The Road to Avalon (7 page)

Chapter 6

O
N
the far side of the river Camm, at the very northern border of Avalon, lay the forest. Morgan often went berrying there, bringing back to the villa baskets of blue and red and purple berries for the cook to bake into breads. She also gathered herbs for the medicines she was becoming so adept at making. The only stipulation Merlin made was that if she went to the forest, Arthur was to go with her; and he was to bring a knife.

The berries were particularly good that spring, and Arthur and Morgan were coming back through the forest with laden baskets one especially warm afternoon, but the harmony that usually prevailed between them was absent this day. Arthur kept glancing at Morgan worriedly as they made their way in silence to the river. The small boat they used to cross the river was tied to a beech tree, and both youngsters jumped into it with the ease of long practice. Arthur picked up the oars and in less than two minutes they were on the opposite shore. Arthur tied the boat to a wooden stake and lifted out the baskets of berries.

“We don’t have to go back right away,” he said over his shoulder to Morgan as he performed this task. “We have time.”

She nodded and sank to the grass. “I think I have a stone in my shoe,” she said, and proceeded to remove her rawhide moccasin. She turned the shoe upside down, and then, instead of putting it back on, removed the other one as well and wiggled her bare toes with pleasure. Her feet were small and narrow, with high-arched insteps. They were dirty from the trek through the woods. Her short-sleeved saffron-colored tunic was dirty as well. Arthur came to sit beside her.

“How many scratches did you get?” he asked, and held out his forearm for her to see the long red lines that marred its deep tan. Morgan lifted her own arm in reply and showed him two deep crimson marks that scored the silken white flesh above her wrist. He circled her wrist with his fingers and looked into her eyes. “What’s the matter?” he asked softly. “You’ve been unhappy all day.”

Her eyes slid away from his. Her expression was somber, astonishingly mature, very different from the face she showed to the adults at home. “In another month,” she said, “you will be sixteen.”

He let out his breath. “We can’t stay children forever.” He tried to keep his voice light.

“I wish we could.”

“I don’t.” The lightness was gone. His voice now was intense, almost fierce. “Don’t you understand?” he said. “Don’t you feel how hard it is to be young?” His hand on her wrist tightened. “There’s everything I want, everything I’m ready for, and I’m too
young.”

She looked at him, her brown eyes grave. “Yes,” she said at last. “I do understand. But I haven’t your courage. I’m afraid . . .” She shivered and the hand on her wrist pulled her closer, and then she was in his arms. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his shoulder, feeling his hard young body pressed against hers. She wanted to keep him here beside her like this forever, and she was afraid because she knew she could not. After a minute he released her and said in a rough voice, “We’d better be starting back.”

The following day it rained, a soft drizzling rain that held off at times. Arthur read history in the library with Merlin in the morning and then went to look for Morgan. She wasn’t in the house or in the herb garden and so he took a pony and went out to search all their usual haunts. She wasn’t at the tree house. She wasn’t watching the carpenter or the blacksmith. She wasn’t in the valley. The air was heavy and gray with mist as Arthur turned back toward the villa. He was halfway home when the drizzle turned into a heavy rain. The storehouse where they kept the grain was near, so he took shelter there, bringing his pony in and tying it up. He had been in the barn for five minutes when the door opened again and Morgan came in.

She recognized his pony immediately. “Arthur?” she called.

His head appeared over the side of the loft. “Here,” he answered. “I was looking for you. Where were you?”

“Oh, here and there,” she answered vaguely, and began to climb up to the loft to join him. Arthur had made himself comfortable on a nest of old sacks. It was dim up under the roof and it was not until she sat down beside him that he realized how wet she was.

“Morgan!” He was half-laughing, half-concerned. “You’re soaked!”

“It’s raining,” she replied. “Hand me one of those sacks and I’ll wrap it around myself.”

He did as she requested and she draped the sack, shawlwise, around her shoulders. She shivered and he reached an arm around her and drew her against him. Her head fell onto his shoulder.

The rain beat on the roof of the barn. Below them they heard the pony snort. The smell of grain filled their nostrils. When he bent his head to find her mouth, she was waiting for him.

Their kissing had become expert over the last month, but there was something between them now that had not been there before. There’s everything I want, everything I’m ready for, he had said to her yesterday, and she had understood what he meant. She ran her hands up and down his back, feeling the hard young muscles. The heat of his body warmed her own chilled flesh.

“Do you want to take off your wet gown?” His voice was scarcely recognizable to her. She said yes and with her own hands pulled the wet material over her head.

He touched her with wonder. Her skin was like silk under his rough, callused fingers. Passion came up in him, stroke after stroke, undeniable, like the clanging of a great bronze bell within. She was so soft . . . the force within him so irresistible. He leaned over her and looked into her face. She put her arms around his neck and his heart blazed up in a flame of joy. She was so lovely, she was such a bliss of release . . . she was his love.

He hurt her, but she didn’t mind. She nestled against him, listening to the slowing beat of his heart, the quieting of his breathing, and was fiercely glad that she had been able to do this for him.

The rain beat steadily on the roof of the storehouse, and they lay in one another’s arms and were at peace.

At dinner Merlin and Ector talked about the new Saxon offensive, and Arthur, who would ordinarily have listened closely, scarcely heard a word they said. His whole being was concentrated instead on the girl who sat across the table from him. Ector and Merlin might have been ghosts, so unreal and insubstantial did they seem to him now.

Ector broke off to say something to Morgan, and she smiled, showing him the mask of a happy and unconcerned child. As she turned away from Ector, her eyes met Arthur’s. The look they exchanged was not childlike at all.

Merlin said something. Then, with a touch of exasperation: “Arthur. I am speaking to you.”

Both Arthur and Morgan turned toward his voice with identical startled looks. Then Arthur said calmly, “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t hear. What was it?” Across the table, Morgan’s eyes dropped and she began to eat her venison.

It was not difficult to cover their tracks. They had been constant companions since childhood and it simply had never occurred to Merlin that the relationship between his daughter and his grandson could be other than that of sister and brother. They had many long afternoons alone, and the weather was beautiful.

“Wake up, Arthur! Look at the bird!” Morgan was tugging at the lock of black hair that always seemed to slip down over his forehead, and he raised his lashes drowsily.

“What?”

“Look. Over there.” He followed her pointing finger and saw a beautiful yellow-and-black bird rising from the hawthorn bush near them.

“I see.” He narrowed his eyes against the glare of the sun and said with faint reproach, “I was asleep.”

“I know you were.” She leaned over him so her long hair tickled his bare chest. “You were snoring.”

His gray eyes smiled. “Was I?”

“No.” She sat up straight again. “But it’s getting late. They’ll be looking for us.”

They. The unreal ghosts of Merlin and Ector and Justina and the others; everyone, in fact, who was not Arthur or Morgan. He sighed and raised himself effortlessly to a sitting position. He was wearing only brown wool breeches and he looked around now for his tunic. He rubbed his head.

Morgan’s eyes watching him were filled with tenderness. He swiveled around to reach for his clothing and the tenderness darkened and sobered. Very gently she put out a hand and traced the thin line of a scar on his shoulder. She felt the muscles tense under her finger.

“You’ll carry them on your flesh all your life,” she said. “I wish I could do something to erase them from your mind.”

He turned to look at her. The skin under his eyes looked suddenly bruised. She was the only one he had ever spoken to about Esus. “It wasn’t the pain,” he said. “I could live with that. It was that I
let
him do that to me. That I
allowed
it.”

“Arthur”—her voice was matter-of-fact, revealing none of the terrible pity that possessed her—“you were a child. You were helpless. There was nothing you could have done.”

The darkness around his eyes did not fade. “I don’t think about it,” he said.

“You dream about it sometimes.”

He stared at her, his face naked.

She made herself go on. “Blame Esus. He was a wicked, evil man. But don’t blame yourself.
You
are not the one at fault.” Her calm broke and she said fiercely, “I would like to plunge a dagger into his black heart.”

A little of the darkness lifted from the skin beneath his eyes. “You,” he said. “You would probably feel sorry for him.”

“Never.” She made a thrusting movement with her hand. “Never would I feel sorry for that man.”

A glimmer of a smile touched his mouth. “Oh Morgan,” he said. “How I love you. Come here.”

His tunic was forgotten as they lay back together on the saddle rug Arthur had spread. He ran his hands over the skin with which he had become so familiar; he knew all its soft silkiness, knew where the scratches and cuts were, where she liked most to be touched. Over the last month their bodies had learned each other very well.

Afterward, on their way back to the villa, they carefully arranged their faces to meet the ghosts who were awaiting them.

On his sixteenth birthday Arthur planned to speak to Merlin about marrying Morgan. But on his sixteenth birthday Merlin was not at Avalon; he had gone to Venta to see the king.

Uther did not look well. “The time has come,” he said to Merlin almost as soon as he had dismissed his servants. “I do not think I have much longer to live.”

Merlin looked at him for a long moment in silence. Then he said only, “When? And how?”

“I have called a council for three weeks’ time. The message has gone out to all the kings and princes of Britain. I have said the purpose of the council is to name my heir.” The ghost of a sardonic smile crossed Uther’s thin face. “That will bring them all running.” He leaned back in his chair. “We will do it then.”

Merlin nodded. Then, offering the only reassurance he could find: “He is ready, Uther.”

The pale eyes commanded with something of their old fire. “I want to see him before the council, Merlin. Bring him to Venta.”

“Yes,” said Merlin. “I will do that.”

“Does . . . does he know yet?”

“Arthur knows nothing.” There was a pause and then the older man asked, “Shall I tell him first? Or do you want to?”

Uther raised a hand to his brow. The bones of his temples were too prominent in his wasted face. “You tell him,” he said. “You know him. You will know how it should be done.”

“I know him as well as anyone, I suppose,” Merlin said a little enigmatically. “All right. I shall tell him.”

“Bring him immediately.” Uther dropped his hand. “He needn’t stay here. In fact, it would be best if he didn’t, if he went back to Avalon until the council. Surprise is a factor that will work on our side. But I want to see him first.”

Merlin stared at the king. “Does Igraine know?” he asked.

“No.” Uther’s wasted look was now very pronounced. “I will tell Igraine.”

Merlin rose to his feet. “I can have him here tomorrow.”

“Good. I will be waiting,” said Uther, and Merlin looked away from the hungry light in the high king’s eyes.

It was late when Merlin returned to Avalon, although the sky was still light with the dying sun. He was tired and thought he would go to sleep the minute his body felt the comfort of his own bed, but he found his mind was too busy.

How ought he to handle Arthur?

They would leave for Venta tomorrow. Should he tell the boy first, or wait until they were on the road?

After much tossing and turning, Merlin decided to wait. Tell Arthur here at Avalon, and Ector would know. And Morgan. And everyone in the household. Better give the boy a chance to see Uther first.

Once that was decided, Merlin was able to fall asleep.

He overslept the following morning and was irritated when no one could tell him where Arthur was. He finally found the boy down at the stables with Morgan. The two youngsters were getting ready to go for a ride, and when Merlin called Arthur’s name, they turned to him with looks of bemused astonishment.

Then, “Hello, Father,” Morgan said. “I hope you had a pleasant journey.”

“You were asleep, sir,” said Arthur, “so we thought we’d go for a ride.”

“You are going for a ride, but it is with me,” said Merlin. “We are going to Venta, Arthur. Come back to the villa and change your clothes. You cannot meet the high king looking like that.”

“Meet the high king?” Arthur said. His gray eyes searched Merlin’s face. “Today?”

“Today. I would like to arrive in time to get a decent night’s sleep, so you will please come along.” There was something disturbing about the expression in the boy’s eyes, and Merlin spoke more sharply than he had intended.

Arthur glanced at Morgan. “There is something I have been wanting to speak to you about, sir,” he began, but Merlin cut him off.

“Not now. There isn’t time.” The youngsters looked at each other again. Morgan had probably found a baby wolf she wanted to raise, Merlin thought impatiently. “He will be back tomorrow, Morgan,” he said to his daughter. “Whatever it is will keep until then.”