Knight Life (46 page)

    
Modred stood there for a moment, unable to believe his good fortune. “You
did
drink the poison. You are dying!” He laughed Morgan's laugh and stalked the fallen king. “This is turning into a good day after all. So which kills you first, Arthur? The blade or the blood? Your choice?”

    
And Arthur suddenly hurled himself backward, slamming into Modred. He yanked off Modred's helmet, tossed it aside, and slammed a fist into Modred's sneering face. Then, with all his strength, he shoved Modred back. Turning, with a last, desperate effort, he lunged toward Excalibur. As he did so, he yanked off his own helmet.

    
Modred was coming right after him, whirling his blade so fast that it could barely be seen. It sounded like a swarm of hornets cutting through the air. Arthur barely had the strength to raise Excalibur, turned, saw Modred advancing, and as an act of desperate calculation, threw his helmet.

    
It bounced, rolled, and skidded right under Modred's feet. Modred tripped over it, stumbled forward . . .

    
. . . and fell onto Excalibur's upraised blade.

    
And the crowd knew. There was a moment of stunned silence as people tried to tell themselves that it was some sort of amazing special effect. That what they were seeing was all part of the show. Some actually even applauded, thinking they were witnessing a truly impressive stunt and then, with slow horror it began to sink in on them.
Then there was confused babbling, and screams, and shouts that someone should do something, do anything.

    
Excalibur glowed ever so briefly, as if a long hunger had been sated, and Modred and Arthur were practically nose-to-nose as Modred's body slid down the length of the mighty sword. Modred began to tremble violently, blood pouring from his mouth, and the face was Modred's but the cold, dark fury was Morgan's in his eyes as Modred whispered, “
I
. . .
still
. . .
hate
...”

    
As Modred died, the black and foul thing that passed for his mother's soul leapt from his body. It arced across the sky, a black cloud of malevolence, trying to get away, and suddenly two well-placed bolts of mystic energy nailed it. It trembled for a moment, tried to hold itself together, and then blew apart in a spectacular twinkling of light.

    
In the reviewing box, Merlin puffed across the top of his finger like a gunslinger blowing away the smoke from a just-fired revolver. Gwen and Percival were already out and halfway across the field. Gwen came to Arthur's side and dropped down next to him. She ripped off a piece from his surcoat and held it against the wound, and she looked up at the people standing around. “For God's sake, call an ambulance! An ambulance!”

    
“I already told a cop to do it the second I saw Arthur wounded!” Percival told her.

    
Gwen gasped at the whiteness of Arthur's skin. “Oh, God, Arthur.”

    
He lifted a mailed hand to her cheek and stroked it, smiling sickly. “Gwen. Don't cry, my lovely Gwen. We gave them a real run for their money this time.”

    
“Them? Who's them?”

    
“The fates. They have it out for me. They hate happy endings, you know.” He winced. “Now don't go crying for me, Gwen. It's unseemly.”

    
Tears streamed down her face. “I don't want to lose you, Arthur,” she sobbed. “I don't think I could go
through waiting for you again for another ten centuries.”

    
“You're not going to lose me,” said Arthur. ‘TU always be with you.”

    
“I don't want poetic bullshit! I want you!”

    
He laughed. “That's my Gwen. Never could pull anything on her.”

    
Merlin knelt down next to them. Gwen turned and said, “Merlin! Do something!”

    
“I am,” he said tersely, and he shoved a mushroom down Arthur's mouth.

    
“What the hell is that?” she demanded.

    
“Morgan was my pupil once; I taught her everything she knows of poisons. I ensorcelled this mushroom to handle the poison. At least, I think it will.”

    
“You think it will?”

    
“She might have learned more about poisons in the meantime,” was his testy response.

    
“What about the wound?”

    
But Merlin shook his head. “A curse on him, I can handle. Poison, maybe. Wounds are out of my reach. Give me Excalibur; I'll cut the armor off. Save them time in the ambulance,” for in the distance they could hear the sirens fast approaching. Everyone was talking at once, shouting over one another, and yet to Arthur it seemed as if everything was slowing down to a sort of curious crawl.

    
“Merlin,” said Arthur, and his voice sounded ghastly. “Promise you'll look after her.”

    
“It's not fair!” shouted Gwen.

    
“Life isn't fair. Merlin taught me that.”

    
Merlin was slicing the armor apart carefully. “I know. Just once I'd like to be wrong. Hold on . . . the armor's coming clear . . . he's bleeding! Damnit, someone stop the bleeding!”

    
Gwen was tearing apart her long gown, shoving in strips of cloth which were becoming soaked with seconds.
The ambulance was hurtling straight across the green, the crowd melting from its path.

    
Arthur didn't see it. The world was fading to black around him. “I love you, Gwen . . . you've got to remember that.”

    
“Stop bleeding, Arthur!” Gwen's voice floated from very far away. “Oh, God, stop bleeding! Arthur, say something! Speak to me!” And as everything became an impenetrable haze, as the last thought of
So this is what I've been hiding from all these centuries . . . it's not so terrible
. . . fluttered across his mind, he heard Gwen shouting,
‘‘Arthur, don't go! I love you! Arthur! Arthur . . . don't . . .”

Y
E
O
LDE
S
OUND
B
ITE

“Death came today outside the emergency ward of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for Arthur Yendragon, Son of Uther, King of the Britons, and mayor-elect of New York City . . .”

C
HAPTRE

THE
T
WENTY-FIFTH

G
WEN QUEEN SAT
out on the stretch of private beach outside the rented cottage. Getting a beach-side cottage at this time of year in Avalon had been a snap. Avalon, a small resort community near Atlantic City, didn't get all that many people looking for that sort of accommodation in the dead of winter.

    
Gwen pulled her heavy sweater around her and looked out at the crashing waves. She exhaled her breath and watched the little puff of white hover in the air in front of her.

    
There was a crunch of a footfall on the sand behind her. She turned, looked up, and smiled. “Hello, love,” she said. “Enjoy your nap?”

    
Arthur sat down next to her and draped an arm around her shoulder. “Feeling quite refreshed, thank you.”

    
They sat next to each other, basking in the warmth of each other's presence. Finally Arthur said, “I'm glad I came back.”

    
“What, from your nap?”

    
“No, from the dead. I'd have hated to miss this sunset.”

    
“Arthur, I wish you'd stop putting it that way” She sighed. “I keep telling you, you were only dead for under a minute.”

    
“Is that all?” He laughed.

    
“Look, they bring people back from the dead all the time. Your heart stopped and they got it started again. Like they said on the news, death came for you . . . and you laughed at it and beat it back.”

    
“Brought back from the dead. Heart restarted. Simple as that.” He shook his head. “I'll never understand how so many people consider magic too unbelievable, but they accept as commonplace things that I would have once considered inconceivable.”

    
They stared out at the ocean for a while longer. Then Gwen rested her head on his shoulder. “I like being married to you,” she said.

    
“I'm sure we looked delightful. You in your wedding gown, I in my hospital gown with those ghastly strings down the back. Can I outlaw that as mayor?”

    
“I'll have it looked into. And seriously, I let you get away once. I'll be damned if I let you get away again.”

    
She kissed him lightly. He smiled. “Let's run away,” he said conspiratorially. “Right after I'm sworn in, I'll make Percival deputy mayor, and then we'll run off.”

    
“You make it sound so tempting.”

    
“It's meant to be.”

    
“You can't. You know we can't. You have a destiny to fulfill.”

    
“Oh, bugger destiny. You're starting to sound like Merlin.”

    
“Destiny almost buggered you. Maybe you and destiny should declare a truce for a while.”

    
“There's wisdom in what you say.” He lay back on the sand. “I did so many things wrong the first time around, Gwen,” said Arthur after a time. “I had so many expectations to which no one could live up. I've been given a
second chance—hell, a third chance. I desperately don't want to make a muddle of it.”

    
“You won't,” she said confidently. “You're Arthur. You're my husband, and you're a good man, and you'll always do what's right. Even if it's wrong.”

    
“Thank you.” He shivered slightly. “Getting chilly. Want to go in?”

    
“We could. There's an old movie on TV I always wanted to see. A Bing Crosby film.”

    
“I don't know the fellow, but I'm game.”

    
“Good. It's
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court!
”

    
He stared at her. “Let's stay out here a while longer.”

    
“But you said you were getting chilly.”

    
“Then,” he pulled her close to him, “we'll just have to find some way to keep warm.”

I
N THE HEART
of Belvedere Castle, away from prying eyes, Merlin watched Arthur and Gwen together on the sand in New Jersey and smiled in spite of himself. Then he turned to a small, forlorn rat scuttling about on the floor, a rat that he had rescued at the last moment as Morgan's house crumbled. “I suppose I was wrong about her, wasn't I, Lance. It is nice to be wrong every once in a while. But not too often.”

    
Lance squeaked sadly.

    
Merlin ignored him and, using the magic of a remote control, turned the channels. The image of Arthur and Gwen on the beach vanished, to be replaced by another. Merlin settled back with a bag of microwave popcorn to watch Bing Crosby.

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