The End of Magic (16 page)

“Not
is,
Father,
was.
” Mordred strolled past him, past the Queen, toward the throne, talking all the while.

“She passed over into a better world. She sleeps alone at last. A great loss. One day she was laughing, smiling—the next,
gone like a summer breeze. In the midst of life, etcetera, etcetera, and so on and so forth.” His tone made a mockery of the
conventional obsequies, as did the briskness with which he changed the subject.

“It’s why I’m here,” he said, turning back to face Arthur and gesturing to include not only the throne room, but the entire
castle. Morgan le Fay might have been his mother, but it was clear that Mordred had not loved her. The force of his smiling
hatred was a palpable presence here in the throne room.

“I don’t understand,” Arthur said.

Mordred regarded Arthur with a false expression of surprise. “Why, to protect your interests…
Father.
You see, your interests are my interests. Whilst you were away on this great spiritual quest to cleanse your soul… how should
I put it? You were being betrayed.”

Another ripple of dismay coursed through the room.

“Mordred! That’s enough!” Merlin snapped from the doorway.

As the people in the room turned to look, Merlin hurried toward the two men standing before the throne. He had ridden back
to Camelot from Sarum as fast as he could, and at that, he had nearly been too late. Mordred was already here, and from the
look of things, so was trouble.

“It isn’t!” Mordred protested. “Come, Merlin, let’s speak truth at last! Father—”

“This isn’t the time,” Merlin interrupted sharply, but Mordred would not be silenced.

“It is—it is! Father, Lancelot betrayed you with the Queen.”

“What?” Arthur gasped, stunned. But Mordred wasn’t through.

“Or should it be, ‘The Queen betrayed you with Lancelot’?” Mordred wondered archly, mocking them all. “No matter. There’s
no point in being pedantic. You were betrayed.”

Behind him, Arthur heard Gawain—Guinevere’s brother—groan in anguish. Both factions that filled the room were arguing and
jostling each other now, as revelation piled upon revelation rocked the foundations of their world.

“Guinevere?” Arthur whispered, turning to look at her.

“This isn’t the place to discuss this matter,” Merlin said. With a decisive gesture he swept Arthur and Guinevere out of the
center of the crowd and off behind the safety of a pillar.

“Oh, I think it’s the perfect place,” Mordred called from behind them.

“Is it true?” Arthur demanded, glaring down at his Queen. His beard made him look older, as did the lines of exhaustion that
marked his face.

“Arthur,” Merlin said quickly, trying to stop the terrible disclosures. “You’ve only just returned. Arthur, we must talk—”

“Guinevere. Is it true?” Arthur asked remorselessly.

“Yes. It’s true,” Guinevere answered defiantly, glaring up into his eyes.

Arthur’s face contorted in sudden fury. In that moment, Merlin feared he might have struck her, only Mordred pushed himself
forward into their midst once more.

The engaging redheaded toddler had grown into a dark and dangerous young man, Merlin saw. He was as heartless as any of the
fairy race, yet more vicious than Queen Mab at her worst—as if Mordred, monster that he was, dimly suspected the wrong that
had been done to him by what Mab and Morgan had made of him. But this was not the time or place for pity. Mab’s creature must
be stopped.

“Mordred, you’ve no right to be here,” Merlin said.

“I’ve every right here,” Mordred said. “We all have. This isn’t a private matter. It concerns all of us.”

He gestured toward the men with him, who nodded and mumbled in agreement. Merlin realized that somehow, though he could not
have been here in Camelot for very long, Mordred had amassed a dangerous majority of the knights to his cause.

“Didn’t you think of me at all?” Arthur demanded of Guinevere, oblivious to the events around him. The haven he had dreamed
of for all those long years of absence was gone, swept away as though it had never been. That was what hurt the worst.

“You left me alone for years—didn’t you think of
me?
” the Queen shot back. “What about
my
honor, finding out that my husband had a child by a woman called ‘Morgan le Fay’?”

“Good one,” Mordred murmured appreciatively in the background. “Come, Father,” he said bracingly, trying to elbow his way
past Merlin, “this is becoming distressingly personal. You’re forgetting it’s a matter of state.”

“A matter of state?” Merlin echoed, baffled. Mordred was dangerously clever, and Merlin could not be certain of what he was
driving at.

“Well, we
are
talking treason here, aren’t we, my lords?” Mordred said with feigned innocence.

The men behind him—even Sir Hector and Sir Bors—nodded agreement, and there were some shouts of “Treason!” from the rowdier
knights. Only then did Merlin see what Mordred’s plan was.

Under the old law codes bequeathed them from the Romans, the man was the unquestioned master of his household—he
was
his household—just as the King was Britain itself. Adultery was betrayal of the marriage vows. When a woman betrayed her
husband, she betrayed her family.

But when a Queen betrayed her husband, she betrayed her country.

Treason.

Mordred meant for Arthur to execute his Queen. And no matter how deserved the punishment, such an act would divide the country
terribly. For the last seven years, Guinevere had been the Crown, the only ruler the people knew. For the King to return and
abruptly execute her would give rise to all manner of destructive speculation.

“We must consider this calmly,” Merlin pleaded, desperation filling his voice. The Queen stared at Arthur, her eyes filled
with contempt, but Arthur stared at Mordred as though Mordred were something the like of which he had never seen.

“Yes,” Arthur said finally. “We must. Guards! Take the Queen to her bedchamber and keep her there. At least this way I can
be sure you’ll be there alone,” he said to her in a low voice.

Guinevere stared at him with scorn, saying nothing. When the guards came to her, she led them out as though they were a guard
of honor, not of shame.

“Oh, Jenny—why?” Gawain said, as she passed him.

“You of all men have no right to ask me that,” Guinevere said to her brother, stopping before him. “You followed your heart
to go with Arthur when I begged you to stay with me. Well, I followed mine as well.” She turned and walked out.

“Well,” Mordred said brightly in the silence that followed. “What shall we do with the rest of the afternoon? A little tennis?”

“We must decide what to do about this,” Arthur said. “Merlin—Knights of the Round Table—come with me.”

When Arthur had left on his quest, this room had barely been finished. Like the table it contained, the chamber was round.
Its walls were a deep celestial blue, and upon them were painted the images of the great kings who had been Arthur’s ancestors,
stretching back to that noble warrior, Brutus, who had fought at the siege of Troy. The walls also held images of the saints
who concerned themselves most with Britain—Columba, Patric, George—and the timbers of the roof were carved with angels. All
the figures, painted and carved, seemed to gaze down on the round table below.

Lord Lot had given this table to Arthur as a wedding gift. From the white rose of chivalry painted in the center, spokes of
green and white radiated outward across its thirty-foot diameter, symbolizing the beauty and the holiness of Britain, until
the whole surface of the table looked like a starburst. Around its rim were painted the names of the noblest members of the
order of knighthood it symbolized. Bors—Bedivere—Gawain—Perceval—their names were there along with those of so many others.
The table was without a head or a foot, a perfect circle that symbolized the perfect unity of Arthur’s kingdom, but today
the men gathered about it were divided as never before.

“It
is
treason,” Sir Hoel—Mordred’s partisan—said stubbornly. “When Guinevere betrayed you, she betrayed the Crown and the Country.”

There was a murmur of approval when Sir Hoel finished speaking, but Arthur stood firm. The years had left their mark upon
him, Merlin saw, darkening the gold of youth to the bronze of maturity. In his dark tunic and cloak, covered with the dust
of the road, Arthur looked nothing like the splendid youth who had set off upon his doomed quest so long ago—but in spite
of his failure to achieve the Grail, he looked more kingly now than ever before.

“I don’t see it as treason,” Arthur said. “She betrayed me and only me.” Though worn and tired, he spoke patiently.

“It’s the law of the land,” Mordred called. He was standing in the doorway, underscoring the fact that there was no place
for him within the room.

“That’s enough!” Arthur snapped.

“No, Sire. Mordred is right,” Sir Boris said slowly. He was a knight of the old school, scarred by the events of Uther’s reign,
and Guinevere’s adultery had been something he could not forgive. “You’re the King. And that makes her adultery treason.”

“But then we must condemn her to death!” Gawain said, outraged.

“Do you really think we should do that?” Merlin asked conciliating. He stood in the corner of the room, not a member of the
knightly company, but there as Arthur’s adviser. If only they would stop and think about the enormity of what they were doing,
surely they would choose mercy, just as Arthur wished to.

He desperately wished he’d had a chance to speak with Guinevere before Arthur—and Mordred—had arrived. Mordred must have gotten
here first, and Merlin would have given a great deal to know more about the enemy facing them now.

That Mordred was the pawn of Mab, Merlin already knew, but this was the first chance he’d really had to take Mordred’s measure.
He did not sense that Mab had taught her protégé any of the Old Ways, since for all his eldritch upbringing, Mordred was the
child of two mortal parents, and thus his ability to learn magic was limited. But if Mab had not taught Mordred sorcery, it
was clear that she had bestowed upon him many of the old fairy gifts. Mordred was beautiful and charismatic, and men would
believe in his words and follow him without thinking of what they did. Mordred was using that unnatural ability now, to make
them listen to him, to keep them from questioning how it was that Arthur could have a full-grown son when he was not yet thirty.

But what could Mordred hope to gain from forcing Arthur to execute the Queen? The Iceni, Guinevere’s people, were still half-Pagan.
And because of that, when Arthur executed their Princess for something many of them did not consider a crime, they would rise
up against him. There would be war. That was what Mordred—what Mab—wanted. A war. A war that Mab thought she could win. And
though Merlin knew that she must inevitably lose, the loss would come at an enormous cost in human lives.

Lord Lot was speaking now.

“It’s the law,” he said. He was Guinevere’s father, and this public shame seemed to have aged him ten years in a matter of
hours. The lines of care were etched deeply into his face, and his beard was almost white.

“It’s harsh,” Merlin said, hoping once more to sway them to compassion.

“It’s meant to be,” Sir Boris said.

Merlin’s hands sketched soothing gestures in the air. “This is a time when we should temper justice with mercy,” he said coaxingly.
If only they would stop and think, it might curb their rashness before someone was hurt. “After all, your religion proclaims
it. ‘Let he who is not guilty of sin cast the first stone.…’ Now, I know I’ve been guilty in my time, and I suspect you have
been, too.” He smiled at the men around him, and the tension in the room eased, just as Merlin had meant it to.

“I have to confess I’ve sinned a little,” Lord Lot said, looking more reminiscent than guilty. The others laughed. Only Gawain
and Arthur still looked grim.

“So,” Mordred said, stalking into the room and standing directly across the table from Arthur. “We make excuses for her because
she’s a Queen.”

“No,” Merlin said, feeling his spell of goodwill dissolve like morning mist. “Because she is
human
.”

“No, because she’s
Arthur’s wife!
” Mordred shot back remorselessly, keeping the argument focussed on the invented crime of privilege. “Are we going back to
one law for the rulers and one for the ruled?” He leaned forward, placing both hands on the table, his rain-colored eyes flicking
restlessly from side to side.

“Is that the way it is?” he demanded, and with each word he spoke, the malign magic of his voice sowed dissent and wooed his
listeners away from their better selves.

“Arthur?” Mordred demanded, gazing directly into the King’s eyes. “I thought Camelot was to be different,” he sneered.

All eyes looked toward the King. Arthur had to answer, and he said the only thing that he could. “It is!”

“Then show the world you mean it!” Mordred answered immediately.

The two men locked eyes. Arthur desperately looked for a way out of the trap Mordred had set. The laws of Britain were sacred
to him. Not for anything would Arthur wish to return to the anarchy and unbridled tyranny that had been the essence of both
Uther’s and Vortigern’s reigns. Arthur knew that upholding the law was the right thing to do—but now, somehow, Mordred had
made it wrong, turned the law into a tool for hurting people and doing great injustice. And in the face of that hideous cleverness,
Arthur was lost.

“Merlin,” Arthur said at last. “What should I do?” His voice was desperately tired.

Merlin looked at Mordred—waiting, gloating. Mab’s monster child had left none of them any choice. Mab had finally learned
how to use the good in men to destroy them.

“In the end, you must uphold the law,” he said evenly.

All around the room, the stricken consciousness of what they had allowed to happen showed at last on every face. Sir Boris
sat with both hands clasped over his mouth, as if he wished to call back the words that had helped to condemn the Queen to
death.