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with his own hands? Would the king not surely be dead now, if not for
Merlin's actions? Yes, yes . . . He pounded his head against his
arms. He had gone over it all a thousand times.
It was all sensible, understandable, all for the good. And yet he
could find no peace. The dream still haunted him, the dream in which
the Christ held out the chalice of eternal life. If He was the
manifestation of the true God, why had He taken the cup away?
And Merlin's own magic still frightened him. He remembered little
about it. The power had simply boiled out of him, blinding and numbing
him.
But he remembered the feeling afterward, that terrifying certainty that
he had somehow changed completely, that he would never again find
death, or release, or peace.
Was that the meaning of eternal life? Had that been the meaning of the
dream-that life, lived beyond its normal span, was a curse far worse
than death?
Yet it could not be. Saladin was not an unhappy man, particularly.
And he surely did not want to part with the cup that Merlin had stolen
from him.
It has already caused me to steal, Merlin thought. It nearly caused me
to kill.
What would it do to Arthur?
He heard a sound and looked up. A lovely sound, like a woman's voice,
singing a strangely beautiful song. It was distant, faint; when it
disappeared, Merlin thought he must have imagined it. But it began
again, high, soft, filled with mystery.
Almost unconsciously he stood up in the grass of the grove and walked
toward the music.
Ancient, it was, ancient and perfect, serene yet somehow hopeless. It
came from the caves.
He walked faster, half-expecting whoever it was to vanish before he
arrived, but the music grew louder as he drew near to the cave.
He stopped short. It was the same cave where he had taken Saladin.
He was standing almost on the exact spot where his heart had ceased to
beat. He would have died there, if the stranger had not saved him with
the cup.
A life for a life, he thought. The debt was paid. He had the cup.
Now he would have to learn to live with it.
The music stopped for a moment. Merlin felt himself covered with
perspiration. He would never be free from his own guilt, he knew.
Even death would not release him.
But the singing came again, and it washed over him like cool balm.
How long had it been, he wondered, since he had heard a woman sing?
Certainly none had ever sung to him. His mother might have, he
imagined, if she had lived longer. But in all his long life, he had
never heard a woman's tender voice even speak his name in love.
Slowly he walked into the cave. Shafts of sunlight streamed in behind
him. His shadow filled the space momentarily, then he knelt in wonder.
For sitting inside the sun-dappled tunnel, the crystals sparkling like
diamonds around her, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
She was not shocked by his sudden appearance. She did not even cut off
the haunting refrain of the melody she was singing, but sang on until
it ended. The last note hung in the cave like a promise.
He could think of nothing to say. Her beauty was unearthly. He
blinked, thinking she might vanish like a thought. "Who are you? he
whispered at last. "I am Nimue," she said. "Come to me, Merlin. I
have waited for you." She held her arms out to him.
The old man hesitated. If she was not imaginary, she must have been
sent for some ill purpose.
Saladin. Saladin was using her to get back the cup. "Why are you
here?" He tried to make himself sound stern, but could not disguise
the quaver in his voice.
She rose, as gracefully as a plume of smoke. "If you cannot trust me,
I will wait until you can," she said softly.
She ran to the back of the cave, through the dark tunnel where there
was no light.
Merlin followed her, but he did not find her. He even went back to the
castle and returned with a candle, but she was gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Merlin looked for the mysterious woman all that day and the next,
feeling like an old fool. He tried to convince himself that he was
merely conducting an experiment: He wanted to find out how a fully
grown, flesh-and-blood human being could have vanished from the cave
without a trace. Other men might have stuck on the point that the
individual who called herself Nimue was a human being at all. She
looked human, certainly, but it was well known among the common folk
that nymphs, wood sprites, and other ethereal creatures could appear
quite human under the right circumstances. Merlin did not believe in
the lore of the fairy folk. He was an educated man, and a bona fide
sorcerer, besides. People did not simply vanish.
In the early afternoon of the third day of his search, he found a back
entrance to the cave. It was not much bigger than a badger's hole,
situated in an outcropping of rock a few hundred yards from the cave's
main entrance. It was neatly covered over with a broad flat stone.
So she was human after all, Merlin thought, somewhat annoyed with
himself that the discovery had disappointed him. He waited near the
opening for an hour or two, then gave up and returned to Camelot.
The castle was in a topsy-turvy state, with preparations under way to
move the court north to the summer residence at Garianonum. During the
long winter, local food supplies had been nearly depleted, and the
lavatories and sewage moat were full and stinking. It was time to
vacate the place, so that the permanent staff could clean up and begin
restocking for the following autumn.
In his anguished state of mind of recent weeks, Merlin had forgotten
completely about the move and was quite astonished to see the wagons
already being loaded in preparation for the journey. "When do we
leave?" he asked a passing page.
The boy winced. "The day after tomorrow, sir, he answered, cringing.
Even before the incident with Saladin and the well, most of the castle
residents had been reluctant to speak with the sorcerer for fear he
might turn them into frogs or toss them into a bubbling cauldron of
witch's brew, and now it was worse since the tale had been spread about
how he had cast the evil Saracen Knight down to hell. "Isn't it rather
early for the summer residence?" "Yes, sir," the page acknowledged.
"But it's the king's orders." He ran away without waiting for any more
questions, making the sign to ward off the evil eye behind his back.
Merlin sighed. It was pointless living here. In spite of the crowd of
people, the king's court was a lonelier place for him than the deserted
grove of the druids. And with the noise and the stench it was a far
less pleasant place, besides. He had remained only because of the
king, but Arthur was now a grown man who no longer depended on Merlin
except for advice in matters of diplomacy, such as it was in a land
that was still woefully lawless. He was certainly not needed to help
the king plan his war strategies; no one in Britain was a better leader
on the battlefield than Arthur.
And increasingly, during the past few years, the battlefield was where
the king spent his time. Despite Arthur's plans for a united word, the
Saxons had been attacking more and more frequently, each year with
larger and more organized armies, and the king had no recourse but to
fight them. There was no diplomacy to speak of, except between Arthur
and the other British chieftains, and they were all too busy warding
off the growing hordes of invaders to argue much with the High King, or
even with one another. Merlin's only contact with Arthur in the past
five years had been the rare conversations they had during brief
periods of peace.
They were wonderful conversations, though. Arthur had grown into a
fine man, humorous and wise, though still as straight as an arrow in
his personal discipline. He always spoke Latin with Merlin, although
with no. one else, as a gesture of respect. Together they discussed
philosophy and poetry and passed the time like gentlemen of leisure.
Merlin smiled. He had not realized before how difficult those quiet
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