Gemini Thunder Read Online Free Page A

wife and mother of your children and devoted to that duty. Besides, being the daughter of a king, I am not equipped to offer advice on such important matters. I was, until a certain young spellbinder spirited me away and stole my heart, surrounded by others who made every important decision for me.’
    As the sun finally set and the Wessex darkness took hold, a wolf high on one of the rolling Wessex hills put back its head and howled a greeting to nightfall. It was answered by a similar cry from the other side of the ridgeway. The Wessex wolf population had begun to increase again following the slaughter of their numbers by the terminus of Elelendise, their liege-lord, and the battles with Merlin and Twilight. Old Pen, still alive but nearing the end of his days, remained their leader. He had put pride back into their loping stride and a sense of purpose in their hunting packs. There was no more whining and belly-crawling to flawed liege-lords in the Wessex wolfs’ makeup. In the ten years since Elelendise and Lupa, he had also kept a careful eye out for any pure white cubs and had them culled at birth just in case the savagery of the previous strain surfaced again.
    Warming his hands over a glowing campfire, the flaxen-haired young man with pigtails looked around the small Savernake clearing at his loyal troop. Both Combi and Nation snoozed contently, their thick brown fur rising and falling in unison, whilst Sir Valiant munched noisily on a pile of grass. Lord Scroop had abandoned his usual position between Sir Valiant’s ears for an overhanging branch as he kept sliding to the floor every time the old horse bent to the ground.
    Then Twilight spoke softly in his ear.
    ‘Do not be alarmed. I join you and your fine animals as a friend.’
    Sitting down beside him, he smiled at the look of astonishment on the young man’s face, who then quickly shot a worried look at the two slumbering bears.
    ‘Don’t worry, they are resting and won’t disturb us,’ said the young astounder.
    ‘H-how do you know they won’t,’ said the flaxen-haired young troubadour, beginning to regain his composure. ‘They will fiercely protect me against intruders. Why, Combi there bit four fingers from the hand of a thief just a few days ago, and Nation chased away a bull cow that was threatening to charge us.’
    ‘Because they don’t know I am here.’ Twilight smiled.
    ‘Don’t know . . .’ The young man broke off as he realized that it was true. The old horse carried on, munching away noisily at the grass without so much as raising his head, whilst Scroopy continued to preen himself on the branch as if all was as before Twilight’s arrival. The bears, if anything, were beginning to snore in an even deeper sleep.
    The young man looked reflectively at Twilight.
    ‘Then you, sir, must be a very special person,’ he said, slowly beginning to relax.
    ‘My name is Twilight. What are you called?’
    ‘Today I am Hero the Famous of Londonium.’
    ‘Today?’ said Twilight.
    ‘Oh yes. I have different names for different days. Yesterday I was Claudius the Emperor of Rome, the day before Ignatius the Great of Athens. The day before that Merlin the Mysterious of Wessex, and before that King Arthur of the Round Table. There are many others, depends what takes my fancy.’
    ‘Merlin the Magician of Wessex. Of course. And what will you be tomorrow, I wonder?’ said the clearly amused veneficus.
    ‘Who knows.’ The young man smiled. ‘They are my stage names, part of the little spectaculum my loyal troupe and I put on. Some of them are made up, some not. I just pick them up as I go.’
    ‘Do you have a given name?’
    ‘Not that I know of,’ said the lad. ‘I was a foundling. An expositicia . Born to a mother who did not want or could not care for me. Left on the steps of the public spa in Cirencester when no more than two days old. Most people referred to me as Granny Biwater’s foundling because she was the old lady who took me in.