Merlin's Harp (16 page)

  Morgan had taught her son this vision of Arthur, Caliburn, and himself. This was her mother-gift to him.

  I came back gratefully to outer reality to hear Merlin say, "Morgan, your son will come with us as Arthur's hostage."

  Mordred's dark lashes fluttered in surprise. He backed slowly away, edging around the table. But Morgan answered flatly, "So be it. Mordred should meet his uncle."

  And Mordred stood still as a puppet hung from a stick that passes from hand to hand. I did not want to move again into that dark mind and know its thoughts. I shook his spiritual touch off me like dried mud. But I knew I did not care to ride all the way back to Arthur's dun with this beautiful, rotten young man. Guarding him—and ourselves from him—would require endless wakefulness.

  Morgan and Mordred exchanged a long, deep glance. Her gaze unfaltering, she continued, "The High King is Mordred's uncle, you know."

  I felt like a wild-animal trainer I once saw at Arthur's court, standing between bear and wolf, armed only with a short whip.

Midsummer Night; Flowering Moon.

  As on many a night, I walked the rampart above the dun. Humans being more unpredictable than bears, I preferred to watch them from a distance. The rampart allowed me to walk unimpeded and breathe free air, as I could not do in our wicker hut. And up here I could think without interruption.

  Under a dark moon I met ghosts up here. Warriors from ancient times drifted in my path, for Arthur's dun was built upon an older one. Skin-clad women cradled scrawny babies. Weird animals lumbered in air: immense hogs with long, swinging noses; enormous, dagger-toothed cats. I was not sure if these were thought-forms created in song and story down in the dun or true spirits.

  But tonight was magic. After a heady day's celebration the dun still buzzed and hummed. Fires bloomed on street corners. Giants laughed and gamed and fought, children ran and shouted. The noise drove my thoughts in dizzy circles.

  Tonight the moon flowered. Clearer than the mumbling roar of the dun I almost heard distant pipes, distant drums. My walk bounced and skipped and slipped into dance.

  Close ahead, a voice chuckled. Utterly startled, I moved no muscle, but studied the rampart ahead. A man was wrapped in an "invisible" hooded mantle.

  He blocked my path, feet planted wide, arms folded under his mantle. "God's blood!" he said merrily, "Mage Niviene spies on my dun by moonlight!"

  I murmured, "My Lord."

  He tossed back his hood so my Fey eyes could search his face. "Walk with me," he commanded, smiling. And he turned to allow me to step beside him.

  Side-by-side we swung along the narrow rampart ridge. Arthur smelled mildly of leather, sweat, and gentle lust. Glancing up sideways, I saw pride in his large face, gazing down past me at King's Hall.

  He said, "You did good work for me last spring, bringing Caliburn home."

  "I fear we did you a disservice too."

  "You mean Mordred," Arthur said instantly. "I can handle Mordred."

  "My Lord, he has great plans for himself."

  Arthur chuckled.

  I tried a nearer approach. "Mordred goes about now stirring your knights up…"

  "Against me?"

  "Not yet. But he rouses interest in what has been more or less secret."

  "Not secret, Niviene. Unregarded."

  We strolled above Queen's Hall. It came to me that if Lugh slipped into Queen's Hall in high moonlight we might see him. Maybe that was Arthur's intention here tonight.

Past the hall, he said, "Mordred has great plans?"

"I know he has."

"You have seen them in his mind!" Arthur teased.

Quietly, I assented. "Yes, I have."

  "And do you see the great plans in my mind?" He stopped, took my chin in his left hand, and tilted my face to his. "Show me your skill, Mage! Read my mind."

  By moonlight a Human would have seen only darkness in his eyes. I saw humor, pride, and…affection. (For me?) I sank easily into his mind and heart and read him, as he asked. I said, "You have held back the Saxons and preserved your kingdom. Now you mean to enlarge it."

  "And then?"

  "You mean to invade another people…I cannot quite see…"

  "The Romans!" Excitement edged his voice.

  The Romans were the folk who built Lady Villa, and other villas and towns. The Latin we were speaking was their language. That was all the Romans meant to me. But in Arthur's mind they represented supreme power and glory. Conquest of the Romans and their eternal city, Rome, would make him king of the world.

  "And then…you want to create a new age…change the world…"

  "I intend a golden age such as has never been seen on earth."

  "…Swords into plows…"

  "Wars will end."

  "Virgins…hung with jewels…"

  "In my kingdom a virgin wearing a golden crown will be able to carry a golden grail to Hadrian's Wall, and no man will touch her!"

  I said firmly, "That will never be." I had seen too much of Human nature.

  Arthur laughed. "What I say will be, will be. They said the Saxons were here to stay. But I myself killed nine hundred of them in a day!"

  "With the Goddess's help, remember." Though I had never yet understood that.

  "What?" Arthur's hand dropped from my chin. "What Goddess helped me?"

  "She who is painted on your shield."

  "God's wounds, Niviene, no Goddess is painted on my shield!" It seemed I had insulted him. "That painting shows God's holy mother Mary!"

  "In truth." As I had said, a Goddess. I was glad to know she was not
the
Goddess, for I had long wondered why She would favor one of Her sons above another. But a Christian Goddess would favor Christian over pagan, for sure. Truly wanting to understand, I asked, "This Goddess's child will grow up and be crucified?"

  "Yes."

  I wondered aloud, "Why could His holy mother not prevent that?"

  Under the Flowering Moon I saw Arthur's eyes change. I felt his aura tingle, burn, and expand. The giant standing over me seemed to grow immense wings, like the spirits painted in Christian chapels; and I thought, "Gods, he has risen into spirit!"

  I rose in spirit myself and joined him.

  We walked the sky, halfway to the Flowering Moon. Far below us, two statue-quiet figures faced one another on a high earth rampart. Below them on one side stretched earth, Goddess-lovely, clothed in silver night; on the other side Human bodies walked, made love, fought, ate or slept; Human spirits hovered like shining bees over clover, some in the flowers, and some slightly above. A very few stood with us in the sky, like distant stars. The nearest of these I thought might be Merlin.

  Beside me, Arthur shone like a star. His light eclipsed and embraced my own. Contemplating his mysterious religion, he had lost himself, and I saw no trace of pride, arrogance, or ambition in the star he had become. I saw only the love I had glimpsed once before, lavished upon his land and his people, and now upon his Gods.

  His star burned out quickly and he sank back into flesh. I followed him down.

  He seemed unconscious of having gone anywhere else. He answered my question—Why could not His holy mother have prevented that—as though it had just left my lips. And maybe it had. Time passes differently in the spirit.

  Arthur murmured, "And thine own heart a sword shall pierce."

  "What?"

  "A prophet told her that. A seer, like Merlin. She knew from the beginning that she would suffer. She sacrificed herself for the world."

  I saw that he was thinking of the sacrifices he himself had made and would yet make, for his world. He added, "In the end a sword pierces every heart."

  "Not mine!" I told him quickly. "No sword will pierce my heart ever again, for I have no heart."

  Arthur looked down at me and laughed. Like a strong wind, his laughter blew away the shreds of solemn grandeur that had clung about him. He drew my hand under his arm and walked us along, free-striding. "I will let countless swords pierce mine," he said, "so I become king of the world, and bards will sing of me at a thousand hearths for a thousand years! History will remember me forever!"

  "History?"

  "Such history as monks write on parchment in dim cells, far from the roar of battle. But I suppose you know nothing of monks."

  "I am not ignorant. I have met monks."

  "And how did they greet you, Lady? I'll wager they thought you a temptation sent by Satan personally."

  "They might have, my Lord, if I had not been disguised as a dirty, rough young boy."

  Arthur's laughter startled a small herd of ponies feeding just below us. Snorting, the stallion trotted out of the rampart shadow and looked fiercely about.

  Intrigued, amused, and incautious for once in my life, I said, "If you want history to remember you, rob no more monasteries."

  Arthur stopped mid-stride. He swung me around to face him, and I looked up into a storm of rage. If I had been Human I would have sunk at his feet, cut down by sheer terror. Being Fey, I drew myself taller than ever before as he grabbed both my shoulders in fists suddenly turned iron.

  Seduced by Arthur's high, rich spirit, warmed by his easy-seeming companionship, I had forgotten how Human he was. To a Human who wore a crown, spoke Latin, and ate the grain of his own lands without labor, my words had been supremely insulting.

  "Rob?" he roared down into my face. "Rob no more monasteries? When by God's bones and blood did I rob monasteries?"

  His fists held me up. Below us, the stallion neighed louder than Arthur's shout and rushed away with his mares.

  Arthur shook me as a woman shakes laundry. "What do you mean? When did I rob? By God's wounds, you will answer me!"

  I could not. Shocked and fearful for my life, I yet could not speak to a Human who handled me so. Nature and training forbade.

  Arthur's huge hands found my throat. His face had gone deadly pale, his eyes wild and wide. I prepared to rise into spirit for good.

  His hands fell away. He gaped down at me, panting. Quickly, I stepped well back from him. He muttered, "Forgive me, Mage. I forgot who you were."

  I made shift to nod. I had forgotten who he was too.

  "I heard the word 'rob,'" he went on. "Maybe you were joking?"

  Out of reach I drew myself up very straight, tipped my head back, and looked him in the eyes. I drew a hurting breath, cleared my throat, and croaked, "Since you ask courteously, I will answer your question. You took monastery wealth to pay for the Battle of Badon. Therefore, a monk I know who writes history will not name you in his work."

  Arthur breathed hard. "I see," he panted. "Would he have preferred to be abandoned to the Saxons? That was the choice."

  I said nothing. He stepped toward me, I stepped back. He asked, "I suppose you will not reveal this fool of a monk's name."

  "You suppose rightly."

  He stepped toward me, I stepped back.

  "Niviene," he whispered, and stopped. He cleared his throat and said clearly, "Niviene. I did not mean to touch you roughly."

  "I believe you." I did.

  "But I was meaning to touch you. I have meant to touch you now for…years. Have you wanted it, Niviene?"

  "No."

"Did you not enjoy our first meeting?"

"I did…very much."

"Then…" I backed slowly before his slow advance.

"At our second meeting I told you I am given to magic—"

"I have respected that."

"Yes, you have."

"No Christian nun has received more respect from me."

  Amazingly, even as I backed away, I was responding to him. How could I do that? This man had just choked me!

  "Niviene, my doe…"

  "No…"

  "Walk with me. After twenty years, walk with me!"

  I hesitated, and his arm came heavy and warm around me. I let him walk me off the rampart entirely and down the outer bank into the great summer meadow below. I let him press me down on earth's breast, shadowed from the moon under grass and flowers.

  There I lost my power.

  Greedily the Goddess sucked away my power that I had stolen from Her.

  Even as delight (almost forgotten except in dreams) overwhelmed me, I felt my power drain away into earth where it belonged, sinking like water into thirsty land.

  For a while I could not think at all. The first thought that pierced my delicious confusion was,
Powerless, how shall I stop Mordred? I
have left Merlin to fight Mordred alone.

Lammas Day morning, bright-hot.

  Basket on arm, I walked boldly around Queen's Hall and into Gwen's garden. Women with baskets wandered there, gathering herbs and chattering. One plunked a lute in the shade. As I came into the garden the lute fell silent. So did the women, mid-gossip.

  I paused, looking for Gwen. Sunshine beat down on green and blue gowns and ribboned plaits. Round eyes and slack mouths stared at me. In my white gown under that sun, I must have shone like a Roman marble statue.

  I felt my loss of power. I felt as Gwen must have felt in the Fey forest, years ago, lost in a land where she did not know the language, mind-misted.