The Road to Avalon Page 5

  “You thought he would just buck me off and go back to grazing,” Arthur said excusingly.

  Bedwyr nodded. “You didn’t look as if you could ride him,” he replied.

  “I’ll help you walk him out,” Arthur offered, and the two boys stripped the stallion’s saddle off, ducking the lashing hooves dexterously, and began to walk him slowly around the field, Bedwyr holding the reins and Arthur walking on the horse’s other side.

  “Where did your father find such a horse?” Arthur asked.

  “He comes from Gaul. My father bought him from a Goth a few years ago to improve our own stock.”

  “He breeds those ponies to him?” Arthur asked in astonishment.

  “No.” Bedwyr gave Arthur a disgusted look. “We have some good mares at home. These,” and he waved toward the ponies, “are the stock we are trying to unload.”

  “And you were insulted when I didn’t want to buy them,” Arthur said dryly.

  Bedwyr’s white teeth flashed. “Well,” he said. And shrugged.

  “Where do your people live?”

  “In Dyfed. My father is King Ban.”

  So. This big blond boy with the magnificent horse was a prince. That accounted, Arthur supposed, for the obviously valuable arm rings that Bedwyr wore. Arthur reached up to pat the muscled neck of the stallion, and the horse turned on him with bared teeth. Arthur removed his arm from the path of the snapping teeth and said to Bedwyr, “Is he always this nasty?”

  “He killed a man on the boat from Gaul,” Bedwyr replied with what sounded suspiciously like pride. “He’s a vicious brute, but his foals are magnificent. My father gave me one of his colts this spring.”

  When the horse was breathing quietly they brushed off the saddle marks and picketed him to graze. As they moved off together in the direction of the fair, Arthur said, “I have to meet my friend.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Bedwyr offered, and Arthur nodded. The two boys had reached the fairgrounds and were making their way up a narrow alley behind a row of stalls when there was the patter of feet behind them and suddenly Bedwyr was surrounded by four men. Arthur had been a little in front, and when he heard Bedwyr’s yell he turned. The men were grabbing for Bedwyr’s arm rings, but the blond boy fought them off with startling ferocity. Without a moment’s hesitation, Arthur plunged in to help.

  Bedwyr was enormously strong, and two of the men, recoiling from his blows, turned to the smaller, slighter boy who had come back to assist his friend. One man found himself thrown across Arthur’s shoulder. Another, coming at him with upraised fists, got a chop on the side of the neck that stopped him dead. Bedwyr’s fist sent a third flying through the air. Abruptly the boys were alone.

  They regarded each other with mutual satisfaction. “You shouldn’t wear all that fancy jewelry around a fair,” Arthur said reprovingly.

  Bedwyr’s eyes were brilliantly blue. “Gods,” he said. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

  “At home,” Arthur replied laconically. He looked up at the sky. “Come on. I’m late meeting Morgan.”

  Morgan was sitting on an old saddle in front of the herb woman’s stall when she saw him coming toward her, accompanied by a big boy with long silver-blond hair. “Sorry,” Arthur called as soon as he was within earshot. “I got delayed.”

  “That’s all right,” Morgan replied equably, and got to her feet.

  Bedwyr stared at the small, fragile-looking girl. “Is this your friend?” he asked Arthur.

  Before Arthur could reply, however, Morgan spoke. “Whom were you fighting?” she asked Arthur, and looked with resignation at the blood on his lip.

  “Some men jumped us,” he answered cheerfully. “They wanted Bedwyr’s arm rings. Morgan, this is Bedwyr. He has the most magnificent horse. You must come to see him.”

  Morgan’s brown eyes moved to Bedwyr. “Hello, Bedwyr,” she said. “Do you mind if I come to see your horse?”

  Bedwyr found himself smiling at her. “You’ll have to be careful,” he cautioned. “He isn’t safe.”

  Morgan’s brown head nodded in acknowledgment. “Before we leave, though, perhaps you ought to take off those arm rings.”

  Bedwyr grinned and complied, slipping them inside his tunic as the three of them walked off. He would never have taken them off at anyone else’s suggestion, Arthur thought with amusement as they weaved in and out among the stalls. Wait until he saw Morgan with his vicious stallion!

  They were moving through the area of food stalls and the crowd was getting thicker. Arthur took Morgan’s hand. “You go first, Bedwyr,” he said as he slipped Morgan deftly between the Celt and himself. “You’re the biggest.”

  The black was still grazing when they arrived back at the Dyfed camp. He raised his head and looked at them suspiciously as they approached.

  “Oh, Arthur,” Morgan breathed.

  Arthur nodded tensely. “Bedwyr says he came from Gaul.”

  “Hello, my beauty,” said Morgan, and began to walk toward the horse.

  “Watch out!” Bedwyr reached to stop her but his own arm was caught and held immobile by steel-hard fingers.

  “Wait,” said Arthur. “Watch.”

  Bedwyr stood still, astonished by the strength of those thin fingers, and did as he was commanded. The stallion watched Morgan approaching him, his ears flicking back and forth. Bedwyr was amazed to see that he was trembling. The girl was talking to him in a series of chirps and soft sounds that the Celt had never heard before. She reached the stallion and stood quietly before him, still talking. He snorted, but his eyes never left her. Then she raised a hand and patted the side of his neck. For a moment the two stayed thus, as if carved in marble, and then the stallion lowered his head and she was rubbing his forehead. He began to nuzzle her clothes.

  “I don’t believe it. Is it magic?” Bedwyr turned to Arthur and surprised a very revealing expression on the other boy’s face. Oh, thought Bedwyr, so that’s how it is.

  Then the expression was gone, and Arthur said to him, “Not magic, just Morgan. She can do anything with an animal.”

  “It is amazing,” Bedwyr replied slowly, and looked thoughtfully back at the girl who was gentling his father’s vicious horse. “Where do you two come from?” he asked.

  “From Dumnonia,” Arthur replied. “From the villa of Avalon.”

  Avalon was a name that Bedwyr knew. His head jerked around. “Merlin’s villa?”

  “Yes.” Arthur’s face was composed, unreadable.

  “But who are you?” Bedwyr asked in confusion.

  “Morgan is Merlin’s daughter.” There was an almost imperceptible pause. “And he is my guardian,” Arthur added.

  “I see,” said Bedwyr, although he didn’t.

  Arthur absently flexed one lean brown wrist. “We came to sell our produce at the fair.” Morgan was coming toward them now. She reached the boys and looked up. The top of her head reached to Arthur’s eyes; Bedwyr towered over her. The sun shone on her peach-colored cheeks.

  “Your dream horse,” she said to Arthur. Then, looking at Bedwyr, “Are there more like him?”

  “His oldest get are now three-year-olds,” Bedwyr replied.

  “But there are more in Gaul?” It was Arthur speaking now.

  “I suppose so. Among the Goths, at any rate.” He looked at the two of them in some bewilderment. “Why is it so important?”

  Arthur’s eyes, so arrestingly light in his deeply tanned face, looked Bedwyr up and down. Bedwyr found himself holding his breath. It was suddenly of vital importance to him to be found worthy of this black-haired boy’s confidence.

  Arthur had made up his mind. He smiled at Bedwyr and said casually, “One day I want to form a cavalry unit to fight against the Saxons.”

  The blue eyes blazed. “A cavalry unit? Like the Goths?”

  “Yes,” said Arthur. “Heavy cavalry. Like the Goths.”

  Bedwyr’s splendid face was perfectly serious. “When you are ready to form your cavalry unit,”
he said, “send for me.”

  “Yes,” replied Arthur with equal seriousness, “I will.” And it did not seem strange to either boy that Bedwyr, the prince, had put himself at the other’s command.

  Over that winter Horatius began to fail. Moving was an obvious effort for him and he would lie for hours near the charcoal brazier in Morgan’s room, watching her out of dreamy, half-closed eyes. Several times a day Arthur would carry him out to the grass at the back of the house and then carry him back to Morgan’s room.

  In March he began to refuse food. Merlin wanted to end it for him, but Morgan refused, saying he was not in pain. “Let him die in his own way,” she said to Arthur.

  On an early spring day of diffused sunshine, Arthur carried Horatius out to the grass for the last time. Morgan sat with him as he lay with his head on his front paws, his eyes clouded, his sides trembling with each breath.

  He was still alive when Arthur came down after his morning practice session with weapons, and so both youngsters were with him when he died.

  They told no one at first. Arthur dug a grave for him in the woods behind the house and carried him out to it, a long walk burdened with Horatius’ deadweight. Morgan put some hay in the bottom of the grave to soften it; then they put the dog in and covered him over.

  “How is Horatius?” Merlin asked his daughter at dinner.

  Arthur answered for her. “He died this afternoon, sir. We buried him in the woods.”

  “I see,” said Merlin quietly. He looked at his daughter’s averted face and said nothing more.

  After dinner Morgan slipped away to look at Horatius’ grave. Then she took her pony out to the tree house, where she sat huddled against the trunk, staring at the willows on the other side of the river that were just starting to turn green.

  After ten minutes she heard Arthur’s voice calling her name.

  “Here!” she called back.

  She heard his pony coming through the woods, but did not look over the edge of the platform. He swung himself up onto the planking and stopped, looking at her gravely. A lock of black hair fell across his forehead and he brushed it back.

  “It’s foolish to grieve for his death, I know,” she said. “He was ready. But, oh, Arthur, I shall miss him so!”

  “It’s not foolish to grieve for the loss of a loved one,” he replied and, coming to sit beside her, he gathered her into his arms. She nestled against him, her head falling against his arm, her face turning into his shoulder. She began to cry and he held her closer, his heart aching. He put his cheek against the silky round top of her head.

  Her tears stopped, but still they stayed as they were. Arthur felt her against him, so soft and warm, the very heart of his own being. He turned his cheek so that his mouth was against her hair.

  She let out a long, uneven sigh and sat up, looking at him, her face very close to his. There were still tears on her cheeks and he touched one with a careful, delicate finger.

  “Morgan,” he breathed. Her eyes were so dark and yet so luminous. He leaned his face closer and, very gently, his mouth touched hers.

  It was a very soft kiss, very tentative. Close as they had been for all these years, they had never before done this. Their lips parted and two pairs of eyes, one dark and one light, searched each other. Then, with one accord, they moved again into each other’s arms. He kissed her mouth this time with trembling fierceness, and she reached her arms up around his neck, and her hair streamed like a silken mantle down over his wrists and spilled on the wooden planks of the tree-house floor.

  Chapter 6

  ON the far side of the river Camm, at the very northern border of Avalon, lay the forest. Morgan often went berrying there, bringing back to the villa baskets of blue and red and purple berries for the cook to bake into breads. She also gathered herbs for the medicines she was becoming so adept at making. The only stipulation Merlin made was that if she went to the forest, Arthur was to go with her; and he was to bring a knife.

  The berries were particularly good that spring, and Arthur and Morgan were coming back through the forest with laden baskets one especially warm afternoon, but the harmony that usually prevailed between them was absent this day. Arthur kept glancing at Morgan worriedly as they made their way in silence to the river. The small boat they used to cross the river was tied to a beech tree, and both youngsters jumped into it with the ease of long practice. Arthur picked up the oars and in less than two minutes they were on the opposite shore. Arthur tied the boat to a wooden stake and lifted out the baskets of berries.

  “We don’t have to go back right away,” he said over his shoulder to Morgan as he performed this task. “We have time.”

  She nodded and sank to the grass. “I think I have a stone in my shoe,” she said, and proceeded to remove her rawhide moccasin. She turned the shoe upside down, and then, instead of putting it back on, removed the other one as well and wiggled her bare toes with pleasure. Her feet were small and narrow, with high-arched insteps. They were dirty from the trek through the woods. Her short-sleeved saffron-colored tunic was dirty as well. Arthur came to sit beside her.

  “How many scratches did you get?” he asked, and held out his forearm for her to see the long red lines that marred its deep tan. Morgan lifted her own arm in reply and showed him two deep crimson marks that scored the silken white flesh above her wrist. He circled her wrist with his fingers and looked into her eyes. “What’s the matter?” he asked softly. “You’ve been unhappy all day.”

  Her eyes slid away from his. Her expression was somber, astonishingly mature, very different from the face she showed to the adults at home. “In another month,” she said, “you will be sixteen.”

  He let out his breath. “We can’t stay children forever.” He tried to keep his voice light.

  “I wish we could.”

  “I don’t.” The lightness was gone. His voice now was intense, almost fierce. “Don’t you understand?” he said. “Don’t you feel how hard it is to be young?” His hand on her wrist tightened. “There’s everything I want, everything I’m ready for, and I’m too young.”

  She looked at him, her brown eyes grave. “Yes,” she said at last. “I do understand. But I haven’t your courage. I’m afraid . . .” She shivered and the hand on her wrist pulled her closer, and then she was in his arms. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his shoulder, feeling his hard young body pressed against hers. She wanted to keep him here beside her like this forever, and she was afraid because she knew she could not. After a minute he released her and said in a rough voice, “We’d better be starting back.”

  The following day it rained, a soft drizzling rain that held off at times. Arthur read history in the library with Merlin in the morning and then went to look for Morgan. She wasn’t in the house or in the herb garden and so he took a pony and went out to search all their usual haunts. She wasn’t at the tree house. She wasn’t watching the carpenter or the blacksmith. She wasn’t in the valley. The air was heavy and gray with mist as Arthur turned back toward the villa. He was halfway home when the drizzle turned into a heavy rain. The storehouse where they kept the grain was near, so he took shelter there, bringing his pony in and tying it up. He had been in the barn for five minutes when the door opened again and Morgan came in.

  She recognized his pony immediately. “Arthur?” she called.

  His head appeared over the side of the loft. “Here,” he answered. “I was looking for you. Where were you?”

  “Oh, here and there,” she answered vaguely, and began to climb up to the loft to join him. Arthur had made himself comfortable on a nest of old sacks. It was dim up under the roof and it was not until she sat down beside him that he realized how wet she was.

  “Morgan!” He was half-laughing, half-concerned. “You’re soaked!”

  “It’s raining,” she replied. “Hand me one of those sacks and I’ll wrap it around myself.”

  He did as she requested and she draped the sack, shawlwise, around her shoulders.
She shivered and he reached an arm around her and drew her against him. Her head fell onto his shoulder.

  The rain beat on the roof of the barn. Below them they heard the pony snort. The smell of grain filled their nostrils. When he bent his head to find her mouth, she was waiting for him.

  Their kissing had become expert over the last month, but there was something between them now that had not been there before. There’s everything I want, everything I’m ready for, he had said to her yesterday, and she had understood what he meant. She ran her hands up and down his back, feeling the hard young muscles. The heat of his body warmed her own chilled flesh.

  “Do you want to take off your wet gown?” His voice was scarcely recognizable to her. She said yes and with her own hands pulled the wet material over her head.

  He touched her with wonder. Her skin was like silk under his rough, callused fingers. Passion came up in him, stroke after stroke, undeniable, like the clanging of a great bronze bell within. She was so soft . . . the force within him so irresistible. He leaned over her and looked into her face. She put her arms around his neck and his heart blazed up in a flame of joy. She was so lovely, she was such a bliss of release . . . she was his love.

  He hurt her, but she didn’t mind. She nestled against him, listening to the slowing beat of his heart, the quieting of his breathing, and was fiercely glad that she had been able to do this for him.

  The rain beat steadily on the roof of the storehouse, and they lay in one another’s arms and were at peace.

  At dinner Merlin and Ector talked about the new Saxon offensive, and Arthur, who would ordinarily have listened closely, scarcely heard a word they said. His whole being was concentrated instead on the girl who sat across the table from him. Ector and Merlin might have been ghosts, so unreal and insubstantial did they seem to him now.

  Ector broke off to say something to Morgan, and she smiled, showing him the mask of a happy and unconcerned child. As she turned away from Ector, her eyes met Arthur’s. The look they exchanged was not childlike at all.