The Eagles' Brood

II

I was eight years old when I first knew real terror and real awe. Both of these new experiences came on the same day, within moments of each other, and both left indelible impressions upon me.

Uther and I had spent the spring and summer as usual with his father's people in the hills, and we were on our way back down to Camulod to spend the autumn and the winter in the Colony. We were escorted by a strong party of King Ullic's people, all mounted on the small, shaggy ponies that they breed among their hills. We were making leisurely progress, since the weather was fine, still high summer with never a hint of autumn to be seen. We had come down onto the plain that morning, out of the hills at last, and were no more than twenty miles from Camulod when we made a stop to eat.

Some of the men had fished successfully in a mountain- fed stream a few miles back, and now they lit fires to cook their catch. As boys and princes, neither Uther nor I was expected to take part in the cooking, and we had ridden some way away from the fires, playing a game of throwing a rag weighted with a stone for the other to catch, when we came across a tarn of some kind that cried out to be explored. It was a deep, black pool, set where no pool should be, upon a level stretch of open ground in firm, springy turf. We decided that it was a magic tarn set there by some goddess to receive the offerings of the people who had once lived nearby. It had been the custom in this land since time began to throw sacrificial offerings into pools and lakes, to propitiate the goddesses who lived in them. But now Uther decided he was going to dive down to the

bottom of this pool to find some of the treasures offered to the goddess.

The mere suggestion made me uncomfortable. Even to talk that way smacked of blasphemy, although I did not know the word at that time. Respect, however, I knew all about, and the water looked deep and very black. But even as I sat there, staring at it, Uther had slipped from his pony and begun to strip.

"Uther! Don't!" I said. "It looks too deep. It's dangerous."

"Don't be stupid, Cay. It's just a pool, and I'm hot, anyway. Aren't you coming?"

I shook my head.

"What's the matter? Are you afraid? Don't be stupid." By this time he was naked and he jumped right in, disappearing with a mighty splash. As the ripples settled, I could see him diving down, deeper and deeper, his body pale and insubstantial, and I realized that the water was not black at all, but crystal clear, and I knew that its blackness came from its great depth. I watched him climbing back up from those depths towards me until he broke the surface and flicked his hair out of his eyes, gulping for breath.

"It's deep, deep, deep, Cay, and it's cold, but it's wonderful! Come on in!"

Still I shook my head, watching him as he grinned at me, sucking in air and preparing to go down again. "Uther," I said, "you'll never reach the bottom. It's too deep. Come out."

Instead of answering me, he dived again, and I watched him dwindle smaller and smaller, until he turned and came up again, fast as a cork, to splash back to the surface. This time, however, he swam to the side and held up his hand and I pulled him out. He sat there for a while, shivering, his entire body blue and covered with goose-flesh.

"Well?" I taunted him. "Did you find any treasure?"

He shook his head, his teeth chattering.

"How deep did you go?"

He began to chafe himself with his hands, scrubbing at the goose-flesh, then he leaped to his feet and took off at top speed, running around the perimeter of the pool, screaming gleefully at the top of his voice. I decided that he was mad, but happy mad, and I took off my own clothes and leaped into the water. It was ice cold! Even today, long decades afterwards, I can recall the shock of it. As I regained the surface, gasping, Uther splashed in beside me, pulling me down again. I fought him off and regained the surface, catching my breath and looking for him below me, but he grabbed me from behind and dragged me down again, and by the time the cold finally defeated us, we were both exhausted and had to help each other up onto the bank, where we collapsed, shivering.

"It's like a well," said Uther.

"What d'you mean?"

"Deep. With stone walls. Straight down."

"Probably is a well. That'll be why the water's so clear." By this time we had stopped shivering and were beginning to enjoy the warmth of the sun.

"Want to try to reach the bottom?"

"No," I remember saying. "We'd never -"'

Uther cut me short, his hand raised, his body tensing. "What's that?"

He sat erect and twisted to look behind us. "Whoreson!" he spat. "Saxons!"

I spun and looked towards the camp. There was a battle raging there and our people were heavily outnumbered, and even as I looked I saw four blond-haired strangers running towards us, naked iron in their hands, their mouths open in yells of battle lust.

Uther was already on his feet. "Quick, Cay! Get out of here!" I scrambled for my clothes.

"Forget your clothes, grab your knife!" He was already running for his pony.

I snatched up my knife and ran for my own mount, grasping its mane and swinging myself hard up onto its sun- hot, dusty back. Both animals were galloping almost from a standing start.

"Split up," yelled Uther. "You go right!" He swung away to the left and I wheeled my pony in the opposite direction, looking back over my shoulder to see what our pursuers would do. It was obvious that they were surprised to see only two small, naked boys. It must have been our ponies that attracted them in the first place, for they could not have seen us lying by the water's edge. They had stopped running as we split up, and they stood staring after us, having no hope of catching us on foot and no great desire to tire themselves out chasing naked children. I pulled my pony to a halt and sat watching them, feeling safely distant, as they approached the tarn and found our clothes and our tores, the heavy, decorative gold collars that marked us as chief's sons.

That discovery made them decide we might be worth pursuing after all. One of them, the tallest, dropped his axe and shield, threw off his helmet and fur tunic, and came after me at a run. I sat and watched him, knowing that he could never catch my fleet-footed pony. When he was about twenty-five paces from me I swung my mount again and kicked him to a dead run. Only then did I look around for Uther, but he was nowhere to be seen. The fringe of the forest was about two hundred paces ahead of me and I aimed my pony at it like an arrow, easily outdistancing my pursuer. Then, fifty paces short of the sheltering trees, my mount tripped and fell, hurling me over his head, the distinct sound of his snapping foreleg in my ears.

I landed on my back and knocked myself out of breath completely. When I regained my senses, the pony's screaming ringing through my head, the big Saxon was close, not even breathing hard, an evil grin on his face. I watched him approach me as I struggled for breath. The pony had thrown me about eight paces. The man stopped by the screaming animal, drew a knife, and then bent over to saw at the creature's throat. The sight triggered all my survival instincts, and I came to my feet running as fast as my legs could pump. He must have been absorbed in what he was doing, because I had covered about half the distance to the trees before I heard his shout, and then I heard the sounds of his running feet, gaining on me with every stride of his long legs. Still ahead of him, I came to the edge of the trees, dodging to my left as I passed the first of them, and then swerving again, and again as I passed each successive tree, changing direction sharply all the way. I knew that I was running for my life.

I was lucky that the forest was thick, even here on the fringe, and that I was so small, for I was able to burrow at a dead run into places where my pursuer could not follow. Slowly and surely I gained distance on him, fighting my way into the thickest clumps of underbrush and worming through, until eventually I knew that he was thrashing far enough behind me to give me a breathing space.

I dove under the roots of a great, lightning-split tree and crouched there in terror, hearing the thundering of my own heart over the approaching noise of my pursuer. And then he stopped moving and I knew that he was listening for me, searching the woods around him carefully with his eyes and ears, but I did not know how close he was. The silence grew and lengthened until I could stand it no longer and I eased myself upright and cautiously raised my head. He was nowhere in sight. Then, being only eight, I did a very foolish thing. I climbed higher in order to see further, believing him gone, and there he was, looking at me from less than thirty pages away, across the top of the last thicket I had dived through. He saw me as I saw him and he plunged into the bushes towards me as I launched myself away from him, running with wings on my heels after the few moments' rest I had gained. I ran and ran, choosing the densest thickets again, unmindful of the stinging slash of brambles and nettles and springy twigs, until suddenly I broke from a screen of bushes to find myself in an open, grassy glade of huge old oak trees, their branches choked with mistletoe, the sacred berries of the Druids. I could hear him crashing too close behind me, and in panic, gathering the last of my strength, I threw myself at the biggest oak and scrambled up high into its branches, seeking to hide among the tangled mistletoe. Up and up I went until I could climb no higher, and there I crouched, hugging a branch, and watched him enter the glade.

He stopped on the edge of the clearing, out on the open grass, and looked all around him, peering and listening. Then he began to walk towards the tree in which I was hiding. I was almost sick with dread and terrified that I would lose my hold and tumble from my perch to land at his feet, and in my fear I hiccoughed. He heard me. Dumb with terror, I watched his head come up as he searched the tree until his eyes found me. I can still remember the expression on his face as he smiled an awful smile and beckoned to me to come down, talking to me in his heathen tongue, although we both knew, he and I, that he was going to have to come up and get me.

He had to try three times to get his first purchase on a low branch, but after that he began to climb surely, and more and more quickly, towards my perch. I was saying all my small boy's prayers as he came, willing him to trust a too weak branch and fall, to be too big to come higher— anything to stop him coming closer.

And then I heard the thump of heavy hooves and I saw him freeze and look down. I could see nothing, for the bole of the tree was between me and the sounds, but the Saxon forgot me immediately and began to drop, hand over hand, almost falling from branch to branch in his haste to regain the ground, and then he jumped and landed sprawling, rolling forward and over like a cat and coming to his feet on the run, dagger in hand. The clump of hooves was below me now and suddenly there was a man on a huge, running red horse that bowled the Saxon over by striking him with its shoulder. Before his sprawling form could even come to rest, the rider pinned him to the ground with a spear between his shoulders, and the Saxon squirmed and kicked for long moments before he finally was still. The horseman left his spear sticking up into the air and turned to look up at me, twisting his body sideways so that he could see up to where I was.

"What are you? A Druid god?"

I said nothing, swallowing hard, trying to control my terror.

"Can you get down from there by yourself?"

I tried to say yes, but nothing came out.

"Well? Come on down. He's dead. You're safe enough, now. I have no cause to hurt you."

Still I did not move. My rescuer dismounted and pulled his spear free from the body of the man he had killed, bracing his foot on the corpse to give him purchase. This done, he wiped the blade clean on the dead man's tunic and then stepped back to his horse, stroking its muzzle and talking softly to it, although loudly enough for me to overhear what he was saying.

"Now, Horse," he said, "there is a boy, a boy with no clothes on, hiding up in the tree above your head. I'm telling you this so that you won't be frightened when he comes down, for he looks ferocious. I promise you that he won't hurt you, Horse, if you don't hurt him." He stopped and looked back up at me again. "Are you coming down, boy? You're keeping me from my meal. I've been riding all night long and have not broken fast today, and there's a tasty rabbit stew simmering on my fire, not half a mile from here. Now you may not be hungry, but I am starved, so it will please me greatly if you will come down and let me get back to my food."

Slowly, feeling my way with care, I climbed down from my refuge, suddenly feeling all the cuts and scrapes that I had gathered in my flight, and all at once aware of the abrasive bark of the great oak that had sheltered me. As I reached the last branch above the ground, my rescuer leaped nimbly up onto his horse's back and ambled over to me. I was perched now about three feet above him. He smiled at me and I knew I was really safe.

"What was all that about? Who was this fellow?" He indicated the dead man.

"A Saxon. A raider. They caught us away from our camp, swimming. He chased me and I ran."

"He must have chased you a long way. Why did he do that? I would have let you go."

"He found my tore."

"He what?"

"He found my tore. My gold collar. He knew I am the son of a chief, and he meant to kill me."

"So, you're the son of a chief, are you? Not just a chieftain, eh? A full chief! I'm impressed. What do you call yourself? And how does a Celtic chief's son come to speak Latin so well?"

I drew myself erect and spoke with all the dignity I could muster, determined, naked and bruised as I was, to impress this stranger. "I am of Roman blood. My name is Caius. Caius Merlinus Britannicus. My father is a Legate of Rome. He rides with Stilicho."

The effect of my pronouncement upon him was salutary. He choked. As he spluttered and coughed, his horse pranced nervously, skittering around so that I lost sight of the rider's face, but eventually he regained control both of himself and of his horse and came to a stop, facing me again, his eyes wide and red with coughing.

"Pardon me," he said. "I swallowed some spit the wrong way. So, your father is a Legate? Well, he ought to be, to have burdened you with a name like that. Merlinus? That's not a Roman name. At least, I've never heard of it before."

"No," I admitted. "You are right, it's not. It's really Merlyn. That's Celtic."

"I see." He shook his head, now wearing a grin of open disbelief that even I could decipher, and held up his right hand to me. "Here, take my hand and swing yourself down here in front of me. A man with a name like that should ride in front." I did as he bade me and he held me in place with his left arm. "Can you ride, boy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good, then hold my spear and hang on to the horse's mane. We'll be at my camp very quickly."

He did not lie. I barely had time to tell him about Uther and our flight from the well before I smelled wood-smoke, and we broke from the trees again to find a well-ordered camp where five other men lay resting. They all looked at us curiously as we rode up to the fire.

"General," my rescuer said, "I think this young man should meet you. He tells me his name is Caius Merlyn Britannicus." He lowered me gently to the ground in front of the fire where a giant of a man in black leather armour stood up to tower over me, a strange expression on his face.

"Caius Merlyn Britannicus," said my rescuer, "this is the Legate Caius Picus Britannicus."

My father had come home.