thought I had dissuaded you from dredging up this wizard nonsense.”
“It’s useful.” Arthur was sanguine. “Have you not seen what is growing around us, out there in the fog?”
“I have. What is the point of-”
“Be quiet. They’re coming back.”
“But Arthur, you can’t see any more through this fog than I can. Suppose these aren’t our men. Suppose they are more of Marmaduke’s? Or a raiding party from some other warlord?”
“Be quiet, I said.”
The sky was lightening more and more. The world was still that dull gray, not light yet but not exactly dark. Merlin watched the surrounding fog and saw more and more glints of armor and weaponry. Then he glanced at the nearby mud where Bruce’s body was slumped.
Marmaduke stopped ten feet away. “This,” he said firmly, indicating the poor object that had been his son, “will be burned. My men have nearly finished building the pyre. You,” he added, pointing from Arthur to Merlin, “will be burned with it.”
Arthur, keeping a close watch on the surrounding fog, intoned loudly, “You are making a great mistake, Marmaduke. Merlin is the greatest wizard in the world. He can summon armies out of the air,” Arthur threatened. “All the forces known to the wisest philosophers are at his command.”
Marmaduke spat. “Let him get out of his cage, then.”
Lulua added, “All the most powerful magicians are women. Witches. Merlin does not qualify.”
Marmaduke laughed, more heartily than seemed appropriate. “If he’s going to summon an army, he’d better do it quickly.” He gestured to a few of his men, who surrounded the cages, poised to open them and pull the prisoners out. Two more of them lifted Bruce’s body.
Merlin watched them. “If he really did die of the plague, your men would be most unwise to handle his body.”
“Why?” Marmaduke narrowed his eyes. “He’s dead. What harm can be done?”
“In the name of everything human, it is the plague. Plagues spread. It is what they do. That is what makes them plagues and not ordinary diseases. You must let me examine Bruce’s body.”
Marmaduke thought for a moment, then brushed this aside. “Nonsense. My men are strong and vigorous.”
“Good for them. But-”
“I’d concentrate on making that army appear, if I were you.”
Marmaduke raised his hand, and at that signal the group of his men surrounding the two cages drew their swords. One of them unlatched the cages, then stepped back and drew his own sword. With it he gestured that Merlin and Arthur were to step out.
The king and the pseudo-wizard exchanged resigned glances and started slowly to march toward the village center. As they did so, Marmaduke told them, “Be happy I didn’t leave you to die in those. The carrion birds around here are having a lean season.”
“Again, you should tread carefully, Marmaduke.” Arthur spoke the words solemnly. “Merlin speaks the language of birds.”
Marmaduke laughed. “Let him tweet up a few thousand of them to rescue you, then.” He nodded to his men.
Soldiers prodded the prisoners with their sword tips, two of them carried Bruce’s body, and the entire party continued to move in the direction of the town’s center. Merlin looked around furtively; yes, there were dim figures moving in the fog.
At the center of town a wooden funeral pyre had been erected. Four torches burned brightly at its corners. Other lights in the town were being extinguished gradually, one by one, as the morning light grew.
The pyre was a good ten feet tall. Two boys were atop it, pouring oil over it. When the party reached it, the men carrying Bruce’s body took it to where a pair of wooden ladders rested side by side against it and slowly, awkwardly, carried the corpse to its resting place on top. The two oil boys, their task finished, jumped down to the ground.
Arthur whispered to Merlin, “Now is the time. Summon your army.”
Merlin shot him a disapproving glance. “My feet hurt. This bloody arthritis-”
“Do it!”
The two soldiers climbed down from the pyre and took places at Marmaduke’s side. Lulua, at a signal from Marmaduke, raised her hands high over her head. “O Bran,” she intoned, “mightiest of the gods of England-”
But Merlin interrupted her. He raised his hands even higher in the air and chanted in Latin. “Caveat emptor. Cum grano salis. Et tu Brute. Omnes Gallia in tres partes divisa est. E pluribus unum.”
“Stop that!” Lulua barked.
But Merlin chanted on, intoning over and over, “Caveat emptor. Cum grano salis…”
Arthur pointed a finger at Lulua. “Do not interrupt, woman. He is summoning all the dark forces of the universe.”
Marmaduke, visibly unhappy, told the men at his sides, “Light it. Now!”
The two men took up two of the torches and lit the pyre. Thanks to the oil, it took fire quickly; the flames burned bright and hot, and they spread quickly. In a matter of moments the entire thing would be consumed.
“Omnes Gallia in tres partes divisa est.”
Marmaduke snapped his fingers at the two pyre men. “Get them up there. At once.”
The men drew their swords and began prodding Arthur and Merlin toward the ladders. Merlin, still chanting his Latin, stumbled, and a soldier prodded him with his sword point. Merlin drew himself up to his full height and shouted, “Nunc, Bediverus!”
Arthur echoed him. “Now, Bedivere!”
From somewhere deep in the surrounding fog, a trumpet sounded, playing a military charge. Marmaduke looked around, alarmed.
Lulua did likewise. “This isn’t possible. He could never-”
“He has done it, Witch.” Marmaduke called to his men, “All of you, draw your weapons! We are under attack!”
The men looked around, confused.
From the fog, a second trumpet sounded.
Then the first of Arthur’s soldiers, led by Bedivere, appeared clearly from out of the mist. They were on horseback, swords and spears drawn, charging at full gallop. They shouted a battle cry. More and more of them followed. Marmaduke’s men panicked, some bracing themselves for the fight, but most scattering. The pyre burned more and more brightly. A third battle call issued from the unseen trumpet.
Amid the confusion, Lulua remained calm. She looked around for her carriage and began slinking toward it, or what passed for slinking in a woman so heavy. Arthur, noticing her, caught her by the back of her robe. “No, you don’t, Witch.”
She struggled. “Let go of me, pretender.”
“Be careful, Witch. I once saw a hog mired in mud. It was stuck for days. The same is apt to happen to you.”
She swiped at him. “Let go of me!”
Arthur extended a leg and tripped her. She fell, and the muddy ground made an unpleasant sucking sound as she hit it. She called out for her attendants, but they were in the process of mounting the carriage and speeding away in it. Arthur laughed at her. “Root around, while you’re down there. You might find some truffles.” He turned to Merlin. “Come over here and deal with this harridan. You and she talk the same language.”
Merlin stiffened. “I most certainly do not speak the-”
“You both deal in the same mystical flimflam. Come over here and take her in charge.”
Most of Marmaduke’s men had vanished into the mist by now, in the opposite direction from where Bedivere’s men were still charging. Marmaduke kept shouting encouragement to the ones who remained. “Fight! Fight for your wives and children! Fight for Paintonbury!” He made for Merlin, plainly intending to slaughter him.
But Arthur took a sword from one of the fallen men and followed him, thwacking him across the buttocks repeatedly.
“Stop that,” the flustered warlord ordered him.
But Arthur only laughed and kept spanking him. “Surrender, lump. Why let any more of your men be killed?”
“My men will fight on to the last.”
“Surrender, for God’s sake. Use your wits, for once.”
“Never.”
But Bedivere’s men had them outnumbered four to one. The fighting ended quickly. Individual warriors surrendered. The ground was littered with their fallen comrades and dropped swords.
Then, when it was apparent he had lost, Marmaduke dropped his own sword. Puffing heavily he said, “You win. Again. Arthur, King of England.” He made an ironic little bow, then spat.
“Why, Marmaduke, how nice of you to acknowledge my kingship-once more.”
The warlord sulked and said nothing more.
But Arthur was not finished gloating. “Remind me, Marmaduke. My memory is failing me, I’m afraid. Was it this simple to best you, back in the civil war?”
The pyre was roaring with flames by now. Marmaduke fixed his gaze on it and remained silent.
“Come, now, Marmaduke, it was twenty years ago. Not so long, really. Longer for me than for you, at any rate. I have had the burden of government on my shoulders all that time. You have had… what? Mud? You might at least have had a bath sometime in twenty years.”
“You damned, self-styled aristocrats. You romp around the country violating men’s wives and then have the gall to complain to us. ‘Oh, how hard my royal life is. Pity me.’ ” He spat again.
Arthur smiled indulgently, in a way he hoped would be conciliatory. “It was only the once, Marmaduke. And she wanted it. They tell me I was quite a handsome young man.”
“ ‘They tell me I was a handsome young man,’ ” the warlord mimicked. “You make me sick, Arthur. All of you, you’re all alike. Your father was just as bad, in his day. But at least he was content with his own little kingdom. You wanted all of England, and all the women in it.”
Something the fat man said made Merlin’s ears prick up. He stared at Marmaduke fixedly and did not move a muscle.
“What is that about Uther?” he asked.
But before Marmaduke could answer, Lulua, trying to rub the mud off her robes, said to Merlin, “Well? Are you coming for me or not?”
“Be quiet, woman. I am talking to Marmaduke.”
“No, you’re not. Look.”
Two of Bedivere’s men prodded Marmaduke with spears and led him away.
Bedivere approached. Arthur glared at him. “Where the devil have you been?”
The knight was out of breath and puffing. “I’ve been trying to impose some order on this scene, while you stood here taunting that fat idiot Marmaduke.”
Cowed, Arthur said nothing.
