Silver on the Tree (7 page)

“Who knows?” he said. “Who can tell? Oh all you Circle of the Old Ones, who can tell?”

And one voice came out of the night, a deep beautiful Welsh voice, rich and smooth as velvet, speaking with a rhythm that gave it the lilt of singing.

“Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu,”
the voice said,
“
ac y mae'r arglwyddes yn dod
. Which means, being translated, The mountains are singing, and the Lady comes.”

There was a great stir among the aery crowd, and before he could help himself Will let out a cry of joyful recognition at the words. “The verse! Of course! The old verse from the sea.” He sobered suddenly. “But what does it mean? We all know that line, Merriman—but what does it mean?”

The question echoed in many voices, whispering and susurrating like the sea when a small breeze rises. The deep Welsh voice said, reflectively, “When the mountains are singing, the Lady will come. And remember one thing. It is not in the Old Speech, which we all use, that those words have come down to us, but in a younger language—that is nevertheless one of the most ancient used by men.”

Merriman said softly, “Thank you, Dafydd my friend.”

“Welsh,” Will said. “Wales.” He stared into blank dark space, where clouds once more were drifting over the moon. He said hesitantly, his mind feeling for the right word, the right idea, “I am to go to Wales. To that part where I have been once before. And there I must find the moment, the right way…. Somewhere in the mountains. Somehow. And the Lady will come.”

“And we shall be complete and singly-bound,” Merriman said. “And the end of all this questing will begin.”

“Pob hwyl,
Will Stanton,” said the rich Welsh voice gently in the darkness.
“Pob hwyl.
Good luck….” And it faded and died into the soft whine of the wind, and all the gathering around them faded too, vanishing away to leave them standing, two lone figures, there in the darkening night on the grass-smooth mound, in the Midsummer Day of the time into which Will had been born.

Will said, “But for that first time, to which I was called, the rising of the Dark in the time of Arthur…. We are allowed only a night and a day to bring help there. And I cannot keep to that limit now. So what of the great king, and the battle that is to come at Badon? What will—” He stopped himself, cutting off words that belonged not to Old Ones but to men.

Merriman said, completing it, “What will happen there? What will happen, what has happened, what is happening? A battle, won for a little while. A respite gained, but not for long. You can see. Will. Things are as they are, and will be. In Arthur's time, we have the Circle to help us, for they have been gathered, and much can therefore be accomplished. But without words from the Lady, the last height of power cannot be reached, and so the peace of Arthur that we shall gain for this island at Badon will be lost, before long, and for a time the world will seem to vanish beneath the shadow of the Dark. And emerge, and vanish again, and again emerge, as it has done through all the length of what men call their history.”

Will said, “Until the Lady comes.”

“Until the Lady comes,” Merriman said. “And she will help you to the finding of the sword of the Pendragon, the crystal sword by which the final magic of the Light shall be achieved, and the Dark put at last to flight. And there will be five to help you, for from the beginning it was known that six altogether, and six only, must accomplish this long matter. Six creatures more and less of the earth, aided by the six Signs.”

Will said, quoting,
“When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back.”

“Aye,” Merriman said. Suddenly he sounded very weary. “Six, for a hard turning.”

On impulse Will quoted again, a whole verse this time, from the old prophetic rhyme that had come gradually to light—a world ago, it seemed to him—with the growing of his own power as an Old One.

“When the Dark comes rising, sa shall turn it back,
Three from the Circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five shall return, and one go alone.”

He spoke the last line more slowly, as if he were hearing it for the first time. “Merriman? That last part, what does it
mean? It has never put anything into my mind but a question. Five shall return, and one go alone … Who?”

Merriman stood there in the quiet night, his face obscured by shadow; his voice was quiet too, and without expression. “Nothing is certain, Old One, even in the prophecies. They can mean one thing, or they can mean another. For after all, men have minds of their own, and can determine their actions, for good or ill, for going outward, or turning in…. I cannot tell who the one may be. None shall know, until the last. Until the … one … goes … alone….” He gathered himself, and stood straighter, as if pulling them both back out of a dream. “There is a long road to tread before that will come, and a hard one, if we are to triumph at the end of it. I go back now to my lord Arthur, with the Signs, and the power of the Circle which only they can call.”

He held out his hand, barely visible in the star-washed darkness, and Will gave him the linked belt of crossed circles, gold and crystal and stone glittering between dark wood, bronze, iron.

“Go well, Merriman,” he said quietly.

“Go well, Will Stanton,” Merriman said, his voice tight with strain. “Into your own place, at this Midsummer hour, where affairs will take you in the direction you must go. And we will strive at our separate tasks across the centuries, through the waves of time, touching and parting, parting and touching in the pool that whirls forever. And I shall be with you before long.”

He raised an arm, and he was gone, and the stars spun and the night whirled about, and Will was standing moonlit in the hall of his home, his hand on the frame of a sepia Victorian print that showed the Romans building an amphitheatre at Caerleon.

At a triumphant trot Will mowed the last patch of grass, and collapsed, panting draped over the lawn-mower handle. Sweat was trickling down the side of his nose, and his bare chest was damp, speckled with tiny cut stems of grass.

“Ouf! It's even hotter than yesterday!”

“Sundays,” James said, “are always hotter than Saturdays. Especially if you live in a village with a small stuffy church. James Stanton's Law, you can call that.”

“Go on,” said Stephen, passing with his hands full of twine and clippers. “It wasn't that bad. And for two horrible little boys you still sound pretty angelic in the choir.” He dodged neatly as Will flung a fistful of grass cuttings.

“I shan't be there much longer,” James said, with some pride. I'm breaking. Did you hear me croak in the canticle?”

“You'll be back,” Will said. “Tenor. Bet you.”

“I suppose so. That's what Paul says too.”

“He's practising. Listen!”

Distant as a fading dream, from inside the house the soft clear tone of a flute rippled up and down in scales and arpeggios; it seemed as much a part of the hot still afternoon as the bees humming in the lupins and the sweet smell of the new-cut grass. Then the scales gave way to a long lovely flow of melody, repeated again and again. Halfway across the lawn Stephen stood caught into stillness, listening.

“My God, he's good, isn't he? What is that?”

“Mozart, First Flute Concerto,” Will said. “He's playing it with the N.Y.O. this autumn.”

“N.Y.O.?”

“National Youth Orchestra. You remember. He was in it for years, even before he went to the Academy.”

“I suppose I do. I've been away so long….”

“It's a big honour, that concert,” James said. “At the Festival Hall, no less. Didn't Paul tell you?”

“You know Paul. Old Modesty. That's a lovely-sounding flute he's got now, too. Even I can tell.

“Miss Greythorne gave it to him, two Christmases ago,” said Will. “From the Manor. There's a collection that her father made, she showed us.”

“Miss Greythorne…. Good Lord, that takes me back. Sharp wits, sharp tongue—I bet she hasn't changed a bit.”

Will smiled. “She never will.”

“She caught me up her almond tree once when I was a kid,” Stephen said, grinning reminiscently. “I came climbing down and there she was out of nowhere, in her wheelchair. Even though she hated anyone seeing that wheelchair. ‘Only monkeys eat my nuts, young man,' she said—I can still hear her—‘and you‘ll not even make a powder monkey, at your age.'”

“Powder monkey?” James said.

“Boys in the Navy in Nelson's day—they used to fetch the powder for the guns.”

“You mean Miss Greythorne knew you were going into the Navy?”

“Of course not, I didn't know myself then.” Stephen looked a little taken aback. “Funny coincidence though. Never occurred to me before—I haven't given her a thought for years.”

But James's mind had already taken off on a tangent, as it frequently did. “Will, whatever became of that little hunting horn she gave you, the year she gave Paul the flute? Did you lose it? You never even gave it one good blow.”

“I still have it,” Will said quietly.

“Well, get it out. We could have fun with it.”

“One day.” Will swung the lawn-mower round, shoving its handle at James's unready hands. “Here—your turn. I've done the front, now you do the back.”

“That's the rule,” said their father, passing with a weed-loaded wheelbarrow. “Fair's fair. Share the burden.”

“My burden's bigger than his,” James said dolefully.

“Nonsense!” said Mr. Stanton.

“Well it is, actually,” Will said. “We measured, once. The back lawn's five feet wider than the front, and ten feet longer.”

“Got more trees in it,” said Mr. Stanton, unclipping the catch-box of grass cuttings from the front of the mower, and emptying it into his barrow.

“That makes more work, not less.” James drooped, more dolefully still. “Going round them. Trimming afterwards.”

“Go away,” said his father. “Before I burst into tears.”

Will took the box and clipped it back on the mower. “Good-bye, James,” he said cheerfully.

“You haven't finished yet, either, matey,” Mr. Stanton said. “Stephen needs some help tying up the roses.”

A muffled curse came from the front garden wall; Stephen, embraced by the sprawling branches of a climbing rose, was sucking his thumb.

“I believe you may be right,” Will said.

Grinning, his father picked up the wheelbarrow and prodded James and the lawn-mower up the driveway; Will was starting over the lawn when his elder sister Barbara came out of the front door.

“Tea's nearly ready,” she said.

“Good.”

“Outside, we're having it.”

“Good, better, best. Come and help Steve fight a rose bush.”

Rambler roses, spilling great swathes and bunches of red blossom, grew along and over the old stone wall that bordered the road. Gingerly they untangled the most wildly
sprawling arms, drove stakes into the gravelly earth, and tied the branches to keep the billowing sprays of roses off the ground.

“Ouch!” said Barbara for the fifth time, as a rebellious rose-branch scored a thin red line across her bare back.

“Your own fault,” said Will unfeelingly. “You should have more clothes on.”

“It's a sunsuit. For the sunshine, duckie.”

“Nekkidness,” said her younger brother solemnly, “be a shameful condition for a yooman bein'. Tain't roight. ‘Tes a disgrace to the neighbour'ood, so 'tes.”

Barbara looked at him. “There you stand, wearing even
less—”
she began indignantly; then stopped.

“Slow,” said Stephen. “Very slow.”

“Oh, you,” Barbara said.

A car passed on the road; slowed suddenly; stopped; then began backing gradually until it was level with them. The driver switched off his engine, hauled himself across the seat and stuck a heavy-jowled red face out of the window.

“Might the biggest of you be Stephen Stanton?” he said with clumsy joviality.

“That's right,” said Stephen from the top of the wall. He gave one last blow to a stake. “What can I do for you?”

“Name's Moore,” the man said. “You had a little run-in with one of my boys the other day, I gather.”

“Richie,” said Will.

“Ah,” said Stephen. He jumped down from the wall to stand next to the car. “How do you do, Mr. Moore. I dropped your son into some water, I believe.”

“Green water,” said the man. “Ruined his shirt.”

“I should be happy to buy him a new one,” Stephen said easily. “What size is he?”

“Don't talk rubbish,” the man said, expressionless. “I just wanted to get the rights and wrongs of it, that's all. Wondered why a young man like you should be playing those sort of games with kids.”

Stephen said, “It wasn't a game, Mr. Moore. I simply felt
very strongly that your son deserved to be dropped into the water.”

Mr. Moore ran one hand over his large glistening forehead. “Maybe. Maybe. He's a wild kid, that one. They kick him around, he kicks back. What did he do to you?”

“Didn't he tell you?” Will said.

Mr. Moore looked across the low wall at Will as though he were something small and irrelevant, like a beetle. “What Richie told me, it wasn't something that gets people dropped in streams. So like as not it wasn't true. That's what I want to get straight.”

“He was tormenting a younger boy,” Stephen said. “There's not much point in going into detail.”

“Having a bit of fun, he said.”

“Not much fun for the other one.”

“Richie said he didn't lay a finger on him,” Mr. Moore said.

“He just threw his music-case full of music into the stream, that's all,” Will said shortly.