I could feel Igrane’s eyes on me. I was standing half turned, so I could look from her to Mael. The pain lashed me; it hit without warning in my right hand and forearm. It was savage. I knew I made some sound of distress and the room darkened around me. Perspiration broke out all over my face and body. I could just barely see Igrane jerk her head at me in an arrogant, summoning gesture. Come now or suffer the consequences, she seemed to say.
Mael’s voice penetrated my consciousness. “Give me your hand,” he said again.
Hand/ What hand? I could barely breathe, the pain was so terrible. She eyed me across the distance between us with veiled, cold, malicious satisfaction, but I stood my ground; and then the pain ceased, leaving me limp, almost staggering, with relief.
No, I thought stubbornly. No, 1 am not signing that contract. Nor am I allowing it to be signed. I glanced back at my new “relations.” They looked amused. I couldn’t think why. How could they know what a battle was going on?
“It appears,” Kiernan said, “that the queen wants you.”
“Yes,” I answered. “I believe she does, but she may be sorry when she gets me.”
Then I turned on my heel and started toward the three of them. As I did, the whisper of part of a conversation between my three new relatives came to me so dimly heard that I almost couldn’t be sure that the voice wasn’t in my mind.
“I wouldn’t miss this particular encounter for anything in the world.” The speaker was Mael.
Most of the guests were seated now, and so I had to run a gauntlet of disapproving stares as I walked around the fire pit toward Merlin and Igrane. They were standing together before the high seat, with Arthur a little bit to one side. Merlin held a piece of vellum in his hand. I tried to consider my choices dispassionately. I could sign the contract, but why bother? If I did, it would look as if I were going along with their plans. I might do that and hope to slip away when one of them was distracted by other matters. That might be my best chance; but in yielding to coercion, often one compromise leads to another and then another, until you find yourself in too deep to back away.
No, if I wanted the opportunity to lead my life, instead of the one they planned for me, then I must take a stand now. I might well fail, but real freedom is worth almost any sacrifice, or at least so Dugald and the Gray Watcher taught me to believe; and most of all, I wanted my freedom and my life back. So thinking, I reached the part of the feasting hall where Merlin, Igrane, and Arthur stood.
Merlin asked the same thing my ostensible father had. “Give me your hand,” he said.
“No,” I answered.
His very handsome face flushed and then paled. He hitched up his sword belt. Then suddenly, without warning, he leaned forward, his face inches from mine. Behind him, I saw his guard, all black armor and gleaming metal, shift and surround him.
“I’ve had about as much of you as I care to take,” he whispered.
Pain lanced through my arm. This time it was really bad. My first thought was I’m going to ruin my dress and shift. Perspiration broke out again all over me. My hand and arm felt like they had been thrust into a fire.
“Stop,” I said hoarsely. “Stop, or I’m going to piss on myself in front of the whole room.”
“Yes, stop.” The voice echoing my own was Arthur’s. “How in the hell is it going to look if she collapses in front of every important family in the kingdom? Stop. Now.”
The words poured out in a rush. I almost lost my footing as the abrupt cessation of pain staggered me.
Arthur reached over the table and caught my arm to steady me, and went on speaking.
“Maybe the two of you aren’t afraid of the taint of scandal, but I am. I won’t have my name on every tongue as a torturer and murderer of children. Do you hear me? Stop!” Then he turned to me. “I told you not to say no. I warned you.”
I’d gotten both my breath and my footing back. I twisted and jerked my arm out of his grasp. “They have kin of mine here to make it legal,” I said. “But the answer is no. I will not become your legal concubine. No!” I spat at him.
Merlin turned to Igrane. The great sorcerer, archdruid of Britain, looked petulant. “I thought you told me you had given her enough pain to render her compliant?”
Igrane was staring at me, her face pale, lips white with fury. They are lovers, I thought. I don’t know why it came to me then, but I knew it was so.
“I thought I had,” she whispered in a voice hoarse with rage. “But I’m better at it than you are. I’ll use a little glamour, dear Arthur, so they don’t see… truly, my sweet, we will only seem to be deep in conversation, but in a very short time…” Her hand was rising toward me. “She will do anything I tell her to do.”
“No!” I shrieked. My hand shot out as though it had a life of its own.
It snapped shut on Igrane’s wrist. Her sleeve burst into flame. She twisted away from me, hissing like an infuriated serpent.
“Fire,” Merlin whispered. “I’ll give you fire—”
And my silk dress went up with a roar. All around us, the guests were on their feet, screaming, trying to flee. Merlin and Igrane were shadows behind a veil of flame. Death, I thought, and then, as I had in the halls of Dis, A compact with thee, Fire: do not harm me. I don’t know if the incantation worked or if the dress was simply too fragile to be an instrument of Merlin’s revenge, but the silk was ash in an instant, leaving me wearing the linen shift underneath, smudged but intact. My heart was filled with rage and my hand with fire. Pain—yes. Jesus God! It hurt. I thought they were still attacking me; something like coal filled my palm. I hurled it at Merlin. It struck him, I swear, like a splash in the center of his chest and spread from there out and around the dalmatic he was wearing. All that silk and metallic thread… too bad. In a moment he was as busy as a sorcerer can possibly be.
Igrane’s sleeve was wet and smoldering now. She’d doused it with wine. She was still holding the pitcher in her hand. She whispered something and the pitcher flew at me like a sling stone. Magic? This is magic? I ducked.
The pain in my hand hit hard again. I felt the coal in my clenched fist. Were they doing it, or was I? Igrane had one of those elaborate hair creations so favored by Roman and Greek women. Yes, they set the standard even here. The coal spun out of my hand like an angry bee and landed smack in the middle of that rat’s nest of braid, phony hair, wires, flowers, and I don’t know what on top of her head. It must have been lacquered with something, because for a moment it looked as though she were wearing a five foot sheet of fire. I think she went for another wine pitcher, but I can’t say, because by then I was running. I rounded the fire pit and saw Merlin’s men drawn up like a wall between me and the door.
Not a hope. I’d never get past them. But I had one weapon left, and I had no idea if it would work. I stopped running and said, “Talorcan, help me.” Merlin’s guard began advancing. They had their shields and spears up as they began crowding me toward the fire pit. Nothing. Oh, well… I thought.
The boar exploded out of the heart of the blaze. Logs, flaming brands, hot coals rose like a fountain into the air, showering the room and everyone in it. But by then most of the guests were under the table. But the screaming redoubled for a moment, and then absolute silence fell as everyone in the room took in what was standing at my side.
He lowered his snout and clashed his teeth with a snorting sound. Did you know pigs can talk? I didn’t. But this one did. The voice was snuffling and grating. As he swung his head back and forth, studying the room, he said, “Dea a a ath!”
The word rang in the silence.
Merlin’s guard abruptly seemed to want to be somewhere else.
“Get out of my way,” I said.
They rushed to obey. Sections of the table began crashing to the floor all around the room, as the few men with presence of mind began to try to put a shield before themselves and their women to protect them from the dreadful thing at my side. All except for the three at the table near the door—my relatives. They seemed to be in spasms over something. Then I realized they were laughing.
“Oh, how right you are, dear brother,” I heard Kiernan say. “ ‘Tis priceless!”
“Is it now?” I asked, irritated. “You might at least stop laughing and offer me some help.”
The red haired one, Mael, vaulted the table and hurried toward me. At my side, Talorcan the boar snorted and danced, his shiny cloven hooves clicking against the polished floor. He turned toward Mael.
“Torc Trywth,” Mael addressed him, “eldest servant of Dis, I mean her no harm. To you—meat, oil, and wine I will pour at my next feast that you may bask in the delights of prosperity.”
“Torc Trywth?” I asked Mael, who had reached my side.
At the sound of that name, I noticed Merlin’s guard duck behind the tables and hide. Not so Arthur. He vaulted the table, boar spear in hand, and took up a position in front of his mother.
“All I want to do is leave,” I quavered. Then, glancing down at the boar, I said, “Please, please don’t hurt anyone if they don’t try to stop me. Please.”
I received a deep grunt that seemed drawn from his belly, which I took for assent. He was beautiful, the boar. As beautiful in his own way as Mael was when he drew near me. Beautiful as the young summer king as he stood, spear in hand, ready to protect his guests and his mother.
Merlin stood, composed, his finery hanging in rags. His mantle was wrapped around Igrane, who was sobbing in his arms. “Bitch.” His voice rang out across the room. “How dare you flout me and insult my lady?”
“You’re lucky,” I flared back, “that I only insulted her. I could have done worse, much worse.”
He shook Igrane off, sending her spinning, and raised his right hand. I was really afraid. I had no idea how powerful he was, but from the force of the storm, I knew he must be very dangerous. And I knew little or nothing of real magic and had no idea how to counter a spell cast by a sorcerer so awesome that he was feared not only in Britain but also in Ireland and Gaul.
“Don’t be a fool, man,” Mael cried out beside me. “Harm her and the death pig’s tusks will rip out your bowels seconds later.”
But I don’t think even the threat of imminent death would have stopped him. The spear Arthur was holding was sheathed in iron, and before Merlin could begin his incantation, the shaft came down with a crack across his upraised arm. Merlin roared a curse that was half rage, half cry of pain. His skin hissed and stank where the iron touched it.
“Stop,” Arthur said. “No more. I am the king, and I will do what is necessary here. And you will obey!”
Merlin’s and Arthur’s eyes locked, Merlin clutching his arm. “You are the summer king,” Merlin said, meaning by this that since the winter king, Uther, was still alive, he was only the heir apparent.
“He is not here,” Arthur replied, “and in his absence, I am king and your lord. And yours, also, Mother. And I will say what will be done and not one bit less—or more—than I say will be accomplished.”
“King,” Merlin scoffed. “King.”
The spear spun around in Arthur’s hand and suddenly, without any warning, the tip was only inches from Merlin’s throat. The blade was sharp, as only old, filed steel is sharp—and ragged to boot. The slightest movement of the young king’s hand would have put it through the sorcerer’s throat.
“Yes, king!” Arthur answered. “And I will be king or I will be nothing.”
The two men might have been alone in the room, for all that the rest of us mattered at this moment. Merlin took in one visible and audible breath, then another.
Finally, he answered, “A word from me and you might be nothing— boy.”
“Another word from you, sorcerer, and I will burn you! And should I not live long enough to do it, depend upon it, my father will,” was Arthur’s reply.
The two men continued standing there, eyes locked for another few seconds. It was Merlin who broke. He stepped away. Igrane, not looking all that attractive since what was left of her hair looked like a charred haystack, took hold of him and began to pull him toward the rest of the courtiers, who were now lined up three and four deep against the opposite wall of the room, so afraid were they of Torc Trywth.
But Arthur turned and strode toward us. He was magnificent, and I will never forget that in that moment, I first loved him. And I never stopped loving him. I do now and always will. No one ever brought me more sorrow or pain or joy than he did. No, nothing, not even my sons, has ever outweighed the love I feel and still feel for him. And I believe— had I known what the future held for us: all the trouble, torment, battle, and grief of our lives—I still believe that I would have yielded my heart into his keeping as I did then.
In a few seconds, he was standing before me. Mael stood at my shoulder. He chuckled when Arthur arrived.
“I hadn’t thought much of you, my lord, but I do confess that was nicely done,” Mael told him.
“They forced the quarrel on me,” he said.
“Aye,” Mael said, “but it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it, my lord?”
For a moment Arthur seemed to return to the rather stiff young man I had spoken to in his mother’s garden. He was very controlled, but pain moved somewhere behind his eyes, almost hidden, feared and tinged with shame, but there and very powerful nonetheless. And I knew, not as whatever I was—sorceress, witch, enchantress—but as a woman who loves, that the past was very dark for him and filled with sorrow. But I basked in the warm glow of his eyes when they met mine.
He took my hand, and I gave it to him willingly. “Go in peace,” he said, “but know you are mine. Wife, concubine, leman, I will have you, one way or another.”
“I am still a child,” I said.
He nodded and kissed me on the forehead. Then he turned to Mael and his eyes widened in shock, as did mine.
“You don’t look as you did,” he said.
And, in fact, the change was amazing. He had looked impressive seated, but standing he was more so. What I had taken to be worn armor was a dalmatic of golden plates, strung together with golden chains. He wore dark leather trousers, rather like my riding pants, held up by a broad, metal belt. It could be seen clearly through the open work dalmatic. But the wonder was his armor—and the only way we knew it was armor was that he extended his arm to the boar at that moment, and Talorcan sharpened his curling tusks against his arm. The tattoos, or what I had thought to be tattoos, covering his body leaped out at the boar’s touch, becoming a blue steel grating covering and protecting every inch of his body. They glowed, shimmering as if part of the living flesh itself. As indeed, I found out later, they were.