“Be quiet, Merlin. I want to hear the actors.”
The audience was predictably rowdy and ill-behaved, talking and laughing loudly as the performance progressed. But as it went on and got darker and more serious, they began to pay attention. In particular, the boy actor Watson, playing the tragic Trojan queen Hecuba, caught their attention. When he recited his speech mourning the deaths of his children, his husband and his city, there were even people weeping.
“You see the power of dressing as the opposite sex?” Nimue whispered to Merlin.
“Nonsense. They are drunk, that’s all.”
“Piffle.”
Throughout, Merlin kept a careful eye on the suspects. Guenevere and Lancelot were seated at a special table close to the stage. She was not happy, and not paying much attention to Watson and the others. She was, after all, the queen, and she was seated among lesser persons. Lancelot was drunk and kept nodding off, which seemed to annoy her even more.
Mordred and Morgan stayed near the farthest wall from the stage. It was clear they saw themselves apart from the rest. Or at any rate Morgan saw herself that way and Mordred went along. She was not a mother to upset.
And Mark, also drunk, kept lurching through the audience, muttering to one person or group after another. Wrapped up in the play, they shushed him. The expression on his face was not happy.
Britomart joined Merlin and Nimue.
“Have you seen anything, Brit?”
“Yes, a boy pretending to be a sad woman.”
“You know what I mean-anything suspicious. What is Mark saying?”
“He is complaining about your mystical show. He thinks something dire will happen, and he wants to find a way to stop it.”
“And what did you say to him?”
“I told him to relax, that religious displays of the supernatural are simply more theater.”
“Cynic.”
“That is exactly what he said.”
“I haven’t seen Petronus,” Brit commented.
“He is making himself scarce,” Merlin told her. “The last thing he wants is an encounter with Lancelot. He will be here when he’s needed.”
“Needed?”
“He is practicing with the lenses for tonight.”
“Lenses? Merlin, this sounds sillier and more desperate the more I learn about it.”
When finally the play concluded, the audience applauded and cheered wildly. Samuel took center stage for a bow, but the crowd wanted young Watson. Glumly, grudgingly, Samuel let the boy take the glory.
Meanwhile, Merlin moved through the audience in the direction of the offstage space where the actors were. His turn in the limelight would be next.
When the applause for the boy finally died down, Arthur took the stage again and thanked the company for their splendid performance. “What we saw tonight redounded to the glory of England, the fairest country on the face of the earth.” He went on at length about the flower of England and the coming period of prestige and leadership on the stage of Europe.
Offstage, two of the young men in Samuel’s company helped Merlin into a sorcerer’s robe, embroidered with stars and mystical symbols, and a conical wizard’s hat. Samuel watched, beaming; if things went well, his company would soon have a patron at court. To one of his dressers, Merlin whispered, “It is terribly lucky you have this costume.”
“We use it in one of our comedies, sir.”
“Oh. Well, let us hope tonight’s events do not play that way.”
Onstage, Arthur concluded his speech by talking about the Stone of Bran and the might and the glory it would soon bring to “our fair island.” He acknowledged Percival, who was in the audience, and gave him full credit for finding the sacred relic. Then he intoned, “It is time for us to witness its power.”
The musicians struck up a somber march, a nearly hymnlike melody. Almost involuntarily the crowd parted and Greffys entered, accompanied by a dozen of Arthur’s most trusted guards; Arthur was taking no chances with the safety of his squire this time. On a red velvet cushion embroidered with gold, Greffys carried the Stone of Bran before him. Their little procession made a circuit of the hall, permitting everyone to see the stone close-to. Then they advanced to the foot of the stage.
During this, Petronus had entered the hall and made his way unobtrusively to the side of the stage. As Greffys and the guards climbed to the platform, Petronus produced a pair of large lenses Merlin and Samuel had given him. He held them carefully before two of the torches, and the lenses focused their light and directed it to the stone. Suddenly, it seemed to everyone watching, the Stone of Bran began to glow brightly, almost ethereally. As Greffys moved across the stage to Arthur, Petronus changed the angle of the lenses so that the light followed and the crystal skull seemed to burn with a supernatural light.
When Greffys was beside him, Arthur took the stone in the fingertips of both hands and held it aloft. “Behold the Stone of Bran, the gift of the gods!” The crowd gasped and applauded vigorously.
Then Merlin, in his magician’s robes, slowly, solemnly mounted the platform and crossed to Arthur. He made a slight bow, first to the king then to the skull. Then he turned and faced the audience. “Let the wonders begin,” he intoned, and the audience fell into a hushed silence.
Petronus adjusted his lenses so that the beams shone on both Merlin and on the stone. Merlin made a slow, deliberate, majestic bow to the audience. Then, with equally deliberate slowness, he removed his pointed hat. With a flourish he showed it to the audience so that they could see that it was empty. Then he took the stone and touched it to the hat, held the hat in one hand and from it produced a live rabbit. The animal struggled to escape his grip. He let it drop to the stage and it scampered away, frightened and confused. It ran, improbably, in the direction where Morgan and Mordred were standing. Mordred caught it and handed it to his mother, who cradled it in her arms till it calmed down.
In the wings, Samuel beamed. Merlin had worked the trick he’d taught him perfectly. Someone in the audience shouted, “That’s it, Merlin? That is the great wonder we’ve been promised?”
Instead of answering, Merlin raised a finger to his lips and gestured to the door nearest the stage.
A young woman with blond hair, wearing a low-cut snow-white gown, entered the hall, eyes lowered, and walked to the stage. Behind her came Greffys, carrying a large saw. Finally, the two gravediggers entered, carrying a large wooden coffin. This was all so unexpected, the crowd fell silent again.
The girl in white climbed to the stage, followed by the others. The gravediggers let their coffin rest on two wooden trestles and made a quick exit. Merlin assisted the woman into the coffin, where she lay down, and he closed the lid.
In the audience, Mark gaped at her. Was she the same woman who’d come to him that night at his own castle? Could Merlin have been behind her presence there, then? Drunk almost to a stupor, he tried to think clearly and make sense of it, but it was no use.
From a corner of his eye, Merlin watched Mark. The show seemed to be having the desired effect on him. Once again he took the Stone of Bran and with a flourish passed it over the coffin three times; then another three times he tapped the lid with it. And he took the saw and began to cut it in half, and the woman with it. People in the crowd gasped; Mark gaped.
When the coffin was cut clear through, Merlin and Greffys moved the two halves apart, then slid them back together again. Waving the stone above it one more time, he opened the lid, and out stepped the young woman in white. The audience cheered and applauded. Mark blinked and tried to focus, uncertain whether to believe what he was seeing.
Morgan, standing at the back of the audience, was bored. She leaned against the wall and yawned. She handed the rabbit to her son and whispered something to him; he also yawned.
On his throne at the side of the stage Arthur watched alternately his minister/magician and the audience, and he smiled serenely, pleased that Merlin’s worst expectations had not come to pass. No one was reacting adversely to the show; the killer was not a member of his court.