“Try his mothers chamber.”
But Gawen was not ready to go there. With the message to be delivered, it would not have been wise.
Instead Gawen asked the other boys. Ciril suggested the stables, Geoffrey the chapel, and Mark the alehouse. But though Gawen tried all three, Gawaine was not to be found.
Finally Gawen asked the king, who merely looked amused. “Was he not off on a boar hunt today? With his brothers? Possibly staying the night in some inn near the coast. Those boys do love the sound of the ocean. Why do you wish to know?”
“Merlinnus... wanted me... asking Sir Gawaine... tact,” Gawen mumbled, managing to make the answer last longer than Arthur’s interest. After all, Merlinnus had said clearly that Arthur was bespelled by the queen and no mention should be made.
“I do not know where he is,” Arthur finally said, waving a dismissive hand at Gawen. “Ask someone else.”
HAVING GOTTEN no further with his quest, Gawen went outside and, with his back to a wall, sat gazing at the stone in the churchyard. There was much to think about, and here was the one place to get away from the noise and bustle of the keep and the forecourt. He had much to worry about, too.
But Gawen had been up all the night before, when the rest of the castle was under its spell of sleep, and so without meaning to, dozed off into a dreamless sleep.
Suddenly waking, Gawen discovered it was midnight or thereabouts. A pale moon sat directly overhead.
Stiff from sitting on the ground, with a bottom that hurt as well, Gawen could hardly move. I need to stretch... A sound nearby caused Gawen to draw back against the wall once more, thinking, Where is that sound? Is it the queen again?
And then suddenly, illuminated faintly by the moon, there was Sir Kay. He began circling the stone much as Morgause had done the night before, but with much less grace. Round and about he went, as if gathering strength—of mind, of heart, of hand.
Gawen watched silently.
Finally, with a sound through his nose like that of a horse, Kay stopped, put his hand on the sword hilt, and, drawing in a deep breath, leaned back.
“Hah!” he cried out and yanked at the sword.
It did not move.
“Hah!” he cried a second time and pulled again, this time using both hands.
The sword still did not move.
Kay stepped away from the stone and, wordlessly, looked down at his hands as if they had somehow disappointed him. Then he abruptly turned and went back into the keep.
Not until the door had closed after Kay did Gawen finally stand up. Only just then another shadow moved toward the stone and once more Gawen shrank back against the wall.
The man who walked over to the stone had all the grace that Kay lacked. He walked with a light step around the stone, almost as if dancing. He reached out once, then pulled his hand back. Finally he stood still, as still as the stone itself, arms folded over his chest. He seemed perfectly at ease, but it was the ease of a warrior who could, at any moment, spring into brutal action.
Gawen left the safety of the wall. “Sir Gawaine?”
Gawaine turned. “Yes?”
He is like a coiled serpent, Gawen thought. “May I have a word with you?”
A quick smile—more like a shadow smile under that moon—graced Gawaine’s face, then it was gone. “Just one?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
Gawaine laughed. “I hear you have been asking after me, boy.”
“I have, sir.”
“For what purpose?” Now he turned his entire body and focused completely on Gawen.
Gawen’s knees felt wobbly. “The mage sent me.”
“I do not like mages,” Gawaine said plainly. “Magic has been the ruination of too many lives. And the bane of mine.”
“Your mother...”
“My mother,” Gawaine said. He waved a hand as if flicking flies.
“This is about your mother,” Gawen said again.
Gawaine moved two steps toward Gawen. He said, almost sadly, “It is always about my mother. Say on.”
Gawen took a deep breath and said quickly, so that the words spilled over one another as water over stone, “She set a spell last night on all who drank the toast. I did not drink and so was the only one unaffected. I saw her. She was out here checking the stone while the castle slept.”
“We have all checked out the stone, each in our own way,” Gawaine said. “Did you not just see Kay... checking?”
“Yes.” Gawen thought, This is not going well.
“Then why should my mother not do the same?”
“She did not just look at the thing,” Gawen said.
“Do you mean to tell me she tried to pull it?” Gawaine laughed. “That would be just like her.”
“No, my lord,” Gawen said. “Well, yes, she did try. Once. But it spit sparks at her.”
Gawaine laughed.
“And then she put some sort of spell upon it, a grey snaky thing.”
There was a deep silence from Gawaine.
“I am not certain it worked.”
Still Gawaine was silent.
“But I am not certain it did not work.”
Gawaine seemed sunk in misery, and Gawen thought, He has to know the rest. I hope it breaks his callous heart. “There is more.”
Gawaine looked up. “There is always more when the matter is my mother.” His eyes were a misery.
“The king has told Merlinnus he will marry...”
Gawaine’s face opened, like a martyrs breast readied for the arrow.
“... your mother.”
“No!” It was not a question, but a statement. Not a statement, but a cry from the heart. The sound Gawaine made was horrible, like a man who has had a sword thrust through his gut. For a moment after, he was silent, bent over. Then he straightened. “She has bespelled him.”
Gawen nodded. “I just said that.”
But Gawaine spoke as if he had not heard Gawen. “All women do that.” Remarkably, his hands went to his head and he began to tear at his long fair hair. Gawen gaped. “How can you say such a thing?”
“Because I, too, have been bespelled by a woman. And then my heart broken when my suit was rejected. Oh, Mariel!” He struck himself in the chest with a fist. “Boy, do not think to understand women. They are the great mystery of the world. What do they want? What do they want? How can a man hope to answer that?” He turned abruptly and walked away, through the courtyard and under the portcullis, toward the outer bailey, until Gawen could see only shadows where the man had been.
Gawen returned to the wall and sank down once more onto the ground, totally confused by the nights events.
Why had Kay come alone to try the sword? Why did Gawaine not put his hand on the hilt? Have I misunderstood my sister’s plight? Who deserted whom? Whose heart was broken? Have there been other hands in this tale?
Gawen’s mind was awash with questions. It was a veritable torment of misapprehension, misery, and fear.
And what of the mage’s trust in me? Gawen thought. It was the hardest question of all.
35
Changes
GAWAINE WENT directly to the chambers he shared with his brothers. Only Agravaine was still awake, playing a dismal game of draughts with himself and so intent on winning, he kept switching sides.
“She is at it again,” Gawaine announced.
“Mother?” Agravaine asked without looking up.
“Of course, Mother. She bespelled the court into a long sleep.” He reached down and touched one of the pieces, which made Agravaine look up at him with a snarl.
“Do not touch that. I have a plan...”
“Listen to me. She bespelled us as well. You and me and the twins.”
Agravaines face showed that he did not understand. “Bespelled us? Why should she do that?”
“Because we mean no more to her than anyone else? Because she sees us as enemies, too? Because she can?” Gawaine shrugged dramatically before flopping into the chai
r on the other side of the table where the draughts were set up.
“But to what end?” Agravaine asked. He had one of the pieces in his hand, and he shook it at his brother.
“So she could do one of her magicks on the sword in that stone without being seen. So that one of us could then pull the sword and be High King.” Gawaine said it gently, but iron was in his voice.
“I would not mind being High King,” Agravaine said slowly, “or even brother to the High King... but...”
“But?”
Agravaine smiled.
He has a really nice smile, Gawaine thought, though so rarely used. He wondered about that.
“But it should go to the man who pulls the sword fairly.”
Does he really thinly Gawaine thought suddenly, that Arthur would be pulling the stupid sword without Merlinnus’ help? And then he had a second thought: And does it really matter? Arthur is king and should be king and that is the end of it. He would not say further on this subject to Agravaine.
“I agree,” he said. “I agree fully.”
IT WAS ANOTHER hour before Gawen got up again and walked back into the keep, which held the silence of a tomb.
Has that witch bespelled the place again?
The guards standing at attention before the kings bedchamber tipped Gawen a wink.
No spell, then. Or, at least, no sleeping spell.
Gawen was halfway up to the mages room when a sudden thought struck. The kitchen is the place! The idea seemed to appear from nowhere, like a magic, like a dream. But in Gawen’s mind it solved every problem—the sword, the witch, the Matter of Britain. If only it would work.
It was quiet in the kitchen. Even the cats—a large calico and a wiry grey—were asleep in their willow baskets by the banked fire, for it was too late even for the mice.
Gawen looked around. No one would notice a thing missing or disturbed if...
COMING BACK IN from the cold, from a final visit to the stone, Gawen’s hands shook with fatigue. It was still night, but soon there would be a pearling of the dark skies and then a new day would dawn, bringing—one could only hope—answers to so many questions.
As Gawen dragged up the stairs, a door opened near the apartments set aside for the North Witch’s boys. The torches were unlit along this particular corridor, which in itself was unusual. Then two shadows, black on black, walked out of the room, moving silently, cautiously, almost sneaking along.
Careful to be neither seen nor heard, Gawen stopped to watch.
Was it Gawaine? Agravaine? The figures seemed too tall for the twins. But something was afoot, and after two assassination attempts on the king and a spell, Gawen was more than willing to track behind them.
The shadowy figures went up the far stairs and out to a private walkway along the northern alure, a place that Gawen knew was more private than any of the inner chambers, where folk could listen at the doors or behind a tapestry—and often did.
Gawen hurried to catch up.
Under the starry sky, the two were easier to distinguish, if not name—a man and woman. The woman had unbound her hair and was looking over one of the high crenels, shaking her long dark locks into the wind.
For a moment Gawen wondered if being there would precipitate an embarrassing situation. After all, the two could very well be the king and Morgause, out for a tryst, for the one word clearly spoken came from the woman.
“Arthur,” she said.
The man bowed his head.
I have no right here, Gawen thought, starting to turn away from the two, cheeks burning with both embarrassment and anger.
Then the woman laughed. It was awful, bleak, chilling.
“Never mind about the dagger, my love. No harm done. This way is better. He will be mine and the throne will be ours without a killing.” The woman was Morgause all right, but it was suddenly clear that she was not speaking to Arthur. She was speaking about him.
Gawen turned back, now guessing the man she was speaking to was Gawaine. That Gawaine should so conspire with his mother—whom just an hour past he had affected to dislike—made Gawen hate him anew. Gawaine was not to be trusted. He was a cheat and a schemer, a liar and—
“Then, my lady, how shall I give this to him?” the man said. The voice did not belong to Gawaine, but to someone older, subservient.
Something broke inside Gawen then; some bit of ice that had been like a sliver in the heart melted.
“Put the stuff in his wine or his meat or his porridge on the Solstice Eve. Whatever is easiest.” The witch’s voice was at once caressing and uncaring.
“Will it kill, my lady?”
“Nay, fool. That way would tip our hand. We dare not be so direct now. The old man has made even stronger protections against assassination since the two attempts. Discretion shall be our watchword. How politic. The mage himself would admire it.” She laughed. “Poor old Merlinnus. He is not devious enough for the great magicks.”
“Are you certain, my queen?” The man seemed unsure, almost cringing.
Her voice turned cold, a winter chill over a summer landscape. “Have you learned nothing from me in all these years?”
He answered smoothly, “All I know, my lady, has come from you. All that I desire.”
Morgause’s laugh turned soft as down, a woman flattered yet not unwilling to be flattered. “Fool indeed, my love. For loving makes us all foolish.”
“But not unwise,” the man answered.
“Not unwise,” she agreed. “And unlike that old fool, I can learn from my mistakes. It would be unwise indeed to kill the king now. He is much beloved hereabouts. However, the potion will make him weak. As weak in the arm as he is in the soul. So weak, he will not be able to draw the sword from the stone, no matter how Merlinnus helps him.” She laughed again. “Merlinnus has placed too much upon this one trick, this sword in a stone. Mans magic, to believe such foolery. And I have overlaid my hand upon his on the stone. With Arthur weak, and with a bit of help from me, my son will pull the sword unchallenged. And I will have outfoxed that old charlatan at last.” She handed the man a vial.
Gawen could stand it no longer. Morgause and Hwyll were outlined against the pearling dawn and Hwyll was holding up the vial. They were both so enraptured by it and by their conspiracy, they did not notice Gawen start toward them at a run.
When Gawen had gotten close enough to see, the liquid in the vial was just turning red in the dawning light. Red like blood.
“No!” Gawen leaped for the little bottle, hoping to snatch it from Hwyll and throw it over the side of the crenellated wall so that it would shatter on the cobbles three stories below. That was all the plan Gawen’s fevered mind had come up with in the moment between eavesdropping and action. “No!”
At the last minute Hwyll turned at the shout and Gawen banged into him. Frantically off-balance, Hwyll stepped backward, still holding tight to the little vial. Arms swimming in the air, he fell over a low notch in the wall.
For a moment he seemed to hang in the air, a fish without water, a bird without wings. Then wordlessly, he plunged straight down and broke—as the vial itself broke—on the stony ground where liquid and blood mixed together in one watery gush.
“Nooooooo!” This time the word was screamed by Morgause. She did not even look over to see if her man lived. Instead she stared at Gawen, lifting her hands like claws and pointing one longer finger.
“I know what you are, and not what you seem,” she cried. “You gormless, shiftless besom. So, this curse I lay upon you.” She threw something at Gawen’s face, something large and soft.
For a moment Gawen’s view was obscured. Then, lifting the cloth, Gawen saw that it was the very thing used to clean the sword the night before.
Does the cloth cany secrets? Gawen thought desperately. Has it spoken to her of who I really am? So she implies. But she is a witch and a liar. Can she be believed?
Before Gawen could ask, Morgause began her curse, her dark hair with its tangle of elf knots seeming t
o lift up off her shoulders as if having life of its own. She shook with the power of her cursing, and spittle flew from her mouth, spraying in all directions. “I curse thee that ye be shaken, flower from stem, stem from root. That yer line be blighted, yer cause be slighted, yer love unrequited, and yer person indicted.”
Gawen felt every word pierce like arrows to the heart.
Morgause held her arms up. “I am bent but not broken. The old man has not heard the last of me yet. Tell him he only buys himself a small shard of time. Time is on my side, not his. And well he knows it.” She shook her hands three times widdershins.
Then, as if water were running over her, washing away her sharp human features, she changed, slowly but inexorably: bones shrinking, hair whitening, silken clothes turning into feathers. Till at last she melted into the shape of a solan goose, a gannet, that leaped into the air and flapped away silently, going north—due north—through the dawn skies.
VI
QUEEN’S MAGIC/KING’S SWORD
Now night was a surround of black. The stone was black, too, and only the hilt of the sword held any light, as if a sliver of silver pin pierced a coarse material. And day arrived, the stone, sword, and sky going bright like the philosopher’s mercury that stands still and yet runs.
36
Reading the Air
GAWEN STOOD, stunned, in front of the door, unable to go inside.
Time, though, did not stop. It ground on relentlessly, and eventually the sun came up, slapping Gawen full in the face. It was a sharp shock.
Shaking all over, like a dog coming out of a bath, Gawen whispered, “Magister,” knowing the old mage had to be told what had occurred.
And as if speaking the word called him up, Merlinnus suddenly appeared at the door, still in his nightshirt, his skinny legs and knobby feet showing below the coarse cloth.
“I smell death in the air.” Merlinnus sniffed. “And something else.”