ABBEY CWM HIR
ne of two new guards now posted outside of Guinevere’s quarters walked into the sitting room where she was waiting, along with Cadwyn and Sister Aranwen. Guinevere sat in a chair in the center of the room, while Cadwyn and Sister Aranwen were seated at a small table to her left. Each woman had a stack of parchment, several quill pens, and an inkpot in front of her. A third chair faced Guinevere, a few feet away.
Much argument had ensued over the seating arrangements, with Cadwyn wanting Sir Percival’s chair to be closer to the Queen, and Sister Aranwen insisting it had to be against the far wall to be proper. Guinevere had chosen a compromise location that would allow the Knight to tell his tale without having to raise his voice every time he spoke.
“Your Highness, Sir Percival is here for his audience,” the guard said formally as he bowed.
“Very well. It would be our pleasure to see him now,” Guinevere said with a small smile.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
A moment later, Sir Percival entered the room. He wore a clean, full-length white tabard bearing the crest of the Table, a fine black leather belt, and worn leather boots. The Knight bowed to Guinevere.
“My Queen,” he said. Then he turned to Cadwyn and Sister Aranwen and made a slightly less formal bow. “Ladies of the Court.”
Guinevere smiled, amused at the expression of pleasure on Cadwyn’s face. She gestured to the chair across from her.
“Sir Percival, please sit. We have much to talk about. And, as you can see, we are not at court. That … is no more, and I … am Queen in name only. So I would ask that you address me, Sister Aranwen, and Cadwyn less formally and that you speak today as freely as you would with, say … your friend, Capussa.”
Percival’s eyes met hers, and he spoke with quiet sincerity.
“For me, you are the Queen of all the Britons, and you shall always be thus, and your wish for less … formality in our conversation is my command. However,” Percival said hesitantly, “I would ask that you relieve me of the burden of speaking with you as freely as I would with my Numidian friend. That might be a bit … awkward.”
“I see,” Guinevere said with a small smile. “Then you are so relieved. Now, if you would be so kind, I, and my good friends, would hear of your travels, both the good and ill. Sister Aranwen and Cadwyn shall endeavor to keep an accurate record of everything that you say.”
Percival nodded, his eyes meeting hers for a moment. “Yes, my Queen.”
* * *
MERLIN AND AELRED sat at a table in a small stone room on the third floor of the abbey’s southernmost tower. Merlin glanced down at the plate of cheese, sausage, and dark brown loaf of bread on the table and decided to wait until their guest came before eating. He stood and walked over to a window on the north side of the room and looked across the green to the tower where he knew Guinevere was meeting with Sir Percival. After listening to Capussa’s telling of only a part of the Knight’s saga, he suspected the Queen was about to hear a story like no other.
Aelred looked across at the crackling fire warming the room, and then turned to Merlin. “You trust this Numidian?”
Merlin shook his head in mild exasperation. “You have asked me that before, Aelred, and the answer is the same—yes.”
“I am just being—”
“Certain, I know, and I also know that if I am in error, it may well cost all of our lives, but I am certain. This man has laid down his life for
Sir Percival many times, and he has traveled across half the world with him. He can be trusted, and he is a man, like us.”
Aelred harrumphed, “You mean like you, a man of secrets and a consummate schemer.”
“You have done your share of scheming, my friend,” Merlin said with a smile.
Aelred nodded his head in reluctant assent. “Yet, but of necessity, not choice. That’s the difference between us.”
Merlin shrugged. “If you wish. The Numidian is like us in that he sees the world as it is—a cruel and merciless place, where evil will thrive and the weak will be persecuted unless men of goodwill are prepared to do what is necessary to defeat it.”
“To be equally cruel and merciless, you mean,” Aelred said dryly.
Merlin nodded. “Sometimes, yes, but, to quote a wise man, the difference is we do it of ‘necessity, not choice,’” Merlin finished with a smile.
“Bah, I don’t know why I put up—”
A knock on the door interrupted what Merlin suspected was going to be another of Aelred’s frequent tirades.
“Come in,” Merlin called.
Capussa opened the door and walked into the room, his right hand resting on the pommel of the sword by his side. He gave a slight bow. “Noble sirs, to what do I owe the honor of this invitation?”
Merlin stood up and returned his bow. “The honor, my friend, is ours. May I introduce Aelred, the Pendragon’s Seneschal.”
Aelred stood up slowly and spoke in his usual irascible tone. “The Pendragon, bless his noble soul, has long passed, so I’m not Seneschal of very much, but I’m honored to meet Sir Percival’s comrade in arms, and, I am told, the man who planned the battle that laid low the barbarian, Ivarr the Red.”
Capussa nodded to Aelred. “And I am honored to meet the Seneschal of such a mighty king.”
“Please, sit,” Merlin said, gesturing to the available chair at the table, “and have a mug of Aelred’s mead. It is the finest in all the land.”
Capussa sat down, poured himself a mug of mead, and after taking a draught, turned to Aelred. “I tasted a thousand cups of mead, in a hundred cities and towns, and this is surely one of the finest, sir.”
A rare smile came to Aelred’s face. Merlin waited for Capussa to enjoy another drink before rolling a map out on the table.
“Good Sir, you and Sir Percival have managed to retake Londinium and to defeat the forces of Ivarr the Red, but that will not be the end of it.”
“Are you suggesting that more battles loom on the horizon?”
“Sadly, yes,” Merlin said.
“Well then, we have something to celebrate. For a while there, I thought I was going to be condemned to live the life of a country squire,” Capussa said with a smile.
Aelred struck the table with his fist. “That’s the spirit! This time we will crush Morgana and lay waste to—”
“Patience, Aelred,” Merlin interrupted. “Let us first find a way to survive until the next full moon. Now, here is what my spies tell me is afoot.” He pointed to a spot on the map. “After his defeat, Ivarr marched north to Morgana’s castle, where the two of them—”
Merlin paused when Capussa politely gestured for him to stop.
“Merlin the Wise, I do not know of this Morgana, and all I know of the Norse warrior, Ivarr the Red, is that Sir Percival unhorsed him on the bank of the River Wid. To defeat these enemies, I must know more of who they are and what they seek.”
Merlin nodded. “You are wise, my friend. Very well, let me tell you of the people we fight. Ivarr … his story is a simple one. He is a Norse warlord. He came here seeking power and wealth, and he will put to the sword anyone—man, woman, or child—who stands between him and those desires. That is not to say he will be a foe of no moment in the contest to come. To the contrary, Ivarr is a savage and cunning enemy in his own way, but his desires, they are simple.”
Merlin hesitated long enough to take a drink of mead, and then he continued.
Morgana, however, is the most formidable enemy I have ever faced. She is learned, ruthless, disciplined, patient, and merciless.”
“It seems,” Capussa mused, “you know this woman well.”
“Indeed, I do. She was the second most gifted student that I ever taught.”
Aelred choked on the mead he was swallowing. When he recovered, he pointed an accusing finger at Merlin. “You taught that foul witch? Now I know why she is such a human scourge!”
Capussa smiled and gestured for Merlin to continue.
“Yes, I bear much of the blame for this ‘scourge,’ as you say, but hear the whole story before you condemn me, old friend. In another life, I was a healer in the City of Constantine, and I also taught the healing arts to the students of the wealthy and powerful. One night, the imperial guards came to my door, and I was rushed to the bedside of the emperor. His body was wracked with a fever, and his physician—a fool—had nearly bled him white in an effort to save him. I was told that if I saved the emperor’s life, I would be accorded great power and status, but if he died, I would die a moment later.”
“Seems rather unfair,” Aelred said. “Why you, and not his own physician?”
“He’d already been killed, so they couldn’t kill him twice,” Merlin replied, “and yes, it was unfair, but the emperor … well, he was the emperor. Thanks be to almighty God, the fever afflicting him was one I had treated before with some success. So, I was able to cure him. From that day on, I was made the court physician, and I was also assigned to teach the emperor’s heir, Alexios, and the other children of the city’s most powerful nobles. It was in this role,” Merlin said with regret, “that I met Megaera Igaris—the woman you know as Morgana. She is a distant relative of the emperor, and her father served as the head of the palace guard.
“Alexios and Morgana were the most gifted students that I ever taught, but they were also very different. Alexios was a kind and honest young man. He loved learning for its own sake, and he truly aspired to be a man of wisdom. For Morgana, knowledge was just a means to an end—power.”
“Sounds like a typical Roman, always seeking power,” Aelred said in a slurred growl.
“Alas, good Seneschal, all men seek it in some measure or another, that is, excepting myself,” Capussa said and then drained his cup of mead.
“Indeed?” Aelred said skeptically. “And what do you seek?”
“Another cup of mead,” Capussa said, drawing laughs from the other two men.
Aelred refilled all of their cups, and the Numidian nodded toward Merlin. “Please, continue with your tale. I would know more of this woman.”
Merlin nodded. “Intrigue and the pursuit of power are obsessions at the imperial court, and Morgana not only loved the game, she played it with consummate skill, despite her youth.”
Merlin hesitated as a vivid picture of Morgana walking through the palace grounds with one of the emperor’s courtiers flashed through his mind. He remembered her courteous nod as they passed on that day. In that instant, he knew she was arranging his death. It was a just a matter of when. The old Roman took a draught of mead before he continued, trying to wash down the fear the memory had resurrected.
“When the emperor took a new wife, Eudokia, upon the death of Alexios’s mother, Morgana managed to become one of her closest friends and confidantes. A year later, Eudokia gave birth to a son, Leo, and Eudokia, at Morgana’s urging, attempted to persuade the emperor to name Leo as his successor instead of Alexios. The emperor declined to do so. Several months later, the emperor suddenly died. The day after his death, his brother, an ambitious and dissolute man, seized the imperial throne. A month later, he married Eudokia and named Leo as his heir.”
Capussa raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Merlin sighed. “The scheme was Morgana’s, and like all of her schemes, it was well planned and executed. All that remained was Alexios’s claim to the throne. That had to be eliminated, and so it was. The day after the wedding, Alexios was seized and blinded—that was the accepted, if barbaric, way of rendering an heir to the throne ineligible without killing him. Alas, the blinding was crudely done and the boy died three days later, in agony.”
There was a long silence.
“Since I knew that I was next on Eudokia and Morgana’s list, I planned my escape, but,” Merlin said, shaking his head with regret, “foolishly, I felt compelled to take revenge for the wrong done to the boy. I laced Eudokia’s and the new emperor’s meal with a potion that should have killed them both after a night of suffering, but I was only partly successful. Eudokia died, but the emperor did not. He’d drunk heavily before he supped and only ate a bite or two, so the effect of the poison was diluted. Still, he didn’t escape unharmed. His left arm and the left side of his face were paralyzed by the effect of the poison.”
“Well, some vengeance is better than none,” Aelred said with a sniff, “but I do wish you could have piped the three of them into hell for their heinous deed.”
Capussa laughed. “I am thankful we fight under the same banner, Seneschal. Were it otherwise, I suspect I would be denied both the pleasure of this fine mead and my life.”
Aelred joined in the Numidian’s laughter, but Merlin only smiled.
“I have now come to regret what I did,” Merlin said when the two other men fell silent, “for as is the way of things, it has begat far more pain and suffering than I could ever have imagined.”
“Bah. It was a good thing, I say,” Aelred scoffed.
“And so I thought at the time,” Merlin replied, “but as I say, much ill came of it. You see, the new emperor lashed out at those around him. He ordered Morgana, and many others, put to death for failing to protect Eudokia. Morgana evaded the death sentence by persuading the emperor that her father, the head of the palace guard, was my coconspirator in the killing. And so, he was put to death in her stead.”
“A noble wench, this Morgana,” Capussa said dryly.
“Well, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Her father was a vicious man of no scruples. I suspect his dying regret was that he’d failed to cast suspicion upon her, before she did upon him. Be that as it may, Morgana offered to hunt me down for the emperor and to bring him back my head.” He took a deep drink of his mead and then shook his head. “For the past decade, she has sought to make good on that promise.”
“This Morgana must be a woman of great wealth to pay for so many sellswords, for so long,” Capussa said.
Merlin nodded. “Her family was not without means, but most of the gold used to hire the Norsemen, Picts, and others during the war against the Pendragon was provided by the empire. The small cadre of sellswords that protect her castle are now paid from the silver she extracts from the royal mines—she seized them after the fall—although, I am told that most of their yield is now shipped to the emperor.”
Capussa stared at Merlin for a long moment before speaking, “So we face a woman who has sworn a blood oath to kill you and who will not be denied. This is not something you should spread about, my friend. There are those who would kill you and end the matter.”
A tired look came upon Merlin’s face. “If that would have saved Arthur, then I would have drunk a cup of poison many years ago and spared this land the maelstrom of violence that has descended upon it. But my death would not suffice. Once the emperor came to know of this country’s great mineral wealth, he would not let it go. He is once again at war with the king of Persia, and he needs every coin he can find to pay his armies.”
Capussa nodded and then tapped the map in front of him. “Now that I know something of who our enemies are, tell me what you know of their forces and what they mean to do with them. For I can tell you this, my friends—Sir Percival and I have not crossed half the world to die by the sword of a Norse pillager or by the knife of a Roman assassin.”