Sword Stone Table

by Sword Stone Table- Old Legends, New Voices (retail) (epub)

  I had never had cause to doubt my mother before, and so I followed her advice.

  There are many days where I wonder what would have happened had I simply said…no.

  No, I shall not bear this.

  No, I will not carry the shadow of your unlived lives or stillborn dreams.

  But I did not know there was such an option then. I knew only that I had to choose, and then Morgan le Fay appeared at the lip of the golden tub.

  “Elaine,” said Morgan, nodding to my mother. “I have come to read you, child.”

  I know now that it does not matter, but it seemed important at the time that she should be beautiful. As if whatever terrible pronouncements might be made about my life could be bettered by a pair of full, dark lips.

  There are many kinds of beauty in the world, but I liked Morgan’s best. She was beautiful in the way of smoldering fires and spurts of roaring thunder when the sky has visibly begun to clear. It was a fading beauty, made all the more lovely for its scarcity, where every drop lost becomes nectar for a poet’s imagination.

  I was not beautiful.

  I was only ever passing fair and young. But for most men, that seemed to be enough.

  Had the water in the bath not been so hot perhaps I might’ve felt a stroke of envy, but all I could see was my reddening skin and my brown hair sticking to it.

  Morgan swiped her hand across my wrist, rubbing her fingers together. She looked at me and smiled.

  “Well,” she said, “I suspect the choice here will be quite easy.”

  “What is it?” I gasped.

  “I see myth markings of a life full of movement, Elaine,” said Morgan. Her eyes clouded over. “You will not find rest in any world, but you will be great. You will have powers that rival my own. You will conquer kings and steal their sons’ hearts. You will be remembered by all, celebrated and feared in equal measure. You shall move through the world with such speed that even your shadow will struggle to keep pace with you—”

  “What’s the other choice?”

  My mother winced at my poor manners, but the bath was so hot, and I did not want to bear the pain anymore.

  Morgan shrugged.

  “You shall sleep in the arms of greatness. You shall bear greatness. But you will never be great,” said Morgan dismissively. “The world will look you over, and you shall be naught but a footnote in the legends of others.”

  Steam plumed up from the water.

  I tried to get out of the bath. I could not think for the heat, the pain.

  Morgan pushed me farther into the water. I screamed then, noticing too late the bubbles that popped across the water’s surface. Scalding liquid splashed up my thighs, spat against my breasts. I saw black crimping the edges of my vision.

  “You must make your choice now, child, while the water is hot and the myth is malleable.”

  I looked at my skin, and I saw it then. The sheen of legends on my flesh, glyphs made of colored light. I thought I glimpsed a life unlived in their gloss—there, a lover’s hand drifting over my belly; now the weight of a helmet tucked under my arm and a sword bouncing against my hip; then a gnawing restlessness to move and move and keep moving; now the damp velvet petals of the first rose pushing through frosted earth. I knew that earth. It was home.

  I remembered the sight of Corbenic Castle from the roads. My whole life something so small I might pocket it. My whole world worthy of no notice but no less worthy to me.

  Everything was so loud.

  I never liked such loudness.

  It always rattled me, threatening to shake me loose from my skin.

  “Choose greatness, my love,” sobbed my mother. “Do not be afraid as I was.”

  I thought I heard the sound of horse hooves just outside the castle.

  The bath scalded me.

  “Your mother is right,” said Morgan. “It can be a path of loneliness, but that is the cost of such glory. Do not be afraid.”

  I was not afraid of greatness.

  But I was afraid of loneliness.

  I had seen my father surrounded by courtiers, drenched in the power of the Grail cup locked away in our kingdom. And yet for all that power and might, he was alone. Yes, his name passed from mouth to mouth, and even I had heard the tales people told of the legendary Fisher King, but I had never heard him talk about himself. Perhaps he didn’t see the point. He belonged to everyone but himself. The myth of him had drained away his human blood, filled his veins with gold, and perfumed his every breath with omens.

  That was not me.

  I am not a girl sculpted from fire like Morgan. I did not and do not need to feast on wonder to feel sated. I had seen the sharp talons of myth, and I did not want to be ripped beneath them.

  I started to speak. “I choose—”

  I tasted blood at the back of my throat. The patterns of myth swirled across my skin. My ribs spread apart, as if making room for vastness.

  “I choose to be looked over by the world,” I said, repeating Morgan’s prediction back to her.

  To myself, in private, I made a different vow.

  I choose to belong to myself.

  No sooner had the words left my lips did the golden tub spit me out.

  I sprawled slick as a newborn across the tiles while my mother sobbed behind me. Steam curled off my reddened skin. The bottoms of my feet looked like ribbons. I ached all over as my body cooled in the night air.

  Through the windows, the sound of horse hooves grew louder.

  A man’s voice rumbled through the abandoned castle, and my skin prickled.

  “Who is that?” I asked. “Who is coming?”

  Morgan looked at me, her lip curled in disgust. “The consequence of your choice.”

  My mother hauled me to my feet. I dripped water to the ground, shivering. No one offered me a cloth, and though the heat had gone, a different fire kindled within me. I was no fool. I could trace their disappointment as though it were a shadow on the wall. It angered me. It was my choice, was it not? Why should they judge me when only I had to live with it?

  “I will grant you one last mercy, child,” said Morgan. “I can take away the memory of the choice you made. You would not be the first. Arthur’s queen chose to forget that she ever made a choice.”

  “What choice did she make?” I asked, curious in spite of my fury.

  Morgan looked at me closely. Too closely. When she smiled, I saw that her teeth were white as milk. And yet there was nothing soft or flowing about her.

  “Guinevere chose power even though it came at the price of extraordinary guilt. She chose power and immortality over anonymity.”

  “And did she choose correctly?” I asked.

  “A story that ends poorly is still a story.”

  That was not an answer, but it no longer mattered.

  The sound of hooves grew louder. I could see the appeal of Morgan’s offering. Perhaps the day would come when I would regret the choice I had made, and then I would return to this hour over and over again, dreaming of the life I had not lived. I could see how my mother had fared beneath the whispers of her own ghost selves. I did not want to be like her. But if I was going to belong to myself, then surely that meant never closing the eyes of my soul. Not even to spare myself.

  “No,” I said. “I shall remember.”

  “Then let me take that mercy,” said my mother, with an embarrassed glance in my direction. “For I fear that I cannot love her as I used to if I know what she has done. Let me imagine that I never once saw myth marks on my daughter.”

  “It is done,” said Morgan, looking to the window. “Careful now….He is coming…and we all have a part to play.”

  MOTHER

  Morgan said I would sleep in the arms of greatness.

>   I knew the moment you touched me that you were who she meant when she spoke of greatness. But the first time I saw you…you were, forgive me, rather uninspiring and thoroughly human. Years later you found this thoroughly amusing, but I must confess that I was rather disappointed.

  The legends can never seem to agree on what you look like—whether you were tall and solemn, with quartz-gray eyes and a sheaf of thick wheat-gold hair beneath your helmet, or whether you were of average height with a peculiar fae-glint in your green eyes that turned heads, with close-cropped dark hair the color of soot.

  So I shall set the tale straight, though no one has ever asked me and my answer likely will not be remembered.

  You were handsome in an unimaginative way. You were taller than most men, but not noticeably so. You had broad shoulders and a scar on your left forearm from when a dog bit you. You had eyes the color of rain on a tree trunk, fair hair that looked as if someone had unraveled a candle’s flame, and a slightly crooked nose from slipping down the staircase even though you told everyone it was from a nasty tumble from a wild stallion.

  I liked that you told me the truth.

  I liked knowing how to separate you from the story of you.

  I liked knowing you as you wished you might be instead of as Sir Lancelot du Lac, a name foisted upon you by your adoptive mother, whose own title was just as mysterious. Lady of the Lake. Was it a lake? Or a pond just outside her house? You never told me, my love, but you insisted with all the solemnity of a hurt child that it was magic.

  I do not know what magic Morgan wrought that night. All I remember was that for one moment I was outside the boiling bath and the next moment I was thrown back into its steaming waters, my face held down by my mother’s and Morgan’s hands.

  You would not recognize that the other woman, hooded and screaming, was my mother. The official story released by my father’s kingdom was that I had been taken on the road by witches and kept in an enchanted bath from which you rescued me. Later, Morgan would meet me in my father’s castle and throw me a conspiratorial wink.

  My mother did not remember anything about a choice or how I failed her.

  She was content by reports of your own greatness.

  More than that, she was determined that I would bear your child, who was destined for greatness.

  She kept staring at you throughout the feast my father threw. I noticed that you did not drink any of your wine. Perhaps you noticed her gazes and suspected her of enchanting your cup. Good on you. I always did think you saw the world too plainly. I knew that the moment I met you. When Morgan and my mother orchestrated my rescue—though I wonder if it can be called that in light of what I know now—you did not blush at my nakedness. I think that was what I first noticed about you: you never looked away from me.

  That first night was supposed to be our last. It was supposed to be the only intersection of our lives, and because I did not know you, I had made peace with the state of things. This was the choice writ upon my skin; I might as well get on with it.

  That night my mother bade me go to your chambers. She told me to offer you a drink and that if I should do so, you would mistake me for her.

  Guinevere.

  Everyone knew she favored you above all Arthur’s knights.

  Everyone suspected your devotion to Arthur’s queen was far more than it should be.

  But back then, she was only a name to me, as inconspicuous as a shadow in the dark.

  I came into your rooms at midnight, bearing only a stub of a candle and a cup. I did not bother to knock.

  You were not in bed and had not removed the brocade garments that my father had loaned to you for the feast. You were broad shouldered and handsome, but the clothes shrouded you, and I almost laughed. Behind you stood the large bed hung in curtains of samite. The white linens looked crisp and untouched, and I grew scared, for I knew what would happen. Mother said it would be over fast, and for a moment, I imagined myself melting into those white linens like sugar into hot milk.

  “Good sir,” I started. “I do not know how to repay you for rescuing me. My mother bade me—”

  “Spare me.”

  My head jerked up at the sound of your voice. I thought you would sound as solemn as you looked, but there was levity in your tone. I stood there with my hand wrapped around the enchanted drink. You glanced from the cup to me, an amused smile on your lips. I could only stare at you.

  “Might as well come in, shut the door, and close your jaw while you’re at it,” you said.

  I snapped my mouth shut, annoyed, and then I did as you asked.

  You rose from the chair, not moving toward me or moving back but regarding me with the same amused grin.

  “I know what you are, and I know what you’re here to do, so let’s get on with it, shall we?” You shrugged off your jacket, tugged at the collar of your shirt. You didn’t look at me, and I remember how furious that made me. “Do you speak? Well, never mind, probably best if you don’t. It’s bad enough we have to do this; I don’t need to add soothing a virgin’s conscience to my list.”

  By then my shock had faded. I slammed the cup onto the nearest table.

  “You don’t know me or what I’m here for.”

  “Sure I do,” you said. “It’s in my myth marks. You’re to be the mother of my son, and after tonight we’ll never see each other again. And he’ll do great things, and I’ll do great things, and all shall be so blessedly…great.”

  I frowned. “And here I thought I would be a fox in the night, stealing your virtue as if it were a cooped chicken.”

  Your fingers paused at your buttons. You looked at me a little more closely.

  “How do you know about the myth marks?” I asked.

  Morgan had told me that fate treats men differently. Where women have so many choices, they had only one path. No one read their myth marks, for they had no choice in the matter.

  That amused smirk left your face.

  “My mother taught me how to read them. She’s a sorceress, as well you know. She told me I was destined for legends.”

  “Is that what you wanted? Or how you thought it would be?”

  You looked stunned then, and I wondered if anyone had asked you before. But a moment later you recovered, that smirk reasserting itself.

  “I had little choice in the matter,” you said casually. “Is this what you thought it would be like?”

  “I thought I’d be seducing a knight, not philosophizing with one.”

  You liked that answer. I think that’s the moment you liked me. You raised an eyebrow, walking toward me. Your hand went to my waist and you drew our hips together.

  “Surely you can do both?”

  * * *

  —

  Later, much later, we lay beside each other and listened for the sound of dawn’s golden blanket hiding the stars from sight. My body felt tender…fuller. I dragged my fingers across my belly and wondered at the wisps of life taking root within me. You turned to your side, your rough hand skimming and scratching down my neck and arms.

  “Tell me what your marks say.”

  I told you: I would be adjacent to myth, caught up in its shadow. Free to live without its bright eye turned to me.

  “I envy you,” you said.

  “And your marks?” I asked. “What of them?”

  “Glory,” you said simply. “I shall look for the Holy Grail and be permitted a glance but nothing more. But my son—our son—will succeed. And I shall fall in love with a woman I cannot have, whose love none shall celebrate until the day I die. That is all the marks say.”

  I was not in love with you yet, so I did not resent Guinevere’s intrusion.

  “What does she look like?” I asked.

  You looked pained. “She’s the most beautiful
woman I’ve ever seen, and I am haunted by the sight of her.” Your voice dropped to a whisper. “There are days when I wish I’d never seen her.”

  You were honest with me from the start, and I liked that. I rose over you, savoring how your gasp of surprise melted into a groan of pleasure. I slid my hands across your eyes, lowering my hips to yours.

  “Your wish is granted.”

  I tried to leave unnoticed in the morning, but you caught me by my wrist and kissed my hand.

  “I hope…” you started to say, but I did not let you finish.

  I wondered whether you regretted our transparency in the night, and I did not wish to know for certain.

  “Let us leave it at that,” I said. “Let us leave it at hope.”

  Whatever words you might have uttered, you swallowed them down.

  Sometimes I wish I’d let you finish.

  * * *

  —

  Our son smelled of milk and softness. He was shining and seraphic, and the moment I held him, I knew our line had come to an end. I saw the shimmering glyphs of destiny writ upon his brow. Galahad would have neither hearth nor grandchildren nor earthly love to warm his bed. I saw the burden of greatness on him, and I almost wished to take back my choice. But sparing him that burden meant denying his existence.

  I was glad it was too late, for I selfishly loved him.

  * * *

  —

  Destiny grew bored of me, and I grew comfortable standing in its cold shadow. I was no longer young, nor passing fair, and the eyes of men turned elsewhere. Unwatched, I began to learn.

  I learned the slow language of the herbs in my garden, coaxing their speech into talismans and amulets, medicines that I slipped to the village women. I learned the gruff song of thunderclouds, the untethered gossip of the sea channels that snaked coyly through the kingdom. I learned the dialect of our son’s moods—his closed fists of frustration, his heavy-lidded gaze of daydreaming, his wonder-softened smile when he heard tales of your quests.

  I did not hide anything from him.