The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [49]
Then he had turned away without speaking, and was stooping beside Ulfin with the flask.
"Try it, sir," Beltane urged me. "It's good stuff. I got it from one of the garrison officers at Ebor...God knows where he laid hands on it, but it's better not to ask, eh?" The ghost of a wink, as he chewed once more at his chicken.
The wine was certainly good, rich, smooth and dark, a rival to any I had tasted even in Gaul or Italy. I complimented Beltane on it, wondering as I spoke what service could have elicited payment like this.
"Aha!" he said, with that same complacency. "You're wondering what I could have done to chisel stuff like this out of him, eh?"
"Well, yes, I was," I admitted, smiling. "Are you a magician, that you can read thoughts?"
He chuckled. "Not that kind. But I know what you're thinking now, too."
"Yes?"
"You're busy wondering if I'm the King's enchanter in disguise, I'll warrant! You'd think it might take his kind of magic to charm a wine like that out of Vitruvius...And Merlin travels the roads the same as I do; a simple tradesman you'd take him for, they say, with maybe one slave for company, maybe not even that. Am I right?"
"About the wine, yes, indeed. I take it, then, that you are more than just a 'simple tradesman'?"
"You could say so." Nodding, self-important. "But about Merlin, now. I hear he's left Caerleon. No one knew where he was bound, or on what errand, but that's always the way with him. They were saying in York that the High King would be back in Linnuis before the turn of the moon, but Merlin disappeared the day after the crowning." He looked from me to Ulfin. "Have you had any news of what's afoot?"
His curiosity was no more than the natural newsmongering of the travelling tradesman. Such folk are great bringers and exchangers of news; they are made welcome for it everywhere, and reckon on it as a valuable stock-in-trade.
Ulfin shook his head. His face was wooden. The boy Ninian was not even listening. His head was turned away toward the scented dark of the moorlands. I could hear the broken, bubbling call of some late bird stirring on its nest; joy came and went in the boy's face, a flying gleam as evanescent as starlight on the moving leaves above us. Ninian had his refuge, it seemed, from a garrulous master and the day's drudgery.
"We came from the west, yes, from Deva," I said, giving Beltane the information he angled for. "But what news I have is old. We travel slowly. I am a doctor, and can never move far without work."
"So? Ah, well," said Beltane, biting with relish into a barley bannock, "no doubt we will hear something when we get to the Cor Bridge. You're bound that way, too? Good, good. But you needn't fear to travel with me! I'm no enchanter, in disguise or otherwise, and even if Queen Morgause's men were to promise gold, or threaten death by fire, I could make shift to prove it!"
Ulfin looked up sharply, but I said merely: "How?"
"By my trade. I have my own brand of magic. And for all they say Merlin is master of so much, mine is one skill you can't pretend to if you haven't had the training. And that" -- with the same cheerful complacency -- "takes a lifetime."
"May we know what it is?" The question was mere courtesy. This patently was the moment of revelation he had been working for.
"I'll show you." He swallowed the last crumb of bannock, wiped his mouth delicately, and took another drink of wine. "Ninian! Ninian! You'll have time for your dreaming soon! Get the pack out, and feed the fire. We want light."
Ulfin reached behind him and threw a fresh faggot on. The flames leaped high. The boy fetched a bulky roll of soft leather, and knelt beside me. He undid the ties and unrolled the thing along the ground in the firelight.
It went with a flash and a shimmer. Gold caught the rich and dancing light, enamels in black and scarlet, pearly shell, garnet