And afterward, Igrane was dessert. He couldn’t wait.
I cried all night. But at dawn, Kyra made me do up my hair and put on a scarlet silk tunic embroidered with gold and a pair of trousers made of the same material. We had a brief, violent debate about shoes.
“You aren’t going to wear those horrible things,” she said, pointing to the rough leather sandals Talorcan made for me.
“I certainly am,” I said.
Kyra picked them up and reacted much the same way Igrane had. They fell from her hands as though red hot.
“My God,” she whispered. “Where in heaven or hell’s halls did you get those?”
“Hell’s halls,” I said. “Torc Trywth made them for me. His name is Talorcan. They change to fit what I’m doing or wearing.”
And they did, too—becoming gold with many laces that came up to my calves and tied just below the knee.
Then the whole lot of us—all but Black Leg, who was gone—I, Kyra Dugald, the Gray Watcher, Gray, and Anna went down to the shelter of a quiet cove, where a ship was waiting. Farry was the captain.
“You have your own ship now?” I said, surprised to see him.
“Yes, and you have become as lovely as I thought you might,” he said.
I offered my cheek, but he only took my hand and kissed it.
“So formal?” I asked.
“The occasion calls for formality,” he said gravely. He, too, looked older. He had a short, curly beard and his hair was long now and hung to his shoulders. All in all, a fine looking man. He wore a beautiful, woolen mantle of Irish weave. The underlying color was black, but it was striped with soft blue, green, and a dark red like wine. Only our people know how to make such things. I have never seen Greek, Roman, or Eastern cloth woven in this way. It is one of the more profitable trade goods the Veneti, Farry’s people, carry even now to the east, where it is still in demand.
“When did you get your own ship?” I asked.
Farry flushed and answered, “My father gave it to me when I acknowledged my first son.”
“How wonderful,” I said, congratulating him. I wondered how many wives he had by now. The Veneti, especially a captain with his own ship, would have several. They tied him along his personal trade route with guest friendship, ensuring his safety while in port.
That was why they were so influential a people. Yes, Caesar had killed many of those who plied the French coast when he destroyed Ohene, port city in Brittany. Dishonor to his name, the Romans always persecuted trading peoples. But few cared to open disputes with traders. They were useful to everyone. There are always things that even relative self sufficiency can’t supply. Spices, cloth, metals, gemstones, walrus ivory, and sometimes honey and salt; we must trade for those things. And Farry’s people supplied them, occasionally in quantity when famine threatened or war increased the need for weapons. It was best to keep friends with them.
“I’m here,” he told me, “to bring you to the great assembly of the Painted People. When I have completed my business here, we will sail north.”
Kyra nodded to me.
“So soon?” I asked.
Her mouth was tight, a thin line. “The sooner, the better.”
“Yes,” Farry said.
A lot of business was being transacted around us, on both the deck and the beach. As I watched, a local smith came to an agreement about a heap of scrap metal and one of Farry’s men began to load it into sacks to bring it to the beach. A nearby carpet was covered with packets of spices and odds and ends of jewelry. At least a half dozen men and women were haggling with the crewman in charge of the merchandise.
There were stoneware crocks of honey and oil, and a rack of wine amphoras under an awning shaded from the sun’s heat. I desperately wanted to stop and look, but Maeniel and Dugald flanked me on either side and ushered me gently but firmly past small bales of linen and silk toward a pavilion on the stern of the boat.
“We have business here,” Dugald said. “Important business.”
“Oh, stop,” I said. “At least you could let me—”
“Paw through those trinkets?” Dugald snapped. “They are beneath you. You will be a queen.”
Farry suppressed a grin.
I sighed deeply. “I saw a pretty silver ring…” I began.
“I’ll buy it for you,” Maeniel said. “Now, move. The lady is waiting. Please, captain, whatever she wants,” he added, hustling me along.
“It has a moonstone, very appropriate,” Farry said, and stooped down to pick it up when we passed the carpet.
Maeniel slid the heavy, silver circlet on my finger.
“Too large,” Kyra said.
“She will grow into it,” Farry said confidently.
I noticed the pavilion had a curtain that shielded the inhabitants from the prying eyes of Farry’s customers at the front of the ship. He pushed it aside and ushered me in.
I knew who she was the moment I saw her. He favored his father’s side of the family.
She was legend.
Morgana. Said to be the most powerful of all enchantresses. So joined to her goddess the two were almost one in the same body.
I started to kneel, but Dugald tightened his grip on my arm and said, “Don’t—you—dare.”
I didn’t.
“To what do we owe the honor?” Dugald asked.
She drifted forward. She surprised me by being plainly dressed, until I realized the subtlety of the silk brocade dalmatic and the deerskin, suede britches. It was an opalescent shimmering blue gown covered with a pattern of black raven’s wings. The torc around her neck probably had a couple of pounds of pure gold in it, as did her belt, shining black hematite, gold, and real opal.
She was tawny, not blond. I have never seen coloring like that before and not since. I knew… she was like her grandson Cai. Shape strong, but in what way I couldn’t tell.
“Kyra? Dugald?” she said, looking at each one.
“You know my guardians?” I asked.
“I don’t see anything special about you,” she said directly to me.
“I don’t know that there is,” I answered.
“Yes, nothing that would make you someone he would have married. I was told you pledged yourself to him.”
“I thought it was the other way around. He pledged himself to me.”
“You exchanged vows,” Maeniel said.
“I suppose we did,” I answered.
“Are you sorry?” Morgana asked.
“No,” I said. “He is what I want.”
“Are you so sure?” Maeniel asked.
I turned and looked at him. “I’m sorry about Black Leg, but, yes, yes, I am sure.”
“Well and good,” Morgana said. “But it may all come to nothing. He is gone.”
“Gone!” I said and stepped away from my family toward her. “Gone where?”
“Merlin made some dreadful magic and sent him to the summer country,” she replied. “He is in another world. A world from which the only passage back is death.”
Maeniel whistled, and Magetsky landed on the ship’s rail. The raven hissed and made that farting sound it had learned.
“Be silent,” I said, “or I’ll burn off every feather you have. If you know something about Arthur, tell it to us now.”
“How can she do that and be silent? Don’t be so anxious to use that talented right hand of yours. Keep it in reserve for serious matters,” Maeniel said.
The bird pecked with her beak on the rail and called Maeniel a nasty name. Then swung her backside around—it had been over the water. She aimed it at the deck, and what was worse, the carpet Morgana stood on.
Maeniel swatted her into the air, out over the water, and she didn’t get to do the damage she wanted to. She gave a screech.
Kyra said, “Bird, I’m having sausage for supper. Keep on, and I won’t give you any.”
Magetsky circled the ship and came in for a landing where she had been sitting moments before. She hunched down. Fluffed her feathers, and looked sulky.
“Sausage,” Kyra said.
Magetsky began to talk to Maeniel. She had seen Arthur at Tintigal, not long ago, Maeniel told Morgana. She has been watching the place.
He glanced suspiciously at Magetsky. I don’t know why.
“She is a devious and dishonest creature,” Dugald said self righteously. Magetsky made more kissie noises and a few more wet fart sounds at Dugald.
“At any rate,” Maeniel plowed on, “she says she is glad she is a bird, because his mother was tormenting him with her beauty.”
Morgana’s lips curled in disgust.
“But he—no, I won’t say that in the presence of his kin,” Maeniel told Magetsky, who cackled raucously.
“In any case,” Maeniel continued, “according to the bird, Merlin joined the party and the boy hit him… in—in—a very tender spot.”
Morgana laughed. “I hope he ruined him.”
Maeniel continued, “The wizard did magic and sent the boy back where he came from.”
A manservant stood near Morgana.
“Bird, I thank you.” She turned to the servant and said, “Give the bird some of what we had for lunch. This information is most useful. Merlin must have made an alliance with King Bade. Otherwise, Arthur couldn’t come and go so easily. The two have connived together to imprison him.”
Magetsky strutted to and fro on the rail, until the servant returned with a bowl. Then she hopped down to the deck and attacked the meat ravenously.
Farry brought cushions, and we all sat down together on the carpet and shared some wine, bread, and porridge.
“This is a dangerous situation,” Morgana said. “Uther is furious and preparing for war.”
Dugald and Maeniel nodded.
“The way I found you was that your friend Farry here—he wouldn’t tell me where you were because he said Merlin was hunting you and that you had to flee the people of your village. But he said he would bring me to you. So, I am here. Tell me, girl, did you actually exchange any promises?”
“What is your reason for wanting to know?” Dugald asked in a self important manner.
Morgana looked annoyed. “If they formed a tie, I might be able to use her to help me retrieve him. King Bade of the summer land is no trivial opponent, and reaching out into another world isn’t all that easy.”
“No,” I answered. “No, it can’t be. But tell me how—”
That was as far as I got, because Dugald snapped, “Be quiet. In this, you should be guided by your elders.”
Kyra rolled her eyes. “Old man, the girl is wise enough about matters ”
That was all she said, because Magetsky saw a chance to get her licks in at Dugald. She has really hated him since that trip to Ireland. She made a quick hop away from the food and drove her beak into Dugald’s thigh.
He let out a yell. Magetsky cackled loudly and went
yrrrrrp.
She took wing and hovered just over his head.
I leaped to my feet and snatched her out of the air. She gave another outraged screech and drove her beak into my wrist. The armor leaped out all along my arm. It partially protected me, but even so, blood ran down the back of my hand. It was my fire hand.
Magetsky knew she had gone too far. She stopped struggling, hunched down, and said,
yek!
She studied me with one onyx eye. She looked very frightened. I shook with anger, and the armor leaped out all over my body.
“Certain it is,” Dugald said, “that vile denizen of the air will be no loss to the world.”
Funny, I had threatened her without meaning it. Now I frightened her without meaning to threaten her. I folded my legs and sat down on my cushion, and plunked Magetsky back by her bowl.
“Eat,” I said. “And trouble me no more for the rest of the afternoon, at least.”
Magetsky put the bowl between me and her, then went back to her dinner, unruffled, as far as I could tell, except that occasionally she cast a wary eye in my direction.
“I think I can speak for myself,” I told Dugald.
Morgana nodded.
“No,” I said. “We exchanged no vows, but he told me he wanted me. And as far as I dared, I told him his… his… attentions were very welcome.”
This sounded a bit stiff, but I didn’t know how to tell a distinguished stranger that my knees weakened whenever he so much as touched my hand.
“So there is a tie,” she said.
“Yes,” I answered. “There is. I cannot say how much of it is our doing or how much is… the work of the veiled ones.”
She nodded, because she knew of whom I spoke. I have not known any who do not believe in the veiled ones, though they call them different things. Certain it is the Romans did, the Greeks, the Saxons, and certainly my people. The fates, so called, they are
her
eldest servants, but it is not known if even she commands them.
“So,” Morgana said. “Give me your hand.”
“No!” Dugald roared.
“No,” Kyra said. “My lady, with all due respect…”
“Yes,” I said. They both started to speak, but Maeniel lifted his hand.
“The choice is hers,” he said, “as it was last night. Though I would she had chosen otherwise, none of us can force the issue.”
They were silent.
I stretched out both hands to Morgana. “Which one?” I asked.
“The left,” Morgana said without hesitation. “Though likely you believe otherwise, it is the ruling one.”
Yes
, I thought.
I healed Gray with it and used it to comfort Talorcan
.
So I rose and walked toward her. We clasped hands, standing face to face, our fingers laced together. Her right held my left. Then she bent her elbow, and I mine, and our hands were lifted between us, the palm of mine facing my heart, the palm of hers facing her heart.
I felt the abyss. Dugald had told me about it. The abyss is the greatest barrier to magic. It is the nothingness from which everything came. Called up in some unknowable fashion. That is the question, the one permanent, eternal question, unendurable and unanswerable: why anything at all—why not nothing?
If practitioners get caught in the contemplation of that question for too long, it drains their power and they fail in whatever task they have undertaken.
Look away,
she said. I
have found it’s the best way to handle that particular problem.
Dugald says it must be overcome
, I answered.
A
daunting task, that,
she replied. We were not speaking in words, you understand, and I felt the humor of her reply.
One might say an impossible one. No! It cannot be overcome. Men, they place such trust in brute force. I’ve found simple avoidance works much better. That is the danger of dealing with Merlin. He thinks like a woman. He merely distracted Uther for a short time, and his net fell over Arthur while we weren’t looking. His stratagems are endless and brilliant, but his subtlety suggests his powers may at length be
waning.