Bedivere’s father was Uther’s master of horse and a man who spoke freely what mind he had.

Kay looked to me for judgment. “What does father say?”

“Just that Vortigern did what he had to.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means I don’t know. Now leave me be.”

We watched the great, shining snake of the cohort coil across the eastern plain toward the white square of the villa. By the time we got home the courtyard would be jammed, the house a confusion of officers and servants, the baths full of soldiers. Flavia had warned us to be back before they came. A shiver of excitement went through me, lifting my arm to squeeze little Kay’s shoulder. He was a solemn, careful child who looked like Flavia. I didn’t, but even then I knew I wasn’t her son. My real mother was just a name, Ygerna. I never knew her. My da Uther said she died.

The war horns blared in the afternoon, the sun glinted off the eagles. Kay jiggled with wonder and excitement.

“Oh, look at them!”

I looked, 1 yearned.

That’s when it began, that very moment—the buzzing in my ears I’ve known at odd times through life. My eyes squeezed shut against the suddenly intolerable glare of the sun. When I opened them, I found myself looking through a blur down the western valley and hearing, faint but ever stronger, a host of voices.

Avef Ave, Imperatorf

Hail to the king.

I blinked. The hills were deserted, yet me sound grew and swelled into thunder, one high boy-voice singing over the rest—

Ave!

Something beyond self propelled me, jolting me down the western slope of the hill. Bedivere and Kay called to me, but I warned them back in a voice barely my own: “Leave me alone.

Go away!” I didn’t know if they followed, but ran until the ground

Merlin and a Sword 5

leveled out under me, drawn toward that high-singing voice, not caring that I was out of breath and running uphill again, brambles tearing at my legs and ankles.

Ave!

Now in that thunder of voices I heard a name, not VorUgern’s. The boy-voice still sang over them, nearer than ever. I struggled to a jutting ledge. As I collapsed on it, the thunder faded away until the air was still as stopped time in the late afternoon, but the stone beneath me trembled under the pounding of my own heart.

Ave, whispered the rocks.

Then the soft, near sound of a shepherd’s flute.

A gay song, and though my ears still rang with the buzzing that had summoned me, no single note of the flute made discord with it, but blended with the other as harmony. I seemed to know the melody note by note before the wood flute sounded them. The song spun out while my heart slowed and breath came easier. Then it ended, leaving a perfect, filled silence trailing after.

“Arthur.”

The young voice was full of verve and laughter.

“Who—where are you?” I called.

An impertinent run on the flute. “Round die other side of this rock. Come up, Arthur, and see the emperor ride.”

“Bedivere, is that you? Are you fooling me?”

A chuckle. “They’re so far they can’t hear you. Look back and see.”

I saw them across the vale, Bedivere and Kay, coming slow as a dream, like running under water, their arms floating out from their bodies like seaweed drifting in lazy current.

Frightened, I edged along the narrow rock face, rounded its point and found myself on a wider shelf that looked out over the whole western valley.

“Hail, Arthur.”

The boy was seated on a flat rock, the flute in his lap. The finespun gold of his tunic caught the sun’s glare like Ambrosius’ eagles. Over it he wore, thrown back, a long cloak dyed the color of new grass, caught at the shoulder with a great bronze clasp. A strange place to meet a king’s son, but he couldn’t be less. He looked maddeningly familiar with his shock of blond, curly hair and blue eyes glistening with secret excitement: things to do and tomorrows that couldn’t be caught up fast enough. He shimmered all over, he made me tingle with the energy that came

6 Firelord

from him in the flash of his gold. I couldn’t breathe. It was no king’s son I’d come on, but a boucca-spmt such as the Dobunni speak of, a shape-changer. But even as I thought it, the boy laughed again.

“Don’t you know me, Arthur?”

I didn’t want to show my fear, but kept my distance, “N-no.”

“No matter, you will. If not now, tomorrow.” Another quick run on the flute. “I met you tomorrow among the Faerie. There was a woman you loved, and here you don’t even remember me.”

‘ ‘Woman?”

“Oh, but you were older then. How should you remember? Why do you shut your eyes?”

“My—head hurts.”

“So it does, so it does. But how can you be of the Dobunni and not know Merlin?”

The fear lessened; it was hard to focus my eyes on his shining. I became bolder, even angry. “Merlin’s dead. He was an old man if he ever lived at all. Who are you?”

The boy rose, only a little taller than me and not much older, but he talked in grown-up riddles. “I am called Merlin. I’m called a lot of things. There’s not a stone or leaf or life that men won’t put a name to. It gives them a nice safe box to collect things in. They get in the habit of collecting things and end up surprised at the weight they’re carrying. A dream they thought might fit someday, something bright and sweet like a woman, picked up for her shine and somehow never left or at least never forgotten. Or an ambition! There’s a fine item in any man’s bag. A great, glowing ambition. They never fade, never wear even when you’ve outgrown them. Always there to look at and remember and play might-have-been. A while ago in real time you saw the eagles. And you wished, Arthur.”

I knew nothing of women then, they were only a bother with

their tucking you in and kissing goodnight and finish-your—

supper and go-take-a-bath. And ambition was a word I didn’t

know. But I had seen the eagles and for a moment thrilled with a

wish so vast and secret I couldn’t breathe it even to Kay or

Bedivere. It was as if the golden boy read my thoughts, as if his

hair and tunic glowed and shimmered with a}] my own bright

boy-hopes. He laid his hands on my shoulders.

“Look where the emperor comes.”

His hands were strong. I had to obey. The late sun was in my

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eyes and the ringing in my ears grown to a roaring again, a hundred thousand voices from unseen throats. Avef

“See!” Merlin commanded.

Down the valley rode a golden-haired king on a great war-horse. Beside him the dragon standard swayed in the grasp of another man maddeningly familiar as the king himself, and behind them surged the shining hundreds. Not Vortigern, that king, but a young man whose gilded breastplate caught the sun and hurled it back at the sky while the valley and hills and my poor head rocked with the name they hailed.

My aching eyes bulged. “What—what is it?”

Idly, Merlin produced three colored balls, red, white and green, tossing them aioft like a skilled juggler. “Only bright tomorrows you carved out of wishes and painted with dreams. See the horses, each a hand higher than cavalry’s ever known. See the men, how they ride. Such men ride for love, not Roman pay.”

I was frightened; none of this could be true. “Are you a boucca-spitit? Have you cursed me?”

Merlin laughed tenderly. “Cursed and blessed all in one. Arthur. Blessed with the power to make this be. Cursed with an eye to see too far. You still don’t know me? Or that man who carries die standard?”

“Bedivere! But he’s old, he’s—”

“And that other on the king’s right hand? He was part of those tomorrows. Such men come when kings dream them.”

A man straighter and prouder than any of the rest, but with the eyes of a sad priest.

“This is the beauty of it,” Merlin said in a different tone. “There’s that part not half so fair. But now the gold still glitters, the men have not grown lean with age nor know of bitterness or regret. The standard is new and proud. Hail to the king!”

The roar filled my head and buckled my knees under me. 1 clutched at my pounding temples, tried to stop the thunder from my ears. I cried to Jesu and all our household gods to help me, and they brought me kind darkness through which the cheers still echoed. Ave, Imperator, and Merlin’s voice whispered:

Did you hear the name?

“I don’t believe it.”

• No matter, that was tomorrow. See me again where we met before, at Cnoch-nan-ainneal.

I tried to open my eyes. “The hill of the fires? Where?”

Not where but when. At Beltane, remember?

8 Firelord

No, I didn’t remember. I was ten years old, run foul of a boucca and gone mad. “How can I find you?”

How can you not? Though you never catch me, how can I escape you? At May Eve on the hill, remember? The Faerie woman, the one you loved …

Bedivere and Kay found me on the ledge, staring out over the valley where the dust was settling after Vortigem’s passage. They were hot from running, puzzled and cross with me. My eyes focused better now. “How long have I been here?” “Just this moment,” said little Kay. “We ran right after

you.”

Bedivere punched me on the arm. “We called and called. You

ran like daft, wouldn’t stop.” -“You didn’t see him?” See who, they wondered. “Him, the boy in the gold tunic. Merlin.” Bedivere laughed. “Merlin, is it? Come to fright your dreams?” “And didn’t you see the men come down the valley, the

hordes of them?”

They were more mystified than ever. They’d seen only Vortigem’s guard, not more than fifty all counted.

Kay pulled at me. “We’d best get home. We’ll catch it if we’re not there when they come.”

We started for home, myself trailing behind. My head wasn’t clear yet, though the ringing was gone. I spoke no more of what happened, but now and again 1 looked sideways at Bedivere. No mistake: people grow and change, but the set of the eyes remains. He was die man grown who carried the dragon beside the king, but who was that strange other who rode with a doom on his shoulders? I knew him, would know him, and the name was on the tip of my tongue. As we hurried on, I realized numbly in my ten-year-old head that the Merlm-boucca had indeed cursed me to see too much and too far. “Blessed and cursed,” he said. Many years later I knew what he meant.