Legacy: Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart Read Free Book Online

brother so much
younger would ever present a serious danger. There could be no
question; Camlach had a good fighting record, knew how to make men
like him, and had ruthlessness and common sense. The ruthlessness
showed in what he had tried to do to me in the orchard; the common
sense showed in his indifferent kindness once my mother's decision
removed the threat to him. But I have noticed this about ambitious
men, or men in power -- they fear even the slightest and least
likely threat to it. He would never rest until he saw me priested
and safely out of the palace.
    Whatever his motives, I was pleased
when my tutor came; he was a Greek who had been a scribe in
Massilia until he drank himself into debt and ensuing slavery; now
he was assigned to me, and because he was grateful for the change
in status and the relief from manual work, taught me well and
without the religious bias which had constricted the teaching I had
picked up from my mother's priests. Demetrius was a pleasant,
ineffectually clever man who had a genius for languages, and whose
only recreations were dice and (when he won) drink. Occasionally,
when he had won enough, I would find him happily and incapably
asleep over his books. I never told anyone of these occasions, and
indeed was glad of the chance to go about my own affairs; he was
grateful for my silence, and in his turn, when I once or twice
played truant, held his tongue and made no attempt to find out
where I had been. I was quick to catch up with my studies and
showed more than enough progress to satisfy my mother and Camlach,
so Demetrius and I respected one another's secrets and got along
tolerably well.
    One day in August, almost a year after
the coming of Gorlan to my grandfather's court, I left Demetrius
placidly sleeping it off, and rode up alone into the hills behind
the town.
    I had been this way several times
before. It was quicker to go up past the barrack walls and then out
by the military road which led eastwards through the hills to
Caerleon, but this meant riding through the town, and possibly
being seen, and questions being asked. The way I took was along the
river-bank. There was a gateway, not much used, leading straight
out from our stableyard to the broad flat path where the horses
went that towed the barges, and the path followed the river for
quite a long way, past St. Peter's and then along the placid curves
of the Tywy to the mill, which was as far as the barges went. I had
never been beyond this point, but there was a pathway leading up
past the millhouse and over the road, and then by the valley of the
tributary stream that helped to serve the mill.
    It was a hot, drowsy day, full of the
smell of bracken. Blue dragonflies darted and glimmered over the
river, and the meadowsweet was thick as curds under the humming
clouds of flies.
    My pony's neat hoofs tapped along the
baked clay of the towpath. We met a big dapple grey bringing an
empty barge down from the mill with the tide, taking it easy. The
boy perched on its withers called a greeting, and the bargeman
lifted a hand.
    When I reached the mill there was no
one in sight. Grainsacks, newly unloaded, were piled on the narrow
wharf. By them the miller's dog lay sprawled in the hot sun, hardly
troubling to open an eye as I drew rein in the shade of the
buildings. Above me, the long straight stretch of the military road
was empty. The stream tumbled through a culvert beneath it, and I
saw a trout leap and flash in the foam.
    It would be hours before I could be
missed. I put the pony at the bank up to the road, won the brief
battle when he tried to turn for home, then kicked him to a canter
along the path which led upstream into the hills.
    The path twisted and turned at first,
climbing the steep stream-side, then led out of the thorns and thin
oaks that filled the gully, and went north in a smooth level curve
along the open slope.
    Here the townsfolk graze their sheep
and cattle, so the grass is smooth and shorn. I passed one