Merlin pc-2 Page 31

  Therefore I decided to put a quick end to his anxiety.

  We settled in chairs facing one another; a rushlight hung from the beam above, casting a ruddy circle of light, like a glimmering mantle thrown over us. One of his men filled silver-rimmed horns with beer and passed them to us. Pelleas stood behind my chair, silent, expressionless, his tall, handsome form like that of a protecting angel – which, in a way, he was.

  Tewdrig drew a big draught and wiped the foam from his drooping moustache with a thumb and forefinger, eyeing me all the while. I noticed that neither of his men drank with him. 'It has been,' he said slowly, amiably, 'an interesting night. Too long have the songs of the bard been absent from my hearth. Thank you for filling my hall with joy tonight. I would reward you for your song… ' he paused and looked at me squarely, 'but something tells me you would accept nothing but what you came here to receive.'

  'Lord and king,' I said quickly, 'have no fear for your throne on my account. I have not come to claim it – although I could make good that claim if that were my intent.'

  'But it is not?' He rubbed his chin absently.

  'No, it is not. I have not come to take back my lands, Tewdrig.'

  His eyes went to his men and a secret signal passed between them, for instantly the tension in the room – subtle, but quite present – melted away. More beer was poured and they all drank. A crisis had been averted.

  'I tell you the truth, Myrddin,' said Tewdrig. 'I did not know what I would do with you. This is your realm, and rightly; I avow it before you. I would not challenge your right… but I have been king here these many years, and my father before me… '

  There is no need to explain, Tewdrig. I well understand. For this reason I deem it best to let my claim lapse. Too much has happened, too many years have passed for me to take back my throne. Myrddin will not be king again.'

  Tewdrig nodded sympathetically, but offered no response.

  'No,' I continued, 'I will not be king again, but in remembrance of a time past when I was a king of Dyfed, I have come to ask your support for another who desperately needs your help.'

  'If he is a friend of yours, Myrddin,' Tewdrig said expansively – it was relief talking, to be sure – 'we will offer whatever aid you deem best. You have but to name it.'

  I leaned forward. 'Wiser not to promise before the boon is asked. Nevertheless, the need is such that I would hold you to it regardless. But no, no, it cannot be like that, for it is no small thing I ask.'

  'Ask it, friend.'

  'High King Vortigern is dead -'

  'Vortigern dead!'

  'How?' asked one of Tewdrig's men. 'When?' asked the other.

  'Only a few days ago. He was killed by Aurelius, son of Constantine, the true High King. Aurelius has taken his father's place for now, but there are many who consider themselves more worthy to sit the High King's throne. Even now, those who fought at his side turn against him. I expect Aurelius will not last the summer -'

  'Without support.'

  'Without friends,' I said.

  'I had little love for Constantine, and less for Vortigern; they were both arrogant, foolish men. It is because of Vortigern that we suffer the Saecsen wrath now.' Tewdrig paused and took a long drink, then placed the horn aside. 'If Aurelius had come here himself to ask for aid, I would have sent him away right quick. But you, you, Myrddin, you intercede for him. Why?'

  'Because, my lord Tewdrig, he is all that stands between us and the Saecsen horde.'

  Tewdrig chewed on that for a while. 'Is this so?'

  'If it were not so, I would not have come to you like this. In truth, Aurelius is all we have.'

  'But we have arms,' insisted one of Tewdrig's advisers. 'And we have men and horses to use them. We are more than a match for any Saecsen warband.'

  'Are you indeed?' I asked scornfully. 'When was the last time you stood with a naked blade in your hand under the blast of Saecsen battlehorns, while a host of Saecsen Berserkers flew towards you over the battleground?' The man made no reply. 'I tell you that Hengist has assembled the greatest war host yet seen in the Island of the Mighty. And, before the summer is through, he means to have the throne – he will have it, too, for we are too busy squabbling among ourselves to take arms against him.'

  There is something in what you say,' allowed Tewdrig.

  'There is truth in what I say.'

  'What would you have us do?' the king asked.

  Two things,' I said. 'First, put aside any notions you might have that you will become High King – that cannot happen. Then, gather the warbands of the Demetae and Silures and ride with me to pledge them to Aurelius.'

  'For how long?' asked one of the men.

  'For as long as he needs them. For ever."

  Tewdrig pulled on his chin and looked from one to the other of his counsellors. This is something that cannot be decided tonight,' he said at length. 'It is late. I will sleep on the matter and give you my decision in the morning.'

  'It will wait until morning,' I agreed, rising, then added a warning, 'but no longer. Rest well, Tewdrig.'

  THREE

  I arose early the next morning for Tewdrig's decision. But the king could not be found. His chamber was empty and no one would say where he went, nor when. I could but wait for him to return – and think the worst while I waited.

  Midmorning, at Pelleas' insistence, I broke fast on a few little barley cakes and some watered wine. Then I went outside and walked around the caer, trying to see the old place beneath the new one. It was what I imagined grandfather Elphin's Caer Dyvi in Gwynedd must have been like: all industry and bustle clustered behind a stout earthen rampart topped by a timber wall.

  And the people! Were these the same folk I had led in my brief time as king? They dressed not as the Britons I remember, but as the Celts of an older time: the women in long, colourful mantles; the men in bright-checked breeches and tunics; and all with the distinctive plaid cloaks of the Cymry. Their hair was worn long and bound back to hang in tight braids or loose ponytails. Wherever I looked, gold, silver, bronze or copper glinted from every throat and wrist and arm and shoulder – all worked in the cunning designs of the Celtic artisan.

  Low-built houses, most of notched logs topped with a neat reed-thatched roof, sheltered one another with but narrow lanes between them, filling what had been the square courtyard of the villa. Tewdrig had a smith whose forge and hut occupied the mound where the old pagan temple had been. The forge was of stone, no doubt the selfsame stone of the temple.

  Very well, in the day of strife when men worship steel for their salvation, let the temples become ironworks!

  But this morning, so bright with summer's rich promise, the storm clouds seemed far away. Very far, indeed, from this realm of peace. On such a day I feared that Tewdrig's decision would go against me.

  Surely, his advisers would say, there is no need to further the claims of an upstart king. What is it to us if he boasts Imperial blood? If Aurelius would be High King, let him win the throne by the might of his sword. Whatever happens it is his business and none of ours; we have our own affairs to worry about.

  I could hear them coaxing Tewdrig to do what he was already inclined to do anyway, and I feared my efforts had been wasted. More, if I had misjudged the temper of the Demetae and Silures I had once ruled, how could I expect to fare any better with the kings of the north? Perhaps if I had pressed my claim to the kingship… perhaps, then… but no; the seed was sown. I would have to wait for the harvest.

  And wait I did – like a hound waiting before the badger's hole. When would Tewdrig return?

  At last – anxious, exasperated, tired of waiting – I dozed off for a light sleep before supper and was roused a short time later by Pelleas' nudge on my shoulder. 'Wake up, master. Lord Tewdrig has returned.'

  I sat up instantly alert. 'When?'

  'Just now. I heard the shout when the horses entered the yard.'

  I stood and splashed water on my face from the laving bowl on the tab
le, dried myself on the linen provided and then, straightening the folds of my cloak over my shoulder, went out to meet the king.

  If I was taxed by my ordeal of waiting, Tewdrig appeared exhausted by his. Eyes red-rimmed, face grey with dust and fatigue, he obviously had not slept and had ridden very much further than planned. But a thin smile pulled at the corners of his mouth and, seeing that, I took hope.

  'Bring me my cup!' he shouted as he strode into the hall. 'Bring cups for us all!'

  I waited for him to come to me, and to speak the first word.

  He in turn waited for the cups to be brought and his road-thirst slaked before he would speak. He drank deep and long, drawing out the moment full length. 'Well, Myrddin Emrys,' he said at last, lowering the cup and wiping his moustache with the back of his hand, 'you are looking at King Aurelius' most formidable ally.'

  I wanted to let out a wild whoop of joy, but contained myself and simply replied, 'Indeed, I am glad to hear it. But why formidable?'

  Tewdng shook his head wearily, 'That I must be to have won against my lords and chieftains – all of whom put up a great resistance to your scheme, using iron-cast arguments which I was hard-pressed to beat down.'

  'But you did beat them down.'

  'Aye, that I did.' He eyed his counsellors while they stood grimly, their mouths pressed into firm scowls. 'And with no help from anyone here!' He looked at me once more and raised a hand to knead the back of his neck. 'Bless me, Jesu, I wheedled and bargained as if my life depended on it -'

  'As well it might!' I told him.

  'Be that as it may,' Tewdrig continued, 'I have done well by you this day, Myrddin Emrys. I have bent my honour no little way for you, and do not mind bending it further to tell you that I consider you as deep in my debt as ever any man was.'

  'So be it. It is a debt I will repay gladly; for I count it gain to be indebted to so worthy a lord.'

  'You should have seen me, Myrddin. Lleu's own tongue flapped in my head this day, and Lleu's logic was on me. Why, Lieu himself could not have argued better!'

  Flushed anew with his victory, he bolted down some more beer and continued recklessly, 'When I left here I thought only to give my chieftains a chance to confirm my own thoughts in the matter. Yes, it's true: I was against it. But the more they talked, the more they argued – the more I hardened my heart to their cries.

  'Make no mistake, I meant to find reason to refuse you, Myrddin. But I heard in their counsel the sounds of self-satisfied, small-minded men and I did not like that noise. In truth, it frightened me. Have we become so safe, our realm so secure that we no longer need the help of our brother kings? Are we now invincible? Or, have the Saecsens taken wings and fled home over the sea?

  ‘That,' Tewdrig growled triumphantly, 'is what I asked them, and they had no answer. There it is, Myrddin: I strove against my own chieftains, and I prevailed.' He lifted his cup and I took one up and lifted it to his. 'I drink to the new High King, may his spear fly true!'

  We drank and, giving my cup to Pelleas, I raised my hands in the bardic declamation, saying, 'Your loyalty will be rewarded, Tewdrig. And because of the faith you have shown this day, you will win a name that will endure for ever in the land.'

  This pleased him enormously, for he broke into a wide-toothed grin. 'My warriors will uphold that loyalty a hundredfold! Let no one ever say that Dyfed did not back its king.'

  I remained at Caer Myrddin another day and then set out with Pelleas and one of Tewdrig's advisers – Llawr Eilerw, one of the two who were always with him – and a small force of ten warriors as escort. We rode at once to the north, for I wanted to present Aurelius with as much support as I could gather before returning to him. Partly out of vanity, I suppose; ashamed as I am to say it, I wished to demonstrate my power to him, to gain his confidence. It was in my mind that I would need his complete trust, and very soon.

  With Dyfed in hand, I could go to the northern kingdoms without feeling the beggar. Tewdrig ap Teithfallt was well respected in the north and, as I have said, the ties between the two regions were ancient and honourable. I anticipated no trouble and, indeed, received none.

  Along the way, Llawr told me all that had happened since I had lived and ruled in Dyfed – most of which had come down to him from his elders, since he was in no wise old enough to have remembered it of himself.

  It seems that word of the Goddeu massacre eventually reached Maridunum. Maelwys was heartbroken, but since my body had not been found there was some hope that I still lived.

  'King Maelwys held firm to his dying day the notion that you were alive,' Llawr told me as we journeyed through the cool mountain passes of Yr Widdfa one afternoon. 'All those years, and he would never hear a word but that you would return one day.'

  'I wish it could have been sooner,' I replied sadly. 'He died in the raid that took the villa, I believe?'

  That he did – and more than many with him.' Llawr's tone betrayed no emotion. Why should it? The events he spoke of had happened before he had been born, and the world he described was different from the one he knew. 'The barbarians came at us from the east, so the beacons were no use. They were on us almost before the alarm could be given. We beat them back, of course, but we lost Maelwys and the villa to them that day – Maelwys to an axeblade, the villa to the torch.'

  I was silent for a time, out of respect for Maelwys, and all that he had given me of himself. Great Light, grant him a place of honour at your feast.

  ‘Teithfallt succeeded him?' I asked a little while later.

  'Yes, a nephew – Salach's youngest son.'

  'Ah, Salach, I had forgotten about him. He went to Gaul to become a priest, did he not?'

  'So he did, I am told. He had returned some years earlier to help Bishop Dafyd with his church – the bishop was getting old and required a younger hand take over certain duties. Salach had married and fathered two sons: the eldest one, Gwythelyn, already dedicated to the church, and the other, Teithfallt, he dedicated to Dyfed and its people.'

  'In time Teithfallt distinguished himself in the eyes of Maelwys' lords as a canny battlechief, so when the king was killed it was natural they should choose him. Teithfallt ruled well and wisely and died in his bed. Tewdrig already shared the throne with his father as war leader, and he became king upon Teithfallt's death.'

  'So that is the way of it,' I mused. The realm was in good, strong hands, and that was how it should be. I could never be a king again, even if I wanted to be; Aurelius needed me, the Island of the Mighty needed me, far more than Dyfed ever did, or would. It was clear to me that my Lord Jesu had placed my feet on a different path; my destiny lay another way.

  If I had any qualms about returning to the north – to the scene of my beloved Ganieda's hideous death – they were swallowed up hi the desire to see, at long last, her grave. Since my healing, I no longer felt the insane morbidity that had consumed and nearly destroyed me. I did feel the fleeting emptiness of a grief that would remain with me for ever. But it was not unbearable to me, and not without the upward-looking hope that we would one day be reunited on the other side of death's many-shadowed door.

  So, before coming into Custennin's old stronghold in Celyd-don, I had Pelleas conduct me to my wife's grave. He waited outside the little grove with the horses while I went in alone, as into a secluded chapel to pray.

  I will not say that the sight of that small mound lying in the wooded glade, now much overgrown with woodbine and vetch, did not move me: I wept to see it, and my tears were sweet grief to me.

  A single grey stone stood over the mound where her body lay in its hollowed-oak coffin. The stone, a single slab of slate, had been worked, its surface smoothed and trimmed, and an elaborate cross of Christ incised on its face. And, beneath the cross, the simple legend in Latin:

  HIC TVMVLO IACET

  GANIEDA FILIA CONSTENTIVS

  IN PAX CHRISTVS

  I traced the neatly-carved words with my fingertips and murmured, 'Here in this tomb lies Ganieda, dau
ghter of Custennin, in the peace of Christ.'

  There was no mention of the child, nor of my heart, as there might have been, for in truth both were buried with her.

  All in all, it was a tranquil place, near where she had died; and if the gravesite was not much visited any more, at least it was hidden from the casual desecrations of unthinking wayfarers.

  I knelt down and prayed a long prayer, and when I rose I felt peace reclaim its place in my soul. I left the grove content in heart and mind.

  Then Pelleas and I returned to where our escort waited and we continued to Goddeu.

  I should have known what to expect. I should have been prepared. But I was not. Too much had happened in too short a time, it seemed, and the sight of Custennin and Goddeu, unchanged, shocked me as much as the change in Maridunum had shocked me. But there he stood, bold and big as the day I first had seen him: proud monarch of Celyddon, Fair Folk king, great battlechief and ruler of a haughty people.

  Like Avallach and others of their race, the years had not touched Custennin, nor would they. He even maintained the same appearance as when I knew him before – in everything, including the two black wolf-hounds crouching at his heels.

  I swung down from the saddle as he approached and went to him. Without a word he gathered me in his powerful arms and crushed me to him, as I had seen him do with Ganieda countless times. 'Myrddin, my son,' he murmured in his deep voice. 'You have come back from the dead.'

  'I have indeed,' I replied.

  He pushed me away and held me at arm's length, looking at me. There were unshed tears in his eyes. 'I never thought to see you again… ' his eyes slid past me to Pelleas, whom he acknowledged with a nod, 'but Pelleas insisted you were still alive and he never stopped searching for you. Would that I had had his faith… '

  'I only wish I could have come sooner.'