“Thank you. You’re saying it’s no good my preaching peace to Coel and the Hen Ogledd kings while I can’t keep my temper with my own neighbours. It’s fair enough. As for Garbonian and his plans for a joint Anglian defence force, I… just hated the idea, which wasn’t a good reason for rejecting it. It didn’t work in the south, but Garb’s right—the people are more settled here. I could hardly tell the villages apart, riding around out there today.”
Lance listened with affection while he reasoned between his instincts and his conscience. He had no political answers either, but was starting to understand that Art needed someone he could ask, someone who wouldn’t perceive uncertainty as weakness. He brushed the last of the dried sweat out of Balana’s coat. “Well, sleep on it,” he said. He looked beyond Art’s shoulder, to the starry half-circle of sky framed in the stable’s arched door. “You’d better start soon, or it’ll hardly be worth it.”
“Will you attend the debates? I know you want to work, but there’ll be time for that, I promise.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And… will you come with me now?”
Lance shivered. He’d made no assumptions. One night didn’t mean a shared bedchamber. “Yes,” he said longingly. “Of course.”
There was no-one in the stableyard or the cobbled lane beyond. Art slung an arm around Lance’s waist. He smelled of leather and sweat and horse, a combined fragrance that made Lance’s head spin with desire. He returned the embrace, and they entered the stronghold together, matching step for step and pulse for pulse.
A tang of ozone sharpened the air in the hall. Lance looked around, expecting to see lightning over the dark sea horizon behind them, a winter storm on the way. His ears popped. His vision flickered as if he’d blinked too hard, and suddenly instead of the empty staircase ahead, there was an old man standing upright and stark-faced on the seventh step. Reflexively Lance grabbed for his sword. “Where did he come from?”
Art dropped a warm, restraining hand onto his. “Easy. Don’t kill my Merlin.”
“Is that… Are you sure that’s who this is? He doesn’t look the same.”
“Of course he is.” To Lance’s dismay, Art bowed deeply before the old man—and then, as if that wasn’t enough, went down on one knee. “Greetings, Lord Merlin. I hope this cold night finds you well.”
The Merlin pushed back the hood of his robe. Lance was certain that the narrow skull with its few strands of white hair was different to the one he’d seen in the debating hall, but he’d been a long way off. “Greetings, Lord Merlin,” he echoed for Arthur’s sake. He’d never knelt to anyone in his life, but he made a courteous bow of his own. “May I ask how you got here, sir? I didn’t see you arrive.”
“My means of travel are no business of skinny-shanked princes of moorland and mud, Lance o’Lough. Is the work done, King Arthur? Is the dragon slain?”
Lance stared. His ears tried to pop again, and his sinuses crackled as if he’d surfaced too fast from a dive. If he could only close a grip on the veil of illusion hanging between him and this old man, he was certain he’d see…
“Lance? Are you all right?”
Art, still kneeling, was gazing up at him in concern. “I’m fine,” Lance said, and leaned to help him up. “Come on. No-one commands the king of the Britons this way—not even a Merlin. Isn’t that right, my lord?”
Unreadably the Merlin held his gaze. “The king of the Britons has not yet answered my question.”
Art seemed to pull himself out of a mild trance. “No, I haven’t. Not slain, Merlin, but made harmless, I’m sure. The creature became a snake, and then a little earthworm. Then it vanished into a rock on Spindlestone Heughs.”
“The spire on the top of the crags? The very spindle stone?”
“That’s right. How did you know?”
The old man spread his arms. “How do I know that you must fight the Saxon enemy, not appease him? That your bride will soon arise like the dawn to honour and bless your realm, and until that time, the less you’re seen wandering these halls in the arms of your new general, the better?”
Lance wanted to laugh. Worse, he wanted to reach out and pull the Merlin’s long white beard—as if by so doing he could tug off a mask, and find beneath it… What? A familiar friend, playing an unfathomable practical joke? That was the feeling he had, but Art clearly didn’t share it. His face had darkened with anger. “Come with me,” Lance said, trying to ease him away. “It’s late. Never mind the prophecies for now.”
“I’m not concerned about those. Listen to me, Merlin—I’ll wander in anyone’s arms I choose. And you’ll address my general with respect. He healed me, which was more than you could do with any of your potions and chants.”
No point for Lance in reminding Art that he was nobody’s general yet. And he wasn’t about to discuss his dubious healing powers—or his methods—with this suddenly keen-eyed old man. “Arthur,” he said, not concealing a rasp of authority. “Come away and get some sleep.”
“Why?” Art demanded. “Does it bother you to be seen in my arms? Would you rather hide?”
“I’ll hide it from anyone who has no business with my affairs or yours. But, for the needs of this moment—yours, your Merlin’s, any walls with eyes or ears—I’m asking you to accompany me to my bedchamber, and heaven help anyone who disturbs us there before dawn.”
Art’s eyebrows flew up. He underwent a perfect sunrise of his own, with colours to match. For this moment at least, all thoughts of old men and prophecies were forgotten. Lance seized his opportunity and began to push him up the stairs.
The Merlin stepped aside for them. “Even as much as you love him,” he said as they went past, and his voice had lost its caw and gained a resonant sadness that tugged on layers of Lance’s memory, “even that much, to that very height and depth, you will betray him.”
Art whipped round. Lance stopped him by main force, planting one hand on his chest, taking hold of his jaw and turning him so that they were nose to nose, sealed into a world that held only the two of them and was complete. “Arthur, don’t.”
“You heard him. I’ll have him killed for you.”
Lance risked a flicker of a smile. “We don’t even know which of us he meant.”
“Well, it can’t be you. And it certainly can’t be me, because…”
The scent of ozone rose again, copper and salt and blood. Lance didn’t have to look to know that the old man was gone. He kept his grip on Art’s jaw, leaned down—of the two, Lance was a little the taller now, though he couldn’t have said when that had happened—and kissed him until he was quivering, eyes closed, a frozen river ready to burst into a torrent of springtime melt. “I’ll love you until your throat’s raw with saying my name,” Lance promised. “And then I’ll love you to sleep, because if I don’t, Garbonian will make mincemeat of you in the debating chamber tomorrow. And those are all the prophecies you need.”
Chapter Fourteen