The End of Magic (19 page)

The comet was visible now in the morning sky—a disastrous omen. The people called it the Red Dragon, and talked of it coming
to punish Arthur for his sins. They would have burned the Queen themselves if they could have gotten their hands on her, but
Arthur had stood firm.

Merlin had used every trick he knew to find Mordred in order to stop him spreading his poison, but Mab had prepared her catspaw
well for the task of destroying Arthur. Mordred refused to come out and fight. Instead, he hid himself in the twisting alleyways
of the town, always eluding Merlin’s searching as he spun the twisted lies that so many were so ready to believe.

Without a single shred of proof, the people believed that Mordred was Arthur’s son, despite the fact that common sense would
say that Arthur was not himself old enough to have fathered a son Mordred’s age. They believed that Arthur meant to set himself
above the law, to persecute and oppress them with unjust laws that he and his friends would never feel the bite of, when all
of Arthur’s life had been spent erasing the distinction between rich and poor, knight and peasant.

They believed that Mordred was their salvation. And that was the greatest lie of all, for Mordred had come to Camelot to destroy
it.

Merlin had tried to explain this to Arthur, but the grief-stricken King would not listen to his wizard’s strategies for opposing
Mordred. With every hour since his return, Merlin had felt Arthur withdrawing from his responsibilities, as if the exercise
of kingship had simply become intolerable.

Merlin knew that in his heart Arthur believed that his beloved subjects would still see reason. That if he showed himself
obedient to the law and burned the Queen, the people’s anger and discontent would cease and they would acclaim him once more,
as they had on the day he drew Excalibur from the stone.

But that was many years ago, Arthur,
Merlin thought sadly.
Everything changes. Spring to autumn, morning to night, glorious young King to guilty politician, bargaining to buy back what
he thoughtlessly gave away in the morning of his youth.

The direction of his thoughts made Merlin sad. Arthur had nothing to be guilty for. He was doing his best, doing just what
he had always done. He was upholding truth and asking no one to do anything that he would not do himself.

And because Arthur was who he was, Guinevere must die. Arthur had delayed setting the date for Guinevere’s execution as long
as he could, but in the end he had no choice but to carry out the sentence.

Tomorrow, at noon, the Queen would be burned at the stake.

“I just don’t understand it,” the burly man in the leather hood said plaintively.

He stood almost seven feet tall. In addition to the hood that covered the upper half of his face and his thick neck, he wore
leather trousers, boots, and laced bracers on his massive forearms. Iron-Head Gort was a formidable man.

Merlin glanced around the dungeon. He supposed it was rather homey, if you liked that sort of thing. There was a rack over
in one corner, an Iron Maiden on the wall, and several stands of pokers and branding irons, along with an empty brazier. None
of them had seen any use since Uther had died, of course, but Arthur had kept the Royal Executioner on. After all, the man
had done nothing wrong. There was no reason to turn him out of his job.

“I’ve been the Royal Executioner all my working life,” Gort said. “Vortigern… Uther… I’ve always given satisfaction. But
I must protest, Master Merlin. Have I failed in some way? Is the King unhappy with my work?”

He gazed anxiously at Merlin. Even seated on a low stool in the corner of the royal dungeon, Gort loomed over Merlin the way
a granite cliff would loom over a willow tree.

“No. Of course not,” Merlin said soothingly. “I’ve certainly heard no complaints. Why, everyone says Iron-Head Gort is the
best there is.”

He’d come to bring the details of the Queen’s execution to Gort himself, as Arthur was simply unable to do it. Coming down
here to discuss the details of her execution would have been impossible for the King, racked with guilt at his failure to
protect the greatest of his subjects.

“Then why is the Queen being executed at noon?” Gort demanded.

He was a big childlike man, who would never dream of hurting anyone except as a part of his job. But this was the first time
Arthur had ever called upon his services, and he was anxious to give satisfaction.

“All executions—whether by fire, ax, or rope—take place at dawn. The sun rises up, the condemned goes down. It’s all very
symbolic and beautiful, you know. But now the King has said she’s to die at noon.” Gort shook his head. “I don’t know, Master
Merlin. I just don’t know.”

Merlin knew. Though he had given Arthur no reason to hope for such a thing, the King was not a fool. Arthur was hoping that
Lancelot would come to rescue Guinevere.

Merlin hoped so, too, but he dared not use his magic to see if Lancelot had understood his message. If Mab or Mordred suspected
that Lancelot was coming to save Guinevere, they would surely stop him.

“And another thing,” Gort added. “This is the Queen of Britain’s execution! Shouldn’t we make it a special occasion? Not just
a simple burning at the stake—anyone can have that—but a real exhibition? She could be torn in pieces by wild horses, or there’s
always beheading—the crowd loves a good beheading—or hanging with a silken rope, or—”

Merlin raised his hand to stem the flow of professionalism from the Royal Executioner. “The King was very specific, Master
Gort,” Merlin said. “The Queen is to be burned at noon tomorrow. I can’t tell you any more at the moment, as this touches
on highly secret matters, but we all trust you’ll put on a good show.” He smiled coaxingly.

“Well, I’ll try,” the executioner grumbled, unmollified. “But sometimes I don’t know what this younger generation is coming
to. No pride in craft, that’s their problem. None.”

Merlin spent the night before the Queen’s execution in his tower workroom. He did not know what it was that he waited for,
but if Lancelot were to come in the night, he could be more use inside Camelot’s walls then he would be elsewhere.

But the hours passed without disturbance, and slowly Merlin’s hopes failed. Lancelot would not come in time. The Queen—Arthur’s
proud, loving, reckless lady—would die, and a part of Arthur would die with her.

Soon the eastern sky began to lighten with the promise of a new day. Merlin glanced out his window toward the west, where
the shadows lay blue upon the ground, still hoping that he would see Lancelot riding to his lover’s rescue.

He did not see Lancelot. But in the sky above the western hills, a baleful red star with a tail of bloody fire glowed against
the dawn sky.

“It is only a comet?” Arthur asked Merlin.

The two men stood alone in the throne room, looking out over the courtyard where the Queen was to burn. The day had turned
cloudy, finally hiding the red star in the west, but terrible things could still be seen. The cobblestones around the platform
that held the stake were already piled high with logs and branches awaiting their victim.

“What?” Merlin asked lightly, trying to cheer him. “Did I teach you astronomy on all those cold winter nights for nothing?
It is a comet, Arthur, no more supernatural than the fixed stars of the sky.”

“But why must it appear
now?
” Arthur said, and to that question, Merlin had no answer.

It was going to be a wonderful day, Mordred thought to himself gleefully. Today, no matter what Arthur did, Mordred could
claim the first in a chain of victories that would end with Arthur’s death.

If the King burned the Queen, Arthur would have been dealt a mortal blow to his human heart—and such blows, Mordred had been
given to understand, were fatal. Why, just look at how Frik had carried on just because Morgan had died, completely missing
the point that nobody needed her anymore. A human heart made its owner soft, vulnerable.

Mordred had no intention of being either soft or vulnerable.

He’d put the days he’d spent in hiding since the Queen’s arrest to good use, convincing those bored gullible buffoons, the
boys of the chivalry—who had sat around Camelot growing fat and lazy while Arthur wandered Europe on his fool’s errand—that
he, Mordred, was their only hope for a life of danger, excitement, and privilege.

Of course, he hadn’t put it to them quite that way.
Honor
, he’d said, and
fairness,
and
equality,
and
simple common decency.
And they’d rallied behind him—meeting in cellars, drawing up manifestos, wearing his device, pledging to overthrow the weak
tyrant who currently occupied the throne of Britain.

It was enough to make a cat laugh, really, and Mordred relished every moment of the joke. Not as much as he’d enjoy watching
his father’s wife go up in flames, of course, but Auntie Mab had encouraged him to savor the small joys of existence as well
as the great.

By eleven o’clock people were moving into the courtyard to await the show, and Mordred moved with them. He felt safe: even
if Arthur still meant to arrest him, he could hardly do it right at the moment he was burning the Queen. Besides, with one
thing and another, Arthur had never actually gotten around to formally banishing Mordred from Camelot. Mordred had just as
much right to be here as anyone else—and he did so want a front-row seat.

But it was always wise to be prudent, so he kept a fold of his cloak pulled up over his face, and kept out of sight of the
windows that overlooked the courtyard. Soon enough, he wouldn’t have to skulk in corners.

His time would come.

Very soon now, his time would come.…

Could pride shield her from the flames? Guinevere wondered. She did not think so, any more than prayer could strike down evil.

She sat at her dressing table, gazing into the mirror as she removed her jewels for the last time. She had dressed in her
finest and queenliest robes to hear Mass and receive the last rites of the Church this morning, but she would not need jewels
and robes of state where she was going now.

She stripped off her rings and her bracelets and set them aside. She unpinned the heavy pearl and gold brooches at her shoulders
and let the stolla fall from her shoulders, then reached up to unclasp her necklace and set it upon the table before her.
She removed the pearls in her ears, and last of all she lifted the heavy golden crown from her head.

How she had loved it the day she had first seen it, lifting it from its satin-covered box to admire it. She had been a child
then, to think that crowns made queens. She knew far better now.

She unpinned her braids and began to run a comb through her long chestnut hair. The day was overcast, the sun pale, but she
would not live to see if tomorrow’s weather might be better. At noon Arthur would give her to the flames.

He has always loved anything better than me!
she raged unfairly. She had given him no reason to love her, and despite that he had done all he could to save her. But in
the end, when he had been forced to choose between her life and his kingdom, he had chosen Britain.

It was the action of a King.

If only
—Guinevere clasped her hands together and tried to still their shaking. She had broken so many of God’s laws—what awaited
her after death? Heaven? The pains of Hell? Epona’s green meadows where the favored of the White Horse Goddess gathered? She
did not know. It did not matter. She would not have traded one hour she had spent in Lancelot’s arms—one kiss—for the promise
of life eternal. If death was her fate, she would go to meet it like a Queen.

There was a tapping on the door, and Guinevere rose to her feet, shrugging off her rich brocade robe so that she stood clad
only in her shift of scarlet linen, a plain belt of golden disks about her waist.

Has noon come so soon?

Bishop Wace entered the room. For this sad occasion he was dressed in a simple white monk’s robe. Guinevere could see a company
of guardsmen behind him.

“My lady,” the Bishop said reluctantly. “It is time.”

The crowds howled like a mob in the Roman arena as she appeared. If not for the protection of the guards, they would have
torn the Queen limb from limb long before she reached the stake. They jeered at her helplessness, shouted threats and accusations
at her as the guards pushed their way through them.

Gort was standing beside the stake. He reached down to help the Queen ascend the platform, then tied her hands around the
stake with a length of stout rope. Chain would have been better—rope would burn through—but rope would do well enough. Before
the rope burned through, the Queen would be dead.

Guinevere looked toward the windows where Arthur stood watching, and her eyes held unwavering accusation.

Once she was securely bound to the stake, Gort stepped down from the platform and took up an unlit torch. He touched it to
the coals of a waiting brazier, then swirled it alight, brandishing the torch so that all could see. He looked toward the
throne room windows. Arthur was supposed to be standing in full view, watching the execution. He was supposed to give Gort
the order to light the fire.

But the King did not come forward, and after a moment Gort turned away and thrust the torch into the kindling piled around
the edges of the platform.

The flame caught at once, making an uprush of golden fire. The wall of heat drove the crowds back. Their excited roar took
on a higher pitch. In the throne room above, Arthur moaned and took a step backward, shutting out the sight.

“I can’t bear to watch,” he whispered. “The sin was mine, not hers.”

He looked helplessly, pleadingly, at Merlin, but Arthur’s former mentor was powerless to help him. This trap was composed
not of magic but of morality, and against that force the greatest wizard in the world was helpless.

The flames spread greedily. There was fear on the Queen’s face now as she felt their bite. Almost against her will she struggled
against the executioner’s ropes, trying to evade a fate she knew now was inevitable. The last possible moment for rescue—or
pardon—had passed.