Myrddin pieced together this fragmentary information from ‘hints and bits he heard from traveling merchants, now ‘beginning to venture^ forth again as the Saxon menace Was kept under control: from a smith who had spent the winter season working in Ector’s hold but was now on the road that he might go to his ailing mother, from a bard traveling for the mere pleasure of finding new places. He was pleased with what he heard.
Ector was accorded by all with a keen wit and battle wisdom which had aided in keeping, the district free of raiding Picts down from the north. His wife was a follower of the overseas faith, one of those they now termed Christians, and she had given refuge to an elderly priest of that god who was a noted healer. Though Ector kept his territory jealously inviolate, he was not one to draw sword without good cause, and those within his small holding were as prosperous as any could be in these troubled days.
When Myrddin at last came to the narrow pass which gave opening into Ector’s domain he found guards there. They were civil enough, though they detained him in their camp while one of their number rode on to the clan house with a message. Myrddin had drawn on a scrap of skin the spiral which was the sign of the older days and said he had private words for their lord.
He waited until nearly sundown before the rider returned, giving him free passage within Ector’s land and ready to be his guide. He found the lord of the holding waiting for him as he came into the central courtyard of the clan house. For a single moment of painful memory it was as if he had come home again and all the heavy years had been erased.
Just so had Nyren stood, his head bare, his features welcoming, to greet a guest in the times past. As a servant led away his weary horse, Ector’s hand touched his arm tightly. And Myrddin, seeing that they were nearly alone, repeated his words in a whisper.
Ector’s hair was as night-dark as his own. And his lips were clear cut, his nose narrow and high-bridged, his face long, shaping a pointed chin. It was like seeing his own countenance, somewhat older, and with slight differences;
Ector’s face was enough like his own, even to the curiously marked eyelids which made the eyes appear almost triangular, so mat they could be close kin.
“Welcome, brother,” was Ector’s reply, nor did he appear startled in the least at Myrddin’s whispering of words so old their real meaning had long since passed from the minds of men. “The kin house opens to you.”
In this part of his planning Myrddin’s path was made easy. Though neither Ector nor his lady had had any contact with the Sky People, yet the tradition of such folk had lingered strongly in their clan history. They accepted without question what Myrddin could tell them. Though he did not explain the circumstances surrounding the babe he would find a refuge for, yet they were ready to aid him. Trynihid, even if she might follow in truth the new faith as preached by Nuth—a gentle, middle-aged man who tried to heal bodies as well as lighten minds with his teaching—was still of the kin clan and nodded her own head when Myrddin spoke of the importance of keeping the child safe.
She moved slowly, her own belly swelling with the long-wanted and hoped-for heir to Ector’s holding. And she rested her hands on that swelling as Myrddin spoke of the safekeeping, nodding her head.
Seeing her in her quiet happiness made Myrddin uncomfortable, and he kept from the upper apartments where she sat when there was any leisure in the clan house. He had never been attracted to any of the ladies he had seen at the High King’s court, nor to any girl of the clan house. Only once had desire stirred in his body: when he fronted Nimue in the night and she had challenged him to be a man to her woman, young though they were then.
The happiness of Trynihid and the care her lord wrapped now about her was a new thing to him. Because there were traces of the old inheritance in both of them, he felt more deeply akin to them than he had in any under his grandfather’s lordship. There was a warmth of belonging between these two which was like the life-giving fire of winter—yet to him such comfort was denied.
He grew restless and yet somehow he was tied to this place, and to leave it for the gaunt loneliness of the land about the cave was more than he could face. He went with Ector into the fields and helped to number the flock, doing all a smallhold lord would. And he worked steadily with his hands, tiring himself as much as he could, so that, exhausted, he fell into deep sleep at night.
News came with the return of the smith. And Myrddin listened eagerly. The High King had indeed taken a wife—the Duchess Igrene. Yet he did not live with her, rather she dwelt among the holy women of the new faith, for she “ore a child which was her first husband’s. Until she was delivered of that, the King would not truly claim her,
So the illusion had held with the Duchess, Myrddin thought. And Uther must have done nothing to challenge her belief. This would work better for his own need, for Uther would not want the coming child about the court.
Fostering was honorable, much used among people of higher birth. Even a king would send forth his sons, not only to have them away from the temptations which would easily surround them in his own house, but to protect their very lives. There was always a jealous claimant to believe that by a private killing the path to rule would be made free and easy.
He must ride south before the winter really closed in on this harsher northern country and seek out Uther. Once he had used mind-bending on the King and had succeeded. He would be a poor man of Power if he could not do so again—to the benefit of the plan in which he was a part.
During the summer Myrddin had again undergone one of those swift changes of body which came to him in place of the more smooth flowing growth of those of pure human blood. He was taller, a little heavier of shoulder. Catching sight of his face in a newly burnished shield, he was more than ever struck by the resemblance to Ector, though his face was less softened by the passing of emotion and his eyes were always half hooded, as if he kept them as weapons in reserve. His beard was sparse and did not grow fast. When he shaved he did not need to touch a blade to his skin again for several days. But work under the sun had somewhat browned his skin and given him new strength of hand and arm.
Before the Feast of Samain he rode forth from the holding, bearing the good wishes of these distant kin, well clothed if plainly, his sword now decently sheathed in leather, not in a patchwork of bark. Ector had been awed by the sword, yet he would not even put a hand to its hilt, saying that such blades of old were well known to tolerate: only one master.
“Aye,” Myrddin had answered. “Yet I am not the master, Ector. He who comes will carry this into battle. I am, but his servant in this as in other things.”
He led a pack pony with full supplies, for he determined to move south by the lesser known ways, letting no hint of his coming reach Uther, if possible. To take the High King by surprise would better open the way for his own desire.
Riding at an even pace, he made the rest of his way back to the cave, though he was twice delayed by storms which lasted more than a day. Snow lay white there as he climbed the path his feet would always find, whether the eyes of men could see the way or not. There was a raucous call and a huge black bird coasted down to flap about him. Suddenly losing guard over his features, Myrddin held out his wrist and called joyfully: “Vran!”
Vran it was, planing in at once to settle claws on Myrddin’s glove, turning his head this way and that to eye him, croaking all the time in a coaxing way as the creature had learned to do when it begged for bits of meat.
“But give me time, Vran,” Myrddin promised, “and you shall be fed.”
The bird fluttered up to perch on a stone and the youth rummaged through his pack, bringing out a chunk of smoked pork which he tossed to the ground, only to have a black explosion of feathers fall on it.