Then the palace doors swung open and the crowd slowly fell silent.
For a few heartbeats the doorway was nothing but a black space, then a young warrior in the full panoply of battle walked out of the darkness to stand on the top step of the arcade. There was nothing magical about him, except that he was beautiful. There was no other word for him. In a world of twisted limbs, crippled legs, goitred necks, scarred faces and weary souls, this warrior was beautiful. He was tall, thin and golden-haired, and he had a serene face that could only be described as kind, even gentle. His eyes were a startling blue. He wore no helmet so that his hair, which was as long as a girl’s, hung straight down past his shoulders. He had a gleaming white breastplate, white greaves, and a white scabbard. The wargear looked expensive, and I wondered who he was. I thought I knew most of the warriors of Britain — at least those who could afford armour like this young man’s — but he was a stranger to me. He smiled at the crowd, then raised both his hands and motioned that they were to kneel. Issa and I stayed standing. Maybe it was our warrior’s arrogance, or perhaps we just wanted to see across the intervening heads.
The long-haired warrior did not speak, but once the audience was down on its knees, he smiled his thanks at them and then walked around the arcade extinguishing the torches by taking them from their beckets and plunging them into water-filled barrels that stood ready. It was, I realized, a performance that had been carefully rehearsed. The courtyard became darker and darker until the only remaining light came from the two torches flanking the great palace door. There was little moon and the night was chilly dark.
The white warrior stood between the last two torches. ‘Children of Britain,’ he said, and he had a voice to match his beauty, a gentle voice, full of warmth, ‘pray to your Gods! Within these walls are the Treasures of Britain and soon, very soon, their power will be unleashed, but now, so that you can see their power, we shall let the Gods speak to us.’ With that he extinguished the last two torches and the courtyard was suddenly dark.
Nothing happened. The crowd mumbled, calling on Bel and Gofannon and Grannos and Don to show their power. My skin crawled and I clutched Hywelbane’s hilt. Were the Gods circling us? I looked up to where a patch of stars glittered between the clouds and imagined the great Gods hovering in that upper air, and then Issa gasped and I looked down from the stars.
And I too gasped.
For a girl, hardly more than a child on the very edge of womanhood, had appeared in the dark. She was a delicate girl, lovely in her youth and graceful in her loveliness, and she was as naked as a newborn. She was slender, with small high breasts and long thighs, and in one hand she carried a bunch of lilies and in the other a narrow-bladed sword.
And I just stared. For in the dark, the chill dark following the engulfment of the flames, the girl glowed. She actually glowed. She glistened with a shimmering white light. It was not a bright light, it did not dazzle, it was just there, like Stardust brushed onto her white skin. It was a scattered, powdery radiance that touched her body and legs and arms and hair, though not her face. The lilies glowed, and the radiance glistened on the long thin blade of her sword.
The glowing girl walked the arcades. She seemed oblivious as the crowd in the courtyard held out their withered limbs and sick children. She ignored them, simply stepping delicately and lightly along the arcade with her shadowed face staring down at the stones. Her steps were feather light. She seemed self-absorbed, lost in her own dream, and the people moaned and called to her, but she did not look at them. She just walked on and the strange light glimmered on her body, and on her arms and legs, and on her long black hair that grew close about her face that was a black mask amidst the eerie glow, but somehow, instinctively perhaps, I sensed that her face was beautiful. She came close to where Issa and I were standing and there she suddenly lifted that jet black shadow of a face to stare in our direction. I smelt something that reminded me of the sea, and then, as suddenly as she had appeared, she vanished through a door and the crowd sighed.
‘What was it?’ Issa whispered to me.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered. I was frightened. This was not madness, but something real, for I had seen it, but what was it? A Goddess? But why had I smelt the sea? ‘Maybe it was one of Manawydan’s spirits,’ I told Issa. Manawydan was the God of the sea, and surely his nymphs would have that salt smell about them.
We waited a long time for the second apparition, and when it came it was far less impressive than the glowing sea nymph. A shape appeared on the palace roof, a black shape which slowly grew to be an armed, cloaked warrior in a monstrous helmet crested with the antlers of a great stag. The man was scarcely to be seen in the dark, but when a cloud slid from the moon we saw what he was and the crowd moaned as he stood above us with his arms outstretched and with his face hidden by the huge helmet’s cheekpieces. He carried a spear and a sword. He stood for a second, then he too vanished, though I could have sworn I heard a tile slip from the roof’s far side as he disappeared. Then, just as he went, the naked girl appeared again, only this time it seemed as if she had simply materialized on the arcade’s top step. One second there was darkness, then there was her long glowing body standing still and straight and shining. Again her face was in darkness so that it appeared as a shadow mask rimmed with her light-shot hair. She stood still for a few seconds, then did a slow dance, delicately pointing her toes as she stepped in an intricate pattern that circled and crossed the same spot of the arcade. She stared down as she danced. It seemed to me that the glistening unearthly light had been washed onto her skin, for I saw it was brighter in some places than others, but it was surely no human doing. Issa and I were on our knees now, for this had to be a sign from the Gods. It was light in darkness, beauty amidst the remnants. The nymph danced on, the light of her body slowly fading, and then, when she was only a hint of glistening loveliness in the arcade’s shadow, she stopped, spread her arms and legs wide to face us boldly, and then she vanished.
A moment later two flaming torches were carried out from the palace. The crowd was shouting now, calling to their Gods and demanding to see Merlin, and at last he did appear from the palace entrance. The white warrior carried one of the flaming torches and one-eyed Nimue carried the second. Merlin came to the top step and there stood tall in his long white robe. He let the crowd go on calling. His grey beard, which fell almost to his waist, was plaited into strands that were wrapped in black ribbons, just as his long white hair was plaited and bound. He carried his black staff and, after a while, he lifted it as a sign that the crowd should be silent. ‘Did anything appear?’ he asked anxiously.
‘Yes, yes!’ the crowd called back, and on Merlin’s old, clever, mischievous face there came a look of pleased surprise, as though he had not known what might have happened in the courtyard. He smiled, then stepped aside and beckoned with his free hand. Two small children, a boy and a girl, came from the palace carrying the Cauldron of Clyddno Eiddyn. Most of the Treasures of Britain were small things, commonplace even, but the Cauldron was a genuine Treasure and, of all the thirteen, the one with the most power. It was a great silver bowl decorated with a golden tracery of warriors and beasts. The two children struggled with the Cauldron’s great weight, but managed to set it down beside the Druid. ‘I have the Treasures of Britain!’ Merlin announced, and the crowd sighed in response. ‘Soon, very soon,’ he went on, ‘the power of the Treasures will be unleashed. Britain will be restored. Our enemies will be broken!’ He paused to let the cheers echo in the courtyard. ‘You have seen the power of the Gods tonight, but what you have seen is a small thing, an insignificant thing. Soon all Britain will see, but if we are to summon the Gods, then I need your help.’