The Road to Avalon (2 page)

Merlin had straightened too. “I will,” he replied.

“And”—Uther’s pale eyes held Merlin’s—“we will say nothing of this to Igraine.”

After a moment Merlin nodded.

“Good.” The word from Uther was both an approval and a dismissal.

The following morning Merlin left Venta and rode west to Cornwall, the same journey he had made over eight years before when he had been escorting a woman and a baby into exile.

Malwyn’s village was some miles east of Tintagel, a long weary ride from Venta. Merlin took Roman roads until he reached Isca Dumnoniorum, and from there he went along local tracks. He stopped at an inn once but otherwise made camp by himself. He was fifty-six years of age, but he had been a soldier under Uther’s father, Constantine, and he had not forgotten his skills.

Malwyn’s village, like most of the villages scattered throughout the Cornish peninsula, was purely Celtic. The Roman legions who had occupied Britain for so many hundreds of years had scarcely left a mark beyond the Tamar. It was early afternoon when Merlin rode into the circle of stone huts that composed the village. The sun was warm and he saw a number of small children and pigs, but no adults. Then an elderly woman came out of one of the huts and blinked in the sunshine. Merlin called to her and she waited while he dismounted. The mud squished under his feet as he approached her. “Which of these houses belongs to Malwyn?” he asked in British.

A blank look was his only answer. He tried again, speaking more slowly. “Malwyn,” the old woman repeated. She squinted up at him, her eyes almost hidden in a mass of wrinkles. “She be the one with the bastard boy?”

It had been thought best to have Malwyn say that Arthur was her own child. Merlin’s mouth folded at the corners. “Yes,” he said.

“She be dead.”

“Dead?”

“Aye. She died long years ago.” The old woman looked dimly satisfied. “She were one of them Christians,” she added, as if that should explain matters.

“If she is dead, then where is the boy?” Merlin asked sharply.

“He bides with Esus. Her brother.”

“And which dwelling belongs to Esus?”

The old woman pointed and Merlin turned and walked through the mud toward the indicated hut. He bent his head at the door and called, but there was no reply. He ducked inside for a moment, long enough to see the bareness and smell the odor of animals and ascertain the single room was empty. Once outside, he took a deep breath of air. He had not remembered that the place looked like that.

Evidently some of the children had gone running for their mothers, for as he stood there, uncertain where to look next, two young women with children in their arms and at their skirts appeared from behind a clump of trees. Merlin led his horse toward them. “I am looking for Esus,” he said slowly. “Do you know where he is?”

The women exchanged glances; then the smaller one spoke. “In the fields, with the other men.”

“And Esus’ wife?”

A surprised look. “Esus has no wife.”

Merlin took a deep breath. “And the boy?”

The women looked at each other again, and this time the taller of the two answered him. “The boy is with the sheep, as usual.”

“Where are the sheep?” Merlin asked, and the two of them pointed to a grassy hill about a mile in the distance.

Merlin rode slowly toward the sloping green hill where the village sheep were pastured, and his thoughts were not pleasant. They had not done well, he and Uther, by this boy. Someone, during all these years, should have come to see how things were with him. Uther’s son. His own grandson. Living in that stinking hovel. For how long had Malwyn been dead?

The sheep were grazing on the hill and, seated under a hawthorn bush carving a piece of wood with a knife, was a boy. Merlin walked his horse slowly toward the seated figure and then, when he was almost in front of him, dismounted.

“Arthur?” he asked, his voice not as steady as he would have liked.

The boy had been watching him come. At the name he nodded warily, put down his carving, and stood up. Something about him reminded Merlin forcibly of an animal at bay.

“There is no need to be frightened,” he said gently. “I won’t hurt you.”

The boy’s face was blank and shuttered. He said nothing. Merlin softly stroked his horse’s nose and looked at his grandson.

The boy was Uther’s, there could be no mistake about that: the ink-black hair, the dark brows and lashes, the light gray eyes. But the bone structure was Igraine’s. He was dressed like a peasant and his hair was greasy and there was a dirt smudge on one high cheekbone, but he wore his heritage in every lineament of his face.

Merlin searched for what to say. That blank, shuttered look rejected him before he had even begun. “Arthur,” he began determinedly, “I am here as an emissary from your father.”

The boy said nothing. The look on his face did not change.

“He . . . he did not know that your . . . that Malwyn was dead.”

Still nothing.

“How old were you when she died?”

There was a long pause. Merlin was beginning to wonder if the boy had been able to understand him, when Arthur finally spoke. “I don’t know.” His British was the local dialect; his voice was sullen.

Merlin stared at his grandson in frustration. Finally he said baldly, “I have come to take you away.”

Something flashed briefly behind those gray eyes before the shutters came down again. But it was a reaction. Encouraged, Merlin went on with the story he had prepared during his journey to Cornwall. It had to do with Arthur’s fictitious father being an old army friend of his. Flavius, he named him. Flavius had been married, he told the boy, and so unable to marry Malwyn. But he had always intended to send for Arthur. When Flavius had died a few months ago, Merlin had promised to look out for the boy. And so here he was, come to take Arthur home.

The story had not sounded very plausible even when he thought it up. It sounded even less plausible now as he confronted the still, closed face of his grandson. No, Merlin thought heavily, they had not done well by Arthur at all.

For the first time the boy volunteered speech. “Will he let me go?” he asked.

“Do you mean Esus?”

“Yes.”

“I have not yet spoken to him. But he has no claim on you, boy. He will let you go.”

A breeze came rustling up the hill, making Merlin’s cloak swirl around him, lifting the tangled black hair off Arthur’s forehead. It should be a beautiful face, Merlin thought, but it was marred by that sullen, withdrawn expression. “Come,” he said decisively, “we will go and find Esus.”

It was not, in fact, quite as simple as Merlin had anticipated, the business of removing Arthur from his guardian. Esus, large, grim-faced, argumentative, was not inclined to give the boy up easily. It was a matter, Merlin finally gathered, of the yearly payments from Uther.

He got Arthur, finally, because of who he was. Even in Cornwall they knew of Merlin, the Romano-Celtic prince who had been one of Constantine’s captains, who was the father of the queen. He got Arthur, although Esus had not liked it. All through the long discussion the boy had sat to the side and said nothing. When bidden, he had made a packet of his belongings and followed Merlin. He had said nothing to Esus at the parting.

It was late afternoon when they left the village, but Merlin had no disposition to linger within its inhospitable environs. He would be more comfortable sleeping under the stars than in that circular hut with the smoke and the pigs and Esus’ hostility.

They made camp beside a small stream and Merlin shot a rabbit with his bow. The boy ate the meat hungrily and lay down obediently at Merlin’s command. He was asleep almost instantly.

Merlin looked at the tousled black hair of his sleeping grandson, illuminated by the dying light of the fire. The boy was no dirtier than most village-dwellers, but he was a long way from Merlin’s fastidious Roman standards of cleanliness. Tomorrow, he thought, he would bathe Arthur in the stream. He had brought fresh clothes for the boy in his own saddlebag. With a bath and clean clothes, the boy would look presentable enough to bring to Avalon.

Arthur made no objection when Merlin announced his intentions the following morning. The sun was bright and warm and Merlin even went so far as to strip himself and step into the cold, running water. Arthur followed suit a little gingerly. Clearly, bathing was not a familiar occupation for him. The sun slanted through the trees, casting dapples of light and shade on the water and on their naked bodies. Merlin watched Arthur’s tentative splashes, and reached out toward the boy to wet his hair. Arthur, moving like lightning, leapt back out of his reach. Merlin was so startled he almost lost his balance.

The boy’s fists were raised in front of him, his whole thin, child’s body tensed. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled.

Merlin stared, stunned by the expression on the boy’s face. After a moment, when he had recovered his breath, “I was just going to wash your hair,” he said quietly.

“I’ll do it,” Arthur said. Then, “I don’t like to be touched.”

“All right,” Merlin replied with as much composure as he could muster. “You do it, then.”

When they were finished bathing, and Arthur was dry, Merlin brought out the clothes from his saddlebag. “For you,” he said. He did not attempt to hand them to the boy, but laid them down and backed away so that Arthur could pick them up himself.

The mark on the boy’s cheek had not been dirt but a fading bruise. And as Arthur had washed in the stream, Merlin had clearly seen the thin white scars that crisscrossed the boy’s back and buttocks and thighs.

No wonder Arthur had made no complaint about leaving Esus.

Merlin’s thoughts were bleak as he broke camp and prepared to start north and east. Whether Arthur would make a king or no, he was thankful he had come to Cornwall to find this grandson. He only hoped, for both their sakes, that he had not come too late.

Chapter 2

M
ERLIN
got him a pony. There were only two horses in the village and Arthur had never ridden them, but he did not tell that to Merlin. Instead he watched carefully as Merlin mounted, and then he did the same.

The pony was splendid. Arthur let his legs hang down and relaxed into the horse’s back. He could feel the stretch of muscles right through the saddle.

The man, Merlin, was talking. “We are going to my villa of Avalon. Avalon will be your new home. I think you will like it. It’s called Avalon because of its apple orchards. It’s famous for its apple orchards.”

The man spoke softly, gently, clearly. As if he were speaking to an idiot, Arthur thought. He shot Merlin a look from under lowered lashes. He didn’t know what the man’s motives were, but he didn’t trust him. It wasn’t likely that he had ridden all the way into Cornwall just to collect the son of an “old friend.”

“It used to be one of the most famous villas in the country,” the man was going on. “My family were princes of the Durotriges tribe and they built the villa as their palace.” The old man gave him a deprecating look. “It’s not a palace any longer, Arthur. It is a working farm. But in these troubled days, it is luxury to have all you need at your fingertips, I suppose.”

Princes of the Durotriges. Arthur was even more suspicious. What could this man want with him? A sudden thought crossed his mind. He had heard of what some men did with boys. His nostrils flared a little as he looked at the man riding so calmly beside him.

Iron-gray hair, still very thick. Finely drawn features. Blue eyes. His red woolen cloak was clasped at his shoulder by a brooch of obvious value. Arthur relaxed a little. Such a man would not need to seek out an obscure Cornish boy to satisfy his deviant tastes.

Merlin was still talking about this Avalon. “There are several other people living in the house besides myself. First there is Ector, my steward and my friend. He was a soldier under Ambrosius before he was wounded. He has a son who also lives at Avalon. Caius, or Cai as he is always called. You and he can have lessons together. He is about your age.”

Arthur was not sure of his own age. He said, looking straight ahead, “How old is this Cai?”

“Ten. A year older than you.”

Nine. The old man sounded very positive about that. “He’s big for his age,” Merlin was going on, “but very nice. You won’t have to worry about Cai.”

Arthur was not worried about any boy. He had learned long ago to take care of himself with other boys. He said, a little gruffly, “I don’t know how to read. Or write.”

“Of course you don’t. How should you?” Merlin responded easily. “That will come first, naturally. I think I shall start by giving you lessons with Morgan. Morgan is my daughter. She’s eight and it’s time she learned to read and write too.”

Lessons with a girl. Well, he would take lessons with a dog if he had to. He would do anything to learn to read.

And no matter what happened, or what the old man’s motives were, at least Merlin had taken him away from
him.

It was late in the afternoon of a golden spring day that Arthur first saw Avalon, of the apple trees. The orchards were in bloom and they rode in through a magnificent canopy of blossoms, pink and white against the green grass and the cobalt sky. For a brief moment Arthur found himself wondering if the old man might be one of the fairy folk taking him to an enchanted world beyond the earth.

Merlin was watching his face. “Arthur,” he asked gently. “Do you never smile?”

Arthur stiffened and just then the house came into view.

It had been built as a palace, Merlin had told him, and it looked like a palace to Arthur. The single-story house was built of gray stone and stretched out on three sides of a great cobbled courtyard. “The main part of the house is the wing in front of us,” Merlin was saying as they rode into the courtyard. “That wing,” and he gestured to their right, “is mainly bedrooms, and this opposite wing contains the baths.” He halted his horse and shouted. In a minute a man came running.

“Welcome home, my lord”.

“Thank you, Marcus. Take the horses to the stable, please.”