by Dave Duncan
Henry II by the grace of God and so on, had grown a beard since I had seen him two years earlier, but that was just his campaigning style. It was even redder than his hair. His rather protuberant eyes were still that brilliant, piercing blue. He wore garments no grander or cleaner than mine, suggesting that he had not bothered to change since he last rode a horse.
“He was about Your Grace’s height, Lord King,” I said, “but fa . . . inclined to stoutness. He wore a long black beard.”
The king swung around to Master Aubrey. “Well?”
“Sounds like him, Lord King. Repeat the other names, Durwin.”
He and I had met briefly at Barton. As master of all the king’s enchanters, he had been piqued when Henry did not consult him before swearing me in as a familiaris. Now that I had become a certified sage, our future relationship was likely to be stormy.
“Corneille of Lepuix, Henri Morlaix, Tancred de Umfraville, and Walter of Froyle.”
“Froyle, yes,” the enchanter general said, nodding in his fussy way. “Some relative of Roul Froyle? A brother perhaps.”
“So it’s into England now?” the king bellowed.
“It would appear so, Lord King,” de Fours said with unusual humility.
Henry’s apoplectic rages were legendary. He wasn’t into one yet, but he was dangerously unhappy. Not having the slightest idea what he was talking about, I was glad not to be in de Fours’s shoes. But the royal anger turned on me.
“Where are they now, these devil worshipers? Still in Lincoln? Where did they go?”
At least I could offer him good news, if he would believe it. “They went straight to Hell, Lord King. They tried to enthrall me as they had enthralled Sir Neil and his squire, but a local healer who was helping us had tampered with their spells, and when the Devil came, he took them all.”
The king’s face flamed even brighter red. “Are you lying to me, boy?”
“No, no, Lord King! As I hope for salvation, that is the truth!”
“Ha!” This time the royal roar was one of triumph. “You hear that, Enchanter General? This hayseed, as you called him a little while ago, has done more against le Salon than you have achieved in the last seven years!”
The look I then received from de Fours was the sort that should be reserved for mortal foes. “So he claims. He describes a plot to insinuate a puppet assassin into Your Grace’s presence. Possibly that objective has now been achieved? None of us here is armed, but he carries a stout stick. Wielded with demonic strength, that would be capable of inflicting a fatal blow. I advise extreme caution, sire.”
All eyes turned on me. I handed my cane to Eadig. “Ask Her Grace to take custody of this.”
Eadig scrambled up and carried it over to the queen, where he dropped to one knee to proffer it. She smiled graciously and accepted it. Eadig bowed and returned to kneel at my side.
The king had watched the byplay sourly. “Now I want the whole story. In detail! Start talking, Saxon. If any of you hear anything false in this testimony, question it. I will have the truth of this if we have to stay here till dawn.”
He began to pace, and the justiciar moved aside to give him room. Henry II was almost never still. He rarely sat down anywhere except on a horse, and when he did, he had to keep busy— famously he would continue mending his hunting gear while hearing reports or petitions. Few except the queen ever sat in his presence. By now the room was dim, lit only by the candles in half a dozen tall candelabras. The king stalked back and forth, detouring around Eadig and me, once diverting to help himself to wine.
“In detail, Lord King.” Realizing that I might now be on trial for my life, I began again. This time I did describe how we had foreseen Sir Neil’s arrival and were waiting for him when he arrived. Aubrey de Fours snorted disbelievingly, but said nothing. I stressed that Neil had not taken me into his confidence, so I had not been able to prepare properly, and my first intimation of high treason had come that evening, when Eadig and I had cast the futhorc tiles. This time de Fours sighed.
The king turned on him. “Stop making those animal noises. If you have a question, ask it!”
“Yes, sire. What spells are these that you use to see the future?”
“The Hwá becuman and the Hwæt segst,” I told him.
“Ah, old Saxon gibberish!” de Fours shrugged dismissively. “If you are such a wonderful prophet, how do you explain the mess you now find yourself in?”
“I am aware of no mess,” I retorted. “I consider that I have triumphed in a nigh-impossible mission against enormous odds.” “You see, sir? I do urge Your Grace to have this man restrained before he does even more harm.”
But Henry nodded to me. “Continue, Sage Durwin.”
And so it went. I explained offhandedly how I had lifted the curse on Harald Larson by correcting an old spell, making that sound run-of-the-mill simply because I knew that de Fours was one of the old school who did not believe that this should even be attempted. He glared at me but that time did not interrupt.
I talked; the king paced. When I called on Eadig he told his parts magnificently. When we got to the climax, where the conspirators summoned Legion and it took them instead of Eadig and Lovise, Aubrey de Fours exploded.
“Oh, Lord King, Most Gracious Liege! Must we listen to this farrago? Le Salon has defeated the best efforts of Holy Mother Church and the united sages of Christendom for ages, and now we are being told that five of its senior mavens were outwitted by the juvenile daughter of a back alley healer? Let Her Grace call for one of her Provencal troubadours to sing to us of Lancelot and the Fisher King, but do not let this Saxon churl belabor our ears with—”
“My ears feel far from belabored,” Queen Eleanor said sharply. “This is the most fascinating and exciting adventure I have heard in years. Please continue, Sage Durwin. We are all anxious to hear how you escaped.”
Gratefully I bowed my head to her in acknowledgment and continued into the tricky part of telling what we did next. It was the earl of Leicester who saw the chasm I was attempting to bridge.
“You say the D’Airelle brothers were sold to the Devil early on Thursday morning? Then why did you wait until Sunday before you set off in pursuit?”
“Partly, my lord, because the Satanists were attempting to convert me likewise, make me into a second string for their bow. I was rescuing the constable from their clutches and struggling to preserve my own body and soul. Even after I had won that battle, I did not know where Sir Neil had gone. He had not told me where or how he had been ordered to report to His Grace. I hoped he would have told his deputy, Sir Vernon. I wanted to ride to Nottingham to confer with him, but Lady Nicholaa, the daughter of Constable Richard de la Haye, insisted that I remain in Lincoln until—”
“Ha!” said de Fours. “Another virgin enters the forest in search of unicorns.”
“Stop this childish carping!” the king snapped. “If you have nothing useful to say, be quiet!”
The enchanter general shrank like a startled snail.
I described Vernon’s arrival and his refusal to believe my story. Then I set a trap for de Fours and he fell into it perfectly.
“So I took Lady Nicholaa’s advice, and turned to magic to solve my problem. I believed that you were still in France, Lord King, so I decided I must inform your regent of the danger, because he could send a warning to you much faster than I could hope to reach you myself. Of course I did not know where his lordship was either. Adept Eadig and I first tried using the futhorc tiles that Master Aubrey dismisses so readily. Alas, I misunderstood their response.”
“Surprise?” de Fours murmured.
“Folly on my part, Master Enchanter. The tiles spelled out ‘Fæger munt’ which means ‘beautiful mountain’. I assumed that they indicated Lord Richard de Beaumont, not the palace. In other words, I thought that they were simply confirming my own intention, not providing guidance.”
He scowled. “So how did you know to come here?”
“Having
no other enchantment available to try, I wrote a new one of my own, Loc hwær, asking where the king was. It failed to give me an answer.”
de Fours rolled his eyes. “Ignoring the fact that no one has presumed even to try creating new magic since ancient times, you not only expected it to work at all, but you thought it would reach across the sea and find His Grace in France?”
“With His Grace’s life is threatened,” I said, “I was frantic. Also, I have never heard a learned sage openly affirm that magic will never work across water. Is that truly the case, sir?”
“There may be exceptions,” de Fours muttered angrily.
“This is irrelevant!” King Henry snapped. “How did you know to come to Beaumont Palace?”
“Early on Sunday morning, Lord King, I recalled that your lady queen knew me from Barton, because she commissioned me there to draw up Lord Richard’s horoscope . . .” The king frowned as if he had not known that and did not approve. Not daring to look at Eleanor in case I had let slip a secret, I hurried on. “So I thought she would be more inclined to put credence in my story than would someone who had never met me. The adept and I tried the new spell again, asking where she was, and it told me to come to Beaumont Palace.”
“This was an entirely new enchantment that you had composed yourself?” The king’s disbelief showed that he was far from ignorant about theories of enchantment.
“Aye, Lord King.”
“And it worked?”
“Very well, Lord King. Of course the answer was somewhat cryptic as they often are. What it said was that, ‘Where one prince first cried, another soon will.’ I knew that this could only mean Beaumont Palace.” I bowed again to Queen Eleanor, as well as I could while on my knees. She raised a hand to her mouth to hide a smile.
The king seemed momentarily nonplused. A fourth son would be bell-ringing good news all across his wide dominions, but he must naturally suspect that I was trying to pull wool over royal eyes. Aubrey de Fours was shaking his head as if my tale was utterly beyond belief.
It was the old warhorse, the earl of Leicester, who saw the opening and promptly couched his lance and charged. “You are telling us, boy, that you have invented an enchantment that will locate any man or woman in England?”
The enchanter general smiled as if he had not done so in years. “This will be extremely valuable, Lord King.”
“It did find Her Grace for me,” I admitted, “but not His Grace.”
Henry strode closer to glare down at me, making me wish I were a few leagues away, astride a good horse. “When was it that you tried to locate me?”
“Saturday evening, Lord King.”
“We were still at sea, then.”
“So the spell could hardly be expected to describe your location then, Lord King!” de Fours exclaimed. “Oh, I am eager to see this new wonder demonstrated.”
“Can you show us this enchantment?” Leicester growled.
My heart sank at the thought of trying it out again before such witnesses. We all knew that many spells were erratic and unpredictable, and I could guess that my precious Loc hwær would not be given the benefit of much doubt.
I said, “The texts are in our baggage. Fetch them, Eadig, please?”
Eadig looked aghast. “I don’t know where they are, master.”
The king snapped, “There will be servants outside the door to show you.”
“Oh!” Eadig was halfway to the door before he had even straightened up.
The king tapped a foot, angry at having to wait for anything at all.
The queen said, “Sage Durwin? While we are waiting, would you be so kind as to bring the wine around?”
I was happy to oblige, although my limp was worse in the absence of my cane. Of course de Fours had to be served last, and he had no goblet. While I was fetching one for him, he took another jab at my veracity.
“I am most anxious to hear how you overcame the Satanists.”
“Have you ever heard of a door being warded on both sides, Lord Enchanter?”
He smiled pityingly at me. “It is a favorite trick of Le Salon.”
“You have the advantage of me. I had never heard of Le Salon until His Grace mentioned it a few minutes ago. I still have no idea what it is. I was investigating Sage Corneille’s sanctum in the company of cantor Lovise Larson, who had assisted me in freeing Constable Lord Richard from the spell that had incapacitated him. There we found five copies of the hellish enchantment they used to summon devils. I decided to take those right over to the kitchens and burn them before they could be used to do more evil, but the ward on the door stunned me. Unable to escape from the sanctum, Maid Lovise tampered with the texts; the Satanists failed to notice her changes and unwittingly left themselves exposed to the devils’ spite.”
“Then the maid is the heroine of the whole affair!” Queen Eleanor exclaimed. “I trust that she is witty and beautiful as well as sagacious?”
“She is indeed, Your Grace, all of those and brave as a battle-hardened veteran. As soon as Lord King grants me leave, I plan to race back to Lincoln and claim her as my bride.”
“We shall contribute a worthy gift. Won’t we, my lord?”
The king eyed her quizzically. “A volume of romantic poetry, mayhap? If you are wearied, dear heart, we shall understand your wish to retire.”
“I wouldn’t miss this for all the music in England, such as it is.”
There is tension in any marriage, and must be much more when the husband is lord of a third of Europe but a third of his realm came to him by way of his marriage. Eleanor was an extremely determined woman, and Henry an extremely determined man. Like flint and steel, they struck sparks. And yet, even after fourteen years of marriage, sexual fires still burned. There was more lightness than heat in their banter.
When the king said no more, de Fours went back to jabbing at me. “So a back alley healer’s daughter in rural England cannot merely chant spells, but even write them? Who taught her this incredible ability?”
“I did. It is a very simple skill, Master. I will be happy to instruct you in it tomorrow. We teach it the adepts at Helmdon. They don’t find it difficult, so I am sure that you . . . When her father, Healer Larsen, was smitten by the Satanists, which was partly an act of spite but mostly a trap they laid for me, I had to correct the text of the antiphon they were trying to use. I showed her what I was—”
Eadig entered. Someone closed the door behind him as he hurried over to me. I accepted one of the scrolls he had brought, and asked him to bring the nearest candelabra closer.
“You may stand,” the king said. “Now tell me where Sir Hugh de Cressy is tonight.”
I struggled not to show my resentment at a challenge that felt bitterly unfair. Eadig and I were both exhausted by three hard days’ travel, our texts were blotched with changes from “king” to “queen” and masculine to feminine grammar and the light was poor. I had never heard of Sir Hugh de Cressy, although I was later to know him and respect him highly as another of the king’s familiares. But needs must when the devil rides, as they say. The one bright spot in all this was that none of the audience would understand a word of what we were chanting.
de Fours said, “Ten marks if you can do it in within three attempts.”
I gave Eadig a comforting smile, for he looked even more terrified than I felt, “Five each!”
He nodded, wide-eyed. Five marks seemed like a small fortune to both of us in those days. The chant was not going to be easy, though. The scrolls had already been altered from so much that they were a mess, and we would have to try to keep the beat steady while looking a line or two ahead. I gave him a pitch.
So we began the Loc hwær again. Annoyingly, the king came to stand right behind me and peer over my shoulder. Henry was unusual among the sovereigns of Christendom in that he could read. He did not speak the old tongue, or very little of it, and might never have seen it written down. I found his presence disconcerting, and promptly made a mistake.
; “Hold!” I said. “Sorry, cantor. Start again.”
“That’s one,” de Fours said.
I forced both him and the king out of my mind and concentrated on my singing. I felt acceptance! We chanted through to the end. We finished. So where was Sir Hugh de Cressy? I looked expectantly at Eadig.
He blinked a couple of times and then in the harsh croak of his Wyrd voice said, “Hwær Arður cyning slæf.”
“What!?” I stared at him in horror. Nobody knew where that was! At any other time or place I would have thought he was just trying to be funny, but there and then what he said felt like enough impertinence to get both our heads cut off, or at the very least two royal floggings.
“What did he say?” the king demanded, and there was enough disbelief in his tone to suggest that he had at least an inkling of the answer.
“He said nobody knows where Sir Hugh is, Lord King. I expect he’s out of reach of the spell. Perhaps if Your Grace would choose someone closer . . .”
“He did not say that!” Henry’s eyes were a startling blue at any time, and a king’s glare is more terrifying than a bolt of lightning.
“Lord King, he was merely using an expression common among the vulgar folk that means ‘nobody knows’, sire.”
Henry stepped even closer and showed me his teeth. “Give me the exact words!”
I dared not lie. Breathing a silent appeal to my Redeemer, I answered. “He said, ‘Where King Arthur sleeps,’ Lord King, but—”
Henry II by the grace of God uttered a huge roar and thumped me so hard on the shoulder that I almost fell headlong. “You did it!”
“Indeed he did!” echoed the queen.
“He did?” barked the earl of Leicester, looking as puzzled as I felt.
The enchanter general stared at me in horror, having just thrown away a fortune in silver and a huge chunk of his reputation. I confess—my smile at him contained much more triumph than Christian charity.
“Glastonbury!” the queen said. “We received a report that the monks of Glastonbury have discovered the grave of King Arthur. Sir Hugh was sent to Glastonbury to investigate.”
