Here Lies Arthur Read Free Page B

talking for him was a way of keeping fear at bay.
    “It’s a good story,” he promised, talking at me over his shoulder as he went stalking through the wood. His breath fumed in the cold air, wreathing him in smoke. “You should hear how the men tell it round theircampfires. They say I worked for Arthur’s father, that old villain Uthr, who was captain of Ambrosius’s cavalry. It seems this Uthr had an eye for the girls, and one spring it lighted on one called Ygerna, that was wife to some small lord down in Kernyw. Lust lit up his brain like a gorse-fire. You could see the smoke pouring out of his ears. But what to do? Ygerna’s husband was jealous. Kept her penned in his fort and let no man come near her.
    “So Uthr called on me, and on my powers. One night, when his rival was off raiding some neighbours’ cattle-runs, I transformed Uthr by magic into his image, and he slipped into the fort and into Ygerna’s bed without anyone guessing. And the child conceived that night was Arthur, and his victories outshine old Uthr’s as the sun outshines the moon.”
    Shoving my way through dead bracken at the magician’s heels, listening to all of this, I wished I could just make a run for it, and take my chances with whatever wild beasts and wicked spirits lived in this maze of trees. Running had always served me well before. But running from Myrddin would be different, wouldn’t it? If he had the power to transform one man into the likeness of another, then he could surely catch me and transform me into anything he chose. A frog. A toad. A stone.
    “Of course, it’s all nonsense,” Myrddin said. “You’ll have to learn that, Gwyna. Just because someone tells a story doesn’t mean it’s true. I have no magic powers. I’m just a traveller who has picked up a few handy conjuring tricks along the road.”
    “Then how did you change Uthr into another man?” I asked.
    “That’s what I’m telling you, girl. It never happened. Old Uthr took that fort by force, and carried off Ygerna along with all his other trophies. Probably tired of her within a week. There’s no difference between Arthur and any other of Uthr’s landless bastards, except that Arthur has me to spin stories like that one about him. You see, Gwyna, men do love a story. That’s what we’re going to give them this morning, you and I. A story they’ll remember all their lives, and tell to their children and their children’s children until the whole world knows how Arthur came by the sword of the otherworld. And here we are!”
    We had reached the pool. Late afternoon sun lit the oak-tops on the far shore, but the water lay in shadow, and a faint silver breath of mist hung above it, just as Myrddin had promised.
    How had he known? He had just said he could not work magic, but how else could he have seen into the future?
    A horn sounded, away downriver. Myrddin hurried me along the shore. We pushed through undergrowth. The armoured leaves of a holly-tree scratched my face. A narrow ledge of rock led to the waterfall. Ferns grew thickly here. The spray rattled on their leaves. Fleshy and pointed they were, like green tongues. Among them, almost hidden, I saw a faint path snaking in behind the water’s white curtain.
    Myrddin turned and put the swaddled weight of the sword into my hands. Then he took me by bothshoulders and stooped to stare into my face. Dark as good rich earth, his eyes were, and a quick to-and-fro flicker in them like the dancing of candle-flames as he watched me, searching, expectant.
    “They are coming. I’ll tell you what you must do, little fish, and you must listen well.”
    The sun crept west, and the tree-shadows shifted on the far shore. I crouched alone on the damp, narrow shelf behind the waterfall. The shout of falling water filled my head, but the spray barely touched me. It was a magic place. From a few paces away I must be invisible, yet I could look out through the water-curtain and see Myrddin quite clearly as