The White Dragon

Chapter Two: Arthyr and Merilyn

Anyone who claims not to have been impressed upon first meeting Arthyr is a liar, for so handsome was that Welsh youth that it was impossible not to stare at him. His physique was a match for that depicted by the most famous statues in Rome. Every part of the young man had grown in proportion to the golden mean that our artists have established as the perfect measure for the human body. Moreover, a touch under one and three-quarter metres in height, Arthyr had a litheness in his motion that no statue will ever convey. Even his walk was a sway that spoke of absolute self-confidence.

Of the more superficial but nonetheless striking aspects to his appearance, it is worth recording the fact that his eyes were a sea-green so deep as to be nearly black; while his long, dark hair sometimes seemed to have that purple sheen one sees on the bodies of ravens when the sun's rays catch them at a certain angle. His face was arresting, with a kind of delicate, pale beauty that recalled slender, snow-covered mountain peaks. It was a hard face to read, because the difference between placidity and fierce temper was evident only in a slight tightening of his mouth, a thinning of his lips, so that they became less vivid a red.

If, at the age of nineteen, this captivating appearance had been accompanied by a matching nobility of character, then Arthyr would have been as heroic as any of the figures to be found in, say, Titus Livy's History of the Romans. Sadly, yet as is to be expected in a barbarian, his bearing was profoundly flawed. For where a young man should be humble, Arthyr was proud. Where he should have been deferential, he was wilful and where he should have been cautious, he was inclined to risk all. This young man therefore made a dangerous enemy; nor was it at all easy being his friend.

It must be held against him too, that Arthyr was the kind of person who relishes the adulation of the crowd (unfortunately, we have many of these in Rome). And when he joins my narrative on that same day in May in which the Romans arrived at his village, we can see this with utter clarity. For that afternoon a group of children were at play in a forest clearing overgrown with amber-coloured bracken whose fronds grew as tall as the waists of the younger ones. Their game was similar to one that the urchins of Rome are also wont to enjoy whenever there are sufficient numbers. A sanctuary (in this case a fallen pine tree) is guarded by one child, while the rest hide and then try to sprint to touch the sanctuary before being identified and having their name called out. Should a child be spotted, then he or she joins the defenders of the sanctuary. It is a most excellent pastime and in my own youth I was rather good at it, for I had a cunning mind when it came to concealment and swift feet when it came to a sprint for safety.

A normal game then, yet these were not normal children. In at least two respects this challenge was unusual. Firstly, Sí blood runs to a greater or lesser extent in all of the people of Betws-y-Coed. These children could walk over piles of dry leaves without creating a rustling sound; they could become invisible simply by standing still in a spot where the light was dappled; they could run through a thicket of bushes without a branch trembling; nor were brambles, gorse or nettles an obstacle to them. Secondly, the game was being played in a place where the boundary between Uffen and the Earth was weak.

Arthyr was guarding the pine tree and laughing. It was perhaps unfair that he play such a role, he thought, as there was no challenge for him in finding hidden children. Not when the wind, the grass and even the trees wished to help him. He called out a dozen names. From the shadows, defeated children joined him at the pine and ringed it, peering in all directions to make sure that no one would succeed where they had failed.

'Safe!' announced Merilyn triumphantly; all at once, she was standing behind Arthyr, with one foot on the log.[1]

'How did you do it?' Arthyr clapped his hands as though acclaiming Merilyn, although he did so with deliberate and insincere slowness. Irritated by her success, by the fact he had lost despite his expectations, Arthyr put on a sardonic voice. 'The flight of a bird? A cloud? A squirrel even?'