The Last Enchantment Read Free Page A

freshly scoured and polished, and over the bed lay new unbleached sheets, and a rug of wolfskins. The chair with the red cushion and the dragon worked on the back in gold stood there still, with its footstool and the tall tripod lamp beside it. The windows were open to the cool September night, and the air from them sent the lamp-flames sideways and made strange shadows on the painted walls.
    Arthur was alone. He was over by a window, one knee on a stool that stood there, his elbows on the sill. The window gave, not on the town, but on the strip of garden that edged the river. He gazed out into the dark, and I thought I could see him drinking, as from another river, deep draughts of the fresh and moving air. His hair was damp, as if he had just washed, but he was still in the clothes he had worn for the day's ceremonies; white and silver, with a belt of Welsh gold set with turquoises and buckled with enamel-work. He had taken off his sword-belt, and the great sword Caliburn hung in its sheath on the wall beyond the bed. The lamplight smouldered in the jewels of the hilt; emerald, topaz, sapphire. It flashed, too, from the ring on the boy's hand; Uther's ring carved with the Dragon crest.
    He heard me, and turned. He looked rarefied and light, as if the winds of the day had blown through him and left him weightless. His skin had the stretched pallor of exhaustion, but his eyes were brilliant and alive. About him, already there and unmistakable, was the mystery that falls like a mantle on a king. It was in his high look, and the turn of his head. Never again would "Emrys" be able to lurk in shadow. I wondered afresh how through all those hidden years we had kept him safe and secret among lesser men.
    "You wanted me," I said.
    "I've wanted you all day. You promised to be near me while I went through this business of hatching into a king. Where were you?"
    "Within call, if not within reach. I was at the shrine — the chapel — till almost sunset. I thought you'd be busy."
    He gave a little crack of laughter. "You call it that? It felt like being eaten alive. Or perhaps like being born...and a hard birth at that. I said 'hatching,' didn't I? Suddenly to find oneself a prince is hard enough, but even that is as different from being a king as the egg is from the day-old chick."
    "At least make it an eaglet."
    "In time, perhaps. That's been the trouble, of course. Time, there's been no time. One moment to be nobody — someone's unacknowledged bastard, and glad to be given the chance to get within shouting distance of a battle, with maybe a glimpse of the King himself in passing; the next — having drawn a couple of breaths as prince and royal heir — to be High King myself, and with such a flourish as no king can ever have had before. I still feel as if I'd been kicked up the steps of the throne from a kneeling position right down on the floor."
    I smiled. "I know how you feel, more or less. I was never kicked half as high, but then I was a great deal lower down to start with. Now, can you slow down sufficiently to get some sleep? Tomorrow will be here soon enough. Do you want a sleeping potion?"
    "No, no, when did I ever? I'll sleep as soon as you've gone. Merlin, I'm sorry to ask you to come here at this late hour, but I had to talk to you, and there's been no chance till now. Nor will there be tomorrow."
    He came away from the window as he spoke, and crossed to a table where papers and tablets were lying. He picked up a stilus, and with the blunt end smoothed the wax. He did it absently, his head bent so that the dark hair swung forward, and the lamplight slid over the line of his cheek and touched the black lashes fringing the lowered lids. My eyes blurred. Time ran back. It was Ambrosius my father who stood there, fidgeting with the stilus and saying to me: "If a king had you beside him, he could rule the world..."
    Well, his dream had come true at last, and the time was now. I blinked memory away, and waited for the day-old