Stephen Lawhead: Merlin

Lord Elphin's caer was a world apart from Avallach's palace: one bespoke the cool heights of intellectual refinement and otherworldly grace, the other the earthy reality of stone and sweat and steel. 'Brains and blood,' Cuall aptly put it one day.

'Lord?'

'Brains and blood, boy,' he repeated, 'that's what you have, and what every warrior needs.'

'Will I be a warrior?'

'If I can do anything about it, you will right enough,' he said, resting his thick forearms on the pommel of his long sword. 'Och, but you have Lleu's own way about you: quick as water, and light of foot as a cat; already you tax my craft. All you want is muscle on those bones of yours, lad, and from the look of you that will come in time.'

I was pleased with his pronouncement, and knew he was right. I was much quicker than the other boys; I could make good account of myself with boys twice my age, and fend off any two my own size. The ease with which my body accommodated whatever I asked of it, seemed to some uncanny, but to me only natural. That everyone could not meld and move mind and body so skilfully was something new to me. And, though it shames me to admit it, I did wear my prowess with insufferable conceit.

Humility, if it comes at all, almost always comes too late.

So, I learned two things early: I would live long, and I would be a warrior king. The third thing, Blaise's Mantle of Authority, would be discovered by me or it would not; I saw no reason to strive after it, so thought no more about it.

But I badly wanted to be a warrior. Had I possessed even the tiniest suspicion of how heavily this aspiration weighed on my mother, I might have reined in my enthusiasm somewhat, at least in her presence. I was blind and silly with it, though, and talked almost of nothing else.

No one laboured harder, or enjoyed his labours more than I. First awake among the boys in the boys' house, and out on the yard before sunrise for sword practice, or riding, or throwing, or shieldwork, or wrestling… I embraced it all with the,- ardour of a zealot. And the summer passed in a white-hot blaze of youthful passion; I prayed that it would last for ever.

Nevertheless, the summer ended and I returned to Ynys Avallach with Blaise and an escort of warriors. I remember riding through bright autumn days, passing fields ripening to harvest and small, prosperous settlements where we were greeted warmly and fed.

My mother was overjoyed to see me home at last, but I sensed a sadness in her, too. And I noticed that her eyes followed my every move, and lingered on my face. Had I changed somehow in those few months at Caer Cam?

'You are growing so fast, my little Hawk,' she told me. 'Soon you will fly this nest.'

'I will never leave here. Where would I go?' I asked, genuinely puzzled. The thought of leaving had never occurred to me.

Charis shrugged lightly, 'Oh, you will find a place somewhere and make it your own. You must, you see, if you are to be the Lord of Summer.'

So that was on her mind. 'Is it not a real place, Mother?' She smiled a little sadly and shook her head. 'No – that is, not yet. It is up to you, my soul, to create the Kingdom of Summer.'

'I thought the Summerlands -'

'No,' she shook her head again, but the sadness had passed and I saw the light of the vision come up in her eyes, 'the Summerlands are not the Kingdom, though your father may have intended them to be. The Kingdom of Summer is wherever the Summer Lord resides. It only waits for you to claim it, Hawk.'

We talked about the Kingdom of Summer then, but our talk was different now. No longer was the Kingdom a story such as a mother might tell a child; it had changed. From that time I began to think of it as a realm that did exist in some way and only waited to be called into being. And for the first time I understood that my destiny, like my father's, was woven thread and strand into his vision of that golden land.

That autumn I resumed my studies with Dafyd, the priest at the shrine. I read from his holy texts, badly patched and faded as they were, and we discussed what I read. At the same time, I continued my lessons with Blaise who instructed me in the druid arts. I could not imagine giving up either endeavour and in the following years gave myself mind and soul to my study, as I gave body and heart to my weapons each summer at Caer Cam.

I confess it was not easy; I often felt pulled in all directions despite my various tutors' attempts to ensure that I should not. Never did a boy have more caring teachers. Still, it is inevitable, I suppose, when someone desires so much so badly. My teachers were aware of my discomfort and felt it themselves.

'You need not drive yourself so hard, Myrddin,' Blaise told me one drizzly, miserable winter evening as I sat struggling with a long recitation entitled the Battle of the Trees. 'There are other things than being a bard, you know. Look around you, not everyone is.'

'My father, Taliesin, was a bard. Hafgan says he was the greatest bard who ever lived.'

'So he believes.'

'You do not believe it?'

He laughed. 'Who could disagree with the Chief Druid?'

'You have not answered the question, Blaise.'

'Very well,' he paused and reflected long before answering. 'Yes, your father was the greatest bard among us; and more, he was my brother and friend. But,' he held up a cautionary finger, 'Taliesin was… ' again a long pause, and a slight lifting of the shoulders as he stepped away from saying what was in his mind, 'but it is not everyone who can be what he was, or do the things that he did.'

'I will be a bard. I will work harder, Blaise. I promise.'

He shook his head and sighed. 'It is not a question of working harder, Hawk.'

'What do you want me to do?' I whined. 'Just tell me.'

His dark eyes were soft with sympathy; he was trying to help me in the best way he knew. 'Your gifts are different, Merlin. You cannot be your father.'

If they did not act in me at that moment, his words would come back to me many times.

'I will be a bard, Blaise.'

I am Merlin, and I am immortal. A quirk of birth? A gift from my mother? The legacy of my father? I do not know how it is but I know that it is true. Neither do I know the source of {the words that fill my head and fall from my lips like firedrops onto the tinder of men's hearts.

The words, the images: what is, what was and will be… I have but to look. A bowl of black oak water, the glowing embers of a fire, smoke, clouds, the faces of men themselves – I have but to look and the mists grow thin and I peer a little way along the scattered paths of time.

Was there ever a time such as this?

Never! And that is both the glory and the terror of it. If men knew what it was that loomed before them, within reach of even the lowest – they would quail, they would faint, they would cover their heads and stop their mouths with their cloaks | for screaming. It is their blessing and their curse that they do i not know. But I know; I, Merlin, have always known.

'The boy has the eyes of a preying bird,' Maximus said, resting his hand on my head and gazing down into my face. He should know; his own eyes had something of the predator as well. 'I do not believe I have ever seen eyes of such colour in a man before – like yellow gold.' His smile was dagger sharp. 'Tell me, Merlinus, what do you see with those golden eyes of yours?'

An odd question to ask a child of seven. But an image formed itself in my mind:

A sword – not the short, broad gladius of the legionary, but the long, tapering length of singing lightning of the Celt. The hilt was handsome bronze wrapped in braided silver with a great amethyst of imperial purple in the pommel. The jewel was engraved with the Eagle of the Legion, fierce and proud, catching sunlight in its dark heart and smouldering with a deep and steady fire.