The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart [109]
I suppose I should have been more alert, though to be here at all was a risk I had had to take. And there had been a chance that the troopers asking for the rider with the strawberry mare had not passed this way. But it seemed that they had.
What with the roar of the furnace and the clanging hammer I heard nothing of any approach, just saw, suddenly, the shadows between me and the doorway, then the four men standing there. They were all armed, and they all held their weapons ready, as if they were fully prepared to use them. Two of them held spears, none the less deadly for being home-made, one had a woodsman's hacking knife, its blade honed to a bright edge that would go through living oak, and the fourth held, with some expertness, a Roman short sword.
The last one was the spokesman. He greeted me civilly enough, while the smith held his hammering, and the boy stared.
"Who are you, and where are you bound for?"
I answered him in his own dialect, and without moving from where I sat. "My name is Emrys, and I am travelling north. I have had to come out of my way because, as you see, my mare has cast a shoe."
"Where are you from?"
"From the south, where we do not send armed men against a stranger who passes through our village. What are you afraid of, coming four to one?"
He growled something, and the two with the spears grounded them, shuffling their feet. But the swordsman stood firm.
"You speak our language too well to be a stranger. I think you are the man we have been told to look for. Who are you?"
"No stranger to you, Brychan," I said calmly. "Did you get that sword at Kaerconan, or did we take it when we cut Vortigern's troops to pieces at the crossroads by Bremia?"
"Kaerconan?" The sword-point wavered and fell. "You fought there, for Ambrosius?"
"I was there, yes."
"And at Bremia? With Duke Gorlois?" The point dropped completely. "Wait, you said your name was Emrys? Not Myrddin Emrys, the prophet that won the battle for us, and then doctored our hurts? Ambrosius' son?"
"The same."
The men of my race do not easily bend the knee, but as he slid his sword back into his belt and showed his blackened teeth in a wide grin of pleasure, the effect was the same. "By all the gods, so it is! I didn't know you, sir. Put your weapons up, you fools, can't you see he's a prince, and no meat of ours?"
"Small blame to them if they can't see any such thing," I said, laughing. "I'm neither prince nor prophet now, Brychan, braud. I'm travelling secretly, and I need help...and silence."
"You shall have anything we can give you, my lord." He had caught my involuntary glance towards the smith and the staring boy, and added quickly: "There's no man here will say a word, look you. No, nor boy neither."
The boy nodded, swallowing. The smith said gruffly: "If I'd known who you were -- "
"You'd not have sent your boy scampering off to take the news to the village?" I said. "No matter. If you are a King's man as Brychan is, I can trust you."
"We are all King's men here," said Brychan harshly, "but if you were Uther's worst enemy, instead of his brother's son and the winner of his battles, I would help you, and so would my kinsmen and every man in these parts. Who was it saved this arm of mine after Kaerconan? It's thanks to you that I was able to carry this sword against you today." He clapped the hilt at his belt. I remembered the arm; one of the Saxon axes had driven deep into the flesh, hacking a collop of muscle and laying the bone bare. I had stitched the arm and treated it; whether it was the virtue of the medicine, or Brychan's faith in anything "the King's prophet" might do, the arm had healed. A great part of its strength was gone for ever, but it served him. "And as for the rest of us," he finished, "we're all your men, my lord. You're safe here, and your secrets with you. We all know where the future of these lands lies, and that's in your hands, Myrddin Emrys. If we'd known you were the 'traveller'