Mistress of Legend

Chapter 6-2

“You tried to have him killed with that drugged wine, remember? Why would he ever trust you?”

“Once he sees my role in ending the war and assuring his continuance as king, I will have his unending gratitude, even if I had to use the Grail to bring it about. It will wipe away all of my past sins and secure my position in his esteem.”

“You were counting on his devotion to his faith to save you all along, weren’t you? Arthur could never bring himself to kill a priest, no matter what he’s done.”

Marius gloated. “I know.” He reached for the Grail. “And neither could you or you’d have done it by now.”

A low chuckle made us both turn.

Mordred was standing in the entry, his arms crossed, with Mona, the Grail Maiden, at his side. “Then it’s a shame for you his son does not share his faith. I have no such compunction.”

Marius’s face filled with dread.

“If you touch the Grail, I will kill you myself.” Mona held up a large silver sickle, the weapon all Grail guardians wore at their sides. “You have proven yourself unworthy.”

“You. How did you know?” Marius stuttered.

Mona lightly touched the crescent moon at her brow. “We guardians always know when our sacred charge is peril. We are bound to it. Now I must demand justice on its behalf.”

Mordred grabbed Bishop Marius by the cowl and dragged him toward the Grail Maiden. “By your leave, Lady, I fear your punishment too swift for the likes of him. I have something else in mind that I assure you will satisfy both spiritual and temporal law.”

“Is he dead?” I asked Mordred when more than a week had passed with no sign of Bishop Marius.

Mordred squinted at me, wrinkling his nose. “I’m not sure. We could go together to find out.” He held out an arm, as though offering to escort me to the fair.

I looked at him sharply. “What have you done to him?”

“Come with me and see.” He motioned for me to rise.

Pulling my shawl close around me against a chill that could have no natural origin, I followed Mordred. Past the cellar where Marius had been kept, past the place of public execution, through Camelot’s gates, and into the forest, we trod. At the crossroads where two smaller Roman roads met to join the main road to Camelot, we stopped.

I peered around, searching the empty dirt road and the thick underbrush on either side. The only thing I found was a pile of offal, the reeking, viscous remains of some animal’s recent kill. Other than that, we were utterly alone. I turned to Mordred, seeking an explanation.

“Look up,” he said, pointing into the trees.

I did as he instructed. Suspended high above me was a pen made of saplings, its crisscrossing bars and domed roof resembling a bird cage. But inside it was no bird; it could barely be called human. Marius lay naked on his belly, arms and ankles bound behind him at unnatural angles like a freshly trussed boar. Blood was slowly dripping from his wounds onto the leaves at my feet. A low moaning scream escaped my lips.

As we watched, a carrion crow hopped from a nearby branch and landed on one of the bars. It c****d its head to one side, as though considering a thought, then craned its neck to peck something. Marius cried out in pain and the bird jerked away, launching itself into the air and taking with it a bit of Marius’s flesh.

Marius moaned, his head on the bottom of the cage. He saw me, and his moans shaped into something resembling my name. Drawn as if by a spell, I moved closer until I was directly beneath him. I looked up, meeting his gaze. One of his eyes was obscured in shadow. No, it was missing altogether. One clear blue eye and one scabbed socket stared at me as he whimpered. I didn’t dare look down or move in case his eye was decaying at my feet.

I twisted so I was facing Mordred, catching a glimpse of what I had taken for carrion earlier. No, not carrion. It was bits of Marius’s blood and skin and muscle torn away by animals. I took a few unsteady steps toward the hedge and vomited. When I turned back to Mordred, he was standing tall and proud, hands on his hips like some triumphant king returned from battle.

“What is this?” was all I could think to say.

“A gibbet,” he answered as though I’d asked what manner of animal we’d treed. “Our ancestors used them often. They provide the guilty with plenty of time to think about their crimes, while sending a strong message to anyone else who might be fool enough to cross the local leader. They say even Boudicca used them when she terrorized the Romans.” His voice reflected pride in being in such esteemed company.

“This is not the way of Camelot. This is not our justice. This is”—I searched for the right word—“barbarous.” I scrutinized him, looking for any sign of the sweet boy I once knew. “I suppose you are the local leader with the message. Exactly what message would you send with this display of cruelty?” I gestured toward the dying priest.

“Camelot has a new leader now. One who will not stand idly by while guilty men get away with attempted murder and treachery. The gods demand justice for his actions, and that he shall get.”

“You,” I said slowly, “are a monster.” I wheeled around and pulled out the dagger I always wore at my side. Trying to avoid looking at Marius, who was now opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water, I followed the line of rope securing the cage in place to the base of a nearby tree and sawed at the knot.

“What are you doing?” Mordred demanded.

“No one should end their life this way,” I answered as the first cord snapped and the cage swayed. “No matter what they have done.”

“You cannot free him. He will die anyway.”

“Perhaps.” I grabbed the rope as the second cord snapped and sent the cage tilting wildly, then I fought for control as I lowered it to the ground. It hit the earth with a thud and Marius groaned. “I may not be able to save his life, nor in truth do I wish to, but I can offer him the quality that has always united Camelot and Avalon—mercy.”

Mordred did not move to stop me as I pried open the door of the cage. Marius’s wounds were far worse than I’d anticipated. Infected lash marks covered his back, indicating Mordred had had him tortured before throwing him in the gibbet. His skin was pocked where the birds had plucked out divots of flesh. I untied his bindings and slowly turned him over. Entrails protruded through gaps where the birds had had prolonged exposure to his body.

Marius was beyond sense now, trying to form words that would not come.

I placed a gentle hand on his forehead, willing him to focus on me. “Be still. Be calm. Your suffering is at an end.” Despite all of my years of hating him, my eyes welled with tears and my heart bled pity for the broken man. “I may not know your god, but I know he would not condone this. The only thing I can do for you is assure you are quickly united with him. Do you understand?”

Marius’s eye locked on mine and he whimpered. As I had on more battlefields than I could count, I took that for agreement.

“May your god be merciful to you. Leave this world in peace.” I drew my blade swiftly across his throat, a trickle of red following in its wake.

He was so weakened, it took but a moment for Marius to breathe his last.

I wiped the blade on the grass, finding no vindication in his death, only a growing hatred of Arthur’s son. “Do what you will with his body, but know this. If you string him up again, you honor his soul by allowing his bones to be picked clean and bleached by the sun, rather than rotting in a grave. That is the tradition of our ancestors.”

The bishop’s death only added to the rising anxiety of Camelot’s people. Christian and pagan alike condemned the brutality with which he was treated, while fearing succumbing to the same fate under Mordred’s increasingly brutal reign. Mordred was denounced from the pulpits of the Christian churches, and his name became anathema to those of the new faith. In Camelot and across Britain, priests urged Christian citizens to rise up against the usurper who’d martyred a man of the cloth.

I paid little heed to the clamor at first, believing it to be merely the rhetoric of rage that flares bright and hot but burns out just as quickly. We had seen such demonstrations of moral outrage before—such as when Arthur refused to either divorce me or denounce his marriage to Morgan, choosing instead to live with both of us—but they were usually words without much follow-through.

The first sign that this time was different came on a day in early autumn, a few weeks after Lughnasa. Earlier in the day, the Combrogi had arrested a handful of men for speaking out against Mordred in the market square, and six others had been detained for blocking the path of a party of Saxons come to meet with Mordred. But now as that meeting took place, all was calm.

I swatted a fly buzzing around my right ear, trying to pay attention to what Ida, King of the Saxons, was debating with Bors and Mordred, when a commotion in the courtyard caught my attention.

A man pointed to the west and gave the cry we all dreaded, “Fire!”

His voice carried clearly into the room, which erupted into chaos after a moment of stunned silence. Men and women jostled one another, some seeking immediate escape, while others crowded around the windows to try to ascertain the location of the fire.

I ran outside, dismayed to find smoke billowing from the western tower. By the time I’d crossed the massive courtyard and made my way to the foot of the tower, fire had consumed the upper floors. A bucket brigade tried in vain to douse the blaze, but it was slow, no match for the inferno raging above.

The hiss of flames set my palms sweating and my heart pounding. It was too soon since my own encounter with deadly flame. I fought the urge to cover my ears and cower as memories rushed at me from every side. My wrists raw from fighting the rope that bound them. The soles of my feet burning as the wood beneath them began to catch. The sulfurous odor of my hair catching fire as I leapt onto Lancelot’s horse. I shook my head to clear it. This was not the time to give into fear. Someone could be hurt or dying and as a priestess I had a better chance of reaching them unharmed than anyone else.

“Is anyone inside?” I yelled to the people racing around me.

Either they did not hear or chose to ignore me.

I tried again, asking the same question of the man directing the line of volunteers snaking inside and up into the tower. “We don’t believe so.”

But they don’t know for sure and I can’t take the chance. Dropping my cape to the ground, I raced inside the tower, shoving aside well-meaning men who tried to stop me. They had forgotten I could control the elements and so could shield myself from the flames. I called upon Brigid as I raced up the stairs, seeking the source.

When the heat and smoke became too much, I mentally pushed outward, creating a pocket of clean air around me in every direction. I checked each room until I reached the end of the top floor. Only my chambers and Arthur’s lay ahead, with his library above, connected by a short staircase only accessible from this room. I started to open Arthur’s door but stopped, sensing the pulsing heart of the fire within. Even with my training, entering while the fire raged unchecked would be dangerous.

I took a deep breath and sent my senses outward, searching for the nearest clouds. They were some distance out to sea, so I had to use the breeze to coax them in this direction, but that was easily accomplished. When they appeared on the horizon, I brought them together and drew them toward me. The sky darkened rapidly, wind whipping the flames into a frenzy. I raised my arms and brought them down swiftly, unleashing a torrent of rain. The fire hissed and sputtered as it fought the water, but it eventually gave in, curling in on itself only to expire in tendrils of steam.