Temptress Unbound (8 page)

The secret to a good illusion was in all the props and preparation the audience couldn't see. I found my footing on the end of the ramp and stood, the top of my head breaking the surface. I had to fan my hands in the water to keep my balance as my numbing toes sought the thin wood slats that had been nailed to the ramp to prevent me from slipping.

One step. Two. My forehead emerged and then my eyes, blinking madly to clear the dripping water behind the scales. My breath burned, my lungs tight and urging me to tilt my head up and gasp for fresh air, but what water spirit would do such a thing? Three steps, and my nose was out. I blew out stale air and took in fresh, as quickly and fiercely as I dared.

A sigh and a gasp went through the gathered crowd. One of my eyes was still water-smeared, but through the other I could see them, their faces pale, their eyes and mouths shadowed hollows. Long blond hair and a light blue gown: Wynnetha, clinging to her father Horsa's arm, her mouth wide. Brenn, his good hand over his mouth to hide his expression; he knew our secrets. Una beside him, bouncing on the balls of her feet; she knew, too. There was no way to keep anything from Una.

The tall one in the center,
there
. Arthur, square-shouldered and rigid, his head tilted slightly back in surprise. Did he recognize me from the top of my covered head, as Terix would have? I thought not.

I dropped my gaze and concentrated on emerging.

It is not as easy as one might think, to walk up a ramp through water without looking like a frozen, half-drowned, lurching woman who sends great splashes of water out of her way. It was slow control I was after, and no hint of human feet plodding onward. I'd practiced until both Terix and Maerlin agreed that I looked as if I were being lifted from beneath and carried forward, my body perfectly still and upright, arms straight at my sides with droplets falling from the tips of my scaly, pointed sleeves. I took tiny steps on my toes, bending at the ankle instead of the knee. One slip or momentary, flailing loss of balance would destroy the illusion.

The reaction of the gathered people was palpable, buffeting me like a breeze: I
felt
their astonishment, their awe, the racing tingle upon their skin that said they were in the presence of something not of this world. I drank it in, enjoying being a performer in total control of her audience. Their reaction fed me, and in return I gave them all I had, to make this an event they would remember for the rest of their lives.

At just above knee-deep the ramp ended at a level platform. My toes wiggled into place, finding the metal lever. I stood motionless for a ten count and then slowly raised my arm and pointed at Arthur. He stepped forward, and I turned my palm over and curled my finger just once, beckoning. Commanding.

The crowd leaned back as Arthur stepped forward. Ignoring the damage to his boots and leggings, he waded into the water, the strain of uncertainty beginning to show around his eyes and mouth as I kept my arm in its raised position and he went deeper and yet deeper. His nostrils flared as the water hit his balls, but still he came. When he was ten feet in front of me and up to his waist, I turned my hand and held out my palm, stopping him.

A twitch of his eyelids; a flicking of his gaze over my figure. Recognition in those blue eyes?

His lips set in a hard line.

Yes.

I told myself it didn't matter. I wasn't Nimia at this moment; I was the water spirit, the messenger from Annwyn. The Lady of the Lake.

I was not the woman he had thought to love, until she'd let his brother have her.

I shoved the thought from my mind. There was no place for it now; this moment was so much more important. Sordid personal histories should not touch upon Skalibur.

Terix, Maerlin, and I had spent night after night after night debating what the water spirit should say when she presented the sword. What could be grand enough? Mystical enough? Worthy enough of a sword that had been to Annwyn? And how could we be sure that no one would recognize my voice or notice my accent?

It had taken us weeks to decide what seemed obvious now: the spirit would say nothing. She would sing a wordless song of the Otherworld, instead.

I lowered my arm and began to sing without words, clear notes rising and falling in a melody I improvised as I went, guided by the vision in my mind of Skalibur. The song went beyond language, drawing on that universal essence within us all that called out for something more real and enduring than this solid earth and our too-solid flesh. I sang softly at first, letting free a mere whisper of sound, then gradually growing louder as I lost myself in the musical spell I wove.

And here, at the edges of my vision, came the golden swarm. Their hum fell in tune with the vibrations of my throat and head, amplifying the sound, changing it to something not of this world. Through my mask of scales I saw Arthur's expression open, the tight line of his mouth relaxing, his brow smoothing as my song wrapped around him.

My toes pushed upon the lever, releasing the counterbalance to raise Skalibur from the water. I began to lift my hands, expecting to see the tip of the blade rise from the water.

I waited.

And waited.

I dug at the lever with my toes, making sure it had released.

Had it taken this long for the counterbalance to fall, when we'd practiced?

I kept singing. Arthur's gaze was upon the water, where my hands were pointing—where I
expected
the tip to show at any moment. Onshore, people craned to see what was happening. A whispering murmur ran through them:
What's happening? Can you see? I don't see anything.

The tension grew. My toes waggled the lever, hoping to shake something loose. In desperation, I sought out Maerlin's mind.

What's happening? Why doesn't she release the lever?
I heard him saying in his head. And then he felt me there, listening.
Nimia, release the lever!

I tried to speak to his mind, tried to say I
had,
but he couldn't hear me.

I'd have to get the sword up some other way. I could have Arthur dive for it . . . but that would be so undignified. There was no magic to that; that's what we'd wanted to avoid from the beginning.

I closed my eyes and drew my swarm inward. I felt the water against my legs and reached out through it to Skalibur, and to the green stone.
Lift it,
I urged the water.
Bring it to the air.

In my mind's eye the dawn's light shone down through the water and into the stone, the lake water and stone united in their color. I felt it then: a certainty that they
were
of the same substance. They were the lifeblood of this island, the water and the stone. They gave life, they renewed, they brought the spring growth to the land. They
were
the gateway to Annwyn, or whatever name one wished to call that realm beyond the visible, where greater spirits dwelt, and
they
had chosen for Skalibur to be born from this lake and into Arthur's hand.

My swarm flowed out into the water, touching the stone, and moving onward to swirl around Arthur. The stone hummed, its message carried through the water to its new master. I felt the glow of the stone's power traveling to Arthur, racing up his body to his heart.

An
ahhh
went through the crowd.

I opened my eyes and saw that the water around Skalibur was glowing as if a brilliant flame were caught beneath the surface. I stopped singing as the glow grew, spreading outward toward the shore as the heart of it intensified and went from green to gold to white. Bubbles boiled to the surface, and then all at once there came a great eruption of water and steel and light, and Skalibur flew from the lake, high into the air.

Catch it, you must catch it,
I urged Arthur through the water.

He needed no such urging; his arm was already outstretched, his eyes upon the turning blade that flashed in the sunlight, spinning drops of water out over the glowing lake.

Skalibur held for a moment at the peak of its flight, then fell, somersaulting, to land its grip with a
smack
of perfection in Arthur's palm. His strong fingers closed upon it, and the light gleaming in the stone faded away—it had been drawn inward, I somehow knew. Not just into itself, but into Arthur.

He looked up at me then, his mouth soft with wonder and a nascent understanding that there was something here that went far beyond our small human successes and failures.

This is why I did it,
I said, hoping the message would reach him, though the hum of my swarm was almost gone.
Skalibur is greater than I. No greater than you, though.

Maybe I imagined the flicker in his expression that hinted he'd heard me, or the dip of his chin that could have been acknowledgment. Or maybe it was real.

He turned around and raised the sword above his head, and the stunned crowd, who had unexpectedly witnessed something truly otherworldly, broke into cheering. He waded back toward dry ground, and I took my chance to flee.

Making an exit was a trickier business than making an entrance. An entrance was a surprise: they audience didn't know how you'd appear (or even if), and so you could spring forth from anywhere. An exit, though . . . there were eyes on you, watching you go.

I turned my back to the shore and crept down the ramp. The water felt warm after I had stood for so long in the open air in wet skin and metal. Should I be worried it feels so welcoming? I wondered, but there was no choice but to proceed.

I fanned my hands again to stay upright as I sank up to my chin, then took a big breath and hurried the last few steps until I could sink all the way under and dive down to the ladders. I opened my eyes, everything blurring and green-brown in the depths, but I saw the rungs and pulled myself to the end, then followed the rope up nearly to the top. Partway there I reached out through the water and found the long hollow reed attached to one of the ducks. I pulled the scaled mask from my face, brought the tube to my mouth, and did as I had practiced, blowing the water out of it and then taking deep gulps of air tainted with the flavor of damp reed. I wrapped my foot in the rope to hold myself steady as I unhooked the costume and shimmied out of it. I let it fall, and it undulated like an enormous, magical fish, the light catching its scales as it sank.

Free of that weight, and of any risk of the bright tin catching someone's eye when I emerged on the far bank, I unanchored the raft of ducks, let my head emerge in their midst, and began my slow, careful swim to shore.

As soon as I was in the reeds and out of sight of the far shore, Terix splashed into the water and started to help me to the bank, talking all the while. “We'd agreed
not
to have the sword flung! I can't believe Maerlin changed that on his own. Jupiter's balls, you or Arthur could have been impaled by the thing!”

Out of the water, my body felt as heavy as stone and I stumbled, my weight too great for my exhausted, chilled muscles. Terix swept me up into his arms and carried me the last few steps, then dumped me on a pile of waiting furs and wrapped me tight in a wool blanket.

“That green light wasn't part of the plan, either, though it was awfully effective,” Terix said as he rubbed my shivering body dry with the blanket. “Maerlin didn't tell me he had stuff that could burn underwater.”

“H-h-h-e doesn't,” I said between chattering teeth.

The blanket rubbing ceased. “Then what was it?”

“Ska-a-a-libur-ur. The stone. It did it itself.”

Terix sat back on his heels and whistled between his teeth. “Fuck a donkey and call her Venus. Really?”

“No-no-not warm yet,” I complained.

Terix whisked the damp blanket away and pulled a dry gown over my head, moving my arms for me to get me into it. “Nothing against what you and Maerlin can do, Nimia, but that sword . . . That's something real.” The gown on, he wrapped me in a fur and hoisted me up in his arms. With a grunt and a wobble he got his feet under him and started carrying me back a long, less-trafficked way to the villa.

“It was a good show, wasn't it?” I asked, needing a little praise for my soggy self.

Terix knew what I was asking for. “It was like nothing this lot has ever seen, or will see again, Nimia. When you started to come out of the water, I swear I caught the hot stench of urine dribbling down a leg or two. Made chills go up
my
neck, and I'd seen it before. When you started singing, one fair young thing fainted dead away—although close enough to a good-looking man-at-arms to be caught.”

I chuckled. “No one suspected it was me?”

“No. A good thing, too. A late guest arrived for the performance, who would be very interested to know that you're here, and not back in Gaul.”

A sinking feeling went through me, much colder than the waters of the lake. “Who . . .” I whispered.

Terix made a sour face. “Mordred.”

6

“I
t
is
you.”

I looked up from my fingers upon the cithara's strings to see Wynnetha standing in the doorway to my small room, holding aside the curtain to stare in at me. Her beautiful face was twisted as if she were trying to work the gristle off a piece of meat in her mouth.

“So it is,” I said. I had tried to stay out of her sight for the two weeks she had been at the villa with her father, hoping that she was so immersed in the business of being the celebrated bride that I could escape her notice, but of course I knew it was impossible. Women can sense their enemies, like a hare sensing the fox. “Congratulations on your upcoming marriage.”

She put on the same bright mask of happiness I'd seen her using since she'd arrived. There was a brittle excitement to it that confused me, and I didn't know if she was genuinely happy or only tense about all the attention and changes. “Thank you.”

“I was surprised to hear that Mordred did not win your hand. Was this marriage your father's choice?”

Although it had only been six months, it felt like a lifetime ago that Wynnetha had helped me escape from Mordred only to deliver me into the hands of Fenwig, Clovis's man-at-arms who had been sent to fetch me home to Gaul. Arthur and Maerlin had in turn snatched me from Fenwig, and gotten his word that he would not steal me again but would instead wait for me to say I wished to go back.

Wynnetha stepped into my room, letting fall the curtain over the doorway. “We both chose him. When he returned to us he was much more devoted than before, and I saw that he had charms I had overlooked. He's quite . . . tall, for one thing.”

“A good thing in a husband, to be sure.”

She squinted at me, not certain if I was joking.

“And he has pretty eyes,” she added.

“Then you and your father chose well, indeed.” Was that all she could say about such a fine man? I could only think that Arthur had made a material offer that had turned her head. Gowns? Spoils of war? A promise to renovate one of those abandoned Roman houses in Calleva, so she might reign over it in the style she thought she deserved? I tried to shove aside my irritation with her; it wasn't her fault that she was marrying the man I wanted. She didn't even know she was doing so—and a good thing, too, as she might have savored that revenge more than I could bear.

She leaned against the wall and crossed her arms. I noticed the crystal dangling from her girdle—it looked to be the same one that Mordred had given her. A poor choice to wear to her betrothed's home, surely. “I thought you'd be back in Gaul by now,” she said.

“I had things to do here, first. I only ever meant to be your friend, Wynnetha. I never wanted Mordred for myself.” It was jealousy that had prompted Wynnetha's rescue of me: for reasons I could not fathom, she had preferred Mordred to Arthur. When I had told her how Mordred had fondled me in front of his people, thinking to show her what a scoundrel he was, she saw only that I was a rival for his rancid heart.

Gods help her if she ever found out that I'd slept with Arthur. She might go mad with rage.

I couldn't wish that for her. It was bad enough that she'd be marrying the man I wanted, and so I suffered; worse still if she and Arthur were both unhappy in the years ahead, unable to form a bond of trust and affection. What point in making a sacrifice if everyone involved ended up worse off for it?

Not that I was entirely noble in my feelings. I was pleased her happiness seemed more mask than truth at this point; I might not have been able to bear it if she glowed with the love I was denied. Let her joy come later, when I wasn't here to see it.

“Are you leaving Britannia soon?” she asked.

“Does it matter anymore?”

She moved the imaginary gristle to the front of her teeth and held it there. “Arthur and I will be living in Corinium for the first year of our marriage; that was part of the marriage contract. I don't want to see you here.”

“So you got your wish, to escape Calleva.”

She surprised me by coming to sit on the end of my narrow bed. “If you're really the lover of the king of the Franks, and mother to his heir, why don't you go back to him?”

“He can't give me what I want.”

“He's poor?”

“He's impoverished in the only way that matters: he has no heart.”

“All men have hearts, if the woman is worthy. You mean he has no love for
you
,” Wynnetha said, looking smug.

“Doubtless you're right.” I enjoyed a private vision of Wynnetha trying to wheedle her way with Clovis, and how swiftly, how coldly he'd cut down her worthy self. Mordred would have done the same to her, only more cruelly, and with greater pleasure in her humiliation. She still had no notion how fortunate she was that Arthur was to be her husband.

She picked at the embroidery on her gown, then looked up at me, her eyes wide with not-so-innocent worry. She wasn't a very good actress. “I thought I should warn you that Mordred is here. Did you know that? He arrived this morning.”

“It's why I'm in my room, instead of out there,” I said, gesturing with my head in the general direction of the festivities.

“He was furious when he found out you'd escaped from that storage room.”

“Are you sure he wasn't relieved? I don't think he wanted to keep me.” Not after what I'd done to him.

“Oh no, he was as angry as I've ever seen a man. If he saw you here, he'd feel honor-bound to recapture you. You'd be safest if you left.”

“It's kind of you to be so concerned for me. I feel quite secure under Ambrosius's protection, however. Mordred wouldn't dare try to snatch me from his host's house.”

“Angry men don't think clearly. If he sees you, he'll go after you.”

“Surely it's no longer any of your concern,” I said, puzzled at her insistence. Was she still so jealous?

“But it will make a
scene
. It will be a distraction. This wedding is about me, and Arthur, and hundreds of people have come to see it. It's going to be the most important event in all of Britannia for years to come. It's going to be spoiled if Mordred snatches you and Ambrosius gets upset, and then there might be fighting to get you back, and what then will become of all these plans to unify Britons and Saxons and all the squabbling tribes? People will be choosing sides and spilling blood, and all because of
you
.”

“Again, Wynnetha, that's why I'm hidden away
here,
instead of out
there
. I have no wish for Mordred to see me.”

She leaned forward, put her hand on my thigh, and did her best impression of a two-year-old who thinks herself a clever, irresistibly adorable beggar. “For me, Nimia? Will you do it as a favor to the bride? You said you wanted to be my friend. Be my friend by leaving.”

I held tight to the reins on my temper. “I will leave as soon as I am able, after you are wed. To do so beforehand would be a distraction for Ambrosius and his household, and would deprive several men-at-arms of the pleasure of the wedding, as they would be forced to escort me to the coast.”

“Fenwig's still here. He could escort you.”

“Wynnetha! Stop it. Your insistence is unseemly. I begin to suspect you want me gone so you can have Mordred's attention all to yourself.”

She jumped to her feet and flared her pretty little nostrils at me. “I am to be
married
.”

“I'm glad to hear you remember that!”

“It's more than
you'll
ever be offered, whore that you are. No man will pledge his sword to
you.
”

As she quivered in rage, her shoulders back and chin high, I felt all my own anger drain out of me, replaced by pity for her. The only value she could imagine for herself came from men. All her rank, all the respect others gave her, all her wealth and safety; she knew no other path to them than through marriage. Behind her defiance, behind her self-absorbed need to have all males' eyes upon her, was the fear that she was nothing without male regard. And in this world, she was right to think so. Precious few women got to choose their own path.

“Go along, Wynnetha,” I said softly. “Don't waste your time on me.”

She worked the piece of gristle between front teeth for a moment, doubtless trying to decide whether it would be an admission of defeat to leave as I suggested. “Whore,” she said again, shoved aside the curtain with enough force to tear it from one of its rings, and flounced out.

Her mood and words stuck with me, much as I wished I could brush them off with as little care as they warranted. I found myself churning over her insults, my blood bubbling with an echo of her agitation. Sleep seemed far distant, and yet with Mordred here I didn't dare wander through the villa, seeking the distraction of company and entertainment.

I grabbed my cloak and slipped outside. The spring night had a wavering chill to it, touched with a hint of the coming summer. Or maybe I'd been cold for so long that even this barest hint of warmth seemed balmy to me. I found the path, and guided by the light of a half-moon, half-risen and half-hidden by clouds, I wended my way to Maerlin's workshop.

A dim orange light seeping through the shuttered windows told me he was there, and I gave the merest scratch on the door before pushing it open. We'd grown informal while planning the sword presentation with Terix, and this workshop had begun to feel a place of comfort and friendship.

“Nimia!” Maerlin said, looking up from yet another sheet of endless calculations; I thought sometimes he meant to discover the geometry of life itself in his numbers and diagrams. “I thought you'd be enjoying the banquet.”

“Mordred steals my appetite.”

“The press of bodies takes mine. I'd rather a cold bowl of leeks alone, than boar in cherry sauce while wedged between yet another pair of chattering women.”

I paused in taking off my cloak. “Would you rather I go?”

“I don't count you as a woman.”

I raised a brow. “Last time I checked, I had the parts.”

“And I can vouch for their authenticity. No, you know what I mean. You're not a chatterer. Apollo save me from women who mistake blithering for wit. Listening to them makes my head go numb.”

I took off my cloak and hung it on a peg, then sat across from him at the worktable, plopped my elbows down amid the scrolls and paraphernalia of his studies, and sank my chin into my hands.

“Has Mordred seen you?” he asked.

“Not as far as I know. He can't have missed Terix, though, so he's likely wondering.”

“You should stay here, then, where there's no chance of his spotting you,” he said.

“Mordred wouldn't try something in such a gathering, surely?”

“Better to not find out. The man's clever as a weasel at getting what he wants.”

“Only with less regard for civility,” I said. “It could be safer if I left altogether. Wynnetha came to tell me how it would be the very best wedding gift if I could leave before she takes up residence here.”

“
Here?
No, they're to have a house inside the walls of Corinium. They won't be at the villa; a new wife needs her own home to run, or so I'm told. Though I can't see why she'd want the work of ordering and arranging things, myself. Hiring servants. Choosing furniture. Tiresome.” He shuddered. “Now you're smiling. Why?”

I shook my head, unwilling to explain. Terix could make me laugh on purpose, but Maerlin did it by being completely, utterly sincere. “Still, she has a point. Now that it's spring it will be easier to travel, and there's no reason for me to stay. I think Terix and I should go.”

Maerlin dropped his quill. “Leave? You can't leave! What—what about the vision with the chalice?” He flung a hand toward where the pink crystal chalice sat on a shelf, wrapped in fleece and leather. “It's unfulfilled.”

“I was thinking about that on the walk over here. I've done my part, haven't I? I brought it to you, ‘that which you sought' for so many years. Much as I don't want to give the chalice up, it's not
really
mine—or yours—any more than the moon or stars are. It has its own fate.”

“I need you for the incantation,” he said.

“I don't know it.”

“It comes to you when you need it.”

“As it may well do for you. Maerlin, I don't want to stay here any longer. There's no place for me here, and I can't watch Arthur and Wynnetha set up house together; it will kill me. I can't do it. I
can't
,” I said, and the tears that had been churning inside me ever since I looked from the oak tree and saw Arthur's anguished face gurgled up from my chest and overflowed my eyes and my throat. My weeping was a high-pitched, nearly soundless keening like a flute blown by a novice, punctuated by ugly gulping gasps.