Merlin's Harp (19 page)

Counsel Oak towers over all the ancient apple trees of Avalon. Oh, to rest once more in his shade, and hear once more his wise leaves whisper!

  Here at Gildas's monastery, Arimathea, the apple trees were young, severely pruned, richly fruitful; like graceful maidens sporting red and yellow gems, compared to the hungry hags of Avalon, with their wizened brown treasures.

  I crouched with Gildas in dappled shade, sorting apples. Ladders leaned and baskets waited throughout the orchard; young monks and village boys climbed and picked. (I was, of course, thought to be one of these boys.) Older monks trundled barrows from basket to basket and out to the apple sheds. Men called and shouted and sang here and there; barrows creaked, squeaked, and bumped. Gildas and I talked softly, murmuring, whispering, hunched close together over our apple pile.

  "Cider," Gildas muttered, and tossed the apple to his right. "Dry." That apple plopped left. "So, Niv, I ask you, what did you expect the King to do?"

  A reasonable question. Why was I shocked? What would any Human king do, who saw his power threatened?

  For fifteen years I had watched Arthur tolerate Gwen with something like affection, and sport with Lugh as with a brother. When the flash of his triple wide aura reminded me of his vast pride, I told myself,
Never cross this man!
I knew he could be dangerous to me; but Lugh was the man closest to him, and Gwen…he had lain with Gwen, and when she proved sterile he had not cast her off. There must be some tenderness there.

  Gildas murmured, "You know he can't simply forgive his enemies like a Christian. No earthly king is so powerful he can do that."

  A barrow squealed up to dump a fresh load of apples between us, then squeaked away.

  My hands sank to my sides. The heart I did not have somehow clogged my throat and weighed me down, and something was happening to my eyes. Sun and shade ran together, and though my fingers touched apples I could not see them.

  "Cry," Gildas advised. "Go right ahead and cry. Cider. Eat. Dry. You have shown remarkable courage, Niv, for a woman. Tomorrow you must be brave again, but you can take a private moment now to cry."

  Tears blurred the light. My tears. And weird choking sounds erupted around the lump in my throat. I could not hold back either tears or chokes. Sobs.

  Once begun, I could not stop. I muffled my sobs in my bunched tunic and crouched low behind Gildas. He shifted his bulk between me and most of the barrow traffic, but the orchard stretched all around us. I could only hope no monk would look down from his tree and notice that young Niv wept instead of working.

  I cried hard for a while, letting anger and fear flow out with my tears. Then I cried now and then, and busied my hands in the apples between times. When at last I could speak—though still I could not see very well—I asked Gildas, "When did you know?"

  "That you are a woman? I've known that since the day you watched me write, standing so close behind me. That day I smelled female. And I turned around and saw female."

  "And…never said…"

  "Do you say everything you know?" Gildas pulled a bit of cloth from his sleeve and handed it to me. "Clean up your face."

  The dry, soft cloth comforted my face. "What is this?" I asked, wiping my hands dry too.

  "It's a handkerchief, Mage. We civilized folk use handkerchiefs when we sneeze or cry."

  He had said "Mage." "You even know…"

  "Every herd boy knows you for Mage Niviene, Merlin's assistant. We Humans are not stupid."

  Now I could see Gildas smiling, wanting to hug himself for satisfaction, though his hands never slacked, tossing apples. He wiggled his brows at me and twinkled his eyes.

  "Merlin said if you knew…or your brother monks knew…they would burn your books."

  "I know you are not evil, Niv. Fifteen years you've been stopping here with Merlin, and no harm has come to monk, cow or corn. But as to burning my books, know you, Mage, I would sooner burn down Arimathea Monastery!"

  I studied Gildas's merry, sympathetic face. When I had the power I had never read his mind; now it was closed to me. But I saw, looking carefully, how Gildas loved his books. When he said the word "book," his eyes brightened, and a tiny smile crept from the corners of his mouth. He held out a hand for the kerchief. "I would like to wash this," I said, holding back.

  Gildas grinned. "I do no magic, Niv. Your tears are safe in my hands." He reached and drew the kerchief from me. "I never thought to see these tears."

  "I never thought to shed them!"

  "Well, now we can be honest with each other."

  "You know," I said, bending to the apples again, "it all began with you. All this came about because I told Arthur about your book."

  "What!"

  "Arthur was angry that you did not name him in your book."

  Gildas made a sound between a growl and a hiccup.

  "He does not know you are the author, Gildas. I would not tell him that. But he knows the book exists, and that he is not named therein."

  Then I told Gildas how anger had turned to lust, how I lay with Arthur in the moonlit meadow and lost my power. "Mordred would never have trapped Lugh and Gwen if I had had my power. I never had even an inkling of what was to come. I left Merlin to work alone."

  A barrow creaked nearby and Gildas bent quickly to his apple pile. "Eat. Cider." But he murmured exultantly, "The King knows! Now is my revenge perfect!"

  I whispered, "Gildas. Is your revenge all that matters to you?"

  Anger choked me like tears. Arthur was hunting Lugh like a wolf. The destruction of Arthur's Peace seemed imminent. And here heartless Gildas gloated over his worthless revenge! Who under heaven cared about what Gildas called ''history"? Who even knew what it was?

  I answered myself. Arthur knew, and cared.

  Gildas chuckled. "Because you have given me revenge, Niv, now I will do what I can for you."

  But I had never doubted that he would.

  Riding the moonless night, hunting Lugh, I had told Mellias, "There is one who will help us. Abbot Gildas of Arimathea."

  I heard the scowl in Mellias's voice. "A monk! A monastery! They will pull our filed teeth!"

  "Gildas is Merlin's friend. I trust him."

  "Hah! Well, if you come to grief, Niviene, I want to come with you." Mellias kicked his pony ahead.

  His words sank into my mind and would have sunk into my heart if I had one. When I could trust my voice I called after him, "You're sure Lugh came this way?"

  He flung over his shoulder, "If I ran naked I would make straight for our cave, like a wolf for his den."

  I knew that Lugh and Mellias had a hideout somewhere in the low hills ahead. They had spent many a moon there, fishing and hunting, while the world thought Lugh sought the Holy Grail, or during one of Lugh's rages. They slept in a cave, caught and ate raw fish and sunbathed by a stream. That was one reason Mellias stayed by Lugh. "I could never stay in the kingdom moons at a time," he said once, "if we did not come back to real life now and then."

  Now we were making for this hidden cave. Shuddering, I imagined Lugh running, naked and barefoot, over this dark plain. He must have thrown himself flat when hooves thundered behind and thus escaped unseen.

  We came to dark, crouching hills. We splashed across a stream. Mellias had no need to tell me how Lugh had crossed and recrossed this stream, how he had climbed this oak and swung through those beeches. I knew what I would have done, and where.

  One thing Mellias could have told me, had I dared ask, was why he was guiding me on this hunt. I came after Lugh because I remembered being his sister, though he had forgotten me. Why did Mellias so endanger himself?

  I dared not ask; but his crystal bounced warmly from breast to breast, reminding me of the almost Human warmth of Mellias's heart.

  In a dark glade we slipped down and hobbled the winded ponies. Mellias led me by touch down a trail barely visible in moonless dark, even to us, across the stream once more, and up a cliff face. We crawled into the cave.

  Now we couched in absolute darkness. "Lugh," Mellias murmured. And Lugh, back in the cave, whispered, "Mell!"

  Mellias asked, "Do you have kindling?"

  "In the fire pit."

  Mellias said, "A good thing I brought fire!" He guided my hand forward to touch a pile of sticks and whispered, "You can still make fire."

  "Still"? Did Mellias know about my night with the King? Now was not the time for questions.

  I warmed my palms. Moments later a little flame, a little light, licked up. I looked around at the small, low cave, furnished with a few skins and pots. A grown Human could not stand up in here. Lugh could not stand up. Bone-lean, bloody, and smudged, he lay curled against the back wall. He had rolled in mud to darken his skin. That was how he had gone unseen, flat on the breast of the Goddess, while his hunters galloped past.

  His eyes closed against the light, then opened wide. "Niviene!"

Mellias chirped, "I brought her!"

  Lugh unfolded, stood up stooping, came stooping to me. Wordless, he took me into his bare trembling arms. Mellias hugged us both, and the three of us nuzzled, chuckled, and patted. In that embrace, I was almost glad of the danger and disaster that had brought us three back together.

  Later, Lugh pulled on the clothes and wolfed down the bread that Mellias had brought. Wolfing, he asked, "Gwen?" Speechless, I looked at Mellias. Mellias looked away. Lugh gulped. "What has happened to Gwen?"

  I tried to speak. Mellias's fingers rose and wriggled the basic sign,
Fire.
Lugh remembered that sign. The bread dropped from his suddenly slack hand into our fire.

  Mellias signed again.
Unless you save her.

* * *

Arthur had ordered no hunt for Lugh's squire or sister, but (I told Gildas) Mellias and I took no chances. We lived in the dank, dim tunnel behind Merlin's hut and dug out an exit to the meadows. Merlin, of course, moved about freely. He was completely above suspicion. Had he not foretold the Queen's treachery long ago?

  Aefa came to us there. Huddled by our brazier, shivering in the damp, we saw a lamp approach down the tunnel. A woman, richly gowned, carried the lamp before her. Standing over us she looked tall, till I rose slowly to face her. I said, "At least, you have not betrayed us."

  "You knew I never would!"

  "You betrayed Lugh."

  "Lugh was nothing to me."

  Ah. That was true. With close to Human folly I had supposed that if Aefa loved me, she loved my brother.

  She said, "He will save Gwenevere." And she looked hard at us both. We looked back at her blankly.

  She said, "It will be easy for him. To show respect, the knights about the stake will be unarmed."

  Mellias sprang up. "Niviene, do not tell Lugh that!"

  "Why not?" Groping through my confused knowledge of chivalry, I thought I knew why. But I could never be sure in these matters. Understanding chivalry was still like understanding Merlin's Latin stories, back in the villa. I did not really know the language.

  Mellias sputtered, "Because if Lugh knew the knights were unarmed, he could not lift his sword! He would have to ride in there unarmed himself!"

  Aefa said, "The stake is raised now, outside Queen's Hall." Merlin had told us that too.

  Mellias nodded. "We'll have to ride down three streets to the hall."

  "Ride across," Aefa advised. "Between the huts." That made good sense. You do not stride down a forest path on a hunt, you slink through underbrush.

  Aefa was saying, "Muffle the hooves. Lead the ponies. The whole dun will be looking at the stake, and if any do notice you…well, few would betray Sir Lancelot. Stop on the edge of the crowd and cut off the muffles." She hesitated. "I will cut them off for you."

  I asked, "Aefa, are you hound or hare?"

  "I hardly know, Niviene. Mordred…had me tranced. But you can trust me in this." I believed her. Actual tears stood in her eyes.

  Merlin came scuttling down the tunnel. "Aefa, Mordred is calling for you. Hurry away." He seized her hand and pulled her back up the tunnel.

  In the quiet dark, I asked the Otter, "Could Aefa have Human blood?"

  "Not by the size of her!"

  "She was crying."

  "You don't need Human blood to cry."

  Merlin scurried back to us, bent over his lamp like an ancient. He was showing his age. I thought of the Lady as I had dreamed her, white-haired and hesitant, and I shuddered. The elders walking ahead of me toward death were now so bowed I could see over their heads.

  We could die with Lugh in this rescue attempt. I could die.

  I said, "Merlin! Could we not simply leave here now and be gone?"

  "Truly, you could." Merlin stroked his beard. "Are you willing to leave Lugh to his fate?"

  I considered. Happily, with a sense of huge relief, I saw Mellias, Merlin, and me riding away on a dark night, vanishing. Finding the odds hopeless, a Fey in his right mind would vanish.