“Yes…” Nimue said, taking the goblet.
“Drink,” Heleyne urged. “You’re cold. It’ll warm you.”
She tipped the goblet back, tasted the sweet flavor, and felt a pervading, heady warmth flood her body. She had intended to sip it, but it was good wine, and she was tired. She drained the cup as Heleyne went on.
“Give it to a knight opposed to Arthur,” Heleyne said. “Let him use it to wreak havoc in Arthur’s realms. Merlin and Avalon will recognize the work of the Gwenn Mantle and turn their attention to this knight. He can lead them on a merry chase while you herd your wayward Sir Balin back to Camelot. And should that prove impossible, then you have an invisible assassin at your beck and call. You can eliminate this Sir Balin or Arthur at your leisure.”
Nimue thought about it. It was an audacious notion. She thrilled at the idea of it.
She stood up and rubbed her own shoulder. The dark bedchamber was cool. She could see her breath.
“You are cold,” said Heleyne, coming behind and encircling her with her arms, drawing her in. She spoke close in her ear. “Come to bed. You can decide on your course of action in the morning, or the next day.”
Heleyne’s body was warm and soft. Nimue’s flesh prickled at the heat of her breath.
“Do you have a candidate in mind?” Nimue said, as Heleyne reached for the candle on the dressing stand.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said, and took her by the hand, leading her closer to the large bed.
The candlelight shone on it, and Nimue ached to burrow beneath its heavy bear fur covers and lose herself in the soft mattress.
Lying in the bed, his head propped against the headboard, regarding them both silently, was a broad, thick browed man with a head of unkempt dark hair and a beard streaked with white.
Nimue stiffened at the sight of him.
He lounged naked, one thick, hairy leg dangling out from under the black bear fur, idly pulling at the tuft of silver and black hair curling on his chest.
He smiled and reached toward the nightstand, where a pitcher of wine sat on a tray with another goblet. He closed his brutish fist around one and brought it to his lips, watching Nimue over the rim of the cup.
“This is Sir Garlon,” said Heleyne, taking the empty goblet from Nimue’s hand. She set the candle on the nightstand beside the tray and sat down on the edge of the bed. Garlon slid his muscled arm around her waist and she took up the pitcher and poured wine in the goblet. “He’s the brother of King Pellam, but he’s secretly a pagan like you.”
Nimue arched an eyebrow at Garlon as he replaced the goblet.
“You’ve heard a great deal,” she said, “lying there on your back in the dark.”
“I like what I heard,” Garlon rumbled. “Don’t fret. I’ve no regard whatsoever for that pup in Camelot. Life’s more interesting without a High King pulling everyone in line. I can be a dragon for you ladies.”
He pinched Heleyne’s thigh and she giggled and held the wine goblet out to Nimue, smiling.
“Is that the cloak there?” Garlon said. “The one you’ve got on? The one that makes you invisible?”
Nimue tightened her fists beneath it. She didn’t care for how Heleyne had let her go on knowing this man was in the room. She considered flying out the window again. But the thought of going back out into the cold dark did not appeal either.
“Take it off and let me try it on,” Garlon said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
She regarded Garlon. He was strong as a bull ape, and there was a copious amount of deviltry in his eyes. He was a villain through and through. Not like her Lanceor, but not entirely unappealing just now either.
She took the wine from Heleyne and dumped it down her throat, the strong spirits making her spine shiver.
She reached up with one hand and undid the clasp on the Gwenn Mantle.
“Perhaps later,” she said.
Heleyne smiled and blew out the candle.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It had been many years since Balin had slept in armor, and now when he first awoke, and saw the green canopy of the trees above him crisscrossed by beams of morning light, he thought at first he was back in the woods of Bedegraine on campaign. For a moment he panicked, fearing that the ambush had left him sleeping. He jumped awake with a clatter, but there was no column to follow, no enemy to fight. Squirrels skittered off at the rattle of his steel, and flitting things swiftly departed for more peaceful vantages.
Then he remembered how preferable awakening to that bloody battle would have been to his current situation.
Outlaw. Hated. Feared.
He knew how his poor brother Brulen felt, understood at last the blind rage which had driven him to slay Gallet in the holy chapel. The sight of the Lady had overcome him. Yet he had cut away a great evil in the land and was so content in his deed, if not in his banishment.
Banished as he was, he had not been stripped of his title. Perhaps it was an oversight on the part of Arthur, or perhaps God had barred his tongue from speaking that final excommunication that should have left Balin bereft of all hope.
But hope he still had.
He was still a knight, and by quest and deed, perhaps he could still find some way to redeem himself in Arthur’s eyes, some way to avoid the presentment of treason against the king the maiden had warned him about. It was a faint hope, but it was all he had. Only a heroic accomplishment equal to the crime he had committed could ever hope to expunge his record.
But what?
He groaned as he stood. He had ridden all night until even the stars had been blotted from his view, and only then had lain down where he dismounted, not caring where he woke up.
But of course, that had been in the dark night of his soul. The daylight and the utter strangeness of his surroundings renewed his concern, and he cursed himself for having ridden so far ignorant.
He had kept upon the road at least, but what wood he had spent the night in, he didn’t know.
The trees were stately and gnarled with age, clothed in raiment of emerald moss and trimmed with lace of white flowering ivy. Spangles of toadstools adorned them like jewelry. It was quite a beautiful, ancient forest, the sort he would have run through with old Killhart as a boy, imagining hummingbirds as fairies and seeing gnomes in woodchucks crashing unseen through the brush.
He came to a great pine tree which straddled a clean spring bubbling up from underground, and when he drank the cool water, he felt greatly renewed. Looking up, he laughed, for he saw a pied raven very like the one he had fed in the Camelot dungeon.
“Are you the same bird? Are you Brych?” he asked the raven, which cocked its head at the sound of his voice. “So long as I can feed you, you will not lose faith in me, is that it?”
Chuckling, he went to his pack and brought out some bread crust, which he ground between his fingers and dusted on a stone.
The mottled raven watched him. When he returned to the spring, it squawked and swooped down to the rock, danced around it a bit, and then finally began to hungrily peck at the little pile of crumbs.
Balin took out the Adventurous Sword and knelt at the bank to wash the blood from the blade. After he had cleaned it and rubbed it with oil, he saw that above the engraving of the headless maiden, there was a new image. He was positive it had not been there the day before, and he hadn’t detected any buildup of grime or tarnish that could have obscured it.
It depicted a skirmish between men at arms, maybe a dozen or more, all cluttered together on horseback. All but three figures were unarmored. One was a tall, bearded figure in richly ornamented harness and fur mantle who appeared in much distress. The other two were helmeted and visored knights who seemed to be opposing the majority, riding side by side.
He rubbed the etching with his thumb. His hackles rose at the sound of ghostly singing. It was a woman’s voice, melodious and sorrowful, in a tongue he did not understand. He glanced back at the raven, which was still busily consuming the brea
d.
Then he rose and walked, following the sound of the voice.
He followed the little trickling spring as it disappeared under a dense old march dyke of hawthorn bushes. He pushed aside the thick brush as best he could and peered through.
A figure in green was moving deliberately among the beech trees beyond, stooping to gather sprigs of fennel adjoining the bubbling water, which on the other side of the hedge had matured rapidly into a healthy stream and widened far beyond that into a substantial brook which bisected a field.
The woman sang on, oblivious to his observation. She was not so fine as the maiden who had bestowed on him the sword, nor so clean and sweet featured as the Princess Guinevere, but there was an appeal to her strong frame and the prim, unpainted face that nestled among the bush of her hair, which was the color of a sandy beach and as fine and feral as a downy blowball.
She worked tirelessly, dipping into the tall grasses and pulling handfuls of herbs and plants such as used to grow in his mother’s garden behind the cottage in Northumberland.
The pastoral simplicity of her dress and features combined with the elfin quality of her strange song tugged at Balin, and he wondered who she was.
“Like what you see?” came a startling voice from behind him.
He spun and saw, sitting on the stone where the raven had been eating, Merlin the Enchanter, his staff across his knees.
“Merlin?” he stammered, raising his sword warily and looking all about, expecting Arthur’s knights to come charging at him.
“I am alone,” said Merlin.
Balin was aware that the woman’s song had stopped behind him. No doubt Merlin’s voice had frightened her away.
“What do you want, you devil?”
“Of the both of us, which has comported himself more like a devil most recently?”
Balin glared at him.
“Have you come to avenge your evil mistress on me? If so, I am not afraid of you.”
“Revenge.” Merlin scowled. “Revenge is a man who slakes his thirst with salt water. You have taken your petty revenge and where has it left you? The same place revenge has ever led. Nowhere. You cannot ease your mother’s spirit with blood any more than you can put an end to the Lady of The Lake with a stroke of a sword. Aye, even that sword.”
Balin swallowed, and the Adventurous Sword dipped in his hand as a cold sweat broke out on his lower back.
“You mean…she still lives?”
Had Merlin come to aid her resurrected form in punishing him?
He looked all around, suddenly seeing her specter in every hollow and behind every leaf. Perhaps he had only bereft her of flesh, and now she could assault him as some harrowing spirit.
Merlin rolled his eyes. “You’re not listening, Balin.”
“Well, what do you want then, confound you, you godless fiend? Speak your peace and be off or I’ll have your head as well.”
“That’s a fine way to address one who has come to help you.”
“I don’t want your help!”
“You asked for it last night.”
“I never said aught to you.”
Merlin pursed his lips and said, in the high voice of the page in whose black muffler he had wrapped the Lady Lile’s head, “What shall I tell him, Sir Balin?”
Balin peered at the gleaming torc around Merlin’s neck. The same as the one he had uncovered under the boy’s muffler when he’d drawn it from around his neck.
“You?”
“Me. And I have delivered your unfortunate trophy and the accompanying message to your brother, as you requested,” he said, with a mocking little bow of his head.
Balin’s jaw fell slack.
“You…you found him? You saw Brulen? How is he?”
“He is well. He rides to meet you.”
Balin approached Merlin, uncertainty hardening his heart again.
“To meet me? No. I don’t even know where I am.”
“You are at the Barenton spring in the Garden of Joy,” Merlin said.
Balin frowned. He had never heard of this place.
“You wouldn’t know it,” said Merlin. “It is a place I come to untangle my thoughts. I grew all this from a handful of seeds I was given by Queen Gloriana of the fairies. We are quite alone.”
Balin looked over his shoulder involuntarily.
“The Garden of Joy looks out from every forest,” Merlin explained. “Just as all still waters may lead to Avalon. By that way,” he said, gesturing to a section of the hedgerow that was thin enough to pass through, “a man might emerge in the wood of Broceliande, by that way, Sherwood, or rather, Bedegraine as it is called now,” he said, frowning absent mindedly. “Take an unknown path and you could wind up on the other side of the world, in a wood whose name is known only to red-skinned men.”
Balin shivered.
“This place is unholy. Why have you brought me here, Merlin?”
“You promised me a reward, remember? Now I will collect it.”
“What do you want? My head, like the Lady? My soul?”
“Your thick headedness would try the patience of a stone, Balin. Listen to me now. That sword you love so well is cursed, and I fear you are under its spell.”
Balin gripped the sword tighter. Of course Merlin would say that. He was an emissary of the Lady of The Lake, wasn’t he? Why did they want this sword so badly? Had the maiden really stolen it from Avalon? If that were true, she must have had some purpose. Maybe it had been to turn it against them. In that way, it surely served the Lord’s purpose. Hadn’t it already dealt Satan’s host a palpable blow by cutting down his mistress?
“It has served me well thus far.”
“By earning you the enmity of the king you love so dear?” Merlin said.
Balin gritted his teeth. Gallet had told him the Devil’s tongue was insidious, his plots innumerable. The knights of his youth had told him Merlin was a good man, consecrated. Was this a lie? How could he tell the falsehoods of the Devil from the truth?
“Now, let me tell you,” said Merlin, sighing. “There is but one way to regain Arthur’s favor, Balin, and if it is done, it will serve to bring even your brother, Brulen, out from under the curse of his own nefariousness. While I traveled to find your brother, I saw the Princess Guinevere depart for Carhaix with Sir Bedivere, Sir Gawaine, and his brothers. I also espied Sir Segurant The Brown, watching them unseen. I followed the latter. He reported his findings to his master, King Rience of Snowdonia, who is encamped with sixty knights near the border. In two days hence, he will pass the Northern Crossroads at midnight on his way to seize Guinevere at Carhaix.”
Balin lurched toward Merlin, his blood boiling.
“He would use the Princess against Arthur? To make him yield? Merlin, is this true?”
“I heard it all,” said Merlin. “And Sir Segurant rides west to gather Rience’s Saxon ally, Osla Big Knife. King Lot is also bringing his men down from Orkney. Should Arthur attack Carhaix to rescue Guinevere, he will be set upon by Rience, Lot, and the Saxons.”
Balin stalked back and forth impatiently, furious.
“This is monstrous! Merlin, have you told Arthur this?”
“Arthur cannot prevent King Rience from reaching Carhaix. Camelot is two days from Carhaix by fleet horse, and King Leodegrance is too troubled by the Saxons of Colgrin and Baldulf at Daneblaise to respond in time. But you can be at the Northern Crossroads at the appointed hour if you take that road,” he said, pointing to a path through the wood Balin could have sworn wasn’t there before.
“Sixty knights,” Balin murmured, pacing still. Once he had been eager to throw his life away against three times that number on the Bedegraine Road. But now? “Merlin, I cannot possibly defeat sixty knights alone.”
He turned to Merlin, but the black robed wild man was gone, and the pied raven stood hopping in his place. It beat its wings and rose into the air, circled once, and cawed.
And in that caw, Merlin’s voice came down to him. “The road
to redemption is hard, Balin! Christ taught that! But unlike him, you will not be alone!”
The bird went dipping and diving through the trees.
Balin watched it go. Had Merlin taken the shape of Brych, or had the raven always been Merlin? And if so, why had Merlin visited him daily in prison? To mock him?
“Blaspheming puck!” Balin called after it, crossing himself against the enchanter’s evil wizardry.
Then he rushed to his horse.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sir Balin waited for an hour in the empty crossroads in full armor, no sound but the night insects and the swish of Ironprow’s tail. It had taken him the entire day to reach this spot at the hour Merlin appointed and like his horse, he was winded, but tense and alert.
The moon was high and full, and the stars rendered the night a moth-eaten black mantle. Every sound from the narrow forest road to the north, every rustle of night creature and bowing of insects came to him as though through a trumpet, and every light and shadow was heightened.
He reckoned it was very near to midnight when, from the western road, he heard the approach of a lone horseman and saw a knight in armor appear, silent and faceless in his closed helm, bearing a long lance.
A shudder of supernatural fear went through Balin as he considered that it was Merlin the Cambion who had advised him to this undertaking. He was expecting a force of sixty knights, and here stood one lone, ghostly cavalier. He wondered what sort of face looked out at him from the dark slit of the visor, or if indeed, the armor contained any physical form at all.
The two of them faced each other before the newcomer slowly advanced.
Balin steeled himself, and called out, “Who goes? Name yourself!”
“Sir Brulen of Northumberland,” came the muffled reply.
Balin’s heart rose from the icy cold depth of fear. “Show me your charge!”
“It is customary that you name yourself first, if honorable knight you be.”
“I am Sir Balin, also of Northumberland.”
The figure turned its horse about, peering at him, and then lowered his lance and held up his shield in the moonlight. Per pale indented argent and gules, two boars combatant, argent and gules.
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