She knelt, rinsed the cup in the pool with its silent stars, refilled it and then drank. The bush bore sprays of white flowers.
Odd,
she thought. I
didn’t notice it before.
The scent of the tiny flowers filled her nostrils; the petals caressed her cheek.
She set the cup down. God, she thought.
Where did it come from?
But, of course, that was where it came from—God. Not the terrible, dark, blood drinking gods her people worshipped, who spoke through the oak, the tree that drew down lightning, or the shadow beings her lover Cai’s people worshipped, enigmatic dreamers who shared not themselves but their dreams with man.
The branch was a hand, the fingers touching her cheek. She clasped it the way one clasps a hand. God, the mother. Not a goddess, who is, after all, only the other gender of godhead.
But god the Mother.
Ena’s eyes opened, and she looked past a V formed by two of the trunks into morning. The clear, golden light of morning slanted through the trees, turning the pale spring grass to shimmering gold. The child in her womb stirred, then seemed to leap.
A second later, a pair of arms like iron bands lifted her away from the spring tree and some eternal morning. And she was back in the dark hall. And the arms around her were Cai’s. He was crushing her against his body, and Niamh was beside him.
Cai’s body was shaking. She could feel the quivering as he carried her toward the fire pit and the ancient oak.
“Thank God,” he whispered. “Thank God. Tell me quickly.”
She was standing in front of him. He was bruising her arms with his grip.
He is tremendously strong,
she thought, and liked the idea, even as she had feared that strength when she first met him.
He had asked her to meet him alone, and when he did, she had known what he had in mind.
What else?
she thought. When she did sneak off to go to him, he wasted no time in exploring her charms, as he put it. Which, she decided, was as poetic as he was ever going to get. In a short time, he had her on her back, with her skirt up.
She began to struggle.
“What’s wrong?”
“My honor.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Like hell! Everyone will know. Besides, they say it hurts.”
“Only if you’re a virgin.”
“I’m a virgin.”
“Well, I’ll take care of that.”
He did.
“There,” he said. “What do you think now?”
She shrugged. “I’m not impressed.”
“Well, try moving a little.”
She did.
“That feels good.”
“It gets better. A lot better.”
It had.
Now he was staring down at her, like she was his most precious possession.
“Tell me. Tell me, did you eat or drink anything while you were there?”
“What are you talking about?” She jerked back away from him. “I didn’t go anywhere. I was here all the time. What did you think? I was sneaking off to meet some man? I wasn’t. I was just thirsty. I took a drink of water. See? The tree.” She spun around and found herself pointing at a blank wall near the door.
She blinked. “It’s gone.”
“That’s because it was never there,” Cai snarled.
“Cai, be quiet,” Niamh said. “You’re frightening her. You drank water and then what?” Niamh asked.
“I felt love.” Ena was still staring at the wall, bewildered. “I looked into the morning.”
Ena turned toward Niamh. The old woman reached up and touched her cheek.
“I think you must have been dreaming,” she said softly. “You weren’t completely awake and you dreamed.”
Ena turned in a circle, looking first at Cai, then Niamh, and then the wall.
“I… I suppose I must have.”
He embraced her. This time it was a comforting one, not the fierce grip of a few moments before. He lifted her from the floor. “Let me take you to bed.”
She sighed, put her arms around his neck, and rested her head on his shoulder like a tired child. Her eyes drifted shut.
Neither of them was prepared for what happened next.
Her head lifted from Cai’s shoulder, her eyes opened, her face changed. To Cai, it was surpremely horrible, because the woman in his arms wasn’t Ena. The features changed, formed themselves into a mask of maturity, and firmed with an iron will. The being in Ena glanced at him, dismissed him, and then turned to Niamh.
“Tell Morgana he is in the cage of bones. As am I.” The voice was a man’s, the cadence of its speech, the sound, the expression, were all masculine. The face, seeming almost superimposed over Ena’s softer features, looked at Cai. “Fear not for your love. I—can—not—return.”
The day dawned cloudy, and the wind was from the north. The cold woke me. I was sleeping in a nest I had made in the workshop.
She had made it for me, using wood shavings as a mattress, topped by linen sheets and an old, woolen mantle.
She was already stirring. Up, standing in the doorway, looking out to the sea. The wind was at our backs.
“A last touch of winter,” she said.
“Will it rain?” I asked anxiously.
“I don’t know,” she said, turning away from her view of the outdoors. “Why?”
“The bow,” I said. “The string is sinew. It isn’t tight when it’s damp, and it’s unusable when it’s wet. Warriors who carry such bows always have very fancy bow cases to carry them in, and they try to waterproof them as much as possible. I didn’t have time to make one.”
She nodded.
The bow was on a frame just in front of the fire on the workshop’s small hearth. I lifted it, hoping I had not given it too strong a pull. If I had, I couldn’t even string it.
One must kneel, throw a leg over the bow to hold it while you pull down the top, and set the string over the curved piece at the end. In a few minutes, I was snorting and whispering a few words I wasn’t supposed to know as I tried to accomplish this tolerably difficult process.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“This dratted dress, that’s what’s wrong,” I snapped.
She reached out and touched my shoulder. And I found I was dressed in the same clothing I had worn when I was brought to Tintigal—my old tunic, mantle, and breeches reinforced with leather. Only now they were much cleaner than they had been when I was stripped by Igrane’s maids.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said, looking down at myself. “Someone washed them.”
She directed a dark look at me. “They needed it,” she said. Then looked away at nothingness and said, “Thank you.”
I looked around the dim workshop and whispered, “I appreciate your efforts on my behalf.” I didn’t see anything, but then, who knows?
I resumed my struggles with the bow and almost decided I had given it too strong a pull. When she touched my arm, strength poured into it, the way the new sun fills a darkened room with light.
“That is all I can give you,” she said, “but if you survive this day, you will carry great strength in your arm for the rest of your life. My gifts
don’t
fade or disappear.”
The bow strung easily, and the sinew ties that held wood to horn and the larger pieces of sinew were firm.
I lifted my four arrows—Cretan arrowheads, Maeniel would have called them—and placed them in the small quiver I had improvised the day before. I handed the bow to her. Beginning at the end, she ran her fingers along its curves, from the end, over the arch that led to the grip at the center, then up over the second arch to the bottom.
“I am putting it into my memory,” she said, “and seeing if it is somehow flawed.”
She shook her head. “No! The glue is dried, the parts are firm, the sinew is tight. The bow will serve for at least four shots. But I can tell this is a terrible weapon.”
Suddenly I felt dizzy and had to sit down. I did, right there on the floor. The world wavered before my eyes.
Her face took on a look of intense concentration.
“What happened?” I asked.
She strode toward the open door. The breeze ruffled her gown. She took a deep breath, then turned and looked at me. “Someone, some thing, is trying very hard to pull you back.”
I thought of Kyra, hunched over the fire, staring at Cymry. She was toasting him just over the flame. He was whimpering like a sick dog.
“She… she… my nurse, my mother. No, Mother was… my… Kyra wants me,” I finally finished up in a rush.
“She is very strong, this Kyra!”
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, you have your choice,” she snapped. “You can’t fight with her interfering like that. If you must, I will let you go.”
“No!” I answered loudly.
A second later, I was looking out through Cymry’s dead eyes at Kyra. Her face was suffused with anger, her teeth bare.
“Kyra,” I said. “Kyra, it’s me. Pull the head away from the flames… please!”
She did. She had it on the end of a string like a landed fish, hanging from a pole.
“Who are you?” Kyra said. “This filth never said please to anyone in his entire life.”
“Guinevere,” I said.
“My dear.” Kyra’s agitation turned to sorrow. “Where are you? We have been trying to find you for weeks, Dugald and I. The wolves have ranged all along the coast, down as far as Tintigal. But that cursed, arrogant bird Magetsky says you are no longer a prisoner of the queen. And the dragons say that the one sent to fetch you disappeared along with you. Tell me what happened.”
“I’m not sure,” I answered, “just exactly where I am. But wherever it is, I must perform a task for
her.”
“Her?” Kyra replied, sounding mystified. “Her?” she repeated.
“Oh.” She sounded enlightened. “Oh! Her.‘”
“Yes. Now, let me go!” I insisted.
“She can be…” Kyra began.
“She’s standing right here,” I said frantically.
A second later, Kyra was gone. And she was laughing.
“I believe everything is all right now,” I said as I pulled myself together.
She nodded. “Poor Kyra, whoever she is, has a lot of power. To get here, she had to traverse time and space. She was trying to warn you that for a mortal to become involved with the business of immortals can be very dangerous. That’s what she was about to tell you.”
I gave her a look with a lot of feeling in it. “I think I know that,” I told her.
“Would you like to go back?” she asked. “The line your Kyra created is still open. You may leave, if you like. I won’t compel you.”
“Please!” I said, thinking of Risderd and his family, and especially, for some reason, Treise. “I’m in too deep to back out now, and besides, I belong to you.”
She chuckled. “An oath woman.”
“If you like,” I answered, trying to keep my dignity. “I suppose it’s the same thing.”
“Yes,” she said, turning to gaze into the misty, gray dawn outside. “Many of the warriors have been and will be women. Though men would often not care to acknowledge it.”
Then she turned back again and gazed into my eyes. “Soon you will bleed and cease to be mine any longer.”
“No,” I said, and extended my hands pressed against each other toward her palms. Her hands enfolded mine in the age old gesture of one who accepts the homage of a house carl.
“I am,” she said, “Inanna, Diana, Mother Holle, the Hag of the Mill. I have had so many names, I have forgotten them all. But I will remember yours, Gwynaver. And so will all mankind. Men have died for everlasting fame, but I can’t think of any woman who ever has.”
“Yes,” I replied. “You’re making fun of me. Besides, there was that girl who buried her brother. What was her name?”
“Antigone,” she answered. “But I don’t think she had everlasting fame in mind. Only her own sorrow. He was her brother.”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of Black Leg. “Love is important, and women being shrewd bargainers probably know fame is not worth much. I’d much rather have something I can spend, eat, or love, thank you very much.”
“And you will, my daughter. So you will,” she promised. “But I think you will need the food first.” Then she let go of my hands. “I’ll fetch you some breakfast,” she said as she left the workshop.
I sat down cross legged on the floor. Treise stumbled in. She had been crying. She walked over to me, climbed into my lap, and began to cry some more.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Everything! Ardal is dead, and now Father wants to go where the monster is. I could hear him and Mother talking about it last night. She begged him not to go.”
“Hush!” I said, and began to stroke the fine, soft hair that curled everywhere. I cradled her and crooned. “I’ll be with him, and he will come back safe, I promise.”
She stiffened and drew back. “You? Protect him? How?”
“Hush!” I said. I reached out and got a handful of shavings that had been part of my bed. I held them in front of Treise. They formed a light clump of yellow in my cupped palm.
I called the fire.
I don’t know how I do this. It is as simple and natural as the flight of a bird, and I probably understand it as little as birds understand flight or the Gray Watcher how he changes from wolf to man and back again.
The wood shavings stank, smoked, and then burst into flame, flared, then fell to black ash before they even had time to warm my skin.
When I looked back at Treise, she was gazing at me wide eyed with awe.
“Is that what you did to it the last time?” she asked. “When it screamed and ran away?”
“Yes. And I can protect your father the same way I protected you. Now, don’t worry,” I said, and bedded her down on my abandoned nest.
She stuck her thumb in her mouth, closed her eyes, and lay quiet. In a few moments, I heard her breathing change. She slept.
My lady returned with porridge and bread. I ate it standing near the door, gazing into the misty forest. “The dragon?” I asked.
She closed her eyes. “He is dining on a small shark. It was shadowing a school of dolphins with several pregnant females. They do go after the babies. The sharks, that is. The mothers asked his help, and quite obviously received it. He likes shark. I will alert him to your needs.”
I nodded. I was dry mouthed. “I doubt if there’s much he can do.”
“True,” she whispered. “The dragons are clumsy on land. Helpless, really. I don’t think he will be much help.”
“Well and good,” I said. “It also means he won’t come to any harm. If it should happen that I don’t return, thank him for his help. Now, if possible, can you tell me where the fish eater is?”
She closed her eyes and touched her temples with both forefingers. “He is hidden from my eyes by a cloud of magic, but I can narrow it down and tell you where the cloud is.” A second later, she whispered, “Predictable. He has concealed himself near the well, to… to… ah, yes, to the landward side. He is watching the Flower Bride.”
“Near the path?” I asked.
“Yes. Near the path. For that is the way Risderd will come.”
“Fine. Then I’ll—”
“Shush,” she said. “Other ears than mine may hear you.”
Then she kissed me on the forehead. “Daughter mine, good fortune attend you.”
And I went, hurrying into the misty, green gloom under the trees.
The early morning forest was hushed, and the soft sea mist blurred the edges of everything. The place I chose to pass through was trackless. Most deer and other beasts didn’t venture here. I followed the slope of the ground as it began to turn down toward the sea.
There were a lot of trees, but most of them were small pines, and the fallen needles formed a thick carpet that blunted the edges of the rocky ground. The wind blew softly, but constantly, driving the sea fog among the slender, brown, rough barked trunks. Above, the green needles were brilliant as polished stone with moisture.
I moved first down, blessing Talorcan’s shoes because they seemed able to adapt to every surface I crossed, from spongy drifts of brown needles to slippery, wet, gray granite boulders that poked up through the trees to form strange, open spaces walled by fog at this hour. When I had to climb, I did, clutching the bow and arrows tightly in my left hand. Moving downward all the while, until a moment came when I paused and saw the huge pile of driftwood stranded in the angle where the node of rock that would become Tintigal projected into the sea.
The driftwood gave me an idea. It was a risky one, but it might work.
I skirted the top of the pile, half walking, half crawling across bare rock, feeling very exposed and vulnerable until I reached the forest clothing the slope on the other side. The sun was rising by then out over the water, the orange disk still half obscured by the night fog. I pushed myself hard, knowing that Risderd would take the path to the well at sunrise.
I couldn’t go very fast, though, because I had to take care lest I alert the creature by making too much noise. It
would be hell,
I thought,
if 1 reached the well only to find the bridegroom killed and eaten by that monster.
I climbed frantically up through the trees again as the pines gave way to a lighter growth of birch and poplar that clothed the knob of rock near the well. At length, I saw the glint of the pool near the spring through the trees.
I slowed and moved as silently as I could, until I was in the thick brush on the side where I had seen the monster take the deer that had come down to drink. I knelt, concealed at the edge of the wood.
I saw the first sunlight strike the pool, turning the water flowing from the spring to crystal and the pool to a shimmering gem. I could sense the beauty of the place but couldn’t really see it because I was too busy looking for the serpent in this Eden.
And then, almost at the same moment, I saw the monster and the Flower Bride.
She was waiting upright for her lover, near the small waterfall that fed into the pool. She was one with the water itself. The tall flowers of the poisonous hemlock and the drape of falling water were her skirt. Above her bare breasts were the shadows thrown by a clump of white birch on the dark rock, and her face glowed in the new sun just clearing the horizon.
You don’t see her, not really. She only suggests herself to you. Your mind fills in the details.
That is why she is always so beautiful. She forms herself from the transient but eternal glories that fill the world around us everywhere. Look at new leaves, bursting out from the rough buds on a branch, you see her. Alike and equally her are the orchards both in bloom and with branches laden with the heavy autumn fruit. She creates herself anew in desert, swamp, forest, or heath. In summer, winter, spring, and fall, she is eternal and yet ever new, as is a flower.
For a moment, I envied her lover, and wondered what such a union would be like. And then I saw it.
The monster showed himself to me. At the end of the path at the spring was an ancient oak. The thick, black trunk was dappled with gold by the morning sun. No doubt the creature thought it was being clever. It stood to one side in the black shadow cast by the tree. I picked it out by its silhouette against the brightening sky.