The Excalibur Murders (33 page)

"You've said that before. Let me look at that wound. Can you make it up the steps to my tower? I have a salve that will help, and bandages."

"It isn't bad. A lot of blood but not much pain." He took a deep breath and looked into Merlin's eyes. "I'm the king. Why can't things be as I want them to be?"

"Perhaps because kings are only human beings with circles of metal on their heads."

Arthur finally let himself relax. All the energy seemed to leave him, and he slumped. "Nothing that glib and cynical could be true."

"Do you want me to lecture you on the nature of truth?"

"For God's sake, Merlin, no."

"Then come with me and let me see to your arm."

TEN

KING AND COUNSELOR

Merlin had slept late this morning. After Mark was arrested, Arthur had ordered even more feasting than usual for the rest of the Midwinter Court, and Merlin, in a jubilant mood, had quite uncharacteristically drunk two cups of wine--not much by Camelot's standards, but more than he was used to.

So he woke to find Nimue standing over him, shaking him. "It's nearly noon. Don't you think you should get up?"

"My head is going to explode. Go away and leave me to die."

"No one can find the king."

"Arthur?"

"He's the only one we have."

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Blast whatever demon first fermented wine." He looked at her suspiciously. "Why aren't you hungover?"

"I only had one goblet of hock. I know my limits." She put on her best sarcastic grin. "I live a life ruled by reason."

"Be quiet." Roc and the other ravens were scratching for food on the stone floor. "Go and get them some bread crumbs or something, will you?"

"Yes, sir."

She started to go.

"Wait. You said Arthur is missing."

"Yes. We've looked everywhere. No one can find him at all."

"I can't tell you how much I hate court life."

"Do you have any idea where he might be, Merlin?"

"I think I might. I'll have to go and see."

"I'd brace myself if I were you." She reached for the door.

"Stop. What are you talking about?"

"Your reputation. Bye, now."

"Stop. Damn it, who taught you to be so smug and sarcastic? "

She stared at him. "Heavens, I have no idea."

"What are you talking about? What about my reputation? "

"Your reputation as a wizard. After last night, people are more convinced than ever that you have mystical powers. Everyone's saying so."

"That isn't possible, Nimue. They saw that the living corpse was really an actor. I demonstrated the foolishness of believing in superstitious nonsense. It was Mark's downfall. "

"You also sawed a woman in half and reassembled her, remember?"

"A conjurer's trick, no more." He stood up and stretched. "Wine never used to make me stiff and sore. It must be something Mark's vintners did."

"It couldn't possibly be old age encroaching, could it?"

"Haven't you ruined my day enough already? If you keep needling me, I may saw you in half for real."

"I'll see you later, wizard."

"Wait. Are they really saying that about me?"

She nodded.

"Damn. Do you . . . do you still want to study with me, then?"

"Of course I do. You're the only one I know who's more disagreeable than myself. Besides, I've told you a dozen times, I like being Colin. Do you still want me for a student? "

"Yes, naturally."

"I guess I'll stick around then. Try not to limp too badly, will you?"

Before he could say anything she was out the door.

Eight inches of snow blanketed the countryside. But thankfully it had stopped falling. Yet there was an icy chill and a bitter wind. In moments when the clouds parted and sunshine broke through it was possible to see ice crystals swirling in the air.

Arthur stood in the snow at the burial ground, perfectly still, staring at the graves of Anna and the twins. In the whole landscape as far as he could see, there was no movement. Then a field mouse scampered across the surface of the snow, and an owl swooped down from a nearby tree, fell on it and killed it. Its blood stained the snow. The bird took it and flapped away.

Merlin came up behind the king, leaning heavily on his cane. Arthur heard his footsteps crunching in the snow. "Merlin. I didn't know you came here."

"I don't. I've been looking for you. So has everyone. You should let people know where you will be."

"Is something wrong? Something else?"

"No, of course not. But you are the king, after all. People grow uneasy when you can't be found. We've been looking everywhere. Some people are quite certain you've disappeared into another of those damn hidden passages of Pellenore's. At least it has distracted them from chattering about my supposed magical powers. I seem to be the only one who thought to look here."

"Clever man. You know me. No one else does."

Merlin shrugged. "Isn't it my job?"

"Is that all? Is that the only reason? Don't be glib. Please. I need a little quiet support. So they all think you're a genuine wizard now."

"I don't understand it. My fraud was so obvious. It was supposed to accomplish two things--to entrap Mark and to show the rest of them how foolish superstitious belief is."

"My friend the magician."

"I've taught you better than that. Kings don't have friends, only courtiers."

"Your cynicism is never quite convincing, Merlin. Why is that?"

Uncomfortable with this line of talk, Merlin switched subjects. "The actors have left. There is a festival in Bath they hope to make."

"You paid them?"

"Quite generously. They put a great deal on the line for us."

"Yes."

"As they were leaving, the boy Watson threw his arms around me and said, 'You are the best not-a-wizard I've ever known.' I didn't know how to take it. Was he being sarcastic, do you think?"

"With his arms around you? No, Merlin, sarcasm is your department. It's so natural to you, you become puzzled when there is none."

"Everything human is a puzzle, Arthur. At least he knows sham when he sees it. Everyone else has convinced themselves I'm a powerful sorcerer." For an awkward moment he fell silent, then he said, "Mark is dead."

Quietly the king responded, "Oh."

"You don't sound surprised."

"My kingdom is the kingdom of death. Haven't you noticed? "

"Everyplace human is the kingdom of death. England is no place special."

Arthur glanced at him then turned his gaze back to his sons' graves. He and Merlin fell into a long silence. At length, the king said, "You have such a dark view of mankind. I don't think I envy it."

"The result of knowing too many people. I sometimes think it was a mistake to spend all those years traveling the world." He put on a tight smile. "But I'm sure it has made me a better minister for you. I would be doing you a disservice if I told you people are all to be trusted."

"Tell me what happened to Mark."

Merlin bent down and ran his fingers through the top of a snowdrift. "This is half ice."

"I know it. Did he commit suicide?"

"Fall on his sword like a good Roman? No, nothing so noble. I had been interrogating him. Why did he do it? What impulse could have moved him to do such awful things? He said he wanted his kingdom back--and more. He wanted England."

"I wish he had taken it."

"Stop it, Arthur. You'd be dead now. Executed. He said he had been trying to foment a rebellion but no one would support him. They all had their own agendas. Morgan told him she hoped you would make Mordred your heir."

Faintly, Arthur registered surprise. "There was never any chance of that. The boy has good in him, I suppose, but he's no king. Whatever was good has been curdled by his mother, or would have been eventually."

"And Guenevere was plotting her own insurrection with the help of her father. She would never agree to support Mark in his bid for kingship."

"Ah. So we can count on my wife's mad self-interest."

A gentle wind began to blow. Merlin glanced upward and saw that dark clouds were building.

Another mouse scurried across the snow, this one unmolested by predators. Arthur watched it, pleased in a minor way. "Killing two innocent boys was a blow to my prestige, in his mind?"

"Evidently."

"My poor sons. And their poor mother. But how did he find out they were mine?"

"You won't like it."

"Tell me."

Merlin inhaled deeply. "You told him yourself."

"I never did any such thing."

"One night when you'd had too much to drink, you burbled it to him. Told him what fine sons they were and how they would make splendid heirs."

"Oh." Softly he repeated, "Oh. Good God. I killed them."

"No, Arthur. You did no such thing. It was Mark."

"I sealed their fate."

"When Mark went to steal the stone, Borolet was there, so Mark disposed of the witness to his crime and his rival to the throne in one stroke. And when Ganelin began to guess that he was the killer . . . that only gave him one more reason to eliminate the boy."

"All for a chunk of crystal."

"For a kingdom, Arthur. After all, you killed to get where you are."

"Those were wars, not a knife in the dark."

"Even so."

"I was hoping you would tell me something to brighten my mood."

"I'm sorry, Arthur."

"Tell me about Mark's death." The king had been avoiding the subject for days. "What happened?"

Merlin brushed the snow from a nearby grave marker and sat on it. "I had been questioning him all morning. He was exhausted and becoming less responsive. I decided to get myself something to eat and to send him something, hoping that a break and a hot meal would make him more cooperative. So I went to the refectory where, naturally enough, everyone plied me with questions about him. A few of the knights were upset that he had been arrested."

"He is a murderer. And he tried to kill again--in front of an audience, no less. They'll realize that imprisoning him was the only possibility when they've had time to think."

"Knights--not exactly known for thoughtfulness, are they?"

"Go on with the story and stop trying to get a rise out of me."

"When I went back to his cell to carry on the interrogation, he was missing. I realized at once that he must have found one of Pellenore's secret passages. In fact the entrance to one of them was open a few inches. I called for one of the guards, we took torches and we swung it wide open and went in.

"But it was a blind alley. Ten yards in front of us we saw Mark, lit by his own torch, clawing at the wall frantically, trying to find the way to open it. 'Mark,' I told him, 'it's no use. Only Pellenore knows these corridors.'

"He turned on us with a near-savage snarl. 'You can't keep me here. I am King Mark of Cornwall, not a common criminal.'

"Saying nothing, I stared at him.

" 'I will not be held!' he bellowed. And he came running at me, snarling. My guard drew his sword, and Mark hesitated but kept coming.

"Suddenly, a door hidden in the wall sprung open. Pellenore leaped out, sword in hand, and struck Mark down. His arm and his head were nearly severed. Pellenore turned to us, wide-eyed, and said, 'The beasts. They are one fewer now.'

"Then he stepped back into the wall and it closed. We rushed to the spot, but there was absolutely no sign of the smallest crack, even. An awful gurgling sound came from Mark, the kind you must have heard on the battlefield often enough, and he was dead." He looked at Arthur and spread his hands apart, letting the empty air between them express what he was feeling.

Arthur remained perfectly still for a long moment. "And so justice has been done."

"Justice? You call death at the hands of a madman justice? "

"Mark would happily have let Pellenore be blamed for his crimes. So it is a kind of justice, I suppose. The evil has been rooted out. By you, Merlin. And I owe you a great deal. England can return to normal now, to harmony and the kind of society I want. There will be no more crime, except perhaps of the common, obvious sort. It is over."

Slowly, Merlin stood up. The cold stone had made his back stiff. "Do you really believe that?"

"I have to. I am the king. England is mine."

There was more wind, stiffer than before, and snow started falling. Merlin stretched, trying to work the stiffness out of his back. "Do you ever read Sappho, Arthur?"

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"No, it was a foolish question. But she was a wonderful poet with a stark, dark vision. She once observed that the gods believe death to be the greatest evil."

"She had a point."

"But she added that the only reason they think death evil is because they themselves don't die."

"There are times, wizard, when I worry about you. Let's get back to the castle. I'm cold."

Merlin hooked his arm through Arthur's, and the two men walked slowly in the direction of Camelot. Merlin said softly, "Now, Your Majesty, about that school for the squires and the pages . . ."