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.‘Yes, yes!’ the crowd called back, and on Mer­lin’s old, clever, mis­chievous face there came a look of pleased sur­prise, as though he had not known what might have hap­pened in the court­yard.He smiled, then stepped aside and beck­oned with his free hand.Two small chil­dren, a boy and a girl, came from the palace car­ry­ing the Caul­dron of Clyddno Ei­ddyn.Most of the Trea­sures of Britain were small things, com­mon­place even, but the Caul­dron was a gen­uine Trea­sure and, of all the thir­teen, the one with the most pow­er.It was a great sil­ver bowl dec­orat­ed with a gold­en trac­ery of war­riors and beasts.The two chil­dren strug­gled with the Caul­dron’s great weight, but man­aged to set it down be­side the Druid.‘I have the Trea­sures of Britain!’ Mer­lin an­nounced, and the crowd sighed in re­sponse.‘Soon, very soon,’ he went on, ‘the pow­er of the Trea­sures will be un­leashed.Britain will be re­stored.Our en­emies will be bro­ken!’ He paused to let the cheers echo in the court­yard.‘You have seen the pow­er of the Gods tonight, but what you have seen is a small thing, an in­signif­icant thing.Soon all Britain will see, but if we are to sum­mon the Gods, then I need your help.’The crowd shout­ed that he would have it and Mer­lin beamed ap­proval at them.That benev­olent smile made me sus­pi­cious.One part of me sensed that he was play­ing a game with these folk, but even Mer­lin, I told my­self, could not make a girl glow in dark­ness.I had seen her, and I want­ed to be­lieve so bad­ly, and the mem­ory of that lis­som, shin­ing body con­vinced me that the Gods had not aban­doned us.‘You must come to Mai Dun!’ Mer­lin said stern­ly.‘You must come for as long as you are able, and you must bring food.If you have weapons, you must bring them.At Mai Dun we shall work, and the work will be long and hard, but at Samain, when the dead walk, we shall sum­mon the Gods to­geth­er.You and I!’ He paused, then held the tip of his staff to­wards the crowd.The black pole wa­vered, as if it was search­ing for some­one in the throng, then it set­tled on me.‘Lord Der­fel Cadarn!’ Mer­lin called.‘Lord?’ I an­swered, em­bar­rassed to be sin­gled out from the crowd.‘You will stay, Der­fel.The rest of you go now.Go to your homes, for the Gods will not come again till Samain Eve.Go to your homes, see to your fields, then come to Mai Dun.Bring ax­es, bring food, and pre­pare to see your Gods in all their glo­ry! Now, go! Go!’The crowd obe­di­ent­ly went.Many stopped to touch my cloak, for I was one of the war­riors who had fetched the Caul­dron of Clyddno Ei­ddyn from its hid­ing place on Ynys Mon and, to the pa­gans at least, that made me a hero.They touched Is­sa too, for he was an­oth­er War­rior of the Caul­dron, but when the crowd was gone he wait­ed at the gate while I went to meet Mer­lin.I greet­ed him, but he brushed aside my en­quiry as to his health, ask­ing in­stead if I had en­joyed the evening’s strange hap­pen­ings.‘What was it?’ I asked.‘What was what?’ he asked in­no­cent­ly.‘The girl in the dark,’ I said.His eyes widened in mock as­ton­ish­ment.‘She was here again, was she? How very in­ter­est­ing! Was it the girl with wings, or the one who shines? The shin­ing girl! I have no idea who she is, Der­fel.I can­not un­rid­dle ev­ery mys­tery of this world.You have spent too long with Arthur and like him you be­lieve that ev­ery­thing must have a com­mon­place ex­pla­na­tion, but alas, the Gods rarely choose to make them­selves clear.Would you be use­ful and car­ry the Caul­dron in­side?’I lift­ed the huge Caul­dron and took it in­to the palace’s pil­lared re­cep­tion hall.When I had been there ear­li­er in the day the room had been emp­ty, but now there was a couch, a low ta­ble and four iron stands on which oil lamps stood.The young, hand­some, white-​ar­moured war­rior, whose hair hung so long, smiled from the couch while Nimue, dressed in a shab­by black robe, car­ried a lit ta­per to the lamps' wicks.‘This room was emp­ty this af­ter­noon,’ I said ac­cus­ing­ly.‘It must have seemed so to you,’ Mer­lin said air­ily, ‘but per­haps we sim­ply chose not to show our­selves.Have you met the Prince Gawain?’ He ges­tured to the young man who stood and bowed to me in greet­ing.‘Gawain is son of King Bu­dic of Bro­celiande,’ Mer­lin in­tro­duced the Prince, ‘which makes him Arthur’s nephew.’‘Lord Prince,’ I greet­ed Gawain.I had heard of Gawain, but had nev­er met him.Bro­celiande was the British king­dom across the sea in Ar­mor­ica and of late, as the Franks pressed hard on their fron­tier, vis­itors from that king­dom had been rare.‘I am hon­oured to meet you, Lord Der­fel,’ Gawain said cour­te­ous­ly, ‘your fame has gone far from Britain.’‘Don’t be ab­surd, Gawain,’ Mer­lin snapped.‘Der­fel’s fame hasn’t gone any­where, ex­cept maybe to his fat head.Gawain is here to help me,’ he ex­plained to me.‘To do what?’ I asked [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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