The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) (10 page)

 The cottage was half a mile from the
shore. The only other indication that there was, or ever had been, human life
on this barren island, were two ramshackle barns open to the sky, the ruins of
an ancient castle, and an abandoned lighthouse at the end of a rocky promontory
reaching out into the sea. Ravaged by wind and ocean, the island was flat and
featureless, with here and there – the only touch of colour – a ragged clump of
purple heather. Tall wild grass grew everywhere, cowering from the westerly
gales that blew the year round. The sandy beaches, ribbed by wind and tide,
were stalked by long-legged birds in search of food. As Merlin tramped across
the fields, seagulls floated above him, greeting him with doleful cries. It was
a desolate place this, he thought, but with its own sombre beauty.

The old man showed no surprise
when Merlin entered, greeting him courteously.

‘I am glad to see you,’ said Merlin.

On either side of the open
fire were the only seats in the room, two Windsor chairs, one empty, the other
occupied by the old man. At his feet a black Labrador slumbered. Merlin sat in
the vacant chair. ‘I imagine you have few visitors,’ he said, to get the
conversation going.

‘None. None but you.’

The Labrador uttered something
between a sigh and a groan. Without moving his head, he opened his eyes and
contemplated Merlin, then, apparently satisfied with what he saw, closed them
again.

Merlin tried once more. ‘This island. Is it
marked on the maps?’

‘It is on some,’ replied the
old man laconically. ‘It’s not easy to find.’

A shrug. ‘Who would want to?’

Merlin gave a little smile.
‘Who indeed?’ He was certain the old man knew why he was here.

‘You live alone?’

‘There are no other people
here, if that’s what you mean. But I am not alone. I have Robbie.’ He indicated
the Labrador.

‘Are you never lonely?’
‘Loneliness is a state of mind.’

‘Even so, isn’t it strange
never to hear the voice of another human being? It’s so quiet here.’

The old man smiled. ‘You
wouldn’t say that if you were here in an autumn gale, or in the winter, when
the rollers crash at the foot of the cliffs. As for voices, there are many on
the island – the wind, the sea, the birds and animals, and of course Robbie
here. And then there are other voices . . . ’ The old man drifted away on the
tide of his memories.

‘Other voices?’ repeated Merlin curiously.

‘Voices from the past. But I
don’t deny it, there are times when I long to hear a human voice – once or
twice a year, perhaps – and then I’m off to the mainland.’

‘This is your island?’

‘It has been in my family for
centuries. Once it was the subject of much gossip and speculation but that was
long ago. Now no one remembers us; they have forgotten we exist. No one tells
the old stories any more.’

‘What kind of stories?’

The old man lifted the kettle
from the hob and poured Merlin a mug of a dark coloured brew that might have
been tea, though by its smell it was clearly something else. He sipped it
cautiously. It tasted of the sea.

‘A thousand years ago, or so they say, this
island was ruled by a great king, the greatest that ever lived. Here he built a
castle surrounded by a wide moat, with walls a hundred feet high and fifty feet
thick, and turrets and towers so tall that their tops touched the clouds. At
full moon the king can still be seen riding a white horse at the head of his
knights – a hundred and fifty of them. The noise of their hooves on the
drawbridge is like thunder, and the sound of their voices unearthly, like
spirits from another world.’

Merlin leaned forward,
intrigued. ‘Have you ever seen them?’

‘I have seen the shadow of the
cliffs on the water at full moon, and the white foam horses galloping across
the ocean. On stormy days I have seen the waves reach up their turrets to the
sky. On calm days, when the sea gulls float and dive, I have listened to them
talking of other places and other times. “I could tell a tale!” they cry. “Such
a tale! Such a tale!”’ The old man chuckled. ‘Have I seen the spirits? Indeed I
have.’

Merlin was confused. ‘Yet you
seem to be saying that all these stories have a perfectly rational
explanation.’

For a long time the old man
did not reply. ‘Perhaps,’ was all he offered to disturb the silence.

Merlin persisted. ‘This king
you spoke of . . . did you ever see him?’

Another lengthy silence. When
he broke it, the old man did not answer directly. ‘You saw the castle?’

Merlin warmed his hands on his
mug of tea, or whatever liquid it was. Watched closely by the old man he took
another tentative sip and tried hard to look as though he were enjoying it. ‘I
passed some ruins on the way. From what I saw of the one tower that still
stands, and the remains of the walls, it was certainly a big one.’

The old man bent to the
Labrador, his face softening as he stroked it. ‘There was a castle here once,
of that there is no doubt, some say as long ago as the sixth century. There was
a great king here too.’

Merlin tensed. ‘How do you know?’

The old man hesitated, as if
he were debating with himself. ‘I have seen a knight walking the ramparts at
full moon. Let me be clear: I did not imagine it, I have seen him, not once but
many times. It is obvious he is someone of importance, for he is clad in golden
armour, and everyone about him treats him with great deference. Sometimes he
walks alone, sometimes with two or three of his knights. I have also seen him
with a lady, and from time to time, in the company of a man with long hair and
a flowing white robe.’ A sly look in Merlin’s direction. ‘Much like you.’

‘The knight in golden armour.’
The green orbs shone brightly. ‘Was it the king?’

A long silence. And then: ‘It
was the king.’ ‘How can you be sure?’

Again his host seemed
reluctant to respond. ‘Once, when the north wind blew, I thought I heard the
lady address him by name. Who knows? It could have been an owl hooting.’

‘What name?’ asked Merlin. ‘Or
a seal barking on the rocks.’

‘What name?’ asked Merlin
again, barely concealing his impatience.

The old man was silent for
long moments. ‘She called him Arthur,’ he said at last.

Merlin let out a sigh. ‘So it
was him. I knew it.’ ‘And you are Merlin?’

A slight bow of the head in
acknowledgment. ‘I am.’ ‘What is it you want of me?’

Merlin lifted his hands. ‘I think you know.’

The old man fondled the
Labrador’s ears. ‘Men say he will come again.’

‘So I have heard.’

‘They say that if he does,
this island will be his kingdom, as it was in ancient times.’

Merlin said nothing.

‘You are not here for the sea air, I imagine.’

‘I am not,’ Merlin
acknowledged with a smile. ‘So what will you give me for this desolate isle?’
Merlin spread his arms wide. ‘The world.’

‘If I wanted the world, I
would not be here.’ ‘I will pay any price you ask.’

‘You are speaking of money?’
‘If that is what you want.’

‘What would I do with it? I
have an appointment with death, one I have no option but to keep.’

‘Life, then?’

The old man’s eyes sparkled.
‘You could do that, magus?’ A nod. ‘For a time. Quite a long time, perhaps.’

‘That is certainly tempting .
. . very tempting. Life is beautiful, and so very short.’ The old man pondered
some more, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes.

The fire crackled and flared
as it ate into the driftwood. A wonderful thing is a fire, thought Merlin. In
their caves his ancestors had sat round just such a fire, warming their bodies,
and no doubt dreaming, as he was dreaming now. For a time he was with them,
watching the play of flame and shadow on their strong, enduring faces.

The old man stirred. ‘No, I
think not. I have almost lived the years allotted to me. Soon I have a journey
to make, and God willing I shall hear the gulls’ tale. I am ready, or as ready
as ever I shall be. And whether the end comes today or tomorrow, what
difference will it make when it comes?’

The Labrador groaned and laid
his head on his master’s feet.

‘Then tell me your price?’

‘Why concern yourself? Wait
until I die. It will not be long, I promise you, and then you can have my
island for nothing.’

Merlin shook his head. ‘Honour
demands that I pay the price.’

The old man nodded approvingly. ‘Then,’ he
said, ‘know that my kingdom will not be sold for any wordly thing.’

It was as Merlin expected.
‘For what, then? What will you sell it for?’

‘For love.’

Even the magus was puzzled.
‘What riddle is this?’ ‘You are good at riddles. Solve it.’

Merlin eyes clouded as he
withdrew into his head. For love? Whose love? And for whom? What could it mean?
Last of his line, the old man had no kin, nor any friends, it seemed, so it was
not their love he was talking about. Puzzled, Merlin watched him stoop again to
fondle his beloved dog. Of course! What a fool he was! The answer to the riddle
lay at the old man’s feet.

‘When you cross over to the
next world,’ said Merlin, ‘Robbie shall be my companion, and I shall love him
till the day he dies.’

The old man smiled. ‘Merlin
the wise,’ he murmured. For a few moments he said nothing, though Merlin could
see there was something on his mind. ‘You must come quickly when I summon you.’

‘You have my word,’ said Merlin.

And with that the old man seemed content.

 Morgan was only seven when she first
claimed to be able to fly. Locking her bedroom door, she climbed out of the

third floor window and stood
on the narrow parapet waving her arms as if they were wings, and shouting, ‘I
can fly! I can fly!’

Since Uther was at the office
and Igraine shopping in the village, it was left to Elaine and Margot, William
the butler, the cook, and a few panic-stricken housemaids, to handle the
crisis. Standing on the lawn, they pleaded with Morgan not to jump but she
ignored them all. Eventually it was cook who managed to coax her back into her
room with a promise of sticky toffee pudding and vanilla ice cream. When Uther
came home and heard what had happened, he stopped Morgan’s pocket money for six
months and after that there was no more climbing out of windows. Morgan,
however, was stubborn, and never ceased to believe she had special powers.

‘I can do anything I want,’ she told Margot
defiantly.

‘You couldn’t make a man fall
in love with you,’ said Margot.

‘If I wanted to I could.’

‘No, you couldn’t,’ said
Elaine. ‘Your bum’s too big, and you’ve got a moustache.’

This mockery only made Morgan
more determined to demonstrate her supernatural powers. In the middle of the
night she would creep into their bedrooms and leave a variety of animals on her
sisters’ pillows, together with a brief explanatory note. A snake, perhaps:
snakebite for the gift of tongues. Or a tortoise: a tortoise kiss to make you
immortal. Or a snail: a snail’s slimy caress to make you as beautiful as Helen
of Troy. What more could they want? And why were her sisters so horribly
ungrateful when all she was doing was trying to help? Didn’t they want to live
forever? Didn’t Margie want to speak Greek and Latin, French and German,
Russian and Chinese? Didn’t Elaine want her face to launch a thousand ships?
Didn’t they want to fly?

As the years passed, Elaine
and Margot became increasingly wary of their younger sister, even though they
both knew she would never dream of lifting a finger against them. Although the
youngest, she was by far the tallest and strongest of the three, with broad
shoulders, a gruff voice and a square jaw. In manner and appearance she was in
fact less like a girl than a boy, and a pretty tough one at that. Normally
placid, she had a violent temper when crossed, and her tantrums were alarming;
she would scream in a harsh, tormented fashion, her eyes wild and unfocused, as
though she were possessed. She was only two when the family doctor murmured
something about fits, though all the usual tests were negative.

Then there were her pets. From
a very early age, Morgan gathered about her an odd collection of guinea pigs,
hamsters, snakes, several species of poisonous spiders and insects, a tortoise,
white mice, a talking mynah bird and a number of gerbils. If owning such
creatures was not in itself all that unusual, her relationship with them most
definitely was; her pets were her ‘familiars’, her assistants in secret rituals
performed in her bedroom in the dead of night: black masses, incantations,
conjuring the dead, casting of spells and various unspecified altar ceremonies.
No one, not even her sisters, was allowed to witness them. Nevertheless, in
such an unusual household no one found her particular form of eccentricity
especially disturbing – or not until the affair of the gerbils.

It happened when she was
thirteen years old. In the early hours of a grey January morning Morgan marched
into Elaine’s bedroom and deposited a gerbil on her pillow. ‘Mary’s dead,’ she
announced.

Still half asleep, Elaine shrank from the
corpse. ‘Go away!

And take that disgusting thing with you.’

Morgan’s lips trembled. ‘I
loved her.’ Picking up the corpse, she kissed it tenderly, two large tears
rolling down her face. ‘She was such a darling gerbil.’

Elaine was unsympathetic ‘Get out!’

As Morgan was about to close
the door behind her, she hissed over her shoulder, ‘It was murder.’

In the darkness, Elaine
stiffened. ‘Murder?’ ‘Tom did it.’

Elaine switched on the bedside
lamp and sat up. ‘What are you talking about, Moggy? Who is Tom?’

Morgan shut the door, stomped
back into the room and sat on the bed. She looked as though her whole world had
come to an end and Elaine did not have the heart to turn her away. The corpse
was produced from a dressing gown pocket and lovingly stroked. ‘Tom is Mary’s
husband. This is Mary.
Was
Mary.’ Morgan began to sob.

‘Gerbils have friends, Moggy.
Lots of friends. They don’t get married.’

‘Tom and Mary did. At the high
altar in my bedroom. I married them myself. It was a lovely service. “Do you
take this gerbil . . . till death us do part . . . ” All that stuff. Afterwards
they had a reception and speeches and a cake and everything

. . . and then they had three
beautiful babies. Now he’s gone and murdered her.’ She held the little lifeless
creature in her lap, stroking it and sniffing loudly.

Elaine considered the departed
with distaste. ‘How did it happen?’

Morgan blew a trumpet blast on
her nose. ‘He broke her neck.’

‘Moggy, you are silly! How could a gerbil do
that?’

‘You don’t know Tom. He’s very strong, and he’s
got a wicked temper.’

‘It might have been an
accident,’ suggested Elaine. ‘I suppose animals have accidents, like human
beings do.’

‘It was no accident. He
murdered her,’ said Morgan emphatically.

‘Moggy darling,’ Elaine
assured her, ‘animals don’t murder each other.’

‘Tom did. He has a lover,
that’s why he did it. Her name is Delilah. She’s a real bitch. She’s been after
him for ages, always shoving her bum in his face. He fell madly in love with
her. She’s why he killed Mary.’

Elaine was not sure where all
this was leading. ‘Supposing he did murder his wife,’ she said, humouring her
young sister. ‘What’s to be done about it?’

‘He has to be punished.’

Morgan insisted Tom must pay
the penalty. The affair promised to be mildly entertaining, having all the
essential elements of drama and romance that appealed to Elaine, and to a
lesser extent to Margot. Investigations were completed, charges laid, legal
representatives appointed and a trial date set. It was held at midnight in
Morgan’s bedroom. Elaine, counsel for the defence, and Margot, counsel for the
prosecution, appeared in Chanel jackets borrowed from Igraine’s dressing room,
their lips black, their eyelids purple. Morgan, the judge, was wrapped in a red
table-cloth, with a roll of cotton wool at her neck and a Restoration wig her
step-father wore at fancy- dress parties. Beside her on the table lay the black
bowler hat Uther had sported to cut a dash in the city when he was a young man.
On the accused’s chair in a small cage was Tom, the gerbil, scratching
nervously, responding to some primeval instinct warning him that he was in trouble.

It was swiftly established by
Margot that Tom had a wandering eye and had taken that tart, Delilah, as his
mistress. Potentially the most damning piece of evidence was a taped message
from Mary, the murdered wife, allegedly recorded just before she died. She
confirmed that on several occasions she had refused her husband’s request for a
divorce and that each time he had beaten her up, until finally, in a fit of
rage, he had broken her neck.

Elaine, the defending counsel,
lodged an objection to the tape on several grounds. Firstly, that gerbils could
not speak English; secondly, that Mary could not have known her husband had
broken her neck because she would have been dead at the time, and thirdly, and
most potently, that the taped voice sounded suspiciously like the judge’s. Her
objection being summarily over-ruled by the judge, the outcome of the case was
no longer in serious doubt.

In vain the defending counsel
strove to establish that one gerbil was incapable of breaking another gerbil’s
neck. She was told by the judge that she knew nothing about gerbils and was
talking complete nonsense. This line of reasoning being discredited, counsel
fell back on her last line of defence: this was not murder, she argued, but a
crime of passion, and should therefore be regarded as manslaughter.

The judge summed up, following
which the jury, consisting of three baby gerbils, a rat, two white mice, a
hamster, a guinea pig, a grass snake, a tortoise, a bird-eating spider and a
talking mynah bird, was asked to consider its verdict. Not surprisingly there
was no response from their cages for a long time.

‘This is silly,’ said Elaine.
‘We’ll never get a verdict out of this lot.’

‘Silence!’ said Morgan. Once
more she addressed the foreman of the jury, the talking mynah bird: ‘I ask you
again. What is your verdict?’ After another lengthy delay, the mynah bird
squawked something unintelligible.

Turning to the accused, the
judge enquired, ‘Have you anything to say before sentence is pronounced?’

‘I object!’ said Elaine.

‘On what grounds?’ asked the judge.

‘The verdict was unclear. In fact I thought he
said not guilty.’

‘That’s impossible,’ said the
judge. ‘Why is it impossible?’

‘Because I only taught him to
say guilty. So there!’ The judge then stuck out her tongue at counsel for the
defence.

‘This trial is a farce,’ said
Elaine in disgust. ‘I’m going to bed.’

‘No one is allowed to go to
bed before I pass sentence.’ ‘Then get on with it,’ said Margot. ‘It’s one
o’clock and I’m

tired.’

Morgan put on Uther’s bowler
hat. ‘Tom Gerbil, I sentence you to death.’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘By
hanging . . . and it has to be by the neck.’

‘I object!’ said Elaine. ‘On
what grounds?’

‘The death sentence was
abolished years ago.’ ‘Yes,’ said the judge, ‘but not for gerbils.’

The judge then invited both counsels to witness
the execution.

They were to assemble before
dawn the following morning. ‘You must be joking,’ said Margot. ‘No one’s
getting me up

at that hour.’

‘Me neither,’ said Elaine.

The play was over and the
curtain had fallen. The masquerade had been enormous fun but now they would
have to find something else to entertain them. No one would be getting up
early, of course. The whole thing would be forgotten in the morning. But it
wasn’t. Morgan’s powers of persuasion were formidable, and Elaine’s and
Margot’s curiosity got the better of them. In the dark depressing hour before
dawn they found themselves by the old apple tree, all three sisters shivering
in their flimsy dressing-gowns. The sky was overcast, the air damp and bitingly
cold.

Morgan took a pair of leather
gloves from a Sainsbury shopping bag, pulled them on, and removed Tom from his
cage. The poor little gerbil was shivering too, though whether from fright or
from cold it was impossible to tell. ‘He’s quite happy really,’ said Morgan
cheerfully. ‘He ate a hearty breakfast, just like condemned prisoners are
supposed to. And he had an extra helping of gerbil food. Didn’t you, Tom?’ she
said, chucking him under the chin. ‘And a whopping piece of apple. Yes, you
did, you naughty boy.’ Whereupon she turned her back on them.

Eyes shining, shuddering and
giggling by turns, Elaine and Margot had forgotten the cold. Morgan turned
round again and showed them Tom. His tiny feet were tied together with string
and he was jerking his head and wriggling his body in a vain effort to be free.
‘There, there, Tom,’ said Morgan, putting him back in his cage, ‘no need to be
upset.’

For a moment Elaine and Margot
were disappointed, thinking this must be the end of the drama. But there was
more to come. They watched fascinated as their baby sister plunged her hand
into the plastic bag and produced a length of rope with a slip noose already
tied at one end. The noose she flung over a branch so that it dangled about
three feet from the ground. The other end of the rope she wound round the trunk
of the apple tree and knotted it.

There was a hint of alarm in
Margot’s eyes. ‘What is she doing?’

‘It’s all make-believe,’ said Elaine,
reassuring her sister.

Morgan opened Tom’s cage and
took him out again, clasping his body firmly in the leather gloves so that only
his tiny head was visible. Twisting this way and that, the gerbil tried to bite
her fingers but his teeth could not penetrate the gloves.

Elaine yawned. ‘Let’s go to
bed now, Moggy.’ The gerbil’s eyes bulged with terror. He had stopped
struggling and was uttering high-pitched squeaks, as if he were pleading for
his life. ‘Moggy?’ No response. Elaine’s voice sharpened. ‘Moggy! I know this
is make-believe, but that’s enough now. Put Tom back in his cage.’ Morgan did
not seem to hear. Slowly, and with great care, she removed her right hand from
the gerbil, and with a quick movement flipped the noose over his head. ‘No!’
said Margot, suddenly fearful. ‘You’re hurting him.’

The creature gave a plaintive
shriek that changed to a gurgle as Morgan pulled the noose tight. ‘Take it off,
Moggy. Take the rope off.’ Elaine’s voice was oddly calm and reasonable, as
though she were trying to pacify a madwoman.

Morgan looked up and nodded.
At last, they thought, they had got through to her. She was about to put an end
to the macabre charade. But Morgan had nodded for another reason. In the dark
sky the first pale gleam of light had appeared. ‘It’s dawn,’ she said, and let go
the gerbil. For a few moments it dangled by the neck at the end of the rope,
struggling, at first frantically, then feebly.

Elaine made a grab for the
gerbil but Morgan was too quick for her. Seizing the little creature’s body
with both hands, she pulled down sharply. They heard the crack as its neck
snapped.

Suddenly Margot understood.
‘My God!’ she whispered, ‘that’s what she did to Mary!’ Elaine and Margot
huddled together and watched, horrified and fascinated, as the limp corpse of
the gerbil slowly revolved at the end of the rope, first one way, then the
other, until finally it was still. They turned and ran back to the house, arms
around each other, shivering from cold and shock.