Crystal Cave (23 page)

"You mean that if there is any paying to be done, you're offering to do it?"

"Well, it seems only fair, and after all, I can afford to." I laughed at him, secure behind my invisible shield.

"What's it to be? An old-fashioned religion like yours must have a few minor penalties held in reserve?

Shall I die of the cramps in my sleep tonight, or get ripped by a boar next time I ride in the forest without my black dog?"

He smiled for the first time. "You needn't think you'll escape quite freely. I've a use for you and this Sight of yours, be sure of that. Ambrosius is not the only one who uses men for what they are worth, and I intend to use you. You have told me you were led here tonight; it was the Goddess herself who led you, and to the Goddess you must go." He dropped an arm round my shoulders. "You are going to pay for this night's work, Merlin Emrys, in coin that will content her. The Goddess is going to hunt you down, as she does all men who spy on her mystery — but not to destroy you. Oh, no; not Actaeon, my apt little scholar, but Endymion. She will take you into her embrace. In other words, you are going to study until I can take you with me to the sanctuary, and present you there."

I would have liked to say, "Not if you wrapped my guts round every tree in the forest," but I held my tongue. Take power where it is offered, he had said, and — remembering my vigil by the ash tree —

there had been power there, of a kind. We should see. I moved — but courteously — from under the arm round my shoulders, and led the way up into the grove.

If Ulfin had been frightened before, he was almost speechless with terror when he saw me with his master, and realized where I had been.

"My lord...I thought he had gone home...Indeed, my lord, Cadal said —"

"Hand me my cloak," said Belasius, "and put this thing in the saddle-bag."

He threw down the white robe which he had been carrying. It fell loosely, unfolding, near the tree Aster was tied to, and as it dropped near him, the pony shied and snorted. At first I thought this was just at the ghostly fall of white near his feet, but then I saw, black on the white, dimmed even as it was by the darkness of the grove, the stains and splashing, and I smelled, even from where I stood, the smoke and the fresh blood.

Ulfin held the cloak up mechanically. "My lord" — he was breathless with fear and the effort of holding the restive horse at the same time — "Cadal took the pack horse. We thought my lord Merlin had gone back to the town. Indeed, sir, I was sure myself that he had gone that way. I told him nothing. I swear

—"

"There's a saddle-bag on Cadal's mare. Put it there." Belasius pulled his cloak on and fastened it, then reached for the reins. "Hand me up."

The boy obeyed, trying, I could see, not only to excuse himself, but to gauge the strength of Belasius'

anger. "My lord, please believe me, I said nothing. I'll swear it by any gods there are."

Belasius ignored him. He could be cruel, I knew; in fact, in all the time I knew him he never once spared a thought for another's anxiety or pain: more exactly, it never occurred to him that feeling could exist, even in a free man. Ulfin must have seemed at that moment less real to him than the horse he was controlling. He swung easily to the saddle, saying curtly, "Stand back." Then to me, "Can you manage the mare if we gallop? I want to get back before Cadal finds you're not home, and sets the place by the ears."

"I can try. What about Ulfin?"

"What about him? He'll walk your pony home, of course."

He swung his horse round, and rode out between the pine boughs. Ulfin had already run to bundle up the bloodstained robe and stuff it in the brown mare's saddle-bag. He hurried now to give me his shoulder, and somehow between us I scrambled into the saddle and settled myself. The boy stood back, silent, but I had felt how he was shaking. I suppose that for a slave it was normal to be so afraid. It came to me that he was even afraid to lead my pony home alone through the forest.

I hung on the rein for a moment and leaned down. "Ulfin, he's not angry with you; nothing will happen. I swear it. So don't be afraid."

"Did you...see anything, my lord?"

"Nothing at all." In the way that mattered this was the truth. I looked down at him soberly. "A blaze of darkness," I said, "and an innocent moon. But whatever I might have seen, Ulfin, it would not have mattered. I am to be initiated. So you see why he is not angry? That is all. Here, take this."

I slid my dagger from its sheath and flicked it to quiver point down in the pine needles.

"If it makes you easier," I said, "but you won't need it. You will be quite safe. Take it from me. I know.

Lead my pony gently, won't you?"

I kicked the mare in the ribs and headed her after Belasius.

He was waiting for me — that is to say he was going at an easy canter, which quickened to a hand-gallop as I caught him up. The brown mare pounded behind him. I gripped the neck-strap and clung like a burr.

The track was open enough for us to see our way clearly in the moonlight. It sliced its way uphill through the forest to a crest from which, momentarily, one could see the glimmer of the town's lights. Then it plunged downhill again, and after a while we rode out of the forest on to the salt plains that fringed the sea.

Belasius neither slackened speed nor spoke. I hung on to the mare, watched the track over her shoulder, and wondered whether we would meet Cadal coming back for me with an escort, or if he would come alone.

We splashed through a stream, fetlock-deep, and then the track, beaten flat along the level turf, turned right in the direction of the main road. I knew where we were now; on our ride out I had noticed this track branching off just short of a bridge at the forest's edge. In a few minutes we would reach the bridge and the made road.

Belasius slackened his horse's pace and glanced over his shoulder. The mare thudded alongside, then he put up a hand and drew rein. The horses slowed to a walk.

"Listen."

Horses. A great many horses, coming at a fast trot along the paved road. They were making for the town.

A man's voice was briefly raised. Over the bridge came a flurry of tossing torches, and we saw them, a troop riding close. The standard in the torchlight showed a scarlet dragon.

Belasius' hand came hard down on my rein, and our horses stopped.

"Ambrosius' men," he said, at least that is what he began to say when, clear as cock-crow, my mare whinnied, and a horse from the troop answered her.

Someone barked an order. The troop checked. Another order, and horses headed our way at the gallop. I heard Belasius curse under his breath as he let go my rein.

"This is where you leave me. Hang on now, and see you guard your tongue. Even Ambrosius' arm cannot protect you from a curse." He lashed my mare across the quarters, and she jumped forward, nearly unseating me. I was too busy to watch him go, but behind me there was a splash and a scramble as the black horse jumped the stream and was swallowed by the forest seconds before the soldiers met me and wheeled to either side to escort me back to their officer.

The grey stallion was fidgeting in the blaze of torches under the standard. One of my escorts had hold of the mare's bit, and led me forward.

He saluted. "Only the one, sir. He's not armed."

The officer pushed up his visor. Blue eyes widened, and Uther's too-well-remembered voice said: "It had to be you, of course. Well, Merlin the bastard, what are you doing here alone, and where have you been?"

I didn't answer straight away. I was wondering how much to say. To any other officer I might have told a quick and easy half-truth, but Uther was likely to ride me hard, and for anyone who had been at a meeting both "secret and illegal," Uther was not just any officer, he was dangerous. Not that there was any reason for me to protect Belasius, but I did not owe information — or explanation — to anyone but Ambrosius. In any case, to steer aside from Uther's anger came naturally.

So I met his eyes with what I hoped was an expression of frankness. "My pony went lame, sir, so I left my servant to walk him home, and took my servant's horse to ride back myself." As he opened his mouth to speak, I hoisted the invisible shield that Belasius had put into my hand. "Usually your brother sends for me after supper, and I didn't wish to keep him waiting."

His brows snapped down at my mention of Ambrosius, but all he said was: "Why that way, at this hour?

Why not by the road?"

"We'd gone some way into the forest when Aster hurt himself. We had turned east at the crossways into the logging track, and there was a path branching south from that which looked like a quicker way home, so we took it. The moonlight made it quite easy to see."

"Which path was this?"

"I don't know the forest, sir. It climbed the ridge and then down to a ford about a mile downstream."

He considered me for a moment, frowning. "Where did you leave your servant?"

"A little way along the second path. We wanted to be quite sure that it was the right way before he let me come on alone. He'll be about climbing the ridge now, I should think." I was praying, confusedly but sincerely, to whatever god might be listening, that Cadal was not at the moment riding back from town to find me.

Uther regarded me, sitting his fidgeting horse as if it did not exist. It was the first time I had realized how like his brother he was. And for the first time, too, I recognized something like power in him, and understood, young as I was, what Ambrosius had told me about his brilliance as a captain. He could judge men to a hairsbreadth. I knew he was looking straight through me, scenting a lie, not knowing where, or why, but wondering. And determined to find out...

For once he spoke quite pleasantly, without heat, even gently. "You're lying, aren't you? Why?"

"It's quite true, my lord. If you look at my pony when he comes in —"

"Oh, yes, that was true. I've no doubt I'll find he's lame. And if I send men back up the path they'll find Cadal leading him home. But what I want to know —"

I said quickly: "Not Cadal, my lord; Ulfin. Cadal had other duties, and Belasius sent Ulfin with me."

"Two of a kind?" The words were contemptuous.

"My lord?"

His voice cracked suddenly with temper. "Don't bandy words with me, you little catamite. You're lying about something, and I want to know what. I can smell a lie a mile off." Then he looked past me, and his voice changed. "What's that in your saddle-bag?" A jerk of his head at one of the soldiers flanking me. A corner of Belasius' robe was showing. The man thrust his hand into the bag and pulled it out. On the soiled and crumpled white the stains showed dark and unmistakable. I could smell the blood even through the bubbling resin of the torches.

Behind Uther the horses snorted and tossed their heads, scenting it, and the men looked at one another.

I saw the torch-bearers eyeing me askance, and the guard beside me muttered something under his breath.

Uther said, violently: "By all the gods below, so that was it! One of them, by Mithras! I should have known, I can smell the holy smoke on you from here! All right, bastard, you that's so mighty free with my brother's name, and so high in his favour, we'll see what he has to say to this. What have you to say for yourself now? There's not much point in denying it, is there?"

I lifted my head. Sitting the big mare, I could meet him almost eye to eye. "Deny? I'm denying that I've broken a law, or done anything the Count wouldn't like — and those are the only two things that matter, my lord Uther. I'll explain to him."

"By God you will! So Ulfin took you there?"

I said sharply: "Ulfin had nothing to do with it. I had already left him. In any case, he is a slave, and does as I bid him."

He spurred his horse suddenly, right up to the mare. He leaned forward, gripping the folds of my cloak at the neck, and tightening the grip till he half-lifted me from the saddle. His face was thrust close to mine, his armed knee hurting my leg as the horses stamped and sidled together. He spoke through his teeth.

"And you do as I bid you, hear that. Whatever you may be to my brother, you obey me, too." He tightened the grip still further, shaking me. "Understand, Merlin Emrys?"

I nodded. He swore as my brooch-pin scratched him, and let me go. There was a streak of blood on his hand. I saw his eyes on the brooch. He flicked his fingers to the torch-bearer, and the man pushed nearer, holding the flame high. "He gave you that to wear? The red dragon?" Then he stopped short as his eyes came up to my face and fixed there, stared, widened. The intense blue seemed to blaze. The grey stallion sidled and he curbed it sharply, so that the foam sprang.

"Merlin Emrys..." He said it again, this time to himself, so softly that I hardly caught it. Then suddenly he let out a laugh, amused and gay and hard, not like anything I had heard from him before.

"Well, Merlin Emrys, you'll still have to answer to him for where you've been tonight!" He wheeled his horse, flinging over his shoulder to the men: "Bring him along, and see he doesn't fall off. It seems my brother treasures him."

The grey horse jumped under the spur, and the troop surged after him. My captors, still holding the brown mare's bridle, pounded after, with me between them.

The druid's robe lay trampled and filthy in the dirt, where the troop had ridden over it. I wondered if Belasius would see it and take warning.

Then I forgot him. I still had Ambrosius to face.

Cadal was in my room. I said with relief: "Well, thank the gods you didn't come back after me. I was picked up by Uther's lot, and he's blazing mad because he knows where I went."

"I know," said Cadal grimly, "I saw it."

"What do you mean?"

"I did ride back for you. I'd made sure you'd had the sense to run for home when you heard that...noise, so I went after you. When I saw no sign of you on the way I just thought you must have got a tidy turn of speed out of the mare — the ground was fair smoking under me, I can tell you! Then when —"

"You guessed what was happening? Where Belasius was?"