LITMIR.BIZ

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grass and stared at the Scottish King with her hands clasped to her chest.

      Our King said icily to the Scottish King, “I believe Your Majesty was trained as a wizard?”

      The Scottish King looked at him. After a moment he said, “I think this is the end of any friendship between us. I bid you good afternoon.”

      He swung round in a swirl of tartan and walked away with all his people. He didn’t have to walk far. Vehicles came roaring over the brow of the hill almost at once, most of them military transports, and the royal party was scooped up into some of them, leaving the rest sitting in a threatening row on the Scottish border.

      “We’ll move back a few miles,” our King said.

      The rest of that week was a hot, moist chaos. Grundo and I, along with most of the children, were bundled here and there and sent about with messages because the royal pages were run off their feet, and it took us several days to find out what was happening.

      It seemed that the media people had been filming the whole Meeting from their bus and they broadcast it as they filmed it. The Merlin’s death caused an outcry all over the country. The King had to go to the bus and assure people in another broadcast that it was an unfortunate accident, and that no one was accusing the Scottish King of anything. It didn’t help the situation that he said this in a grim way that made everyone think the opposite. At the same time, the whole Progress packed up double quick and moved south to the borders of Northumberland. The media bus was actually on the road while the King was grimly broadcasting. The rest of the buses had to keep drawing up on to the verges to make way for the army units rushing to take up defensive positions along the Scottish border, so all we knew of things were tilted views of hedges while green lorries thundered by in the road.

      It turned out that the Scottish King broadcast too. He talked about an insult to Scotland and he sent army units to the border as well.

      “But he must know it was simply an accident,” my mam said worriedly, when I did manage to see her and ask what was going on.

      This was when we were finally camped around a village where the King could stay in a manor house that was big enough for the wizards to perform an autopsy on the Merlin. There, Grundo and I were sent hurrying with messages to other wizards, to the army HQ bus, the media tent, to the Waymaster’s Office and the Chamberlain’s, and after a day or so, to the village hall where the judicial enquiry was being held. So much was going on. There was a nationwide hunt for a new Merlin, with most of the wizards involved, while the rest were busy with the enquiry. It seemed that the post mortem had shown that there were traces of a spell hanging round the Merlin, but no one could tell what kind. It could even have been one of the Merlin’s own spells.

      Dad was called into the enquiry. For a whole day, it looked as if he might be accused of murder. My heart seemed to be filling my ears and drumming in my chest that entire time. Mam went around white as a sheet whispering, “Oh, they can’t blame him, they can’t!” The trouble was, as she pointed out to me, everybody else who was close to the Merlin when he died was either royal or very important, so poor Dad got the full blast of the suspicion.

      I can’t tell you how frantic everything was that day.

      Then everything calmed down.

      As far as I could tell, it was Grandad’s doing. He turned up that evening, shortly after Dad had come out of the village hall looking as if he had spent several sleepless weeks on a bare mountain. Grandad brought the new Merlin with him and they went straight to the King together. We didn’t see Grandad until quite late that night, when they all came out on to the village green: Grandad, the King, the Merlin, the judges, Prince Edmund, and a whole string of the wizards who had been tearing about and fussing over finding the new Merlin. The new Merlin was a skinny young man with a little pointed chin and a big Adam’s apple, who looked a bit stunned about his sudden jump to fame. Or maybe he was in a trance. Prince Edmund kept looking at him in an astonished, wondering way.

      Meanwhile, the Waymaster’s Office had acted with its usual efficiency and cordoned off a big space on the green, while the Royal Guard jumped to it and built a bonfire in the centre of it. We were standing watching, waiting, wondering what was going to happen, when Grandad came up to us. Mam flung herself on him, more or less crying.

      “Oh, Maxwell! It’s been so awful! Can you help?”

      “Steady,” Grandad said. “All’s well. Dan’s in the clear now. Had to tackle it from the top, you see, on account of the family relationship.” He slapped Dad on the shoulder and gave me one of his quick, bony hugs. “Roddy. Hallo, Grundo,” he said. “I think I’ve got the whole mess sorted. Have to wait and see, of course, but I think they’ll end up deciding it was nobody’s fault. Lord! Poor old Merlin Landor must have been in his eighties at least! Bound to drop dead at some point. Just chose a bad moment to do it. No need for national hysteria about that.”

      You know that marvellous moment when your mind goes quiet with relief. Everything was suddenly tranquil and acute with me. I could smell the trampled grass and motor fuel that I had not noticed before this, and the sweet, dusty scent of hay from beyond the village. I could hear the crackle of the bonfire as it caught and the twittering of birds in the trees around the green. The small, yellow flames climbing among the brushwood seemed unbelievably clear and meaningful, all of a sudden, and my mind went so peaceful and limpid that I found myself thinking that, yes, Grandad could be right. But Sir James had known the old Merlin was going to die. I looked round for Sir James, but he was not there. When I thought, I realised I had not seen him for some days, though Sybil was there, in among the other wizards.

      As soon as the bonfire was blazing properly, the senior wizard stepped forward and announced that we were here to present the new Merlin to Court and country. Everyone cheered and the young Merlin looked more dazed than ever. Then one of the judges said that the question of the late Merlin’s death was now to be settled. He bowed to the King and stepped back.

      The King said to the Merlin, “Are you prepared to prophesy for us?”

      “I – I think so,” the Merlin said. He had rather a weak, high voice.

      “Then,” said the King, “tell us who, or what, caused the death of the last Merlin.”

      The young man clasped his hands together with his arms pointing straight down, rather as if he were pulling on a rope, and he began to sway, round and round. The bonfire seemed to imitate him. It broke into long pennants of orange flame that roared and crackled and sent a great spiral of smoke and burning blobs high into the evening sky. The extra light caught and glistened on tears pouring down the Merlin’s small, pointed face. He started to give out big gulping sobs.

      “Oh, Lord! He’s a weeper!” Grandad said disgustedly. “I wish I’d known. I’d have stayed away.”

      “A lot of the Merlins have cried when they prophesied,” Dad pointed out.

      “I know. But I don’t have to like it, do I?” Grandad retorted.

      The Merlin started to speak then, in high gasps, but what with the roaring and snapping from the bonfire and the way he was sobbing, it was hard to hear what he was saying. I think it was, “Blame is – where blame lies – blame rests – where dragon flies.”

      “And what’s that supposed to mean?” my grandfather muttered irritably. “Is he accusing Wales now or what?”

      While Grandad was mumbling, the King said in a polite, puzzled way, “And – er – then have you any words that might guide us for the future?”

      This brought on a new bout of weeping from the Merlin. He bent this way and that, choking and sobbing, still with his hands clasped in that odd way. The bonfire gusted and swirled and golden sparks rained upwards. Eventually, the Merlin began gasping out words again and I found these even harder to catch. They sounded like, “Power flows – when Merlin goes – world sways – in dark ways – a lord is bound – power found – land falls - when alien calls – nothing right – till dragon’s flight.”

      “I suppose this means something

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