The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [67]
He drew the flat of his hand across the wax to erase my drawing, pushed the tablet aside, and stood up.
"You've done well today, which is just as well, because I have to leave early."
He reached out and struck the bell. The door opened so quickly that I knew his servant must have been waiting just outside. The boy came in with his master's cloak over his arm, and shook it out quickly to hold it for him. He did not even glance my way for permission, but watched Belasius, and I could see he was afraid of him. He was about my age, or younger, with brown hair cut close to his head in a curled cap, and grey eyes too big for his face.
Belasius neither spoke nor glanced at him, but turned his shoulders to the cloak, and the boy reached up to fasten the clasp. Across his head Belasius said to me: "I shall tell the Count of your progress. He will be pleased."
The expression on his face was as near a smile as he ever showed. Made bold by this, I turned on my stool. "Belasius -- "
He stopped halfway to the door. "Well?"
"You must surely know...Please tell me. What are his plans for me?"
"That you should work at your mathematics and your astronomy, and remember your languages."
His tone was smooth and mechanical, but there was amusement in his eyes, so I persisted. "To become what?"
"What do you wish to become?"
I did not answer. He nodded, just as if I had spoken. "If he wanted you to carry a sword for him, you would be out in the square now."
"But -- to live here as I do, with you to teach me, and Cadal as my servant...I don't understand it. I should be serving him somehow, not just learning...and living like this, like a prince. I know very well that I am only alive by his grace."
He regarded me for a moment under those long lids. Then he smiled. "It's something to remember. I believe you told him once that it was what you were, not who you were, that would matter. Believe me, he will use you, as he uses everyone. So stop wondering about it, and let it be. Now I must go."
The boy opened the door for him to show Cadal just pausing outside, with a hand raised to knock.
"Oh, excuse me, sir. I came to see when you'd be done for the day. I've got the horses ready, Master Merlin."
"We've finished already," said Belasius. He paused in the doorway and looked back at me. "Where were you planning to go?"
"North, I think, the road through the forest. The causeway's still good and the road will be dry."
He hesitated, then said, to Cadal rather than to me: "Then keep to the road, and be home before dark." He nodded, and went out, with the boy at his heels.
"Before dark?" said Cadal. "It's been dark all day, and it's raining now, besides. Look, Merlin" -- when we were alone we were less formal -- "why don't we just take a look along to the engineers' workshops? You always enjoy that, and Tremorinus ought to have got that ram working by now. What do you say we stay in town?"
I shook my head. "I'm sorry, Cadal, but I must go, rain or no rain. I've got the fidgets, or something, and I must get out."
"Well, then, a mile or two down to the port should do you. Come on, here's your cloak. It'll be pitch black in the forest; have a bit of sense."
"The forest," I said obstinately, turning my head while he fastened the pin. "And don't argue with me, Cadal. If you ask me, Belasius has the right ideas. His servant doesn't even dare to speak, let alone argue. I ought to treat you the same way -- in fact I'll start straight away...What are you grinning at?"
"Nothing. All right, I know when to give in. The forest it is, and if we lose ourselves and never get back alive, at least I'll have died with you, and won't have to face the Count."
"I really can't see that he'd care overmuch."
"Oh, he wouldn't" said Cadal, holding the door for me to go through. "It was only a manner of speaking. I doubt if he'd even notice, myself."
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