Read The Winter King - 1 for Free Online Page B

The empty chest was carried away and there was an awkward silence in which no one quite knew what to say. Gundleus gestured carelessly at the gifts, Bishop Bedwin beamed happiness, Tanaburs hawked a protective gobbet of spit at a pillar while Norwenna looked dubiously at the King's gifts which were not, in truth, over generous. The hart's skin might make a fine pair of gloves, the pelts were good, though Norwenna probably had a score of better ones in her wicker baskets, while the torque around her neck was four times as heavy as the one lying at her feet. Gundleus's brooches were of thin gold and the drinking horn was chipped at its rim. Only the green Roman flask was truly precious.
     
     
Bedwin broke the embarrassing silence. "The gifts are magnificent! Rare and magnificent. Truly generous, Lord King."
     
     
Norwenna nodded obedient agreement. The child began to cry and Ralla, the wet nurse, carried him off to the shadows beyond the pillars where she bared a breast and so silenced him.
     
     
"The Edling is well?" Gundleus spoke for the first time since entering the hall.
     
     
"Praise God and His Saints," Norwenna answered, 'he is."
     
     
His left foot?" Gundleus asked untactfully. "Does it mend?"
     
     
"His foot will not stop him from riding a horse, wielding a sword or sitting upon a throne," Norwenna answered firmly.
     
     
"Of course not, of course not," Gundleus said and glanced across at the hungry babe. He smiled, then stretched his long arms and looked about the hall. He had said nothing of marriage, but he would not in this company. If he wanted to marry Norwenna then he would ask Uther, not Norwenna. This visit was merely an opportunity for him to inspect his bride. He spared Norwenna a brief disinterested look, then gazed again about the shadowed hall. "So this is Lord Merlin's lair, eh?" Gundleus said. "Where is he?"
     
     
No one answered. Tanaburs was scrabbling beneath the edge of one of the carpets and I guessed he was burying a charm in the earth of the hall floor. Later, when the Silurian delegation was gone, I searched the spot and found a small bone carving of a boar that I threw on the fire. The flames burned blue and spat fiercely, and Nimue said I had done the right thing.
     
     
"Lord Merlin, we think, is in Ireland," Bishop Bedwin at last answered. "Or maybe in the northern wilderness," he added vaguely.
     
     
"Or maybe dead?" Gundleus suggested.
     
     
"I pray not," the Bishop said fervently.
     
     
"You do?" Gundleus twisted in his chair to stare into Bed win's aged face. "You approve of Merlin, Bishop?"
     
     
"He is a friend, Lord King," Bedwin said. He was a dignified, plump man who was ever eager to keep the peace between the various religions.
     
     
"Lord Merlin is a Druid, Bishop, who hates Christians." Gundleus was trying to provoke Bedwin.
     
     
"There are many Christians in Britain now," Bedwin said, 'and few Druids. I think we of the true faith have nothing to fear."
     
     
"You hear that, Tanaburs?" Gundleus called to his Druid. "The Bishop doesn't fear you!"
     
     
Tanaburs did not answer. In his questing around the hall he had come to the ghost-fence that guarded the door to Merlin's chambers. The fence was a simple one: merely two skulls placed on either side of the door, but only a Druid would dare cross their invisible barrier and even a Druid would fear a ghost-fence placed by Merlin.
     
     
"Will you rest here tonight?" Bishop Bedwin asked Gundleus, trying to change the subject away from Merlin.
     
     
"No," Gundleus said rudely, rising. I thought he was about to take his leave, but instead he looked past Norwenna to the small, black, skull-guarded door in front of which Tanaburs was quivering like a hound smelling an unseen boar. "What's through the door?" the King asked.
     
     
"My Lord Merlin's chambers, Lord King," Bedwin said.
     
     
"The place of secrets?" Gundleus asked wolfishly.
     
     
"Sleeping quarters, nothing more," Bedwin said