He took command with zeal, moving among the warriors as a comrade anointed in blood. He met the faithful, whether cavalry officer or infantry trooper, with impassioned and prayerful servitude to their sacred war. Among the faithless, he shared battle fury in defense of their ancestral homeland.
He rode at the head of his men. He marched them east along the coast, audaciously risking exposure to sea raiders and inspiring talk among the old generals to retract command from the fool king. At the precise moment when the faerie signaled, the royal warrior reared up on his palfrey and enthusiastically turned his forces north to swarm up the hills of White Hart.
The commanders, aghast at this abrupt maneuver and the devastating stupidity of charging at Foederatus archers on higher ground, vociferously protested—to each other. From their battle wagons, they watched the cavalry flurrying uphill and the troops hurrying after the spirited young monarch, and they hung their heads in dismay.
In fact, the enemy chieftains had been certain that the British would not turn inland at White Hart for that very reason, and they were caught unprepared.
As the invaders fled north, they ran directly into the forces of Lords Kyner and Lot descending from the forested heights. Again, the duke's soldiers participated in a slaughter of the enemy. And the commanders shared their amazement at the young warrior's prescience.
After that second great victory, no one in the lands of the Dumnoni ever again questioned the authority of King Arthor. The invasion was broken, and mounted patrols swiftly rounded up straggling survivors of King Wesc's autumn campaign.
Frayed tassels of lightning appeared in the south over the Belgic Strait announcing the onset of winter storms and the end of large enemy reinforcements by sea. The gray clouds also carried the Furor's power. Arthor saw no more of the faeries under those overcast skies. Nynyve's magic had exhausted itself.
At a makeshift shrine of moss rocks on a wooded hilltop of White Hart, Arthor knelt to thank the faerie for helping him. Lot found him muttering gratefully to the rocks. "The faerie prefer that you address them among the trees, sire. They've no love of stone."
Arthor pushed himself quickly to his feet and faced the old Celt with a hot blush. "Brother Lot! I—I wanted to acknowledge the faerie's help ... "
"You need make no explanation to me, sire." Lot sat upon the moss rocks, then glanced up at the boy king through his tufted eyebrows. "May I sit in your presence, sire? My bones are tired almost to breaking. Hunting invaders in the woods has gotten harder for me."
Arthor nodded. "Of course." He saw the graven lines of exhaustion in the gaunt face—and something more: careworn furrows on his brow. "What troubles you, brother?"
"My wife—your sister—she is gone." Lot pulled his bearskin cloak more firmly about his naked shoulders. "The messages from the north are troubling my boys. Gawain and Gareth fear for their mother. Often, she has gone into the wilds to work her magic for the good of our island realm. Never for this long." Lot reached out with a big-knuckled hand, and when Arthor took it, the iron grip made him wince. "Sire, I plead with you—I cannot live without my wife. I fear she is in dire trouble. Use all your regal power and influence to find and return her to me."
The King's Decision
By the time King Arthor returned to Tintagel to accept Marcus Dumnoni's pledge, distressing messages had been received concerning Morgeu the Fey at Verulamium. "She has overthrown a chapel," Arthor informed Lot. "She has worked frightful magic on that site, and the people there believe she colludes with Satan."
Lot smiled as he strolled with the king through the slate-paved ward of Tintagel. "She is fearless, my Morgeu."
"I have dispatched messengers to summon a reply from her." Arthor pointed with his jaw toward the rookery on the castle's highest spire, where carrier birds came and went. "As you know, brother, Verulamium is in the realm of Platorius Atrebates, and he, Severus Syrax, and Bors Bona have outrightly refused their pledges. I cannot command them to search for my sister. Yet, I will not relent. We march east as soon as the troops are freshened. Scouts have already gone ahead. We will find her."
In his heart, Arthor prayed that Merlin, who had disappeared months before and been glimpsed only in demonic aspect, had taken Morgeu with him to oblivion. Even as he stood in the chapel with his mother, the abbess Ygrane, while Duke Marcus knelt and declared him rightful king of Britain, Arthor gladly entertained dark thoughts of Morgeu's demise.
Later, something of mercy bloomed in him, inspired by the love he had found with Nynyve. Is not the caring I feel for Nynyve what Lot shares with his wife? Am I to begrudge him his love for Morgeu because of my fear of her? He is a man as am I, and with the same ardent feelings. I must banish my cruel thoughts against Morgeu and replace them with a changed purpose—the clemency of a king, the compassion of a man.
When he sat before the Graal at the Round Table, he experienced a deeper shame yet for having wanted Morgeu dead. Kyner, Cei, Lot, and Marcus sat to his right, discussing the order of march for the arduous winter trek to Londinium. Kyner and Cei believed they should wait till spring before they exposed themselves to the British warlords inimical to the king. Lot and Marcus thought that the longer they waited, the greater the chance that the eastern realms would succumb to an alliance with the Foederatus.
When the Table looked to the king for a decision, he took the Graal in hand. The love of one man for God, for all humanity, that this chalice represented, overwhelmed him with the dishonor of his wish for Morgeu's death. He carried the Graal to the railing of the balcony that overlooked the sea. On the shoulders of the land, the ocean sobbed and tossed its white hair as if sharing his sadness. And there on the beach, small with distance, Nynyve walked, waves wiping her footfalls clean behind her.
The clemency of a king—the compassion of a man.
"We march—as I have already promised Lot," the king decided, emboldened by the sight of his enigmatic lover. "The tour of my kingdom continues as soon as our troops are ready for the journey. Announce to Urien Durotriges, Gorthyn Belgae, and Platorius Atrebates that their king is coming for their pledges."
Arthor retrieved Excalibur from where he had slung his sword-belt on the back of his chair and, gripping the Graal firmly in his other hand, departed the counsel chamber.
King Arthor's Broken Heart
Arthor confronted Nynyve on the beach where he had first met her. She ran to him and stopped when she saw the Graal in his hand, a starburst of frazzled light. "Why did you bring that with you?"
"It is the cup from which the Savior drank at the Last Supper," he told her proudly. "The Annwn have sheathed it in chrome and gold filigree. It purifies my feelings. It made me clear about my duty to Morgeu, a woman I thought I hated to death. I've brought the chalice here to hold our love, to purify our feelings for each other."
"You believe our love is tainted?" A hurt look troubled her.
"You are a queen of the old ways and I a Christian king." He offered the Graal to her with both hands. "Your magic gave me the courage to love again. Now I offer you this emblem of my faith. Take this, as I accepted your magic, and come with me on my tour. We will be wed in Camelot—by both ancient and Christian rites."
Her eyes moved to the crashing waves. "You don't trust me."
He shook his head. "Trust comes from experience." He waited for her anxious gaze to touch him again before he went on, "We have chosen to love each other in the Secret House—yet we must live here, in the soulful world of strife and loss. I trust you enough to have overcome the fear Morgeu taught me. I gave you myself despite that fear. Take the Graal and come with me on the tour. We will discover each other as husband and wife."
"If I hold the Graal, you will see me for who I am."
"I have sworn to love you, Nynyve." Arthor stepped close enough to smell the apple-sweet scent of her through the briny tang of the sea. "Now you must trust me. Take the Graal."
Nynyve reached out with both hands, and at her touch, a shimmer of vibrant light pass
ed between them. Her cinnamon curls lifted in the sea wind, and her hazel eyes gazed proudly at him.
"You are the same!" he said in a gust of relief. "You have not changed."
"Look at the chalice."
In the gold bell of the chalice, Arthor viewed a grove of apple trees and ancient menhir rocks carved with futhorc. On a mirror-still lake eight swans drifted. As he watched, they reached the shore, shivered and molted and transformed into white-robed women wearing black veils. "Who are they?"
"The Nine Queens of Avalon—of whom your mother spoke."
"There are only eight ... " He nearly dropped the chalice. "You—"
"The Ninth and youngest," she finished for him. "When your life in this world is done, I will come for you with the others, to bring you to Avalon. There, we will dwell together until the twilight of the gods."
"Why?" Arthor stepped after her as she backed away. "Why did you come to me now?"
"You needed to learn love, Arthor." She began to fade, a mirage of spindrift. Sorrow followed her as she parted from the man who had won her heart by his bravery and virtue and his physical beauty.
She reached forth to touch him once more. Her duty to the Fire Lords and the other queens fulfilled, she slipped from his sight, and her dimming voice answered the beseeching hurt in his eyes: "Morgeu had hardened your heart. You doubted you could love again. Now you know you can—and your destiny once more is whole. Go and claim your kingdom."
Part Three: Winter
The Life of Death
Blood Stalkers
Thunder woke the night. Autumn stars rubbed their needles in the dark above Londinium, and no storm clouds obscured the celestial prospect. Yet, thunder shook the walled city on the River Tamesis. In the governor's palace, Gorlois rose from a dreamless sleep and glimpsed the screams yet to bloom in the suites and corridors around him.
The stone walls breathed like smoke, translucent to the visionary gaze that the Furor had instilled in him. Sitting up on the straw pallet in the windowless crypt where Severus Syrax, fearful of Merlin's magic, kept him after nightfall, he watched the guards outside his door jolt awake. The cavalcade of thunder came as warning from the Furor.
Gorlois threw off the lambs wool blanket that had warmed him in the chill cell and pulled on his wolfskin boots. He laced them across the cuffs of his loose black pants, and hurriedly buttoned his red vest over his raven blouse. Evil approached. He needed the protection of his talismanic garments.
Through the hazy walls of stone and time, he watched white shadows fluttering in the dark corridors like moonshadows spinning on water. When they passed, lanterns and wall-sconced torches flapped green flames. They moved with swift certainty through the mazed passages, hurrying toward his crypt.
"Vampyres!" he shouted, warning the guards. "Unlock my door!"
"Silence, Merlin!" a guard rasped. "We are here to protect you ... "
Shrieks sounded from the stairwell, and Gorlois backed away from the door. The guards posted outside the chamber shifted uneasily. They drew their swords, and as the blades cleared their scabbards, more death shouts echoed in the long corridor from the opposite direction.
The Furor's wisdom ached in the duke. Blood stalkers posed a formidable challenge to the marked man. Though Gorlois possessed the Furor's deep sight and Merlin's magical power, he lacked the experience to master these swift and powerful creatures.
In frightened awe, he gazed through gray walls at luminous shadows blurring closer, condensing to human forms of smooth beauty. Ivory figures clothed in wispy fumes of ancient tunics and gowns approached. Their eyes outstared the night and opened into vacant skulls, tenements of darkness.
Then, he saw her. Morgeu the Fey striding through the spellbound gang, a living flame of bright, crinkled hair and satin red robes. Her black eyes, small and close-set, pierced into a dimension of glamour. One glance at the trembling guards, and they slumped to the ground, asleep. Her hand touched the lock, and it clacked open with a spit of blue sparks. The door swung inward, and she entered with arms outspread, "Father!"
[]
Mother Mary, my heart is sore. The woman to whom I gave my heart is a ghost! As I had feared from the first, Nynyve is no mortal woman. She has left me with a darkness inside that I am not equal to. What is my flaw that love betrays me yet again? I weep for this woman who swore to love me for ever. Our love will not be changed by death—and yet I weep for her. I weep, because she is gone where only the wind of the afterworld can know. I am less without her even though nothing is lost, for she was never alive to me, only a ghost. And her loving me, the full happiness I knew in her embrace, was emptiness from the first—given me that I would understand all in the end is harvest. How will I ever love again? What mortal woman can compare with my love, my Nynyve, my queen of twilight? When I confronted Mother Ygrane about this, she admitted that she had summoned Nynyve from Avalon. The Lady of the Lake is my queen beyond this life. When next we meet, I too will be a ghost. This fate frightens me. I told Mother Ygrane so. She believes that the love I've earned with Nynyve is worth the fear I must endure. Nonetheless, all this feels so—unnatural. When I was a mere ward of Kyner's, a chieftain's servant in his household at White Thorn, my faith was simple and clear. What the priests taught was sufficient knowledge for me to live my life and face my death. But now—now that I am king, so much has changed. I wish I were once more a simpleton with a sword. What Ygrane and Merlin have shown me is far more than what any priest knows—far different, too, than what the Scriptures teach. Having loved a woman of the afterworld, I glimpse inside my heart this foolish youth, all by himself between heaven and earth.
Proud Parting
Ygrane, abbess for the Holy Sisters of Arimathea, blessed her son's army before it departed Tintagel for the long and dangerous journey east to Londinium. She stood on the trestle above the gate and held the Graal aloft as the king's men arrayed their personal guard behind him: Chief Kyner's Christian Celts in their leather cuirasses, Lord Lot's warriors in buckskin and fur, and Duke Marcus' officers in polished bronze helmets and strip-metal armor.
"In spring, I will come to Camelot after the Round Table and this, our Graal, are installed and your pledges secured—and I will bless you again with these same words:
"You are the hope of Britain. Your blood will be the tears of generations. Gifts of God, you have come to be given. And what you give will lead us who follow you to the thankful days. Hold fast, brave warriors, to your faith in God and to each other. Hold fast against the ancient order of might and brutality. You are protectors of the meek. Your strength champions mercy and love, and your bravery defends our perilous order. Love well, and there is no end to how loved you shall be."
King Arthor led his commanders and their guards through the gates to where the combined troops had stood listening to Ygrane's blessing. They cheered as she turned and raised the sacred chalice toward them. Then, they fell in behind the king and marched after him among the rumbling supply wagons.
"This is a proud parting for an uncertain venture," Lord Lot declared to the boy king as he rode alongside. "What of your sister and the mother of my sons? Have you forgotten my plea?"
"Brother Lot," Kyner spoke from the other side of the king, "your wife is in Verulamium. There are three unpledged realms between us and her. Have patience."
"I will go to her myself," Lot decided. "I will run a scouting expedition to the realm of the Atrebates."
"No," Arthor stated flatly. "I need you at my side. We are riding into the dark season, and you are my best winter warrior."
"I will bring your sister to you, sire," Cei offered, leaning forward on his mount to stare past his burly father, Lord Kyner.
"You!" Lot's aged face shook with disdain. "I don't trust you to protect a mule that is mine, my less my wife. You killed my four clansmen after the king promised them safe exile to the north."
"They were traitors—assassins!" Cei shouted back. "I am seneschal. I must defend the king!"
&nb
sp; "And by what fell judgment will you condemn my sons' mother, eh, Christian Cei?" Lot charged ahead and spun his horse around to confront the others. "I will go and retrieve my wife."
Cei kicked his horse forward, and Kyner seized its reins and pulled his son up short.
"Enough, you two!" Marcus danced his white steed between Cei and Lot. "We are not leaderless men anymore. We have a king. We must obey him or our perilous order is already lost."
"Then what do you command, King Arthor?" Lot asked coldly.
Arthor stared down Lot's furious stare. "I command you to stay at my side and guide our winter campaign." He cast a baleful look to Cei. "Seneschal—this is your chance to make good what turned bad between you and Lord Lot. Go—and do not fail me."
Wonders of the Storm Tree
Rex Mundi climbed among scree rocks and cliff boulders onto the auroral selvage of Yggdrasil. Night rainbows fluttered among prosperous stars. Blue and green draperies of cold fire wafted in an invisible wind.
Thith ith like a dweam! Dagonet breathed with rapture the spice-laden air of the Storm Tree. Do you weally know where we are going?
"Up," Merlin replied. "The Seat of the Slain is on the Raven's Branch, the highest bough of the World Tree. We have a long way to go."
Let uth thimply wun off! Dagonet suggested. We will find your body down below, away from thith thtwange wealm of the gods.
"You heard the Keeper of the Dusk Apples." Merlin paused the body of Rex Mundi on a shelf of night. "The Furor has an all-seeing eye—and now that his mistress has found us, he is sure to see us as well when they meet. And when he does—he will smash us to dust, and we'll all be ghosts. Unless ... "
The Wolf and the Crown (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 3) Page 17