The Hollow Hills - Mary Stewart, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 2
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The Hollow Hills
Merlin 02
Mary Stewart
(1973)
To the memory of my father
There was a boy born,
A winter king.
Before the black month
He was born,
And fled in the dark month
To find shelter
With the poor.
He shall come
With the spring
In the green month
And the golden month
And bright
Shall be the burning
Of his star.
— M.S.
BOOK I
THE WAITING
1
 There was a lark singing somewhere high above. Light fell dazzling against my closed eyelids, and with it
the song, like a distant dance of water. I opened my eyes. Above me arched the sky, with its invisible
singer lost somewhere in the light and floating blue of a spring day. Everywhere was a sweet, nutty smell
which made me think of gold, and candle flames, and young lovers. Something, smelling not so sweet,
stirred beside me, and a rough young voice said: "Sir?"
I turned my head. I was lying on turf, in a hollow among furze bushes. These were full of blossom,
golden, sweet-smelling flames called out by the spring sun. Beside me a boy knelt. He was perhaps
twelve years old, dirty, with a matted shag of hair, and clad in some coarse brown cloth; his cloak, made
of skins roughly stitched together, showed rents in a dozen places. He had a stick in one hand. Even
without the way he smelled I could have guessed his calling, for all around us his herd of goats grazed
among the furze bushes, cropping the young green prickles.
At my movement he got quickly to his feet and backed off a little, peering, half wary and half hopeful,
through the filthy tangle of hair. So he had not robbed me yet. I eyed the heavy stick in his hand, vaguely
wondering through the mists of pain whether I could help myself even against this youngster. But it
seemed that his hopes were only for a reward. He was pointing at something out of sight beyond the
bushes. "I caught your horse for you. He's tied over there. I thought you were dead."
I raised myself to an elbow. Round me the day seemed to swing and dazzle. The furze blossom smoked
like incense in the sun. Pain seeped back slowly, and with it, on the same tide, memory.
"Are you hurt bad?"
"Nothing to matter, except my hand. Give me time, I'll be all right. You caught my horse, you say? Did
you see me fall?"
"Aye. I was over yonder." He pointed again. Beyond the mounds of yellow blossom the land rose,
smooth and bare, to a rounded upland broken by grey rock seamed with winter thorn. Behind the
shoulder of the land the sky had that look of limitless and empty distance which spoke of the sea. "I saw
you come riding up the valley from the shore, going slow. I could see you was ill, or maybe sleeping on
the horse. Then he put his foot wrong — a hole, likely — and you came off. You've not been lying long.
I'd just got down to you."
He stopped, his mouth dropping open. I saw shock in his face. As he spoke I had been pushing myself
up till I was able to sit, propped by my left arm, and carefully lift my injured right hand into my lap. It was
a swollen, crusted mass of dried blood, through which fresh red was running. I had, I guessed, fallen on it
when my horse had stumbled. The faint had been merciful enough. The pain was growing now, wave on
wave grinding, with the steady beat and drag of the tide over shingle, but the faintness had gone, and my
head, though still aching from the blow, was clear.
"Mother of mercy!" The boy was looking sick. "You never did that falling from your horse?"
"No. It was a fight."
"You've no sword."
"I lost it. No matter. I have my dagger, and a hand for it. No, don't be afraid. The fighting's done. No
 one will hurt you. Now, if you'll help me onto my horse, I'll be on my way."
He gave me an arm as I got to my feet. We were standing at the edge of a high green upland studded
with furze, with here and there stark, solitary trees thrust into strange shapes by the steady salt wind.
Beyond the thicket where I had lain the ground fell away in a sharp slope scored by the tracks of sheep
and goats. It made one side of a narrow, winding valley, at the foot of which a stream raced, tumbling,
down its rocky bed. I could not see what lay at the foot of the valley, but about a mile away, beyond the
horizon of winter grass, was the sea. From the height of the land where I stood one could guess at the
great cliffs which fell away to the shore, and beyond the land's farthest edge, small in the distance, I could
see the jut of towers.
ThecastleofTintagel , stronghold of the Dukes of Cornwall. The impregnable fortress rock, which could
only be taken by guile, or by treachery from within. Last night, I had used both.
I felt a shiver run over my flesh. Last night, in the wild dark of the storm, this had been a place of gods
and destiny, of power driving towards some distant end of which I had been given, from time to time, a
glimpse. And I, Merlin, son of Ambrosius, whom men feared as prophet and visionary, had been in that
night's work no more than the god's instrument.
It was for this that I had been given the gift of Sight, and the power that men saw as magic. From this
remote and sea-locked fortress would come the King who alone could clearBritain of her enemies, and
give her time to find herself; who alone, in the wake of Ambrosius, the last of the Romans, would hold
back the fresh tides of the Saxon Terror, and, for a breathing space at least, keepBritain whole. This I
had seen in the stars, and heard in the wind: it was I, my gods had told me, who would bring this to pass;
this I had been born for. Now, if I could still trust my gods, the promised child was begotten; but because
of him — because of me — four men had died. In that night lashed by storm and brooded over by the
dragon-star, death had seemed commonplace, and gods waiting, visible, at every corner. But now, in the
still morning after the storm, what was there to see? A young man with an injured hand, a King with his
lust satisfied, and a woman with her penance beginning. And for all of us, time to remember the dead.
The boy brought my horse up to me. He was watching me curiously, the wariness back in his face.
"How long have you been here with your goats?" I asked him.
"A sunrise and a sunrise."
"Did you see or hear anything last night?"
Wariness became, suddenly, fear. His eyelids dropped and he stared at the ground. His face was
closed, blank, stupid. "I have forgotten, lord."
I leaned against my horse's shoulder, regarding him. Times without number I had met this stupidity, this
flat, expressionless mumble; it is the only armour available to the poor. I said gently: "Whatever happened
last night, it is something I want you to remember, not to forget. No one will harm you. Tell me what you
saw."
He looked at me for perhaps ten more seconds of silence. I could not guess what he was thinking. What
he was seeing can hardly have been reassuring; a tall young man with a smashed and bloody hand,
cloakless, his clothes stained and torn, his face (I have no doubt) grey with fatigue and pain and the bitter
dregs of last night's triumph. All the same the boy nodded suddenly, and began to speak.
 "Last night in the black dark I heard horses go by me. Four, I think. But I saw no one. Then, in the early
dawn, two more following them, spurring hard. I thought they were all making for the castle, but from
where I was, up there by the rocks, I never saw torches at the guard-house on the cliff top, or on the
bridge going across to the main gate. They must have gone down the valley there. After it was light I saw
two horsemen coming back that way, from the shore below the castle rock." He hesitated. "And then
you, my lord."
I said slowly, holding him with my eyes: "Listen now, and I will tell you who the horsemen were. Last
night, in the dark, King Uther Pendragon rode this way, with myself and two others. He rode to Tintagel,
but he did not go by the gate-house and the bridge. He rode down the valley, to the shore, and then
climbed the secret path up the rock and entered the castle by the postern gate. Why do you shake your
head? Don't you believe me?"
"Lord, everyone knows the King had quarrelled with the Duke. No one could get in, least of all the
King. Even if he did find the postern door, there's none would dare open it to him."
"They opened last night. It was the Duchess Ygraine herself who received the King into Tintagel."
"But —"
"Wait," I said. "I will tell you how it happened. The King had been changed by magic arts into a likeness
of the Duke, and his companions into likenesses of the Duke's friends. The people who let them into the
castle thought they were admitting Duke Gorlois himself, with Brithael and Jordan."
Under its dirt the boy's face was pale. I knew that for him, as for most of the people of this wild and
haunted country, my talk of magic and enchantment would come as easily as stories of the loves of kings
and violence in high places. He said, stammering: "The King — the King was in the castle last night with
the Duchess?"
"Yes. And the child that will be born will be the King's child."
A long pause. He licked his lips. "But — but — when the Duke finds out..."
"He won't find out," I said. "He's dead."
One filthy hand went to his mouth, the fist rammed against his teeth. Above it his eyes, showing white,
went from my injured hand to the bloodstains on my clothing, then to my empty scabbard. He looked as
if he would have liked to run away, but did not dare even do that. He said breathlessly: "You killed him?
You killed our Duke?"
"Indeed no. Neither I nor the King wished him dead. He was killed in battle. Last night, not knowing that
the King had already ridden secretly for Tintagel, your Duke sallied out from his fortress of Dimilioc to
attack the King's army, and was killed."
He hardly seemed to be listening. He was stammering: "But the two I saw this morning...It was the Duke
himself, riding up from Tintagel. I saw him. Do you think I don't know him? It was the Duke himself, with
Jordan, his man."
"No. It was the King with his servant Ulfin. I told you the King took the Duke's likeness. The magic
deceived you, too."
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