Merlin

3. Cottage

"Well, that's an English Summer for you," mused Rozz as she sheltered under a stone overhang of one of the village cottages. The rain was pouring down from a dark grey featureless sky. Rozz glanced up and thought this must be what a leaden sky was meant to look like. It was cold, moreover she was cold, made none the better by the quite strong wind blowing. It was July, no August and only yesterday it had been gloriously hot, not a cloud in a perfect blue sky, not a breath of wind and the sea as calm as calm could be. But now... now was very different, not just the weather but the sea as well which was grey, topped with white foam and crashing against the old breakwater of the harbour.

She had come into the village on one of her walks. Her last walk actually - because the holiday was over. The car was packed, the cottage vacated that morning and her family driving home back up the A38 past Exeter and onwards northwards up the M6. She wasn't going straight home, that had never been the plan, and that was why she had brought her own car on holiday as well because she was going to drive on to visit a friend in Portsmouth. She was looking forward to going there, had never been there and was actually quite excited at the prospect of seeing the 'Mary Rose' and going on the oldest commissioned warship in the world, Nelson's Victory. Her friend had extolled the virtues of the factory shops in Gunwharf Quays and going up the new Spinnaker Tower.

She had wanted one last walk and despite the weather being what it was, had set out clad only in a summer dress. The weather had held for most of the remaining morning and the afternoon but by the time it was clear it was not going to be better: rather was turning for the worst she was far, far beyond the village. Walking back the sky had opened and it was a soaked Rozz that had walked up the streaming cobbles from the coast path into the village. The rising wind and the increasing intensity of the hissing rain had caused her to pause and take stock; even the fast path would take her quarter of an hour to twenty minutes to reach her car though less if she ran.

She looked down at herself. The print cotton dress clung wetly to her, moulding her limbs and showing her bra and panties beneath. The cold and wet had made her nipples hard and they were pointing through the thin material. Her arms were covered in droplets of water and rivulets ran from her hair down the front of her dress into the valley or depression of her small breasts. She looked a mess and the goose pimples on her arms showed she was actually quite cold. Looking a mess didn't really matter as the rain had driven everyone indoors. The village streets were surprisingly deserted.

"Well," she thought, "I'm not going to get any wetter and if I run I'll get warmer and it can't get any worse." That is, of course, not the thing to say or think and a sudden flash of lightning and clap of thunder confirmed it. A wry smile crossed her face and she walked out into the rain. Another flash lit up the street and brought into clear sight a figure making his way down the cobbles. It was the old man in a sou'wester. Despite the rain he raised his hat.

"Rather too wet for a squirrel. I should expect you to be tucked up warm and snug in this weather. Come with me."

Rozz did not feel any urge to resist or decline as he lead her by the hand down the street to the harbour and to a stone built cottage, its windows looking out to sea, a single stone chimney rising up above the roof slates. It would have been pretty in sunlight but Rozz wasn't in the mood for pretty and in the dark light of the storm it just looked grey and wet. The old man lifted the latch to the green front door, it did not seem he locked it, and lead her in - in out of the rain - straight into a kitchen, a very old fashioned kitchen with range and stone floors. Despite being day, the storm made the room gloomy and the old man lit an oil lamp, which cast a warm glow around the room. It was warmer inside and the old man opened the range letting the orange heat of the fire escape.

"Come, take those wet things off and I'll find you a towel."

It did not for one moment seem an odd thing, a wrong thing, even an unusual thing to Rozz to take off her clothes in front of the old man rather than going into another room. It was not as if he hadn't seen her naked before and... yes, had been more intimate than that with her. Her soaked dress fell heavily to the flags leaking water. She pulled off her wet transparent bra and panties to stand naked, cold and shivering. The old man draped a large old towel around her shoulders and led her to the fire where he busied himself with a large black kettle to boil water. Soon Rozz was sitting with a steaming mug of tea between her hands feeling a great deal better than she had done a few minutes before. The old man disappeared for a time and Rozz was surprised to see, when he reappeared, he was carrying an old galvanised bath - the sort her grandparents perhaps had used in front of the coal fire and kept hanging on the wall behind the back door. She wondered what it must have been like for her grandparents sitting in the kitchen on the floor in such a bath placed in front of the coal range.

It was only when the old man started to fill the bath from the black kettle that she realised she was about to find out. She watched the water pouring from the kettle into the bath. The steam rose from the water as the water continued to pour from the kettle. Rozz was quite surprised at how much water the kettle seemed to hold and her surprise turned to disbelief as the kettle continued to pour filling the bath with water. Half filled the old man stopped pouring and gave an amused glance at Rozz and winked. Plucking a rose from a jug of beautiful blooms on the window cill he plucked the petals and sprinkled them across the bath water. The scent of rose perfumed the rising steam filling the room with its summer fragrance.

"In you go."

Taking Rozz by the hand he took her over to the bath, pulled the towel away from her and helped her in. She stepped one foot into the bath; the temperature was just right, following with the second foot and then eased herself down into it. It was of course not very long, not like the proper bath at home where she could stretch out and read for hours with just the occasional topping up of water using her foot on the tap. So she had to sit with her knees drawn up nearly under her chin.

Rozz felt much better, warm now and relaxed in the hot bath. The old man poured some more tea for her, putting the mug by the bath and sat with his own mug watching her. Outside the rain beat at the windowpanes and the wind howled. It was good to be inside warm and safe.

After a time Rozz picked up the soap and began to wash herself. The old man just sat and watched her, nodding at her every so often. Finished she stood, the water cascading off her back into the bath and he picked up a towel and came across and began to dry her, face and shoulders first, then rubbing her back, then her chest, down her arms, bending down to dry her legs, rubbing the towel across her bottom even pushing the towelling into the crack of her bottom to dry her there. Rozz stepped out of the bath and he dried her feet.

She stood there pink and glowing from the bath the old man towelling first one foot then the other dry, even between her toes - which tickled. The old man put down the towel but did not rise. Instead, calloused fingers stroked her red springy curls, resting on them before a finger slipped to find the start of her slit, moving gently at the beginning of the valley just lightly pulling the soft skin, a feeling transmitted, transmitted by the pulling downwards, down the slit to her clitoris. Rozz stretched arching her spine, the wet feeling between her legs intensifying as her secret lips swelled, blood pumping into them as they moistened readying her body for intercourse. She anticipated the lovely feeling of another's fingers touching her secret places, pushing up right inside her, manipulating her wet soft skin, touching her standing clitoris. But the hand moved to her small breasts squeezing her little nipples, now hard on the little cone shaped mounds of her engorged areolae. She smiled at the old man reached up and pulled his face to her and kissed him on the mouth, his grey/white beard tickling her chin.

The old man draped a towel around her and sat her back in the chair by the fire as he began to disrobe. Rozz was not frightened or alarmed though this clearly meant that the sex would not simply be the old man pleasuring her with his hands. She watched as he pulled his shirt off and her eyes widened as she looked at his naked torso. Of course it was not the young taught skin of a young man but it was not flabby. Far from it the old man's chest was all muscle and hardness. What caused her surprise were the scars of long healed wounds and the strange tattoos - not of anchors, hearts or curvaceous ladies but strange symbols. His legs and bottom were no different, muscular, hard, scarred and tattooed. Even his penis - and inevitably Rozz's young eyes were drawn to that - had not escaped the tattooist's needle. It hung limp between his legs swinging as he moved across to get into the recently vacated bath. The old man did not linger in there, a quick purposeful wash and he was out rubbing himself dry with the towel.

Rozz stepped towards the old man. She was aroused, sexually aroused just as she had been in the wood and on the beach. She had wondered what it would be like to be with a boy, even boys in the wood and on the beach, to touch a penis and hold it in her hand. She reached out and her fingers encircled the old man's strangely tattooed penis. She gripped the soft flesh and felt it respond, could feel it getting harder, growing as she held it. Rozz looked down and watched as the blood pumped into it making it rise, pulling her hand upwards with it, the purple head poking out from its protective sheath and then the sheath retracting as it grew to its full height standing proud of the old man.

Rozz dropped to her haunches to look closely at it and the curious tattoo which, now it was erect, she could understand what it actually was: a dragon climbing sinuously up the shaft as if wrapped around it; the blue vein running up the shaft cunningly incorporated in the design. Her fingers moved pulling the foreskin up and then down again as her friends had told her was the thing to do. With her free hand she cupped the soft ball sack feeling the testes within like a pair of walnuts within the bag of wrinkled skin. The bag was pendulous, warmed by the bath not tight against his body and she could lift it and weigh the balls in her hand. Her other fingers kept up the sliding movement. She looked at the shiny purple head and the little eye in its centre. It was quite bulbous, an acorn shaped head atop the shaft.

Rozz recalled her friends talking of sucking it, how much their boyfriends enjoyed their licking - could she, should she? Lightly, as she retracted the foreskin, she brushed her lips against the smooth purple skin and then she kissed it. She had gone that far, so... Rozz opened her lips and slowly moved her head forward letting the head come into her mouth. It was a big thing to have in her mouth but as she moved her lips backwards and forwards she could understand how nice this must be for boys, wet and smooth just like a vagina but, as she began to move her tongue against the smooth head tickling it, with the bonus of a tongue playing.

Strong hands lifted her up and off the penis so she was standing again. The calloused hands returned to her sex and she clung to the old man, her arms around his neck, as her sex was entered by a finger. She stood there, eyes closed, revelling in the pleasure of the invading fingers, then she pulled herself upwards, opening her thighs and wrapping her legs around his hips so her sex could rub against his erection. She could feel it hard against her lower lips as she pulled herself up and down offering herself, offering to be penetrated, to have his penis in her, for him to come inside her, plant his seed in her. The old man picked Rozz up and carried her into his bedroom.

The morning had that pale washed fresh look you get after a stormy night. There was a strong breeze and the clouds scudded across the sky but they were high and white in a light blue clear sky. It promised to be a fine day, a fine day to drive to Portsmouth. Rozz walked up the still wet cobbles of the street with mixed feelings. She was not completely sure the night had been the 'right' thing to do. Sleeping with an old man when she had never slept with anyone before? But what pleasure she had experienced, how happy she had been at the repeated intercourse! It was the end of the holiday in a place she had grown to know well and love dearly - a special and happy ending. She sighed for many things as she turned onto the coast path and towards her car and her leaving of Cornwall.

Rozz did not really think about her first missed period. The newness and excitement of starting at university was so much at the forefront of her mind she did not really think about that. It was only well into term that it occurred to her that something had not happened for quite a time and she was feeling different. In fact when she counted back it was well over two months since she had last... The pregnancy kit from 'Boots' was easy to use and confirmed what she was already sure of. It did not occur to her to put an end to it. A gradual change into sloppier, ill fitting baggy clothes and perhaps a little putting out of mind meant her friends and parents suspected nothing, only her rather perceptive tutor thought she recognised signs and made concerned enquiries as to whether 'everything was all right?' but received blithe reassurances in reply.

Late April found Rozz descending the stone cobbles leading down to the harbour in the little village. It was a typical April day, a shower had recently past leaving the cobbles wet but drying in the sun now coming out from the clouds. Spring flowers peaked from the little gardens and the world felt renewed, clean and fresh, a time for new life to burst forth from the earth and it was, indeed, Rozz's time. It had been a long drive to Cornwall, a long and uncomfortable drive and she was pleased to have arrived, to be standing rather than hunched over the wheel and she was happy simply to be back in this place she had so loved back in the summer - even given the consequence. She wasn't sure why she had come, wasn't even sure she was going to see the old man. Why had she not simply gone home to her mother or the local hospital or a friend? Somehow she had felt she had to come here, it was not so much a compulsion or a feeling but a knowledge.

Below her the harbour with its fishing boats looked so pretty in the weak sunlight; above her she could see the wood she had climbed in the heat of the summer, a naked child of nature; her footsteps carried her on down the way passing where she had stopped to shelter from the August rain until she came to the cottage; she paused looking at it and, after a minute or so, placed her hand on the gate and then gripped it hard at a sudden pain in her tummy - a contraction.

The cottage door opened and there stood the old man looking as ancient as ever but with his so young green eyes looking at her. He smiled and held out his hand, "Come, my little squirrel, it is time."

Rozz drove along the A38 the next day, alone. Had she done the right thing, had she broken a law, would the baby boy be all right? The old man had been a good midwife as far as she could judge. It had, she supposed, been an easy birth and the tiny baby seemed a strong and healthy boy. She had sat by the fire nursing it, the baby at her breast, the old man sitting opposite her and she had asked what now? He had said he would look after the baby, had done such a thing before and she should not worry for it but go back to her studies and her young life. Somehow this had seemed the right thing and even now as she drove she did not feel different about her decision.

A year later Rozz had been shopping in her hometown with her mother. They had just been having a cup of coffee and a piece of cake in a cafe and her mother had been asking why she was so quiet today, was she all right, was there anything wrong? Rozz had said not but she was thinking back to exactly a year ago when she had given birth to that little baby boy. She was a mother too though her own mother did not know it - did not know she was a grandmother and probably would not have relished the appellation in any case had she known!

Rozz was wondering what the baby was like, whether it was all right, was the old man taking good care of it? When her eyes widened as along the road in her own town far from Cornwall came walking towards her the very man she had just been thinking of. He looked rather rough and out of place though anything but decrepit and he was carrying, carrying a little person, a little red haired baby who was looking at her, right at her with a smile and the brightest green eyes.

"What a pretty baby!" said her mother and was surprised when as the old man drew alongside the child put out its arms to Rozz as if it wanted her to pick it up. Automatically Rozz put out her arms and took the little boy. It put its arms around her neck and carefully gave her a big wet kiss before turning and indicating it wanted to go back to the old man. He took the baby with one arm, raised his hat and walked on.

"Well!" said Rozz's mother, "how very odd. What was that strange old man doing with a baby - its grandfather, if not its great grandfather I suppose? What a pretty baby though - could have been yours with that red hair."

"Yes," said Rozz, there was a pause, "it could have been."

And so it was, wherever she was on her baby's birthday the old man would somehow turn up with the child - but never for long. The boy called her "Mummy" the next year and brought her a bunch of wild flowers the year after - which caused her to cry. Those flowers remained carefully kept in a drawer, dried and faded. It was only the fourth year that she learnt the boy's name, Arty.

She was at Glastonbury, the children of her marriage, two girls and a boy, away from her side exploring the ruins. It was on her first boy's eighteenth birthday and of course she was thinking of him, her other son, and of the old man - the old man who seemed ancient but yet appeared year after year. How was this? She stood in the shop at the Abbey looking at all the souvenirs, the gifts, the tat and worthwhile, amused at all the New Age hocus pocus and mythical ephemera. Posters depicting Merlin the great wizard, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Rozz picked up a replica of the unlikely lead cross found by monks at the Abbey, 'Hic jacet sepultus inclytus rex arturius in insula avalonia, rex quondam, rexque futurus'. Rozz looked up from the souvenir to gaze out of the window and across the Abbey grounds, green and fresh in the April sunlight, and there, talking to her children, was a tall handsome red haired lad and, beside him, an old man, a man who seemed as ancient as the ruins of the Abbey yet carried himself as if age was not a problem, as if there were weightier things for him to consider than his advancing years. The colour drained from her face as knowledge suddenly came to her, prompted by what she had just been looking at, the place she was in, the people before her - she made the connections.

She knew him, she knew the boy. She looked at the boy, her son, confident, strong, amiable and knew - rexque futurus - with dreadful certainty that the days ahead were going to be dark, that it was not by chance that she had run naked in the wood all those summers ago, it had not really been her own choice that she had swum naked, it was not an accident she had become pregnant, it was not for idle amusement that Merlin had brought a second Arthur into the World - rexque futurus - the future king. What awful thing was about to befall the World - what was going to happen? She was frightened for all her children, the girls, the boy and the red haired son of her youth, she was frightened for herself, her husband - everyone. Rozz stood motionless, her white face staring out of the window in shock and fear. Across the grass the old man looked up at her and raised his hat.