Cursed

by Frank Miller

  “Nimue?”

  She whirled and the sword flashed and pointed at Arthur in the doorway, holding a lantern.

  “I surrender,” he said, calling back to their meeting on a dark forested road. It seemed like ages ago.

  Nimue lowered the sword and turned to the window.

  “I can come back,” he said, wavering at the door.

  “No, it’s fine,” she said softly.

  Arthur entered. “I saw your torch.”

  “I can’t sleep,” she said, feeling strangely annoyed by the interruption, not wishing to share her time with the sword.

  Arthur regarded the blade in her hand. “Expecting trouble?”

  “It keeps me warm,” she said without thinking.

  Arthur frowned, then smirked. “There are other ways to keep warm.”

  Nimue did not respond. Instead she looked at the blade in the torchlight. “Do you think Red Paladins have ghosts? When they die? Do you think their spirits live on?”

  “I suppose.” Arthur shrugged. “If any of us do. Why?”

  “I hear them in the sword. I hear their screams.”

  Arthur was quiet for a few moments. “You’re tired. A lot has happened.”

  “What do you think is happening to him?” Nimue asked, referring to Gawain.

  Arthur shook his head. “Don’t think about that.”

  “I have to,” she said angrily.

  “We don’t have the fighters to march on their camp. The fighters we do have are injured.” Arthur paused, as though afraid to provoke her further. “I take it the meeting with Merlin did not go as planned.”

  “My people were right. He’s a liar.”

  Arthur nodded, accepting this. “Then we should consider escape routes to the sea. Scavenge what coins we can from this town and try to buy our way onto a ship.” He joined her at the window.

  “Surrender. Of course,” Nimue said, the campfires reflecting in her eyes. “I thought you’d changed,” she scoffed.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It means nothing. Run. Go. What’s stopping you?”

  “Do you want my advice or don’t you?”

  “I don’t know. How can I trust your advice? How do I know if you’ll be here from one moment to the next? How can I trust you when all you want to do is run away?”

  “Survive and fight another day,” Arthur corrected.

  “Why don’t you believe in us?”

  “Who is ‘us’?”

  “I meant me. Why don’t you believe in me?” She turned to him.

  Arthur put his hands on her shoulders. “Believe in what? What is the alternative? Storm the gates of Castle Pendragon? Wage war on the Church? Let them call you Queen of the Fey all they like, you are still one woman with a sword.”

  “Not just any woman.” Her eyes flashed.

  “Trust me, I need no convincing. But you’ve done enough, Nimue. Don’t you see? You’ve given them a chance to live. You flushed the Red Paladins from the Minotaurs. That is a great success. But don’t think for a moment they won’t respond and with far greater numbers, and before they do, you need a plan to get your people to safety.”

  “Then I’ll find an army. The Northmen.”

  “Do you think the Ice King will follow a peasant girl with the Sword of Power rather than taking it for himself?”

  Nimue was about to answer in anger. But a calm settled over her. “The Hidden will guide us. It’s not your fault, but you could never understand.”

  “Why is that? Because I’m a Man Blood?”

  Nimue’s silence spoke volumes.

  Hurt, Arthur withdrew. “With respect, my queen, you’re acting the fool.”

  “That will be all,” Nimue shot back.

  Arthur bowed at the door, turned, and marched down the corridor.

  FORTY-SIX

  LADY CACHER SAT IN THE lordly gardens of House Chastellain and listened to the sound of her family’s laughter. Against the setting sun, servants set out the next course on the outdoor feasting table, consisting of roasted pheasant and capons with lemon sauce, ragouts of swan, and eel pies. Lady Cacher’s cup of spiced wine was refilled. She touched a purple rose to her lips as her husband and their grandchildren played dancing games while a serving girl played a fiddle.

  “Catch him, Marie, he’s a slippery one!” Lady Cacher warned as Lord Cacher dodged the children’s hands. She sat back, contented and smiling, as the dogs barked in the distance. Their maid trekked across the grounds from their stone keep, made beautiful by the vines of rare purple roses that grew up its walls.

  “What is it, Mavis?” Lady Cacher asked.

  Mavis looked flustered. “A visitor at the gates, milady. Asks for you specifically.”

  “Do you know him?” she asked, confused.

  “No, milady, but he says that you will.”

  Lady Cacher paled and set down her spiced wine. She steadied herself a moment before rising and smoothing her skirts. She began her walk to the gates, Mavis at her side, but she stopped her. “No, Mavis. I’ll go alone.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked her.

  She smiled thinly. “Yes, just make sure the babies eat. And that Lord Cacher doesn’t overexert himself.”

  Mavis agreed reluctantly. “Yes, milady.”

  Lady Cacher resumed her long walk to the gates of House Chastellain. When she arrived there, she saw Merlin through the steel bars, feeding grass to his horse. Both man and animal were filthy from road dust and sweat. He and Lady Cacher stared at each other for long moments.

  Finally Merlin asked, “Your family is well?”

  Lady Cacher nodded. “All of them. Indeed, I have seven grandchildren.”

  “Yours and their every need tended to?” Merlin questioned.

  Lady Cacher’s face tightened. “Every last one that a peasant girl could have ever thought to ask for.”

  Merlin stroked his horse’s mane. “Now it is time for you to keep your promise to me.”

  Lady Cacher took a deep breath, then produced a ring of keys from her skirts and opened the lock of the wicket gate. “Please,” she said to Merlin, and led him into the orchard and to a bench beneath a pair of plum trees. They sat together in a long silence. Then she offered, “I always knew this day would come. But somehow it still seems too soon.” A wave of emotion passed over her. Tears quietly fell. She wiped them with a kerchief and composed herself. “May I host you for the evening? It would give me the opportunity to spend one last evening with them.”

  Merlin shook his head. “The hounds are at my heels. We must go now. I will wait for you to say your goodbyes.”

  Lacy Cacher read Merlin’s face and saw no yielding there. She nodded crisply and rose to her feet. She walked to the edge of the orchard, where she could see her husband rolling in a heap with her grandchildren. Nearby, her own children laughed and sipped wine in chairs beneath the old chestnut tree. She smiled and savored every detail. Then she slipped into the main house and returned minutes later with a soft leather drawstring bag of clothes. “No goodbyes,” she said to Merlin. “Let them play.”

  Rising in the distance, the keep at Dun Lach seemed to have grown right out of the craggy rocks of the shoreline of the Beggar’s Coast. Its towers tilted, and the walls were surrounded by a natural barrier of spiked sandstone, which shielded Dun Lach not only from invaders, but from the punishing tide as well. The coastline was clogged with slender warships. Merlin searched for the Red Spear’s famed vessel, with its fiery lance fused like a horn to its prow, but it was not to be found. Northern archers paused their patrols on the wall to watch Merlin and Lady Cacher ride up to the gates. After a few rounds of muted conversations and dark looks in Merlin’s direction, the warriors at the gate shouted to lift the portcullis.

  Shunning offers to freshen up after such a long journey, Merlin requested an immediate audience with Cumber, and so he and Lady Cacher were led up several winding stairwells and into the Great Hall, where the warmth of five roaring hearths
painted a far different picture from the grim war camps beyond the walls. It was not only the warmth but the sound: Merlin heard laughter. There was never laughter in Uther’s court. But when Merlin and Lady Cacher entered, Lord Cumber’s booming laugh was shaking the walls, a joy derived from the energetic play of a wolf pup with a hunting falcon, who displayed her wings and clicked her beak and hopped along the stone floor, frightening the pup. The Ice King was barrel-chested and wore a black cave-bear cloak over one shoulder with his sword arm free, Viking-style, pinned by a platinum brooch inlaid with amber, gold, and blue glass. His face was tanned from the sea wind, his auburn hair pulled into a ponytail and his beard close-cropped.

  Cumber’s four grown children—two brothers and two sisters—seemed more entertained by their father’s amusement than by the pup’s antics. A history of observing courts gave Merlin the ability to read conditions quickly. Unlike their warrior father, Merlin surmised, Cumber’s children had been raised in courts as political animals. He suspected they would be most resistant and suspicious of newcomers.

  And quietly watching all was Hilja, the Ice Queen, regal but understated in her pale blue underdress. Her hair, once the color of straw and now graying, was finely braided. She drank wine from a horn as she spun silk for an embroidered robe. But she missed no details.

  Confirming some of Merlin’s theories, Cumber allowed his eldest daughter, Eydis—raven-haired, pale-skinned, with green pigment painted around her blue eyes—to address the new arrivals. “Merlin the Magician. A wizard with no magic sent by a king with no claim.” She turned, smiling, to her sister and brothers, pleased with herself. Dagmar, the eldest brother, and the most like his father in bearing and look, grunted his approval. The smaller Calder rolled his eyes, and Solveig, blond and bejeweled, stared daggers at Merlin.

  Merlin ignored the slight. “May I have some tea or sweet wine for Lady Cacher? She is frozen to the bone and has ridden the night through.”

  Hilja nodded to one of the butlers, who aided Lady Cacher to a bench along the wall, while footmen brought over a horn and some wine.

  “My thanks, Lady Cumber,” Lady Cacher said.

  “Shall we also make you a bed or will you state your business?” Eydis asked, chin high.

  “Young lady, I am not here to make beds but to make kings.”

  Eydis stiffened. “You stand before the one true king, conjurer.”

  “Perhaps, if your nights last six moons and all you walk on is snow.”

  Cumber’s children looked agitated, their eyes darting to the Ice King, who distracted himself with the nipping pup.

  Merlin scratched his beard and regarded Eydis. “Now you have regal bearing. And I have no doubt that someday you will make a fine queen. Unfortunately, you have the manners of an ass.”

  Eydis gasped. “How dare you?”

  Hilja threw down her spindle.

  Dagmar stood and drew his sword. “I’ll have your tongue, dog!”

  Calder sat back to watch the spectacle about to unfold.

  Only Cumber chuckled, a rolling sound that warbled in the timbers of the ceiling. “You Druids don’t have children. I think that’s why you live so damn long. I indulge mine. It is a weakness you wouldn’t understand.”

  “You might be surprised,” Merlin answered. “And while I am happy to act as your daughter’s political quintain in more peaceable times, the war winds blow. Have you a plan, Lord Cumber? For it was a bold stroke taking these ports, but now you seem content to squat upon this foul beach like a hen reluctant to drop her eggs.”

  Eydis seethed. “Honestly, Father, are you going to allow him to mock you like this?”

  Cumber’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Does Uther put up with this nonsense, Merlin? I have no ear for it. I don’t recall asking your opinion on my military strategy.”

  “Let us assume then, for the sake of argument, that you actually do have a military strategy. Was it wise to send your dreaded Red Spear against paladin camps along the Granite Coast, given that Pendragon forces already outnumber you by a hundred to one? One might assume it best to encourage Father Carden to remain neutral in this struggle rather than antagonize him.”

  “Now, that is a fine question, Merlin. Bravo. Who does command the Red Spear, Father?” Calder smirked.

  Cumber turned to his youngest son. “Shut your hole, boy, or my ax handle will.” Then, turning back to Merlin, Cumber growled, “What the Red Spear does is none of your bloody concern. Now, I am a simple man. I’ve no desire to play games or match wits with dark creatures like yourself. Speak plainly your reasons for coming here, and for your dear sake I hope they please me.”

  “I would like to know the character and intellect of the man I am about to put on the English throne,” Merlin stated simply. “Is that plain enough for you?”

  Cumber paused, then set the pup down on the floor. “Bold words,” he said. “You’ve turned on your Liar King.”

  “I am my own man,” Merlin countered.

  “A traitor is always a traitor.”

  “If only the world were so black and white,” Merlin mused. “I suspect you waver here on these frigid shores because you enter a land unknown to you and ignorant of your claim as the true Pendragon—a charge that can be proved only by the one living witness to the stillbirth of the Queen Regent’s son.”

  Cumber stood up, stunned. “Is this . . . the midwife?”

  Merlin nodded gravely. “She is. And now we shall discuss what you will give me in return.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  NIMUE STARED DOWN FROM LORD Ector’s throne at a sullen Tusk by the name of B’uluf, slender for his kind, with a broken horn beneath his right jawbone. His arms were held behind his back by Arthur and two Faun archers. Wroth stood to the side with a fearsome glower, arms folded over his broad chest, and across from him stood Lord Ector. Morgan stood to Nimue’s right.

  Nimue and B’uluf were the same age, and his unimpressed smirk told her that he was among the few Fey Folk who still viewed her as a willful girl and not a queen. She knew him from their battle in the marshes, where he had distinguished himself for bravery. She also knew him as a troublemaker who saw signs of disrespect everywhere and caused a lot of headaches in the caves.

  He stood before her now for the murder of a Cinder resident, a carpenter, from the poorer section of town. B’uluf and three other Tusks had beaten the man to death outside his home in full view of his wife and children. Nimue could see the man’s blood on B’uluf’s furred knuckles. The mood in Cinder had already been dry tinder seeking a spark. This wasn’t a spark, Nimue thought, but a torch and a barrel of oil. That evening alone, Arthur and his ragtag guard of Storm Crafters and Fauns had broken up a group of Cinderians trying to force their way into the armory for their confiscated blades.

  “What could possibly have possessed you to do this?” Nimue asked B’uluf, her voice shaking with rage. She yearned in that moment for Gawain’s steady temperament, for she could feel the Sword of Power hanging beside her, compelling her hand to reach for it.

  B’uluf shrugged without remorse. “He made comments to us many times,” he said in his thickly accented English. “And has the cross painted on his door. He is not one of us, he is one of them. One less of them.” B’uluf glanced at Wroth, who turned his baleful eyes on Nimue. She knew the young Tusk was confident of Wroth’s protection. The Tusks were their best fighters, and they were already stretched woefully thin.

  Nimue could not afford to lose any of them.

  Lord Ector wore an equally furious expression.

  “You are aware that the Red Paladins took this city first, are you not?” Nimue asked him sharply.

  Again, B’uluf shrugged. The conversation did not seem to interest him.

  “And that non-Christians were singled out and hanged on stakes and burned to death? As a result, most of Cinder’s people painted crosses on their doors to protect their families.”

  B’uluf’s attention drifted.

  “Look at me,”
Nimue demanded.

  “This outrageous crime must be answered blood for blood,” Lord Ector spat. “More violence will result if this is not dealt with swiftly and harshly.”

  Before Nimue could answer, Wroth spoke up. “Deh moch, grach buur. Augroch ef murech.”

  As always, his son Mogwan interpreted: “Wroth says Tusks have ‘war blood.’ It flows hot long after a battle.” He listened to more of his father’s comments, then added, “He says he will discipline B’uluf.”

  “By doing what?” Nimue asked.

  Wroth glared at Nimue. “Negh fwat, negh shmoch, gros wat.”

  “We give him less food, less water, more work.”

  Lord Ector scoffed, “That’s it? Unacceptable!”

  Wroth barked something at Lord Ector.

  Nimue shouted, “That is enough!” The hall grew quiet. Nimue’s head throbbed.

  She heard the sword whisper to her. She refused to listen. Her skull felt like it was going to crack.

  “Bring him forward,” she said in a low voice. Arthur and the Fauns led B’uluf to the steps of the throne. “I made it clear when we took this city that no human blood was to be spilled. It was not a request but a command from your queen.” B’uluf glared at her with defiance.

  The sword hissed in her mind. She fought it off. Rubbed her temples. She blinked, trying to clear her eyes and her thoughts. Her eyes drifted to B’uluf’s hands. “What is that on your fingers?” she asked him. “Hold them out,” she told Arthur and the Fauns. They held B’uluf’s bloody hands out for Nimue to see. “What is that?” she asked him again, pointing to his rust-colored knuckles.

  “Man blood,” B’uluf said with a sneer.

  “You wear your guilt on your hands. Along with your defiance.”

  B’uluf shrugged.

  With effort, Nimue said, “You will spend a week in our dungeons and then be given over to Wroth for what I expect will be severe punishment. That is all.”