Only one word could force its way past my lips.
“No.”
Her smile turned cold. Beyond her, off in the hilly distance, I could make out a procession of torches heading toward us, their flames guttering in the blustery wind. The Druids, come for their sacrificial rite.
“You choose Anya over me?” Aphrodite hissed. “Then after you watch Arthur die, you yourself will be killed. Slowly. Very slowly.”
She turned away from me. Arthur stirred to life.
“Where is Orion?” he asked, puzzled, looking right at me but not seeing me at all.
“Gone,” Aphrodite said, with a shrug of her lovely shoulders. “Forget about him. Come with me, my love, now that we’re alone.”
She took his hand and led him toward the altar. I stood there, invisible to Arthur, unable to move, hardly able to breathe. I felt an icy chill creeping over my body, as if I were being
submerged in a glacier. I recalled one of my deaths, deep in space, slowly freezing until my heart stopped beating.
And the torchlit procession of the Druids marched steadily closer.
Lightning flashed again and thunder boomed. Rain began to pelt down, but it didn’t strike Arthur and Aphrodite; she was shielding them somehow.
A titanic crack of lightning struck the ground almost at my feet,
blinding me for several moments. When I could see again, Anya stood at my side, dressed as she had been when she’d given Arthur his sword, Excalibur, in a flowing silver robe garlanded with flowers.
Arthur’s eyes went wide. “Look, Morganna!” he cried. “It’s the Lady of the Lake.”
Aphrodite/Morganna whirled to face Anya, surprise and rage on her exquisite face. Two goddesses, each divinely beautiful
but in very different ways. Aphrodite was all flame and passion, the embodiment of sexual allure. Anya, who had been worshipped as Athena in another age, was cool and calm, certain of her strength.
“It’s time for you to leave,” Anya said.
“Never!” spat Aphrodite. “He’s mine! You can’t have him.”
“Arthur is under my protection. You cannot harm him.”
“You think not?” Suddenly there was a slim
dagger in Aphrodite’s hand. “One scratch with this and the poison will turn his blood to molten fire. He’ll die in agony.”
Anya did not move. Arthur stood goggle-eyed, too close to Aphrodite and that poison-laden dagger to try to move away.
“You can’t defy Aten’s desires,” Aphrodite said, smirking. “Not even you can get away with that.”
“Can’t I?” Anya replied.
Another lightning bolt crackled
out of the black clouds and struck the dagger in Aphrodite’s hand. She howled like the tormented souls in hell as for a flash of an instant she was outlined in ghastly blue light. Then she was gone. Vanished completely, except for the whimpering echo of her scream.
I felt warmth returning to my body. I could feel the rain pelting down on me, I could move my arms and legs again. Arthur stirred,
too. He dropped to his knees before Anya.
“My lady,” he said, in heartfelt gratitude, “you have saved my life.”
“The witch has gone back to her own realm,” Anya told him. “She is not dead. You will see her again. Be on your guard.”
“I will, my lady,” he said. “I will.”
Turning toward me, Anya said, “Orion, escort your lord back to Cadbury castle.”
With all my being I wanted to remain with
her. But I bowed my head submissively. “Yes, my lady.”
And in the blink of an eye I was back on my pallet in the squires’ barracks. For a moment I thought it had all been a dream, but then I realized that I was dripping wet from the rainstorm that had struck Salisbury plain. Through the window set up near the barracks roof I could see a serene moon riding across pale, thin clouds. It had not
rained at all here at Cadbury.
6
At first light I sought out Arthur. He was already risen and in the exercise yard, working out with a practice sword against a dummy target mounted on a swivel so that it pivoted when it was struck. Its two broomstick arms could swing around and strike a nasty blow to a man who was not quick enough to parry or at least duck.
I could see Latin graffiti carved
into the dummy’s wooden torso by long-departed Roman legionaries. Arthur was thumping and banging the poor thing as if it were all his frustrations gathered into one passive body.
He saw me approaching him and stepped away from the dummy, sweating and breathing hard. No one else was yet in the yard; morning sunlight had barely touched the upper turrets of the castle’s towers.
“She’s gone,” Arthur
said, his voice bewildered and sorrowful.
“She is a witch, my lord,” I told him. “You are well rid of her.”
He shook his head. “She certainly had me in her power. If it weren’t for the Lady of the Lake I would be dead by now.”
“Yes, truly.”
“Why, Orion?” he asked, his voice suddenly pleading. “Why did she want to kill me?”
I didn’t hesitate an instant. “To keep you from your rightful destiny,
my lord. To prevent you from driving the Saxons out of Britain.”
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “Then was she serving my uncle? Is it he who wants to stop me?”
“I don’t believe that,” I answered. “The High King did not know Morganna’s true nature, I’m sure. Ambrosius wanted a strategic marriage between his house and the kingdom of Bernicia, nothing more.”
“I wish I could be certain of that.”
He was
deeply troubled, I could see. “There is a way to make certain of it,” I said.
“How?”
“Obtain the High King’s approval of your plan.”
“How?” he asked again. I had no ready answer.
Other knights and squires were coming into the exercise yard now and began working out. Soon the yard was clanging with swords and shields under the watchful, impatient eye of Sir Bors. Young Lancelot, as usual, was
a blur of zeal and frenzied action, knocking down one opponent after another. Even Gawain had a hard time against him.
Arthur and I practiced against one another for a while. I did my best to refrain from hitting him, and allowed him to whack me now and then.
Once we paused for a drink from the rain barrel, panting and sweaty, Sir Bors approached us.
“My lord,” said the gruff old knight, “it’s
good to see you out in the sunlight once more.”
Arthur nodded without enthusiasm. “Morganna is gone,” he said simply. “She won’t be back.”
“Headed back to her northern realm, I expect,” said Bors.
“I suppose so.”
Gawain came up and banged Arthur on the back. “Good riddance to her!” he said, with a happy grin. “There are plenty of other women in this world.”
“Not like her,” said Arthur.
“That’s what makes it all so wonderful,” Gawain countered. “No two of them are alike!”
Bors broke into a hearty laugh and Gawain guffawed loudly. Even Arthur managed a slight smile.
He’s going to be all right, I thought. He’s going to be his old self again.
“My lord,” I dared to interject. “We have much work to do.”
Arthur shook his head, as if to clear away cobwebs. “Yes,” he said, “I must
seek an audience with Ambrosius immediately.”
Yet the High King evaded Arthur’s request for days on end, offering one excuse after another. Arthur began to worry that Ambrosius truly feared for his crown and had intended for Morganna to murder him. I stayed as close to Arthur as I could, fearing that Aten—or perhaps Ambrosius, after all—would send another assassin after him.
Autumn was drawing
to its close. The air turned sharply colder, with a hint of snow in the gray clouds that covered the sky. Ambrosius ordered the last hunt of the season, and all the knights and squires rode out of the castle to run down the deer and other game that would provide meat through the coming winter.
“How can I convince him of my plan when he won’t even see me?” Arthur complained as we rode several
ranks behind the High King and his entourage.
“We need help, my lord,” I said.
“Help? From whom?”
“Merlin.”
7
Since his arrival at Cadbury some weeks earlier Merlin had remained closer to Ambrosius than Arthur. Yet when Arthur called for him, Merlin invited the young knight to his tower-top aerie that very night.
Arthur brought me along with him; together we climbed the winding stone stairs
that circled endlessly up the lofty round tower. At last we reached the low doorway at the top. It was open, and the cold night wind whistled through the high chambers. I could see Merlin perched on a stool at a broad wooden table, wearing a frayed gray robe, poring over some parchment whose corners were held down with various weights, including a human skull. The wind made the lamp hanging above
his table swing back and forth; it tousled his long white hair and plucked at his beard fitfully.
Arthur ducked through the doorway without knocking and walked up to his table. I stayed at the doorway, as a proper squire should.
The old man looked up from his parchment and smiled at Arthur. Through the wrinkles and the long, unkempt beard and hair I thought I saw a hard intelligence burning
in his deep-set green-gray eyes. Again, I asked myself if Merlin could be one of the Creators in disguise. If so, which one: Sharp-witted Hermes? Self-assured Zeus? Surely he wasn’t the burly, imperious Ares.
And if he is one of the Creators, whose side is he on? Is he working for Aten, as Aphrodite was? Or against the Golden One, as Anya and I were?
Merlin listened quietly as Arthur, pacing
around the tower chamber, poured out his worries about Ambrosius. I stood by the open doorway, silent and unnoticed.
“Fear not,” the old wizard said. “The High King bears you no ill will, of that I am sure.”
“But why won’t he listen to me?” Arthur demanded impatiently. “An army of knights equipped with stirrups and spurs could smash all the barbarian camps and drive the invaders out of Britain.”
Reaching up to place a calming hand on Arthur’s broad shoulder, Merlin explained, “Ambrosius is a proud man. Strong and intelligent.”
“But he won’t accept a new idea,” Arthur grumbled.
“He will,” Merlin explained, as he guided Arthur to a canvas chair. “He will accept your new idea … as soon as he becomes convinced it is
his
new idea.”
Arthur glanced at me. We both knew that the stirrups and
spurs that had led to Arthur’s triumph at Amesbury had been my “inventions.”
Turning back to Merlin, Arthur asked, “And how do we get Ambrosius to think it’s his idea?”
Merlin pursed his lips for a moment and stared off into infinity, his eyes unfocused as if he were in a trance. Arthur gaped at him, wonder and hope written clearly on his young face.
At length, Merlin bent his gaze upon Arthur
once more and smiled broadly.
“A tourney, Arthur. That is the way to fix the High King’s attention.”
“A tourney?”
Tugging at his knotted beard, Merlin nodded thoughtfully but said nothing for many long moments. At last he said, “Yes, a tourney will do the trick. Ambrosius likes tourneys. He takes a childish pleasure in seeing his knights bash each other.”
8
Ambrosius was delighted with Arthur’s
suggestion of a contest: the knights from Amesbury pitted against the knights of his castle. In later centuries, when the so-called Middle Ages reached their zenith, knights wore complete suits of steel armor from head to toe, so heavy that they had to be hoisted up on their mounts. Even their horses were armored. Tournaments then were highly regulated affairs, a pair of knights entering the
lists to thunder straight ahead at full gallop and try to unhorse each other with blunted lances.
That was all centuries in the future of Arthur’s time. On that gray late November afternoon at Cadbury castle there was hardly any organization to the tourney. Ambrosius’ mounted knights gathered at one end of the bare dirt field in their chain mail and helmets, their shields emblazoned with their
individual emblems, armed with lances that were barely padded. There were forty-three of them, by my count. Arthur’s knights, on their steeds at the opposite end of the dusty field, similarly clad and armed, were less than half that number.
Because the Cadbury castle knights so outnumbered Arthur’s men, Ambrosius had graciously allowed ten squires to ride with Arthur. I was glad of that. Nosing
my mount to Arthur’s side, I intended to stay close by him, on the alert for treachery. It would not be difficult to “accidentally” murder Arthur once the melee started. Knights were often badly hurt in tourneys, sometimes even killed.
Lancelot was grinning broadly as he slipped his helmet over his head. I was uneasy about him: a teenager who could fight like a whirlwind, he had sprung up out
of nowhere to win his spurs of knighthood at the Amesbury battle. He seemed eager for combat, perhaps too eager. Was he Aten’s chosen assassin?
Gawain, for once, was serious. As we milled about, waiting for Ambrosius to start the fray, he rode up to the other side of Arthur’s horse and muttered, “There’s a lot more of them than there are of us.”
I could not see Arthur’s expression behind his
steel helmet, but his voice sounded calm and even. “Yes, but we have stirrups and they do not.”
“They’re all experienced men,” Gawain said.
Patting the neck of his nervous, snuffling mount, Arthur said, “Today they will experience something they’ve never seen before.”
Off to one side of the field stood the crowd of onlookers from the castle and the town outside its walls, the women gaily arrayed
in their brightest dresses; the elderly knights, too old even for mock combat, dressed in their finest, as well. Ambrosius was the only one seated; his servants had carted out a fine chair for him. Of course, many of the churls and yeomen and townspeople squatted on the grass at the edges of the field to watch the festivities.
A herald stepped self-importantly to the middle of the open field
and made a long, rambling announcement of what everyone knew was to come. Then trumpets blared, drums rolled, and Ambrosius lifted his right hand above his head. He held it there for what seemed an hour, while we sweated with anticipation and our steeds pawed the ground impatiently.