Page 8 of Touched By Maen Llia
“And you do not look Celtic,” Marcus replied. “In fact, your hair is the same colour as King Arthur’s.”
She touched it self-consciously, her gaze on the route ahead. Behind them, the women had already spread out in a thin line and the Royal company followed, each man on foot, leading his horse. Marcus could hear the women talking together and the deeper voices of the men, farther back. The clop of horse hooves on the dried grass did not sound nearly as loud as it did upon the stones of the road. They would pass across this land like the shadows already stretching over it.
“What were you doing at the river?” he asked the woman. “Something you thought would not work,” he added.
She grimaced. “At sunset on mid-summer’s day, the Maen Llia—the stone we passed—is said to walk to the Afon Llia and drink. It really means the stone’s shadow reaches all the way to the river, for on mid-summer the shadow reaches the farthest.”
“That is the way with most stories,” he said in agreement. “It sounds wonderous strange, yet behind the story is a simple truth, one that makes much more sense when you know what it is.”
“Yes, yes,” she said quickly, her face lighting up. “It isalwaysthat way, I’ve found!”
He smiled at her sudden flare of enthusiasm. “It is that way with Excalibur, too.”
“The sword that was in the stone, that Arthur pulled out?” Her breath caught. “What is the truth behindthat? Please tell me.”
“I was not there, but Bedivere, my captain, was. He says the sword was laid upon a stone burial casket and water dripped upon the casket for so long that whatlookedlike stone built up over the top of the sword. When Arthur came to the burial chamber, he had to pull the sword out of the stone.” He shrugged.
“That would be Macsen’s chamber, then?”
Marcus blinked. “Yes, it was. You know about Macsen Wledig?”
“I know the Romans called him Magnus Maximus…and that they executed him because he would not bend to their ways.” She glanced at him.
He wondered if she was teasing him. If she was, she was an unusual woman. Most women became silent around armed men. None of the women behind them were speaking to the soldiers with Merlin. They were clinging to themselves. The women in Corneus had been the same way. They shrank from the potential violence soldiers brought with them. Even the ladies of the court in Camelot, who thought nothing of teasing and flirting with the men of the court while they were formally dressed, tended to grow silent and withdrawn when the men were dressed for battle.
“What happens when the shadow of Maen Llia touches the river at mid-summer?” Marcus asked.
“If you are standing in the river, or drink from the river when that moment arrives, your dearest wish will be granted some time in the next year,” the woman replied.
“But you said it did not work?” Marcus prompted.
“Nothing I have wished for has ever happened.”
“What do you wish for? To run off to Camelot and marry a prince?”
She laughed. It was a surprising sound, full of merriment. Then her smile faded and she glanced down at her thin, poor garment. “That is not inmystars.”
“Why not? If it is what you wish for?”
“Doyoubelieve wishes can come true?”
“If they do, it is not because one drinks from a stream at mid-summer.”
“For what other reasons can wishes work, if not for magic?”
“For the reason that the wisher wants it so, and makes it happen by their own actions.”
It was her turn to look startled.
Really, the blue of her eyes was amostintriguing colour, he decided.
They passed into the next valley and now a faint trail showed where they should go. Ahead, glinting in the very last light of the day, the sea painted a thin blue line across the horizon. And far below, at the mouth of a wide river, lay a prosperous walled town, filled with houses with smoking chimney holes. Ships were tied up at the wharf, with gulls circling over the top, hoping for fish. Light from cooking fires, braziers and lamps added dabs of warm yellow colour through the town. And on the hill across the river, high above the town, was a large, old Roman villa.
From here, the town looked very small, with everything laid out as it would be on a map. Marcus’ father had owned a map of Rome, which he had let Marcus study, when he was small. He’d trace out the Colosseum, and the road to the palace, the seven hills, the Senate building, and the Forum, speaking the names as his mother had read them out. It was from the map that Marcus had learned to read.
Marcus hadn’t thought of the map in a great many years. Now he wondered what had become of it.
“Maridunum,” the woman said.
