“Well, I’ll try,” the executioner grumbled, unmollified. “But sometimes I don’t know what this younger generation is coming to. No pride in craft, that’s their problem. None.”
Merlin spent the night before the Queen’s execution in his tower workroom. He did not know what it was that he waited for, but if Lancelot were to come in the night, he could be more use inside Camelot’s walls then he would be elsewhere.
But the hours passed without disturbance, and slowly Merlin’s hopes failed. Lancelot would not come in time. The Queen—Arthur’s proud, loving, reckless lady—would die, and a part of Arthur would die with her.
Soon the eastern sky began to lighten with the promise of a new day. Merlin glanced out his window toward the west, where the shadows lay blue upon the ground, still hoping that he would see Lancelot riding to his lover’s rescue.
He did not see Lancelot. But in the sky above the western hills, a baleful red star with a tail of bloody fire glowed against the dawn sky.
“It is only a comet?” Arthur asked Merlin.
The two men stood alone in the throne room, looking out over the courtyard where the Queen was to burn. The day had turned cloudy, finally hiding the red star in the west, but terrible things could still be seen. The cobblestones around the platform that held the stake were already piled high with logs and branches awaiting their victim.
“What?” Merlin asked lightly, trying to cheer him. “Did I teach you astronomy on all those cold winter nights for nothing? It is a comet, Arthur, no more supernatural than the fixed stars of the sky.”
“But why must it appear now?” Arthur said, and to that question, Merlin had no answer.
It was going to be a wonderful day, Mordred thought to himself gleefully. Today, no matter what Arthur did, Mordred could claim the first in a chain of victories that would end with Arthur’s death.
If the King burned the Queen, Arthur would have been dealt a mortal blow to his human heart—and such blows, Mordred had been given to understand, were fatal. Why, just look at how Frik had carried on just because Morgan had died, completely missing the point that nobody needed her anymore. A human heart made its owner soft, vulnerable.
Mordred had no intention of being either soft or vulnerable.
He’d put the days he’d spent in hiding since the Queen’s arrest to good use, convincing those bored gullible buffoons, the boys of the chivalry—who had sat around Camelot growing fat and lazy while Arthur wandered Europe on his fool’s errand—that he, Mordred, was their only hope for a life of danger, excitement, and privilege.
Of course, he hadn’t put it to them quite that way. Honor, he’d said, and fairness, and equality, and simple common decency. And they’d rallied behind him—meeting in cellars, drawing up manifestos, wearing his device, pledging to overthrow the weak tyrant who currently occupied the throne of Britain.
It was enough to make a cat laugh, really, and Mordred relished every moment of the joke. Not as much as he’d enjoy watching his father’s wife go up in flames, of course, but Auntie Mab had encouraged him to savor the small joys of existence as well as the great.
By eleven o’clock people were moving into the courtyard to await the show, and Mordred moved with them. He felt safe: even if Arthur still meant to arrest him, he could hardly do it right at the moment he was burning the Queen. Besides, with one thing and another, Arthur had never actually gotten around to formally banishing Mordred from Camelot. Mordred had just as much right to be here as anyone else—and he did so want a front-row seat.
But it was always wise to be prudent, so he kept a fold of his cloak pulled up over his face, and kept out of sight of the windows that overlooked the courtyard. Soon enough, he wouldn’t have to skulk in corners.
His time would come.
Very soon now, his time would come.…
Could pride shield her from the flames? Guinevere wondered. She did not think so, any more than prayer could strike down evil.
She sat at her dressing table, gazing into the mirror as she removed her jewels for the last time. She had dressed in her finest and queenliest robes to hear Mass and receive the last rites of the Church this morning, but she would not need jewels and robes of state where she was going now.
She stripped off her rings and her bracelets and set them aside. She unpinned the heavy pearl and gold brooches at her shoulders and let the stolla fall from her shoulders, then reached up to unclasp her necklace and set it upon the table before her. She removed the pearls in her ears, and last of all she lifted the heavy golden crown from her head.
How she had loved it the day she had first seen it, lifting it from its satin-covered box to admire it. She had been a child then, to think that crowns made queens. She knew far better now.
She unpinned her braids and began to run a comb through her long chestnut hair. The day was overcast, the sun pale, but she would not live to see if tomorrow’s weather might be better. At noon Arthur would give her to the flames.
He has always loved anything better than me! she raged unfairly. She had given him no reason to love her, and despite that he had done all he could to save her. But in the end, when he had been forced to choose between her life and his kingdom, he had chosen Britain.
It was the action of a King.
If only—Guinevere clasped her hands together and tried to still their shaking. She had broken so many of God’s laws—what awaited her after death? Heaven? The pains of Hell? Epona’s green meadows where the favored of the White Horse Goddess gathered? She did not know. It did not matter. She would not have traded one hour she had spent in Lancelot’s arms—one kiss—for the promise of life eternal. If death was her fate, she would go to meet it like a Queen.
There was a tapping on the door, and Guinevere rose to her feet, shrugging off her rich brocade robe so that she stood clad only in her shift of scarlet linen, a plain belt of golden disks about her waist.
Has noon come so soon?
Bishop Wace entered the room. For this sad occasion he was dressed in a simple white monk’s robe. Guinevere could see a company of guardsmen behind him.
“My lady,” the Bishop said reluctantly. “It is time.”
The crowds howled like a mob in the Roman arena as she appeared. If not for the protection of the guards, they would have torn the Queen limb from limb long before she reached the stake. They jeered at her helplessness, shouted threats and accusations at her as the guards pushed their way through them.
Gort was standing beside the stake. He reached down to help the Queen ascend the platform, then tied her hands around the stake with a length of stout rope. Chain would have been better—rope would burn through—but rope would do well enough. Before the rope burned through, the Queen would be dead.
Guinevere looked toward the windows where Arthur stood watching, and her eyes held unwavering accusation.
Once she was securely bound to the stake, Gort stepped down from the platform and took up an unlit torch. He touched it to the coals of a waiting brazier, then swirled it alight, brandishing the torch so that all could see. He looked toward the throne room windows. Arthur was supposed to be standing in full view, watching the execution. He was supposed to give Gort the order to light the fire.
But the King did not come forward, and after a moment Gort turned away and thrust the torch into the kindling piled around the edges of the platform.
The flame caught at once, making an uprush of golden fire. The wall of heat drove the crowds back. Their excited roar took on a higher pitch. In the throne room above, Arthur moaned and took a step backward, shutting out the sight.
“I can’t bear to watch,” he whispered. “The sin was mine, not hers.”
He looked helplessly, pleadingly, at Merlin, but Arthur’s former mentor was powerless to help him. This trap was composed not of magic but of morality, and against that force the greatest wizard in the world was helpless.
The flames spread greedily. There was fear on the Queen’s face now as she felt their
bite. Almost against her will she struggled against the executioner’s ropes, trying to evade a fate she knew now was inevitable. The last possible moment for rescue—or pardon—had passed.
“Merlin,” Arthur groaned. “It’s too late.”
Her fear, her struggles, were like a knife twisted in Arthur’s heart. Guinevere kept looking toward him, willing him to share in her fate. The flames were higher now, and hotter, and billows of smoke from the pyre rolled up, filling the courtyard and obscuring Guinevere’s struggling body. In a few moments more the pain would be too great for her to remain silent. She would scream, and then her body would begin to burn.
“Merlin—!” Arthur begged, not even sure what he cried out for.
In his voice Merlin heard the cries of the child he had loved and raised: “Master Merlin, make it stop, make it go away!”
I cannot stand by and allow this to happen, no matter the cost. Merlin stepped forward into the window, saw gratefully that clouds still filled the sky, and reached for them with his magic.
What is there shall be here—even heaven sheds a tear!
There was a rumble of thunder, and the rain began.
The first droplets of rain struck the flames like thrown stones, dissolving in tiny puffs of steam. Mordred turned
away from the pyre. It no longer interested him. He had seen people burn to death before. What interested him now was his father—he wanted to watch Arthur’s face as his beloved Queen turned to ashes. The rain cascaded down torrentially as if the sky itself wept in anger at the Queen’s plight. The sudden storm was so loud that until the doors into the courtyard at last gave way, no one inside quite realized that Lancelot had been battering at them.
In the window above Mordred could see Merlin. For a moment their eyes met. Merlin thought they were simply enemies, but Mordred knew better. They were rivals—rivals for Mab’s love.
Her love was the only thing Mordred had ever really wanted.
Behind Mordred, Black Bayard surged through the guards as Lancelot hewed about himself with his shining sword. Its name was Joyeuse, but there was little cause for joy in Camelot today. Before the sun set, wives and mothers would mourn the unjust deaths of men slain to prevent an unjust death.
All around the courtyard people shouted and ran, both toward the battle and away from it. The scene was pure chaos, and the fierce downpour only made things worse. Only one dark-clad figure stood immobile, staring up toward the throne-room windows as the people around him shouted—half in praise of Guinevere’s rescue, half demanding that Lancelot be burned as well.
Mordred.
He watched the window where Arthur—weak, broad-minded, accommodating Arthur—came hesitantly forward to peer down at the Queen’s magic-born salvation. Mordred stared fixedly toward the King. He did not turn to see the source of the sounds of battle, murder, and sudden death that came from behind him.
Lancelot was the best knight in all the world, and he was fighting for his heart. He flung back a dozen men as he fought his way to the pyre and severed the Queen’s bonds with one stroke of his gleaming blade.
None of that mattered to Mordred. All that mattered was Arthur, and Merlin, and the fact that Arthur had cheated.
Mordred always enjoyed watching someone abandon all his principles.
She stood on a bed of half-burned wood, her bare feet blistered, as pillars of steam rose about her. Her scarlet linen tunic was sodden with rain, her hair seal-slick against her skull. But Guinevere laughed, pulling herself free, and looked no longer to the window where the King watched.
“Come on!” Lancelot shouted. He held out his hand and pulled her up before him. Bayard danced and fretted, alarmed by the soldiers all about him. Then Lancelot turned, and, spurring his stallion, galloped away from Camelot with the Queen in his arms.
Merlin stepped away from the window and sat down on the nearby bench. He was weary to the bone. He had passed a long and sleepless night, and if Lancelot had not arrived, they would be watching the Queen burn even now, despite his spell. Lancelot has all of knighthood’s virtues, and every one of its failings, but there are two things about Lancelot that will never be a part of any bard’s tale: he always leaves everything till the last minute, and he always makes the wrong choice.
But what was the wrong choice, under these circumstances? The one Arthur had made—or Lancelot’s?
“Thank God,” Arthur whispered fervently, staring after the lovers as if he wished he could join them.
“And you, of course, Merlin,” he said, recollecting himself. Arthur turned away from the window and looked down at Merlin, concerned.
“It had to be done,” Merlin said simply.
“It’s strange,” Arthur said, almost to himself. “When I married Guinevere, I didn’t love her. It was truly a marriage of state. But when I returned from my quest—when I realized I had already lost her—my feelings changed. I found that I really did love her then. If I had loved her at the beginning, would I have needed to go on my quest?”
“Some say that the Grail is love, Arthur,” Merlin said gently. “If you have found love, perhaps you have truly found your Grail at last.”
“But it’s too late,” Arthur said sadly. “Too late for all of us.”
He walked to the doors and flung them open to address the waiting guards. “Summon my council, and the Knights of the Round Table. It is time to decide what to do about Mordred.”
“Thank you for Jenny’s life,” Gawain said.
Arthur’s companions—Gawain, Sir Bors, and the others—had gathered around the throne, waiting for Arthur to say the words that would make the world seem sensible once more. But before they could begin to think about the problems that faced them, Gawain had stepped forward to offer his simple thanks.
Arthur’s first follower, his lifelong companion, was haggard with sleeplessness and worry. But his eyes shone with loving trust as he clasped Arthur’s arm and murmured his words of gratitude.
Perhaps we can make it work after all, Merlin thought, watching the two of them embrace. Arthur’s dream had been a worthy one, and he had managed to pass his vision on to others. Perhaps men of good will, all working together, could manage to prevail, just this once.
“Thank you, Gawain,” Arthur answered, sitting down on his throne. “I—”
But Arthur would never complete his sentence.
The doors of the throne room flew open again. A band of nobles pushed in to the chamber, and Mordred was at their head.
“What is the meaning of this?” Arthur demanded, coming down from his throne. Beside him, Gawain drew his sword, his face clouded with anger.
“You tricked us, Father!” Mordred cried. They were words of moral indignation, but the tone was the cheated surprise of the spoiled child. “You pretended to condemn the Queen to the stake, then you had her rescued by your damned wizard!”
There was a murmur of angry surprise and agreement from Mordred’s band—joined, unfortunately, by some of the Knights of the Round Table.
“You hadn’t even the courage to set her free yourself!” Mordred stood his ground as Arthur advanced upon him, until the two men were standing only inches apart: Arthur, tall and strong and fair, his full beard making him look older, and Mordred, small and feline and dark, with the mark of Fairy on his every feature.
“That’s true,” Arthur answered steadily. “I should have done.”
But Mordred did not give the King’s bold honesty a chance to win supporters for his side.
“One law for you and another for the rest of us?” he accused, throwing his arms wide as if to invite all his onlookers to judge the fairness of that.
“We can’t live like that!” cried one of Mordred’s men, as if on cue.
“Do you hear?” Mordred demanded, a faint cool smile on his face. “They can’t live like that.” The words were heartfelt, but Mordred’s voice was lightly ironic, as if he did not believe in the very things he urged his followers to accept so passionately.
&nbs
p; “I call upon all trueborn Britons to rally to freedom’s flag!” Mordred raised his voice and swept the room with a rallying glance, his fist upraised. The room rang with shouting and cheers. “Depose this—”
But Arthur could be mocked no longer. His face twisted with contempt, the King struck Mordred a powerful backhand blow, stopping his lying silver tongue at last.
There was a hiss of steel as knights—on both sides—drew their swords and the room fell silent. Only Mordred’s supernatural strength kept him from falling to the ground. As it was, he staggered back, and there was a thin thread of blood at the side of his mouth.
“You caught me by surprise, Father,” he said, moving back to stand before Arthur again. For once there was honesty in Mordred’s voice, and a kind of twisted joy, as though Arthur’s virtues made him even more worthy of destruction.
“I know how that is,” Arthur answered. He smiled without humor.
There was a long moment of silence in the throne room, then Mordred spoke in a low, even, and horribly compelling voice, his eyes never leaving Arthur’s face.
“Nobles, the time for talking is over. Those who value right and justice, follow me.”
Mordred turned away and left without another word. And, terribly, many of Arthur’s own sworn knights followed him, until less than half the men Arthur had originally gathered in the throne room remained. Slowly Gawain sheathed his sword, the last of the knights to do so.
Arthur walked through his men to the doors Mordred had left hanging open, and violently slammed them closed. The crash echoed through a room gone unnaturally still.
“So it is war,” Arthur said into the silence.
“Can’t we just… give him what he wants?” Sir Bors asked. The old knight glanced at Merlin as he spoke, but he could not meet Arthur’s eyes.
“You mean the kingdom?” Gawain demanded. “He already nearly got Guinevere’s life.”
“But he didn’t!” Sir Bors shot back. “She didn’t burn. Arthur’s… wizard… saved her.”
The End of Magic Page 15