Merlin's Shadow (21 page)

After a short while, she sat up, saw him and then faced away. “You're here.”

“We're leaving tonight. All of us.”

“Not me.”

“Yes. All of us. We're going to take Arthur and head south.”

“I don't know if I have the strength,” she said, a hint of a tremble to her voice.

“I brought you something.”

“I don't need it.”

“It's sweet … it might give you strength.” He held the biscuit out.

“Eat it yourself.”

“It'll help.”

“That's not what I need.”

Merlin looked down. “What do you want, then? I'll see if I can get it.”

She turned then, and her reply was cold. “I want some beef, braised and roasted in carrot gravy and served in a silver chalice. A warm blanket and a fine dress. Servants to wait upon my every wish. A comb for clean hair and oil for my unblemished skin.”

Merlin felt his soul begin to rip apart.

She sat in silence. When he glanced up, there were tears streaming down her face.

“I'm sorry,” was all he could say.

“No, you're not.”

“I am,” he choked out. “You've lost all those things, and I can't promise them. We might not make it tonight.”

She bared her teeth. “I don't want those things, and what I do want you won't give me.”

He broke the biscuit in his hand, not knowing what to say. He wanted to whip it against the wall, but he cradled it in his trembling palm instead. “Let me know what it is … I'll give it.”

“You.”

B
ack in his hut, Merlin's muscles ached to the point that he had trouble resting. His calf hurt in particular. Not that a bed in the dirt with a rumpled-up ragged tunic for a pillow helped any. Most of all, his heart hurt … for Natalenya. What was he to do? She needed him, but he had vowed to free her from her promise.

So he got up and sat in the shadow of the hut's doorway, the others snoring around him, and watched for the Picts to settle down for the night. But his wait stretched on because they danced for hours like spinning phantoms with their ash ethereal bodies and black masks. And they chanted, screamed, and beat the ground with spears while Scafta pranced around the Samhain bonfire like a demon-horse, calling on their gods for protection and for the death of enemies.

By the time the villagers retired and slunk off into the darkness, the stars had whirled far from where they had appeared at sunset,
and though it worried Merlin that dawn wasn't far off, he breathed a sigh of relief when the five guards turned in and only two took their place.

And these two, who were all that prevented their escape, spent some time rekindling the fire that Merlin had lit earlier and settled down on the large rocks that surrounded the fire. This was exactly what Merlin had hoped for, and he had positioned the fire so that the guards would have their back to Merlin's hut.

It was time.

He alerted Colvarth and the snoring, snuffle-mouthed Garth so they could keep watch. He then woke Caygek, Peredur, and Bedwir, and they stripped off all their extra, ragged clothing and snaked them through the chains as best they could to keep them from clinking.

Merlin directed them to leave the hut in absolute silence. Once outside, he and Bedwir stretched their chain taut between them to remove all chance of noise, and Peredur and Caygek did the same. They then approached the guards with muted footsteps. Slowly. Crouching. Pausing. Walking.

Ahead, one of the guards finished chewing on a chunk of meat and threw the bone behind him. It landed a few paces from Merlin with a dull thud — giving him an idea. He bent down, picked up two rocks with his free hand, and then directed them forward.

When they got to within lunging distance of the guards, Merlin threw the two stones over their heads and into the darkness. The guards grabbed their spears, and, blinded by the campfire, stood to peer toward the sound.

Merlin made eye contact with Bedwir, Caygek, and then Peredur. Nodding twice, they lunged forward. Merlin and Bedwir wrapped their chain around the nearest guard's neck and throttled him so tightly that only a muffled gasp came out. Caygek and Peredur did the same with their guard, and soon, both were dead.

Not wanting to see the man's face, Merlin closed his eyes as he let the body fall to the ground. And even though he picked up the
spears and started to rush back to get the others and escape, Caygek halted him.

Carefully, the druid and Peredur sat the bodies upright by leaning them against the large rocks to make them look as natural as possible. Then Caygek took some other rocks and used them to brace up their heads.

As a final touch, he threw a few more logs on the fire, and then they stole off into the darkness to get Garth and the bard, who had both been watching with wide eyes. From there, it was a short walk to Natalenya's hut, where she was waiting with a small bundle of cloth.

“Leave it,” Merlin said.

She shook her head. “It's for Arthur. We might need to change him still.”

Merlin led them out to the field, and to the tree where the hammer lay hidden. He had no trouble finding it in the dark, for the trunk was much thicker than its companions. The hammer was still there, and its heft felt like a promise of freedom in Merlin's hands. From there, he led theme into the woods a good distance, and with as little noise as possible, he unbent the pin that kept Caygek and Peredur's collars chained together, and then the pin that held him and Bedwir's.

Natalenya, of all them, did not have a slave collar because no one cared whether she lived or died, whether she stayed or went.

Turning to Garth, he was surprised to find the boy already free and his slave collar laying on the ground. “It never fit anyway,” he said with a mischevious grin.

But to free Colvarth, he still had to unbend the pin, and he did so with Garth's help. And just as Merlin lifted the slave collar off of the bard's shoulders, the man let out a stifled screech.

“Shah!” Bedwir said.

“But my harp! In my excitement, I forgot my harp!”

Merlin thought for a moment before answering. “We'll have to leave it. We have no choice.”

“You do not understand … it is the very Harp of Britain!”

“Arthur's more important!”

“But I —”

Merlin waved him to silence. Now for the most dangerous part of their escape: sneaking into the village, finding Necton's hut, and stealing Arthur back. All without being discovered.

Merlin tilted his spear down and knelt behind a bush at the very edge of the village. Garth joined him, with Bedwir staying in the shadows just in case something went wrong.

Now where had he seen Arthur playing? He tried to remember the shape of Necton's hut … was it slightly oblong compared to the others? No! It was taller to accommodate the man's height. So he looked out over the village, but everything looked different at night. Many of the doorways were covered by a large flap of leather, but some were not, and the nearest one's black interior gaped at him like the frowning mouth of a giant, eyeless skull.

Merlin held his breath. All it would take was one hound to start baying and they were dead. He pointed around one side of the nearest hut, crept out with Garth, and then began walking quietly, yet as normal as he could, trying to pose as one of the villagers.

Garth tumbled over a tripod holding two chains attached to a spit, but Merlin caught him. The spit still had a roasted bird on it, half eaten already, and it swayed dangerously toward the bars. Garth grabbed it, steadied it, and pulled off a wing.

“No,” Merlin whispered.

Garth shook his head and held the wing behind his back.

Merlin huffed but chose to ignore it. Up ahead was Necton's hut, a little to the left. He led Garth around to approach it from the side. Now for the trickiest thing he had ever done. If it was only one man inside, he might rush in, spear him, and hope for the best — but with Necton and his wife both there, surely someone would yell and they'd be caught.

No … Merlin had to
sneak
inside and steal Arthur without them knowing.

Just then, behind Garth, the leather flap of a hut's door was pushed aside.

A little boy stepped out, and, ignoring them in his bleary-eyed state, ran over to a rock and relieved himself. The child was older than Arthur, but not by much if you counted his size.

Garth tapped Merlin on the shoulder.

“What?”

“Watch …”

Garth walked over to the boy and offered him the wing, holding the roasted meat right under the boy's nose and whispering something in Pictish. The boy took the wing, a confused look on his face as he nibbled at the greasy skin. Garth then took the boy's other hand and walked him toward Necton's hut. He opened the hut's flap as quietly as he could, and stepped inside with the boy.

Merlin crouched down in the shadow of the hut. This wasn't how he'd planned it — Merlin was supposed to go inside while Garth kept watch. His heart hammered against his ribs, and he felt his arms pulse with fire. In contrast, the spear felt cold in his hands. Time, measured in heartbeats, throbbed painfully slow.

A noise. Scuffing feet. Garth appeared before him holding a sleeping Arthur, who wore nothing but a deerskin loin cloth. He was sucking his thumb as he snuggled into Garth's tunic.

Merlin dared a breath.

They fled, yet Merlin's legs felt made of mud. Finally to the woods, where Bedwir joined them as they made a hasty and silent retreat to where the others hid. Merlin told the story, and everyone hugged Garth, including Natalenya.

Southward Merlin led them, following the lake shore until they neared the edge of the tribe's lands, marked by a line of large, stone monuments adorned with mocking skulls.

But something pricked Merlin's ears, tuned as they were by his
years of blindness. He halted the party next to some bushes and they ducked down.

Ahead, a shadow stepped out from one of the stones and moved stealthily toward them.

Merlin tensed.

Footfalls. A whistling call. Murmurs. Shouting.

He looked between the branches and spied ash-grimed warriors running toward them.

While having his four druidow take turns obeying Tregeagle's demands to keep watch on the weaver's home, Mórganthu passed his time spying, calling up scenes through the orb. Among many other things, he examined the state of Erin, his homeland, including its king, named Ailill Molt, that ruffian of a Christian with hair growing out of his ears. He stood among the king's monkish counselors, who traipsed about in their rotten robes. Mórganthu wished for the fang then, that he might cause as much pain to the king as possible, for the memory burned in Mórganthu's mind of the killing of the Brotherhood of True Seers, and of their heads upon poles. After Pádraig had given over the church to be ruled by that simpleton of a singer, Benignus, the king had declared war upon the druidow who would not convert. Mórganthu yearned for both men's death upon the stone at the hill of Tara, so that the isle might be given a new birth.

He also saw the Saxenow hordes pulling their boats up on the shores of Britain. Mórganthu thought deeply about these strangers for many weeks. How might they be used to further his purposes in Britain? No, they did not honor the druidow, but neither did they worship the Christian god. Many a night Mórganthu sought to study the leader of these beasts, a young man named Hengist, with a horse-hide cloak falling across his sinewy arms. He was deadly with a blade, and there were none his equal among the many skirmishes with the Britons. Vortigern, the new High King, surely had a mess,
for while the Saxenow camp grew larger, Vortigern's grew smaller as some of the men stole back to their homes after hearing the news of Uther's death.

Mórganthu prayed to the spirits of the nine sacred woods that this wouldn't slow Vortigern's arrival in Bosventor.

Inis Môn, the druidow's blessed isle off the northwest coast of Kembry, was one of Mórganthu's favorite spots to view. Its brown shores rose up to green grassy hills and the burned trees surrounding the broken stone circles — all desecrated by the Romans. How he wished to replant its sacred groves and renew its sacrifices conducted there from beyond remembrance. The Stone had given him a vision of the renewal of the sacred isle, but so far, it had amounted to nothing. How could the Stone have been wrong?

He spied out the druidow in distant lands. Yes, these were the places he remembered from his journeys as a youth. His father took him and his older brother to visit Brithanvy, Gaul, and Kallicia for a time. But these places brought him no peace, for he saw these druidow suffering as well in poverty and neglect. The Christians were everywhere, rotting the golden apple of his comrades' world like insatiable worms.

And, of course, he looked in upon Ganieda and the wicked Uther girls to make sure they were still present in the weaver's house.

But it was tedious, for they stayed indoors:

Cooking soup, roasting fowl, and baking bread.

Spinning yarn, dunking them into dyes, and learning to weave.

Playing games with colored shells, hopping up and down — giggling — all the things little girls do that Mórganthu could not comprehend.

But despite these outward things, he could tell Ganieda was lonely and unhappy. She often sat in her room weeping and demanding that her curious visitors leave her alone. Four times did Mórganthu see her hit and scream at one of the other girls, and each time she had to be restrained by the mother.

But worst of all were the times when a monk would come and ply
his witchery upon Ganieda. Mórganthu recognized him as Dybris, the monk he had caught trying to free the other monks on the night of Beltayne, the night the druidow would have risen to power if not for Merlin and that impudent, parchment drooling, bilious fool. And this man had the stupidity to lead the family in worship of their strange god, and Ganieda had to sit through it! And what bothered Mórganthu the most was that his granddaughter actually seemed to be considering this god, for she would sit raptly as the foolish brown-headed monk droned on from his scroll.

Mórganthu's temples throbbed, and his bowels ached to view such profanity. He wanted to sickle out the man's liver and feed it to Ganieda's wolf, wherever the fanged thing was hiding.

And that insipid, sluggish Vortigern couldn't come soon enough to end this mockery.

Among all the people, places, and things Mórganthu requested to see, the orb would sometimes show him things unbidden. The most prominent of all was a white-bearded king, old beyond most men's reckoning. He sat upon a wooden throne inlaid with sapphires and held in his hand a rod carved with the severed heads of boars, deer, wolves, and hawks — and at the very top, the head of a dragon, its pearl-like eyes shining back at Mórganthu through the orb.

The king had a pock-marked, age-spotted nose and dry lips that were pinched in a scowl. He wore a dusty robe of badger fur over a thin, red tunic made of a strange, shiny cloth embroidered with bone-white thread. At the man's feet, upon a dais covered with gold, sat a misshapen lump of a woman in a shabby, jester-like outfit. Her nose was crooked, and she drooled from broken teeth. Her back was horribly bent and twisted, and it was a marvel she could walk and fetch the king's dainties of cheese, fruits, and succulent meats from a large feasting table. Many warriors lounged around, lifting high their silver bowls.

One of these warriors stood and addressed the king — a young man of particular note because, to Mórganthu's shock, he resembled Merlin — except for the scars, of course. He had dark, wavy hair over
a handsome nose and a strong jaw. He wore a tunic similar to the old king's, but his had been dyed black on his left half and red on the right. And he was also strong, like Merlin, easily able to wield the shining blade that hung from his waist. This blade was broader than most British blades, with a shorter handle, and it reminded Mórganthu of a sword he'd seen in the far north — a Lochlan blade brought from a distant land across the northeastern sea.