by Dave Duncan
The castle gate was wide enough and high enough to admit a loaded hay wain, so its instant obedience was dramatic. Bolts and hasps and hinges tore loose from the timbers, and the whole great edifice toppled inward. Half a dozen men-at-arms screamed in fright and leaped back to avoid being crushed. The impact when it hit the ground was louder than thunder and must have been audible throughout all Winchester.
Lars said, “God’s legs!”—a foolish, if not blasphemous, expression that had become popular because the late king had favored it.
We fought with our horses for a moment. As soon as we had them calmed, I said, “Come!” and urged mine across the flattened gate. The shocked guards stared at us owlishly, and made no effort to stop us. Doubtless they were wondering who was going to pay for the damage. I was relieved to see that none of them had been hurt, for we would have had to waste time chanting healing spells for them. I headed in the direction of the King’s House.
“Your mother,” I told Lars, “will skin me if she hears that I have set you such a bad example. Understand that I can get away with such nonsense once in a while, just so long as I don’t hurt people, but that’s because of my title. Other sages cannot. Those who display their powers in public can be torn to pieces for being devil worshipers.”
He grinned. “I’m trying to imagine Mother opening a door that way.”
The image of the imperturbable Lovise ever doing any such thing made me laugh, as he had intended. “Your mother is a very competent sage. She could perform the enchantment, and so could you, if you knew the spell. But neither of you could get away with it as I can.”
To be honest, I was already feeling ashamed of that grandiose display, and sought to excuse it. “The justiciar and I are not on the best of terms, and he may try go keep me from access to the queen tonight. He will be less inclined to do so since I have demonstrated my . . . let’s just say since I have shown the strength of my feelings in this matter.”
Suitably impressed, Lars nodded.
Winchester Castle is quite new, having been built by King Henry himself, and is a favorite royal residence—or prison, as it was then. It includes a chapel, herb gardens, and so on; it lacks the grimness of most fortresses. Already the ruckus I had caused had brought scores of people out to look at the wreckage.
As we dismounted at the door of the King’s House, a fancily dressed flunky appeared to greet us. His tonsure showed that he was some sort of cleric, probably a deacon, for he was not garbed as a monk or priest. Although I did not recall him, he clearly knew me.
His bow was barely more than a nod. “Peace be with you, my lord.”
“And with you,” I said. “I bring an urgent message for the queen.”
“The lord justiciar has ordered that any communications for Her Grace will be passed through him.”
“You are aware that I, too, am a member of the king’s council?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then fetch Lord de Glanville. I know he is in residence at the moment.”
Before he could respond, the man in question appeared at his back. His smile was sweet as lemon juice. “I’ll deal with this, Patrick. Have someone see to their horses. Enter, my lord.”
I followed him, Lars came hurrying after, and I did not forbid him. Glanville led us to the St. George Room, a pleasantly appointed meeting place, growing dark as twilight faded.
Ranulf de Glanville was elderly now, white-bearded and starting to stoop, but still subtle and sly. He was a distinguished lawyer, although he had led armies in his day, having notably accepted the surrender of the king of Scots at the battle of Alnwick. As chief justiciar of England, he acted as regent whenever the king was in France, fighting against King Philip and whichever of his own sons happened to be rebelling at the moment—which had been the case for much of the last seventeen or so years. Ranulf and I clashed often in the council and detested each other; his current expression showed that the situation had not changed.
The hot day had left the room as stifling as a warm blanket. He went over to the window and threw back the shutters to let in some air, then turned to face us with his back to the light. Discounting Lars with a glance, he directed his attention to me. “I am minded to throw you in the dungeon for damaging crown property.” Had the justiciar been on the bench and I in the box, his expression would have signaled a coming death penalty.
“Singlehandedly sacking a royal fortress? The king of France will be amused to hear of it.”
Having no answer to that, he bared his teeth. “So what brings you here, devil worshiper?”
“I have news that must be imparted to Her Grace before anyone else.”
“As you very well know, the queen is not allowed to receive visitors, and the king specifically forbade her to have any communication with you.”
“Nevertheless, my news be must delivered in person.”
“And I forbid you to see her.”
That was the opening I had been hoping for. “On whose authority?”
“The king’s.”
“No, my lord. That you do not have.”
His expression was hidden in shadow, but he crossed himself.
I nodded, and he would see my smile.
“Wait here.” He strode across the room and out.
“Clever,” Lars murmured. “You haven’t actually told him, but now he knows. Why must the queen hear it first?”
“Because she is the queen, and because Lord de Glanville is, and always has been, lickspittle trash.”
Two pages hurried in with tapers and began lighting candles all around the room. Dawn followed. Lars looked around, studying the padded chairs set against the walls and the paintings, nodding to himself. My son fancied that he had an eye for art. He went over to the tapestry of the dragon slaughter that gave the room its name.
“Very fair,” he said.
“However fair, a cage is still a cage.”
More pages brought washing water and towels so we could refresh ourselves. Next came wine and ale and a small table already laden with food and drink. I discovered that I was hungry. Lars always was. We did not sit, just stood by the table and gobbled. We both chose ale over wine to quench our thirsts.
Suddenly she was there, ennobling the whole room— Eleanor, Queen of England, hereditary duke of Aquitaine, duchess of Normandy, countess of Maine, Anjou, Nantes, Poitou, and several other places. Leaning on my cane, I sank to my knees. Lars was there before me.
In her youth she had been a legendary beauty. Now she was, incredibly, sixty-seven years old, and yet she looked thirty years younger. Part of that was artifice, for a wimple concealed her neck and a French cap her hair, but few lines marred her face, and her onyx eyes were as quick and bright as ever. Her gown had once been bright scarlet, but too many years and too many washings had worn it threadbare, and it had never had the trimmings of lace and ermine that a queen’s should have. She had probably retired before I arrived, because a captive has little use for evenings, and if so she must have dressed with great haste, yet that did not show.
“Baron Pipewell!” she said. “My faithful Durwin! This is a great and most unexpected pleasure.”
“For me just seeing you is an overwhelming joy, Lady Queen, but I come bearing very sad news.”
“How wonderful! I can’t wait to hear it. Do rise, both of you. Lovise is well, I hope? Present this handsome young man!”
“Lars, madam, my younger son and today my cantor.”
“Lars. How beautiful he is! He looks very much like you did, that evening when you burst in upon us in Beaumont Palace, breathing fire and raving about treason and Satanism.” She smiled at Lars, who was turning as red as her gown and seemed as tongue-tied as I had been when I first met her, in Burton, a quarter of a century ago. “Does he sing as melodiously as you do, Enchanter General?”
“Better than I ever did,” I said. “And he is quite facile on the gittern.” Lars shot me an angry glance, guessing that one of us might be required to perform shortly an
d I had just passed the honor on to him.
“Now to business,” the queen said. She crossed to a chair and sat, adjusting her robe. I realized that her long-time companion, Amaria, was present and gave her a brief smile of acknowledgment. In Eleanor’s presence other women always seemed irrelevant.
Ranulf de Glanville had followed her, and was standing just inside the doorway.
She glanced at him under her suggestive black lashes, then back at me. “I presume,” she added, “that what you have to say also concerns the justiciar?”
“It does, Lady Queen.”
“Then he may remain to hear it. Now break my heart, Enchanter General.”
“Lady Queen, your husband has been called to judgment.”
“That won’t take long. He’s in Hell already—I’ll vouch for it. When and where did this gratifying manifestation of Our Lord’s benevolence occur?”
“In bed, in Chinon. He had been failing for several days.”
“Chinon? So he truly managed to die in bed? Justiciar, do you accept Lord Durwin’s news?”
Ranulf had shrunk. “This is truth, upon your honor, Baron?”
For me, that was the highlight of the evening—that I, born into poverty, a despised Saxon, crippled in childhood, had risen so high that the current ruler of England must accept my word on a matter of state.
“Upon my honor, my lord, King Henry breathes no more.”
He bowed to Eleanor. “Then you are no longer a prisoner, Lady Queen. By your leave?” He turned and walked out.
She beamed in delight and turned to me. “How came you so soon by this wisdom?”
“Your Grace may recall that long-ago day when you so graciously received a very young Saxon cantor with a game leg? You charged me to cast a horoscope for your son, the Lord Richard, as he then was.” Who now was so much more.
“And a very sound horoscope it was. Yet I directed you to leave nothing out. When you predicted that he would become a king, you did not specify what realm he was to rule.” Her coal-black eyes had a trick of looking straight through to a man’s soul. “But you knew, didn’t you? You knew it would be England.”
“With respect, madam, I did not. The stars are never so specific. He might have been elected king of Jerusalem, or German Emperor, or have married a great heiress.” Besides, at that time Lord Richard’s elder brother, Henry, had been alive, and I had not dared to predict his early death. Now he was dead, their father was also dead, but King Richard lived. I had known for years—everyone knew—that Richard was, and had always been, Queen Eleanor’s favorite son, just as John, the youngest, had been his father’s.
I was relieved to see her smile creep back. “That was what I told him when he grew up enough to read your convoluted Latin. Nor did you say when he would receive this unnamed crown. Did you know that also?”
“Not the exact day, madame. The planets’ movements among the spheres are not predictable so many years ahead, and horoscopes can only predict dark times and bright times. We all have those, until in the fullness of God’s plan for us, we enter a dark time that we do not survive.”
She frowned, suddenly wary. “But you do have more information now than just the stars? You are quite certain that I am now a widow?”
“I am. I assure you that the information I give you came from an extremely reliable source and will be confirmed by mundane means within a day or two. King Richard . . .” I paused, hearing myself utter that strange combination of words. “His Grace has heard the news. I expect his couriers are already on their way to you.” I wasn’t about to disclose how I knew all this, even if she asked directly, but she knew better than to do so. Queens must not be seen to meddle in the occult. Everyone accepted and believed in horoscopes, so those were safe. Even the Pope employs astrologers.
She clapped her hands in delight. “Wonderful! You are Merlin Redux, Lord Durwin.”
“I have always ranked Your Grace ahead of Queen Guinevere.” Queen Eleanor’s fondness for Arthurian romances was well known. Nor had she lost her skill in steering banter along safe lines. She had not called me Lancelot, who had been the one to rescue Guinevere from captivity.
“And to be flattered again! I had almost forgotten how much I enjoyed flattery. Amaria, bring me some of that wine, and then we’ll all drink the new king’s health! After that,” she added mischievously, “Cantor Lars de Pipewell will sing something joyful for us.”
Mourning was not in her nature.
Aware that both Lars and I were exhausted, Eleanor neither kept us long nor made him sing for her. We were granted a fine room, with a bed that any innkeeper would have considered large enough for four. It was comfortable enough, except that the straps squeaked. Lars, who would normally sleep until noon if permitted, began to thrash about just before dawn, anxious to explore a new place—and a castle, yet!
Still aching from the previous day’s long ride, I growled like an angry bear. That stilled him for about two minutes. Then he decided he needed the chamber pot and bounced out of bed with excessive energy, making the straps scream. I gave up hope of more sleep.
The queen, we were informed, would receive well-wishers at Terce, which gave me a couple of hours to show my son around the castle and some of the town. Inevitably that led to visiting the town’s chantry, which was one of the first I had licensed to teach and qualify adepts, healers, and sages. It was ranked very close behind Oxford itself.
The dean of Winchester Chantry was my old friend and companion, Sage Eadig, so this was almost like a family gathering. I asked after Enid, he after Lovise. I proudly showed off Lars in his cantor’s white cape, and Eadig checkmated me by sending for his eldest daughter, Gwynda, who had been awarded hers a month ago. I explained that we had come to make an official inspection of his establishment, starting with the quality of the ale. He led us to the refectory, which was currently empty, except for a couple of servants preparing the tables for dinner.
Lars and Gwynda had played together as children, but had not met for four or five years. Since then, both had undergone changes that interested the other, and they settled off in a corner together to engage in what appeared to be a profoundly engrossing conversation.
Eadig and I exchanged amused parental smiles and carried our ale out of earshot. He had never been tall and now was close to tubby, with his flaxen hair thinned to a mist, but he was ever quick-witted, courageous, and trustworthy.
“I was expecting you,” he remarked, “because I heard you sneaking into the castle yester-eve. I sent a novice to find out if this was the end of the world, or if something more important might be happening. By all the suffering saints, what did you think you were doing? It’s the talk of the town. All England will . . . no?”
“No. England will have more important things to talk about.” I raised my ale. “Long live King Richard.”
My long-ago assistant nodded. “That’s what the gossip says this morning—that the king’s wizard came galloping to tell the queen. So it’s true? Henry has . . . when?”
“King Henry died in his bed, in Chinon Castle.”
When I did not add more, Eadig’s steel-colored eyes silently dissected me. He knew me too well. “When?”
“Very recently.”
“Then you must know how to fly? Or you have a spy at court and communicate with Despero in extremis?”
“Despero doesn’t work across the Narrow Sea. I’ve tried it.”
“Then you must have a new incantation, none I ever heard of.”
“As the old adage says, two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.” I grinned to show I was teasing. I knew I could discuss this with Eadig as I could with almost no one else, but I would not dare trust even him with the incantation itself. If it ever escaped into the world at large, it would create chaos. “Not new, very old. That’s why it is so powerful, of course. It purports to be written by Myrddin Wyllt.”
With his ale almost at his lips, Eadig paused long enough to say, “God’s legs!” before taking a drink.
“Quite. I’m still discovering what it can do, but I already know that it could almost be considered black magic, because if anyone could spy on anyone else at any time, the world would go insane. Lovers, merchants, soldiers—none of them could hide anything from anyone. This is one of a very small collection of extremely dangerous enchantments that I will pass on to my successor as enchanter general and to no one else.”
“No need to apologize. I wish we could call back some of the spells we teach our pupils. To King Richard! Long may he reign.” We drank.
“You are a marvel,” Eadig said, wiping foam. “So you’re digging into old Welsh lore now?”
“No. Myrddin was Scottish. Why are you grinning, friend?” A stranger would not likely have detected the alleged grin, and he removed it at once. “I was going to say I hope you didn’t pay too much for it, but it sounds as if you didn’t.”
Now I was mystified and it was his turn to read my expression.
“‘Myrddin’ is pronounced ‘Mirthin’. I can’t say it right. I’ll get Enid to pronounce it for you. It’s the old Welsh name for Merlin. ‘Wyltt’ means ‘wild’ and refers to the wild woods.”
I was stunned. Had I known that meaning of Myrddin, I would have thrown the old vellums away as worthless fakes. But an incantation that could look across the Narrow Sea was certainly not that. A spell composed by the genuine Merlin was an amazing find.
“I paid nothing for it,” I said, “except many hours of translating it into a legible text. I found it in a ruined fort at Rhuddlan.”
“In North Wales.”
“Right. The first time I tried chanting it, it showed me King Henry himself. He was obviously at death’s door. I already knew that he was entering a very dark time.”
“Casting the monarch’s horoscope is high treason, Enchanter.” I didn’t deny that I had done that. “There was always a chance that he would make it through the dark time, as he had survived so many others in the past, but two days ago I learned that he had yielded up his soul. I called for Lars to hasten with me here, to Winchester. I enjoyed the journey with him. He’s grown up so suddenly that I feel I hardly know him now.”
