The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [15]
“It’s an attack,” Finan said. “There are only two things you can do in the face of an attack. Defend or retreat.”
“Or find allies,” Patrick insisted.
“You find Merlin. We’ll defend,” Finan said.
The other squires said, “Aye” in agreement, their faces now showing excitement and the desire to prove themselves, in place of the former fear and uncertainty.
“Take me with you,” Ailis said again, stamping her foot on the floor, impatient at being ignored while the boys talked.
“Ailis, you’re—” She fixed Gerard with a stare that made him rethink what he was going to say. “You’re needed here,” he went on. “You’ve been here forever, you know how everything runs. Take care of everyone. Run the castle. When the chatelaine wakes up, she’ll be so impressed she’ll move you straightaway into…doing whatever it is you want to do.”
“Urrrgghh.” The servant girl ground her teeth in frustration. “You can’t go alone.”
“Then take me.” Newt had been silent, standing on the outskirts of the discussion, but now he stepped forward, his gaze intent on Gerard’s face. “I know the roads. I know how to forage and how to scout. The beasts in the stable can be fed by any whelp, so long as they’re able to hold a bucket. And I’d do no good in the running of things in here.” He waved an arm, indicating the chaos inside and the walls that needed to be defended outside.
Gerard stared at the stable boy, trying to judge the offer. It seemed sincere. He didn’t like him, but Ailis was right: Two of them would be safer on the roads than one. Be fair, he reminded himself. You don’t have to like someone to work with them.
“I’m in command.” It wasn’t a question.
Newt shrugged, neither agreeing nor arguing. Gerard eyed him suspiciously, then declared, “All right. We leave at first light.”
The boys moved off in a group, discussing strategies for either finding Merlin or defending the castle. Ailis, left behind, bit the inside of her cheek to keep the tears from spilling over. She wasn’t sure if she was more scared or angry. She knew she could help. She knew it.
Foolish child. Come to me.
Ailis started, not sure if she had really heard the voice in her head or imagined it. She looked around the banquet room. The squires and pages and other children had left. She was the only one awake in the Great Hall.
At first there was only the unnatural silence of the sleeping court. Then, every bit as strange, she heard the voice again.
Child, hurry.
She was certain she hadn’t imagined that. “Merlin?” she asked uneasily.
But there was no answer. The voice was gone.
THREE
Birds chirped and tweeted outside the stable, heralding the first light of dawn. Newt lay on his straw pallet in the back of the stable, surrounded by sleeping bodies—both human and canine. It was all perfectly normal…except for the fact that not one of his fellow servants was snoring. The grooms and the stable master had all fallen under the spell.
Newt couldn’t remember a morning of his life when he hadn’t woken to the sound of snores.
“Something to be said for spells,” he told himself as he rolled out from under a coarse blanket, shoved one of the hounds off his pallet, and ran a hand through his hair. No use to even try and tame it—he was born with hair going all different directions, and he would die that way.
Moving past the sleeping bodies, he gave a passing caress to the inquisitive equine noses thrust over stall doors, and emerged into the dawn, blinking sleepily. A bucket of cool water pulled from the well got him reasonably clean and awake, as much as he could be on only a handful of hours of sleep. His face still hurt, but the bruises from his tussle with the squire seemed to be fading already.
Had that fight really only been yesterday? It seemed years ago. Magic did that. It made time strange. Time and people. He had hoped never to be entangled in anything even smelling like magic ever again, and here he was, in the thick of it.
No, in the thick of it would mean