The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [19]
"Peace to you," I said, then repeated it in their own tongue. "I came to say a prayer, but no one answered, so when I smelled the fire I came across to see if the god still kept servants here."
The knife-point sank, but he gripped it still, and the old dog growled. "Who are you?" demanded the man.
"Only a stranger who is passing this place. I had often heard of Nodens' famous shrine, and seized the time to visit it. Are you its guardian, sir?"
"I am. Are you looking for a night's lodging?"
"That was not my intention. Why? Do you still offer it?"
"Sometimes." He was wary. The boy, more trusting, or perhaps seeing that I was unarmed, turned away and placed the billet carefully on the fire. The dog, silent now, edged forward to touch my hand with its greyed muzzle. Its tail moved.
"He's a good dog, and very fierce," said the man, "but old, and deaf." His manner was no longer hostile. At the dog's action the knife had vanished.
"And wise," I said, I smoothed the upraised head. "He's one who can see the wind."
The boy turned, wide-eyed. "See the wind?" asked the man, staring.
"Have you not heard that of a dog with a white eye? And, old and slow as he is, he can see that I come with no intent to hurt you. My name is Myrddin Emrys, and I live west of here, near Maridunum, in Dyfed. I have been travelling, and am on my way home." I gave him my Welsh name; like everyone else, he would have heard of Merlin the enchanter, and awe is a bad hearth-friend. "May I come in and share your fire for a while, and will you tell me about the shrine you guard?"
They made way for me, and the boy pulled a stool out of a corner somewhere. Under my questions, at length, the man relaxed and began to talk. His name was Mog: it is not really a name, meaning, as it does, merely "a servant," but there was a king once who did not disdain to call himself Mog Nuatha, and the man's son was called, even more grandly, after an emperor. "Constant will be the servant after me," said Mog, and went on to talk with pride and longing of the great period of the shrine, when the pagan emperor rebuilt and re-equipped it only half a century before the last of the legions left Britain. From long before this time, he told me, a "Mog Nuatha" had served the shrine with all his family. But now there were only himself and his son; his wife was from home, having gone down that morning to market, and to spend the night with her ailing sister in the village.
"If there's room left, with all that's there now," the man grumbled. "You can see the river from the wall yonder, and when we saw the boats crossing I sent the boy to have a look. The army, he says it is, along with the young King -- " He broke off, peering through the firelight at my plain robe and cloak. "You're no soldier, are you? Are you with them?"
"Yes to the last, and no to the first. As you can see, I am no soldier, but I am with the King."
"What are you, then? A secretary?"
"Of a sort."
He nodded. The boy, listening and absorbed, sat cross-legged beside the dog at my feet. His father asked: "What's he like, this youngster that they say King Uther handed the sword to?"
"He is young, but a man turned, and a good soldier. He can lead men, and he has enough sense to listen to his elders."
He nodded again. Not for these folk the tales and hopes of power and glory. They lived all their lives on this secluded hilltop, with this one direction to their days; what happened beyond the oak trees did not concern them. Since the start of time no one had stormed the holy place. He asked the only question that, to these two, mattered: "Is he a Christian, this young Arthur? Will he knock down the temple, in the name of this new-fangled god, or will he respect what's gone before?"
I answered him tranquilly, and as truly as I knew how: "He will be crowned by the Christian bishops, and bend his