The Excalibur Murders (2 page)

"Gods have skulls?"

"I only said that was one of the legends. But the stone is shaped like one. I've wanted to get my hands on it for years. Sent knight after knight out questing for it. It could actually bring peace to Camelot."

"That," Merlin said emphatically, "would be a wonder on the order of Creation."

Arthur ignored him. "It might even reconcile my wife to the fact that she's my wife."

"Arthur." Merlin adopted the tone of a stern school-teacher talking to a dim student.

But Arthur was in too buoyant a mood to be scolded. "Yes, scholar?"

"I don't doubt Percival found some kind of stone, maybe even one carved into a skull. But it is not magical. Work, study, scholarship, patience, even a bit of love--those are the things that will civilize England and stop all this constant infighting. No stone, magic or otherwise, can do that. We have to put our faith in ourselves, not a lot of arcane claptrap."

"We'll just see, won't we?"

"I can't stand it when you turn smug." He added ironically, "Your Majesty."

"I know. That's why I do it. Merlin, indulge me in this. If it doesn't work, it doesn't. I'll be the first to admit it. But if the stone is real--just think of the possibilities."

"If pie cured leprosy . . ."

"You spend too much time inhaling book dust."

Merlin was about to tell the king that he himself ought to spend more time with books when the door opened. One of Arthur's squires, a tall young man with bright red hair named Borolet, looked in. "Excuse me, Majesty."

Before he could say anything else Nimue spoke up. "Ganelin! How are you?"

"I'm Borolet. Hello, Colin."

"Oh. Borolet, then. I haven't seen you in a while."

Borolet turned to the king. "You wanted me to remind you when the council meeting is set to start."

Arthur sprang to his feet. "Just so. I can't wait to tell everyone the news." He stepped toward the door.

"Arthur, don't." Merlin was frowning deeply. "Hold off. At least wait and see what Percival actually brings."

"He who hesitates is lost, scholar."

"Fools rush in, king."

For the first time Arthur seemed deflated. "You really think it might be a--a mistake?"

"There's a remote possibility of it."

The king took a deep breath. "I've already told Mark."

"Good heavens, Arthur. You know how he prattles. And you know how superstitious he is. He couldn't keep a secret like this to save his life."

"Oh--and I sent word to Morgan."

Merlin sighed and rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Morgan? Why on earth did you do that? Arthur, when will you get the hang of kingship? Power is about discretion. About keeping secrets, if you want to look at it that way."

"She is the high priestess, after all. She deals with the gods. Even though, as everyone knows, you are a powerful sorcerer."

"Stop it, Arthur."

"You are. Everyone says so. Any man as learned as you must have entered into a pact with the dark powers. It's common knowledge."

"It may be common but, Arthur, it is not knowledge."

"Look at these birds. They do as you tell them. No wonder people think you're a kind of enchanter."

"Because I've trained a few ravens? Be serious."

"You're a wizard. It's common knowledge."

He stiffened. "It is nonsense, not knowledge."

The king chuckled. "You shouldn't let yourself grow annoyed so easily. It takes all the fun out of it. Anyway, when the stone gets here, I want Morgan to conduct some kind of ceremony, consecrating it to Camelot or England or some such."

" 'Some such'?"

"She'll know the proper form. You know what I mean. It's an important relic. Its arrival here will be an event. Besides, we need something to liven this place up."

"Why not just watch the knights in the courtyard trying to slaughter each other?"

"Really, Merlin." Arthur sighed. "You're such a killjoy.

It's a good thing you're as smart as you are or you'd end up in a dungeon someplace, on principle." He put on a wide smile. "We'll talk later. Are you coming to council?"

"I'll be along."

"Good. I want you there. Mark will be there. I want to announce the news before he has the chance to gossip it all over the castle."

"Why isn't he off in Cornwall, refining tin for you? Or seducing every woman he can get his hands on?"

"He's here, Merlin. He's my chief military advisor, and tensions with the French are getting worse."

With that he rushed out of the room, leaving Merlin and Nimue to bow to the empty space where he'd been.

A moment later Borolet looked into the room again. "You shouldn't disagree with him that way, Merlin. He is the king, after all."

"And I'm his chief counselor. Disagreeing with him is my job. Evidently eavesdropping is yours."

Borolet turned to Colin. "My brother and I are going to do some wrestling later. Would you like to join us?"

Nimue stiffened slightly. "No thank you."

"Arthur was right. You're a couple of sticks-in-the-mud." He looked from one of them to the other, grinned a smart-ass grin then left, pulling the door shut loudly behind him.

Merlin sat, heavily. "You see what I'm up against? The Stone of Bran. What rubbish."

"When it gets here and he sees that it's just a stone . . ."

"He'll see what he wants to see. He's a king."

"Oh."

For an instant Merlin seemed to be lost in his thoughts. Then he looked squarely at Nimue. "You probably ought to go and wrestle with them. If you never exercise at all, they might start to get suspicious."

"Let them."

"Besides, I thought you told me once that you find him attractive."

"No, that was his brother Ganelin."

"They're twins. It comes to the same thing."

"To another man, perhaps."

"And another man is exactly what you are. Don't forget it."

"Yes, sir." She grinned impishly. "Are we going to council? "

"I am. You are staying here. I want you to memorize the first pages of
Oedipus Rex
."

"Sphinxes? Divine curses? That doesn't sound like the champion of reason you pretend to be."

"Take the scroll and go, will you? Leave me alone for a while. I need to think about this new development and decide how to deal with it."

"I can help."

"Colin, go and wrestle somebody."

"Nimue."

"Damn it, go and study." He tossed a quill pen playfully at her.

She dodged it and left. A moment later the wounded knight appeared. Merlin cleaned the wound, rubbed it with an anesthetic salve and bandaged it.

Camelot, like many another castle, had grown haphazardly for generations. It was not especially large by royal standards, but it sprawled in every direction, conforming to no architectural geometry. Wings and towers were added when and where they were needed, with no deference to a plan. Some corridors led nowhere; others wound back on themselves,confusing unsuspecting visitors. Still others rose or descended imperceptibly; a person not in the know might never realize he'd changed levels till it was too late to avoid complete disorientation. It had been built by King Pellenore, who was known to be mad.

Merlin spent ten minutes walking the halls alone, thinking. Not only would Arthur believe this foolishness about a magical stone, no one else would have the nerve to speak up and tell him how absurd he was being. For that matter, half of them would probably believe in the silly thing themselves.

From ahead of him he heard footsteps. After a moment Pellenore came into view. He was one of the petty kings Arthur had overcome on the road to power. He was a generation older than Merlin, short, a bit plump, bald but with a magnificent mustache. The loss of his lands had unhinged him, or so the story went. Merlin sometimes suspected he was crazy like a fox. But at any rate he had managed to survive untouched for years in a court notorious for intrigue. At least he was pleasant and likeable--and generally sober-- which was more than most of Arthur's minions were.

He came cantering down the hall toward Merlin like a small boy pretending to ride a horse. "Merlin. Good day. Have you seen it?"

"Hello, Pellenore. You're looking well. Seen what?"

"The dragon I'm chasing. It's green."

Merlin pretended to turn thoughtful. "Green? No, I don't think I've seen that one."

Pellenore narrowed his eyes. "It came this way. There are times when I wonder about you, Merlin."

"Really? I never wonder about you."

"A wizard like you might be the one responsible for all the monsters in this castle."

Merlin leaned close to him and whispered dramatically, "Just between us, I am."

"No!"

"I swear it."

"Well, this one's green."

"So you said."

"I think it's after Arthur."

"Who isn't?"

This seemed to come as a new thought. Pellenore scratched his head and started off down the corridor.

"Are you coming to council?" Merlin called after him.

Pellenore looked back over his shoulder and shrugged an exaggerated shrug. "Keep an eye out for my dragon, will you?"

"I will."

"You'll know it--it's green."

Then he was gone. Merlin decided to walk for a few more minutes; the day and the situation called for thought, and he might be the only one doing it.

By the time Merlin reached the Great Hall, many of the others were already there. Pellenore had gotten there ahead of him and was agitatedly going from one group of people to the next, warning them about dragons, griffins and rogue unicorns. Ganelin and Borolet were playing hosts for their king, who hadn't yet put in an appearance. Sagramore, a minor lord, was complaining loudly about the heavy burden of his yearly tribute to Arthur. And everyone, it seemed, was buzzing about the reason for the council.

The hall itself was at the heart of the castle keep, the most impregnable part of Camelot. It was built of the largest, heaviest stones, and it was always claimed that not even the largest battering ram could hope to penetrate them. This struck Merlin as problematic; the place was full of drafts.

The room was circular as was the great council table at its center. Though to be precise it was not a table but a series of connecting tables, each an arc. Arthur had adopted it so that everyone at council would feel equal with all the others, but of course, given the court's nature, squabbles erupted all the time anyway. It seated thirty-seven people; at larger council meetings some people had to stand or sit behind the others, and this caused fights as well.

Today the Great Hall was ablaze with torchlight; dozens of torches burned in sconces along the walls and in tall holders around the table. Drafts made them flicker and dance. A small band of musicians played military music off in a spot along the northeast wall. Servants passed through the hall with trays of fruit, cheese, bread. Others carried drinks--wine, beer, mead--for the lords and knights. And everyone seemed to be in a celebratory mood. The hall, it seemed to Merlin, had not seen such merry activity in a long time.

There were the petty kings, now vassals of Arthur, attended by their retinues. The most important of them was Mark of Cornwall, whose tin mines Arthur had taken by main force and who was now his chief military advisor. There was Sagramore from Kent, Bialich from Ireland and assorted others. And there were knights--Dinadan, Gawain, Petrilock, Bors and dozens more--most of them accompanied by their squires.

They never stopped bickering, jockeying for position in the court hierarchy, even starting minor wars among themselves. All but old Pellenore, who was the only one of them who had anything like a sense of humor about it all, squirrelly as he was. Merlin had seen the court of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, and courtiers there never ceased their jockeying and backstabbing, but at least they did it with a measure of subtlety. At Camelot, on the other hand, subtlety was all but unknown.

Everyone was drinking. Cups were huge; it wasn't hard to see most of the assembled nobles were already tipsy, not to say drunk.

Merlin had talked to Arthur time and again about this. No respectable court would try to conduct business this way, especially when there might be important decisions to be made. Camelot was gossiped about and laughed at all across Europe.

Arthur's response, as usual, was to call him a spoilsport. "They say the court of Alexander the Great was like this. You told me so yourself, when I was a boy and you were my tutor. Wine and beer everywhere. And Alexander conquered the world."

Merlin was sanguine. "Alexander didn't have Justinian and the Byzantines to deal with. Arthur, your court is an embarrassment."

"Nonsense."

Other times he tried a more direct approach. "Arthur, England is being held together with baling wire. Look at all the bickering, the feuds, the petty wars.You've unified the country, but it could come unraveled anytime. Alexander's empire splintered when he died. Letting these people get drunk every time they're together can only speed that here, too."

"Don't be such a pessimist, Merlin." The king clearly didn't want to hear this. "A unified England benefits everyone. It makes us all stronger, militarily, culturally, in so many ways. No one would be foolish enough to upset that. We are adults, here, after all."

"When have you ever known anyone to place the higher good above his own self-interest, Arthur?"

But the king wasn't to be moved. "It's only drinking, Merlin. We're only having fun. What's the point of being a king or even a knight if you can't have a little fun now and then?"

"You call self-destructiveness fun?"

"Merlin, let it go." And that was that. As often as Merlin had broached the subject Arthur ignored him.

At one side of the Great Hall, watching the others but neither dunking nor socializing with them, stood Britomart, the only female knight at Camelot. Her mere presence sent most of the men into shivers of anger and jealousy for several reasons, not least because she was a better knight than most of them. Merlin adored her.

He made his way through the throng and joined her. "Hello, Brit. It looks like a particularly big court today."