The King's Wizard (29 page)

“And why not?” Gawain demanded, following her into the tent.

“There is a dispute—a scholarly dispute—as to whether we should take it out con or contra-wise, which means—to the mere layman—turning
and pulling it to the left or to the right. …”

The other two physicians eagerly joined in the debate, but Guinevere ignored them. She moved on into the inner room, where
Lancelot lay, still in all his armor, on the narrow pallet on which they had carried him from the field.

His face was pale and stark with pain, but he managed to smile when he saw her.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Sir Lancelot?” she asked in a low voice.

“Hold my hand, Lady,” he whispered, reaching out to her. His fingers were cold and strong, and she could feel the tremors
that the pain sent through his body.

“—as the planets Venus and Uranus will be the dominant influences—” came from the outer room.

“You’re physicians! Instead of arguing about it—
do
it!” Gawain demanded loudly.

The three doctors regarded him with identical affronted expressions.

“Do it?” the first asked. “We must talk about it first.”

“Indeed,” said the second, “these are weighty matters, fit only for experts.”

“Trust us!” the Chief Physician said. “If we treat a knight for a broken arm, that’s what he’ll die of.”

But Gawain—simple, honest, straightforward Gawain—had lost what small store of patience he possessed.

“That’s enough! Enough! Lancelot—”

He followed Guinevere to the inner room and looked down at the man lying upon the bed. “Are you ready, Sir Knight?”

“Do it, Gawain,” Lancelot answered steadily.

Gawain bent over the bed and grasped the splintered end of the lance in his strong hands. The point of the lance had entered
beneath Lancelot’s arm, the weakest spot upon a knight’s armor, and the silvery scale mail around the wound was dark with
pooled
blood. Without warning, Gawain yanked the spear point free.

Lancelot’s hand tightened upon hers in a crushing grip, but Guinevere would not cry out. Lancelot endured the agony in silence,
his mouth open in a soundless scream as the point slowly worked free of the wound. Suddenly his muscles went slack and his
head lolled to the side. He had fainted.

“
Now
make yourselves useful!” Gawain bellowed at the men standing behind him. “Bandage the man up before he bleeds to death, and
a scurvy pox on your planets!” He flung away the bloodsoaked lance.

As the doctors scurried to obey, Guinevere gently laid Lancelot’s hand across his chest. The way he had stared into her eyes
through the pain, as though he had stared into her soul! He had needed her. No man had ever needed her before … not even her
husband.

The doctors were hurrying to obey Gawain, and Guinevere stepped back to allow the doctors to do their work. Some of the blood
had gotten on her skirt, making mahogany shadows on her gay red gown.

“Come on, Jenny. Arthur will wonder why you aren’t at the feast,” Gawain said, leading her gently out of the pavilion. The
evening air was cool after the heat of the tent and she shivered. “I’ll stay here and tend to him,” Gawain added.

She stared up at her brother’s face in the soft twilight. From the moment she’d first learned to walk, Gawain had been there
to protect her. But now something
had happened—something for which she had no words—and Gawain could not protect her now.

“Your Majesty?”

She turned, to see Arthur’s wizard behind her. Flustered, her hands darted about—to her crown, to her hair, to the folds of
her skirt—trying to smooth away her disquiet. “Yes?” she answered, her voice higher and sharper than she intended.

If Merlin noticed her discourtesy, he gave no sign. “The king asked me to see if there was anything I could do for Lancelot.”

“Gawain pulled the lance from his shoulder,” Guinevere answered.

“The doctors are bandaging him now. I do not think there is any more harm they can do him, and in any event, I will stay to
keep watch over him,” Gawain said to Merlin. “Take the Queen back to Camelot. This is no place for her.”

“I shall be honored,” Merlin said, and offered Guinevere his arm. Reluctant, but unable to do anything else, she took it.

The Great Hall of the castle was still unfinished, but the torches that ringed its walls this April night dispelled the dark
and damp, and the golden stone the king had chosen for his city shone warmly in the firelight.

The High Table was covered with a cloth of white linen and set with cups and plates and pitchers and trays of jewel-studded
silver and enameled gold. Though Arthur had not yet reigned a year, the peace he had brought had already caused the land to
flourish,
and the Eastertide banquet held this night was evidence of how far Britain had come in just a few short months. Every savory
treat that the cooks could provide had been set forth to delight the company assembled to celebrate the choosing of Arthur’s
champion, from whole roast swan and peacock in their plumage, to venison in spiced frumenty, to large cased pies of beef and
pork. There were conserves of quince and roses, wines flavored with saffron and the Grains of Paradise that turned the vintage
a deep ruby, glazed fruits in honey, and for dessert, a subtlety of a unicorn with a gilded horn made entirely of spun sugar
and marzipan.

Arthur, seated at the High Table in a painted and gilded chair with his device—an image of the Blessed Virgin enthroned upon
a crescent moon—carved upon its back, presided over it all. Around the King sat his closest friends and advisers—Lord Lot,
Sir Boris, Sir Hector, and others—but one who might have been expected to be present was not.

Merlin, the enchanter.

Merlin’s place at Arthur’s court was an ambiguous one. He had ended the reign of one king and brought about the reigns of
two others. And in the time it had taken him to do so, the customs of the nobility had shifted, subtly but unmistakably, away
from the Old Ways and toward the New Religion. Vortigern’s court had worshiped power, and Uther’s had made uneasy alliances
wherever it could, but Arthur of Britain was a Christian king ruling a land that would someday be wholly a Christian one,
from which the dark magics of the Old Ways would be banished.

And as such, his court had no official place for a wizard. Many of Arthur’s nobles, whether Christian since Roman times or
newly-converted, distrusted anything that smacked of the Old Ways. And with good reason. The Old Ways had made Britain a battleground
since King Constant’s time, and those who felt they had escaped them were wary of anything that would once again entangle
them in magic’s shadowy net.

Arthur thought their attitude unjust, but in some ways, the idealism that Merlin had so carefully fostered in his royal charge
was a liability in dealing with day-to-day matters. The years had made Merlin more of a realist. He would not intrude where
his presence would spoil the trust that must grow up between Arthur and the nobles he ruled. Thus, this night Merlin sat not
at the high table, but near the door, where the lesser nobility took its meal. The food was as good as that served at the
high table, and one could come and go unobtrusively.

And, if one had the power of the Old Ways, one could hear the conversations at the High Table as easily as if one were sitting
there.

Merlin knew that eavesdropping wasn’t very good manners, but with Arthur’s chosen champion lying injured, and the Queen looking
so pale and wan, Merlin felt it was his duty as the King’s adviser to know what was going on, so that he could ward off further
trouble, assuming such a thing were possible. There were times when Merlin thought the old Saxon gods had been right after
all: if a fate had been laid out for a man at
the beginning of his life, there was no sense in trying to outwit it, for his fate would find him in the end.

But as Merlin watched Guinevere do no more than pick at her food, while beside her Arthur ate and drank as though nothing
were amiss, Merlin knew he could not be content to watch from afar. He needed to
know
.

A small gesture, almost unnoticed by those who sat around him, and the words of the King and Queen came to him as clearly
as if he stood behind them.

“How is Lancelot?” Arthur asked.

“He’s past the worst,” Guinevere said slowly, not looking at the king.

“Good,” Arthur said. “That’s good. He can hardly be your champion if he’s lying in bed, now, can he?” The king smiled, hoping
to coax his queen into a cheerier mood.

“Must you go on this quest?” Guinevere burst out, her voice low. Her hands clasped each other so tightly the knuckles shone
white through the flesh.

“Yes I must,” Arthur said firmly. “My lady, you know that seeking the Grail is the right thing for me to do. I can delay a
few weeks, until Lancelot is more recovered, but that is all.”

“And if I beg you not to go?” Guinevere persisted.

Arthur turned to her. “What are you afraid of, Guinevere?”

Whatever disturbed her, the Queen was not prepared to share it with Arthur, Merlin saw. She shook her head, and the long strands
of pearls braided through her hair glimmered in the torchlight as they swung against her cheeks. “Nothing,” she said. “I’ll
miss you,” she added hollowly.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Arthur said patiently, “but I’ve given my word. To God.”

“I need you more,” Guinevere said, and the heartfelt cry seemed for a moment to echo Merlin’s to Nimue.
I need you
, he had told her, over and over, and Nimue’s answer had always been the same:
God needs me more
.

If the Queen was as lonely as he was in the midst of all these people, Merlin pitied her.

“But you’ll have Merlin,” Arthur said. “And Lancelot.”

From the foot of the table, Merlin saw a flash of panic cross the Queen’s face, and wondered at it. Surely she could not be
afraid of Lancelot? The man was the soul of chivalry!

He saw Guinevere bow her head, and nod meekly, and suddenly Merlin did not wish to listen any longer.

But later, when the guests had departed and Arthur and Guinevere were alone together, the queen could not keep from pleading
with Arthur once more. If only he could understand her feelings, surely they would move him to pity her and do as she asked.

They were alone together in Guinevere’s rooms. She sat at the dressing table taking down her hair, while Arthur watched her
from a chair by the door. These were not the royal apartments, which were not yet finished, but a set of simpler rooms on
the ground floor of the castle. Arthur liked to sit with her for a few minutes here in the evening, but he always retired
to his own rooms afterward, to pray to be worthy of finding
the Grail. Leaving her alone, like a pair of unwanted shoes.

“You cannot go,” Guinevere said. Blessed Virgin, make him hear the words she searched for in vain—let him know her heart!

Her hands shook as she lifted her pearl crown from her head and set it on the table. She stood and clasped them together,
trying to still their trembling. Arthur was fearless—it was Gawain who had first told her that, and when she had met her husband
she discovered it was the simple truth. And how could a man who did not know fear understand a woman’s fears? She turned and
walked to the window, standing before it and looking out so she would not have to see his face.

“We have gone over all this before, my lady,” Arthur said, with what sounded like a stifled sigh of exasperation. She heard
his chair creak as he shifted position. “I know it is hard, but you knew I meant to accept this quest before we were wed.
I will leave you many competent, experienced men to help you rule the kingdom while I am gone—your own father, Sir Boris.
The land is at peace. You have nothing to fear.”

Nothing but the knowledge that she had always felt like a ghost traveling through other people’s lives, flawed where they
were perfect, only an encumbrance to them on life’s journey. She had hoped marriage would change that, but it had not. She
had thought she was resigned to her loneliness. She had accepted it as the natural order of things, until she had met Lancelot.

From the moment she had looked into his eyes, she had begun to question everything—from the way
she was treated by Arthur’s knights, to whether she really deserved the fate that was hers as Arthur’s virgin queen. Lancelot
would change her by his very presence in Camelot, and Guinevere feared that.

“Arthur—” she began. But how to put this formless dread into words that could sway a man as brave and fearless as her husband?
She did not even know what she feared, only that she feared it very much.

Guinevere turned away from the window. “You’re right,” she said dutifully, forcing herself to smile and look at him. “I have
nothing to fear. After all, I will have your wizard to protect me, as well as Lancelot.”

She saw Arthur’s face relax as he took her words at face value. “You’ll do fine,” he said, getting to his feet and coming
over to her. “And I’ll be back … as soon as possible,” he finished lamely. He took her by the shoulders and gazed down at
her tenderly. “Well, good night, then.” He kissed her chastely upon the forehead, just as he had every night since they were
wed.

“Good night,” Guinevere echoed, watching as he walked from the room.

When he was gone and she was alone, she turned back to the window, wishing she were in a tower a thousand miles high. One
leap, and all choices would be over, and the dread in her heart would be stilled. At last the slow tears came, when there
was no one to see them.

Where will you go to seek the Grail, husband? How can you begin to know where it lies? Will you recognize it when you see
it? Or will all of this building and planning be for nothing, only a beautiful dream
that vanishes in the morning because you are not here to make it real?

The next ten days passed as quickly as moments, leaves torn from the Tree of Years by an autumn wind. Arthur made his final
choices: Gawain and forty of the Round Table’s bravest knights would go with him on his quest. They would begin by going to
Avalon Abbey to offer prayers in the Grail Chapel, and there seek an omen that would lead them onward in their search.