Here Lies Arthur Read Free Page A

meet at the river, then?” I heard the rider shout.
    “The pool above the ford,” called Myrddin, one hand up, waving, as the rider went away between the trees. “Where the waterfall is.”
    As the hoof beats faded he turned and saw me watching. He came towards me smiling, and I was still so little used to being smiled at that I just stood there basking in it till he reached me. He took me by one arm and pushed me back inside. “There is work to be done, Gwyna.”
    I looked at the dark loaves of dung his horse had dropped on the floor. I wondered if he wanted it cleaned up.
    “Didn’t I say you’d help me help the Bear?” he said. “Arthur needs a sign. There’s an Irishman who rules those wet moors that rise up south of here. He’s Ban’s man, and if he chooses to avenge his overlord it will be a hard strife, and a waste of good men. Better for everyone if he can just welcome Arthur as his lord in Ban’s place. Arthur could use an ally here in the west.I’ve spoken with the Irishman, and he’s agreeable. But his people won’t trust a man who carries the sign of Christ on his shield. The ways of the new God lie thin in those hills of his, like first snow. Just a pretty coverlet. Dig a little and you soon find old ways and old gods underneath.”
    I shivered. It must be bad luck, I thought, to talk so carelessly about gods. I crossed myself, and made the sign against evil. I didn’t want to anger any gods, not new nor old.
    “So the old gods are going to make Arthur a present,” Myrddin went on, fumbling among the furs and cloths behind his saddle. “A sign to show they are on Arthur’s side.”
    “What sort of sign?” I asked, afraid.
    “I’ll show you.”
    His quick hands undid the fastenings on a long bundle of oilcloth. Something golden caught the light. A sword hilt. I’d not seen many swords, but I knew enough to know this one was special. The pommel and the crosspiece were red gold, inlaid with swirls and curls of paler metal. The hilt was twisted round with silver wire. The blade shone like water in the folds of the cloth.
    “Swords are important to the Bear,” said Myrddin. “And not just for fighting with. They mean something. A sword thrust through a stone was the badge of Artorius Castus, who saved us from the Picts and Scots in olden times, and from whom our Arthur claims descent. The gods will send this sword to Arthur from the otherworld, to show that they love him as they loved the old Artorius.”
    He was holding out the sword to me as if inviting me to touch it. I drew back.
    “It has a name. Caliburn.”
    “Is it really from the otherworld?”
    “Of course not, child. I bought it from a trader down at Din Tagyll. But we can make men
think
it is from the gods.”
    If I’d been a man, or even a boy, I might have said, “What do you mean, ‘we’? I want no part in enchantments.” But I was only Gwyna the Mouse. It was my lot to do as my elders told me, even if I didn’t understand.
    Myrddin tousled my matted hair. “And maybe some god
is
watching over us,” he said. “Something sent you to me, that’s for sure. I had planned to have the Bear row out and find the sword on a ledge beneath that little waterfall, hid among the rushes there like Moses in his basket. Spin a story afterwards to explain it. But now I have a better notion. And now I have you, my little fish…”

VI
     
    He left the horse tethered there, and hustled me away through the woods. All he took with him was the sword, bundled in its roll of cloth. The air was growing cold. Myrddin nodded and said, “There will be a mist upon the water.”
    How could he know such a thing? What demons told him so?
    “You’ll be wondering how I came into Arthur’s service, I suppose?” he asked, striding ahead of me through the thickets.
    I’d been wondering no such thing. It was no place of mine to wonder about his life. But I knew that he was going to tell me all the same. I sensed he was nervous, and that