The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2)

by A. A. Attanasio

  "Yes, of course." The carpenter forces himself against the creak of his brittle bones to stand taller. "What must I do, Merlin?"

  "I want you to walk in my shoes for a while—literally." He takes off his hat and puts it on Hannes's head, where it instantly sinks to the level of his curly eyebrows and rests on his ears. The wizard tightens the headband so that it sits more authoritatively. "I want you to wear my clothes, to carry my staff, and to bear my very name."

  Hannes blinks with puzzlement. "You would have me pretend ... to be you?"

  "Not pretend, Hannes." Merlin wags his finger. "You are to be me, in word and deed. You will have magic, but you must use it in the manner that I would—with primary concern for the well-being of others. If you succeed, you may keep the magic and depart from here as yourself, Hannes the wizard."

  "Otherwise—" Hannes's round eyes narrow apprehensively.

  "There is no otherwise," Merlin answers gruffly. "If you fail, you will lose everything—your sanity, your life, and probably the sanctity of your soul."

  Hannes staggers back a pace. "But surely you will guard over me?"

  "Not at all. I will not even be here. I must depart this very day on a mission of the highest importance. You will remain here at Camelot as me, Merlin—wizard of Britain."

  "But ... but with your powers?"

  "Yes."

  "By God's whiskers! How long will you be away?"

  "Days only. I go to escort the future king here to Camelot. If I am successful, I shall return with him by the start of the five-year festival."

  Hannes looks relieved. "Oh, thank goodness. That is only days away."

  "But dangerous days for you, Hannes. The British warlords and Celtic chieftains will soon arrive, and you must keep the peace. They will murder each other given half the chance."

  "I must keep the peace?" Hannes clutches at his chest. "They will spot the ruse at once!"

  "Not if you are cunning—as a wizard must be. Few of them actually know me well enough to see that you are not me. My robes, my hat, and my staff will prove sufficient evidence of my identity." The wizard scrutinizes the carpenter head to toe. "Hmm. We will definitely have to do something about your beard, however. It's not nearly long enough. And your hands. You'll have to be far more limber to do what must be done. Hold still."

  Leaning his staff against the star stone, Merlin splays his large hands over Hannes's face. He presses close and expels a massive shout into the carpenter's face. The poor man startles but cannot move. Paralyzed, unable to fly outward, his fright implodes instead, cracking the rust in his joints and then hurrying swiftly through his whiskers, lengthening the silver filaments of his beard down to his waist before the wizard releases him and drops him to his knees.

  Hannes huffs the shock from his lungs! He flexes his limber hands and shrugs his newly liberated shoulders. Filled with lightness and awe, he rises, and laughter feathers from him. "I am changed, Merlin!"

  "Not yet. Not really. The magic is yet to come." Merlin peers at him closely. "But you must consent to what I ask of you."

  The carpenter hesitates. He moves each finger independently, letting his amazement seep into the smallest crevices of his bones; then, he speaks as if to his hands, "How can I consent? I do not honestly know what you are asking of me." He lifts his tear-bright eyes to the wizard. "I don't know the first thing about your—my responsibilities at Camelot."

  Merlin straightens the hat on Hannes's head again and regards him sternly. "Just this: you must keep the warlords and chieftains from each other's throats."

  "But how?"

  The wizard's eyes widen. "You are Merlin now. Merlin himself! Show your presence, man. Act with authority. Remind one and all that they serve a higher good than avarice. Tell them, again and again if you must, that they are subjects of the true king, who shall soon draw the sword from the stone by his own hand. That always works. Excalibur is an emblem of God's authority. You felt the power in the sword yourself. It is real. Trust in it."

  "I will try," the carpenter promises weakly.

  "You will do more than try, Hannes, or we shall not even begin." He seizes the man's shoulders. "You must succeed! You must be me—just as you have wished. You can do it. The future king of Britain depends on you."

  "You ask a great deal, wizard," the carpenter mutters, "even though 'twas I who desired it."

  "Indeed I do, master builder—only for a few days."

  "And afterward, the magic is mine forever, to do with as I please?"

  "It is the magic that will do with you as it pleases," Merlin corrects. "It is always thus."

  "I will be Hannes the wizard?"

  "If you stand in my stead until I return—then, yes, you may leave from here as Hannes the wizard." Merlin cocks a hopeful eyebrow. "Are we agreed?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. Then put your left hand on the sword and take my stave in your right hand."

  Hannes complies, and Merlin clasps both of his hands on the Stave of the Storm Tree and directs his heart's brails into the carpenter. Carefully but decisively, the wizard begins to open the gates of power in the man's body.

  When the first gate swings wide, summer enters Hannes—the enormous company of the sky's cloud giants, the horizon's rising birds, the shadows' painted spiders, and the dreamclothes of all the trees!

  Hannes reels as if punched. The forests billow like sheets in the wind, and the very stones seem to breathe.

  "Hold tight to the stave and the sword!" Merlin commands, unlocking the second gate.

  The auras Hannes sees around things do not waver like hallucinations anymore. They steady to something similar to sunset's glow, infusing all he looks at. And he realizes that he can see the truth of all that is before him. He can see in the blades of grass all their soft powers, weaving sunbeams, air, and water into their green fabric. When his gaze shifts to a stone, he detects its icy truth, sees the cold core from where, in winter, frost aims its rays.

  And, staring straight at Merlin, he watches the demon's night-deep eyes stare back, baleful and sleepless yet warm, comforting, and full of undying love.

  The wizard unlocks the third gate inside Hannes's body, and the master builder swells with power. The ends of the world connect inside him. With a willful tug, he discovers he can budge clouds. With a cry, he knows that leaves will fly off trees. He feels this with a certainty, and he looks to Merlin for permission.

  Merlin smiles and decides that Hannes now possesses enough magic to satisfy himself that he is in some sense a wizard.

  Let him be spared the fourth gate, the heart's brails that can become knotted with expectations—and let him be spared the long sight into time that can blind him with memories of what is yet to be.

  Hannes releases the stave and the sword and reaches into the earth with his will. "I am changed!" he cries, twitching with laughter. "Behold!" He feels underground a stubborn bulk and pulls strongly at it until the loamy flesh of the sward peels back before a glacial boulder.

  Stunned at his newfound strength, Hannes releases his magical grip, and the giant rock tumbles down the knoll and crashes into the lime shrubs.

  "Yes, you are changed, Hannes," the wizard agrees somberly. "Blessedly, no one stood in the path of that running boulder. This power has become yours—for good or ill."

  Fingers aquiver with amazement, Hannes strips and accepts the wizard's robes. They slip on cool and silken as ice fog and fragrant as citrus.

  "Now I am the wizard!" Hannes declares, and spins about, dark robes aswirl. His stomach tightens, and his magical will snatches his fallen hat and flips it back onto his head. "I am Merlin!" He gawks at the skinny, rib-slatted wizard donning those worn, dusty clothes Hannes has shed, and a troubling thought arises. "What if something goes wrong?"

  Merlin tightens the hempen cord of his trousers. "You must make it right."

  "And if I fail—if the storm-warriors come with their one-eyed god—"

  "Take this." Merlin presses into Hannes's pal
m the thumbnail-sized mirror that holds the blue rose of the Happy Woods. "It is a summoning glass given to me by the prince of the elves. If you are desperate, break it, and the elf-prince will come to aid you."

  Hannes turns the dainty mirror between his fingers and squints at solar reflections twisting inside it. "But, Merlin, what if this elf comes and cannot help? What if I am overwhelmed with unforeseen difficulties? How will I call for you?"

  "Do not call for me!" Merlin scowls sternly. "That would put our king in jeopardy. You must not call for me. You must find all the solutions to your problems for yourself. Do you understand?" The wizard peers closely at Hannes, and speaks sharply and with finality, "You are a wizard now. The power—all the power—is in your hands. Do not look anywhere else. There is nowhere else to look."

  Chapter 8: Kyner's Battle-Soul

  Arthor stands in White Thorn, the hill fortress of the Christian Celts, where he grew up. All around him—stacked in corners and strewn across the polished maple-wood floor of the great hall—the traveling satchels of the chieftain's household lie waiting to be gathered by servants and secured to the pack animals for the long trek to Camelot.

  Everyone in the clan is to go, and the stronghold will remain occupied by only a skeleton force of novice warriors left behind to prove their worthiness. Excited voices echo from the corridors that lead to the living quarters of the noble families—the chieftain's kin and their thralls, who are gathering garments and bedding for the month-long holiday.

  As the chieftain's ward, Arthor, who resides in the thralls' barracks, may enter the great hall whenever he pleases, though he has never come unless invited.

  Moving in a slow turn, the young man looks up at the arched ceiling looming two stories above, its great crossbeams bearing the clan's trophies: stag antlers, Roman shields, lances, and battle-axes. Once, in the pre-Christian time, human skulls adorned these timbers. From those pegs now dangle animal pelts.

  The gray hide of the dire wolf is Arthor's trophy, and it pains him yet to see it displayed in Kyner's hall. He killed the animal with a spear when he was twelve. He had been hunting deer with Cei when the beast emerged from the underbrush. At its charge, Cei had yelped and fled, while Arthor had instantly seen the futility of flight. He stood his ground and did not throw until sure of his target. Later, he claimed that Cei had slain the wolf-—not out of regard for Cei but because, if he had told the truth, the magnificent skin would have decorated a lowly wall in the servants' barracks.

  Now the wolf's pelage, empty of eyes and gullet, only inspires shame in him, for Cei admitted the truth that first Sunday after, at the sight of Jesus nailed to His boards. Soundly thrashed by Kyner, Cei resented Arthor's lie, and nothing has gone right between them since.

  "What are you here for?" the familiar gruff voice of his stepbrother asks. Large as his father and even more muscular, he walks down the corridor from his chambers with the gait of a giant; the servant behind him hurries after, almost entirely hidden by the mounds of garment satchels he carries. Cei motions brusquely for the servant to go on, and the thrall staggers across the great hall and into the blue light of early morning.

  "I was sent for." Arthor meets Cei's hard stare. "Is he here?"

  The chief's son regards Arthor from head to toe, noting the younger boy's best clothes—cowled green tunic, tawed leather vest, cordovan trousers, and cuffed riding boots—and he smiles with a hint of malice. "Looking forward to Camelot, are you? A chance to show off your pony tricks to the young ladies. Rutting and killing—it's in your blood, isn't it?"

  "Is he here?" Arthor repeats levelly, refusing to be baited.

  "He's in church with the elders. He left me to supervise the lading, and look at me, I'm not even dressed yet." He plucks at his baize nightshirt, then points to the satchels mounded on the floor. "See that those are properly packed, Arthor. I'm going to ready myself for the journey."

  "Pack your own satchels, Cei," Arthor replies, and turns to go.

  "You forget your place," Cei calls after him.

  Arthor stops and turns. "I'm not your servant."

  "Did I call you a servant?" He shakes his burly head with mock pity. "You are my younger brother. Remember? Your place is to serve."

  "I'm not either your brother."

  Cei curls his lip in disgust and waves him away. "Get out of here, Arthor. You are hopelessly arrogant. Well, Father has a proper punishment for you, Royal Eagle of Thor."

  "Has he?"

  Cei fills his large face with disdainful surprise at his stepbrother for forgetting his offense. "You shamed Father at Mousehole. You forget, but he hasn't. Now you're not going to Camelot."

  "So you say." Arthor turns away sharply.

  "And I would know, wouldn't I?" Cei calls to his back. "I live here—not in the servants' barracks."

  Without another word, Arthor stalks out of the great hall, shoves aside the thrall returning for the other satchels, and stomps across the packed-dirt range of the fortress. Horses milling in the ward awaiting their riders shy from him, and he punches the haunch of a sumpter mule in his way and sends it scampering with a hurt bray. Servants preparing the baggage train move aside and look nervously away from him. Even the guards on the timber pilings that enclose the settlement notice the commotion but divert their attention as soon as they recognize Arthor.

  Emerging from a stockade of raw lumber, several bare-chested soldiers pause as they escort a prisoner—the Saxon hostage Fen—toward the great hall. Arthor is too angry to wonder why. Distractedly, he watches from across the range as the Saxon brusquely shoulders past his guards into the light.

  Draped in a monk's brown cassock, arms fettered, the warrior shakes ash-blond hair from his eyes and fixes his stare on Arthor. This slender Saxon with a solitary face of broad cheekbones and muscled jaw gazes at him as if expecting a sign of recognition, but the boy pays him no heed.

  The first time Arthor set eyes on him was winter. Captured during a Saxon assault on the farmers of a narrow valley when a sudden squall blew over them and trapped the raiding party in the dell, Fen arrived sullen. Kyner had denied him the battle death all storm-warriors crave, because the youth bore a thunderbolt scar across his chest, a royal emblem among the Saxons.

  Since then, Fen has sat mute in the stockade, eating whatever his captors put before him, staring sleepy-eyed at the priests who alone have permission to talk with him. Now and then, Kyner has paraded him naked in the great hall and the barracks, simply to amuse the women and to show the men that the dreaded Saxon storm raiders are men like any others. On each of those few occasions, Fen has looked to Arthor as intently as he stares now, as if some unspoken secret shares itself between them.

  Arthor ignores the prisoner. Fists swinging at his side, he steers himself directly toward the wooden church, White Thorn's most ornately carved building, determined to burst into the gloomy interior and confront Kyner in front of the elders. As he nears the arch-roofed building, he hears music and the elders and clan warriors singing jubilation to the Savior in voices like an effulgence from thunderheads.

  He stops. The music holds him. Summer air thickens in his lungs, and his furious breathing slows. The singing enters him with a thrill and an ache, momentary as smoke, filling him with sorrowful glory—and his anger shrivels. For as long as the congregation sings, he stands outside the oaken doors, staring at the engraved cross in its Celtic circle, his body wavering gently as a flame's interior.

  The beauty and mystery of the music lift him toward a clarity he has not felt in many months, and when the decision settles upon him, he feels light as a blossom: He will not stay with the clan any longer. He will go his own way, and in doing so will take what risks befall him, a true orphan, carried only by the horizon.

  When the music stops and the doors open, he stands aside and waits as the priest, monks, and holy sisters exit first. Kyner follows, commander's thong about his brow, white tunic emblazoned with a scarlet cross, accompanied by his warriors and the clan's elders.


  At the sight of Arthor, he nods, then turns and speaks reverently to the elders, the old men and women in their traditional hempen robes with bines of summer flowers in their gray hair, and sends them off to the wagons that will carry them to Camelot. With a curt hand signal, he dispatches the mustached warriors in their riding leathers to escort them.

  "I trust you have been shriven by the barracks priest this morning?" Kyner asks, stepping closer.

  When Arthor affirms by lowering his chin, the grizzled chieftain slaps a thick hand on the young man's shoulder. "Good. You'll need God's protection for what must be done."

  A heartstring twangs apprehensively in Arthor. Is Cei right? he wonders. Am I to be punished? "Lord?"

  Kyner sighs softly, disappointed that Arthor won't call him father, hasn't called him father since he began wearing armor. "Arthor, I want you to return the Saxon hostage to his tribe. They are—"

  "Me?" Arthor's heartstring snaps painfully in his chest. "Why do you send me?"

  Kyner's weathered brow flexes with anger at the youth's insolence. He takes the boy's arm in a firm grip and sternly leads him into the church, out of hearing and sight of the community. Only the carved figurine of Christ in his agony witnesses their confrontation among the incense-smoldering shadows. The chieftain begins in his gravelly voice, "I am sending you, Arthor."

  "Why?" Arthor's slant yellow eyes tighten. "Because I am expendable?"

  Kyner's whole body flinches to hear Arthor speak so harshly. Rageful looks and defiant smirks have been the extent of the boy's contemptuous conduct until now, and each of those has been answered with a sound thwacking. But the chieftain restrains the impulse to lash out at the youth. I need for him to do this willingly, he tells himself to quell his ire; then says simply, "I want you to go. I ask you to go."

  "Why did you not tell me sooner?" Arthor cocks his head suspiciously. "I thought I was to go with you to Camelot for the festival."

  Kyner blinks with perplexity at Arthor's wrathful tone. "You will meet us there after returning the hostage."