Untitled by Unknown Author

She strug­ gled as Brit coiled another length of chain around her; she spit in Brit's face. Brit smiled and pulled the chains tighter. Then two of the soldiers took her by her arms and led her from the room as she struggled vainly against their grasp.
       When they were gone Merlin turned to Arthur. "So help me, you have the strangest taste in women."
       "I was a boy when we met. She seduced me. I fell in love. Don't make this harder for me than it is."
       "Sorry, Arthur. I've suspected for a long time that you still love her."
       "Forgive me, Merlin, for being such an irrational crea­ ture."
       "Forgive you for being human?"
       Suddenly Arthur peered at him. "Does anyone have a secret from you, Merlin? I thought I was being very close with my emotions."
       "Perhaps I know you too well. How long has it been? Twenty years? More?"
       "Brit plants her spies here, there and everywhere, yet she only knows half of what goes on. You, Merlin—you stay in your tower with your ravens and your lenses and your medicines, and you read us as clearly as you do those books that line your walls."
    "Comedies, mostly."
    "Don't be flippant."
       "Sorry, Arthur. But it really isn't hard to understand people. Most of them do the obvious thing from the obvi­ ous motive. Only the Byzantines have learned to be consis­ tently more subtle. That is why the prospect of having them here chills me so."
       "What is it you said once? We are stepping into a viper's nest of our own construction. When all their subtle devices fail, they murder."
       "Let us hope we can defang these vipers before they strike."
       "Let us hope they never strike at all."
       "To hope for that would be to deny the viper's nature. But we must be permanently watchful, Arthur. We have no choice but to go ahead with the birthday nonsense. If we back away from it, I am afraid Justinian would see us as weak. And he would strike—invade. But while we are reveling and eating Guenevere's birthday cake and drink­ ing toasts to one another's good health, let us remember to voice a hope that everyone will emerge from this alive."

    Arthur was drunk. Fully, completely, numbly drunk. His wife's perfidy was not forgotten, exactly, but it didn't seem to matter.
       It was the dark middle of the night, and three candles burned low in his bedroom; they did not give much light at all. The king lay in bed. Four empty wineskins sat on the floor beside him. The room spun around him, and he found it reassuring. No one could penetrate that kind of moving room, not Guenevere, not Lancelot, not Justinian.
       Slowly, groggily, he climbed out of bed and reeled to­ ward the door, holding on to this piece of furniture or that for support. A part of his mind understood that it was not the room that was reeling but himself. He laughed, quite loudly.
       At the door the guard had been nodding off. He was only half awake when Arthur staggered past him. "Sir— Your Majesty!"
       "I'm going to the privy, Walter."
       "Let me help you."
       "You want to help me take a piss?"
       "Let me help you get there and back. The stairs are steep, and you are—you may need someone to steady you."
       "I'll be fine. Stay here."
       "But—"
       "Stay."
       "Yes, sir."
       Arthur took a candle from a wall sconce and lurched forward. And lost his balance, slamming into the wall. The guard Walter moved to help him, but Arthur glanced back over his shoulder with a look that warned him to keep his distance. "I'll be fine, Walter."
       "Yes, sir. But I—"
       "Stay!" He roared it.
       Walter, quite uncertainly, resumed his post. Arthur stag­ gered on.
       The stairs were in fact steep and he had to steady him­ self against the wall as he descended. The castle was dark; absolutely no one was awake at that hour and in that deep, deep night. Wax from his candle dripped onto Arthur's hand, burning it, but he didn't mind and kept