The sound of the church bells ringing out on the wintery air soothed Nimue, driving away the monsters in her dreams. She realized she was back at Avalon where she had always been safe. Nothing could hurt her here. All the brutality of the outside world stopped at the Abbey gates, unable to enter these holy precincts.
Here she was safe. Only here.
After what seemed like years spent in a timeless healing sleep, Nimue slipped closer to the borderlands of wakefulness until at last, in response to insistent gentle coaxing, she opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was Merlin. He was sitting on the edge of her bed, gazing down at her with grave pity.
“Hush,” he whispered, when he saw she was awake. “Don’t say anything. Save your strength.”
Nimue could taste the bitterness of healing herbs upon her tongue and feel the thick weight of bandages covering her face and chest. Painfully, she moved the tips of her fingers, and felt the tightness of the burns along her arm. Once again she relived the moment that the dragon’s flaming breath had licked over her, searing and scarring her face and body.
Forever.
She moaned and tried to turn away. She did not want to see Merlin now, not when she had the power to hurt him so deeply with her helpless cruelty and revulsion against what he was. She knew that wizards could see things unknown: he would see into her heart and see the fear there.
“No. Don’t turn your face to the wall,” she heard him plead.
“I’ll … be … scarred,” Nimue said painfully.
Forever. I will never again be the girl you loved. How can you still love what I have become? Oh, Merlin. …
Merlin’s hands were gentle as he turned her face toward him. Even though when Nimue looked into his eyes she saw nothing but love, the sight of him terrified her. She would never be able to be open and honest with him again. The attack had stolen an innocence that she had not known she still possessed.
Her eyes filled with tears and Nimue shut them tightly. Merlin was honor itself. If she lied to him he would learn to hate her, and she could not tell him the truth. Not now.
Perhaps not ever.
Merlin smiled gently at his love, though inside he was howling with rage. Half of Nimue’s face was swathed in wide linen bandages covering a mask of herbal ointment. Though the Healing Sisters had saved her life, there was no possibility that she would recover completely unscathed.
It was true that Nimue had been beautiful, in the way that mortals reckoned beauty, but it was not her beauty that Merlin had fallen in love with on that long-ago summer’s day. It was her spirit, that joyful dauntless thing that he had glimpsed in the moment their eyes first met.
He’d seen the fear in her eyes when she’d looked at him just now. The smiling young woman who had laughed in Vortigern’s face was gone forever as surely as if Mab had cut her throat, and Merlin vowed vengeance. He could not bear the thought of leaving what had been done to her unpunished.
Vengeance is mine. …
“Nimue, I have to go away for a little while,” he said gently. “When I come back, it’ll be forever.” If I come back. “You’ll always be beautiful to me,” he pleaded urgently as she closed her eyes once more. Nimue, don’t shut me out. I have given up everything for you.
He kissed her gently and felt her yearning—not for him, but for the inviolate love they had shared, a love that had been a shining shield against the cruelties of the real world. Now that sanctuary was gone.
Vortigern and Mab would pay. The Queen of the Old Ways had wanted Merlin to use his magic? Very well. Merlin smiled savagely. Let her see what a great enemy that magic could be.
The seasons had turned while Nimue lay injured, and it was now close to the Feast of Midwinter, the time at which Pagan and Christian alike celebrated, though for different reasons. Merlin found nothing to celebrate; the wizard rode through a landscape as cold and wintery as his own heart, toward a destination only he could reach. Sir Rupert’s silver-shod hooves covered the frozen ground in a tireless gallop, and Merlin’s long dark cloak of pheasant and owl feathers, trimmed in the skulls of ravens, billowed about him as he rode. Beneath it he wore rich clothing donated to the Abbey by some pious pilgrim, but the cold that burned him came from within, and no amount of fur and velvet could shut it out.
The Enchanted Lake glittered under the harsh winter sunlight. Its surface was frozen into a smooth layer of sparkling ice, and the reeds and bushes along its shoreline were stiff and glittering with the frost and snow that enveloped the landscape. This region looked like the mirror image of the Land of Magic: light where that was dark, bright where that was shadowed. But where the Land Under Hill was lifeless and crystalline, beneath the surface of the Enchanted Lake, life still burned.
Merlin dismounted from Sir Rupert’s back and walked to the edge of the frozen water. Mist rose from the ground, shining with the light of the winter sun and turning everything ethereal, unreal. In counterpoint to that in substantiality, Merlin’s boots crunched loudly through the brittle surface of the hard-frozen snow.
“My Lady of the Lake!” Merlin cried. His breath made white clouds on the air and there was frost on his hair and eyelashes. He stepped carefully out onto the frozen surface of the lake. It was a darker silver than the land that surrounded it, humming faintly with its own weight.
“It is I, Merlin. I need your help. I need a sword!”
A sword with which to cut out Vortigern’s heart.
For a long moment the young wizard did not think the Lady of the Lake would answer his cry—perhaps he had somehow angered her, or perhaps she had dwindled and disappeared into nothing as humankind forgot her, in just the way that Mab feared to do. But at last Merlin saw the glint of movement beneath the surface of the ice, and the figure of a pale shining woman who glowed like the full moon looked up at him through its frozen surface.
“For what purpose, Merlin?” the Lady of the Lake asked. Her voice shimmered, chiming like the ice-covered branches of the winter trees.
“To defeat Vortigern,” he said. “He is Mab’s ally, and a tyrant.” He spoke the words that had formed in his soul through all the desolate nights he had watched by Nimue’s bedside.
The Lady of the Lake shook her head slowly, sadly. “Good king … bad king … you judge too easily, Merlin. You’ll learn,” she sighed.
Her image faded away beneath the ice, and Merlin was alone.
She would not help him.
He shook his head. He tried not to be disappointed that she had refused him. The Lady of the Lake went her own way, as subtle and mysterious as the deep waters that were her realm. He would find another way to aid Uther and destroy Vortigern.
Merlin turned away, and as he did there was a rumbling explosion behind him. He turned back. Slabs and shards of ice were sprayed across the frozen surface of the lake, and a glowing woman’s arm, garbed in shining white, thrust up through the surface of the ice. Rings glittered on her fingers.
In her hand she held a sword.
“I give you—Excalibur!” the Lady of the Lake cried.
Excalibur! Sword of the Ancient Kings, summoned out of the Lands of Magic and now a part of the World of Men once more. The blade was as long as his arm, and shone brighter than anything Merlin had ever seen, brighter than candle flames reflected in wine. Its hilt and fittings were gold, almost in the Roman style, but decorated with the triple spiral of the Great Goddess.
Slowly, Merlin walked out onto the surface of the frozen lake and took Excalibur from the Lady’s glowing white hand. Magic thrilled through him at the touch of the hilt and he swung the sword into the air. It sang a high sweet note, as if he’d struck it against a blacksmith’s anvil, and the scent of magic filled the air as the humming grew louder. Excalibur was to the Old Ways what the Grail was to the Christians. So long as the sword remained unbroken, the land it served would endure.
Merlin looked down at the sword he held. In his hands he held the soul of the land, the secret history of Britain.
At the dawn of Time, when the tribes first came to Britain from the uttermost East, they had brought with them the gods who knew the secret of working cold iron. In that unimaginably ancient era, the Queen of the Old Ways had summoned a star down from heaven and from its fiery body had forged … Excalibur! From god to king to hero the blade had been handed down, always returning to the Ancient Ones who had forged it when its time on Earth was done. It was the sword of Weyland, of Lughd, of Taliesin—the sword of Maxen Wledig, last emperor of Britain before the Dark Times came. And now Merlin would use it to put a new king, a good king, upon the throne of Britain once more.
Merlin held the sword skyward in triumph. The blade flashed silver in the winter sun, and once more he heard the faint song of the blade’s inviolable magic. Excalibur granted victory to any who wielded it and made them unbeatable in war. Merlin swore he would never allow the sword to be used except for a good purpose.
The cold of its blade burned his fingers. Holding the sword in his two hands, Merlin walked back to where Sir Rupert stood patiently. When he reached Sir Rupert, he found a swordbelt and scabbard hanging from his mount’s saddle.
So this was meant to be, Merlin thought to himself as he buckled on the swordbelt. It was of soft golden leather, very plain, but worked by a master hand. When Merlin slid Excalibur into its sheath, the new weight at his hip felt right, as if it had always hung there. In a way, he felt that his life began at this moment.
Merlin had always thought that his future would hold great deeds. It had begun when he had slain Draco Magnus Maleficarum, the Great Dragon. Now, armed with the sword of the Just, he was going to face another dragon—a red one.
The red dragon was Uther’s crest, and Merlin was about to make it supreme—if Uther would let him.
And he would slay a king.
CHAPTER THREE
THE THRONE OF BATTLE
The Roman legions had worshiped Mithras as the Unconquered Sun at this season, and now the Christians worshiped a different Son in his place. There was a cathedral at Winchester, its presence was one of the reasons Uther had chosen to make that city his stronghold. The Young Prince was holding Christmas Court in Winchester Castle. His forces had doubled and doubled again in the weeks since his landing. All those who resented Vortigern—or had royal ambitions of their own—had flocked to Prince Uther’s red dragon standard.
The red dragon will fight the white come spring.
Uther was a young man, who wore his dark hair short and a neat beard in the Roman fashion, as well as a Roman cloak and armor. The Continental courts were still run very much in the Roman style, and the boy who would be king had grown up there, as a landless beggar suppliant at the foot of a Norman throne, existing in the shadow of his mother, Queen Lionor, King Constant’s widow.
He had not enjoyed the experience.
Time and again Uther had fretted beneath the yoke of patience, waiting—always waiting—for the moment of his ascension. A thousand times he would have resigned his claim on Britain to become the Norman king’s vassal, but his mother had always dissuaded him. To the day of her death, Lionor had believed that Britain was a rich prize worth fighting for, but that it could only be won when the time was right.
And at last Uther had come to share her vision. He had watched and waited until he was a man grown, until King Vortigern was old, and rotted through with mistrust, and had oppressed his people for so long that they looked back on the reign of King Constant as a golden time. Then Constant’s son had sold his mother’s jewels, borrowed all the money anyone would lend him, and sailed for Britain with the cross of the New Religion held proudly before him.
Though he still marched beneath the red dragon standard of his Pagan ancestors, Uther was a Christian king, and meant to make Britain a Christian land. The Christian lords of Britain had flocked to him to pledge their support as soon as his ships landed, and the Bishop of Winchester himself had opened the gates of the walled city to Uther’s troops.
The fighting that followed had been brief and apathetic, and ended with the lordling who had held the castle hanged from the highest tower while his men-at-arms pledged themselves to Uther.
Now secure behind Winchester’s walls, Uther gathered his resources and drilled his army, and blessed the winter that kept him safe from enemy attack. Vortigern’s army was ten times the size of Uther’s. He needed time to prepare.
“Can we count on your people for supplies, Cornwall?” he asked. Uther’s knights were gathered in the throne room, having come from early Mass to hear the reports of the army scouts.
Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, looked up from the letter he was reading. “They will do what is right, Your Grace, in the name of Christ our Lord.”
Gorlois’s wife Igraine held Tintagel Castle against attack while Gorlois—a loyal and sometimes overdevout Christian knight—was here. Uther counted on Cornwall for food as well as men-at-arms, though he knew Gorlois was ambitious and hoped for Cornwall’s independence once Uther triumphed.
Suddenly the door of the Great Hall opened. A servant crossed the room to whisper into Uther’s ear. His lords looked on curiously at the figure standing in the doorway, awaiting permission to enter.
The man who stood there was about Uther’s age. In comparison to Uther’s Romanesque armor, he was dressed like some wild Pict from over the Wall, in a long cloak trimmed with shining black feathers and tiny animal skulls.
“You’re welcome to Winchester Castle, Merlin,” Uther said urbanely. A man who wished to challenge a warlord such as Vortigern must be prepared to take his allies where he found them.
“Oh, are you Merlin the wizard?” Gorlois asked with false surprise. A ripple of tension went through the men in the room. Uther saw Lord Ardent—he had brought his troops over to Uther after Vortigern had sacrificed his daughter Nimue to the Great Dragon—whispering intently to Sir Boris.
“Wizard?” Sir Boris said indignantly, stepping between Merlin and the king’s throne. “We’re all good Christians here! We don’t believe in your blasphemy!”
The young man—or wizard—smiled gently, refusing to be insulted. “That’s your choice, sir,” he said, bowing in acknowledgment. “But Christian or Pagan, I hope you believe in fresh news.”
“Well, is it good or bad?” Uther asked, sitting back and crossing his legs. This wizard looked as if he’d at least be more interesting than another dull day spent reviewing battle plans.
“It depends on how you use it,” Merlin said smoothly. He walked toward the king, one hand upon the hilt of the sword at his hip, and the lords who were gathered about Uther fell back.
“Vortigern will attack you within days,” he said.
The tension in the room dissolved as the nobles laughed loudly, dismissing Merlin’s words as those of a madman or a fool.
“No one fights in the winter,” Gorlois said, his pale eyes boring into Merlin’s. He fingered the golden cross at his throat as though it could protect him from Merlin’s wizard-magic.
“It isn’t done, sir!” Sir Boris blustered. He was a round, redheaded man whose small suspicious eyes gave him the look of a pig. “Rules of war. We fight in the summer and rest in the winter. It’s tradition!” His tone was condescending, as if he thought Merlin could not be expected to understand the ways of civilized men.
“Vortigern isn’t interested in rules or tradition,” Merlin answered evenly. “He wants to win. If circumstances were different, I’d favor him.”
He ignored the jeering nobles and spoke directly to the Young Prince. He was the only one in the room who mattered. Uther understood the necessity of kings. He would listen because he had to. Now that he had returned to Britain, he must win at all costs.
“His army’s already on the march. Take it or leave it.” He shrugged, turning away from the throne.
Before Merlin had gone more than a few steps, Uther had risen from his throne to follow him. He put a hand on the shoulder of the young wizard, turning him away from the gathered noble
s as they walked together.
“Why are you telling me this?” Uther asked in a low voice.
“Vortigern is the friend of my enemy, Mab, so my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Besides, I’ve seen the Red Dragon defeat the White, and I think you might make a fair to decent king,” Merlin answered simply. It was no more than the truth.
Uther smiled, taken off guard by Merlin’s presumption of treating him as no more than an equal. Raised in a French court, he’d never before seen any of the wizards and wonders that Britain was said to abound in. He found himself liking this Merlin-the-wizard.
“You think so, do you?” Uther jibed.
“King Constant wasn’t,” Merlin continued in that same confidential tone. “You’ll have to do better than your father. But I offer you my services as a wizard.”
Uther laughed, and held out his hand. After a moment, Merlin took it.
The bargain was sealed.
The next morning, Merlin, Uther, and his two closest companions, Lord Gorlois and Sir Boris, rode out to scout the territory over which they were soon to fight. When they reached the edge of the river that flowed south of the city, Merlin dismounted and walked out onto the ice. The surface of the river was as flat as a table, covered with snow and frost. It seemed as if Merlin were looking for something.
The other three watched him closely. Sir Boris thought that Merlin’s mere presence in Uther’s army was heresy; Gorlois worried about that and also feared that Merlin would give Uther more power than was good for him. Uther ignored them both. Scouts had ridden into Winchester at dawn, bringing the same news that Merlin had delivered the previous day: Vortigern’s army was marching toward Winchester.
“Merlin, I owe you an apology,” Uther called cheerfully. “You were right about Vortigern.”
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