The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [47]
"It's had to do so for long enough," I agreed, and took my leave, well satisfied.
9
So we journeyed north. Once we had joined the main road north from York, the way they call Dere Street, going was easy, and we made fair speed. Sometimes we lodged in taverns, but, the weather being fine and hot, more often than not we would ride on as long as the light lasted, then made camp in some flowering brake near the road. Then after supper I would make music for myself, and Ulfin would listen, dreaming his own dreams while the fire died to white ash, and the stars came out.
He was a good companion. We had known one another since we were boys, I with Ambrosius in Brittany, where he gathered the army that was to conquer Vortigern and take Britain, Ulfin as servant -- slave-boy -- to my tutor Belasius. His life had been a hard one with that strange cruel man, but after Belasius' death Uther had taken the boy into his service, and there Ulfin had soon risen to a place of trust. He was now about five-and-thirty years old, brown-haired and grey-eyed, very quiet, and self-contained in the way of men who know they must live their lives out alone, or as the companions of other men. The years as Belasius' catamite had left their mark.
One evening I made a song, and sang it to the low hills north of Vinovia, where the busy small rivers wind deep in their forested valleys, but the great road strides across the higher land, through leagues of whin and bracken, and over the long heather moorlands where the only trees are pine and alder and groves of silver birch.
We were camped in one such coppice, where the ground was dry underfoot, and the slender birch boughs hung still in the warm evening, tenting us with silk.
This was the song. I called it a song of exile, and I have heard versions of it since, elaborated by some famous Saxon singer, but the first was my own:
He who is companionless
Seeks oftentimes the mercy
The grace
Of the creator, God.
Sad, sad the faithful man
Who outlives his lord.
He sees the world stand waste
As a wall blown on by the wind,
As an empty castle, where the snow
Sifts through the window-frames,
Drifts on the broken bed
And the black hearth-stone.
Alas, the bright cup!
Alas, the hall of feasting!
Alas the sword that kept
The sheep-fold and the apple-orchard
Safe from the claw of the wolf!
The wolf-slayer is dead.
The law-giver, the law-upholder is dead,
While the sad wolf's self, with the eagle, and the raven,
Come as kings, instead.
I was lost in the music, and when at length I laid the last note to rest and looked up, I was taken aback to see two things: one that Ulfin, sitting on the other side of the fire, was listening rapt, with tears on his face; the other, that we had company. Neither Ulfin nor I, enclosed in the music, had noticed the two travellers approaching us over the soft mosses of the moorland way.
Ulfin saw them in the same moment that I did, and was on his feet, knife ready. But it was obvious that there was no harm in them, and the knife was back in its sheath before I said, "Put up," or the foremost of the intruders smiled, and showed a placating hand.
"No harm, masters, no harm. I've always been fond of a bit of music, and you've got quite a talent there, you have indeed."
I thanked him, and, as if the words had been an invitation, he came nearer to the fire and sat, while the boy who was with him thankfully humped the packs off his shoulders and sank down likewise. He stayed in the background, away from the fire, though with the darkness of late evening a cool little breeze had sprung up, making the warmth of the burning logs welcome.
The newcomer was a smallish man, elderly, with a neat greying beard and unruly brows over myopic brown eyes. His dress was travel-worn but neat, the cloak of good