Alys Clare - The Enchanter's Forest

Huathe smiled. ‘We know that, or perhaps I should say that is what we understand,’ he said patiently. ‘There is power there; that is undeniable. We should accept that, to others, the source of this power may have a different name. To Outworlders, who are not blessed with the understanding of the forces of this Earth that has been bestowed upon us, it is perhaps easier to understand if the power is dressed in the guise of a man.’

‘But Merlin-’ the man began.

Huathe fixed his bright eyes on to the speaker. ‘It is enough for the present to acknowledge that to many people, the spring of Barenton is the dwelling place of the figure known as Merlin,’ he said firmly. ‘Tomorrow, Beith and I will take Josse up to the spring in the forest and give him a small sample of its power. Then he may return to the Abbey at Hawkenlye and report that the tomb in the woods there in the south-east corner of England cannot be the burial place of Merlin, since he and his magic lie here in the Broceliande, where one has but to approach the place of his interment to feel his power.’

The protester in the seated circle bowed his head. ‘As you wish, Huathe,’ he said meekly.

‘That is decided, then,’ Huathe murmured. ‘So be it.’

Joanna was awake early the next morning. She lay for some time, feeling Josse’s comfortable, warm bulk at her back. Then, as the light waxed, she got up, went to wash and then woke Josse. She offered him some food — she wasn’t hungry, for the knot of tension in her belly was making her feel slightly queasy — and he ate his way through two pieces of bread and a hunk of cheese.

Meggie was to be left with one of the women in the settlement. As Joanna was clearing away the breakfast, there was a soft tap on the door and Meggie’s temporary guardian put her head in. With a smile Joanna led the child up to the woman, who crouched down and spoke kindly to her. Then, as the woman led her away to play with another child sitting outside a nearby hut — the woman’s own daughter, presumably — Joanna made herself turn away. She’ll be fine, she told herself. And Josse and I won’t be away long.

Josse was brushing crumbs off his tunic. She grinned. ‘You look very handsome,’ she said. ‘I see you’ve done your best to smarten yourself up for the occasion.’

He ran a hand over his hair. ‘Should I wear my hat?’

Now she laughed aloud. ‘Dear Josse, no. There’s no need for that. If you’re ready, we’ll go and find Huathe.’

Soon afterwards Huathe was leading the way off along the path that led into the deep forest. Joanna, senses alert, stared about her, remembering it all so well from her previous visit. The year was much more advanced this time — high summer as opposed to early spring, when her first, powerful impressions had been formed — which made everything look different. The trees were thickly leafed and the vistas in among them consequently much reduced. There was the same sense of watchfulness, however; that uncanny and slightly unnerving awareness of unseen eyes steadily regarding her that had affected her so powerfully before.

They were climbing steadily and now and again the stream that ran from the summit of the hill could be seen over to their right; it could be heard all the time. Joanna felt the power of the place steadily overcome her. Watching Josse, whose apprehension she could feel coming off him in waves, she wanted to go to him and take his hand. But he might see such a gesture as suggesting that she thought him weak and needed her strength, so she held back.

Josse, I never think you’re weak, she said to him silently. Quite the reverse.

They came to the top of the low hill and once more she looked out on the clearing. There was the mighty oak that stood alone in the glade; there the long white banner lifting and fluttering on the slight breeze; there the hawthorn bush that so resembled a crouched old man. There was the great granite slab that guarded the spring. . and there was the fountain itself, the clear, cold water ever bubbling up out of the earth to pool briefly before trickling away down the hillside.

Huathe touched Josse’s arm, making him jump; Joanna saw him start. ‘There, Josse, is the power place,’ he said softly. ‘See the large, flat stone? It is granite and it is the spot where the forces that govern this special clearing are concentrated. The unwary’ — dropping his voice, he leaned confidentially closer to Josse — ‘they come to scare themselves, jumping on the slab and then, when the unexpected happens and frightens them silly, wishing they had had more sense.’

‘What happens?’ Josse whispered.

Huathe smiled. ‘Oh, they see visions of terrible things. The visions are produced within their own heads; they see what they expect to see, and one man’s demons are different from another’s. We help those for whom the terrors prove ungovernable. We understand a little of the power of this place and we are happy to share what knowledge we have in order to help people who have been affected by it.’

‘And this — this slab marks the burial place of Merlin the Enchanter?’ Josse asked. ‘I heard one of your people mention another name, although it was not familiar to me and I cannot now remember what it was.’

‘It is not important,’ Huathe said smoothly. He will not mention the name of power, Joanna thought with a private smile, not when he has gone to such pains to make sure Josse has forgotten it. ‘To the inhabitants of this land — ourselves excluded — this is indeed the tomb of Merlin, by whom they mean the mystery figure who was the legendary King Arthur’s magician, seer and sage. Merlin, so the story goes, found his way here to the forest pools and the spring of Barenton where the fair folk came to bathe, and here he met Viviane, descendant of the goddess of the hunt, whom he knew had been made to love him just as he loved her. According to his own prediction, he would be enslaved by his love for her. She showered him with questions, for she had heard tell of his power and was hungry to learn. In exchange for her promise of love he made magic, causing a castle to rise out of the very earth, surrounded by fair lawns and fruit trees where birds sang unbearably sweet songs. Their love for each other grew and, in time, he taught her all that he knew, including the knowledge of how she might keep him for ever more a prisoner of love. Some say that, such was his love for her, he went willingly to his perpetual imprisonment; whether or not that is true, for good or for ill she pent him up beneath a great granite slab over which stands guardian a hawthorn tree that, over time, has taken on the appearance of a stooped old man.’

Joanna, under the spell of Huathe’s skilful, hypnotic tone, felt her eyes drawn to the spot where the hawthorn stood above the spring. Josse, similarly affected, actually walked a few hesitant steps towards it.

‘Then Merlin was a real person?’ he said doubtfully. Joanna felt a stab of sympathy for him; the conflict between logic and the force of Huathe’s seductive tale was not an easy one.

Huathe hesitated. ‘In a way, yes he was,’ he said carefully. ‘Legends, Josse, tend to arise out of the need of the people who create them. King Arthur represents the common identity of a threatened race who were driven to the western edges of northern Europe; he is their hero and his magician is the figure to whom they turn for aid, support, wisdom and learning. He was, after all, Arthur’s teacher and, by extension, he becomes the teacher of the people, the bestower of wisdom and arcane knowledge.’

‘But-’ With a shrug Josse stopped, clearly at a loss.

‘Most races have some tradition by which their forefathers received instruction from a godlike figure back in the infancy of the tribe,’ Huathe went on. ‘If you like, Josse, look upon Merlin as simply that: the personification of the mystical process by which knowledge comes.’