Sword of the Rightful King (24 page)

“But, Magister, celebrated what?”

“Why, we celebrated...” Merlinnus stopped, looking puzzled. Then he shut his eyes firmly. “I must be getting old.”

“Too old to remember, Magister?” Gawen asked. The shuttered eyes snapped open and they were an icy blue. “Too old to recognize an ensorcellment when it lies as heavy on my shoulders as a besom's shawl,” the mage said. He went to his cupboard and brought out a vial of a green liquid. Holding his nose, he gulped the contents down noisily, then went over to the slops closet, where he knelt by the basin. “Boy,” he whispered hoarsely, “the gods were right to send you here.”

“Which gods do you mean?” Gawen asked mischievously.

Not having retched up the liquid, Merlinnus stood, then ran a hand down his robe to smooth it out. “All of them.” He snapped his fingers and his hair fell back into place without need of a comb. “Come, boy, we have much work to do.”

“Again,” Gawen said, but was quietly delighted that the old man seemed to have recovered his wits and his humor.

34

T
HEY HAD JUST
begun to gather the proper herbs from the cupboard—much mugwort and rowanberry juice—when they were interrupted by the king's entrance.

“By the gods, Merlinnus, I slept well. And I am minded to do what we discussed last night.” Arthur looked hearty enough and his eyes seemed bright, even overbright, but Gawen could not forget the vision of the dead king on the catafalque.

“And what was that, my king?” the old man asked carefully.

“Why, that I make Morgause queen.”

Ignoring Gawen's gaping mouth, Merlinnus said carefully, “She is already a queen, my lord.” The old man's face looked as if it had been set in stone. “She needs nothing of your making.”

“Do you mean a May Queen, sire?” Gawen asked, gaping jaw closed at last. “Like the list the men gave you.”

“I mean
my
queen!” Arthur said. “As she was Lot's.”

“You cannot,” Merlinnus told him.

Arthur's face got dark, his brows beetling. He did not look like the king Gawen knew. “I can do anything I wish, old man. Have you not made me the High King of Britain?”

“A king who does not know his ancestry.” Merlinnus reminded him, then pursed his lips. “How would you know you are not marrying... a cousin?” His voice got low and hard. “Or a sister?”

Arthur threw his head back and roared with laughter. “You listen to too many ballads from the Continent, Merlinnus. Morgause and I are old friends, that is all.”

And older enemies
, Gawen thought.

“First things first, Arthur,” Merlinnus cautioned. “The sword. The stone.”

“Ah, yes,” Arthur said, “and the lady after.”

Long after
.

 

W
HEN AT LAST
the king left, Gawen said, “You did not mention the North Queens sorcery.”

Merlinnus shook his head. “What good would it have done with him still bespelled? He would have put
me
aside, not her. No, boy, I have a much more difficult job ahead of me than I thought.”

“Can I help?”

Merlinnus ruffled Gawen's fair hair. “You will have to. I have no other I can trust.”

“Will it take magic?”

Nodding, Merlinnus said, “Magic and diplomacy. I have the first—and you must have the second.”

Something like a chill ran down Gawen's backbone. “What makes you think I have such skills?”

“I have been watching you carefully,” Merlinnus said. “So now I will send you to speak to Gawaine that we may know his mind.”

“Not Gawaine, Magister. He is the queens son.” Gawen's voice was curiously flat.

“And the very reason we must seek him out.” The old man had turned and was washing his hands in the basin, drying them on his wrinkled robe.

“Can we not start elsewhere? With the king perhaps? I can always speak to the king.”

Merlinnus turned and stared at Gawen. “The king? Whatever for? He is clearly bespelled and will not believe. At the worst, he will take a dislike to you and send you away.”

“But Gawaine—”

“Now, now, he is not like his brother, that hard-hand Agravaine,” Merlinnus said. “Are you afraid of that one? If so, you have every right to be. Agravaine is a bully and a coward, a combination that is difficult to combat. He needs to be ruled by power, of which you have none. But Gawaine is different. He is a kind young man, courteous, and never willful. He is the perfect knight. It is often remarked upon at court, but I see it to be true.”

Going pale, Gawen took a step back, trying to think what to say, but Merlinnus had suddenly stopped speaking. His eyes became slits and his head moved forward. He looked for all the world like an old turtle intent on a fly. “But you mentioned something about Gawaine that very first day we met. What was it?”

Gawen looked down, not able to meet the mages eyes. “It was nothing, Magister.”

“Nothing is usually something,” the old man mused. “Especially with boys your age.” He pulled at his beard, then looked up and snapped his fingers. “I remember! You said,
‘Fearless at least with the ladies'
and called him
‘Gawaine, the Hollow Man.'
And not long ago, before he went out hunting with Gawaine, you cautioned the king about him. Said you knew him from some other time or place.”

“There is certainly nothing old about your memory, Magister,” Gawen said sourly.

“Ah, yes, but something is very wrong with you, my lad.”

Gawen's face was suddenly shuttered.

“You have a connection with Gawaine, more than the simple conjunction of your names. I have thought so before and I will have it now. Out with it.”

Gawen's face was now not only shuttered but locked and bolted as well.

“Tell me,” Merlinnus said, leaning toward him and holding up a forefinger to draw Gawen's eye. “What is your connection with Prince Gawaine?”

Gawen tried to look away and could not. “He... he...”

“Go on.” The mage's voice was soft, cozening.

“He...” Gawen stopped, though it was painful to do so.

“Go... on.” This time there was steel in the mage's voice.

“He... compromised my sister, Mariel, Magister. He took her love and then left. Without a reason why.” Gawen's voice cracked on the final word.

Merlinnus did not smile, but something like a twinkle shone in his eye. “And so that is the reason you came here to learn to be a knight? To challenge him?”

Gawen nodded.

“Did you know, before the king told you, how long any such lessons would take?”

Gawen nodded miserably. “I knew it.”

“And were willing to spend that much time?” He put his finger down, as if realizing there was no need to bewitch Gawen.

“Willing to spend my whole life if need be,” Gawen said.

“Or all of his,” Merlinnus added.

“You did not see her face, Magister. You did not hear her cries in the night. Every night for weeks and weeks. You did not see her wasting away, her beauty eaten by grief and a splattering of boils, till she who had been lovely was loathly to look at.” Gawen's own face looked pocked by the memory.

“So when you met me, you considered that magic might be faster than a sword,” Merlinnus said. “Though perhaps not as satisfactory.”

Gawen nodded.

“When did you know?”

“When you called me yours.”

“So that is why you have become the perfect mage's apprentice.”

Gawen nodded again. “Though I do it now for the king as well as my sister.”

Merlinnus set his forefinger on Gawen's forehead and whispered in a dire voice, “And what kind of magic would you learn with a heart set on such destruction?”

Gawen closed both eyes. Tears squeezed out.
How can I say the words? The words Merlinnus wants? Blacky magic
.

“I am sorry, Magister.”

“No sorrier than I, my boy,” said Merlinnus, and clearly meant it from the very depths of his heart.

For a minute neither of them spoke, then, voice breaking, Gawen said, “I will speak to Gawaine, Magister. Today.” There was an agonizing pause. “But tell him what?”

“Tell him that his mother has bespelled the king.” Merlinnus said it bluntly.

“Will he believe me?”

“He knows his mother,” Merlinnus said. “He will believe.”

 

G
AWEN WORRIED
all that day how to effect a meeting with the North Queens son, but there never seemed a time when Gawaine was alone. Either he was surrounded by friends, by brothers, or was shadowed by Hwyll, who hovered over him like a hen with chicks.

Since it was the day before the Solstice Eve, the halls of the castle were filled with busy servants and bustling tradesmen, and out in the forecourt and down in the village it was the same. Merchants had come from miles around to set up their stalls for the Solstice fair.

A cart of traveling players was preparing an entertainment, and several musicians were already blowing and sawing away at their instruments.

Gawen followed Gawaine and his friends around for hours as they teased the girls and dropped coins in the musicians' caps and helped carters unload their wares. When at last the friends had departed, and the other sons of Lot were off squabbling at dice, and Hwyll was dancing attendance on Morgause herself, it was already night.

And Gawaine was suddenly nowhere about.

Gawen searched the keep high and low looking for him, from Merlinnus' tower down to the kitchens and back again. He asked Cook, who grunted an answer that was less than helpful.

“Try his mothers chamber.”

But Gawen was not ready to go there. With the message to be delivered, it would not have been wise.

Instead Gawen asked the other boys. Ciril suggested the stables, Geoffrey the chapel, and Mark the alehouse. But though Gawen tried all three, Gawaine was not to be found.

Finally Gawen asked the king, who merely looked amused. “Was he not off on a boar hunt today? With his brothers? Possibly staying the night in some inn near the coast. Those boys do love the sound of the ocean. Why do you wish to know?”

“Merlinnus... wanted me... asking Sir Gawaine... tact,” Gawen mumbled, managing to make the answer last longer than Arthur's interest. After all, Merlinnus had said clearly that Arthur was bespelled by the queen and no mention should be made.

“I do not know where he is,” Arthur finally said, waving a dismissive hand at Gawen. “Ask someone else.”

 

H
AVING GOTTEN
no further with his quest, Gawen went outside and, with his back to a wall, sat gazing at the stone in the churchyard. There was much to think about, and here was the one place to get away from the noise and bustle of the keep and the forecourt. He had much to worry about, too.

But Gawen had been up all the night before, when the rest of the castle was under its spell of sleep, and so without meaning to, dozed off into a dreamless sleep.

Suddenly waking, Gawen discovered it was midnight or thereabouts. A pale moon sat directly overhead.

Stiff from sitting on the ground, with a bottom that hurt as well, Gawen could hardly move.
I need to stretch
... A sound nearby caused Gawen to draw back against the wall once more, thinking,
Where is that sound? Is it the queen again?

And then suddenly, illuminated faintly by the moon, there was Sir Kay. He began circling the stone much as Morgause had done the night before, but with much less grace. Round and about he went, as if gathering strength—of mind, of heart, of hand.

Gawen watched silently.

Finally, with a sound through his nose like that of a horse, Kay stopped, put his hand on the sword hilt, and, drawing in a deep breath, leaned back.

“Hah!” he cried out and yanked at the sword.

It did not move.

“Hah!” he cried a second time and pulled again, this time using both hands.

The sword still did not move.

Kay stepped away from the stone and, wordlessly, looked down at his hands as if they had somehow disappointed him. Then he abruptly turned and went back into the keep.

Not until the door had closed after Kay did Gawen finally stand up. Only just then another shadow moved toward the stone and once more Gawen shrank back against the wall.

The man who walked over to the stone had all the grace that Kay lacked. He walked with a light step around the stone, almost as if dancing. He reached out once, then pulled his hand back. Finally he stood still, as still as the stone itself, arms folded over his chest. He seemed perfectly at ease, but it was the ease of a warrior who could, at any moment, spring into brutal action.

Gawen left the safety of the wall. “Sir Gawaine?”

Gawaine turned. “Yes?”

He is like a coiled serpent
, Gawen thought. “May I have a word with you?”

A quick smile—more like a shadow smile under that moon—graced Gawaine's face, then it was gone. “Just one?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

Gawaine laughed. “I hear you have been asking after me, boy.”

“I have, sir.”

“For what purpose?” Now he turned his entire body and focused completely on Gawen.

Gawen's knees felt wobbly. “The mage sent me.”

“I do not like mages,” Gawaine said plainly. “Magic has been the ruination of too many lives. And the bane of mine.”

“Your mother...”

“My mother,” Gawaine said. He waved a hand as if flicking flies.

“This is
about
your mother,” Gawen said again.

Gawaine moved two steps toward Gawen. He said, almost sadly, “It is
always
about my mother. Say on.”

Gawen took a deep breath and said quickly, so that the words spilled over one another as water over stone, “She set a spell last night on all who drank the toast. I did not drink and so was the only one unaffected. I saw her. She was out here checking the stone while the castle slept.”