Merlin's Blade (19 page)

Connek slid closer to Merlin. Stopping just short of the inner ring, he concealed himself next to a twiggy druid with a gray tunic.

What are the fools doing?
Connek wondered. Had Gold-neck and the monk started worshiping the Stone too? Or maybe they were just trying to make their own gold coins without permission. No problem, then, for Connek would steal those as well.

Merlin tilted his head slightly to the left, revealing the edge of the torc. The fine metal glittered in the stone's blue flames. All it would take would be one prick of his blade in the right place …

Connek watched Merlin and the monk for several moments as they knelt in front of the stone. Then Merlin pulled some object from a bag and handed it to the monk. Connek wasn't sure what they were up to, but he decided it was high time Merlin got what was coming to him. He smiled at the thought as he edged closer to his prey.

When Dybris saw the flames subside and sink back into the Druid Stone, he knew it was time. He stood and called out, “All of you, listen to me!”

The crowd hushed and the drums stopped.

“You have worshiped this Stone and turned away from the Living Christ who bled for you, but I now Christianize the Stone in your presence!”

Many of the people shouted.

Dybris uncorked the pot and dipped his brush in. Raising the wooden handle, and without glancing at the Stone, he stooped down to its dark surface and pressed the brush against it. Quickly, he painted a large white cross on the top, dipping three times into the colored pigment.

Dybris raised his arms, brush in hand.

“What you worship in confusion, I proclaim to you in truth. Christ is Lord of all. Your Stone has no power over Him, and this sign I have made confirms His Lordship. Continue to worship, but do so to God and not to the false powers of the earth or sky!”

As he finished speaking, a deep rumbling sounded from the Druid Stone, and Dybris eyed it cautiously.

Connek's heart pounded as he pulled the knife from his sleeve. Just a moment more, and the kneeling fool would be dead. A knife in the back, a grab for the torc, and he'd run off into the woods. The opposite direction of those snail-footed warriors, who had stupidly left their horses tied up on the other side of the field and wouldn't be able to catch him.

And then Mórganthu's three gold coins would be his as well. Connek tensed his legs. With a burst of rage, he lunged forward. His clenched fist aimed the death point of the knife straight at Merlin's back.

A sizzling blue flame exploded from the Stone.

The next thing Connek knew, he had been laid out flat on the ground with an incredible weight across his chest and neck, with coarse wool stuffed in his mouth.

People yelled all around him.

Straining, Connek heaved the smothering weight off and found it was the monk. The Druid Stone must have blown him away from Merlin. Rat tails! There was still enough time to make a kill. Connek searched frantically for his knife, but it was nowhere in sight.

The bellowing increased even as the flames blazed up from the Stone. Connek turned to face it, and the freshly painted cross smoked away in one swift moment. Not even a trace was left behind.

Even without the knife, he could still steal the torc! He stood just as the angry crowd surged forward.

“Stand back!” Merlin shouted as he swung his staff to ward the people away.

Taking his last chance, Connek dove under the whirling stick and slid a finger under the golden torc.

But the mauling crowd thrust him down, and his prize was lost. A bare, smelly foot stepped on his face, and Connek fought to free himself from the mob. They beat Merlin and Dybris as the frustrated thief pulled his brown hood over his stinging face and slunk away, cursing.

Owain heard the uproar and looked with alarm at the sudden riot.

He handed some coins to his daughter, told her to take care of her mother, and ran toward the pulsing mob. A few steps behind the warriors, he dodged around Crogen and finally passed Tregeagle and Lictor Erbin, both of whom fumbled for the gold coins the magister had spilled in the confusion.

Vortigern blinked as the throng of villagers began to block his view of the Stone, breaking its hold upon him. His chest felt free now of the pincerlike vise, and he gulped in the air like a greedy man.

Someone tugged at his leather jerkin. “Highest Battle Chief, hear me!” a round monk shouted in front of him. “Stop this riot!”

He shook his head. He longed to punch the man's face, plop his
tubby form to the ground, and continue to look at the Stone and dream again about the glorious future. But the villagers were shouting now, kicking and punching. And thoroughly blocking his view of the marvelous Stone.

“Why should I meddle?” he demanded.

“Because I'm the abbot, and if you don't, I'll tell the High King of the beating, and that you did nothing to stop it!”

Vortigern snarled and pushed the insolent monk away. Who was he to tell Vortigern what to do? But then, the man made
some
sense. Uther would arrive in the morning to inspect the fortress — and to receive the fealty of these unruly people.

Rot. What a mess!
It would go badly for him tomorrow if the people didn't learn to respect his men, for they were truly his, even if not in name. Besides, he wouldn't be able to stare at the Stone again unless he got everyone out of the way.

“Blades up!” he shouted as he pulled his hand-and-a-half sword from the scabbard on his back. All the warriors who had blades did the same, and the sound of ringing steel filled the air. Others brandished their spears.

Shouting a war cry, they rushed right past the monk and into the crowd. Pushing the people away like saplings, the warriors broke into the center.

Merlin huddled before the onslaught, covering his head and protecting his face, but it was no use. Time blurred as each blow found its mark.

Then his assailants inexplicably fell back, leaving Merlin dazed and bruised. He struggled for breath as someone blew a battle horn and the shouting died down.

His ears ringing, Merlin climbed to his knees just as his father arrived.

“I'm here, Merlin —”

Above, Mórganthu shouted, “My people, my people! Why harm these two? Cannot our Druid Stone defend itself?”

Amid the murmurs of the crowd, Merlin heard Crogen instructing monks to pick up Dybris and carry him away.

Mórganthu waved his arms. “Back now and sit, my people.”

The gathering quieted.

“Vortigern, I thank you for stopping this small altercation. You may withdraw your men. We are at peace again.”

Merlin's father whispered, “We need to get away.”

As Merlin stood with his father's support, he found his limbs sound, though sore.

The warriors tromped out of the circle, followed by Merlin and his father, who made it to the open grass beyond the crowd.

“Since you again see the powerlessness of our enemies,” Mórganthu shouted, “I call the uncommitted to join us. Come! Who will show their fealty to the Druid Stone and the safety, happiness, and treasure it offers?”

Merlin heard an excited buzz as many of the villagers went forward and, following Mórganthu's instructions, bowed before the Stone.

“Who went?” Merlin asked as he discovered a bleeding scrape on his left forearm.

“I can hardly tell in the dark, but among the thirty or so who went forward, I saw … wait … it's Tregeagle. Mórganthu's welcoming him and Erbin, and they're bowing down.”

Merlin's thoughts went out to Natalenya. “What will Uther do tomorrow when he finds the magister has given his allegiance to the Stone?”

But before his father could answer, a man rushed onto the green from the road, yelling, “The abbey's on fire!”

Merlin turned, and there beyond the dark eastern arm of the Meneth Gellik, he saw smears of an orange glow billowing out into the night.

D
ybris moaned as someone pressed a cold rag to his forehead.

“Finally awake, eh?”

It was Brother Neot, whispering.

Dybris sat up but regretted it as his head throbbed and his stomach soured. “Where's Merlin?” His voice rasped.

“Wherever … and better off than you.
He
protected his head, but you couldn't, you fool.”

Dybris stretched his neck and regretted that as well. “Go away.”

“Crogen has forbidden me.” Neot wrung his rag into a wooden bowl.

Touching his face carefully, Dybris determined that the left side of his head was swollen, and his eyebrow had a scabby mass. “Where is he?”

“Outside. Weeping.”

Dybris's tongue felt thick as he sipped water from a bowl. “Tell him I've woken.”

“Dreamer! He doesn't weep for you. The druidow burned our abbey last night.”

Dybris looked around the room. He'd thought this was an abbey building, but a glance confirmed that above him hung the ragged thatch around the hole in the roof. Faint light from the morning sun seeped through, revealing the stone walls of the village chapel and his brother monks sleeping in soot-stained garments on the dirt floor and on wooden benches.

“Ah, now you see, don't you, the results of your
fine work
. Herrik ran to us for help, but it was too late. We and a few villagers brought water from our spring, but the fire wouldn't be slaked.” His voice turned bitter. “All our years copying the Scriptures are nothing but ashes.”

Dybris covered his face. “Nothing saved?”

“Just the scrapings of food stored in the cave. But that means nothing since neither parchment nor quill survived.” Neot's voice broke. “And it's your fault!”

“Oh, God!” Dybris cried out in prayer.

A quiet knock sounded on the chapel door.

Neot rose, answered, and stepped outside.

In the dim light, Dybris hadn't seen who had come. He was about to rise and investigate when Neot opened the door and entered with squinting, smoldering eyes.

“Now it's worse. Troslam, the good weaver of our village, tells me there was thievery and death last night.”

“You can't blame me for —”

One of the monks turned over in his sleep, and Dybris hushed his voice.

“For stirring up these troubles?” Neot whispered. “Yes, I can. All restraint has been thrown off, and only God knows the depth of last night's transgressions. Never in all my years in Bosventor has there been a murder, and now three men lie slain. Priwith the potter was stabbed in his own bed, his house ransacked and his valuables stolen …”

Dybris stood, and his bruised limbs protested the act. He had to get away from Neot and speak with Crogen.

“Then Troslam caught Stenno sneaking in through a window. In the struggle, the weaver slew him while defending his family. And don't you dare leave.” Neot pulled Dybris's hood and forced him to sit down. “Drink the cup you've filled. Last of all was poor Brunyek, our simple oat farmer, whom Troslam found while on his way here. Thrown into a ditch along the road, his back stabbed and his bag of coins missing.”

Pushing Neot's hands away, Dybris limped to the door. “Stop blaming me for the sins of the Stone! This I tried to stop, while you did nothing.”

“You don't deserve to be in our order,” Neot yelled as the other monks awoke.

“That is for Crogen to decide.” Dybris slammed the door behind him as he hobbled out into the sunrise.

Downhill he found Crogen sitting on a rock that jutted out from the hillside like an old tooth. His sooty, tear-stained face was uncovered, and he looked unblinking to the western hills, where dark clouds gathered.

“It … it is burned up,” the abbot said quietly. “Completely gone. Day has brought it to light, and who of us will survive these flames?”

Merlin rose, still tired from the failed efforts to extinguish the abbey's flames. Yet a new sense of urgency gripped him as he remembered the unfinished sword and the imminent coming of the High King. In the house, he woke his father and they devoured the day-old barley porridge along with a few hard biscuits.

After pushing the bowls to the center of the table, they walked to the smithy with purpose in their steps.

“After you fell asleep last night,” Owain said, “I heated the hoof shavings and left the blade to temper overnight. It should be ready for us to clean and then attach the handle.” He went over to where
they kept a waist-high barrel, removed the lid, and fished through the hot shavings with a pair of tongs until he found the blade and pulled it out by the tang.

Merlin turned the handle of the grinding stone while his father removed the scale created by hardening the blade. After that, Owain smoothed the transition to the ricasso near the tang with a set of handmade files.

Next they ground the tang so the bronze guard, handle, and pommel fit snugly. These pieces had been poured from liquid metal two months ago using a split clay mold Merlin's father had carved.

A craftsman from Fowavenoc had inlayed red glass into the pommel as well as the guard. Owain explained that the center inlay of glass bore a triskelion design — a triple spiral. Merlin surmised from this that the craftsman must have been a Christian, for the triskelion design had come from Erin with missionaries who used it to represent the Trinity.

All Merlin could see, however, was the flash of red when the sun played upon the surface of the inlays. Red like blood and fit for a king who must rule by the justice of his blade.

When all the pieces fit, they wrapped wet leather around the blade to protect it and then heated the tang's tip to a bright apple color. The guard, handle, and pommel were tapped into place, and Owain hammered the tang tip flat into a small recess in the pommel. In this way, the sword was made whole and, barring some catastrophe, would not come apart.

Using the reflected morning light to reveal flaws, Merlin's father examined his work and said that he could find nothing disagreeable.

Merlin took the blade then, and he felt all the bevels and edges, tracing each detail of the hilt with his fingertips. He finally tested its weight and balance as he swung it with both hands in the center of the shop.

“This is the best work you've ever done, Tas. An expert blade to rival the finest in the kingdom!”

“They say an old blade's always better than a new, so we'll see.
Many's the dying warrior who cursed his smith. The ones that bent or broke taught me more than the ones I did right. Only through fire, quench, and battle is any man and his work truly known.”

“Shall we sharpen it?”

“Aye. And carve ‘OAG' onto the handle to mark it as one of my blades. There's just enough time before Uther arrives.”

“What will you do if the High King won't receive it?”

His father sat down heavily. “I haven't decided. Very little that I have is precious enough to show my sorrow. What else could I offer to make amends? There's a puzzle to think on.”

Merlin swung the sword one last time before offering it to his father. “Will Uther give the monks justice for the burning of the abbey? Mórganthu better not show his face.”

“If I know Mórganthu, he'll be there.”

Merlin winced. “Then may Jesu and the king help us.”

In all of Dybris's years as a monk, he had never felt the way he felt this morning. Standing there beside the road with the other monks as they awaited the arrival of the High King, he was utterly embarrassed. Aching, swollen, bloodied, unshaven, and with spilled pigment on his robe, he wanted to crawl back to the chapel.

Oh, he'd protested to Crogen, but the new abbot said they all must appear before the king. Of course, yesterday Dybris just
had
to choose the white pigment, and when the Stone's iniquitous power had knocked him away, he just
had
to spill the pigment all down the front of his robe.

Why hadn't he put the stopper back?

Ah, to have only soot on his robe like the others — but no, it appeared some malignant bird had stood on his head and offalled him.

Fie!

For all that, the arrival of Uther mab Aurelianus, High King of the Britons, would have been a grand affair if not for the somber mood of the people of Bosventor. Oh, the other monks eagerly
anticipated the justice they'd receive against the druidow, but the villagers were downright glum.

One man, whom Dybris hadn't met during his brief time at the abbey, stood near and complained to those around him, hooting, “A crock o' ants, he is! Tregeagle cares nothin' but fer tribute, and Uther'll be the same. You'll see.”

The others nodded, and an old woman said, “Ah, Uther'll not care for tributes when he gets a sight o' our Stone!”

The Stone. What
would
Uther do with the Stone?

So when the battle horns blasted and people turned to see Uther's war band rounding the side of the mountain from the east, Dybris prayed for deliverance from the Stone and its curse.

Uther rode up in his gilded chariot with a friendly smile but a stern gaze.

All around Dybris the people averted their eyes from Uther's face, yet still they spied at the silvered shirt of iron rings that hung down past his waist and over his gray leather trousers. This was all held fast with a thick brown belt, buckled and tied, from which hung his sword. Over it all Uther wore a plum-colored, embroidered cloak pinned on his right shoulder with a silver brooch.

Longer still the villagers stared at his golden torc. Thick and intricate, it shone brightly on the man's sturdy neck, and its ends each carried an eagle's head with amethyst eyes. Uther's shaven face was handsome and rugged, and his thick brown hair fell down past his shoulders. His left hand, gauntleted in dark gray, gripped the reins of twin chestnut horses as he raised the other, bare, in a blessing to the people that went unreceived.

“There,” one of the brothers whispered, “look at his shield!”

Dybris hadn't yet noticed it or the signifier who held it, standing as he was in the chariot close behind Uther. The shield was blazoned with a great golden boar in the honor point and wreathed with a knotwork of blood-red vines.

To Uther's right in the chariot hunched an old man, long-bearded and hoary. He was unarmored, yet he wore fine garments of green
covered with a great black cloak. In his hands he held an ancient wooden harp whose bronze strings glittered in the morning light. At his throat rested a twisted white-gold torc, and its ends were formed as heads of moor cats, each with a sparkling white eye.

Behind Uther's chariot, two palfreys pulled a light wagon. Holding the reins in the center sat a thoughtful Igerna, queen and covenant wife of Uther. Her dress of blue-and-green plaid was simple and yet showed signs of an expert seamstress. Over this she wore a light-brown traveling cloak with a silver brooch that matched her husband's. Her hood was raised over her flaxen-red hair to keep off the morning chill, and a thin gold torc, clean of ornamentation, glinted at her throat.

“See the babe!” a woman next to Dybris said.

“Wait till Mórganthu shows
him
the Stone,” another answered. “Won't he jus' love it?”

Dybris sidestepped away from them to see the new heir to the throne, Arthur, who sat nestled in the queen's arms. He was dark of hair and, Dybris thought, bright of eye for one so young. The boy, by all accounts not a season past his first winter, looked out with a tender shyness, and Dybris smiled to behold his countenance. Here sat the future hope of Britain's protection. How many armies would those chubby legs lead? Which judgments would his pursed lips speak? What number of enemies might those small hands slay? Or would he die in youth as countless princes had done throughout history?

O God
, Dybris prayed,
guide and guard this little one. And if he is not your chosen one for our land, please raise up another to take his place and protect us from our enemies
.

The horses paused for a moment to eat some grass, and Igerna spurred them forward. Only then did Dybris notice that on each side of the queen sat the two royal daughters, Eilyne and Myrgwen.

Eilyne, coming to the age of womanhood, sat stiffly in her plaid of maroon, green, and white. She glanced at the people but did not smile. Myrgwen, not yet ten winters, giddily waved at the monks and
leaned over the edge of the wagon. Her older sister reached behind their mother and pulled her back, but the younger kept waving.

After the wagon rolled past, a troop of twenty warriors rode by, each bearing the pin of a small golden boar on their variously colored cloaks. Firm of face, they scanned the gathered crowd and moved to follow their king.

Combined with Vortigern's men, Dybris reasoned, that would make around forty warriors in all. Not many, considering this was the High King, but it was logical, since his purpose was to check the fortifications and beacons — and to recruit Gorlas, the king of Kernow, and raise up men to join the fray. Uther's main host, it was told, lay eastward, where the Saxenow threat grew.

Neot coughed and turned to Crogen. “Now then, didn't Uther's father kill Vortigern's grandfather in battle? How can one serve the other?”

“It is a wonder to behold, I say. The battle took place because Vitalinus had, while steward, assassinated Aurelianus's father, Constans, and stolen the High Kingship.”

“How did they reconcile?” Neot asked.

“Blood-bitterness lay between the families until Uther chose Igerna as his bride.”

“And she is Vortigern's sister?”

“I have it on good authority that he secretly courted her after they met on a bridge one day when he was on campaign. Oh, she refused him, you can be sure.”

“But changed her mind?” Neot asked.