Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] (37 page)

“Yes, he does, my child,” Merlin murmured, staring at his naked son about to face a very fresh adversary. “And from what you’ve said, he needs this victory to be his.”

That stopped Diana. Gawain’s father was letting him face this terrible danger, for his own
good
? But she could tell from Merlin’s clenched jaw that she wasn’t going to move him. The first clang of sword on sword riveted her
attention. Merlin put his arm around her, effectively anchoring her to the spot.

Mordred was on the attack. He swung the heavy sword with a fresh arm. Again and again it clanged against Gawain’s. Gawain was able to defend, but he was backing across the floor in the face of Mordred’s onslaught. Diana found herself clutching Merlin’s jerkin as she watched Gawain barely parrying each blow. How could he survive this?

Then the unthinkable happened. Mordred’s sword clanged against Gawain’s, and Gawain’s sword broke. The point clattered to the ground. Diana gasped. She felt Merlin tense. Mordred swung his sword for an overhand blow and it came down across Gawain’s stump of a weapon. Gawain didn’t have the strength to push Mordred off. He was slowly driven to his knees. This would be the end; it must!

Gawain reached down into himself for strength. He shoved Mordred away with his little stump of a sword. Mordred staggered back. But without a sword, the end was inevitable. No other sword was in reach. Gawain’s back was almost against the fireplace. Wait—a sword was sticking out of the fireplace itself, out of a great rock that formed the side.

“Gawain!” she yelled. “There’s a sword right behind you!”

Gawain turned even as Mordred surged in for the kill. With no hesitation at all, Gawain pulled the sword from the stone. It slid out like butter.

“By the gods,” Merlin muttered beside her.

Mordred stopped in his tracks, giving Gawain time to stagger into position. Gawain seemed to take strength from the sword. He looked at it with mild curiosity. Diana’s heart stuttered. He might just be holding Excalibur,
the sword that could only be wielded by the one true ruler of England.

Mordred went red with rage. “You are
not
the rightful king!” he shouted. “I am!
I
am the rightful king!” He came in swinging once again. But this time, Excalibur seemed to know where Mordred’s weapon would be and just . . . just be there first. The sword was doing Gawain’s work for him, or they had become one, man and sword, and Gawain’s will imbued the weapon.

Gawain went from defense to offense, now beating Mordred back. Mordred was talking, half to himself, half to Gawain: “You won’t prevail. You should be dead already. You don’t deserve the kingdom. You don’t deserve Guinevere. She’ll marry me. I am the rightful king.”

And then his guard slipped. Excalibur found the opening and drove for his heart. It pierced the rich, embroidered wool over Mordred’s chest. A darker stain spread on the purple cloth. Mordred’s eyes went big, blinked twice. He fell to his knees.

Gawain pulled the wonderful sword from Mordred’s body and stood holding it as Mordred toppled. Gawain stared at his dead adversary as though he couldn’t believe it. Diana broke from Merlin’s arms and ran forward. Yet as she approached, she hesitated. Gawain seemed lost in some other world. And why should he not be? He was probably relishing the strength the sword conferred on him, the prospect that he was the rightful king and his one true love, Guinevere, might well be his at last.

Gawain broke his stare and looked up at Diana. His eyes were filled with pain, but they softened as he recognized her. He stretched out his arm. She threw herself against him, blood and sweat and all, tears coursing down her cheeks. Even if he was lost to her . . . he was alive.

“Diana, are you all right?” he asked.

“Am
I
all right? You were almost killed, and . . . and God knows what else.”

His eyes darkened at that. He looked away. “Yeah. I’m glad it didn’t come to that. I’m okay.” But she had to half-support him as he staggered over to his father.

“You did it, my son,” Merlin said, a look of love on his face. “I’m very proud of you.”

Gawain looked away. “You don’t know all my failures. You sent me to protect Dilly . . . Diana, and we were separated. It took me twelve years to find her. I sent Mordred back in time where he caused all this suffering . . . and brought Diana back into terrible danger.  . .  .”

“Hey, buddy, you can’t claim all the blame. We agreed on sending Mordred back together,” Diana protested. “I came back here all on my own and had to trick you to do it. And how could you help that we were separated and those thugs attacked you and they put you in prison? I think you did a great job.”

“I do, too, Son,” Merlin said. He glanced to Excalibur. “Only the most worthy could have pulled the sword from the stone.”

Diana’s heart sank. That meant she’d be heading back to the twenty-first century alone. But she couldn’t let Gawain see how that made her feel. She wouldn’t spoil his moment of triumph with selfish thoughts. “He’s the true king of England now, isn’t he?”

“He can’t stay here,” Merlin said, his voice sure. “My ten-year-old son is upstairs with Guinevere and the baby. You can’t stay, either, Diana.”

“You could take the children somewhere else. Gawain could rule here,” Diana said stubbornly. He’d be a great king. Maybe better than Arthur. Gawain deserved the chance.

“Yes. And he could join the knights together and face off against the Saxons. They might win. But I thought
that was what you were trying to prevent.” Merlin raised his brows.

Diana and Gawain looked at each other. “Once you start messing around with time it’s . . . it’s all so confusing,” Diana said. “What is supposed to be, and what is not?”

“You have to go,” Merlin said again firmly. “I have seen it in the waters of a rain barrel. Take Excalibur with you. You might well be a king in some other time, some other land. We have no way of knowing. I only know there is one true path, one future I see now.”

Gawain’s knees started to buckle and Diana dragged him to a bench. The frozen knights still sat with glasses raised or mouths open in a cheer.

“I’m not sure Gawain is strong enough,” Diana said. “Time travel is hard on you.” She shot Merlin a glance. If he let Gawain die, after all his travails.  . .

“What am I thinking?” Merlin muttered. “Come, Son. We must care for your wounds. Can you make it to one of the outbuildings?”

“Of course,” Gawain growled. But his eyes were swimming. Merlin got him up off the bench and dragged one of Gawain’s arms over his shoulder. Diana ducked in under his other one. Together they pulled him out the main door of the hall into the night. Behind her, Diana heard the room break into confused sound as the knights and servants came to life again. Outside, people had been frozen, too. They shook themselves and looked around, then started instinctively for the shouting in the hall. One of the women was carrying a baby.

“You there!” Merlin called.

The woman’s eyes opened wide in fear.

“Don’t be afraid. Come here. Ranwith, is it not?”

She nodded, obviously wondering how the great Merlin knew her name, and crept near.

“There is a newborn girl child with the queen upstairs
who needs what you can give her. Her mother is dead this night.” Lamorak came stumbling down the stairs from the queen’s chamber. “This knight will escort you, if you will agree to help?” He made this last a question.

The woman bobbed a curtsey. “I’ve milk enough, my lord. I can suckle another.”

“Thank you,” Diana and Merlin said in unison. Lamorak bowed to the baby Diana’s new wet nurse and turned to escort her back the way he had come.

Diana and Merlin took Gawain to a building set at the edge of the palisades. Inside, Merlin waved a hand and the lamps lit. The place was a comfortable jumble of scrolls and little jars and pots. It had a bed in one corner with a trundle half-out beneath it. With a start Diana realized that these were Merlin’s rooms. His son probably occupied the trundle bed.

Gawain seemed to swoon. “Young Gawain won’t come here, will he?” Diana whispered.

“No. We won’t be long.” That was good news. Merlin seemed confident he could heal Gawain. Diana surveyed Gawain’s injuries as they laid him down. To her the wounds were horrifying.

“He’s lost so much blood,” she said in a small voice.

Merlin straightened. “That’s why we must start with a plain old needle and some dried catgut,” he said briskly, and began moving about the cabin.

“What can I do?”

Merlin cast a glance at her. He gave a quick smile. “I might have known you’d rally. Go out and get me some water from the barrel to the left of the door. You can wash his wounds while I make preparations.”

It took her a long time and it was grisly work. But a woman could do what a woman must when someone she loved was in need. Diana used a clean cloth Merlin gave
her to tie a tourniquet around Gawain’s thigh and cleaned that wound first. Merlin poured and mixed and set various bowls over tiny candle flames. His whole workbench looked like some kind of primitive scientific laboratory. Then, when his pots were bubbling, he sewed up the wounds she’d finished cleaning with quick, precise movements. He would have been talented at needlepoint or tapestries. At least he’d stopped Gawain’s bleeding. She loosed the tourniquet.

When Merlin had finished stitching, he gathered up his pots and began smoothing Gawain’s wounds with the various salves.

“Uh, no magic or anything?” she asked as Merlin was wiping his hands and standing up.

“Oh, there’s plenty of magic here.” He gave her one of his quick glances that seemed to take in everything. “You mean you’d like more of the sparkles—that kind of thing?” He chuckled at her embarrassed shrug. “You need sparkles for illumination. Other than that, effects like that are just showing off. Real magic is just.  . . part of you.” He looked over at his workbench. “And understanding that you are part of the world and can channel the power that exists all around you. It’s both more marvelous and more mundane than people expect.” He turned to Gawain and pulled a blanket up over his naked body. The stitches that wound over his flesh made him look so . . . mortal. “But I expect you know that. How do you find lost things like my boy?”

“I try to just be . . . peaceful in my mind,” Diana said. “And I sort of think like whatever is lost, and then ask it where it is. That’s not magic.”

“Of course it is.” Merlin chuckled. “It’s just like my magic and probably just like his.” He nodded at his son.

“I don’t feel very magic,” Diana said somewhat forlornly.
Her life stretched ahead. Gawain couldn’t stay here. His father said so. But that didn’t mean Gawain wouldn’t mourn Guinevere all his days. Diana looked up to find Merlin’s magical swirling eyes fixed on her.

“Has he offered for you, child?”

She half-snorted. It was very unladylike. “A man who looks like Gawain doesn’t offer for an ordinary woman like me. He can have his pick.” The stunning Guinevere, for instance. “I just hope he’ll let me be his friend.” Merlin looked puzzled. Maybe. Wizards were hard to read. “I’ve always been an outsider. I’m not pretty. I write stories for a living about
other
people finding love. A parfait knight, even without the shining-armor part, isn’t meant for me.”

Merlin looked at her thoughtfully. “You are what, child, twenty-five?” She nodded. “I would have thought you older.” He put away his pots and tiny bottles of irregular colored glass. “I’d better check on the children and see that your mother is prepared suitably for burial. He needs to ‘cook’ awhile.”

“May I go with you? I’d like to pay my last respects to my mother.”

Merlin’s eyes turned a sad, swirling gray. “She is not a sight for you now. Remember her as she was.”

Diana’s eyes filled, but she nodded. Her mother was gone. But Diana had been given the gift of meeting her, and even of saying good-bye last night. It was more than she ever expected.

“I could use some help with Gawain,” Merlin said, as though apologizing.

“Anything,” she said promptly.

“I would be grateful if you would keep him company. Maybe sing to him?”

“Sing to him?”

“The presence of those who care for you is very
important magic in the healing process. Since I must leave, it would be good for him to know you’re here.”

“Oh, okay.” She could do that.

“I’ll be back.” Merlin glanced to Gawain. “I’d better retrieve his clothes, too. He’s bigger than I am, broader across the shoulders.” With that Merlin ducked out of the little hut.

Diana glanced around self-consciously.
Sing to him. Right.
Her eyes were drawn to a lute that hung on the wall. She gave a little gasp. Gawain had said he taught her how to play the lute when she broke her leg. Was . . . was
this
the lute she’d used when she was twelve or thirteen? She took the lute from its hook. It was well worn but finely made. She sat on the end of the bed and gave it a tentative strum, fiddled with the pegs a little, and strummed again. Pretty close. She started with “Greensleeves,” singing softly. That was medieval music, but she didn’t know any Dark Age songs. The notes tumbled from the lute in mellow waves, much nicer than a mandolin’s twang. Before the last chord was ended, she started another song. . . .

A song she didn’t know, in chord progressions that were very different from anything she’d ever played. She blinked and tried to get her breath. After a moment, she recognized it. It was a tune Gawain had been humming in the apartment after they’d made love, but now she knew the chords to the song intimately, as if she’d played it a thousand times.

Memories cascaded over her as she played song after song from those lost days. A cave, a big one. Merlin, seen from afar, as he wove his spells and looked into a limpid underground pool. The crazy crush she’d always had on Gawain. Doing anything to get his attention, including stealing his horse. Going fishing with Gawain. How happy that made her. Gawain carrying her all the way back to the cave after she broke her leg. The pain. Merlin
away at the Saxon court. Gawain splinted her leg, made vervain decoctions, showed her the chords to take her mind off the pain. Merlin coming back, helping her to heal as he’d helped Gawain today . . .