The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [178]
By nightfall of the second day I had rigged a sort of rough scaffolding roofed with the stout plank of the bench, which might serve as a base for a ladder. It was nine feet high, and fixed firmly enough with a pile of stones holding it in place. I had only, I reckoned, another twenty-five feet to build.
I worked until dusk, then lighted the lantern and made my wretched meal. Then, as a man turns to the comfort of a lover, I lifted the harp into my arms and, without thoughts of Orpheus or Troy, played until my eyelids drooped, and a false chord warned me that it was time to sleep. Tomorrow would be another day.
***
Who could have guessed what kind of day? Tired from my labours, I slept deeply, and woke later than usual to the light of a bright thread of sunshine, and the sound of someone calling my name.
For a moment I lay still, thinking myself still caught in the mists of a dream that had mocked me so often before, but then I came fully awake to the discomfort of the cavern floor (I had broken my bed up for use) and the voice again. It came from the lantern, a man's voice, over-pitched with nerves, but with something familiar about the queerly accented Latin.
"My lord? My lord Merlin? Are you there, my lord?"
"Here! Coming!"
In spite of aching joints, I was on my feet as swiftly as any boy, and ran to the foot of the shaft.
Sunshine was pouring down from above. I picked my way, stumbling, to the foot of the rude structure that almost filled the base of the shaft. I craned upward.
Framed in the gap of brilliant sky was a man's head and shoulders. At first I could distinguish little against the brightness. Me, he must be able to see clearly, unkempt, bearded, no doubt pale as the ghost he must have feared to see. I heard his shivering gasp of breath, and the head drew back.
I cried out: "Stay for me, for God's sake! I'm no ghost! Stay! Help me out of here! Stilicho, stay!"
Almost without thinking, I had identified his accent, and him with it. My old servant the Sicilian, Stilicho, who had married Mai the miller's daughter, and kept the mill on the Tywy at the valley's foot. I knew his kind, credulous, superstitious, easily afraid of what they did not understand. I leaned against the upright of the scaffolding, gripped it with shaking hands, and fought for a composure that would reassure him. His head came cautiously back. I saw the black eyes staring, the sallow pallor of his face, the open mouth. With a self-control that shook me with another wave of weakness I spoke in his own language, slowly and with apparent calm:
"Don't be afraid, Stilicho. I was not dead when they left me here in error, and all these weeks I have been trapped here in the hill. I am not a ghost, boy; it truly is Merlin, alive, and very much in need of your help."
He leaned nearer. "Then the King -- all those others who were here -- ?" He stopped, swallowing painfully.
"Do you think that a ghost could have built this scaffolding?" I asked him. "I hadn't despaired of escaping. I've lived here in hope, all through these weeks, but by the God of all gods, Stilicho, if you leave me now without helping me from here, I swear I shall be dead before the day is out." I stopped, ashamed.
He cleared his throat. He sounded shaken, as well he might, but scared no longer. "Then it really is you, lord? They said you were dead and buried, and we have been mourning you...but we should have known that your magic would keep you from death."
I shook my head. I forced myself to go on talking, knowing that with every word he was coming nearer to accepting my survival as true, and nerving himself to approach