Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) (16 page)

Discreetly, I watched her. She was fussing at the bellows, shaking her head at the ironworker: not right; not that way, this way. Do it again. And again.

At length a small shape appeared from the coals. Vivien watched as the ironworker tempered it in the water from our well. Steam billowed and she saw me, smiling quickly, perhaps with embarrassment, or guilt. She reached into the bucket and brought the cooling object to me. It was not iron at all, but bronze, bright as
the sun. It was in the shape of three leaves of the May tree, with four berries and a single thorn. I could not believe this exquisite work to be the handicraft of the man who worked the forge, but the talisman was so enchanting that I took it and turned it.

The thicket itself could not have produced as perfect a twig in such perfect detail.

‘What is it for?’ I asked Vivien. She laughed and kissed my cheek and chin.

‘It’s for you.’

‘What does it do?’

‘It shines,’ she said, still amused.

‘What does it give me?’

‘Shining!’

‘What does it take from me?’

‘Nothing but darkness. A touch of darkness.’

‘But I like darkness. I need it. I
walk
with dreams and darkness. I thought you knew that.’

‘It doesn’t touch the shadow. It’s not a
taking
thing. It’s a
shining
thing. Like you.’

‘Why are you giving it to me?’

‘Because I love you, idiot. Because we complement each other.’

‘You spied on me to learn how to make the water rise.’

‘Not at all. I thought about the water, and how it might rise by magic. I constructed the magic myself. I didn’t spy on you. That would have been wrong. You either tell me, teach me, or leave me to my own devices. Don’t be jealous.’

She punched my chest, hard! and walked past me
back to the tent. The thorn was sharp – I was careful not to draw blood. The shining leaves felt soft, the bronze soft. When the sheen of the metal bloomed, when the leaves began to green, they would be powerful indeed.

I reciprocated the gift almost at once. We went away from the fortress and found a place of isolation, high on the hill, with a view, further to the south of Lyonesse and the ocean that was consuming it.

‘I hate to see the world drowned,’ she said one day.

‘Why? What makes you sad?’

‘When it drowns it dies.’

I knew, then, that for all her charm, all her skills, she was simply a chancer, that is to say, a dabbler, without true insight. She thought that as Lyonesse drowned, it was gone. She had no understanding that as it drowned here so it was surfacing, reshaped, regenerated in another place. She could not feel that connection through the hard places of the earth. She saw only the sea and the rock, and the battle that was fought between them.

By now she was intimate with my body, and I with hers. She could feel the patterned bones below my flesh, but had no understanding at all of their meaning. Truly, I felt my age, even though I was younger than her. The bone in her body cracked further, on occasion, and the skull in the beauty grinned at me as she tossed about me on the summer heath, wild hair flying. Sometimes I slowed time so that I could watch that raven hair flow dreamily against the white of cloud and the intense blue of sky.

The day came when she caught me at my tricks and broke the charm, leaning down to bite my lip, murmuring, ‘Pay attention, you old trout! This is costing me!’

Her words were a shock to me. She leaned back against my knees, disappointed, rather frightened, trying to squeeze the unsqueezable.

‘You’ve gone.’

‘Not for ever. What do you mean – costing you?’

She glanced away, then pulled away, curling her body against my thighs, her dress drawn over her shoulder, her fingers and lips gently caressing the disappointing member.

‘I’m not as strong as you,’ she said. ‘I want the pleasure, but I have to guard against the consequences. I want to give you pleasure too—’ she phrased it precisely in this way ‘—but you don’t seem bothered by the consequences. I’m using magic, when all I want to do is use my body. You seem uncaring.’

How deftly she had covered the slip. Did she really think I hadn’t noticed those inadvertent, angry words?

This is costing me
.

Of course it was! She was trying to work herself below my skin, to draw out my skills. Realising the slip, she had covered quickly with concerns about childbirth.

But it was a wonderful lie. And she was a wonderful lover.

For all my skills, I am as blind as any other man to the way that others see us. Vivien was ageing, aged, and because I was experienced with time she seemed as
luscious to me, as we loved in various private groves in Albion, as the black-feathered swan-girl of the Northlands who had aroused me by the lake. But to those around us, she was older than me, a woman in her prime, and I was still a man in firm, wisp-bearded youth. Talented, yes, but still, by appearance, a son. Our liaison, the congress of which was often heard and seen, was not hailed with the same enthusiasm when otherwise the first sign of the White May was celebrated.

The time came, then, to leave this land, this chieftain, to follow further round the path, the long path. I mentioned it before. I was progressing south, and almost at the place on the loop of tracks and ridges that marked my own beginning.

There was an ocean to cross. Lyonesse was gone. Boats would be needed.

A greater difficulty was that I was loved by Peredur. He had, in that naïveté that comes with power, depended upon me because I was dependable. He was not threatened by betrayal, simply with withdrawal. It shook him deeply, but like the man of stone he was, he turned to stone for his thanks and his parting kiss.

‘You can’t leave! How will I move rocks without you?’

‘Try ropes.’

‘All very well to say that, but how will I test the ropes without you?’

‘Stretch them between horses.’

‘And the necks of horses? How can I possibly test the necks of horses without you?’

‘Do what you do best. Ride them. Ride them till they drop. Some will never drop.’

He laughed. ‘If I ever find such a horse I’ll
marry
it. And when it dies I’ll follow it to the cairn! You can’t leave. How will I remember you?’

‘On a stone, tall and grey. Nothing else. Not if you really care for me.’

‘Don’t insult me. I don’t carve rock for pleasure! Far too much hard work. That’s why I employ the likes of you,’ he added with a mischievous smile. ‘Where will I put this stone?
Should
I make it.’

‘Somewhere where not even your horses can find it.’

‘In the heart of the forest, then.’

‘Yes. And near falling water. That’s where my own heart will be.’

‘I forbid you to go.’

‘Have you ever tried to hold a shadow?’

‘But our shadows are always on the road. It just takes sun and fire to see them.’

‘Exactly. I was here before, I’ll be here again. Endlessly.’

‘But I shan’t see you, shall I?’

‘If you pass your eyes on wisely, who knows?’

How could I explain the endless, ageless circulation of time and the path?

How could I explain to him that I not only had generations of trail
ahead
of me, but unfinished business in past cycles that I would constantly – that is to say, every four generations or so – return to? His life was a function of birth, fighting, lovemaking and death. Mine was all of these things too, but without end, without end.

I simply kissed him. I promised him that I would remember him, and this is the end of this particular conversation, because I have done what I promised to do. I have remembered him.

Peredur was a great man, but that is all he was when it comes down to it. A man. And of importance. Like a stone broken into pieces he has become known to you in many forms, by many names.

It would dismay you to know what a simple man of strength and weakness, wisdom and humility, lies at the core of your romances.

The long day, the longest he had ever lived, was almost ended, and Martin left his vigil at the lakeside – his long watch, across the water, over the graves of those he loved – to return through the forest to the ancient grove of trees which breathed with the life of an old enchanter, a broken stone, known by many names, but to Broceliande as Merlin
—

As dusk grew close, the body in the cowl sat up, and without a word beckoned Martin to the fire. ‘And so …
’

With Vivien at the helm, the sail in my hands, we crossed by boat to the coast of Gaul, gaining the beach at Uxorum, north and west of here. I picked up the path to the south without much difficulty.

Within a few days we had reached Broceliande and Vivien became anxious. The forest was then as deep and entangled as it is now, and she felt herself cut off from some of her magic. Nevertheless, she hugged me close and followed in. She could tell, I imagine, that my own powers were closer to the surface, sustained by the
wildwood. She imagined they would now be easier to draw out.

When we came to the waterfall we bathed in the deep pool, cleaned our clothes and built a shelter below the overhang. Vivien hunted in the deeper glades for a few hours, quite successfully as it turned out, and I found enough clay to make the vessels and pots in which to cook, consume and store our sparse supplies.

I had always liked this place, with its misting air, the strong, relentless fall of crystal, icy water, the crowding oaks. I had been here twice before, although no trace remained of those much earlier visits apart, perhaps, from a mark or two on stones, but the grey lichen was so thick it was hard to tell. Everything, otherwise, was the same, these sons-of-the-trees that had previously sheltered me being no less immense, no less embracing.

I was relaxed enough, secure enough in this place, to instruct Vivien in the essential nature of the magic that I carried. This is not to say I told her how to
work
that magic, but if she had talent (and I knew she did) then in due course – the passage of many generations – she could work it out for herself.

I quickly created a garden for her, a joyous place, full of song and wonder, fixed at its centre by proud ruins of hard-packed earth and heavy wood, in which she played and danced, delighted with the labyrinth of cold passages and high, rotting turrets. She was aware that I had drawn on memories of a city from antiquity, burned and sacked on the southern shore, a place of wonder that had long ago fallen to a siege by many hundreds of single-sailed ships. She was fascinated by the story.

‘I want those ships!’ she cried, standing in the ruins, green-daubed, slim and nude, feathered arms outstretched, eyes closed. ‘Send them for me! Send them to fetch me. A sea full of ships, all for the love of me!’

And always, as she indulged in such fantasy, she ended with laughter and a wild dance in the wildwood.

Now I talked to her about the seven things that I could control, to a degree at least. All magic, you should understand, is developed from seven essential powers, call them talents. Different minds approach them in different ways, so there are no fixed rules. The first and oldest is the power of song, which is inborn in all of us, but only shaped by exceptional minds. You already know something about this talent, you’ve heard of its most dangerous usage. Song can create life and landscape. But there is a terrible price to pay. Vivien hungered for this knowledge, but I dazzled her away from it.

Secondly, there is the moving of stones by the power of the flow of hidden water. This did not interest Vivien at all. She could not see how such talent gives control over the shape of the land.

She was entranced, however by the third power, that of flying to and from the hinterlands of the Otherworld. It is impossible to enter the Otherworld completely, but the hinterlands are many, varied, and often quite accommodating.

The fourth power is connecting the parts of beasts, both hard and soft.

The fifth is an understanding of the human spirit as
sustenance for mind and body. There are four guardians associated with this power, but they are too complex to describe, let alone explain.

Sixthly, the movement of awareness between the hard and soft forms of life; a dog to a stone, for example; a tree to a fawn. This is a very useful talent.

The greatest talent of all is this: to control, to contain and to employ the vision, hearing and dreams of children.

When a child is born it moves through the seasons at the same rate as everyone around it. But to the child, time is slow. Only in adulthood does the time
inside
catch up with time
outside
. To harness the time of children is to control time as much as it can ever be controlled. It is a form of
imaginative
time. If there are forces beyond our understanding governing time, and I feel there must be, they are less in control when exercising their reach through a child.

Vivien, ageing steadily, slowly, still beautiful, still childlike, was using that very talent to stay as fresh, as keen, as quick as the lamb. She knew, however, that she must learn how to carve the knowledge of the child onto her bones if she was to step fully aside from time, and only I could supply her with that knowledge. Since I refused to give the knowledge to her she resorted to seduction, playing upon my need to rest, drawing out those shadows within me that are least circumspect, most guileless, despite their talents.

*

She addressed each shadow with a display, a vision, that enraptured me, enchanted me.

A song caused the water in the fall to pour in the opposite direction, exposing channels and passages in the rock from which odd, slow melodies cooed and wailed. This was a simple illusion – her talents were largely confined to illusion – but it suggested things to me that I had not thought of. In this way she entranced me. I have always been nervous of song, its power is deep, and yet is common; I have never been fully comfortable with the song in magic, but for a year or so after this illusion I played with melody, and harmony, and effected change upon nature. I came closer to the first song, although that is well guarded. It would take a greater mind than mine to go so far, so deep into the first songs.

She teased me and tickled me by bringing stones which cracked open, egg-like, to release lifeforms that are not bound by parents or offspring. Things that spring unbidden from the dark are fated only to amuse and die, since reproduction, as you or I would understand it, is not part of the life that exists within them.

She came to me in animal forms. She was especially exquisite as a vixen, dancing for me, leaping high to snatch bright birds in her crushing jaws. Somehow she could entwine herself with the language of animals – no illusion there! – and our conversations were fascinating. Animals have no greater sense of themselves, they run and live by certain stinks, by sight and by the deeper urges. But they have memory – although it is short lived – and with Vivien, as fox or fawn, as stoat or boar, I was
able to hear those echoes of the animal mind, and gained a sense of how close they are to the Otherworlds. They occupy hinterlands that are denied to men. The animal realm is greater than instinct, but confusing. Vivien brought that confusion to vivid life, and for a while, through her illusions, through her visions of magic, I ran with creatures,
as
creatures, that until then had been denied to me.

She used charm to transform herself into the strangest, wildest, most alluring of creatures. She showed me, by illusion, how it would seem to live in fast time, then in slow time. She fashioned the earth into dolls and made them dance. I had seen nothing like this. It was pointless, in its way, but it was so amusing. I had taken magic seriously. I had long since forgotten how to
enjoy
the gift.

Eventually she took me home, a vision in the night of the remote past.

The man who danced wore the skin of a chamois around his shoulders and the broken horns upon his head. His face was painted and pierced with the features and feathers of an owl. The water-filled member of a horse, tied with leather about his hips, slapped at his legs like an obscene growth. His tail, stiff below the short cloak, was horse-hair. Clattering stones were tied around his ankles. His body was a swirl of painted blue and red as he danced before me by the water, half visible in the mist and spray, illuminated by a fire that cast his shadow on the trees. Sometimes he was upright, sometimes on all four legs, like the creature that possessed him.

His song was simple. He called to me to remember him from my birth in the deep caves, the animal caves. He called to me to paint again, as once before I had painted the smooth surfaces of the hidden stone, deep below the mountain. He called to me to dip my fingers in the cold, coloured pastes, to daub, to design, to reflect the life of creatures on the sensuous curves of the cold, moist rock, in the caverns, among the hands of my ancestors.

Vivien had seen my earliest memory! I was shocked, surprised; yet still entranced. She had drawn from me my first sights as a child, the Ghost Animal, come to greet me, and in so doing she had managed to go deep into my bones.

I think I knew then, as the sorcerer danced, as he had danced at my birth, I think then that I knew she would have me, she would kill me. She would tease me apart as a weaver teases apart the coarse wool fibres of a fleece.

To know that you are lost, yet to know that you have time to hide yourself, is a time of great pain. Around you, everything is normal, everything a joy. The anticipation of the moment of death is a voice that laughs from behind your head.

Vivien was laughing at me, even as she hunted for me, cooked the game, ate with gusto, ravished me with her body, and whispered in a way that meant: I need you.

She plotted the culling of my magic.

I planned its safe dissemination.

It was the final Vision of Magic that taught me the lesson I should have learned long before.

At the edge of Broceliande, in the west, is a wide clearing, ringed by twelve great oaks, tall trees on which have always been hung the trophies from the combats fought within its space. For as long as I can remember, warriors and champions have come to ring o’trees field to fight for honour, or for kings. Such a tournament was occurring there now.

Vivien came running through the forest. She had heard the squeal of horses and the rattle of wicker chariots. She came to fetch me and we returned to the forest’s edge, coming to the clearing between the broad oaks, and standing back, behind the crouching forms of the defeated knights.

In the bright sun, seven chariots remained. They were circling the field, light wicker with small wheels, each pulled by two breathless horses, some grey, some black, one magnificent pair of whites. A charioteer in each, breech-clouted and grey-cloaked, spattered with blood, tugged and turned the restless team. The knight behind each of them was naked but for leather shoes and a sparkling torque around the neck. These grim-faced men, their hair spiked with white clay, their beards stiffened like quills, carried spears and small, curved swords. Each chariot had its shield, tall and thin, decorated with the clan totem, but these were not for protection. They were the trophy.

In the trees around hung battered shields, and broken spears. Two heads, still dripping, were slung in dishonour from one bough. The smell of the dead was upsetting the horses.

They attacked, each chariot facing left, picking its
prey, then charging. It was chaos and terrifying, for they were all enemies, and there was no strategy, no sides taken. It was bloody mayhem.

A chariot turned over, and the shield was taken, a naked man limping from the field, crying with disappointment.

‘I’ve seen this before,’ I said to Vivien. ‘Many times.’

‘Watch,’ she whispered, then ran a short way forward, glancing back with a mischievous smile, crouching low, staring out across the field.

The light suddenly changed, the sound of horses changed, the earth at the edge of the field began to shake with a different hoofbeat.

As the chariots withdrew to the edge of the field, to circle again, so, to my astonishment, they transformed. No chariots, now, nor small ponies, but horses of gigantic stature, draped in coloured cloth, their faces bright with metal. Armoured men rode them, turning and charging these huge stallions, tugging on leather reins that were draped with flags. Long, loose hair flowed around hard, beardless faces; metal rattled, and the swords that caught the daylight were long and straight. With much snorting from the steeds and screaming from the warriors, a savage attack occurred across the field, but this time in two armies, each of about eight. Metal balls, hideously spiked, clanged off long shields painted in bright colours, striking designs in gold, red and green.

When a man fell or was struck from the saddle he threw away his sword and stood quite still as his vanquisher plucked the shield from his horse or from his
arms, then tossed it below the trees. Here, as in the time of the chariots, a boy scampered with the trophy into the branches to tie it, hanging it, triumphantly.

Where had these warriors come from? What transformation had occurred? Tall tents were pitched between the great oaks. Fires burned. Spears of great length, and plumed, iron helmets, hideously featured, were propped on poles.

As fast as the transformation had occurred it had gone, and once again the chariots rattled, small ponies whinnied. Naked warriors, gleaming with sweat and blood, slashed, stabbed and struck in chaos.

Vivien was watching me hungrily.

And I realised with a moment of shock that I had opened my mind to her as easily as the minds of those knights whom I had surprised in the wilder woods of the north!

She had tricked me! She was breathless with the effort of her charm, but she was delighted too. Did she think I couldn’t see what she had done? She asked me, ‘What did you think of that?’

‘How did you do it?’

‘I saw it in a dream,’ she said. ‘I made the dream come back from then to now. It was to amuse you, nothing more. The next time you pass by this field, the next time you walk round the path, those horsemen will be here too.’