The people of Camelot were well accustomed to seeing—and hearing—Merlin wandering the halls at odd hours, muttering to himself. And so they passed him by with no more than a dutiful curtsey or nod of the head. You didn’t want to distract the king’s most famous and dangerous advisor, but neither did you want to risk his anger.

He hadn’t turned anyone into a rat in years. But you never knew…with enchanters.

“The question is,” Merlin went on, walking down a long hallway that led from his tower to the main part of the castle, “was I under a spell when I thought of it, or was I just being particularly stupid that day?”

One of the many drawbacks of living backward in time, as he did: You knew what you had done because you saw the results of it, but unless you left yourself careful notes—something Merlin always forgot to do—you had no idea
why
you had done it. Confusing. But then so much of his life, aside from the parts that were impossible, was confusing. One simply got used to it after a while.

Merlin turned a corner and found himself in an antechamber in the main building. Camelot was one of those palaces where every place you wanted to be always seemed to be the farthest spot from where you were—except this room. This room was in the heart of the castle. This room was, in many ways, the soul of Camelot.

He commanded the great wooden doors in front of him to open, using the language of magic he had learned years before he knew who he was or what his role in King Arthur’s life would be.

The magic worked at his command, as it always did. The heavy, metal locks on the doors slid open without anyone touching them, allowing Merlin access into the Room. There was a smaller door set into the great doors that was used by servants and pages to enter and leave during council sessions with
out disturbing those inside. But Merlin was in a mood today and felt no need to use a servants’ entrance. Besides, the enchanter was taller than most in Camelot and he had no desire to bend over almost double to use the smaller door. Servants’ trousers and tunics might look fine when ducking and scraping; the robes of an enchanter did not.

The Room was the official Council Room, but nobody called it that. If anyone in all of Camelot mentioned “the Room,” everyone knew what they were talking about. This was the room where King Arthur—the warlord of Britain, the uniter of the tribes against the invaders from Rome—held counsel with his most favored, most wise knights, all of them seated around the great council table.

The thought was enough to make the ancient enchanter give a disdainful snort as he walked into the Room. Then he sneezed.

“Someone’s forgotten to clean in here again,” he muttered, drawing his robes aside as he walked through the Room, his soft leather shoes kicking up a faint cloud of dust. The tapestries on the stone walls were dulled, and the floor itself—was that a half-gnawed bone on the floor? Merlin rolled his eyes in an overly dramatic fashion. Some of the knights King Arthur
gathered around himself were great fighters, yes, and occasionally one of them had a logical thought in his head, but their manners were deplorable. The greatest of England, pffagh. He made a noise of disgust.

And this newest idea of the king’s, this Quest for the Holy Grail…pffagh again. The last thing King Arthur needed was to send his men haring about on some foolishness when he should be keeping them close at hand. But one might as well talk to a horse as Arthur once the boy had an idea stuck in his head.

Perhaps it was not entirely madness. The Grail, beyond its significance as a holy relic, was an object of true power with the weight of a thousand years of history behind it. Although it pained Merlin to admit it, there were things his magic could not accomplish for King Arthur; places where neither magic nor warriors swayed minds or hearts. But this Grail—the Christians’ Holy Grail—might indeed be the answer to that.

And if Arthur wanted the Grail for more than simply political reasons; a matter of religion perhaps—well, each man must choose his own God, as he sees fit. So long as he keeps his feet firmly on this earth, while he lives on it.

Despite the dust on the floor, the Table itself gleamed, the entire surface made from a single great oak Arthur himself had chosen. He came up with some astonishingly stupid ideas, yes, but even Merlin had to admit that the Table was a good one. A round table, where none might feel greater or lesser than any other? A table where any man might sit next to his king and lean over to give him counsel? Yes, a good idea. An excellent idea, cementing the petty war-leaders and chieftains to the warrior-king who united them. Though at times such conviviality led men into thinking that they were all equal, and they were not. Some were greater fools than the others.

Speaking of which…

“You, Gerard,” the enchanter snapped. “Tell someone to clean in here! I don’t care if it is winter and they’re bored out of their small skulls. Arthur cannot call his knights to order when they can’t speak for coughing.”

He grinned at the startled young creature who appeared in front of him. The boy had been hiding behind one of the tapestries that lined the chamber—the one that showed Arthur taking his sword Excalibur from the stone in order to prove his lineage. The boy had been snooping where he shouldn’t have
been, obviously, and hid when he heard Merlin come in. Now he stared at the enchanter, his eyes open wide.

“There’s no magic to knowing your name, boy.” Well, all right,
some
magic. How else could he tell the little beasts that passed for pages and squires apart? “As for finding you…you left a trail in the dust. And you’re the only one of your pack who would be in here, touching and nosing where you’ve no right to be. No, no apologies. I admire that sort of behavior. When you’ve got power, then you can play by the rules. Until then, make do with whatever you can find or ferret out.”

“That’s not—” Gerard started, suddenly realizing who he was arguing with.

“Not right? Not knightly behavior? Maybe. Maybe not.” Merlin bent forward and looked at the boy closely. The squire’s blond hair had been cut short, the better to fit under a helm, and his big blue eyes held something familiar in them….

“Right. Kay’s nephew, the one who’s been fostered to Rheynold?” Fostering was the current popular practice of sending your boy-children, when they reached a certain age, to be raised in the household of another knight who could train them without letting ties of blood or affection interfere.
Rheynold didn’t take many squires, but when the king’s own foster brother asks…

Without waiting for the squire to respond, the enchanter nodded his head, his own eyes dark and sharp above an eagle’s beak of a nose. “You’ve impressed me, boy, although cursed if I can remember how, since it hasn’t happened yet. Keep up with it, keep up with it! And mind you tell those useless wretches to dust in here!”

Gerard watched the tall, slender form of the wizard circle the Round Table, waving his hands and still talking until he came to Arthur’s chair. Carved out of a dark polished wood, it was half as large as the other chairs that Gerard had—carefully, cautiously—been sitting in, but otherwise looked the same as all the others, with straight backs and uncomfortable seats. Gerard knew from having served during council sessions that some of the knights brought cushions with them but still found the great chairs uncomfortable. Gerard didn’t care. He wanted to sit at the Table so badly he could taste it. That was what was important: to be one of King Arthur’s trusted companions, a knight proven in valor and honor.

“As it was done, so let it be done. There.”

Gerard looked up again to see Merlin scattering a strange, shiny powder over Arthur’s chair, then dusting his hands off as though to get rid of the last flakes. “Not that it does any good, but it might have been far worse without it. Idiot warlords, always having something to prove. And worse when there’s a woman involved, as I should well have learned by now. Especially during the winter. Too many minstrels whining on about courtly love. Pffagh. None of this ‘longing from afar’ nonsense for me. You want something? Go after it. Don’t sit around and moon because you’re too noble to get your hands muddy.”

Merlin noticed Gerard staring at him. “What, you still here? Go, shoo. Go!”

Gerard didn’t wait to be told a third time, taking to his heels and leaving the enchanter to whatever he was doing. Sir Rheynold would be furious if he knew Gerard had been lingering in the Council Room where he was not supposed to be.

“Although,” a little voice that sounded a lot like his own said to him, “I wasn’t exactly alone. Merlin was there. And
he
didn’t scold me.”

“Merlin is insane,” another voice in his head countered, this one sounding a great deal like Sir
Bors, a companion of his foster father, Sir Kay, and the knight who taught the squires their lessons. “Useful, but insane.”

And with that voice, the squire could not disagree.

In the room which held the great Round Table of King Arthur, the enchanter named Merlin looked at his handiwork, but his mind was preoccupied with the young boy who had just fled.

“Insane, yes,” he agreed with the voice in Gerard’s head. “But oh, so useful!” Now if Merlin could only remember what it was that he knew about this boy, and what role he would play in all that was going to happen.

Too much happening, the enchanter decided finally. Too many intersections, too many potential outcomes. Too many enemies waiting to strike. Magic could only look so far into the future—and then it all became chaos.

“Ah well, old man,” he said to himself, chuckling. “That’s half the point, isn’t it? Think how boring it would be if everyone knew where they were going all the time.”

ONE

SPRING, 12TH YEAR OF ARTHUR’S PAX BRITANNICA

“
T
his entire castle has gone mad!”

Gerard instinctively ducked out of the way as the chief cook sent his assistants into motion with a wave of one muscled arm, flinging flour-dust over everyone within range. The spring morning was warm, and thrice so down here, where the ovens were burning hot and flour stuck to sweaty skin and dampened tunics and aprons. His face already perspiring, the squire hung close to the doorway, mentally cursing his master for sending him down to the kitchens today of all days.

“It’s the Quest,” one of the under-bakers ventured from where they huddled near the great brick ovens of Camelot’s kitchen.

The cook glowered at the boy who’d spoken. “Of course it’s the Quest! Everything has been
the Quest
for months now! And I, for one, will be glad when they’re all gone and out of my hair”—Gerard, along with everyone else in the kitchen, refrained from pointing out that Cook had no hair—“and we can get back to living like civilized folk!” He caught sight of Gerard by the door and pointed one oversized, flour-covered hand at him. “You. What are you doing here?”

The squire swallowed hard, reminding himself that in his fourteen years of life, he had faced much worse than Cook’s temper. Well, faced some things
almost
as bad, anyway. “Message from my master, Sir Rheynold, about—”

“About that bird of his, I’ll wager, no?” Cook was a fearsome-looking mountain of a man at the best of times. But when he smiled, even brave knights took a step back. “Tell your master the fowl arrived safely and will be a masterpiece when we’re done with it. Rest easy.”

Gerard personally hated the taste of peacock, especially when the outer layer of flesh was stuffed with roasted pigeon the way his master enjoyed it, but he knew better than to say so. It was not his place, as a mere squire, to speak anything but good of his master’s choices. Especially when the dish was
one the king was also reported to enjoy, and Sir Rheynold was currying favor by arranging for the banquet tonight.

All the knights did it, one way or another, with presents or sweet words or brave actions dedicated to the king and his queen. Arthur was an easygoing man, for a king, but he wore the crown, and the crown had the power. Gerard had lived in Camelot for six years now under Sir Rheynold’s fosterage, and he thought he understood how things went. Power was to be catered to, and you had to establish your own power in turn. Or, in Gerard’s case, maintain the power of the man who sheltered and trained him. That was the way of the world.

Nodding his head to give the right amount of respect due to a servant of Cook’s ability and reputation, Gerard said, “I’ll tell Sir Rheynold of your assurances. I am sure he thanks you for your attention to this offering.”

Message delivered, he turned to escape the heat and chaos of the kitchen. He should have gone directly back to his master’s rooms up in the east wing of the castle to see what else might be required of him. But Cook had not been exaggerating about the energy that was filling Camelot. Two months
prior, Arthur had announced a Quest. It had come to him in a dream, he said. A great Quest, blessed by God, to search out and find the Holy Grail brought to this island by Joseph of Arimathea from the Holy Land and then lost for centuries after his death.

The Knights of the Round Table would find it. Restore it. Bring it back to Camelot, where it would be the fitting symbol of Arthur’s kingship, alongside his sword Excalibur. It would be a glorious, wonderful thing.

For the past week, men had been riding to Camelot to speak with Arthur and explain why they should be honored with a place on this Quest. At the banquet tonight, Arthur himself would proclaim the names of the knights who would ride out on this Quest of his. The entire castle
was
mad from it; so much so that anyone caught unoccupied was sure to be put to work.

Gerard never shirked from work…but he saw no reason to look for it, either. Especially, he admitted reluctantly to himself, since the Quest had completely overlooked him. Not that he, a mere squire, would have been allowed to take part, but he was no more immune to the dreams than any other. To be the one who found the legendary Holy Grail, who
brought it home to Arthur’s hands and reaped the praise and rewards such a treasure must bring…

“But first you’d have to be there to find it. And that’s not going to happen now, is it?” he told himself, moving down the narrow side-halls that were used only by servants and the occasional page or squire in a hurry. No, it wouldn’t be he who found the Grail, even if he had been allowed to go along on the search. One of the knights would find it. Most likely Lancelot, who was the perfect knight, brave and noble and kind even to the clumsiest of pages, although his face was not handsome. Or Gawain, whom everyone called “the Pure.” No, not a lowly squire, no matter how noble his bloodlines might be.

A page, his young face flushed with exertion, hurried toward him with half a dozen parchments under one arm. “Gerard, Pickleface is looking for you!”

“Drat it,” Gerard muttered, waving his thanks to the younger boy. If Pickleface—Master Balin, so-called because of the sourness of his expression—was looking for him, it could only be bad. As a squire, Gerard was supposed to be above any duties the page-master might give him, but explaining that to this adult would earn him a sound boxing on the ears and he’d
still
have to do whatever Balin had in mind.

On a whim, Gerard took the left-hand hallway instead of the right, and eased open the door in the stone wall to find himself in the courtyard opposite from the stable.

He crossed the courtyard quickly, then let himself into the stable. The cool shade inside the wooden structure was a relief after the heat of the kitchen. He blinked and let his eyes adjust. It seemed quiet enough, despite so many knights having their horses stabled there. More than fifty had come to Camelot. Of them, twenty-seven knights total, plus their squires fortunate enough to travel with them, would soon set off on the Quest. No more and no less, Arthur had decreed: Nine times three, for a number that was pleasing to him. The knights would be dependent upon themselves, not what they could bring with them, and so all would begin the Quest as equals.

“Some more equal than others,” Gerard said to himself, reaching up to stroke the neck of his master’s beast, a roan gelding with a surprisingly sweet disposition, despite a wicked-looking eye. “A good horse will trump a wise man every day,” he murmured into the horse’s ear, quoting something his master often said—especially when Gerard’s actions or words failed to please him.

“Here now, away from him!”

Gerard turned, astonished. A stable boy stood not a foot from him, hands fisted at his hips, a scowl on his face. He wore dark trousers and a shirt made of a rough homespun and streaked with sweat and dirt. Shaggy black hair fell over his forehead and into his eyes, for all the world like a pony’s forelock.

“Away from the horse,” the boy repeated slowly, as though speaking to a dullard who could not be expected to understand his words. In the dim light, the boy was unable to see Gerard’s tunic, which was marked in the upper corner with his master’s colors, proclaiming him a member of that knight’s household.

On a normal day, Gerard would have remembered the manners expected of him, and the responsibility lectured into him from his first hour with Sir Rheynold. On a normal day, he would have informed the stable boy that he was squire to the man to whom this horse belonged, and thus within rights to touch such an expensive beast. On a normal day, he would even have thanked the boy for keeping such good watch, above and beyond his duties to shovel and polish.

But it wasn’t a normal day. And it certainly wasn’t
a good day, considering that he had been up and running errands since dawn as though he were still a page. It rankled the competent squire, emphasizing the fact that he wasn’t considered man enough to go on the Quest. And Gerard suddenly very much wanted someone other than himself to share his unhappiness. A stable boy, someone so low in Camelot’s pecking order as to be almost invisible, was perfect.

“Begone, sirrah,” Gerard said, drawing himself up to his proud height. Although he hadn’t reached his full growth yet, he looked far more imposing than the scrawny boy before him. “I’ll do what I please, as I please, with my horseflesh.” And the horse
was
his, in a way. That was part of the oath Sir Rheynold made in return for his services. To teach and to care for Gerard, and to give to him as if he were the man’s own son.

“Sure,” the other boy said scornfully. “You’ve the look of the d’Abmonts, that’s certain.”

Gerard flushed. Sir Rheynold d’Abmont was a huge bear of a man, ruddy-faced and red-haired; nothing at all like his own more fair and slender form.

“I am his squire, Gerard of Abmont.” He might
have claimed his family name—he was of the bloodline of Sir Kay, the foster brother of the king himself—but that was bragging, and he had done nothing to earn it save be born. His place in the Abmont household he had
earned
.

The stable boy snorted, sounding a great deal like a horse himself. “It wouldn’t matter if you’re the king’s own nephew; you’re not touching the beasts in my care.”

“Your care?” Gerard could feel himself spluttering, outraged to be dismissed like that. “Yours? You dung-smeared, rear-faced, snot-nosed…peasant!”

As easily as that, they were down on the straw-strewn ground between the wooden stalls, wrestling to get the best hold on the other. Gerard thought he had the upper hand, managing to land a solid elbow into the other boy’s face. But the stable boy was agile, slipping from his grasp again and again. He got in a blow with the heel of his hand first to Gerard’s jaw and then solidly into his nose.

Gerard tasted blood in the back of his throat and spat straw out of his mouth as they rolled, the sound of nervous horses snorting and shifting in the stalls around them.

“Enough!”

A hand reached down and grasped Gerard by the collar of his shirt, lifted him off the other boy, and tossed him onto his backside. It soothed the blow only slightly to see the stable boy treated in the same manner. But that sense of justice faded when he recognized the newcomer.

Sir Lancelot, his ugly-handsome face set in lines of absolute exasperation, glared down at them.

“Gerard, for the love of God, what
were
you thinking—assuming you were thinking at all…I expect far better behavior of you than to be scuffling about like an ill-bred child.”

Gerard’s complexion flushed again and he bit his tongue to keep from responding like the sulky child Sir Lancelot accused him of being. A perfect day: first running errands like a mere page, and now this.

He knew full well that fighting with a stable boy was not acceptable behavior for a squire who was almost ready to be considered for knighting. He knew that and had done it anyway. And in front of Lancelot! The respectable man was everything that Gerard hoped someday to be—a great warrior and Arthur’s most trusted knight. Or at least he had been until recently. Lancelot spent more time away from Camelot now, almost as though he were avoiding the place.

The thought of having disappointed the most famous Knight of the Round Table was more bitter than any scolding or punishment he might receive. But still—Gerard fought down the anger that rose in his throat—it wasn’t fair! He had been provoked!

“And you, Newt. Thirteen’s old enough to leave off childish ways.” Lancelot looked down at the stable boy, who had scrambled to his feet, and cuffed him across one ear. “I despair of ever teaching you manners.”

Newt grinned up at the knight and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Maybe I’m no gallant, but I speak the truth, Lance. You know that.”

Gerard almost choked on his outrage then, that this…
nothing
dared use the king’s own nickname for the greatest knight in all Camelot. But Lancelot didn’t seem to mind. “Back to work, you. And Gerard, go clean yourself. The banquet will begin soon and I’ll not have you disgracing your master further by appearing with straw in your hair as well as a bloodied nose.”

Gerard got to his feet, brushing straw out of his hair and off his backside.

“Go on,” Newt said, mimicking Lancelot’s tone perfectly. “Must be tidy for the castle.”

“Newt!” Another crack across the ear, this one harder. But not hard enough to suit Gerard.

The squire left, shooting a sharp look at Newt as he went. Scolded like a puppy, and that boy got away with such familiarity!

“It’s not fair,” Gerard muttered to himself, kicking at a clod of dirt and watching it skitter across the stones of the courtyard.

“It rarely is,” Lancelot said from behind him. Gerard jumped, startled. He had been so wrapped up in his own misery, he hadn’t heard the knight catch up to him. The knight’s eyes were kind with sympathy. “Life, that is. But you’ll find your way around it,” Lancelot continued, matching himself to Gerard’s slower pace. “Or, if you don’t, it will be a failure of your own, not your birth or education, neither of which Newt has. Keep that in mind, young Gerard. We who have the benefit of our station in this world must never forget it, even in the face of provocation.”

Gerard thought about that for a few steps. Sir Kay had said that honesty was a knight’s best virtue (even if that did make Merlin laugh).

“I was angry,” the squire said finally. “Not at him, I mean. When I went in there. And he was…”

“There?” Lancelot asked.

“Annoying.”

“That he is,” Lancelot agreed with a laugh. “Second only to his skill with horses. And you saw him as the first available target, didn’t you?”

Gerard opened his mouth to deny it, then shrugged.

“It happens,” Lancelot said. “Yes, even to me. You should hear some of the arguments Merlin and I have had. And yes, I know what sort of an idiot that makes me, to quarrel with an enchanter.” Lancelot smiled briefly. “Fortunately, Arthur has thus far kept him from turning me into a particularly pink-eyed rat.”

Gerard felt his lips turn up in a smile at the thought of Lancelot as a rat, but the sense of unfairness still burned inside him. There was no way Lancelot could understand, not really. He
had
everything he wanted.

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