The Crystal Cave

  He eyed me sideways as he reached in the clothes-chest for another tunic. "Uther will have gone straight to him. You know that?"

  I laughed. "Of course. I warn you, I shall tell Ambrosius the truth."

  "All of it?"

  "All of it."

  "Well, I suppose that's best," he said. "If anyone can protect you from them —"

  "It's not that. It's simply that he ought to know. He has the right. Besides, what have I to hide from him?"

  He said uneasily: "I was thinking about the curse... Even Ambrosius might not be able to protect you from that."

  "Oh, that to the curse." I made a gesture not commonly seen in noblemen's houses. "Forget it. Neither you nor I have done wrong, and I refuse to lie to Ambrosius."

  "Some day I'll see you scared, Merlin."

  "Probably."

  "Weren't you even scared of Belasius?"

  "Should I be?" I was interested. "He'll do me no harm." I unhooked the belt of my tunic, and threw it on the bed. I regarded Cadal. "Would you be afraid if you knew your own end, Cadal?"

  "Yes, by the dog! Do you?"

  "Sometimes, in snatches. Sometimes I see it. It fills me with fear."

  He stood still, looking at me, and there was fear in his face. "What is it, then?"

  "A cave. The crystal cave. Sometimes I think it is death, and at other times it is birth or a gate of vision, or a dark limbo of sleep... I cannot tell. But some day I shall know. Till then, I suppose I am not afraid of much else. I shall come to the cave in the end, as you — " I broke off.

  "As I what?" he said quickly. "What'll I come to?"

  I smiled. "I was going to say 'As you will come to old age.'"

  "That's a lie," he said roughly. "I saw your eyes. When you're seeing things, your eyes go queer; I've noticed it before. The black spreads and goes kind of blurred, dreaming-like — but not soft; no, your whole look goes cold, like cold iron, as if you neither saw nor cared about what's going on round you. And you talk as if you were just a voice and not a person... Or as if you'd gone somewhere else and left your body for something else to speak through. Like a horn being blown through to make the sound carry. Oh, I know I've only seen it a couple of times, for a moment, but it's uncanny, and it frightens me."

  "It frightens me, too, Cadal." I had let the green tunic slide from my body to the floor. He was holding out the grey wool robe I wore for a bedgown. I reached absently for it, and sat down on the bed's edge, with it trailing over my knees. I was talking to myself rather than Cadal. "It frightens me, too. You're right, that's how it feels, as if I were an empty shell with something working through me. I say things, see things, think things, till that moment I never knew of. But you're wrong in thinking I don't feel. It hurts me. I think this may be because I can't command whatever speaks through me... I mean, I can't command it yet. But I shall. I know this, too. Some day I shall command this part of me that knows and sees, this god, and that really will be power. I shall know when what I foretell is human instinct, and when it is God's shadow."

  "And when you spoke of my end, what was that?"

  I looked up. Oddly enough it was less easy to lie to Cadal than it had been to Uther. "But I haven't seen your death, Cadal, no one's but my own. I was being tactless. I was going to say 'As you will come to a foreign grave somewhere...' " I smiled. "I know this is worse than hell to a Breton. But I think it will happen to you... That is, if you stay as my servant."

  His look lightened, and he grinned. This was power, I thought, when a word of mine could frighten men like this. He said: "Oh, I'll do that all right. Even if he hadn't asked me to, I'd stay. You've an easy way with you that makes it a pleasure to look after you."

  "Have I? I thought you found me a high-handed little fool, and a nuisance besides?"

  "There you are, you see. I'd never have dared say that to anyone else your class, and all you do is laugh, and you twice royal."

  "Twice royal? You can hardly count my grandfather as well as my — " I stopped. What stopped me was his face. He had spoken without thought, then, on a quick gasp, had tried to catch the words back into his mouth and unspeak them.

  He said nothing, just stood there with the soiled tunic in his hand. I stood up slowly, the forgotten bedgown falling to the floor. There was no need for him to speak. I knew. I could not imagine how I had not known before, the moment I stood before Ambrosius in the frosty field and he stared down in the torchlight. He had known. And a hundred others must have guessed. I remembered now the sidelong looks of the men, the mutterings of the officers, the deference of servants which I had taken for respect for Ambrosius' commands, but which I saw now was deference to Ambrosius' son.

  The room was still as a cave. The brazier flickered and its light broke and scattered in the bronze mirror against the wall. I looked that way. In the firelit bronze my naked body showed slight and shadowy, an unreal thing of firelight and darkness shifting as the flames moved. But the face was lit, and in its heavily defined planes of fire and shadow I saw his face as I had seen it in his room, when he sat over the brazier waiting for me to be brought to him. Waiting for me to come so that he could ask me about Niniane.

  And here again the Sight had not helped me. Men that have god's-sight, I have found, are often human-blind.

  I said to Cadal: "Everybody knows?"

  He nodded. He didn't ask what I meant. "It's rumoured. You're very like him sometimes."

  "I think Uther may have guessed. He didn't know before?"

  "No. He left before the talk started to go round. That wasn't why he took against you."

  "I'm glad to hear it," I said. "What was it, then? Just because I got across him over that business of the standing stone?"

  "Oh, that, and other things."

  "Such as?"

  Cadal said, bluntly: "He thought you were the Count's catamite. Ambrosius doesn't go for women much. He doesn't go for boys either, come to that, but one thing Uther can't understand is a man who isn't in and out of bed with someone seven nights a week. When his brother bothered such a lot with you, had you in his house and set me to look after you and all that, Uther thought that's what must be going on, and he didn't half like it."

  "I see. He did say something like that tonight, but I thought it was only because he'd lost his temper."

  "If he'd bothered to look at you, or listen to what folks were saying, he'd have known fast enough."

  "He knows now." I spoke with sudden, complete certainty. "He saw it, back there on the road, when he saw the dragon brooch the Count gave me. I'd never thought about it, but of course he would realize the Count would hardly put the royal cipher on his catamite. He had the torch brought up, and took a good look at me. I think he saw it then." A thought struck me. "And I think Belasius knows."

  "Oh, yes," said Cadal, "he knows. Why?"

  "The way he talked... As if he knew he daren't touch me. That would be why he tried to scare me with the threat of a curse. He's a pretty cool hand, isn't he? He must have been thinking very hard on the way up to the grove. He daren't put me quietly out of the way for sacrilege, but he had to stop me talking somehow. Hence the curse. And also — " I stopped.

  "And also what?"

  "Don't sound so startled. It was only another guarantee I'd hold my tongue."

  "For the gods' sake, what?"

  I shrugged, realized I was still naked, and reached for the bedgown again. "He said he would take me with him to the sanctuary. I think he would like to make a druid of me."

  "He said that?" I was getting familiar with Cadal's sign to avert the evil eye. "What will you do?"

  "I'll go with him... once, at least. Don't look like that, Cadal. There isn't a cat's chance in a fire that I'll want to go more than once." I looked at him soberly. "But there's nothing in this world that I'm not ready to see and learn, and no god that I'm not ready to approach in his own fashion. I told you that truth was the shadow of God. If I am to use it, I must know who He is. Do you understand me?"

  "How
could I? What god are you talking about?"

  "I think there is only one. Oh, there are gods everywhere, in the hollow hills, in the wind and the sea, in the very grass we walk on and the air we breathe, and in the bloodstained shadows where men like Belasius wait for them. But I believe there must be one who is God Himself, like the great sea, and all the rest of us, small gods and men and all, like rivers, we all come to Him in the end. — Is the bath ready?"

  Twenty minutes later, in a dark blue tunic clipped at the shoulder by the dragon brooch, I went to see my father.

  12

  THE SECRETARY WAS IN THE ANTEROOM, rather elaborately doing nothing. Beyond the curtain I heard Ambrosius' voice speaking quietly. The two guards at the door looked wooden.

  Then the curtain was pulled aside and Uther came out. When he saw me he checked, hung on his heel as if to speak, then seemed to catch the secretary's interested look, and went by with a swish of the red cloak and a smell of horses. You could always tell where Uther had been; he seemed to soak up scents like a wash-cloth. He must have gone straight to his brother before he had even cleaned up after the ride home.

  The secretary, whose name was Sollius, said to me: "You may as well go straight in, sir. He'll be expecting you."

  I hardly even noticed the "sir." It seemed to be something I was already accustomed to. I went in.

  * * *

  He was standing with his back to the door, over by the table. This was strewn with tablets, and a stilus lay across one of them as if he had been interrupted while writing. On the secretary's desk near the window a half-unrolled book lay where it had been dropped.

  The door shut behind me. I stopped just inside it, and the leather curtain fell closed with a ruffle and a flap. He turned.

  Our eyes met in silence, it seemed for interminable seconds, then he cleared his throat and said: "Ah, Merlin," and then, with a slight movement of the hand, "Sit down."

  I obeyed him, crossing to my usual stool near the brazier. He was silent for a moment, looking down at the table. He picked up the stilus, looked absently down at the wax, and added a word. I waited. He scowled down at what he had done, scored it out again, then threw the stilus down and said abruptly: "Uther has been to see me."

  "Yes, sir."

  He looked up under frowning brows. "I understand he came on you riding alone beyond the town."

  I said quickly: "I didn't go out alone. Cadal was with me."

  "Cadal?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "That's not what you told Uther."

  "No, sir."

  His look was keen now, arrested. "Well, go on."

  "Cadal always attends me, my lord. He's — more than faithful. We went north as far as the logging track in the forest, and a short way along that my pony went lame, so Cadal gave me his mare, and we started to walk home." I took a breath. "We took a short cut, and came on Belasius and his servant. Belasius rode part of the way home with me, but it — it didn't suit him to meet Prince Uther, so he left me."

  "I see." His voice gave nothing away, but I had the feeling that he saw quite a lot. His next question confirmed it. "Did you go to the druids' island?"

  "You know about it?" I said, surprised. Then as he did not answer, waiting in cold silence for me to speak, I went on: "I told you Cadal and I took a short cut through the forest. If you know the island, you'll know the track we followed. Just where the path goes down to the sea there's a pine grove. We found Ulfin — that's Belasius' servant — there with the two horses. Cadal wanted to take Ulfin's horse and get me home quickly, but while we were talking to Ulfin we heard a cry — a scream, rather, from somewhere east of the grove. I went to see. I swear I had no idea the island was there, or what happened there. Nor had Cadal, and if he'd been mounted, as I was, he'd have stopped me. But by the time he'd taken Ulfin's horse and set off after me I was out of sight, and he thought I'd taken fright and gone home — which is what he'd told me to do — and it wasn't until he got right back here that he found I hadn't come this way. He went back for me, but by that time I'd come up with the troop." I thrust my hands down between my knees, clutching them tightly together. "I don't know what made me ride down to the island. At least, I do; it was the cry, so I went to see... But it wasn't only because of the cry. I can't explain, not yet..." I took a breath. "My lord —"

  "Well?"

  "I ought to tell you. A man was killed there tonight, on the island. I don't know who he was, but I heard that he was a King's man who has been missing for some days. His body will be found somewhere in the forest, as if a wild beast had killed him." I paused. There was nothing to be seen in his face. "I thought I should tell you."

  "You went over to the island?"

  "Oh, no! I doubt if I'd be alive now if I had. I found out later about the man who was killed. It was sacrilege, they said. I didn't ask about it." I looked up at him. "I only went down as far as the shore. I waited there in the trees, and watched it — the dance and the offering. I could hear the singing. I didn't know then that it was illegal... It's forbidden at home, of course, but one knows it still goes on, and I thought it might be different here. But when my lord Uther knew where I'd been he was very angry. He seems to hate the druids."

  "The druids?" His voice was absent now. He still fidgeted with the stilus on the table. "Ah, yes. Uther has no love for them. He is one of Mithras' fanatics, and light is the enemy of darkness, I suppose. Well, what is it?" This, sharply, to Sollius, who came in with an apology, and waited just inside the door.

  "Forgive me, sir," said the secretary. "There's a messenger from King Budec. I told him you were engaged, but he said it was important. Shall I tell him to wait?"

  "Bring him in," said Ambrosius. The man came in with a scroll. He handed it to Ambrosius, who sat down in his great chair and unrolled it. He read it, frowning. I watched him. The flickering flames from the brazier spread, lighting the planes of the face which already, it seemed, I knew as well as I knew my own. The heart of the brazier glowed, and the light spread and flashed. I felt it spreading across my eyes as they blurred and widened...

  * * *

  "Merlin Emrys? Merlin?"

  The echo died to an ordinary voice. The vision fled. I was sitting on my stool in Ambrosius' room, looking down at my hands clasping my knees. Ambrosius had risen and was standing over me, between me and the fire. The secretary had gone, and we were alone.

  At the repetition of my name I blinked and roused myself.

  He was speaking. "What do you see, there in the fire?"

  I answered without looking up. "A grove of whitethorn on a hillside and a girl on a brown pony, and a young man with a dragon brooch on his shoulder, and the mist knee-high."

  I heard him draw a long breath, then his hand came down and took me by the chin and lifted my face. His eyes were intent and fierce.

  "It's true, then, this Sight of yours. I have been so sure, and now — now, beyond all doubt, it is true. I thought it was, that first night by the standing stone, but that could have been anything — a dream, a boy's story, a lucky guess to win my interest. But this... I was right about you." He took his hand from my face, and straightened. "Did you see the girl's face?"

  I nodded.

  "And the man's?"

  I met his eyes then. "Yes, sir."

  He turned sharply away and stood with his back to me, head bent. Once more he picked up the stilus from the table, turning it over and over with his fingers. After a while he said: "How long have you known?"

  "Only since I rode in tonight. It was something Cadal said, then I remembered things, and how your brother stared tonight when he saw me wearing this." I touched the dragon brooch at my neck.

  He glanced, then nodded. "Is this the first time you have had this — vision?"

  "Yes. I had no idea. Now, it seems strange to me that I never even suspected — but I swear I did not."

  He stood silent, one hand spread on the table, leaning on it. I don't know what I had expected, but I had never thought to see
the great Aurelius Ambrosius at a loss for words. He took a turn across the room to the window, and back again, and spoke. "This is a strange meeting, Merlin. So much to say, and yet so little. Do you see now why I asked so many questions? Why I tried so hard to find what had brought you here?"

  "The gods at work, my lord, they brought me here," I said. "Why did you leave her?"

  I had not meant the question to come out so abruptly, but I suppose it had been pressing on me so long that now it burst out with the force of an accusation. I began to stammer something, but he cut me short with a gesture, and answered quietly.

  "I was eighteen, Merlin, with a price on my head if I set foot in my own kingdom. You know the story — how my cousin Budec took me in when my brother the King was murdered, and how he never ceased to plan for vengeance on Vortigern, though for many years it seemed impossible. But all the time he sent scouts, took in reports, went on planning. And then when I was eighteen he sent me over myself, secretly, to Gorlois of Cornwall, who was my father's friend, and who has never loved Vortigern. Gorlois sent me north with a couple of men he could trust, to watch and listen and learn the lie of the land. Some day I'll tell you where we went, and what happened, but not now. What concerns you now is this... We were riding south near the end of October, towards Cornwall to take ship for home, when we were set upon, and had to fight for it. They were Vortigern's men. I don't know yet whether they suspected us, or whether they were killing — as Saxons and foxes do — for wantonness and the sweet taste of blood. The latter, I think, or they would have made surer of killing me. They killed my two companions, but I was lucky; I got off with a flesh wound, and a knock on the head that struck me senseless, and they left me for dead. This was at dusk. When I moved and looked about me it was morning, and a brown pony was standing over me, with a girl on his back staring from me to the dead men and back again, with never a sound." The first glimmer of a smile, not at me, but at the memory. "I remember trying to speak, but I had lost a lot of blood, and the night in the open had brought on a fever. I was afraid she would take fright and gallop back to the town, and that would be the end of it. But she did not. She caught my horse and got my saddle-bag, and gave me a drink, then she cleaned the wound and tied it up and then — God knows how — got me across the horse and out of that valley. There was a place she knew of, she said, nearer the town, but remote and secret; no one ever went there. It was a cave, with a spring — What is it?"