by Jacob Sannox
‘Near,’ said Branok. Arthur turned and saw the warlock standing behind Kay, his open hand outstretched as though reaching to grasp some unseen thing. Sir Kay made no move at all, seeming but a flesh statue of himself, Excalibur in his hand.
Branok closed his eyes, and all commotion stopped, save for shouts of surprise and the flapping of wings. Two ravens flew down the stairs, over Arthur’s head and settled in the snow beside a third which stood now, quite unharmed, where Martha had been in agony just moments before.
Branok stepped forward and snatched Excalibur from Kay’s hand.
He held the sword aloft as Arthur stood, hauling Merlin to his feet.
Merlin stumbled forward and closed his eyes, but Branok shook his head.
‘Not any more, Merlin,’ he said.
The three ravens formed a line before him, and Branok extended Excalibur so that it rested on Kay’s shoulder, its edge cutting ever so slightly into the knight’s neck.
‘Let him go, Branok. He is an anointed knight of the country you claim to love so well,’ Arthur growled.
‘Your friend or your sword, Arthur,’ said Branok. ‘Choose.’
‘Take it,’ said Arthur without a second’s hesitation.
‘I would have your word that you will let us depart unopposed,’ said Branok.
‘Arthur, no,’ gasped Merlin, seizing him by the shoulder.
‘You have it, Branok. Spare his life and go,’ said Arthur as Tristan and Gareth arrived by his side.
Branok lifted Excalibur and rested it across his own shoulder.
‘You are no longer the powers that you were,’ he said. ‘I will show no mercy if you interfere with my plans, Arthur. And you, Merlin, your age has passed away.’
‘I will not forget this, Branok,’ said Arthur, but the warlock smiled.
‘Remembering is all you are good for,’ he said and turned to walk away. The ravens held Arthur, Merlin and the knights in their gaze until Branok neared the broken gate, then flew to him, perching on his shoulder and outstretched arm.
The warlock disappeared behind the high wall.
The knights ran forward as though a spell had broken, but when they reached the road, there was no sign of the Ravenmaster or his familiars.
Merlin dropped to his knees.
‘This is the end of prophecy,’ Merlin muttered. ‘Here my vision fails. Excalibur is lost.’
Arthur clasped his mentor and friend by the shoulder, offering what comfort he could.
‘It is but a sword, Merlin, there are greater losses to endure.’
Arthur called for the knights, and they returned to the house, filing into the lobby and gathering around Percival’s fallen form.
Tristan stooped to dip his fingers in the cooling blood.
‘I will avenge you, brother, I swear it,’ he said, and none who heard him doubted it.
The knights built a pyre behind the house that evening and laid Percival upon it. Arthur himself lit a brand and set it amongst the kindling.
Arthur, Merlin and the remaining knights watched in silence as they bade farewell to their brother, too many memories over too many centuries for them to be spoken of aloud.
They drank together as the white clouds burst, and snowflakes fell once more across England.
Only when the wine was gone, and Percival was returned to dust, did Arthur address them.
‘Our hiatus is at an end, brothers. Branok has struck first and struck hard, but little does he know he has caused the endgame to commence. Tonight, we mourn and we rest.’
Arthur reached down and grasped the hilt of the cavalry sabre that hung at his side and drew the weapon, holding it aloft.
‘But tomorrow, we ride out.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said Tristan, drawing his weapon and thrusting it skyward. ‘For Percival.’
The others drew their weapons in unison and echoed his words, but Merlin broke the circle, the remains of the arm of his coat sewn together. He leaned heavily on his staff and turned to look at them as he spoke.
‘Aye, for Percival, but also for the land,’ Merlin whispered, ‘and for the realm.’
‘For the people,’ said Arthur.
Chapter Fourteen
December 1664
It began with the appearance of a comet, a feat that even Branok doubted he could achieve when he set about drawing it nigh. When first the beacon lit up the night sky, Merlin looked up along with the rest of the population, and he knew from the roots up that his apprentice was at work.
‘That,’ said Gaheris, ‘is a sign of ill-portent.’ And he was not alone in thinking so. Merlin saw awe, fear and wonder on the faces of Arthur and the remainder of the knights, who were lodging in inns and just about scraping a living by whatever methods they could now that the war was over and Charles II reigned.
‘That,’ said Merlin, ‘is nothing of the sort,’ for he could see what the others could not in the comet, ‘or at least, not in the way everyone will assume.’
‘Merlin?’ said Arthur, recognising the wizard’s tone.
‘Is it a sign of ill-portent if you receive a letter informing you that your family will be slaughtered?’
‘No, it’s a threat,’ said Arthur, understanding immediately.
Merlin pointed towards the comet.
Arthur said nothing.
‘Branok?’ asked Percival.
Nobody replied, and Percival did not ask again. He blushed, but nobody was looking to see.
‘But why?’ asked Bors. ‘The wars are over, and the king is restored to the throne. Branok has achieved his desires.’
‘Do you think that should Arthur be killed, I would be happy to forgive and forget just because a child of his regained the throne to carry on his bloodline? When the boy I raised had been murdered?’ asked Merlin.
The knights made no reply, for many reasons, not least amongst them the memory of Arthur’s first death from wounds sustained at the hands of Mordred at Camlann.
Merlin clasped his staff and leaned his forehead against the wood.
‘I can feel him brooding, feel his malice. He is awake again. Mark my words – he will want revenge.’
‘But against who?’ asked Arthur.
‘Against the people who overthrew their king. Against those who cleaved his head from his body,’ Merlin replied, his face grim.
‘Against me,’ said Arthur.
Merlin shot him a sharp look, squinting in such a way that Arthur knew he was studying him, assessing his abilities as a pupil.
‘That,’ said Merlin, his voice low, ‘will be the least of it, my boy’
July 1665
Arthur harboured no affection for London. He was unaccustomed to places such as these from the time of his youth. This, he pondered, bore little resemblance to his ideas for the capital city he had never had the chance to build, little in common with his vision of Camelot. London was a walled city in those days, and its four hundred thousand inhabitants dwelt in closely-packed buildings. Sewage sullied the streets, flies buzzed in the air, and smoke hung all around. Arthur passed folk who held scented handkerchiefs to their noses. He doubted it did them much good.
Even the old town houses abandoned by exiled Royalists during the Interregnum were divided up into tenements, packed with poor families. Beyond the walls, shanty towns had sprung up to accommodate the influx of people from the countryside, situated all too near the heaps of sewage that the rakers cleaned from the city streets only to dump them outside the walls.
That vision of hell, wrought by progress, somehow drew the people from the smaller towns, the villages and the countryside, and there, in the nation’s capital, under his burning comet, Branok directed his malice. Hidden within the White Tower, he expended his will, casting enchantments and summoning dark powers to breed death at the heart of the city.
It began slowly, unnoticed. The Black Death, the plague, was a constant companion in those times, in part thanks to the warlock’s early efforts to utilise his powers, encouraging th
e disease to spread, rather than conjuring it himself. In the city, where human excrement was thrown from windows to mingle with animal dung into the streets where the rats ran freely and flies buzzed overhead, sickness began to spread faster than ever before.
The authorities began house quarantines and ale houses were closed. Londoners were instructed to clean the streets in the front of their houses, but to no avail. The deaths mounted.
An exodus had begun.
Arthur’s company rode towards the capital against the flow of constant traffic leaving the city. Even King Charles II fled Whitehall for Salisbury, fearing the disease. How little he understood the goings-on in his own kingdom, for Branok would not allow him to be touched by the plague, and the king did not suspect the Ravenmaster of any dark meddling.
Arthur led his men through the streets of London, and they observed the horrors first-hand: Xs painted on the doors of the sick, bodies heaped on carts by those calling ‘bring out your dead’ and the wily ‘searchers of the dead’, as they were known, women who made their living inspecting corpses to report the cause of death. Their purses jangled with coin, and not all of it obtained honestly, for who would not pay to hide the truth that the Black Death was upon their household?
Doctors visited the sick, wearing long all-covering robes, gloves and freakish white-beaked masks stuffed with herbs. Arthur shuddered as one nodded to him when their paths crossed, unable to see the man’s eyes, and thinking him some hideous amalgamation of man and bird.
‘We should get you out of here,’ murmured Tristan, who stood at the king’s side.
‘I will not abandon my people,’ said Arthur. ‘There must be work we can do here. And we must find Branok.’
‘You cannot aid your people if you fall sick yourself,’ Tristan protested. ‘Go back to the countryside, sire. I will stay here with half of our brothers.’
But Arthur would hear none of it.
Arthur and the knights spent their days and often their nights doing whatever they could to be of assistance to the locals. They fetched water, they cleaned streets, they tended the sick, but all the while Merlin wandered the streets, reaching out for Branok until one day in the late summer, a raven flew down from a rooftop and perched upon his shoulder.
Merlin flinched, fearing the bird would peck out his eye, but it tightened its grip and simply sat, waiting for the wizard to be still. Merlin turned, cautiously, stretching his neck away from the bird as he did so, to look. The raven cawed, which made the wizard jump, then tilted its head.
‘Bloody bird,’ said Merlin as his heart began to slow again, convinced the raven was actually smiling, despite the rigidity of its bill.
It leaned towards him, and Branok’s voice issued in a whisper like a drop of fluid squeezed from a pipette.
‘Are you coming to see me, Merlin?’
Merlin shivered and frowned at the bird.
‘If I knew where you were,’ he snapped at the raven. A woman on the other side of the street stopped, folded her arms across her chest and hurried away from him. Merlin watched her go and then stepped into a quieter side street.
‘Come to the Tower, and I will meet you there,’ said Martha in her bird form. She cawed again, once more startling Merlin. He would have sworn that the raven cackled as she flew away east.
A mist enveloped the Tower of London, and Merlin could see nothing of it except for the tops of its towers and battlements, like the peaks of mountains poking through a layer of grey cloud. His footsteps echoed as he approached, warily, for he had no status that merited doing so, at least as far as the government and those who watched over the Tower were concerned. He stopped some way before the gate and reached out to Branok with his mind. He recognised his apprentice’s reciprocal touch and sat upon a low wall, awaiting the younger man’s appearance or a summons to him.
Finally a cluster of figures emerged through the gate, two separate files of three people each on either side of a lone man, dressed in fine clothes, all dark and with a silver tracery of thread upon them. As they drew near, Merlin saw the escort for what they were, the ravens, and it was no surprise to him.
Branok’s familiars dispersed in the mist, and the man himself walked slowly towards his mentor, leaning upon a cane, his wide-brimmed black hat set at a jaunty angle.
Merlin, in his raggedy coat, leaning heavily upon his staff, with leaves and morsels of food hanging in his beard, swung his legs out, dropping his heels back against the stone wall that was his seat, like a child asked to wait patiently. He offered Branok a slow nod of the head, wary as to how this meeting would unfold. After all, the last time they had met, Merlin had held Branok entranced while the king’s head was lopped from his shoulders.
‘Merlin,’ said Branok as he came to a stop before him.
‘You’ve done very well for yourself, I see,’ said Merlin. ‘Such fine clothes, such elaborate lodgings.’
‘Each to their own,’ Branok replied.
‘Are you going to kill me, boy?’ asked the wizard. ‘Let’s come to the point, so if we are going to move beyond it, we can do it all the sooner. I have other business.’
‘Do you think I could, if I wanted to?’ asked Branok.
‘Nothing is impossible, but I’d caution against the attempt,’ said Merlin, ‘though the state of this city is evidence enough that your powers have grown considerably since last we met.’
Branok began to speak, but Merlin held up his hand and both men felt the effect. Merlin, reassured, continued.
‘No, boy, I do not wish to know how you have achieved this malignant mischief. You are already a sorrow to me.’
Branok closed his mouth and stared thoughtfully at Merlin, as though deciding whether to go on the offensive or defer to his mentor, as he had as a child.
‘I could feel you searching for me,’ said Branok, ‘and now you have found me.’
‘You have presented yourself, rather. No false modesty, boy,’ said Merlin.
‘It comes down to the same thing in the end,’ said Branok.
Merlin nodded.
‘Indeed. Well, to it, then,’ he cleared his throat. ‘It’s time to put an end to the epidemic. You’ve wreaked havoc enough. Had your revenge. How many thousands must die to avenge one man’s life?’ His words were gentle, the question genuine.
‘I’ll know the figure when I happen upon it,’ said Branok, with a sneering tone that, to Merlin, seemed as though he was trying too hard to appear disaffected; an affectation.
‘The people you are killing had little to do with Charles’s death, you know? The rich, the nobility, everyone of consequence has fled the city now. You are culling the weak and the needy, Branok.’
The warlock made no reply.
‘I know full well you are hurting, Bran,’ Merlin said as he stood. He stood before Branok and rested a hand on his shoulder, meeting the warlock’s eyes, ‘but this is not the way.’
His former pupil held Merlin’s gaze for as long as he could, then he looked down at his boots.
‘Wrong or right, it is of no consequence any more. My well runs dry. I can goad the plague no longer, so either way, you will get what you wish. Less people die by the day,’ Branok muttered.
‘That’s a good thing, boy,’ said Merlin, ducking down to try to regain eye contact as he carried on speaking, ‘I can only imagine your pain at losing Charles, but it was fated. It was always his doom. This country, this England, it means far more than any one man’s life. And if you taught him anything, I am sure he would not wish you to claim retribution by hurting innocent people.’
Branok said nothing and for a time, Merlin thought he had seen reason, but then his pupil spoke again.
‘This England is one man. Nothing else matters. When they speak of England in the colonies, or on the Continent, they do not speak of her green fields or her lice-infested populace, they speak of the king. “What will the king do next?” That bloodline is sacred to me, Merlin. I have helped to shape a nation far more than you ever did.
What is your legacy, a dead king reborn to do nothing? Embellished history passed on into storybook legend? The people of this country rose up and struck down what was divine, and they must pay weregild until I deem it otherwise. This city will rue the day it allowed the blood of the House of Stuart to run in its streets.’
He shrugged off Merlin’s hand and stepped back.
The wizard sighed and clasped his staff.
‘You are not yet so strong that I could not intercede, as I have before,’ said Merlin.
‘Do not think I forget it, old man,’ said Branok, and once more Merlin shivered as his pupil stalked back towards the Tower, and his familiars emerged from the mist.
‘The bloodline is renewed. A king of the House of Stuart rules once more. Be content. You have taken your pound of flesh, and taken your revenge. All of your enemies are dead.’
Branok stopped and turned, smiling.
‘Not all my enemies, Merlin. Your time will come, and so will Arthur’s. When I am ready.’
He turned and began walking again.
‘There will be no more chances, Branok. If you strike out at the people again, we will come for you,’ Merlin cried after his retreating pupil, who paid him no heed at all.
Merlin stood there long after the company had passed away through the Tower gates, He stared at the fortress, his heart aching for the boy he had once thought could guide England in his place when finally he took his final sleep.
Eventually, slowly, he turned and walked back into the city, the sound of cawing ravens fading behind him.
Chapter Fifteen
October 2019
Delaying, Arthur considered, may have been a mistake. After all there was a chance, albeit slim, that Branok and his familiars had left some sort of tracks as they retreated through the woods or along the roads. But what then? Further disgrace and defeat for whosoever should catch them?