I sighed: intelligent but thick. “Gwen, forget it. Neither you DOT Peredur nor anyone else is going to rule in the old way. Cerdic had our measure all right, and it’s not going to be any longer.”

This was always a blind spot to my queen. “I was bom to rule, Arthur. My blood was crowned when yours was shivering in a straw hut. And affection has nothing to do with it.”

I ruffled her hair vigorously. “Listen to the Burning Bush!”

“Don’t do that, I hate that!”

“Four hundred years of royal blood, the iron tits in the silken kiitle. Yes, yes, yes and bloody amen. We’ve done what we dreamed, love, made something better than just we two. It’s beautiful, and I won’t let you put a halter on it because Boudicca slept with one of your randy ancestors. Come on, now.”

We walked toward the door. “So, eat your hot soup and put on a woolen shift before you start sneezing. Tell Imogen to start packing. Plenty of warm clothes.”

“So soon?”

“I’ll come to say good-bye.”

“Thank you for coming. 1 prayed you would.”

“As if I could stay away.”

“How long will I be in Caerleon?”

“I don’t know, Gwen.” And I didn’t.

“Don’t make me beg. You owe me that much.”

“I don’t know. Until I can go to sleep without the north coming down around my ears. Until all of them realize we’re big ‘toys now.”

She hugged me suddenly and I felt her tears on my own

316

Firelord

cheek. “It’s either monstrous or a proof of God,” she whispered, “but I love you, Arthur. I don’t suppose that’s worth a pardon.”

I held her. “No, but it goes a long way toward parole. I’m lost without you.”

Gwen chuckled. “Most of the time. We love like seasons. It’s the rest of the year that kills us. There now, kiss me.”

“Good night, love.”

“And Arthur?”

“Yes?”

“Fair warning. Just try to keep me in prison.”

“Fair. Rest you gentle, Gwen.”

My queen bowed with inscrutable dignity. “Sleep you sound, my lord.”

I sent for Lucullus to attend me in the scriptorium, dark now but for two candles on my writing table and the glow from the firepit. The victory celebration, bom in the courtyard and sprawling now into the palace, beat on my surfeited ears.

Lucullus appeared, transformed by a perfumed bath and considerable artifice, cinched at the waist, hair freshly dyed, once more the glittering bird of youth.

“You sent, Artorius?”

“Come in. I must say you look fit. Our climate agrees with you.”

Lucullus winced in distaste. “Your climate is abysmal. When wayward Christians die, they must come here. You have my safe conduct?”

“And my report to Theodoric. Mea culpa, of course, and some mention of your good service at Badon.”

Lucullus’ distaste darkened to actual suffering. “This for a man who only wants to make love and grow grapes. Disgusting. One night of pleasure is more positive than a thousand heroic deaths.”

“You’re a philosopher, Lucullus.”

“No, only one to smell the wind and which way it will blow next.”

He moved to the casement, contemplating the celebration below with detached amusement. “When may I sail?”

“With the morning tide. Your ship’s fitting on the quay now.”

A great shout of Victory sprang out of the courtyard din.

King of a Hundred Battles

317

Lucuilus smiled wryly as my name rose again and again. Arthur! Aye!

“The wind blows for you now,” he observed. “But how tomorrow?”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem.” I held up another parchment. “A policy letter to Theodoric. I was just about to sign it. I want no more weepy nostalgia for the lost children of Rome. Rome’s a memory, a grave. Its children are grown and gone. And we keep our own house.”

The son of Ambrosius spread apologetic hands. “Forgive me, that does sound arrogant. There’s no life, no anything without Rome. It’s a contradiction in terms.”

“Thus Pharaoh to Moses, but the Jews went on packing.”

I reached for my stylus and signed the parchment: Artorius, Imperator.

“You see?” Lucullus indicated the signature with quiet certainty. “You even think in the language of Tiber. How will you forget us?”

With one stroke I lanced through the Latin and wrote under it: Artos, Kix Cymri, sprinkled the sand, blew it off and thrust the document at him. “Fare you well, Rome.”

Lucullus went down in a courtly bow. “You know, my lord, I really ought to test the wind in Byzantium. Subtler breed of men, , one bears. Civilized. They might use me to advantage, don’t you think?”

He paused for a moment at the door. “Fareyou well, Britain.”

Lucullus gone, I turned reluctantly to less pleasant work, an Older to the lords at Caerleon for Guenevere’s incarceration. The writ needed careful wording and detail. She was to live in ample comfort with a good household, guarded night and day, with no viators not personally authorized by myself.

and shall remain at Caerleon until—

I hated the end that must be written, pausing while the roar rose again and again from the courtyard.

Arthur! Arthur and victory!

The fire had died down, one of my candles was guttering. My eyes burned with fatigue. 1 dipped the stylus and completed the •entence.

J._. —until we deem fit for the safety of Britain.

318

Firelord

Cerdic with a knife, Gwen with a bloodless line of writing. We do grow old.

Arthur! Arthur!

“Be still,” I groaned. “Let me alone.”

“They won’t, Arthur. Ever again.”

“Eh? Who’s there?”

“Only me.”

I made out the tall figure in the gloom beyond the firepit. “Merlin?”

“Yes.”

Merlin rose and crossed the casement. Silhouetted against it and gazing down at the firelit celebration, he was very still, still as marble or oak. The imperial garments did not move or rustle, the graceful drapes of a noble statue. Still as strength itself that had borne much and would bear more. The profile was heavier, craggier. Still audacious, ready to dare as well as dream. His head lifted to search for something else beyond the ramparts and the river, perhaps as far as stars.

But I felt peevish and in no mood for eternals. “What do you want? Another lesson for Druith? You’re only myself, a shadow-me. But you always looked more the king. They should have crowned you.”

Arthur! Ave, Arthur!

“Won’t they ever shut up?”

Merlin moved slightly. “I asked you once did you love them. You didn’t know.”

“Love? What else have I given them all these years? And Gwen, for that matter, and Bedivere and all the other heroes they conjure with and wouldn’t know for one second as humans? What else did we do with our lives? They take everything and give nothing back. And what’s left for me? One love gone and another going and I’ve nothing left and no place to go. Be still, you leeches]”

“No more,” said Merlin. The profiled lips barely moved. “You’re the golden grist of bards, boyo. They’ll cram the sprawl of you into song, use your name to inspire dull children, frighten enemies, hearten the faithful and even cure warts. They’ve made you a god for alt the usual reasons. If they can’t be something higher, they want to believe it’s there.”

I snorted at him. “Rot! Go away, you can’t help anymore. I’m not the pliant genius I was. I make mistakes. I let my heart get the best of me. And I’ll be talking to shadows soon enough

King of a Hundred Battles

319

without their nattering back. Vanish, why don’t you? Vanish, go, afl of you and leave me alone.”

Merlin was gentle but inexorable. “There’s a pattern they won’t have broken, Arthur. It’s very old. You’ve given them the chance to hail you, love you—”

“Balls!”

“—Denounce you, feel remorse with the twice-crowing cock, and come home at last to your redeeming bosom.”

“You’re an old bore, Merlin. You were more fun as a juggler.”

“I only see what is.” Merlin moved at last, fading from the casement back into the shadows. “That’s what a god is for, Arthur. Who cares what he feels?”

Arthur! Arthur and victory!

“Shut up!” I flung myself at the casement where Merlin had stood, leaned out over the sill, virulently hating their upturned faces. “You’ve got it all. Victory, peace. There’s nothing left. Do I have to die for you as well?”

Do I? Is mat really what a god is for?

Modred and a Grail

321

Modred and a Grail

So we come to the end, the Gordian knot in which all skeins meet. You may say that’s not what I thought, and perhaps it’s not what we meant. The difference is history and possibly literature.

I drank from a heady cup after Badon. Formerly rebellious chiefs fawned on me with bad grammar and worse breath, would-be bards flocked like fleas, recalling my deeds at Neth Dun More and upping the odds even further. Camelot received a gaggle of highborn daughters to be polished at court, preferably in my private chambers. The climate had changed: sad about Guenevere, of course, but Cador’s line was always too proud, and we must think of the future.

Is that you laughing, Ambrosius?

With the ominous exception of the north, the country was united. My people breathed easier, looking forward to an untroubled planting and harvest. The trade of the southern ports flourished again without fear of raiders. Rome’s galleys came, stuffed themselves with our export, paid our price, and went home. I took time without misgiving for personal things, seeing to Kay’s funeral, keeping Gawain as guest at Camelot while prudently quartering his men with the Dobunni. So placed, they were an assurance of order while the Dobunni chose another prince.

Peace. I let down my guard and made a mistake—three, in fact.

One, I delayed Owen’s exile out of a frank loathing for its necessity. She made ready to leave twice before I finally gave the order to Bedivere.

Two, the post riders reported that Lancelot, harrying the Saxons

320

far into the east, had passed beyond contact. I assumed he was still there.

Three, I told Guenevere where she was going. She said she’d be trouble, and my wife is not given to idle threat. A word to Imogen who spoke to someone else along the web of blood loyalties always ready to strangle Britain. The word got to Lancelot, who, when I thought he was still east, appeared suddenly in Eburacum at Peredur’s ear with the Dyfneint cavalry behind him.