Merlin's Booke (6 page)

The man was careful not to move but smiled slowly. “Aye,” he said. “They are mine. They are mine because they have given some part of themselves to me. But not all of it. And not forever. I would not want them to give me all. And every day I must earn their trust again. With wild things there is no such word as
forever.”

The boy listened intently.

“I stood three nights running with the gos—there,” said the man, nodding his head toward the bird furthest to the left. “He was on my fist the whole time.”

“And tied?” the boy asked.

“Aye.”

The boy nodded as if this had been a wise thing to do.

“When he bated, I put him back on my fist. Again and again. But gently. Firmly. And I sang to him. I spoke words to him all night.”

“My hinny, my jo,” the boy said in a passable imitation of the man.

“Aye. And stroked his talons with a feather and gave him meat. And after three days and nights without sleep, he allowed himself to nap on my fist. He gave himself to me in his sleep.”

“In his sleep.” The boy's voice was so soft that the man had to strain to hear it.

“The peregrine there,” Master Robin said, indicating the middle bird, “is my oldest bird. She's a lovely one. An eyas.”

“Eyas?”

“That means I took her from the nest myself. Nearly lost an eye doing it. There was another in the nest, but …” He stopped, aware that the boy was no longer listening.

The boy had moved forward several short steps until the rope had stretched between them. Standing just under the third bird's feet, he was staring up at it.

“Ah, that one, he's a
passager,
wild caught but not yet mature.”

The hawk stirred as if it knew it was being talked about, and the bell on its jess rang out.

At the sound the boy jumped back. Then he strained forward again against the rope.

“You like my merlin best, then?” Master Robin asked in his low voice.

The boy turned sharply and stared at him wide-eyed. His mouth dropped open and he put his hands out as if he had suddenly turned blind.

Robin gathered the child into his arms. “What is it then? What is it, wild one? What did I say? What have I done?”

The boy tore from him and stared again at the hooded bird who, unaccountably, began to rock back and forth from one foot to another, its bell jangling madly. “Name,” the boy said and rocked back and forth with the bird. “Name.”

The man stared at the boy and the bird, first only his eyes moving, then his head. With a final shock of recognition, he turned, plunged his hand into the nearby water barrel, and then reached for the boy. With his finger, he drew a cross on the boy's forehead, one swift line down, a second across, under the tangle of elfknots in his hair.

“I see,” he said. “I understand. You are as small and as fierce and as independent as my
passager.
And for some reason his name is yours. So I baptize you Merlin. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” So saying, he jerked the knife from his belt and cut the harness off the boy.

For a moment the boy stared up into the man's eyes directly. Then he smiled and held out his hand for memory, at last, had come flooding through him when he was given back his name.

“Lord,” said he, “summon to you Myrddin the bard of Gwythheyrn, for he knows how to conceive strange things by his unfailing immortal artistry.”

—Historia Regum Britanniae

by Geoffrey of Monmouth

O
NCE UPON A TIME—
which is how stories about magic and wizardry are supposed to begin—on a fall morning a boy stood longingly in front of a barrow piled high with apples. It was in the town of Gwethern, the day of the market fair.

The boy was almost a man and he did not complain about his empty stomach. His back still hurt from the flogging he had received just a week past, but he did not complain about that either. He had been beaten and sent away for lying. He was always being sent away from place to place for lying. The problem was, he never lied. He simply saw truth differently from other folk. On the slant.

His name was Merrillin but he called himself Hawk, another kind of lie because he was nothing at all like a hawk, being cowering and small from his many beatings and lack of steady food. Still he dreamed of becoming a hawk, fiercely independent and no man's prey, and the naming was his first small step toward what seemed an unobtainable goal.

But that was the other thing about Merrillin the Hawk. Not only did he see the truth slantwise, but he dreamed. And his dreams, in strange, uncounted ways, seemed to come true.

So Merrillin stood in front of the barrow on a late fall day and told himself a lie; that the apple would fall into his hand of its own accord as if the barrow were a tree letting loose its fruit. He even reached over and touched the apple he wanted, a rosy round one that promised to be full of sweet juices and crisp meat. And just in case, he touched a second apple as well, one that was slightly wormy and a bit yellow with age.

“You boy,” came a shout from behind the barrow, and a face as yellow and sunken as the second apple, with veins as large as worm runnels across the nose, popped into view.

Merrillin stepped back, startled.

A stick came down on his hand, sharp and painful as a firebrand. “If you do not mean to buy, you cannot touch.”

“How do you know he does not mean to buy?” asked a voice from behind Merrillin.

It took all his concentration not to turn. He feared the man behind him might have a stick as well, though his voice seemed devoid of the kind of anger that always preceded a beating.

“A rag of cloth hung on bones, that's all he is,” said the cart man, wiping a dirty rag across his mouth. “No one in Gwethern has seen him before. He's no mother's son, by the dirt on him. So where would such a one find coins to pay, cheeky beggar?”

There was a short bark of laughter from the man behind. “Cheeky beggar is it?”

Merrillin dared a glance at the shadow the man cast at his feet. The shadow was cloaked. That was a good sign, for he would be a stranger to Gwethern. No one here affected such dress. Courage flooded through him and he almost turned around when the man's hand touched his mouth.

“You are right, he is a cheeky beggar. And that is where he keeps his coin—in his cheek.” The cloaked man laughed again, the same sharp, yipping sound, drawing an appreciative echo from the crowd that was just starting to gather. Entertainment was rare in Gwethern. “Open your mouth, boy, and give the man his coin.”

Merrillin was so surprised, his mouth dropped open on its own, and a coin fell from his lips into the cloaked man's hand.

“Here,” the man said, his hand now on Merrillin's shoulder. He flipped the coin into the air, it turned twice over before the cart man grabbed it out of the air, bit it, grunted, and shoved it into his purse.

The cloaked man's hand left Merrillin's shoulder and picked up the yellowing apple, dropping it neatly into Merrillin's hand. Then his voice whispered into the boy's ear. “If you wish to repay me, look for the green wagon, the castle on wheels.”

When Merrillin turned to stutter out his thanks, the man had vanished into the crowd. That was just as well, though, since it was hardly thanks Merrillin was thinking of. Rather he wanted to tell the cloaked man that he had done only what was expected and that another lie had come true for Merrillin, on the slant.

After eating every bit of the apple, his first meal in two days, and setting the little green worm that had been in it on a stone, Merrillin looked for the wagon. It was not hard to find.

Parked under a chestnut tree whose leaves were spotted with brown and gold, the wagon was as green as Mab's gown, as green as the first early shoots of spring. It was indeed a castle on wheels, for the top of the wagon was vaulted over. There were three windows, four walls, and a door as well. Two docile drab-colored mules were hitched to it and were nibbling on the few brown blades of grass beneath the tree. Along the wagon's sides was writing, but as Merrillin could not read, he could only guess at it. There were pictures, too: a tall, amber-eyed mage with a conical hat was dancing across a starry night, a dark-haired princess in rainbow robes played on a harp with thirteen strings. Merrillin could not read—but he could count. He walked toward the wagon.

“So, boy, have you come to pay what you owe?” asked a soft voice, followed by the trill of a mistle thrush.

At first Merrillin could not see who was speaking, but then something moved at one of the windows, a pale moon of a face. It was right where the face of the painted princess should have been. Until it moved, Merrillin had thought it part of the painting. With a bang, the window was slammed shut and then he saw the painted face on the glass. It resembled the other face only slightly.

A woman stepped through the door and stared at him. He thought her the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Her long dark hair was unbound and fell to her waist. She wore a dress of scarlet wool and jewels in her ears. A yellow purse hung from a braided belt and jangled as she moved, as if it were covered with tiny bells. As he watched, she bound up her hair with a single swift motion into a net of scarlet linen.

She smiled. “Ding-dang-dong, cat's got your tongue, then?”

When he didn't answer, she laughed and sat down on the top step of the wagon. Then she reached back behind her and pulled out a harp exactly like the one painted on the wagon's side. Strumming, she began to sing:

“Are you singing about me?” asked Merrillin.

“Do you think I am singing about you?” the woman asked and then hummed another line.

“If not now, you will some day,” Merrillin said.

“I believe you,” said the woman, but she was busy tuning her harp at the same time. It was as if Merrillin did not really exist for her except as an audience.

“Most people do not,” Merrillin said, walking over. He put his hand on the top step, next to her bare foot. “Believe me, I mean. But I never tell lies.”

She looked up at that and stared at him as if really seeing him for the first time. “People who never tell lies are a wonder. All people lie sometime.” She strummed a discordant chord.

Merrillin looked at the ground. “I am not
all people.”

She began picking a quick, bright tune, singing:

Then she stood and held up the harp behind her. It disappeared into the wagon. “But you did not answer my question, boy.”

“What question?”

“Have you come to pay what you owe?”

Puzzled Merrillin said: “I did not answer because I did not know you were talking to me. I owe nothing to you.”

“Ah, but you owe it me,” came a lower voice from inside the wagon where it was dark. A man emerged and even though he was not wearing the cloak, Merrillin knew him at once. The voice was the same, gentle and ironic. He was the mage on the wagon's side; the slate gray hair was the same—and the amber eyes.

“I do not owe you either, sir.”

“What of the apple, boy?”

Merrillin started to cringe, thought better of it, and looked straightaway into the man's eyes. “The apple was
meant
to come to me, sir.”

“Then why came you to the wagon?” asked the woman, smoothing her hands across the red dress. “If not to pay.”

“As the apple was meant to come into my hands, so I was meant to come into yours.”

The woman laughed. “Only you hoped the mage would not eat you up and put your little green worm on a rock for some passing scavenger.”

Merrillin's mouth dropped open. “How did you know?”

“Bards
know
everything,” she said.

“And
tell
everything as well,” said the mage. He clapped her on the shoulder and she went, laughing, through the door.

Merrillin nodded to himself. “It was the window,” he whispered.

“Of course it was the window,” said the mage. “And if you wish to talk to yourself, make it
sotto voce,
under the breath. A whisper is no guarantee of secrets.”

“Sotto voce,” Merrillin said.

“The soldiers brought the phrase, but it rides the market roads now,” said the mage.

“Sotto voce,” Merrillin said again, punctuating his memory.

“I like you, boy,” said the mage. “I collect oddities.”

“Did you collect the bard, sir?”

Looking quickly over his shoulder, the mage said, “Her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I did.”

“How is she an oddity?” asked Merrillin. “I think she is—” he took a gulp, “—wonderful.”

“That she is; quite, quite wonderful, my Viviane, and she well knows it,” the mage replied. “She has a range of four octaves and can mimic any bird or beast I name.” He paused. “And a few I cannot.”

“Viviane,” whispered Merrillin. Then he said the name without making a sound.

The mage laughed heartily. “You are an oddity, too, boy. I thought so at the first when you walked into the market fair with nothing to sell and no purse with which to buy. I asked, and no one knew you. Yet you stood in front of the barrow as if you owned the apples. When the stick fell, you did not protest; when the coin dropped from your lips, you said not a word. But I could feel your anger and surprise and—something more. You are an oddity. I sniffed it out with my nose from the first and my nose—” he tapped it with his forefinger, managing to look both wise and ominous at once “—my nose, like you, never lies. Do you think yourself odd?”

Merrillin closed his eyes for a moment, a gesture the mage would come to know well. When he opened them again, his eyes were no longer the somber blue that Viviane had sung about but were the blue of a bleached out winter sky. “I have dreams,” he said.