Page 46 of The Quest for Excalibur
“And you think the sword in my dream might be his sword?”
“I see a hand on the sword, an imperial hand, and not the hand of Constantine.”
I swallowed. “How can you be sure?” Magnus Maximus was just a name to me. All I knew was what I’d heard around the fireside, and what Merlin had just recounted, and I couldn’t count on any of that being true.
Merlin’s lips curled in a smile. “Let me show you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Istared intoMerlin’s young-old brown eyes, wide and clever, but not safe. What did he mean? How could he show me? On an impulse of curiosity, I nodded.
“Give me both your hands.”
He held his hands out to me and after a moment’s hesitation, I set my own in his.
“Now, close your eyes.”
I did as he said. The breeze soughed in the branches of the trees at the hillfoot, the kite mewed high above us, the children’s laughter sounded again. His hands, warm and strong, gripped mine, and every sound faded.
A man in armor I recognized as Roman stood on a battlefield, all around him the dying and the dead. Middle-aged, his face bore lines etched deeply by the cares of life. A dirty bandage wrapped his wrist and hand. Before him kneeled another, much younger man. Long red cloaks hung from their shoulders over elaborately worked breastplates, and the older man wore a plumed helmet, its chinstraps hanging loose.
“My Lord Emperor, you must flee,” the younger man beseeched, his hand clutching his master’s cloak.
With a sad shake of his head, the older warrior drew his sword from its scabbard and held it out, the blade shimmering with light, to the kneeling soldier. “Lucius, my friend, I cannot flee the Fates.” His deep voice rumbled, like distant surf on a pebble beach. “But you must. For I have one last thing to ask of you. Take my sword to my wife and children.”
“My Lord?”
Something on the Emperor’s blood-stained finger caught the light.
A ring.
My eyes fixed on his hand. A golden dragon romped, embossed on the wide golden head of the ring. My dragon.My ring.
“Take it.”
The younger man reached for the sword with reluctance, his stubbly cheeks tear-stained, eyes anguished. Filthy fingers closed around the hilt. “My Lord, I will not rest until this sword lies in the hands of your wife.” His head bowed in supplication.
The dragon ring winked at me in the raw daylight, as the Emperor laid a hand on the young soldier’s bare, short-cropped head in benediction. Withdrawing his hand, the Emperor fumbled at the ring with awkward, bandaged fingers as the young man rose wearily to his feet, and slid the sword into the scabbard by his side.
The Emperor, his own cheeks wet with tears, held out the ring, gripped between finger and thumb. “Take this as well. It was my wife’s.”
It fell into the soldier’s open hand, and the young man turned it over, so the dragon rested uppermost on the filthy palm.
An overwhelming urge to reach out and snatch it washed over me, but the vision vanished. My eyes flicked open.
I was back on the wall-walk again, with Merlin still holding my hands and the dragon ring on my finger glinting in the afternoon sunlight.
My breath came hard and fast. “Was that swordExcalibur?”
“I don’t know, but I think so. This is the clearest I’ve seen him. All I can tell you is that every time I look, I see this sword gripped in that hand. That hand with that ring. This ring.” He indicated the ring on my hand. “And I believe that what I’m seeing, what I’ve just shown you, is Macsen’s defeat by the Emperor Theodosius. I think he knew execution awaited him and wanted to send his sword back to Britain. Perhaps it was a British-made sword– even linked to the Princess Elen, his wife.”
Since I’d arrived here in what was my past, I’d seen enough of the supernatural to believe what Merlin had just told me– shown me– far more than I was inclined to believe my own dream. I didn’t doubt that he’d seen this man and this sword… that I’d seen the man and sword myself… but what his vision meant, I had no idea. “But if he was executed miles away– in Rome or somewhere like that– did that young soldier bring it all the way back here? To a lake in Britain?”
Merlin shrugged. “Someone brought it back, I’m sure. And, as it’s never been found, then perhaps they hid it. In the lake you saw… were shown. And now, maybe, it’s meant for Arthur’s hand. According to your dream, Nimuë seems to think it is.” His eyes changed, softening as he spoke her name, and my heart ached for him. She was the same age as Archfedd, and must be growing fast into a young woman.
I touched his hand. “And Morgana too. I had the feeling Nimuë was determined I should see the sword, and that her mother didn’t want me to.”
He frowned. Thinking of his daughter must, of necessity, mean he’d have to think of her mother and how she’d come to be conceived. And that would hurt.
