“Does it occur to you,” she asked, “that kingship is now firmly established in England?”
Merlin swirled the wine in his cup. “I’m not certain what you mean.”
“Not so long ago queens ruled here.”
“And you’re saying there are at least two women who would like to see the country revert to that.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Exactly.”
Nimue took a long drink. “But no one likes either Morgan or Guenevere. No one would ever submit to their rule.”
“Suppose they ruled through a puppet at first? A lover or a son?” Brit got up and stretched again. “It’s been a long day. Too long.”
“That hadn’t occurred to me before, Brit.” Nimue looked at Merlin to try and guess what he was thinking. “But you have a good point.”
“We should have thought of it before now. And if one of them learned somehow that the squires were Arthur’s sons and presumptive heirs, it would have given them the motive for… for what happened.”
“I can easily imagine Morgan ruling through Mordred- and Mordred going along. Guenevere and Lancelot-that’s another matter.” Merlin started to drink then seemed to think better of it and put his goblet on the table. “The thought of King Mordred makes my blood run cold. There couldn’t possibly be enough wine to warm it again.” Like Britomart, he yawned. “You’re right, Brit, the day has been too long and too busy. We’ll think more clearly in the morning. But I think we will need to visit our suspects on their home ground. Their guard may be down then.”
He got up and poured his wine into the fireplace. “The king’s wife or his sister. A fine pair of suspects we have.”
They said their good nights and parted company. Merlin sat in his chair, stroking the raven’s head, till he fell asleep.
It rained on and off for three more days, and there was constant fog. Merlin watched from his tower, as always. At times the rain was so heavy his ravens wouldn’t leave the study.
“When I was young, I lived in Egypt for three years,” he told Nimue. “In Alexandria. Studying at the great library, or what is left of it. It hardly ever rained there; the weather was warm and lovely almost all the time. It was the happiest time of my life.” He turned to face her. “I had to come back to dear old England.”
“You love England and you know it.”
“This is not a fit place for someone who likes to think.”
“Is any place?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I’ve romanticized Alexandria. Our memories do that to us. Did you know there are catacombs there? The dead are buried in underground chambers. You should see the catacombs sacred to the goddess Nemesis. It is a vast complex, all carved from the living bedrock. Athletes from the stadium are buried there, and even their horses.”
“Charming.”
He sighed. “Why do the young always sneer at everything they don’t know?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to resist. It’s hard to imagine that you didn’t do that when you were young.”
“I suppose I must have. Memory fails.”
Camelot’s burial ground was an eighth of a mile behind the castle, beyond a stand of blackthorn trees, distant enough to be out of sight, close enough to be nearby when necessary. The gravediggers kept trying to dig a hole for the dead squires, but the walls kept collapsing; even when they didn’t, the graves filled with water. With winter approaching, no one was certain when or even if the young men would get a proper burial.
Their mother, Anna, had become a disconcerting presence in the castle. She wandered the halls, distracted, distraught,holding imaginary conversations with her dead sons and, to appearances, hearing them answer. Now and then she would go down to the basement room where their remains lay and would stroke what was left of their bodies. Arthur ordered the room to be locked.
But she kept up her long, mad walks and the fancied conversations with her boys. No one seemed able to make her see what she was doing. Even Pellenore found her alarming. And Mark was more shaken than most. “It’s what I told you. Their spirits are uneasy. I’m glad I’m leaving for home.” He departed the next day.
Arthur asked Merlin to talk with Anna, to counsel her in her grief. “Understand, Merlin, the life she’s had. Her boys were everything to her. She lived in mud. In filth. But knowing her boys were here gave her hope. That is gone now.”
“You could have brought her here before now, Arthur.”
“She wouldn’t come. It was all for Ganelin and Borolet.”
So Merlin tried talking to her, tried to make her understand how erratic her behavior had become. But it was no use. “Honestly,” he told Brit, “I’m at a loss. How can I know what to say to her? I don’t know her, don’t know anything about her. For all any of us knows she’s been half-mad her entire life.”
“Isn’t there something you can give her? Some drug to calm her?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had the servants put a small dose of valerian in her food. It has no effect at all.”
“Poor woman.”
On the fourth day the rain stopped, but the clouds persisted and the world remained a bright, cold grey. If the rain didn’t begin again, a funeral should be possible soon. Arthur sent word to Morgan. “Come in a fortnight.” He voiced his hope repeatedly that the weather would hold- no more rain, no more freezing till after the boys were laid to rest. Merlin’s ravens were happy to be able to get outside again.
No one had inspected the bodies in the basement to make sure of their condition. No one much wanted to. Finally, Merlin offered to take some servants to prepare them. They took soap and water to clean them and winding sheets of the purest white linen from the king’s own stores. Fortunately, the cold had preserved the corpses fairly well. Even so, it was an unpleasant duty.
Woodworkers fashioned two caskets from birch wood. Both were intricately, elaborately carved; at Arthur’s insistence, both bore his own royal crest. A summons was sent to Pastorini in Cornwall to come and make bronze handles for them. Oddly, Mark sent word that the metalsmith was unable to come, but he made handles there and sent them.
A few days after that, Morgan arrived for the funeral, attended by her son and a dozen servants. They took over most of a wing of the castle. The first night they were there, as Morgan was going to the refectory for her dinner, she encountered Anna in the hallway. The two women, twenty feet apart, stared at one another for a long, silent moment. Then Anna moved on, looking presumably for what had always mattered in her life-her boys. Her melancholy affected Morgan, who did not say much during her meal.
Then the morning for the burial finally arrived. Well before dawn, Merlin was wakened by a persistent knocking at his door. He climbed out of bed, wrapped himself in a blanket and walked to open the door. “Yes?”
It was a boy, fourteen, maybe fifteen, with black hair, olive skin and large dark eyes. “Merlin?”
“Yes. Who the devil are you?”
“I’m Greffys, sir. The king’s new squire.”
“You are.” His voice was neutral.
“Yes, sir. He sent me to make sure you’re ready for the funeral.”
“It isn’t even sunrise.”
The boy’s face was blank. “I know that.”
Merlin looked him up and down. “Why did Arthur choose you?”
“He says I’m the best athlete among the squires.” The kid smiled with pride.
“It wouldn’t have occurred to him to choose the best scholar, would it?”
“Uh… I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“No. Of course not. Go and tell him I’ll be ready.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy rushed down the stairs without bothering to close the door behind him.
A few minutes later Nimue arrived. “You’re up.”
“Arthur sent his new squire to rouse me.” He smiled sarcastically. “Kings.”
“I’ve brought some hot soup. Here, you’ll need it.”