The Call of Destiny (The Return of Arthur Book 1) (13 page)

The baby was a boy. They
called him Gawain. He had white lashes and a fuzz of red hair. Margot was at
first dismayed, then found it rather chic. None of her friends had redheads,
and she adored being different. Lennox was delighted and proud to be a father.
Margot made it clear she would not change the baby’s nappies; that was what
nannies were for; nor would she breast feed it. The very idea was repellent.
And one child, by the way, was quite enough.

Sitting on Margot’s bed in the
clinic, Lennox was ecstatic. ‘I l-love you, M-Margot,’ he crooned.

She patted his hand. ‘I know.’
‘And you l-love m-me, don’t you?’ She said nothing.

‘You d-do, d-don’t you, d-darling?’

She played with his fingers.
‘I’m mad about your hands. You have such long fingers. You know what they say
about men with long fingers.’

Lennox persisted. ‘Do you l-love m-me, M-Margot?’
Margot thrust his hand aside. ‘No, Lennox,’ she said, ‘I do not. I thought I
made that clear before we walked up the aisle.’ Taking her hand, as he had done
when they first met, he clasped it with great care, as if it were a wounded
bird, when in fact it was he who was wounded. ‘I expect I d-didn’t b-believe

you,’ he muttered.

‘You should have,’ said Margot
coolly. ‘You will l-love me, M-Margot. One d-day.’

She was merciless. ‘No, I will
not. I’m fond of you, but I shall never love you. It’s not about you, Lennox,
it’s about me. I don’t do love, I’m not capable of loving anyone. I don’t have
those sort of feelings. I don’t even know what you mean by love.’

‘Then,’ said Lennox, ‘I shall
j-just have to l-love you enough for b-both of us.’

To everyone’s amazement Margot
doted on her baby, just as her husband doted on her, and Lennox consoled
himself with the thought that despite her protestations, Margot was learning to
love.

Merlin was taking an evening walk in the woods
that lay to the west of Glastonbury. It was that magical hour

when the world is hushed,
poised between day and night. A black Labrador slipped from the shadows and
stood facing him. Merlin stopped. The dog lifted its head and barked twice, and
as Merlin walked towards it, trotted along the path ahead, always maintaining
the same distance between them. When Merlin stopped again, the dog stopped,
turning its head to look at him. ‘Robbie,’ whispered Merlin, knowing he was
being summoned.

Two days later he landed on
the island and made straight for the old man’s cottage. The old man sat by the
fire with Robbie at his feet. ‘You have come to claim Camelot,’ said the old
man. It was a statement, not a question.

‘Yes,’ said Merlin.

‘Will it be as you promised?’

‘It will be as I promised.’
Merlin stooped to pat the Labrador. ‘Robbie shall be my friend and companion, I
shall love him and care for him until the day he dies.’

The old man nodded his approval. ‘And when he
dies?’

‘His ashes will be buried here
on Camelot as a sign and a symbol of its ideals.’

‘And they shall be?’ The old
man intoned the question as if it were part of a litany.

Merlin repeated solemnly,
‘Truth. Justice. Love.’ ‘Do you swear it?’

The magus raised his right hand. ‘I swear it on
Arthur’s life.’

The old man smiled contentedly
and lay back in his chair. ‘Then Camelot is yours.’ Merlin held the old man’s
hand until, barely an hour later, he heaved a sigh and died.

Throughout the day, Merlin
gathered moss, clumps of peat and driftwood. Where the long grass met the beach
he built a great mound measuring ten feet square and two feet high, and when
the sun set and the sky was streaked with red, he laid the old man on the
funeral pyre. As the flames embraced the corpse, Merlin knelt in prayer. By his
side Robbie, the black Labrador, kept vigil, never once stirring, brown eyes
staring sadly into the flames. The fire burned that night and most of the
following day. At first, the flames leapt high, then gradually fell back. As
the sun went down the following evening, a wind gusted from the west, inspiring
a last flurry of life in the dying embers, whirling the sparks upwards to the
first stars.

By the next morning it was all
over. When the heart of the fire was cold, Merlin collected the old man’s
ashes. As the magus walked away, Robbie stood and stretched, then a little
unsteadily, for his limbs were stiff and he was weak from fasting, followed at
the heels of his new master.

Before he left the island
Merlin visited the cottage and took one last look round. The old man had
accumulated scarcely any possessions in his long life, and nothing of monetary
value

– a few sticks of furniture, a
kettle, some pots and pans, two large wooden spoons, a knife and fork, herbs
grown at the back of the cottage, a few well-thumbed books, the pages yellowing
with age and foxed with damp. Merlin sat by the empty grate and let his mind
drift back to the past and forward to the future. He had both the means and the
skill to do what had to be done, though he would need help. First, however,
there was a firework display to organise, the greatest the world had ever seen
– a very special illusion that would fool everyone, he flattered himself.

A few weeks later a number of military and
civil stations around the world picked up faint signals, indicating seismic
activity in the Atlantic Ocean. By no means an infrequent occurrence, it was
immediately established beyond doubt that the disturbance was a natural one and
that no country had broken the global ban on the testing of nuclear weapons.

Several commercial aircraft
crossing the Atlantic, and also a container vessel and an oil tanker, reported
seeing a big explosion about a hundred and fifty miles west of Land’s End. This
was followed by a series of lesser explosions accompanied by dazzling,
multi-coloured lights, rising several hundred feet into the air, the phenomenon
resembling a giant pyrotechnic display. The obvious conclusion was that there
had been a significant shift in the underwater terrain created by, or resulting
in, a volcanic eruption. Confirmation of this came when streams of volcanic ash
and traces of plant life were observed floating on the surface of the sea in
the vicinity of the reported disturbance.

Scientists did not know
precisely what had happened, but one thing was clear; the explosion or eruption
had been sufficiently powerful to cause the total disintegration of a small
island. Such natural phenomena were by no means unheard of. More than one small
island in the Indian Ocean had suffered a similar fate. The original location
of the island was of course known, yet a search by satellites, ships and
aircraft, revealed nothing. It had disappeared without trace.

 Following his triumphant, and somewhat
unexpected, success with Margot, Uther turned his attention to his eldest
daughter. He had no illusions, Elaine would be a hard nut to crack. She had
personality in abundance but was certainly no beauty. He had heard that such
attachments as she formed were passionate but brief, usually with actors or
stage hands with highly developed pectorals. As to her views on marriage, she
had made them crystal clear: who needed to settle down with some mindless moron
whose aspirations were money in the bank, a fat bonus at the end of the year, a
trophy wife with big tits, liposuctioned thighs, collagen-enhanced lips, two
kids, a house in town, a Range Rover and holidays in the boring Caribbean or
the even more boring French Riviera? Who needed to settle down at all?

Uther disapproved of actors;
as far as he was concerned they were all faggots and layabouts with dubious
values and worse morals. Acting was not an appropriate profession for any
decent girl, most certainly not for a Pendragon. Margot had married well, and
Elaine would damn well do the same, or he would know the reason why.

Elaine rarely spent the night
at home in Brackett Hall. On one of the rare occasions that she did, Uther
waylaid her at breakfast.

‘And where were you last night?’

‘I’m really not sure, dad,’
said Elaine, who adored baiting her step-father. ‘But wherever it was, I had an
ecstatic time.’ She slurped her coffee. ‘You know what I mean,’ she added with
a huge wink, just in case Uther had missed something.

Uther sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Time
you stopped messing around and found yourself a suitable husband.’

‘What exactly do you mean
by
suitable
, father?’ Elaine enquired.

‘Anyone but an actor,’ said her father
pointedly.

‘I see,’ said Elaine. ‘A
murderer, a rapist or a child abuser perhaps, but not an actor.’

Uther sighed wearily. ‘Very
comical, Elaine. As you well know, I mean someone with a good background and a
steady job, a man who will support you and be a decent father to your
children.’

Elaine wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m
sorry, I don’t have time for all that bourgeois crap. Besides, I don’t believe
in steady relationships. I prefer to play the field.’

Uther’s patience, never his
strong point, was soon exhausted, and he hinted that if she did not find (or
allow her parents to find) a suitable man to marry, he would cut off her
allowance. She had six months, he said.

Elaine called his bluff.
Within a week she had moved out of Brackett Hall and into a short-term bedsit
in Camden Town. Igraine was wretched. To lose one daughter was bad enough, to
lose two, and in so short a time, was nothing short of catastrophic. She
berated her husband. ‘You drove her out of the house – you and your obsession
with marrying off the girls.’

Uther would not accept any
blame. ‘Nonsense, duchess. It was her decision entirely. The birds are flying
the nest, that’s all, one of those things that happen in families.’

The truth was that he was
quite pleased to see the back of Elaine, married or not; now he only had Morgan
to worry about. He had a soft spot for his youngest step-daughter, she had
guts, she was refreshingly different. She was also vulnerable and needed
looking after; just as long as he wasn’t the one who had to do it. From time to
time Uther would look at Morgan dispassionately, prepared to be generous,
hoping to discover some physical attribute that might appeal to a potential
suitor, but he never did, there was just too much of her. Everything about her
was big – her shoulders, her hips, her legs, her tummy. Then, of course, there
was her face. What could you say about her face? Downright ugly? Unkind.
Charmingly ugly, then? Intriguingly ugly? Engagingly ugly? Her eyes bulged, her
mouth was enormous, her upper lip bristled. The village kids, cruel as only
kids can be, would follow her along the street chanting, ‘Mog, Mog, face like a
frog!’ And Morgan would threaten good-naturedly to turn them into toads and
rats, melt their eyeballs and rip out their tongues, threats, needless to say,
immediately reported back to their parents who, like their children, were
convinced that Morgan was a witch.

Uther knew what it meant to
struggle against the odds. No doubt poor Morgan would have to do the same. He
would dearly have liked to find her a good man but was almost resigned to the
fact that she would never leave home. So that when long- stemmed red roses
began to arrive at the house addressed to Miss Morgan Pendragon, it was, to say
the least, a shock.

‘What’s this all about,
duchess?’ he asked his wife, waving at her the latest offering of roses.

‘I have no idea.’

The roses, Uther discovered,
came from Arran Gore. The family was well known in Yorkshire; not too much
money but gentry and very respectable. Wasn’t he a solicitor or an accountant
or some such? Where had he met this young man? The Conservative Dinner? The Red
Cross Ball? One of those do’s. Nice enough chap as he recalled; why would he be
interested in Morgan?

Which was exactly what Morgan
was asking herself. Gloomily she consulted a mirror, and found nothing to
reassure her. It was, she concluded cynically, probably a hoax. As it turned
out, it was not. Arran Gore phoned Morgan to ask her out to dinner and Morgan
decided to play along, if only to see when and where the humiliating game would
end. From that moment Brackett Hall was in turmoil, and as the day approached,
the atmosphere in the house grew more and more strained. The only one who
seemed entirely relaxed was Morgan herself.

On the appointed evening,
Arran Gore duly presented himself at the front door of Brackett Hall and was
shown into the sitting room. He was a shortish man, thirty-five or so,
well-spoken, pleasant, quite good-looking and altogether very presentable.
Igraine thought him rather too conventional for Morgan, though behind his quiet
manner she sensed the inner strength of a man who knew what he wanted; Uther
thought there might be too big an age difference, Morgan, after all, being only
nineteen. There again, an older man might be just what Morgan needed. What
young man could handle her? Chatting to his hosts whilst waiting for Morgan to
come down, he made it clear that he thought her the most stunning and original
lady he had ever seen. At first Uther thought he must be joking but then,
seeing how serious Gore was, he wondered if the man might not be deranged.
There were crazies everywhere you looked these days, and who knew what hole
this one had crept out of? A crazy might well find Morgan attractive; she was
more than a little crazy herself.

Igraine had no such misgivings,
Arran Gore would do just fine. For days now she had fussed around her truculent
and uncooperative youngest child, offering advice on make-up, perfumes and
hair-do’s. That morning she had finally found her the right dress, an elegant,
well cut little black number that flattered Morgan’s large frame and bosom. A
discreet application of make-up disguised the prominent eyes, the froggy mouth
and the shadow on her upper lip. With her long black hair coaxed to frame her
face, reducing it to more normal proportions, Morgan was a work of art. With
the light behind her, she looked almost attractive. Igraine complimented
herself on a job well done.

But alas when Morgan joined them in the sitting
room, she was wearing not the neat little dress that Igraine had so carefully
chosen for her, but what appeared to be a witch’s costume. It was long, black
and shapeless, frayed at the hem, and tied savagely at the waist with a length
of rope, emphasising her wide hips. On her head was jammed a conical witch’s
hat, her cheeks were white as a clown’s, her eyes rimmed with black, and the
hair her mother had so carefully blow-dried and shaped, now hung in greasy
clumps about her neck. Uther turned away in embarrassment whilst Igraine
advanced on Morgan, intending to smack her face; but Morgan swept past her,
greeting her date with an incongruously gracious smile. In stunned disbelief,
Uther and Igraine watched the surreal mini- drama unfold. Arran Gore bowed, and
with a courtly gesture kissed Morgan’s hand. Not by so much as a twitch or
quiver of his face did he indicate that he found her appearance in any way
unusual. ‘You look wonderful,’ he said.

For a moment Uther and Igraine
were struck dumb by this spectacular lie. Uther opened his mouth to speak, but
before he could say anything, Morgan had grabbed Arran Gore’s hand and dragged
him out of the house.

To everyone’s amazement, the
man came back for more. He escorted (his word) Morgan to the theatre, to
concerts and to restaurants, and when it became obvious that he was not to be
put off, Morgan gave up trying to traumatise him. Within a few weeks she had
adopted a more reasonable style of dressing, and was even beginning to take
some care with her hair and make-up. He was, after all, the only man who had
ever paid any attention to her, and for that she was ready to reward him.
Nevertheless, she remained deeply sceptical, finding it hard to understand what
any man could possibly see in her. In vain she reminded herself of the advice
she had always given her sisters: “If you believe in yourself, you can do
anything.” Even if, by some miracle, he truly loved her, she was determined not
to love him in return, for fear she would be heartbroken when he tired of her;
for tire of her he most assuredly would.

But he did not. On the
contrary, Arran Gore remained a constant and most persistent suitor. His
attentions made her happy, but they also troubled her, as Morgan was convinced
that no one, not even her parents and her sisters, had ever or could ever, love
her. She was so undemanding that she was quite content to love them and expect
nothing in return. What did love mean anyway? It was just a word. People always
said they loved each other, didn’t they? But did they really mean it?

Over dinner one evening Arran
proposed. How many times had she fantasised about that moment? How many times
had she pictured herself gazing at him adoringly, taking in his every word? But
when, miracle of miracles, it actually happened, she could not even look him in
the eye. Instead she looked down at the table and played with a bread roll.

‘You know how I feel about
you, Morgan. From the first moment I saw you flash past on your motorbike, I
couldn’t stop thinking about you. Then, when I came to pick you up on our first
date, I was certain you were the one. Guts and humour and a proud spirit,
that’s what you have. I never met a girl like you. You might think I’m a bit
old for you, and I may not have set the world on fire but, well, I’m not such a
bad fellow when you get to know me. I’ll make you a good husband, I promise you
that.’

How could she help but be
touched? Could it really be that for the first time in her life someone truly
loved her? If so, she was the most fortunate woman in the world. Margot and
Elaine were beautiful and gifted but what did she have? Nothing compared to
them, neither looks nor talent; and yet she was more than fortunate, for here
she was being offered marriage by a truly nice man – not perhaps the most
exciting man in the world, a touch old fashioned, a bit short, a little too
old, but what did all that matter? He wanted her, and for that she was
grateful. Taking a deep breath, she looked him in the eye and heard herself
say. ‘I’m sorry, Arran. I can’t marry you.’ She was shaking. Her heart pounded
remorselessly against her ribcage, as if punishing her for her stupidity. Never
had she felt so wretched and confused.

‘Can you tell me why?’

She shook her head in
bewilderment. ‘I don’t know. I just can’t.’

‘I shan’t take “no” for an
answer,’ said Arran. And he didn’t.

‘Why does he keep asking me?’
Morgan lamented to her mother.

‘He’s in love with you.’

‘He can’t be. I’m ugly. And
now all this worry is making me fat.’ She looked at herself head on, then
sideways, in one of the sitting room mirrors. ‘God, look at my tits. I really
must go on a diet. Maybe I could have them shrunk. I was reading about a new
laser flesh-liquidiser the other day. I could have my hips and bum done at the
same time.’

‘Arran likes you the way you
are, darling,’ Igraine insisted. ‘Besides, looks aren’t everything, as I keep
telling you. Arran loves you because you are different.’

Morgan knew exactly what that
meant. Different meant protruding teeth; different meant a big bum and facial
hair. ‘Anyway, I shall never get married. All that . . . business.’ Morgan
pulled a face. ‘The whole idea scares me. Women should not have to submit to
things like that. If that’s love, you can keep it. I shall never do it, not
with anyone.’

Igraine smiled. ‘My dear,
there’s a great deal more to marriage than sex.’

‘Such as?’

‘Practical things. Having a
roof over your head for one.’ Morgan scratched her upper lip noisily. ‘I
already have.

Father has seen to that.’

‘There’s companionship,’ suggested Igraine.

‘I’ve got you and dad. I’ve got Elaine and
Margot.’

This was not going to be easy. ‘There’s
children.’ Morgan mimed vomiting. ‘I prefer dogs.’

Every week, sometimes twice a
week, Arran would pick Morgan up and take her to a restaurant or to his club.
Every week, over coffee, he proposed. And every week she would turn him down,
chiding him affectionately. ‘This is getting to be a habit, Bore. How many
times is that?’ With great good humour, he had accepted the nickname. As long
as she married him, Morgan could call him anything she liked.

‘I’ve lost count,’ he
admitted. ‘Isn’t it time to give up?’

‘I’m a stubborn sort of chap,’
said he quietly. He was also an endearing sort of chap, though she would rather
die than tell him so. A bit stiff, a little over formal perhaps, but then, as
he had often explained, his forebears had been army people. A Gore had fought
with Wellington at Waterloo, he once told her proudly. No doubt he too had been
a stubborn sort of chap.