Here Lies Arthur Read online

  “I swum under water half of it,” I said. (I didn’t know it then, but I was sealing my fate with that silly boast.) “It’s my job to set the fish-traps at fall-of-leaf. The cold don’t worry me. I can open my eyes down under water and I can hold my breath…”

  “How long? Show me?”

  I gulped in a great breath and sealed my lips tight behind it. I watched him, and he watched me. Blood thumped in my neck, and the back of my head. I felt proud of myself. It was easy. I couldn’t see why people bothered breathing, it was so easy to get by without. And still this Myrddin watched me. After a while the breath I’d taken started to grow stale inside. A bit of it seeped out my nose. The dam of my lips cracked, letting out more. I gasped, and the game was over, and still he was watching me.

  “Better and better,” he said. “Perhaps the spirits of the lake did send you to me, after all.”

  “Oh no, sir! It was the burning, and the riders…”

  I stopped. Here by the warmth of his fire the battle seemed far off and strange, like a dream I’d had. But I hadn’t dreamed it. Outside, the sky was turning pale above the bare branches. Birds were stirring. Day was brewing. “Oh sir!” I said, “They came with fire and swords and horses! They came killing and burning and hollering!”

  Myrddin wasn’t worried. “That is the way of the world, Gwyna. It has been so ever since the legions sailed away.”

  “But they’ll come here! We must hide! We must run!”

  “Peace, child!” he said, and he laughed. He caught me by both shoulders as I tried to scramble to the door. His horse sensed my fear and whinnied softly, stirring its tail, wafting a smell of dung towards us. Myrddin said, “You’ve nothing to fear. Not now. Not if you’re with me.” He sat me down again, shushing and crooning to calm me. “You know who those riders are, Gwyna? They are the war-band of Arthur. You’ve heard of Arthur, haven’t you?”

  Well of course I had. I never thought to meet him in my own woods, though. Arthur was someone out of stories. He fought giants and rescued maidens and outfoxed the Devil. He didn’t ride about burning people’s shippens down.

  I said, “It can’t be. What would he want here?”

  Myrddin laughed and scratched his chin, as if he was trying to work out the easiest answer to that one. At last he said, “Arthur offered your Lord Ban his protection, in exchange for gold and other tributes. But Ban thought the price too high, and refused. That was foolish of him. Now Arthur has come to take Ban’s holdings for himself. And he looks to me to help him do it. I ride with Arthur’s band, see. I spin tales for him, and about him. I parted from him a few days since and came here by a different way, scouting out the land. If you know how the land lies a battle can be half won before it’s started. Sometimes there’s no need for a battle at all.”

  I took a moment to understand what he’d said. When I did, I was scared of him all over anew. What had I done, to make God deliver me up to a friend of the raiders?

  “You’ve turned paler than porridge,” he said. “But you’ve nothing to fear from me, and nothing from the Bear either. It’ll make no odds to you who your lord is. Except that if I can make Arthur strong enough there might be peace again, like our grandfathers’ fathers knew back in the days when Rome held this island. Strength like Arthur’s could be used for good, see, just as the strength of old Rome was. That’s why I help him, Gwyna. And I have a sense that you can help him too.”

  IV

  He talked and talked while I sat drying out beside his fire, and the grey day brightened grudgingly above the woods. He was in love with words. He found his own conversation so interesting he didn’t notice that he was the only one talking. I just sat watching, listening, while he spoke of places I’d never heard of: Elmet and Rheged, Ireland across the sea, Din Tagyll where the ships from Syria put in. Oh, I snatched a few familiar names out of the word-storm. I’d heard of bad King Gworthigern, who let the heathen Saxons settle in the east, and how they rose up and tried to steal the rest of Britain too. And I knew a song about Ambrosius Aurelianus, who led the armies of the Britons through battle after battle until he smashed those Saxons flat at Badon Hill. But mostly Myrddin’s words flowed past my ears like water.

  “When Ambrosius died,” he said, “there was no man strong enough to take his place. The army he built to fight the Saxons came apart into a hundred different war-bands. Now they fight each other, and leave the Saxons sitting tight upon the lands they stole in the eastern half of Britain. Some of those war-bands serve the small kings of the hill-country. Some serve the big kings of Dumnonia and Powys and Calchvynydd. Some are landless men, loyal only to their captain, grabbing loot and territory where they may. Arthur’s band is like that. But Arthur’s is the best, and one day, with my help, Arthur will be leader over all the rest as well. Then he can finish what Ambrosius started: push east and drive the Saxons into the sea.”

  I was only half listening. I was more interested in the stew Myrddin cooked up while he talked. I’d never thought I’d see a nobleman cook his own food. It was watery stuff, flavoured with onions, and dry meat a-bob in it. I ate all I could and then fell asleep, propped up in a corner with my head on my scabbed knees. In my dreams the woods were still on fire.

  V

  Woken by voices, I jumped up. I’d slept the day away. Afternoon sunlight bled down through the mat of weeds and wormy rafters overhead and made patches on the floor. The horse was half asleep, head down. Out among the trees two men were talking. One was my new friend, or master, or whatever he was. The other I did not know.

  I crept past the horse and peeked. In the shade of the trees that grew around the old house’s door stood another horse, a white one with a mane the colour of old snow. A man sat on it, looking down at Myrddin. The newcomer was a warrior, with a leather breastplate, and a sword at his side. His thick, red cloak had run in the rain, dribbling pink stains down his horse’s rump. His helmet was off, and his sandy hair stirred in the breeze.

  I went closer. I didn’t think I’d be noticed. Noblemen don’t notice people like me, any more than they notice the stray dogs and cats that flit around their halls. I heard the newcomer say, “The Irishman is on his way. He’ll bring all the men he can muster, and ours are tired after the fight. If it comes to a battle…”

  “It will not come to that,” Myrddin promised. “Don’t you trust me, Cei?”

  “Not an inch,” said the rider, laughing. Something made him glance my way, and he started as he caught sight of my face watching him from the shadows. Then he kicked his horse’s flanks and turned it away. It looked strong and fast, that horse. It had been well looked after, and well fed on other people’s hay.

  “We meet at the river, then?” I heard the rider shout.

  “The pool above the ford,” called Myrddin, one hand up, waving, as the rider went away between the trees. “Where the waterfall is.”

  As the hoof beats faded he turned and saw me watching. He came towards me smiling, and I was still so little used to being smiled at that I just stood there basking in it till he reached me. He took me by one arm and pushed me back inside. “There is work to be done, Gwyna.”

  I looked at the dark loaves of dung his horse had dropped on the floor. I wondered if he wanted it cleaned up.

  “Didn’t I say you’d help me help the Bear?” he said. “Arthur needs a sign. There’s an Irishman who rules those wet moors that rise up south of here. He’s Ban’s man, and if he chooses to avenge his overlord it will be a hard strife, and a waste of good men. Better for everyone if he can just welcome Arthur as his lord in Ban’s place. Arthur could use an ally here in the west. I’ve spoken with the Irishman, and he’s agreeable. But his people won’t trust a man who carries the sign of Christ on his shield. The ways of the new God lie thin in those hills of his, like first snow. Just a pretty coverlet. Dig a little and you soon find old ways and old gods underneath.”

  I shivered. It must be bad luck, I thought, to talk so carelessly about gods. I crossed myself, and ma
de the sign against evil. I didn’t want to anger any gods, not new nor old.

  “So the old gods are going to make Arthur a present,” Myrddin went on, fumbling among the furs and cloths behind his saddle. “A sign to show they are on Arthur’s side.”

  “What sort of sign?” I asked, afraid.

  “I’ll show you.”

  His quick hands undid the fastenings on a long bundle of oilcloth. Something golden caught the light. A sword hilt. I’d not seen many swords, but I knew enough to know this one was special. The pommel and the crosspiece were red gold, inlaid with swirls and curls of paler metal. The hilt was twisted round with silver wire. The blade shone like water in the folds of the cloth.

  “Swords are important to the Bear,” said Myrddin. “And not just for fighting with. They mean something. A sword thrust through a stone was the badge of Artorius Castus, who saved us from the Picts and Scots in olden times, and from whom our Arthur claims descent. The gods will send this sword to Arthur from the otherworld, to show that they love him as they loved the old Artorius.”

  He was holding out the sword to me as if inviting me to touch it. I drew back.

  “It has a name. Caliburn.”

  “Is it really from the otherworld?”

  “Of course not, child. I bought it from a trader down at Din Tagyll. But we can make men think it is from the gods.”

  If I’d been a man, or even a boy, I might have said, “What do you mean, ‘we’? I want no part in enchantments.” But I was only Gwyna the Mouse. It was my lot to do as my elders told me, even if I didn’t understand.

  Myrddin tousled my matted hair. “And maybe some god is watching over us,” he said. “Something sent you to me, that’s for sure. I had planned to have the Bear row out and find the sword on a ledge beneath that little waterfall, hid among the rushes there like Moses in his basket. Spin a story afterwards to explain it. But now I have a better notion. And now I have you, my little fish…”

  VI

  He left the horse tethered there, and hustled me away through the woods. All he took with him was the sword, bundled in its roll of cloth. The air was growing cold. Myrddin nodded and said, “There will be a mist upon the water.”

  How could he know such a thing? What demons told him so?

  “You’ll be wondering how I came into Arthur’s service, I suppose?” he asked, striding ahead of me through the thickets.

  I’d been wondering no such thing. It was no place of mine to wonder about his life. But I knew that he was going to tell me all the same. I sensed he was nervous, and that talking for him was a way of keeping fear at bay.

  “It’s a good story,” he promised, talking at me over his shoulder as he went stalking through the wood. His breath fumed in the cold air, wreathing him in smoke. “You should hear how the men tell it round their campfires. They say I worked for Arthur’s father, that old villain Uthr, who was captain of Ambrosius’s cavalry. It seems this Uthr had an eye for the girls, and one spring it lighted on one called Ygerna, that was wife to some small lord down in Kernyw. Lust lit up his brain like a gorse-fire. You could see the smoke pouring out of his ears. But what to do? Ygerna’s husband was jealous. Kept her penned in his fort and let no man come near her.

  “So Uthr called on me, and on my powers. One night, when his rival was off raiding some neighbours’ cattle-runs, I transformed Uthr by magic into his image, and he slipped into the fort and into Ygerna’s bed without anyone guessing. And the child conceived that night was Arthur, and his victories outshine old Uthr’s as the sun outshines the moon.”

  Shoving my way through dead bracken at the magician’s heels, listening to all of this, I wished I could just make a run for it, and take my chances with whatever wild beasts and wicked spirits lived in this maze of trees. Running had always served me well before. But running from Myrddin would be different, wouldn’t it? If he had the power to transform one man into the likeness of another, then he could surely catch me and transform me into anything he chose. A frog. A toad. A stone.

  “Of course, it’s all nonsense,” Myrddin said. “You’ll have to learn that, Gwyna. Just because someone tells a story doesn’t mean it’s true. I have no magic powers. I’m just a traveller who has picked up a few handy conjuring tricks along the road.”

  “Then how did you change Uthr into another man?” I asked.

  “That’s what I’m telling you, girl. It never happened. Old Uthr took that fort by force, and carried off Ygerna along with all his other trophies. Probably tired of her within a week. There’s no difference between Arthur and any other of Uthr’s landless bastards, except that Arthur has me to spin stories like that one about him. You see, Gwyna, men do love a story. That’s what we’re going to give them this morning, you and I. A story they’ll remember all their lives, and tell to their children and their children’s children until the whole world knows how Arthur came by the sword of the otherworld. And here we are!”

  We had reached the pool. Late afternoon sun lit the oak-tops on the far shore, but the water lay in shadow, and a faint silver breath of mist hung above it, just as Myrddin had promised.

  How had he known? He had just said he could not work magic, but how else could he have seen into the future?

  A horn sounded, away downriver. Myrddin hurried me along the shore. We pushed through undergrowth. The armoured leaves of a holly-tree scratched my face. A narrow ledge of rock led to the waterfall. Ferns grew thickly here. The spray rattled on their leaves. Fleshy and pointed they were, like green tongues. Among them, almost hidden, I saw a faint path snaking in behind the water’s white curtain.

  Myrddin turned and put the swaddled weight of the sword into my hands. Then he took me by both shoulders and stooped to stare into my face. Dark as good rich earth, his eyes were, and a quick to-and-fro flicker in them like the dancing of candle-flames as he watched me, searching, expectant.

  “They are coming. I’ll tell you what you must do, little fish, and you must listen well.”

  The sun crept west, and the tree-shadows shifted on the far shore. I crouched alone on the damp, narrow shelf behind the waterfall. The shout of falling water filled my head, but the spray barely touched me. It was a magic place. From a few paces away I must be invisible, yet I could look out through the water-curtain and see Myrddin quite clearly as he paced about in the sunlight on the eastern shore.

  His face turned suddenly in my direction. He was too far off for me to make out his features, but I guessed it was a warning look. I looked at the trees behind him, and after a moment I saw light on metal, and the shapes of men on horses. They came out of the woods in a line, wary. Round white shields with the symbol of Christ on them,, in red. Arthur’s men. I looked for the sandy-haired one called Cei who had come to Myrddin earlier, but I could not tell which was him. The riders had their helmets on, and most rode white horses, and all wore red cloaks.

  I knew Arthur when I saw him though. A red horsetail fluttered from his helmet, and between the cheek-guards his teeth flashed in a white grin as he urged his horse down the shingle into the shallows. He was talking to Myrddin, but I could not hear their voices. Then someone pointed across the pool towards the western side. More riders were coming down through the trees on the steep hillside there, and men on foot ran lightly between them. Spears and hunting bows. A big man with a black beard riding ahead of the rest. He stopped, and his men with him. They looked at Arthur’s band. Some waved their weapons and shouted. Insults, I suppose, now I think back. Men stand taunting each other for hours sometimes before a fight begins.

  But there was to be no fight. Myrddin was holding up his arms, shouting something back over the water. He swept his hand across the pool, reminding the Irishman’s men that this was a magic place, a gateway to the otherworld. Telling them that that was why Arthur had come here, to pay his respects to their gods.

  Now Arthur was dismounting, handing the reins of his horse to a boy who came running forward to take them. I could see men on both shores looking
at each other in surprise as Arthur walked into the pool.

  I said little prayers under my breath as I slipped off my old wool dress and wadded it into a crack of the rock behind me. I gripped the sword Caliburn in its oilcloth wrapper and took deep breaths. I didn’t think I had the courage to do what Myrddin had ordered, but I hadn’t the courage to disobey him, either. The air was cold. The water would be colder. I shuffled on my bottom to the edge of the rock shelf and let myself drop into the whirl of foam under the waterfall.

  “They’ll all be watching the Bear,” Myrddin had said. “Not every day you see a great warlord take a bath in all his gear. Or out of it, for that matter. No one will see you.”

  I hoped he was as right about that as he had been about the mist.

  I surfaced cautiously under the fall. Water drilled down white all round me. For a moment, confused by the swirling and the noise, I didn’t know which way I was facing. Then I saw Arthur pushing across the pool towards me. He was up to his chest; up to his shoulders. In the middle of the lake he had to half swim, which he did awkwardly, weighed down by his armour, his red cloak spread on the water behind him. Then, as he entered the tongue of rippled, roiling water that spread from the foot of the fall, the pool shallowed again and he rose up standing, waves lapping at his chest. Just as Myrddin had promised me he would.

  I ducked under water, as I’d been told to. It was easy to stay down with the weight of the sword in my hands and no clothes to float me up. My bare feet sank into the thick dough of leaf mould on the bottom. I blundered forward with my eyes open, scrambling through the crown of an old drowned tree, slithering in its slimy, rotted bark, stirring up such a tumble of peaty flakes that for a moment I could see nothing at all. And then, close ahead of me, I saw the square gleam of Arthur’s belt-buckle, the tower of his armoured torso. I blinked the grit from my eyes and looked up and saw his head and shoulders high above me, out in the air. For a moment our eyes met. His were wide under the iron eyebrows of his helmet. Wide and filled with wonder and something that I did not recognize, because never in my life had anyone been afraid of me before. Then my own long hair swirled up over my head and hid him. My lungs were drum skins, and my heart was pounding on them.