"What do you mean, you're going to leave Bors' seat empty!" Merlin snapped as soon as the mourners had left the gravesite. "How much did you drink last night?"
"It will remain unoccupied, as a sign of respect," Arthur said with as much dignity as a man suffering from the effects of ale-head could muster.
"Respect!" the wizard shrieked. "We're not talking about a dinner party, Arthur. This is your personal guard, responsible for your life. You can't leave a spot empty because of some sentimental—"
"Enough." Arthur pressed his thumb and index finger against his eyes, hoping to stem the throbbing that threatened to pop them out of their sockets. "I've said that the seat will not be filled, and that is the last I'll speak of it."
With a sigh, Merlin followed him into the castle. There was no point in discussing Bors' seat—or, as the young knights were already calling it, the Siege Perilous—with the King until he was in a better temper. Merlin shooed away the servant who was waiting to remove Arthur's ceremonial robes.
"Bring a glass of wine," he instructed, unclasping the King's heavy fur-trimmed cloak himself.
"That's not for me, I hope," Arthur said.
"Indeed it is. If you were more of a drinking man, you'd know that it's the only thing that will allow you to survive the rest of the day." When the wine came, Merlin added to it some powdered burdock root from the medicine bag he always carried with him. "Here," he said, handing Arthur the drink, "although I've half a mind to let you suffer."
"Hah! It's your constant prattle that makes me suffer, not the wine." He quaffed down the potion, then looked through the morning's documents. Merlin, meanwhile, found a bound copy of Plato's Republic and leafed through it absently while reclining on a settee. The two of them were so accustomed to the other's presence that each felt as comfortable as if he were alone.
"By God, I do feel better," Arthur said after a time.
"I said you would, didn't I?" Merlin's eyes never left the book. "Rome is dying," he said absently. "It's inconceivable—the glory of the world destroyed by shoeless barbarians." He turned another page.
Arthur's eyes narrowed. "That sounds like chat."
"It is chat."
"No, it isn't. You never chat. What point are you trying to make, Taliesin? Your subtlety infuriates me."
Merlin closed the book and sat up. "The point, Arthur, is that you must avoid civil war if you are to have any hope of containing the Saxons."
Arthur closed his eyes slowly and opened them again. "I've just buried a friend. Do I really have to talk about this now?"
"I am sorry about the loss of Sir Bors," Merlin said softly, "but you are the King, and the affairs of kings do not cease because of sadness. As for having to talk, you do not. But I would appreciate it if you would listen."
Arthur leaned back in his chair. "All right. Be brief."
"I have heard stories about Lot of Rheged. One of them is most disturbing—"
"Are you referring to the one about his using magic to kill me?" Arthur laughed.
Merlin's eyebrow arched. "It is not a matter for hilarity," he said. "Two of Lot's serving girls fled Dumnonia for their lives after seeing a room in his castle draped in black and filled with bones and all manner of relics."
"A likely story," the King said, unimpressed. "Who told you this?"
"A farmer who gave the girls shelter for the night. I spoke to him myself, while I was out gathering herbs."
"And the girls? Where are they?"
"Dead. The farmer found them drowned in the river the next day."
"Which, of course is proof that they were killed by sorcery."
"Well, not exactly proof," the Merlin admitted.
"Thank you," Arthur said. "Taliesin, I hear a dozen of these stories every day. They mean nothing, except that we've been at peace so long that the people don't know what to do with their time."
"Arthur, there is such a thing as black magic—"
"Don't tell me you take this nonsense seriously! Besides, my wizard is better than any Lot can drum up." He grinned.
"King Lot does not have a wizard. He has a wife." Merlin added with a shudder, "A most dreadful creature."
"Queen Morgause? She's considered a great beauty. Lot got more than one prize when he seized Dumnonia from under the noses of the Saxons.'''
"He may have seized it from under the nose of its rightful ruler, as well," Merlin sniffed. "As you may recall, there were many reports that King Cheneus died with the black tongue of a poisoned man."
"Yes, but the six Saxon arrows in his belly were a more likely cause of death."
"He might have been poisoned before he ever left his castle to fight," Merlin persisted.
"Good God, you sound just like the petty kings! What possible reason would the queen of Dumnonia have to murder her husband while he was engaged in battle? Do you think she relished the prospect of being carried off across the sea as a Saxon slave?"
"Cheneus was an old man. Morgause may well have poisoned him to ensure that he would not return from the battle. Remember, she had four sons. I doubt if she'd anticipated that they would all be killed alongside their father."
Arthur shook his head. "Well, you may believe what you like, but it's all too far-fetched for me. At any rate, it was some time ago. Even the other kings are happy since they received a portion of Dumnonia."
"Four of the other kings," Merlin said. "Lot certainly was less than delighted."
"He got six hundred troops for his inconvenience."
"But Queen Morgause got nothing. And Dumnonia was originally her land."
Arthur picked up the empty wine goblet, then set it down again. "Just what are you getting at, Taliesin? You're giving me a headache."
"I am trying to remind you to be prepared. Lot and his queen are powerful enemies."
"They are not enemies, Taliesin. Lot is a member of the council of kings. If he were to strike out against me, the others arc bound by oath to fight him."
"But would they? For a King with no heir?"
Merlin's words struck deep into the King's heart. Arthur's gift of Dumnonia's farmland to the petty kings had temporarily stilled their demands for him to take another wife, but those demands had not been forgotten. The kings knew that if Arthur died without an heir, Lot would eventually rule as High King. For them, it was a question of whether to ally themselves with Lot before the bloodshed of civil war began, or to risk losing their kingdoms after it was ended.
"I cannot put my wife aside," the King said softly. "It would shame me as a man. As a human being."
"Then take the cup. I still have it."
"The . . . Oh, not that again." Arthur turned away.
"It is the only way, Arthur," Merlin pleaded. "Until you have someone to rule in your place, you must live."
"By sorcery? I think not. My problems are a matter of statecraft, not witchcraft."
"It is not witchcraft!" the Merlin hissed. "The cup is a gift from the gods. From your god, if you will. Take it."
"I will not take it!" the King shouted, his voice suddenly echoing through the chamber. "You accuse the queen of Dumnonia of using magic to achieve her ends. Do you think I would resort to such means in order to rule if I am not fit to do so by my own abilities? Then you do not know me, Taliesin. You do not know me at all!"
The Merlin was silent. He did know the King; and so he knew there was nothing more to say.
Arthur held his head in his hands for a moment while the echo died away. When he finally looked up, his face was worn with care. "Please excuse me, old friend," he said quietly. "There are matters I must attend to."
The old man nodded.
As he left the castle, he remembered his first vision of Arthur, years before the man had even been born. The gods had set before a young bard named Taliesin the task of helping a great king to change the world.
In that moment, he knew that he had failed both his king and his gods.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Taliesin left Came
lot shortly afterward. Disappointed in himself, dismayed that the magic he had struggled so hard to learn had counted for so little in the outcome of his life, he put the intrigues of the court behind him and moved to a cottage near a lake. There he found a young student to teach and to keep him company during the long winters while he drifted contentedly into old age.
Most of those at court thought the old wizard had died. He had never announced his departure; he had simply left one day and not returned. Out of deference to King Arthur, no one mentioned the Merlin around him.
But they talked among themselves.
In some circles, they talked of nothing else.
"The High King's sorcerer is dead," Lot whispered into his wife's ear.
For the past six months he had been in Rheged to the far north, attending to the lands he had neglected since the onslaught of Saxon invasions along Dumnonia's coastline. It had been a long time since he took his pleasure on Morgause's hot flesh. Even though his bed had rarely been empty during his absence from Dumnonia, the first thing Lot had done upon his return was to ravish his queen as if she were a peasant in the fields, and she had not disappointed him in her response. Now he lay back, satisfied and sleepy. "I heard the news on the journey home."
"Sorcerer, bah! You mean that old fool they call the Merlin?" Morgause drank some wine from a goblet beside her bed and passed it to Lot. "He was never anything more than a druid, lucky to have had a roof over his head. No doubt King Arthur finally had enough of his doddering ways and had his throat cut."
"Many in the High King's army attribute his strength in battle to the Merlin's spells," he said, sipping the wine thoughtfully.
The Queen turned her head toward him with interest. "Oh?"
"And Arthur still has not put aside his barren queen. The provincial kings on the council are worried. Two of them sent emissaries to Rheged to talk about an alliance."
"With you? Then they're frightened."
"Oh, yes." He gave the goblet back to her and gathered the bedcovers around him. "Our time is coming, Morgause. Soon." He clasped her hand in his. Within seconds, he was snoring soundly.
Queen Morgause gently extricated her hand from her sleeping husband's. Lot had always felt himself to be the prime mover in the plans that were finally coming to fruition, she thought with some amusement. Actually, he had only been a tool to achieve her ends. Morgause's real partner was a man Lot had never met, a former lover of hers. The best lover she had ever had, although she had only lain with him once. Yet she had never forgotten the man with eyes as deep as the sea and a dark passion as powerful as her own.
His name was Thanatos.
He had been magnificent, and Morgause's beauty had matched his own. Even after the birth of three sons, her breasts were still full, and her face smooth as a girl's.
King Cheneus of Dumnonia had married her for her beauty alone, since her family could offer him nothing in return for the honor of making her his queen.
The daughter of an impoverished provincial chieftain, Morgause had grown up in a house heated by dung fires and carpeted with straw. She had welcomed the opportunity to leave the drudgery of mending and weaving and tramping grapes with the farmers who worked her father's lands for the luxury of a queen's life.
At first, it was of no consequence to her that Cheneus was a widower nearly thirty years her senior, or that he had a fully-grown son with a wife of his own. It was not until she produced her first child that she understood that none of her offspring would ever wear the crown of Dumnonia. Worse, Cheneus' plain-faced but pedigreed daughter-in-law made it clear that when the king died, Morgause would be given rooms in a remote section of the castle, while her undistinguished son would be taken into the priesthood of the Christians, where he would live out his life in poverty and obscurity.
The daughter-in-law was the first person Morgause poisoned.
It was a clumsy affair. She had used nightshade, and far too much of it, so that the woman's eye sockets were as swollen and black as if she had been pummeled to death by a mace. Still, no one had questioned her passing, since she had never been particularly hardy. With a few sincere-sounding words and a torrent of tears, Morgause managed to convince both Cheneus and his son that the wretched creature had been suffering from the wasting disease for months and had bravely kept her illness from the men out of love for them. Morgause even showed them a pot of powder that she claimed the deceased had used to cover the ravages of her illness which were visible only now, after her death.
Cheneus' son followed her to the grave within the year. Morgause knew that a second poisoning so close after the last would cause suspicion, so she looked to Cheneus' knights for assistance. With a few inquiries, she determined which among them were in need of money, and among those, she found one who was also heavily in debt for a number of gambling losses.
This was the first lover she took. After he had spent his seed in her, she offered him a bag of gold in exchange for assassinating the prince. He was aghast.
"This is worth a great deal more than your life, at the moment," she said, drawing curlicues on his chest.
"But... the prince!"
She laughed. "Are you going to stand on your honor? If so, perhaps you ought to put on your breeches first."
"You would not dare tell the king of this." He squared his shoulders in what he hoped was, despite his nakedness, a posture of arrogance. "You would be condemned along with me."
"Would I? For being raped by a man who stole into my rooms disguised as a common thief?" From a locked box she took a dirty tunic and a well-worn hat, along with a massive necklace of gold links which her husband had given her as a wedding gift. "These will be found in the saddlebags of your mount." She put the items away. "Or you can accept the bag of gold."
The man had wept.
During a boar hunt three days later, he went with the prince into a thicket and emerged alone. The prince's neck had been torn open. There had even been a boar's tooth in the wound.
A nice touch, Morgause thought during the funeral. She was almost sorry when the assassin was killed—some said by his fellow soldiers—during a raid the following month.
As consolation for the loss of his heir, Morgause gave King Cheneus another son, and then another, and yet another. Three new sons, all of them intensely loyal to their mother.
When the eldest was twenty and the youngest sixteen, she sent for Thanatos. One of her ladies-in-waiting had whispered of a magician who claimed to have killed the ancient gods.
"If you can kill a god, you can kill a king," she challenged him.
"Which king do you wish to kill, my lady?" the magician asked with a lazy smile. "I doubt that you require my services for your husband."
She had stared at him in silence for a moment, then shrieked with laughter. "You know," she said in amazement.
Thanatos shrugged.
She moved toward him until she stood with her face only inches from his. "Very well, then." Her eyes were glinting. "The High King."
He held up a finger. "Be careful, my lady. Is it the death of Arthur of Britain you want, or Britain itself? Speak your true wish, and none other."
Her mind raced. "But none can take the throne while Arthur lives," she said. "It will be afterward… when civil war ensues..."
"That Cheneus will fight the other kings for the High King's place?" he teased.
"Cheneus!" she spat with disdain. "My sons will win the throne."
"Will they?"
Morgause stepped back from him, her eyes cold. "What are you saying?"
Thanatos regarded her levelly. "Only what I have said before. Speak your true wish. Who shall rule Britain? Your sons? Or you?"
Morgause's breath sipped inward. "You can give me Britain?"
"Oh, yes." He smiled, his eyes undressing her. "But that is quite different from a mere murder. To kill a man—any man, even the High King—all you need is an assassin who is willing to die. But to change the course of fate... that is another matter entirely
."
"I see." She could not take her eyes from his. He had been waiting for her, she knew, perhaps for as long as she had been waiting for him. "What will it cost?" she asked.
"My fee will be high. But that is not what you meant, is it?"
"No."
"Ah. We understand each other." He bowed to kiss her hand.
She pulled him toward her, raising her face to his until their lips met. She wanted him badly.
"Your gods… What will they take from me?"
"All that you possess," he breathed.
"My sons?"
"Yes."
"My soul?"
"For all eternity."
He caressed her breasts. Her sex pressed against him, wet with desire.
"Done," she whispered.
The compact was sealed on an altar draped in black, surrounded by a coven of hooded magicians. As they chanted, Morgause approached the altar, naked, and lay upon it. One by one the magicians placed items around her: the bones of animals, a bowl of blood, a nugget of silver, two black candlesticks, a human skull. Two of them held a goat above the table while a third eviscerated it over the queen's body.
While the goat's blood streamed hot over her breasts and between her thighs, one of the magicians painted a pentagram of blood on her forehead. "She is fouled," he said.
Another held the bowl of blood to her lips. She drank from it.
"She is fouled."
The two candlesticks were placed in her hands and lit. Black wax melted and ran over her hands, coating her fingers.
"She is fouled," the magician intoned for the third time.
Then Thanatos appeared at her feet, naked and erect.
"What is your true wish?" he asked.
Morgause raised her head from the altar table. Her golden hair, spread like a fan around her face, was streaked with blood. In the light of the burning candles, her eyes shone with a feverish glow. She reeked of death.
"I wish to be Queen of Britain," she rasped. "All of it."
Then she opened her legs to him, and he mounted her. With a moan, she arched her back to take him into her body, moving her hips faster, faster, her sweat mingling with the spilled blood of the goat, rutting in a frenzy as the magicians chanted louder, swirling around them like beings possessed.
The Broken Sword Page 30
