Warlord 2 Enemy of God Read Online Free PDF

loved Merlin like a father, but I was in no mood for more riddles. I just wanted to be as far from Ceinwyn and Lancelot as the Gods would let me go.
    I waited until I thought Merlin was on the far side of the hall and that it was safe for me to leave without him spotting me, but it was just at that moment that his voice whispered in my ear. ‘Were you hiding from me, Derfel?’ he asked, then he gave an elaborate groan as he settled on the floor beside me. He liked pretending that his great age had made him feeble, and he made a great play of massaging his knees and groaning at the pain in his joints. Then he took the horn of mead out of my hand and drained it.
    ‘Behold the virgin Princess,’ he said, gesturing with the empty horn towards Ceinwyn, ‘going to her grisly fate. Let’s see now.’ He scratched between the plaits of his beard as he thought about his next words. ‘A half month till the betrothal? Marriage a week or so later, then a handful of months till the child kills her. No chance of a baby coming out of those little hips without splitting her in two.’ He laughed. ‘It will be like a pussy cat giving birth to a bullock. Very nasty, Derfel.’ He peered at me, enjoying my discomfort.
    ‘I thought,’ I responded sourly, ‘that you had made Ceinwyn a charm of happiness?’
    ‘So I did,’ he said blandly, ‘but what of it? Women like having babies and if Ceinwyn’s happiness consists of being ripped into two bloody halves by her firstborn then my charm will have worked, will it not?’ He smiled at me.
    ‘ “She will never be high,”‘ I said, quoting Merlin’s prophecy that he had uttered in this very hall not a month before, ‘ “and she will never be low, but she will be happy.”‘
    ‘What a memory for trivia you do have! Isn’t the mutton awful? Under-cooked, you see. And it’s not even hot! I can’t abide cold food.’ Which did not stop him stealing a portion from my dish. ‘Do you think that being Queen of Siluria is high?’
    ‘Isn’t it?’ I asked sourly.
    ‘Oh, dear me, no. What an absurd idea! Siluria’s the most wretched place on earth, Derfel. Nothing but grubby valleys, stony beaches and ugly people.’ He shuddered. ‘They burn coal instead of wood and most of the folk are black as Sagramor as a result. I don’t suppose they know what washing is.’ He pulled a piece of gristle from his teeth and tossed it to one of the hounds that scavenged among the feasters. ‘Lancelot will soon be bored by Siluria! I can’t see our gallant Lancelot enduring those ugly, coal-blackened slugs for very long, so, if she survives childbirth, which I doubt, poor little Ceinwyn will be left all alone with a heap of coal and a squalling baby. That’ll be the end of her!’ He seemed pleased at the prospect. ‘Have you ever noticed, Derfel, how you find a young woman in the height of her beauty, with a face to snatch the very stars out of their heavens, and a year later you discover her stinking of milk and infant shit and you wonder how you could ever have found her beautiful? Babies do that to women, so look on her now, Derfel, look on her now, for she will never again be so lovely.’
    She was lovely, and worse, she seemed happy. She was robed in white this night and about her neck was hung a silver star looped on a silver chain. Her golden hair was bound by a fillet of silver, and silver raindrops hung from her ears. And Lancelot, that night, looked as striking as Ceinwyn. He was said to be the handsomest man in Britain, and so he was if you liked his dark, thin, long, almost reptilian face. He was dressed in a black coat striped with white, wore a gold torque at his throat and had a circle of gold binding his long black hair that was oiled smooth against his scalp before cascading down his back. His beard, trimmed to a sharp point, was also oiled.
    ‘She told me,’ I said to Merlin, and knowing as I spoke that I revealed too much of my heart to that wicked old man, ‘that