Merlin's Ring Read online

  “Nay! That I cannot do, for my godfather baptized me and I walk his trail in the service of another Lord. Also, you ask more than the value of what I offer!”

  The Spirit of the Wave laughed, a liquid purling Kit of music, and Thor chuckled in spite of himself.

  “It is a stout little bargainer, this man of yours, Elder Cousin! You do well to feel pride in him. He shall have his sword, but he shall earn it. The one I have in mind for him is far from here and he must journey to it, but it is the only one of its kind in the world. The champion who held it had no equal in strength and honor and even he could not break or otherwise destroy it when it came time to lay it down.

  “Say, you shrewd thief, will you trade me my torque if I tell you where the finest sword ever raised in your Lord’s service now lies?”

  Gwalchmai looked up at Ahuni-i for guidance.

  She nodded. “You can trust him in this. He is a great trickster, but he will not go back on a bargain. If he swears his vow upon his hammer, he will keep it, for that is as binding to him as to his worshippers.”

  “Then upon your hammer swear that I shall have this sword and the torque is yours!” cried Gwalchmai.

  “I so swear!” growled the giant, and distant thunder rolled in the dense glopm^as he touched his hammer to his brow.

  “There, the bargain is recorded in Asgard. It cannot be withdrawn. Give him his plaything, man of my beloved daughter.”

  Gwalchmai made a loop of the soft gold and Thor lifted it up on the tip of his little finger and dropped it into his pouch.

  “I give you in return, Durandal, held by Roland, Karlus

  Magnus’ finest Paladin—long-hidden, long-sought, long-desired, never forgotten. To get it you must seek the Pass of Roncesvalles, which separates France from Spain. I have kept my bargain. Trouble me no more, clever thief, lest I repent me of you!

  “Elder Cousin, upon this sword Roland, the Paladin, lay down to die. With all his strength he had first struck it against a stone to break or mar it, lest it fall intact into the hands of the Saracens, his enemies. Of such a mystical forging it was that nothing could destroy it

  “Ah! Thickly, thickly, the Valkyries hovered over that field of battle! If he had been^ one of Odin’s men, gladly would they have carried him to Valhalla, but there was another place for him and it was not permitted. Brunnhilde put it into the heart of a looter to preserve the sword by hiding it in a hollow oak, then she slew him to keep it secret for another time of need. It has remained there ever since.

  “Do you think if this man gets it, he will raise it in your service as it was used before in the honor of his upstart Lord?”

  “Cousin Thor,” Ahuni-i said, “that Lord will one day supplant us both, whether by sword or not. When men forget us and make us no more offerings, we shall neither of us exist. My tune will be and yours is coming. I have one worshipper in her and one follower in him, although you have many for yet a little while. He d«(es not worship me, but he knows I exist, therefore he believes in me.”

  “And because two people, in all of Earth’s millions, believe in you—and one only prays to you—you exist? It seems that this existence of yours is a chancy thing!”

  “As yours also grows daily to be of late, dear cousin.”

  “Not as long as men fear thunder, or need guidance on the sea,” grumbled the giant.

  “Hush now. You will not be convinced until it happens, as it is happening to me. My weary little one is awakening. Give them your blessing, Thor, for he has paid his debt and we must go.”

  Thor stretched out his mighty hammer and its shadow fell upon them.

  “Be blessed then, wee people. Though you give me no allegiance, I will watch over you on land and sea, for I would that you were mine. With my hammer I consecrate your lives. May you think of me as you wander. If you need help, call upon me once only and I will leave my mansion, Bilskimir, and come to your aid. Farewell, stout little fellow and your sweet lady. May you attain all your desires!”

  Then, as awakening Corenice blinked and rubbed her eyes, Gwalchmai saw the two giant figures thin into mist and disappear. Through them shone the bright rays of the rising sun.

  Thor was an immense oak, under whose projecting branches they had slept, and the shielding arms of the Spirit of the Wave were no more than two great roots forming the sides of the leaf-filled hollow.

  Which was dream and which reality? Gwalchmai did not know. Had he actually defied a god and bargained with him? Had he received a promise and made a mighty friend? There was only one thing certain. The torque was gone and, search among the leaves as they might, it could not be found.

  After some while, he told Corenice what he had dreamed. She gave over the searching then, nor did she seem surprised. Afterwards he often wondered if she had dreamed part of the same dream, but he did not ask and she did not say.

  Everyone should have at least one secret. This one was better kept in silence, unless he wished to believe, to his loss of pride, that he was not master of his own fate, but accomplished what he did by the will of a goddess and, through her, by the will of his wife.

  When they came down to the shore, they found that the causeway was bare. From the priory, matins had already rung and fishing boats were setting out from the harbor. It was a fine morning.

  As they crossed to the mainland, they saw a little group of well-dressed men and women gathered around their boat, inspecting it with interest. When they came up, a spokesman doffed his hat and greeted them courteously, coming a few steps to meet them.

  “Sir, I am told by the fishermen that you are pilgrims and that this is your boat My master, King Brons, wishes to purchase it of you to return in. it to his hold of Morfa Harlech. We are likewise pilgrims and having walked hither the length of Cymru to accomplish a vow of his, the feet of all the company are now weary. May I inquire if you will sell us your boat and, if so, what price you may place upon it?”

  Gwalchmai and Corenice looked at each other in some dismay. It was a dangerous thing to refuse a King anything, even if he were out of his own boundaries. Those of noble blood were apt to see things differently from commoners and tended to be clannish.

  They needed the boat themselves for ease and safety of travel. Gwalchmai wished to go south instead of north, hi order to seek out the sword that had been promised. In addi* tion, now that he had accomplished Merlin’s errand he was free to be on his way to deliver his father’s message to the Emperor of Rome.

  If this should prove impossible, it might take much time to find and convince some unknown Christian monarch that it would be profitable and a worthy deed to send a fleet to possess the land of Alata.

  He was anxious to be off and he was certain that there was nothing in the north for him, yet he was in no position to refuse.

  ‘Tell your master that the boat is not for sale. However, since I am also the son of a King, I will favor him hi the .respect that if he will outfit myself and my lady with maps, charts, and a guide to lead us safely past these Norman shores and land us hi Spain, he may have the boat and welcome.“

  The man returned to the group and there was much talk and shaking of heads. It seemed that the women were especially voluble in argument against the idea.

  King Brons finally came to speak with them and Gwalchmai introduced himself.

  The king bowed as to a compeer. /‘Gwalchmai is an , honored name among us. I saw hi you a look of the Cymry, yet there is something strange about you. I ’have never seen a man with skin so ruddy as yours.

  “My people are faint-hearted. The ladies fear to sail upon such a journey as it would be to land you upon the coast of Spain, though it is a fair offer. Neither does any man wish to separate himself from my entourage to act as guide in that foreign land.

  “Instead, I must beg you, if you will not sell your boat, to take us first to my castle, where I will gladly reward you with what you ask and give you wintering or good cheer for as long as you wish to remain with us.”

  Gwalchm
ai was ready to demur, when Corenice nudged him. He could see that her eyes were dancing and he suspected that it would give her pleasure to dwell for a while in a castle after the manner of royalty.

  “Very well. Your gentlemen then will be our sailors and I their captain. The ladies—I hope> they can cook—will tend our wants and you shall ride without sore feet to your hold.”

  By the time the tide was full in and had raised the boat, added provisions and another water butt had been stowed away.

  Bedding was placed in the small cabin for the ladies. The anchor hauled in, the sail was raised and made fast and they moved out of the bay. Once free to the winds they turned toward the north, retracing their route of the previous days. It seemed like returning on the trail, but Gwalchmai consoled himself with the thought that if shelter were at the end of them, all roads were alike to the wanderer.

  Now that they had people on board to whom the coast was familiar, they were favored with local legends. Thus Gwalchmai and Corenice were told, as they rounded Land’s End and saw Sennen Cove to their right, that here King Arthur had met the invading Norsemen. With the help of seven Cornish kings, at the battle of Vellan Drucher, not • a man was left alive to carry the news of defeat back up the Irish Sea.

  In celebration the assembled kings dined together, seated around a large rock for a table. Merlin prophesied that even more kings would meet at that rock to repel another threat from the men of the north and the mortal encounter would be followed by the end of the world.

  As they went on they were pointed out the sites of holy wells and shown where a mermaid had been shot with a longbow shaft and the sands there cursed by her forever.

  There were ruined forts that had no names, on headlands overlooking land and sea, and everywhere cairns of huge granite blocks fit to mark the graves of giants.

  They were shown where giants had fought battles in the clouds, riding horses whose hoqfbeats were like explosions and who made war by hurling red-hot stones at one another. ‘

  They learned of the dangerpus fairies that inhabited the mountains and the pretty ones who lived in foxgloves and danced in the moonlight—and they thought upon Elveron and wondered if Prince Auberon and Lady Titania were wed and if Sir Huon was yet sad, but of these things they said nothing to the Cymry.

  Along this haunted coast they cruised till they came to Morfa Harlech and landed in King Brons’ dominions, where a wide half-moon of beach swept for miles in a huge clean curve. Here the waves rolled hi to break in semicircles of creaming foam and here Harlech Castle rose on a frowning outcrop of rock, like a nest for eagles.

  The keep looked out upon a green and fertile vale beyond and farther yet lay the sublime and impressive eminence Y Wyddfa Fawr, “the great burial place” men of today call Snowdon, where giants and demons dwelt long ago.

  King Brons indicated the mountain with respect. “Here King Arthur lies buried.” Gwalchmai and Corenice looked at each other and smiled.

  King Brons’ harper struck a resounding chord and sang the triad:

  A grave there is for Mark,

  A grave for Gwythur,

  A grave for Gwgawn of the Ruddy Sword;

  Not wise the thought—a grave for Arthur.

  And the company bent their heads to do honor to that long-gone King.

  Now bugle-horns sounded from the battlements of Harlech and a questing squadron rode forth to see what visitors came and with loud rejoicing, for they had not expected their King so soon nor that he would return by sea, they ushered the wayfarers in with pomp and ceremony.

  As King Brons had promised, Gwalchmai and Corenice were treated in a style befitting his professed rank and given a suite of fine chambers.

  Corenice or, more strictly, Nikky, as the Welsh girl had named herself, had been somewhat ill during the journey. She was afflicted with a lassitude that lingered longer than the arduousness of her journeying appeared to explain.

  Tender care brought back her health during the winter, but she was satisfied to remain indoors when, with the Cymric knights, Gwalchmai rode out to the borders and met the Norman raiders in infrequent clashes. Throughout the season the marches were held inviolate, while the women waited to see who would ride back and which others would be lamented.

  In Gwalchmai’s short experience with horses, he thought he liked best the six-legged steeds of Elveron. An animal with a leg only on each corner had an unpleasant and uneven motion.

  He soon became accustomed to the odd gait, however, and to the weight of his armor, which was heavier than that of the Norman knights.

  Sometimes they ushered in Saxon refugees and Gwalchmai was amazed to think that such pitiful folk were once the terror of Britain. Hungry and gaunt, dull of wit through long years of serfdom, marked with the scars of whips and manacles, they brought home to the Cymry, as nothing else could, how the wheel of fortune can turn and the oppressors become the oppressed.

  At such times they swore again and again that Harlech should never become Norman. King Brons, dandling his son, Prince Owalin Gwynedd, upon his knee, vowed that he would hold every foot of the land his forefathers had called theirs.

  Small indeed was the present holding of the Britons, but proud were they of their heritage, for they had resisted the Romans, the Saxons, and now a foe that had taken more of the isles than any other enemy—and still they were free!

  Yet there was an undercurrent of feeling that proclaimed to Gwalchmai that they knew well that bravery alone was not enough against great numbers and eventually there must come a day of doom. He could see it when the dead knights were borne in after a border battle; when ladies did not appear at the tables because they were mourning; when new faces were seen manning the walls.

  Sometimes the King himself looked haggard and withdrawn and Gwalchmai knew that he had been ridden by the nightmare and that his thoughts were that perhaps the little prince might never wear a crown.

  Corenice begged Gwalchmai to tell the King of Alata, so that if the worst should come this tiny remnant of the people Merlin and King Arthur had striven so hard to protect might in the end be able to take ship and find a refuge across the sea.

  For a long time Gwalchmai refused to do this, feeling that the secret should be given only to the one it had been meant for—the Emperor of Rome. In the end, he came about to her way of thinking, although he said, “It seems to be the destiny of Alata to become, not an addition to the Empire as my father wished, but a home for refugees!”

  “What better destiny could it have?” asked Corenice.

  To his surprise, King Brons shook his head at the offer.

  “I could never desert my people. With such shipping as I can command, we could move only a small number of the Cymry. Even if we made many trips, as our strength diminished the Normans would encroach upon us. Loegria— England—would absorb those who remained. It would be the act of a traitor.

  “I realize that the offer was made in good faith and I honor you for it and thank you, but we shall fight to keep this land free and we need every man and boy to do it. Our women would have it no other way nor would I ask it of them.

  “However, I shall have all that you have told me written down and put away in a private place. If ever we should come to terms with the Normans and dwell in peace along the border marches, it might befall that my son or his son perhaps might some time wish to seek adventure there. It was a kind thought, Prince Gwalchmai, but I must refuse it.”

  In the springtime of the following year, the border was quiet Farmers tilled their fields undisturbed and no knights rode out to war; women’s tears were shed, not because of policies made by the highborn, but because of the small troubles of their own houses.

  Apple blossoms fell gently upon the tombs of the brave, fishermen hauled in their nets, and trading vessels came and went from the harbor of Morfa Harlech.

  One day Gwalchmai and Corenice sailed out on one of these, a wine-ship from Malaga, outfitted as King Brons had promised. They carried such maps as could be pro
cured, guidance in their minds as to where their destination might lie, and the blessings of their hosts.

  King Brons and the people lined the beach to see them off and his harper struck up a lay of lament at the parting. For a long time they waved goodbyes and when they were still far out at sea, and the Cymry could no longer be seen, they kept their eyes fixed upon the gay flutter of the bright dragon pennons, whipped by the winds which were sweeping over the heights of Castle Harlech.

  “Godspeed! Farewell and good fortune to those who depart and return no more!”

  Such it was indeed for those of the court who remembered the strangers who came and stayed a while to depart and be held tenderly in their thoughts. Sometimes they wondered how those two fared, the tall, red-skinned prince and his dark lady who loved him so deeply and who had a lilt of golden bells in her laughter.

  A harper made a song in their honor and it was often sung as time passed and a generation of j>eople came to age and another followed and passed away. Somfetimes the grandson of that harper was asked for another song after he had sung that one and was applauded. He would stop and think a moment.

  Then he would strike a resounding chord ‘from his harp and declaim, as a chanting prelude to his song:

  “These are the Three Vanished Losses of the Isle of Brit-am—

  “First, Gavranj son of Aeddan, and his men, who went to sea in search of the Green Isles of Floods and never were heard of more;

  “Second, Myrdhinn, the Bard of Aurelian Ambrosius, and his Nine Bards of Knowledge, who went to sea in the House of Glass and there has been no account whither they went;

  “Third, Madoc, son of Owalin Gwynedd, who went to sea with his three hundred men in ten ships and it is not known to what place they went.”

  After the singing there would be subdued weeping, for many remembered Madoc and some had known his father, Owen, and there were a few old people who had heard tell at first hand of King Brons.

  It was these few who sometimes wondered if there was any connection between the advent of those strangers from the sea and Prince Madoc’s disappearance.