The Enchanter General 03 - Merlin Redux

by Dave Duncan

  Walter came with a royal warrant naming him as co-justiciar. He promptly called a parley, to meet in Winchester on July 28th. He negotiated a settlement between John and Longchamp. He could rein in the latter because he had brought another, secret, warrant from the king, allowing him to depose Longchamp. He did not reveal this publicly at that time, although I am confident he showed it to Longchamp, and the threat was enough to bring him to heel. Controlling John was harder, because everyone knew that the crusade was going badly, and the king was repeatedly reported to be at death’s door with fever. More than once this was actually true. More than likely, Richard never would return.

  I had begun some serious research into foreseeing. Merlin had left many prophecies, most of which made no sense until the predicted events had occurred. Or, as disbelievers would say, until something happening that could be twisted to fit the words. We had several prophetic incantations in our archives, but I had always discouraged students from dabbling with them. For one thing, foreseeing can be dangerous and has been known to drive users insane. For another, the Church regards it as blasphemous, an attempt to bind God. Only astrology was grudgingly approved, perhaps because it was never specific enough to make much difference.

  Time is like a mountain torrent, one commentator had written in the margin of one of my grimoires, and we stand on a boulder in it, trying to see what the flow will bring down next. Another hand had added, Until we fall off the boulder.

  The ancient Greeks relied on the oracle at Delphi, which is no longer in business, or on the entrails of animals, especially the liver, which has a mysterious appearance for a few minutes after being exposed. They, and the Romans also, relied heavily on viewing the flight of birds. Crystal balls and fire gazing, inhaling the smoke of burning herbs, prayer and fasting—there seemed to be no limit to the means, and very little to the ends.

  What I could not find was any guidance on what happened if you tried to circumvent a prophecy.

  In July Lars received his green cape as a qualified sage, having graduated from the College with the highest commendations on record—which outsiders might think was just sycophantic flattery because he was my son, but I knew had been well earned. We had a splendid family reunion to celebrate. Harald and his wife, Hilda, came from Pipewell; Iseut and Royse were brought by their respective future in-laws.

  A year earlier Lars would have been clamoring to go off and help the brave crusaders. Now, like everyone else, he had lost enthusiasm for the cause, and the subject was not mentioned. But on the day after everyone had gone home again, as soon as his mother had left to visit patients, he accosted me in my workroom. He sat down and eyed me quizzically.

  “My lord Father?”

  “I am not God, Lars.”

  “Of course you are, to me, anyway. You always have been.”

  “Gramercy! I never noticed. You want someone smitten with a plague?”

  “I’d rather you’d find me some generous and benevolent lord anxious to employ an eager, witty, hardworking, and incredibly sapient young sage.”

  “Dear boy, such sages are even rarer than are generous, benevolent lords and I don’t know any of either.” I gestured to the couch. “I do think I have a serious job for you, if you want it. It will drive your mother into hysterics, but it will be lot more interesting than mixing laxative potions in some damp and gloomy castle. Move over there. Now see if this agrees with me.” I handed him the Myrddin Wyllt scroll. He unrolled the first part and scanned it with a glance.

  “What does ‘Myrddin Wyllt’ mean?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Chant it, and it will surprise you, I promise. I’ll bring you back in a few minutes.”

  He lowered the scroll and regarded me with suspicion. “You’re telling me that my chanting will put me into trance?”

  I nodded, unable to resist a smile, because this was against everything he had been taught in the College. It was the cantor who should be entranced, not the enchanter.

  “Carnonos? That’s the horned god? What’s the melody?”

  “I find All My Days works well.”

  Faced with a completely unfamiliar lyric, Lars set a slow pace, but he sang without a fault. I was fascinated to watch the spell in action. I knew roughly where it usually put me into a trance, but he continued without a break, all the way to the end. Even then, while his arms gradually sank down with his hands still clutching the scroll, his eyes stayed wide open, and mobile. The rest of him lay corpse-like, his breathing barely visible, but he was watching something. I allowed him a few moments before I called his name and shook him.

  He blinked a few times before focusing on me. “Where are we going?”

  “You tell me.”

  He peered around, steadying his wits. “We were on a ship. You were vomiting over the rail.”

  “And you, I suppose, were finding that funny?”

  “Um . . . I looked sort of greenish, too. I was taught that magic couldn’t work over the sea.”

  “I’m a little ahead of the College there, son, but this is still a big secret.”

  “I’m thirsty . . .”

  I fetched the wine and two beakers. Then I told him the story—Myrddin Wyllt, who was Merlin of the Wilds, the scroll, and the visions I had seen. He listened with amazement.

  “Now you can see why I have kept this a secret,” I said. “This ship you saw—did you notice any details, how many masts it had, or if it was a galley? Any scenery, landmarks? Members of the crew?” Lars shook his head. “Just you and me and the sea . . . and what you were doing.”

  “That means a prophecy. It must, since we are not at sea right now, and never have been so far. When the details are not yet determined, then they cannot be prophesied. It was telling us that you and I will go on a voyage and you will be a better sailor than I am. Everything else is still undecided.”

  “But you saw us as troubadours in the Holy Land?”

  “The Holy Land, possibly. Somewhere hot and sunny, yes, so not England. Troubadours yes, performing on a hot day, somewhere. And an appreciative audience. We were both singing. You were playing, I was just carrying my gittern . . . and maybe a hat, for gratuities. I’m not sure.”

  “It would be hard to tune two gitterns perfectly together and keep them that way.”

  At that moment, Lovise swept in. “Durwin, we must remember—what are you two up to?”

  “Drinking wine before noon,” I said, as Lars and I stood up. She eyed us as if she had just been appointed Senior Recording Angel for England. “No, you look too guilty for that.”

  “We were just planning a journey, Mother.”

  “A journey to where?”

  Knowing that I would have to break the news to her sooner or later, I said, “To entertain our gallant fighting men in Outremer.” She lost color, looking from son to husband and back again. “Both of you?”

  “It seems that way, dear. Tell me, where in Oxford can we buy silk?”

  With the firm hand of Walter Coutances on the tiller, the country retreated from the brink of civil war. Indeed, the struggle degenerated into farce. Geoffrey the Bastard, who preferred to be known as Geoffrey Fitzhenry, now Archbishop of York, returned to England although, like John, he had been forbidden to do so by the king. He landed at Dover, where he was accosted by Longchamp’s sister, wife of the constable of Dover Castle. She demanded that the archbishop swear an oath of loyalty to her brother. Geoffrey refused and sought sanctuary at the local priory, but the next day he was literally dragged from the altar and thrown into a dungeon.

  This was far too reminiscent of the murder of Thomas Becket, and the entire country erupted in fury. Longchamp had to take refuge in Windsor Castle. With clerics on both sides, interdicts and excommunications began to fly to and fro like bats.

  In September John took it upon himself to summon a great council at Reading, which I of course attended. The barons were all reluctant to offend John, because they knew that word of the Richard’s death might arrive any day and no one ser
iously expected the infant Arthur to succeed. Offending a future king would be dangerous, but likely less dangerous than foreswearing the reigning one. In effect, everyone was sitting along the fence like swallows planning their migration. I guessed the part I would have to play, and it would put me right between those legendary crashing rocks of the Symplegades, so I had my answer ready. I sat and said nothing until the call came.

  After several hours of bickering, cursing, and droning, it was John himself who jumped up and pointed straight at me.

  “Your graces, my lords, why don’t we consult the ultimate expert on all things, Baron Durwin? Arise, Merlin Reborn, and prophesy for us! Will our beloved King Richard ever return from the Holy Land?”

  I waited for a moment in the silence, and then stood up. I bowed to Walter, who was in the chair. “Your graces, my lords, I have never claimed to be Merlin Redux. It was our Lady Queen Eleanor who dubbed me that, and she spoke in jest. I do not claim to prophesy—but . . .” I said quickly before another wave of tumult could break over us, “I can quote the great Merlin himself. In one of his prophecies, he proclaimed: ‘When the lion returns to his den, the dogs go back in their kennels.”’

  The loyalist barons cheered uproariously as I sat down. Merlin had never said anything of the sort, so far as I knew, but he could have done. One thing I did know about prophecy is that it is much safer when attributed to somebody else.

  I left it to the council to decide whether “Merlin’s” reference to dogs included John, King Philip, and Longchamp, or just some of them. The majority settled on Longchamp and voted to depose him. Walter, revealing his authority as supreme justiciar, agreed, and that settled the matter. John, triumphant, marched into London and summoned a public assembly, which likewise agreed that the justiciar must go. The idea of letting the common mob determine state policy is not only crazy, it is extremely dangerous. The rabble are totally unpredictable.

  According to numerous reports, probably too good to be true, poor little Longchamp attempted to escape from England disguised as a woman, until a raunchy sailor received an unexpected disappointment and shouted for his friends to come and look at this. The humiliated Longchamp did, in fact, go into exile. John proceeded to travel up and down the land, seeking to gather support, predicting his brother’s death, and claiming to be his successor. I was continually pestered by people anxious to know if the king was still alive, so I had to keep insisting that I was not, and never could be, Merlin Reborn.

  Once in a while Walter would come by Oxford, and from him I learned the true news, stripped of its usual bodyguard of rumor. By November, King Philip was back home in France, spreading lies about Richard—that he had accepted bribes from Saladin to stay away from Jerusalem, had tried to poison Philip, had sent assassins to kill him, and so on.

  Philip wanted his sister Aalis returned to him—with her dowry of Vexin County—but Eleanor refused to release her. Two cardinals, sent by the Pope to interfere, tried to enter Normandy and Eleanor would not allow them into the duchy. The war in the Holy Land had become a stalemate, with little fighting, much negotiating, and both armies in winter quarters. King Richard had been within twelve miles of Jerusalem and hoped to leave the Holy Land by Easter, 1192—so Walter told me.

  “God send him good speed!” I said, and we drank to that.

  1192 (part 1)

  that fateful year began with a January attack by King Philip on Gisors, the greatest of the border castles defending Normandy. Eleanor’s forces held out, and Philip had to withdraw, because most of his barons refused to violate the Truce of God. He rode off back to Paris to lick his wounded pride and plot other deviltries.

  “. . . and consequently,” he declaimed, “it is our will and decision . . .”

  He was striding to and fro, dictating to a team of secretaries. His tunic and mantle were of finest silk, trimmed with ermine, but all his finery and jeweled orders failed to make him anything but a weedy young man with a devious manner and shifty eyes. Even his voice failed to impress.

  “. . . that for all these demonstrated atrocities and iniquities, we do declare the aforesaid knight, Richard of England, to be a most treasonous and perfidious vassal . . .”

  Three or four witnesses stood in the background, and at least one of them was a cleric of high rank, a bishop or an archbishop, but I could see none of them clearly. The secretaries were also misty and indistinct, even varying in number as I watched, but there was absolutely no doubt that the speaker was Philip II of France, spewing his spite. Every hair of his fur collar was as clearly displayed as the way his breath smoked in the cold palace air, and so was the gleam of hate in his eyes.

  “. . . and do therefore command you, our dearly beloved cousin, as heir to the said lands, to hasten here to our capital and do homage for them, videlicet the Duchy of Normandy, the Duchy of Brittany . . .”

  I turned to peer through the snow swirling past the window, and I could indeed see the mighty Seine River below us. When King Philip added the hand of the Lady Aalis to the bribes he was offering, I had learned enough. I pulled myself out of the trance.

  I was not on my couch, but I was in my workroom, sprawled over my desk. I had not chanted the Myrddin Wyllt—it had summoned me, yet again. The vision had been a dramatic warning, giving me more urgent matters to worry about than the mechanics of foreseeing.

  King Philip had been as clear and solid as the fingernails I was driving into my palms, but the scribes and witnesses had been blurred, so what I had seen was a prophecy, not a current event. Philip knew what he was going to do, but the rest of the cast had not been selected yet. So when would this revelation become event? Outside my window, there in Oxford, I could not see as far as the palace wall, as snow added to a heavy overnight fall. Soon, before spring.

  And why had I been shown this now, today, early? Because the justiciar, Archbishop Walter, had spent the night in Beaumont Palace, not thirty yards from my door. He had been planning to depart this morning, but he wouldn’t go in this weather. I must tell him my news at once. Before I reached the door of the workroom, I realized that I must first find Lars or Lovise to chant the Loc hwær with me.

  Dealing with Bishop Longchamp had always been a strain, a reminder to keep one’s will up to date. Calling on my old friend Walter was a pleasure in itself. He had obviously decided that the blizzard that had blown in last night justified a few hours’ extra sleep, which he had certainly earned during his strenuous months of ruling a bitterly divided country. I sent up word that I needed to see him on a matter of urgency, and in moments was ushered into his dressing room, where I found him wrapped in a fur robe, having his scalp shaved by his valet.

  He was a tall, bony man of my own age or a few years older— scholarly, amusing, good company. It was rumored that he had absolved Richard for rebelling against his father, but what else could he have done?

  He waved the razor aside long enough to say, “Baron Durwin, good morrow! Is this problem so urgent that I must send Jacques away immediately and wear my miter all day?”

  “Not quite,” I said. “It does concern the king of France, but I think it will wait long enough for you to be made symmetrical.” He chuckled and told his valet to be quick but not so quick as to bleed him. As soon as his head was dried he dismissed the man, told me to talk, and set to work to dress himself.

  “King Philip,” I said, “is going to offer to accept Lord John’s homage for all King Richard’s domains in France, and marry him to Lady Aalis.”

  Clutching his hose, the archbishop sat down heavily on his chair and stared at me as if hoping that I was making a joke. “Is going to? How come you by this knowledge, friend?”

  “In performance of my duties as enchanter general, Your Grace.”

  “You mean that you are being Merlin now, and I have to play the part of King Arthur?”

  Nicely put—but he was an archbishop and prophecy was blasphemous.

  “Aye, Your Grace. I fear I mean exactly that. Philip has not yet sent
the letter, but he will do so soon. Within the next week, or possibly two, I think. Will John refuse such a bribe?”

  “He already has a wife.”

  “There were some doubts about that marriage, as I recall. The Pope was reluctant to sanction it.” Wives could be discarded.

  Walter thought for a few minutes and then nodded. “It isn’t a case of, ‘ Will John refuse such a bribe?’ but rather, ‘ Can John refuse such a bribe?’ and the answer is no. He can’t possibly, because if you disregard loyalty, honor, and duty, and are ruled solely by greed, then acceptance makes sense. So, what can we do to stop him? I feel strangely reluctant to cut off the king’s brother’s head. Richard is fond of his brother and wouldn’t like it.”

  “Lock him up in the Tower of London until the king returns?” The moment I said that, I knew that this was not feasible either. Supposing the king does not return? Then you unlock the cell door and run like the Devil?

  “Can you provide a copy of this letter, Durwin?”

  “No, sir. I can only offer my word. And my head, I suppose.”

  “Well then.” Walter sighed. “No one can possibly stop him except the queen.” He meant Dowager Queen Eleanor, not the real queen, Berengaria. “You will have to make all speed to Normandy and tell her what you foresee.”

  Thoughts of racing over through drifts and over waterlogged countryside, of crossing the storm-wracked seas of January held no appeal. “Sir, let me write a letter. You have many younger men, skilled couriers, who can reach Rouen long before I could.”

  There I was speaking common sense as well as cowardice, and he nodded. “I wonder where Lord John is now?”

  “Lincoln.”

  Even Walter flinched at that brazen display of sorcery, but he did not question my knowledge or ask how I knew. Belatedly, he resumed dressing. “Then go at once and write your report to Her Grace. I will write one of my own. I just hope that her response arrives in time. I will go to Winchester to wait for it. And you will come with me.”