The Camelot Spell - Laura Anne Gilman [2]
Gerard watched the tall, slender form of the wizard circle the Round Table, waving his hands and still talking until he came to Arthur’s chair. Carved out of a dark polished wood, it was half as large as the other chairs that Gerard had—carefully, cautiously—been sitting in, but otherwise looked the same as all the others, with straight backs and uncomfortable seats. Gerard knew from having served during council sessions that some of the knights brought cushions with them but still found the great chairs uncomfortable. Gerard didn’t care. He wanted to sit at the Table so badly he could taste it. That was what was important: to be one of King Arthur’s trusted companions, a knight proven in valor and honor.
“As it was done, so let it be done. There.”
Gerard looked up again to see Merlin scattering a strange, shiny powder over Arthur’s chair, then dusting his hands off as though to get rid of the last flakes. “Not that it does any good, but it might have been far worse without it. Idiot warlords, always having something to prove. And worse when there’s a woman involved, as I should well have learned by now. Especially during the winter. Too many minstrels whining on about courtly love. Pffagh. None of this ‘longing from afar’ nonsense for me. You want something? Go after it. Don’t sit around and moon because you’re too noble to get your hands muddy.”
Merlin noticed Gerard staring at him. “What, you still here? Go, shoo. Go!”
Gerard didn’t wait to be told a third time, taking to his heels and leaving the enchanter to whatever he was doing. Sir Rheynold would be furious if he knew Gerard had been lingering in the Council Room where he was not supposed to be.
“Although,” a little voice that sounded a lot like his own said to him, “I wasn’t exactly alone. Merlin was there. And he didn’t scold me.”
“Merlin is insane,” another voice in his head countered, this one sounding a great deal like Sir Bors, a companion of his foster father, Sir Kay, and the knight who taught the squires their lessons. “Useful, but insane.”
And with that voice, the squire could not disagree.
In the room which held the great Round Table of King Arthur, the enchanter named Merlin looked at his handiwork, but his mind was preoccupied with the young boy who had just fled.
“Insane, yes,” he agreed with the voice in Gerard’s head. “But oh, so useful!” Now if Merlin could only remember what it was that he knew about this boy, and what role he would play in all that was going to happen.
Too much happening, the enchanter decided finally. Too many intersections, too many potential outcomes. Too many enemies waiting to strike. Magic could only look so far into the future—and then it all became chaos.
“Ah well, old man,” he said to himself, chuckling. “That’s half the point, isn’t it? Think how boring it would be if everyone knew where they were going all the time.”
ONE
SPRING, 12TH YEAR OF ARTHUR’S PAX BRITANNICA
“This entire castle has gone mad!”
Gerard instinctively ducked out of the way as the chief cook sent his assistants into motion with a wave of one muscled arm, flinging flour-dust over everyone within range. The spring morning was warm, and thrice so down here, where the ovens were burning hot and flour stuck to sweaty skin and dampened tunics and aprons. His face already perspiring, the squire hung close to the doorway, mentally cursing his master for sending him down to the kitchens today of all days.
“It’s the Quest,” one of the under-bakers ventured from where they huddled near the great brick ovens of Camelot’s kitchen.
The cook glowered at the boy who’d spoken. “Of course it’s the Quest! Everything has been the Quest for months now! And I, for one, will be glad when they’re all gone and out of my hair”—Gerard, along with everyone else in the kitchen, refrained from pointing out that Cook had no hair—“and we can get back to living like civilized folk!” He caught sight of Gerard by the door and pointed one oversized, flour-covered hand at him. “You. What are you doing here?”