The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [106]
The ten men sat round the fire, while Llyd and I, a little apart from them, talked.
"These soldiers," I said, "who wanted me followed. What sort of men were they?"
"Five men, soldiers fully armed, but with no blazon."
"Five? One of them red-haired, big, in a brown jerkin and a blue cloak? And another on a pied horse?" This was the only horse recognizable to Stilicho, who had glimpsed its white patches in the murk of the grove. They must have had a fifth man, left on watch at the foot of the valley. "What did they say to you?"
But Llyd was shaking his head. "There was no man such as you describe, nor any such horse. The leader was a fair man, thin as a hay-fork, with a beard. They asked us only to watch for a man on a strawberry roan mare, who rode alone, on business that they had no knowledge of. But they said their master would pay well to know where he went."
He threw the bone he had been gnawing over his shoulder, wiped his mouth, and met my eyes straightly. "I said I would not ask your business, but tell me this much, Myrddin Emrys. Why is the son of the High King Ambrosius and the kin of Uther Pendragon hiding alone in the forest while Urien's men hunt him, wishing him ill?"
"Urien's men?"
There was deep satisfaction in his voice. "Ah. Some things your magic will not tell you. But in these valleys, no one moves but we know of it. No one comes here but he is marked and followed until we know his business. We know Urien of Gore. These men were his, and spoke the tongue of his country."
"Then you can tell me about Urien," I said. "I know of him; a small king of a small country, brother by marriage to Lot of Lothian. There is no reason that I know why he should hunt me. I am on King's business, and Urien has no quarrel with me or with the King. He and his brother of Lothian are allies of Rheged and of the King. Has Urien, then, become the creature of some other man? Duke Cador?"
"No. Only of King Lot."
I was silent. The fire roared and above us the forest stirred and ruffled. The wind was dying. I was thinking savagely. That Crinas and his gang were Cador's I had no doubt; now it seemed that there had been other spies from the north, watching and waiting, and that somehow they had stumbled across my trail. Urien, Lot's jackal. And Cador. Two of Uther's most powerful allies, his right hand and his left; and the moment the King began to fail they had spies out looking for the prince...The pattern broke and re-formed as a reflection in a pool re-forms after a rock has been thrown into it; but not the same pattern; the rock is there in the center, changing everything. King Lot, the betrothed of Morgian the High King's daughter. King Lot.
I said at length: "I heard you say these men had ridden on north. Were they going straight to report to Urien, or still trying to find and follow me?"
"To follow you. They said they would cast farther north to find some trace of you. If they find none they will seek us out at a place we arranged with them."
"And will you meet them there?"
He spat sideways, not troubling to answer.
I smiled. "I shall go on tomorrow. Will you guide me to a path that the troopers will not know?"
"Willingly, but to do that I must know where you are making for."
"I am following a dream I had," I told him. He nodded. These folk of the hills find this reasonable. They work by instinct like animals, and they read the skies and wait for portents. I thought for a minute, then asked him: "You spoke of Macsen Wledig. When he left these islands to go to Rome, did any of your people go with him?"
"Yes. My own great-grandfather led them under Macsen."
"And came back?"
"Indeed."
"I told you I had had a dream. I dreamed that a dead king spoke to me, and told me that before I could raise the living one I had a quest to fulfill. Did you ever hear what became of Macsen's sword?"
He threw up a hand in a sign I had never seen before. But I recognized what it was,