“I had rather walk.”

“Fine, but do not complain to me about your aching, arthritic knees.”

“The child is dead, Merlin, and its mother as well. Sleep soundly.”

The old woman left. Merlin stroked Roc’s head, and it cooed softly. Where was Nimue? Death. Plague. Murder. This night, of all nights, he needed company.

FIVE

Plague. The word, quite justifiably, caused panic.

More and more reports reached Camelot, often multiple ones in the same day. Dover was devastated; the disease spread more quickly there than seemed quite possible. Not everyone who was infected died; but the survivors, on the assumption they could not be reinfected, were pressed into service collecting and burying the dead in mass graves. In Canterbury, once it became inescapable that plague had arrived, there were riots. People hoarded food; robbers attacked the well-to-do and took their gold and their supplies of household goods, against the coming food shortages. The wealthy barricaded themselves in their houses, partly for protection from the mobs, partly in hopes of avoiding the disease.

Rumors of what was happening spread more quickly than the disease itself. There were riots in London days before any cases manifested there. Merlin and Britomart put up a map of southern England and kept careful note of outbreaks, riots and the other attendant horrors.

“Look,” Merlin said to her. “It is following the main trade routes-the roads. Spreading like a living thing, like a carpet of flowers.”

“Odd analogy, Merlin. But then, you always look at things in the most perverse way possible.”

“Perverse? If you say so, Britomart. But no one has yet found a way to combat this awful disease. It strikes so quickly, its victims are often dead before the physician can arrive.”

She pounded her fist. “We must have Arthur issue an edict. Have it proclaimed in every town and village in the country. No unnecessary public gatherings. Markets must be canceled. No festivals of any kind, not even religious ones. The people will want religion, for comfort, but they must pray at home, with their families, to whatever gods they choose to believe in.”

“Yes, Brit, of course. Those are all very sensible precautions. But…”

“Yes?”

“There are physicians in every town of any importance.”

“You’ve seen the reports. A lot of them have fled to the hills, Merlin.” She made a sour face. “Doctors.”

“Still, a great many remain. A network of communication among them must be set up, so that they can share information. If we can discover why it is that some people die of this disease while others survive and still others never get sick at all, it may give us a clue how to fight it. We must have Arthur send out riders to help establish the kind of communication this will take.”

“So the riders can bring the plague back to Camelot?”

He frowned. “It will come here anyway. We have sealed off the castle from unnecessary contact with the outside world, but it will come here anyway. It is as inevitable as sunset.” He sat down wearily. “So much for Arthur’s new England.”

“That is hardly the observation of a scientist, Merlin.”

“It is. Everything we have tried to do here-fairness, social justice, all of it-depends on a calm, prosperous society. This disease will undo that. Petty kings and warlords will reassert themselves. Central government will count for next to nothing.”

“It won’t be that bad. It can’t be.”

He looked at her. “Hope is not a word I use often. But Brit, I hope you are right.” He shifted his gaze to the window. “I keep wishing for rain. Not merely a shower but the kind of massive rainstorm we have had in the past. If nothing else, it would keep people indoors.” He sighed. “It will be winter soon enough. That may save us, if anything can.”

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.”