Sword of the Rightful King

  Perhaps, he thought, they will meet the black knight some call Death along the road. He almost wished it, then crossed himself. He was a Christian now. He knew he should not make such prayers. Not when he was too tired to think out the consequences. Not without confessing it to a priest.

  He started to doze on his feet, shook himself awake, saw the servant ahead of him make a quick turn to the right in the dark hallway, and hurried to catch up. As he rounded the turn, he bumped into someone, barked out an apology, then stuttered when he saw who it was. Only his Highland pride kept him from crossing himself again.

  The man he had charged into was none other than the castle mage, old Merlinnus, thin and wiry, with his tangled grey beard and bleached blue eyes, the color of autumnal skies.

  “My bones are too brittle for such a bruising,” the old man said. The voice was soft, but the meaning was clear.

  The messenger sketched a quick bow, unsure of the etiquette, but certain of the old wizard’s power. Hadn’t Merlinnus brought the hanging stones across the sea in a single night, setting them on the plain to tell the time at each Solstice? Couldn’t he make the dead to walk, the lame to dance, and charm the old gods to worship at the Christ’s cross? The messenger blanched. “I did not see you, my lord.”

  “I doubt you are seeing much, with eyes that red... from riding through the dust storms a heavy horse kicks up.”

  The messenger did not doubt Merlinnus knew his entire history without being told.

  “I had a message, mage.”

  “For the king?”

  The messenger nodded.

  “Tell it to me.”

  “It was for the kings ears alone.” The man said it quietly. One must not anger a mage.

  Merlinnus made a motion with his hand, no more than a flick of annoyance. But the Highlander thought it was a magical sign and threw himself to his knees, hands above his head in a warding gesture. He trembled, and not just from fatigue.

  “Stand up, man,” Merlinnus said. “I mean you no harm. You are in Arthur’s house.”

  As if drawn up again by some dark power, the messenger stood. “It was a message,” he said softly in a tired, trembling voice, “about an assassin coming, sent by the North Witch.”

  “Morgause,” whispered Merlinnus.

  The name itself unmanned the Scot. He quickly recited Bedwyr’s message, his own fears, and a paternoster in quick succession. He did not even notice that Merlinnus had left before his recital was done. It took the servants hand on his shoulder and a quick shake before he let himself be led to his bed, as if the entire episode with the mage had been but a waking dream.

  MERLINNUS had been on his way down to the kitchen for a bowl of stew when the messenger bumped into him. The old mage often liked to sit in the kitchen, for it was the only place that remained warm, winter and summer alike. He also enjoyed the bustle of cook and potboys around him. They ignored him when he was there, more out of fear than friendship, but it was the ordinariness of the scene that pleased him. He did not realize that, by his very presence, he changed what was ordinary into something else. The clamorous chaos in the kitchens became a quiet frenzy whenever he was in attendance. No one dared speak aloud, except to use phrases alluding to food, like Pass the salt, and Grind this turnip, and Dust that leg joint with flour. There were no stories full of sexual allusions, no ribald songs, no tickle-me-up tales when Merlinnus sat among them. Fear rode the mage’s shoulder and turned its baleful eye on all.

  But the messenger’s words had changed Merlinnus’ mind. The North Witch was not Arthur’s only enemy—but she was the strongest. If she was really sending an assassin, she must believe herself ready to tackle even his own magicks. He had no time for soup now and instead abruptly turned and headed back up the stairs to his tower room, five stories up, where he had windows that looked out on the four major compass points. His old knees creaked and popped and groaned as he mounted each riser, but he never stopped. Pain was an old campaigner on his body’s battlefield; they had walked long miles together.

  Keys and a spell opened the door, and he pushed through into his cozy, messy room. Pouring fresh water into a stone bowl, he stared long and hard into it.

  The water riffled as if a wind blew across it. Bending over, the old mage spoke three simple words and the water went still as glass.

  At first he saw nothing. Then he saw strands of black rope tangled and blowing in the wind.

  He said three more words, and the picture in the water resolved. Not rope, but hair. Long black hair. Elf knots. Then a face he knew. For a moment it stared at him as if it could see him spying. Then the face began to laugh, gentle at first and then with a hysterical edge to it. Things flew out of the mouth—dark, ugly, vile things with long tentacles dripping bane.

  “Morgause,” he said quietly. “Morgause.” So it was true. She was still practicing dark magic, unchanged by the children she had had, hardly stopped by the aftermath of pain that always accompanied the greater spells. If he had thought to see her softened, he could no longer hold to such foolish hopes. That laughing mouth, those monsters emerging from it, told a harsher story. Her obsession with the throne of Britain was not just about bloodlines. It was about power.

  Leaving off scrying, which was a difficult trick at best, he went immediately to the north-facing window. Silently he stared out, as if by staring long enough he could see beyond the mountains and the distant seas to the Orkneys and into Morgause’s rooms.

  Once she had been a child playing magic games at his feet. An unhealthily spiteful child, angry at her mother, angrier at her stepfather, angriest at what she considered an unjust world. He should have kicked her out of his room long before she had had a chance to learn anything from him. But he’d been flattered that a child would pay him any mind. Most children trembled and screamed in terror when he came near. But not Morgause. She dimpled and smiled and tossed her dark curls. She called him “Lord Magic” and named one of her dolls after him. He had succumbed to her seven-year-old charms.

  Besides, he had needed to remain close to her mother, Ygraine, who was carrying an even more special child in her belly. A child promised to him at its inception, the child who would be his to nurture, train, love. A child he would put on the High King’s throne.

  He had never thought that nine months at his feet could have taught Morgause any real magic. She was a tot, hardly knowing more than her alphabet. She seemed to be paying him little mind, concentrating on a straw doll. Or blending flours and herbs together in a crucible he loaned her, and saying nonsense spells.

  But she’d had an aptitude that her wiliness hid from him. Or he had been blinded by his own pride so that he did not see it. For learn she did. Then—and later. Only it had been a knowledge untempered by any morality, fed by anger, slyness, and hate; black magic instead of white. North magic crossed with what she had stolen from him. Magic overlarded by the unpredictable wild Celtic wood lore, which he had never trusted and so had never bothered to learn.

  “Morgause,” he said again into the wind. “Tell me what you are planning.” As if his voice could carry the message there and back again.

  He already knew what she wanted: Arthur gone, and the throne of all Britain for herself and her sons. She would have it, too, if her assassin was successful. Even if he is not, Merlinnus thought, she might still win if I cannot find a way to bind the people—all the people—to Arthur. And soon.

  “Time,” he said into the wind. “I need more time.”

  As if Morgause herself answered him, the wind spit back into his face, “No time, old man. No time.”

  He turned away from the north window and went to the south. Staring out, past the gates, he saw the peasants’ fields freshened with spring plantings. A green and golden haze touched the trees. The old year renewing itself.

  “I need to make new what is old,” he told himself “The king on the throne rethroned.”

  Again he turned and this time glanced out the east window. The river, like a
steely snake, twisted past the walls of Cadbury. It doubled back at one point, making an oxbow in the middle of which a small rock island sat. “Arthur must be protected by steel and stone.”

  He sighed and turned at last to the west window. The west never signified in his thoughts, for the west looked out on the unknown. Green meadow and green lea flowed all the way to the horizon. Far off, where the green ended, he knew, was water. A tremendous ocean of it. Britain was, after all, an island, completely surrounded by water.

  He shivered. He had never been good with water—only fire and air and stone and steel.

  Looking over his shoulder at the hearth, he realized that once again the boy had not come to freshen the fire, and the room had grown cold. The flame in the lamp in the iron holder was out as well.

  The trouble with the current boy—with all the boys who had served him since Arthur had grown up and become king—was that he was so afraid of Merlinnus, he could not do his chores properly. They had all found excuses to stay away from the tower room, silly excuses really. He hated that the boys feared him. And yet, he knew, their fear was a necessary component to his art.

  Magic, he reminded himself, is as much perception as reality.

  And with that reminder, he had a sudden idea. It came as all his ideas came, with a miraculous rush out of ordinary things: the view from a window, a cold fire, a memory of a spiteful child.

  His idea was this: If the people believed Arthur to be their only choice—perception—then he would be. Reality. And if they believed Arthur the once-and-future king, all of Morgause’s small magicks, her tantrums, her would-be assassins, would come to nothing.

  Only, Merlinnus wondered, how can I make the people believe in Arthur, now and in the future? What legerdemain will make them believe? And once that is accomplished, what further magic will make Arthur believe in himself?

  He thought once again: I know only fire and air and stone and steel.

  And then—in a moment—he had it.

  7

  Dream

  “I HAD A DREAM, my liege, of a sword in a stone,” Merlinnus said, his voice throbbing with emotion. He pushed aside the guards at the door and, without being bidden, entered the throne room. Grand entrances were always a part of his magical success. He had become very good at them over the years. “I dreamed of such a sword and such a stone last night, my king. Stone grey as grief, with that sword stuck right in the top like a knife in butter.”

  Arthur had been dozing on the high-backed throne, lightly snoring. The brachet was asleep at his feet. At the wizard’s voice they both startled awake. The brachet recognized the wizard and put her head back down again. But Arthur’s grey eyes, unfocused and watery for a moment, went dark as steel. His hand had already reached for the sword at his belt. Then, seeing it was Merlinnus, he dropped his guard.

  “It means something,” the wizard continued, letting his voice fall to a whisper as he neared the throne. Another trick, but a good one. Arthur was always susceptible to that; it got his full attention. “My dreams always mean something. Do you believe in that stone and that sword, my lord?”

  Arthur put his hand to his mouth, disguising a yawn as a heavy sigh, though the wizard—who had known Arthur since he was a baby—was not fooled. “Merlinnus, I have no time to believe in a sword in a stone. Or on top of a stone. Or under a stone, for that matter. I’m too tired to put what’s left of my strength—and my temper—into believing your hocus-pocus today. I have found that believing you always means work.” He pushed a hand through his sand-colored hair, played with the gold torque at his neck. “Besides, you always have dreams.”

  “I had this dream three times in one night.” A lie, but a useful one.

  “And anything that happens three times is true?” Arthur said in a teasing voice.

  “Not necessarily true in every particular, my king,” Merlinnus answered, sounding very much like the teacher he really was. In fact, unless his waking dream counted, he had not dreamed of the sword and the stone at all. But he never let details like that spoil a good lesson. Or a good story. “I have told you that often enough. However, this dream was very different.”

  “Your dreams are always very different,” Arthur said, smiling.

  Merlinnus knew that Arthur was actually quite fond of him, the way a grown man is fond of a father who has been both hard and kind. The smile was very sweet. One thing Arthur had never been lacking in was charm.

  “You must listen, Arthur. It is important.” Merlinnus only used the kings name when he needed to make a point. But this time his use of it was of little consequence. Arthur was vigorously shaking his head.

  “More important than your dream, my friend, is the news I have just had. A messenger from...”

  Merlinnus put a finger to his temple and intoned in broad Scots, “The de’il lies in the Orkneys stirring her potions wi’ a lang spoon.”

  For a moment Arthur looked nonplussed. Then he smiled again. “You met the messenger in the hall.”

  Merlinnus smiled back.

  “Well—you are my adviser, Merlinnus. Advise me.”

  “The North Queen sends assassins like spring rain,” Merlinnus said. “That does not mean the crops grow any faster or truer.”

  Arthur leaned forward and growled. “You know I hate that kind of thing. Talk straight, old man. Do you mean you are not worried that one of her sons—whom we must accommodate, as they are highborn lords—will try to kill me while they are here?”

  “No, I am not unduly worried about them.” But he was. He knew he could keep an eye on one boy. Gawaine had been easy to watch. But the messenger—and Arthur—had said “sons.” He could not remember how many Morgause had. She bred like a bitch—one litter after another. “Who is she sending?”

  Arthur counted them on his fingers. “Gawaine will be returning. And his next-oldest brother, Agravaine. Then the twins, their names begin with a G. I cannot remember.”

  “Twins...” Merlinnus was suddenly disturbed. Twins could be a problem. In magic, anything out of the ordinary troubled deep waters. If they looked alike, spoke alike...

  “The youngest, Medraut, has remained at home.”

  “Just as well,” the old wizard replied. “Four of that brood will be plenty.”

  “Should we worry?” Arthur asked. “About Orkney dirks on a dark night, or a sword in the belly during a mock fight or—”

  “Not you,” Merlinnus said. Meaning that he would do the worrying for both of them. He climbed the steps to the throne.

  Arthur sighed and leaned back again. But his eyes were still steel and his mouth had thinned down to a knife’s edge.

  A guard opened the door and looked in. When he saw Merlinnus bending close to Arthur, he shut the door without being told.

  “Now, about that sword in the stone—it is important for you to listen, Arthur,” Merlinnus said.

  “I have already spent most of the morning sitting here on this hard chair listening to important things,” Arthur answered. “Or at least things that are important to the people who are doing the speaking. Merlinnus, you never told me that being a king was three parts ear to one part mouth.”

  “If I had, you would never have taken the job,” muttered the old man into his tangled beard. He knew Arthur was a man for action, had been since a boy. “The Whirlwind” had been his nickname at Sir Ector’s castle. The joke was that Arthur had never met a chair he liked. Or a sport he disliked.

  “Most of the morning gone,” Arthur continued, “and I will have an aching head from it for the rest of the day. What kind of job is this for a king?” Arthur’s right hand closed into a fist. “I want to be out hunting deer. I want to take my sword and right wrongs. But instead I sit all day on this thing.” He banged his fist on the wooden arm. “This hard chair. And I listen.”

  Merlinnus nodded. “The ear is the seat of governance.”

  “There you go again!” Arthur shook his head. “I sit with my bottom, Merlinnus; I hear with my ear. And what I he
ar from you is too hard to parse. It reminds me of Latin. And speaking of Latin, the first thing I had to deal with this morning were two quarreling dux bellorum. Or is it bellori?”

  “Belli,” mumbled the mage, shaking his head. “Chiefs of war.” Arthur had never been a scholar, of Latin or anything else. He could read, but did not enjoy it. “Belli, my lord. It matters...”

  “It matters to you, Merlinnus. And to the church. And to some old Romans who never bothered to learn our tongue. But as for the rest...”

  “It should matter to you, too, Arthur,” said the mage, leaning forward and assuming his teaching expression, which consisted of lowering his eyebrows and sucking on his bottom lip. “Everything should matter to a good ruler.”

  Arthur gripped the carved arms of the throne to keep from getting angry. Merlinnus knew that whenever Arthur was tired, and cranky with too much listening, he got angry.

  Arthur gripped the throne so hard, his palms took the imprint of the carvings: a bear and an eagle. He turned his palms up, and Merlinnus saw the prints.

  The dog saw them, too, for she was up now, and nervous because her master was angry.

  “Listen, Merlinnus, I have no use for Latin or Romans this morning. Use matters. Not some old halfforgotten language that my people do not use. So, after the dux bellori—”

  “Belli,” Merlinnus corrected automatically.

  Arthur ignored him. “After them, I had to sort out five counterclaims from my head cook and his children. He should stick to his kitchens. His household is a mess. Then there were five chiefs down from the north who wanted no more than to lay eyes upon me, I warrant. Since I stood a head taller than they and shook hands with a grip they admired, they pledged themselves to the high throne. For now. Though I suspect that should I falter or lose weight or girth, or my gripping hand take the palsy, they will be on me like young lions on an old. And then I had to award grain to a lady whose miller had maliciously killed her cat.”

  Merlinnus shook his head.