Stephen Lawhead: Merlin

And, hand-in-hand, we go down the path to the lake to fish, Avallach working the oar, little Merlin holding tight to the gunwale with both small hands. Avallach sings, he laughs, he tells me sad stories of Lost Atlantis and I listen as only a child can listen, with the whole of my heart.

The sun climbs high over the lake, and I look back towards the reedy shore and there is my mother, waiting for me. When I look she waves and calls us back, and Avallach turns the boat and rows to meet her and we return to the palace. Although she never speaks of it, I know that she grows uneasy when I am too long from her sight.

I did not know the reason for it then; I know it now.

But life to a child of three is a heady daze of pleasures spinning through a universe too impossibly rich to comprehend or experience except in frenzied snatches – not that it is ever comprehended or experienced in any other way – an unimaginable wealth of wonders displayed for instant plunder. Tiny vessel though I was, I dipped full and deep in the dizzy flood of sensation to collapse at the end of each day drunk with life and exhausted in each small limb.

If Ynys Avallach was all my world, I was given the freedom of it. There was no nook too small, no corner too forgotten, but that I knew it and made it my own. Stables, kitchens, audience hall, bed chambers, gallery, portico, or gardens, I wandered where I would. And if I had been king I could not have commanded more authority, for every childish whim was honoured with unthinking deference by those around me.

Thus, I came to know early the substance and use of power. Great Light, you know I have never sought it for myself! Power was offered me and I took it. Where is the wrong in that?

In those days, however, power was seen differently. Right and wrong were what men conceived in their own minds and hearts. Sometimes in truth, more often in error. There were no judges in the land, no standard men could point to and say, 'You see, this is right!' Justice was that which issued from the steel in a king's hand.

You would do well to remember this.

But these ideas of justice and right came later, much later. There was living to be done first, a foundation to be erected on which to build the man.

The Island of the Mighty, in those days, lay in a welter of confusion which is common enough now, but was seldom seen then. Kings and princes vied for position and power. Did I say kings? There were more kings than sheep, more princes than crows on a battlefield, more ambitious little men than salmon in season; and each prince and princeling, chief and king, each jumped-up official with a Roman title seeking to snatch what he could from the slavering jaws of onrushing Night, to squirrel it away, thinking that when the darkness finally came he could sit in his den and gloat and preen and gorge himself on his good fortune.

How many of those choked on it instead?

As I say, they were tunes of confusion, and the spirit may become as confused as the mind and heart. The central fact of my early life was the deep love and peace that enfolded me. I knew, even then, that this was extraordinary, but children accept the extraordinary with the same facile assent as the dreary commonplace.

Was I conscious of the things that set me apart from other men? Did I know I was different? An incident from those far-gone days stands out in my mind. Once, when at my daily lessons with Blaise, my tutor and friend, a question occurred to me.

'Blaise,' I asked, 'why is Hafgan so old?' We were sitting in the apple grove below the Tor watching the clouds race westward. I could not have been more than five summers old myself, I think.

'You think him old?'

'He must be very old to know so much.'

'Oh, yes, Hafgan has lived long and seen much. He is very wise.'

'I want to be as wise one day.'

'Why?' he asked, cocking his head to one side.

'To know things,' I answered, 'to know about everything.'

'And once you knew about everything what would you do?'

'I would be a king and tell everyone.'

King, yes; it was in my mind even then that I would be a king. I do not think anyone had ever mentioned it to me before that tune, but already I sensed the shape my early life would take.

I can still hear Blaise's reply as clearly as if he were speaking to me now: 'It is a great thing to be a king, Hawk. A very great thing, indeed. But there is authority of a kind even kings must bend to. Discover this and, whether you wear a tore of gold or beggar's rags, your name will burn for ever in men's minds.'

Of course, I understood nothing of what he told me then, but I remembered.

So it was that the subject of age was still quite fresh in my mind when, the very next day, Grandfather Elphin arrived on one of his frequent visits. The travellers were still climbing down from their saddles and calling their greetings as I marched up to the Chief Druid, who, as always, had accompanied Lord Elphin. I tugged on his robe and demanded, Tell me how old you are, Hafgan.'

'How old do you think me, Myrddin Bach?' I can see his smoke-grey eyes twinkling with joy, although he rarely smiled.

'Old as the oak on Shrine Hill,' I declared importantly.

He laughed then and others stopped talking to look at us. He took me by the hand and we walked a little apart. 'No,' he explained, 'I am not as old as that. But in the measure of men, I am old. Still, what is that to you? – who will live to be as old as any oak in the Island of the Mighty, if not far older.' He gripped my hand tightly. 'To you is given much,' he said seriously, 'and, as Dafyd tells me from his book, much will be required.'

'Will I really be old as any oak?'

Hafgan lifted his shoulders and shook his head. 'Who can say, little one?'

It is much to Hafgan's credit that although he knew who I was, he never burdened me with that knowledge, or the expectations that surely went with it. No doubt, he had had ample experience with one like me before: I imagine my father had taught him much about nurturing a prodigy. Oh, Hafgan, if you could see me now!

After that visit, although I do not recall it as special in any way, I began to travel further from home – at least, I began to visit the Summerlands regularly and my view of the world enlarged accordingly. We called them the Summerlands because that is what my father, Taliesin, had called the land Avallach had given his people.

Grandfather Elphin and grandmother Rhonwyn were always happy to see me and devoted themselves to spoiling me on my visits, undoing months of my mother's hard work. Charis never complained, never hinted at what she thought of their indulgence, but let them have their way with me. This eventually included weapons lessons undertaken by Lord Elphin's battlechief, a crag of a man named Cuall, who strove with me and some of the younger boys, although he had a warband to look after as well.

Cuall it was who made my first sword out of ashwood; my first spear also. The sword was thin and light and no longer than my arm, but to me it was a blade invincible. With that wooden weapon he taught me thrust and counter-thrust, and the quick, back-handed chop; and with the spear, to throw accurately with either hand off either foot. He taught me how to sit a horse and guide it with my knees, and how, when need arose, to use the hapless beast as a shield.

In my sixth year, I spent all summer with grandfather Elphin – Hafgan and Cuall all but fighting over me. Between them, I saw little of anyone else all summer. My mother came and stayed for a few days, and at first I was disappointed to see her, thinking that she would take me home again. But she just wanted to see how I fared.

Once satisfied that it was right and necessary – as both Hafgan and Cuall insisted – she returned to Ynys Avallach and I stayed at Caer Cam. This began a pattern that was to continue for several years: winter at Ynys Avallach with Dafyd and Blaise, and summer at Caer Cam with Elphin and Cuall.