country. Countries know if they are loved – particularly England. It is no common earth, the Island of Britain. She knows her friends.’
‘Was Artos her friend?’ asked Phillip.
‘He was,’ said Merlin.
‘Merlin, how much magic can you do?’ asked Phillip.
‘As much as I ever could, my heart,’ he replied. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Don’t you want to bring your Artos back?’ asked Phillip, biting his lip on a surge of quite-unbecoming jealousy. Merlin took his hand and kissed it.
‘Artos is gone. He was of his time and he cannot be summoned out of it. But you are here, and so am I. And that is where we should be.’
‘So it is,’ said Phillip, smiling, and poured more wine.
Three hours later, when it was fully dark, the lookout’s boy rushed into the hall, fell at Phillip’s feet, and gasped ‘Master, Master, the beacons are lit! The Spanish fleet is sailing!’
‘Is our beacon afire?’ demanded Phillip.
‘Yes, Master,’ panted the boy. Phillip gave the boy his wine cup.
‘Good. Drink this, now, and sit still until you get your breath back. Will you come with me?’ he asked Merlin.
‘Where else should I be?’ replied the wizard. He followed Phillip as he strode through the hall, calling, ‘turn out the guard! Tom, my armour! My dear, can I get you a weapon?’
‘I need none,’ replied Merlin. ‘But I will meet you outside.’
Merlin took a sharp knife, a draught of wine and a napkin and went into the darkness, moving surely on his hard bare feet. The hall bustled with noise and life. Phillip saw his lover walk out of it into the silent darkness and almost clawed after him.
Then the multifarious tasks claimed him for an hour. When Phillip walked out of the great house to mount his horse, Coalblack, he found the wizard standing, waiting for him. He was still clad in white and purple, but he had a bloodstained napkin trussed around his left arm. And in his hand he held a long, strong oak staff.
‘The tree required a sacrifice,’ said the wizard. ‘It is nothing. Where is your enemy?’
‘Mount and ride,’ ordered Phillip. The wizard sat as easily in a saddle as a chair.
Two hours later, they stood on the edge of the cliff and looked at the huge array of ships sailing. Phillip had never seen so many vessels. The full moon picked steel and silver from their decks and masts.
‘They do not mean to go ashore here,’ said Phillip’s armour bearer, Tom. ‘That’s good, isn’t it, Master?’
‘And if they invade, my boy, what place will be safe from the Inquisition? They will light the fires of Smithfield all over England. And the ocean’s as flat as a plate! Oh, for a witch who can whistle a wind!’
‘Why should you need a witch?’ asked Merlin in a low, amused voice. ‘I was a tree for many winters and know winds as only a tree can. And their ships,’ he said, lifting the staff, ‘are made of wood. Tell your men to fall back, myn lyking, get the horses back from the edge. And you go back, as well.’
‘No,’ said Phillip. He dismounted, gave the horses to Tom, and ordered the guard back into the small village in the valley, where they could shelter from any storm. ‘I just found you, I’m not leaving you.’
‘My love,’ said Merlin, fondly. ‘You have your syrinx?’
‘I have,’ said Phillip.
‘Then we shall play such a song as the winds will answer,’ said Merlin, and raised the staff, beginning to sing in a low, rumbling monotone. Phillip followed the notes, shrill and high, and, summoned, a wind began to rise.
It rose and roared, and over it the guard heard, piercing, the notes of the syrinx, and the low notes under it, as the gale picked up and the waves responded. Into the song was woven the grinding of sand on shoals and the crashing of the flood on cliffs and rocks, and even from the village they heard the screaming of sailors and the smashing of ships. There would be a fine harvest of broken keels tomorrow, for the gleaners to feed their fires.
Sometime later – the moon had gone down – the guard ventured up onto the cliff. They found their master and his strange guest, locked in each other’s arms, lying soaking and freezing on the rocks. They carried them home in the pelting rain.
Phillip woke, warm and dry and cosy, in his own bed. At first he wondered if he had been fevered and dreamed, but then he sneezed and brushed a tress of oak-bark hair from across his nose. Merlin was there, deep asleep.
Someone had brought them home, dried and put them to bed. The fire in the room was just burning down. It was late afternoon.
‘Master?’ asked Tom, who was bringing in more logs.
‘Tom, my boy, how goes the day?’ whispered Phillip.
‘The Armada is mostly wrecked, Master,’ Tom told him. ‘It was that God-given storm, Master, that’s what we are all saying. That you prayed to the Lord and our Heavenly Father, He sent the storm. And Saint George. Some people are saying they saw him, marching over the waves.’
‘That’s a good thing for you to say, Tom,’ said Phillip.
He looked around the room. Merlin’s staff and his syrinx lay shattered on a purple cloak. That did not matter. Both could be replaced. And Merlin was lying beside him, sleeping, his leaf-green eyes closed; a lover who would not leave and would not die. That oak tree still had a good hundred years left.
It was probably just a coincidence (though there has never been a better-informed monarch than Elizabeth Regina) that when My Lord Phillip of Doveton was awarded a Royal Mark of Favour for his readiness and defence during the Great Armada, it was a medallion with Saint George on the face, and, on the obverse, an oak tree.
RUMPLESTILTSKIN
Paladin sat in his chair. He had no choice, being tied to it with regrettably competent knots. His hands were free, he had a spindle in one and a large heap of straw at his side. They hadn’t taken his sharp knife which hung from his belt, but even if he could get free, he was a very long way from the ground in this tower and had always been deathly afraid of heights.
It was such a pity that his father was a fool. As a miller’s third son, Paladin had been allowed to please himself as to profession. He had perfected a way of spinning flax into good, strong thread. This involved the use of a glue made from the retted reeds themselves, which when slicked along the worker’s fingers allowed the threads to combine seamlessly. He could spin two ells of linen thread without a lump or knot.
So his idiot father had boasted of him to the king, and the king had decided that if he could spin reeds into linen, he could spin straw into gold.
And if he didn’t manage it, he would be dead in the morning. And if he ran away, his father would take his place.
It was also a pity that the king was a fool.
There
