The King's Wizard (13 page)

But nothing happened. The scars remained.

Nimue watched, desperation making her heart hammer, as Merlin tried again, and again, weaving his Hand-Wizardry, his fingers
fluttering in a cage about her face.

It wasn’t going to work. The disappointment was as sharp as the relief she felt, as if in this moment she stepped back from
the edge of a yawning chasm toward safety.

But inside herself, Nimue wept. How bitter it was to know her beauty meant so much to her! She had even been willing to risk
her immortal soul, to accept the taint of the Pagan magic she so feared to restore it. The New Religion taught that magic
was a trick that always tainted the recipient. To be given gifts God did not mean them to have corrupted the soul … or, worse,
blinded it to its weaknesses, allowing them to intensify and grow. She could not recover her wholeness by pretending she was
whole already—but oh! when Merlin had failed to grant her the gift she dared not accept, the disappointment had been almost
more than she could bear.

In that moment when Vortigern’s body vanished beneath the ice at the touch of Excalibur, Merlin had come to an invincible
belief in the power of the magic he wielded—and now, even that betrayed him.

It did not work. His magic—the one thing he had always believed in, even when he had rejected it to
take vengeance upon Mab—was not strong enough. He’d tried to heal Nimue … and failed.

He saw the look in Nimue’s eyes as she realized his spell was not working, and in that moment he would have done anything,
made any alliance, to have the power to hide her scars. He would have served the Queen of the Old Ways herself.

That thought stopped him. Ally himself with Mab’s evil to make Nimue whole again? His hands dropped slowly to his lap as a
chill dread enfolded him. Surely that could not be the price of her healing?

If it were, he would not pay it. Not even for the woman he loved more than he loved anything in the world could he serve Queen
Mab. And because that was true, all he had done here today was raise Nimue’s hopes … and not been powerful enough to fulfill
them.

“I can’t do it. Mab is too strong.”

At his words, Nimue got to her feet and walked toward the window. She stopped there, her back to him as she looked out, and
carefully wound the veil around her face once more.

“Leave this place and come with me,” Merlin begged. Nimue’s scars did not matter to him—he loved her. Far from Britain, surely
Mab would forget them both.

“I’m not ready to face the world,” Nimue said distantly. Her words had the dull finality of tolling bells.

“When will you be ready?” Merlin asked, not moving. If they stayed here at Avalon, Merlin knew that Queen Mab would seek out
Nimue once more, and perhaps succeed in destroying her next time. He
could not face that. She was too precious to him, more precious even than thoughts of revenge.

This was what Love was. Ambrosia had told him that Love was the strongest power, and he hadn’t understood her words until
this moment. Stronger than good or evil, stronger than hate, Love swept everything before it in its blind intensity. No wonder
Queen Mab feared the power of the human heart. Love truly conquered all.

Oh, dear Lord thank You for preserving me from this grievous fault!
Nimue gasped inside herself. There was still a chance to become whole, at least in spirit—a chance that would have been lost
to her if Merlin had succeeded in hiding her scars. This was something that could not be done for her. She must perform this
transmutation herself.

“When will you be ready?”
Merlin’s voice demanded of her.

“I don’t know,” Nimue said softly.
And until I am whole, I am like a broken goblet; if you try to hold me, you will only wound yourself, my love
. Keeping her voice even, Nimue gazed out toward the ocean and spoke. “Perhaps it would be better if you left Avalon, Merlin.
I am … I think that I will study to become one of the holy women here. I can spend my life in prayer and healing.”
My own and others
. “God does not care what I look like—”

“Neither do I,” Merlin said. He crossed the room to her and put his hands upon her shoulders, as if his battle with Mab no
longer meant anything to him.

But you must fight her, my love, you must. She has
done so much evil, and you are the only defense we have. Other men would be tempted by her power, as Vortigern was, but you
despise it. Oh, Merlin, Merlin—I cannot let you renounce this battle for my sake! It is precisely that thing which I fear
most
.

“God can find someone else,” Merlin said desperately. “Stay with me.”

“I must do what my heart commands me, Merlin,” Nimue answered faintly. She bowed her head. “And so must you.”

The news soon reached Avalon that King Uther had gone to war once more. He said that his vassal, the Duke of Cornwall, had
defied him, but everyone in Britain knew the truth. Uther wanted Cornwall’s wife.

At first Merlin ignored the feckless king’s war. He was tied to Avalon by Nimue’s presence there. She’d told him to leave,
but he was unable to obey, and no matter how far away he rode, he always ended up returning to Avalon … and Nimue.

Sometimes she refused to see him, but Merlin had made friends among the Healing Sisters and he was always able to get news
of her. The months passed. Nimue studied and prayed and worked among those pious women, her scars always veiled, while Merlin
alternated between hope and despair. His heart told him she loved him still—but what good was that love if they were always
to be apart?

But sometimes she would let him come to her again. On those occasions they talked and laughed together almost as freely as
they once had, though she would never again let him remove her veil.

* * *

“They say that Uther is mad, like his father Constant,” Nimue said to Merlin one day.

It was a Saint Martin’s Summer afternoon, one of the warm days that comes after the first nip of frost. Merlin and Nimue were
playing chess beneath the apple trees in Avalon’s orchard. The trees were in full leaf, and the apples, round and red, were
already being gathered in by the young novices.

“Perhaps he is. I don’t care,” Merlin answered candidly.

White butterflies flitted around Nimue’s veiled head. She wore the plain undyed homespun robe of the Healing Sisters, but
although she still studied and prayed with them, she had not spoken again of taking binding vows to serve their god.

Merlin studied the board before him, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He knew far better than Nimue the validity of those
rumors that reached Avalon in piecemeal fragments. Uther’s behavior grew more erratic every day. It was madness to pursue
Cornwall’s wife, yet Uther did, and Cornwall just as hotly defended her—and the sovereignty of his duchy, for Cornwall had
now declared that his lands owed no fealty to a king like Uther.

“But you
must
care,” Nimue said earnestly. “If you were there to advise him—”

“He’ll take no advice,” Merlin said. “From me or from any other. His lords—his bishops—even your Father Abbot—all have begged
him to call off this madness. He will not.”

“He would do it for you,” Nimue answered. He
could tell she was looking at him, even through the concealing veil. “You are his wizard. You gave him victory over Vortigern.
He’ll remember that”

“And tricked him into giving up Excalibur,” Merlin pointed out. “He’ll remember that longer. Do you know there is a village
there now? Everyone in Britain goes to try to draw the sword from the stone. But only a truly good man will.”

After much deliberation, Merlin moved one of his knights out onto the board.

“You do not believe such a man exists,” Nimue accused, ignoring the chessboard to argue with Merlin.

“I
know
he doesn’t,” Merlin corrected her. He had grown cynical after Uther’s betrayal of his hopes. Hadn’t he said when he trapped
Excalibur in the stone that a wizard’s business was trickery? All his life, everything he learned had been nothing more than
a collection of empty tricks borrowed from Mab, the greatest trickster of all. …

“Then you must call a good man into being with your magic,” Nimue urged stubbornly. “Surely you can at least stop the fighting
between the king and the duke—we see so many of the injured here at Avalon, Merlin. It is hard to see a man die when you know
that he has died for nothing.”

Merlin nearly did not hear Nimue’s last words. What she had suggested reverberated within him as if it were a hammer that
had struck the bell of his soul.

She said it as if it were such a simple thing … cast forth his magic to trifle with the mysteries of Birth and Death, to summon
the rightful wielder of Excalibur into being. Was it as simple as Nimue made it
sound? Had someone, once, said those very words to Mab, and set them all on the tangled course that had begun with his conception?
And where Mab had failed to create a champion in her own image, could Merlin truly say he would do any better? Dared he even
try?

“Merlin?” Nimue was watching him anxiously. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course.” He smiled at her, but his thoughts were far distant. The temptation to do what she had so lightly suggested
was nearly overwhelming, and with a reluctant effort Merlin forced it from his mind.
It’s foolish and dangerous. Besides, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I haven’t a tenth of Mab’s power and learning, and
she failed terribly
.

“But you will speak to Uther? For my sake?” Nimue’s words broke into his dark thoughts.

“Yes,” Merlin agreed reluctantly. “Very well. For your sake, I will do what I can to stop this war.”
And pray for me, my love, that I do more good this time than the last time I used my magic for Britain
.

Gorlois had retreated into Tintagel Keep months ago, and the only way to reach his stronghold was along a long, narrow, and
easily-defended causeway. Uther’s forces had been turned back every time they had tried to take Tintagel, but the king showed
no sign of giving up.

Last winter, when his army rested at Winchester, Uther had been content to wait for spring to begin his war against Vortigern.
No one thought he would be as careful this winter and wait out the cold season safe behind Pendragon’s walls. Uther was a
man obsessed.

Uther had made his camp just out of arrow-range of Gorlois’s archers. From the doorway of his tent he could see the causeway
leading into the keep but he could not approach it. And every night Uther failed to take Tintagel was another night Igraine
spent in Gorlois’s bed.

Igraine
…
Igraine
… The thought of her was like a red drumming in his brain, blotting out all else. Uther stared westward toward Tintagel,
oblivious to the raw sea wind that blew over the headlands.

“Three months siege and we still haven’t taken it!” he groaned aloud.

“There’s no way across the causeway, Sire,” Sir Boris said. Uther’s most loyal knight had supported his master through all
the months of fighting, but the faith of even an unimaginative warrior like Sir Boris was beginning to wane. “My advice is
to give it up. It’s madness,” he added, as though that was an explanation.

“I must have Igraine!” Uther moaned. He clenched his fists, staring hopelessly toward the fortress.

“As one who’s been to Colchester, as one who knows a few things, I have to tell you, Sire, the kingdom is falling apart while
we tear ourselves to pieces,” Boris said plaintively. “If this was for money, or love, or power, I could understand it. But
all this for
Cornwall’s wife?
”

The king ignored the pleading in his liegeman’s one. “You were born old, Boris,” Uther said contemptuously. “I’ve spent all
my life fighting. Bloody days
and cold nights with a naked sword as a bedfellow.”
And now I want something … warmer
.

“You’ll never take Tintagel,” Sir Boris countered flatly.

What might have become an argument was interrupted as the attention of both men was caught by the sight of a rider on a grey
horse entering the camp. The newcomer did not wear the armor of Uther’s followers. He wore a long dark cloak with silver symbols
embroidered along the hem and a feathered border studded with the skulls of ravens. He wore no armor, but on his head was
a close-fitting helmet of gold-washed bronze and deerskin.

Sir Boris crossed himself, as a good Christian should at the sight of a Pagan wizard.

“Merlin …” Uther breathed. Mad hope gleamed in his dark eyes.

“Hundreds are dead because you have an itch,” Merlin said brutally as he followed Uther into the king’s tent. The red light
of sunset shone over his shoulders, but most of the interior of the tent was in shadow, without even a lamp to give it light.

Merlin had not seen Uther for almost a year, and in truth, it did not look as if the king were suffering from an itch, but
a scourge: Uther was hollow-cheeked and unshaven, his ragged beard and wild eyes giving dismal credence to the rumors of madness
that surrounded him.

“Will you help cure me of that itch?” Uther demanded belligerently. His face was puffy with inaction and too much wine, and
he glared at Merlin with a
moody distrust that might turn to violence at any moment.

And this is the man that Nimue says I am to persuade to see reason
, Merlin thought mournfully. It was as if the ravaged King Uther was as much a victim of forces greater than himself as the
lightning-blasted tree was the victim of the storm. For a moment Merlin thought of Mab and her plots, but for the life of
him, he did not see how Uther’s destruction could benefit the Old Ways. No, Uther had been a weak and selfish king from the
very beginning. This was only more of the same.

“You’ve lost your reputation, Uther, and reputation, like glass, once cracked, can never be repaired,” Merlin said pensively.

“Will you help me?” the king demanded again.

“I don’t know you anymore. You’ve become an Ouroboros—You’ll destroy the world in your lust!”