Merlin's Harp (22 page)

  Then Caleb lay back down, rolled over and snored.

  By all Gods! How had this fool ever attained his present age?

  I sat up, gathered what power I could, and produced my silver, sparkling light shield. I tried to spread it around the whole clearing, but it spread thinly.

  The wolves paused to look up at it and gnash and slobber among themselves. Very like dogs they looked in the low firelight; I knew they were less dangerous than dogs, but I was not going to lie down and snore in their presence!

  As one wolf, most of them suddenly turned tail and left the clearing. A few sat down on the edge and drooled at us.

  I lay awake, tossing between snorting Caleb and moaning Merlin. Twice in the night I rose to renew my shield as it faded. The first time I noticed the wolves had lain down, tongues lolling. They watched almost indifferently as my white mist rolled and spread through the clearing. The second time, they were gone.

  Power aroused, I could not now lie down and sleep. I sighed, and looked around in the dimming dark. Morning waited a little eastward. Our fire was out.

  Otter Mellias said, "Use your power to light the fire. I'll get sticks."

  I turned to him, where he lay rolled up in a tattered robe of Caleb's. "How do you know I have power to use?"

  He smiled at me. "Niviene, what do I not know about you?"

  While I pondered this he rose and went out among trees we could now see quite well. He made not the slightest sound as he gathered a stick here, a fallen branch there, and came like a shadow back to my elbow. He crouched and piled the wood in the stone circle. I crouched beside him and laid my palms to it and whispered, "What do you know about my high power, Mellias?"

  He signed,
Dead as this fire.

  "And why is this so?"

  
The King.

  By the Gods, he did know!

  
Mellias, by what power do you know all this?

  "That you know, Niviene."

  "I do not!"

  Mellias grinned at me as the fire flared alive.

* * *

Lugh said, "I stay here."

  I stared at Lugh. My stomach (so soon empty again!) dropped into my boy's boots. After all these years of Human life! After forgetting his home and heritage for so long! Now, as at last we neared our Forest, Lugh would abandon us again.

  He turned to Caleb. As an afterthought he asked him, "You will take me as an apprentice hermit, will you not?"

  We stood ready to leave, Merlin already bowed in pain to his pony's neck. He grunted strong disapproval. I saw my own desolation mirrored in Mellias's brown eyes. He looked hopefully to Caleb; and to my relief and joy, I saw that Caleb struggled with himself. His great white aura shivered.

  I thought, Hah! Caleb waits
happily for us to depart and leave
him in peace with his wolves and his God! He will reject Lugh.
Surely, he will reject Lugh.

  But Christian Charity—that strange, nonsensical virtue— forbade outright rejection. Here was a soul in need. Only a soul very much in need would wish to stay in this haunted clearing.

  Lugh noticed Caleb's struggle. Surprised, he sought to explain himself. "I would be a hermit like you, Caleb. I would live in peace with God's creatures and contemplate God for the rest of my life. Accept me as your apprentice, or your disciple."

  Caleb gave a slow shrug and the dull cloud spread all over him like a cloak. Slowly, he said, "Friend Lancelot, I have heard of you."

  "Even here!" Lugh's mouth tweaked in a brief smile.

  "I have heard of your sudden rages. You can rush away in a rage and be gone for a season, no man knows where. You can kill without intention. You are a fine fighting man. I do not think you would be a good hermit. You have not that gift."

  Lugh spread begging hands. "Caleb, you can heal me of these rages! You can teach me peace!"

  From his pony, Merlin groaned impatiently.

  Caleb muttered, "I eat no meat. I do no harm."

  "I, too, will do no harm."

  "I pray from noon till dark."

  "I will not disturb you."

  "Why? Why would you give up the world and stay with me?"

  And Lugh said, "I have lost the world. I have lost King, and honor, and love. I may as well turn to God."

  Caleb laughed. The dull cloud rolled a little away as laughter swayed his thin form. He said with relief, "You will not remain here long."

  "I will!" Lugh insisted. (He did not realize how little Caleb wanted his company! He would have done better to agree that his stay would be short; but Lugh was never perceptive.) "I will stay here forever and eat nuts and mushrooms and preach to the birds!" A small excitement brightened his face as hermiting took on an adventurous hue. "And you will heal me, Caleb! I shall know peace!"

  Caleb looked around for help, to sky, earth, and the silent trees. He was inspired. "This life is not all prayer. Will you gather wood and scavenge food?"

  Lugh swallowed. This thought of work and scavenging came hard to Arthur's best knight. But he said, "I will."

  Caleb looked up to the brightening tree tops. "Lord," he prayed aloud, "grant us a sign. If this unhappy friend should stay with me, grant us a sign."

  His voice echoed from the close trees and died away. I waited to see what magic Caleb could call up; and almost instantly, the bracken behind me rustled and snapped. I whirled. The horses shifted and blew.

  Through the underbrush pushed a great white creature, crowned with branches. Regal as Arthur, a white stag stepped quietly into Caleb's clearing.

  Caleb laughed for joy. "Cervus!" he called, as to a welcome friend. "Cervus, show us the Lord's will!"

  The stag scanned us all with calm, dark eyes. Against the undergrowth he shone like a snow statue, and his star-sparkled, orange aura twinkled wide around him; animal spirit mingled with higher spirit. He dipped his antlers and came toward us.

  The horses drew back uneasily at his approach. Slowly he passed between Mellias and me, pausing to point his antlers inquiringly at each of us. Close to, he smelled like any autumn stag, of grassy sweat and semen. But as he paced toward Caleb the natural orange faded from his aura, leaving only a starry foam. Cervus moved now in a dream, forgetting his true nature, governed by spirit.

  Caleb asked more softly, "Cervus, shall this man remain with us?" And he pointed at Lugh.

  Head low, mighty antlers swinging, Cervus approached Lugh.

  Lugh clapped hand to knife.

  
Good!
I thought,
Good! Let Lugh stab Cervus, and come away with
us!

  Now Cervus stood before Lugh, head turned slightly to look him eye to eye. Lugh stepped back. Slowly, he lifted hand from knife. Slowly, Cervus stepped forward and rested his heavy head on Lugh's shoulder.

  Resigned, Caleb came and embraced man and stag. "It is the Lord's will," he declared sadly, rubbing Cervus's neck like that of a horse. "You shall stay with us, Lancelot. May God heal you of your rages."

On a shaded stone table between wood and pasture we found three small loaves of bread, one of them warm. I slid down from the gray charger Lugh no longer needed and seized the loaves. They had been left here for the poor, the homeless or the Good Folk. We were all three.

  Mellias helped Merlin down from the charger where I had held him before me. We settled down by the stone and dressed his wound while the hobbled horses grazed.

  When we lifted Caleb's bandage, the wound sickened us. It reeked. The wound itself had turned black and crackly. Around it, Merlin's side oozed pus. We needed more than Fey determination to stay here beside it; to not sneak quickly away, grab the ponies, and disappear.

  Mellias looked at me over Merlin's lolling head. Our eyes met and we nodded.

  Caleb had known. His last words to me were, "My old friend longs to reach a certain tree, one Counsel Oak. You know this tree?"

  "I know it well."

  "Do not spare him on the journey. Ride there, direct and swift."

  "But his wound…"

  "Will not matter."

  So I knew in what case Merlin stood. I had the word of a healer more skilled than myself.

  Otter Mellias went off to seek water. Merlin sat leaning against the stone table, panting and twitching. Beside him, I sat on my heels, looking out over pastureland to the smoke of a hidden village. Sheep drifted far out; their calls trembled the air. On the edge of hearing, a shepherd's pipe sang.

  Close by, the hobbled charger limped after grass. In his saddlebag, Enchanter and the Holy Grail clanged gently.

  "Merlin," I said, "you said the Holy Grail would heal the world. Can it not heal you?"

  Painfully, Merlin chuckled. "Oh Niviene! Grown up long ago and still an innocent!"

  I bit back an angry retort. Merlin sighed and went on, feebly. "I invented the Holy Grail to discredit the Christians. I thought…when no Holy Grail ever appeared…shining…magically engraved…they might think again about their religion. But now I see…that was my worst mistake. For I have made mistakes, Niviene."

  I said, to comfort him, "You are half Human, after all."

  "Niv, I charmed Lugh and Gwenevere to love each other."

  I sat stunned. I could think of no response. Finally, I stammered, "Whatever for?"

  "I thought Arthur would cast her off. Her stars were wrong. She was wrong for his Peace…but Arthur closed his eyes. Like King Mark."

  "Yes."

  "And now my mistake has cost him his crown."

  "Arthur still wears his crown."

  Merlin rolled his head against the stone: No. "At this moment he rides to battle against nephew Mordred for the crown."

  "So that's why we've seen no sign of him!"

  "He has more than us to worry him." Merlin closed his eyes and seemed to nap uneasily, twitching and starting and rolling his head. The distant sheep drifted closer, and the voices of shepherd children mingled with their bleats.

  Eyes closed, Merlin said, "Niv, go to the battle for me. Do for Arthur what I would do."

  "Where?"

  "I'll tell you all…later." I wondered if later he would be able to speak, or even sign. He sighed deeply. "Mordred was also my mistake. I brought him back from Morgan's Hill."

  "Yes. Don't talk anymore. Just rest."

  He shook his head, grimaced. "And…about Mordred…Niv, you must forgive me."

  I turned my eyes from the sheep and the distance to stare at Merlin. Never does Fey say to Fey, "Forgive." This is a purely Human concept. Slow with wonder, I asked, "I? Forgive you? For what?"

  "You will learn. When you learn…forgive."

  As the flock came closer, the herd children saw us. They wielded furious staves and whistled their dogs to turn the sheep aside. We were strangers, perhaps desperate folk—maybe even the fearful Fey, for whom bread was left on the stone table.

  Merlin gasped, "The Holy Grail was my worst mistake of all. I invented it to…confound the Christians. But it confirmed them."

  "How is that, Merlin?"

  "Had it been found. Had a grail been found and named and placed on an altar. Then even Humans would see that it was only a thing. Just a material object."

  "Not if it worked miracles." Human faith can work its own miracles. Hand a dying Human a handful of hair, tell him it came from the head of Joseph of Arimathea, and he may well recover.

  Teeth clenched, Merlin hitched himself higher up against the table. He turned misted eyes toward the bleating flock, but I did not think he could see much. "It would remain a thing…and one day, finally, they would see that, and cease to worship it…and what it stood for. But…the Grail will never be found. I will not be here to find it."

  "It's over there in your saddlebag."

  "They would never accept that one, Niv. Not that dented, worn dish."

  "Then why did you take it from Caleb?"

  "I did not take it from Caleb! I persuaded him to give it for the healing of the world."

  "But why? Why?"

  "Because that Grail is holy. Did you not feel its power?"

  "Merlin, I knew you were lying when I felt no power in it. I felt only…love. Human love."

  "Yes. The holiest power in the world. That Grail will heal your life, and perhaps Arthur's life. And that healing will spread."

  The Grail would heal my life? I hardly knew that my life was wounded. I listened, entranced, to Merlin's stumbling, halting words.

  "In time, Niv…in the course of time, flowing like water…like the Fey river…all life flows together. Like streams into the river. The time will come…when Angle, Saxon, Roman will mean nothing. Even Fey and Human will mean nothing…They will all flow together…and divide into yet new streams…and those will flow together…like water, Niv. Life is like water."

  And as Merlin paused, panting, I seemed to see the Fey river as though I floated above it. I saw streams join it here and there, and lose themselves in its flood. I saw streams flow from it, branch away and join it again.

  Merlin said, "Life is one, Niv. Separation is only for a while. So when the Grail blesses you, it blesses the world."

  I could see that Saxon and Angle might, one far day, be one. But Fey and Human? Would the Goddess pour clear and muddy waters together?