Merlin's Harp (5 page)

  "By the Gods, I cannot say!"

  Elana scrutinized me. "You like Mellias."

  "I…yes. I like him." I had been thinking of dancing with him at the Flowering Moon, now days away.

  "Niv," Elana said, "listen to Counsel's leaves."

  I listened. I heard the wind in the leaves become voices, far away, indistinct. Bird calls drowned their words. "I can't hear, Elana."

  "Maybe Merlin will prophesy. They won't send those two out there without a prophecy!"

"Maybe the Lady will read her crystal…"

  So we consoled each other in the sunshine, on soft moss, at the massive foot of Counsel Oak.

* * *

Merlin's even-lengthed fingers swept the strings of the small harp he called Enchanter.

  He sat cross-legged away from the fire, on the edge of the dark, and as his fingers woke the magic strings they sighed like the leaves of Counsel Oak. I shivered a little, and my eyelids sank, that I might better see bright dreams.

  I jerked myself awake. On this night I wanted to see and observe and remember, not to be magicked by some wild Human story.

  Our feast-fire barely glowed in the stone fireplace. Elana and Lugh sat leaning together, staring into the coals. Mellias dozed, stretched out on his back, one foot balanced on one raised knee.

  Beside him his captive Gwen crouched, half-awake. Through the tatters of the blue gown her slim body shone, moon-white. When the thought occurred she pulled her long, loose hair over her breasts, only to let it go a moment later. Her vague eyes passed over Merlin— whom she knew—as though over a stranger, and lingered on Lugh.

  Eyes bright, sitting up squirrel-straight, the Lady sent me a barely visible smile and raised her fingers to sign, You grip your wits abou
t
you!

  I smiled back. We understood each other.

  Under Merlin's fingers the harp Enchanter leaf-rustled, waterrippled, wind-sang; and Merlin began a story.

  Then, in quick prose: "Here comes my hero, Sir Tristam, over the sea—which is a very large lake—in his ship, which is a very large coracle. And Sir Tristam himself is a very large hero, a Human, what we call a giant; and the maiden who comes to greet him, dark hair blowing, bright gown flowing, the Princess Yseult, is a giantess like Gwen."

  I looked at Gwen and imagined Yseult more clearly than ever before—though of course Yseult was richly clad and in her right mind. It was not Gwen's fault that she crouched near-naked among enemies. She might well be the heroine of a great Latin song, for she was lovely, fairer to see than…than the Lady, whose beauty was famed in the forest. And beauty makes a Human heroine, I have noticed. Wit, gift, and power are of far less account. In truth, Human women of mind or magic are usually evil-doers in Human tales.

  The story progressed. Sir Tristam, a knight such as Lugh so admired, had come to seek Yseult—not to lie with her, strangely, but to take her back home so his uncle, King Mark, could lie with her. (This part of the tale is impossible to explain to Fey, and Merlin did not try. He merely remarked that the Human way of life demanded some odd activities.) Yseult agreed to go lie with King Mark, sight unseen. And her mother, one of those suspect women of mind and magic, gave her a love potion to share with King Mark, so they two would surely love each other.

  Now Merlin's harp music rolled like the sea that Tristam and Yseult sailed together. They feasted under the tilting stars and Yseult's maid brought them a drink to share; by bitter ill fortune, that drink was the mother's love potion.

  Now, Yseult's mother knew her magic spells! As soon as Tristam and Yseult drank that potion they fell deeply, hopelessly, forever in love. They were bewitched (as I thought Elana must be bewitched. So foolish, so Human was she about the only one she loved, Elana reminded me powerfully of this story. Here I found the only possible explanation of her condition.).

  So Tristam and Yseult loved where, by Human custom and thought, they must not love. They desired only each other, and King Mark and his kingdom could sink into the underworld for all they cared. Here began much grief and torment for Mark, and for his kingdom, and for the bewitched lovers.

  Merlin's harp music sank away now from roar to murmur, from water-ripple to leaf-rustle.

  Elana leaned her head on Lugh's shoulder, wet-eyed, and dreamy. One plump, white hand had captured one of his.

  Lugh looked over Elana's head at Gwen.

  Gwen looked at Lugh as though she saw him through her Mushroom fog.

  And Merlin struck the harp, Enchanter, one final, deep chord that echoed even in my heart.

* * *

Bright under the rising sun, East River swirled under our two coracles. Flocks of ducks and swans rose on thundering wings as we bore down on them. They flew over us and settled in our wake.

  Gwen, Mellias, and I rode in one coracle, Lugh and Elana in the other. Elana and I held the poles athwart the rims. Rushing downstream, we had no need to pole.

  Between gleaming sun and glinting water I saw my friends, birds, the trees leaning over the banks, as solid figures only, catching and reflecting sunlight as Merlin tells me the moon does, itself lightless. But I could feel the auras I could not see. From Gwen in my boat to Lugh in Elana's stretched a taut line of power. Steadily, Lugh watched Gwen; and Elana's furious gray gaze should have bored a hole in the back of his head. When their coracle bumped ours I felt Elana's rage like a whirlpool around both coracles.

  Gwen sat silent, staring at passing trees. Her focusing eyes showed that the Mushroom was wearing off. At East Edge she should be able to mount the palfrey Merlin had found for her, a thing she must do every day in her kingdom life. She might even remember some of what she saw now swiftly glide past: close, dark trees, flying ducks, a tree house overhanging water, small dark children splashing.

  Mellias groomed himself like a happy otter. He loosened his braid and did it up, brushed leaves from his tunic, checked and rechecked his bulging pouches. Mellias was going far.

  "But why, Mellias?" I had asked him sadly.

  "You surprise me, Niviene! Have you never wanted to see the world?"

  "Why, no." The thought had never brushed my mind.

  "And you hearing Merlin's stories when you were small! And seeing pictures!"

  "I was quite content with stories and pictures, Mellias. I still am."

  "Never mind, Sweet. I'll be back before the moon flowers twice."

  "I do not think so." I had a gloomy vision of vast distance, suspended time.

  "I'll dance with you yet for the Flowering Moon, Niviene. That thought will bring me back!"

"They say you are going as Lugh's…servant."

"Whatever that is, yes."

"It is not a noble role, Mellias. And I hope you can handle horses."

"What?"

"You will be on or near horses the entire time."

  "Ah? In truth? I had some idea about a ship, you know, as in the story. A very large coracle on a very large river."

  "Horses."

  "Ah. Ahm." For the first time, Mellias sounded doubtful. But then Lugh came to us shining, big with excitement as a woman with child; and they trotted away together, merrily finger-talking.

  I marveled at this yen for adventure shared by males as different as Mellias and my brother. Nothing, I thought, would ever draw me away from the safe shadows of our forest.

  East River widened and slowed. Trees along the banks thinned out, patches of sunrise light speckled the forest floor. I glanced over at Elana and nodded.

  She sat in a thundercloud of her own making. I gasped, my heart lurched, at sight of her miserable fury.

  But she saw my nod and raised her pole as I raised mine. Together we thrust poles down through clear water and weeds into firm bottom. Together we turned the coracles into shore. Cautiously we crept around the next bend, poling through rustling reeds, invisible among them; for now we were at the eastern edge of the forest, which we had guarded as children—actually on the edge of the Human kingdom.

  I stood up to look over the swaying reeds and the bank and saw again the kingdom stretch out before me. (I had not expected to see this sight so soon again. I still expected a quiet, hidden life on Apple Island, or in the secret depths of our forest, far and safe from this expanse of sky and treeless earth, and the confused, driven folk who worked in it.)

  Pasture bordered the forest, grazing for great flocks of sheep and goats and small herds of half-wild ponies. Beyond, smoke from three thatched villages smudged the sunrise. In their midst reared Midsummer Tor, a small cone-shaped hill where Elana and I had danced with Humans one midsummer night. ( To this day I never glimpse that tor but I remember.) Between us and the tor, bowed men and strained oxen were plowing fields.

  Skylarks dived and sang in the brightening sky. The calls of sheep and cattle came to us in the reeds, and smells of dung and smoke and another, close, hot animal smell I could not place. And all this flat, foreign distance lay perfectly open before us, screened by an occasional great shade tree and a few hedgerows where a rabbit might vanish, but not a Fey. The awful vista caught my breath and stilled my heart, as it always had.

  We climbed out of the coracles and splashed to shore. Elana and I dragged in the coracles. Only Gwen sat still, misty-eyed, white hands folded in lap.

  Lugh splashed to her. He lifted her out of the coracle, this great, powerful boy; he carried her in his arms and set her ragged-slippered feet on the bank and steadied her, his muscled arm tight about her waist.

  This surprised me, but I forgot it as Merlin appeared beside us, the Lady at his elbow. They had horses waiting in the forest shadows. ( That was the source of the baffling animal smell.) They had a sack of clothing, light armor for Lugh, a gown and cloak for Gwen. Merlin would go as he was, and Lugh's deaf servant needed no finery.

  The Lady gave the rolled-up gown and cloak to Gwen, who cradled them as she might cradle a baby.

  "Dress yourself," the Lady told her.

  Gwen stood, swaying, hugging the bundle.

  "You can dress yourself." The Lady rose tiptoe to peer up into Gwen's eyes. "Mushroom's wearing off…ah. I know." She turned to us. "She wants to dress hidden."

  Buckling his new cuirass, Lugh snorted. "In truth! Elana, take her into that thicket and help her."

  "What!" Elana stiffened. "What?"

  "Help Gwen dress."

  "Is she a baby?"

  "She's a Roman lady, Elana. She's a Queen." Lugh seemed to think those words would silence all argument.

  I stood there amazed. Lugh did not see auras. Obviously he did not see the storm cloud in which Elana stood. But could he not feel her rage and grief, as even Human haymakers feel a coming storm? Lugh went on struggling with the unfamiliar buckles, and Mellias played with the new weapons, hefting and testing. Neither seemed to notice anything unusual about Elana.

  Myself, I reacted and sneaked the knife from her belt. Myself, I took Gwen's large, freckled fingers in my small, brown hand and led her away.

  In a thicket well known to Elana and me I took Elana's knife and slit Gwen's rags off her. Naked, she swayed like a gold-freckled birch. She shuddered in the sudden chill, and her gray eyes brightened a bit.

  I considered her. Unwillingly I called, "Elana! We need a comb here."

  Glowering, Elana materialized beside me and handed me a bone comb. I offered it to Gwen, but she only stared at it. So myself, I went to work on her long bright hair.

  Combing, I said, "Elana. You know why Gwen is going home safely to her man. And you know why Lugh is going with her."

  "And you know, Niviene, that Lugh will never come back."

  My combing hand paused. Gwen stood placid as a well-trained horse.

  Darkness whipped around Elana like a cloak. She clapped hand to where her knife should have hung and froze, astonished.

  "Elana," I asked quietly, "why do you give Lugh such power to hurt you?"

  Elana opened her mouth, but no words came out. She raised her fingers to answer me.

  
Lugh is the one. The only one.

  I should have known that.

  I must have known that.

  I asked nothing more of Elana. Myself, I braided Gwen's amazing, glinting hair into one long plait and bound it with her own ribbon from my pouch. Myself, I took the bundled blue gown from her arms, rose tiptoe, and wrestled it over her head. While she pushed her arms into the sleeves I swung the brown cloak over her shoulders. There she stood combed and dressed, once more lovely to me as a goddess. (I had no notion how modest her outfit was. She should have worn a tunic and overgown, gathered with a jeweled girdle. A knife should have stood in the girdle, and keys on a gold chain, and her slippers should have been clean; and a light veil would have done no harm.)

  I said, "Come, Gwen," and tugged at her fingers and led her away past Elana, out to the others. Lugh looked up at her from his new sword and stood thunderstruck.

  Sun glinted off his cuirass and helmet. (Impossible now for Lugh to vanish in a thicket!) He looked like any very young knight who might ride past the forest edge, glancing uneasily into the shadows. Elana and I used to toss cones from treetops at such and laugh to see them touch new spurs to horse.