Merlin's Last Days

by Greg Krehbiel

  “Yes, but that’s why your knights insisted that you have a guard. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

  “I’ll be fine, my dear. Lancelot goes with me, and the area we’re traveling through has been cleared for many years. It will be a quick trip to the coast, a short ride to France, an inspection of the wharves, and then some feasting with my allies. There’s no cause for concern.”

  Guinevere shuddered and bowed her head. Arthur put an arm around her shoulder and raised her face to look in his eyes.

  “We’re nearing the end, my darling. For good or ill, things are coming to a close.”

  “I fear for you,” Guinevere said, as tears formed in her eyes. “Why can’t you stay?”

  “If you can think of a way that I can get my army to France without ships, then I might be able to stay.”

  She smiled at him and shook her head.

  “You are the king,” she said, “and you have more to concern yourself with than the silly fears of a woman.”

  “I would never call you silly,” Arthur said, then he kissed her.

  * * *

  Adwen spent a week in fever and troubled dreams. Arthur had sent one of the kitchen maids to care for him, and she cooled his brow with a wet rag and force fed him with broth. But when the local healer appeared at the cottage door and offered to take over, the girl left. She was never seen again.

  * * *

  Paul Atubo was on his way back to his dorm, reviewing his memory verses from an app on his smart phone.

  “So as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God,” he recited.

  “Paul,” Marianne whispered sharply from behind a yew tree next to the entrance to Uganda East.

  “Marianne,” he said in surprise. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in class for some time.”

  She looked confused, and a little frightened.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, sensing her discomfort.

  “I need your help,” she said, desperately. “Can you come with me?”

  “Of course I can,” he said, putting his phone in his pocket and following her around the corner of the dorm. She turned and looked at him with tears in her eyes.

  “You were right about that professor,” she said. “He … he was controlling me, and … he took advantage of me.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No, I’m not okay, and I don’t feel like I’m safe on this campus.”

  “You should report him,” Paul said.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding her head, “I should. But right now I just … I just need to be somewhere safe and get my thoughts together. I’ve been so afraid. A friend has a room off campus, and she’s offered to let me stay there, but ….”

  She started to cry.

  “What is the matter?” he said. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m afraid to go there alone. Can you … I’m sorry to impose on you, but….”

  “No, what is it?” he asked.

  “Would you mind walking me there?”

  “Of course I will,” he said, but he didn’t notice the smile that crept over her face as she turned and led him off campus.

  * * *

  “Thank you so much for walking me here,” Marianne said when they reached the small house on the edge of town.

  “I’m happy to do it, and I’m glad that you’re safe. I should give you my number in case you need anything.”

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s a good idea.” She started to rummage in her purse as if she couldn’t find her phone.

  “It might be in my bag,” she said apologetically, a moment later. “It’s such a mess. Come inside and I’ll pour the thing out on the kitchen table.”

  They went inside and Marianne left Paul in the living room while she hurried to the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, Paul, but I really need a drink. I’ve been under so much stress lately.”

  Paul laughed.

  “Don’t mind me,” he said.

  “Do you want one?” she asked a minute later as she emerged from the kitchen with two tumblers of scotch on the rocks. She had loosened another button at the top of her blouse.

  “I shouldn’t …,” he began, but their eyes met for just a moment, and he smiled. “Maybe just one,” he said.

  Paul was sitting on the couch, and Marianne sat in a chair next to the end table. She handed him the drink and they both sipped them in silence for a moment.

  “Justice to all sexual predators,” she said a minute later, holding out her glass as if in a toast. But then she looked away, and her shoulders started to shake with sobs.

  “My sister,” Paul said, getting up from his seat and coming closer to comfort her. With teary eyes she looked up at him as if he was her only hope in the world. They kissed.

  * * *

  The police were no help in Merrell’s search for Marianne. They found her car on campus, and there was a spider web across the tail pipe. She wasn’t in her dorm, and none of her friends had seen her for days. She also hadn’t been to any of her classes. They were still looking, but there was no urgency.

  “These things happen with college kids,” the officer told him. “They just up and disappear. They go home, or they go on a camping trip, or … something. We can’t freak out every time it happens.”

  Merrell told the cop he was an idiot, but he also knew he had ways to find Marianne himself, although he didn’t like to use his talents in this world. Decades ago he had decided that magic belonged in the past, and he limited himself to simple persuasion techniques and mild hypnosis. But this was an exception. He was increasingly certain that Marianne was the one who had been meddling with the queen, and he realized that his own weaknesses had led to this.

  If he had only left her alone, she would never have achieved such a mastery of the art. And to let her have that medallion! He thought she was just trying to have a little fun. It never occurred to him that she might disrupt his plans.

  Reluctantly, he made a search of his house for anything she might have left behind. A lock of hair. A sock. Anything that had touched her. Then he realized …. The bed.

  He lay on her side of the bed and started the chants that would lead him into the right mental state. But he needed Adwen. His mind was more accustomed to the spells required to locate Marianne.

  * * *

  Marianne lay naked on the couch next to a sleeping Paul. She was waving her hands over his head in a pattern she had learned from Merlin’s mother. Then she took the medallion and set it on his chest, then pressed herself against it as well, so that it lay between them. Paul awoke, but he was drowsy and confused.

  “What are you doing to me, sister?” he asked.

  “Just relax,” she said, and continued to move her hands in the strange pattern.

  “What is this I’m seeing?” Paul objected, his speech slurred. “I’m … in … a castle, and there’s a woman.”

  “It will all be fine, my love. Just go with it.”

  * * *

  “How long do you suppose Arthur will be gone, really?” Guinevere asked Meurig. Under Arthur’s order, he, along with two of Guinevere’s maids, were the queen’s constant companions until the king should return. There could be no suspicion that the queen had been with another man. That would throw doubt on the rights of any child they had, and a cuckolded king would lose the respect of his men.

  “He always makes it sound like he’ll be back soon,” she continued. “But it takes so long.”

  “I have a hard time believing Arthur would deceive you, my lady,” Meurig said. “Perhaps the time just wears heavily on you when he is away.”

  “It does,” she said. “I spend my days worrying for his safety, and my nights longing for his embrace.”

  “He’ll be back when he said, or perhaps earlier,” Meurig assured.

  Guinevere smiled and turned back to her needlework, but suddenly she shook her head and looked down in her lap, as if
dizzy, or fighting a headache.

  They had agreed on a sign if she felt the sorceress’s presence.

  “Can you fetch me a glass of mead, Meurig,” she said. “I feel a bit of a headache.”

  Meurig hurried to a side table, poured the mead into a small cup and handed it to her. He almost didn’t want to touch her, knowing that the sorceress was close at hand. He tried to behave normally, but he worried that his fear would show in his eyes. He tried to remember the words Merlin had told him to say.

  “So I heard word from Gawain that Arthur may be delayed for weeks,” he said, turning his face away so that Guinevere couldn’t see his eyes. “In fact, he’s having more trouble with the Jutes than he expected. They’re blocking his passage to the shore, and he’ll have to fight his way through.”

  Guinevere shook her head sadly, but she was clearly still struggling. One hand was clenched around the cup of mead, and the other was balled in a fist at her side.

  “Weeks?” she said in dismay, playing her part in turn. “He was already to be a month.”

  “It might be two,” Meurig said, still avoiding her gaze.

  “What about that gathering of Saxons to the northeast?” Guinevere asked. “With Arthur and Lancelot away, mightn’t they take advantage?”

  “That turned out to be a false report,” Meurig lied. “We sent our most crafty woodsmen to spy out the whole area, and they found no evidence of this Saxon army.”

  “Well that’s good to hear,” Guinevere said, woodenly. “With our forces scattered here and there, I would fear for Camelot.”

  Guinevere suddenly stopped the practiced dialog and doubled over in pain. She dropped her cup of mead and it shattered on the floor. Her hands went to her temples and she cried out.

  Meurig ran to her side, as did her two maids. The attack seemed to last only a few seconds, and when it passed, she looked up and smiled.

  “My lady,” Meurig said, “are you well? Do you need more mead?”

  One of the maids stood by, wringing her hands and looking about wildly while the other picked the broken shards of the cup off the stone floor.

  “It has passed,” she said with a serene expression, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. “Merlin’s teaching was successful and I was able to beat the attack. But … I learned something very important, Meurig, and I need a word with you in private.”

  “Is that wise, my lady?” he asked. “You know we should not be alone.”

  “Just for a moment,” she said, reassuringly. “If you could both leave us,” she said to the maids, “just for a few minutes.”

  Meurig scowled his disapproval, but … she was the queen, after all.

  The two maids looked at one another, unsure of what to do, but after a sign from Meurig they backed their way out of the room, leaving the queen alone with the knight.

  As soon as the door closed, Meurig clasped his hands to his head and winced in pain.

  “Stop it,” he said. “What is this devilry?” he asked, but Merlin had not thought to train him to resist, and Meurig couldn’t stop Paul from entering his mind.

  Guinevere leapt from her chair, pushed him down to the floor and pulled up his tunic.

  * * *

  The maids returned a few minutes later and knocked gently on the door. When there was no answer, they let themselves in, then they cried out in astonishment.

  “My lady, what are you doing?” screamed the older of the two.

  Guinevere and Meurig were on the floor, wrapped in each other’s arms, fucking furiously. Guinevere cursed the girls in a crazed voice and told them to leave. The maids ran from the room in terror.

  When Meurig climaxed, Guinevere pushed him aside and stood up, gloating over him. Meurig lay on the floor, struggling, as if lying in a bed of ants. He grabbed his head and screamed.

  “What have I done?” he yelled. “What have you done to me?” he accused, yelling at Guinevere.

  “Nothing, compared to what I’m about to do,” she said in a cold voice.

  Guinevere raised her hands above her head. Her eyes rolled up, and her face was filled with pain, then she collapsed to the floor.

  * * *

  It had never been tried before, but the crone was so impressed with Marianne’s skills that she agreed the risk was worth taking. Using her own talents, and with the help of the medallion, she had penetrated Guinevere’s defenses and taken her over completely, but at the same time she was able to guide Paul’s groggy mind into Meurig’s body. He was the perfect tool. His own desire for Marianne, and his personal weaknesses regarding sex, made it all too easy to use him.

  But the next step was the real challenge. While still in Guinevere’s body she had to transfer her mind from the queen to Meurig. He was unprepared for the attack, and he was weakened by grief over betraying Arthur. Marianne was able to blow through his resistance like a flimsy curtain. She took complete possession of his body.

  * * *

  Meurig’s body arose from the floor, somewhat disoriented, but smiling.

  “Now this is something new,” he said, as Marianne’s mind tried to adjust to being in a man’s body.

  Guinevere lay on the floor. She looked up as if just coming out of a deep sleep, but it only took a moment to come to herself. She glared at Meurig with grief and pain in her eyes.

  “Slay me now,” she said quietly. “Please, I beg you. Slay me now as a great traitor.”

  “No,” Meurig said. “That won’t do at all.” He reached down and lifted her off the floor. He was not a large man, but his battle-trained arms made light work of the slight Guinevere.

  * * *

  Merlin opened Adwen’s eyes as he lay on the cot in his farm house, and immediately he knew something was wrong. A raven-haired woman sat on a stool next to him, and she was methodically moving her arms over him and chanting. A strange smell came from the brazier that sat at the foot of the bed. He was unable to awake fully in Adwen’s body, but he was also unable to leave.

  “Who are you?” he finally croaked.

  “It’s your loving mother, Merlin,” she said. “Just relax and enjoy yourself.”

  * * *

  Gawain arrived at Arthur’s camp four days later, having ridden five horses to death in his haste. Arthur met him at the picket, and he could see from Gawain’s face that his news was grave.

  “I have dreadful news, Arthur, but before I say a word about it, you must prepare your army to march. At once. We must return to Camelot with all speed.”

  Arthur turned and gave the order, then he called a page to bring food and drink for Gawain, and a groom to see if his horse could be saved.

  Gawain patted the beast on the shoulder and said sadly, “I am sorry, my good friend, to have treated you so.”

  Arthur would not permit Gawain to speak further until he was seated with a tankard of ale in his hand.

  “Whatever it is, it can wait a minute or two,” Arthur said. “You care for your horse, and I care for my knights,” he said with a smile.

  Gawain didn’t return the smile.

  “I would rather die than be the man to tell you this, Arthur,” he said. “But the queen has strayed, and Merlin’s prophecy has come to pass. Mordred has gathered the Saxons.”

  Arthur sank heavily into a camp chair and heard the whole story – how the maids had witnessed the queen with Meurig, how the two of them fled the castle, and how they took up with the Saxon army. It was there that he declared himself openly as Mordred.

  “Guinevere went with him?” Arthur asked.

  “Not willingly, some say. But others say yes. In any event, she is with him now, in his camp. Willingly or not.”

  “Meurig?” Arthur said. “How could this have happened? He was a son to me.”

  “I questioned the maids at length, and they said you might find some solace in this. ‘Guinevere asked for mead,’ they said. What solace is there in that, my lord? Everyone at court knows she doesn’t like mead. What does it mean?”

  Arthur loo
ked up and shook his head. “It was the signal that she was under attack by the sorceress.”

  “Sorceress? What sorceress?” Gawain asked.

  “We can discuss it on the ride back, but right now I need Lancelot. Sit and rest, my friend. I don’t blame you for the message you bring. Rest while you can, and we’ll ride as soon as we may.”

  The king walked through the camp to find Lancelot, and such a weight was on him that many didn’t even recognize him as he passed. He was stooped, and downcast.