“Vortigern has been counting his allies, then,” Nimue murmured.
“Exactly,” Lynette replied. “There has been talk for the last few years that the Saxons are massing for a great invasion—a push to take all of Britain. Hundreds of ships, which will find an easy beach head along the Saxon Shore, thanks to Vortigern’s treaties with them. With that fear hanging over him, Vortigern wants to know who he can count on when the time comes. For years, Vortigern left us alone, for Cadfael was careful not to let word of his true alliance reach back to Vortigern. Rather, he let Vortigern think he was still loyal to him, but unable to fight for him because of troubles in the mountains he must see to first.”
“Catigern’s recruiting changed that, then,” Ilsa guessed.
“Vortigern sent one of his most senior officers, Pascient, who knew Cadfael from his days serving Vortigern directly. As soon as Pascient arrived, we knew why he was there. There was no need for him to ask the question and for a day he did not—he measured us instead. Cadfael invited him to go hunting in the mountain and stranded him upon Yr Wyddfa—oh, not for long, for Pascient is smart enough to follow the sun to the shore. It gave us time, though. We left Tomen y Mur the moment Cadfael returned and rode for Segontium and the harbor, where we could find a ship to bring us here.”
Nimue considered the news with a grave expression. “There have been more people arriving in Brittany this summer than ever before.”
“Although not enough to relieve the pressure,” said Merlin, who had dropped back from the head of the file to where the women on horseback congregated. “Have you ever seen a pot with a lid sitting on the cooking fire explode when it gets too hot?”
Ilsa shook her head. “I have seen the mess it leaves behind but not the explosion itself.”
Merlin was a young man, now, not the tall, wild-eyed boy she had first met. As a fully grown man, he was an astonishing replica of his father, from the black hair, black eyes and direct stare, to the high cheek bones and sharp square jawline. The only difference, apart from their age, was that Merlin carried no fighting muscles. Nor did he wear a sword, just a simple eating knife. His cloak was pinned with the same red dragon brooch which all Ambrosius’ family members, including Uther, now wore.
Merlin had a contained air he had not possessed, three years ago. Then, he had been searching for meaning, for a way to serve the man who had taken him in. Since then, Merlin had clearly found his purpose. As he wore the pin openly, he knew Ambrosius was his father.
“Cooks learned long ago to lift the lid of a boiling pot to relieve pressure,” Merlin said. “Pressure, though, helps cook food faster. Good cooks learn to lift the lid to let just enough pressure vent so the pot does not explode, yet still benefit from the faster cooking.”
“I thought it was heat which cooked food,” Elaine muttered, sounding bored and confused.
Merlin’s smile was indulgent. “Heat, yes. Also, pressure.”
“Is that what people like me and my family are doing, Merlin? Venting just enough pressure, but not all of it?” Lynette asked.
“Far more Saxons pour into Britain than Britons leave,” Merlin said.
His voice took on the distant, authoritative ring which made Ilsa’s back ripple uneasily. She had forgotten how uncomfortable it was to come too close to true power.
“Many more Saxons,” Merlin added, “yet even they are not the full force of the flood yet to come.”
“How much pressure can Britain bear?” Ilsa asked. “It cannot continue forever.”
“It has for forty years,” Lynette said softly.
“Time is not the only way to make a pot explode,” Merlin said.
Everyone looked at him expectantly, even Elaine.
“One can add more fuel to the fire, to make it burn hotter,” Merlin said.
Ilsa shivered again.
He nodded at them and clicked at his horse, nudging it forward to bring him level with the head of the file and beside his father.
“What can possibly make Britain burn any hotter than it already is?” Lynette whispered, her voice strained.
Ilsa would remember her hoarse question, later.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Elaine had chosen not to wear red at her wedding, in the Roman way. She wore her usual white, in the new style of flowing gown she had adapted from Ilsa’s practical garments A long veil covered her hair. She bore no other adornment than a small posy of meadowsweet in her hand. Elaine was a tall, willowy figure on Arawn’s arm, whom Ban could not look away from as he waited with the priest.
Elaine was radiant, in a way which dimmed her sister Evaine’s gravid beauty, for Evaine was heavy with her first child. Even Nimue’s glow diminished compared to the bride.
When the Latin ceremony ended, Ban invited everyone back to the great hall in Bor’s keep for the wedding feast. Over one hundred people stood in the church to witness the union. All of them walked behind the new couple up to the tall palisades of the king’s house.
Even with only two years of peace, the town surrounding Bor’s stronghold had thrived. Although water was as short in Guannes as it was in Brocéliande, the people were still remarkably content and very pleased with this second royal wedding in their midst. They watched and threw flowers as the procession moved up the hill.
“The absence of war provides relief of a kind,” Merlin observed, although his voice was normal, this time.
“The absence of war is peace,” Ilsa said.
“Or merely a lull,” Merlin replied.
She looked at him sharply. “What have you seen?”
“About Guannes? Nothing,” Merlin said blandly. “Do you think they will serve those hotcakes they make with the oats, here? I liked them.”
Even the great hall where they dined showed signs of both peace and a woman’s touch. Evaine had been busy since her wedding. Good, well woven and decorative carpets hung on the walls, adding warmth and color. Many more chairs had replaced the long benches, and there were cushions upon most of the chairs. There were more women in the hall than before, when the only women had been kitchen hands serving food and drink. Their voices added a lighter note to the buzz of talk about the tables.
The braziers had been replaced by hanging lamps. A large stone hearth was built into the wall, to provide warmth when needed. Today it was pleasantly warm and no fire would be needed tonight.
The tables were scoured clean and the platters undented. The food was hot and flavorful. The wine was good and flowed steadily.
Ilsa had been placed at the far left side of the head table. From there, if she turned around the corner beside her, she could see everyone who sat there. Elaine, beside Ban, ate little. Neither did Ban, who gripped his wine cup but did not drink. His head remained turned toward his wife and the two of them spoke with little regard to anyone around them.
Bors and Evaine had given up their big chairs for the new couple and sat together beside Ambrosius, who, with Arawn, had already turned the conversation to war. They were keeping their voices down, in deference to the occasion.
Cadfael, Uther, Lynette, Budic and Hefina chatted politely, although Uther’s gaze wandered about the room measuring, Ilsa knew, the beddability of the women here.
Both Nimue and Merlin were silent. Nimue did not eat and made no pretense to. She looked ill, Ilsa realized. Her pale face was whiter than usual and the energy and glow which surrounded her was subdued. Her gaze remained upon the lamp which sat on the table in front of her.
Either by design or accident, Merlin sat opposite Nimue. He also did not eat. He did not appear as ill as Nimue, yet there was tension in his body and when he did choose to speak, his voice was strained. He watched Nimue with close attention, his hand curled around a big wine cup. Occasionally, he drank from it, although his gaze did not move away from the Lady.
Bors gave a deep belly laugh, farther down the table, and held up his cup. “To my brother and his lovely lady on their wedding night!” he shouted.
Everyone
in the hall lifted their cups in agreement and drank.
A man in the far corner of the room got to his feet. “To our king!”
“Aye!” came the roar, as cups were again lifted.
The toasts had begun. Ilsa only sipped each time cups were raised, for she had learned that men could find someone to toast or something to celebrate for as long as the wine held. If she drank as deeply as they every time a call to drink was made, she would be deathly ill the next day.
The toasts went on, becoming increasingly more ribald and suggestive, calling upon the gods for fertile lands and loins and the prowess of bulls and more. Elaine’s cheeks burned a deep red.
Then Nimue got to her feet.
Silence fell as everyone turned to her. Women did not call for toasts although the Lady was an exception no man in the hall would gainsay. She did not pick up her cup. Her gaze stayed on the lamp.
“I, Lady of the Lake, call upon the power of Brocéliande to bless this union.” Nimue’s voice rang across the hall.
Elaine’s blush faded and her expression softened.
Mutters sounded across the hall. Bors was a Christian and this was a Christian kingdom, although only nominally. The power of the Lady and the enchanted forest of Brocéliande still commanded awe, here.
Nimue swayed, then lifted her chin. Her eyes were large and gleamed with blank light. “For the gods have touched them as they have others in this generation of men, in a way they will never repeat in all the ages of men.”
Merlin drew in a sharp breath. Ilsa glanced at him. He was sitting upright, his fingers digging into the horn of his cup, watching Nimue as a hawk watched prey, his gaze unblinking.
Nimue did not seem to see anyone in the room at all. She may have been speaking for herself yet her voice was loud, traveling to all corners of the great hall, helped by the utter silence which gripped it. “The son of this union will be a warrior of warriors, prince of all men, touched by the grace of the gods, yet still a man. It is the weakness of men which will be his downfall from the highest peaks. His name will serve as a lesson to men through the ages.”
Elaine’s gasp was weak and shaking. Ban caught her hand in his, his eyes wide as he stared at Nimue.
A night breeze, common only to the late summer, tore through the unglazed windows, to make the lamps streak, flutter and extinguish.
Nimue shrieked.
Ilsa jumped, as did everyone in the hall. Startled exclamations and oaths sounded, along with the instinctive reach and pull of swords and knives.
In low light of the few lamps left burning, Nimue clutched at her head, her chest heaving. “Blood! Oh, the blood!” Her fingers clawed at her chest, tearing her dress. Her voice was low, like a man’s voice, strained and hoarse. “We suspected nothing! We walked into the place because we believed the king! Now, look at us! Dead! All dead! Curse the Saxons! God deliver us from this hell!”
The murmurs were louder now, tinged with fear.
Nimue gave a tired sigh and dropped to the ground, her eyes rolling back. She writhed upon the floor, her slender body in the white dress jerking as if an invisible someone yanked at her feet and arms and shoulders.
Ilsa pushed her chair out of the way and flew to where Nimue squirmed. Everyone else around the Lady backed away, frightened. Ilsa bent to help the Lady, only she did not know what to do. She had never seen anything like this happen to anyone else.
“Here, put this under her head.” It was Merlin’s voice.
Ilsa looked up. He held a seat cushion toward her.
She took the cushion and Merlin crouched on the other side of Nimue’s pulsing body and lifted her head for Ilsa to slide the cushion beneath.
“All we can do is keep her from harm. The spell will pass soon enough,” Merlin said, his voice low.
“You have seen this before?”
“Seen? No. My servant has, though, many times. He learned how best to deal with it.”
His gaze lifted to Ilsa’s then away.
Then it was Merlin who suffered the same sort of…spell, did he call it?
“This is the price you pay for your Sight?” Ilsa murmured, as Merlin shifted a chair out of the way of Nimue’s thrusting feet.
“Not every time, thank goodness. I think…” He frowned, looking down at Nimue. “I believe it depends upon which god speaks through us. Women with the Sight—other than the Lady,” he qualified, “Women see smaller things. The birth of children, the success of crops. The gods which speak to them are gentler. The cruel gods, those inclined to jest, or those who are vain and demand devotion in return, who bring greater messages, who let us see the ebb and flow of power in the land…” He shook his head. “Or perhaps they are all one god, whose mood changes like the wind. It has not been revealed to me.” He stood up. “See, she rests now.”
Nimue had grown still. Her eyes were closed and her body as lax as someone in deep sleep.
Merlin bent and scooped her up as easily as he might carry a bolt of cloth. “She must rest. Where is her chamber?”
“I’ll take you there,” Ilsa told him. Together, they moved through the hall. Conversation bloomed behind them, thick with whispers and speculation about Nimue’s prophecy.
When Merlin placed Nimue upon the bed in her chamber, he said, “I will stay with her a while. When she wakes, she will be confused.”
Ilsa glanced at him, startled. Confusion was not a state she could easily imagine Merlin suffering. He was too confident, too certain of himself.
“I speak as a physician, now,” he told her gravely. “I can help her recover more swiftly than women with their herbs. Go back to the hall and enjoy your evening, Ilsa the Hunter.”
His tone was confident. Like Nimue, he sounded far older than his years.
Ilsa hesitated. “The Lady’s prophecy…”
“About the warrior? You want to know if it is true?” Merlin said it impatiently, as he held Nimue’s wrist in his fingers to measure the pulse there.
“The other one, about the blood.”
Merlin spoke off-handedly. “That was no prophecy.” He grew still, as if he realized what he had said and regretted it. His gaze met Ilsa’s. “Do not worry. That fate is not yours.”
“It was not my concern,” Ilsa said. “I have learned that to seek the future one has been prescribed is a useless venture.”
Merlin’s smile was small and warm. “Then you have learned a great lesson which by-passes most men, even those who live a long lifetime. You are to be congratulated.”
She hesitated.
“Speak your mind,” Merlin told her.
“Do you care very much that Nimue saw what you did not?”
Merlin’s smile was larger this time. The expression completely changed him, shifting him from the dark, brooding man of power to a younger one who was all too human. “Why do you think I did not see it?”
“You mean, you did? Yet you still stand. Sit,” Ilsa amended.
“What the Lady saw was but a fragment of my vision, trailing days behind the first. The message has become so loud even those with the smallest gift can hear it. The Lady’s Sight is not small, therefore she suffered from the bearing of the message.”
Ilsa puzzled it out, frowning. “Then, you did not speak to anyone about what you saw?”
“Until I know what it means, there is no point. It was more important the leaders of Brittany be here at this time.”
“For the wedding?”
“I suppose.”
“You don’t know?”
Merlin’s smile didn’t shift. “I often don’t know the meaning of what I see. The meaning comes later. I’ve learned to trust whoever speaks to me and do what they say.”
He rested the back of his fingers against Nimue’s forehead, measuring the heat. It was a practiced motion.
Confident he would care for Nimue properly, Ilsa went back to the hall, puzzling over Nimue’s words.
A warrior of warriors, prince of all men, yet still a man with a weakness which wou
ld topple him from greatness.
Elaine’s son.
When Ilsa returned to the hall, Elaine had been escorted to her wedding bed. The men sat alone at the table, plying Ban with drink before he departed to join her.
Ilsa went instead to the great chamber to help her sister-by-marriage prepare for her wedding night. She tried to dismiss Nimue’s croaking words of blood and death, and focus instead upon the great son Elaine would bear in the future.
The next day dawned dim and dark as a mid-winter morning. Storm clouds gathered, blocking the sun. The darkness swirled in them, bruised grays tinged with yellows and ugly greens. Lightning lit the interiors in flashing pulses.
Thunder rumbled.
“Will it rain, do you think?” Ilsa asked, as she stepped out onto the verandah at the front of the king’s house, which overlooked the palisades and the sprawling town. A dozen people stood upon the verandah, measuring the rolling, boiling clouds, including Arawn.
“Rain isn’t likely,” a grizzled veteran with a scar up his cheek said, from the far end of the verandah. “The air is too dry. Storms bring rain when they come at the end of the day. Early morning like this is a bad sign.”
“Will we leave today then?” Ilsa whispered to Arawn.
“Not while this hangs over us,” Arawn told her. “Our way takes us across open plains, until we meet the forest.”
“What does a plain have to do with it?” she asked.
“Have you ever seen lightning strike the ground?” Uther asked. He leaned against the column, his arms folded, his blue cloak swept back over his shoulders.
Ilsa shook her head. “A tree, once.”
Once and Future Hearts Box One Page 37