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Part Three
Deva Vitrix

Merlin and Aurelia

“I feel like such a fool,” Aurelia sighs with a forlorn shake of her white head. “What was I thinking—that the tidy little Venta of my youth would remain unchanged through the years? That I could walk through the streets and see the folk I once knew, and have them hail me and welcome me back?” She turns mournful eyes on me. “The place I knew changed the moment I left, of course it did.” She shakes her head again. “What else could I expect?”

We have resumed our journey and are now almost within hailing distance of Ynys Avallach. The carriage rattles along the rutted road. Pelleas and Mairenn are asleep, Brother Ruan is sitting with the drivers, and Aurelia is gazing wistfully out at the green-clothed hills and mist-heavy mountains the road reveals as we travel ever southward. Her experience in the deserted church at Venta has put her in a thoughtful, melancholy mood.

“So much change . . . so very much,” she murmurs, her voice so low I did not know if she is speaking to me, or to herself. “So much of the old world has gone—never to return.”

“It is the way of things,” I say, knowing full well the cold comfort of those words.

“I should have known it would be like this I should have prepared myself better.” She turns her gray eyes to me. “I allowed myself to hope that somehow the place would still hold a trace of the town as I remember it, that there might be a welcome for me there. You’d think I’d have lived long enough in this world to know better.”

Oh, how well I knew that feeling: the insistent longing, the needing to see, to know, followed by the cruel heartache of finding out, of realizing that all your memories are dust and ashes. We were old friends—painful memory and I—with a companionship to span the age.

As anyone with a sliver of sense can see, the world is ever changing, never remaining still for a season, for a day. Every moment is a fleeting moment. Everything alive is either coming or going, growing or dying. Nothing ever stays the same. Every change is a change forever. Ah, but nothing is forever changed that will not change again.

Except, perhaps, in memory. In the hallowed glow of memory the world resides just as we will have it, untouched by time or circumstance. Can it also be altered? Yes, but only if we chose to change it; we are the agents of that alteration; neither time nor circumstance have power there.

Ruminating on these things, I see that I had made the self-same mistake when, after my long sojourn in the wild forested hills, I returned once more to Ynys Avallach. In my desire to see Charis and Avallach again, I had also expected them to be as I always see them in my mind, had I not? While it is true that the Fair Folk partake of a singular life, the world did change—more slowly in the Summerlands, to be sure, but even in that half-enchanted place the events of the outer world could, and often did, intrude. I had seen it myself in the change wrought in that time-hallowed realm.

As it happened, on that occasion I had been pleasantly surprised. And even now, I feel something of that encouragement once more as our carriage rolls over the causeway across the marsh and pauses at the foot of the tor. As before, as on every visit to the Isle of Apples, I seem to enter a waking dream where the more mundane concerns of life fall away, or shrink to irrelevance, amidst the calm and peace of a tranquility this worlds-realm would envy, and would do well to emulate. I draw a deep breath and savor this still, sacred moment. Great Light, may your grace abound!

Out on the lake, I spy Avallach’s fishing boat and, as the day is good, the Fisher King himself at his favored occupation. At the sight of the carriage, Avallach puts down his willow pole and begins rowing to shore to meet us. Pelleas sees him, too, and jumps down from his bench and, as the boat draws nearer, he splashes out to meet the boat and pulls it ashore.

“Pelleas!” Avallach shouts, his voice resounding across the lake. “Pelleas! Good to see you, my friend.” He stands up, almost capsizing his little craft, climbs over the side and into the water where he grabs Pelleas in a hearty embrace, pounding him on the back as if to reassure himself that it is a being flesh-and-blood he is greeting and not a ghost. “I had not hoped to see you so soon. Is Merlin with you?”

Before Pelleas can reply, Avallach’s eyes fix on the carriage where Aurelia and I are just disembarking. “My boy!” he cries, making the very hills ring with his shout of delight. “There you are! You’re here!” Sloshing up out of the shallows, he stands before me, joy lighting his entire face. “Wait until Charis learns you are here. I hope you can stay a little.” He spreads his arms and gathers me to him—just as he did when I was a lad. In his eyes, perhaps I still am.

“And who is this with you?” he asks, turning to Aurelia first, and then glancing at the others waiting beside the carriage.

“Grandfather, meet my friend Aurelia,” I tell him; I put my hand to her shoulder and feel the thinness there. “A woman of noble lineage and, with the help of Heaven, mother of the next High King of Britain.”

My pronouncement is mostly hope, I admit. Yes, I have glimpsed the shape of things to come, and will work to make it so. That labor is now before us.

“Good lady, it is a pleasure to meet you,” says Avallach bestowing a regal bow. “May your sojourn here well become you. Any friend of Merlin’s is a friend to me and my house. I would be honored if you would share with me the welcome cup.”

Aurelia, flattered by his effusive greeting, smiles her most radiant smile and, just for a moment, her entire face is transformed: the years fall away and I glimpse something of the young woman she must have been. I see something else, too: a trace of Aurelius’ unaffected ease and friendliness—the winsome qualities his brother Uther so rarely allows himself and would do well to dispense more freely.

“I am honored, Lord Avallach,” replies Aurelia nicely. She then introduces her handmaid, Mairenn, and Brother Ruan to the Fisher King.

I watch my grandfather move from one to the other and now I think my first thought that nothing had changed was perhaps mistaken. Though outwardly the same in most every respect, the Fisher King himself wears a different face and displays a fresh demeanor: more effusive, more personable, more open in a way I have not seen before. It is as if he has somehow come fully into himself, or at least is more light-hearted. I will gently probe this change when the time is right and see if I might discover its source.

Just now, he is greeting our awestricken drivers and the soft-spoken Mairenn, whose eyes will soon be wide with absolute astonishment as we are bundled once more into the carriage and proceed to the Fisher King’s palatial stronghold: a sprawling edifice built on the lower slopes of the hill with towers and terraces and outbuildings—all encircled by high walls. In this, I imagine, it echoes something of the great houses of Atlantis and a time long past. The carriage wheels sound hollow as we cross a narrow bridge and roll through the iron gates and onto the stone flagging of a spacious courtyard. I look around, filling my gaze with the familiar glories of my former home. The Fisher King’s palace is exactly as I recall. The years find no purchase here and I am oddly gratified—as if something much in doubt has been confirmed. This reaction surprises me. Why? I cannot say. For, I have known it all my life. Have I lived so long in the world of mortals whose lives and concerns are so fleeting and insubstantial that I have forgotten my own heritage, my own nature and being?

This, I think I would do well to keep in mind when dealing with headstrong lords and their stubborn ilk. They are such temporary hindrances and feeble impediments, their time so limited. True as that may be, the damage they can do can live long after them. This, too, should be remembered.

“Where is Charis?” I ask as we climb from the carriage. I glance around, thinking to see her running out to meet us. “I’ll go surprise her.”

“Ah!” says Avallach, as if just remembering something important. “Yes, well, Charis is not here—gone to the abbey to help the good brothers there.”

This, as I suspected, has become my mother’s chief occupation—helping the priests there look after the sick and injured brought to them for prayer and healing. The abbey, in truth, is little more than a church and a rustic cluster of wattled huts and wooden outbuildings at the foot of the ancient tor that folk are now calling Shrine Hill.

“She has been gone most of the day. I think she may return soon. How long can you stay?”

“Not long, unfortunately. A day or so, perhaps.” Even as I say this, I feel the tide-pull of events that will shape this worlds-realm for years, generations, to come. I am needed elsewhere now—or soon will be. “I would like nothing better than to sojourn here awhile, but—”

Before I can explain, Avallach nods knowingly, “It was ever thus.”

“Too true.”

“Oh, well, never mind, eh? You’re here now and, little or long, we will enjoy the time we have.” He spreads his hands wide in invitation to include the entire travelling party, “Be at home in the Summerlands, my friends. Worry for nothing while you are here.”

We start towards the palace, and as the Fisher King gathers Pelleas to him for a private word, I feel Aurelia tug on my arm. “This . . . this place . . . it is . . .” Words fail her. Her amazement warms my heart. I know exactly how she feels. I was born and raised here—on what many regard as a holy isle. Such is the power of the place, it can still work its magic on those who enter its domain. There can be few places like it anywhere.

“I’ve heard about the Summerlands, you know,” Aurelia says. “Like everyone else, I heard the stories about the Fair Folk when I was young. And like everyone else, I only half-believed them—if that—like the tales they told about the Land of the Everliving.” She shook her head in amazement. “To think it was this close to Venta all the while . . . and yet . . . I never knew it.”

“Come along, let us go in. There is more I want to show you.”

* * *

Later, when the welcome cups have been poured and the guests settled in their chairs and on the bench in the king’s great hall, servants appear with the tokens of welcome. The platter comes to me and I take a bit of bread and dip it in the salt and thank the servant; only then do I glance up to see who it is that serves me: none other than the Lady of the Lake herself. Wearing a simple mantle of creamy white with a belt edged in silver, a slim silver torc gleaming at her throat, her nobility shines through the simplicity and restraint of her dress. More and more she is adopting the dress and style of those she serves. In all other respects, however, age has touched her lightly—if it has touched her at all.

“Mother!” I leap up from my chair.

Charis laughs at my surprised expression. “Forgive me, my son. I did not mean to startle you, but I could not resist.” And, oh, her voice takes me back to the earliest days my childhood when that sound filled all my world. She passes the silver tray along and I am pulled into her warm embrace. I feel her arms around me and time stands still. When she releases me, she holds me at arm’s length to examine me more closely—as if inspecting a length of cloth for imperfection. She herself displays nothing of the sort nor, I expect, ever will.

“What has got into you?” she laughs. Before I can frame a reply, she turns to Aurelia, and asks, “And who is this you have brought with you?”

“Mother, this is my friend Aurelia,” I say and, with a glance at her, proclaim, “God willing she is the mother of the next High King of Britain.”

“That remains to be seen!” she protests, waving away the designation, but is flattered nonetheless.

“She is just returned from Armorica to join her sons and is in need of a place to stay until the kingship has been won.”

“Then she must stay here, of course,” Charis replied nicely. Leaning close, she takes Aurelia’s hand in hers and says, “It will be my very great pleasure. Indeed, having another woman under this roof will be a blessing.” They exchange a few words and she moves on with her tray to greet the others around the board.

“Please, sit with us awhile,” I say, when she returns. “I would hear how Ynys Avallach has fared since I was last here.”

“But that you already know,” she replies lightly, and give me a sideways look. “You were only just here.”

“I would hear it all the same.”

“Well, there is little enough to tell. The work at the abbey keeps me well occupied and there are plans to improve and enlarge the holdings there—though Avallach can tell you more about that.” she replies. “But, you, Merlin—you have thrown yourself into the struggle once more. What news of events beyond these walls?”

We talk awhile of the on-going trials and tribulations to secure the high kingship, the plans to rebuild Britain’s defenses and how, at last, that is beginning to be possible. And I explain how Aurelia’s sons are the prime reason for my optimism. Charis listens to all this attentively, and then remarks, “This sits well with you, my son. It cheers me to see you this . . . this buoyant.”

“How so?”

She regards me with a knowing, motherly, look. “You seem lighter, more cheerful—as if you no longer carry the cares of the world like a sack of stones on your back.”

I laugh at her depiction of me. “It is called hope,” I tell her. “And it is that which buoys me up.” Turning to Aurelia, who has followed our talk with bemused attention, I add, “For that hope, I have this remarkable woman to thank—for raising two sons worthy of their rank and station. For the first time in a long time, I have solid grounds for thinking our dreams of a just and true sovereignty can soon become reality.”

Later, after a meal of fish and greens at the Fisher King’s table, and our bedazzled travelling companions have been shown to their lodgings, Pelleas and Avallach have gone off to talk, Aurelia and I are alone in one of the many chambers provided for the rare visitor to the palace, we have a chance to speak again. “I am so glad I was able to meet your mother,” Aurelia tells me. “To think of all she has seen in this life.”

“It was an honor to introduce you. And I am pleased that you will have the chance to get to know one another better in the days ahead. Both Avallach and Charis assure me that you are more than welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

Aurelia smiles, but I sense her hesitation. She looks away slightly, and says, “That may prove the briefest of stays.”

Thinking she is referring to the struggle for the High Kingship, I hasten to put her mind at ease. “If you will allow me, dear lady, I would heartily advise you to abide here until Aurelius has secured the High Kingship. There will be upheaval in the land for some time to come and both he and Uther will rest easier knowing you are safe and well cared for here.” I reach out and press her hand, urging her to accept the offer. “There is no safer or more comfortable place in all the land.”

She offers a vague smile. “You are kind to intercede on my behalf, but that was not in my mind just now.”

“No?” Then it comes to me: this illness she alludes to but does not name—the reason she has ventured to see her sons, to visit her homeland one last time.

Then, as if realizing what she is saying, she waves aside the comment, gathers her composure and adds, “You are kind to put up with my grumbling. I should be more grateful—and in all honesty I am grateful. Indeed I am. I will not reject the sanctuary I have been offered, and I will bless those who provide it.” She squeezes my hand. “Thank you, Merlin.”

“If I indulge you it is as much out of self-interest as kindness,” I tell her. “I want to know more about the upbringing of the man who will rule Britain.” Oh, yes, I do indeed want to know more about the future king and his headstrong brother, true enough; but, as I am beginning to fear our time may be more limited than I might have guessed, I am even more eager than ever to know about the remarkable woman who raised them.

“Luck and pluck,” she replies. “Things worked out for the best, that’s all.”

“Even so,” I allow. “I recall you saying that you walked all the way from Ederyn Long Knife’s stronghold through the wilds of Gwynedd entirely alone,” I mused. “That, I think, took more than a little pluck.”

“Oh, I was never alone,” she quickly corrects. “I had Ursa with me, remember. And there were ever guides and companions along the way—my friends for the journey, I call them.”

“Tell me,” I invite, seeing as we are both in a mood now to remember. “Who else did you meet?”



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