A SWORD FOR ARTHUR

VERA CHAPMAN

Merlin came rowing the boat over the loch, on a calm sunny morning. He rowed in the way the southerners do, standing and facing the way he went, with the oars crossed before him, so he could see the lake-island of Nimuë coming into sight, and the gleam of the white walls of the little castle.

An older Merlin by some fifteen years, his thick black hair was now well powdered with silver, and glittered in the sunlight; his beard, still black, was now bushy and spade-shaped, his hair falling over his neck to meet it smoothly. His teeth flashed out sound and white, and his dark blue eyes were as bright as ever. But there was a look of stress about him, as if he was never free from thoughts of anxiety.

The approach to the island showed many changes since the morning when he had first brought Vivian there with the baby Arthur. Trees had been cleared away, others planted. Flower beds, bright with colour, bordered the marble walkway. All along the water’s edge, roses overflowed and shed sweet petals on the water; the rose briars made a thick screen, and quite hid the strong fence that ran along the water-line, not so much to keep intruders out, as to keep childish feet from slipping into the lake. A strong gate closed the landing place, but it was standing open now.

As he brought the boat alongside, a lovely little girl, about nine years old, ran down to meet him. Her black curls were like his own, but her eyes were green.

“Father! Father!” she cried in her clear shrill voice. “Oh, Mother – Father’s come!”

Behind her at the top of the steps were Mae, now grown fat and matronly, and Mari, Mae’s daughter, a sturdy lass of fifteen. Behind them came Vivian, the sunlight touching her red hair, slim and light-footed as ever. But the little dark-haired girl was more light-footed still. She had bounded up the stairs, and back down them again to Merlin, before her mother could so much as look below and smile at Merlin coming up to her. The little girl was dragging him up by the arm now, and babbling to him.

“Now you’re back we’ll have fireworks, and stories, and magic – Did you see Arthur? How is he?”

“Certainly I saw Arthur,” he said, chuckling at her. “Considering I spent the last six months teaching him—”

“Teaching him what? Magic?”

“Well, no, not much magic. Not more than he will need. You see, he isn’t going to be a magic man.”

“Not a magic man? What then?”

“Something very different – something better perhaps—”

“A knight? Oh, he’s to be knighted, then?”

“Why no – not a knight, or not yet. He couldn’t be that until he’s eighteen, you know. His foster-brother Kay is to be made a knight at Christmas. But Arthur – perhaps he’s to be something else—”

“I know! I know!” She jumped up and down in her excitement. “A king!”

At that moment they reached the top of the steps and were caught in Vivian’s embrace. Merlin was drawn into the welcome of his little household.

Blaisine, his only child – he gathered her into one arm and Vivian into the other. Blaisine – he had christened her so, after his old master Blaise, the great magician of Brittany. From her very earliest days she had shown herself full of strange powers. How could she fail to be gifted, with such parents? She had everything in her small way – the clear-sight, the instinctive control of the weather, the remarkable sympathy with animals, the healing hands – if Vivian had a headache, or Merlin himself, it was Blaisine’s cool little hands that soothed it away. She was a quick learner, picking up a great deal of the magical technique without really trying. Merlin, in spite of all misgivings, and his desire that she should be a normal happy child, could not refuse to teach her.

She was not really a solitary child, although she had never yet set foot outside her little island. There was Mae’s Mari, and there had been Arthur, the adored big brother. But now, since he was eight, Arthur had gone away to live with Sir Ector and Sir Ector’s two brothers, and his kind wife; and though he often came back on visits, the time between them seemed very long to Blaisine. Mae, though good-natured, could not share Blaisine’s thoughts, and more and more she drew in upon herself. Vivian watched her with understanding.

Blaisine chattered on to Merlin as they went up towards the house. “Father, look, there’s the place where the Little People were last night. They’re here most nights when the moon’s full. Do you know, Mae can’t see them at all, nor can Mari – aren’t they stupid? Arthur could always see them – can he still?”

“I daresay he can, my love,” Merlin replied, “but I don’t think they come around much where he now is – too many people. But there’s other things he’ll be able to see, in time.”

“Is he coming back to us soon?”

“Not yet. I’m afraid he’s going to be very busy. But we’ll all go up to see him at Christmas, when Kay is to be knighted.”

Blaisine clapped her hands and capered. “Oh, lovely, lovely! But I wish Arthur was to be made a knight as well.”

“You wait and see, my dear. Arthur’s turn will come . . . We want a sword for Arthur.”

“A sword? Oh, that’s easy. There’s plenty here hanging on the walls. There’s the one he used to play with.”

“Too small for him now! – No, we want a special sword for him – a very special sword – But here we are. Oh, by the Powers, here’s all the dogs – My slippers – oh, thank you, sweetheart, and you can take my cloak. It’s good to be home again.”

After supper, Blaisine recognized preparations that she was familiar with.

“Oh Father, you’re going to make magic tonight. Can I come in too?”

He put his hand caressingly on her head.

“I’m afraid not, sweetheart. Your mother and I are going to make magic, but it’s a not very nice magic. Not for you.”

“How do you mean – not very nice? You don’t mean – Black?”

“No, no – only rather frightening.”

It was dark as Merlin led Vivian along, into the depths of the castle.

“Take a candle,” he said, and his voice was deep and solemn, “and follow me.”

“Where are we going?” she said, and the candle in her hand shook a little.

“Down – a very long way down.” And he led the way down a stone stairway she had never descended before.

Although the little castle, above its foundations, was very compact, yet underneath there were cellars and vaults of unknown depth, extending down through the mount on which the house was built, and into the rock of the island – possibly deeper . . . In the fifteen years that Vivian had lived on the Island of Nimuë there were some of these into which she had never ventured. Of course there were wine-cellars and wash-houses and storerooms - this was Mae’s department, and Vivian did not go there much. But further down, she knew, were places where Mae did not go, nor anybody else. The entrance to them was enough for Vivian - she did not like the look, nor the sound, nor the smell, nor the feel of them. But here it was that he was inexorably leading her.

He halted for a moment, and set down his candle.

“We are going into a very dangerous place,” he said.

“Is it Morgan again?”

“No, not Morgan. For the moment the stars are against her, and so we must work fast, before the stars pass. I must have a sword for Arthur, and the keeper of the sword will not give it up easily.”

“Who is he, then?”

“You have heard people speak of Old Nick?”

“Why, yes – Old Nick – that is what some call the Prince of Darkness,” and she crossed herself.

“And yet they are mistaken. Some that have heard that name bestow it on the Evil One, almost in a jest. But there is Old Nekr, or Neckar, that the Northerners know. Some, far up in the northern isles, call him Shony, or Jonas. It is he that lives in the utter deeps, in darkness and slime, where everything goes that drowns and is decayed. He is not Neptune, nor Poseidon, whom the Greeks knew as the ruler of the waters, Jove’s brother, that shakes the earth. Neckar, or old Shony, is darker and more deadly. He should be subject to Poseidon, but he is a disobedient subject. Away down there in the slippery residue of drowned worlds Shony can evade all rule. His daughters are the Nixies, beautiful but deceitful. Shony himself has something of Proteus, for he changes and slips away and eludes those who would bind him. But we must go and seek him now.”

“Why must we?” She whispered as if afraid to disturb the silence down there.

“Because it is to him that all the lost treasures go that men cast into the sea, or lose in shipwreck. He hoards them, down there. And his treasure of all treasures is the sword that I must have for Arthur. The sword Caliburn.”

Picking up his candle again, he led on, down into the darkness and clamminess.

“We are below the water now,” he whispered to Vivian. The walls each side of them were damp and slimy, the roof dripped above them – black shreds of some dark growth hung down like wet rags. The smell of decay was overpowering. On they went into the darkness.

Then they halted in front of a door, blank and black. Vivian saw Merlin’s hand wave, tracing figures, and heard him muttering strange words. Then, his candle grasped in his left hand, he thrust firmly against the door, and it opened.

Inside was a chamber no larger than a closet, and all its walls were inlaid with shells. They caught the light of the candles and gleamed back against the darkness – a mosaic of shells, disposed in geometric forms. Right in front, as the door was opened, a central panel bore a crude figure, depicted with larger and more luminous shells. The figure of a man with a fish’s tail – or, one might say, half man, half fish. The clumsily drawn tail curved round below the figure. Its human arms spread out to right and left, and the face was round and doll-like, but a doll’s face that was both stupid and malignant – a grinning mouth showed a row of saw-like teeth. There was nothing else in the little room and no light save that of the candles Merlin and Vivian carried.

Merlin stood at the doorway, and raised his candle. Then he called, on a low and resonant note:

“Shony – Shony, Shony, Shony. Neckar also I call you, and Deva Jonas. Shony, Shony, Shony. Dweller in the inmost dark, in the place where drowned things go and are decayed – Shony, by the Ruler of the Element of Water, I call you.”

And from the black wall before them, as it would seem from the white figure on the wall, came a voice – rusty and grating, as if from between those jagged teeth:

“Shony, Shony, Shony. I am here. What would you?”

“I require your treasure of treasures, the sword Caliburn.”

There seemed to be a hiss as of indrawn breath.

“What I have I hold.”

“Then I adjure you in the name of the Earth-Shaker, Poseidon the Mighty, the Brother of the Sky – I require the sword Caliburn.”

“What will you give me in return for it?” The voice took on a note of cunning.

“No, you creature of the slime, you devourer of dead men’s bones, I do not make bargains with you. I command you in the Name . . .”

The word he spoke could not be heard clearly in Vivian’s terrified ears – it was too thunderous and resonant – three syllables, or maybe four, echoing on and on, shaking the earth above.

“As you say, Master,” the spirit voice assented, more soft and meek now. “But it is a long way off – far down at the bottom of the Great Ocean.”

“Then send your slaves to fetch it. Now!”

Lights seemed to flicker across the shells that made up the crude figure of the ugly merman. The surface seemed to shake.

“Master, I have it here.”

“Then give it to me.”

“No – no – not to you. Only to the right one. To a woman. To the Lady of the Lake. To herself.”

“She is here. Nimuë, the Lady of the Lake. Now give it up to her.”

“Not so. You are on dry land, and I am in the water. She must come and take it. Let her row a boat to the head of the Loch, and I myself will come up from the waters, and give her that sword.”

Vivian listened with sinking heart.

“Then I will come with her.”

“You will not. If you are in the boat I will drown you, and her also, and the sword will go back. She must come alone. I will not harm her.”

“You had better not harm her, or by the Name I have invoked, I will send the Fires Below to destroy your secret place. By THAT NAME, submit to me now, and yield up the sword to the Lady of the Lake.”

“I will do so, but she must come now – not wait for daylight – and she must come alone. I have said all that I will say.” And the voice was suddenly still.

“Depart in peace,” came Merlin’s voice, as he stepped backwards out of the little chamber, and closed the door. He held the candle above Vivian’s head.

“Dare you, my dear—? Of course I know you dare, but God forgive me for sending you into this!”

They went quietly and quickly up the stone passages and stairs. It was night above, but the faint moonlight seemed dazzling after the darkness below. Merlin led the way down to the water’s edge.

The roses, exuberant over the edge of the loch, gave a sweet scent as they passed. Vivian breathed it deeply and gratefully after the dead smells of the underground place. It was a still and overcast summer night, the moon’s light diffused behind the clouds, showing the paleness of the gleaming water between the dark trees. Vivian fetched out the little light boat they used for crossing the lake, and seated herself in it, facing astern to row. With a few strokes she sent the boat moving smoothly away from the steps – she had to look backwards over her shoulder to see the way she was going, but after one look she kept her eyes fixed on the tall white form of Merlin as he receded from her.

The loch opened into the sea, and all its seaward extent was tidal – the water rose and fell, not much but perceptibly, once a day, making a fresh interchange between fresh and salt water; but at the head of the loch was a stagnant creek, where all the floating rubbish and refuse drifted and stayed, and sank into the black ooze. Dark, sour plants grew there, and yew trees and black alders overhung the bank; by the day the air was full of pestilent midges, and at night, stealthy creatures moved between the dark bank and the dark waters. No one went there. But that was where Vivian had to row her boat, softly in the darkness.

Presently she could feel the boat scraping upon the mud and the mess of broken branches below. She shipped her oars.

“Shony,” she called, her heart beating.

From the bottom of the boat, where Merlin had placed it for her, she picked up a black cockerel, bound up by the feet. A knife lay beside it. Shuddering, she lifted the bird by the feet, hanging its head over the side of the boat, and with one single movement sliced off the cockerel’s head. The bird struggled and fluttered horribly in its dead reflex, and the blood gushed out into the lake. She held it for a minute, and then dropped it into the bloodstained water.

“Shony,” she cried again. And then she saw him.

In the dim light he came up out of the water – first a smooth hump, like a thick black bubble, then it became his head, then head and shoulders – greenish-black, streaming wet, the long slimy hair straight down over the featureless face, but through it a gleam of cruel eyes and teeth – and with it came a horrible stench of fermenting vapours.

“Now,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking, “Shony, give me the sword Caliburn.”

The apparition spoke from under its streeling hair.

“Are you Nimuë, the Lady of the Lake?”

“I am Nimuë, the Lady of the Lake.”

“Then come and get it!” – and the creature gave a harsh, barking laugh, and held out, with black shrivelled hands, a long sheath-like shape. Still seated in the boat she turned half round, keeping a grip on the thwart with her left hand, and with her right reached out and seized the shape. Undoubtedly it was a scabbard, which she held by the point end. Shony, laughing again, pulled back and wrenched out the sword within, leaving her with the empty scabbard in her hand.

“There it is then – swim for it if you want it!” he croaked, and flung the sword, in a shining arc, far over his head and out into the lake. Then the baleful presence was gone down into the water.

After a minute’s utter dismay and loss, Vivian grasped the scabbard in both hands – an ancient thing it was, slippery with the mud of the sea bottom, but discernible as a piece of leather-work overlaid with bronze – more by touch than by sight she made out the runes on it, and pronounced the words written there, aloud over the water. Then pointing the open end of the scabbard out over the water, she spoke the sword’s name.

“Caliburn – the blade of destiny. Arthur’s time has come, I Nimuë, Lady of the Lake, call you – in the NAME which Merlin has pronounced.”

The words echoed off the surface of the water.

And the sword floated and came towards her, skimming over the surface as if a lodestone drew it. Straight to the boat’s side and she put out her hand into the water (still afraid of feeling Shony’s slimy touch) and drew it in and placed it back in the scabbard. Then all in one movement, not staying for one instant, she picked up the oars and struck out for the Island, all the time, as she rowed, her eyes on the dark creek where Shony had risen. But when she turned her head to see her way, there was Merlin, white and straight on the steps, and his arms received her safely, and took the sword from her. His hand traced the banishing pentagram against the black water of the other shore.

“By the grace of the Mighty One,” he said, “Arthur has a sword.”

In the firelit hall of the little castle, they examined the sword. Merlin laid it on the table, having first carefully placed a cloth lest any fragments of the scabbard should fall. For both sword and scabbard were blackened, and corroded, and crumbling. With great care, Merlin drew the sword from the scabbard, and laid it by its side. The blade appeared to be of some dark brown metal; the hilt was of a strangely beautiful shape, cross-formed but curving; the quillets, or side-pieces, were outlined in garnets and agates, which even in its decayed state caught the light; and the pommel was one round, perfect, white crystal, now clouded grey like the moon. The scabbard, now that the blade was withdrawn, was ready to fall to pieces, for it was made of many small metal parts, set upon leather, now shrivelled and cracking like so much rotten wood. He lit a lamp, such as they had, and looked long at it.

“This is very old,” he said, “Oh, very, very old. It was made in the days when all weapons were made of bronze, and yet it is not all of bronze. It is made of a subtle mixture of all the seven metals: gold, silver, iron, quicksilver, tin, copper and lead, by an art long ago lost to man. I knew the man who made it – in another life. By strange and cunning ways he made it – some of the metals he melted and mangled, others he interwove into the inscription on the blade – there were other skills as well. So, by the interchanging of the natures of the seven metals, a powerful magic was put upon the sword. Although it was made in the days when men had only bronze, yet there is a power upon it that could cut through steel. Therefore it is called “Caliburn” – “Cut-Steel” in one of the old languages. I know a man that can restore it, both blade, hilt and scabbard. Tomorrow I will go in search of him.”

“But Shony?” Vivian said, still trembling.

“Ah, Shony cannot harm you now. You have paid him his proper due, and he dare not ask for more. Never fear Shony.”

“All the same, I’ll keep away from the head of the loch, and – can we seal up that place underground?”

“We will do so, dear. But have no fear! From now onward, Arthur’s star is rising.”