The King's Wizard (18 page)

“You may as well ask why those who know us well misbehave toward us,” Merlin said, frowning discouragingly at Kay.

“Because he’s a little wart,” Kay muttered. The older boy had little patience with Merlin’s lessons and showed it frequently.
His disinterest did not worry Merlin. Kay would not grow up to be the next king.

And Arthur would.

“Master Kay, if you are having such trouble with the lesson, I’ll ask you to copy it out on your slate-board now. Ten times,
please, Master Kay.”

The older boy glared rebelliously at Merlin before bending to his work with a sigh.

“And you, Master Arthur, may oblige me by translating the Golden Rule into Latin and writing it out in a fair hand in both
Latin and English. If you would.”

Arthur reached for the large Latin grammar without complaint.

It had been ten years since the boy’s birth, and in those years, King Uther had become ever more moody and withdrawn. Though
the king did not seem to mourn Igraine, he also had not married, as every king had a duty to do, to secure an heir. As Uther
retreated behind the walls of Pendragon Castle, rarely venturing outside, he left the business of running his kingdom more
and more to his lieutenants. Rumors began to spread across the countryside that Uther, disappointed in his wizard’s powers,
had turned to dabbling in magic of his own, summoning the devils and dark angels
to do his bidding through the satanic necromancy of the New Religion.

If the rumors were true, Merlin had seen little evidence that any demons of the New Religion answered Uther’s call. But the
fact remained that all dark sorcery was drawn from the same wellspring of anger and envy, and Merlin worried that Uther’s
meddling might be enough to draw Mab to him.

Did she still exist? Or had she faded away into nothingness just as she had always feared? Each year the New Religion gained
more of a hold over the minds and hearts of the people of Britain. Each year more of the old magic slipped away. When he had
been a boy, Merlin had spoken freely to the animals of field and forest. Now when he did, few of them answered him. And each
year the farmers worked a little harder to bring in their crops as the soil forgot more of the fertility magic that had once
belonged to it.

But though Merlin grieved for the magic that was gone, part of him felt it was for the best. Many of the Old Powers had been
meddlesome and cruel—the power of magic bred arrogance in even the gentlest heart—and Mankind was all the safer for not being
at their mercy. But was the security they had gained worth the wonders they had lost? It was hard, sometimes, to say.

Abruptly Merlin realized he’d been woolgathering. Kay and Arthur, their lessons completed, were exchanging kicks and pinches
beneath the table, hoping he wouldn’t see. Merlin cleared his throat meaningfully and the scuffling stopped.

“That’s enough for today. Why don’t you boys go
and play? You can run off some of that excess energy before dinner.”

Kay did not have to be told twice. He ran from the room, sandals clattering, whooping with delight at his freedom. Arthur
followed more slowly, but no less eagerly. He was only a boy and sometimes found his lessons very dull.

It would be good practice for him, Merlin thought. A good and conscientious king must often find the work of governing dull,
for it would not always be a matter of fighting wars and going on quests. Yet the goodness Merlin saw in Arthur encouraged
him to hold to his task, shaping a good king to rule over Britain.

Faintly, he could hear the boys yelling outside. Merlin sat down at the table, pushing aside the books and slates they had
left behind. From a pocket inside his robe Merlin withdrew a tightly-rolled scroll, bound with ribbon and sealed. The seal
bore an image of a shining Cup—the seal was that of Avalon Abbey, and it was a letter from Nimue.

“My dearest Merlin, I am always sad that I cannot write the words I know you long to hear from me. …”

She wrote to him often, to tell him of her days. They were much like his own, occupied with caring for others in the long
uneasy peace that Uther’s troubled reign had brought. Nimue spent her days in prayer and healing; Merlin spent his trying
to instill a moral sense into two young boys.

Sometimes he wondered which of the two of them had set themself the harder task.

* * *

And so the years passed. When Arthur was fifteen, Merlin moved back to his hut in Barnstable Forest so the boy could come
and visit him there. Kay no longer took any interest in their lessons, and spent all his days with his father and his father’s
knights, learning the ways of war. For it had been nearly eighteen years since the midwinter battle that had seen Vortigern
slain and Uther set in his place, and without an heir to the throne of England, everyone knew that there would be war when
King Uther died.

It was spring. Snow still remained in the shaded hollows of trees, and each morning silvered the fallen leaves with hoarfrost,
though the winds held a hint of warmth. Snowdrops, irises, and daffodils pushed up through the mulch of last autumn’s leaves,
covering the land in bright flowers.

Everyone knew that Merlin, the old hermit, lived here—though he was not all that old, and though some people remembered the
days when he had been a young man and a seer. The countryfolk knew, also, that Sir Hector’s younger boy, Arthur, visited Merlin
frequently—but Sir Hector was well-liked and Arthur charmed everyone he met, so no one minded where he rode, so long as it
was not through the crops.

For Merlin, these were quiet, peaceful years, during which he lived close to the land and its rhythms. There were only two
things that marred his complete contentment: the fact that Nimue still refused to leave Avalon, and his dreams.

He knew that they warned him of what was to come, or told him of things happening elsewhere in the
land, but Merlin did not like them. The news, these days, was never good.

Again and again, the visions showed him Uther, in a black crypt beneath the cathedral he’d had built for the New Religion,
praying to darker, older powers. Merlin did not know what Uther hoped to gain from these incantations, but in each dream the
king looked older, more haggard, more like his mad father Constant. When Merlin dragged himself out of these dreams, the little
forest cottage stank of blood for hours afterward. Blood for a king whose reign had begun in blood … and wizardry.

He had not dreamed last night. Still, when he awoke this morning Merlin knew that something very important had happened last
night while he slept. But what?

If it would not come to him, Merlin would seek it out. He filled a small stone bowl with water from the spring and set it
before himself, gazing intently into it.

Many things could be used to
scry
with: the flames of a candle, a polished crystal ball, a mirror. Merlin preferred the oldest and simplest of these aids to
seeing: a bowl of water. As he stared down into it, he focused all his will on being as the water was, empty and serene and
still. And as he gazed into the water, slowly it seemed to darken, until it seemed that he was gazing through a portal that
looked elsewhere.

Merlin saw the crypt that he’d seen so often in dreams. Almost he could hear the chanting of the monks at prayer, smell the
incense used in the Christian rite, feel the dampness of this hidden place beneath the high altar. As the vision sharpened,
he could see
Uther kneeling at the base of a massive cross carved from black stone, his lips moving as he conjured harm to his enemies.

But this time there was a dagger in the king’s hand, a dagger already wet with blood. As Merlin watched, knowing that what
he saw was already in the past, Uther began to weep painfully, and then stabbed himself through the heart.

Merlin recoiled, and the water in the bowl trembled, cutting off his sight of what had been. Still numb with what he had learned,
Merlin got to his feet and carried the bowl outside. He poured the water out upon the ground and then, almost as an afterthought,
broke the bowl. He didn’t think he could ever bring himself to eat his morning porridge from it again.

So Uther was dead. Merlin had known the day must come, but like all men, had hoped it would not come this soon. Arthur was
not yet seventeen. Though in many ways he was a fine young man, in some ways Arthur was a boy still. Was he ready to take
Excalibur and do what must be done? Or did Merlin expect too much of him?

He is the vessel of all my hopes. He has to be ready—and so must I
.

Briskly, Merlin made preparations to be away from the cottage for a long time. He made up some simple remedies to take with
him on the journey, and put out the food that would not keep for the forest creatures. He summoned Sir Rupert, and made sure
the fairy horse was saddled and ready to travel.

He must be ready to greet Arthur when he came.

* * *

Whooping, Arthur urged his bay gelding to even greater speed. Startled pheasants fled from beneath his charger’s hooves, and
crows called rudely after him from the trees.

The messenger had come to Sir Hector only a few hours before, bearing the unbelievable news that the King was dead. The old
knight had immediately begun making preparations to travel to Winchester, because no one knew who would be king after Uther,
and there was certain to be war. Of course, both Arthur and Kay had demanded to accompany him, but Sir Hector had said that
Arthur must stay behind with Hermesent, while Kay, only three years older, would get to see the sights and wonders of the
outside world.

Arthur had fretted over the unfairness of that, until he realized that he could at least bring the news to someone who had
no other way of knowing it: his old tutor, Merlin. He’d saddled Boukephalos, his fastest horse, and ridden the animal
ventre-à-terre
for the forest hut. His black cloak flowed out behind him, the fabric tugging at the two round silver brooches that held
it fixed to his ring-mail jerkin. The saffron tunic with gold embroidery that he wore beneath his armor was the finest one
he owned, saved for feast days and other special days—and this was certainly the most important day Arthur could remember.

As he sighted the hut, he could see Merlin was already standing outside it. Arthur pulled Boukephalos to a halt.

“Arthur, don’t charge around like that, the horses don’t like it,” Merlin said crossly. “And don’t get off. We’re leaving
right away.”

But Arthur was too excited to pay much attention to what Merlin was saying. “Merlin, have you heard the news? King Uther’s
dead.”

“Rupert,” Merlin said. A horse that Arthur had never seen before came trotting out from behind the hut. It was a fine-boned
grey, a princely steed, and Arthur wondered how his fusty old tutor had come by such a fine animal.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? The king’s dead,” Arthur repeated.

“I know,” Merlin said.

“Know? How could you know out here in the woods?” Arthur demanded, sure that Merlin was teasing him.

But it did not seem as if he was. “A little bird told me,” Merlin said. He swung into the saddle and began to ride away.

“Where are we going?” Arthur asked, following.

“To make you king.”

Of course Arthur did not believe him—who would believe such an outrageous claim, especially one who had grown to manhood as
the foster son of a small landholder in the shelter and protection of the Forest Sauvage?

“Merlin, tell me! How can I be king?” Arthur cried after him.

Merlin rode on without answering. He hadn’t realized how hard it would be to tell Arthur the truth about himself, for it would
involve telling him much of the truth about Merlin as well. The truth about Arthur’s father was the truth about the death
of Gorlois of Cornwall, the deception of Igraine, Merlin’s part in the
whole squalid plot. The ancient ghosts of his treachery had slept for many years. Telling the truth to Arthur about his parentage
would reawaken them, and Merlin found he dreaded the very real possibility of forfeiting Arthur’s good opinion of him. Somehow
Merlin felt that if he disappointed Arthur it would signal an end to all his attempts to choose the good over the expedient.

“Merlin!” Arthur called again.

“Because you were born to it,” Merlin answered shortly.

They rode south, along the bank of a rushing river. The day was bright and the sun shone, but for all the attention Merlin
paid to his surroundings, the two of them could have been riding through the densest fog. The hopes he had cherished for years
were about to become reality—or be destroyed forever. And if Arthur failed, Merlin did not think he had the strength to go
on with his fight. Mab would win. And victory or defeat lay in the unknowing hands of one slender golden boy.

Arthur.

“I’ve no royal blood in me!
Merlin!
”

It had been nearly two decades since Merlin had given the sword Excalibur into the keeping of the Old Man of the Mountain,
and in that time its legend had proliferated. Over the years, a village had grown up around the stone, filled with tradesmen
and craftsmen and merchants all attracted by the endless stream of knights and princes who came from near and far, each one
hoping it would be
he
who was fated to draw the
sword from the stone and become the next ruler of Britain.

Excalibur Village was filled with all the excitement of a market fair. Vendors selling meat pies, gingerbread, tankards of
ale, and small knots of tinsel ribbon that one could buy to prove he’d been here and at least seen the magic sword moved through
the crowd of Britons and Saxons who had come to watch the latest attempts to draw Excalibur from the rock. Now that Uther
was dead, the crowds—and the number of contenders—were larger than ever.

“You try, Father,” Kay said, draining the cup of ale he had just purchased and handing it back to the ale-seller.

Sir Hector shook his head. They had stopped here on their way to Winchester. Sir Hector hoped for a few last moments of peace
before joining the council of nobles, and Kay had wanted to see the sword.