“TAKING Gwalchmai and Gaheris as hostages won’t keep Morgaine from attacking you again,” I said to Arthur for the third time. I had found him limping painfully around his pavilion, drinking too much, muttering too much, and accomplishing nothing.
Most of his army and client kings were camped on the plain south of Dun Edin. Arthur had planted his tent and his banner on the slopes of the tor to the east of the fortress crag. From here he could see everything. I’d heard that he spent hours sitting in front of his tent, brooding about the battle he had almost lost.
The tor had become known to one and all as Arthur’s Seat.
“L-lot is K-king of the Or-Orcades.” He swallowed deeply and regained control of his speech. “He c-commands the troops that f-ought my army. Taking his second son and M-Mor-gaine’s son by her first marriage will remind him most emphatically where his loyalty is supposed to lie,” Arthur replied through gritted teeth.
“They will still have Mordred,” I replied.
“An infant.” He shrugged away my words.
I didn’t like the waxy color of his skin, or the over-brightness in his eyes.
“Has anyone seen to your wound?” I asked, watching the nature of his limp. I worried about his stutter, too. He must be very upset about something to allow the hesitation back into his words. The Christian cross he wore about his neck shouldn’t have anything to do with it. The faeries had only taught him confidence and self-control, not ensorcelled him.
“The m-edics are all too b-usy with the troops.” He continued pacing, favoring his right leg. Blood stained his leggings just above his right knee.
“You need help. Take off those leggings and climb up on the table.” I swept a long map table clear of debris with a single sweep of my arm.
“No. I’ll not have you tend me.” He frowned at the maps and letters and meal remnants that now littered the carpet.
“Either I tend you or I take one of the chirurgeons away from the hospital tent.”
“Th-three days since the b-battle and the medics still labor over the wounded and dying.” He hung his head as if he alone was responsible for the carnage. He’d never put the blame where it belonged — in Morgaine’s lap. That was probably why he stuttered now: guilt.
“I can tend the wound as well as any of your battle-hardened sawbones. Maybe better. Take off the leggings and get atop that table while I fetch supplies.”
He hesitated.
“I’ve seen you naked before. Many times since we were small children. Do it, Curyll, or I’ll call in your entire medical staff to tend you.”
“The men need...”
“The men need a healthy general and Ardh Rhi. If the wound has started to rot, you’ll lose the leg. Britain will lose her Ardh Rhi. I’ll be back in two moments. No more. Be ready.”
I gave him five moments. The wound was painful enough to slow him down. When I returned with herbs and bandages and a needle and thread he sat atop the table, his long legs stretched out before him, his undergarment politely covering his mid-region.
“I w-washed and b-ound the wound as soon as I could. Your father taught me that long ago.”
“Good. You may have saved the leg. Have you washed and changed the bandage since?”
“Every d-day, morning and night.”
“Does it still bleed?” I could see that it did. The sword gash oozed blood and pus its full length from his knee along the outside thigh almost to his hip. Any movement at all opened the scabs and exposed tissue.
“Morgaine commands her husband,” I reminded him as I washed the wound once more, this time with a special mixture of herbs and wine that would cleanse deeper than just water on the surface. Then betony to help the tissue knit clean and even. “This will sting a bit. Morgaine’s youngest child, Mordred, is the only one of the four boys who concerns her. You must take the child hostage. Let the others go if you must, but Mordred is the only thing in this world that your sister cares for,” I said calmly, trying to divert his attention away from the wound.
“I have d-done many e-evil things in the name of securing p-peace for Britain, but I will not be so cr-uel as to take a baby hostage.” He took another gulp of wine and set his face to endure. “I wish your father were here, Wren. He’d know how to numb the pain while he worked.” The first unhesitating sentence he’d uttered.
“Where is The Merlin?” I asked, threading the finest needle in my kit with silk thread. Da hadn’t been in the hospital tent with the other chirurgeons when I fetched some of the supplies.
“N-no one h-has seen him s-since the earthquake.” He was back to stuttering again. Perhaps worry over my father interfered with his speech.
Arthur blanched as I pulled skin and muscle tight over bone with my sewing. I couldn’t manage a presentable garment sewn of cloth, but I knew how to make a fine seam of flesh.
I moved to stand in front of him, looking directly into his eyes. Magic couldn’t knit flesh. Herbs and the mundane needle and thread worked miracles on their own. I knew another mundane trick that seemed like a miracle.
“Look into my eyes, Curyll. Look deeply into my eyes. See the sacred pool in the glade. See the Lady slumbering in the depths. See the faeries dancing about. Look, look for them,” I chanted.
His attention latched onto something far away and long ago.
“Feel the warmth of the sun on your back. See the sunlight on water. It sparkles so brightly. You need to close your eyes. You need to rest. Let the warmth soothe you. Don’t fight the light. Ease the muscles in your back. Accept the warm light that lingers on your eyelids.”
He obeyed. Leaning back on his arms, letting his head loll loosely on his shoulders.
“See the pain in your wound. Don’t open your eyes. You can see it without opening your eyes. Look at the pain. Examine it closely.”
Eyes closed, he dropped his head as if seeing the wound with his usual sight organs.
“The pain wants to spread. You can’t let it go beyond the wound. You can’t let it possess you. Draw it back within the confines of the wound. Enclose it. Now grasp it with your hand.”
He laid his right hand over the wound, slowly clasping it into a fist as if he did indeed capture the living entity of the pain.
“Now lift the pain free of your body. Drop it to the floor.”
He lifted his still clenched fist and “looked” at it through his still closed eyes, examining it closely.
“Loosen your hold on the pain, Curyll. Fling it away from you and be free of it.”
He dropped his hand to the side of the table and opened his fist. A blissful expression crossed his face and he sighed contentedly.
“You can let go of the hesitation in your speech as well. You are a proven warrior and the Ardh Rhi. You needn’t be afraid to speak clearly and calmly.”
A smile twitched at his mouth.
I continued with my litany, keeping my voice even, still chanting rhythmically. “Curyll, you know I wouldn’t ask this of you if it weren’t important. You must take Mordred as hostage from Morgaine and Lot.”
“I may be under your spell to contain the pain, Wren, but I’m not gullible enough to let you use the spell to persuade me. Your father learned not to even try it a long time ago. I will not take Morgaine’s son into my court.”
“Then let me have the raising of him along with the others. Let me raise him with the same good sense as...”
“As my other bastards,” Arthur finished for me. “Yes, Wren, I know who sired Mordred. Morgaine told me after my wedding to Guinevere, when I gave the other children to you. Only one of the children in your care could possibly be mine, you know which one. Morgaine wanted me to know that Mordred would never come under my control, even if I acknowledged him. Which I can’t. No god, pagan or Christian, will countenance an incestuous Ardh Rhi. My client kings would renounce their loyalty to me in a moment.”
“But you didn’t know Morgaine was your sister — half sister — until after Uther had married her off to Lot.”
“Your father’s intervention was all that kept Uther from letting me marry her. Apparently The Merlin told him the truth of my birth and raising at that time. I was sent on a useless errand three days’ hard ride from Venta Belgarum. Morgaine was given to Lot in a very private ceremony and shipped to the Orcades before I returned.”
“Morgaine has been warped by her own bitterness. She was so bent on revenge against all of Britain that she lost control of the natural forces she called to her command. She used her son to prop open the doorway to the demon world. She will warp Mordred even further and ruin all of Britain in the process.”
“The answer is still no. I have the older three boys. That will have to be enough to keep Lot and Morgaine in the Orcades licking their wounds.”
o0o
When I had finished stitching Arthur’s wound, I gave him a draught that would make him sleep through the worst of the pain that would attack him within moments of finishing the stitching and bandaging.
Then I went searching for The Merlin. I found Nimuë instead.
“Why aren’t you in Camlann with the queen?” I asked without preamble.
“Why aren’t you playing nursemaid to Arthur’s bastards?” she replied. Her posture alarmed me. There was something strange about the way she hunched one shoulder and dropped the other, but at the same time thrust the lower shoulder forward. Did she have a spinal injury? Or had her perversions twisted her body as it twisted her soul.
“I search for my father.” I did my best to ignore her strange posture and my need to heal her. Then I remembered who she was and her sexual preferences with her own father.
“I also search for The Merlin. You needn’t bother. If he is able to call out, it is my name that will cross his lips, not yours,” she sneered.
“Do you know what happened during the battle?” I ignored her gibes and headed toward the slight rise facing the crag of Dun Edin. I’d seen Da there when Morgaine back-lashed his spell and he collapsed.
“I saw the witch on the palisades commanding all the forces of nature to do her bidding.” Nimuë kept close upon my heels.
“What happened after the earthquake?” I asked her without pausing in my march toward the battlefield. Strangely the great rent in the earth no longer existed. Either the land had healed itself or the crevice with fire shooting upward was an illusion born of magic, along with the tidal wave and the spiraling winds.
“I... I don’t know. The force of the quake knocked me to the ground. I passed out.” Nimuë looked beyond the horizon rather than at me.
“If you were here, you should have been supporting my father’s battle magic, not cowering in some other man’s bed.” Unkind. I didn’t care if I hurt my stepdaughter.
“Arthur wouldn’t let me on the battlefield.” The old arrogant sneer was back on her face. “He doesn’t believe my magic equal to The Merlin’s. But it is. I have studied hard these last two years. My power has surpassed yours, and your father’s!”
Doubtful. Power she certainly had. Control was a different matter. Power without control was a temper tantrum. Morgaine had just learned that lesson the hard way. Power with control could rule the world — if a magician desired such immense power after studying the true nature of magic with its balances and patterns. Druids studied an entire lifetime to maintain a grip on the powers they wielded. Morgaine had lost the delicate balance of dark and light, real and unreal, all for more power. She’d lost control of the demon that fed her power and nearly lost everything.
Nimuë would follow the same path. Unless Da’s guidance contained her voracious need for more. More power, more sex, more beauty. Carradoc’s daughter would never be satisfied.
“In my vision, The Merlin collapsed atop that rise.” I pointed to the crest of the hill where the dragon rampant battle banner still flew. A large state banner also flew atop the fortress of Dun Edin. Why hadn’t Arthur moved there once Lot and Morgaine were routed?
“I couldn’t linger long enough after the earthquake to see what happened here,” I continued. “I was needed elsewhere. What did Arthur, Lancelot, and Agravain do when Morgaine’s control was severed?”
“I told you I don’t know. I wasn’t here. I wish to all the gods ever named that I had defied Arthur and stood by The Merlin’s side.” A tear touched Nimuë’s eye and slid down her cheek. She loved Myrddin Emrys. Perhaps that love would keep her power controlled and sane. If my father lived long enough to teach her the essence and need for balance and patterns.
“I saw retreat after the earthquake,” I mused. “But the men must have surged forward again as soon as the rain and wind subsided. Morgaine’s troops were also routed. Someone followed them and took possession of Dun Edin.”
“Perhaps they turned and pursued without topping the rise again,” Nimuë suggested. For once we were joined on the same quest with the same motives, love for my father.
“If they took possession of the fortress, why hasn’t Arthur moved his headquarters there?” I pointed to the Long Hall and support buildings visible above the palisade.
“Morgaine and Lot are still there. They have another day to gather their forces and retreat to the North.”
“Arthur is far too generous.”
“He is a fool. Morgaine has a hold over him. I would give my soul to know what.”
I wasn’t about to tell her.
But Mordred wasn’t at Dun Edin. The baby was in the care of others, safe in the Orcades where the portal to the demon Netherworld stood. If Morgaine spoke of Mordred’s true sire now, her bitter words could be dismissed as the ravings of a defeated woman. Possibly she didn’t dare speak while Lot was strong and healthy and still able to beat her, or dismiss her as his wife. Morgaine needed the Orcades with its gateway to the Netherworld. She needed Lot, King of the Orcades. I doubted Lot’s warband would follow her into battle. They’d follow Lot to the death and beyond if necessary.
“Are there guards that will prevent us from entering the fortress?” I strode purposefully in that direction, not caring what obstacles lay in the way.
“Morgaine’s troops are still there. Arthur has treated her with honor, as befitting his sister.” Nimuë hastened to keep up with me. Was that relief I read in her face? She had quoted Morgaine as the authority on everything at one time. She had also reviled the princess in public.
The hair on the back of my neck bristled in warning. Nimuë had always worn two faces. Which one was real?
The half-grown wolfhound pup whined as she galloped across the field to catch up with me. She circled me warily, neck fur standing high and teeth bared. I trusted the dog’s awareness of danger.
“Arthur shows his sister too much honor considering what she tried to do. Morgaine has no honor, only a quest for more power,” I replied, stepping away from Nimuë. I needed to keep her at a distance.
My path put several cairns between us. Soldiers had piled rocks into commemorative towers at special places on be battlefield. Here a beloved commander fell to the enemy. There a duel was fought to a standstill with a worthy opponent. I’d heard of the custom and wondered that men wished to remember anything about the horrible slaughter that took place here. But if they didn’t honor the great moments, the nightmare hours would haunt them forever.
“Arthur is so caught up in his quest for honor and justice and law that he ignores reality. I told you he was a fool.” Nimuë kept pace with me. But she shied away from coming too close to the dog.
“Maybe he is a fool, maybe not. What is the one thing Morgaine could hold that would coerce the Ardh Rhi to do her bidding?” I asked the dog.
“The life of someone he loves.” Nimuë didn’t quite sneer, but her thoughts on Arthur’s motives were written quite plainly on her face.
“Queen Guinevere is safely in Camlann. Lord Ector and Lady Glynnis have retired to a villa near Deva. I have the children guarded well at Caer Noddfa. Lancelot, Cai, and Bedewyr are accounted for.” I’d made certain the Ardh Rhi’s closest friends had survived the battle. Many of the other companions had not fared so well. Carradoc had survived, unscathed and hale. I hadn’t bothered to seek him out.
“There is only one other person Arthur values so well as to bow to Morgaine’s demands,” I continued, increasing my pace.
“The Merlin,” Nimuë supplied the name.
“And Morgaine will not vacate Dun Edin while she holds Da. He must be a prisoner. He’s of no use to her dead.”
“How do I get him out?”
“I will get him out after I see the lay of the land and what chains she uses to hold him. She can’t have much magical strength left after the battle. And I know that nothing mundane would keep The Merlin prisoner unless he is incredibly ill.”