Crystal Cave (3 page)

I looked over my shoulder towards Moravik's corner. She was asleep, her spindle drooping on her knee, looking, with the white fluffy wool, like a burst bulrush. I threw down the bitten windfall I had been eating, and tilted my head to study the forbidden tree-top boughs where yellow globes hung clustered against the sky. There was one I thought I could reach. The fruit was round and glossy, ripening almost visibly in the hot sun. My mouth watered. I reached for a foothold and began to climb.

I was two branches away from the fruit when a shout from the direction of the bridge, followed by the quick tramp of hoofs and the jingle of metal, brought me up short. Clinging like a monkey, I made sure of my feet, then reached with one hand to push the leaves aside, peering down towards the bridge. A troop of men was riding over it, towards the town. One man rode alone in front, bareheaded, on a big brown horse.

Not Camlach, or my grandfather; and not one of the nobles, for the men wore colours I did not know.

Then as they reached the nearer end of the bridge I saw that the leader was a stranger, black-haired and black-bearded, with a foreign-looking set to his clothes, and a flash of gold on his breast. His wristguards were golden, too, and a span deep. His troop, as I judged, was about fifty strong.

King Gorlan of Lanascol. Where the name sprang from, clear beyond mistake, I had no idea. Something heard from my labyrinth, perhaps? A word spoken carelessly in a child's hearing? A dream, even? The shields and spear-tips, catching the sun, flashed into my eyes. Gorlan of Lanascol. A king. Come to marry my mother and take me with him overseas. She would be a queen. And I...

He was already setting his horse at the hill. I began to half-slither, half-scramble, down the tree.

And if she refuses him? I recognized that voice; it was the Cornishman's. And after him my uncle's: Even if she does, it will hardly matter...I've nothing to fear, so even if he came himself...

The troop was riding at ease across the bridge. The jingle of arms and the hammering of hoofs rang in the still sunlight.

He had come himself. He was here.

A foot above the wall-top I missed my footing and almost fell. Luckily my grip held, and I slithered safely to the coping in a shower of leaves and lichen just as my nurse's voice called shrilly:

"Merlin? Merlin? Save us, where's the boy?"

"Here — here, Moravik — just coming down."

I landed in the long grass. She had left her spindle and, kilting up her skirts, came running.

"What's the to-do on the river road? I heard horses, a whole troop by the noise — Saints alive, child, look at your clothes! If I didn't mend that tunic only this week, and now look at it! A tear you could put a fist through, and dirt from head to foot like a beggar's brat!"

I dodged as she reached for me. "I fell. I'm sorry. I was climbing down to tell you. It's a troop of horse

— foreigners! Moravik, it's King Gorlan from Lanascol! He has a red cloak and a black beard!"

"Gorlan of Lanascol? Why, that's barely twenty miles from where I was born! What's he here for, I wonder?"

I stared. "Didn't you know? He's come to marry my mother."

"Nonsense."

"It's true!"

"Of course it's not true! Do you think I wouldn't know? You must not say these things, Merlin, it could mean trouble. Where did you get it?"

"I don't remember. Someone told me. My mother, I think."

"That's not true and you know it."

"Then I must have heard something."

"Heard something, heard something. Young pigs have long ears, they say. Yours must be for ever to the ground, you hear so much! What are you smiling at?"

"Nothing."

She set her hands on her hips. "You've been listening to things you shouldn't. I've told you about this before. No wonder people say what they say."

I usually gave up and edged away from dangerous ground when I had given too much away, but excitement had made me reckless. "It's true, you'll find it's true! Does it matter where I heard it? I really can't remember now, but I know it's true! Moravik —"

"What?"

"King Gorlan's my father, my real one."

"What?" This time the syllable was edged like the tooth of a saw.

"Didn't you know? Not even you?"

"No, I did not. And no more do you. And if you so much as breathe this to anyone — How do you know the name, even?" She took me by the shoulders and gave me a sharp little shake. "How do you even know this is King Gorlan? There's been nothing said of his coming, even to me."

"I told you. I don't remember what I heard, or where. I just heard his name somewhere, that's all, and I know he's coming to see the King about my mother. We'll go to Less Britain, Moravik, and you can come with us. You'll like that, won't you? It's your home. Perhaps we'll be near —"

Her grip tightened, and I stopped. With relief I saw one of the King's body-servants hurrying towards us through the apple-trees. He came up panting.

"He's to go before the King. The boy. In the great hall. And hurry."

"Who is it?" demanded Moravik.

"The King said to hurry. I've been looking everywhere for the boy —"

"Who is it?"

"King Gorlan fromBrittany ."

She gave a little hiss, like a startled goose, and dropped her hands. "What's his business with the boy?"

"How do I know?" The man was breathless — it was a hot day and he was stout — and curt with Moravik, whose status as my nurse was only a little higher with the servants than my own. "All I know is, the Lady Niniane is sent for, and the boy, and there'll be a beating for someone, by my reckoning, if he's not there by the time the King's looking round for him. He's been in a rare taking since the outriders came in, that I can tell you."

"All right, all right. Get back and say we'll be there in a few minutes."

The man hurried off. She whirled on me and grabbed at my arm. "All the sweet saints in heaven!"

Moravik had the biggest collection of charms and talismans of anyone in Maridunum, and I had never known her pass a wayside shrine without paying her respects to whatever image inhabited it, but officially she was a Christian and, when in trouble, a devout one. "Sweet cherubim! And the child has to choose this afternoon to be in rags! Hurry, now, or there'll be trouble for both of us." She hustled me up the path towards the house, busily calling on her saints and exhorting me to hurry, determinedly refusing even to comment on the fact that I had been right about the newcomer. "Dear, dear St. Peter, why did I eat those eels for dinner and then sleep so sound? Today of all days! Here" — she pushed me in front of her into my room — "get out of those rags and into your good tunic, and we'll know soon enough what the Lord has sent for you. Hurry, child!"

The room I shared with Moravik was a small one, dark, and next to the servants' quarters. It always smelled of cooking smells from the kitchen, but I liked this, as I liked the old lichened pear tree that hung close outside the window, where the birds swung singing in the summer mornings. My bed stood right under this window. The bed was nothing but plain planks set across wooden blocks, no carving, not even a head or foot board. I had heard Moravik grumble to the other servants when she thought I wasn't listening, that it was hardly a fit place to house a king's grandson, but to me she said merely that it was convenient for her to be near the other servants; and indeed I was comfortable enough, for she saw to it that I had a clean straw mattress, and a coverlet of wool every bit as good as those on my mother's bed in the big room next to my grandfather. Moravik herself had a pallet on the floor near the door, and this was sometimes shared by the big wolfhound who fidgeted and scratched for fleas beside her feet, and sometimes by Cerdic, one of the grooms, a Saxon who had been taken in a raid long since, and had settled down to marry one of the local girls. She had died in childbed a year later, and the child with her, but he stayed on, apparently quite content. I once asked Moravik why she allowed the dog to sleep in the room, when she grumbled so much about the smell and the fleas; I forget what she answered, but I knew without being told that he was there to give warning if anyone came into the room during the night.

Cerdic, of course, was the exception; the dog accepted him with no more fuss than the beating of his tail upon the floor, and vacated the bed for him. In a way, I suppose, Cerdic fulfilled the same function as the watchdog, and others besides. Moravik never mentioned him, and neither did I. A small child is supposed to sleep very soundly, but even then, young as I was, I would wake sometimes in the middle of the night, and lie quite still, watching the stars through the window beside me, caught like sparkling silver fish in the net of the pear tree's boughs. What passed between Cerdic and Moravik meant no more to me than that he helped to guard my nights, as she my days.

My clothes were kept in a wooden chest which stood against the wall. This was very old, with panels painted with scenes of gods and goddesses, and I think originally it had come fromRome itself. Now the paint was dirty and rubbed and flaking, but still on the lid you could see, like shadows, a scene taking place in what looked like a cave; there was a bull, and a man with a knife, and someone holding a sheaf of corn, and over in the corner some figure, rubbed almost away, with rays round his head like the sun, and a stick in his hand. The chest was lined with cedarwood, and Moravik washed my clothes herself, and laid them away with sweet herbs from the garden.

She threw the lid up now, so roughly that it banged against the wall, and pulled out the better of my two good tunics, the green one with the scarlet border. She shouted for water, and one of the maids brought it, running, and was scolded for spilling it on the floor.

The fat servant came panting again to tell us that we should hurry, and got snapped at for his pains, but in a very short time I was hustled once more along the colonnade, and through the big arched doorway into the main part of the house.

The hall where the King received visitors was a long, high room with a floor of black and white stone framing a mosaic of a god with a leopard. This had been badly scarred and broken by the dragging of heavy furniture and the constant passing of booted feet. One side of the room was open to the colonnade, and here in winter a fire was kindled on the bare floor, within a loose frame of stones. The floor and pillars near it were blackened with the smoke. At the far end of the room stood the dais with my grandfather's big chair, and beside it the smaller one for his Queen.

He was sitting there now, with Camlach standing on his right, and his wife, Olwen, seated at his left. She was his third wife, and younger than my mother, a dark, silent, rather stupid girl with a skin like new milk and braids down to her knees, who could sing like a bird, and do fine needlework, but very little else.

My mother, I think, both liked and despised her. At any rate, against all expectation, they got along tolerably well together, and I had heard Moravik say that life for my mother had been a great deal easier since the King's second wife, Gwynneth, had died a year ago, and within the month Olwen had taken her place in the King's bed. Even if Olwen had cuffed me and sneered at me as Gwynneth did I should have liked her for her music, but she was always kind to me in her vague, placid way, and when the King was out of the way had taught me my notes, and even let me use her harp till I could play after a fashion. I had a feeling for it, she said, but we both knew what the King would say to such folly, so her kindness was secret, even from my mother.

She did not notice me now. Nobody did, except my cousin Dinias, who stood by Olwen's chair on the dais. Dinias was a bastard of my grandfather's by a slave-woman. He was a big boy of seven, with his father's red hair and high temper; he was strong for his age and quite fearless, and had enjoyed the King's favour since the day he had, at the age of five, stolen a ride on one of his father's horses, a wild brown colt that had bolted with him through the town and only got rid of him when he rode it straight at a breast-high bank. His father had thrashed him with his own hands, and afterwards given him a dagger with a gilded hilt. Dinias claimed the title of Prince — at any rate among the rest of the children — from then on, and treated his fellow-bastard, myself, with the utmost contempt. He stared at me now as expressionless as a stone, but his left hand — the one away from his father — made a rude sign, and then chopped silently, expressively, downwards.

I had paused in the doorway, and behind me my nurse's hand twitched my tunic into place and then gave me a push between the shoulder-blades. "Go on now. Straighten your back. He won't eat you." As if to give the lie to this, I heard the click of charms and the start of a muttered prayer.

The room was full of people. Many of them I knew, but there were strangers there who must be the party I had seen ride in. Their leader sat near the King's right, surrounded by his own men. He was the big dark man I had seen on the bridge, full-bearded, with a fierce beak of a nose and thick limbs shrouded in a scarlet cloak. On the King's other side, but standing below the dais, was my mother, with two of her women. I loved to see her as she was now, dressed like a princess, her long robe of creamy wool hanging straight to the floor as if carved of new wood. Her hair was unbraided, and fell down her back like rain. She had a blue mantle with a copper clasp. Her face was colourless, and very still.

I was so busy with my own fears — the gesture from Dinias, the averted face and downcast eyes of my mother, the silence of the people, and the empty middle of the floor over which I must walk — that I had not even looked at my grandfather. I had taken a step forward, still unnoticed, when suddenly, with a crash like a horse kicking, he slammed both hands down on the wooden arms of his chair, and thrust himself to his feet so violently that the heavy chair went back a pace, its feet scoring the oak planks of the platform.

"By the light!" His face was mottled scarlet, and the reddish brows jutted in knots of flesh above his furious little blue eyes. He glared down at my mother, and drew a breath to speak that could be heard clear to the door where I had paused, afraid. Then the bearded man, who had risen with him, said something in some accent I didn't catch, and at the same moment Camlach touched his arm, whispering.