Free The King's Wizard by James Mallory Page B

follow him. He put a hand on the shoulder
     of the young wizard, turning him away from the gathered nobles as they walked together.
    “Why are you telling me this?” Uther asked in a low voice.
    “Vortigern is the friend of my enemy, Mab, so my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Besides, I’ve seen the Red Dragon defeat the
     White, and I think you might make a fair to decent king,” Merlin answered simply. It was no more than the truth.
    Uther smiled, taken off guard by Merlin’s presumption of treating him as no more than an equal. Raised in a French court,
     he’d never before seen anyof the wizards and wonders that Britain was said to abound in. He found himself liking this Merlin-the-wizard.
    “You think so, do you?” Uther jibed.
    “King Constant wasn’t,” Merlin continued in that same confidential tone. “You’ll have to do better than your father. But I
     offer you my services as a wizard.”
    Uther laughed, and held out his hand. After a moment, Merlin took it.
    The bargain was sealed.
    The next morning, Merlin, Uther, and his two closest companions, Lord Gorlois and Sir Boris, rode out to scout the territory
     over which they were soon to fight. When they reached the edge of the river that flowed south of the city, Merlin dismounted
     and walked out onto the ice. The surface of the river was as flat as a table, covered with snow and frost. It seemed as if
     Merlin were looking for something.
    The other three watched him closely. Sir Boris thought that Merlin’s mere presence in Uther’s army was heresy; Gorlois worried
     about that and also feared that Merlin would give Uther more power than was good for him. Uther ignored them both. Scouts
     had ridden into Winchester at dawn, bringing the same news that Merlin had delivered the previous day: Vortigern’s army was
     marching toward Winchester.
    “Merlin, I owe you an apology,” Uther called cheerfully. “You were right about Vortigern.”
    “What a fool,” Sir Boris grumbled. “Fighting in winter!”
    “Perhaps I was the fool, thinking winter would make me safe,” Uther answered slowly. “But we’ll be ready for him now.”
    “We must choose our battleground, Sire,” Gorlois said, impatient with Merlin’s slowness.
    “Here,” Merlin called back to them from across the ice. The cold of the north had frozen the water into ice at least a foot
     thick, strong enough to bear the weight of horses and men.
    “You mean by this river?” Uther asked, puzzled. He would have chosen a site farther from his own stronghold, to keep Vortigern
     from besieging it with a second force during the fighting.
    “
On
it!” Merlin answered. “Vortigern has to come down here through the pass and cross on his way to Winchester.”
    Uther looked at his companions. Neither of them trusted the wizard at all, and, despite the warning about Vortigern’s plans
     he had brought, Uther himself wasn’t quite sure about Merlin the wizard.
    “Uther, this is where you meet Vortigern—and crush him!”
    Merlin’s words had the force of a prophecy—or a vow. At last Uther nodded. Here he would meet Vortigern … and pray that his
     new wizard spoke the truth.
    It was Christmas Eve. Tomorrow morning, Vortigern’s army would meet Uther’s. Though manyhoped and prayed and conjectured, no one truly knew what the outcome of that battle would be.
    King Vortigern—for whom Christmas was just another day—lay resting upon his bed in the royal tent. Though his eyes were closed,
     he wore full armor, and clasped the hilt of his naked sword against him much as if he were posing for the lid of his own sepulchre.
     Later he would go and rally the troops for tomorrow’s battle. They would fall upon Winchester like wolves upon a fat and unsuspecting
     lamb, and by nightfall his crown would be secure once more.
    Sometimes he wondered why he bothered.
    Just as his mind shaped those words, he felt a breath of cold air fill the tent.
    “Uther knows you’re going to attack,” a