The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

at Grey’s was in his head: Why do you want him? To save the world. Suddenly he had the odd feeling that the whole situation was out of his
control, that it had all been decided a long time ago, long even before he met
Merlin.
    A few days later Uther drove
to Merlin’s cottage and handed over the tiny baby, carefully wrapped against
the winter’s cold. Uther glanced round Merlin’s kitchen, with its simple pine
furniture and stone floor. A fire burned in the grate. Uther shuddered to think
in what squalor a teacher and a social worker lived in some drab village in the
Welsh countryside. Was he condemning his own flesh and blood to a lifetime of poverty?
Noticing a crib in the far corner of the room, his heart sank. Dear god, not
even a nursery?
    ‘Is there no room for the
baby?’ he enquired loftily. Merlin spread his hands wide. ‘All the room in the
world.’ Uther sniffed. ‘That is not what I mean.’
    ‘I know what you mean.’ ‘What
about money?’
    ‘Money is not a problem,’ said Merlin.
    Uther waved a dismissive hand.
‘I shall arrange something on a regular basis. A cheque or a bank transfer. No
one need ever know where it comes from.’
    ‘That won’t be necessary.’
    Uther seemed disappointed.
‘Well,’ he said, shifting his feet uncomfortably, ‘then it’s good-bye.’
    Merlin nodded. ‘Goodbye.’
    After Uther had gone, Merlin
warmed a bottle of milk and fed the tiny baby, cradling it in his arms.
‘Welcome,’ he whispered in its ear, ‘welcome once again.’ When the baby was
asleep, he laid it in its crib.
    It was bitterly cold, a crisp,
bright January night. Merlin opened the back door and stood for a few minutes
looking up at the sky alive with stars. Somewhere in the woods a barn owl
hooted. Closing the door again, Merlin smiled. He knew that sound. The fire
chattered in the grate. For a few moments he gazed into the flames, stirring
the embers with a poker. Crossing the room, he stood by the crib, eyes closed,
the palms of his hands pressed together as though in prayer.
    The doorbell rang. Uther
again. ‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘His name is Arthur.’
    ‘An excellent name,’ said Merlin.

Four
     
     
1995
    To the West of Carmarthen, not far from
Merlin’s birthplace, and less than a dozen miles from the Bristol Channel, the
tiny village of Ponterlally sits cosily in a fertile valley. At the east end of
the valley, two flat-topped hills known locally as Adam and Eve overlook the
forest called Eden. There, according to Ponterlally’s official storyteller,
golden-eyed lions hunt on moonless nights, and loose skinned elephants shuffle
their ponderous dance at sunrise. Most villagers, however, see only hedgehogs, rabbits,
squirrels, foxes, stoats, badgers and deer, and hear the raucous caw of crows
at dusk and the hoot of owls in the snug hours of the night.
    The village stream, called
Lally, a distant relative several times removed from the river Severn, bustles
through the valley, flowing down the shop side of the main street, under the
stone bridge that tradition says was built by Julius Caesar, then south to join
its tributary kinsfolk on the slow march to the sea.
    In this valley of orchards,
farms and fairy tales, lived the Hughes: young Hector and Elizabeth, man and
wife, both born in the village, friends from childhood days. Elizabeth was a
woman of strong character and emotions, and Hector a sensible fellow with a
logical mind, both feet planted firm as oaks in the land of his birth.
    At eighteen Hector went to the
village school to teach, on the understanding that it was only a temporary
commitment until he found his true vocation. Never a week went by that he did
not ponder his future, until the day came, many long years later, when he was
astonished to discover that what he had been doing all his life was what he had
always wanted to do. Elizabeth, for her part, never had the smallest doubt that
what she was doing was right for her. She was a part-time social