He laid the manuscript down on his lap and looked from Jane to Simon to Barney and back again. He seemed to be searching for words.
“You have found something that may be more important than you can possibly realise,” he said at last.
They stared at him. He looked away again over the hills.
“You remember the fairy stories you were told when you were very small—’once upon a time . . .’ Why do you think they always began like that?”
“Because they weren’t true,” Simon said promptly.
Jane said, caught up in the unreality of the high remote place, “Because perhaps they were true once, but nobody could remember when.”
Great-Uncle Merry turned his head and smiled at her. “That’s right. Once upon a time . . . a long time ago . . . things that happened once, perhaps, but have been talked about for so long that nobody really knows. And underneath all the bits that people have added, the magic swords and lamps, they’re all about one thing—the good hero fighting the giant, or the witch, or the wicked uncle. Good against bad. Good against evil.”
“Cinderella.”
“Aladdin.”
“Jack the Giant-killer.”
“And all the rest.” He looked down again, his fingers caressing the curving edge of the parchment. “Do you know what this manuscript is about?”
“King Arthur,” Barney said promptly. “And King Mark. Simon found the names, in Latin.”
“And what do you know about King Arthur?”
Barney looked round triumphantly at his captive audience and drew breath for a long recital, but somehow found himself stammering instead.
“Well . . . he was King of England, and he had his knights of the Round Table, Lancelot and Galahad and Kay and all of them. And they fought jousts and rescued people from wicked knights. And Arthur beat everyone with his sword Excalibur. It was good against bad, I suppose, like you said about in the fairy stories. Only he was real.”
Great-Uncle Merry’s quiet pleased smile was flickering again. “And when was Arthur King of England?”
“Well—” Barney waved his hand vaguely. “A long time ago . . .”
“. . . like in the fairy stories,” Jane finished for him. “I see. But Gumerry, what are you trying to tell us? Was King Arthur a fairy story too?”
“No!” Barney said indignantly.
“No,” said Great-Uncle Merry. “He was real. But the same thing has happened, d’you see—he lived such a long time ago that there’s no record of him left. And so he’s become a story, a legend, as well.”
Simon fidgeted with the strap of his rucksack. “But I don’t see where the manuscript comes in.”
The wind over the headland stirred Great-Uncle Merry’s white hair outlined against the sky, and as he glanced down he looked magisterial and severe.
“Patience a little. And listen carefully now, because you may find this difficult to understand.
“First of all, you have heard me talk of Logres. It was the old name for this country, thousands of years ago; in the old days when the struggle between good and evil was more bitter and open than it is now. That struggle goes on all round us all the time, like two armies fighting. And sometimes one of them seems to be winning and sometimes the other, but neither has ever triumphed altogether. Nor ever will,” he added softly to himself, “for there is something of each in every man.
“Sometimes, over the centuries, this ancient battle comes to a peak. The evil grows very strong and nearly wins. But always at the same time there is some leader in the world, a great man who sometimes seems to be more than a man, who leads the forces of good to win back the ground and the men they seemed to have lost.”
“King Arthur,” Barney said.
“King Arthur was one of these,” Great-Uncle Merry said. “He fought against the men who wanted Logres, who robbed and murdered and broke all the rules of battle. He was a strong and good man, and the people of those days trusted him absolutely. With that faith behind him, Arthur’s power was very great—so great that in the stories that have grown up since, people have talked about his having magical help. But magic is just a word.”
“I suppose he didn’t win,” Jane said with sudden conviction, “or there wouldn’t have been any wars since.”
“No, he didn’t win,” Great-Uncle Merry said, and even in the clear afternoon sunshine he seemed with every word to become more remote, as ancient as the rock behind him and the old world of which he spoke.
“He wasn’t altogether beaten, but he didn’t altogether win. So the same struggle between good and evil sides has gone on ever since. But the good has grown very confused, and since the ancient days of Logres it has been trying to regain the strength it was given by Arthur. But it never has. Too much has been forgotten.
“But those men who remembered the old world have been searching for its secret ever since. And there have been others searching as well—the enemies, the wicked men, who have the same greed in their cold hearts as the men whom Arthur fought.”
Great-Uncle Merry looked out into the distance, his head outlined against the sky like the proud carved head of a statue, centuries old and yet always the same. “I have been searching,” he said. “For many, many years.”
The children stared at him, awed and a little afraid. For a moment he was a stranger, someone they did not know. Jane had a sudden fantastic feeling that Great-Uncle Merry did not really exist at all, and would vanish away if they breathed or spoke.
He looked down at them again. “I was beginning to know that this part of Cornwall held what we sought,” he said. “I did not know that you children would be the ones to find it. Or what danger you would be putting yourselves in.”
“Danger?” Simon said incredulously.
“Very great danger,” said Great-Uncle Merry, looking him full in the face. Simon swallowed. “This manuscript, Simon, puts you all right in the middle of the battle. Oh, nobody will stick a knife in your back—their methods are more subtle than that. And perhaps more successful.” He looked down at the manuscript again. “This,” he said more normally, “is a copy.”
“A copy?” said Barney. “But it’s so old.”
“Oh yes, it’s old. About six hundred years old. But it’s a copy of something even older than that—written more than nine hundred years ago. The part at the beginning is in Latin.”
“There, I said so,” Jane said in triumph.
Simon stuck out his lower lip. “Well, I translated bits of it, didn’t I? Not much, though,” he confessed to Great-Uncle Merry. “I couldn’t recognise any of the words.”
“I don’t suppose you could. This is medieval Latin, not like the Latin you learn at school . . . it’s written by a monk who must have lived near here, and I think about six hundred years ago, though there’s no date. He says, roughly, that near his monastery an old English manuscript has been found. He says it tells of an old legend from the days of Mark and Arthur, and that he has copied out the story to save its being lost, because the manuscript was falling to bits. He says he copied out a map that was with the manuscript too. Then all the rest, underneath, is the story that he copied out—and you can see the map right at the bottom.”
“If the original manuscript was so old that it was falling to bits six hundred years ago . . .” Barney said, bemused.
Simon broke in impatiently. “Gumerry, can you understand the copied-out part? That’s not Latin, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Great-Uncle Merry said. “It’s one of the Early English dialects, the old language that used to be spoken centuries ago. But it’s a very old form of it, full of words from the old Cornish and even some from Brittany. I don’t know—I’ll read it out as best I can. But I may turn it into rather curious English, and I may have to stop. . . .”
He peered at the manuscript again. Then, stumblingly and with many pauses while he held it to the sunlight or fumbled in his mind for a word, he began to read, in his deep, far-away voice. The children sat and listened,
with the sun hot on their faces and the wind still whispering in their ears.
“This I write, that when the time comes it shall be found by the proper man. And I leave it in the care of the old land that soon shall be no more.
“Into the land of Cornwall, the kingdom of Mark, there came in the days of my fathers a strange knight fleeing towards the west. Many fled hither in those days, when the old kingdom was broken by the invader and the last battle of Arthur was lost. For only in the western land did men still love God and the old ways.
“And the strange knight who came to the place of my fathers was called Bedwin, and he bore with him the last trust of Logres, the grail made in the fashion of the Holy Grail, that told upon its sides all the true story of Arthur soon to be misted in men’s minds. Each panel told of an evil overcome by Arthur and the company of God, until the end when evil overcame all. And the last panel showed the promise and the proof of Arthur’s coming again.
“For behold, said the knight Bedwin to my fathers, evil is upon us now, and so shall it be for time beyond our dreaming. Yet if the grail, that is the last trust of the old world, be not lost, then when the day is ripe the Pendragon shall come again. And at the last all shall be safe, and evil be thrust out never to return.
“And so that the trust be kept, he said, I give it into your charge, and your sons’, and your sons’ sons’, until the day come. For I am wounded near death from the last of the old battles, and I can do no more.
“And very soon he died, and they buried him over the sea and under the stone, and there he lies until the day of our Lord.
“And so the grail passed to my fathers’ charge, and they guarded it in the land of Cornwall where men still strove to keep alive the old ways, while in the east the men of evil grew more numerous and the land of Logres grew dark. For Arthur was gone, and Mark was dead, and the new kings were not as the old had been. And with each turn of years the grail came to the charge of the eldest son, and at the last it came to me.
“And since the death of my father I have kept it safe as best I might, in secret and in true faith; but now I grow old, and am childless, and the greatest darkness of all comes upon our land. For the heathen men of evil, who came to the east in years past and slew the Englishmen and took their land, are turning westward now, and we shall not long be safe from them.
“The darkness draws toward Cornwall, and the long ships creep to our shore, and the battle is near which must lead to final defeat and the end of all that we have known. No guardian for the grail is left, since my brother’s son whom I loved as my own is turned already to the heathen men, and guides them to the west. And to save my life, and the secret of the grail that only its guardian knows, I must flee even as Bedwin the strange knight fled. But in all the land of Logres no haven remains, so that I must cross the sea to the land where, they say, Cornishmen have fled whenever terror comes.
“But the grail may not leave this land, but must wait the Pendragon, till the day comes.
“So therefore, I trust it to this land, over sea and under stone, and I mark here the signs by which the proper man in the proper place, may know where it lies: the signs that wax and wane but do not die. The secret of its charge I may not write, but carry unspoken to my grave. Yet the man who finds the grail and has other words from me will know, by both, the secret for himself. And for him is the charge, the promise and the proof, and in his day the Pendragon shall come again. And that day shall see a new Logres, with evil cast out; when the old world shall appear no more than a dream.”
Great-Uncle Merry stopped reading; but the children sat as still and speechless as if his voice still rang on. The story seemed to fit so perfectly into the green land rolling below them that it was as if they sat in the middle of the past. They could almost see the strange knight Bedwin riding towards them, over the brow of a slope, and the long ships of the invaders lurking beyond the grey granite headland and its white fringe of surf.
Simon said at last, “Who is the Pendragon?”
“King Arthur,” Barney said.
Jane said nothing, but sat thinking of the sad Cornishman sailing away over the sea from his threatened land. She looked at Great-Uncle Merry. He was gazing unseeing down at the sea and the headland beyond Trewissick, the taut lines of his face relaxed and wistful. “. . . when the old world,” he repeated softly to himself, “shall appear no more than a dream . . .”
Simon scrambled to his feet and went to crouch close to him, peering at the manuscript on his knee. “Then the map must show where the grail is. I say, suppose we find it! What will it mean?”
“It will mean all kinds of things,” Great-Uncle Merry said grimly. “And not all of them pleasant, perhaps.”
“What will it look like? What is a grail, anyway?”
“A kind of drinking-vessel. A chalice. A cup. But not like an ordinary cup.” Great-Uncle Merry looked at them gravely. “Now listen to me. This map you have found shows the way to a sign which men have been seeking for centuries. I said that I had been looking for it. But you remember I said that there were others too—the enemy side, if you like. These people are evil, and they can be very, very dangerous indeed.” Great-Uncle Merry spoke with great seriousness, leaning forward, and the children gazed rather nervously back.
“They have been very close to me for a long time now,” he said. “And here in Trewissick they have been close to you too. One of them is the man Norman Withers. Another is the woman who calls herself his sister. There may be others, but I do not know.”
“Then the burglary.” They stared at him and Jane said, “Was it them?”
“Undoubtedly,” Great-Uncle Merry said. “Not in person, perhaps. But they must have been behind it all—the ransacked books, the stolen maps, the attempt to look for a secret hiding-place under the floor. They were very near, you know, nearer than I. When I rented the Grey House it was no more than a shot in the dark. I had narrowed the search down to the Trewissick area, but that was all. And I had no idea what I was looking for. It might have been anything. But they knew. Somehow, in some dark way, they had found out about the manuscript and they came after it last night. Only, they hadn’t bargained for your finding it by chance first.” He smiled slightly. “I should like to see Withers’ face today.”
“Everything fits now,” Simon said slowly. “The way he made friends so quickly with Father, the way he took us out in the boat—” For an unpleasant moment he heard GreatUncle Merry’s voice saying again emphatically, “They can be very dangerous indeed. . . .”
Barney said: “But Gumerry, did you know that we should find whatever it was? Us, I mean, me and Simon and Jane?”
His great-uncle looked at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”
“Well—I don’t know—” Barney fumbled for words. “You must have looked yourself, before we came, and not found anything. But when we did come, you were never there. You kept on disappearing, almost as if you were leaving the house to us.”
Great-Uncle Merry smiled. “Yes, Barney,” he said, “I did have an idea you might find it, because I know you three very well. That was one idea I had before our friends did, so that for all their interest in the Grey House they were still worried about what I was up to. And I led them a high old dance all over south Cornwall while you were at home. I was, you might say, a red herring.”
“But what—” Barney said.
“Oh never mind,” Simon broke in. He had been hovering restlessly at Great-Uncle Merry’s elbow. “It’s all obvious now. The thing is, what about the map?”
“You’re quite right.” Great-Uncle Merry sat down by the rock again. “We haven’t any time to lose.”
“It’s a map of Trewissick,” Simon said eagerly. “Jane found that out. Only the coast seems to have changed—”
“I was comparing it with the map in a guide-book at the Grey House,” Jane said. It hardly seemed worth mentioning her visit to the vicar. “The funny thing is that though the outlines of the coast don’t look alike, th
e names are the same. If you look very closely on the manuscript one of the headlands is called King Mark’s Head, only it’s spelt all wrong. And that’s the name the guide-book uses for Kemare Head. So the manuscript must show Trewissick.”
“That’s right,” Great-Uncle Merry said, bent over the parchment. “Simple corruption, dropping consonants—” His head shot up. “What did you say?”
Jane looked puzzled. “Mmm?”
“Did you say it was called King Mark’s Head in the guide-book?”
“Yes, that’s right. Does it matter?”
“Oh no.” The usual remote expression came back over Great-Uncle Merry’s face like a veil. “Only that particular name hasn’t been used for a very long time, and most people have forgotten about it. I should like to have a look at that guide-book of yours.”
“I don’t understand this.” Simon was peering over the old map. “Even if it is Trewissick, where does that get you? It’s the most useless treasure map I ever saw, there are all sorts of peculiar marks on it but none of them means anything. Nothing leads to anything else, so how can it show you where the grail is?”
Great-Uncle Merry pointed at the manuscript. “Remember what the text says—for the proper man in the proper place, to find . . .”
“Perhaps it’s like one of those mazes you see in books sometimes,” Jane said, thinking hard. “The ones that are simple once you get going but it’s awfully hard to find where to start. That could be what he meant by in the proper place.’ If you took the map to the right starting-point, then it would tell you where to go from there.”
Simon almost wailed, “But how do we find out where to start from?”
Barney, standing at Great-Uncle Merry’s elbow, had not been listening. He had lapsed into one of his dreaming silences, gazing wide-eyed out over the harbour and occasionally glancing back at the map. “I know what it reminds me of,” he said musingly.