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

by A. A. Attanasio

  "And if you fall?" Bedevere inquired. "If you are killed? Our kingdom will never be united. Britain will revert to the battlefield of warlords that it was before you drew Excalibur. Is that wise, sire?"

  "No, this is not wise what I do." Arthor spoke solemnly. "Philosophers are wise. Counselors are wise. Kings have only one duty. To be strong. We are for our people God's strength. A child reminded me of that—your child, Lot. Gareth. He made me remember that the king serves God. Not wisdom, which is nobler than kings. Not truth, which wears a different face for every king. But God. His sanctity anoints us in blood. As His servant, I serve at His whim. There is no truer form of validation for a king than war and victory by his own hand. If I fail, all of history henceforth is changed—and that is God's will. And if I succeed, my authority remains absolute and irrevocable by God's strength."

  At these words, Lot, who had remained silent, forgot his disgruntlement at the king and the king's wizard for thwarting his wife, and rose to his feet with a big voice, "To battle—for king and Britain!" And the other warriors rose and joined him, lifting their swords, proud to stake everything on the king's faith.

  In the Dark Dream

  "That was a grand speech," Merlin whispered to King Arthor as the warriors departed the Round Table to prepare their troops. The wizard emerged from the alcove where he had sat in shadows listening and, with a glance from his strange eyes, dismissed the king's aide before leading Arthor by the wrist to the balcony overlooking the battlements and tiered rooftops of Camelot's inner ward. "A grand speech indeed. The nature of war forces the unity of chance and existence. And by that unity, fate is revealed. And is this what you believe is God? Fate?"

  "Fate is God's expression in the world," Arthor answered forthrightly.

  Merlin nodded thoughtfully and gazed out across the fortress skyline and the tapers of the forest beyond. "What if God, too, is subject to fate?"

  Arthor gave a look of disgust. "That is not God. The gods may be so subject. But the Uncreated One, the Formless, Nameless God of Whom no image may be made in His likeness, of Whom no name may be fashioned or assigned, the God of my faith, the father of our Savior, of Him all fate is handiwork. He is the Holy of Holies, the Creator of the Universe."

  "I see." Merlin stroked his forked beard. "Well, then, consider that all that we perceive, all that we take to be real, the universe entire—including our conception of God as the Creator—all this is in the dark dream of God."

  "I don't understand." Arthor turned away with annoyance. "I have a battle to prepare for, Merlin. I have no time for your casuistry. My people need my full attention."

  "Of course, sire." Merlin took the king's arm in a grip cold and severe as iron. "I will take but one moment more of your time. The value of all you put at hazard you place upon God. In my experience, it is God who looks to us for value. We define the stakes. We determine the validity of a man's worth. Kings and paupers, they are the same to God. History is a fabrication, of no consequence whatsoever in the dark dream. If you are going to put your life at risk, you risk everything—even God's hopes."

  "You speak like a madman, Merlin." Arthor twisted his arm free. "Where were you when my fate lay within the Spiral Castle? Where were you when I had to prove myself to Marcus and Urien? What counsel did I get from you when Nynyve won my heart with her mystic wiles? I needed you then. Where were you, Merlin?"

  "Sire, I will not leave your side again." Merlin removed his tall hat, and his hoary head bowed gravely. "It is God's hope that I serve you. In my absence, I learned another lesson in humility."

  "Will you prove that by riding with me into battle?" Arthor put his hands on the wizard's bony shoulders. "This is a battle I must win, and I intend to use every weapon I have—even magic"

  The Bear Spoke Next

  The dray cart with Lord Monkey harnessed to the reins creaked and rattled behind Dagonet as he rode north. The sixth arrow had flown to the sixth star of twilight eight days earlier and had struck a bear. Since then, the bear had led them wandering over the tundra. The sun rolled on the horizon, finding its way through long sunsets to brief nights of hissing auroras.

  Hunchbacked by perpetual pain along his spine, shrunken by fog-chilled nights, scorched by wind and sun, Dagonet had come to believe that the talking fish had been right and that he was reverting to his former self. Stopping to drink at rain pools where mosquitoes hazed like shadows, he saw his swollen face reflected as ugly as he had ever looked.

  Fevers racked him on his journey, and when they passed, they left his tongue swollen, his palate warped so that his voice once again lisped, "Oh mathter, thith ith tewible. The magic pike wath wight! I have lotht the Fire Lord'th stwength."

  Mountains of ice floated upon the gray sea beyond the black fingers of the rocky coast. The bear sat on the shore, the stub of a white arrow stuck at the back of its hackled neck. The fletch arrows had been lost somewhere on its long meanderings, rubbed off against a glacial rock or broken on the hard ground of the tundra.

  The large beast sat beside a beached ship, an ancient sea vessel, its broken hull preserved by the cold and the salt winds. A Phoenician eye stared from the prow of the blackened timbers, and mummified sailors lay toppled against gunwales and thwarts. Even from a distance in the pellucid arctic air, Dagonet could see their leathered skin wrinkled tight against their bones, their withered bodies hung with gray rags of old hides.

  "I am twuly thorry I hurt you," Dagonet called to the bear. "I obey a demon withard—and I will thuffer for thith, even ath you."

  The bear spoke next, in a warm, velvety voice, "Come closer, Dagonet. I would have words with you."

  "I am afwaid, bear. You are tho vewy big, and I am thmall."

  "I am dying, Dagonet. You need not fear me. I have not the strength to strike you. Come closer, for I am too weak to raise my voice anymore. Come closer."

  Dagonet dismounted and warily approached the sitting bear.

  "Sit down and listen to me." The bear's small, close-set eyes glistened with tears. "Your arrow has told me all about you. I know about your vagabond days after you left your home in Armorica, ashamed of your dwarfish stature. I know of your adventure as Rex Mundi with Merlin, Azael, and the Fire Lord. I am even aware of your doubts about your quest for the king. With my last breath, I will tell you—have no doubts. Throw away the whole pile of vanity in your heart. Empty yourself. The fish lied to you. It could not help itself. A fish lives its whole life by deception and vanity. That is the way of survival in the waters, where life is perpetual struggle for food and procreation. No wonder it yearned to become again a hazel tree."

  "Gweat bear, ith thith the tweathure I theek—your withdom?"

  "No, Dagonet." The bear lay forward and rested its dismayed face on its paws. "The king's treasure is in the hold of this ship. Reliquary gold from foregone dynasties of Egypt—ancient gold of sarcophagi and statues plundered by grave robbers millennia ago. The curse upon them has been paid in full by the doomed mariners who lost their way to this arctic shore. Leave their carcasses untouched and take only the treasure for your king, and no part of the curse will follow you."

  "Gweat bear, thank you! But tell me, why are you tho kind to me? I have thlain you—I have taken your life."

  "You have given me a meaningful death with your magic arrow, Dagonet." The bear's voice dimmed, and its wet eyes closed. "Now, I leave behind this noble form that lived long and proud upon the bounty of the earth. I go where there are no forms, no boundaries. Illusions carried through many lives disappear. Something beyond happiness awaits me. Look! I see it now! You already stand in the midst of this prosperous truth. Only your eyes deceive you."

  []

  Mother Mary, everyone knows except me! Cei has told my warriors, the priests, even the stable grooms about his journey to hell, where he learned that Merlin has stolen the soul of Morgeu's child. That is why the wizard was away from me for so long: He had hopes of returning the child's soul to the hollow hills, to be abandoned ther
e so that Morgeu would miscarry. When I confronted Cei, he claimed he did not tell me for he was certain that Merlin already had. But Merlin has told me nothing of this. From Cei, I learned that the soul that Merlin has taken is the soul of Morgeu's father, duke Gorlois! Can this be? Mother Mary, are our immortal souls destined to transit from one life to the next? I know that Mother Ygrane has told me that my own soul is that of an ancient Celt warrior, but I thought—or I wanted to think—that she spoke in poetry, not actuality. Cei informs me that Merlin holds the soul of the unholy child in a gem. If I say nothing, then the wizard will say nothing of it. He intends for Morgeu to deliver a stillborn. That will end the evil that the enchantress worked on me. And yet, this solution—it does not feel just and good to me. Mother Mary, what should I do? Now that I know, I cannot ignore what is happening. Always you have taught me, "Love is first." But can I love Morgeu? Dare I love her? She intends my destruction. And yet, your Son, our Savior ... if I am to live what he has taught, I must act—at once.

  Friend of Innocence

  Arthor went alone to Morgeu's chamber and bade her maid announce him. She lay in bed, covered in scarlet satin sheets, her belly large, her orange hair in disarray, the small, black eyes in her round face hard with suspicion.

  The king accepted the stool that the maid offered him and sat beside the prone enchantress. "I leave for battle soon, and I have come to forgive you for the unholy deed that you provoked from me."

  "Your Christian conscience is tweaking you, brother?" A smear of disdain wrung her fatigued face. "I seek not your forgiveness."

  "I offer it nonetheless, Morgeu." Arthor placed his hand upon hers, and she withdrew it quickly. "We come from the same womb, you and I. Sister, what you did with me was wrong—evil. I abhor it."

  "As I abhor you, brother, sired on my mother by the man responsible for my father's death."

  "Is that true?" Arthor asked with genuine anguish. "Did Uther Pendragon murder Gorlois?"

  Morgeu's tight eyes grew tighter. "My father followed yours onto the battle plain outside Londinium—and Merlin cursed Gorlois so that he fell beneath the knives of the enemy."

  Arthor bowed his head. "I see now why you hate me. You believe I am Merlin's creature."

  "Are you not?"

  The king looked up sharply. "No! I serve God and the people of Britain."

  "Do you think you would wear that lovely gold chaplet now had not Merlin arranged for you to draw the sword from the stone?" Morgeu turned her face away in disgust. "You are Lailoken's foil—nothing more, Arthor. You do not serve God. You serve a demon."

  "Sister—" Arthor sagged where he sat, shoulders slumped, arms dangling between his knees. "I did not come here to win your affection. I came to forgive you, to assure you that I have forsaken all anger toward you for what you have done to me. I seek no retribution for your cruel deed. I understand better now your rage against Merlin—and against me. I cannot undo that. But I will not further it. I will not be your enemy, Morgeu. You are my sister, and I love you no matter what you do."

  Morgeu made no reply. Her mind circled upon itself, seeking the king's motives while searching for methods of enchantment that could bind him to her will. Before she could act, his hand reached out and lay upon her taut womb.

  "The child does not move." His touch caressed her gently, with caring. "I have just this morning discovered why. Merlin holds the child's soul." He removed his hand and stood. "I will go to him now and command the release of Gorlois' soul. This child will live."

  Morgeu felt as though enchantment had turned upon her and enraptured her with words she could hardly believe. Her mind could fathom no motive for Arthor's succor—unless he lied. Yet, her keen senses had read no deception in his voice or in his touch. He spoke the truth. And when she turned her head to query of him "why"—he was gone.

  She sat up, surprised, beginning to accept that he had meant every word, and that his motive was simple: being a friend to innocence, he could not kill the child within her, unholy or not.

  Turn Death toward Me

  Arthor found Merlin in his grotto below Camelot. Shadows cognate with dragon's teeth descended from the cavern ceiling. Rock shelves glowed where hellish pharmacopoeia cluttered: glass flaskets boiling squalid infusions that suffused chemical luminescence, flaring kilns, steam-seeping vats, and hissing bronze boilers.

  The bare-headed wizard stood up from where he had sat with his face warped to homuncular proportions by a crystal sphere. Before him, metal-cased scrolls lay strewn upon a stone table and behind him, a crude, man-sized statue of a pregnant woman flickered with fire-shadows from the alcoves of alchemic apparatus. An acrid, infernal pall tainted the air.

  "Merlin, I know about Gorlois' soul." The king strode agilely over the glossy, mineral steps of the cave. "I have come to command you to release that life to Morgeu."

  In the red atmosphere of the grotto, Merlin's face shone with a demonic cast, owlish tufts over his dark sockets like little horns, straggly beard grumous, long, bald head misshapen. "Sire, I cannot obey you."

  Arthor stopped in midstep. "What do you say?"

  "My lord—I dare not obey you." Merlin sighed profoundly and stepped from behind the stob of rock that served as a table. "I have put my own soul in jeopardy to spare you the evil of this incest child."

  The king cocked his head, trying to keep the shapes before him ordered and discrete in the blurry light. "How is your soul in jeopardy, wizard?"

  "The Nine Queens have ordered me to return Gorlois' soul to Morgeu's womb—and I have disobeyed." Merlin's chrome eyes caught the burning colors from the colossal horde of retorts and alembics and shone by turn red and blue. "If I do as they command—as my king commands—I doom you. This evil child will grow up to slay you. Of this, I am certain."

  "Then, I turn death toward me." Arthor stepped forward, yellow eyes afire. "I am not some king of ancient Greece who seeks to flee his mortality and thus inspire greater tragedy. My doom was assured when I was born."

  "Of a certainty, sire. But not this doom." Merlin reached out with his large, waxen hands. "I can protect you from Morgeu and the incest she provoked from you. That is in my power."

  "Merlin!" Arthor took the wizard's hands, cold, hard hands. "You abrogate God's will! That is wrong. It is luciferian. I will not have it. You are my wizard. I am your king. You must obey me."

  "In this, my young, my innocent king, I dare not."

  "You must!" Arthor held Merlin's doomful chromatic eyes with a stern gaze. "I am a Christian king. I need your demon powers, but if you are to stay at my side, you must put aside forever your demon will. You will further my will before God—or you must depart from me."

  Merlin withdrew his hands from Arthor's grip and stepped back. From under his robe, he produced a diamond big as his thumb. He held it up in the mercurial light, and a moth of fire seemed to flutter within it.

  Then, he dropped it to the ground, and it clinked across the varnished rock floor to the toe of the king's boot.

  "Crush it, and the soul shall be released and return at once to the body Morgeu has prepared for it. Do so, and you bring into the world the very enemy who will take you from this world."

  Arthor hesitated one cold moment, the will in him drowsy as a snake at the thought of his doom. "God help me!" he cried from the depths of his fear and shame and brought his heel down upon the Dragon's gem, shattering it underfoot like powdered ice.

  Animal Souls

  Ygrane stood upon a wagon, her body strapped with leather thews to a cedar post. The rags of her habit, stained brown with dried blood, fluttered in the cool wind that rummaged through the trees on the hillsides. Lancers rode to either side of the wagon, and foot soldiers led the battle-dressed horse that pulled the witch before the main phalanx of the magister militum's army.

  Gorthyn came riding from ahead, a shark's grin shooting straight back from a mouth of missing and yellowed teeth. "Cold Kitchen is three leagues distant. We'll take that hamlet at noon. Our scout
s say that your boy remains walled in at Camelot. Syrax will have an opportunity now to employ his mighty siege engines."

  Ygrane ignored the warlord and lifted her bruised face to the pollen wind. Since childhood, she had seen invisible things. She saw them still, the faerie glints among the blooming linden, animal souls browsing in the creekbeds, and the pale people loitering in the darkest corners of the forest, watching her solemnly.

  Once, she served as their queen. They would have come to her aid then, at twilight, when the smiting rays of the sun had cooled. The lancers, the foot soldiers, and the leering warlord would have fallen feverish, pierced by the poison arrows of the Daoine Sid.

  She was Celtic queen no more. She had put her faith in the Nameless God's only-begotten. The pale people had braved the hurtful daylight to see for themselves if the Deity would save her.

  She knew they would be disappointed. Her God did not dwell in the ragged clouds of spring or in the running rivers or in any created thing. God originated in unexpected geometries far smaller than Democritus' atoms. During her long, tranceful prayers before the Graal, the Fire Lords had informed her that God had created the entire universe from a point of light smaller than an atom, smaller than the very grain of space. Existence lost half its oneness when that happened.

  God would not intervene. Because whatever happened in this world happened to only one half of what is, and God had concern only for the whole. The animal souls she espied among the narrow light shafts of the woods seemed to know this. They drifted calmly between the trees, mindless of their bodies lost to winter, slowly fading into the incandescence of spring.

  She would die that way, she decided. When Gorthyn came to cut her throat, she would not flinch. Her soul would flow with her spilled blood, and she would float away across the earth, mindless to the mocking queries and jeering taunts of the pale people, who would wonder aloud why her God had not saved her. Like the animal souls, she would explain nothing to them.