The Book of Mordred

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "Don't," Nimue whispered at Mordred from between clenched teeth, "get her angry at us."

  Mordred laid his arms on the barrel, pretending to rest a moment; but Nimue cut him off with a motion for silence: A castle servant was approaching, sent by the seneschal to help unload. Nimue stayed in the back of the wagon, moving from one barrel to another, whichever she guessed the servant planned to pick up next. She cackled, and scratched herself noisily, and made a general nuisance of herself until there was only one small jug of wine left; and for that they had special plans.

  "That ain't been sold," Nimue said and slapped at the servant's hand. "We need something to keep us warm on the ride back, my grandchildren 'n me."

  "Old witch," the man called her, not knowing how close he came to the truth of it.

  By the time they got the oxen bedded and made their way to the kitchen, they found the cook and his helpers setting things out for the next morning. There was no sign of Romola.

  Do not be TOO brave and quick, Nimue thought on Romola's behalf. That could easily prove as risky as timid and slow.

  Dinner was a round loaf of bread for her and Mordred to share and two pieces of smoked haddock. They found a corner where they would be out of the way and sat on the floor to eat.

  "Is she always like that?" one of the scullery boys asked after Nimue bared her teeth and barked at someone who came too close.

  Mordred looked at Nimue, then back at the boy. "Like what?" he asked innocently.

  After that, they were pretty much left to themselves. But in any case the others soon pulled out blankets and mats and settled down for sleep.

  Mordred had brought in the blanket roll in which his sword was hidden, and they used this as a pillow. The wine they kept close by also.

  "What about Romola?" Nimue whispered. Where was she? What was she doing? Why hadn't she returned?

  Mordred said, "She is not our problem."

  Nimue lay with her back to him, furious that he could be so callous. Was Romola in trouble—was that why she didn't come to the kitchen? And if she was in trouble, did they help or harm her by not going to look for her? Nimue could argue it to herself both ways. Maybe that was what Mordred meant, why he did nothing.

  Wishful thinking, she chided herself. You could talk yourself into anything.

  But nobody had forced him to help her.

  Which proves what? she asked herself. What would Merlin do? Had Merlin ever said that Mordred was totally evil, not to be trusted in anything?

  Needing to be reassured, needing the proximity—to anyone, even Mordred—she moved closer, not caring that as far as the others knew she was snuggling with her grandson. She rubbed Merlin's ring for reassurance and felt herself dangerously close to tears. She was out of her depth: In a hostile castle, about to face a renegade wizard, here she was bedding down with Merlin's mortal enemy, someone who could blithely say "She is not our problem" about the youngest, least experienced, member of their group.

  Merlin was her lover, and he had trained her in sorcery, but they both knew she wasn't an adept. "Don't lose your head," he'd kept warning. "Don't just jump into things without thinking everything out first." In this it turned out he had trained her too well. How could anybody ever think out everything first? She sent out well-wishes for all of them, and knew that well-wishes would never be enough.

  A tear balanced itself on the tip of her nose, and she didn't move to wipe it because she hoped that Mordred thought she was asleep. But he pulled her closer and gently brushed her hair away from her face. For an instant her mind went blank in panic. He wrapped both arms around her before she remembered that she wore a seventy-year-old body. "Go to sleep," he whispered. "I'll watch."

  She squeezed his hand, but continued to listen to the noises all around them. The kitchen staff bedded earliest since they would have to be up again before anybody else, but the rest of the castle was becoming quiet also.

  Footsteps approached the door, paused as someone apparently looked in. Romola! Nimue almost turned her head to look, but then heard the soft clink of metal—a guard on his rounds.

  She lay still and tried to match the slow steady rhythms of Mordred's heart and breathing without thinking of the youth himself.

  Finally she felt him move his head, then sit up to look around.

  No one reacted.

  He unwrapped the sword.

  She took the wine and crept after him, as silently as possible, to the door.

  Still no reaction—which, she hoped, meant everyone in the kitchen was asleep.

  Once out in the hallway, Mordred whispered, "Where shall we meet?"

  "Meet?" Candles lit the hallway only sporadically, and she was unable to make out his face. Only the dark scar she had painted on his cheek showed clearly. "Meet?"

  He motioned for her to keep her voice down. He asked, "What is your plan?"

  For an awful moment, she thought he was asking for her advice in strategy.

  "Why are you here?" he asked.

  She didn't like the sound of that "you" as opposed to "we." "What are you talking about? To rescue the prisoners from the dungeon, of course."

  "I," he said, "am here to make sure Halbert is dead once and for all. No more resurrections for that phoenix."

  She shook her head. Permanently stopping the wizard was important, but the armed men Nimue hoped Sir Dunsten was fetching from Camelot could do that. More pressing, they had to make sure Halbert did no more immediate harm. She told Mordred, "We know where the dungeon is. How will you find Halbert? Ask around which is his bedroom, then slit his throat while he sleeps?"

  Mordred gave one of his infuriating committed-to-nothing grins—which may or may not have meant that that was his plan exactly.

  "The important thing," she whispered, "is to get those boys out of here."

  "The important thing is to kill Halbert. Else we shall never get away from here with those prisoners."

  "There would be five extra men to help if we do the rescue first."

  "I thought you just said they were boys."

  "Mordred!" Her voice was getting too loud, and Mordred again gestured for quiet. "Do what you will," she told him, knowing he would in any case.

  Just as he had known she would do what she wanted, she realized, about the time she got to the end of the corridor. That was why he had assumed they would separate. She looked back, but by then he was gone. Get killed, she thought at him. I don't care. But that was too much like ill-wishing. She sent a hasty wish for his safety after him.

  Nimue turned the corner and someone's hand clapped over her mouth.

  "Don't drop that jug," a voice breathed into her ear. "I promised it away." The hand lowered.

  "Romola!" Nimue was shaking, partly startled, partly relieved. "Where have you been?"

  "Where have I been? Where have you been? And where is your knight, Sir What's-His-Name, the King's friend?"

  "Sir Mordred is busy practicing his pigheadedness. And he is not the King's..." She decided against complicating things further. "He is not coming to the dungeon with me. He wants to find the wizard first. What about you?"

  "Me?" Romola snorted. "I'm not interested in wizards. I got Sir Litton to introduce me to the dungeon guards. They're expecting us—if we can get there before their watch is over."

  "Sir Litton? The seneschal you were flirting with?"

  "Aye."

  Nimue didn't like this plan at all. "Three dungeon guards?" she asked, hoping they hadn't raised the number since her escape—as though three weren't bad enough.

  Romola nodded.

  "Plus this Litton..."

  Romola was shaking her head.

  "Won't he come looking for you?"

  "No."

  No. Nimue recalled that the girl had originally gone after Mordred armed with a dirk. Presumably Mordred had given it back. Nimue didn't want to hear anymore details. "Right," she said and headed for the area of the castle from which they could get to the dungeon.

  "Ahem ...
Nimue?" Romola said. "The guards are expecting me and my friend, not me and my granny."

  "I would have remembered," Nimue told her. Which she might have. Eventually. She returned herself to her normal age and appearance. She guessed the guards were expecting a good-looking friend.

  Romola blinked at her sudden transformation, but said nothing. She took a torch from the entry and led the way down. "It's us," she called. "Romola and Emelme."

  ' The door swung open, and one of the guards had his arm around Nimue's waist before she passed through the portal.

  "Spirits!" Romola announced, holding up Nimue's hand that was still clenched around the wine jug. "Don't hold her too tight, Cheston. She's ticklish and she might drop the jug."

  The guard named Cheston laughed and pulled Nimue in even closer. The second man, a veteran of some battle or mischance that had left him with one leg shorter than the other, held Romola in similar fashion. The last one in the group was a youth whose face showed the first scraggly signs of a red beard. He put his arm around Nimue from the other side, while relieving her of the wine.

  "Ay! Easy!" Romola said when he pulled the cork out with his teeth. "That's the kind of stuff's supposed to be drunk out of a goblet, you lout."

  "Yeah, right, a goblet."

  "Go on, you heard the lady," Cheston said, though nobody could possibly mistake Romola and Nimue for ladies. "Get out the fancy crockery." He tugged on Nimue's shoulder. "Come on, girl, relax. Don't you ever smile?"

  She worked on it, while over his shoulder she watched the other guard kissing Romola's throat. This was going all wrong—and much too fast.

  "Well, here, this is the best we can do." The scraggly bearded youth had found a wooden bowl, which he wiped with his sleeve. "A loving cup, just like the Greeks. Or was it the Romans?"

  "No matter." Cheston emptied the wine into the bowl and handed it to Nimue. "Here, you need this—make you friendly." As she drank, he twirled a lock of her long blond hair.

  What had she gotten herself into?

  CHAPTER 7

  The bowl went all around once. Then a second time. The young guard with the sparse beard had given up on Nimue and stood behind Romola nibbling her ear while Romola continued to laugh with the other man. Cheston looked as if he was considering a similar move. Nimue wished she could wish she were back in the cave at Avalon, asleep next to Merlin.

  "So," said Romola, "are you going to show us what kind of dangerous people you guard down here?"

  "Dangerous people," scoffed the man with the short leg, Aric, Romola had called him.

  "I mean"—Romola leaned into him—"don't you have any extra rooms?"

  "Oh, extra rooms." Cheston looked interested again.

  The men scrambled to their feet and started marching the women down the hall.

  Three men. The two of them against three men: Romola was probably self-confident enough to be satisfied with those odds.

  "Excuse me," Nimue said. "We usually have this understanding: one at a time."

  The three men looked at one another.

  "One each, sweets," Romola said. "Not one of you at a time. Don't get all excited."

  The two older men turned on the bearded youngster. "You guard the door, boy," Anc told him. "Rank hath its privileges and all that."

  "But," the young man said, "but..."

  Romola patted the young man's cheek and blew a kiss. "Long time till dawn," she said.

  He still didn't like it. With a muttered oath, he threw himself onto one of the benches. Then he pulled out a knife.

  Nimue's breath caught, but he only flung the knife into the tabletop. Then he pulled it out again. Thump-thump, over and over, the sound accompanied them down the hall.

  "Here, let me hold that." Nimue took the torch while Cheston unlocked one of the cells. She hoped Romola's plan would start soon. And that it would be a good one.

  "This here's a clean one," Cheston told her. "Ain't been used in a while, least not by prisoners. Not for this neither, I'd warrant." He winked at Romola though he still held Nimue's hand, probably hoping to find favor with both of them.

  Romola took Aric's hand and led him in.

  Nimue motioned, insisting for Cheston to enter first. Then she slammed the butt of the torch down on the back of his head. Whatever Romola's plan—it wasn't moving fast enough.

  Romola, who had thrown her arms around Aries neck, suddenly brought her knee up hard enough to leave him too breathless to cry out. From the folds of her skirt she pulled out her dirk and drove it between his ribs.

  Nimue's head was beginning to spin. She stooped to pick up the dropped keys, then leaned against the wall. She could smell the warm thick blood even from here.

  Romola took a step toward where Cheston was sprawled on the floor, and Nimue said hastily, "A gag will do."

  Romola pointed a finger at her. "Don't you give out on me now," she warned. Still, she stepped around Cheston and went to the door of the cell.

  "You have blood on you," Nimue warned. "He'll see."

  "You get him in here then."

  Nimue stepped into the hall. It took two tries before she could call, "Any of that wine left?" Could he hear the quaver in her voice?

  The young guard held up the empty jug.

  Now what? She swallowed hard and said, "Bring it anyway. We want to show you something." Did she sound saucy and pert, the way Romola did, or did she sound as foolish and scared to his ears as she did to hers?

  But he got up; he brought the jug as he started down the corridor.

  Nimue saw the glint of the knife still in Romola's hand, and she whispered, "You don't have to kill him."

  "Don't start getting soft," Romola hissed.

  Start? Nimue thought. This whole business had gotten beyond her even as it began. But Romola was willing to give her at least half a try, for she stepped behind the door, though she still held the knife—just in case.

  "Here, give me that." Nimue took the jug from the guard. "Would you like a little surprise?"

  He grinned, and probably never saw his friends' bodies before she broke the jug over his head.

  She and Romola tied and gagged the two living men, then locked the cell behind them.

  Merlin, Nimue thought, would never have believed it.

  "Now," Romola said. "Where are they keeping Dolph?"

  Nimue led the way to the cell from which she had escaped just four days earlier. But when she held the torch up to the bars, in the sputtering light she could clearly see there was only one person there.

  Too late, too late.

  But it couldn't be too late.

  The wizard needed a new body every ten days. She'd only been gone four.

  She had seen one youth killed—Griffith—which left five.

  They couldn't, she thought, they couldn't have killed more to punish for the escape attempt. The young men were too valuable.

  For a moment the quivering shadows and the surprise confused her, but then she recognized the round baby face of the youth who had been a prisoner before the St. George group got there. "Wystan!" she said. "Where are the others?"

  The boy wore a look of befuddled terror. He sat on the floor with his knees huddled to his chest and stared at her for a long moment before he got his mouth to work. "Who...?"

  "It's me, Nimue." She saw a flicker of surprise, but she was used to getting a reaction whenever she said her name. "Nevil, I mean. You knew me as Nevil. I brought help." She fumbled with the key and flung the door open.

  Wystan scuttled backwards. His hands fluttered anxiously, before settling on his knees, still drawn up close to his chest. "Help?" he asked—with a sidelong glance at Romola.

  "We've gotten rid of the guards down here. Someone else is upstairs right now killing that wizard. Wystan, you're safe. Where are the others?"

  But he wouldn't be convinced. "Only three of you?" he demanded in a shaking voice. "Three women?"

  "Wystan!" she cried, but feared he couldn't be rushed. "The one upstairs is a kni
ght. And, word has been sent to Camelot. Where are the others?"

  "How has word been sent?" When she only looked at him in befuddled exasperation, he said, "Separate cells. They separated us after you made that fire. You made that fire, didn't you? Who is this knight?"

  "What difference does that make? His name is Sir Mordred. But do you know which—"

  "Because he's in danger. The fire started too quickly and you disappeared too thoroughly. They figured there was magic involved, and they figured you would be back. They've set a trap."

  Nimue felt a chill up the back of her neck. "What kind of trap?"

  "No time. You get the others." Standing, he indicated himself by resting his hand on his chest. "I'll warn this Mordred." He certainly seemed to have found his courage. Perhaps he was used to ordering women around.

  Nimue ran her hand through her hair. Why did they have to keep separating? This was all so wrong, she could feel it. Magic. Magic. Magic. The warning sounded inside her head. The castle was suffused with this Halbert's evil power.

  The boy said, "You'll be safe down here. Find the others, then wait in the guard area, on this side of the dungeon door. I'll bring your friend as soon as I can." His pale eyes lingered on Romola's bloody skirt. "You have a weapon?"

  Sulkily, Romola handed him the dirk, which he slipped into his shirt as he stole out of the cell and back toward the guard area.

  Nimue shuddered despite herself. "Let's find Dolph," she told Romola.

  They went down the hall, knocking and calling at each door until there was only one door left.

  "He said they were taken to separate cells," Nimue said. Plotting was hard, and her head ached.

  "Maybe this leads to a different wing of cells?" Romola pointed to the latch, which had no lock.

  Nimue could imagine. Deepest dungeon, she thought. Torture room. She stood with her hand on the door. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. But her mind felt strange, stuffed with cotton, the mental equivalent of a head cold; and she got vague and conflicting images. She opened the door.

  This was a large room: The torch Romola held, which had burned almost to the last, lit only part of it. But that was enough to see she had been right.