But was that what he wanted?
Merlin sighed wearily, rubbing his jaw. In truth, he no longer knew what it was that he wanted. He had fought for so long against Mab that it seemed he had forgotten to fight for anything. And when he had tried, all he seemed to do was cause more suffering. The only thing that was still shining and pure in his life was Nimue.
And even she did not belong to him wholly. There, it seemed, his rival was the god of her New Religion, the one that Queen Mab hated so much, the one whose priesthood sought to put an end to the Old Ways for all time.
Once Merlin had believed that the enemy of his enemy was his ally, but Uther had taught him what a delusion that was. Merlin did not hate the New Religion, but he did not love it, either—and he did not know how to fight it. If Nimue loved her strange foreign god more than she loved him, then Merlin would lose his love to prayers and chanting and the stone walls of Avalon. The only way to halt that for certain was with magic—and if he stooped to using magic simply for his own convenience, Merlin would have become as vile as Queen Mab.
No. There must be another way. Merlin knew that he had done great evil in the name of good, but he must put both his guilt and his blame behind him. Now more than ever Merlin must strive to be a good man—to renounce the flashy, easy tricks of magic not because of Mab, but for his own good, and seek the deep hidden wisdom to be found in the contemplation of the natural world, the wisdom that lay in prophecy and in dreams.
Arthur’s birth had changed him more than he knew—now Merlin realized that he must be good to teach goodness, and he wondered if he was still capable of what he had once thought was so simple a thing.
Perhaps Nimue could teach him.
If she loved him still.
It was high summer once more, a few weeks after Arthur’s birth, and at Avalon Abbey, all drowsed beneath the shimmering heat. Merlin had managed to coax Nimue to walk in the garden with him, but she had found it was too hot even for that, and they sat at the foot of a tree, resting in its meager shade.
The Father Abbot, there to chaperon Nimue, was frankly asleep at the window that overlooked the close, and the only one watching the lovers was a marmalade cat that lay half-dozing upon the slanting Abbey roof.
Everything is regimented and orderly here, Merlin mused. They try to shut out the outside world, that disorderly place full of magic and wonder, but try as they might, some part of it always sneaks in. He plucked up the blown dandelion that had invaded Avalon’s gardens and studied its downy white puffball. Even though his touch had been gentle, seeds lofted from the white silky head in clouds of fluff, soaring into the sky on the gentle summer breeze.
“You can’t believe that you truly belong here,” Merlin continued persuasively. “Locking yourself away like this. You’ve committed no crime. It’s foolish and wrong.”
Nimue hung her head, and pulled her scarf protectively closer around her face. “I can’t stand the thought of people peering, whispering, pointing at me …” she said, looking away.
“We’ll live in the forest. Animals don’t point and whisper,” Merlin argued.
“But it’s a dream, Merlin,” Nimue protested.
My dream—but not yours? Merlin wondered, not for the first time. “I want to make it real,” he said, taking her hand. He was a wizard, trained in the Old Ways. Surely his magic would give him the words to convince her.
But Nimue shook her head, though she did not withdraw her hand. “I’ve found a peace here in prayer and meditation. It is a peace I’ve never known before. It passes my understanding.”
“To be honest, Nimue, it passes my understanding, too,” Merlin answered, faintly cross. “Why do you shut yourself away here?” He asked the unanswerable question despite himself, knowing that they were drifting once more into the helpless, circuitous arguments.
“To be nearer my God,” Nimue whispered.
Merlin shook his head. “The nearer you are to Him, the further you are from me,” he protested. He had been raised in the Old Ways—to him the gods were real and tangible, as objective as rain and bread. He did not understand how anyone could draw comfort from the Christians’ silent god of the spirit. “Will you take off that veil?”
Nimue cringed away as Merlin gently unwound the kerchief from her face. Her scars were purple-grey and rigid against the living skin of her face, their presence turning a beautiful woman into a monster.
But Merlin loved them, because he loved her. Only Love did not conquer all, as the poets insisted. Love solved nothing at all. Gently, Merlin kissed her cheek. Nimue wept silently. Once again there were no answers, and no solutions.
CHAPTER SIX
THE THRONE OF REBIRTH
The slanting rays of the afternoon sun shone through the door of the room Sir Hector had designated as the schoolroom. Sir Hector himself discussed weighty matters such as the coming harvest and the price of flour with two of his tenants at the back door. Through the door that had been left open because of the heat came the interesting smells of the kitchen where Hermesent was overseeing the preparation of the evening meal for the residents of the tiny farm holding.
Arthur and Kay were at their lessons—Kay bored and fidgeting, Arthur doing his best to listen to his tutor’s words. The heat, the quiet hum of voices, and the smell of baking pies all made it very hard to concentrate.
“Consider the moon. In her fullness, she is a perfect circle, but what constitutes her perfection? It is the fact that in a circle every part is equal, and no part is more important than the rest. Thus we may state that equality is perfection, for the attempt to gain supremacy over another directly convenes the natural law which the moon shows to us. …”
It was amazing how much all this brought back his own days as a student in the Hollow Hills, Merlin thought. What an ungrateful pupil he had been—and how Frik had suffered with him! It hurt to look back at those days of his long-vanished childhood and think about how happy he had been. Even though it had been a joy founded on ignorance of terrible truths, those now seemed to him to have been carefree, innocent days, days when his future stretched before him as a wonderland of bright possibility.
But while his own childhood was long dead, those of his pupils had just begun.
Merlin had presented himself as a tutor for the boys three years ago, when Arthur was seven and Kay was ten. Despite Hermesent’s misgivings, Merlin had no intention of passing on to either boy the magical curriculum that he’d learned in the Hollow Hills, but rather, the things that his own first teacher, Blaise, had taught him when he’d lived in the forest: ethics, morals, how to choose the right path through life.
As well as a little reading, writing, and good plain Latin.
“The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Now by ‘others’ I don’t mean your family or your friends, because it’s easy to do the right thing for them. But for strangers or enemies, people you would ordinarily turn aside from—”
Arthur had raised his hand to ask a question. “But if you do right by them, why are they your enemies? Ow!” he added, because Kay had kicked him.
“You may as well ask why those who know us well misbehave toward us,” Merlin said, frowning discouragingly at Kay.
“Because he’s a little wart,” Kay muttered. The older boy had little patience with Merlin’s lessons and showed it frequently. His disinterest did not worry Merlin. Kay would not grow up to be the next king.
And Arthur would.
“Master Kay, if you are having such trouble with the lesson, I’ll ask you to copy it out on your slate-board now. Ten times, please, Master Kay.”
The older boy glared rebelliously at Merlin before bending to his work with a sigh.
“And you, Master Arthur, may oblige me by translating the Golden Rule into Latin and writing it out in a fair hand in both Latin and English. If you would.”
Arthur reached for the large Latin grammar without complaint.
It had been ten years since the boy’s birth
, and in those years, King Uther had become ever more moody and withdrawn. Though the king did not seem to mourn Igraine, he also had not married, as every king had a duty to do, to secure an heir. As Uther retreated behind the walls of Pendragon Castle, rarely venturing outside, he left the business of running his kingdom more and more to his lieutenants. Rumors began to spread across the countryside that Uther, disappointed in his wizard’s powers, had turned to dabbling in magic of his own, summoning the devils and dark angels to do his bidding through the satanic necromancy of the New Religion.
If the rumors were true, Merlin had seen little evidence that any demons of the New Religion answered Uther’s call. But the fact remained that all dark sorcery was drawn from the same wellspring of anger and envy, and Merlin worried that Uther’s meddling might be enough to draw Mab to him.
Did she still exist? Or had she faded away into nothingness just as she had always feared? Each year the New Religion gained more of a hold over the minds and hearts of the people of Britain. Each year more of the old magic slipped away. When he had been a boy, Merlin had spoken freely to the animals of field and forest. Now when he did, few of them answered him. And each year the farmers worked a little harder to bring in their crops as the soil forgot more of the fertility magic that had once belonged to it.
But though Merlin grieved for the magic that was gone, part of him felt it was for the best. Many of the Old Powers had been meddlesome and cruel—the power of magic bred arrogance in even the gentlest heart—and Mankind was all the safer for not being at their mercy. But was the security they had gained worth the wonders they had lost? It was hard, sometimes, to say.
Abruptly Merlin realized he’d been woolgathering. Kay and Arthur, their lessons completed, were exchanging kicks and pinches beneath the table, hoping he wouldn’t see. Merlin cleared his throat meaningfully and the scuffling stopped.
“That’s enough for today. Why don’t you boys go and play? You can run off some of that excess energy before dinner.”
Kay did not have to be told twice. He ran from the room, sandals clattering, whooping with delight at his freedom. Arthur followed more slowly, but no less eagerly. He was only a boy and sometimes found his lessons very dull.
It would be good practice for him, Merlin thought. A good and conscientious king must often find the work of governing dull, for it would not always be a matter of fighting wars and going on quests. Yet the goodness Merlin saw in Arthur encouraged him to hold to his task, shaping a good king to rule over Britain.
Faintly, he could hear the boys yelling outside. Merlin sat down at the table, pushing aside the books and slates they had left behind. From a pocket inside his robe Merlin withdrew a tightly-rolled scroll, bound with ribbon and sealed. The seal bore an image of a shining Cup—the seal was that of Avalon Abbey, and it was a letter from Nimue.
“My dearest Merlin, I am always sad that I cannot write the words I know you long to hear from me. …”
She wrote to him often, to tell him of her days. They were much like his own, occupied with caring for others in the long uneasy peace that Uther’s troubled reign had brought. Nimue spent her days in prayer and healing; Merlin spent his trying to instill a moral sense into two young boys.
Sometimes he wondered which of the two of them had set themself the harder task.
* * *
And so the years passed. When Arthur was fifteen, Merlin moved back to his hut in Barnstable Forest so the boy could come and visit him there. Kay no longer took any interest in their lessons, and spent all his days with his father and his father’s knights, learning the ways of war. For it had been nearly eighteen years since the midwinter battle that had seen Vortigern slain and Uther set in his place, and without an heir to the throne of England, everyone knew that there would be war when King Uther died.
It was spring. Snow still remained in the shaded hollows of trees, and each morning silvered the fallen leaves with hoarfrost, though the winds held a hint of warmth. Snowdrops, irises, and daffodils pushed up through the mulch of last autumn’s leaves, covering the land in bright flowers.
Everyone knew that Merlin, the old hermit, lived here—though he was not all that old, and though some people remembered the days when he had been a young man and a seer. The countryfolk knew, also, that Sir Hector’s younger boy, Arthur, visited Merlin frequently—but Sir Hector was well-liked and Arthur charmed everyone he met, so no one minded where he rode, so long as it was not through the crops.
For Merlin, these were quiet, peaceful years, during which he lived close to the land and its rhythms. There were only two things that marred his complete contentment: the fact that Nimue still refused to leave Avalon, and his dreams.
He knew that they warned him of what was to come, or told him of things happening elsewhere in the land, but Merlin did not like them. The news, these days, was never good.
Again and again, the visions showed him Uther, in a black crypt beneath the cathedral he’d had built for the New Religion, praying to darker, older powers. Merlin did not know what Uther hoped to gain from these incantations, but in each dream the king looked older, more haggard, more like his mad father Constant. When Merlin dragged himself out of these dreams, the little forest cottage stank of blood for hours afterward. Blood for a king whose reign had begun in blood … and wizardry.
He had not dreamed last night. Still, when he awoke this morning Merlin knew that something very important had happened last night while he slept. But what?
If it would not come to him, Merlin would seek it out. He filled a small stone bowl with water from the spring and set it before himself, gazing intently into it.
Many things could be used to scry with: the flames of a candle, a polished crystal ball, a mirror. Merlin preferred the oldest and simplest of these aids to seeing: a bowl of water. As he stared down into it, he focused all his will on being as the water was, empty and serene and still. And as he gazed into the water, slowly it seemed to darken, until it seemed that he was gazing through a portal that looked elsewhere.
Merlin saw the crypt that he’d seen so often in dreams. Almost he could hear the chanting of the monks at prayer, smell the incense used in the Christian rite, feel the dampness of this hidden place beneath the high altar. As the vision sharpened, he could see Uther kneeling at the base of a massive cross carved from black stone, his lips moving as he conjured harm to his enemies.
But this time there was a dagger in the king’s hand, a dagger already wet with blood. As Merlin watched, knowing that what he saw was already in the past, Uther began to weep painfully, and then stabbed himself through the heart.
Merlin recoiled, and the water in the bowl trembled, cutting off his sight of what had been. Still numb with what he had learned, Merlin got to his feet and carried the bowl outside. He poured the water out upon the ground and then, almost as an afterthought, broke the bowl. He didn’t think he could ever bring himself to eat his morning porridge from it again.
So Uther was dead. Merlin had known the day must come, but like all men, had hoped it would not come this soon. Arthur was not yet seventeen. Though in many ways he was a fine young man, in some ways Arthur was a boy still. Was he ready to take Excalibur and do what must be done? Or did Merlin expect too much of him?
He is the vessel of all my hopes. He has to be ready—and so must I.
Briskly, Merlin made preparations to be away from the cottage for a long time. He made up some simple remedies to take with him on the journey, and put out the food that would not keep for the forest creatures. He summoned Sir Rupert, and made sure the fairy horse was saddled and ready to travel.
He must be ready to greet Arthur when he came.
* * *
Whooping, Arthur urged his bay gelding to even greater speed. Startled pheasants fled from beneath his charger’s hooves, and crows called rudely after him from the trees.
The messenger had come to Sir Hector only a few hours before, bearing the unbelievable news that the King was dead. The old kn
ight had immediately begun making preparations to travel to Winchester, because no one knew who would be king after Uther, and there was certain to be war. Of course, both Arthur and Kay had demanded to accompany him, but Sir Hector had said that Arthur must stay behind with Hermesent, while Kay, only three years older, would get to see the sights and wonders of the outside world.
Arthur had fretted over the unfairness of that, until he realized that he could at least bring the news to someone who had no other way of knowing it: his old tutor, Merlin. He’d saddled Boukephalos, his fastest horse, and ridden the animal ventre-à-terre for the forest hut. His black cloak flowed out behind him, the fabric tugging at the two round silver brooches that held it fixed to his ring-mail jerkin. The saffron tunic with gold embroidery that he wore beneath his armor was the finest one he owned, saved for feast days and other special days—and this was certainly the most important day Arthur could remember.
As he sighted the hut, he could see Merlin was already standing outside it. Arthur pulled Boukephalos to a halt.
“Arthur, don’t charge around like that, the horses don’t like it,” Merlin said crossly. “And don’t get off. We’re leaving right away.”
But Arthur was too excited to pay much attention to what Merlin was saying. “Merlin, have you heard the news? King Uther’s dead.”
“Rupert,” Merlin said. A horse that Arthur had never seen before came trotting out from behind the hut. It was a fine-boned grey, a princely steed, and Arthur wondered how his fusty old tutor had come by such a fine animal.
“Didn’t you hear what I said? The king’s dead,” Arthur repeated.
“I know,” Merlin said.
“Know? How could you know out here in the woods?” Arthur demanded, sure that Merlin was teasing him.
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