Gawain (29 page)

“A slim chance is better than none. I’ll see if I can find him. Good fortune to you.”

“And to you,” Launfal answered, but Sir Dinadan was already gone.

GAWAIN mastered his instinctive shudder as the crone sat down upon his knee. This was Aislyn. His Aislyn, who had lain in his arms just two nights past, trapped in a form that seemed far more revolting now that he knew it was a magical creation. It was that, more than her wrinkled skin or misshapen body that disgusted him.

Poor lass,
he thought, his stomach twisting as he forced himself to stroke her lank hair and speak cheerfully until at last she smiled.
My poor little love. This must be infinitely worse for her than it is for me.

“Sweeting, this is folly,” he said gently. “Hiding like this, keeping all a secret. I know you fear my mother, but we cannot wait for Morgana to return. I will go to the king—no, hear me out—and explain all. Even my mother daren’t disobey a direct order from him; she will be forced to lift this vile enchantment.”

“She cannot,” Ragnelle—Aislyn—said.

“Isn’t there always a counterspell—or whatever it is called?”

“It was not your mother who put the enchantment on me.”

“Not my—? Then who?”

“Your aunt,” she said, not looking at him. “The duchess of Cornwall.”

“Morgana?” Gawain laughed aloud from pure relief. “But why? What did you do to get in her bad graces?”

Aislyn slid from his knee. “It makes no matter now. But if you were to ask her to lift it, then she might.”

“You can be sure I shall. I’ll send her a message at once, explaining . . .” But there was no need to explain. Morgana had been here, she had seen how matters stood with him. And she had done nothing.

“I cannot believe it was her,” he said, his amusement dying. “Oh, we have sometimes been at odds of late, but still—” He stared unseeing out the window. “She knew we were wed, and yet she told me nothing. Why? Why would she do such a thing to me?”

“It was me she did it to,” Aislyn pointed out.

“Aye, it was. And I never would have thought her capable of such cruelty. What
did
you do?”

“Naught so bad as to deserve this,” she replied, her back to him as she smoothed the coverlet over the bed.

“But what was it?” he insisted. “Aislyn, you must tell me.”

“Yes, I suppose I must.” She turned to face him. “Now, Gawain, I don’t want you to get angry. You see, that day when you and the king came riding into the forest to meet Somer Gromer Jour, I always meant to give the king the answer.”

“And you did,” he said.

“Yes, but—well, when I saw it was you with him, I decided to—You have to remember that I didn’t know you’d gone back for me that night in Lothian. I thought you just rode off and forgot all about me, never caring if I’d lived or died. I was wrong, I know that now, but when I saw you riding down that path with the king, I was still a bit—well, more than a bit angry. So I changed myself into this form—”

“
You
changed?” he repeated, bewildered. “But you said Morgana—”

“Yes, but that was after, when she came to court that time. She knew what I’d done, you see, and she didn’t like it—you being her favorite nephew and all—so she put a spell on me so I couldn’t turn myself back, not until you’d kissed me. A kiss given with love and received in kind, that’s what she said, and she made it so I wasn’t able to tell you anything. But it all worked out, you’ve broken the enchantment—well, half of it, anyway, and I think if you were to ask her, she might lift it altogether.”

Aislyn had been speaking more rapidly as she went along, and it took him a moment to sort out all she’d told him. “After?” he repeated slowly. “You mean to say that when we first met—and when we married—you did that yourself?”

“Well, yes, I did,” she said, “it was—well, a joke.”

“A
joke
? You—the wedding, and—and—when you— for a
jest
?”

“Not only for that,” she said quickly. “I had to get away from your mother—she’s the one who was behind that whole Somer Gromer Jour business—”

“What?”
He took a step away from her. “You and my mother are still—”

“No! I haven’t seen her since that night you left Lothian! I’ve been hiding from her ever since, but when I heard about Somer Gromer Jour, I knew it was her plan. And I knew she’d guess ’twas I who gave the king the answer. So I thought I’d be safer here than anywhere, and—I never meant for you to be wed to Dame Ragnelle forever! I just meant to hide here for a time, and to teach you a bit of a . . . I’m sorry for it now,” she added quickly. “I know it was . . .”

Gawain stopped listening. He stared at the bent old woman before him, remembering the first moment he had laid eyes upon her in the forest and all that happened after. Morgana had not arrived on the scene until two—or was it three?—days after they were wed. She’d come early, and he was still abed, reluctant to wake because . . .

“Wait,” he said, cutting off Aislyn’s voice. “Wait. That night. Not our wedding night, the one after, I dreamed . . . or did I? Aislyn, was that—was it a dream?”

The crone seemed to contract upon herself, but her eyes did not waver from his face. “No,” she whispered. “It was not a dream.”

“It was
you
?”

“I thought you didn’t love me,” she cried. “I thought there was another, and—and—”

“You touched me here”—He put a hand to his brow— “and said it was a dream. You
enspelled
me, didn’t you? And then you—we—”

He sat down hard upon the trunk, feeling as though he might be sick. She had lied to him. Again. And this had been no lie borne of desperation, but one chosen of her own free will.

Aislyn was not the victim of enchantment, but its mistress.

She had tricked him, humiliated him, played him for a fool.

She had robbed him of his reason and stolen his will.

She was a
witch
.

Oh, she might say she loved him—she might even believe it—but she did not know the meaning of the word. Witches loved nothing but themselves and their own power. They asked no man’s leave to work their will, and no man could stop them from doing it.

“Gawain, don’t look at me like that!” Aislyn cried, laying her clawlike hands on his shoulders. “I was wrong, I’m sorry—but you were not the only one to suffer. Please, you must believe me—say you do, say that you forgive me—”

Her eyes were brilliant with tears—Aislyn’s eyes, the very eyes he had gazed into the night that vile spell was broken—and five years ago, in Lothian. She had not changed—and, God help him, nor had he. Even knowing what she was, he could not give her up.

“If you love me—” he began.

“I do!” she said, her voice breaking.

“Then renounce magic forever.”

She drew away, looking so stricken that he wanted to call back his words. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that she could never be a wife to him. Not as she was now. He could love her with all his heart until it ceased to beat, but that would not prevent her from using her arts upon him whenever she desired.

“Renounce—” She faltered.

“—Magic,” he said implacably. “Forever.”

“But—but that is impossible,” she cried. “You might as well ask me to tear off my arm.”

He forced himself to speak calmly, hoping against hope she could be reached by reason. “It is not the same at all. Your arm is a part of you—”

“
Magic
is a part of me.”

“Perhaps, but it is a part you need not use. Don’t you see, this is what destroyed our love before! Please, I beg you, give it up. For my sake.”

“No! I cannot!”

“You mean you
will
not,” he said bitterly. “But that is no more than I expected.”

“Expected?” she shot back. “Or
wanted
? Why else would you set impossible barriers around your heart, knowing full well that I must fail to breach them? I am as I am—either you love me for myself or you do not love me at all!”

“You speak to me of love?” he demanded, leaping to his feet. “You know
nothing
of how I love you—how I have always loved you, even when I believed you to be dead—”

“
Especially
then! It is easy to love a dead girl, isn’t it? A memory never argues, she never speaks her mind—”

“Have I
ever
stopped you from speaking, even when it was to insult me before the entire court? Have I treated you unkindly?”

“No, but—”

“I have risked my life and reputation to protect you—all I have is yours—and the one thing I ask in return is that you give up these unnatural powers that have brought us naught but misery!”

“No, don’t you see?” she said, holding out her hands imploringly. “You are asking me to give up a part of myself, a gift I have been given for a purpose and one I have worked hard to master. Oh, I don’t deny I’ve misused it in the past, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do better in the future. I’ve learned from my mistakes—”

“So have I. I’ve learned that for all your years, you are still a thoughtless, selfish child. I am the laughingstock of the court because
you
wanted vengeance for an imagined slight. You ran off without a fare-thee-well—and now the Saxon treaty is in shambles and the king holds me to blame.”

“But I never asked you to fight Gudrun. I told you it was none of your concern! I said—”

“You are my wife!” he shouted over her. “
Everything
you do is my concern. How can you possibly expect me to trust you with any sort of power, let alone something as dangerous as magic?”

“I know I have not always acted wisely, but I would never use any sort of enchantment on you again. Gawain, I love you—”

“Then do as I ask,” he snapped. “A wife owes—”

“You don’t want a wife,” she cried, “you want a mindless servant—”

“I want a woman who can share all my life, not just a part of it! A wife who will be always at my side—not a whore by night and a crone who makes me sick to look upon by day.”

They faced each other across the room, Gawain’s breath rasping in his throat as the red mist of rage faded from his sight.

“Then go to the king and ask him to have our marriage annulled,” she said. “You know he will do it.”

“Aislyn—” he began, then broke off with a curse as a knock sounded on the door.

“What?” he demanded, wrenching it open.

“Sir Gawain,” a page said, gulping as he stepped back. “The king sent me to say you are needed at once.”

“Thank you, I shall come anon.” He shut the door and leaned his brow against it, then turned back to Aislyn. “I spoke in anger and I am sorry for it.”

“I was angry, too,” she said.

“I do not want to have our marriage annulled. I love you.”

“Oh, Gawain—”

He held up his hand. “But I cannot be married to a— witch, enchantress, use whatever word you like. Anything else I could bear—even this—” he said, gesturing toward her crone’s form. “But not magic.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to quarrel any more. That is my decision, and it is final.”

Without waiting for her answer, he walked out.

AISLYN sank down on the bed and put her face in her hands. She wished she could weep, but only a few slow tears wound down her cheeks, the best the crone could manage. Well, she could cry all she wanted to tonight, and for every night after. What else would she have to do?

Unless . . . unless she stayed. Then she could lie in Gawain’s arms and know the same joy she had experienced the other night. All she would have to do was renounce her powers forever.

No! She could not—
would
not do it. No matter what Gawain might think, this decision wasn’t selfishness on her part, or even the desire for control. How much easier life would be if Gawain made all the decisions, and she had naught to do but enjoy his love and bask in his approval! But it would be a betrayal of the gift she had been given— by whom, she hadn’t yet decided, though she was sure it was Someone, just as she was certain she had been given it for a purpose. To deny it was to deny not only herself, but that greater power she had glimpsed after the Saxon baby’s birth. She had known then that she was but a tiny part of something greater than she could ever comprehend, and yet even a speck like her had a part to play, and the duty to play it to the best of her ability, using every talent she had been given to the utmost.

If only Gawain wasn’t so stubborn about magic! But perhaps there was a way. If she could prove to him that it could do as much good as ill . . .

She took Morgause’s grimoire from her bag and set it on the table, where it fell open to a spell to wither a man’s potency. Well, yes, that was bad, but here was another that would restore the luster to a woman’s skin and the brightness to her hair. Not terribly useful, she thought, turning the page, but still, not harmful, not like . . . ugh. That would have to hurt. Flipping quickly past, she paused briefly at a page, grimacing as she wondered what it would be like to lose all one’s teeth in a single night.

Now, here was something . . . or no, it was a spell to cause cramping of the legs, not to ease it—but this next one would turn the speaker invisible, and that could come in very handy for the king. She scanned the ingredients and cast a guilty glance at Sooty, deciding it would be better not to mention this one to Gawain. Turning each page, she found spells she had learned and used to good advantage, though for every one that brought ease and healing there were five to cause harm or even death.

She slammed the grimoire shut.

Perhaps Gawain did have some reason for his prejudice. This was his mother’s book of spells after all, and what else did he know of magic but what he’d learned from her?

Well,
she thought, resting her chin in her palm,
and what he learned from me. What I showed him was no better than any of this.