Merlin

Ganieda of the Fair Folk – was it coincidence? Had chance alone brought us together? Or something beyond chance?

However it was, our lives could not go on as before. Soon or late, there would be a decision. In my heart of hearts I knew the answer already, and hoped I knew it aright.

The harp brought these things to my mind. Music, I suppose, was part of the beauty I associated, even then, with Ganieda. Already, though we scarcely knew each other, she was part of me and had a place in my thoughts and in my heart.

Did you know that, Ganieda? Did you feel it, too?

ELEVEN

Pendaran Gleddyvrudd, King of the Demetae and Silures in Dyfed, had grown weedy with the years, his muscles like rawhide cords beneath a skin of bleached vellum. His eyes were keen and bright, serving a mind that was, in its way, still alert and quick. But in his last years he had become simple. This he had in common with many whom age strips of guile and pretence.

A day or two after visiting Dafyd's chapel, I came in from walking with my mother and found him sitting in his customary place by the hearth. He had an iron poker in his hand and was jabbing at the spent logs, cracking them into embers.

'Ah! Myrddin, lad. The others have had you to themselves long enough. It is my turn now. Come here.'

Mother excused herself and I settled myself into the chair opposite him on the hearth. 'Events are galloping, eh, Myrddin? But then they always are.'

'Yes,' I agreed. 'You have seen a great many things come to pass in your lifetime.' Gleddyvrudd, the word meant Red Sword, and I wondered what kind of king he had been to win himself that name.

'More than most men, true.' He winked, and stirred the embers with the poker in his hand.

'What do you think about Maximus becoming emperor?' I asked, curious to hear what he would say.

'Bah!' He wrinkled his face with distaste. 'Upstart, you mean. What does he want to be emperor for?'

'Perhaps he thinks he can win peace for us, look out for our interests.'

Pendaran shook his bald head. 'Peace! So he takes the legions and marches off to Gaul first thing – why does he want to do that, I ask you?' He sighed. 'I will tell you, shall I? Vanity, lad. Our Emperor Maximus is a vain man, too easily led by men's good opinion of him.'

'He is a great soldier.'

'Never believe it! A real soldier would stay home and protect his own and not go looking for a fight on foreign shores. Who will he fight over there? Saecsens? Ha! He will go for Gratian's throat.' He gave a derisive laugh. 'Oh, that is what we need – two strutting peacocks pecking each other's eyes out while the Sea Wolves run through us as if we were sheep in a pen.'

'If he achieves peace in Gaul, he will certainly come back with more troops for us and put a stop to it.'

'Hoo!' Pendaran hooted with glee. 'Do not believe it! He will carve up that runt Gratian and then he will fix his eyes on Rome. Mark me, Myrddin, we have seen the last of Maximus. Have you ever known a man to return from Rome? Once across the water, he is gone. A pity he took all our best fighting men with him.' He shook his head sadly, as a father might for a wayward son.

'A great pity that; a very great pity,' he continued. 'Stupid vanity! It will be his death and ours, too! Stupid man.'

Old Red Sword's grasp of the situation was surprisingly accurate. He had lived long and had learned not to be distracted by appearances and political manoeuvring. What is more, he showed me that I had placed too much hope in an ambitious man's idealism.

'But you, Myrddin, look at you. I wish Salach were here. He would want to see you.'

'Where is your youngest son?'

Taken the orders, he has. Dafyd arranged for him to become a priest. He has gone to Gaul to receive the learning.' He sighed, 'It must take a lot of learning to be a priest; he has been gone a long time.'

I had never met Salach, although I had heard of him. He had been there when my father was killed. 'You must be very proud of him. It is a fine thing to be a priest.'

'Proud I am,' he agreed. 'A priest and a king in the same family. We are fortunate.' He turned his bright eyes on me. 'What about you; Myrddin? What will you become?'

I smiled and shook my head. 'Who can say, Grandfather?' My use of the word pleased him. He smiled and reached out to pat my arm.

'Ah, well, you have time yet to decide. Plenty of time.' He stood abruptly. 'I am going to sleep now.' And off he went.

I watched him go, wondering why his question left me feeling unsettled. And it came into my head that I. must see Blaise very soon.

Events, as Pendaran said, were galloping. While I had dreamed away in my hollow hill, the world had continued turning and the affairs of men had continued apace: more violent incursions by Pict and Scot and Saecsen; an emperor proclaimed; armies gathered; garrisons abandoned; people moving on the land… Now I was in the thick of it, and felt that somehow, in some way, something was required of me, but I had no idea what it was.

Perhaps Blaise could help me find the answer. In any event, it had been nearly four years since I had last seen him and I missed him – and not Blaise only, but Elphin and Rhonwyn, Cuall and all the others at Caer Cam. This was not the only time I had thought about them since my disappearance, but there was an urgency now that I had not experienced before.

Unfortunately, I had no choice but to wait until spring opened the land to travel once more.

One moon passed and then another. With Gwendolau, and others, I rode Maelwys' hunting runs, or rambled the hills around Maridunum. The days were short, but left long nights to enjoy one another's company around the fire, playing chess or talking. Also, I began singing again as my skill and confidence with the harp returned. Needless to say, my songs and tales were welcome in the hall where my father had sung so many years before. In all it was a good time for resting and gathering strength for the year ahead. I tried to rein in my impatience and not begrudge my inactivity, but to value this quiet time for its own sake.

In this I was only partially successful. The ferment in my heart and head made it seem as if I were standing rooted in place while the world flew by me in a dizzy race.

Nevertheless, the day came at last when we bade Pendaran and Dafyd farewell and started towards Ynys Avallach and the Summerlands. For me, it was a journey back to another time: all remained precisely as I remembered it. Nothing had changed, or seemed likely to change, ever.

Maelwys travelled with us, and Gwendolau, Baram, and some of Maelwys' men as escort. Oh, we were a bold company, though, whether ranged along the road two-by-two, as we most often were, or encamped in a wooded glade in the first flush of spring. The days took whig and one day, just after midday, I saw it: the Tor, rising from the mist-clouded waters of the lake at its feet. And on the Tor the palace of Avallach the Fisher King.

Even at a fair distance I was struck by the strangeness of the palace – the place I had grown up! That the home of my childhood should appear almost alien to me struck me like a physical blow. Had I been so long in the world of mortal men that I had forgotten the grace and refinement of the Fair Folk?

It was inconceivable that such beauty, such elegance and symmetry, could fade from my mind in that tune. Seeing the palace in this way was like seeing it for the first time: the tall, sloping walls with their narrow, pinnacled towers; the high-arched roofs and domes within; the massive gateposts with their flowing banners.

Indeed, the palace belonged to another world. I saw my home much the way any stranger on the road might view it when coming upon it in the mist. And I understood how easily one might believe the tales of magical beings and strange enchantments. Was the palace itself not a thing of enchantment? Half-hidden in the mists, remote on its looming Tor, and surrounded by reed-fringed waters, now shining blue, now grey slate and troubled, Ynys Avallach seemed an Otherworldly place.