The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [156]
He lifted a hand to me, turned the mare up the slope, then slid from the saddle, and greeted me with a smile.
"Well, so you were right. As if I had to tell you that! And now I suppose I don't even have to tell you what happened? Have you ever thought, Merlin, what a dull thing it is to have a prophet who knows everything before it has happened? Not only can I never lie to you, but I can hardly even come to you afterwards and boast about it."
"I'm sorry. But I assure you, this time, your prophet waited for your dispatches just as eagerly as anyone else. Thank you for sending the letters...How did you find me? Have you been to Applegarth?"
"I was on the way there, but a fellow with an oxcart -- one of the sawyers -- said he had seen you come this way. Are you going farther? I'll walk with you if I may."
"Of course. I was just going to turn for home...Your letters were very welcome, but I still want to hear everything at first hand. It's strange to think that old Caw has gone at last. He's been sitting on that crag of his at Dumbarton for as long as I can remember. Do you think Gwarthegydd can hold his own now?"
"Against the Irish and the Saxons, yes, I wouldn't doubt him there. How he makes out with the seventeen other claimants to the kingdom is another matter." He grinned. "Sixteen, I suppose, since I clipped Heuil's wings for him."
"Make if fifteen. You can hardly count young Gildas, since he went to serve Blaise as his clerk."
"That's true. A clever boy, that, and was always Heuil's shadow. I fancy that when Blaise dies he'll be headed for a monastery. Perhaps it's as well. Like his brother, he has never loved me."
"Then it's to be hoped he can be trusted with the master's papers. You should get some of your own scribes to set your records down."
He cocked a brow at me. "What's this? A prophet's warning?"
"Nothing of the kind. A passing thought, merely. So Gwarthegydd is your man? There was a time when he threw Caw off and wooed the Irish kings."
"He was younger then, and Caw's hand was heavy. That's over. I think he will be well enough. What really matters at this stage is that he agrees with Urbgen..."
He talked on, telling me all the burden of the weeks away, while we walked slowly back across the downs with the mare following, and the great hound coursing, nose down, in widening circles round our path.
In essence, I thought, listening, nothing had changed. Not yet. Less and less did he need to come to me for counsel, but, as always since his boyhood, he needed the chance to talk over -- to himself as much as to me -- the course of events, and the problems of the newly built concourse of kingdoms as they arose. Usually, at the end of an hour or two, after a conversation to which I might have contributed much, or sometimes nothing at all, I could both hear and see that the knots were in a fair way to being unravelled. Then he would rise suddenly, stretch, give me farewell, and go; an abrupt disappearance with anyone else, but between us there was no need for more. I was the strong tree on which the eagle alighted in passing, for rest or thought. But now the oak showed a withered bough or two. How long would it take the sapling to be up to his weight?
He had come to the end of his narrative. Then, as if my thoughts had communicated themselves to him, he gave me a long look, with trouble in it. "Now, about you. How have you been during these last weeks? You look tired. Have you been ill again?"
"No. My health need not trouble you."
"I've thought more than once about my last visit to you. You said that it was this -- " he hesitated over it, " -- your assistant who 'saw' Heuil and his rabble at their work."
"Ninian. Yes, it was."
"And you yourself saw nothing?"
"Yes," I