Читать книгу Arthur High King of Britain - Michael Morpurgo - Страница 9

I LOOK AT YOU AND SEE MYSELF AS THE CHILD I once was, a dreamer, a wanderer. I have to strain to remember the castle where I grew up, the bed I slept in, the table I ate at. But I can still see clear in my mind the wild forests of Wales and the wind-blasted mountains above them where I passed my early years. And they were carefree, those years. I had a mother for my best friend, and a father for my constant companion and teacher. He taught me how to hunt, to stalk silently, to kill cleanly. From him I learnt how to handle a hawk, to sweeten in a fox, to hold a bow without a tremble as I pulled it taut, and to use a sword and a spear as a knight should. But from my mother I learnt the great things. I learnt what is right, what is wrong, what should be and what should not be – lessons I am still learning even now, my friend. I never in my life have loved anyone more than my mother, and I think I never hated anyone more than my elder brother Kay.

Kay was six years older than I was and the bane of my young life. Time and again he would foist the blame for his own misdeeds on to my shoulders, for ever trying to turn Father against me – and in this he often succeeded. I would find myself banished to my room or whipped for something I had not done. I can see now the triumphant sneer in my brother’s eyes. But with Mother he was never able to taint me. She would never hear a word against me, from Kay or from Father. She was my constant ally, my rock.

But she died. She died when I was just twelve years old. As she lay on her deathbed, her eyes open and unseeing, I reached out to touch her cheek for the last time. Kay grasped my arm and pulled me back.

‘Don’t you dare touch her,’ he said, eyes blazing. ‘She’s my mother, not yours. You don’t have a mother.’ I appealed to Father and saw the flicker in his eye that told me that Kay was speaking the truth.

‘Kay,’ he said, shaking his head sadly. ‘How can you say such a thing now, and with your mother lying still warm in death? What I told you, I told you in trust. How can you be so cruel? And you a son of mine.’

‘And me?’ I said. ‘Am I not a son of yours too? Was she not my mother?’

‘Neither,’ said Father, and he looked away from me. ‘I would have told you before, but could never bring myself to do it.’

‘Then,’ I cried, ‘if I am not yours, and if I am not hers, whose am I? I can’t be nobody’s child.’

He took me by the shoulders. ‘Dear boy,’ he said, and he suddenly looked an old man, ‘I cannot tell you who you are. All I know is that you were brought here as a newborn baby by Merlin. It was Merlin who made me promise to keep you, to protect you and to bring you up as I would my own son and this I have done to my very best. If there have been times when I was hard on you, then it was because I always had that promise to fulfil.’

‘Merlin?’ I asked. ‘Who is this Merlin?’

Kay scoffed at that. ‘Do you do nothing but dream? Everyone knows who Merlin is. He’s the maker of the old druid magic, a weaver of spells, a soothsayer. He knows what will happen, long before it does happen. He knows everything that has been and everything that will be. Why he bothered with you I can’t imagine.’

I turned to Father. ‘Is this all true? I was brought here by this Merlin? My mother is not my mother? You are not my father?’ He nodded and I could see the pain in his face reflecting my own. But Kay had to rub more salt in the wound.

‘So you see,’ he crowed. ‘You are a bastard, a foundling. You should be grateful we took you in.’

At that my blood was up. Small though I was, I felled him with one blow and I would have done him more damage had not Father pulled me off him.

‘That is not the way I have taught you, Arthur,’ he said, still holding me back. But I broke free of him and ran off into the forest. There I wandered for days and days like some wounded animal, maddened with pain.

I found myself sometime later in a hidden valley covered with a purple mist of bluebells, and a stream running softly over the stones. Faint with hunger and thirst, I lay down and drank my fill. And as I drank, I thought. I had heard of old men and old women who have no longer the will to go on living, who would seek out just such a hidden place and lie down to die, to be eaten by wolves, and to be picked clean by crows. There on the bank among the bluebells I decided to lie down and never get up again. I closed my eyes and began the sleep of death. I was not afraid. I would join Mother and leave the misery of this world behind me.

Deep in my troubled dreams I heard the approach of an animal picking its way through the bluebells, splashing through the stream. I felt hot breath on my face, and knew I was not in my dream any more. I braced myself for the shaking and tearing I knew I would have to endure before I died. I opened my eyes, curious to see the wolf that would finish me. He stood over me, his tongue drooling, his great grey eyes blinking lazily. It was no wolf but a deerhound; and then a voice was calling him off. An old man in rags, a beggarman he seemed to be, was fording the stream, barefoot on the stones and leaning on a staff to steady himself against the current. I struggled in my weakness to push the dog off me.

‘You’re a new smell,’ said the beggarman. ‘Don’t worry, Bercelet will not harm you.’ And he came and sat down heavily beside me. ‘Have you anything to give a poor beggarman?’ he asked. I shook my head, for I had nothing. He went on. ‘Then at least give me some of your time. Time costs nothing and a young man like yourself has enough of it to spare. You have a long life ahead of you, longer than you know, longer even than you may want. Since the High King Utha died I have wandered this land from end to end. I see around me nothing but ruin and desolation. Everywhere I find greed and famine, hand in hand and prospering. I see a kingdom divided and weakened. I see lords and kings squabbling like sparrows amongst themselves. And, as they fight, the Picts and the Scots come down from the north country, pillaging and burning at will, and the Irish and the cursed Saxons pour in their hordes from across the seas and we are defenceless before them. They take our towns, our villages, our farms. They burn our churches, they enslave our people and we can do nothing, for the heart has gone out of us. We are a people entirely without hope.’ He looked around him. ‘You see this valley of bluebells? It all began here a thousand, two thousand years ago maybe, with just one fine bluebell that grew strong and proud. And then one by one others sprang up around it and a valley of thicket and bramble was turned into this paradise on Earth. You can grow to be just such a flower, and then others would follow you. It only takes one. Think no more of dying, young man. Look around you, and wonder what one flower can do and know then what one man can do. All Britain could be as fine as this wood. You may be the first bluebell, you may be the one.’ He smiled gently at me out of his dark eyes and ruffled the hair about the deerhound’s neck. ‘I need only look into a man’s eyes and I can see his soul. I see in you the seed of greatness. Let it grow.’

After we had talked some more together he put his head back against the tree and we slept. When I woke he was gone and the dog Bercelet with him. At first I thought that the beggarman must have been part of my dream, but then I saw the bluebells flattened where he had sat and his staff left behind, leaning against the trunk of an ash tree. I was on my feet at once, the staff in my hand and calling after him. But only the cackle of a mocking jay answered me.

I stayed for some days more in the hidden bluebell valley, hoping the beggarman and his hound might return. But they did not. I fed on the brown trout that bunched in the shady shadows of the stream, offering themselves for a meal. I ate greedily, and as my strength returned, my spirit too revived. I left the wood behind me and made for home.

I had been gone for a month, maybe it was more, and they had given me up for dead. Father clung to me and cried. ‘Never again think you are not my son,’ he said. ‘Kay I bred, and love him as a man must always love his son. But you, I chose to love and I love you both as a son and as a friend also.’ But even as he hugged me, I saw the steely glint of envy in Kay’s eye and I knew I had no friend for a brother, nor ever would have.

The years passed and I kept always in my mind the meeting with the beggarman among the bluebells – I kept his staff too – and I heard more and more of those marauding Saxons who were driving our good people from their homes and how there was no one king strong enough to stand against them. Those they did not kill they harried and chased into the valleys and forests of Wales. The people came with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had nowhere to shelter, no food to eat. We did what we could for them but it was never enough. I heard tales of fire and slaughter and terrible cruelty. Only the south of Britain and Wales itself still stood out against the invader. But for how long? I wondered.

For me there was a new urgency in my battle training. Daily I sparred with sword and spear against Father, against Kay, against anyone who would teach me more. In these mock battles, Kay sought often to provoke me – always when Father was not there, I noticed – calling me his ‘bastard brother’, but I turned aside the jibes with a smile, as a shield might glance away a thrusting sword.

One winter’s day when I was about fifteen, word came to the castle that the Lord Archbishop of Britain was calling every knight in the kingdom to London. Here it would be decided at last, once and for all, who should be the High King of all Britain and lead the struggle against the Saxons. It was the last chance for all of us, Father was convinced of it; and far though it was to travel, and dangerous too, we had to go where we were needed. ‘And you will come with us, Arthur,’ said Father. ‘Though you are not yet a knight, I should like you with us.’

‘He can ride as our servant then,’ Kay mocked. ‘Can’t he, Father?’

‘Will you never learn to curb your wicked tongue?’ Father said. ‘Must you shame me every time you open your mouth?’ He turned to me. ‘No, Arthur, you come as our squire, not as our servant. It will be your first time away from Wales, and your first time in London.’

And so we all three came to London the week before Christmas and took lodgings not far from the great Abbey church. I saw little of Father, who was always away meeting the Archbishop and the other kings and knights and lords. During the day, Kay kept me so busy grooming the horses and polishing the armour that I had no time even to see the city. Kay was true to his word. I was no squire to him, but rather the meanest of servants. He showed me off amongst his friends. If I wasn’t his ‘bastard brother’ I was his ‘bastard servant’. Father was rarely with us, so there was no rein now on his viciousness.

Father would return each evening to the lodgings and the story was always the same. They could not agree. Each king, each lord, each knight had his own faction, and the past bitterness left no room for harmony. They howled at each other like tomcats. It was hopeless, Father said.

Christmas day came and a hard frost with it. The bells of the great Abbey ran out over the city, drawing us all to Mass. There in the Abbey we kneeled and prayed together for deliverance from the Saxons. The Archbishop prayed for all of us: ‘Jesus, Son of God, defend us and keep us. We pray you provide for us, find for us a leader, someone who will bind us together and give us heart to fight. Give us, dear Lord, the faith to hope again. Give us a sign. Help us, sweet Jesus.’ And the chorus of ‘Amen’ echoed in unison through the Abbey. I looked at the bowed heads around me and thought of the bluebells in the hidden wood in Wales so far away, and of the beggarman whose staff I had always kept beside me ever since. I had it with me then.

I came out of the Abbey after Mass was over and saw a large crowd gathering at the far end of the churchyard under a great yew tree. I was intrigued and began walking towards them, when Kay and some of his friends came running past me, blundering into me and knocking me to my knees. ‘On your feet, bastard brother,’ he called out. ‘Get back to the lodgings at once and prepare my armour and horse, as a servant should. Bring them to me at the tournament field by three o’clock. And don’t be late.’ Then he was gone into the crowd, his belly-laughing cronies with him.

I left the Abbey behind me and joined the bustle of the city streets. Everyone, it seemed, was making for the Abbey churchyard. I was like a trout swimming against the stream. As I walked back to our lodgings through the crowds on that Christmas Day, I yearned for the wild woods of Wales, for peace and quiet, for larks and bluebells. I lay on my bed in my room and dreamed I was there again, the beggarman beside me with Bercelet, his great drooling hound, and the silver stream running softly over the stones. I fell into a deep sleep.

I was woken by the bells of the Abbey ringing out – one, two, three – three o’clock. It’s always the same. When you’re in too much of a hurry, horses never do as you want them to. They would shift about as I saddled them. They trod on my toes, blew out their stomachs so I could not tighten their girthstraps. I lashed Kay’s armour on to his horse, mounted mine and set off. More than once his horse broke free of the leading rein; and more than once his armour fell off and I had to stop to pick it up again. I galloped the horses through the empty streets and we clattered over the bridge. I could hear ahead of me the roar of the crowd. The tournament had already begun.

Kay was waiting for me at the gate, his friends gathered around him. His face was dark with anger. ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was sleeping.’

‘Sleeping! You’re late, damn your eyes. You’re useless, even as a servant you’re useless, a useless bastard.’ And with that he began to arm himself, his friends helping him with his buckles, and he chiding me all the while. Suddenly he stopped and looked around him. ‘My sword!’ he cried. ‘Where in God’s name is my sword?’

I had forgotten it. In my hurry I had forgotten it. I had to confess it.

‘Then you’d better fetch it, hadn’t you!’ shouted Kay. He slapped my horse on its rump, so that he reared up and nearly threw me. I rode off, their mocking laughter ringing in my ears. But I made up my mind there and then that I would take my time. I rode slowly back to the bridge.

As I passed by the Abbey, I heard a bird singing loudly, a robin I thought, a cock robin, but I could not see it anywhere. I was looking over into the churchyard when I saw something that had not been there before – or if it had, I had not noticed it. Under the yew tree there stood a massive granite-grey stone. Suddenly the sunlight came through the clouds and the stone shone like burnished steel. It shone so brightly that it hurt my eyes to look at it. Strange, I thought, and I dismounted. At first I supposed it was the frost on the stone that glittered so, but I soon saw that it was not the stone itself that shone. It was a sword, a sword stuck incongruously into the stone. And there, at last, was the robin I had been looking for all the time. He was sitting on the pommel of the sword, singing his heart out. As I came closer, the robin stayed where he was, eyeing me. I was so close now I could almost reach out and touch him, but when I tried he flew off and up into the great yew tree. My hand was resting now on the sword hilt. Only then did I think of Kay and the sword that I had left behind at the lodgings. Why not? I thought. Kay wouldn’t notice the difference. This sword looked much the same as his. It would save me the journey back to the lodgings. I’d borrow it and put it back later. I looked around to see if anyone was about. The churchyard was deserted. I glanced up at the robin. ‘Don’t tell,’ I said, and I grasped the hilt and pulled it. It came free of the stone easily enough, much more easily than I had expected. It was a fine sword, heavy but well balanced. It fitted my grasp as if it had been made for me. Sword in hand, I said goodbye to the robin and left.

As I approached the tournament field for the second time, I saw Kay and his friends waiting for me, and stiffened myself to endure their barbs. I handed the sword to Kay who snatched it out of my hands. ‘About time,’ he snapped. He never even looked at it. He turned his back on me and strode off towards the field.

I tied up my horse and followed some distance behind. It was my first tournament and I walked around it in a daze of wonder. Flags of every colour flew everywhere, lions, unicorns, lilies, castles, all dancing in the wind. Tents, gold and white in the sun, covered the field. And ladies – such ladies. Every one of them looked to me like a princess. I moved amongst them, my heart pounding with excitement. They looked at me as though I were not there, but I did not mind. I gazed on their long white necks, their shimmering dresses, their glittering jewels, and I was in love with all of them instantly.

The noise of the crowd drew me away to the tournament itself. I stood for some time on my own and watched. There were thirty or forty knights busy in mock battles, hacking and thrusting fiercely at each other. The crowd roared them on, laughing and whistling whenever a knight retired hurt and limped from the field. Then I saw Kay being helped away, cursing as he came, his shield in two, his fingers dripping blood.

I found him sitting on the ground spitting blood from a cut lip. Father was there too. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he was saying. Kay threw down his sword in a fit of temper. ‘Lousy sword,’ he said. ‘Blunt as a staff.’ Then he saw me. ‘You didn’t sharpen it, did you?’ I said nothing. Father had retrieved the sword and was turning it over in his hands.

‘This sword, Kay,’ he said, ‘this is the sword from the stone in the Abbey churchyard. I am sure of it.’ There was a sudden hush and people began to gather around. Kay got to his feet. He glanced at me, a puzzled frown on him, and then his face lit with a sudden smile. ‘Of course it is, Father,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d surprise you, that’s all. I couldn’t get a proper grip on it. So I went back later, on my own, and I tried again. It came out, just like that, with no trouble at all.’

Father was looking at him hard. ‘You took the sword from the stone?’

‘And why not?’ Kay was offended. ‘Why should it not be me? Am I not good enough?’ All this time I said nothing. I could not understand what all the bother was about, nor why it was that Kay was claiming that he had taken the sword from the stone. Why should he be confessing to such a thing, boasting about it even? Thieving was bad enough, but thieving from a churchyard! If Kay wanted to brag about it, let him. I’d keep quiet.

‘There is only one way to settle this, Kay,’ said Father. ‘We will go back to the Abbey churchyard, replace the sword in the stone and then see if you can draw it out again. Agreed?’

As we rode back across the bridge I felt Kay’s eyes always on me, and Father too kept twisting in his saddle to look back at me. Somehow he already knew Kay had been lying, that it was I who had pulled the sword from the stone. I looked down to avoid the accusation in his eyes. How could I explain to him that I had just borrowed it, that I was going to put it back? He wouldn’t believe me, and neither would anyone else.

Once in the churchyard again we gathered round the stone in silence, our several steaming breaths misting the frosty air around us. Father took the sword and thrust it deep into the stone. A bird sang suddenly and shrill above my head. I looked up. It was my robin again, his red breast fluffed up against the cold.

‘Well, Kay,’ said Father, standing back, ‘go on then. Pull it out.’

Kay stepped up. I could see he did not want to go through with it, but he had no choice. He grasped the hilt with both hands, took a deep breath, and pulled with all his might. The sword stayed firm in the stone. He heaved at it. Red in the face now, he shook it. He wrenched at it. It would not move.

‘That’s enough Kay,’ said Father quietly. ‘You lied. You have always lied. You have shamed me yet again, and this time in front of the world. Step down.’ And he turned at once to me. ‘It is your turn, Arthur. Everyone else has already tried.’

I looked around me. The churchyard was packed now, everyone pushing, jostling, craning to see.

‘Don’t bother,’ cried someone. ‘He’s only a boy.’

‘And a bastard boy at that,’ cried another.

Father took my hand and helped me up on to the stone. ‘Go on Arthur,’ he said. ‘Take no notice.’

The robin sang out again as I took the sword in my hand. I drew it out as I had done before, without effort, smoothly, like a knife from cheese. Sunlight caught the blade, and the crowd fell suddenly silent. Some crossed themselves, others fell at once to their knees. And then I saw Father kneeling too, his head bowed. ‘Father, don’t!’ I cried. ‘What are you doing? Why are you kneeling to me?’

He looked up at me, his eyes filled with tears. ‘I know now,’ he said. ‘It was for this that you were brought to me by Merlin all those years ago.’

‘But for what?’ I said. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Kay,’ said Father. ‘Tell Arthur what is written on the stone. Read it aloud for him, so that Arthur may know who he is.’

Kay did not have to read it. As he spoke, his eyes never left my face. ‘It says,’ he began hesitantly, reluctantly, ‘it says, “Whoever pulls the sword from this stone is the rightful High King of Britain”.’

‘Quite so,’ came a voice beside me. The man I found at my side was a head taller than I was. When he put back the hood of his dark cloak I saw his face was parchment-white and etched with age. His hair was long to his shoulders and shone silver in the sun. He put his hand on my arm. ‘You remember me? You remember Bercelet?’ he said.

I knew then it was the voice of the beggarman from the bluebell wood, and beside him was Bercelet, the shaggy deerhound I had once thought was a wolf.

‘Merlin!’ the crowd whispered. ‘It is Merlin.’

‘Then the sword in the stone is nothing but a trick,’ said one of Kay’s friends. ‘Just one of his magician’s tricks, and not a sign from God, as the Archbishop said it would be.’

‘Not true.’ It was the Archbishop himself, speaking as he came through the crowd. ‘It is from God that Merlin has his great powers. It was God alone who set this stone in the graveyard, and it was God alone who put the sword in it. And the words written round it are written by God Himself. I tell you it is God Almighty who had chosen this boy for our king.’

‘He can’t be,’ someone shouted. ‘He’s Kay’s bastard brother. Everyone knows it. Besides, he’s just a boy.’ And furious arguments broke out all around the churchyard.

Merlin held up his hands to calm them. ‘Hear me.’ He spoke softly, but everyone seemed to hear him. ‘This boy you see before you is Arthur Pendragon, and he is the rightful High King of Britain. His father – and he himself does not yet know it – his father was King Utha Pendragon, and his mother the Lady Igraine. He is born to greatness, born to save this realm, and chosen by God himself. When he was just a babe in arms I took him from his mother and father. I took him for safety’s sake, for I knew the king had enemy spies all around him, who would murder both the king and his heir, if they could. And I was right, was I not? Was not King Utha poisoned? This boy, this prince, this king I saved. And I saved him for you, and for all Britain. He was brought up in deepest Wales as Sir Egbert’s son, and as Sir Kay’s brother, but he is neither. He is your true born High King. This stone and this sword are the proof of it. But so that no man should ever afterwards challenge him, we will leave the sword in the stone until Pentecost. Anyone who wants may try to draw it out. I tell you now, though, that no one but Arthur Pendragon, King Arthur himself, ever shall.’ And the crowd knelt again before me and I felt Merlin’s firm hand on my shoulder.

For three months after I had drawn the sword from the stone I stayed in London, and Merlin tutored me day and night in the arts of kingship. King after king, lord after lord and knight after knight came to the Abbey churchyard and tried to draw the sword from the stone, and every one of them failed. Some went away in a fury, vowing they would never serve under any beardless boy king; but most came to me and knelt before me and swore their allegiance.

It was some time before Kay could bring himself to do it, and when he did he could not look me in the face. He asked pardon for all he had done. ‘If only I had known,’ he said. ‘If only I had known, I should not have done what I did, I should not have said what I said.’

‘What is past is past,’ I replied. ‘Stay beside me, Kay. Be steward of all my lands.’ I would never afterwards be able to trust Kay, I knew that; but I thought it wiser to have him near me where I could see him.

Merlin had taught me much already. He was always at my side, my mentor, my teacher and my friend too. He was there with me in the Abbey at the Coronation, as the Archbishop crowned me King, setting the golden circlet of kingship on my head. It was light enough to wear, but I knew even then, as I wore it for the first time, that the burden of kingship would grow heavier with each passing year. I should have been happy that day, but I was not. I was not overawed. I was not frightened. I was numb. Even then, after three months, I still could not believe what was happening to me.

At the feasting afterwards Merlin leant across and spoke to me quietly. ‘So now it begins, Arthur. With these good men and with others still to come, you will build the Kingdom of Logres, God’s own kingdom on earth, here in Britain. And it will flourish gloriously, for a while at least.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘A tree, however fine, cannot last for ever. Your tree too will one day wither and die, but from it a single acorn will lie dormant under the earth, until it is ready to grow again.’

As he spoke Bercelet came to lie down at my feet. Merlin smiled. ‘Remember the beggarman in the bluebell wood?’ he said. ‘Remember the robin in the Abbey churchyard? I have the power to change myself into whatever I like, whomever I like. And I can divide myself too, Bercelet is not just a dog, you know. He is my eyes and my ears. He is part of me. From now on, always keep him with you. Keep him and you keep me. Together, we will guide you and protect you.’

Then Egbert, my dear foster father, stood and raised his cup to me, and everyone stood with him. ‘To Arthur, our king, High King of all Britain. May you bring this poor country and her people out of darkness and into the light.’ And all around the hall they thundered their applause.

Under the table, I pinched my leg to be sure I was not dreaming all this. Bercelet shoved his great shaggy head into my hand and gnawed at my finger. His gnawing turned to biting. It was no dream. Arthur Pendragon was indeed High King of Britain. The tooth marks on my knuckles told me so.