“I know it, Brit. But how?” He looked to the woman’s hut; there was still no sign of Arthur. “If only Ganelin had told me what he’d learned from the servants. Or some of it, at least.”
“We’ll have to question them ourselves. There’s no other way.”
“Ganelin had a point. They won’t open up to us the way they did to him.”
“Then we’ll have to force it out of them.”
“No.” His voice took on an uncharacteristically hard edge. “No torture. That is not the kind of land Arthur wants to make.”
“Then how do we-”
“We’ll find a way.”
The hut’s door opened. Arthur came out, followed closely by the woman, who was crying. Her dark features were made worse by grief. He took her by the hand and led her to where the others were waiting. From his saddlebag he got the sable cloak and placed it around her shoulders.
“No, Arthur, please. It doesn’t matter. I’m numb anyway. ”
He wrapped it more tightly around her. “Don’t be foolish. It’s a cold, wet day.” He looked to Merlin and Britomart. “This is Anna, who might have been the mother of kings.”
They said soft hellos to her. She averted her eyes.
“Come, Anna. I chose this horse for you myself. She’s the sweetest, gentlest in my stable.”
“Like me?” Her voice was bitter with her sorrow.
“Please don’t talk like that.” Then he turned to the others. “Anna, this is Merlin, my most trusted advisor, and Britomart, one of my senior military aides.”
It was all so completely unexpected. Uncertain what to say, they made simple greetings to her, trying, not very successfully, to sound friendly and pleased she was with them.
He helped her up then mounted his own horse. “Come on, everyone, let’s get home.”
And so the party returned the way it had come. There was not much more talk on the return trip than there had been on the ride out. At one point Britomart reined her mount next to Anna’s. Anna gaped at her, not seeming to remember their introduction.
“Hello. I’m Brit. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Thank you.” She avoided looking at her.
“You’ve been to Camelot before?”
“No. Never. Arthur wanted to take me. But I don’t belong in a place like that.”
“Just between us,” she lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, “no one does.”
Anna smiled shyly. “I want to see the funeral. I want to see my boys buried. I told him I’m coming home after that.”
There was an awkward silence. Then, “Do you love him?”
“I don’t know. It’s been so many years. He told me he loved me when we first knew each other. He says that he’s never stopped. But he’s the king and I’m a woman from the midland swamps.”
Brit tried to make more conversation, but Anna was badly out of her element and shaken by her grief. Brit determined to make the woman feel as much at home as she could, once they reached Camelot.
At one point on the long ride to the castle, she noticed that Anna had begun to cry again. Was it for her boys, or for what might have been with Arthur, or some combination of the two? There didn’t seem much point in asking.
Late that night, Nimue, Brit and Merlin sat before a roaring fire in his study with more spiced wine. None of them seemed to have any idea how to proceed.
“Where’s Mark? I thought he’d be joining us.” Brit yawned and stretched.
“He’s packing for the journey back to Cornwall.” One of Merlin’s ravens tapped at the window, and Merlin got up to let it in. “He’s done as much as he can here, and he does have his own fiefdom to govern.”
“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.
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