Derek sat still for a few moments, admiring the view, then dismounted and tethered his horse, nodding for me to accompany him as he led the way to a shallow, grass- floored shelf above the cliff's edge, where he seated himself comfortably, his back against the bole of a tree. I found a spot by his side, wedging my back comfortably between two thick clumps of grass on the hillside behind us. Thereafter, we sat in companionable silence for a spell, gazing out across the valley and squinting against the glare of the sparkling sea in the distance, each of us composing in his own mind, I had no doubt, the words that he would use to frame his ideas most persuasively. We had come here to think and talk, after all, not merely to enjoy the vista. Derek's voice broke in on my thoughts.
"Sang ... Sank ... What was that word you used?"
"Sanctuary."
"Sanctuary, aye ... You said it meant shelter or respite, and I asked you from what. Now I'm asking you again. No one will interrupt us here." He looked sharply at me. "Why are you smiling?"
I shook my head. "It occurs to me that we are totally unable—any of us—to anticipate what's going to happen next at any time. Last night, when we dropped anchor outside your harbour ... even this morning as we approached your wharf ... I had no idea in my head about what kind of reaction the sight of me might provoke in you. I was trying to prepare myself for anything—from outright violence, to disinterest, to a refusal of permission to land."
He had been plucking at the end of his moustache, eyes narrowed in concentration, lips pursed as he watched me speak.
"Why would you expect violence? You and I have never quarrelled."
"No, but neither have we shared a common cause. Nominally, on the two occasions when we met, we did so in enmity as warriors of Cornwall and Camulod."
"Aye, well, that was one-sided on the first occasion. I thought then that you were with us. It was not until we met the second time that I knew otherwise. Frankly, you didn't cross my mind between those times. I thought about you often after our second encounter, though. I was damned glad to get away from you on that beach."
"How so?"
"I thought you would kill me."
"Kill you? You threatened to kill me, if I fought you."
"I did. And I'd have tried. But I'm a mere man, no match against a warlock." There was absolute sincerity in his voice and in his eyes.
"Warlock? I am no warlock, Derek. I'm an ordinary man like you."
"Hmm. An ordinary man who .sees his friends die in his dreams and knows the timing and the exact style of it, describing the scene and the weapon used long afterward, when he was nowhere near the place. That's far from ordinary in my mind. I told you that day on the beach you'd been touched by the gods and I wanted no dealings with you. And here you are again, except that this time you come seeking me after a dream. I warn you, others have dreamed of me, ere now—enemies who dreamed and schemed while they were yet awake. They are all dead. Why should I regard your dreams as different from theirs? It takes no great intelligence to see that you have schemes in mind, as well as dreams, since you are here."
"My presence here bears no menace for you, Derek. You'll take no harm from my arrival. I come as a supplicant, seeking assistance that I think lies within your power to grant."
"My power ... " He shifted his body and dug a pebble from beneath his hip, flicking it out and away and watching as it fell into the abyss in front of us. "You know, a wise man once told me that the most vicious enemies a king can make are those he once contrived to help. That sounds strange, eh? It did to me, at the time, for I was young. I asked him what he meant, and I've never forgotten his answer. He said that kindness frequently breeds hatred—that there is a type of man—and woman, too—in whom resentment simmers all the time, like an evil brew, and nothing brings it to a fiercer boil than feeling obligation." He waited, watching me closely for a reaction.
"I can see some of what you mean," I began, "but not, I think, the depth of it. Judging from your words, it seems you would apply the measure to everyone you meet, whereas I see its application in only a few. Wherein lies the difference?"
He sniffed, then made a clicking noise with his tongue "We are wandering from our track, but perhaps it's worth it. Tell me, Merlyn Britannicus, how often do you dream these wondrous dreams of yours?"
"Not often. Once every year or so, perhaps even less."
"They always involve people?"
I had to think about that. "I don't really know. I think so."
"Do you like people?"
"Like people? You mean people in general?"
"That's what I mean, people in the mass."
"I've never really thought about that, but I suppose I do."
"Well, I don't. I like my friends, I like my family— some of them, anyway—and I like a number of people I have come to know casually without befriending them, if you know what I mean. But I find the mass of people, the faceless, impersonal herd, to be unlikable. They are generally mean-spirited, envious, grasping, untrustworthy, unclean and vicious."
I listened in amazement, recalling the last time I had met this man and watched him violate and slaughter an injured woman, my own wife's sister, Ygraine, on a beach littered with corpses. I knew, however, that this was no suitable time to recall the incident to his attention.
He had fallen silent, his eyes on my face, searching. "What are you thinking?"
I shrugged elaborately, but I knew I had to respond honestly. The king of Ravenglass was no man's fool, and I knew I had not yet begun to penetrate the depths of him.
"I'm surprised to hear you say the words you've spoken. The image they suggest does not fit with what I saw in Ravenglass today."
"I don't follow you."
"Well, I'm not sure where I'm leading, but it seems to me that if you truly feel the way you say you do, if your dislike of others is as deep as you describe, then that would inevitably be reflected in the way you govern your people. And yet I saw no signs of fear of you, or of dislike, among the people I saw today."
He grunted deep in his chest. "That simply proves my point. They are untrustworthy."
I looked him straight in the eye. "That's not true, and you don't even expect me to believe it. Do you?"
When he answered, I detected a glint of humour in his eyes. "Go back to what I said before," he said. "I like some people I have come to know casually without befriending them."
"A whole town full of them?" He shrugged and I continued. "Perhaps a kingdom full?"
"No! Stay with the town, for now. Those who live there are those with whom I can live."
"And the others, beyond the town?"
"In the farms, you mean? Those too."
"So? That would make you a good king, Derek, not a cynic or a misanthrope."
"A what?"
"Someone who hates everyone."
"Aye, well, Fortune has made me a king, and so I can have those people I dislike stay far away, as long as I possess the strength to hold them off."
"And the seven years?" I saw from his expression that he had not understood me. "You told me you have not had a sword in your hand for seven years. That indicates a lack of need for harshness."
"Does it? I think not. I said I had not held a sword. I didn't say I've lost the ability to swing one."
I smiled and raised my hands in surrender. "So be it. You said at the start that we were drifting off topic. Now we've done it again. Why did you ask me about liking people?"
"Because we were talking about resentment. I was seeking it in you. I choose to believe that the majority of people are ruthlessly self-centred. That ruthlessness is all- important to a man in my position, to be ignored at his peril. People like those I'm speaking of, the resentful ones, see kindness in others—or call it tolerance, compassion or forbearance, what you will—as a weakness to be exploited. Yet at the same time—and here is where it made no sense at all to me at first—they perceive that acceptance of any kindness indicates a weakness in themselves. That means the wise man should be wary of those to whom he has shown favour in the past, because such people will convince themselves that, in preferring them, he has somehow demeaned them."