by Lisa Cach
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you even know how to do it? You’ve said it hasn’t worked for you, with women you’ve been with.”
“I’ve had contact with my sister and mother, long ago.”
“They’re the ones I should be asking to train me,” I said, my mind racing, my emotions all running toward Theo and caring about nothing else. “They’ll know how to do it.” I struggled to push myself out of the low chair. “I have to go to Mona.”
“No!” Maerlin set his cup on the floor and grabbed my hands. “Nimia, no, I can train you here. We’ll figure it out.”
“My mother; contacting Theo—everything I want is on the Isle of Mona! I have to go. How far is it? How long will it take?”
He tightened his grip on my hands, and though I felt the same cool languor creeping up my arms, it moved slowly. My excitement was pushing it back. “Wait until spring,” Maerlin said. “Winter is setting in, and it will be no time to travel.”
“Surely there are weeks yet until it snows. If I don’t go now, I’ll have to wait months. I can’t do that.” I squeezed his hands in return. “You can take me.”
He tried to tug free, but I held him tight. “No.”
“If my mother is there, she can teach you the chant.”
He kept trying to pull free. “I’m not going to Mona. You will learn nothing from them.”
“You’ve seen the chalice in your visions, and you knew that I would bring you that which you sought. You cannot falter at the final step, Maerlin. You must come with me to Mona, and learn the chant from my mother.”
He jerked his hands out of my grip and jumped to his feet. “I swore never to return, after what they did—” He cut himself off and turned away.
“What did they do? Why are you so afraid to go there?” I asked, getting out of the chair. My hand hovered near his back, hesitating to touch him, not knowing how he would react.
“That’s my private darkness, and you must stay out of it.” He looked over his shoulder at me, his face once again as cold as marble. “You said you trusted me. Trust me on this.”
“All right. I won’t ask you again about what happened with your mother and sister, and the Isle of Mona,” I promised. “I won’t ask you to take me there, either.”
He turned fully back toward me, his body relaxing.
“I’ll go on my own.”
All I could think was to find Terix, and tell him we were going to Mona. I stumbled away from Maerlin’s workshop, leaving him frozen like a statue after I’d made it clear that I’d go to Mona without him.
I’d been so distraught that I’d left the chalice with him, but a moment’s reflection convinced me that his workshop was the best place for it. No one would dare sneak in and steal something from Maerlin, for fear of being turned into a toad or having one’s mentula shriveled by a spell.
Back at the villa, a few questions to servants sent me to the practice yard, where I was drawn by the sound of clanging metal. I came around a corner of a building and saw several pairs of soldiers, stripped to their waists despite the drizzling gray weather, their blades in their hands and shields on their arms. They pounded each other with a brutality I would gladly visit on Maerlin.
Arthur walked among them, shouting corrections, stopping a man to perfect his form, or giving a curt “Good!” and thump on the back to someone who had shown himself well. He drew my eyes like a ray of light in the darkness, and for a moment I forgot my impatience and stood there in swoony adoration. I might have stood there all day, except he walked past Terix and I remembered my purpose.
Terix was training with Brenn. Bare-chested, dripping sweat, dirt smeared across his back, Terix looked to have been having a hard time of it, though his opponent—my father; still such a strange thought—had only half the limbs and twice the age. They were fighting with short swords, repeating a sequence of identical moves again, and again, and again.
Brenn’s eye was narrowed in watchful concentration, his voice low as he gave Terix guidance; only a dampening of the hair at his temples showed that he had exerted himself. His movements were economical: he barely seemed to shift, while Terix was a flurry of wasted, determined energy.
I stood at the edge of the yard, eager to speak to Terix, but unwilling to interrupt. As I watched, I grew strangely embarrassed for him as he fought against Brenn, whose movements so clearly showed Terix for the novice he was. I wanted to cheer for Terix’s willingness to learn something at which he had little skill, and at the same time I feared that he was too far behind, that he had started too late, that he would never be the warrior he wanted to be.
Or thought he wanted to be. Must every man be a warrior, to prove himself? I doubted there was a single other warrior on that practice field who could make a hall full of people helpless with laughter, the way that Terix could. Nor could most of them aim charm and wit with the precision of an arrow, to slay a problem before it grew too large to kill. And who among them had the foxlike cleverness of Terix, scenting danger on the breeze and whisking the pair of us safely away before it could lay its teeth into us?
I was lost in such thoughts when Arthur came up beside me, a wall of warmth with the scent of leather and oiled metal. The chilly drizzle seemed to recede, the grays of the landscape turning a warmer shade, the heavy blanket of clouds thinned to let in more light.
“The men fight harder with a woman watching, but make more mistakes,” Arthur said, a note of laughter in his voice.
“Should I go?”
“Not until someone gets cut for his inattention. It’ll serve as a good lesson. Did you come to see how your friend is faring?”
“We’re going to the Isle of Mona; we need to make preparations.”
He was silent, and we both watched as Brenn stopped Terix to show him a new move. I saw Terix’s gaze flick to me, and the moment it did Brenn slapped the side of his head with his sword. Terix flushed, and then the repetition of the new sequence began: step, step, swing, clang; step, step, swing, clang.
“Walk with me,” Arthur said, taking my arm and sending a tingling rush of joy through my body.
Yes, I’ll walk with you. To the ends of the earth.
We took a path to the river, and followed it downstream toward the woods. The olive-green water made a gentle music as it sluiced through fallen branches and cut under the muddy, thicket-tangled bank. With Arthur beside me, it seemed the most beautiful stream in the world.
My silent yearning for him made me nervous and uncertain of myself. He’d shown no sign that he wanted me in that way, and I cringed at the thought of flirting and getting no response, or worse yet a gentle rejection. So I tried to tamp down my lustful self and told him some of what I’d been thinking about Terix: about his cleverness and humor, so at odds with this new need to be a warrior. “Why isn’t it enough for Terix to be who he already is?”
Arthur looked at me as if I’d failed to notice it was day, not night. “Because it’s not enough for you.”
I made a rude noise of dismissal. “Our friendship has never had anything to do with whether or not he can wield a sword.”
He stopped and put his hand on my shoulder, the heavy weight of his touch sending liquid warmth down my torso to my loins. Only his gravely serious expression kept me from closing my eyes and sighing. “He doesn’t want to be your friend. He’s in love with you. You can’t tell me you didn’t know; women always know.”
The words hit me like an accusation, striking all the harder because of what I’d suspected to be true and so often denied. “I’ve known he would have more between us if I were willing, but in love?” I shook my head, trying to fend off the guilt creeping into my heart. “No. Attraction, affection, friendship. If he believes he feels more than that, it’s only because there’s no other woman to distract him. Did he say he was in love with me?”
“Words weren’t necessary.” He released my should
er, leaving it cold and exposed.
We continued into the woods, walking under the leafless branches. There was a quiet feeling that the forest was preparing itself for the cold sleep of winter, pulling up its cover of moldering leaves and tucking its creatures into their burrows for the long night. We seemed the last living things moving about, too foolish to be safe abed.
“Will we have time to reach Mona before the snows come?” I asked.
“It’s people you need to fear, more than the weather. You won’t make it there without protection. Picts. Saxons. Irish raiders. Even Britons will give you trouble.”
“Then can we have protection, do you think, from Ambrosius’s men?”
“He won’t support a fool’s errand.”
“Fool’s errand!”
“It can be nothing but, if you’re going to Mona.”
“What is it about Mona that everyone is so secretive about? What happens there? What is so horrible? I thought it was the last retreat of the druids, the only place they survived.”
“It was. And for many years the men and women at the temple and school—the ‘college’—preserved the knowledge of the druids. Then decay set in. Whatever the place once was, it is no longer.”
I stamped my foot in frustration, my soft leather sole making no sound in the rotting leaves. “But what has it become?”
“Maerlin calls it a ‘cesspool of depravity and an affront to wisdom and the proper use of power.’ ” He shrugged. “Some say it’s no more than the temple of a primitive cult, for worshipping gods who don’t exist. Others say it’s a brothel. Whatever it is, Ambrosius will not give up men to take you there.”
“And you’ll advise him not to, if he seems willing,” I grumbled.
“Nimia. I cannot waste even one man’s energy on a trip to Mona, and risk him losing his life in pursuit of folly. The men follow me because they trust me. When I give an order, they know it is for an action I would be willing to undertake myself, and that if they die, it will have been for a worthy cause. It gives their lives meaning.”
I felt a bitter taste in my mouth. “Or the illusion of it,” I said, thinking of Clovis and his love of conquering. For what? I always wondered.
Arthur surprised me by laughing. “What else do you think there is to life, than an illusion of meaning?”
The path led onto a wooden footbridge across the river, and we stepped out into its center. I leaned against the rail and crossed my arms, turning my head to look up at Arthur. His blue eyes were both bright and sad. “Do you not believe in your battles, yourself?” I asked. “Are they meaningless to you?”
“They mean nothing, and everything.” He leaned beside me on the rail to watch the water flowing beneath us like cloudy glass. “It’s the same for all our lives, all our efforts. All our wishes, dreams, doubts, and fears. How many hundreds—thousands—of men and women have walked along the bank of this river through time, leaving no footprint for us to discover? Their lives are gone, washed away, leaving no impression. And yet, from day to day, they had their battles, their loves, their fights for survival. Their celebrations. Their losses. What did it all mean? Nothing, and everything.”
“Some do leave an impression,” I said. “We still speak of Julius Caesar. Vercingetorix. Boudicca.”
“I wouldn’t have my name written in blood, as are theirs.”
“Then you’re better than most men,” I said, thinking again of Clovis. “Given the chance they would be remembered, no matter the color of the ink used.”
“Throughout all of history, how many men or women are remembered? A handful, at best. No one will remember the name Arthur a hundred years from now. No one will tell tales of the great warrior and his sorcerer brother, Maerlin.” He looked amused by the very idea. “Or of the sorceress Nimia, for that matter. No, I have smaller ambitions. Let me serve my tribe as well as I am able. Let me lead my men wisely. Let me behave honorably.” He slanted a warm look at me. “Even when tempted to do otherwise.”
I moistened my lips, afraid to read too much into the invitation and warning he may have just given me. “Is that why you agreed to pursue Wynnetha’s hand? In order to serve your tribe well?”
“My family. My tribe. My people. What matters one life, against those? I know it likely I will not live long, that each battle may be my last. I go into battle expecting my death, accepting it. Hoping only to acquit myself well before the final blow. Marriage to a comely Saxon girl?” He shrugged, then grinned. “For the sake of my tribe, I’m being sold into bondage. I’d thought the shackles wouldn’t chafe.”
“I don’t see them yet upon you.”
“Yet I know they’re there, waiting to be put on.”
“They may never lock on your wrists, at all,” I said softly, with my heart pounding. We had both begun to lean toward each other, our arms nearly touching. Our bodies were closing the distance, even as our words tried to keep us apart.
“It would be a great loss for our people, were I not to wed Wynnetha.”
“Not for you?” I asked, my heart in my throat, afraid to trust the messages he was sending.
“A loss for my people is a loss for me,” he said, but his gaze was on my lips.
“You know that’s not what I meant. What of love?”
“I’ve never looked to love for giving meaning to my life. What matters the flaming passion of a day?”
“Nothing. And everything.”
He smiled slowly, and brushed the back of his fingers down the side of my cheek. I swayed toward him, my eyes half-closing at his touch like a cat. I would purr if I could.
“It was torture, riding all those miles with you pressed up against me and knowing I couldn’t lay a hand on you,” he said.
“Torture for us both.”
His hand moved down my throat, his palm opening against it, rough and warm. He slid his hand around my neck, his fingertips going up into the hair at my nape, holding my head as he bent toward me.
My lips parted, and my body went weak. His other arm went around my waist, gently pulling me up against him. My desire for him flowed through me, filling my body with honeyed warmth. His mouth hovered over mine, not touching, hesitating. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my hips against him; I wanted to close the distance between our lips, but wanted even more for him to do it.
“Nimia,” he said softly, and I felt a quiver in his muscles, as if he was holding back great forces. “Flaming passions leave behind charcoal and ashes. They burn honor to the ground.”
“How can honor burn, when in service to love? There is no greater meaning. Love for your people, your tribe, your family. Love for one woman.”
He laid his cheek alongside mine, his voice a rough whisper. “Passion and love, they’re not the same.”
“They can be.” I clung tighter, my breasts against his chest. I was on my tiptoes, his tall frame bent over my much smaller one. “Do you not know that?”
I felt his lips brush my temple, the corner of my eye. “I had never thought either was meant for me.”
“They’re meant for anyone lucky enough to find them.”
His hold on me tightened, and then to my disappointment loosened. He released me, and gently took my arms from around his neck and stepped back.
His face was flushed, and his breathing irregular. “How do you stop it?”
I stood bereft of his touch, the cold of the day sweeping down over me. “Only a fool would try.”
He put his hands on the rail, and gripped it tight, his head bent. “I won’t do it,” he said, as much to himself as to me. “I will not leave ashes and dishonor behind me.”
“Those shackles are not yet on your wrists.”
He looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes pained. “Yet come, they well may. And then what damage to you? What unfairness to Wynnetha, to begin a marriage in such a way, with my hea
rt engaged to another?” He shook his head. “I will not do it.”
“If she marries Mordred—”
The footbridge shook with the force of him shoving off against the railing. He closed the distance between us in one step and swept me into his arms, bending me back until I could do nothing but cling to his shoulders. His mouth came down against mine, hard and hungry, forcing my lips apart. I was gloriously helpless under the onslaught, his tongue rough against my own, his hand clenching my buttock through my gown. My loins were turning to liquid when, just as suddenly as it had started, the kiss stopped and he began to set me back on my feet, away from him.
No. NO!
As he began to release me I acted on instinct, not thinking, not caring about anything but the moment. I sent a surge of my desire through the one place where his bare hand touched my skin, at the back of my neck. It was a move of hunger, of passion, of refusal to let vanish the one thing I knew to be good and right between a man and a woman. I gave no thought to the future, and vows not yet given. I cared not for convoluted thoughts of morality and meaning. I wanted only this moment of beauty and joy to continue, and the two of us to join into one.
His hand tightened on the back of my neck, and I felt his strain to pull away from the call of my desire, and to keep under chains the equal hunger within himself. “Nimia. We can’t. We shouldn’t.”
“You are not yet betrothed. We wrong no one. The future will do as it will, and take from us what it needs. But this moment is ours.” I laid my hands on his chest and slid them up to his neck, my thumbs stroking the stubble at the base of his jaw. “I don’t trust the future, Arthur,” I said, my voice soft. “It cares nothing for our hopes and plans. The present is all we have.”
He wrapped his fist in my hair, tilting my head back. I could feel the tension in his body, see it in the lines of his face and the pain in his eyes as he tried, still, to do what he thought was right. “It would be easier to bed you if I cared nothing for you.”
“Then pretend you do not.” Through the bridge that our desire created between our minds, I encouraged him to take me, to throw off thoughts of tender lovemaking and join with me as quickly and intensely as animals in rut. I could feel how badly he wanted me, and I refused to let him smother his passion in service to a future that might never come.