The Book of Mordred (17 page)

Nimue forced herself to stop. That was altogether too many hands.
Stay on the road,
she decided. She'd never be able to outrun pursuit if that was what these men intended, and—in fact—she probably couldn't walk much farther at all.

She sank to her knees on the road to await them. Although she had long past dropped her disguise as a scullery maid, she knew that—after three days on the road—her true appearance wasn't much better now. Was that good or bad? If these were renegade knights, she didn't want to entice them. On the other hand...

Stop with the hands!
she ordered herself. Besides, if their sense of chivalry depended on her being attractive, she was lost, for she didn't have the energy to spare.

When she looked up again, the knights were much closer. Both were in black armor, no helmets. Frequently younger sons who had not yet made a name for themselves painted their armor black, being unable to afford a squire to accompany them and polish their armor. She saw that one carried the blank white shield used by novice knights. But, with an incredible sense of relief, she saw the second knight bore the dragon colors of the court of Camelot.

It was the knight with the white shield who dismounted. He knelt beside her, a clumsy maneuver in full armor. He was an older man after all, and already huffing from the exertion. Nimue had hoped it might be Sir Lancelot, who sometimes disguised his identity to raise the odds at a tournament. But this was someone she didn't know. He had a broad and open face—what Dolph's might look like in another twenty years, given the security of knowing from one day to the next where his supper was to come from.

"Lady, what misfortune has befallen thee?" he asked in the formal accents of chivalry.

Acknowledging her as a lady was chivalrous in itself. "Sir knight..."

"Sir Dunsten." He smoothed his graying mustache and gave an almost fatherly smile.

She glanced at the second, younger, knight, but he said nothing. "Sir knights," she said, to include him anyway, "there is a terrible thing happening ... I have been walking three days ... There is an evil wizard..." Traveling, she had tried to work out the best way to tell her story, but now several beginnings got so muddled she couldn't come out with any.

The knight still on horseback looked at her coolly. Impatient or annoyed—she couldn't tell.

The first knight, Sir Dunsten, patted her hand. "There, there," he said in much the same way a falconer might calm a too-spirited bird. "There, there." He eyed his companion. "Would you get down here and help?" he said between clenched teeth, as though that would keep Nimue from hearing or realizing that she was being talked about.

The young man remained motionless for a moment longer, but then slid off, and with surprising grace, stooped down, disarmingly close.

Sir Dunsten, smiled at her encouragingly. "Now. Someone is pursuing you?"

That made her jump, looking over her shoulder. "No," she said, realizing too late that he was just prompting her and that she came out looking a fool, "not anymore. But there were some knights—their symbol was a red phoenix?" Inarticulate and skittish, that was the impression she was giving. Or half-witted and given to spasms.

Dunsten glanced at the second knight, who shook his head. "We regret," Dunsten said, "the device is unfamiliar to us. Where..."

She pointed in the general direction. "A place called Ravens' Rock."

"Sir Bayard," the younger man said, finally deigning to speak. "Castle Ridgemont is on a hill called Ravens' Rock." He said the name "Bayard" too evenly, as though she should recognize it. She didn't, but apparently Dunsten did.

"Ah," he said. "
That
one. The phoenix is new, though. Previously it was a raven. What has he done?"

"He has a wizard with him," Nimue said, "Halbert, who is..."—she fought down a surge of nausea—"using people, young men, somehow taking their bodies to make himself young." The words sounded so incredible. How could she ever convince them? She should just have asked to be taken to Arthur. Arthur had known Merlin, and was used to the idea of magic, though certainly never in this form. She said, now that she had started, "Apparently he needs to do this every several days. Please help me, there is no time to spare."

"A wizard named Halbert," the younger knight said.

"Yes." She didn't know what to make of his hard, almost brittle tone. Of all the things he might have questioned, why that?

"What, exactly, is going on?"

Nimue shook her head. "I just told you..." But he had heard. Certainly he wasn't hard of hearing. He was looking at her as though he suspected—no, as though he were sure—she was a liar. "It's true," she insisted. "There is no time for me to go all the way to Camelot to get somebody else to help." He
didn't
believe her, she could tell. "Please."

Dunsten was looking from her to his companion. Finally he said, "Oh,
really,
Mordred."

Mordred.

Nimue knew she had forgotten much of what Merlin had taught her and mixed up a great deal of the rest, but his warnings about Mordred were something about which she had no doubts. This illegitimate son of King Arthur was destined to bring about the collapse of the Round Table, and possibly Britain itself. She had been caught off guard because he wasn't at all what she had pictured. Suddenly, and for the first time, she realized that Merlin had never actually shown her what he looked like.

Both knights were watching her and it was much too late to pretend she hadn't recognized the name.

Nimue bit her lip. Still, she couldn't believe it was somehow in the best interests of Britain to let all those people who lived around Castle Ridgemont get killed.

She knew she was not talented in lies and subterfuge. It was much easier to keep track of what you'd said if you told the truth. She took a deep breath. "My name is Nimue," she said, and she saw that Mordred looked as startled to hear that as she had been to learn his name. "I was passing through a small town southeast of here, called St. George of the Hills. Some knights came. They killed several of the townspeople, and carried off a half dozen young men. I ... went with them," Dunsten raised his eyebrows, but didn't interrupt. "And I saw this wizard, this Halbert, do what I have just described to you."

Mordred had gotten over being surprised, but he said nothing, just watched her.

"Perhaps she has the name wrong." Dunsten patted down his mustache again. "Nimue, child," he said in the same kind tone Arthur used, "are you sure it was Halbert?"

"I don't know. One of the knights called him that."

Dunsten smiled benignly. "Well, there you have it. And, Mordred, why do you think it cannot be Halbert?"

"Because he's dead," Mordred said. "Three, no, four years dead."

Nimue asked, "Are you sure?"

"Am I sure?" he repeated. He didn't like being questioned? Well, neither did she. "Yes. I was there."

Nimue took another deep breath. "Let me tell you something about magic. Magic is a sort of force field ... No, wait." She started again. "All around us..." That was no good. "If we could tap into..." Both faces looked at her in perplexity. It was so clear when Merlin explained it. "Anyway, I guess I don't need to confuse you by getting into it." That evasion sounded so much more rational and less blatantly evasive when Merlin used it. "What I want to say is that sometimes it is necessary for a wizard to ...
focus
his or her power. I'm sure you have seen this kind of thing." She widened her eyes and wiggled her fingers in front of her face, then, with a suddenness that jarred her elbow, whipped her arm out, one finger pointing forward.

Mordred and Dunsten both jumped and looked over their shoulders, as if expecting perhaps a burst of flame or at least a visitation by some long-dead saint—which showed that they had missed the point entirely.

"I was referring to the gesture," she said, sensing their disappointment, and held out her forefinger. "That's not dramatics. Well ... but not entirely. That's focusing. The more power that is involved, the more necessary it is to focus, and sometimes wizards have to depend on an outside object to help them, like a crystal ball, or some sort of staff, or..." She realized she might be putting ideas into their heads, and tucked her thumb into her palm to keep them from noticing her ring.

"Or like a ruby pendant," Mordred finished in a whisper.

That sent a chill up her back. He
did
know Halbert. "The trouble with a ... focusing instrument"—Merlin had had a special word for it which refused to come to mind—"is that it can be vulnerable. I take it that you did something to this ruby of Halbert's?"

"I saw it done," Mordred said. "It was broken, the pieces scattered all over the floor."

"Where you left them."

She hadn't meant it as an accusation.

"I..." For once, he looked momentarily flustered. "Yes."

"Someone, somehow, must have gathered the broken pieces—"

"Bayard," Mordred interrupted. "Bayard is Halbert's nephew. I suspected once before that Bayard was involved in Halbert's plans, but there was no
proof
of wrongdoing, and once Halbert was dead—"

"Halbert is not dead," she told them. "But he is not exactly whole either. When I first saw him he was all bent over and twisted—worse than Richard the Third."

"Richard the third what?" Dunsten asked.

Merlin's references were always getting her into trouble.

Mordred glared at Dunsten's interruption.

Nimue made a vague gesture to indicate it wasn't important. "But then Halbert went through some sort of ... transformation. He became young, virile ... whole. But it cost another life. It's as though you left a wounded animal, Sir Mordred." She wanted him feeling at least partly responsible. "Will you help stop him?"

"Of course," Dunsten said, leaping in to agree.

Mordred glanced at him. "Dunsten."

"The problem is," Dunsten continued as though he hadn't been interrupted, "Sir Bayard is not the type of man to accept a challenge to single combat."

"Dunsten," Mordred repeated.

"Well-fortified place, is this Ravens' Rock?" Dunsten asked her.

Nimue nodded, since he was the one moving the conversation in the direction she wanted.

"Dunsten."

The older knight looked at Mordred in annoyance. "What?"

Mordred nodded over his shoulder, back the way they had come.

"Oh," said Dunsten. "Right."

Nimue looked from one to the other. "What?" she demanded.

Dunsten said, "I am afraid there has been a bit of trouble back at Camelot."

"What kind of trouble?" This couldn't be anything to do with Merlin's predictions about Arthur and Mordred—could it? Surely not yet?

Mordred stood up, another fluid motion despite the bulk of armor. She watched him and was able to tell nothing from his expression.

It was Dunsten who answered. "A matter of ... an allegation ... that had to be withdrawn. Sir Mordred was being kind enough to escort me to the border."

She finally managed to look away from Mordred.
Not
that, after all, apparently. Not yet. "You've been exiled?" She found it hard to believe that the plump, cheerful Dunsten had been banished. What could he possibly have done? But he inclined his head toward the white, stripped shield, and Nimue abandoned manners for curiosity's sake. "Why would Arthur do that—"

"Because," interrupted Mordred, his voice quiet as always, "Dunsten pointed out to King Arthur that Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot Dulac are lovers, which—by law—makes them traitors to the crown."

She remembered the King's many kindnesses when everyone else accused her of being an enchantress who stole away Merlin's magic and locked him into some old tree, or cave.

Mordred continued, "Sir Lancelot denied it and proved his innocence by besting Sir Dunsten in trial by combat. Our gracious King Arthur spared Dunsten's life on condition that he leave his family and homeland forever. This has happened before to other knights. Seven, so far." He leaned down close to her. "What do you think of that, royal magician?"

Nimue looked at him helplessly.

"Mordred," Dunsten murmured.

Mordred didn't straighten but continued to wait for her answer.

She tried to keep her voice as even as his own had been. "Arthur has always been like a father to me." She meant only that she could never speak against him. The words came out before she realized what she was saying, to whom she was saying it.

Something almost came through in his smile. "How nice for you," he purred.

He straightened, and meanwhile, Dunsten used his arm to hoist himself back up to his feet. "Yes," said Dunsten, obviously eager to change the subject. "Well. In any case, I have been given just barely enough time to remove myself from Britain. But, come, come, my boy, they have to make an exception for a case like this." He looked from Mordred to Nimue. "Don't you think? Now, one of us has to go to this Castle Ridgemont directly before anybody else gets killed. The other has to take this poor child back to Camelot and bring reinforcements in case ... well, in case this Halbert is a more competent fighter than I."

Mordred's smile softened to a more genuine one. "No, I think it would be better the other way around. If the King's men discover you here, they may well assume you're trying to raise an army. If you take Nimue and head straight back to Camelot, they at least will give you the chance to explain yourself. And if they do not believe you, they may believe her. I think your chances of survival are better if you go."

"And what about
your
chances of survival?" Dunsten argued. "Surely experience counts for something?"

Mordred just grinned, and swung onto his horse. "Good-bye, Nimue," he said. "I am sure King Arthur will be pleased to see you again." He started to ease the horse past them. "Dunsten."

Nimue got to her feet quickly. "Do you know your way from here to Ravens' Rock?"

"Yes."

"And you think you can take care of everything all by yourself?"

"Yes."

"Wouldn't my knowledge of the place be valuable?"