Merlin

SIX

I thought that when we returned to the rath I would be set free. In this I was mistaken, for if I had been desirable as a potential sacrifice, as a living gift I was even more valuable. They had no intention of letting me leave. Perhaps when the purpose for which I had been sent to them was fulfilled I might depart. But until then? It could not even be contemplated.

This was communicated to me in no uncertain terms when I tried to leave the rath later that day. I was sitting beside the door to the rath and, when no one was looking, I simply got to my feet and started down the hill. I escaped but ten steps and Nolo called the dogs. Snarling, growling viciously, the dogs surrounded me until I retreated to my place at the door of the rath.

The days crawled by, and each passing moment my heart grew heavier. My people were in these hills somewhere, searching for me, worrying over me. I had not the skill to see them then, but I could feel their anxiety across the separating distance, and I knew their misery. I wept at night as I lay on my pallet: stinging tears for the sorrow I was causing my mother, and the hardship my absence meant.

Great Light, I cried, please hear me! Give them peace to know I am unharmed. Give them hope to know I will return. Give them patience to wait, and courage to endure the waiting. Give them strength so that they will not grow weary.

This prayer was to become a litany of comfort to me for a good long time. Often spoken with tears, it is true. The next day, after nearly four days of judicious contemplation, Gern-y-fhain took me by the arm and sat me down on a rock at her feet and began speaking at me. I understood nothing of what she said, but paid close attention and soon began to discern the rhythm of their speech. I nodded from time to time just to show that I was trying.

She puckered up her wrinkles and made a gesture which included the rath and everyone and everything in it. 'Fhain,' she said, repeating several times until I did the same.

'Fhain,' I said, smiling. The smiling worked wonders, for the Hill Folk are happy people and smiling indicates to them a soul in harmony with life, and they are not far wrong.

'Gern-y-fhain,' she told me next, thumping herself on the chest.

'Gern-y-fhain,' I repeated. Then I thumped myself on the chest and said, 'Myrddin.' I used the Cymry form of my name, thinking that would be closest to their speech. 'Myrddin.'

She nodded and repeated the word several times, much pleased to have such a willing and able Gift. She then pointed at each of the other clan members as they went about their various tasks, 'Vrisa, Elac, Nolo, Teirn, Beona, Rhyllha… ' and others. I did my best to keep up with her, and managed for a while, but when she turned to naming other things – earth, sky, hills, clouds, river, rock – I fell behind.

That ended my first lesson in the Hill Folk tongue, and began a custom that was to continue many months after that: beginning my day sitting beside Gern-y-fhain, as at Blaise's feet or Dafyd's, practising my lessons.

Vrisa took it upon herself to civilize me. For a start, my clothing was taken away and replaced with skins and fur. This concerned me until I saw that she carefully placed my things in a special basket lashed to a roofpole in the rath. I might not be leaving soon, but at least when I did it would be as I came. She then led me back outside, chattering at me all the while and glancing at me from time to time to smile, showing her fine white teeth, as much as to say, 'Be welcome, tallfolk-wealth. You are fhain now.'

It pleased her when I said her name and taught her mine. Indeed, they roared with delight when I was finally able to tell them that my name meant 'Hawk' – that confirmed them in their belief that my coming was ordained by their Parents. They watched my progress hungrily; any little thing I did pleased them all enormously. They found endless pleasure in recounting my achievements to one another around the supper fire at night. At first I considered this was because of my status as Gift; later, I learned that they treated all children that way.

Children were held in specially high regard among them. Their language proved this in that 'child' and 'wealth' were the same to them: eurn. This one word served both meanings.

They viewed children as others might view honoured guests – worthies deserving of consideration and respect, whose mere presence was cause for joy and a treat to be relished with pleasure and celebrated whenever possible. Thus, even though I was, in their reckoning of age, very nearly a full-grown man, I lacked the proper upbringing and so I must be considered a child until I learned enough manners to become an adult. This made an interesting period of adjustment, for in those first months I spent as much time in the company of the young as with their elders.

The summer passed quickly; time sped because I was desperate to learn their speech so that I could communicate my anxiety about my people, and learn their reason for keeping me. My opportunity came one crisp autumn night not long after Lughnasadh. We sat, as we sometimes did, before an outdoor fire on the hilltop under the stars. Elac and Nolo – first and second husbands to Vrisa – and some of the others had been out hunting that day and, after supper, began describing what had taken place.

In utter innocence Elac turned to me and said, 'We saw tallfblk in the crooked glen. Yet they are searching for their child-wealth.'

'Yet?' I asked him. 'You have known of this before?' f

He smiled and nodded; Nolo nodded with him and said, 'We have all seen them many times.'

'Why did you not tell me?' I demanded, trying to keep my temper down.

'Myrddin is fhain now. Be you fhain-brother. We will leave soon; tallfolk will stop searching and go away.'

'Leave?' My anger vanished at the thought. I turned to Vrisa. 'What does Elac mean? Where are we going?'

'Snow time is coming soon. We will go to the crannog, fhain-brother.'

'When?' I felt desperation rising in me like a sickness.

Vrisa shrugged. 'Soon. Before the snow.'

It made sense and I should have known. The Hill Folk did not live in one place very long; I knew that, but somehow failed to consider that they might leave soon for their winter home – a crannog in a hollow hill in the north.

'You have to take me to them,' I told Vrisa. 'I must see them.'

Vrisa frowned and turned to Gern-y-fhain, who shook her head slightly. That cannot be,' she replied. 'Tallfolk will borrow child-wealth from fhain.' They had no direct word for stealing, 'borrowing' was as close as they came and they were wonderfully resourceful borrowers.

'I was tallfolk before I am fhain-brother,' I said. 'I must say farewell.'

This puzzled them. They had no sense of parting or farewell – even death was not a strict separation since the dead one had only gone on a journey much as one might go hunting and could return at any moment, in a different body, perhaps, but essentially the same. 'What means this fayr-well?' Visa asked. 'I know it not.'

'I must tell them to stop searching,' I explained, 'to go back to their lands and leave the crooked glen.'

'No need, Myrddin-wealth,' explained Elac happily. 'Tall-folk will stop searching soon. They will go away soon.'

'No,' I said, rising to my feet. 'They are my fhain-brothers, my parents. Never will they stop searching for their child-wealth. Never1.'

Their concept of time was equally vague. The idea of continuous, ceaseless activity could not be comprehended. Vrisa merely shook her head lightly. This is a thing I know not. You are fhain now. You are a gift to Hawk People, Myrddin-wealth, a gift from Parents.'

I agreed, but held my ground. 'I am a gift, yes. But I must thank fhain-brothers for letting me become a Hawk Person.'

This they understood, for who would not care to become a Hawk Person? Such a great and impressive honour would naturally engender enormous gratitude which the recipient would be duty bound to express. Yes, it made sense to them that I would wish to thank my former fhain-brothers.

What is more, they took it as a sign of my growing maturity. 'It is a good thing, Myrddin-brother. You will thank Parents tomorrow.'

'And fhain-brothers,' I insisted.

'How will you thank them?' asked Vrisa suspiciously, sensing potential trickery, her dark eyes narrowed and wary.

My answer must be innocent or she would refuse outright. 'I will give back their tallfolk clothes.'

Again this made perfect sense. To a people without skill at weaving, without looms, cloth was scarce and extremely valuable. She might be sorry to see the cloth-wealth leave the fhain, but could well understand why I wanted to give it back; and why my former tallfolk fhain, if they could not have me, would at least wish to have my clothes.

'Elac,' she said finally, 'take Myrddin-wealth to tallfolk fire ring tomorrow.'

I smiled. There was no use in pushing the matter further; it was all I was likely to get from them for the moment. Thank you, Vrisa-chief. Thank you, fhain-kin.'

They all smiled back and began chattering at me benignly, and I fell to working out how best to make my escape.

There were four of them in the crooked glen. I could tell even from a distance that they were my people, members of the warband that had ridden as escort. They were camped by a stream and the glimmering light of their fire reflected in the moving water. They were, from ah3 appearances, still asleep as the sun had not yet risen above the hills to the east. f

We were poised on a rock ledge on the hillside, waiting. 'I will go down to my fhain-brothers now,' I told Elac. 'We will go with you.' He indicated Nolo and Teirn. 'No, I will go alone.' I tried to sound as firm as Gern-y-fhain.

He regarded me slyly and then shook his head. 'Vrisa-chief says you will not come back.'

Indeed, that was my plan. Elac shook his head and stood up beside me, putting his hand on my shoulder. 'We will go with you, Myrddin-brother, so tallfolk do not borrow child-wealth back.'

I saw jt all very clearly now, if a trifle late. If we all went down together there would be a fight. Elphin's warriors would never allow the Hill Folk to leave with me. They would try to save me, and they would likely die trying – pierced with arrows before they could draw their swords. One or more of the Hill Folk might be killed in the skirmish as well. No, I could not let that happen. My freedom was not as important as the lives of men I called my friends.

Now what was I to do?

'No,' I folded my arms across my chest and sat down. 'I will not go.'

'Why, Myrddin-wealth?' Mystified, Elac stared at me.

'You go.'

He sat down beside me. Nolo frowned and put out his hand to me. 'She-chief says husbands must go with you. Tallfolk cannot be trusted with child-wealth, Myrddin-brother.'

Tahfolk-brothers will not understand. They will kill fhain-kin when they see you, thinking to help fhain-brother.'

That got through to Elac, who nodded glumly. He knew just how unappreciative tallfolk could be.

'Hawk Fhain fear tallfolk not at all,' boasted Nolo.

'Well, I do not wish fhain-brothers killed. That will bring great sadness to Myrddin-brother. Bring sadness to fhain.' I appealed to Elac. 'You go, Elac. Take the clothes to tall-folk-brothers.' I indicated the pile of clothing on the ledge beside me.

He considered this and agreed. I folded my cloak, trousers, and tunic as neatly as I could, frantically thinking how I might send a message that would not be misinterpreted. In the end I took off my rawhide belt and tied that around the bundle.

My people would recognize the clothing, of course, but I still needed another token to indicate my safety. I glanced around. Teirn,' I held out my hand, 'I need an arrow.'

I would have preferred a pen and parchment, but these were as foreign to the Hill Folk as pepper and perfume. They did not trust writing, and in this showed remarkable wisdom.

Teirn withdrew an arrow. The missiles of the Hill Folk are short, flint-tipped reeds fletched with raven feathers, unmistakable and deadly; and Hill Folk accuracy is legendary. The tallfolk tribes in the north have learned great respect for the fragile-looking arrows and the unerring hand that draws the bow.

I bent to the bundle and took the arrow, snapping it in the centre and tucking the two ends under the rawhide belt. Then, as an afterthought, I removed the silver wolfshead brooch from the cloak and handed the bundle to Elac. 'There, take this to tallfolk camp.'

He looked at the bundle and at the camp below. 'Lugh-Sun is rising,' I told him. 'Do take it now before tallfolk-brothers wake.'

He ducked his head. 'They will see me not.' With that, he scrambled over the ledge and was gone. A few moments later we saw him running towards the camp. Creeping with all the stealth and silence of a shadow, Elac entered the sleeping camp and, in an act of impulsive bravery typical of him, carefully placed the bundle beside the head of one of the sleeping warriors.

He returned to the ledge in no time and we returned to the rath a moment later. It took everything in me to keep from looking back.

I could only hope the fact that my clothes were neatly folded and deposited in their camp would somehow indicate that I was alive and knew my searcher's whereabouts but could not come to them myself. There was every chance that my message would go awry, but I trusted the Great God and hoped I had not made things worse.

Something changed inside me that day. For in giving up my clothes, it was as if I also gave up the idea of rescue. Curiously, I became more content to stay. And although I still grew heartsick and moody from time to time, perhaps I, too, began believing my presence with the Hawk People had a purpose. After that day, I no longer contemplated escape, and eventually came to accept my capture.

I did not see the searchers again, and soon after the fire of Samhain the fhain left for their winter pastures in the north. It made no sense to me why they should come south for the summer and travel north to winter, but that is what they did.

At the time, I did not know that certain regions of the north country can be as mild as any place in the south. But I soon learned that not all the land above the Wall is the bleak, rock-strewn and windblown wasteland that most people think it is. There are corners as lush and comfortable as the best land in all Britain. It was to one of these corners that we came, riding our shaggy ponies and driving our tough little sheep before us.

A crannog is not much different from a rath, save that it is actually hollowed into the heart of the hill. It is also larger; it

had to be, for we shared it with our ponies and sheep on the coldest days. Ideally placed in a secluded glen, the crannog appears, to tallfolk eyes, as just another hill among many. There was good grazing for the sheep and ponies, and a stream which emptied into a nearby sea estuary.

The crannog was dark and warm and though the winter wind whined at night as it searched the rocks and crannies for places its cold fingers could reach, we lay wrapped in our furs and fleeces around the fire, listening to Gern-y-fhain tell of the Elder Days, before the Roman-men came with their swords and built their roads and fortresses, before the bloodlust came on men to make them war with one another, before ever the tallfolk came to the Island of the Mighty.

Listen, she would say, I will tell you of the time before time when the world was new-made and the Prytani ran free and food was plentiful to find and our parents smiled on all their child-wealth, when the Great Snow was shut up in the north and troubled Mother's firstborn not at all…

And she would begin reciting her tale, repeating in her tone and cadence and inflection the ages-old memory of her people, Unking them with a past impossibly remote, but alive in her words. There was no telling how old the story was, for the Hill Folk spoke of all events the same simple, immediate way. What a Gern described might have taken place ten-thousand summers ago, or it might have happened yesterday. Indeed, it was all the same to them.

One moon waxed and waned, and another, and one day just before dusk it began to snow. Elac and Nolo and I went down to the valley with the dogs to herd the livestock back to the crannog. We had just begun when I heard Nolo shout; I turned to see him pointing off down the valley at riders approaching through the swirling snow.

Elac made a flattening motion with his hand and I saw Nolo notch an arrow to his bowstring, crouch, and… disappear. He simply vanished, becoming one more rock or turvey hillock beside the stream. I crouched, too, in the way they had taught me, wondering whether I might be as easily mistaken for a stone. The dogs barked and Elac whistled, silencing them instantly.

Three tallfolk riders clopped up on leggy, starved-looking mounts. Their leader said something, Elac replied and then they began speaking in a much abused approximation of the Hill Folk tongue. 'We come to ask Hill Folk magic,' the rider explained in his halting, broken speech.

'Why?' asked Elac placidly.

'Our chieftain's second wife dies. She has the fever and will keep no food.' He looked at Elac doubtfully. 'Will your Wise Woman come?'

'I will ask her.' He shrugged, adding, 'But likely she will not find it worthwhile to make healing magic for a tallfolk woman.'

'Our chief says he will give four bracelets of gold if the Gern will come.'

Elac frowned disdainfully, as if to say 'Such trinkets are horse manure to us' – although I knew the Prytani vafced tallfolk gold and prized it when they could get it. 'I will ask,' he repeated. 'You go now.'

'We will wait.'

'No. You go now,' insisted Elac. He did not want the tallfolk to see which hill our crannog was in.

'It is our chief!' replied the rider.

Elac shrugged again and turned away, making a pretence of going back to his sheep gathering. The riders whispered among themselves for a moment and then the leader said, 'When? When will you tell her?'

'When tallfolk go back to their huts.'

The riders wheeled their horses and rode away. Elac waited until they were gone and then motioned us forward. Nolo replaced his arrow in the quiver and we herded the sheep together and drove them back to the crannog. The others had already brought the horses in, so Elac wasted no time in speaking to Gern.

'The tallfolk chiefs wife is fevered,' he told her. 'Four gold bracelets if you will heal her.'

'She must be very fevered,' replied Gern. 'But I will go to her.' And she rose and made her way out of the crannog at once. Nolo, Elac, Vrisa, and I followed.

By the time we arrived at the tallfolk settlement on the estuary, it was almost dark. The chiefs house stood on timber stilts amidst a handful of lesser dwellings built at the very edge of the reeking mudflats. Vrisa, Elac, and Nolo accompanied Gern; I had come to hold the ponies, but once we arrived and Gern looked around, she indicated that I was to join them in the chiefs house.

A filthy skin hung over the door. At Elac's whistle this door-flap was drawn back and the man who had come to us in the valley emerged to motion us in. The round timber hut contained a single large room with a fire stone in the centre. Wind sifted through the poorly-thatched roof and the unfilled gaps in the wattle, making the room damp and chill. The shells of mussels and oysters, and fishbones and scales lay trampled on the floor. The chieftain sat beside the sooty dried-dung fire with two women, each clutching a dirty, squawling infant to her breast. The chief grunted and gestured across the room where a woman lay on a pallet of rushes piled high with furs.

Gern clucked when she saw the woman. She was not old, but the dubious honour of producing heirs for the chief had aged her beyond her years. And now she lay in her bed aflame with fever, eyes sunken, limbs trembling, her skin pale and yellow as the fleece under her head. She was dying. Even I – who at the time lacked any knowledge of healing – could see that she would not last the night.

'Fools!' Gern said under her breath. 'They ask magic too late.'

'Four bracelets,' Elac reminded her. Gern sighed and squatted down beside the woman, studied her for a long moment and then dipped her fingers into the pouch at her belt and brought out a small pot of ointment which she began applying to the sick woman's forehead. The woman shivered and opened her eyes. I could see the death-look in them, although under Gern's touch she seemed to revive somewhat. Gern spoke to her softly, using the soothing words of the healer's tongue to ease the fever's grip.

Dipping back into her pouch, Gern withdrew her hand and extended it to me. Into my open palm she dropped a small mass of dried matter – bark shavings, roots, leaves, grass, seeds – nodding towards the iron cauldron hanging over the fire by a chain from the roofbeam. I understood that she wished me to put the mixture into the cauldron, which I did. I poured water into the pot and waited until it boiled. Then Gern motioned for me to bring it to her; under the foul mutterings of the chief, I dipped out a gourd.

Gern lifted the woman's head and gave her to drink. The woman smiled weakly as she lay back. A few moments later she closed her eyes and slept. Gern then went to the chief and stood before him.

'Will the woman live?' asked the chief. He might have been speaking about one of his hounds.

'She lives,' answered Gern-y-fhain. 'See she does keep warm, and drinks the potion.'

The chieftain grunted and removed one of his bracelets. He handed the golden object to his man, who dropped it gingerly into Gern's palm lest he touch her. The slight did not go unnoticed. Elac stiffened. Nolo's hand alreadyjhad an arrow in it.

But Gern looked at the bracelet and hefted it in her hand. Likely, there was much tin in the thing and little enough gold. 'You promised four bracelets.'

'Four? Take what you are given, and get out!' he growled in his sorry speech. 'I will not hear your lies!'

The Hill Folk drew their weapons.

Gern raised a hand in the air. Elac and Nolo froze. 'Chief thinks to cheat Gern-y-fhain?' She spoke softly, but the threat was undeniable. Her hand weaved a strange motion in the air and something fell from her fingers. The fire suddenly became a fountain gushing bright sparks.

The women screamed and threw their hands over their faces. The chieftain quickly reconsidered, glaring with red-eyed anger. He muttered and removed three more bracelets, throwing them into the flaming embers of the fire at his feet.

Quick as a flick, Gern reached into the fire and scooped up the bracelets, to the astonishment of the tallfolk. The gold disappeared into a fold in her clothing and, straight-backed, she turned and walked from the hut. We followed her, mounted our ponies, and together returned to the crannog in the winter twilight.

Two days later, Elac and Nolo took the sheep back down to the pasture and were there when the tallfolk came upon them: three riders as before and the chief with them. I was halfway down the hill and saw the riders sweep down on my fhain-brothers, scattering the sheep. I stopped and hunched myself into a motionless shape, blending instantly into the hillscape.

When the riders halted, I hurried forward.

'Give back the gold!' the chief shouted. Elac's knife appeared in his hand. Nolo's bowstring stretched taut. The tallfolk were not unprepared. Each held a sturdy sword and a small, well-made wood-and-oxhide shield. I wondered about the weapons. Where had these men come by them? Trading with the Scotti? 'Give it back, thief!'

Elac may not have understood the word, but he knew the tone. His muscles tensed, ready to leap to the fight. The only thing that checked him was the horses. Had the Hill Folk been astride their own ponies they would have been nigh invincible to the rogues before them. But it was four against two, and the two were on foot.

The tallfolk chieftain meant to have his gold back, or the heads of those who had it on sharpened stakes outside his house. Perhaps both. As I watched, I felt the same quickening in the air around me as I had felt the day the stones danced. I knew something would happen, but did not know what it might be.

But the moment I stepped between Elac and the chieftain, I saw that the tallfolk felt it, too.

'Why have you come here?' I asked, trying to imitate Gern-y-fhain's unassailable authority.

The tallfolk started as if I had sprung full-grown from the turf at their feet. The chieftain tightened his grip on his sword and grumbled, 'The woman is dead and lies cold in the mud. I have come for my gold.'

'Go back,' I told him. 'If you think to avenge yourself on those who helped you, then you deserve what will happen to you. Turn back; there is nothing for you here.'

A fierce and ugly glee twisted his stupid face. 'I will have the gold, and your flapping tongue as well, bastard!'

'You have been warned,' I told him, then looked at the others. 'You have all been warned.' They were not as brave as their chief, or else they were not as stupid. They muttered and made the sign against evil with their hands.

The chief opened his mouth in a rude laugh. 'I will gut you like a herring and strangle you with your own entrails, boy!' he boasted, lowering his sword to my throat.

Elac tensed, ready to strike. I held up a hand to stay him. The chiefs sword, the blade black with caked blood, came nearer. I turned my eyes to the length of jagged iron and imagined the heat that had forged it, imagined it red hot from the forge fire.

The sword-tip began to glow – duskily at first, but brightening rapidly, the fireglow spreading along the blade towards the hilt.

The chief held the weapon as long as he could, and burmed his hand badly for his stubbornness. His shriek echoed in the valley. 'Kill him!' he shouted; the red welt on his palm was already blistering. 'Kill him!'

His men made no move for their own weapons had become too hot to hold, and indeed the iron in their belt buckles, knives, and arm rings was growing uncomfortably warm.

The horses jigged nervously, showing the whites of then-eyes. 'Take yourselves from here and do not trouble us again,' I said levelly, although my heart was beating furiously.

One of the men turned his horse and made to ride away, but his leader was a bull-headed man. 'Stay!' Rage and frustration blackened his face. 'You!' He roared at me. 'I will kill you! I will – '

I had never seen a man carried away by such hate. And, although I have seen it once or twice since, at the time I did not know that it could kill.

The chief gagged and his words stuck – like fishbones in his throat – and he choked, making a hideous sound. Clawing at his neck, eyes bulging, he pitched from the saddle. He was dead when his body struck the ground.

The men stared at their fallen leader only for an instant, then wheeled their horses and fled back the way they had come, leaving their chief where he lay.

When they had gone, Elac turned to me and looked long into my eyes. He did not speak, but the questions were there. Who are you? What are you?

Nolo squatted beside the body. 'This one is dead, Myrddin-wealth,' he said softly.

'We will put him back on his horse and send him home to his own,' I told him.

With some difficulty, the three of us lifted the body and slung it across the saddle, tying the wrists and ankles together to keep it from sliding off. We turned the horse and gave the unhappy beast a slap on the rump and it trotted after the others. I breathed a prayer for the man – I did not have it in me to despise him. We watched the horses out of sight and then returned to the crannog, Elac and Nolo running on ahead in their eagerness to tell what they had seen.

Vrisa and Gern-y-fhain regarded me knowingly as they heard what had happened. Gern-y-fhain raised her hands above my head and sang the victory for me; Vrisa showed her appreciation in another way. She put her arms around me and kissed me. That night I sat beside her at supper and she fed me from her bowl.