by J A Cummings
Along the road on the other side of the bridge, a group of women gathered, embracing each other and shouting in jubilation. An old man sprinted forward with a water bucket and used it to drench the king, washing the monster’s slime away. His armor was pitted but still intact, at least for now. A few weak points would require mending in the future.
Arthur wiped the water from his eyes, and a stately woman with elaborately coiffed black hair stepped in front of her fellows and curtsied deeply to him.
“You have saved us, sir,” she said in a voice like honeyed wine. “To whom do we owe our worship and our thanks?”
“My name is King Arthur,” he answered, “and my men and I seek to camp on the other side of the river. Is this your land?”
“It is.” She looked at the seeping body of the monster he had slain. “This creature has been holding us hostage in my castle, keeping us all too afraid to come out through the walls. He has attacked many of my warriors and eaten them all. We were beginning to despair that hope would ever come.”
He wiped his sword blade and put it back into its sheath. “Didn’t another army come through here? A foreign one?”
“They tried,” she said. “But the boggan defeated their champion and the rest went around through a ford two miles west. Their champion was not the warrior you are.”
Arthur removed his helmet, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. The lady smiled when she looked upon his face.
“You are so young! And so handsome.”
He inclined his head, his cheeks pink. “My thanks, madam. By what name shall I know you?”
She curtsied again. “You may call me Hellawes, and I am the lady of these lands. Encamp your men here beneath my walls, and I will see to their comfort. I offer you the hospitality of my own lodging for the night.”
“My lady, thank you. Your kindness is very much appreciated.”
Hellawes straightened and looked at his companions. When her gaze swept over Merlin, she smiled and nodded to him. He nodded back, his face unreadable. The young king picked up his ruined shield and gestured for his men to cross the bridge.
The lady signaled to her retainers, and a man with a horn at his belt blew a short signal. At the sound of the blast, the gates in the outer wall swung open in welcome.
Arthur walked with her toward her home. “What do you call this castle, madam?”
“It is called Castle Nigramis.”
“A strange name.”
She smiled. “It is in the fey tongue, I believe, for many of the faery live in this river and round about.”
Arthur stopped and turned toward his men. “Please have the army establish camp here. My lady, will my knights be welcome in your keep?”
Hellawes looked at the men on horseback, then said, “I apologize that I have but little space inside. I will welcome you and the gentleman with the injured arm, but there is no room for others within my keep.” She looked Merlin in the eye. “I apologize that I must withhold my invitation from you. You may not enter.”
The druid’s jaw twitched and his eyes narrowed. “I see.”
Arthur beckoned to Sir Ector. “Will you join us, sir?”
“I will.” He dismounted and left his horse with Bedivere. “Thank you for your hospitality, my lady.”
She smiled graciously. “It’s my pleasure.”
Merlin called out, “Sir Ector, a moment, please.”
Hellawes and Arthur stopped, waiting while Sir Ector went to where the druid was jumping down from the saddle. The lady of Nigramis looked annoyed. Merlin spoke quietly to the old knight, who nodded his graying head.
“I hope nothing is amiss,” Hellawes said to the young king.
“I’m sure all is well,” he assured her.
Ector rejoined them. “Apologies for the delay,” he said. “Just a matter of business to attend to.”
Hellawes smiled. “No matter.” She gestured toward the gates with one slender white hand. “Please...follow me.”
Merlin watched them go in disapproval. Brastias told him, “Why don’t you just go in, too, if you’re worried?”
“I wasn’t invited.”
“This is a strange time to stand on ceremony.”
The druid fixed him with a hard glare. “I wasn’t invited.”
“I don’t…” Something he had heard once before shifted in his brain, and he said, “Then your father truly was a demon.”
“She was very clear that I was not invited to come in, and until she changes that prohibition, I cannot cross the threshold of her domicile. No demon can go where they’re not invited.” He looked at the river with a glare. “And that thing isn’t dead. It will be back.”
Brastias laughed. “Its head is off!”
“Yes,” the druid agreed. “For now.”
The knight looked back at the monster. Some soldiers were dumping it into the water so that the army could pass. He shook his head. “It looks perfectly dead to me.”
“You knew it was a boggan. Stop being so stupid!” Merlin snapped.
He thought about what he knew about the fey creature Arthur had decapitated. The horrible realization came to him. “They can only be killed by fire.”
“Yes. And what happens in water?”
“They regrow…”
“Exactly. So where there was one there will soon be two. The head will grow a new body and the body will grow a new head, and then it will come back angry and ready to eat. And since he named it, it has a linkage to his spirit and will gain strength from his strength. Stupid idiot boy!” Merlin turned his horse to face the column as it finished crossing the bridge. “Post watches up and down this stretch of the river to send up the alarm when the beasts come back up. Have them equipped with pitch and fire.”
He hesitated. “Why don’t we just dive in and get the pieces out and burn them?”
“Where there are boggans, there are other fey. I do not wish to insult the subjects of Fergus Mor Mac Eirc any further. The fey outnumber us. We’ll be cut down in moments, especially if the Seelie and Unseelie Courts find common cause against us.” Merlin’s face became a study in concentration, and then he said, “Encamp the army. I will return.”
Before Brastias’s eyes, the druid faded out of sight, taking his horse with him. He turned toward the army. “Make camp!”
Lindum was in disarray.
Not since the Romans withdrew and abandoned the citizens of the town to their uncertain fate had the people felt so frightened and alone. The nominal leader of the city, a Christian bishop named Dometius, looked out at the Saxons massing in front of Lindum’s southern wall and wrung his hands. Beside him, his nephew, the sturdy warrior Sir Maelgwas, stood with his hands on his hips.
“There are too many of them,” Dometius fretted. “And they are too strong before the gate to allow you and your men to break out. You are too few.”
“I know.” Maelgwas frowned. He was one of only five knights within the city. All of the others had gone south to Londinium to try their hands at the thrice-cursed sword in the stone. He had known he was no king, and so he had stayed. Now their diminished forces were all that stood between Lindum’s people and another bloody episode of the Saxon Terror.
“They waited for us to be weak.”
“Of course they did. They’re warriors.” He took a deep breath. “They’ve surrounded us, and they’re in place outside the north wall, too. We are completely contained. But there may still be cause for some hope.”
His uncle turned to face him. “What hope do we have? We should open the gates to them and hope that they’ll be merciful…”
Maelgwas slashed the air with his hand, startling Dometius. “No! The Saxons will never take this city!” He took a deep breath and pulled back on his anger, trying not to frighten his skittish and cowardly relative. “I have a man who’s willing to try to creep out at night. He’ll go to Eburacum and ask the king for assistance.”
“Their king is dead.”
“They have a new king. Gurgur
est.”
“Will he come?”
“If he doesn’t, then he’s no king, and I for one will not accept him as my liege lord.”
Dometius looked back through the arrow slit, his knuckles whitening as his hands gripped one another. “Did anyone draw the sword? Is there a new High King?”
“Nobody knows.” Maelgwas looked outside, too. The Saxons were gathering great piles of wood. He hoped they didn’t intend to set fire to the walls. “I doubt it. There’s no true heir to Pendragon, and anyway, swords don’t go into stones in the first place, much less get pulled out of them. Someone is telling lies and fanciful stories, probably to get more travelers to go to Londinium. That old dog Augustine is probably behind it.”
“I hope,” Dometius said. “I hope there is a new High King. I hope he comes.”
Maelgwas turned away. “If there is a new High King, he is a long way from here.”
Arthur looked around the courtyard as Hellawes led him and Sir Ector through the gates of Castle Nigramis. There were tents everywhere, and refuse in piles. Latrines had been dug in one corner of the courtyard and were hidden by a makeshift barrier of straw and cloth which concealed the sight but not the smell. It was obvious that too many people had been living in too small of a space for far too long.
“How long has the monster been troubling you?” he asked his hostess.
“Since Yuletide, sire,” she said. “I apologize that my home is such a shambles. It will be corrected, I assure you.”
“I pass no judgment,” he assured her. “I’m sorry that you were in such distress for such a long time.”
She smiled brightly. In the sun, he could see that she was nearer to Ector’s age than his, but she was lovely nonetheless.
The path she led them on wound around tents and hastily built shelters. Arthur could see only women, children and old men in the occupied area. There were no men of fighting age anywhere to be found. Hellawes had said that the monster had eaten her warriors; if so, it was a dreadful reason for the absence.
They were ushered into the great hall, which was filled with cots and bedrolls. The women in the hall stopped talking as soon as they came in, staring at them in wonder. One of them, a silver-haired woman with twisted hands, sat down and began to sob. Arthur went to her.
“My lady, why do you weep?”
Through her tears, she managed, “My lord, I am weeping because you’re here.”
Hellawes said, “She is grateful. Isn’t she?” The old woman nodded and hid her face in her hands while the lady of the castle explained, “She has lost much to those creatures, and still has more to lose.”
A young girl, perhaps fourteen years of age, came forward. She was dressed as a squire. “I will take and clean your armor, sirs,” she said. “I will mend it as best I can, as well.”
Hellawes put her hand on the girl’s back. “Babh, show them to my chambers. They will be resting there until the feast. And draw them a bath, as well.” Babh bobbed her head, and their hostess said, “I will see to the preparations for the celebration we will have tonight, and for the feeding of your men.”
“My lady, I have no wish to put you from your comfort,” Arthur said. “There is no need to give up your own bedchamber.”
He knew perfectly well what royal etiquette demanded, but he thought it a foolish custom. Sir Ector began to speak, but the lady cut him off gracefully. “It would be slender hospitality if I did not provide a king with the finest room in the keep, and I will be heartbroken if you refuse me.”
He hesitated, then said, “My thanks, Lady Hellawes.”
Babh took a few steps toward a tower and a set of stairs. “My lords, please follow me.”
They went where the girl led. The stairs coiled tightly in the narrow tower, and Arthur’s shoulders nearly touched both walls as they climbed up. Any fights in this tower would be difficult if not impossible to prosecute with swords, he thought. They would need to be fought hand-to-hand, with daggers and with fists. It was both defensible and extremely confining. Anyone fighting their way in would have the devil’s own time, but so too would anyone who had to fight their way out.
The stairs ended at a heavy oaken door well braced with iron bands. Babh pushed the door open, and it grated on the stone floor as it swung aside. The corridor beyond was wider than the stairs had been, but still too narrow for Arthur and Ector to walk side by side. Two doors stood closed on the right and one double door, as heavily banded as the tower door, stood open on the left.
It was to the left that Babh led them. She ushered them into an expansive chamber with four surprisingly large windows overlooking the river and the army camp below. Arthur had not seen these windows from the outside of the castle, and the skin on the back of his neck tingled, as did the golden bracer on his wrist. There was magic here, and he could feel it. A wide bed stood in the middle of the room, its headboard against the wall between two of the windows. There was a wooden tub beside the hearth, and three large chests stood end to end against the northern wall. A bookcase filled with sealed scroll cases dominated the wall to the south, and the floor was covered with hides and fresh, clean rushes.
Babh opened one of the chests and pulled out two robes, one for each man, and laid them on the bed.
“If you would like to remove your armor and your under clothing, I will clean them while you bathe.” The girl went to the hearth and turned two pot arms toward the fire, which was burning brightly even though it was the middle of the day. She took hold of two heavy iron cauldrons and said, “I will fetch the water for your bathing.”
“Would you like help with the water?” Arthur asked. “The pots will be very heavy when they’re filled.”
She gave him a strange and secret smile. “I can manage, my lord, but it is good of you to offer. Thank you.”
Without another word, she bustled out with the cauldrons, closing the door behind her.
“This is a strange place,” Ector said softly, looking at the magical windows.
“I agree.” Arthur sat on the edge of the bed. “Father, something here feels very wrong.”
The old knight nodded. “We should accept her hospitality to avoid offending her, but we can’t be too relaxed...just in case.”
He began to unbuckle the straps at his waist that held the front of his cuirass to the back. “The whole time we were in the stairs, all I could think about was how hard it would be to try to fight there.”
“It would be very difficult. I thought the same thing.”
Ector tried to liberate himself from his armor, but his ruined left hand made the effort difficult. Arthur went to him and helped him with the straps, removing his father’s armor and setting it aside. The knight shook his head.
“I never thought I would see the day when a king helped to disarm me.”
Arthur smiled. “There’s no king here. Just your son.”
Ector wrapped him in a sudden embrace, and Arthur held him, too. In a voice thick with emotion, the knight whispered in his ear, “I am so proud of you. What a fine man you have become!”
He smiled. “I learned from you.”
His foster father patted him on the back, then pulled away, clearing his throat. “Speaking of learning… I know I didn’t teach you how to fight the way you do. Where did you learn?”
“Merlin,” he admitted. “For years, he and I met up in the wood outside Caer Gai, and he taught me how to use sword, lance and bow.”
Ector snorted. “He’s everywhere, isn’t he?”
“So it seems.”
Babh returned with the cauldrons full of water, carrying them as if they were full of nothing but air. She hung them on the pot arms and pushed them into the flames to heat. The two men stared at her feat of strength, and when she turned, she smiled as if nothing was odd at all.
“Do you require my service to wash you?”
“Ah,” Ector said. “No. That will not be necessary.”
“As you wish. The meal will be served in two hours.” She
left again.
“How could a slip of a girl like that…” Arthur began.
“I have no idea. Something in this place is amiss.”
Arthur returned to the task of removing his own armor while Ector stripped down to his small clothes. Babh returned with two more cauldrons of water, which she put directly into the fire. She poured the water that had already been heating into the tub and left with a smile.
Ector nodded toward the tub. “Kings first.”
Arthur chuckled. “As you wish, Father.”
He stripped and settled into the water, letting the heat soothe muscles sore from too many hours in the saddle.
“What is that?”
Arthur looked up, surprised. Ector was looking at his left wrist, where the golden bracer sat snugly against his skin. It gleamed in the light from the hearth, the complicated, vine-like engraving in the gold standing out in shadows. He hesitated, then said, “When I was in the forest before the Great Rite at Beltane, I saw a white stag. He touched me, and then this appeared here. Now it won’t come off. I don’t know what it is, apart from the obvious, but it tingles when it’s around magic.”
“And is it tingling now?”
He nodded. “Constantly.”
Ector nodded, and he looked troubled. “I was afraid of that.”
Merlin left his horse at the edge of Lake Bala and stepped into the water. He had hoped that he could avoid this mission, if only because he had misgivings about the thing he was going to request. The boggan and its link to Arthur had forced his hand. He needed to do everything in his power to keep the Seelie and Unseelie from uniting against the young king. There was only one thing that could cement the notoriously chaotic fey to a course of action, and he wished he did not have to request it now.
He bent and tapped the surface of the water three times, slapping sharply with his fingers. The signal sent, he waited.
Moments later, the Lady of the Lake appeared. “Greetings, friend,” she said. “What brings you to us?”
