The Road to Avalon (6 page)

“You don’t look as if you care for our ponies.” The voice spoke British colored by the soft lilt of Wales, and Arthur’s head swung around. A young giant was standing next to him. Arthur looked up and encountered the very blue eyes and fair gilt-colored hair of the pure Celt. The expression in those blue eyes was not friendly.

Arthur’s reply was noncommittal. “They’re nice ponies.”

“But, from the look on your face, not good enough for you.” The boy’s voice was soft but its expression was as unfriendly as the look in his eyes.

“I was looking for something bigger,” Arthur said.

“You?” The blue eyes measured him derisively.

“Yes.”

The blond threw back his head. “I have a horse you might like.” He smiled maliciously. “He’s big. Very big. And a stallion. Want to try him?”

“Yes,” said Arthur without hesitation. “I do.”

He followed the big Celt out behind the pony area, beyond the tents and stalls, to a place which was obviously a camp. “Over here,” the boy said across his shoulder, and led the way to where a single horse was picketed. “Sodak,” he said softly, and a black head looked up from its grazing.

Arthur stood like a statue and stared. The black was the most magnificent animal he had ever seen: huge, muscled, his coat glowing like polished silk in the brilliant sunshine.

“Want to ride him?” the blond boy asked.

Arthur nodded mutely.

The other boy misunderstood his silence and smiled. “I’ll saddle him for you,” he said.

The stallion’s ears went back as soon as he was approached with a bridle, and it took the two of them to get it and the saddle on. “Ready?” the blond said, grasped Arthur’s knee in his hands, and tossed him into the saddle.

The black’s head came up and Arthur could feel all its muscles tense. The stallion felt like a coiled spring beneath him. Before he could get his head down to buck, however, Arthur smacked him behind the saddle with his hand. Hard. The stallion changed his mind and sprang forward, at a dead run.

There was a field behind the encampment and Arthur headed there, leaning forward on the stallion’s back, almost lost in the streaming black mane.

Never had he felt such power. After a few turns around the field the black’s pace slackened and Arthur was able to take a feel of his mouth. He pressed with his leg and steered to the left and the black obediently followed his aids. Arthur laughed out loud. This was heaven.

It was with great reluctance that he finally brought the stallion back to its owner walking quietly. The blond boy took the bridle and grinned up at him, blue eyes full of undisguised admiration. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Gods, but you can ride!” Then, as Arthur slid to the ground, “My name is Bedwyr. What’s yours?”

“Arthur,” Arthur replied, and returned the grin. “What a horse! Is he for sale?”

A shadow flickered across Bedwyr’s smile. “No, he’s not. And he’s not my horse, he’s my father’s.” He looked at the sweating animal. “I’m going to be in trouble if my father sees him like this. I should never have let you ride him.”

“You thought he would just buck me off and go back to grazing,” Arthur said excusingly.

Bedwyr nodded. “You didn’t
look
as if you could ride him,” he replied.

“I’ll help you walk him out,” Arthur offered, and the two boys stripped the stallion’s saddle off, ducking the lashing hooves dexterously, and began to walk him slowly around the field, Bedwyr holding the reins and Arthur walking on the horse’s other side.

“Where did your father find such a horse?” Arthur asked.

“He comes from Gaul. My father bought him from a Goth a few years ago to improve our own stock.”

“He breeds those ponies to him?” Arthur asked in astonishment.

“No.” Bedwyr gave Arthur a disgusted look. “We have some good mares at home. These,” and he waved toward the ponies, “are the stock we are trying to unload.”

“And you were insulted when I didn’t want to buy them,” Arthur said dryly.

Bedwyr’s white teeth flashed. “Well,” he said. And shrugged.

“Where do your people live?”

“In Dyfed. My father is King Ban.”

So. This big blond boy with the magnificent horse was a prince. That accounted, Arthur supposed, for the obviously valuable arm rings that Bedwyr wore. Arthur reached up to pat the muscled neck of the stallion, and the horse turned on him with bared teeth. Arthur removed his arm from the path of the snapping teeth and said to Bedwyr, “Is he always this nasty?”

“He killed a man on the boat from Gaul,” Bedwyr replied with what sounded suspiciously like pride. “He’s a vicious brute, but his foals are magnificent. My father gave me one of his colts this spring.”

When the horse was breathing quietly they brushed off the saddle marks and picketed him to graze. As they moved off together in the direction of the fair, Arthur said, “I have to meet my friend.”

“I’ll come with you,” Bedwyr offered, and Arthur nodded. The two boys had reached the fairgrounds and were making their way up a narrow alley behind a row of stalls when there was the patter of feet behind them and suddenly Bedwyr was surrounded by four men. Arthur had been a little in front, and when he heard Bedwyr’s yell he turned. The men were grabbing for Bedwyr’s arm rings, but the blond boy fought them off with startling ferocity. Without a moment’s hesitation, Arthur plunged in to help.

Bedwyr was enormously strong, and two of the men, recoiling from his blows, turned to the smaller, slighter boy who had come back to assist his friend. One man found himself thrown across Arthur’s shoulder. Another, coming at him with upraised fists, got a chop on the side of the neck that stopped him dead. Bedwyr’s fist sent a third flying through the air. Abruptly the boys were alone.

They regarded each other with mutual satisfaction. “You shouldn’t wear all that fancy jewelry around a fair,” Arthur said reprovingly.

Bedwyr’s eyes were brilliantly blue. “Gods,” he said. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

“At home,” Arthur replied laconically. He looked up at the sky. “Come on. I’m late meeting Morgan.”

Morgan was sitting on an old saddle in front of the herb woman’s stall when she saw him coming toward her, accompanied by a big boy with long silver-blond hair. “Sorry,” Arthur called as soon as he was within earshot. “I got delayed.”

“That’s all right,” Morgan replied equably, and got to her feet.

Bedwyr stared at the small, fragile-looking girl. “Is
this
your friend?” he asked Arthur.

Before Arthur could reply, however, Morgan spoke. “Whom were you fighting?” she asked Arthur, and looked with resignation at the blood on his lip.

“Some men jumped us,” he answered cheerfully. “They wanted Bedwyr’s arm rings. Morgan, this is Bedwyr. He has the most magnificent horse. You must come to see him.”

Morgan’s brown eyes moved to Bedwyr. “Hello, Bedwyr,” she said. “Do you mind if I come to see your horse?”

Bedwyr found himself smiling at her. “You’ll have to be careful,” he cautioned. “He isn’t safe.”

Morgan’s brown head nodded in acknowledgment. “Before we leave, though, perhaps you ought to take off those arm rings.”

Bedwyr grinned and complied, slipping them inside his tunic as the three of them walked off. He would never have taken them off at anyone else’s suggestion, Arthur thought with amusement as they weaved in and out among the stalls. Wait until he saw Morgan with his vicious stallion!

They were moving through the area of food stalls and the crowd was getting thicker. Arthur took Morgan’s hand. “You go first, Bedwyr,” he said as he slipped Morgan deftly between the Celt and himself. “You’re the biggest.”

The black was still grazing when they arrived back at the Dyfed camp. He raised his head and looked at them suspiciously as they approached.

“Oh, Arthur,” Morgan breathed.

Arthur nodded tensely. “Bedwyr says he came from Gaul.”

“Hello, my beauty,” said Morgan, and began to walk toward the horse.

“Watch out!” Bedwyr reached to stop her but his own arm was caught and held immobile by steel-hard fingers.

“Wait,” said Arthur. “Watch.”

Bedwyr stood still, astonished by the strength of those thin fingers, and did as he was commanded. The stallion watched Morgan approaching him, his ears flicking back and forth. Bedwyr was amazed to see that he was trembling. The girl was talking to him in a series of chirps and soft sounds that the Celt had never heard before. She reached the stallion and stood quietly before him, still talking. He snorted, but his eyes never left her. Then she raised a hand and patted the side of his neck. For a moment the two stayed thus, as if carved in marble, and then the stallion lowered his head and she was rubbing his forehead. He began to nuzzle her clothes.

“I don’t believe it. Is it magic?” Bedwyr turned to Arthur and surprised a very revealing expression on the other boy’s face. Oh, thought Bedwyr, so that’s how it is.

Then the expression was gone, and Arthur said to him, “Not magic, just Morgan. She can do anything with an animal.”

“It is amazing,” Bedwyr replied slowly, and looked thoughtfully back at the girl who was gentling his father’s vicious horse. “Where do you two come from?” he asked.

“From Dumnonia,” Arthur replied. “From the villa of Avalon.”

Avalon was a name that Bedwyr knew. His head jerked around. “Merlin’s villa?”

“Yes.” Arthur’s face was composed, unreadable.

“But who are you?” Bedwyr asked in confusion.

“Morgan is Merlin’s daughter.” There was an almost imperceptible pause. “And he is my guardian,” Arthur added.

“I see,” said Bedwyr, although he didn’t.

Arthur absently flexed one lean brown wrist. “We came to sell our produce at the fair.” Morgan was coming toward them now. She reached the boys and looked up. The top of her head reached to Arthur’s eyes; Bedwyr towered over her. The sun shone on her peach-colored cheeks.

“Your dream horse,” she said to Arthur. Then, looking at Bedwyr, “Are there more like him?”

“His oldest get are now three-year-olds,” Bedwyr replied.

“But there are more in Gaul?” It was Arthur speaking now.

“I suppose so. Among the Goths, at any rate.” He looked at the two of them in some bewilderment. “Why is it so important?”

Arthur’s eyes, so arrestingly light in his deeply tanned face, looked Bedwyr up and down. Bedwyr found himself holding his breath. It was suddenly of vital importance to him to be found worthy of this black-haired boy’s confidence.

Arthur had made up his mind. He smiled at Bedwyr and said casually, “One day I want to form a cavalry unit to fight against the Saxons.”

The blue eyes blazed. “A cavalry unit? Like the Goths?”

“Yes,” said Arthur. “Heavy cavalry. Like the Goths.”

Bedwyr’s splendid face was perfectly serious. “When you are ready to form your cavalry unit,” he said, “send for me.”

“Yes,” replied Arthur with equal seriousness, “I will.” And it did not seem strange to either boy that Bedwyr, the prince, had put himself at the other’s command.

Over that winter Horatius began to fail. Moving was an obvious effort for him and he would lie for hours near the charcoal brazier in Morgan’s room, watching her out of dreamy, half-closed eyes. Several times a day Arthur would carry him out to the grass at the back of the house and then carry him back to Morgan’s room.

In March he began to refuse food. Merlin wanted to end it for him, but Morgan refused, saying he was not in pain. “Let him die in his own way,” she said to Arthur.

On an early spring day of diffused sunshine, Arthur carried Horatius out to the grass for the last time. Morgan sat with him as he lay with his head on his front paws, his eyes clouded, his sides trembling with each breath.

He was still alive when Arthur came down after his morning practice session with weapons, and so both youngsters were with him when he died.

They told no one at first. Arthur dug a grave for him in the woods behind the house and carried him out to it, a long walk burdened with Horatius’ deadweight. Morgan put some hay in the bottom of the grave to soften it; then they put the dog in and covered him over.

“How is Horatius?” Merlin asked his daughter at dinner.

Arthur answered for her. “He died this afternoon, sir. We buried him in the woods.”

“I see,” said Merlin quietly. He looked at his daughter’s averted face and said nothing more.

After dinner Morgan slipped away to look at Horatius’ grave. Then she took her pony out to the tree house, where she sat huddled against the trunk, staring at the willows on the other side of the river that were just starting to turn green.

After ten minutes she heard Arthur’s voice calling her name.

“Here!” she called back.

She heard his pony coming through the woods, but did not look over the edge of the platform. He swung himself up onto the planking and stopped, looking at her gravely. A lock of black hair fell across his forehead and he brushed it back.

“It’s foolish to grieve for his death, I know,” she said. “He was ready. But, oh, Arthur, I shall miss him so!”

“It’s not foolish to grieve for the loss of a loved one,” he replied and, coming to sit beside her, he gathered her into his arms. She nestled against him, her head falling against his arm, her face turning into his shoulder. She began to cry and he held her closer, his heart aching. He put his cheek against the silky round top of her head.

Her tears stopped, but still they stayed as they were. Arthur felt her against him, so soft and warm, the very heart of his own being. He turned his cheek so that his mouth was against her hair.

She let out a long, uneven sigh and sat up, looking at him, her face very close to his. There were still tears on her cheeks and he touched one with a careful, delicate finger.

“Morgan,” he breathed. Her eyes were so dark and yet so luminous. He leaned his face closer and, very gently, his mouth touched hers.

It was a very soft kiss, very tentative. Close as they had been for all these years, they had never before done this. Their lips parted and two pairs of eyes, one dark and one light, searched each other. Then, with one accord, they moved again into each other’s arms. He kissed her mouth this time with trembling fierceness, and she reached her arms up around his neck, and her hair streamed like a silken mantle down over his wrists and spilled on the wooden planks of the tree-house floor.