Read Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank for Free Online

lay in the third treasure set aside for me. He had been careful not to name it in bald words, but Merlyn had known that there had been no need. I was the only one besides himself who knew about the hiding place, the cave that I had helped him excavate behind the hanging slab of rock at the back of the hut, at the lake's farthest end. He had found it by accident one day, more of a recess than a cave, in truth: a natural space left between the hillside and the enormous broken slab that was the farthest end of the long stone cliff face that formed the rear of the little lake. A steady sheet of water flowed silently down that rock face from a source hidden on the steep, densely overgrown hillside above, and gave the tiny vale much of its magical, almost supernatural beauty.

    Naturally, being Merlyn, he had seen the little hollow, screened by hanging roots and a huge clump of bramble bushes, as an asset that might be useful someday, and had labored long and hard thereafter to widen and deepen it, digging out the soft shale hillside behind the slab until he had formed a dry, enclosed space in which two men could stand upright; a space that might someday be used to conceal anything valuable, including his own life, from unwelcome eyes. I had helped him, on my first visit to this valley, to carry two iron-bound wooden chests there. He had told me at the time that they were filled with the poisonous leavings of two Egyptian warlocks called Caspar and Memnon, who had once served the villainous Lot of Cornwall and had died in Camulod for the murder of Merlyn's own father, Picus Britannicus. But he had made no move to open them to show me what they held, and I had not asked him to. And there, too, he had concealed Excalibur, years later.
    I had often wondered what had become of the sword after Arthur's death. Now I knew, and I felt no surprise. Indeed, I should have known that Merlyn would have found a way to keep it safe, aware that its legendary brightness might have been put to evil purposes in the wrong hands. And thinking thus, I wondered, too, if there could be any right hands to own it, once its true possessor was dead. But now it was mine, by Merlyn's decree, passed on in trust to me and mine, albeit with a warning not to reveal its name or its true provenance. In Gaul, far removed from Britain and its memories, that might be possible, providing I contained my knowledge safe inside myself.
    "Father?" I had not heard the door opening behind me. "I have found the place, I think. Would you like to come and look before we start digging?"
    I folded up the sheets in my hand and went outside, where Clovis led me to the grave site he had chosen. It was perfect, situated on a little knoll overlooking the placid surface of the tiny lake, and doubly appropriate because I knew it housed a double grave already. Merlyn would share his final resting place with his own beloved wife and unborn son, laid in this selfsame mound more than sixty summers earlier. The rest of our party stood about there, silently watching me, their faces showing curiosity. I nodded in approval of the site, then raised my hand.
    "I knew this place, long years ago," I said, moving my eyes from face to face, "and it holds many happy memories for me. It also holds possessions I had never hoped to see again; things that I had thought and hoped were safe here, in its hidden isolation. Treasures," I added, seeing the sudden stirring of interest that the word evoked. I paused, watching them closely. "But treasures that have no worth to anyone but me. I'll show them to you, and ask you to carry them for me. I will even share them with you, should you so desire. How many here can read?"
    All of their faces twisted into scowls and only one besides Clovis raised his hand. "Lars? I had no idea. Where did you learn?"
    Lars, a heavyset warrior, immense across the chest and shoulders, shrugged and dipped his head as though suddenly shy. "In boyhood," he growled in his great, rumbling