The Circle of the Gods (15 page)

He passed through the deep-valleyed country well south-west of Corinium and on the morning of the fifth day came out of a thick wood that covered a valley ridge to find before him a great fall in the land. The ridge side plunged steeply away from him, dropping almost sheer in places to a wide plain far below. Through the clear air of the autumn day a vast panorama was spread before him and he saw it as though from the eyes of an idling falcon borne up on a steady air current. Beyond the plain ran the broad, snaking ribbon of the Sabrina River in full tide, the sun taking the silver of its waters with a keenness which hurt the eyes. Far to the northeast it ran until it was lost in the encroaching folds of the long ridge line on which he stood. To the southwest it broadened slowly and was swallowed by the sun sparkle from the waters of the sea into which it ran. Beyond it, purple and mist-hazed, rose the hills and mountains of Cymru and Demetae. Far away up the river on his right hand, hidden from his sight, the Sabrina waters came down through Glevum. For the first time, he became aware of the vastness of his land, and the immensity moved him. All this, and more and more to the north and the east, was Britain… a country torn and divided by the quarrelling of the tribes of his own kind, harried by Scotti and Pictish raiders, and threatened by the slow, barbarian march of the Saxon warriors and settlers from the east.

He sat down and began to munch on one of the wild apples he had gathered in the wood, melding their sharpness with goat's cheese and flat bread which he had brought from a homesteader with one of the silver coins from his still remaining store of Prince Gerontius's money. As he ate he was slowly seized with a dullness of mind and lack of spirit, rare for him, and which he would never have confessed to any man. For the truth was that now he was here he knew that he had come, not at the bidding of the gods, but because of the tedium which had grown with him week by week at the Villa of the Three Nymphs. Homesteading gave him no joy, no fullfillment. He had dreamt of the white horse on the red banner. But such a dream could easily have arisen from his longing for warlike action. The truth, sharp in him now, was that he had gone awandering for his own pleasure and relief.

With a sudden spate of self-disgust he threw his apple core out into space and heard the sharp click of bursting seedpods as it fell into a broom bush. As he reached for another apple, a long shadow fell across the grass at his side. He looked round to see a short, strongly built man, dark-eyed and with long black hair, who wore a rough, long brown robe girdled with a thin belt of plaited leather thongs, and who carried a well-seasoned ash stave.

The man smiled at him and said, “Greetings. ' Tis a long time since we last saw one another.”

Frowning slightly, Arturo said, “We know one another?”

The man sat down, placed his stave across his knees and reached out for one of Arturo's apples. “I know you. I knew you from the time of your birth until I last saw you as a bare-bottomed infant splashing in the sand at my feet on the day I left your mother and your people. My name is Merlin.”

“Merlin? Ah, yes, of course… My mother often spoke of you. You are the—” Arturo broke off for fear of offending the man.

“I am the ageless, the wandering one. Or so men say. But then it is seldom that I agree with what men say. And what do you do, brooding here like an eagle on its eyrie?”

Arturo hesitated for a moment or two. He had heard many tales of this man. But mostly he knew that it was said that Merlin spoke like a brother to the gods.

He said bluntly, “I was outlawed with a companion by the Prince of Dumnonia with whose cavalry I served. I have been hiding for many weeks in a small homestead with my companions—but my feet began to itch for better occupation than following the plough and my eyes to smart for sight of new country. To the others I lied that the gods had told me to come here where I should meet a man who waited for me.”

“And what will you say when you return to them?”

Arturo smiled. “No doubt I shall lie again, though what the lie will be must rest unknown until the moment comes.”

Merlin laughed. “At least your frankness should please the gods. You could say, of course, that you had met me.” He reached out, broke a piece from Arturo's cheese round, put it in his mouth and mumbled as he chewed, “And that I had a message from the gods for you—which I have not, of course. Our meeting is pure happen-chance. I am on my way to Glevum from Aquae Sulis and often take this way along the ridge. So you are young Arturo who sent message to the Prince Gerontius and the Count Ambrosius that one day they would sue for your return?”

“How did you know that?”

“The message was given in full council by your father. Many heard it and the tongues of man wag faster than any woman's when a Prince is so defied that he hurls a full wine cup from him in anger at the words. The discomfort of the great is ever a delight to the small. From Dumnonian Isca to Deva and Lindum the story runs … aye, and to Saxon Canta warra and the island of Tanatus to make the barbarians roar with laughter over their rude mead. My young captain Arturo, the country knows you and”—he stood up and brushed cheese crumbs from his robe—“now for any who pledges beyond his performance call it an Arto promise—”

“Then the gods damn them!” Arturo was quick on his feet, his face stiff with anger. “They shall see the truth of it one day.”

Merlin shrugged his shoulders. “Such a truth would not be unwelcome to many. Now cool the fire of your anger. There is a foolishness about your boast that warms me, and for this I give you my own message—for sadly”—his mouth moved to a mock mournful twist—“I am out of grace with the gods this long time and they favour me with little of their dispositions. You know the Roman tongue?”

“At my mother's knee and by the hammering of old Leric's fist between my shoulder blades.”

“Then know you suffer not alone from acedia. There are many such in the growing army of Count Ambrosius, and none more bored than in the Sabrina cavalry wing which he has stationed near Corinium. Many there grow stale with drills and maneuvers and might be tempted from their barracks and the taverns of Corinium with an Arto promise—even, if at first, the promise showed no more warlike gain than petty raiding against the Saxons down the Tamesis. But remember this, speak not your heart to any man until you have proved him.”

“And how should I do that?”

“If you know not that, then you are not one to command men. Now, I thank you for the apple and cheese. I would have thanked you more had you carried a wineskin. The gods be with you.”

As he turned to go Arturo said, “It is in my mind, for all your talk, that the gods did indeed send you to me. How else could you have recognized me whom you last saw as an infant just able to stand and walk?”

Merlin smiled. “You could have answered that for yourself were your mind not idle. You sprawl on the grass cudding your cheese, your tunic flung wide open to cool yourself from walking. Need I say more since I have seen you naked many times in your mother's arms?”

Arturo smiled ruefully, and said, “No.” With one hand he rubbed the strawberry-coloured birthmark below his left ribs. Then with a frank, friendly smiled, he went on, “I thank you for chiding me. Your words will stay with me.”

He stood for a long while watching the receding figure of Merlin move away along the tree-edged ridge. When the man was finally lost to sight he turned and gathered up his gear. A glance at the westering sun gave him the direction he wanted and he set out.

He reached Corinium on the evening of the next day while there was still a couple of hours of daylight left. The streets were crowded with people and the troops from the nearby camp. Market booths and stalls were open and the rutted roads were busy with the carts of country folk and packhorse trains carrying army supplies. As he made his way toward the east gate he was with other people pressed back to make way for a patrol of cavalry moving through the city. A young man who led the party was wearing a leather war helmet plumed with dyed horsehair, a bronze-plated cuirass taking the dying sunset light dully, and knee-length boots, and was armed with a scabbarded broadsword. About his neck was knotted a blue scarf with its ends swinging freely to the motion of his horse Similarly coloured scarves were worn by all the men in the patrol and also by the dismounted cavalrymen who walked the streets on leave. Arturo had no need to ask about the scarves for he knew that they were the mark of the man of the Sabrina wing of Count Ambrosius's army. He decided that when his day came all the men of his army should wear the white and red scarves of the banner he had seen in his dream.…

A small boy, his skin as brown as sun-dried earth, wearing only a ragged pair of short trews, directed him to the house of Paulus the carpenter. It was a dwelling place that stood with its back hard against a section of the ruined city wall and was no more than one large living room and cooking quarters with a rough ladder that led to a communal bedroom above. The workshop was a faggot-thatched open shed to one side of the house.

He introduced himself to Paulus, a white-haired man in his sixties, wearing a leather working apron, the stubble of his face hoared with sawdust and all about him the sweet smell of worked wood and shavings. He was accepted at once and with few questions. Paulus lived by himself, but a neighbour's wife came in once a day and cooked a meal for him in the evening. The old man made a place for him at the table and while they ate questioned him about the welfare of his nephews. When he heard of the death of his brother at the hands of the Saxons, he said, “God rest his soul.”

Arturo said, “You, too, are of the Christos people?”

“Yes, and there are many in this city. It is said, too, that Count Ambrosius is one of us, but I doubt it more than pretense, for the Count is ready to be all things to all people so long as they will serve his ends.”

“And those ends?”

Paulus paused from dipping a bread crust into his stew and said, “He dreams of a conquest of all Britain with himself wearing the purple of emperor.”

“And what is wrong with such a dream?”

Paulus shrugged his shoulders, poured ale into Arturo's cup and said, “Nothing—except the man who dreams it.”

“Men say that openly here?”

“Go into any tavern or drinking court and you will, as the night lengthens, hear many of his own soldiers and cavalrymen say it. They long for action and he gives them drills and marches and mock battle—and now that autumn is well with us it is clear that there can be no campaigning this year. This winter many men will drift from him back to their homes. It is two years since the army marched east and south. Two years—and that is a long time for warriors to content themselves with sword and spear drill. Go into the country to the villas and the farms and you will hear strong words against Count Ambrosius. Although the land is rich and is tilled in peace the crop levies to feed his men are high. I ask nothing of your business here, but take heed of your speech in this city. You like this stew? ' Tis hare … I have a friend who passes through often who always brings some fine gift.… So, my brother Amos is dead, eh? And by a barbarian. Thank God they come not this way. Hare stew, I like it well. But not so well as venison—though 'tis seldom my friend brings that. Such game gets rarer the longer the army stays …” The old man suddenly broke off, leant back and smiled, saying, “I ask your forgiveness. I rattle away like a gossip from the pleasure of company for I am much alone.”

Arturo raised his cup to the old man and said, “Talk, my friend, for there is much that I would like to know about this place and the cavalrymen here.”

Chuckling with pleasure, Paulus drank with Arturo and began to talk again, never flagging, but always ready to take a new line when Arturo put a question to him.

That night Arturo lay long awake while the old man snored gently in his cot. He was in Corinium and here, and in the country around, were cavalrymen, many of them owning their own mounts, who longed for action. But he had nothing to offer except a share in his dream to create a company whose fame and success would eventually bring the Prince Gerontius and Count Ambrosius to sue for his help. How many men, he wondered, would have the vision to see what he dreamt and for the sake of it go into the wilderness with him? He groaned gently to himself. If ever a man needed the help of the gods to direct him he was that man.

The next morning he left Paulus to his work and wandered abroad in the city. It was market day and the old ruined Roman Forum was crowded with stalls and benches on which vegetables, game and meat, crockery and pots and pans, and woollen cloths and belts and buckles and leather goods were laid out for sale. Wandering through the crowd, Arturo noticed that there were few army men about. Most of them were held at stables and cavalry drills until late in the afternoon… the same training exercises which he, as a troop commander, had known endlessly at Isca.

Walking now from stall to stall, he saw clearly that there was more for sale here, and a richer variety of goods, than had ever appeared in the Isca markets. The penned poultry and cattle were plump, the cloths and fabrics rich, and much of the pottery and bronze and iron pans and cauldrons of a finer work than the people of Dumnonia knew. Count Ambrosius, whose writ ran from the Sabrina plains north to Glevum and beyond to Deva, held in his power a fat and rich land. Maybe because of all this the Count had grown over-content and was loath to stir away—but amongst his men there had to be those who suffered a restlessness and a lust for war and action which full bellies could not assuage.

As he turned from a stall hung with loops of gaily coloured clay beads his eye was caught by the bright blue of a long, belted robe worn by a young woman who worked her way through the crowd, a straw-plaited basket hanging from the crook of her right elbow. A stallholder shouted some pleasantry to her and as she turned her head to reply her eyes were briefly met by Arturo's. For a moment or two, like the sudden glare of sun between racing clouds, she smiled at him, a warm, friendly and, he imagined, a beckoning smile. As he met it the whole purpose of his business here in Corinium was reft from him. The sharp thought went through him that it was long since he had held an Iscan girl in his arms, or felt the warmth of full red lips beneath his own. Hardly aware that sudden impulse was moving him to action, he moved forward through the crowd to follow the young woman. But at this moment the market throng pressed back upon him, trapping him against the side of a stall, to make ground for the passage of a herd of cattle being driven to the slaughterhouse on the far side of the Forum.