Brit yawned again, more widely than before, and picked up the map and inspected it closely. “If this really is a diagram of the castle, then…” She wrinkled her brow. “Let’s see. This is the Great Hall, at the center. And this shows only part of the rest of the castle. It leaves off ten yards or so in any direction. But…” She looked around, as if something she saw might correspond to something Ganelin had sketched. “The servants’ quarters, the storerooms and the stables are off to the right of the hall. There are triangles in every hallway.”
“Very Pellenore-like, wouldn’t you say?”
She nodded. “Or at least, not very Mordred-like or Lancelot-like. Do you have any food around here? I need something to wake me up.”
“Sorry. I can send a page to the refectory for you, if you like.”
“No.” She was becoming absorbed with the chart. “I’ll cope till I can get there myself. And on the other side of the hall are the corridors leading to Arthur’s tower and yours, the rooms where the knights live and the refectory. Crosses, Xs, stars.” She looked up at him. “They radiate from the Great Hall. It might almost be possible to connect them into direct lines.”
Merlin looked over her shoulder. “That’s true for the crosses and Xs. The stars seem to wander a bit.”
She traced them with a fingertip. “Who could have been wandering about like that? And why? It seems so aimless.”
There was a tapping at the window. Merlin’s raven Roc was there. He opened the window to let him in, and the bird flew onto his shoulder. Merlin reached up and stroked its head. “I think we can only get so far using the chart alone. There are other ways to proceed. If we can start eliminating the suspects, one by one, then the one left must be the killer. If the chart backs up what we suspect, that’s one more level of certainty.”
“Makes sense, I suppose.” Brit yawned still again.
“You suppose?”
“I’ve never been involved in anything like this before.”
“None of us has, Brit.”
Nimue shivered in the cold air from the window. She got up and pulled it shut. “I think we all agree that Pellenore is the most unlikely suspect, don’t we? So he should be the easiest to eliminate.”
“Exactly.” Merlin rubbed his hands together like a man about to cut into a succulent steak. “What do you remember about Pellenore from the time when Arthur defeated him, Brit?”
“It’s been years. More than a decade.”
“I know. Try and remember. I was busy trying to get the country functional again, or I’d remember myself. I’d like to find some people who knew Pellenore then. And some who are close to him now, if there are any.”
She concentrated. “I don’t remember a lot. But after the battle, a lot of his knights defected to Guenevere or headed to the Continent to go off on their own quests or whatever. A good knight can find service at just about any court in Europe.” She wrinkled her nose. “Why some of us are still here…”
“Hmm. It sounds vaguely ominous. But are any of them still here?”
“I think most of them are dead, or gone.”
“His servants, then? Did any of them stay with him?” She shook her head as if she was trying to clear it. “I don’t think so. Why would anyone stay with a losing king? There’s no advancement in that.”
The raven fluttered its wings and squawked, and he reached up to quiet it. “Damn. I wonder if Arthur remembers anyone.”
“It can’t hurt to ask.”
And Arthur did.
There was one knight in particular, he recalled, named Byrrhus. He had been among the oldest of Pellenore’s company, and he had signed on to Arthur’s service after the climactic battle. But he had retired and left Camelot soon after that. “He sends me odd notes now and then. Half of them make no sense at all. But he’s alive. Can you imagine it? A knight moving into a quiet, peaceful existence still alive and with all his limbs and both eyes intact.”
Britomart didn’t like the sound of that and said so.
Merlin enjoyed her discomfort. “Face facts, Brit. You’ve chosen a dangerous line of work.” He turned to Arthur. “I don’t suppose you know where he retired to?”
He rubbed his chin. “Londinium, I think. Or London, as the residents call it now. Yes, I’m sure of it. I remember he had opened an inn. It was called… let me think… it was called Nero’s Nose or something of the sort.”
“Fine.” Merlin rubbed his hands together like an eager child smelling cake. “Then to London we go.”
“Are you serious?” Brit sounded extremely unhappy. “Have you ever been there? It’s the dreariest town in England. It only flourished when the Romans made it their headquarters. Once we drove them out of the country…”
“We’re not going for a holiday, Brit. We have a job to do.”
“Suppose he’s dead? Or senile?”
“We’ll know that soon enough.”
London was a small, sleepy town on the banks of the Thames River. It consisted of a few score houses, a shaky wooden bridge spanning the river and a few decrepit shrines to the Roman gods, some of them still in use. The place was dominated by the ruins of a Roman garrison where children played at being soldiers.
When Merlin, Brit and Nimue arrived there after half a day’s travel, it was raining. Brit got a bright red cloak out of her luggage and wrapped herself in it. Merlin told her it made her look like a fallen woman.
“Be quiet.”
The river ran swift and muddy. Overlooking everything were the remains of a Roman fort built of large, dark stones. The long outer wall was dotted with watchtowers. Despite the rain there were children playing atop them. But only the front wall was intact; as they moved past, they could see that the others had huge gaps in them.
They stopped on the hill overlooking the town and took it all in, and Brit voiced her disdain for the place again. “Look at it. What a dump. There isn’t even a decent pub, just a few inns where you can buy gritty beer and sour wine.”
“You know this place. And not just casually.” Nimue’s tone was accusatory. “Why haven’t you said so?”
“There are some things I don’t like to remember.”
Merlin was suspicious, too. “Where are you from originally, Brit?”
She frowned and gestured at the place before them. “From that.”
“Oh.”
They spurred their horses. None of them could wait to find an inn with a good fire and to dry off. To their surprise, the streets were paved with large stones. “The Romans,” Brit said with a snort.
“I’ve heard about Roman roads crisscrossing all of Europe. ” Nimue had a touch of awe in her voice. “Paved like this and still in use. What wonders they must have accomplished. They say that Rome will last forever. If it was all like this, I can believe it.”
“Arthur is right.” There was genuine sadness in Merlin’s voice. “Nothing in the world is getting better.”
“You both spend too much time reading books.” Brit was not disguising how unhappy she was to be there. “Where are the Romans now? Where is Cleopatra? Where is Augustus? ”
“They left us this.” Nimue gestured at the fort and the stones beneath their horses’ hooves. “What will we leave? Beer mugs.”
“Arthur is holding the country together, Merlin.” Brit’s tone was oddly vehement. “That’s more than the Romans were ever able to do. On the far side of town there are temples to their gods. Mars, Venus, Hephaestus, Vesta. Mostly ruins now, but when I was a girl a few crackpots still prayed in them. A lot of good it’s done them.”
Just at the outskirts of the town, Merlin asked a passerby carrying a sack of something for directions to Nero’s Nose.
The man was baffled. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s an inn. Possibly run by an old knight.”
“Oh, you mean Caesar’s Bones, then.”