The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [208]
She lifted her head. Her face was tragic. "Yes, and how you gave it! I only pray that you cannot remember! You had told me to learn all that you had to tell me. You had said that I must build on every detail of your life; that after your death I must be Merlin...And you were leaving me, slipping from me in sleep...I had to do it, hadn't I? Force the last of your power from you, even though with it I took the last of your strength? I did it by every means I knew -- cajoled, stormed, threatened, gave you cordials and brought you back to answer me again and again -- when what I should have done, had you been any other man, was to let you sleep, and go in peace. And because you were Merlin, and no other man, you roused yourself in pain and answered me, and gave me all you had. So minute by minute I weakened you, when it seems to me now that I might have saved you." She slid her hands up to my breast, and lifted swimming grey eyes. "Will you tell me something truthfully? Swear by the god?"
"What is it?"
"Do you remember it, when I hung about you and tormented you to your death, like a spider sucking the life from a honey-bee?"
I put my hands up to cover hers. I looked straight into the beautiful eyes, and lied. "My darling girl, I remember nothing of that time but words of love, and God taking me peacefully into his hand. I will swear it if you like."
Relief swept into her face. But still she shook her head, refusing to be comforted. "But then, even all the power and knowledge you gave me could not show me that we had buried you living, and send me back to get you out. Merlin, I should have known, I should have known! I dreamed again and again, but the dreams were full of confusion. I went back once to Bryn Myrddin, did you know? I went to the cave, but the door was blocked still, and I called and called, but there was no sound -- "
"Hush, hush." She was shivering. I pulled her closer, and bent my head and kissed her hair. "It's over. I am here. When you came back for me, I must have been drugged asleep. Nimuë, what happened was the will of the god. If he had wanted to save me from the tomb, he would have spoken to you. Now, he has brought me back in his own time, and for that, he saved me from being put quick into the ground, or given to the flames. You must accept it all, and thank him, as I do."
She shivered again. "That was what the High King wanted. He would give you, he said, a pyre as high as an emperor's, so that your death would be a beacon to the living the length and breadth of the land. He was wild with grief, Merlin. I could hardly make him listen to me. But I told him I had had a dream, and that you yourself had said that you wished to be laid in your own hollow hill, and left in peace to become part of the land you loved." She put a hand up to brush tears from her face. "And it was true. I did have such a dream, one of many. But even so, I failed you. Who did what I should have done, and helped you to escape? What happened?"
"Come over here, to the fire, and I'll tell you. Your hands are cold. Come, we have a little time, I think, before we need go into the hall."
"The King will stay for us," she said. "He knows I am here. He sent me to you."
"Did he?" But I put that aside for the present. In a corner of the room a brazier burned red in front of a low couch covered with rugs and skins. We sat side by side in the warm glow, and, to her eager questions, I told my story yet again.
By the time I had finished her distress was gone, and a little colour had crept back into her cheeks. She sat close in my arm with one of my hands held tightly in both her own. Magician or mortal man, there was no shadow of doubt in my mind that the joy she showed was as real as the glow of the brazier that warmed us both. Time had run back. But not quite: mortal man or magician, I could sense secrets still.
Meantime she listened and exclaimed, and held my hand tightly, and presently, when I had done, she took up the story.
"I told you about the dream I had. It made me uneasy: I began to wonder,