Ruins of Camelot Read Free Page B

councils were through.  He was never angry.  He would merely lift her into his arms and carry her back to her bed, kissing her once on the cheek as he lay her down.  Gabriella always awoke at these times but never allowed her father to notice.  She liked the silent comfort of his arms and the kisses that he gave her even when he thought she was asleep.  Of all his kisses, those were the ones that meant the most to her.
    The voices rumbled from the library, and she listened.  She didn't pay attention to the actual words, but they drifted into her thoughts anyway, skipping like stones on the valley brook.
    "There are at least forty of them, Your Highness," a high, nasally voice said.  That was Percival, the chief of the castle guard.  "They do not meet in the same place, nor in such numbers, but keep council in desolate areas and in small groups of six or seven."
    "We could arrest them," another voice suggested.
    "No," Gabriella’s father, the King, said.  "No need to overreact.  Some fires burn out better on their own.  Stomping on them only spreads the coals."
    There was a murmur of mingled agreement and dissent.
    "They speak against you, Your Highness," a deep voice warned.  "They may be few and remote, but treason is still a deadly poison."
    Gabriella's father seemed unperturbed.  "We have neither the resources nor the patience to stamp out every stray thought or word in a kingdom as far reaching as Camelot.  Such groups are a constant.  They burn off the fervour of malcontents before such fervour can stew into action.  Let them mutter and rabble.  They've done so since the time of my fathers in numbers hardly less than these."
    "A slow-growing vine sinks the deepest roots, Your Highness," the low voice replied gravely.  "Things are different now than they were in the time of your fathers.  I do not think it wise to turn a blind eye to these rebels.  Their leader may be vile, but he is persuasive.  He may find an audience with your enemies."
    There was a silence.  Finally, the King said, "Watch him then.  If he is found to palaver with the barbarian empire of the north, then bring him in.  I am doubtful that even the greatest zealot would dare stoop to such treachery."
    Gabriella was barely listening.  Her eyes drooped heavily, lulled by the droning voices.  Dreams circled her, calling to her.
    "Tell me his name again," her father's voice said, echoing from the depths of the library.
    "We do not know his true name, but only the name he uses to identify himself to his followers," a voice answered gravely, almost secretively.  "He calls himself Merodach."
    "Merodach…," the King mused.
    Merodach , Gabriella thought dreamily, and shuddered.  The name echoed in the corridors of her mind, following her down into the canyons of sleep, fluttering as if on bats' wings.
     

     
    "Merodach?" Thomas repeated, stepping carefully over a strew of stone blocks.
    Yazim shouldered his pack and surveyed the broken walls.  Vines and heather had overtaken the ancient structure, hiding it, softening its shape.  "A mythical name.  Merodach was a god of the underworld.  But the man who took that name was no god."
    Thomas shaded his eyes and peered down a grassy hill.  A brook trickled through a grotto of shadows below, disappearing under an ancient stone bridge.  "A rebel with delusions of grandeur then?"
    "A monster in the guise of a saviour," Yazim replied.  "He was the downfall of Camelot and the usher of a long, dark age.  According to the legends, he was handsome.  Tall.  Charming.  But so cruel that his friends dreaded his disfavour and his enemies would kill themselves rather than face him."
    "Surely, the tales are exaggerated," Thomas commented, picking his way into the deep shadows of the ruin.  Rows of stone benches lay buried in the brush, facing the remains of a collapsed tower.  Yazim stood there, peering down at a half-buried shape.  Morning sunlight glinted off a smooth, tarnished