Morgain's Revenge - Laura Anne Gilman [11]
“Indeed you do,” Merlin said. “Far be it from me to interfere in such weighty matters as those. In fact, this boy should not be here at all, filling your valuable time with his news. I shall take him away at once, immediately, if not sooner. Boy, with me!”
Afterward, Gerard could never quite remember how they got from Godrain’s chambers to Merlin’s quarters. There was a blurred memory of Sir Rheynold, left standing in the chaos, and a swirl of servants welcoming Merlin back as they went about their business, but it seemed a matter of seconds to move from one end of the castle to another. Was it magic? Or just the confusion that always seemed to surround the enchanter wherever he went?
However the means, Gerard soon found himself in a corridor that was dry and dusty and clearly off-limits to most of the castle’s population: Merlin’s private chambers. Merlin opened the door with a low muttered incantation, ushered Gerard in, and deposited him in a surprisingly comfortable wooden chair set against one wall. The squire leaned back into it, feeling the wood warm under his backside. He had almost caught his breath when the lions’ heads at the end of the wooden armrests turned and snarled at him. Gerard jumped, but when they didn’t do more than snarl, he relaxed again. Magic. He was beginning to understand Newt’s objections to it.
The enchanter was busy dropping a number of dubious-looking leather sacks into a wooden chest and locking it securely. That done, he turned and looked at the squire. Merlin’s face was lined with exhaustion and his eyes were even more hooded than usual, but there was nothing slack in his attitude. Despite everything, Gerard still felt reassured. This time, Merlin was here. This time, the enchanter could make everything right.
“Now, what happened?”
“I was running an errand for Sir Rheynold, and there was…something felt wrong.” He hadn’t told that to the seneschal, but he had to give Merlin the whole story. Merlin wouldn’t laugh at him. Well, he might, but he would also know if the feeling of unease was important or not. And if it was important, then Merlin needed to know.
“Wrong like a stomachache wrong, or a tooth-ache?”
Gerard blinked in surprise at the question, then replied, “A toothache.”
“And then you saw Morgain?”
“Then I saw a glow. Not right away, after I’d gone a little farther down the hall. But—”
Merlin held up a hand abruptly, his eyes narrowing. The squire halted, confused. “Stop gawking outside and come in, fool child,” the enchanter said in a deeply cranky tone.
The wooden door to the hallway swung open and a familiar head of disordered black hair looked inside.
“You are back!” Newt said in satisfaction. “How did you escape from Nimue? Did they tell you what Arthur said when we told him? And…Gerard? They never told me you were with him—what’s wrong?”
“In, fool of a horse-boy, in!” Merlin said, and something invisible yanked Newt into the room, and shut the door firmly behind him.
FOUR
“How did you know to come here?” Gerard asked his friend. He watched Newt move a pile of strange metal blocks off a bench and place them carefully on the floor before he sat down. They looked harmless enough, but in an enchanter’s workroom, you assumed nothing.
Newt’s shaggy black hair had already grown out of the trim someone had forced on him when they were formally presented to the king after their adventure. The brown pants and lighter-colored shirt he wore bore definite signs of his equine charges. In other words, he looked like Newt—solid, dependable, and practical to the end.
“I told him, of course,” Merlin said, as though giving up on expecting common sense out of either boy. The enchanter stalked over to his desk and began digging through the untidy piles of parchments and scripts there in search of something.
Newt nodded his head in agreement. “I was exercising one of the horses, that new bay they brought in—and a right overeager beast it is, Gerard. Don’t let