“You’ve never tried to leave?”
“I did,” he said sadly. “A long time ago. I once tried to swim across the bay, but they watch us, and a spear-butt on the head is an efficient reminder that we are not supposed to leave the Isle and I turned back long before they could administer such a blow. Most drown who try to escape that way. A few go along the causeway and some of them, perhaps, do get back among the living, but only if they succeed in passing the gate ghouls first. And if they survive that ordeal they have to avoid the guards waiting on the beach. Those skulls you saw as you crossed the causeway? They are all men and women who tried to escape. Poor souls.” He went silent and I thought, for a second, he was about to weep. Then he pushed himself briskly off the wall. “What am I thinking about? Do I have no manners? I must offer you water. See? My cistern!” He gestured proudly towards a wooden barrel that stood just outside the cave mouth and which was placed to catch the water that cascaded off the quarry’s sides during rainstorms. He had a ladle with which he filled two wooden cups with water. “The barrel and ladle came from a fishing boat that was wrecked here, when? Let me see… two years ago. Poor people! Three men and two boys. One man tried to swim away and was drowned, the other two died under a hail of stones and the two boys were carried off. You can imagine what happened to them! There may be women aplenty, but a clean young fisher boy flesh is a rare treat on this Isle.” He put the cup in front of me and shook his head. “It is a terrible place, my friend, and you have been foolish to come here. Or were you sent?”
“I came by choice.”
“Then you belong here anyway, for you’re plainly mad.” He drank his water. “Tell me,” he said, ‘the news of Britain.”
I told him. He had heard of Uther’s death and Arthur’s coming, but not much else. He frowned when I said King Mordred was maimed, but was pleased when he heard that Bedwin still lived. “I like Bedwin,” he said. “Liked, rather. We have to learn to talk here as though we were dead. He must be old?”
“Not so old as Merlin.”
“Merlin lives?” he asked in surprise.
“He does.”
“Dear me! So Merlin is alive!” He seemed pleased. “I once gave him an eagle stone and he was so grateful. I have another here somewhere. Where now?” He searched among a small pile of rocks and scraps of wood that made a collection beside the cave door. “Is it over there?” He pointed towards the bed-curtain. “Can you see it?”
I turned away to look for the precious rattling stone and the moment I looked away Malldynn leaped on my back and tried to drag his small knife’s ragged edge across my throat. “I’ll eat you!” he cried in triumph. “Eat you!” But I had somehow caught his knife hand with my left and managed to keep the blade away from my windpipe. He wrestled me to the floor and tried to bite my ear. He was slavering above me, his appetite whetted by the thought of new, clean human flesh to eat. I hit him once, twice, managed to twist around and bring up my knee, then hit him again, but the wretch had remarkable strength and the sound of our fight brought more men running from other caves. I had only a few seconds before I would be overpowered by the newcomers and so I gave one last desperate heave, then butted Malldynn’s head with mine and finally threw him off. I kicked him away, scrambled desperately back from the onrush of his friends, then stood in the entrance to his bed-chamber where I at last had room to draw Hywelbane. The hermits shrank away from the sword’s bright blade.
Malldynn, his mouth bleeding, lay at the side of the cave. “Not even a scrap of fresh liver?” he begged me. “Just a morsel? Please?”