I waited until I thought Merlin was on the far side of the hall and that it was safe for me to leave without him spotting me, but it was just at that moment that his voice whispered in my ear. ‘Were you hiding from me, Derfel?’ he asked, then he gave an elaborate groan as he settled on the floor beside me. He liked pretending that his great age had made him feeble, and he made a great play of massaging his knees and groaning at the pain in his joints. Then he took the horn of mead out of my hand and drained it. ‘Behold the virgin Princess,’ he said, gesturing with the empty horn towards Ceinwyn, ‘going to her grisly fate. Let’s see now.’ He scratched between the plaits of his beard as he thought about his next words. ‘A half month till the betrothal? Marriage a week or so later, then a handful of months till the child kills her. No chance of a baby coming out of those little hips without splitting her in two.’ He laughed. ‘It will be like a pussy cat giving birth to a bullock. Very nasty, Derfel.’ He peered at me, enjoying my discomfort.
‘I thought,’ I responded sourly, ‘that you had made Ceinwyn a charm of happiness?’
‘So I did,’ he said blandly, ‘but what of it? Women like having babies and if Ceinwyn’s happiness consists of being ripped into two bloody halves by her firstborn then my charm will have worked, will it not?’ He smiled at me.
‘ “She will never be high,” ’ I said, quoting Merlin’s prophecy that he had uttered in this very hall not a month before, ‘ “and she will never be low, but she will be happy.” ’
‘What a memory for trivia you do have! Isn’t the mutton awful? Under-cooked, you see. And it’s not even hot! I can’t abide cold food.’ Which did not stop him stealing a portion from my dish. ‘Do you think that being Queen of Siluria is high?’
‘Isn’t it?’ I asked sourly.
‘Oh, dear me, no. What an absurd idea! Siluria’s the most wretched place on earth, Derfel. Nothing but grubby valleys, stony beaches and ugly people.’ He shuddered. ‘They burn coal instead of wood and most of the folk are black as Sagramor as a result. I don’t suppose they know what washing is.’ He pulled a piece of gristle from his teeth and tossed it to one of the hounds that scavenged among the feasters. ‘Lancelot will soon be bored by Siluria! I can’t see our gallant Lancelot enduring those ugly, coal-blackened slugs for very long, so, if she survives childbirth, which I doubt, poor little Ceinwyn will be left all alone with a heap of coal and a squalling baby. That’ll be the end of her!’ He seemed pleased at the prospect. ‘Have you ever noticed, Derfel, how you find a young woman in the height of her beauty, with a face to snatch the very stars out of their heavens, and a year later you discover her stinking of milk and infant shit and you wonder how you could ever have found her beautiful? Babies do that to women, so look on her now, Derfel, look on her now, for she will never again be so lovely.’
She was lovely, and worse, she seemed happy. She was robed in white this night and about her neck was hung a silver star looped on a silver chain. Her golden hair was bound by a fillet of silver, and silver raindrops hung from her ears. And Lancelot, that night, looked as striking as Ceinwyn. He was said to be the handsomest man in Britain, and so he was if you liked his dark, thin, long, almost reptilian face. He was dressed in a black coat striped with white, wore a gold torque at his throat and had a circle of gold binding his long black hair that was oiled smooth against his scalp before cascading down his back. His beard, trimmed to a sharp point, was also oiled.
‘She told me,’ I said to Merlin, and knowing as I spoke that I revealed too much of my heart to that wicked old man, ‘that she isn’t certain about marrying Lancelot.’
‘Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?’ Merlin answered carelessly, beckoning to a slave who was carrying a dish of pork towards the high table. He scooped a handful of ribs into the lap of his grubby white robe and sucked greedily on one of them. ‘Ceinwyn,’ he went on when he had sucked most of the rib bare, ‘is a romantic fool. She somehow convinced herself she could marry where she liked, though the Gods alone know why any girl should think that! Now, of course,’ he said with his mouth full of pork, ‘everything changes. She’s met Lancelot! She’ll be dizzy with him by now. Maybe she won’t even wait for the marriage? Who knows? Maybe, this very night, in the secrecy of her chamber, she’ll tup the bastard dry. But probably not. She’s a very conventional girl.’ He said the last three words disparagingly. ‘Have a rib,’ he offered. ‘It’s time you were married.’
‘There is no one I want to marry,’ I said sulkily. Except Ceinwyn, of course, but what hope did I have against Lancelot?
‘Marriage has nothing to do with wanting,’ Merlin said scornfully. ‘Arthur thought it was, and what a fool for women Arthur is! What you want, Derfel, is a pretty girl in your bed, but only a fool thinks the girl and the wife have to be the same creature. Arthur thinks you should marry Gwenhwyvach.’ He said the name carelessly.
‘Gwenhwyvach!’ I said too loudly. She was Guinevere’s younger sister and was a heavy, dull, pale-skinned girl whom Guinevere could not abide. I had no particular reason to dislike Gwenhwyvach, but nor could I imagine marrying such a drab, soulless and unhappy girl.
‘And why ever not?’ Merlin asked in pretended outrage. ‘A good match, Derfel. What are you, after all, but the son of a Saxon slave? And Gwenhwyvach is a genuine Princess. No money, of course, and uglier than the wild sow of Llyffan, but think how grateful she’ll be!’ He leered at me. ‘And consider Gwenhwyvach’s hips, Derfel! No danger there of a baby getting stuck. She’ll spit the little horrors out like greased pips!’
I wondered if Arthur had really proposed such a marriage, or whether it was Guinevere’s idea? More likely it was Guinevere. I watched her as she sat arrayed in gold beside Cuneglas and the triumph on her face was unmistakable. She looked uncommonly beautiful that night. She was ever the most striking-looking woman in Britain, but on that rainy feast night in Caer Sws she seemed to glow. Maybe that was because of her pregnancy, but the likelier explanation was that she was revelling in her ascendancy over these people who had once dismissed her as a penniless exile. Now, thanks to Arthur’s sword, she could dispose of these people just as her husband disposed of their kingdoms. It was Guinevere, I knew, who was Lancelot’s chief supporter in Dumnonia, and Guinevere who had made Arthur promise Lancelot Siluria’s throne, and Guinevere who had decided that Ceinwyn should be Lancelot’s bride. Now, I suspected, she wanted to punish me for my hostility to Lancelot by making her inconvenient sister into my lumpen bride.
‘You look unhappy, Derfel,’ Merlin provoked me.
I did not rise to the provocation. ‘And you, Lord?’ I asked. ‘Are you happy?’
‘Do you care?’ he asked airily.
‘I love you, Lord, like a father,’ I said.
He hooted at that, then half choked on a sliver of pork, but was still laughing when he recovered. ‘Like a father! Oh, Derfel, what an absurdly emotional beast you are. The only reason I raised you was because I thought you were special to the Gods, and maybe you are. The Gods do sometimes choose the strangest creatures to love. So tell me, loving would-be son, does your filial love extend to service?’
‘What service, Lord?’ I asked, though I knew well enough what he wanted. He wanted spearmen to go and seek the Cauldron.
He lowered his voice and leaned closer to me, though I doubt anyone could have heard our conversation in the loud, drunken hall. ‘Britain,’ he said, ‘suffers from two sicknesses, but Arthur and Cuneglas recognize only one.’
‘The Saxons.’
He nodded. ‘But Britain without the Saxons will still be diseased, Derfel, for we risk losing the Gods. Christianity spreads faster than the Saxons, and Christians are a bigger offence to our Gods than any Saxon. If we don’t restrain the Christians then the Gods will desert us utterly, and what is Britain without her Gods? But if we harness the Gods and restore them to Britain, then the Saxons and the Christians will both vanish. We attack the wrong disease, Derfel.’
I glanced at Arthur who was
listening intently to something Cuneglas was saying. Arthur was not an irreligious man, but he carried his beliefs lightly and bore no hatred in his soul for men and women who believed in other Gods, yet Arthur, I knew, would hate to hear Merlin talk of fighting against the Christians. ‘And no one listens to you, Lord?’ I asked Merlin.
‘Some,’ he said grudgingly, ‘a few, one or two. Arthur doesn’t. He thinks I’m an old fool on the edge of senility. But what about you, Derfel? Do you think I’m an old fool?’
‘No, Lord.’
‘And do you believe in magic, Derfel?’
‘Yes, Lord,’ I said. I had seen magic work, but I had seen it fail too. Magic was difficult, but I believed in it.
Merlin leaned even closer to my ear. ‘Then be at Dolforwyn’s summit this night, Derfel,’ he whispered, ‘and I will grant you your soul’s desire.’
A harpist struck the chord that would summon the bards for the singing. The warriors’ voices died away as a chill wind gusted rain through the open door and flickered the small flames of the tallow candles and the grease-soaked rush lights. ‘Your soul’s desire,’ Merlin whispered again, but when I looked to my left he had somehow vanished.
And in the night the thunder growled. The Gods were abroad and I was summoned to Dolforwyn.
I left the feast before the giving of gifts, before the bards sang and before the drunken warriors’ voices swelled in the haunting Song of Nwyfre. I heard the song far behind me as I walked alone down the river valley where Ceinwyn had told me of her visit to the bed of skulls and of the strange prophecy that made no sense.
I wore my armour, but carried no shield. My sword, Hywelbane, was at my side and my green cloak was about my shoulders. No man walked the night lightly, for night belonged to ghouls and spirits, but I had been summoned by Merlin so I knew I would be safe.
My path was made easy for there was a road that led east from the ramparts towards the southern edge of the range of hills where Dolforwyn lay. It was a long walk, four hours in the wet dark, and the road was black as pitch, but the Gods must have wanted me to arrive for I neither lost the road, nor met any dangers in the night.
Merlin, I knew, could not be far ahead of me, and though I was two lifetimes younger than he, I neither caught up with him nor even heard him. I just heard the fading song and afterwards, when the singing had faded into the dark, I listened to the rill of the river running over the stones and the patter of rain falling in the leaves and the scream of a hare caught by a weasel and the shriek of a badger calling for her mate. I passed two crouching settlements where the dying glow of fires showed through the low openings beneath the bracken thatch. From one of those huts a man’s voice called out in challenge, but I called to him that I was travelling in peace and he quieted his barking dog.
I left the road to find the narrow track that twisted up Dolforwyn’s flank and I feared the darkness would make me lose my way under the oaks that grew thick on the hill’s side, but the rain clouds thinned to let a wan moonlight drift through the wet heavy leaves and show me the stony path that climbed sunwise up the royal hill. No man lived here. It was a place of oaks, stone and mystery.
The path led from the trees into the wide open space of the summit where the lone feasting hall stood and where the circle of standing stones marked where Cuneglas had been acclaimed. This summit was Powys’s most sacred place, yet for most of the year it stood deserted, used only at high feasts and at times of great solemnity. Now, in the wan moonlight, the hall stood dark and the hilltop seemed empty.
I paused at the edge of the oaks. A white owl flew above me, its stubby body rushing on short wings close to my helmet’s wolf-tailed crest. The owl was an omen, but I could not tell whether the omen was good or evil and I was suddenly afraid. Curiosity had drawn me here, but now I sensed the danger. Merlin would not offer me my soul’s desire for nothing, and that meant I was here to make a choice, and it was a choice I suspected I would not want to make. Indeed, I feared it so much that I almost turned back into the dark of the trees, but then a pulse on the scar of my left hand held me in place.
The scar had been put there by Nimue and whenever the scar throbbed I knew that my fate was gone from my choosing. I was oath-sworn to Nimue. I could not go back.
The rain had stopped and the clouds were tattered. There was a cold wind beating the treetops, but no rain. It was still dark. Dawn could not be far off, but as yet no hint of light rose across the eastern hills. There was only the glimmering wash of moonlight that turned the stones of Dolforwyn’s royal circle into silvered shapes in the dark.
I walked towards the stone circle and the sound of my heart seemed louder than the footfall of my heavy boots. Still no one appeared and for a moment I wondered if this was some elaborate jest on Merlin’s part, but then, in the centre of the stone ring, where the single stone of Powys’s kingship lay, I saw a gleam that was brighter than any reflection of misted moonlight from rain-glossed rock.
I moved closer, my heart thumping, then stepped between the circle’s stones and saw that the moonlight was reflecting from a cup. A silver cup. A small silver cup which, when I came close to the royal stone, I saw was filled with a dark, moon-glossed liquid.
‘Drink, Derfel,’ Nimue’s voice said in a whisper that barely carried above the sound of the wind in the oaks. ‘Drink.’
I turned, looking for her, but could see no one. The wind lifted my cloak and flapped some loose thatch on the hall’s roof. ‘Drink, Derfel,’ Nimue’s voice said again, ‘drink.’
I looked up into the sky and prayed to Lleullaw that he would preserve me. My left hand, that was now throbbing in pain, was clasped tight about Hywelbane’s hilt. I wanted to do the safe thing, and that, I knew, was to walk away and go back to the warmth of Arthur’s friendship, but the misery in my soul had brought me to this cold bare hill and the thought of Lancelot’s hand resting on Ceinwyn’s slender wrist made me look down to the cup.
I lifted it, hesitated, then drained it.
The liquid tasted bitter so that I shuddered when it was all gone. The rank taste stayed in my mouth and throat as I carefully laid the cup back on the king’s stone.
‘Nimue?’ I called almost beseechingly, but there was no answer except for the wind in the trees.
‘Nimue!’ I called again, for my head was reeling now. The clouds were churning black and grey, and the moon was splintering into spikes of silvered light that slashed up from the distant river and shattered in the thrashing dark of the twisting trees. ‘Nimue!’ I called as my knees gave way and as my head spun in lurid dreams. I knelt by the royal stone that suddenly loomed as large as a mountain before me, then I fell forward so heavily that my sprawling arm sent the empty cup flying. I felt sick, but no vomit would come, there were just dreams, terrible dreams, shrieking ghouls of nightmare that screamed inside my head. I was crying, I was sweating and my muscles were twitching in uncontrollable spasms.
Then hands seized my head. My helmet was dragged from my hair, then a forehead was pressed against mine. It was a cool white forehead and the nightmares skittered away to be replaced by a vision of a long, naked white body with slender thighs and small breasts. ‘Dream, Derfel,’ Nimue soothed me, her hands stroking my hair, ‘dream, my love, dream.’
I was crying helplessly. I was a warrior, a Lord of Dumnonia, beloved of Arthur and so in his debt after the last battle that he would grant me land and wealth beyond my dreams, yet now I wept like an orphaned child. My soul’s desire was Ceinwyn, but Ceinwyn was being dazzled by Lancelot and I thought I could never know happiness again.
‘Dream, my love,’ Nimue crooned, and she must have swept a black cloak over both our heads for suddenly the grey night vanished and I was in a silent darkness with her arms about my neck and her face pressed close to mine. We knelt, cheek beside each other’s cheek, with my hands shuddering spasmodically and helplessly on the cool skin of her bare thighs. I let my body’s twitching weight lean on her slender shoulders and there, in her arms, the tea
rs ended, the spasms faded and suddenly I was calm. No vomit edged my throat, the ache in my legs was gone and I felt warm. So warm that the sweat still poured off me. I did not move, I did not want to move, but just let the dream come.
At first it was a wondrous dream for it seemed I had been given the wings of a great eagle and I was flying high above a land I did not know. Then I saw it was a terrible land, broken by great chasms and by tall mountains of jagged rock down which small streams cascaded white towards dark peaty lakes. The mountains seemed to have no end, nor any refuge, for as I coasted above them on the wings of my dream, I saw no houses, no huts, no fields, no flocks, no herds, no souls, but only a wolf running between the crags and the bones of a deer lying in a thicket. The sky above me was as grey as a sword, the mountains below were dark as dried blood and the air beneath my wings as cold as a knife in the ribs.
‘Dream, my love,’ Nimue murmured, and in the dream I swept low on my wide wings to see a road twisting between the dark hills. It was a road of beaten earth, broken by rocks, that picked its cruel way from valley to valley, sometimes climbing to bleak passes before it dropped again to the bare stones of another valley floor. The road edged black lakes, cut through shadowed chasms, skirted snow-streaked hills, but always led towards the north. How it was the north I did not know, but this was a dream in which knowledge needs no reason.
The dream wings dropped me down to the road’s surface and suddenly I was flying no longer, but climbing the road towards a pass in the hills. The slopes on either side of the pass were steep black slabs of slate running with water, but something told me the road’s end lay just beyond the black pass and that if I could just keep walking on my tired legs I would cross the crest and find my soul’s desire at the farther side.