KING’S MAGE

TANITH LEE

Tanith Lee (b. 1947) is one of Britain’s most accomplished and most respected writers of fantastic fiction. Ever since her first adult novel, The Birthgrave (1975), Tanith has developed a formidable body of work. In some she creates her own world of legends, such as her Tales from the Flat Earth sequence, starting with Night’s Master (1978), drawn from the Arabian Nights, whilst in others, like Red as Blood (1983), she offers her own rewrite of folk and fairy tales. Surprisingly she has written few Arthurian stories, although many of her tales of doomed knights reflect the Arthurian paradox. You will find her “The Minstrel’s Tale” in Parke Godwin’s anthology Invitation to Camelot (1988), and the beautifully Arthurianesque “The Kingdoms of the Air” in the special Tanith Lee issue of Weird Tales (Summer 1988).

He looked down from his dark tower, and saw the land as he had seen it, changing only with seasons and weather, times of day, for almost two decades. The familiarity of the view did not reassure. It bored him, oppressed him and, on bad days, made him fearful. But then, he had everything to fear. They thought, those golden young men and silvery girls, they thought his fears were of sombre terrors and Hellish acts they could never, even in their high and incredible and stupid, blind courage, dare to contemplate. Only he was brave enough to stare into the mirror and beyond the veil. But he knew such things were only shadows, or lies. What he truly feared was they themselves, the knights and ladies, the beautiful ones. And, obviously, himself.

The view was, though, quite pleasing. The rolling plain with its fields now bronze and green, the soft hills rising away to bluer taller heights beyond. The river. The walled castle-city, with its stone towers and streaming pennants. And, westward, the forest, haunt of wolves and bears and lynxes. Useful, the forest. They went there, of course, the young men and girls, they went Maying and hunting and sometimes trysting, under the green summer boughs. But he knew the forest in winter, and moonlight glades and caves, the rare plants and herbal secrets. Here, at the tower top in the room to which, very seldom, any of them intruded, rested polished skulls he had found, collections of feathers, mossy stones. At these they looked askance and with reverence. They imbued his childish treasures with romantic power: they were his.

He rubbed his shoulders. Today both were sore. There was a herb for that, or a bee-sting might be better, but he did not like to kill bees just to ease himself for a month or so. He must expect discomfort. He was very old, in his fifty-second year, an age few others would reach. Even the king, goldenmost of them all, even Artur would probably not live into his forties, let alone any longer. His pale beautiful queen would doubtless die of childbearing, as half the women did. Then again, they had been married a while, and she showed no signs. She might be barren. Or Artur was impotent, another possibility. He was a man for men, liked his knights about him, fighting and jousting and gaming, even praying in the chapel. The company of women made Artur uneasy. He held them at a distance, wanting them to be icons. Gweneva was fitted for that, with her long flaxen hair, her pale skin and cool, moated eyes.

The old man had never had much taste for women either. In his youth they had frightened him, one especially, whose image, like a bright hot yellow flame, had never left him. By thirty he had lost all inclination, and Artur’s laws finally, which put women upon pedestals and left them there, made casual lust difficult, and the old man was not displeased. The young managed as they could, but mostly they did everything but lie together – or they did so with a sword between them, trembling with need, until one or both was released by a spasm less pleasure than exasperation.

Those who fell knew better than to come to the mage for assistance. There was a village witch who could do as much as he, in any case. Old Thistle it had been, once, though who had the function now he did not know. She too kept clear of him.

Merlinus sighed. He must go on with the grinding of the pestle and mortar, hurtful to his joints though it was. He had been out before dawn, out in that forest. Foxes were still playing under the trees, slender amber creatures that fled without much fright, more from scorn, at his arrival. He had plucked the funguses, recognizing them by their Satanic shape. He knew well the places where they grew.

Over the plain below the castle, rooks cawed, and Merlinus peered to see what disturbed them. His sight was not as sharp as it had been, but at a distance he could make out things quite well. He saw a mailed and armoured figure, fiery in the early sunlight, a plume of dull red floating from his helm. A knight, and on the track to the tower. Wanting something very much, or he would not have dared to trouble the king’s mage.

Merlinus shook out his sleeves. He went to the carved chair at the stone table, and sat down to wait. All around, the things which were his silent accomplices, the huge books brought, at such expense, out of the East, and from Rome, books which they, in their ignorance, did not know he could not read, or barely, tracing the script with one finger, saying aloud things he had memorized in his youth, or – those things forgotten – new, invented things. And the human skull, on which sometimes he laid a possessive hand. The phials of liquids, the bronze balance, scribblings in a Latin he himself had made up.

He glanced at his own hands as he sat there. Claws like an ancient eagle. Rings of gold and silver grown into the thin pouched flesh. A wristlet of iron that they believed had powers, but which he had found in his childhood, on a rubbish dump.

Presently, he heard the knight at the threshold below. The door to the tower of Merlinus was always ajar. There were guardians, of course, unseen – unreal – revered. He heard the knight greet them politely, and ask leave to ascend. Then, since nothing stayed him, he came up. The mailed feet scraped the stair.

Merlinus wondered if he would remember the name of the knight. But, as the young man appeared, stooping in the low doorway, Merlinus knew he had not recalled. And so he gave the knight a fresh name, a mystical name. “Greetings, Knight of the Morning. I have been awaiting you.”

The knight was serious and stern, his eyes enlarged. He would be about eighteen, the age of most of them, the flower of Artur’s men. His hair was cropped, in the Arturian fashion, his skin brown and clear, his body wide with muscle and good food. He licked his lips, a little nervous at being in the close private presence of the king’s mage, a man said to be many hundreds of years old, who perhaps even lived backwards, who had seen the past, the future too, who had abilities greater than those of sword and lance, darker talents, brighter.

“You knew that I was coming, sir?”

“Naturally,” said Merlinus.

They did not seem to understand he could, anyway, see them for miles from his high tower.

“Then, sir, my reason for seeking you—”

Merlinus divined that the young man, thinking the mage could read minds, supposed there was no need to enlighten him.

Merlinus said, quietly, “You must speak aloud your mission to me. How else am I to judge if your mind and heart are in agreement?”

The knight faltered. What was his name? Perivalle? Gwern? No, it would not come. Merlinus recollected seeing him joust, knocking others from their horses, flaunting a lady’s favour with tiny pearls that were shaken off as he rode.

“I long to do the work of my king,” said the knight. “Some task—”

Merlinus grasped the facts easily now. The young man was dissatisfied. He wanted a quest. It was continual, this hunger. Fighting and singing and praying and eating were not enough, hungering after a woman’s white body, constantly chastely denied, wore them down. Really, he need not have bade the knight speak out. Merlinus could have guessed it all, and, ten years before, he would have risked a pronouncement. No matter. The knight had not fluctuated from his urgent awe.

“Perhaps,” said Merlinus, “some deed awaits you.” He put his hand upon the skull, and the knight’s eyes flickered to it, and away. “If you will vaunt with death. If you dread nothing save dishonour.”

The knight knelt before the mage. Probably it was more comfortable, the young man was tall and the tower ceiling low.

“I am pledged. To my God, my king, and my lady.”

“Then you have only to wait,” said Merlinus.

“How long?”

It was a cry, nearly anguished. Travel was what they wanted most, to move away from the safe castle-city where every ritual was prescribed. To wander oceans, lands, to take a chance, trusting only their strength and the might of Heaven, which was on their side.

Merlinus, in his youth, had never been like that. He had been forced to wander, wishing only to be safe. He had felt no sure protection, and learned the little he had of herbs and conjuring tricks from old outcasts, witch-women who had fancied him, unwise priests. His small knowledge served him where he had no fighting skills. At eighteen, this one’s age, the hair of Merlinus had already turned white from constant worry and undernourishment. A young old man. People began to respect this curious apparition, who had the wit, by then, to stare them down, promise ill in exchange for bad treatment, and good for good.

By the time Merlinus had spied Artur, a peasant’s son, but so handsome, so bold and strong, like a crown of gold, Merlinus had had the wit, too, to put his fortune in with Artur’s. And as Artur swung and hacked and roared his glorious way up the staircase of Britannia, Merlinus had trodden at his back, a shadow with glowing eyes. He could poison also, and that had been handy. And, once, Merlinus had had a wonderful voice. Actor’s gifts. Murderer’s gifts. And luck. Lucky to have fallen in with the golden bear who ruled like a sun in the high stone house.

“Not long,” Merlinus said to the Knight of the Morning. “Go and pray. Pray to God. Something is moving towards the castle-city. Perhaps it is for you it comes.”

The knight seized his free hand and kissed it. Merlinus knew he reeked of medicines and dusts, proper sorcerous things.

As the boy went down the stair again, Merlinus took up the pestle and mortar and began once more on the fungus.

They were all of them so hungry. For adventure, for life. Was this what could make their days so short? And was it his aversion to and terror of life that had rendered him extended years?

There would come a time, he would need to find some quest that could encompass them all. He foresaw that, as if by sorcery, indeed. Their restlessness, no wars any longer to entertain them. Some huge enterprise must be found.

The bronze ground on the bone, and the strong-smelling muck squashed between. The kiss the knight had given his fingers might have anointed the young lips. Already maybe, he would be enjoying some notion of fate.

Merlinus saw the yellow sunlight had reached his table, and for a moment, she was there. Only a moment. Morgan, with her hanks of yellow hair, her smooth yellow dresses, her yellow cat’s eyes.

There were stories of her still, her vast genius with magic, her wickedness. There was some tale she had seduced Artur, or was his sister, or something like that. Merlinus remembered her better than the knight he had spoken with ten minutes before. He had seen her draw a saffron snake out of her bosom, and feed it back. This was a clever conjuring trick, like some of those he had mastered. But she had grown old, as he had. The fox hair went to grey, and the firm serpent body to rolls of fat.

She was no more a sorceress than he was a mage. And both of them were famous. How strange.

Every night they feasted in the castle, but on certain nights, times of religious or military significance, the feast was of a sensational nature. Tonight was such a time, and Merlinus was to go to the castle. He would sit on the king’s right hand.

The afternoon was turning over, the rooks circling the plain, winging above the fields between the villages.

The king’s mage walked, as was his custom, in his rook-dark robe, leaning on his staff, from whose top, if he had said the fearsome word, lightnings might shoot.

In the villages they stole out to look. The women curtseyed and the men touched their foreheads. A child brought the old man a stoop of cool milk. He said kind words to them and they rejoiced.

The road sloped up, and as it came towards the castle-city, grew steep, and Merlinus heard the breath rasp in his lungs, despite the infusion he had given himself.

In the end, he would die. It must come. How then to protect them, these trusting people, the equally trusting, glittering, dangerous lords of the citadel, the king himself? Some fantasy would need to be woven. He should think of preparing it. He could not simply go away.

He climbed, and his ears rushed like the sea. Some of them would go over the sea, after tonight. He had decided, it should be a great quest, now. Not only for the one young knight, for whoever responded. But what, what should it be? Was his invention deserting him? Perhaps one of them would cry out something, as had happened those other several times – the image of the white hart crowned with stars racing into the hall, or the giant with the green beard – a pagan totem that they had passed, for they were Christians, and paganism among them was unthinkable.

The gates stood open, and he had paused in a grove of trees to breathe, so that he went in lightly. Artur’s guards saluted him, and on the street they swayed aside to let the mighty magician pass.

At the high place too he was saluted and motioned courteously on. Long ago, it had amused him, amused him alongside his fear that they would find him out. But now, now he was only glad. It seemed to him that, mingled in their reverence, their whispers of his name, was a gentleness that would not let them see – it never had – the truth, the elderly bent man in his ruinous dark robe stinking of nightshade and wolfsbane and cloves and mushrooms.

The castle was beautiful. Towers and walls. A wide stair led from a courtyard ripe with banners, up into a hall of massive pillars, with a painted floor. Beyond lay the Chamber of the Round Table, where Artur sat in council with his knights. That table was a wonder, brought from far off, some Eastern land, a great wheel of pale greenish stone, made like the antique temple to the south, by ancient craftsmen whose skills mysteriously exceeded modern ones.

Flags dripped from the walls of the hall, and weapons were put up there, and trophies taken in war and tournaments. But the tables were draped with white embroidered Eastern cloth and the chairs were carved, unlike the plain stone benches of the Table Chamber.

Already the musicians played warbling tunes, and the knights and the women went to and fro, and the vast wolfhounds padded about in their collars of gold and silver. Perfumes burnt in trays, but overall there was the smell of the coming dinner, enormous roasts of boar and venison, and little ones of hare and chicken, rich malty breads, dishes of beans and cabbage, pastries, while on the boards already balanced castles of marzipan, and platters heaped with red and green summer fruit.

When Merlinus entered, they applauded him, calling his name. They were really happy that he had come, and he knew that if he had not done so, due possibly to the inertia of old age, they would have been afraid. He was their talisman. None had a mage like Merlinus, as none had a king like Artur.

And next Artur was there, walking between his court in a blood-red garment trimmed with gold, and, with her pale hand on his arm, that pale woman Gweneva, her white greyhound stalking on its jewelled leash at her side. Artur held the mage in his arms, and the crowd applauded again, that their king could be so familiar with the sorcerer.

Merlinus presented his gift, an alabaster vessel filled with choice Roman wine.

“For the most sumptuous course,” said Artur. “And tonight, my queen shall drink it too.”

Gweneva lowered her protective, primitive eyes. “It is too strong for me, my lord.”

“She always says this,” said Artur. He invited, by some glint of his expression, that those who heard should see Gweneva referred also to him: He is too strong for me. His kisses had burned her, his seed scorched. For this reason she did not conceive.

He drew Merlinus aside, and three knights came chastely to woo Gweneva. She fed her dog apples.

“My mage, I must talk to you, about the queen.”

Merlinus said, softly, “You are the sun and she the moon. Two such lights cannot always be as one.”

“No riddles,” said Artur. He added quickly, “I beg you, sir.”

“Artur,” said Merlinus, “something comes towards this place. I think that tonight it will be among us. It is greater and more valid than any earthly love, however sweet, or wish, however needful.”

Artur tensed a little. He knew, secretly, that it was his fault he had no heir. Merlinus could work miracles, but not such a miracle as that. Only God could do that, and had done so. To be distracted was a fine escape.

“Is this a prophecy, sir?”

“A feeling, merely. We must see.”

They went to their seats, everyone sat down, and the dogs lay under the tables. The food came on silver inlaid with gold.

Merlinus ate sparingly, which they thought ascetic. In his youth he had gorged himself whenever – rarely – he had had the occasion. Would have done so now, his mouth watered. But his digestion would not allow him greed. He must always be careful. He plied his silver knife and skewer cautiously, and in the windows the light ran thick honey, and then blue crystal, and the pages lit ranks of candles like tall white girls with heads of rippling flame.

And Merlinus pondered if he would think of her again. Morgan, the witch girl in her yellow dress. Soon the roasted stag would be brought in, clad in antlers and wreathed by roses. Artur would pass around the alabaster flask of sorcerous wine.

Generally Merlinus pretended that he drank from it. Tonight – tonight should he do so? He glanced about. The golden young men and the silver girls. They laughed and toyed together, twined fingers and sometimes, daringly, a kiss was put upon a peach or piece of bread, and given over. Under the Eastern cloth, the brush of feet. They must do no more.

But now the knights were eager for other sustenance. Their eyes blazed. That one, the Knight of the Morning, he had murmured of the mage’s words. Something came towards them – only the king had not heard, Merlinus had had to tell him himself.

The doors opened wide, and in staggered the servers with the stag. They brought it to the carving place, and split it open. The dogs, so well-trained, even they could not quite resist now, and stood up. The knights strained forward.

They did not know what he put into their wine. And yet, they understood that it was always at this point of the feast that magic or wonder occurred – the maiden on her milky horse pleading for justice, the giant, the hart—

The alabaster flask began to move. Each poured a drop into his cup, into his lady’s cup. And Merlinus too. But never before had he drunk.

He was so old now, perhaps it would kill him. What would they do if he died before them here? Think some enemy had struck him down by an evil spell, and go back to war?

No, it would not kill. A mild dose in the heady wine. The fungus anyway was benign. Did not the birds sometimes eat it, and the rabbits?

Merlinus watched until all were served. They raised their goblets high. They drank deep. It was the mage’s gift. His blessing.

And Merlinus allowed himself one sip.

Too little, it must be. For nothing at all – he must wait, as in the past, for their cries to begin, the images of their brains appearing before them. And then he must direct them.

And yet. Ah, but he saw. All the tall candles were girls. Their intoxicating heat spread to envelop him, like high noon in July. Not uncomfortable, soporific. Soothing. Merlinus stared, and suddenly the closer vision of his youth seemd to have come back to him. Through the doors, as if through a curtain of mist, he saw them come, the white girls with their flaming hair. But she walked before them, Morgan, young, in her primrose gown and tresses, her wild eyes like a cat’s, fox’s, veiled. The women held the things of war, lances, swords, but she, she held a cup of gold under a golden cloth. Was it for him, this drink, at last the wine to end all fear – and was it death, and would he take it, abandon them, let them think what they wanted as he fell dead in their midst? An end to responsibility.

But she did not bring that, and he was still responsible. It was not fear, he did not fear them any more. He had made them give him safety, and now he must repay their – what? – their reverence, their respect? Or was it – was it love they had given? Oh, how to repay their love.

He stood. Merlinus raised his voice, and it was marvellous again, as once it had been. He said, “Three women bearing the weapons of death, and also the Cup of Life. Do you see?”

And they saw. In wonder they sat, their faces pale as the tablecloths, their eyes bright as the silver and the gold. They did not visualize terrible, lovely Morgan, the enchantress. They saw a holy Christian vision, born of some mushrooms in wine, and some words he had said.

“God, God,” muttered Artur, his white wife forgotten, as Merlinus had forgotten the name of the young knight. “It is the Cup of the Christ.”

The hall was full of burning exquisite light, and there the cup floated. Merlinus looked at it, and knew that he had done the nicest and the best thing of his life. He had given them an ultimate hope and beauty, better than sex or castles, better then mere existence.

He sat down quietly and realized that even if he did nothing, for his death some wonderful story would suggest itself to them. For in his way he had deserved it. In his way he was a true mage, a maker, a sorcerer.

The women were crying, tears like pearls, and the men crossed themselves and never had they looked so strong and valiant, so mighty. And there the Morning Knight – yes, his name was Percival. His eyes were like stars. His soul showed through his body like a gem.

Merlinus sat, and pushed away the sorcerous wine, tenderly, without complaint.

As his sigh dimmed back into the ability of an old, old man, he watched gorgeous Morgan, and her retinue of angels, bear from the hall of the castle the golden Cup of Christ’s blood, the Grail.

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