Merlin's Harp (17 page)

  Since I lay with Arthur in the meadow, auras had grown dim. I had learned to see auras even in brilliant sunshine, but now I could barely make out the gray mist of body-life around these women. Plants showed me no aura at all. Everything I saw was flat, as if painted on a wall of air. No longer could I scry, in water or fire. I came here to Gwen's garden not because I had seen her here in our hearth-fire, but because I had overheard a conversation in the street. No longer could I enter a mind at will. Now mind-reading needed concentration, power fully focused. No longer could I smell minor emotion or intention. Only deep feeling—heavy lust, rage—reached my alert nose.

  Never since childhood had I felt so vulnerable! I walked about in a mist of ignorance, guessing every step as Humans must. Humans lived like this always, from birth to death! My respect for them had decidedly increased. I had even learned some sympathy.

  I saw Gwen. She knelt in a lavender patch, knife in hand, her back to all of us, blessedly alone. I glided up beside her, knelt, and planted my basket between us. Sometimes I wondered if love kept Gwen young, or if she drank a magic potion. Her bronze hair flowed free, held from her face by a silken ribbon. Her pale, freckled face and gray eyes were open and soft as a child's. Startled, she glanced at me sideways. And so warmly smiled that last day of summer that Gwen smiled back, almost forgetting her fear of me. Yet I needed no special power to guess her thought: Again, this one! This small,
dangerous
person. She could not imagine how far from dangerous I felt, ho
w exposed. I felt I was going into battle naked and blindfolded.

  We would not be alone for long. Women's voices rose again behind us, and the lute rippled. I leaned into the lavender as though cutting and whispered, "Beware the King."

  Calmly, Gwen cut lavender. Softly she sang,

Then I added, "But no sword keeps watch between you and Lugh."

Gwen looked a question.

  "Between you and Lancelot. Lady, the Angles blame you two for their poor harvests."

  "Pagan folly!" Gwen tossed back her bright hair.

  "And now comes hostage Mordred, murmuring of you to Arthur's knights! Gwen, Mordred's sly talk could crack the Round Table! On one side are Lugh's friends, on the other his enemies. And Arthur's Peace is forgotten. But you and Lugh—Lancelot— could yet sacrifice yourselves and mend the Round Table."

  Gwen's freckled hands had paused among the lavenders. "What did you call me just now?"

  Gods curse it, she had heard nothing I said! Her acorn-sized mind was too full of her own grandness. "Forgive me, I did not mean—"

  "Viviene. What did you call me?"

  I bit my tongue. When it hurt less I shrugged and admitted, "I called you Gwen, as once we all did."

  "Who? Where? When?" Eagerly she leaned to me.

  I had stumbled badly. There was no going back, but there might be defense. "When we were all young, in the Fey forest, where Mellias carried you off. You remember." I sat back on my heels and grinned at her, openmouthed, filed canines on display.

  Now Gwen might scream and shriek and have me driven from the garden like a weasel that had bit her. And like a weasel, I would have to streak for the nearest wood. Or she might seek—unwisely—to stab me with her lavender knife. Or she might sign the cross between us and cry for a priest.

  Gwen crumbled. I guessed that she groped in her mind, grasping at dream-threads. "God's blood!'' she whispered. "I knew I had seen you before…You hid behind a bush and frightened me."

  "It was you frightened me! I thought you were the Goddess."

  "Mellias took me in there…He is Lancelot's groom, Mell, isn't he."

  "Yes. See, you remember."

  "And Merlin played his harp for us. Then I loved Lancelot, then and ever since."

  I swung around to snarl at the women drawing near. They backed away as Gwen muttered, "God's blood! God's bones! God's holy mother! I never dreamed you were all Fey!" And she crossed herself.

  I said firmly into her confusion, "Lady. Merlin and I have been keeping Mordred's power and influence in check, controlling the knights' responses. But now…" Now what? Now I have lain with your husband; Merlin, therefore, stands alone? "…Now I am powerless. But you and Lancelot together could mend the Round Table and save Arthur's Peace."

  Gwen looked up at me so pale her freckles stood out like bruises. "Viviene, we all know that you are a virgin. You do not know what you ask." And, as she thought of what I asked, she gave forth the scents of rose and honeysuckle.

  I warned her then. "Arthur will sacrifice you to his crown."

  She dropped her eyes and nodded, slowly.

  That was her decision. The Fey do not impose their will.

  I rose and brushed earth from my gown. "Lady," I told her, "I am called Niviene. Not Viviene."

  She nodded. "And I am called Your Majesty."

  "I will remember that." Then I turned on my heel and left her and my empty basket among the lavenders.

* * *

From Gwen's garden I went straight to find Lugh.

  Lugh paid little heed to us mages in our wicker hut beneath the rampart. After our first joyful reunion, fifteen years before, he had ignored me as much as he could; he did not wish to be linked with us in the court mind. But he did send us messages through Mellias, who lived sometimes with us and sometimes in the stable.

  I went now to the stable.

  Immediately I was overwhelmed by the sweet, strong scent of new-mown hay. (It brought back powerful memories of childhood; of stealing into village barns with Elana and Lugh; of sleeping in hay, and slipping away in the dawn; of hiding stolen treasures in hay, some of which we forgot. The farmers must have puzzled over them later, as the winter hay supply shrank. "Well! Here's my adze! God's toes, how did it get here?")

  On the last day of summer there were neither chargers nor donkeys nor ponies in the barn. They still pastured in the meadows beyond the rampart. Barn cats slunk and slept, mice rustled and crickets sang in the hay; Mellias's pipe sang too, away in a far corner behind hay stacks. It played "Yellow Leaves."

  I drifted that way. The pipe paused and I called softly, "Lugh?"

  I found Lugh and Otter Mellias cross-legged in the straw, a rough chess board and a skin of ale between them. Lugh must have been the only knight at Arthur's round table, or any other court, who would dally over chess with his ragged groom/squire. Close together like this, they looked a remarkable pair: the giant knight, neatly clad, combed to delight his lady; and the small, grubby groom whose smile showed no cringing servility. Like his mysterious background, like the occasional rages that blew away his reason, this unequal friendship was widely accepted as Sir Lancelot's eccentricity. Who would criticize Sir Lancelot and maybe have to face him?

  Otter Mellias's dark face lightened at sight of me. He smiled up at me. Lugh scowled.

  I said, "Lugh, I must talk with you." And sat down, uninvited, in the straw. It pricked through my flimsy gown and spread hay seed all over it.

  Mellias set the chess board aside and made to rise. Lugh stopped him with a gesture. To me he growled, "Make it speedy." He did not want any connection with mages listed among his eccentricities.

  We talked in whispers, for Lugh had nearly lost finger-talk.

  "Brother," I said, "the crops are poor this fall."

  Lugh shrugged.

  "The farmers blame you. You and Gwen."

  "Horse shit!"

  "When the shortage is felt here in the dun your brother knights will blame you. Hostage Mordred will see to that."

  Lugh spat. "It was your idea to bring him back here with us. I would have sliced his head off. Now he slithers about reminding folk of what they forgot before. I know what the adder wants. Do you know, Mage?"

  Mellias signed to me,
Do not anger him!
I signed back,
This must
be said.
But I drew back from Lugh. His giant hands were making fists. I whispered, "Mordred wants Caliburn and the crown, Lugh. What else?"

  "The crown, God's balls! Mordred wants my rose!"

  "Your rose?"

  Mellias signed,
The Queen.

  "You did not know that, wise Mage?"

  Slowly, I admitted, "I was not looking in that direction." But looking there now, I thought of Mordred's dark, sidelong glances, and the way his teeth gleamed between slack, sensuous lips, and the way Gwenevere would walk far around, rather that brush against him.

  Lugh muttered, "If he cannot have her he will destroy her." His fists opened and reached for a neck to wring. I drew farther away.

  Mellias signaled,
All the time now he is close to rage. Do not press
him.

  But I had to press him. I whispered, "Lugh. This thing, this rule you live by. Chivalry."

  Lugh winced as though I had knife-pricked him.

  "You remember, even as a boy you loved chivalry…you thought it the highest way of life…Well, if I understand the thing rightly, chivalry means you love Arthur more than your life."

  Lugh groaned. Sweat sprang out on his brow, spittle dewed his beard. Lugh hunched and rocked and moaned and sighed. At last he whispered, "Arthur can take care of himself. Know this." Another deep sigh. "I do love Arthur more than my life. But I love my rose more than Arthur. And…I do not know what to do! I do not know what to do! I do not know…"

  I leaned to him and gazed into his anguished eyes. As an unborn child asleep in the womb wakes and stretches, so my sleeping power woke in me. I felt it stir, stretch, and reach up my spine, between my shoulders, up the nape of my neck, through the top of my head. And I was inside Lugh's mind.

* * *

Gwenevere sat at her loom, knees wide, freckled hands idle in her embroidered lap. A garden of stitched leaves and flowers crusted her overgown. I, Lancelot, drifted into her lap and the leaves and flowers came alive and aromatic. I smelled honeysuckle and rose. A skylark sang. A harp rippled sweet music.

  I stood in sunshine with Gwen's arms tight around my waist and her cheek warm at my throat. I felt her soft heartbeat through over-gown and tunic and breast. Folding her close, I folded the summer world to myself, this sweet earth and all her fruits and pungent herbs and fragrant flowers. Joy like sunlight flooded my world.

  Now over the harp music I heard hooves strike rock. Saddles creaked, a horn winded. Knights rode by beyond the garden wall, red and white dragon banners flying. Arthur rode at their head.

  I looked up.

  Arthur turned in the saddle and looked straight at me—me, Lancelot—and I felt his gaze like a sword-thrust. A cry of grief escaped me.

  My life was riding past. The Human glory I had sought, chivalry itself, was riding past. My King looked at me, and rode on. How gladly I would have given all that I had to ride with him! I would have sacrificed anything in the world…but my rose.

  The knights passed. Hoofbeats and saddle-creaks faded in distance. Lark-song and harp music returned. But now came one solitary straggler, armed in black, riding a lean black charger. A raven's plume nodded from his black helmet. Under one arm he carried a golden grail. Opposite Gwen and me he drew rein and lifted this grail toward me, as though he asked a question.

  I folded Gwen closer.

  The black knight pressed heel to his thin horse and passed on. The horse's hooves raised no echo from the earth.

  I, Niviene, had felt Lugh's despair. This was Human despair, for Human causes that should never have sullied my brother's mind. Now I searched through that mind for an edge of Fey forest, some lost memory or forgotten face I could seize and wield like a sword, to recall Lugh to his true self.

  I found no Fey forest at all. No forest, no Lady, no Elana, no sister. In his own sight Lugh was truly Lancelot, wholly Human, a real knight bound by real chivalry to a real king.

  Arthur appeared different to Lugh than to me. Where I saw a giant with a triple aura, heavy-fisted, high-minded, and richly attractive, there Lugh saw his sworn king, his life's center.

  I was astonished to see Gwen from Lugh's eyes. Here she seemed far lovelier, far sweeter, than I myself had found her; to me, Gwen was a beautiful Human woman like many another, small-minded, small-souled, wrapped in selfishness as in a cloak. To Lugh, she was the Goddess Herself, giver of life and joy, the world's heartbeat.

  The world from Lugh's perspective appeared to me to be much as I would imagine it appears to most Humans. To most Humans…

  
Can you stop a swan from swimming?

  
Stealing a Human baby is almost as easy as stealing a loaf of bread.

  Was my brother Lugh a changeling?

  And hadn't I, in truth, suspected as much for years now? Sad and shocked, I withdrew from his mind to find myself back in my body, all prickled in straw.

* * *

I had spent only a breath in Lugh's mind, but he had felt my entrance and withdrawal. He blinked, and drew a hand across his face.

  I saw in Mellias's narrowed eyes that he knew what I had done.

  So, now I knew Lugh's mind, what remained to be said? "Watch Mordred."