“It is standard practice, Merlin,” Nimue whispered in his ear. “Morgan used to do it whenever someone in her household was seriously ill. She bred black dogs against the eventuality.”
“Fools!” He bellowed it. “Superstitious dolts!”
He pushed past them, moving more quickly than before. Fedora’s room was pitch-dark. The awful odor seemed to billow out of it. He stared into the blackness for a moment and listened. Faintly, very faintly, he could hear breathing. Except for that, the room was pervaded with the eerie stillness of death. Then softly came the sound of her coughing.
He went back to the hall, took one of the candles and went back inside. Then quietly came Fedora’s voice. “No, young man, you may not have my hand.”
Gently, almost whispering, he said, “Fedora, it is I, Merlin.”
“All you lovely young men. I know what you want. But you may not have it.”
He moved to the bedside and put a hand on her arm. “Fedora, it is Merlin.”
“Merlin?” His voice seemed to register with her. “No. Not Merlin. Not at all.”
Her mind had regressed to her far-off youth. It took him a moment to realize. “Tell me about your young men, Fedora.”
“No!” It was almost a hiss. The sharpness of the expletive made her cough again.
“Fedora,” he whispered, “I have come to make love to you.”
“No, not you. Not any of you. My love is for the women here.”
“Yes.” He stroked her arm. “Yes, Fedora. I love you.”
He moved the candle close to her. She was soaked in sweat. Her skin was pale as the candle wax, and her breath smelled of imminent decay. There was blood on her lips; she had coughed it up. Merlin took his kerchief and wiped it away.
Like a serpent gifted with speech she hissed, “None of you! Not one of you! I have seen what you do to your women. You will not defile me. It is them I care for, them I tend.” Suddenly, quite abruptly, she shouted, “Uther Pendragon! All your women! All your sons! What will they benefit you now?”
The stench in the room was growing stronger, or Merlin was succumbing to it. It was coming from under the bed. He looked, and by dim candlelight he saw the bodies of the young dogs, arranged in circle, in a basket. The corpses glistened with moisture. Decay was taking them quickly. He called for Nimue.
She stepped into the room and stood just inside the doorway, outlined faintly by light from the hall, and held her hand over her nose. “Merlin, how can you stand this?”
He gestured under the bed. “Remove them.”
She bent and took the basket, then glanced at Fedora. “She isn’t-is she-?”
“Not yet.” He looked at the dying woman and said almost tenderly, “She told me once that she knows secret things. Let us hope she remembers them in her death throes. And will speak them.”
Nimue looked doubtful. She bent and took the basket with the dogs with one hand. Covering her nose with the other, she left quickly.
Merlin lowered his voice. In a whisper he said, “Fedora, it is I, Uther. I need you.”
“Again?” Eyes closed, she chuckled. “Another one? You are insatiable.”
“You know who the woman is. Who the son is. Tell me their names.”
Fedora opened her eyes wide and without warning spit in his face. She coughed up more blood. “Men! Kings! Your women deserve better than you give them.”
“I know it.”
“You treat them like swine.”
“I know it. I know it. But tell me, Fedora, who is this one? What is her name? What is the name of the child?”
Her hand caught his and squeezed. All the life seemed to leave her body.
Agitatedly he shook her. She must not die. She must not, not till she talked. “Fedora! Wake up! Speak to me.”
Feebly, her eyelids parted. The candle flame seemed not to reflect in them. They were black, dying.
“My new son, Fedora.” He shook her. He whispered. “What is his name?”
So faintly it was almost not a sound but a breath she said the word, “Darrowfield.”
“Darrowfield? Old Lord Darrowfield’s son was really Uther’s?”
Her eyes closed. She repeated the word. “Darrowfield.” There was a violent spasm of coughing, and a great deal more blood came up. It soaked her bed gown and the sheets. And she was still.
Merlin sat staring at her for a long moment. From the hallway came the sound of the women mourning, wailing, as if somehow they knew Fedora had passed on.
So young Lord Darrowfield, his father’s heir, was really the son of Uther, as had long been rumored. He was no mere lord. He was Arthur’s brother. Or had been.
But what did that tell about all the deaths, all the killings?
Then it dawned on him.
In the hallway the women were mourning, wailing, crying. Merlin paused to watch and listen. He had intended to tell them to make arrangement for Fedora’s burial. But it was no use, not in their state. He would tend to it himself.
He saw Nimue returning, at the far end of the hall. They met, and he told her, “Let us go to the refectory. I have not eaten a proper meal in days.”
“How can you eat after…?”
“It might have been me, Nimue. Fedora was twenty years older than I, but it might have been me. One day it will be. A full stomach will remind me that I am still alive.”
They walked to the dining hall without saying much more. It was past dinnertime; there were not many other people. Merlin had a plate of beef and vegetables. Nimue had already eaten, but she sat with him and sipped a goblet of wine. “Did she tell you what you needed to know?”
“I believe so.”
“What was it?”
“She talked about Uther’s sons. The late Lord Darrowfield, the one who died so horribly at Stonehenge, was Arthur’s brother.”
She drank her wine. “That has always been rumored. I mean, I had heard he was a bastard. But Uther…!”
“Yes, Uther. I should have realized long ago that Arthur’s pursuit of women was not unique to him. It was Marmaduke, of all people, who reminded me of that.”
Nimue was wry. “It’s nice to realize that Marmaduke knew anything at all.”
“Yes. But I think Fedora was trying to tell me something else. I think I understand what, but I cannot be certain. Unless…”
“Unless?”
“Nothing, Nim-Colin. Do you have any idea where Petronus is?”
She finished the wine and put the cup down. “Off at school, I think. The schoolmasters missed several of their classes because of the influenza.”
“We weathered the plague. We can weather this.”
“Yes, but the plague never really struck here, remember.”
“Except for poor John. If it was plague that killed him. Let me have a swallow of your wine.”
She turned the cup upside down to show him it was empty. “I’ll go and get you some.”
“A small cup, please.”
She went. Merlin sat alone, brooding. What he was thinking was too unpleasant to contemplate.
In a moment she was back. Merlin thanked her, and she said she wanted to go back to her room. “It has been a draining time. Worrying about you, I mean. I need some rest.”
“Fine. Go back to our tower. Oh, and start the steam engine for my lift. I certainly do not have the energy for all those stairs.”
“I’ll be sure to.”
Merlin finished his meal and his wine and began making his way back to the Wizard’s Tower. But just after leaving the refectory he encountered Simon. Simon, fussy as usual, was carrying a thick sheaf of papers and having trouble holding on to them. When one dropped, Merlin picked it up and handed it to him. He felt a twinge of pain in his back and rubbed it.
“Thank you, Merlin. I was just coming to find you. I was afraid you might still be under the weather.”
“There is always weather to be under. What is it you want?”
Simon riffled through his papers, dropping several more. “We’ve had a message from the king. I must have left it behind.”
Suddenly Merlin sneezed. More of Simon’s papers scattered and he scrambled to retrieve them.
“Does it not occur to you that you might carry those in a pouch of some sort?”
“In a pouch or out of one, the king’s message is not here.”
“Yes, of course. What does he say?”
“He is en route back to Camelot. The funeral was uneventful. Morgan never showed up.”
“That is hardly surprising, I suppose. Now if you will excuse me, I need to return to my tower and get some rest. Oh-have you heard that old Fedora died a while ago?”
“Fedora?” Simon scowled. “I wish I had visited her. She delivered me, you know.”
“Who among us is without sin?”
Simon made a sour face, commented on Merlin’s sarcasm and left. Merlin went on his way, back to his tower.
His chair lift was waiting for him at the foot of it. He could hear the steam engine chugging steadily far above. Glancing up, he saw small, periodic puffs of steam from it, a hundred feet above. Looking up the tower always made him dizzy. The vast cylindrical shape, the staircase spiraling along the wall… He leaned against the wall momentarily to steady himself.
The seat was swaying slightly, he presumed in a draft. It added a bit more to his vertigo. He reached out and steadied it. Then gingerly he took his place in it, pulled the chain to start the mechanism, and began his ascent up the height of the tower.
It was slow. The lift always took three minutes or more to travel the full height of the tower. He watched as the stones moved downward past his field of vision. The staircase spiraled around him. The slow upward movement, the gentle swaying of the seat, lulled him to a state of complete relaxation. The seat moved twenty feet up, thirty, forty. He closed his eyes.
Then suddenly there was a huge jolt. The seat swung violently, almost striking the wall. Merlin gripped the chain and held tightly. Somehow the chain must have slipped, missed a cog. He leaned back in his seat, holding tight the chain, and glanced up. Everything was as usual. Everything was as it should be. The wild swaying gradually stopped, the gears reengaged and the ascent continued.
He was sixty feet above the ground. He could hear the gears as they turned, the engine as it hummed, the clanking of the chains.
Then there was another violent jolt and the lift swung wildly again. Merlin gripped the chain for dear life and looked up again.
There was someone at the landing on the top level, partway onto the wooden landing stage there. It was a man, and he was holding a long pike. He stretched it out and poked the top of the chain with it, and the lift swung wildly a third time. The man looked down at Merlin and cried, “Fall, damn you!”
