by J A Cummings
“You hate your father,” he told Owain. The boy nodded. “I love mine.”
“Then it must have been hard for you to come here.”
“It was. But it was right.” He stroked Gringolet’s forehead. “I don’t see any reason to fight King Arthur, and my father has no rightful claim to the title of High King. It’s treason to stand against him as he’s doing, and I just couldn’t continue to abide by it.”
Owain leaned his back against the stall door, his arms crossed. “Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?”
Gawain looked at him, taken aback. “I’m not trying to convince anyone.” The words felt like a lie, and he sighed. “Maybe I’m talking to myself.”
“Good, because I think you were right and you don’t have to explain yourself.” He watched as Gawain fed another handful of grain to his horse. “I wouldn’t be here, myself, otherwise.”
The older boy nodded to himself. “So you’re here out of principle, too? Not just out of an ambition to get your father into trouble?”
Owain smirked. “It’s both.”
“At least you’re honest.”
They spent a few more minutes visiting with Gringolet until the grooms chased them out of the way. Gawain sighed. “Shall we explore the town?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we could practice our swordsmanship. I need work.”
He paused, then smiled. “That’s a very good idea.”
Morgana lay on her bed, overcome with nausea. She had been feverish for days, and she was pallid and clammy with her illness. Morgause put a cold cloth on her burning brow and said softly, “You’re going to lose that baby.”
“No,” she moaned. “Can’t… promised…”
“Murduus will just have to go without. The child is probably already dead and the soul is flown.” She went back to the fire and stirred a pot of stew she had been cooking, for once using the fire to make food instead of potions. She shook her head. “If I ever get my hands on your husband…”
Morgana moaned and rolled onto her side, curling into a ball with her arms over her stomach. Morgause shook her head at her sister’s distress.
“Why are you even making deals with demons?” she continued, not certain if Morgana was hearing her or not but feeling the need to unburden herself all the same. “You could get just as much power with less of a price from the old gods.”
The scent of sulphur stung her nose, and then she heard his voice. “She aligned herself with me because she knows, as you do, that in a very short time, there will be nobody worshipping your gods. They will no longer have the power to grant you anything. I, on the other hand, am eternal, for evil never dies.”
Morgause scowled. “This is my broch, and you are not welcome to come and go as you please,” she snapped, although the presence of the demon made her feel as if her spine had turned to ice.
The demon smiled. “In point of fact, it is your husband’s tower, not yours. And as long as my property is within these walls, I can do as I like. You cannot keep me away.”
“Your property? You mean my sister?”
“What do you think I mean?”
Morgause looked at Morgana. “If she’s your property, fix her.”
Murduus looked momentarily confused. “Fix her?”
“If you want her to breed sacrifices for you, you have to make her body strong enough to do it. She’s not strong enough as it is, so you have to fix her.”
He glanced at Morgana. “The power of healing is not something that demons have been granted, with very few exceptions. I do know of one being who can help make her whole.”
“Then I suggest you get that being to her side right now. She might not live through this miscarriage. She is already ill.”
Murduus cocked his head like a curious spaniel. “You care about her.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Oh, but I am. You care for no one.”
“That’s a damned lie.” She put her hands on her hips. “I love my sister, and my husband, and especially my boys.”
He smirked. “But you love none of them as much as you love yourself. And it’s a terrible shame that your devotion isn’t returned in kind.”
She deliberately turned her back on him and ladled stew into a bowl. “I’m not listening to you. Everyone knows that demons lie.”
“Your son has betrayed you.”
“Ha!”
Murduus leaned closer, and his breath was cold against her ear. “You will see that while demons lie, not everything we say is untrue.”
He vanished as quickly as he had appeared, and Morgause shuddered in his wake.
The night the Armorican armies arrived, Arthur retired early. Griflet and Merlin came with him, as his chamberlain and chief advisor.
“After tomorrow, there will be little time to sleep,” Merlin told them, “and no time for anything else but battle and the things associated with it. You should rest while you can. I will be back in the morning to check and dress your wound.”
“It’s fine,” Arthur said, waving him off dismissively. “It’s healed almost completely.”
Griflet looked at him in doubt. “There hasn’t been enough time for a stab like that to heal. It’s only been…”
“It’s been long enough.” The king’s tone signaled very clearly that he would brook no further conversation on the point.
“As you wish,” the druid shrugged. “Don’t blame me when it tears open and you end up scarred and ugly.”
Arthur laughed. “I’ll take my chances.”
Griflet held the door to his bedchamber for him, and he stepped inside. The room smelled different than before, almost as if it had been washed in seawater. He looked around, confused.
“We’re too far from the ocean to smell it from here,” he said.
Merlin followed him inside, and he caught the scent, as well. “Fey. There’s been a fey in here.”
The three of them searched the room to see if anything had been stolen, or worse, if anything unfriendly had been left. They were about to give up when Arthur found a tiny scroll case tucked into the folds of the bedclothes. He held it up.
“What is this?”
Merlin snatched it from his hand and ran his fingers over it. It suddenly increased in size until it was the same heft and girth as any other scroll case. He snapped the wax seal and opened the top. A piece of rough papyrus slid out, and the druid whispered to it. A flash of gold erupted from the papyrus sheet, and the seawater smell was gone, replaced by something much more like swamp and burned bread. The druid’s mouth pressed into a hard line.
“Not just any fey, but Unseelie fey.”
“Unseelie?” Arthur asked.
“The faery court is split into two disputing factions, the Seelie and the Unseelie. The Unseelie are darker in nature and with cruel senses of humor, while the Seelie are what we know as the Fair Folk. There is nothing fair about the Unseelie.”
“What do the Unseelie fey want with me?”
“Nothing good, I’ll wager,” Griflet fussed. “Merlin, take that thing out of here. We were warned about assassins sent by the other kings. Could this have been left by someone like that?”
The druid shook his head. “No. The Unseelie sometimes tentatively ally themselves with other races, but they’re not known as assassins. The High Kingship would be considered a human matter, and not something the faery would concern themselves with.” He hesitated, and Arthur could see the wheels spinning in his mind. There was something he was not telling them.
“Merlin?”
The druid tucked the scroll back into the case and closed it up. “I’ll read it in my room tonight and will tell you if there’s anything meaningful in it tomorrow. It’s written in the language of the fey, so I am probably the only person here who can read it.”
Griflet looked around. “Is it gone?”
“Oh, yes. Long gone.” Merlin tucked the scroll case into his sleeve. “And the room is quite safe now. Get some rest, both of you.”
>
He left quickly, and Griflet and Arthur looked at one another. “He’s hiding something,” Arthur said.
“Of course he is. He’s breathing.”
“Grif.”
“What? Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how much he enjoys being the only one in the room with any answers.” He closed the door and bolted it. “He knows he’s the smartest person here, and he never lets anyone else forget it, either.”
Arthur tugged off his tunic and set it aside. “He’s been a great help to me, and he’s taught me a great deal. I wouldn’t be here without him.”
Griflet picked up the tunic and folded it neatly. “You wouldn’t be here without Uther and Igraine,” he corrected. “Merlin is just along for the ride.”
“You’re in a mood.”
He had never seen his friend so snarly. He suspected that, as with many things, there was more going on than he could see or comprehend. Sometimes he wished people were less opaque.
Griflet sighed. “The war comes back tomorrow.”
Arthur nodded. “I know.”
“I’m worried.”
“It’ll be hard, but I believe we’ll win,” he said. “If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be leading so many men into battle.”
“Do you have to lead?”
The words were spoken so quietly that he wasn’t certain Griflet had spoken at all. He went to him and put his hands on his shoulders, his chest to his friend’s back. “I’m the king, the dux bellorum. My place is at the front of the column.”
He could feel Griflet’s tension radiating through him, and he wrapped his arms around his waist. He leaned back against Arthur and whispered, “We almost lost you last time.” He turned and embraced him. “I almost lost you last time.”
There was nothing that he could say to assuage his lover’s fears. Warfare was always risky, and there was always a better than average chance of a man being injured or killed when he rode into battle. He wouldn’t lie to Griflet or make any promises he couldn’t keep, so he stayed silent.
Griflet slowly pulled away, but he stopped to kiss Arthur’s lips as he went. The look on his face was so achingly sad that Arthur wished there was something he could say to make it better, but he knew that words were useless in the face of such well-founded anxiety. He took the tunic, now wadded into a rumple, out of his lover’s hand and tossed it onto the floor.
“Don’t think about tomorrow,” he whispered, pulling Griflet closer. He kissed him deeply, and his passion was echoed in the kiss that Griflet returned to him. When they parted, Arthur said, “Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow but God. Leave tomorrow to Him. Let us have tonight.”
They held tight to one another and tumbled into the bed. There was an edge of despair to their lovemaking that Arthur didn’t understand, as if Griflet was already telling him goodbye. They clung to one another, feeling everything they could, trying to stave off the darkness with their little light. When it was over, Griflet fell asleep in Arthur’s arms, momentarily reassured, but the king lay awake and staring until dawn.
Merlin took the scroll into his own chamber and shut the door tightly. The message was a summons to the Unseelie Court, something he had never seen before. While he would rather have stayed to gather up and consume all of the sexual energy spewing out of Arthur’s room, he had to attend to this instead. It was too curious to ignore.
He went to his herbal kit and took out the spell ingredients he would need. Normally he didn’t bother himself with such things, but portals to the Unseelie realm were tricky. It was worse than opening gates to Hell, and for the same reason. There was always some trickster faery or demon just waiting for the opportunity to rush out of its home and into the world of men, which was usually a disaster for all concerned, or at least a lasting complication; after all, that was how he and his kind had arrived on Earth thousands of years ago.
The words of the spell were well known to him, and the blackthorn, hemlock and dragon’s blood that he used to demarcate the square of the portal glowed a soft green as he whispered over them. The air began to vibrate, sending a humming sound throughout the room, and when the pitch was right, he stepped through.
The Unseelie realm was like no other faery realm. It smelled of peat and rain and unwholesome things moving in the grass. He knew that his presence there sent a veritable earthquake through the spirit of the place, and he began to count down from ten. He had only reached seven when the first winged guard appeared, jabbing a spear at him with a fierce snarl on its simian face.
“What?” it demanded. “Demon!”
He held up the scroll. “An invitation to parley with Queen Nimue.”
The monstrous creature grabbed at the scroll, but Merlin pulled it away from its reach. “No. Take me to Nimue. I will not ask again.”
It growled, but another of its kind melted out of the forest and grunted to it in the native Unseelie tongue. The first guard looked back at Merlin with more than a small dose of annoyance and sneered, “Wizard. Demon. Come.”
They marched him through the wet and slimy bushes, taking him from faery circle to faery circle to cover the ground more quickly. He counted nineteen circles in all, and matched the directions in his mind so he could return to his portal more easily. He would not put it past the fey to try to disorient or confuse him.
The Unseelie Court squatted inside a black castle made of bricks that looked like chunks of rotting mushroom and smelled much the same. Mold and mildew clung to every surface, and he felt dirty just from standing on the oily cobblestones. The guard prodded him forward, and Merlin delivered a magical shock that traveled up the spear and into its clawed hands. It yelped in surprise and pain.
“Never,” he ground out, “poke me with that thing again.”
The other guard, who had been keeping a respectful if fearful distance, gestured. “Go.”
Merlin walked into the throne room. The green light through the overgrown canopy overhead illuminated the roiling mass that was the court, locked in various forms of coitus and consumption. On a throne made of the skulls of giant frogs, Nimue watched him approach.
He was impressed by her, as he always was. She was beautiful, blessed with a perfectly formed feminine body, green feathered wings and skin that glistened in the fetid light. Her gossamer black gown clung to her curves in the most beguiling fashion possible, and her hair, white-blonde and falling in waves to her waist, seemed not to cover her bosom so much as display it to its best advantage. She knew well how to catch the attention of an incubus.
He held up the scroll. “You called for me, Your Majesty.”
Merlin did not bow, nor did he show any other sign of groveling or obeisance, something to which the male faery at Nimue’s side took exception. He looked like the bastard child of an owl and a minotaur. She put a hand on his muscular arm and kept him in his seat.
“I did. Thank you for responding so readily, demon.”
She did not use his name, knowing that it was nothing but a pseudonym. Demons and faeries never revealed their true names to anyone. Names were power.
“I was intrigued,” he said. “Although if you wished to speak to me, you could have left the message in my room and not the king’s.”
Nimue leaned forward, and her full breasts came more into view. He glanced at them appreciatively, unable to help himself and also knowing she would take umbrage if he didn’t take a look. He then looked back into her lovely face. Power flowed from her like water and it made him hungry. “I caught your attention by catching his. I mean to speak to you about your selection for High King.”
He expected that. “What about him?”
“You are attempting to wed him to one of Manawydan’s daughters.”
Merlin wasn’t certain how she had found out about that, but he supposed that even the fey were subject to palace intrigue and espionage. “I am.”
“We have been watching him, your king.”
“You clearly have some thoughts on the matter.”
“I do.” She interlaced her fingers before her, her elbows on the arms of her throne. “Why did you not seek an alliance with us?”
“Ah.” The old jealousies were playing up again. Nimue fancied herself more lovely than the Ladies of the Lake, and she knew she was more powerful. She hated and competed with them at every turn, and always had for as long as Merlin had known the fey.
“Ah?” she echoed. “That is all you have to say?”
“I don’t think that your court and your people would be to his liking, and he needs a wife who is biddable and compliant.” He smiled. “Those are things that you and your Unseelie sisters are not.”
Nimue tilted her head as if she wanted to consider him from another angle. “Really? That’s the reason?”
“That, and I prefer the Seelie to the Unseelie.”
The courtiers around him hissed in rage, and he felt a few tiny missiles bounce off his protective wards, landing harmlessly on the ground. He smiled at her pleasantly.
“Why?” their queen asked.
“Look around you,” he said as the protests grew louder and more furious. “I have never seen an uglier assembly of beings. The High King would never be able to bear to look upon one of you, let alone consummate a marriage.”
Her green eyes narrowed, and he could feel an invisible magical probe testing his defenses. He gathered up his own energy and pushed the probe away, giving her a virtual slap on the hand. He continued to smile as her brow puckered for less than a heartbeat.
“You are bold, demon.”
“Yes, I know.”
She came down from her throne, walking toward him with a whisper of silk, her wings beating slowly, sending a gust of her personal scent toward him. He coughed and plastered on an expression of distaste. Nimue stalked around him in a circle, her hand running over his chest, squeezing his strong shoulders and then sliding down his back to cup his buttock, appreciating his body, which was perpetually young and strong. He let her fondle him for a moment, then pushed her away with his magic. She stepped back as if it had been her idea and went back to her throne.