"The battlechief regarded me placidly before turning his attention to the hill and the shrine, now cool blue-white in the westering sun. 'Hail, Myrddin Emrys!' he called, as we approached. 'What is this I am hearing about you? They say you have gone into your invisible fortress and will never more return.'
'Hail, Bedwyr!' cried the Emrys. 'It is that much like you to believe the idle gossip you hear.'
The two embraced like kinsmen and, Unking arms, began walking up the hill. Tegyr, smiling silently, followed and I came on behind.
'It is beautiful,' breathed Bedwyr. Truly beautiful. Arthur will be honoured. And the queen will establish a perpetual choir to sing your praises!'
'Has Gwenhwyvar returned?'
'Yes. Tegyr said you asked him to bring word when she arrived, so I thought to come with him. I wanted to see what you had accomplished since I was last here. Do you object?'
'Never – besides, we are nearly finished as you can see. I will return with you to Caer Lial tomorrow.'
I listened to their talk and learned that the queen had been away in the south, helping with the Fair Folk migration from Ynys Avallach to the chosen island in the north. Arthur meantime held council at Caer Melyn and Caer Lundein. He was not expected to return before Lugnasadh. This would give the queen time to make her last inspection of the monument, and to arrange the ceremony and celebration of its completion.
Bedwyr and Tegyr spent the night with us and all of the next day, while the Emrys finished his work. All three left the following day, but I stayed at the rotunda to sweep out the last of the dust and stone-chips, and wash the floor and ledges. The Emrys was to return in two or three days with the queen.
As soon as the others left, I worked through the day without cease until finishing. It was dusk when I finally sat down to rest and eat. Though the sun had set long before, the sky at that time of year does not grow completely dark. Therefore did I enjoy a pleasant evening – sitting alone on my hill, monarch of all I surveyed, watching sea-gulls dive and glide in the clear evening air.
I had not made my fire. There was light enough yet, and the night chill had not settled on the hill. I ate my sweet dark bread and cold roast mutton, and then rose to find my water jar. I had left it inside the shrine, so went in to fetch it.
The interior of the rotunda was dark now, but I had little trouble finding the jar. I drank my fill and turned to go outside. As I turned, however, a figure appeared in the arched doorway – dark against the lighter sky beyond.
I froze, gripping the water jar tight in my hand lest I drop it.
The stranger stood full in the doorway, motionless, peering into the shrine. I do not believe he could see me in the darkness, but I imagined his eyes stripping away the shadow and revealing me. No, it was more than imagined, I think: I really felt something – the force of his presence, perhaps, groping, searching, penetrating the obscurity, and finally brushing against me. That fleeting touch chilled me and my heart lurched in my chest.
Blessed Jesu, Bright Protector, save me! I prayed – though I do not know why.
All at once, the figure turned and disappeared. I heard only the swish of a cloak and nothing more. I waited for a moment – but only that – and then crept slowly to the entrance. Peering cautiously outside, I looked left and right before emerging. I made a quick circuit round the shrine. The stranger had gone, I decided; there was no one on the hill or below it.
Where had he gone? I heard no horse, and it did not seem possible that anyone could arrive and depart so quickly. Per-haps.I had simply imagined seeing someone.
Nevertheless, I slept inside the rotunda and without a fire that night, lest I should attract any more intruders with my light. In the morning I found the bundle on the steps and suddenly felt very foolish.
My intruder was only one of the Hill Folk who brought the food each day. He had brought me this bundle and, not seeing anyone about, stopped to look inside the shrine. I had at long last chanced to see one of my providers and I had behaved like a child. I was only glad no one else was there to witness my shame.
Two days later, the party from Caer Lial arrived to inspect the monument. In the excitement, I forgot all about my mysterious visitor.
THREE
Queen Gwenhwyvar appeared at once more fierce than I could ever have imagined, and more lovely. She was a dark-smouldering flame clothed in the finely-formed body of a woman; an ardent, passionate soul, alive to everything around her. Because of the stories I had heard, I expected a towering, majestic figure like those famed Roman matriarchs of old.
Elegant she was, and graceful as the swan in flight, but she was not at all the forbidding matriarch. Her black hair gleamed; her eyes burned bright with delight as she beheld the wonder the Exalted Emrys had worked in the Fortress of Larks.
She stood before the steps and gazed at the marvellous shrine, beaming her pleasure. The others, including the Emrys and myself, waited a little away, watching her reaction. Gwenhwyvar remained a goodly time, merely looking up at the smooth curves of the monument. Then, lifting her soft-booted foot, she slowly mounted the steps and went in.
Gwenhwyvar had laboured long over her wedding gift to Arthur. And endured much in the way of contempt and derision. The ignorant said that Arthur had married a maid of the bhean sidhe and it was rumoured that she employed druid enchanters to summon Otherworld beings to move the sacred stone from Ierne, and had with spells and incantations raised the stone and rendered the site invisible lest anyone stumble upon it unawares.
Pure superstition, of course. Fiery Gwenhwyvar was not of the Hill Folk, nor was she a Pict. She was Irish, though proud as any Fair Folk maid; she could also command a warband with the skill of the best of Arthur's captains.
Some of the stone came from Ierne, it is true – but from Gwenhwyvar's father, King Fergus mac Guillomar. The beautiful blue stone was cut from the mountains and floated across the sea in ships, then dragged by ox-drawn sledge to the site which, although hidden, was not invisible. She employed the best quarrymen, masons and carpenters to work the stone and raise it – not druid enchanters.
In all, the queen was simply following the practice of her race; women of her rank provided for the survival of their fhain, or family clan, in life and death and beyond. Gwenhwyvar, foremost of all queens of the Island of the Mighty, meant to give Arthur a monument that would endure for ever.
Thirteen years is a long tune to wait for a wedding gift. It is also a long time to wait for an heir. More than a few of Arthur's lords had begun grumbling against Gwenhwyvar because the queen had given Arthur no sons. This, they thought, was more important than any monument.
Upon completing her inspection of the shrine, she emerged triumphant. 'Myrddin Emrys,' the queen said, taking his hands into her own, 'I am for ever beholden to you. No other in all the wide world could have accomplished this great work.' She turned and indicated the whole of the shrine with an arcing sweep of her hand. 'It is all I hoped it would be.'
'Thank you,' replied Myrddin simply. 'I am honoured.'
With the queen had come Tegyr and Bedwyr, and a few others of her retinue, and now they began to talk excitedly, praising the Emrys for his magnificent achievement. 'Arthur will be pleased,' Gwenhwyvar said. 'He will love this place as I do. It will be his sanctuary. There is peace here; nothing will disturb him here ever.'