"She, too. Come now, drink. "
I kept my mouth closed, however, refusing the cup. "Am I losing my mind again, Quinto?"
"Losing—? Oh, you mean your memory!" He laughed, throwing his head back, and I felt relief touching me. "No, of course not! Not the way you did before, at least. You know us all here, don't you? And you know who you are, so your memory is fine. You have been ill, that's all, Caius. A raging fever and a rabid cough. Pneumonia, and not surprisingly. Benedict had it, too, though to a lesser degree, and this skin ailment that you show did not appear on him. Your memory is fine, I assure you. You may have lost some recent details, here and there, but that was the fever's fault, not your mind's. Now drink, and sleep. "
"Why can't I move?”
"Because you're as weak as a baby, famished and dehydrated. Be grateful you're alive, because now you'll start to regain your strength. Drink, man!"
The potion had a chalky, bitter taste, but I drank all of it, and when I had, Quinto lowered my head back to the pillow and moved beyond my sight. Shelagh leaned over ml again and wiped the corners of my mouth before stooping closer and kissing me gently on the forehead. I felt her lips cool and soft, then felt her move away.
"What skin ailment?" I asked, but no one answered me I knew I was dreaming from the moment I opened my eyes for the room was dark and yet I could see perfectly. Ironhair sat beside my bed, slouched in a padded armchair, leaning his chin upon his bent left arm and gazing at me through narrowed eyes. He wore the toga praetexta, the purple bordered toga of a Roman senator. When he saw that I had come awake, he smiled and straightened up.
"Caius Merlyn Britannicus," he drawled. "My people ten me you've been seeking me. How may I serve you?" !
"Serve me by staying alive until I come for you," I answered, and he laughed, his voice filled with what sounded like genuine amusement.
"I will! You may rest assured I have no plans to die. But why would you come for me?"
I simply lay and looked at him, seeing the misleading attractiveness I had always seen in him, the apparent lack of malice. "Why?" I asked him then. "Why did you set out to destroy my life?"
"Destroy—?" He laughed again, but when his laughter died away, there was perplexity stamped between his brows.
"Why would you think that I would waste my time destroying you? Are you that arrogant in your conceit?" His voice grew colder, angry now. "You're but one man, Britannicus, and though it may offend your ears to hear it, I have worthier, more important matters to occupy me. I have a kingdom yet to win for my prime client, Carthac Pendragon, and until I have done that I can have little time for squandering upon my own past grievances."
He paused, and I interjected, "Your client? Are you then become a senator, in truth, that you have clients?"
He ignored my interruption completely, continuing as though I had not spoken at all. "Oh, it's true enough, I'll grant you, that you and I had different viewpoints once, and that you used your power to thwart me. But that was long years since, and life has moved along since then—new challenges, new lands and different hills to climb! I've seldom thought of you in years, except for one or two occasions when your name came up in casual discussions. Merlyn of Camulod, you call yourself today. A far cry from Caius Merlyn Britannicus, Legate Commander of the Forces of Camulod, as you once named yourself to me."
'That stuck in your craw, didn't it?"
"Stuck in my craw? Come now, Merlyn! We have both grown up since then. That long and overblown self entitlement was the posturing pride of a self important little man who feared his spurious powers might be challenged. Admit it."
"No, it was a statement of fact, made with authority, and it sufficed to put you down and quell your plans for usurpation of this Colony."
"Only temporarily," he drawled, almost inaudibly.
"What did you say?"
He smiled, a long, slow smile. "I said it set my plans back temporarily. I will have Camulod, you know, once Carthac has claimed his place in Cambria." "Never," I murmured. "Not while I am alive to stop you ' "You? Ah, Merlyn, you are already half way dead. Fully alive, perhaps, in mental terms, but physically? No." He shook his head. "Your leprosy will write an end to you in Camulod"
"It might," I said, totally undismayed to hear him name my deepest fear. "But not before I chop the living heart out of your breast."
"Hah!" He rose swiftly to his feet and moved behind the chair, then slowed to settle the folds of his snowy toga to drape perfectly before he placed his hands on the chair's back and leaned over it, towards me. "Merlyn," he said, his voice betraying a hint of impatience, "you are not a stupid man, I know. Tiresome, indeed, but not stupid. So if you hear no other word from me but this, hear this clearly: I will die, as all men must, but I will not die by your hand. Believe that. You and I will never come together, chin to chin, as warriors do to test each other's mettle. Believe that, and lei me do what I must do. Live out your silly, miserable life however you will but please—if I must implore, I will—do not delude yourself that I would stoop to notice any detail of your life. Now let me go, I am required elsewhere." "Carthac," I said. "What of Carthac?" "Why do you aid him?"
"Carthac is a means to my own ends. He is insane, an animal, unworthy to be called a human man, but he is necessary, for the time being, at least. He is impervious to pain, you know, and utterly fearless. I think he may be truly invulnerable. He bleeds like any man, so I suppose that is not quite true, but I seriously doubt he can be killed like any ordinary man. I once watched as a surgeon butcher carved his thigh and dug a long, barbed arrow from the wound. Carthac bore it all without a grunt, without a flicker of annoyance. Mind you, he killed the surgeon afterwards, but that was merely as an afterthought. As I said, he is insane. "
. "And when he turns to rend you limb from limb, what then, Ironhair?"
"He never will. He loves me, in his own demented way. I am the only friend that he has ever known, and he trusts me completely. And now I must go. Release me, if you will. "
"Presently I will, but you have much to answer for. The assault on our children, years ago, and the murder during that assault of Hector's wife, Julia, a blameless woman if there ever was one. The recent death of my own wife, Tressa. The death of my good friend Dedalus, and much, much more, the tally of which has barely begun—"
He made a tutting noise, cutting me short. "These charges are nonsense, Britannicus. I know nothing of this woman Julia, although I'll take your word that she was killed. That was unfortunate and incidental to the main concern, which was to stifle the Pendragon brat. In that, I struck at you, once and no more. I was displeased with you. Mind you, had I known then what I know now, I might have tried the harder, but that was before dear Carthac came into my life.
"As for your wife and friends, what fault lies there of mine? Yours was the choice to come thus howling home, abandoning the simplest steps that might have saved their lives. You were the one who rode though unknown land with no protective scouts ahead of you.. And why? I have yet brought no threat to bear on Camulod, nor will I, till I'm done in Cambria. Really, you must admit I am blameless, there. "
"What about Horsa?" |
"What about him? I required mercenaries, and he provided them."
"He is a Dane, an Outlander!"
"He is a mercenary, Merlyn! He fights for payment"
"Aye, and for land and plunder and rapine. He slaughtered Vortigern, who was more than good to him and his kind. You'd turn his people loose among your own?"
His lip curled in a sneer. "What's this about my own? I have no people of my own, other than those I own by right of purchase. Spare me these minatory mouthings and let me go."
I nodded to him and lay back. "Go then, but be prepared for me. I'm coming for you, Ironhair, and I will find you"