DREAM READER

JANE YOLEN

Once upon a time – which is how stories about magic and wizardry are supposed to begin – on a fall morning a boy stood longingly in front of a barrow piled high with apples. It was in the town of Gwethern, the day of the market fair.

The boy was almost a man and he did not complain about his empty stomach. His back still hurt from the flogging he had received just a week past, but he did not complain about that either. He had been beaten and sent away for lying. He was always being sent away from place to place for lying. The problem was, he never lied. He simply saw truth differently from other folk. On the slant.

His name was Merrillin but he called himself Hawk, another kind of lie because he was nothing at all like a hawk, being cowering and small from his many beatings and lack of steady food. Still he dreamed of becoming a hawk, fiercely independent and no man’s prey, and the naming was his first small step toward what seemed an unobtainable goal.

But that was the other thing about Merrillin the Hawk. Not only did he see the truth slantwise, but he dreamed. And his dreams, in strange, uncounted ways, seemed to come true.

So Merrillin stood in front of the barrow on a late fall day and told himself a lie; that the apple would fall into his hand of its own accord as if the barrow were a tree letting loose its fruit. He even reached over and touched the apple he wanted, a rosy round one that promised to be full of sweet juices and crisp meat. And just in case, he touched a second apple as well, one that was slightly wormy and a bit yellow with age.

“You boy,” came a shout from behind the barrow, and a face as yellow and sunken as the second apple, with veins as large as worm runnels across the nose, popped into view.

Merrillin stepped back, startled.

A stick came down on his hand, sharp and painful as a firebrand. “If you do not mean to buy, you cannot touch.”

“How do you know he does not mean to buy?” asked a voice from behind Merrillin.

It took all his concentration not to turn. He feared the man behind him might have a stick as well, though his voice seemed devoid of the kind of anger that always preceded a beating.

“A rag of cloth hung on bones, that’s all he is,” said the cart man, wiping a dirty rag across his mouth. “No one in Gwethern has seen him before. He’s no mother’s son, by the dirt on him. So where would such a one find coins to pay, cheeky beggar?”

There was a short bark of laughter from the man behind. “Cheeky beggar is it?”

Merrillin dared a glance at the shadow the man cast at his feet. The shadow was cloaked. That was a good sign, for he would be a stranger to Gwethern. No one here affected such dress. Courage flooded through him and he almost turned around when the man’s hand touched his mouth.

“You are right, he is a cheeky beggar. And that is where he keeps his coin – in his cheek.” The cloaked man laughed again, the same sharp, yipping sound, drawing an appreciative echo from the crowd that was just starting to gather. Entertainment was rare in Gwethern. “Open your mouth, boy, and give the man his coin.”

Merrillin was so surprised, his mouth dropped open on its own, and a coin fell from his lips into the cloaked man’s hand.

“Here,” the man said, his hand now on Merrillin’s shoulder. He flipped the coin into the air, it turned twice over before the cart man grabbed it out of the air, bit it, grunted, and shoved it into his purse.

The cloaked man’s hand left Merrillin’s shoulder and picked up the yellowing apple, dropping it neatly into Merrillin’s hand. Then his voice whispered into the boy’s ear. “If you wish to repay me, look for the green wagon, the castle on wheels.”

When Merrillin turned to stutter out his thanks, the man had vanished into the crowd. That was just as well, though, since it was hardly thanks Merrillin was thinking of. Rather he wanted to tell the cloaked man that he had done only what was expected and that another lie had come true for Merrillin, on the slant.

After eating every bit of the apple, his first meal in two days, and setting the little green worm that had been in it on a stone, Merrillin looked for the wagon. It was not hard to find.

Parked under a chestnut tree whose leaves were spotted with brown and gold, the wagon was as green as Mab’s gown, as green as the first early shoots of spring. It was indeed a castle on wheels, for the top of the wagon was vaulted over. There were three windows, four walls, and a door as well. Two docile drab-colored mules were hitched to it and were nibbling on a few brown blades of grass beneath the tree. Along the wagon’s sides was writing, but as Merrillin could not read, he could only guess at it. There were pictures, too: a tall, amber-eyed mage with a conical hat was dancing across a starry night, a dark-haired princess in rainbow robes played on a harp with thirteen strings. Merrillin could not read – but he could count. He walked toward the wagon.

“So, boy, have you come to pay what you owe?” asked a soft voice, followed by the trill of a mistle thrush.

At first Merrillin could not see who was speaking, but then something moved at one of the windows, a pale moon of a face. It was right where the face of the painted princess should have been. Until it moved, Merrillin had thought it part of the painting. With a bang, the window was slammed shut and then he saw the painted face on the glass. It resembled the other face only slightly.

A woman stepped through the door and stared at him. He thought her the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Her long dark hair was unbound and fell to her waist. She wore a dress of scarlet wool and jewels in her ears. A yellow purse hung from a braided belt and jangled as she moved, as if it were covered with tiny bells. As he watched, she bound up her hair with a single swift motion into a net of scarlet linen.

She smiled. “Ding-dang-dong, cat’s got your tongue, then?” When he didn’t answer, she laughed and sat down on the top step of the wagon. Then she reached back behind her and pulled out a harp exactly like the one painted on the wagon’s side. Strumming, she began to sing:

“Are you singing about me?” asked Merrillin.

“Do you think I am singing about you?” the woman asked and then hummed another line.

“If not now, you will some day,” Merrillin said.

“I believe you,” said the woman, but she was busy tuning her harp at the same time. It was as if Merrillin did not really exist for her except as an audience.

“Most people do not,” Merrillin said, walking over. He put his hand on the top step, next to her bare foot. “Believe me, I mean. But I never tell lies.”

She looked up at that and stared at him as if really seeing him for the first time. “People who never tell lies are a wonder. All people lie sometime.” She strummed a discordant chord.

Merrillin looked at the ground. “I am not all people.”

She began picking a quick, bright tune, singing:

Then she stood and held up the harp behind her. It disappeared into the wagon. “But you did not answer my question, boy.”

“What question?”

“Have you come to pay what you owe?”

Puzzled Merrillin said: “I did not answer because I did not know you were talking to me. I owe nothing to you.”

“Ah, but you owe it me,” came a lower voice from inside the wagon where it was dark. A man emerged and even though he was not wearing the cloak, Merrillin knew him at once. The voice was the same, gentle and ironic. He was the mage on the wagon’s side; the slate gray hair was the same – and the amber eyes.

“I do not owe you either, sir.”

“What of the apple, boy?”

Merrillin started to cringe, thought better of it, and looked straightaway into the man’s eyes. “The apple was meant to come to me, sir.”

“Then why came you to the wagon?” asked the woman, smoothing her hands across the red dress. “If not to pay.”

“As the apple was meant to come into my hands, so I was meant to come into yours.”

The woman laughed. “Only you hoped the mage would not eat you up and put your little green worm on a rock for some passing scavenger.”

Merrillin’s mouth dropped open. “How did you know?”

“Bards know everything,” she said.

“And tell everything as well,” said the mage. He clapped her on the shoulder and she went, laughing, through the door.

Merrillin nodded to himself. “It was the window,” he whispered.

“Of course it was the window,” said the mage. “And if you wish to talk to yourself, make it sotto voce, under the breath. A whisper is no guarantee of secrets.”

“Sotto voce,” Merrillin said.

“The soldiers brought the phrase, but it rides the market roads now,” said the mage.

“Sotto voce,” Merrillin said again, punctuating his memory.

“I like you, boy,” said the mage. “I collect oddities.”

“Did you collect the bard, sir?”

Looking quickly over his shoulder, the mage said, “Her?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I did.”

“How is she an oddity?” asked Merrillin. “I think she is –” he took a gulp, “—wonderful.”

“That she is; quite, quite wonderful, my Viviane, and she well knows it,” the mage replied. “She has a range of four octaves and can mimic any bird or beast I name.” He paused. “And a few I cannot.”

“Viviane,” whispered Merrillin. Then he said the name without making a sound.

The mage laughed heartily. “You are an oddity, too, boy. I thought so at the first when you walked into the market fair with nothing to sell and no purse with which to buy. I asked, and no one knew you. Yet you stood in front of the barrow as if you owned the apples. When the stick fell, you did not protest; when the coin dropped from your lips, you said not a word. But I could feel your anger and surprise and – something more. You are an oddity. I sniffed it out with my nose from the first and my nose—” he tapped it with his forefinger, managing to look both wise and ominous at once “—my nose, like you, never lies. Do you think yourself odd?”

Merrillin closed his eyes for a moment, a gesture the mage would come to know well. When he opened them again, his eyes were no longer the somber blue that Viviane had sung about but were the blue of a bleached out winter sky. “I have dreams,” he said.

The mage held his breath, his wisdom being as often in silence as in words.

“I dreamed of a wizard and a woman who lived in a castle green as early spring grass. Hawks flew about the turrets and a bear squatted on the throne. I do not know what it all means, but now that I have seen the green wagon, I am sure you are the wizard and the woman, Viviane.”

“Do you dream often?” asked the mage, slowly coming down the steps of the wagon and sitting on the lowest stair.

Merrillin nodded.

“And do your dreams often come true?” he asked. Then he added, quickly, “No, you do not have to answer that.”

Merrillin nodded again.

“Always?”

Merrillin closed his eyes, then opened them.

“Tell me,” said the mage.

“I dare not. When I tell, I am called a liar or hit. Or both. I do not think I want to be hit anymore.”

The mage laughed again, this time with his head back. When he finished, he narrowed his eyes and looked at the boy. “I have never hit anyone in my life. And telling lies is an essential part of magic. You lie with your hands like this.” And so saying, he reached behind Merrillin’s ear and pulled out a bouquet of meadowsweet, wintergreen, and a single blue aster. “You see, my hands told the lie that flowers grow in the dirt behind your ear. And your eyes took it in.”

Merrillin laughed, a funny crackling sound, as if he were not much used to laughter.

“But do not let Viviane know you tell lies,” said the mage, leaning forward and whispering. “She is as practiced in her anger as she is on the harp. I may never swat a liar, but she is the very devil when her temper’s aroused.”

“I will not,” said Merrillin solemnly. They shook hands on it, only when Merrillin drew away his grasp, he had a small copper coin in his palm.

“Buy yourself a meat pie, boy,” said the mage. “And then come along with us. I think you will be a very fine addition to our collection.”

“Thank you, sir,” gasped Merrillin.

“Not sir. My name is Ambrosius, because of my amber eyes. Did you notice them? Ambrosius the Wandering Mage. And what is your name? I cannot keep calling you ‘boy’.”

“My name is Merrillin but . . .” he hesitated and looked down.

“I will not hit you and you may keep the coin whatever you say,” Ambrosius said.

“But I would like to be called Hawk.”

“Hawk, is it?” The mage laughed again. “Perhaps you will grow into that name, but it seems to me that you are mighty small and a bit thin for a hawk.”

A strange sharp cackling sound came from the interior of the wagon, a high ki-ki-ki-ki.

The mage looked in and back. “Viviane says you are a hawk, but a small one – the merlin. And that is, quite happily, close to your Christian name as well. Will it suit?”

“Merlin,” whispered Merrillin, his hand clutched tightly around the coin. Then he looked up, his eyes gone the blue of the aster. “That was the hawk in my dream, Ambrosius. That was the sound he made. A merlin. It has to be my true name.”

“Good. Then it is settled,” said the mage standing. “Fly off to your pie, Hawk Merlin, and then fly quickly back to me. We go tomorrow to Carmarthen. There’s to be a great holy day fair. Viviane will sing. I will do my magic. And you – well, we shall have to figure out what you can do. But it will be something quite worthy, I am sure. I tell you, young Merlin, there are fortunes to be made on the road if you can sing in four voices and pluck flowers out of the air.”

The road was a gentle winding path through valleys and alongside streams. The trees were still gold in most places, but on the far ridges the forests were already bare.

As the wagon bounced along, Viviane sang songs about Robin of the Wood in a high, sweet voice and the Battle of the Trees in a voice deep as thunder. And in a middle voice she sang a lusty ballad about a bold warrior that made Merlin’s cheeks turn pink and hot.

Ambrosius shortened the journey with his wonder tales. And as he talked, he made coins walk across his knuckles and found two quail’s eggs behind Viviane’s left ear. Once he pulled a turtledove out of Merlin’s shirt, which surprised the dove more than the boy. The bird flew off onto a low branch of an ash tree and plucked its breast feathers furiously until the wagon had passed by.

They were two days traveling and one day resting by a lovely bright pond rimmed with willows.

“Carmarthen is over that small hill,” pointed out the mage. “But it will wait on us. The fair does not begin until tomorrow. Besides, we have fishing to do. And a man – whether mage or murderer – always can find time to fish!” He took Merlin down to the pond where he quickly proved himself a bad angler but a merry companion, telling fish stories late into the night. All he caught was a turtle. It was Merlin who pulled up the one small spotted trout they roasted over the fire that night and shared three ways.

Theirs was not the only wagon on the road before dawn, but it was the gaudiest by far. Peddlers’ children leaped off their own wagons to run alongside and beg the magician for a trick. He did one for each child and asked for no coins at all, even though Viviane chided him.

“Do not scold, Viviane. Each child will bring another to our wagon once we are in the town. They will be our best criers,” Ambrosius said, as he made a periwinkle appear from under the chin of a dirty-faced tinker lass. She giggled and ran off with the flower.

At first each trick made Merlin gasp with delight. But partway through the trip, he began to notice from where the flowers and coins and scarves and eggs really appeared – out of the vast sleeves of the mage’s robe. He started watching Ambrosius’ hands carefully through slitted eyes, and unconsciously his own hands began to imitate them.

Viviane reached over and, holding the reins with one hand, slapped his fingers so hard they burned. “Do not do that. It is bad enough he does the tricks for free on the road, but you would beggar us for sure if you give them away forever. Idiot!”

After the scolding, Merlin sat sullenly inside the darkened wagon practicing his sotto voce with curses he had heard but had never dared repeat aloud. Embarrassment rather than anger sent a kind of ague to his limbs. Eventually, though, he wore himself out and fell asleep. He dreamed a wicked little dream about Viviane, in which a whitethorn tree fell upon her. When he woke, he was ashamed of the dream and afraid of it as well, but he did not know how to change it. His only comfort was that his dreams did not come true literally. On the slant, he reminded himself, which lent him small comfort.

He was still puzzling this out when the mules slowed and he became aware of a growing noise. Moving to the window, he stared out past the painted face.

If Gwethern had been a bustling little market town, Carmarthen had to be the very center of the commercial world. Merlin saw gardens and orchards outside the towering city walls though he also noted that the gardens were laid out in a strange pattern and some of the trees along the northern edges were ruined and the ground around them was raw and wounded. There were many spotty pastures where sheep and kine grazed on the late fall stubble. The city walls were made up of large blocks of limestone. How anyone could have moved such giant stones was a mystery to him. Above the walls he could glimpse crenellated towers from which red and white banners waved gaudily in the shifting fall winds, first north, then west.

Merlin could contain himself no longer and scrambled through the wagon door, squeezing in between Ambrosius and Viviane.

“Look, oh look!” he cried.

Viviane smiled at the childish outburst, but the mage touched his hand.

“It is not enough just to look, Merlin. You must look – and remember.”

“Remember – what?” asked Merlin.

“The eyes and ears are different listeners,” said the mage. “But both feed into magecraft. Listen. What do you hear?”

Merlin strained, tried to sort out the many sounds, and said at last, “It is very noisy.”

Viviane laughed. “/hear carts growling along, and voices, many different tongues. A bit of Norman, some Saxon, Welsh, and Frankish. There is a hawk screaming in the sky behind us. And a loud, heavy clatter coming from behind the walls. Something being built, I would guess.”

Merlin listened again. He could hear the carts and voices easily. The hawk was either silent now or beyond his ken. But because she mentioned it, he could hear the heavy rhythmic pounding of building like a bass note, grounding the entire song of Carmarthen. “Yes,” he said, with a final exhalation.

“And what do you see?” asked Ambrosius.

Determined to match Viviane’s ears with his eyes, Merlin began a litany of wagons and wagoners, beasts straining to pull, and birds restrained in cages. He described jongleurs and farmers and weavers and all their wares. As they passed through the gates of the city and under the portcullis, he described it as well.

“Good,” said Ambrosius. “And what of those soldiers over there.” He nodded his head slightly to the left.

Merlin turned to stare at them.

“No, never look directly on soldiers, highwaymen, or kings. Look through the slant of your eyes,” whispered Viviane, reining in the mules.

Merlin did as she instructed, delighted to be once more in her good graces. “There are ten of them,” he said.

“And what do they wear?” prompted Ambrosius.

“Why, their uniforms. And helms.”

“What color helms?” Viviane asked.

“Silver, as helms are wont. But six have red plumes, four white.” Then as an afterthought, he added, “And they all carry swords.”

“The swords are not important,” said Ambrosius, “but note the helms. Ask yourself why some should be sporting red plumes, some white. Ask yourself if these are two different armies of two different lords. And if so, why are they both here?”

“I do not know,” answered Merlin. “Why?”

Ambrosius laughed. “I do not know either. Yet. But it is something odd to be tucked away. And remember – I collect oddities.”

Viviane clicked to the mules with her tongue and slapped their backs with the reins. They started forward again.

“Once around the square, Viviane, then we will choose our spot. Things are already well begun,” said the mage. “There are a juggler and a pair of acrobats and several strolling players, though none – I wager – with anything near your range. But I see no other masters of magic. We shall do well here.”

In a suit of green and gold – the gold a cotte of the mage’s that Viviane had tailored to fit him, the green his old hose sewn over with gold patches and bells – Merlin strode through the crowd with a tambourine. It was his job to collect the coins after each performance. On the first day folk were liable to be the most generous, afterward husbanding their coins for the final hours of the fair, at least that was what Viviane had told him. Still he was surprised by the waterfall of copper pennies that cascaded into his tambourine.

“Our boy Merlin will pass amongst you, a small hawk in the pigeons,” Ambrosius had announced before completing his final trick, the one in which Viviane was shut up in a box and subsequently disappeared into the wagon.

Merlin had glowed at the name pronounced so casually aloud, and at the claim of possession. Our boy, Ambrosius had said. Merlin repeated the phrase sotte voce to himself and smiled. The infectious smile brought even more coins, though he was unaware of it.

It was after their evening performance when Viviane had sung in three different voices, including a love song about a shepherd and the ewe lamb that turned into a lovely maiden who fled from him over a cliff, that a broad-faced soldier with a red plume in his helm parted the teary-eyed crowd. Coming up to the wagon stage, he announced, “The Lady Renwein would have you come tomorrow evening to the old palace and sends this as way of a promise. There will be more after a satisfactory performance. It is in honor of her upcoming wedding.” He dropped a purse into Ambrosius’ hand.

The mage bowed low and then, with a wink, began drawing a series of colored scarves from behind the soldier’s ear. They were all shades of red: crimson, pink, vermilion, flame, scarlet, carmine, and rose.

“For your lady,” Ambrosius said, holding out the scarves.

The soldier laughed aloud and took them. “The lady’s colors. She will be pleased. Though not, I think, his lordship.”

“The white soldiers, then, are his?” asked Ambrosius.

Ignoring the question, the soldier said, “Be in the kitchen by nones. We ring the bells here. The duke is most particular.”

“Is dinner included?” asked Viviane.

“Yes, mistress,” the soldier replied. “You shall eat what the cook eats.” He turned and left.

“Then let us hope,” said Viviane to his retreating back, “that we like what the cook likes.”

Merlin dreamed that night and woke screaming but could not recall exactly what he had dreamed. The mage’s hand was on his brow and Viviane wrung out cool water onto a cloth for him.

“Too much excitement for one day,” she said, making a clucking sound with her tongue.

“And too many meat pies,” added the mage, nodding.

The morning of the second day of the holy day fair came much too soon. And noisily. When Merlin went to don his green-and-gold suit, Ambrosius stayed him.

“Save that for the lady’s performance. I need you in your old cotte to go around the fair. And remember – use your ears and eyes.”

Nodding, Merlin scrambled into his old clothes. They had been tidied up by Viviane, but he was aware, for the first time, of how really shabby and threadbare they were. Ambrosius slipped him a coin.

“You earned this. Spend it as you will. But not on food, boy. We will feast enough at the duke’s expense.”

Clutching the coin, Merlin escaped into the early morning crowds. In his old clothes, he was unremarked, just another poor lad eyeing the wonders at the holy day fair.

At first he was seduced by the stalls. The variety of foods and cloth and toys and entertainments were beyond anything he had ever imagined. But halfway around the second time, he remembered his charge. Eyes and ears. He did not know exactly what Ambrosius would find useful but he was determined to uncover something.

“It was between the Meadowlands Jugglers and a stall of spinach pies,” he told Ambrosius later, wrinkling his nose at the thought of spinach baked in a flakey crust. “A white plumed soldier and a red were quarreling. It began with name calling. Red called white, ‘Dirty men of a dirty duke,’ and white countered with ‘Spittle of the Lady Cock.’ And they would have fallen to, but a ball from the jugglers landed at their feet and the crowd surged over to collect it.”

“So there is no love lost between the two armies,” mused Ambrosius. “I wonder if they were the cause of the twisted earth around the city walls.”

“And after that I watched carefully for pairs of soldiers. They were everywhere matched, one red and one white. And the names between them bounced back and forth like an apple between boys.”

The mage pulled on his beard thoughtfully. “What other names did you hear?”

“She was called Dragonlady, Lady Death, and the Open Way.”

Ambrosius laughed. “Colorful. And one must wonder how accurate.”

“And the duke was called Pieless, the Ewe’s Own Lover, and Draco,” said Merlin, warming to his task.

“Scurrilous and the Lord knows how well-founded. But two dragons quarreling in a single nest? It will make an unsettling performance at best. One can only wonder why two such creatures decided to wed.” Ambrosius worked a coin across his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. It was a sign he was thinking.

“Surely, for love?” whispered Merlin.

Viviane, who had been sitting quietly, darning a colorful petticoat, laughed. “Princes never marry for love, little hawk. For money, for lands, for power – yes. Love they find elsewhere or not at all. That is why I would never be a prince.”

Ambrosius seemed not to hear her, but Merlin took in every word and savored the promise he thought he heard.

They arrived at the old castle as the bells chimed nones. And the castle was indeed old; its keep from the days of the Romans was mottled and pocked but was still the most solid part of the building. Even Merlin, unused as he was to the ways of builders, could see that the rest was of shoddy material and worse workmanship.

“The sounds of building we heard from far off must be a brand-new manor being constructed,” said Ambrosius. “For the new-wedded pair.”

And indeed the cook, whose taste in supper clearly matched Viviane’s, agreed. “The duke’s father fair beggared our province fighting off imagined invaders, and his son seems bent on finishing the job. He even invited the bloody-minded Saxons in to help.” He held up his right hand and made the sign of horns and spat through it. “Once, though you’d hardly credit it, this was a countryside of lucid fountains and transparent rivers. Now it’s often dry as dust, though it was one of the prettiest places in all Britain. And if the countryside is in tatters, the duke’s coffers are worse. That is why he has made up his mind to marry the Lady Renwein. She has as much money as she has had lovers, so they say, and that is not the British way. But the duke is besotted with both her counte and her coinage. And even I must admit she has made a difference. Why, they are building a great new house upon the site of the old Roman barracks. The duke is having it constructed on the promise of her goods.”

Viviane made no comment but kept eating. Ambrosius, who always ate sparingly before a performance, listened intently, urging the cook on with well-placed questions. Following Viviane’s actions, Merlin stuffed himself and almost made himself sick again. He curled up in a corner near the heath to sleep. The last thing he heard was the cook’s continuing complaint.

“I know not when we shall move into the new house. I long for the larger hearth promised, for now with the red guards to feed as well as the duke’s white – and the Saxon retainers – I need more. But the building goes poorly.”

“Is that so?” interjected Ambrosius.

“Aye. The foundation does not hold. What is built up by day falls down by night. There is talk of witchcraft.”

“Is there?” Ambrosius asked smoothly.

“Aye, the Saxons claim it against us. British witches, they cry. And they want blood to cleanse it.”

“Do they?”

*    *    *

A hand on his shoulder roused Merlin, but he was still partially within the vivid dream.

“The dragons . . .” he murmured and opened his eyes.

“Hush,” came Ambrosius’ voice. “Hush – and remember. You called out many times in your sleep: dragons and castles, water and blood, but what it all means you kept to yourself. So remember the dream, all of it. And I will tell you when to spin out the tale to catch the conscience of Carmarthen in its web. If I am right . . .” He touched his nose.

Merlin closed his eyes again and nodded. He did not open them again until Viviane began fussing with his hair, running a comb through the worst tangles and pulling at his cotte. She tied a lover’s knot of red and white ribands around his sleeve, then moved back.

“Open your eyes, boy. You are a sight.” She laughed and pinched one cheek.

The touch of her hand made his cheeks burn. He opened his eyes and saw the kitchen abustle with servants. The cook, now too busy to chat with them further, was working at the hearth, basting and stirring and calling out a string of instructions to his overworked crew. “Here, Stephen, more juice. Wine up to the tables and hurry, Mag – they are pounding their feet upon the floor. The soup is hot enough, the tureens must be run up, and mind the handles. Use a cloth, Nan, stupid girl. And where are the sharp knives? These be dull as Saxon wit. Come, Stephen, step lively; the pies must come out the oast or they burn. Now!”

Merlin wondered that he could keep it all straight.

The while Ambrosius in one corner limbered up his fingers, having already checked out his apparatus and Viviane, sitting down at the table, began to tune her harp. Holding it on her lap, her head cocked to one side, she sang a note then tuned each string to it. It was a wonder she could hear in all that noise – the cook shouting, Stephen clumping around and bumping into things, Nan whining, and Mag cursing back at the cook – but she did not seem to mind, her face drawn up with passionate intensity.

Into the busyness strode a soldier. When he came up to the hearth, Merlin could see it was the same one who had first tendered them the invitation to perform. His broad, homey face was split by a smile, wine and plenty of hot food having worked their own magic.

“Come, mage. And you, singer. We are ready when you are.”

Ambrosius gestured to three large boxes. “Will you lend a hand?”

The soldier grunted.

“And my boy comes, too,” said Ambrosius.

Putting his head to one side as if considering, the soldier asked, “Is he strong enough to carry these? He looks small and puling.”

“He can carry if he has to, but he is more than that to us.”

The soldier laughed. “You will have no need of a tambourine boy to pass among the gentlefolk and soldiers. Her ladyship will see that you are well enough paid.”

Ambrosius stood very tall and dropped his voice to a deep, harsh whisper. “I have performed in higher courts than this. I know what is fit for fairs and what is fit for a great hall. You know not to whom you speak.”

The soldier drew back.

Viviane smiled but carefully, so that the soldier could not see it, and played three low notes on the harp.

Merlin did not move. It was as if for a moment the entire kitchen had turned to stone.

Then the soldier gave a short, barking laugh, but his face was wary. “Do not mock me, mage. I saw him do nothing but pick up coins.”

“That is because he only proffers his gifts for people of station. I am but a mage, a man of small magics and tricks that fool the eye. But the boy is something more.” He walked toward Merlin slowly, his hand outstretched.

Still Merlin did not move, though imperceptibly he stood taller. Ambrosius put his hand on Merlin’s shoulders.

“The boy is a reader of dreams,” said the mage. “What he dreams comes true.”

“Is that so?” asked the soldier, looking around.

“It is so,” said Viviane.

Merlin closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, they were the color of an ocean swell, blue-green washed with gray. “It is so,” he said at last.

From the hearth where he was basting the joints of meat, the cook called out, “It is true that the boy dreamed here today. About two dragons. I heard him cry out in his sleep.”

The soldier, who had hopes of a captaincy, thought a moment, then said, “Very well, all three of you come with me. Up the stairs. Now.” He cornered young Stephen to carry the mage’s boxes, and marched smartly out the door.

The others followed quickly, though Merlin hung back long enough to give the other boy a hand.

Viviane sang first, a medley of love songs that favored the duke and his lady in turn. With the skill of a seasoned entertainer, she inserted the Lady Renwein’s name into her rhyme, but called the duke in the songs merely “The Duke of Carmarthen town.” (Later she explained to Merlin that the only rhymes she had for the duke’s name were either scurrilous or treasonous, and sang a couple of verses to prove it.) Such was her ability, each took the songs as flattering, though Merlin thought he detected a nasty undertone in them that made him uncomfortable. But Viviane was roundly applauded and at the end of her songs, two young soldiers picked her up between them and set her upon their table for an encore. She smiled prettily at them, but Merlin knew she hated their touch, for the smile was one she reserved for particularly messy children, drunken old men – and swine.

Deftly beginning his own performance at the moment Viviane ended hers, Ambrosius was able to cover any unpleasantness that might occur if one of the soldiers dared take liberties with Viviane as she climbed down from the tabletop. He began with silly tricks – eggs, baskets, even a turtle was plucked from the air or from behind an unsuspecting soldier’s ear. The turtle was the one the mage had found when they had been fishing.

Then Ambrosius moved on to finer tricks, guessing the name of a soldier’s sweetheart, finding the red queen in a deck of cards missing yet discovering it under the Lady Renwein’s plate, and finally making Viviane disappear and reappear in a series of boxes through which he had the soldiers thrust their swords.

The last trick brought great consternation to the guards, especially when blood appeared to leak from the boxes, blood which when examined later proved to be juices from the meat which Viviane had kept in a flask. And when she reappeared, whole, unharmed, and smiling once the swords had been withdrawn from the box, the great hall resounded with huzzahs.

The duke smiled and whispered to the Lady Renwein. She covered his hand with hers. When he withdrew his hand, the duke held out a plump purse. He jangled it loudly.

“We are pleased to offer you this, Ambrosius.”

“Thank you, my lord. But we are not done yet,” said the mage with a bow which, had it been a little less florid, would have been an insult. “I would introduce you to Merlin, our dream reader, who will tell you of a singular dream he had this day in your house.”

Merlin came to the center of the room. He could feel his legs trembling. Ambrosius walked over to him and, turning his back to the duke, whispered to the boy. “Do not be afraid. Tell the dream and I will say what it means.”

“Will you know?”

“My eyes and ears know what needs be said here,” said Ambrosius, “whatever the dream. You must trust me.”

Merlin nodded and Ambrosius moved aside. The boy stood with his eyes closed and began to speak.

“I dreamed a tower of snow that in the day reached high up into the sky but at night melted to the ground. And there was much weeping and wailing in the country because the tower would not stand.”

“The castle!” the duke gasped, but Lady Renwein placed her hand gently on his mouth.

“Hush, my lord,” she whispered urgently. “Listen. Do not speak yet. This may be merely a magician’s trick. After all, they have been in Carmarthen for two days already and surely there is talk of the building in the town.”

Merlin, his eyes still closed, seemed not to hear them, but continued. “And then one man arose, a mage, who advised that the tower of icy water be drained in the morning instead of building atop it. It was done as he wished, though the soldiers complained bitterly of it. But at last the pool was drained and lo! there in the mud lay two great hollow stones as round and speckled and veined as gray eggs.

“Then the mage draw a sword and struck open the eggs. In the one was a dragon the color of wine, its eyes faceted as jewels. In the other a dragon the color of maggots, with eyes as tarnished as old coins.

“And when the two dragons saw that they were revealed, they turned not on the soldiers nor the mage but upon one another. At first the white dragon had the best of it and pushed the red to the very edge of the dry pool, but it so blooded its opponent that a new pool was formed, the color of the ocean beyond the waves. But then the red rallied and pushed the white back, and it slipped into the bloody pool and disappeared, never to be seen again whole.

“And the man who advised began to speak once more, but I awoke.”

At that, Merlin opened his eyes and they were the blue of speedwells on a summer morn.

The Lady Renwein’s face was dark and disturbed. In a low voice she said, “Mage, ask him what the dream means.”

Ambrosius bowed very low this time, for he saw that while the duke might be easily cozened, the Lady Renwein was no fool. When he stood straight again, he said, “The boy dreams, my lady, but he leaves it to me to make sense of what he dreams. Just as did his dear, dead mother before him.”

Merlin, startled, looked at Viviane. She rolled her eyes up to stare at the broad beams of the ceiling and held her mouth still.

“His mother was a dream reader, too?” asked the duke.

“She was; though being a woman, dreamed of more homey things: the names of babes and whether they be boys or girls, and when to plant, and so forth.”

The Lady Renwein leaned forward. “Then say, mage, what this dream of towers and dragons means.”

“I will, my lady. It is not unknown to us that you have a house that will not stand. However, what young Merlin has dreamed is the reason for this. The house or tower of snow sinks every day into the ground; in the image of the dream, it melts. That is because there is a pool beneath it. Most likely the Romans built the conduits for their baths there. With the construction, there has been a leakage underground. The natural outflow has been damaged further by armies fighting. And so there has been a pooling under the foundation. Open up the work, drain the pool, remove or reconstruct the Roman pipes, and the building will stand.”

“Is that all?” asked the duke, disappointment in his voice. “I thought that you might say the red was the Lady Renwein’s soldiers, the white mine or some such.”

“Dreams are never quite so obvious, my lord. They are devious messages to us, truth . . .” he paused for a moment and put his hands on Merlin’s shoulders, “truth on the slant.”

Lady Renwein was nodding. “Yes, that would make sense. About the drains and the Roman pipes, I mean. Not the dream. You need not have used so much folderol in order to give us good advice.”

Ambrosius smiled and stepped away from Merlin and made another deep bow. “But my lady, who would have listened to a traveling magician on matters of . . . shall we say . . . state?”

She smiled back.

“And besides,” Ambrosius added, “I had not heard this dream until this very moment. I had given no thought before it to your palace or anything else of Carmarthen excepting the fair. It is the boy’s dream that tells us what to do. And, unlike his mother of blessed memory, I could never guess a baby’s sex before it was born lest she dreamed it. And she, the minx, never mentioned that she was carrying a boy to me, nor did she dream of him till after he was born when she, dying, spoke of him once. ‘He will be a hawk among princes,’ she said. So I named him Merlin.”

It was two days later when a special messenger came to the green wagon with a small casket filled with coins and a small gold dragon with a faceted red jewel for an eye.

“Her ladyship sends these with her compliments,” said the soldier who brought the casket. “There was indeed a hidden pool beneath the foundation. And the pipes, which were as gray and speckled and grained as eggs, were rotted through. In some places they were gnawed on, too, by some small underground beasts. Her lady begs you to stay or at least send the boy back to her for yet another dream.”

Ambrosius accepted the casket solemnly, but shook his head. “Tell her ladyship that – alas – there is but one dream per prince. And we must away. The fair here is done and there is another holy day fair in Londinium, many days’ journey from here. Even with such a prize as her lady has gifted us, Ambrosius the Wandering Mage and his company can never be still long.” He bowed.

But Ambrosius did not proffer the real reason they were away: that a kind of restless fear drove him on, for after the performance when they were back in the wagon, Merlin had cried out against him. “But that was not the true meaning of the dream. There will be fighting here – the red dragon of the Britons and the Saxon white will fight again. The tower is only a small part – of the dream, of the whole.”

And Ambrosius had sighed loudly then, partly for effect, and said, “My dear son, for as I claimed you, now you are mine forever, magecraft is a thing of the eye and ear. You tell me that what you dream comes true – but on the slant. And I say that to tell a prince to his face that you have dreamed of his doom invites the dreamer’s doom as well. And, as you yourself reminded me, it may not be all of the truth. The greatest wisdom of any dreamer is to survive in order to dream again. Besides, how do you really know if what you dream is true or if, in the telling of it, you make it come true? We are men, not beasts, because we can dream and because we can make those dreams come true.”

Merlin had closed his eyes then, and when he opened them again, they were the clear vacant blue of a newborn babe. “Father,” he had said, and it was a child’s voice speaking.

Ambrosius had shivered with the sound of it, for he knew that sons in the natural order of things o’erthrew their fathers when they came of age. And Merlin, it was clear, was very quick to learn and quicker to grow.