“Luck!” Nimue shouted as she held her smarting wrist.
Arthur sheathed his sword and took her wrist in his hands. “You need to hold the sword loosely, like the reins of a horse.”
Pym snorted in her sleep and mumbled. The night air was wet and cold, but Arthur’s fingers on her hand warmed Nimue’s blood enough.
“What are you doing?” she asked, finding her voice, as Arthur’s fingers kneaded her palm.
“Does this bother you?”
“You’ve lowered your guard.”
“Your sword is in the grass. I won.”
“Have you?” Nimue snuck her cheese knife from her skirts and brought it up to Arthur’s throat.
“Is that a cheese knife?” Arthur laughed.
“It’s sharp enough.” Nimue pushed the blade against his neck. “Yield?”
“You are a terror.”
Nimue let her eyes linger on his. His gray eyes were flecked with green, like flakes of emerald. The hum in her stomach thrummed and rose up her chest and into her throat, overwhelming her before she could resist, and suddenly she was rushing forward. No, something inside of her was locking into Arthur with such ferocity she felt as though she might scream. Then images roared into her mind unbidden: a blade with the green of Arthur’s eyes . . . a hand covered in leprous boils reaching toward her . . . a cave wall of solemn carved faces . . . a woman with red curls wearing a dragon helm . . . an owl with an arrow in its back . . . Nimue herself underwater, clawing to breathe, water filling her lungs . . . and . . .
Nimue gasped awake, sucking in air, shivering uncontrollably. She fought off a wave of nausea, partly the wine and partly the dread that she’d succumbed to another vision and that Arthur might have witnessed it. She had no memory of falling asleep. She was also wet and freezing. Morning mist drenched her clothes. A weak sun failed to burn through the low clouds. Nimue had never felt so cold. She shook Pym awake.
“Pym, it’s morning. We have to go.” Pym obeyed with the stupor of the just awakened. They walked softly past Arthur, who slept on one of his saddlebags, climbed onto Dusk Lady, and cantered onto the misty road.
They traveled for an hour, too wet and miserable to speak. The road was empty but for a traveling dentist who had spent the evening serving distant farms and looked like he’d been drinking the entire ride back to Hawksbridge. All the same he offered the girls a complimentary exam, which they politely declined. There was a moment, a curious one, when the dentist observed some totems on Nimue’s wrist jewelry identifying her as Fey Kind. The dentist seemed fearful, and he gestured to the road ahead, then stopped short, as though a moment of courage had passed. He bid the girls good day and whickered his horse down the road at a trot.
The mists cleared, and the girls felt their first relief from the evening chill. But as the forest pressed in and the road narrowed, signaling the last mile to the village, an ox dragging its chains but no plow barreled out of the wilderness and into the girls’ path. The wooden arm of the plow dragged alongside the animal’s shoulder as it lumbered past the girls and down the road, clearly panicked. Nimue followed it with her eyes, confused, and then turned back. In the break of the trees a column of black smoke rose ominously. Flakes of red ash fluttered in the sunlight filtering through the leaves.
Nimue’s heart pounded.
She spurred on Dusk Lady, and as the horse cleared the forest, screams ripped the air.
SIX
THE TALL OAKEN DOORS OF king uther Pendragon’s Great Hall groaned open and two royal footmen, wearing the embroidered three red crowns of House Pendragon on their yellow tunics, dragged in a half-conscious mage. His leather slippers dragged on the floor. His brownish-blond beard was stained with wine. They held him up before the young king on his throne.
“Merlin.” King Uther calmly smoothed his waxed black beard. “Perfect timing.”
“Took a bit, but we found him in the cabbages, sire,” Borley, the older, barrel-chested footman offered proudly. “Drunk, I’m afraid.”
“You don’t say?” King Uther smiled coldly.
Merlin flung his arms away from his captors, smoothed his night-blue robes, and swayed for a moment before steadying himself against a pillar.
“You promised us rain, Merlin. And, per usual, your words have proven hollow.”
“Weather is fickle, my liege,” Merlin said, fluttering his fingers to the sky.
King Uther dropped a slab of cold mutton on the floor for his wolfhounds.
He suspects, Merlin thought through his wine-soaked haze. He suspects my secret. But they would continue to pretend, he knew. At only twenty-six years, Uther was a young and insecure monarch and loath to admit error or weakness. That Merlin, his secret counsel, the legendary sage, was a fool and a drunkard, not the feared sorcerer of the ages, was likely too humiliating a thought for Uther to entertain for very long. Let us end this charade once and for all, Merlin wished. Merlin the Magician was Merlin the Fraud. His magic was lost and had been for almost seventeen years. It was only spy-craft and will and pride and the gullible nature of men that had sustained the lie all these years. Merlin was tired of it. Yet something within him refused to confess the truth. Fear, perhaps. He preferred to keep his head on his shoulders. Besides, voicing it would somehow make it more real. More final.
Sir Beric, Uther’s other counsel, a rotund, plaited-bearded fellow Merlin knew as a leech and a coward, sniffed at Merlin’s words and turned back to the king. “The drought and resulting famine are causing wider panic in your northern French provinces as well, sire. Taking advantage of these passions, Father Carden and his Red Paladins have burned several Fey villages.”
Uther’s eyes darkened and turned to Merlin. “The Red Paladins are not fickle, Merlin. They are quite reliable. How many Fey villages have burned, Sir Beric?”
Sir Beric consulted a scroll. “Ah, approximately ten, Your Majesty.”
If the king was hoping for a reaction from Merlin, he was disappointed. The mage simply poured a cup of wine.
Uther chose to speak to Beric as though Merlin were not there. “Merlin is a conflicted creature, you see, Beric. These are his kind being put to the torch, yet he is unmoved. Not that he’s ever been confused for a man of the people. He’s not fond of the mud of the southern villages. No, he prefers the trappings of our castle and our plum wine.” Uther deigned to look over at the wizard. “Don’t you, Merlin?”
“It’s hardly a mystery what’s happening. The Fey Kind are, quite frankly, better farmers. So, in times of want, the mob finds reason to steal their food. Father Carden and his paladins are dull vessels for these old hatreds, nothing more.” Merlin wiped some spilled wine from his robes. “However, if His Majesty would allow it, the Shadow Lords may be able to offer some service here.”
The king grew quiet and nodded for his goblet to be refilled, and a cupbearer poured.
Uther’s paranoia always rose at the mention of Merlin’s circle of spies. Merlin could count on that. It was a reminder to the king that Merlin was not a man to cross. The Shadow Lords were more disturbing to the king than Carden’s crucifixion fields. The Fey were a nuisance and offered little to the royal coffers, whereas the Shadow Lords were different: a secret confederacy of witches, mages, and warlocks, each with their own networks, guilds, and cells at every societal rank, from the lowliest leper colonies to the royal court, all operating outside the king’s grasp.