J. Blair - The Pendragon Murders

This was all too theoretical for Britomart. “I’ll meet with my senior officers. We’ll find a way to keep the plague out of Camelot, at least.”

“If it can be done, I am certain you are the one to do it. But I have my doubts.”

“It must be done. We are fighting for our lives. That’s when knights are at their best.”

The next morning Arthur summoned his closest advisors to a council on the crisis. Merlin was there, of course, with Nimue assisting him and taking notes, along with Britomart, Simon of York, and the most experienced of his knights, Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors and Sir Kay. Sir Dinadan would normally have been included, but he was in deep mourning over the deaths of this wife and son. Nimue and Petronus stood against a wall and listened, in case Merlin should need them.

Arthur was terse. “We all know the crisis we are facing. The question is what to do. I want to hear every idea you have.”

Merlin as usual took the lead. He laid out everything that was known about the plague-the symptoms, the rapidity with which it spread and the social fallout from it. “We do not know how this disease is transmitted from person to person. It may be airborne, as we believe malaria to be. It may be passed from one victim to the next by physical contact. We have no way of knowing. But not everyone who becomes ill dies. And not everyone becomes ill at all. That is our one hope. Both Colin and Petronus had close contact with the first victim, for instance. If we can discover what makes the difference…” He looked around the table, from one of them to the next. “That is the only faint hope I can see.”

Brit explained what was known about the riots, the food hoarding, the widespread panic. “Rumors of the plague,” she told them all, “seem to have reached as far west as the Welsh border and as far north as Hadrian’s Wall. We English have always been a taciturn people. Not now; not in the face of this. People seem unable to stop talking, and the talk is all alarming.”

Various suggestions were made for imposing martial law. The knights seemed to like the idea. “We station troops in all the cities,” Bedivere proposed with enthusiasm. “Then we can control the situation. There will be no riots then.”

“And what will you do when the plague strikes the troops themselves?” Merlin asked.

“It will not. Our soldiers are all in splendid physical condition.”

“More so than the rough sailors who died at Dover?”

Bedivere glared at him, but before he could say anything in response, Brit interjected, “We hardly have enough men to do that, anyway, Bed. How many men does it take to hold a city? And how many cities do we have?”

The discussion grew more and more heated. Merlin kept insisting there was no effective way to combat the disease, absent any real understanding of it; the knights kept countering that military force was the only recourse to prevent social disintegration.

Then suddenly the door of the council chamber flew open. A strong gust of wind extinguished all the candles. And in the doorway loomed a figure in swirling black robes. Once the initial surprise wore off, they realized who it was.

For a moment, no one spoke. Then Arthur said, “Morgan. You certainly do know how to make an entrance.”

“Or, at the very least,” Merlin added, “you know how to use the castle’s drafts to dramatic advantage.”

Arthur went on. “I wish you could enter a room like a normal human being. We already know you are the high priestess.” There was uneasy laughter. “But what are you doing here? This is a private council.”

“I have,” she announced grandly and mysteriously, “determined what has brought this plague.”

Merlin was deadpan. “You have.”

“Yes. And I-and I alone-know what will stop it.”

He rolled his eyes. “And I suppose it is a matter of worship. With you in charge, of course.”

She brushed Merlin aside. “It is a foolish king,” she intoned, “who ignores the gods.”

But Merlin was not done with her. “Yes, of course.”

Arthur got between them. “Merlin, let Morgan tell us what she knows. You have already confessed that you do not know what to do. Perhaps she does.”

Merlin snorted and waved a hand. “Fine. Let her talk, then.”

Morgan moved to the council table, but instead of taking a seat she stood there, dominating everyone else. “I can hardly be troubled to explain the situation to a roomful of doubters.”

“No one doubts you,” Arthur told her. “It is only that we are so frustrated by this awful situation.”

Simon added, “You are our priestess. You are the chosen of the gods. How could we be anything but respectful of what you say?”

Merlin shifted in his chair and shot Simon a withering glance. “How, indeed?”

Morgan, still standing, still imperious, looked slowly around the table, from one person to the next. Her silence was glacial. Then finally she spoke. “It is,” she said slowly and solemnly, “the Stone.”

Everyone in the room, plainly baffled, looked first to Arthur, then to Merlin. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Merlin asked her, “The stone?”

She nodded solemnly.

“What stone? What the devil are you talking about?”

“Now, now, Merlin.” Arthur wanted peace. “That is hardly the tone to take.” He turned to his sister. “But Morgan, might you please clarify what you just told us? Precisely what ‘stone’ are you referring to?”

“You ought to know well enough, Arthur. You spent years trying to find it. You sent one knight after another questing for it. Even now, it sits in that cabinet with your precious Excalibur and your other treasures.”

Nimue, hearing this, could not contain herself. “You mean the Stone of Bran?!”

A faint smile crossed Morgan’s lips. “You take my meaning precisely.”

For the second time the council members looked at one another in obvious bewilderment. Arthur seemed most puzzled of all. He groped for something to say. “The-the-but Morgan, you are the one who prodded me to find it. You told me that having it in my possession would bring uncounted blessings to England. Now you claim that what it has brought is death.”

Merlin snorted derisively. “Might we get back to discussing practical matters? People are dying.”

Before Arthur could respond, Morgan went on. “The god Bran is angry. His sacred Stone has been removed from its resting place. The plague is the expression of his, shall we say, displeasure?”

“But-but-” Arthur was trying to wrap his mind around what she’d said. “But Perceval found it in an abandoned barn in Wales, near a place called Grosfalcon. In a cattle stall. It was buried in three feet of dirt and mud. Now it rests in a place of honor in the most splendid castle in England. What could the god be unhappy about?”

“Nevertheless,” she said smugly. “You have had reports enough of the devastation. And,” she intoned menacingly, “there is worse to come.”

“And I suppose,” Merlin interjected, “the remedy for the god’s displeasure would be to give you more power or more treasure? Or both?”

Once again she ignored him. “This land is under a curse. Cursed of the gods. Deny their influence all you like. But this I promise you. England will know nothing but death until the Stone is returned to its proper place.”

“To the mud, beneath the cow droppings,” Merlin added unhelpfully.

“You have been warned. Ignore the gods at your peril-and at England’s.” With that she turned and swept out of the room, robes swirling, as abruptly as she had entered.

It took a moment for the tension to ease. Finally Merlin said, “And that is the woman who has charge of all our ‘spiritual lives.’ ”