The King's Wizard

by James Mallory

  Merlin, the enchanter.

  Merlin’s place at Arthur’s court was an ambiguous one. He had ended the reign of one king and brought about the reigns of two others. And in the time it had taken him to do so, the customs of the nobility had shifted, subtly but unmistakably, away from the Old Ways and toward the New Religion. Vortigern’s court had worshiped power, and Uther’s had made uneasy alliances wherever it could, but Arthur of Britain was a Christian king ruling a land that would someday be wholly a Christian one, from which the dark magics of the Old Ways would be banished.

  And as such, his court had no official place for a wizard. Many of Arthur’s nobles, whether Christian since Roman times or newly-converted, distrusted anything that smacked of the Old Ways. And with good reason. The Old Ways had made Britain a battleground since King Constant’s time, and those who felt they had escaped them were wary of anything that would once again entangle them in magic’s shadowy net.

  Arthur thought their attitude unjust, but in some ways, the idealism that Merlin had so carefully fostered in his royal charge was a liability in dealing with day-to-day matters. The years had made Merlin more of a realist. He would not intrude where his presence would spoil the trust that must grow up between Arthur and the nobles he ruled. Thus, this night Merlin sat not at the high table, but near the door, where the lesser nobility took its meal. The food was as good as that served at the high table, and one could come and go unobtrusively.

  And, if one had the power of the Old Ways, one could hear the conversations at the High Table as easily as if one were sitting there.

  Merlin knew that eavesdropping wasn’t very good manners, but with Arthur’s chosen champion lying injured, and the Queen looking so pale and wan, Merlin felt it was his duty as the King’s adviser to know what was going on, so that he could ward off further trouble, assuming such a thing were possible. There were times when Merlin thought the old Saxon gods had been right after all: if a fate had been laid out for a man at the beginning of his life, there was no sense in trying to outwit it, for his fate would find him in the end.

  But as Merlin watched Guinevere do no more than pick at her food, while beside her Arthur ate and drank as though nothing were amiss, Merlin knew he could not be content to watch from afar. He needed to know.

  A small gesture, almost unnoticed by those who sat around him, and the words of the King and Queen came to him as clearly as if he stood behind them.

  “How is Lancelot?” Arthur asked.

  “He’s past the worst,” Guinevere said slowly, not looking at the king.

  “Good,” Arthur said. “That’s good. He can hardly be your champion if he’s lying in bed, now, can he?” The king smiled, hoping to coax his queen into a cheerier mood.

  “Must you go on this quest?” Guinevere burst out, her voice low. Her hands clasped each other so tightly the knuckles shone white through the flesh.

  “Yes I must,” Arthur said firmly. “My lady, you know that seeking the Grail is the right thing for me to do. I can delay a few weeks, until Lancelot is more recovered, but that is all.”

  “And if I beg you not to go?” Guinevere persisted.

  Arthur turned to her. “What are you afraid of, Guinevere?”

  Whatever disturbed her, the Queen was not prepared to share it with Arthur, Merlin saw. She shook her head, and the long strands of pearls braided through her hair glimmered in the torchlight as they swung against her cheeks. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll miss you,” she added hollowly.

  “I’ll miss you, too,” Arthur said patiently, “but I’ve given my word. To God.”

  “I need you more,” Guinevere said, and the heartfelt cry seemed for a moment to echo Merlin’s to Nimue. I need you, he had told her, over and over, and Nimue’s answer had always been the same: God needs me more.

  If the Queen was as lonely as he was in the midst of all these people, Merlin pitied her.

  “But you’ll have Merlin,” Arthur said. “And Lancelot.”

  From the foot of the table, Merlin saw a flash of panic cross the Queen’s face, and wondered at it. Surely she could not be afraid of Lancelot? The man was the soul of chivalry!

  He saw Guinevere bow her head, and nod meekly, and suddenly Merlin did not wish to listen any longer.

  But later, when the guests had departed and Arthur and Guinevere were alone together, the queen could not keep from pleading with Arthur once more. If only he could understand her feelings, surely they would move him to pity her and do as she asked.

  They were alone together in Guinevere’s rooms. She sat at the dressing table taking down her hair, while Arthur watched her from a chair by the door. These were not the royal apartments, which were not yet finished, but a set of simpler rooms on the ground floor of the castle. Arthur liked to sit with her for a few minutes here in the evening, but he always retired to his own rooms afterward, to pray to be worthy of finding the Grail. Leaving her alone, like a pair of unwanted shoes.

  “You cannot go,” Guinevere said. Blessed Virgin, make him hear the words she searched for in vain—let him know her heart!

  Her hands shook as she lifted her pearl crown from her head and set it on the table. She stood and clasped them together, trying to still their trembling. Arthur was fearless—it was Gawain who had first told her that, and when she had met her husband she discovered it was the simple truth. And how could a man who did not know fear understand a woman’s fears? She turned and walked to the window, standing before it and looking out so she would not have to see his face.

  “We have gone over all this before, my lady,” Arthur said, with what sounded like a stifled sigh of exasperation. She heard his chair creak as he shifted position. “I know it is hard, but you knew I meant to accept this quest before we were wed. I will leave you many competent, experienced men to help you rule the kingdom while I am gone—your own father, Sir Boris. The land is at peace. You have nothing to fear.”

  Nothing but the knowledge that she had always felt like a ghost traveling through other people’s lives, flawed where they were perfect, only an encumbrance to them on life’s journey. She had hoped marriage would change that, but it had not. She had thought she was resigned to her loneliness. She had accepted it as the natural order of things, until she had met Lancelot.

  From the moment she had looked into his eyes, she had begun to question everything—from the way she was treated by Arthur’s knights, to whether she really deserved the fate that was hers as Arthur’s virgin queen. Lancelot would change her by his very presence in Camelot, and Guinevere feared that.

  “Arthur—” she began. But how to put this formless dread into words that could sway a man as brave and fearless as her husband? She did not even know what she feared, only that she feared it very much.

  Guinevere turned away from the window. “You’re right,” she said dutifully, forcing herself to smile and look at him. “I have nothing to fear. After all, I will have your wizard to protect me, as well as Lancelot.”

  She saw Arthur’s face relax as he took her words at face value. “You’ll do fine,” he said, getting to his feet and coming over to her. “And I’ll be back … as soon as possible,” he finished lamely. He took her by the shoulders and gazed down at her tenderly. “Well, good night, then.” He kissed her chastely upon the forehead, just as he had every night since they were wed.

  “Good night,” Guinevere echoed, watching as he walked from the room.

  When he was gone and she was alone, she turned back to the window, wishing she were in a tower a thousand miles high. One leap, and all choices would be over, and the dread in her heart would be stilled. At last the slow tears came, when there was no one to see them.

  Where will you go to seek the Grail, husband? How can you begin to know where it lies? Will you recognize it when you see it? Or will all of this building and planning be for nothing, only a beautiful dreamthat vanishes in the morning because you are not here to make it real?

  The next ten days passed as quick
ly as moments, leaves torn from the Tree of Years by an autumn wind. Arthur made his final choices: Gawain and forty of the Round Table’s bravest knights would go with him on his quest. They would begin by going to Avalon Abbey to offer prayers in the Grail Chapel, and there seek an omen that would lead them onward in their search.

  Lancelot recovered swiftly from his wound, aided by Merlin’s salves and cordials and the sincere wish of the attending physicians not to face Gawain’s temper again. Much of the wizard’s healing magic stemmed from the same source that Avalon’s did; the herbcraft of the country people, taught to him by his Aunt Ambrosia, but just to be sure that no dark forces were involved, the Bishop of Camelot offered up a special Mass for Lancelot’s welfare, and even Arthur took time from his preparations for departure to visit Lancelot almost every day. Whatever the cause, Lancelot of the Lake healed quickly and well, and was able to tour Camelot with Arthur a few days before the king’s departure.

  The golden city was expanding in all directions at once. Its buildings were shrouded by scaffolding, and its defensive walls were barely six feet high as yet. The great gates that would be hung when the walls were finished lay protected beneath a tarpaulin until they were needed. Outside the castle walls a small city of workmen’s huts had sprung up; many would vanish when construction was complete, but the rest would remain to form the nucleus of the village that would be a part of Camelot, and of Arthur’s dream.

  He had told Lancelot much about his hopes for the future in the time they had spent together, and the two men had laid the groundwork of a strong friendship.

  “When I go,” Arthur said, “I want you to see that Camelot is finished just as I planned.”

  “Of course I will,” Lancelot said warmly. “It is a mighty dream, my friend, and, God willing, a dream that will endure forever.”

  As they walked through the streets that would someday be a bustling city, Arthur pointed out particular details—here a gargoyle imported from France, there, windows that would someday be bright with stained glass crafted by skilled Flemish artisans. He spoke of the law-courts and hospitals the city would someday contain, of the peace and charity it would spread over all the land like the radiance of the Grail itself.

  “Better that Camelot should become real than remain a dream,” Arthur said. “I entrust that to you, Lancelot. You must make my city real.”

  “I will,” Lancelot said. “Both the city and the dream.”

  It seemed to Lancelot that he could almost see the city through Arthur’s eyes—its shining towers rising into the sky, its streets filled with happy, peaceful people. How like his own Joyous Gard it would be when it was finished. Already he could see ways in which he could make Camelot greater than Arthur’s vision. He would lay the perfected Camelot as a gift at the feet of his friend when Arthur returned with the Grail.

  “Ah, here’s Merlin,” Arthur said, his arm draped companionably around Lancelot’s shoulder. “I was just showing Lancelot the city.”

  Arthur spoke as though Camelot were finished, and Lancelot saw Merlin smile.

  “And what do you think of Camelot, Sir Knight?” Merlin asked.

  “I think it will be a very great city,” Lancelot said. “A city worthy of its king … and queen.”

  Late into the evening, a lone candle burned in a hut at the edge of the workmen’s village. Even after all these years, Merlin still disliked being confined within stone walls, so Arthur had built for him a small hut at the edge of the builders’ city. Inside, Merlin had all that he needed: a table, a chair, some books. The cool breezes of spring wafted through the walls; the woven withes would have to be chinked with mud before the hut would be warm enough for winter. But the thatched roof was tight, and the hut would be a pleasant place through the spring and summer.

  A candle flickered in a clay candlestick upon the table. Arthur had promised to take a letter to Nimue when he went to Avalon, but Merlin was finding it hard to find the words. What could he say to her? That he loved her but dared not be with her? That their happiness could not be allowed to matter more than Arthur’s kingdom? That he feared that any weakness he showed could be turned into a weapon by Queen Mab?

  All of these things. None of these things. Merlin sighed. Oh, Auntie A, I do miss you so. I am sure that ifall of this had been left to you, you would not have made as much of a muddle of it as I have!

  He didn’t even know that Nimue would be willing to read the letter. Each time he thought of what she must have felt that morning when she awoke and found herself alone, something twisted deep inside him. Did Mab’s blood flowing in his veins count for so much that he could never bring anything but pain to those he loved?

  But half of me is mortal. I had a mortal mother. I have a mortal heart. Surely those matter at least as much as magic?

  The night did not answer. Sighing, Merlin bent to his task once more. Tonight was Beltaine Eve, one of the holiest days of the Old Calendar. It seemed somehow fitting that one who had rejected the old world and had no place in the new should spend this holy night in such homely tasks as these. The only place he had ever belonged was in Nimue’s arms, and the place he wanted most to be was the one farthest out of his reach.

  If nothing else, Merlin felt that he owed Nimue an explanation, but no matter how hard he tried, the right words would not come. The hours stretched on into the darkness just before dawn as his eyelids grew heavy and Merlin subsided, slowly and unwillingly, into Idath’s lesser kingdom: sleep.

  Merlin stood upon a mist-shrouded plain, hearing the clash of battle and the screams of the wounded as they echoed through the mist. Even in his dreams, he knew that this was no false phantasm, but a true visionof what would someday be. In the sky a blood-red comet bathed the landscape in a fearful scarlet light, burning like a red eye through the mist.

  He saw men running wildly through the fog, their beards and their swords crusted with blood, and the knowledge came to him that Arthur’s quest had been all in vain. That Mab had been right—she had charmed him and robbed him while still in the cradle of any chance to achieve the Grail. His quest had been for nothing, all for nothing, and this was its end.

  Again he saw the warrior with the bat-winged helm. His sword was covered in blood—Caliban, the black sword, Excalibur’s dark twin—and his black and silver armor bore the symbol of the eclipse.

  Merlin had been sent this vision before, but this time the wizard knew the identity of the Knight of the Eclipse. This was Mordred of Tintagel, Arthur’s ill-starred bastard, Mab’s cat’s-paw. Her final weapon upon this day of judgment.

  YOU WILL NOT WIN. In the face of terrible defeat and the death of all he loved, Merlin was still defiant. He would not despair. He would not surrender. Even if this was how all his dreams must end, as long as he lived Merlin would fight. Mab would not claim the victory, nor would Mordred.

  Even as Merlin watched, Arthur staggered out of the mists to confront his rebel son. They were like sunlight and shadow, glory and its dark echo. They fought like titans, but in the end, Arthur raised his sword and could not deal the death stroke, and Merlin’s world ended in the dimming of the day.

  YOU WILL NOT WIN. Again the vow came, as if from outside himself, yet a part of him, giving Merlin the strength for what must be done in the time to come.

  And the world dissolved in shouting and blood and the promise of darkness. …

  Merlin awoke with a strangled cry. The candle had long since burned out, and spilled wax had puddled across his unfinished letter to Nimue. The grey light of dawn was in the eastern sky. In a few hours Arthur would embark upon his journey.

  And all for nothing.

  Merlin got to his feet, groaning with stiffness. He rubbed his eyes, trying to force the jumbled images of the prophecy into some proper pattern, but all he could see was ruin and chaos, blood and war.

  And there was nothing he could do to stop it. The realization grew inside Merlin like a cancer. If he told Arthur that his quest for the Holy Grail was doomed to failur
e, Arthur would not listen. The king could not bear to believe himself unworthy of the Grail. It was something he could never accept.

  And so he will go, and he will fail. But my old master Blaise would tell me that the attempt is as glorious as the achievement. Have I the right to take that away from Arthur?

  Merlin knew the answer to that. His part in Arthur’s life had ended when he led the young king to Excalibur. Now Arthur must forge his own destiny.

  And Merlin must do what he could.

  The first rays of sun shone through the window of the little hut, onto the litter of spilled wax and spoiled drafts. Merlin scooped up the papers and dumped them into his brazier. A flick of his fingers set the papers alight.

  There was no point in writing to Nimue. He had no words to give her. Everything that could be said between them had already been said. He must trust that she knew his heart.

  Dawn. The land outside the gates of the city was filled with well-wishers eager to see the King depart upon his quest.

  Arthur wore a suit of golden armor that was a gift from Lord Lot. A round helm, chased with figures of men and beasts in the Iceni style, protected his head, and he wore a shirt of golden plate-mail that caused him to shine like the sun itself on this Beltaine morning. The young King was a splendid figure in scarlet and gold, as proud and regal as the Old Gods themselves. Boukephalos had been curried until he shone, and many of Arthur’s subjects, gazing upon the king among his knights upon this May morning, called not upon the gods and saints of the New Religion, but upon Llew Long-hand, Baldur the Beautiful, Hyborean Apollo, and other golden gods and heroes of ages past. In this moment, Arthur was more than a king to his people: he was a force of nature, a myth.

  And like all gods of myth and heroes of story, his dark twin stood nearby. Merlin waited with the others to bid Arthur farewell, his thoughts somber. Beside him stood Lancelot and Guinevere.