Sword of the Rightful King (8 page)

“You are thin, grandsire, and you slept so silently, I feared you dead. One should not die on sacred ground. It offends the Goddess.”

That
snapped Merlinnus' eyes wide open. “Are you, then, boy, a worshipper of the White One?” he asked, watching the stranger's hands as he spoke. No true worshipper of the Goddess would answer that question in a straightforward manner, of course. Instead he would signal the dark secret with an inconspicuous semaphore. The body language of the true believer. But all the youngsters fingers signed were concern for him. Forefinger, fool's finger, psychic's finger, and ear finger were silent of secrets.

Merlinnus sighed and struggled to sit upright. There were those sharp stabbing pains again, at hip and at buttocks.
No more napping outdoors till it is summer
, he told himself.

As if aware of the old man's aches, the stranger put a hand under his arm and back, gently easing him into a more comfortable position. Once sitting up, Merlinnus took a better look. The stranger was a slim boy with soft, lambent cheeks not yet coarsened by a beard. Perhaps twelve or thirteen years, by the height of him. His eyes were the clear blue of speedwells. The eyebrows were dark swallows wings, sweeping high and back toward luxuriant and surprisingly gold hair, cut round like a monk's and kept safe under a dark cap. He was dressed in a wool tunic over a linen camisia, both dark blue, and breeches fastened with a rawhide thong. The long cloak was blue as well, and looked as if it had known some rough traveling. The hands clasped before him were small and well formed, though Merlinnus noted that the nails on the right hand were bitten to the quick.

Sensing the mage's inspection, the boy spoke. “I have come in the hope of becoming a knight in Arthur's court.”

Merlinnus nodded, but not eagerly. The boy was slight, more suited for a monastery than the rough-and-tumble of castle life. But it was difficult to tell boys this age how badly fitted they were for heroics. They never listened.

As if anticipating the old man's concerns, the boy added, “I already know how to ride and I am stronger than I look. I wish to learn the sword and lance. I know the bow. And I have never feared hard work.”

Merlinnus' mouth screwed about a bit but at last settled into a passable smile. Perhaps he might find some use for this eager child. A wedge properly placed had been known to split a mighty tree. “What is your name, boy?”

“I am called...” A hesitation, scarcely noticeable, but Merlinnus noted it. It was as if the boy feared anyone knowing who he really was and took his time to search for another name.

“I am called Gawen.” The emphasis was ever so slightly on the second syllable.

Merlinnus' smile broadened. “Ah—but we have already a well-known knight by a similar name, Gawaine of the Orkneys. He is not so much older than you. Perhaps you have heard of him. He is praised as one of the king's Three Fearless Men.”

“Fearless at least with the ladies,” the boy answered. His voice tried to hide a bitterness, and Merlinnus wondered at that, too. “Gawaine, the Hollow Man,” the boy added. Then as if to soften his condemnation, he put in quickly, “or so it is said where I come from.”

So
, Merlinnus thought,
there is more than a desire to learn sword and lance that brought this boy to court
. He thought briefly of spies, then dismissed the notion. This boy was not smooth enough, not studied enough, to be a spy. His condemnation of the North Witch's son was too passionate to be faked.
That I can use, too
.

Aloud Merlinnus asked simply, “And where
do
you come from?”

The boy looked down and smoothed the homespun where it lay against his thighs. Again, purchasing time to come up with the right answer. “The coast.”

Refusing to comment that the coast was many miles long, that an island nation has a surfeit of coasts, Merlinnus said a bit sharply, “Do not condemn a man with another's words. And do not praise him that way, either.”

“Andronicus,” said the boy.

“You know his writings?”

The boy remained silent, and Merlinnus took this as assent.

Curious
, the mage thought.
Not many boys can even read, much less read the classics, and certainly not boys who come to be knights
. But he did not comment upon it further. Instead he said, in a voice he usually reserved for Arthur and Kay, “Purity in tongue must precede purity in body.”

The boy remained silent.

Annoyed by that silence, Merlinnus lifted a finger and added, “That is my first lesson to you.”

“I am too old for such lessons.” The tone was sulky.

“None of us is too old for lessons,” said Merlinnus, wondering why he felt compelled to continue. “Even I learned something this week.”

“And that is...?” Sulkiness gone, the speedwell eyes opened wide with interest.

“It has to do with the Matter of Britain,” the mage said, “and is therefore beyond you.”

Young Gawen cocked his head to one side. “Why should the Matter of Britain be beyond me, Magister, or beyond any who live here in this land?”

Merlinnus smiled to himself.
That was quick! And well said
. He was beginning to like the boy.

“Give me your hand.” He held his own out, crabbed with age.

Gawen put a small hand forward, and the mage ran a finger across the palm, slicing the lifeline where it forked early.

“I see you are no stranger to work. The calluses tell me that. What work it is I do not know. Or how long you have done it. A month's calluses might be as hard as a years. Whatever work, it is
not
the Matter of Britain. That is the stuff for kings and mages.”

Gawen withdrew his hand without a word.

Merlinnus wondered what other secret that hand might have told him could he have read palms as easily as a village herb wife. Then, shaking his head, he stood.

“Come, boy, before I bring you to court, let us go and wash ourselves in the river.”

The boy's eyes brightened again. “You? You can bring me into the court at Cadbury?”

Clearly
, Merlinnus thought,
the boy is from far away if he does not recognize me. There was no hint of falsity in
that eager question
. The old man smiled. “Of course, my son. After all, I am the High Kings mage.”

“Merlinnus.” The boy whispered the word without fear in his voice, only a sort of respectful pleasure.

Merlinnus was so delighted at that, he let the boy have the last word.

11

T
HEY WALKED
companionably to the river, which ran noisily between stones. Willows on, the spongy bank wept leaves into the swift current.

Using the willow trunks for support, Merlinnus sat gingerly on the bank and eased his feet—sandals and all—into the cold water. It was too far and too slippery for him to walk in.

“Bring me water to bathe with,” he said, thinking in this way to further test the boys quick-wittedness.

Gawen stripped off his cap, knelt down, and held the cap in the river. Then he pulled it out and wrung the water over the old man's outstretched hands.

Merlinnus liked that. The job had been done, and quickly, with a minimum of fuss. Another boy might have plunged into the river, splashing like an untrained animal. Or begged to be told what to do. Gawen had solved the thing on his own.

As he wrung out the water, Gawen muttered, “
De matri a patre
.”

Startled, Merlinnus looked up into the clear, untroubled blue eyes. “You know Latin?”

The eyes were suddenly hidden, the light in them shielded by long lashes, as if a hand were held before a candle to hide its flame. “Did I say it wrong?” The question came out in a breathy whisper.

“‘From the mother to the father,' you said. In Latin.”

“That is what I meant to say.” Gawen's young face was suddenly transformed by a wide, relaxed smile. “The brothers taught it to me. Some sort of prayer, I think.”

Merlinnus knew only two monasteries along the coast, and they were both very far away. The sisters of Quintern Abbey were much closer, of course, but they never took in boys.
So this child
, he thought,
has come a very long way indeed
. That explained not only the reading and the Latin but the callused hands. The monks did not shy away from hard work, nor did their boys.

He did not say any of this to the boy, of course. Let the child think he had fooled an old man. All he said aloud was, “They taught you well.”

Gawen bent down, dipping the cap once again in the river. This time he used the water to wash his own face and hands. Once the trail markings had been erased, Merlinnus could see he was exceedingly handsome. Almost
too
handsome to be a knight. More the stuff of wandering players or minstrels. Girls would go foolish around him.

Wringing out the cap thoroughly, Gawen stared piercingly at Merlinnus. Cap in hand, he asked, “Now will you bring me to the High King?”

“You will do,” said Merlinnus, by way of an answer. “By the tree, you will do.”

 

A
S THEY NEARED
Cadbury, walking slowly up past a mass of bluebells toward the turf-and-timbered fortress, the enormous gates yawned open. Set atop a hill and surrounded by a shell wall of stone, with a single high guard tower at the southwest corner, was Cadbury Castle. A dry ditch encircled the whole.

They walked past the outer bailey, and Gawen gasped at the hurly of people racing around in the courtyards and forecourts. He stared through the haze of cook fires that made the place seem magical even in the middle of the day. Here were the quarters of the guards, the stables, the storehouses, the forge, the well.

“Come, boy,” said Merlinnus, and they continued into the inner bailey where the double keep tower stood. “This is where the king himself stays.”

If Gawen had gaped at the confusion of the outer bailey and its residents, the inner was even more complex.

“Great Hall, kitchens, private chambers, kings stables, kings well, workshops,” Merlinnus said, counting them off on his fingers. “And...”—he was extremely proud of this—“the chapel.”

Gawen nodded.

The Great Hall was enormous, over sixty feet long and half as wide, made of wattle and daub. Topped by a straw thatched roof, it was an impressive sight. To its side and attached were the kings quarters, with a high tower.

“The safest part to be,” Merlinnus told him, pointing to the hall, “should an enemy try to take Cadbury...”

“The king has enemies?” Gawen asked.

“All kings have enemies,” said Merlinnus. “It is in the nature of kingship.”

“I understand.”

“But should an enemy want to take
this
castle,” Merlinnus repeated, gesturing freely with his right hand, “they would have to breach barbicans, moats, ditches, high walls with archers perched atop them, drawbridges, more walls, portcullises, more walls. An unbreachable fortress has stood on this very spot for hundreds of years.”

“Very safe,” the boy said dryly.

Was there a hint of laughter behind that soft voice? A spy's laughter? Merlinnus strained to find it, then gave up. He would take young Gawen at his word, at the face of his word. For now.

Behind the castle, beyond the far gates, loomed the tor, a high, slumping hill sparsely covered with grass that was well grazed down by sheep. The hill was rumored to be hallowed, a place of fairies, of witches, of devils. Though others feared to go near it, Merlinnus had explored the place thoroughly, inside and out—for the place was hollow and mazed with caves. All he had found there were rats, bats, and an occasional goat that had wandered away from a flock. It had been the perfect place to build a secret workshop, with a passage to it from the Cadbury dungeons. The workmen who had dug the place for him had done it at night and were all gone—dead of natural causes or sent over the seas to the Continent. He had bespelled them so that they could never tell what they knew. Only he had knowledge of the place now—and Arthur.

Merlinnus did not mind encouraging popular fancies about the tor. In his work, superstition was an aid to getting things done. For a moment he wondered if he should mention the place to the boy, but Gawen was still agape at Cadbury itself.

No need, then, to bring it up
, Merlinnus thought.
Yet
. He smiled to himself. For a child from the coast, who had been educated by monks, such walls and moats and barbicans must seem miraculous enough. But for the competent builder who planned for eternity, architecture was the true miracle. Merlinnus had long studied the writings of the Romans, whose prose styles were as tedious as their knowledge was large. He had learned from them how to instruct men in the slotting of the great timbers; how to build a system of water troughs and baths.

Well, all he had really needed to build such a castle, such a kingdom, was the ability to read—and time.
Yet time
, he thought again bitterly,
for construction as well as for anything else is running out on me
. He was getting old too soon, and the kingdom was not yet solidly under Arthur's capable feet.

This boy—this boy is the key to everything
. Merlinnus did not know how he knew this, but he knew. All his life he had been touched by such knowledge and did not set it aside lightly. The boy had arrived for a reason and, once Merlinnus discovered what it was, he would use it for Britain's sake.

“Come,” he said to Gawen, “stand tall, knock hard, and enter.”

Gawen squared his shoulders and then, following Merlinnus' instructions, hammered on the wooden doors.

As soon as the guard had checked them out through the spy hole, they were let in.

“
Ave, Magister
,” said one guard, with an execrable accent. It was obvious he knew that much Latin and no more. But at least he had tried. Merlinnus rewarded him with a rare smile.