Merlin Dreams

Thunder? Drums? The beat of his own slow blood?

No, none of those — horse hooves — five wild ponies, riderless, cantering by. No wonder he woke at the sound. There had always been horses...

...readying for war, twin-yoked to the chariots, neighing, froth on mane and neck, feeling in their horse-minds the war-lust of the fighters, spear-flinger, whip-wielder...

...the grove of Epo, tended only by women, pale mares under the rowans, for a man to touch them death by slow drowning...

... a whole tribe gathered on a hillside to honour their god with a great image which will be seen from all across the plain. But how shall they make it, where shall they dig, standing so close on the curving slope, when the lines they dig must show a watcher far away a great white horse galloping over the green turf? Therefore they have sent for a man, a stranger with strange gifts. He gropes on the hill as though he were blind, for his mind is far off, watching. With his staff he prods out a line. Their mattocks bite down through turf to the clean white chalk. Hovering far off the mind sees the holy horse begin to appear. He holds the horse in his mind...

It is there again now as that same mind sinks towards darkness. It glimmers into the forest of his dream, cantering under the trees, moon-white, sacred, tameable only by women...

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