Nimue bowed her head, at peace with herself now even though her heart still ached with loss. The years she had spent within these walls as her soul healed into acceptance had not been in vain. She knew what Merlin was, and accepted him with all her heart—and accepted his destiny as well. She knew without question that they deserved their happiness, and that someday they would be together. But for now, if Merlin returned to Avalon, she would find the courage to send him away again without seeing him, and pray that someday the time would come when they could both be free.
She was about to return to her cell when suddenly a bright light shone full upon her face. It was coming from the garden. Curious, Nimue walked toward it, wondering who else wandered abroad tonight. But when she reached the spot, she realized it was the full moon’s light she had seen, shining up at her from the ground.
“A mirror,” Nimue said wonderingly, reaching for it. The mirror was large and ornate, its reflective surface made of fine silver polished smooth as oil. “But there are no mirrors in Avalon.”
She picked it up, knowing without the strength to resist that what she was about to do would harm her. Throwing back her veil, she gazed into the mirror and saw her own face.
It was as bad as she’d feared. The scars had not faded and softened with age. They still covered her cheek and throat, the reminder of the Great Dragon and of Mab’s wickedness. The reminder of the danger of magic—and the holiness of the war Merlin waged.
Suddenly there was a rumble of thunder from the clear night sky, and a flash of lightning enveloped her, searing her flesh to the bone. Before Nimue could gather her wits to scream, it was gone.
And so were the scars.
Nimue stared into the mirror, unable to believe what she saw. Then, realizing whose work this must be, she slowly lowered the mirror.
Mab was standing before her in the garden.
The Queen of the Old Ways had been a force in Nimue’s life since she was sixteen years old. She was now nearly forty, and this was the first time Nimue had ever seen Mab in the flesh. She was a tiny woman, dressed in fantastical dark robes that seemed to be woven from cobwebs and shadows. Her skin glittered as if she were not made of flesh, but of moonlight and crystal.
“You see how I can change you?” Mab asked. Her voice was a toneless hissing. She spoke carefully, as if human language were foreign to her, as if her native tongue were something else entirely.
“You’ve changed me already,” Nimue said evenly. “You’ve scarred me.” No good could come of talking to Queen Mab. On this subject Merlin and the New Religion were in complete agreement. Nimue turned away.
“I know,” Mab said to her back. “It’s so unfair.”
“Unfair?” Nimue said incredulously, turning back to face Mab. “That was evil.”
“With evil all around me, I can do nothing but evil—to survive!” Mab put on a show of contrition, but Nimue knew the fairy queen felt nothing. Merlin had told her that Mab’s heart was a stone.
“Oh,” Nimue said in angry mock sympathy. “That’s too easy. You can fight it, like Merlin.”
Mab watched her unblinkingly, as if she were the raven that was her totem.
“It’s because of Merlin that all this came about,” Mab wheedled.
“That’s not true!” Nimue said, stung by the accusation. Once again she reminded herself that even talking to the Queen of the Old Ways held a thousand hidden dangers. “Why are you here, Mab?” she said sternly.
“To make you an offer,” Mab hissed in her graveyard voice. “I’ll restore your beauty if you take Merlin away to a place I’ve created for you. You can live with him there to the end of your days.”
Nimue glanced at the perfect reflection in the mirror she still held. This was her true self, not that travesty Mab had forced her to wear all the days of her life. “And be happy?” she asked.
“And be happy,” Mab agreed quickly.
But no. If God had delivered her into Mab’s hands to be scarred by the dragon, she must try to accept her fate, and not use it as an excuse to do evil herself. If she did, she would be as wicked as Mab.
“He has a destiny, Mab. It would keep him from his purpose,” Nimue said.
“It would keep him from wasting his life,” Mab retorted.
Nimue wavered. Wasn’t that as true as its opposite? Merlin had placed Uther on the throne and seen him destroy all hope for peace. Now Arthur faced some new trouble—for why else would Merlin have left her? Didn’t his absence mean that Arthur was doomed to fail, too? What if Mab was right?
No. If Mab was right, the Queen of the Old Ways would be arguing with Merlin, not with her. Mab was trying to get her to betray Merlin.
“He believes that fighting for what is right isn’t a waste,” Nimue said. “I wouldn’t do that to him. I love him.”
“I love him,” Mab asserted, taking a step closer to Nimue. Now they stood face-to-face.
“You hate him,” Nimue countered.
“I hate him … too,” Mab admitted reluctantly. “What’s your answer?”
“No,” Nimue said baldly.
Mab seemed surprised by her response, as far as Nimue could read any expression on that inhumanly beautiful face. “I’m … sorry,” Mab said slowly. She stepped back. “If you change your mind, just call my name. Out loud.” She flung up her arms, and there was another flare of intolerable brightness. The thunder rumbled, and Mab was gone.
Nimue put a hand up to her face, and felt once more the roughness of the scars. She flung the silver mirror as far from her as she could.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE THRONE OF LOVE
A full year passed before Merlin saw Arthur again. He could not bring himself to return to Avalon; though Merlin came to realize that he had not betrayed Nimue, he had failed her. Instead, Merlin went north, but even his beloved forest held no peace for him, and so the king’s wizard roamed the length and breadth of Arthur’s kingdom, listening to what was said of the new king, and using the simple healing arts he had learned long ago from his foster mother Ambrosia. He made no secret of who he was and where he was, and one day, word reached him that Arthur wanted to see him again.
As Merlin rode along the bank of the Astolat into what had once been Excalibur Village, he could see that much had changed. On the place where Excalibur had been buried in the rock, a great city was rising to spread along the shores of the lake into which the river fed. Camelot, the golden city. Arthur’s dream.
As Merlin rode slowly through the piles of stone and scaffolding shrouding the rising buildings, he heard someone call his name.
“Merlin!” Arthur ran to his side.
Arthur had changed in the last year, the king Arthur had become erasing the last marks of the boy Merlin had left behind. But it was still with his old joyousness that Arthur came up to his old tutor, smiling as though there had never been any rift between them.
“What’s all this, Arthur?” Merlin asked.
“A promise made flesh. I’m building the city of Camelot.” He took Sir Rupert’s bridle, and began to walk toward the architect’s pavilion. “It’s a new beginning,” he said, a little diffidently. “I made a mistake that night, but I can’t believe I’m condemned for all eternity for one mistake.”
“Not by me,” Merlin said warmly. He recognized the gentle teachings of the monks of Avalon who took their teaching from Pelagius and not Augustine, and was happy that Arthur had found a way to transform his guilt into something constructive. “I’ll never condemn you, Arthur.”
The young king smiled, but Camelot was not the reason he had summoned Merlin back.
“I hope to marry Lord Lot’s daughter,” Arthur announced.
Merlin had heard that Gawain and his father had both accepted the New Religion and been baptized last winter, and this must mean that the rest of the family had as well, for Arthur would never marry someone who clung to the Old Ways. And each day there were fewer of the Old Believers in the land, as Arthur’s sincerity and genuine hu
mility won converts where fire and the sword had been unable to.
“Ah,” Merlin said. Marriage would be the best way to banish the last lingering specter of Morgan’s trickery. “Do you love her?”
“She’ll make a splendid queen and a good wife. We hope to be married here at Camelot.” Arthur grinned, looking around at all the half-completed buildings. “I don’t care if it’s not finished. Will you be there with me?”
“I’ll be honored,” Merlin said warmly. “What’s her name, your bride?”
“Guinevere,” Arthur said.
Guinevere of the Iceni was Lot’s youngest daughter. She and Arthur had set the date of their marriage for autumn, at harvesttide, and a few weeks before, Gawain brought her to Camelot.
The city was still unfinished, but it was growing fast, thanks to the army of workers engaged in every facet of its building. Arthur had found a use for the great army that Britain had been afflicted with since Vortigern’s time—he had them taught a trade. Camelot was to be only the first of Arthur’s projects; when it was complete he meant to remake Londinium as well. His grandfather’s old fortress, Pendragon, was already being torn down, its stone used to build the golden city.
The cathedral would be finished first, then the castle, but at the moment, neither structure was complete. Guinevere had an elaborate pavilion set up outside the city for her use. The first night she was there, Arthur invited Merlin to supper to meet her.
Arthur’s tent was still the same one he had used in his brief military campaign against Lord Lot, but now it had been transformed into a kingly palace. The floor of the main room had been covered with thick carpets brought from the east, and the walls were hung with tapestries showing scenes of hunting and war. Massive pieces of furniture that would someday grace the halls of Camelot filled the tent—a long oak table whose legs were carved with griffins and acorns, a sideboard that glittered with silver goblets and decanters of Roman glass. The chairs were carved and painted, softened with embroidered cushions that had been stuffed with goose down, lavender, and myrrh. The chamber was lit by a dozen candelabra, each taller than a tall man and made of solid fine-wrought silver.
The table was laid for the meal to come with plates of silver and gold brought from Uther’s treasury and laden with the delicacies of Britain: partridge, goose, swan-cased pies, and fruits in syrup lay on the gleaming white cloth.
Merlin paused for a moment in the doorway, dazzled by the splendor that filled the little tent. It seemed that all that was good in life had been gathered together in this one place, and the wonder of it was like an assault on the senses, or like rain after a long drought. The last kings of Britain had been greedy and miserly, and Arthur was nothing like them. He spent money for the pleasure it gave both others and himself, and saw no reason that the court at Camelot should not be as lavish as anything known in Rome itself.
It was a small private occasion—of all of Arthur’s inner circle, only Gawain was there with his sister.
“This is Guinevere,” Arthur said, leading her forward.
She was dark-haired and dark-eyed as Igraine had been, but Merlin, who had seen both women, thought Guinevere was the more beautiful of the two. She did not have Igraine’s self-possession, though that might be simply because she was a year younger than Arthur. She regarded Merlin with apprehension, her eyes wide.
“Your ladyship,” Merlin said.
Guinevere glanced at Arthur, unsure of whether she should curtsey to Merlin. When she married Arthur she would be Britain’s Queen, but Merlin was Arthur’s wizard. At last she extended her hand, spots of bright color high on her cheeks. Merlin bowed over it.
“Now I have you both beside me,” Arthur said. “My dearest friend, and my dearest love.”
Merlin glanced at Gawain, but the prince’s face reflected nothing but happiness and approval. Guinevere blushed, lowering her eyes modestly. It should have been a perfect moment of happiness, but at that moment Merlin felt a faint thrill of warning, as though this golden moment held the seeds of its own destruction.
What was Morgan doing at this moment? The child she had conceived with Arthur would have been born by now, but she had sent no word, content to wait within Tintagel’s walls like some malignant spider.
Suddenly the happy scene before him took on an ominous overtone. Such moments of happiness were not meant to last, and Arthur had already sown the seeds of his own destruction.
Less than a month later, Arthur and Guinevere married. Though the cathedral still lacked a roof and windows, the wedding ceremony was held there just as Arthur had wished. The ceremony was attended by all the nobility of Britain—lords and ladies dressed in their finest gowns and jewels. Even the weather had cooperated, for the September day was clear and bright, gilding the stones of the church with the sun’s own gold.
It was somehow fitting, Merlin thought, gazing up at the heavens, that Arthur should be married under the open sky. The best of the Old Ways and the New Religion were blended in him and in his reign. Perhaps they could outface Mab’s ill-wishing and Morgan’s curse after all.
Beside Merlin, Arthur fidgeted nervously. The king was dressed all in white brocade—bareheaded, for the much-promised crown still was not ready—and waited at the altar.
“You weren’t this nervous facing Lot across a battlefield,” Merlin reminded him.
“This is Lot’s daughter,” Arthur replied, as though that made a difference.
There was a stirring at the back of the church and the bride appeared. Guinevere was dressed all in white silk samite, and wearing her dowry jewels, a pearl-studded coronet and necklace that had come all the way from Byzantium. Pearls hung down like tears in veils on both sides of her face.
Gawain led her forward, his face bright with pride, and suddenly the nervous young girl Merlin had met was gone. Guinevere walked proudly, head high, every inch a queen.
The ceremony was brief. Arthur and Guinevere clasped hands over the holy fire and swore to obey all the laws of marriage. The priest pronounced the blessing in a good Church Latin, and then it was over. Britain once more had a Queen.
The feast that night was a great marvel, providing every delicacy the realm could offer. It went on for hours, with every noble vying with his fellows to be the one who presented Arthur with the costliest and rarest wedding gift.
Sir Ban of Benwick gifted Arthur with a tiny boat made of gold and silver that was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. The boat was named Pridwen, and when it was set in the water it would grow to its full size, and hold enough provisions to keep ten men for a journey of ten weeks. Sir Palomedes, a Saracen who had left his far lands and journeyed to Britain because of a prophecy, gave Arthur a spear he had won in a joust with the Red Knight of the Red Lands. The spear, Rhongomyniad the Roaring, could pierce through seven stones at a cast, and would not rest until it tasted the enemy’s blood. But it was Lord Lot’s gift that Arthur valued most.
Since Badon Hill, Arthur had been turning over in his mind the idea of an order of chivalry that would bring to an end all the fighting among the lords of Britain. Within the order there would be no degrees of rank, and each knight would be pledged to come to the aid of any of his brother knights who called for his help. Such an order would be vital to Britain’s peace and safety when Arthur undertook the quest he had planned. He had decided to call this new order The Round Table, because a round table had no head or foot, and all who sat around it would be equal, just as Arthur wished all his knights to be.
Lord Lot had caused such a table to be made, and tonight he presented it to his new son-in-law. The table was carried in at the end of the feast, and everyone marveled at its size. The table was thirty feet across and decorated in alternating bands of green and white radiating out from the center. Along the outside edge was a space where each knight’s name could be painted as he joined The Round Table. Arthur’s name was already there, and he stood, raising his golden cup in salute.
“You see before you my promise t
hat justice and right shall rule in Britain, and all shall be treated fairly, no matter whether they be of high degree or low. Who will join me to protect the weak, defend the innocent, and bring peace and prosperity to our land?”
Every knight in the room was on his feet in an instant, shouting his promise to join Arthur’s Round Table.
“And I promise all of you that the Ages of Chaos are over forever! The light of goodness shall once more shine over Britain, and its token, the Holy Grail, shall be brought to Camelot to heal the land. I myself shall go in search of it—this I swear!”
They all cheered him, but Merlin, watching from a corner, felt a twinge of unease. This quest Arthur proposed would leave the realm undefended, and Arthur would leave deadly enemies behind him who would be happy to work mischief in his absence … enemies like Morgan le Fay.
“Your announcement came as … quite a surprise,” Merlin said.
Arthur was showing him the latest work on the city. As the masons rushed to put roofs upon the buildings before the first snows, it seemed that the city changed hourly, coming closer to the fulfillment of a dream.
But whose dream?
“It must be done,” Arthur said soberly. “While the Grail is lost to us, the harm done to the land by Queen Mab cannot be healed. In finding the Grail, I can both heal the land and atone for my own foolishness.”
“Who will you send on this quest?” Merlin asked.
“I will go myself, and as soon as a suitable champion for Britain can be chosen. There will be a tourney at Easter, and the knight who wins it will be my deputy and Guinevere’s champion while I am away.”
“But, Sire—” Merlin protested. Six months! Though Arthur worked long days conscientiously setting Britain in order, that was not enough time to appoint qualified advisers and deputies to all the kingdom’s vacant posts even if the king had meant to stay home. To leave so quickly, with so many things unsettled, would plunge the realm into chaos once more.
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