The End of Magic Read Free

Linnet cried with relief. Dame Linnet was a plump young woman who favored blue gowns,
     and her timidity often frustrated Guinevere nearly to tears. Today, however, Guinevere was almost grateful to see her.
    “Yes,” Guinevere answered composedly. “I went to look at the tower, but it was too dark inside to see much.”
    “Oh, but that was because the shutters for the upper windows are still closed. When the glass for the windows arrives from
     Flanders, it will be bright enough inside to read at midday! Sir Lancelot was just telling us how it would be.”
    Dame Linnet gestured back toward the others, who were gathered about a familiar figure.
    His bronze hair gleamed in the pale sunlight, and he wore a bright blue cloak that Guinevere had embroidered with her own
     hands, for with Arthur absent she had no one else to lavish her needlework upon. Beneath the cloak he wore a simple linen
     tunic, but no sword, for Lancelot was a civilized man, from a country so unlike Guinevere’s war-torn Britain as to seem almost
     mythical. He smiled when he saw her, and Guinevere smiled back, all the shadows and doubts of a moment before gone like morning
     mist. Nothing bad could happen while Lancelot was with her.
    “Your Grace,” Lancelot said, bowing to her. “I was just explaining how this section of the wall would look once the buildings
     along the street are finished.”
    “As beautiful as the castle, I trust,” Guinevere answered in a steady voice. Camelot Castle had finally been finished two
     years before, the second structure to be completed in the Golden City after the great Cathedral.
    “More so,” Lancelot answered. “Providing the architect does what I tell him. And now, ladies—and Your Highness—if you would
     care to accompany me, I will show you the new marketplace.”
    He held out his arm to Guinevere, and she placed her hand upon it. She could feel the roughness of the sun-warmed linen beneath
     her fingers, and she fancied she felt the warmth of the flesh beneath as well. Her heart beat faster, and for a brief instant
     she wished that Arthur had never been born.
    Merlin watched them go from the doorway of the tower. He shook his head sadly. He did not need his wizard’s gift of prophecy
     to see what was happening between the Queen and Sir Lancelot. And what he could now see, others would soon see. He did not
     doubt that—for the moment—the friendship was innocent, born of loneliness on the Queen’s part and sympathy on Sir Lancelot’s.
     Both Lancelot and Guinevere were too proud to casually betray their ideals to gratify a momentary whim—and Lancelot, at least,
     was so convinced of his moral superiority that he felt himself beyond the earthly temptations of illicit love. Such confidence
     could be fatal—no one knew that better than Merlin.
    Oh Nimue, Nimue—if you were here, could you stop what I fear is going to happen? Lend me your wisdom to gaze into the workings
     of the human heart, for there magic is powerless and even the greatest wizard is blind!
    But for Merlin, as for Guinevere, there was no answer, and slowly the wizard turned away and walked slowly through the open
     gates of the city.
    Oh, Arthur, where are you? You need the Grail, but your people need you more.…
    In the wilds of Cornwall a great keep stood upon the coast, its back to the land. Grey sea-mist veiled it day and night, and
     the ways to its gates were twisted ones. The gruff fisherfolk who took their living from the grudging ocean swore that Tintagel
     was only a myth, and that to see the castle looming out of the fog was a promise of dire misfortune. Who had lived in Tintagel,
     and what had happened to them, was something the fishermen did not know. Their King lived in Camelot, and they had no other
     lord.
    And that was just the way Queen Mab wanted it. There would be time enough to gain the love of the people when Mordred ruled
     in Camelot… and Arthur was dead.
    The Queen of the Old Ways gazed out the