Merlin's Harp (6 page)

  Lugh recovered from the stunning effect of Gwen's beauty. Or maybe he was inspired to impress her. He turned to his new servant and commanded grandly, "Mell. Fetch the horses."

  Mellias's mouth hung open as he contemplated Gwen in her modest glory. Now he turned startled eyes to Lugh, and paled.

  "Go on."

  Mellias made no move.

  "You've handled horses, haven't you?"

  "Ah. Not…lately."

  "Very well. I'll show you." Distinctly swaggering, Lugh led Mellias into the shade.

  (From the thicket behind us, Elana and I used to watch Lugh ride with the village boys. They would ride at each other on ponies, donkeys, or their brothers, and hit each other real blows with real sticks. They called this incredibly stupid game Tournament. The idea was to knock as many others off their mounts as you could before you were knocked off yours.

  Lugh played often with Human boys. They fascinated him, as did all things Human. He would come at them from the east, circling around, so they thought he was Human, like them, only from some farther village they did not know. Much to the Lady's disgust he had never let his teeth be filed, so he could laugh openmouthed, and they saw only ragged, slimy teeth like their own. Learning their rough, wolf-cub games, he also learned their language and ways.)

  Horses held no terror for Lugh. He marched right up to those waiting in the shade. "You can't be cautious with them," he told Mellias. "You walk up calmly, like this—"

  But the horses smelled Fey. They trembled, neighed, and strained on their leads.

  Merlin stroked his beard. The Lady smiled close-mouthed and leaned against an ash tree. This might take awhile.

  Mellias had never played Tournament. The heavy horse smell alarmed him as much as his Fey smell alarmed the horses. Mellias and the horses proceeded to circle and dodge, tangle leads, snort and kick. Almost, I heard the laughter of Guard children watching from the tree tops.

  Lugh lost patience. He tramped into the dance, picked Mellias up, and added him like a sack to the burden of the old pack horse, the only animal to hang his head quietly throughout the confusion. "All right. I'll lead you on a trace for today. But you'll have to learn horses to be my squire!"

  Mellias shut his eyes.

  Himself, Lugh led the string of horses out into the sun. Himself, he cupped his hands and helped Gwen mount the small, moonwhite palfrey they had brought for her. She swung from his hands astride the horse and pulled her loose gown down, and for the first time she seemed fully aware of what she was doing.

  Then Lugh cupped his hands for Merlin. The mage smiled in his beard, stepped up into Lugh's hands and thence onto a small, gray horse.

  "See, Mell," said Lugh, "that's what you're supposed to do for me." But Mellias's eyes stayed shut.

  Lugh clapped dust from his hands and vaulted onto a big black charger. Two horses yet unsaddled were meant for the "men at arms" who would join the band at the first "inn." Lugh was ready to hurry away, heels poised to kick, when the Lady hurried to stand at his knee.

  Her back was turned to me. She spoke to Lugh with her fingers, hidden from me. So I have never known what she said to him.

  I do know that Lugh had no notion at that time that he would not come back. He thought only that he was going on a wonderful adventure, free in the world, as a child goes free in the forest. Doubtless he thought he would return, as he had returned from the Children's Guard to Avalon. Maybe he thought this day of return would come soon, even as Mellias thought he would dance with me at the next Flowering Moon.

  So he had little to say to the Lady. Over her head I saw him sign.
Watch us in your crystal. Weave us a spell.
Then his aura flamed into the sun and swept around his band, gathering them up as his hands gathered the charger's reins. The horses lifted their heads, blew, and stepped out.

  First Lugh rode away through the flocks of sheep that dotted the pastures. His servant Mell followed on a lead, bouncing like the sacks at his belt. Gwen swayed on the white palfrey, newly expert and graceful. And Merlin, hunched under his homespun cloak, brought up the rear. They rode far and farther away from us, small and smaller, out into the kingdom.

  A flock of sheep parted before them, separated lambs bawling for their mothers. They rode past the men plowing with oxen, who paused to stare. They passed under Midsummer Tor. Between us and them, skylarks climbed and soared and sang.

  The three of us stood quietly, watching them dwindle out of sight. Dark energy throbbed from the Lady. She knew. She had always known.

  Behind me, something screamed.

  I whirled.

  Tears slimed Elana's plump cheeks. From her wide-open mouth poured infantile sorrow, loss, and despair. She bawled like a separated lamb.

  Beyond the tor, the riders merged with the spring-green land.

  Screeching, Elana collapsed on her knees. Her black cloud rolled over her, hiding her completely, and reached seeking, spidery arms toward me.

  I ran. I rushed away from Elana and her dangerous cloud, down to the coracles in the reeds. I pushed a coracle out into the river, scrambled in, and seized the pole. A moment I held the boat steady in the water, looking back.

  The Lady stood half-engulfed in the cloud. It reached no higher than her waist, for her brilliant energy beat it down; I dared not trust my own energy to do the same. I braced my feet, shoved the pole down, and pushed away hard, upstream, against the current.

While last sunlight yet lingered the maiden moon rose. I paused, reed-thatching my night's shelter, to watch her touch the beech tops across the clearing. This glade must have been cleared for Flowering Moon dances, but it had not been used for years, and young trees were raising leafy heads out of the carpeting bluebells.

  Two nights more and the moon would flower. Drums would thrum, pipes sing. From the deepest, farthest forest shadows the Fey would gather in glades like this to dance, cavort, feast, and love. Silent folk who carefully did not cross paths all month would meet that night as friends and lovers. And I had meant to meet with them, this time.

  Under the beeches a moon-white figure moved. It raised a small head, twitched ears and tail, looked about. The ghost of a fallow doe?

  I had seen such ghosts before. A bear haunted the pit in which he had been trapped. A wolf bounded by moonlight through snow, leaving no tracks. And this doe—

  Stepped on a twig. I heard it crack.

  This was a white fallow doe, warmly alive as myself. Watching her slow movements, I thought, "She has hidden a kid nearby." Softly I called to her, "Greetings, doe! We shall be friends in this clearing, you and I."

  She stretched her head high and flicked an ear.

  I went back to piling reeds on my shelter of bent saplings. Orioles and blackbirds sang around me. In a darker patch of forest a nightingale fluted. I thatched and thought.

  Poling home to Avalon I had paused here to be alone. Maybe I had some thought that Elana's black cloud might follow me upriver to the island. Maybe I hid like a wounded animal, needing to curl down and lick my wounds. Much had happened in a very short time.

  I had lost my brother. Elana said he would not return, and my bones told me she was right. Why I thought that I could not say. But I knew that the Lady had always dreaded his departure.
Can you stop a swan from swimming? I had lost my friend Mellia
s almost before we made friends. I might have lost Elana. How could I ever turn to her and take her hand again, knowing her fearful weakness?

  I thatched and thought, first about Lugh.

  My brother Lugh had always yearned toward the Human kingdom. During his time in the Children's Guard, Lugh visited the kingdom more than he guarded against it. One midsummer night he took Elana and me out there to the bonfire on the tor.

  He gave us Human-style tunics and shawls and led us out from East Edge at dusk. Like shadows we drifted hand-in-hand across pastures we knew well from our nightly forays. As we came near, the village folk streamed around us; folk from "our" village and from farther ones. We moved in this crowd like dun deer in a dun herd. As we neared the tor the drums began to beat—not soft, heart-beat drums like those the Fey use, but great, booming, thunder-drums that shook the blood in our ears.

  Elana stopped. "They will suspect us!" She signed,
They will burn
our bones in that fire.

  Lugh signed,
Just keep your lips closed. They'll never guess. You look
perfectly Human.
(And Elana did.)

  At the fire we moved straight into the forming circle. Hand-inhand with villagers we shuffled around the rising fire.

  The Human stink was overpowering. The sight of uncounted Humans together amazed me. All ages formed the circle, children barely walking, oldsters bent double, a few downright deformed persons. I had never seen such before.

  These were heavy giants. Their feet lifted cautiously from the earth they knew so well. The drums beat slowly, then faster. Pipes shrilled, the pace quickened, and I saw a flame of excitement flicker around the circle.

  Now the sick ones, small ones, and oldsters drew back to watch. Faster we danced, hopping and jumping, higher as the fire lowered.

  And then a young couple tore out of the circle, ran hand-in-hand and leaped the fire.

  Amazed, I watched pairs, singles, and whole strings of young folk bound like hares over the fire. Why should risk and danger enter into this joy? But such is always the Human way.

  Lugh tore his hand from mine. He and Elana rushed forward and flung themselves over, hand-in-hand, clothes and hair flying among the sparks. They turned back and leaped again.

  I saw their two faces uplifted, bright and wild as the Human faces around them. They might as well be Human themselves. They were both tall for Fey, and sturdy, and now I saw them crazed, ecstatic. Astonished and troubled I closed the circle, taking the hand of an old farmer on one side and a little girl on the other. My heart was beating with the drums.

  Be careful, I told myself. Remember yourself and what you are, or you might jump that fire yourself!

  Cautious now, I rose into spirit and looked down on the dance from a height. Safe up there, I could see the flame of joyful excitement running the circle, glowing in the dancers' faces and spurting under their feet.

  Then a young fellow trailing flowery ribbons misjudged his leap and the ribbons flared. He pranced on unknowing, but dancers and bystanders ran to catch him, roll him on the ground and tear away the burning ribbons.

  After this the excitement ebbed. The flame flickered more gently around the circle, and I sank down again into my body. Again I felt the calloused, sweating hands holding mine, and smelled bitter Human breath.

  As the night faded the circle drifted apart. Lugh and Elana came and drew me away, and we three slipped quietly downhill. Fires, lit from the bonfire, burned below in three villages. All the way down we stumbled on couples helping the God and Goddess unite, too eager even to seek cover.

  Now, placing my last reed thatch I thought Elana should have tumbled Lugh that night. She had had other chances since then: Flowering Moons, "accidental" meetings; she could have enticed Lugh at the villa, or in any thicket, for that matter. But I was quite sure she never had. I thought if Elana had lain with Lugh, she could have sent him away dry-eyed.

  Daylight gone, I gathered sticks and leaves in a small stone circle and breathed energy into my palms. Cross-legged by the tinder I flexed my hands, cupped them, drew them apart and together, watched aura flash from palm to palm. Back then, my aura was the strong, steady green of youth and growth. It has changed color several times since then. Now it is blue-edged silver.

  When I was ready I laid hands to tinder, and a small, yellow flame licked up. Even back then at the beginning of my power I scried in fire as my mother scried in crystal. I often saw coming events in flame or waking dreams that shed new light on the past. This time I sought understanding of the recent past, especially of Elana's astounding passion. I sought guidance. How should I treat Elana so as not to catch her weakness like a fever? How should I deal with the loss of my brother? I had not known I would miss him as I already did! And, at the coming Flowering Moon, should I couple for the first time? Or should I wait yet again for another Moon?

  I had made my quiet camp here by the Fey river to scry and think by myself, without the Lady looking thoughtfully over my shoulder. I leaned and looked into the flame as I might look into a reflecting pool; and in this fire-pool I saw a face reflected. Not the Lady, but a child looked down over my shoulder from her perch in the ash tree.

  Perfectly still, moving no muscle, I studied the face.

  My spirit must have known all this time that I was not alone; but I, Niviene, had been too busy with thoughts and feelings to hear her whispered warning.

  A young girl, maybe ten years old, watched me round-eyed. She cocked her head like a fox-cub and licked thin, hungry lips. And now I could smell her: hair and skin none too clean, recently ate meat.

  I said softly, "Come down here. Let us talk."

  The face in the fire widened startled eyes and disappeared. I heard her drop softly to earth and pad toward me. She stepped around the fire and faced me, small hands clasped on lean stomach, black eyes huge.