The Eagle and the Sword (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 2)

by A. A. Attanasio

  Morgeu's pale face seems to float in the dark. "What is his name, this son of yours?"

  Ygrane looks away, at the night standing in the window, afraid to betray what she loves by a stray word or loud thought. "I will tell you nothing of him, Morgeu. He is in Merlin's care, and when the time is right, he will come forth and rule this land righteously—as a Christian king."

  "Merlin tells the Celts that the future king bears the soul of Cuchulain." A mocking smile lights up in the gloaming. "How Christian can he be?"

  "That will be his choice," Ygrane replies, and meets her daughter's taunting stare. "Like you, he will know a Christian upbringing. What he does with his experience is between him and God."

  Morgeu sighs angrily. "You are no less stubborn than I, Mother."

  "There is a great difference in our stubbornness, daughter—for what I want, I leave to love and God, while you strive for your desires with hatred and your own implacable will."

  "Ah, Ygrane—Ygrane—" Morgeu struggles to keep from shrieking her rage. "You are so full of your own goodness there is no room in you anymore for others. No one can get close to you except strangers—the sick and the poor—and then only for a little while. That is why you have no man, no family. Your goodness leaves no room even for your own son. Others must rear him for you. I pity you, Ygrane."

  Ygrane stiffens, stung by this truth. Under her breath, she works a little prayer to Jesus through her heart, and when gentleness returns, she says, "Let us not talk of me. Tell me about my grandsons."

  Morgeu exhales hotly. "What do you care of your grandsons?"

  "Morgeu—you will not come to me again. This we both know. Tell me about my grandsons before you go. Tell what it was like to give birth to them, to suckle them, and to watch them grow. Tell me their stories. I ask nothing more of you."

  Reluctantly at first, Morgeu talks of her children. And an opportunity comes clear to her. She realizes as they speak in the offhanded manner of mother and daughter that this request to review her past is a chance to seize her future. Here in the silken dark, with the terrific sound of the ocean thrashing on the rocks, and the rain whispering, filling the air with drowsiness akin to pleasure, she decides to use her magic on her mother.

  While they talk about Morgeu's pregnancies and the self-forgetful first days with her babies, the enchantress laces her accounts with secret magical spells. Her intent is to work her sorcery on her mother and draw from her the name and hiding place of Ygrane's son, so that she may find—and kill him.

  The younger woman's magic is strong, and Ygrane has no defense against it—indeed does not even realize that magic plies its corrupting strength against her. Yet, in the silvered darkness of dusk, the Graal shines with a bruised blue light, and its power dissolves all of Morgeu's attempts to trance her mother. And more than that, the noctilucent aura of the Annwn's vessel reflects the sorceress's magic back on herself and mesmerizes her instead.

  Morgeu straightens in her seat, suddenly wordless, and remains unmoving and unblinking.

  Ygrane sits with her silent, staring daughter and prays for her, believing the spell is some self-induced trance, a curious occurrence but hardly uncommon for Morgeu the Fey.

  An angel sweeps through the room, smoky as an underwater flame, filling the chamber with sun-baked fragrances of desert juniper and thistledown before disappearing in a shimmer of aqueous shadows.

  And within her trance, Morgeu dreams that she is cuddling her half brother, and he is suckling her teat like a teenage son shocked back to wanton infancy by battle madness. She cossets his curly hair and strokes the worry from his clenched brow—and all the hate nesting in her heart hatches an unassuaged and newly fledged love.

  This is the influence of the angel and the magic that Ygrane wields unawares. Blood magic this is. Morgeu's shared blood with Arthor sings with his adolescent yearnings and stirs in her the same desire that haunts him—the tragic beauty of love hunger.

  The old voice of the sea calls from the sea cliffs, and Morgeu hears it from far back in her mind. Gulls wheel over the skerries, cormorants roost upon the salt grass of the headlands, and pelicans wade in tide pools where her wraith flits like a girl dancing on the seashore, dreaming of lovers. Not a married woman, not a mother, but a maiden again, with fancies of love, she drifts among the beach wildflowers and the strewn litter of the sea.

  Slowly, as she fades back into her tranced body, Morgeu carries the love she has found under the influence of the Graal's magic and the angel's dream—and this passion warms the coldness of life. Murder is impossible now. Though she retains the need for vengeance, which has shaped her soul and with it her life, she cannot slay her brother. Anguish and tenderness have fused. Magic has made them one.

  At midnight, King Lot enters Ygrane's tower chamber and finds Morgeu asleep, the queen praying in the dark beside her. He carries his wife to their room, and she slumbers remorselessly until a wing of sunlight pushes through the curtains.

  When they depart Tintagel for Camelot, blue sky deep as a jewel covers the Celts, and Morgeu embraces her mother with heartfelt longing. Mother and daughter kiss, and then Morgeu rides off with her husband and sons serene as a swan.

  She will not murder her half brother, she consciously decides. Rather, she will love him—and she will use love as a weapon. With tantric magic of carnal love, she will exact her vengeance by employing sorcery ancient as Egypt, where royal brother and sister coupled to birth the land's true ruler. And in this way, her father Gorlois will reach past death through her body to seize Uther's son and squeeze from him poetic justice beyond the grave.

  Chapter 7: Excalibur

  Merlin sits on the sun-washed turf of Mons Caliburnus, his long blue robes puddled darkly around him, hat in his lap, and the summer wind careless in his silver locks. Below a precipice of ivy and bosky willows, the River Amnis, mottled with cloud-light and beech-wood reflections, ripples like a snake in its new skin. It winds among water meadows and disappears into dense groves of evergreen magnolias, walnut trees, and oaks.

  On the backbone of the hill, just above the wizard, the star stone squats: a flat-topped boulder, not unlike in appearance to a giant anvil, cleaved down its middle by a blade of blue-white steel wedged between its black lobes. Closer, the aerolite displays orange freckles of rust. From where Merlin sits, the ferric slag appears silver-black, a chunk ripped from the night sky.

  His attention is on the sword, the emblem of power that will be drawn from the stone this summer to initiate a kingdom. He admires its gold haft roweled with elfishly intricate circlets, its long, slender handguard simple as a Hebrew yod. He runs his finger along its beveled blade, the steel polished so clear it mirrors the bright day's towering clouds.

  This sword holds all history in its elegant form. Shaped for the Furor by his clever dwarfs long before those whose days built Rome, the sword Lightning has fought elder gods, giants, trolls, battle-lords, and their minions—and Merlin ponders how well it will serve its new master.

  The irony of stealing this sword for the king of the Britons from the hand of his enemy sharpens the understanding of all that the wizard expects of it. Not only must it defend against its former possessor, the Furor and his frenzied tribes, whose only rule of law is might, it must conquer the civil strife between Briton and Celt and defeat the iniquity of the people who have adopted it.

  Uniting the kingdom against its internal turmoil of despair and corruption, it will serve the virtues of Christendom—protection of the weak, defense of family and society—and become a symbol of righteousness, father of the courage the king requires not to fail.

  Already the sword Lightning's reputation resounds through the islands, and bards and court musicians sing of it, declaring Merlin's promise that the next hand to hold this sword shall be the king's. Its former name is almost forgotten, supplanted by the name of the Roman place that holds it—-from Caliburnus: Excalibur.

  But before the sword Lightning can strike out from Caliburnus against
wickedness and injustice, young Arthor must survive to become king. A sobering thought, Merlin realizes.

  In the wizard's lap, under his hat, he holds a letter from Ygrane arrived by carrier pigeon just this morning. The letter, warning of Prince Bright Night's threat to abandon Arthor, troubles him profoundly, for he can well imagine betrayal by the elves. Their monarch, Someone Knows the Truth, is—as his name implies—a god for whom truth is uncertain: he has endured since before the ages of ice by using whatever truth enables him to survive. And by living for longevity, his word has become only as good as he needs for it to be.

  Merlin nods his head resignedly. As reluctant as he is to acknowledge it, he knows what he must do: at this critical time, he must be with Arthor. Ygrane's letter assures him that the wizard cannot trust half-seen and unseen beings to accomplish what he must do for himself and for all people. Yes, he must be with Arthor.

  All the arrangements at Camelot are in readiness for the coming festival: the tournament grounds have been prepared for the contestants, and the people of Cold Kitchen have the provisions well in hand for the gala fete. But who will manage the arrival of the dignitaries and keep the antagonistic warlords and chieftains from attacking one another? Only by using his magic has Merlin managed to avert outright warfare during the two previous gatherings.

  A rustle in the bee-haunted lime shrubs at the spur of the knoll pulls Merlin from his contemplation. The brails of his heart—the cords of energy that reach out from his center to touch the world—feel that this is not an animal, not some stag or bear, but a human. Someone approaches, and the wizard quickly fits his hat upon his head and rises. He crumples Ygrane's letter in his fist and, with a muttered fire-spell, ignites it and tosses its flaring ashes into the air.

  "Wizard!" a man's voice calls from below, and an old fellow spindly as a scarecrow slips through the lime shrubs and hobbles up the knoll, his hatless head bald and splotched with sun blisters. "Wizard! Do you remember me? Hannes—master builder—from Hartland."

  "Hannes?" Merlin does not recall the name, though he does vaguely recognize the carpenter, older now than the lanky monkey of a man who constructed the round table for the wizard sixteen summers ago. His ginger-whiskers have turned gray, yet the blue opals of his eyes glitter as brightly as the day he proudly unveiled to Merlin his finished masterpiece and then refused money for it.

  Merlin's palms go damp at the recollection. Now it all comes back: in lieu of payment, this man with his comically large ears and apish features, had insisted on another form of remuneration for his labor: he wanted one wish, to be collected at some future date. And Merlin, eager to return to his king and queen, had agreed.

  "You've come for your wish then, master builder?" Merlin asks apprehensively as the aged man limps closer, his tired bones clearly struggling with the climb. He wears a threadbare dun jerkin, green trousers stained gray with dust, and frayed sandals knotted with bine.

  "Please—Hannes, call me Hannes, wizard," the man huffs and stops several paces away, clutching the ache in his sides. "I'm not a builder anymore, master or otherwise." He holds up his hands and shows his twisted fingers and knobby knuckles. "I can no longer hold the tools."

  "Ah, well, I can help you with that." Merlin sighs with relief, reaching for the carpenter's warped hands. But the spindly man tucks them away against his gaunt chest.

  "Oh, no, wizard. 'Tis not for them I've come." His round face wrinkles to a broad smile. "I've another wish entire in mind. Another wish entire. But first, let me ask after my handiwork: are you pleased with the table I made for you?"

  "Of course, very pleased," Merlin avows. "What you built proved most useful and will again someday. It has the stature of legend, that the king should have a headless table that rolls with him wherever he travels."

  "Aye—but it could not roll to heaven, could it?" Hannes notes lugubriously. "I was saddened to hear of good King Uther's demise."

  "Quite so. The round table stays intact at Tintagel," Merlin replies, "and will serve our next king."

  "The noble hand that draws this sword from the stone, eh?" Hannes squints at Excalibur and pokes his tongue against the inside of his cheek as he assesses the weapon. "A supernatural blade it is, for sure, just as the bards say. On my word, I've never seen the likes of it. Look at it all agleam, so stubborn with light. May I touch it?"

  Merlin stands aside, and the carpenter clambers to the star stone and puts gnarled hands on the gold helve.

  "It has magic within it, all right," Hannes murmurs, whistling through his crooked orange teeth. "Why, it makes the salt sing in my blood!" He presses his brow to the flat of the blade and slowly sinks to his knees. After a moment, he turns about and sits in the grass with his back against the stone, an almost conspiratorial smile on his wizened face. "Might I ask for the strength to draw this sword by my own hand?" His smile broadens at the obvious dismay in Merlin's face, and he shakes his blistered head. "Fret not, wizard. I am not enough of a fool to be king."

  Merlin approaches impatiently, wondering, What does this tired old goat want if not his health or power?

  "You know, wizard, when you came to Hartland all those years ago and rolled away your wheel table, I'd never seen the likes of such magic before. Nor have I since—though I've heard the bards singing of you, Merlin. I've heard them sing of how you rode the unicorn to Avalon to bring back this sword, Excalibur, and how you set it in stone for the coming king. I heard them sing how you tamed the Dragon for Uther, and how you journeyed into the hollow hills with him to meet the lord of the elves. And I knew it was all true. I knew, because they also sang of the round table that I helped you fashion, and I'd seen that with my own eyes, how you rolled it out of the forest with your chants. I knew they sang the truth of you."

  No shortage of breath in those old bellows, the wizard thinks, and nods testily.

  "I'd have come sooner to you for my wish," Hannes admits, "but holding the wish felt so much more powerful than using it. I thought I'd need it one day when my wife or children fell ill or the sea wolves swarmed down upon us. But the Saxons never came. My children, bless them, have suffered no hardships and live this day with children and grandchildren of their own, expanding the shipbuilding yards I founded in my youth. And my wife—" He shrugs haplessly. "She got old like me and wanted to find her way to heaven not back to earth. So the years have sped away, and now I arrive at the end of my life. At the end of my life—but with one wish on my hands."

  "Surely you have decided what you want for your wish," Merlin states, "or you would not be sitting here before me now. What is it, then, Hannes? If not health or regal authority, then is it wealth?"

  "No." He brushes the air with a noncommittal gesture. "I want what cannot be taken away from me. I want knowledge."

  "Knowledge, is it?" Merlin chuckles and nods approvingly. "And what knowledge would that be, Hannes?"

  The carpenter answers proudly, "The knowledge you have, Merlin. I want to be a wizard—-just as you are."

  A surprised hole opens in Merlin's beard. "Surely you're joking!"

  Hannes juts his whiskered jaw adamantly. "I want magic, Merlin. I want the magic you have."

  Merlin thrusts to his feet and waves the request aside. "That cannot be, Hannes. I am not wholly a man. I am a demon."

  "Yes, so I have heard the bards sing." He gazes up at the wizard with an expression of impish solicitude. "Lailoken, they say, is your demon name. You fathered yourself on your own mother when you were an incubus. But you have redeemed that abomination by serving the good. And by that I know you will keep your word and fulfill my wish."

  "You are mistaken, poor fellow. I cannot make you a demon."

  "But you can make me a wizard—can you not?"

  Merlin studies the carpenter, noting the man's childlike sincerity, an enthusiasm that defies the weariness of his own flesh. Is it possible he is a gift? the wizard asks himself, a gift of chance—of God? He scratches his chin whiskers ruminatively. "All right," he says at la
st. "I can make you a wizard, Hannes, but only to the full extent of your own endowment."

  "What does that mean?" Hannes's face shines with hopeful expectation.

  "That means, you shall not have my powers but your own. Each of us lives out our fate, after all—separately, individually."

  "But I will have magic?"

  "Oh, yes," Merlin answers, with a skeptical, sidelong glance, "though that is not in itself a happiness, you should know. To be a wizard, you must give me a part of your life you do not have."

  "You speak in riddles, Merlin."

  "Aha. That is the nature of magic, Hannes. Do you not see? To be a wizard, you must give me the secret part of yourself, your destiny. You have lived a good life—till now. Do not seek magic. Trust me. It is an unending mystery, a longing that goes on even after the heart gives out. Wish for anything else."

  "No, Merlin. I stand by my one wish. I wish to be a wizard like you. You must fulfill that wish for me."

  "Do you know what you are asking?"

  "I want to be like you."

  This is your chance, Lailoken. Merlin spurs himself to a decision. Seize it for the sake of your king. Seize it!

  He forces himself to frown doubtfully and pluck at his chin hairs as if struggling toward a decision. At last, he accedes with a heavy sigh. "Then, I welcome your wish, Hannes, and I will fulfill it to the best of my ability."

  Hannes struggles to his feet, wrinkled features bright as a child's. "Wonders! I knew you to be a generous man. So! How do we begin?"

  "First, you must understand that magic carries profound responsibility." Merlin stares him squarely in the eyes, glad for his own ulterior designs that they share almost the same height. "I cannot simply empower you and send you off into the world, you know. You must prove your worthiness, Hannes. Are you prepared to do that?"