Nimue and Brit had not talked much in the carriage. Their mutual distrust was obvious and getting worse. Brit in particular conversed in monosyllables, and only when it was necessary. Nimue tried making chat about the weather, the countryside, anything she could think of to try to break the ice, but to no avail.
Over lunch she decided she’d had enough. “Do you really think this sullen silence is going to help us do what we have to?”
Brit took a bite of her roast beef almost aggressively. “I don’t know. But I can’t think of any reason why I should trust you, Colin.” She said the name with emphatic contempt.
“Merlin trusts me. Isn’t that what matters? He told you himself he’s the one who has encouraged me to continue this pretense.”
“I’ve been suspicious of you from the outset. From the day you arrived at Camelot.”
“What did you suspect me of? No crimes had been committed then.”
“No, but I find it impossible to trust someone whose identity is such a complete mystery.”
“You know who I am.”
“And if I’ve been suspicious, don’t you think other people must be? Your involvement in this investigation puts us all at risk.”
“I don’t see how.”
“Never mind.” Unhappy, Brit called to the innkeeper for more meat. A few minutes later they were back on the road.
Greffys brought more and more of the servants to Merlin for interrogation. And one session after another went much like the first one had gone. Some of the servants were talkative and cooperative; some were silent or nearly so, sullen and distrustful.
They had been in the hallways for various reasons- hunger, restlessness, nature’s call. Some of them had seen one or more of the suspects; most had not. But one fact emerged clearly from the first several interviews-none of them had seen anyone in the halls who might make a plausible suspect except the suspects who were already known to him. Mordred, Pellenore, Lancelot. So far he had found no one who’d seen Mark.
Then one of the stable boys claimed to have seen him. As before, Merlin showed him the copy of the chart and asked him to indicate where. The boy pointed precisely to a spot where Ganelin had marked an X on the original. “You’re certain of this? It was King Mark of Cornwall that you saw?”
“Yes, sir. I know him. I’ve groomed his horse for him.”
“And this is the spot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you told Ganelin about this? He questioned you?”
The boy nodded.
“Very well. Thank you. You may go.”
“Uh… sir?”
“Yes?”
“Ganelin told me my information was valuable.”
“And so it is.”
“He said you’d give me a farthing.”
“Oh.” Scowling, Merlin found his pocketbook, got out a coin and gave it to the boy. “Thank you again.”
“Anytime, sir.” Beaming, he left.
So Mark was the X. There seemed less and less room to doubt it.
But Greffys was puzzled by it all. “Excuse me, sir, but I thought King Mark was a friend of King Arthur.”
“The Hebrews have a holy book called Micah, Greffys. One of the things it says is ‘A man’s enemies are the men of his own house.’”
“But-but didn’t Arthur come to power with Mark’s help?”
“That would be a politic way of putting it. As a young man Arthur became determined to unify England. Until then it was a patchwork of tribes and confederations, all of them at each other’s throats all the time. Arthur realized that England would never progress-would never advance to par with the rest of Europe-until some kind of unity could be imposed.”
The boy seemed bewildered by this.
“Look, Greffys, there is power here. We have the population and-thanks to the Cornish tin and wine-the economic clout to stand shoulder to shoulder with any country on the Continent. We are only beginning to see the benefits that come from a unified nation, but they are real, and they will grow.”
Greffys narrowed his eyes. “And Arthur realized all this? Or was it you?”
“I had traveled widely, yes. I think perhaps I was the one who opened Arthur’s eyes to the possibilities.”
“You are the real power behind the throne.”
“Nonsense. Arthur had the military genius to make unity happen. I’m hopeless at such things.”
“Even so. You make policy for the nation.”
“Balderdash. But Arthur had a long struggle ahead of him. Warlords being warlords, they fought him. Sometimes viciously. Mark was one of the most savage. Do you know his history?”
“No, sir.”
“His father, King Felix of Cornwall, died under mysteriouscircumstances. His heir was Mark’s elder brother, Bouduin. Mark killed him and took the throne.”
“That is terrible, sir. How could Arthur ever trust a man like that?”
“That is politics. At any rate, that is politics as it has always been practiced. Mark entered into a treaty with an Irish warlord and married the man’s daughter, Isolde, to seal it. But Isolde, who was much younger, fell in love with Mark’s nephew, Prince Tristram. The two of them died, again under mysterious circumstances. So you see, Greffys, Mark’s history is bloody enough to make him a good suspect for us.” He paused, suddenly concerned. “Uh, you do understand that I’m telling you this in confidence, don’t you? None of this is to be spread around.”
“Yes, sir. But…”
“But what?”
“Well… what kind of a place have you sent Colin and Britomart into?”
The weather was as sunny as could be expected in an English winter, and warm-it might almost have been early spring, not December. Inns had delicious, ample food at reasonable prices; the wine they served was full-bodied and sweet. There was every sign they were approaching a prosperous region.
The landscape was mostly granite hills interrupted by farmland. There seemed an outsize number of crippled men on the roads-men missing limbs or walking on crutches.
Whole fields were covered with wooden trellises; Nimue had never seen anything like them and asked Brit what they were. There had not been much talk between them. But Nimue was determined to learn everything she could, even if it meant questioning someone she didn’t much like.
“They’re for grapevines. Mark’s people have figured out how to cultivate them. It’s the first time anyone’s done it in England. I assume the wine we had at that last inn was made here.”
“They always say vines can’t grow in England.”
“Look at the soil. It’s black and rich, like the soil at Mount Vesuvius in Italy.”
Nimue was puzzled. “There are no volcanoes here.”
“Brilliant observation.”
Then odd buildings began to appear here and there across the landscape. Again she asked Brit. “They’re so tall and thin. What can they be for?”
“They house the equipment for the mines. Enormous air pumps powered by bellows, and huge wheels wound with cable to lower the miners down to the lower depths.”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“It is. There are accidents all the time. You’ve seen all the cripples on the road. Arthur pays the widows a bounty.”
“Big of him.”
“Cornwall is the most prosperous place in England, and the mines are what makes it so. Bronze can’t be made without tin, and Cornwall produces the only tin in Europe. Arthur might well be bankrupt without it.”
“I see.”
Then in the distance, at the head of the Cornish peninsula, loomed Mark’s castle. It was not especially large by the standards of castle architecture, and Mark had had the exterior whitewashed and the towers painted bright red and blue, very un-castle-like; it gleamed, even in the weak winter sunshine.
As the party approached it they came to another of the mine-head buildings at the side of the road. Nimue heard machinery creaking inside, and there was a smell of chemicals in the air. Men, covered in dirt, came and went. And there was a guard post, and a barrier blocking the road.