Mercedes Lackey - Anthology (23 page)

 
          
Better
make time to understand what's going on, he warned himself. Assuming you
have
it, after a battle of this size. Mordred must have
called in not just the Saxons but the Danes. He makes Vortigern look like a
puppy dog.

 
          
He
tried to make himself laugh. If only the sun would rise! Even if he couldn't
see it, he would feel it. He always had more strength after dawn, had always
counted on it. He tried to laugh again.

 
          
Skreeeeee!

 
          
The
enraged hawk's shriek nearly deafened him. He began to topple backward and was
caught.

 
          
By
jesses.

 
          
He
would have sold his patrimony, assuming anything was left of the kingdom he had
inherited from
Lot
, if he could Sign himself, but the bells,
rang again.

 
          
Trinket bells, bestowed upon a prize hawk.

 
          
Gawain,
lad, he told himself again, just so he'd be sure of it, you've been
transmigrated. Translated, you could say.
Into the body of a
hawk.
Left here on this . . . what
was it
, what
was it... it was an oak tree . . . while his uncle Arthur fought his son for
the mastery of
Britain
.

 
          
Skreeeeee!

 
          
Oh,
God, his head.

 
          
He
reeled again, to be rescued by his jesses.

 
          
Arthur
had needed Gawain, needed his support, and he had failed him. Once, he'd failed
in charity, turning against his uncle when he knew that Lancelot would have
sacrificed anything to save brother Gareth—except the Queen. A second time,
Gawain had failed in strength, when he had fallen and died. So he had had to
come back and "this time, do it right!"
The old
armsmaster's command.

 
          
What
did
Whatever—
he doubted it was God—think he could do
in the body of a hawk?

 
          
"Ah,
so you are awake now?" a voice whispered in the oak leaves, still tender
in their early-May growth. When the sun struck them, they would be almost transparent,
like green silk. Assuming he could get this damned hood off.

 
          
He
knew that voice. He grimaced, and heard the snap of his sharp beak on
nothingness.
All that blood and no tidbit for the hawk?
He had taught his young warriors better falconry than that.

 
          
Belike,
they were all dead now. And he was trussed past his power to fly away and teach
the selfish bastards what it meant to stint a hawk.

 
          
I
seem to be fresh out of mice, the voice rustled again in the leaves, husky and
ironic. The tree seemed to shake, as if a man chuckled deep in his chest—and
the joke was on Gawain.

 
          
Jesus,
he always had hated it when Merlin got sarcastic.

 
          
You
are not the only one named for a raptor, you know. But for the past few years,
since Nimue locked me in this tree, I have dined on sun and rainwater and
soil—a surprisingly pleasant diet.

 
          
Shut
up, old wizard, Gawain wished. He hadn't been the only fighting man who'd
breathed a sigh of relief when Merlin disappeared. Arthur's mage—who had just
had to turn out to be some sort of cousin, too—had been as bad as the old
women. Talking, always talking at him about old ways and strangenesses when
there were battles to be won, kin to be protected. If this hood were off, he'd
peck strips of bark off Merlin's tree, see if he did not.

 
          
We
have no time to waste on these pleasantries, Merlin told him, as arrogant in
his prison within the oak as if he still stood behind Arthur's chair,
intimidating his household. We are family, of a sort, Merlin continued. We owe
it to our blood to lay any quarrels we had aside.

 
          
Like
the battle that's still going on?

 
          
Of
course, his question came out skreeeeeel
Not
as angry
as Gawain's last outcry, but then hawks, like men, had different tones and
different voices. In the name of God, Gawain didn't know who was winning this
fight!

 
          
We
were so close to peace!
the
wizard's voice lamented.
One moment
longer,
and Arthur would have made peace
with his son on the field at Cam-lann. Not a good peace, but it would suffice
to let us build a better. And then, that idiot had to draw his sword upon an
asp, breaking peacebonds. All my hopes, shattered again.

 
          
It
must have been hell on Merlin, knowing himself trapped, unable to act. As hard
as it was now for Gawain to listen to the final throes of this battle, to know
his uncle needed every man, to realize that he had been raised from the dead,
but now was no man at all, but a hawk. For the first time in his life—his
lives—Gawain felt a pang of fellow-feeling for the wizard.

 
          
By
now, said Merlin, dispelling Gawain's brief flicker of kinship with him, even
you must realize that your soul has transmigrated. You have what men have
always wanted—a second chance. Make amends, reparations for your sins, and then
fly free.

 
          
Damn
the wizard, he wasn't teaching fledgling mages. Warriors survived by planning
as much as by heart and prowess.

 
          
Gawain
shifted on his oaken perch. Sword-play echoed in the distance, the sound cupped
by the valley, magnified by the water. He could smell smoke: the Saxons' ships
had been burned. Someone screamed,
then
gurgled.
Another voice, high as the witless song of an old man turned childish, called
out three names before falling silent in its turn. All that blood—blood, flesh,
waste from gut wounds, but not so much as a haunch of rabbit or even rat for
the likes of him! Gawain mantled in hunger, rage, and dismay.

 
          
Hush!

 
          
Rustles,
not leaf-sound, but footsteps, imperfectly concealed, and the occasional crack
of a twig drew nearer and nearer. Gawain heard a whisper of music, breathing
along his nerves. Hawk he might be, but his blood was of the old line and the
Old Way
ran in it.

 
          
Merlin
was working a spell, perhaps one of the few left to him.

 
          
You
had better work fast, Gawain told him. Something is coming.

 
          
In
the aftermath of a battle, the pillers and reavers slunk out to plunder the
dead or hasten the living after them. A fine falcon, left on its perch by a
warrior who never returned, could be easily snatched and sold.

 
          
Gawain
had had little truck with such human carrion in his human life. Just let a
robber lay hands upon him . . .

 
          
Not
so bold, my feathered kinsman, Merlin cautioned. This is a thief you need.

 
          
Abruptly,
Gawain's mind flashed back to a happy evening when Arthur and his men lounged
around the firepit, Gawain's aunt the Queen pouring wine for them all—a Saxon
custom, though they called it Roman to put her in heart—and Palomedes told of a
creature of his homeland, caught and imprisoned in a bottle for years and years
on end. A djinni, he called it.

 
          
For
the first century, the djinni vowed to give his rescuers power and gold.

 
          
For
the second, he promised thanks. But during the third hundred years of his
imprisonment, he swore to kill the laggards who had not found him and released
him.

 
          
The
knights had applauded the canny fisherman who'd tricked the djinni back into
its bottle, calling the tale a wonder fit for Arthur's hall, and then they
wandered off to bed. Even then, Gawain knew better than to speculate who would
wind up in bed with whom.

 
          
I
will kill this thief, Gawain told the imprisoned wizard. Would not you? I will.
I will.

 
          
The
rustling grew nearer. The music thrummed again.
More of
Merlin's work.

 
          
Gawain
forced immobility upon himself. The thief would have to take him down from his
perch before unhooding him. If he mantled, he could startle the man, and then
his beak, sharp as any blade, would serve to maim or kill. He'd peck himself
free of these damnable jesses.

 
          
And then what?

 
          
Not
strategy, perhaps, worthy of an Alexander or even an Arthur, but it would serve
against offal.

 
          
Nearer.

 
          
Come
closer, prey. Gawain shifted on his perch, hoping that
the tiny bells adorning him—a falconer's vanity—would lure the thief in closer.
Hood and bells might fetch a good price all by themselves. He remembered the
sounds of contented falcons in their mews. He made them.

 
          
The
branch rocked as a hand, tentative at first, then grasping, reached for him,
placed him on a padded arm, drew breath in admiration, and then—an idiot as
well as a thief—removed his hood.

 
          
Moon
and starlight struck Gawain's eyes. His sight was changed from human sight, but
even so, keen senses told him it was a fine May night, or would have been, if
any night so full of treason, pain, and death could be called fine. Now, he
would add to it.

 
          
He
mantled, screaming threat and fury.

 
          
And
felt
himself
dropped.

 
          
He
caught himself, a beat of his wings on the smoky air. In the moonlight, he saw
his prey: a bloodsmeared, ragged boy,
more wild
thing
than thief.

 
          
Take
his eyes, Gawain. Go ahead, do. Take his life, Merlin challenged. He fears you.
He even admires you—such a fine, fierce, valuable hawk. What stops you?

 
          
If
I fail now, what becomes of me? Gawain asked the mage.

 
          
He
spared a glance for his would-be falconer. Terrified, scrawny the young thief
might be, but he watched Gawain with admiration.

 
          
Here
was a boy, Gawain saw it clearly,
who
wanted more than
he had. He wanted to be more than he was: a warrior, perhaps, with helm and
shield, bright sword, and hawk. He had helmet and shield: Gawain recognized the
heraldry, although his vision was changed from when he had walked as mortal
man.

 
          
I
can't kill a child, Gawain said.

 
          
He
belled, then settled his wings and stroked his beak against his feathers in a
grooming reflex he had not known he possessed.

 
          
I
knew a cat like that, said Merlin. Let him stumble in midleap, and he would
groom himself as if telling the world, "I meant to do that."

 
          
Quiet, wizard.
But Gawain's attention was mostly for his would-be
falconer.

 
          
Gawain
made himself chirp. The boy's eyes widened with astonished joy. He wrapped a
cloak too long and too fine—and too sword-rent—to be anything but spoils about
his arm and offered the makeshift perch for Gawain's approval.