I’ve brought your clothes. They’ve been washed and dried.”

Nyneve unfastened the door. Gwen was dressed and, Nyneve was pleased to see, looking much brighter than yesterday. “Come in. I think I must have overslept. Telling the story often does that to me.”

Gwen sat on the bed while Nyneve pulled on her clothes. “The story. How does it end?”

“I
told you. I don’t know.” In the cold light of day, Nyneve was beginning to regret her impulse in inviting this girl to Mara Zion. Without the lamplight to flatter her, Gwen had a vapid look. “Last night was as far as the story’s gotten so far,” she explained, relenting.

“Do you suppose they really do get married?”

“I suppose so.”

“This Arthur. He’s so
real.
I … I dreamed about him last night, Nyneve. He’s very handsome, isn’t he? It’s difficult to believe he doesn’t exist. I mean, how could everything be so
exact?”

“I told you last night. I have a suspicion that it might be a real world on a different happentrack.” Looking out of the window, Nyneve saw the tiny, half-seen figures of gnomes flitting about their business. Obviously they had a village here; some of their dwellings were probably under the castle. The umbra: that was what the Mara Zion gnomes called the shadowy worlds of other people. You could see people in the umbra—just—but you couldn’t hear them. When she got back, she must ask her friend Fang. Apart from her own world, had he ever glimpsed any other world in the umbra—a world of chivalry and honor, peopled by humans?

And if she could step through the fairy ring into Fang’s world, could she perhaps take a further step into Arthur’s …?

Suddenly she was impatient to get back to Mara Zion.

“Arthur—” Gwen began.

“You’d better forget about Arthur,” said Nyneve, more sharply than she’d intended.

Gwen said, “You’re jealous, aren’t you!”

I
N THOSE FAR-OFF DAYS THE
ROMAN EMPIRE WAS MEN
-aced on all sides by barbarians. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians had attacked Gaul in the early part of the century, and Alaric, King of the Visigoths, had besieged Rome itself. Small wonder that the Empire had begun to withdraw its troops from Britain.

In the Scepter’d Isle itself, the old ways were changing. Scottish, Pictish, and Anglo-Saxon raiders swept across the land, bringing new fears and new ways of life. Appeals to Rome fell on deaf ears. By the middle of the century the Great King, Vortigern, ruled most of England with the aid of Anglo-Saxon mercenaries. They held the Picts and Scots at bay, and some measure of prosperity returned to the land.

Then came the Saxon revolt in Kent, led by Hengist and Horsa. Vortigern’s empire fell apart. The last remnants of civilized Roman rule came under siege as faction fought faction. Anglo-Saxon mercenaries fought for all sides, and many Britons fled to their hill forts, to the forests, and to the farthest corners of the land. The old aristocracy of Roman Britain struggled to unite against the mercenaries—but they lacked a leader. …

*  *  *

In a cottage in the forest
of Mara Zion, an old woman explored the future.

Her two companions, Nyneve and Merlin, had been sent away for a month while Avalona pondered. Mara Zion was a small place in relation to the galaxy and the infinite great-away; but it was the place where she lived and worked. And she had a great Purpose that was incalculably more important than a handful of warring savages, because it affected every time and every place. She could not tolerate this local unrest. It would not be allowed to continue.

The seeds had been sown. The legend of Arthur—and so far it was no more than that—had spread across the country. Nyneve and Merlin had done a good job with the modicum of talent she’d supplied. It hadn’t been difficult. Humans were credulous creatures, and in their minds an alternative world had been created: a world of chivalry and honor, yet a world of violence and bloodshed and death. A world where men would die for their king or their principles, and where their women would encourage them and bury them. A simple world where right conquered wrong. Camelot.

So now people were looking around for a strong leader to unite the factions, restore peace to the land, and hold it against invaders. A leader they could respect; a leader of principle; a just and honorable leader.

A leader like Arthur, for instance.

For the present time, and for a certain time of hideous danger in the far distant future, Arthur was the man Avalona and England needed.

But Arthur was two happentracks away.

Avalona examined the happentracks. On the nearest was an Earth that for a long time had been empty of animals. Then, thousands of years ago, a gentle space-faring race had seen it and sent down several exploratory parties of small bipeds. They were still there, tailoring their Earth for full-scale colonization.

And one happentrack beyond lay the world of Arthur, its history molded to suit Avalona’s purposes. Underpopulated, simple, waiting to be put to her, use.

Unusually, these
two happentracks had not continued to diverge after the original branchings. Quite the opposite had happened. They had converged to the point that two of them could actually see each other, faintly. And all of them could see one another’s moons. All that was required was the finishing touch.

Avalona concentrated. …

Two days’ ride east of Castle Camyliard lay a stretch of rolling moorland topped by a pinnacle called Pentor. If you walked due south from the moor at the time of our story, you would pass through the forest of Mara Zion on your way to a cliff-girt beach. If you then picked your way over the rocks at the base of the western cliffs for a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, you would find a cave. If you looked closely at a point about a foot from the ground, where the limpet-encrusted rocks disappeared into the blackness within, you would see a pair of eyes. The eyes belonged to a gnome named Pong.

The time of the year was spring, several months after the journey of Nyneve and Merlin.

After a long and breathless wait, Pong emerged into full daylight.

He was of medium height as gnomes go, stockily built, his normally cheery face a mask of apprehension as his eyes darted this way and that. He wore heavy leather knee-length boots, into which were tucked thick linen pants of faded blue; a heavy, knitted black sweater with a roll neck; and on his head the traditional conical red cap was firmly jammed.

Pong looked like what he was: a sailorgnome with a secret dread. Poised for flight, he scanned the beach.

The subject of his dread was not in sight, however. He relaxed, stretched, smiled at the early-morning sunshine, sniffed the salt-laden air, savored the warm breeze on his face, and heard the scrunch of a footstep on the pebbles.

With a squeal of fright he whirled around and darted back into the cave.

A shelf ran
along the west wall of the cave. Pong scrambled onto this, burrowed into a pile of blankets, drew his feet to his chest, and lay motionless. Soon he heard footsteps again, slightly louder than the beating of his heart. They echoed off the roof of the cave, approaching. In his terror, Pong fancied he could hear the chattering of giant mandibles, and the clicking of pincers limbering up for a grab.

“Hello?”

“Yah!” Pong let out an involuntary yell of horror.

“Is anybody there?”

“Yes. Certainly. Yes.” It dawned on Pong that the voice was a gnomish one, rather than the roar of crustacean hunger that he’d imagined it to be. “Very much so,” babbled Pong, sliding down from his shelf to greet the newcomer. “Welcome, welcome. My humble abode. Don’t often get visitors. Lovely day.”

“It certainly is.” The two gnomes moved out into the sunlight and scrutinized each other.

Pong decided that this was the most pleasant gnome he’d ever clapped eyes on. The newcomer’s boots were smeared with sheep dung, his pants worn and stained, his jacket ill-fitting, and his cap a curious color suggestive of decay. He had narrow, sneaky eyes and a bulbous nose. When compared to Pong’s secret dread, however, he was a fine-looking figure of a gnome.

“You’re a stranger to Mara Zion,” said Pong.

The other held out his hand. “Bart o’ Bodmin.”

Pong returned the clammy grasp. “They call me Pong the Intrepid.”

“Oh? Why?”

In later years Pong was to identify that as the moment when he first had misgivings about the character of Bart o’ Bodmin. It was bad manners to question another gnome’s name. Sometimes a name was hereditary, like Hal o’ the Moor, whose ancestors had always lived at Pentor. Sometimes a name was earned, like Pong’s friend Fang, who rid the forest of a fearsome beast. But once the name was bestowed, it stuck,
and was carried into history by gnomish Memorizers. It was never challenged.

“I undertake perilous voyages on the seas,” said Pong coldly, waving an arm at the sunny water. “What do
you
do?”

“I am a Memorizer.”

“You’re a long way from home. Shouldn’t you be back at Bodmin, memorizing local history?”

“We’re trying to get away from the concept of the parochial Memorizer, back in Bodmin,” said Bart. “Gnomish history is more than a few scattered groups each going its own way. Gnomish history”—here his eyes took on a visionary gleam—”is an eternal and wondrous thing, spanning the galaxy. But gnomish history must be integrated, otherwise future historians will be not be able to make any sense of it. We must seek to portray the great sweep of our heritage, unified and glorious!”

“So you have a lot of traveling to do, Bart.” Like all gnomes, Pong was proud of gnomish history. The immensity of Bart’s mission deserved his respect. “Where’s your rabbit? It will need feeding and watering.”

“The bugger ran out on me,” complained Bart. “And now I must continue on foot.”

“I believe Jack o’ the Warren has good riding rabbits,” suggested Pong. “He lives in the forest.”

“You must give me the directions,” said Bart. “But meanwhile I need to rest.” He sat down with his back to a rock. “Tell me about Mara Zion, Pong.”

Something caused Pong to prevaricate. As Bart’s narrow features squinted up at him, it seemed they had an almost ratlike appearance. “There’s nothing I’d like better,” he said, “but I have work to do. There is kelp to be cut, and the tide is right. I must launch the boat.”

“A perilous voyage,” said Bart thoughtfully, gazing at the sea. “Would you consider taking me along? I need to learn about Mara Zion customs.”

Like most gnomes, Pong was a sociable fellow. Living in his isolated cave, however, he didn’t often get visitors. Occasionally a gnome
would drop by to barter for edible seaweed. More often Fang would come, to bring him up-to-date on the latest happenings in gnomedom. But in general the sailorgnome’s life was a lonely one, so he was not in the habit of turning away company.

“I’d be glad of your help.” He cast a knowledgeable eye at the sea. “It looks as though it might blow up from the east, but the kelpbed’s not far offshore. We can run for shelter if the weather worsens.” He smiled at Bart, his earlier misgivings allayed. Sailing was a much less terrifying proposition when you had a crew on board.