The Hollow Hills

  I remember that as I walked through the shells of the buildings I was thinking, not of the past, not even of my present quest, but practically, as Ambrosius' engineer, of the future. I was weighing up the place as Tremorinus the chief engineer and I had been used to do: shifting this, repairing that, making the towers good, abandoning the north-easterly blocks to make good the west and south... Yes, if Arthur should ever need Segontium...

  I had come to the top of the rise, the center of the fort where the Commandant's house — Maximus' house — had stood. It was as derelict as the rest. The great door still hung on rotting hinges, but the lintel was broken and sagging, and the place was dangerous. I went cautiously inside. In the main chamber there was daylight spilling through gaps in the roof, and piles of rubble half hid the walls where paint still showed, flaked and dark with damp. In the dimness I could see the remains of a table — too massive to take away, and not worth chopping for kindling — and behind it the shredded remnants of leather hangings on the wall. A general had sat here once, planning to conquer Rome, as formerly Rome had conquered Britain. He had failed, and died, but in failing he had sown the seeds of an idea which after him another king had picked up. "It will be one country, a kingdom in its own right," my father had said, "not merely a province of Rome. Rome is going, but for a while at least, we can stand." And through this came the memory of another voice, the voice of the prophet who sometimes spoke through me: "And the kingdoms shall be one Kingdom, and the gods one God."

  It would be time to listen to those ghostly voices when a general sat there once again. I turned back into the bright morning stillness. Where, in this waste land, was the end of my quest?

  From here you could see the sea, with the small crowded houses of the port, and across from this the druids' isle that is called Mona, or Von, so that the people call the place Caeryn-ar-Von. To the other side, behind me, reared the Snow Hill, Y Wyddfa, where if a man could climb and live among the snows, he would meet the gods walking. Against its distant whiteness showed, dark and ruined, the remains of Macsen's Tower. And suddenly, from this new angle, I saw it afresh. The tower of my dream; the tower in the picture on Ahdjan's wall... I left the Commandant's house and walked quickly out of the fortress gate towards it.

  It stood in a wilderness of tumbled stones, but I knew that near it, dug into the side of the little valley beyond the gate, and running in almost beneath the tower itself, was the temple of Mithras; and on the thought-I found that my feet had led me, with no will of my own, down the path which led to the Mithraeum door.

  There were steps here, cracked and slippery. Halfway down the flight one tread thrust upwards vertically, half blocking the stairway, and at the foot was a pile of mud and shards, fouled by rats and prowling dogs. The place stank of damp and dirt and some ancient noisomeness that might have been spilled blood. On the ruined wall above the steps some roosting birds had whitened the stones; the dung was greening over now with slime. A jackdaw's perch, perhaps? A raven of Mithras? A merlin? I trod cautiously forward over the slimy flags, and paused in the temple doorway.

  It was dark, but some sunlight had followed me in, and there was enough light from a hole broken in the roof somewhere, so that I could see dimly. The temple was as filthy and forlorn as the stairway that led to it. Only the strength of the vaulted roof had saved the place from falling in under the weight of the hillside above. The furnishings had gone long since, the braziers, benches, carvings; this, like the scoured ruin overhead, was a shell empty of its tenant. The four lesser altars had been broken and defaced, but the central altar stood there still, fixed and massive, with its carved dedication to the unconquered god, MITHRAE INVICTO, but above the altar, in the apse, axe and hammer and fire had obliterated the story of the bull and the conquering god. All that remained of the picture of the bull-slaying was an ear of wheat, down in one corner, its carving still sharp and new and miraculously unspoiled. The air, sour with the smell of some fungus, caught at the lungs.

  It seemed fitting to say a prayer to the god departed. As I spoke aloud, something in the echo of my voice came, not like an echo, but an answer. I had been wrong. The place was not yet empty. It had been holy, and was stripped of its holiness; but something was still held down to that cold altar. The sour smell was not the smell of fungus. It was unlit incense, and cold ashes, and unsaid prayers.

  I had been his servant once. There was no one here but I. Slowly, I walked forward into the center of the temple, and held out my open hands.

  * * *

  Light, and colour, and fire. White robes and chanting. Fires licking upwards like light blowing. The bellow of a dying bull and the smell of blood. Outside somewhere the sun blazing and a city rejoicing to welcome its new king, and the sound of laughter and marching feet. Round me incense pouring heavy and sweet, and a voice that said through it, calm and small: "Throw down my altar. It is time to throw it down."

  * * *

  I came to myself coughing, with the air round me swirling thick with dust, and the sound of a crash still echoing round and round the vaulted chamber. The air trembled and rang. At my feet lay the altar, hurled over on its back into the curve of the apse.

  I stared, dazed still and with swimming sight, at the hole it had torn in the floor where it had stood. My head sang with the echo; the hands I held stiffly before me were filthy, and one of them showed a bleeding gash. The altar was heavy, of massive stone, and in my right mind I would never have laid hands to it; but here it lay at my feet, with the echo of its fall dying in the roof, followed by the whisper of settling masonry as the crumbled pavement began to slide down into the hole where the altar had stood.

  Something showed in the depths of the hole: a hard straight edge and a corner too sharp for stone. A box. I knelt down and reached for it.

  It was of metal, and very heavy, but the lid lifted easily. Whoever had buried it had trusted the god's protection rather than a lock. Inside, my hands met canvas cloth, long rotten, which tore; then inside that again, wrappings of oiled leather. Something long and slender and supple; here at last it was. Gently, I took the wrappings off the sword and held it naked across my hands.

  A hundred years since they had put it here, those men who had made their way back from Rome. It shone in my hands, as bright and dangerous and beautiful as on the day it had been made. It was no wonder, I thought, that already in that hundred years it had become a thing of legend. It was easy to believe that the old smith, Weland himself, who was old before the Romans came, might have made this last artifact before he faded with the other small gods of wood and stream and river, into the misty hills, leaving the crowded valleys to the bright gods of the Middle Sea. I could feel the power from the sword running into my palms, as if I held them in water where lightning struck. Whoso takes this sword from under this stone is rightwise King born of all Britain... The words were clear as if spoken, bright as if carved on the metal. I, Merlin, only son of Ambrosius the King, had taken the sword from the stone. I, who had never given an order in battle, nor led so much as a troop; who could not handle a war stallion, but rode a gelding or a quiet mare. I, who had never even lain with a woman. I, who was no man, but only eyes and a voice. A spirit, I had said once, a word. No more.

  The sword was not for me. It would wait.

  I wrapped the beautiful thing up again in the filthy wrappings, and knelt to replace it. I saw that the box was deeper than I had thought; there were other objects there. The rotten canvas had fallen away to show the shape, gleaming in the dimness, of a wide-mouthed dish, a krater such as I had seen on my travels in countries east of Rome. It seemed to be of red gold, studded with emeralds. Beside it, still half muffled in wrappings, gleamed the bright edge of a lance-head. The rim of a platter showed, crusted with sapphire and amethyst.

  I leaned forward to lay the sword back in its place. But before I could do it, without any warning, the heavy lid of the box fell shut with a crash. The noise set the echoes drumming again, and brought down with it a cascade
of stone and plaster from the apse and the crumbling walls above. It happened so quickly that in the single moment of my own sharp recoil the box, hole and all had vanished from view under the rubble.

  I was left kneeling there in the choking cloud of dust, with the shrouded sword held fast in my filthy and bleeding hands. From the apse, the last of the carving had vanished. It was only a curved wall, showing blank, like the wall of a cave.

  11

  THE FERRYMAN AT THE DEVA knew the holy man of whom the smith had spoken. It seemed he lived in the hills above Ector's fortress, at the edge of the great tract of mountain land they call the Wild Forest. Though I no longer felt myself to need the hermit's guidance, it would do no harm to talk to him, and his cell — a chapel, the ferryman called it — lay on my way, and might give me lodging until I considered how best to present myself at Count Ector's gates.

  Whether or not the possession of the sword had in fact carried power with it, I travelled fast and easily, and with no more alarms. A week after leaving Segontium we — the mare and I — cantered easily along the green margin of a wide, calm lake, making for a light which showed pale in the early dusk, high as a star among the trees on the other shore.

  It was a long way round the lake, and it was full dark when at last I trotted the tired mare up the forest track into a clearing and saw, against the soft and living darkness of the forest, the solid wedge of the chapel roof.

  It was a smallish oblong building set back against the trees at the far side of a large clearing. All round the open space the pines stood in a dark and towering wall, but above was a roof of stars, and beyond the pines, on every side, the glimmer of the snow-clad heights that cupped this corrie high in the hills. To one side of the clearing, in a basin of mossy rock, stood a still, dark pool; one of those springs that well up silently from below, for ever renewing itself without sound. The air was piercingly cold, and smelled of pines.

  There were mossed and broken steps leading up to the chapel door. This was open, and inside the building the light burned steadily. I dismounted and led the mare forward. She pecked against a stone, her hoof rapping sharply. You would have thought that anyone living in this solitary place would have come out to investigate, but there was no sound, no movement. The forest hung still. Only, far overhead, the stars seemed to move and breathe as they do in the winter air. I slipped the mare's bridle off over her ears, and left her to drink at the well. Gathering my cloak round me, I trod up the mossy steps, and entered the chapel.

  It was small, oblong in shape, with a highish barrel roof; a strange building to find in the wild heart of the forest, where at most one might have expected a rough-built hut, or at least a cave, or dwelling contrived among the stones. But this had been built as a shrine, a holy place for some god to dwell in. The floor was of stone flags, clean and unbroken. In the center, opposite the door, stood the altar, with a thick curtain of some worked stuff hung behind it. The altar itself was covered with a clean, coarse cloth, on which stood the lighted lamp, a simple, country-made thing which nevertheless gave a strong and steady light. It had recently been filled with oil, and the wick was trimmed and unsmoking. To one side of the altar, on the step, was a stone bowl of the kind I had seen used for sacrifice; it had been scoured white, and held sweet water. To the other side stood a lidded pot of some dark metal, pierced, such as the Christians use to burn incense. The air of the chapel still held, faintly, the sweet gummy smell. Three bronze lamps, triple-branched, stood unlit against a wall.

  The rest of the chapel was bare. Whoever kept it, whoever had lighted the lamp and burned the incense, slept elsewhere.

  I called aloud: "Is anyone there?" and waited for the echoes to run up into the roof and die. No answer.

  My dagger was in my hand; it had sprung there without conscious thought on my part. I had met this kind of situation before, and it had only meant one thing; but that had been in Vortigern's time, the time of the Wolf. Such a man as this hermit, living alone in a solitary place, trusted to the place itself, its god and its holiness, to protect him. It should have been enough, and in my father's time had certainly been so. But things had changed, even in the few years since his death. Uther was no Vortigern, but it seemed sometimes that we were sliding back to the time of the Wolf. The times were wild and violent, and filled with alarms of war; but more than this, faiths and loyalties were changing faster than men's minds could grow to apprehend them. There were men about who would kill even at the altar's horns. But I had not thought there were any such in Rheged, when I chose it for Arthur's sanctuary.

  Struck by an idea, I stepped carefully past the altar and drew back the edge of the curtain. My guess had been right; there was a space behind the curtain, a semicircular recess which was apparently used as storage room; dimly the lamplight showed a clutter of stools and oil jars and sacred vessels. At the back of the recess a narrow doorway had been cut in the wall.

  I went through. It was here, obviously, that the keeper of the place lived. There was a small square chamber built on the end of the chapel, with a low window deeply recessed, and another door giving, presumably, straight on the forest. I felt my way across in the dimness and pushed the door open. Outside the starlight showed me the rampart of pine trees crowding close, and to one side a lean-to shed, with its overhanging roof sheltering a stack of fuel. Nothing else.

  Leaving the door wide, I surveyed what I could see of the room. There was a wooden bed with skins and blankets piled on it, a stool, and a small table with a cup and platter where the remains of a meal lay half-eaten. I picked up the cup; it was half full of thin wine. On the table a candle had burned down into a mess of tallow. The smell of the dead candle still hung there, mixed with the smell of the wine and the dead embers on the hearth. I put a finger to the tallow; it was still soft.

  I went back into the chapel. I stood by the altar, and shouted again. There were two windows, one to either side, high in the wall; they were unglazed, open on the forest. If he was not too far away, he would surely hear me. But again there was no reply.

  Then, huge and silent as a ghost, a great white owl swept in through one window and sailed across the lamplit space. I caught a glimpse of the cruel beak, the soft wings, the great eyes, blind and wise, then it was gone with no more sound than a spirit makes. It was only the dillyan wen, the white owl which haunts every tower and ruin in the country, but my flesh crept on my bones. From outside came the long, sad, terrible cry of the owl, and after it, like an echo, the sound of a man moaning.

  Without his moaning I would not have found him till daylight. He was robed and hooded in black, and he lay face down under the dark trees at the edge of the clearing, beyond the spring. A jug fallen from his hand showed what his errand had been. I stooped and gently turned him over.

  He was an old man, thin and frail, with bones that felt as brittle as a bird's. When I had made sure that none was broken, I picked him up in my arms and carried him back indoors. His eyes were half open, but he was still unconscious; in the lamplight I could see how one side of his face was dragged down as if a statuary had run his hand down suddenly over the clay, blurring the outline. I put him into his bed, wrapped warm. There was kindling left by the hearth, and what looked like a winter-stone ready among the ashes. I brought more fuel, then made fire and, when the stone was warm, drew it out, wrapped it in cloth, and put it to the old man's feet. For the moment there was nothing more that could be done for him, so after I had seen to the mare I made a meal for myself, then settled by the dying fire to watch through the rest of the night.

  * * *

  For four days I tended him, while none came near except the forest creatures and the wild deer, and at night the white owl haunting the place as if it waited to convoy his spirit home.

  I did not think he could recover; his face was fallen in and grey, and I had seen the same blue tinge round the mouths of dying men. From time to time he seemed to come half to the surface, to know I was beside him. At such times he was restless always,
fretting, I understood, about the care of the shrine. When I tried to talk to him and reassure him, he seemed not to understand, so in the end I drew back the curtains that parted the room from the shrine, so that he might see the lamp still burning in its place on the altar.

  It was a strange time for me, by day tending the chapel and its keeper, and by night snatching sleep while I watched the sick man and waited for his restless muttering to make sense. There was a small store of meal and wine in the place, and with the dried meat and raisins left in my pack, I had sufficient food. The old man could scarcely swallow; I kept him alive on warm wine mixed with water, and a cordial I made for him from the medicines I carried. Each morning I was amazed that he had lived through the night. So I stayed, tending the place by day, and by night spending long hours beside him watching, or else in the chapel where the smell of incense slowly faded and the sweet air of the pines floated in and set the flame of the lamp aslant in its well of oil.

  Now when I look back on that time it is like an island in moving waters. Or like a dreaming night which gives rest and impetus between the hard days. I ought to have been impatient to get on with my journey, to meet Arthur and to talk with Ralf again and arrange with Count Ector how best, without betraying either of us, I might enter the fabric of Arthur's life. But I troubled myself with none of these things. The shrouding forest, the still and glowing shrine, the sword lying where I had hidden it under the thatch of the shed, these held me there, serene and waiting. One never knows when the gods will call or come, but there are times when their servants feel them near, and this was such a time.