The Merlin Conspiracy. Diana Wynne Jones
and going back to grazing. Grundo came down on the grass on his back with a thump.
He picked himself up and came hobbling over to the gate, saying seriously, “I don’t think I’ll try again. You can see by all the white on her that she’s very old.”
That made me scream with laughter. Grundo was very offended and explained that the mare was old enough to have learnt lots of tricks, which only made me laugh more. And after a bit, Grundo began to see the funny side of it too. He said it felt very odd, being left sitting on nothing, and he kept wondering how the mare did it. We went scrambling up to the top of the hill behind the manse, laughing about it.
There were mountains all round as far as we could see up there. The peaks we had thought might be a dragon were lost among all the others.
“Do you think they really are part of a dragon?” I asked, while we went sliding and crouching down the other side of the summit. “It was rather mad, the way he said it.” The thought that my grandfather might be mad really worried me. But it would certainly explain why my mother was so terrified of him.
“He’s not mad,” Grundo said decidedly. “Everyone’s heard of the Welsh dragon.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “He doesn’t behave at all the way people usually do.”
“No, but he behaves like I would behave if I hadn’t been brought up at Court,” Grundo said. “I sort of recognised him. He’s like me underneath.”
This made me feel much better. There was a huge, heathery moor beyond the manse hill, and we rushed out into it with the wind clapping our hair about and cloud shadows racing across us. There was the soft smell of water everywhere. And no roads, no buses, no people, and only the occasional large, high bird. We found a place where water bubbled out of the ground in a tiny fountain that spread into a pool covered with lurid green weeds. Neither of us had seen a natural spring before and we were delighted with it. We tried blocking it with our hands, but it just spouted up between our fingers, cold as ice.
“I suppose,” Grundo said, “that the well in Sir James’s Inner Garden must fill from a spring like this. Only I don’t think this one’s magic.”
“Oh, don’t!” I cried out. “I don’t want to remember all that! It’s not as if we can do a thing about it, whatever they’re plotting to do.” I spread my arms into the watery smelling wind. “I feel free for the first time in a hundred years!” I said. “Don’t spoil it.”
Grundo stood with his feet sinking into squashy marsh plants and considered me. “I wish you wouldn’t exaggerate,” he said. “It annoys me. But you do look better. When we’re with the Progress you always remind me of an ice-puddle someone’s stamped in. All icy white edges. I’m afraid of getting cut on you sometimes.”
I was astonished. “What should I be like then?”
Grundo shrugged. “I can’t explain. More like – like a good sort of tree.”
“A tree!” I exclaimed.
“Something that grew naturally, I mean,” Grundo grunted. “A warm thing.” He moved his feet with such appalling sucking noises that I had to laugh.
“You’re the one who’s rooted to the spot!” I said, and we wandered on, making for a topple of rock in the distance. When we got there, we sat on the side that was in the sun and away from the wind. After a long time, I said, “I didn’t mean that about not wanting to remember Sir James’s garden – it’s just I feel so helpless.”
Grundo said, “Me too. I keep wondering if the old Merlin might have been killed so that the new one could take over in time to go to the garden.”
“That’s an awful thing to think!” I said. But now Grundo had said it, I found I was thinking it too. “But the Merlin’s supposed to be incorruptible,” I said. “Grandad found him.”
“He could have been deceived,” Grundo said. “Your Grandfather Hyde’s only human, even if he is a Magid. Why don’t you try telling this grandfather?”
“Grandfather Gwyn?” I said. “What could he do? Besides, he’s Welsh”.
“Well, he made a fair old fuss to the Chamberlain’s Office just to get you here,” Grundo replied. “He knows how to raise a stink. Think about it.”
I did think about it as we wandered on, but not all that much because, after what seemed a very short while, we saw that the sun was going down and looked at our watches and realised it was after five o’clock. We turned back and got lost. The moor was surrounded by green knobs that were the tops of mountains and they all looked the same. When we finally found the right knob and slid down the side of it to the manse, there was only just time to get cleaned up before tea was ready.
“I love this food!” Grundo grunted.
The table was crowded with four different kinds of bread, two cakes, six kinds of jam in matching dishes, cheese, butter and cream. Olwen followed us into the dining room with a vast teapot and, as soon as my grandfather had thundered out his grace, she came back with plates of sausage and fried potatoes. Grundo beamed and prepared to be very greedy. I had to stop before the cakes, but Grundo kept right on packing food in for nearly an hour and drinking cup after cup of tea. While he ate, he talked cheerfully, just as if my grandfather was a normal person.
My grandfather watched Grundo eat with a slightly astonished look, but he did not seem to mind being talked to. He even answered Grundo with a few deep words every so often. I was fairly sure Grundo was being this chatty so that I could join in and tell Grandfather Gwyn what we had overheard in Sir James’s Inner Garden. But I couldn’t. I knew he would give me that look with his eyebrows up and not believe a word. I seemed to curl up inside just thinking of speaking.
I was wondering how often my Mam had sat silent like this at meals, when Grundo helped himself to a third slice of cake, seriously measuring off the exact amount. “I have room for twenty-five degrees more cake,” he explained, “and then I shall go back to soda bread and jam. Does Olwen do your cooking for you because you’re a widower?”
At this, my grandfather turned to me. I could tell he was not pleased. It breathed off him like cold from a frozen pond. “Did Annie tell you I was a widower?” he asked me.
“She said she had never known her mother,” I said.
“I am glad to hear her so truthful,” my grandfather replied. I thought that was all he was going to say, but he seemed to think again and make an extra effort. “There has been,” he said, and paused, and made another effort, “a separation.”
I could feel him hurting, making the effort to say this. I was suddenly furious. “Oh!” I cried out. “I hate all this divorcing and separating! My Grandfather Hyde is separated from his wife and I’ve never even seen her or the aunt who lives with her. And that aunt’s divorced, and so’s the aunt who lives with Grandad, which is awfully hard on my cousin Toby. Half the Court is divorced! The King is separated from the Queen most of the time! Why do people do it?”
Grandfather Gwyn was giving me an attentive look. It was the sort of look you can feel. I felt as if his deep, dark eyes were opening me up, prising apart pieces of my brain. He said thoughtfully, “Often the very nature of people, the matter that brought them together, causes the separation later.”
“Oh, probably,” I said angrily. “But it doesn’t stop them hurting. Ask Grundo. His parents are separated.”
“Divorced,” Grundo growled. “My father left.”
“Now that’s one person I don’t blame!” I said. “Leaving Sybil was probably the most sensible thing he ever did. But he ought to have taken you with him.”
“Well now,” said Grandfather Gwyn. He sounded nearly amused. “The ice of Arianrhod has melted at last, it seems.”
I