by Sarah Zettel
The chill of the night began to seep into her skin. The hard earth bit into her knees. But she did not move. She could not even struggle. She knew she would wait here until she died of thirst and hunger and she would not move, because Urien had ordered it. Her heart did not beat inside her. The lack of it made each breath wrong. Her lungs moved to take in the air, but there was only emptiness at her center, and although she could feel the sick fear of what had happened, she could raise no strength to get past it. The fear was nothing compared to the compulsion to wait.
It was so cold. Her skin prickled and shivered. She was thirsty. Tears began to stream down her cheeks, making lines of warmth, and then cold. Her joints ached. Her dress was obscenely torn and her blood dried against her skin. Her cloak flapped uselessly in the night wind. Her breath came fast and hard, and she began to sob, hoarsely, uncontrollably. And still she could not move.
Oh, Mother. Mother, come take me. Let me die. Don’t leave me here.
Elen’s eyes were crusted with sand and salt from her tears. The moon tracked its path overhead and the stars wheeled around it. The dew settled on her, and she shivered. She could not feel her legs or her feet any more. Her back screamed in pain. Her mouth was completely parched. Her head fell forward because she lacked the strength to hold it upright anymore.
She might have fainted, then, she was no longer sure. The grass and the fallen feather were so beautiful and filled her mind so completely that she could not truly tell whether she dreamed it or saw what was truly before her.
Elen.
The sound of her name lifted Elen’s head again, even though the movement was painful. Mother knelt before her. Her skin was white and her hands were long and strong and without blemish. Even mother waited here. It was right to wait. It was perfection.
Elen, your blood is your salvation. Your blood is your escape.
Blood. There had been so much blood when Morgaine took her hawk, and now she must wait. She must wait. Mother was so beautiful. She shone in the moonlight, even though the moon had set. Maybe mother would take her away. She didn’t understand why she hurt so much. She was waiting and it was the right thing to do.
Blood calls to blood, Elen. Blood must hear.
“Blood,” murmured Elen, her mind so fogged, she scarce understood the word.
She felt lips brush her cheek, cool and soft as the night’s breeze. I can give you so little now, daughter. I can tell you before you find your freedom you will ride into a far country where you shall breach the wall and you shall take death and return life. You shall be allowed to bestow three gifts by the power of your blood. Three only in the name of the mothers who are birth and death. Use them wisely, daughter. Use them in blessing.
And mother was gone, and there was only the grass and the pain and the stillness of her blood.
The power of blood … Blood. Mother. Mother had told her something. Something she must remember now. Remember beyond the perfection of the grass, beyond the touch of the shade, beyond the need to wait. It was there, beneath it all.
Blood calls to blood. Blood must hear.
There was blood all over her dress. Her heart’s own blood that Morgaine spilled. More blood stained her cloak. Her mother’s blood from her corpse. The fae blood from the birthing she attended.
I must wait. I must wait.
There was blood still in her veins.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
Blood in her veins. Her family’s blood. It flowed out from her slaughtered kin.
Merlin is kin to me.
Memory jolted through Elen. Merlin, Arthur’s cunning man, his sorcerer. Merlin was kin to Adara.
Merlin was kin to Elen.
They shared blood, he and she. Blood called to blood, and blood must hear.
But I must wait. I cannot leave. I must wait. It is wrong to want this. Wrong. I cannot. I must wait. Her mind crawled and cringed at the idea of moving. Only waiting was right. Only stillness was good.
But I do not have to move. The thought was a delicious darkness, like the thought of a young man lying in the darkness, waiting just for her. It was wrong, it was forbidden, but so tempting. My blood is already free. I can call and still wait. It can be done.
Wait. Wait. Wait. The word pounded in her as her heart had once done. It surged through her still blood. It disordered her thoughts. Wait. Wait. Wait.
I will wait. I will. I will just tell him I am waiting. I will just tell him I am waiting, and why.
That eased the revulsion that curdled her mind, and made it a little easier to move her hand. It was so cold. She reached out and claimed the fallen feather from the hawk.
Where is it? Where has it gone? I must wait until it comes back. I must wait to hear my heart again.
She raised her hand to her mouth, and she spat. Her mouth was so dry, there was almost nothing there, but she managed. She curled her aching fingers around the torn and bloody cloth of her dress and the humors of her body mingled with the gesture and rubbed themselves into the feather. She closed her eyes.
I will just tell him I am waiting. He needs to know I am waiting.
Her mind was so dazed with all that had happened, it was easy to slide into the dreamlike state that allowed one to conjure visions. She thought of the feather curled tight in her hand. She thought of its shape, its color, the lightness of it. She though how it bore the hawk high and free on the summer winds.
As feather bore hawk, so shall mind be born. As blood gives power to body, so shall blood give power to the feather and the feather shall bear my thoughts to Merlin.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
With a force that made her body shudder to the bone, Elen forced the word down and away. She thought of the feather. She pictured the hawk soaring free. She willed herself to feel the winds. It was only her thoughts, only her spirit that would fly. She would wait here, but her mind would fly free. She would soar and see as the birds of the air saw.
For an instant mother was beside her again, for an instant she felt the familiar brush against her, and a voice in her mind said, One.
All at once, her spirit lifted itself free from the chains of its body, and the wind snatched it up. She rushed through the darkness, flying free and fast. It was glorious. It was terrible. It was all she could do to hang onto the name of the one she must find, and she must hang onto it tight, or be lost forever in the dark winds.
Merlin. Merlin. Blood calls to blood, and blood must hear.
She saw light before her, bright and golden like a star in the darkness. The winds grew still and she moved no more. The light changed, it stretched, it grew, until it was a man with a long beard standing before her holding his white staff like a bar to her way.
“Who calls Merlin?” The voice filled the whole of Elen. She could not have held back her answer if she wanted to.
“Elen, Adara’s daughter.”
There was silence for a moment, and then the voice asked. “What would you of Merlin?”
Her mind cramped and constricted. This was wrong, wrong! Unless it was for the waiting. All she did must be to continue to wait.
“I would tell him I am waiting.”
There was a pause. All her body strained. She knew this was wrong, it was worse than any other thing she had ever done, but yet it was not forbidden. It was hard though, oh, so hard and she was so tired.
“For what do you wait?” the question came at last.
I can tell him this much. I can. “For Urien who is my master.”
“Why do you wait?”
This much more. It is only a little more. I can tell him why I must wait. “Because Morgaine has made it so.”
Again there was a long pause. Elen swayed on her knees. She did not think she could stay upright much longer. She longed to let herself fall into the grass. The closer she was to the earth, the more sure would be her waiting.
“Why does Morgaine concern herself with you?”
This was harder. Her mind rebelled. It was as if a wind swirled around her, bu
ffetting and distracting her. “Because my mother would have allowed Arthur across the bridge.”
Silence again, and in that silence her will and vision at last began to waver. The old man who stood so still before her became nothing but a blur of light again.
“Please, please, I can’t … I must …” I must wait, I must wait. This is wrong. I must wait. The darkness folded around her vision.
“You have been heard, daughter.” His voice was barely a whisper and fading until it was no more than the echo of a thought. “I have heard you. Believe that.”
She woke then, and she was as she had been, kneeling on the grass with the stars overhead. Pain throbbed in every joint, and yet, she was once again completely obedient, and the relief that swept through her was so great the pain of her waking felt like a blessing.
You have been heard, daughter. The words echoed through memory. I have heard you.
They meant than was said, those words. They meant her will was not entirely gone. They meant she could fight this thing. There was room still for her to bite the hand that held her so tightly.
Elen took that knowledge and drew it down deep into the hollow place inside where her heart had once been. She closed herself around that precious secret, and alone in the darkness, she waited.
Chapter Five
Someone was shaking Geraint’s shoulder. A haze of light penetrated the warm darkness of sleep. What in Heaven?
“My lord Geraint. My lord, wake up.” Donal’s voice reached him. Geraint opened his eyes. His squire stood beside the bed holding a lantern. His fair hair was still tousled from his own interrupted sleep.
“My lord, the high king summons you.”
Geraint swung his feet out from under the blankets. Around him, men shifted in their sleep, snored or muttered curses as they rolled over trying to get away from the light. Geraint had moved back into the barracks after Gawain’s marriage. Unlike Agravain, he did not have enough he cared to keep that required the extra space, and a room to himself felt lonely, and not a little presumptuous.
Donal set the lantern down and scurried to the chest beside the bed for a robe while Geraint got his feet into his sandals. It felt to be near morning, but not near enough. He rubbed his face to try to clear the last of the sleep’s fog from him.
Donal held up a burgundy robe lined in fur. Geraint pulled it over his head. His squire was still a few inches too short to easily drape a cloak around the shoulders of a tall man. Another summer would cure that.
Geraint nodded his readiness as he tied the robe’s belt and Donal picked up the lantern and hurried before him to light the way out of the barracks and across the yard to Caerleon’s main hall. The summer night was warm and dry, but the wind was chilly with dew. The hall was silent enough that his sandals and Donal’s sounded overly loud as they slapped against the stones. No light welcomed them until they reached the king’s private chamber. There, a fire burned in the roomy hearth and its light gleamed on the mosaiced floor, the rich tapestries and dark wooden furnishings. It filled the room with warmth and the smells of wood smoke. Arthur stood beside the hearth, his back and folded hands to the flames. Merlin stood to his left, clad as always in his simple, black robes and holding the white staff Geraint had never seen him without. Both men looked tired, and strained, but Geraint chiefly watched the king, even as he knelt. The Arthur’s face was drawn, and his steady hands smoothed down the sleeve of his bright blue robe needlessly.
“Rise, Geraint,” said Arthur. “Your brothers will be joining us in a moment.”
My brothers? Geraint did as he was bidden, his mouth suddenly dry. Is it come then? Has our father died? He looked to Merlin, and the socerer’s wise eyes read his thought. Merlin shook his head. But what else would call us all here?
The paige opened the door, and Agravain and Gawain entered, accompanied by their squires. They were both in green robes trimmed with grey fur, and both were uncombed and unshaven. But where Gawain looked alert and concerned, Agravain simply looked annoyed. There was comfort in so familiar a sight.
Geraint’s elder brothers knelt before the king and were raised up. Their boys joined Donal standing with their backs to the far wall, waiting until they were called. Arthur looked to them. “You may go,” he said. Then to the paige. “You as well.”
The boys looked to one another, uneasy at this strange command, even as their elders did. But they knelt and they filed out the door to the corridor, but not without many a backward glance at their masters.
When the door was closed again, Gawain was the first to speak.
“What’s the matter, Majesty?”
“That is yet uncertain, Gawain.” Arthur’s voice was heavy, but Geraint could not tell what weighed it down so. It was far more than lack of sleep. “Adara of Pont Cymryd, she had a daughter named Elen, did she not?”
Had? The Lady Elen? What has happened? Geraint saw before him the graceful maid with her merry, searching eyes. He’d done no more than share a few glances with her, and yet, days later he could recall each one of them, along with every line of her face and form.
“She did, Majesty,” he made himself answer calmly. “Has there been news?”
The king looked to Merlin, who gave the answer. “Elen is captive, of Urien, and of Morgaine.”
Geraint felt the fibers of his body harden into stillness at those words.
“Which is why I wanted you all here with me,” Arthur was saying. Geraint barely heard him. He saw Elen again, the quiet smile, the grace, the eyes that spoke of a wise and perceptive woman waiting within the dutiful maiden. He thought of the hall that was so much like their home had been in better days. He saw Urien on his feet, making his sly insinuations and blatant slanders.
“Morgaine?” Agravain was frowning hard. “What means she to us?”
“She is your mother’s sister,” said the king, looking at the fire as he said it. “And mine. She concerns us.” He did not look up. He would speak to them of Morgaine, but would not meet their eyes. It was a strange thing. It discomfited Geraint and he was not alone. Gawain was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Geraint also noticed that Gareth was not here. The king spoke of blood and family, and yet left him out. Well, he was still mostly a boy, and had been barely walking when their mother Morgause had left them to try to set matters right with her sister Morgaine. It would be natural enough for their uncle to assume he knew nothing of these matters. Now was not the time to correct him.
A long necked wine jar waited on a table beside the hearth with some small cups. Gawain, upon receiving a nod of permission from their uncle, poured a drink for himself. He downed most of it before he spoke. “I thought Morgaine died years ago,” he said to the dregs of his cup.
“No. Not dead,” answered Merlin. “Confined only.”
Agravain folded his arms. “You are very certain of this.”
The sorcerer nodded.
Anger darkened Agravain’s face. “If you know so much of the matter then why do you bring us here? We were only boys when our mother left us and she never spoke of her sister. You clearly know much more than we.”
But it was Gawain who had the answer, and he gave it to the king. “Because, Uncle, you believe this is much more than a conflict over a bridge and a small cantrev in Whales.”
Arthur nodded. “It could soon become that.”
Gawain set the cup down. This was more familiar territory, and Geraint could see the urge for doing grow warm within his oldest brother. “Does Morgaine rally against you, Sir?”
“Yes.” Still the king watched the fire. What did he see in the flames? It seemed to Geraint some heavy memory waited there for him and that he could not turn away.
“Has she strength?” Gawain wanted to know. Of course he did. “Or only shadows?”
Merlin’s answer was quiet, but quick. “Gawain, you of all men know better than to dismiss shadows such as these.”
For a moment, Geraint thought Gawain was going to blush. “Forgive me,” he
said with a small bow. “I spoke my hope, not my mind.”
“So men may in the darkness,” said Merlin evenly, but his hands still gripped his white staff tightly. “Does she herself have martial strength? I do not know. We do know, however, that Urien does have strength of this kind.”
It was Geraint’s turn to nod.
“And that is what we must deal with first of all,” said Arthur, turning around at last. “This other … this other you needed to know.” Geraint thought he wanted to say more, but in the end, he lost that struggle, and kept it to himself. “Let Bedivere come in,” he said.
Which would end all talk of Morgaine. There were perhaps half-a-dozen living souls who knew of her relationship to the king, and all but the queen and Gareth were in this room.
The door was duly opened, and Sir Bedivere followed by the train of squires and paiges came in to kneel before Arthur, and be raised up. The boys immediately set to their duties, bringing chairs and wine for their masters and retreating to wait by the walls until they were needed. Curiosity burned bright in them, but they would have to learn to accustom themselves to it. Bedivere most certainly also wondered at what council had been taken that excluded him, but he said nothing and gave no sign of impatience. It was enough for him to know that the High King had wished him to wait.
“Tell us, Bedivere,” said Arthur as he sipped his wine. “How warmly does Urien strive against us?”
“Most warmly,” Bedivere replied, looking to Geraint, who nodded his confirmation. “Or so the men of Pont Cymryd believe. They say he has been riding amongst his kinsmen and fellow chieftains, making loud orations against the High King, and they have been opening their ears. Pont Cymryd was only one of the houses he visited.”
Arthur frowned into his cup. “Since my father’s time, trouble has come on us from the West. It was where cursed Vortiger chose to hide himself while he gathered his own strength. I had hoped the embassies would be in time to stem this latest, but it seems we were too slow.” He drank a long swallow of the warm, watered wine. “Has Urien had time to do any more than talk?”