Mary Stewart - The Arthurian Saga 01 - The Crystal Cave

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THE CRYSTAL CAVE
by
Mary Stewart
Also by Mary Stewart
Madam, Will You Talk?
Wildfire at Midnight
Thunder on the Right
My Brother Michael
The Ivy Tree
The Moonspinners
This Rough Magic Airs Above the Ground
The Gabriel Hounds
The Wind Off the Small Isles
Touch Not the Cat
Nine Coaches
Waiting Thomyhold
Stormy Petrel
The Hollow Hills
The Last Enchantment
The Novel ofmordred
The Wicked Day
Poems
Frost on the Window
For Children
The Little Broomstick
Ludo and the Star Horse
A Walk in Wolf
Wood
The Crystal Cave
Mary Stewart CORONET BOOKS Hodder and Stoughton
Copyright 1970 by Mary Stewart First published 1970 by Hodder and
Stoughton Limited Coronet edition 1971 This impression 1995 The right of
Mary Stewart to be identified as the Author of the Work has been
asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior
written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to
real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library
ISBN 0340151331
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd,
St. Ives pie Hodder and Stoughton A division of Hodder Headline PLC 338
Euston Road London NW1 3BH
Immediately on publication the hardcover
edition of THE CRYSTAL CAVE became a bestseller on both sides of the
Atlantic.
Holding the coveted Number i position for week after week, it outsold
her previous bestsellers by many thousand of copies.
Here is a selection of the reviews which greeted British publication:
"Mary Stewart brilliantly re-creates Britain of the 5th Century.
' Books and Bookmen *.
one need hardly add, a good professional read' The Guardian '.
absorbing.
Mrs Stewart has the gift of being able to tell a story' Daily Mirror
"Her best book to date' Birmingham Evening Mail "If you admire Mary
Stewart's handling of the chase and the escape, you'll find them to the
full here' Glasgow Evening Tims *A deft colourful and clean-limbed
re-creation of Merlin's early life' The Sunday Times "A fascinating
story which lays a firm hold on the imagination' The Scotsman "If you
like escapist, enjoyable stuff, and read only one book a year, this is
it' Daily Mirror
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Edwin Muir's poem "Merlin' is
reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
from the Collected Poems, 1921-58.
The poem on page 222 is a free translation of verses appearing in Barzaz
Breiz; Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, by the Vicomte de la
Villemarque (Paris, 1867).
The Legend of Merlin is based on the translation of Geoffrey of
Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain which was first published in
the Everyman's Library, Vol 577, by J. & M. Dent in 1912.
Contents
Prologue: The Prince of Darkness 11
Book I The Dove 15
Book II The Falcon 117
Book III The Wolf 215
Book IV The Red Dragon 307
Book V The Coming of the Bear 385
The Legend of Merlin 457
Author's Note
To the Memory of MOLLIE CRAIG with my love
Merlin in your
crystal cave Deep in the diamond of the day Will there ever be a singer
Whose music will smooth away The Furrow drawn by Adam's finger Across
the meadow and the wave?
Or a runner who'll outrun Man's long shadow driving on, Burst through
the gates of history, And hang the apple on the tree?
Will your sorcery ever show The sleeping bride shut in her bower, The
day wreathed in its mound of snow, And Time locked in his tower?
Edwin Muir
Prologue
THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS
I am an old man now, but then I was already past my prime when Arthur
was crowned King.
The years since then seem to me now more dim and faded than the earlier
years, as if my life were a growing tree which burst to flower and leaf
with him, and now has nothing more to do than yellow to the grave.
This is true of all old men, that the recent past is misted, while
distant scenes of memory are clear and brightly coloured.
Even the scenes of my far childhood come back to me now sharp and high
coloured and edged with brightness, like the pattern of a fruit tree
against a white wall, or banners in sunlight against a sky of storm.
The colours are brighter than they were, of that I am sure.
The memories that come back to me here in the dark are seen with the new
young eyes of childhood; they are so far gone from me, with their pain
no longer present, that they unroll like pictures of something that
happened, not to me, not to the bubble of bone that this memory used to
inhabit, but to another Merlin as young and light and free of the air
and spring winds as the bird she named me for.
With the later memories it is different; they come back, some of them,
hot and shadowed, things seen in the fire.
For this is where I gather them.
This is one of the few trivial tricksi cannot call it powerleft to me
now that I am old and stripped at last down to man.
I can see still .
not clearly or with the call of trumpets as I once did, but in the
child's way of dreams and pictures in the fire.
I can still make the flames burn up or die; it is one of the simplest of
magics, the most easily learned, the last forgotten.
What I ll cannot recall in dream I see in the flames, the red heart of
the fire or the countless mirrors of the crystal cave.
The first memory of all is dark and fireshot.
It is not my own memory, but later you will understand how I know these
things.
You would call it, not memory so much as a dream of the past, something
in the blood, something recalled from him, it may be, while he still
bore me in his body.
I believe that such things can be.
So it seems to me right that I should start with him who was before me,
and who will be again when I am gone.
This is what happened that night.
I saw it, and it is a true tale.
It was dark, and the place was cold, but he had lit a small fire of
wood, which smoked sullenly but gave a little warmth.
It had been raining all day, and from the branches near the mouth of the
cave water still dripped, and a steady trickle overflowed the lip of the
well, soaking the ground below.
Several times, restless, he had left the cave, and now he walked out
below the cliff to the grove where his horse stood tethered.
With the coming of dusk the rain had stopped, but a mist had risen,
creeping knee high through the trees so that they stood like ghosts, and
the grazing horse floated like a swan.
It was a grey, and more than ever ghostly because it grazed so quietly;
he had torn up a scarf and wound fragments of doth round a bit so that
no jingle should betray him.
The bit was gilded, and the torn strips were of silk, for he was a
king's son.
If they had caught him, they would have killed him.
He was just eighteen.
He heard the hoofbeats coming softly up the valley.
His head moved, and his breathing quickened.
His sword flicked with light as he lifted it.
The grey horse paused in its grazing and lifted its head dear of the
mist Its nostrils flickered, but no sound came.
The man smiled.
The hoofbeats came doser, and then, shoulder deep in mist, a brown pony
trotted out of the dusk.
Its rider, small and slight, was wrapped in a dark cloak, muffled from
the night air.
The pony pulled to a halt, threw up its head, and gave a long, pealing
whinny.
The rider, with an exclamation of dismay, slipped from its back and
grabbed for the bridle to muffle the sound against her cloak.
She was a girl, very young, who looked round her anxiously until she saw
the young man, sword in hand, at the edge of the trees.
"You sound like a troop of cavalry," he said.
"I was here before I knew it. Everything looks strange in the mist."
"No one saw you? You came safely?"
"Safely enough. It's been impossible the last two days. They were on the
roads night and day."
"I guessed it."
He smiled.
"Well, now you are here. Give me the bridle."
He led the pony in under the trees, and tied it up.
Then he kissed her.
After a while she pushed him away.
"I ought not to stay. I brought the things, so even if I can't come
tomorrow" She stopped.
She had seen the saddle on his horse, the muffled bit, the packed
saddle-bag.
Her hands moved sharply against his chest, and his own covered them and
held her fast.
"Ah," she said, "I knew. I knew even in my sleep last night. You're
going."
"I must. Tonight."
She was silent for a minute.
Then all she said was: "How long?"
He did not pretend to misunderstand her.
"We have an hour, two, no more." She said flatly: "You will come back."
Then as he started to speak: "No. Not now, not any more. We have said it
all, and now there is no more time. I only meant that you will be safe,
and you will come back safely. I tell you, I know these things. I have
the Sight. You will come back."
"It hardly needs the Sight to tell me that I must come back. And then
perhaps you will listen to me"
"No."
She stopped him again, almost angrily.
"It doesn't 3 matter. What does it matter? We have only an hour, and we
arc wasting it. Let us go in."
He was already pulling out the jewelled pin that held her cloak
together, as he put an arm round her and led her towards the cave.
"Yes, let us go in."
Book I THE DOVE CHAPTER ONE the day my uncle Camlach came home,
I was
just six years old.
I remember him well as I first saw him, a tall young man, fiery like my
grandfather, with the blue eyes and reddish hair that I thought so
beautiful in my mother.
He came to Maridunum near sunset of a September evening, with a small
troop of men.
Being only small, I was with the women in the long, old-fashioned room
where they did the weaving.
My mother was sitting at the loom; I remember the doth; it was of
scarlet, with a narrow pattern of green at the edge.
I sat near her on the floor, playing knuckle-bones, right hand against
left.
The sun slanted through the windows, making oblong pools of bright gold
on the cracked mosaics of the floor; bees droned in the herbs outside,
and even the click and rattle of the loom sounded'sleepy.
The women were talking among themselves over their spindles, but softly,
heads together, and Moravik, my nurse, was frankly asleep on her stool
in one of the pools of sunlight.
When the clatter, and then the shouts, came from the courtyard, the loom
stopped abruptly, and with it the soft chatter from the women.
Moravik came awake with a snort and a stare.
My mother was sitting very straight, head lifted, listening.
She had dropped her shuttle.
I saw her eyes meet Moravik's.
I was halfway to the window when Moravik called to me sharply, and there
was something in her voice that made me stop and go back to her without
protest.
She began to fuss with my clothing, pulling my tunic straight and
smoothing my hair, so that I understood the visitor to be someone of
importance.
I felt excitement, and also surprise that apparently I was to be
presented to him; I was used to being kept out of the way in those days.
I stood patiently while Moravik dragged the comb through my hair, and
over my head she and my mother exchanged some quick, breathless talk
which, hardly heeding, I did not understand.
I was listening to the tramp of horses in the yard and the shouting of
men, words here and there coming dearly in a language neither Welsh nor
Latin, but Celtic with some accent like the one of Less Britain, which I
understood because my nurse, Mora- vik, was a Breton, and her language
came to me as readily as my own.
I heard my grandfather's great laugh, and another voice replying.
Then he must have swept the newcomer indoors with him, for the voices
receded, leaving only the jingle and stamp of the horses being led to
the stables.
I broke from Moravik and ran to my mother.
"Who is it?"
"My brother Camlach, the King's son."
She did not look at me, but pointed to the fallen shuttle.
I picked it up and handed it to her.
Slowly, and rather mechanically, she set the loom moving again.
"Is the war over, then?"
"The war has been over a long time. Your uncle has been with the High
King in the south."
"And now he has to come home because my uncle Dyved died?"
Dyved had been the heir, the King's eldest son.
摘要：

THECRYSTALCAVEbyMaryStewartAlsobyMaryStewartMadam,WillYouTalk?WildfireatMidnightThunderontheRightMyBrotherMichaelTheIvyTreeTheMoonspinnersThisRoughMagicAirsAbovetheGroundTheGabrielHoundsTheWindOfftheSmallIslesTouchNottheCatNineCoachesWaitingThomyholdStormyPetrelTheHollowHillsTheLastEnchantmentTheNov...

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