The Wolf and the Crown (The Perilous Order of Camelot Book 3)

by A. A. Attanasio

  The goddess backed off with a warding gesture. "What evil do you brook? You carry another Dweller from the House of Fog? How can that be?"

  "Azael is conjoined in countervalence with a Fire Lord."

  The tiffanies Keeper wore seemed to jump on her large body as she staggered backward. "Abomination! The Fire Lords are enemies of the gods! You dare carry such a fierce being into the Storm Tree? You dare!"

  Wun, Merlin! Wun before thyee thmiteth uth!

  "Goddess! Please!" Merlin bowed his head low and spoke to her slippers of crushed blue velvet. "The Fire Lord is not here to wage war with the gods. He is enmeshed with Azael. You see, they are in balance. If one were to separate for long from the other, this sorry assemblage would fall apart. Down below, on Middle Earth, they can separate from each other briefly—but up here, at this great height, even a momentary separation would fling us all downward."

  "You are a Dweller from the House of Fog," she whispered with fearful anger. "You lie."

  Wun! Wun wight now, Merlin!

  "No, no, goddess!" Merlin stood straight. "I was once such a Dweller from the House of Fog. Now I live as a wizard, and I speak the truth to you. Look! Look here at what I've brought you." He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of rubies and sapphires. "Gems from the Dragon's hoard!"

  Keeper of the Dusk Apples' face glowed with immediate interest. She stepped closer, eyes shining, and took the rubies and sapphires in her hands. "Our superb smiths, Brokk and Eitri, could fashion wondrous jewelry from such beautiful stones!" She smiled at Rex Mundi. "I have judged you too quickly. Come! Walk with me through the twilight land. With this tribute, you have won passage into the Storm Tree."

  Duke Marcus' Pledge

  The drummers, mirthful with astonishment to find themselves yet alive, helped Duke Marcus to his feet. He hung between them and scanned south. The sea there lay in all its sparkling clarity empty of war boats. He allowed himself to be hoisted upon the planks of a fish-drying rack and carried triumphantly through the cheering fisherfolk to King Arthor.

  The boy-king had dismounted and knelt where the fallen archers lay bloodied, dead and dying in the sand—the five bowmen who had refused to partake of the faeries' feast. He rose at the approach of the duke and the jubilant rush of women and children from the villa.

  "Arthor—I owe you my life, as does this village." The drummers propped him against a sand bank. "I have received word that my army is enmeshed in battle two days to the west. How did you arrive here so swiftly?"

  "Lord duke, faeries guided and protected us!" one of the surviving archers blurted excitedly. At the duke's nod, the two bowmen related the strange tale of their night journey, the lost rider, and the Annwn breakfast.

  "Is this so, Arthor?"

  The king sighed. "Yes, Marcus. You owe your life not to me but to Nynyve of the Lake, queen of the Celts."

  "The Celts have no queen," Marcus informed the boy. "Your mother was the last. So the Druids themselves have assured me."

  "I've met with her—"

  "You met with a daughter of the pale people." Marcus shook his head sadly at the boy's gullibility. "She ensorcelled you."

  "No!" Arthor stabbed Excalibur into the sand. "I first met her by daylight. The pale people cannot abide the light. And I tested her. I immersed her in brine. If she had spelled me, that would have broken it. Nynyve of the Lake is a true woman."

  Marcus grimaced with pain from his jarred leg. "Listen, lad, I am glad to be alive, no matter this blighted leg or if Lucifer himself had saved me. I owe you my life, and if the future be ample enough for me, I will repay you."

  "Repay me with your pledge, Marcus," Arthor rejoined swiftly. "I am your king. I want you at my Round Table."

  "I owe you my life, not all the lands of the Dumnoni." He spoke through gritted teeth. "The surgeons have fled. Find me Cupetianus and have him fetch us wine. Wine is as good as surgeons for my pain."

  "Cupetianus is dead, lord duke," a fisherman replied. "He leaped from the villa's rooftop at the approach of the Saxons."

  "Ha!" Marcus laughed darkly. "You see, lad—fear kills men as surely as the blade. I'll not offer you my pledge in fear or for fear's humble sister, gratitude. You want my pledge? Drive the Saxons from the lands of the Dumnoni. Then will I bend my knee to you."

  Love in the Secret House

  King Arthor cleansed his sword and shield in the sea, offered prayers for the dead in the hamlet's chapel, and then rode hard across the pastureland and back into the forest of giant trees. Bedevere galloped to keep up with him, knowing full well where he was bound. "Sire! Remember the lost rider! Hold back! Hold!"

  Through the brambles Arthor shoved, crying, "Nynyve!"—until her deep-throated voice returned his call.

  "Arthor, my king—come this way." A glimpse of her cinnamon hair appeared among mulberry hedges and wild and sour rhubarb spurs. "We can be alone together in this hall of autumn."

  The young king dismounted, tied off his sweltering palfrey, and shouldered through the hedges into a glade carpeted with yellow leaves—a basilica of overarching boughs festooned scarlet and gold by hanging ivy and mistletoe.

  Nynyve stood before a fallen log studded with mushrooms and scalloped fungus. A curious light lay in the clearing, an incandescence of sunlight filtered through the forest awning as by stained glass. In her white gwn with both waistband and shoes of ocelot, she seemed a dangerous priestess.

  "Who are you?" he asked sharply. "Are you even human?"

  Nynyve looked stricken, almost to tears. "Oh, I am very human, my king. I am as human as you. I am your queen."

  "You said you were my mother's successor, the Celtic queen."

  "No, Arthor," she corrected him softly and stepped toward him. "You said that. I only said that I was a queen. And I am."

  "Queen of what?" he asked gruffly. "Witchcraft?"

  "Do not be unkind with me." Tears glinted in her hazel eyes. "I love you—and your words hurt me."

  "Love?" The word took him off guard and frightened him. "Is this more of your sorcery? Morgeu deceived me once. I won't ... "

  "I am not Morgeu," she said, angry and hurt. "I am no witch. I am no sorceress. I am your queen as you are my king. The only magic between us is love. Am I not beautiful enough? Have I not served you well enough? Have I done anything except love you?"

  Arthor's frown relented. "I owe you my life—and probably my kingdom." He did not withdraw when she put her hands on his chest. "Nynyve—I don't know who you are. How can I love you?"

  "Why must you know to love?" She pressed her cheek against his breast. "We belong together in the Secret House of the Wind, the abode of the spirit. I am not some soulful lover whose depths you must plumb. I am your spirited queen whose heights reach to heaven, beyond all that is known. Knowing is the least of what we are, Arthor. In time, we will know everything together. For now, just love me—as I love you."

  Despite his fear, Arthor put his arms around the queen and pulled her tight against himself. He wanted to touch her life and hold the truth of her in his embrace. And the warm, vulnerable softness of her made him feel strong and suddenly complicit with fortune.

  Vampyres of Londinium

  Sunset lowered its bloody knife into the west, and Morgeu and pock-nosed Martius drove their tented wagon to the north gate of Londinium. The gatekeepers stopped them, and the enchantress spoke laughter to them. Guffawing and skipping merrily, the guards opened the gate and admitted the wagon.

  Following an inner vision of her father's soul that tugged at the root-blood where her soulless child grew, Morgeu guided Martius along Market Street, past the closed stalls and across noisy, crowded Augustalis Square, where a late harvest festival offered loud music and bear-baiting.

  They trundled on before torch lit baths and stone-facade theaters into the old Rhenish quarter, where the cobbled street dwindled to rutted earthen lanes among stucco buildings. They left the wagon and horses at a stable and proceeded on foot through winding alleys
that stank of moldering refuse.

  A white shadow pursued them through cramped warrens of corn sheds and small yard gardens where their trespass was marked by barking dogs and honking geese.

  They came to the stained and chalk-scrawled back wall of the governor's palace. "My father's soul is in here," Morgeu announced, running along the wall. She stopped before a small tile-and-brick shrine in the wall. It belonged to an anonymous deity of former centuries whose name had been chiseled away.

  With Martius' help, the pin-stones that Morgeu identified with her magic slid free, crunching a salty sound, and the shrine swung inward. They entered a narrow conduit. Through dark without boundary, they crept. Terpillius led the way, his soft voice guiding them within the carious undersides of the palace until illumination granular as mist seeped from ahead.

  A dripping cavern opened before them, lit by no light save a weird, glowing fog that drooled from the lime-crusted mouths of carved troglodytes set high in the slick grotto walls. Out of the dimly shining vapors, human figures rose dripping treacly black sewage.

  "Welcome, mistress, to the pit of the undead." Terpillius floated forward into the caliginous stone gullet. "Be quick with your offering or your life is forfeit."

  "Offering?" Martius groaned, realizing all at once what his ultimate purpose served in Morgeu's design. Mewling with fright, he drew his sword, and the enchantress grabbed his wrist and peeled open his fingers. She threw the weapon into the curling fumes.

  Out of the phosphorescent smoke fanged faces lunged. Martius wailed and was gone, yanked into the depthless smoke. A crunching sound and wet smackings of chops ensued.

  "Now, mistress, you have earned the attention of the vampyres of Londinium," Terpillius announced. "What is your command?"

  "Lead me along the palace passages to my father's soul!" Morgeu ordered. "Dark feeders, lead me to Marius Sidonius Gorlois!"

  A tendril of glowing fog uncoiled before her and extended into a vault of spelaean dark. It curled and rippled on a chill wind in the gloomy tunnel where the intermittent drip of water echoed like distant chimes.

  On Fields of Battle

  Bedevere saw the change in Arthor when the young monarch eventually emerged from his forest seclusion with Nynyve. Most of the day had passed, and the steward had despaired of ever finding his king again, fearing he had been lured forever into the Otherworld.

  When the young man came striding through the trees, Bedevere recognized the confidence of his gait and the proud glow on his face. "The faerie has taken you for her lover."

  "She is not a faerie." Arthor blushed, then scowled at his steward. "She is as mortal as I—and yes, we have pledged our love to each other."

  He already felt impatient to return to her. Though they had just parted and only a few minutes' distraction from their passion had lapsed, he saw that the interval ahead, the range of days before he would see her again, extended an horizon broad as sadness. Why do I feel this way—I who fear love because of my sister's curse? How has Nynyve healed me of that cruel anathema so quickly? How except by love—true love, soul-deep love, love by which desire is but a shadow?

  Bemused, he glanced back from whence he had come, hoping for some further glimpse of her. He breathed the rank, sweet odor of burdock on a turn of the wind and did not care if the love he felt for Nynyve was magic or natural longing. Her warmth, her softness, her fragrance in his arms felt so fundamentally right, he knew no wrong could come of it. His heart enlarged at the thought, expanding its chambers for increased hopes and bigger dreams.

  Bedevere brushed yellow leaves from the king's trousers and straightened his disarrayed corselet. "You conducted yourself befitting nobility, of course—and there has been no repeat of the indiscretion that has so anguished you with your half-sister."

  Arthor sighed. "We have pledged our love as man and woman."

  "Then, sire, may we expect another heir to your throne come summer?"

  "Are you mocking me? Nynyve will sit beside me as our queen."

  "If you remain king, sire." Bedevere motioned to where their horses waited. "There is the matter of the Foederatus invasion."

  "The queen has promised us victory in the lands of the Dumnoni." Arthor untied his steed and mounted buoyantly. "The faerie will guide us on the fields of battle. They are her allies—and now ours, as well."

  As Nynyve had promised, the faerie guided King Arthor and his steward swiftly through the night forest, and they arrived before midnight at the site of the clashing armies. From the high, wooded ledges, the king and his man peered down on the sparse torch fires of the two camps.

  A moonless night covered the fields and tussocks The landscape shifted before their gaze and lay cold and blue as if seen in winter daylight. "Behold, sire! The faerie disclose the disposition of the enemy forces! This is uncanny!"

  Arthor mouthed silent thanks to the mysterious queen and guided the dazzle-eyed Bedevere down luminous trails to the British encampment. They found the duke's commanders in the war tent arguing over the deployment of troops for the coming dawn's battle.

  At first, the strategists would not accept that Arthor had journeyed to Neptune's Toes and back so quickly, and they disputed his report of the Foederatus line. The young king and his steward accurately predicted where scouts could penetrate the enemy defenses, and when they returned to confirm Arthor's analysis, a new battle plan unfurled.

  The duke's army repositioned itself during the night, in accord with what the two night travelers had witnessed in their faerie vision. Before dawn, the assault commenced, mute and ordered, and by first light, the Britons found themselves positioned above and behind the invaders. Caught in a vise, the Foederatus troops scrambled to redeploy—too late.

  From the forest vantage, King Arthor, accompanied by the duke's astonished commanders, watched the flanks of their army swing together, crushing the disarrayed enemy and leaving behind the shattered remnants of an invasion force that, hours before, had appeared invulnerable.

  []

  Mother Mary, I am fulfilled in both love and war. My prayers are answered. The invaders routed. And I, at least briefly, have overcome my shame and known love—true love—for the first time. Nynyve understands me. She forgives me Morgeu's deception and assures me that I can effectively rule, no matter my sister's cruelties. Is it magic that Nynyve plies to make me feel so happy and sure when I am with her? I should care—especially after the atrocity I engendered with Morgeu. I should care. Yet, I do not. Mother Mary, I feel my soul is already shared out between me and my queen. She partakes of my very substance and unifies all that is dual in me. With her at my side, I believe I can faithfully serve both pagan Celts and Christians. If only now you will pray to our Father to spare Merlin ...

  Seat of the Slain

  From the Nightbreak Branch of Yggdrasil, the Earth below appeared as a gargantuan mosaic of snow peaks, umber autumn forests, beige deserts, and the blue enamel of the sea. The stars above the planet's wide curve shone like lights of a distant house.

  Rex Mundi stared in unappeasable awe at the global vista and at the goddess walking through amber sunlight, her languorous beauty swathed in tiffanies and gold chains like bright webs of sunfall.

  Keeper of the Dusk Apples admiringly held up to the twilight the rubies and sapphires that Merlin had given her. "I will use these to make a scabbard for my love, the Furor."

  Rex Mundi nodded as Merlin stared down through veils of cirrus and fleecy cumulus, searching for his lost body. His weak eyesight captured nothing meaningful at this distance.

  Athk her for help.

  "Goddess, I know the Furor will be delighted with your gift," Merlin spoke. "Though, I dare say, it's best not to mention from whom you received this Dragon's pelf."

  "Lailoken, you still reason like a liar, like a true Dweller from the House of Fog." She paused on the lily-paven path. "No one can lie to the All-Seeing Father. And he would surely spurn a gift obtained from one as hateful to him as you. There is, however, one wa
y in which you can permanently hide your trespass of Yggdrasil."

  "Goddess, I sense I will not much like what you have to say."

  "Surely not, Lailoken." She smiled kindly at him. "Even so, this is one way in which you shall also be able to find the fleshly form that you have so foolishly misplaced."

  Merlin released a dark sigh. "What way is that, goddess?"

  "You must climb the World Tree to its highest bough and there sit upon the Seat of the Slain." She ignored the shocked expression that grew white circles around Rex Mundi's monkey eyes. "From that high position, you can see into all nine worlds. Nothing is hidden from there. You will locate your lost form. Also—and this is most important—once you are placed upon the Seat of the Slain, you may speak with the Norns—the Wyrd Sisters. Ignore Urd, the Sister who will strive to befuddle you with memories and regrets. Ignore, too, Verthandi, the Sister who will entice you with insightful perceptions of what transpires on Middle Earth. You may quiet them by giving each one diamond from the treasure you carry in your bulging pockets. Yes, I see them."

  "Goddess, I keep these gems not for myself," Merlin hurriedly explained. "I will need them to work magic for my king ... "

  "Find some other way to work your magic, Lailoken." Keeper of the Dusk Apples gestured across a field of pink clover toward a pine forest old as the world, where bare cliffs and scree disappeared in solar mist. "Climb to the Seat of the Slain and give all your treasure to Skuld, the Wyrd Sister who touches the future. Only she can shape a way for you out of the Storm Tree without the Furor seeing you. Then, I can give him my gift with a lovely story—and you can escape with your lives."

  Lot's Plea

  After the defeat of the Foederatus invaders at Fenland, the duke's commanders and their troops deferred to King Arthor with no small grumbling about the young upstart whose luck in battle had won him Marcus Dumnoni's gratitude. The old generals reluctantly allowed the boy to lead the army.