by Dave Freer
Díleas had by now walked around to the stirrup and stood up against it, reaching his nose up. The knight reached down and his chain-link-covered gauntlet got a lick.
“If he’s an illusion, he’s a remarkably friendly and touchable one,” said the knight, somewhat more mildly. “What is your name, Sir Dragon? And where are you from and whence bound?”
Anything rather than another fight on an empty stomach, thought Fionn. And besides the wolves and monsters, Brocéliande was known for the ideals of chivalry. Fionn had found these often crumbled when closely examined, but there were exceptions. “Might I know yours, Sir Knight? I hail from a far land, and I am bound I know not whither, because I cannot speak the language of dogs. The dog knows, but I do not. I merely follow, but will follow until I find and rescue my lady. My name is Fionn of Tasmarin, and my style, Earl of Laufey.” Which was true, in a manner of speaking. It was one of the advantages of having assumed many personas and having been a fraud for so many years. It was unlikely that the knight would know Laufey, which was in the Nordic cycles somewhere.
The knight raised his lance in salute. “Well met, Earl Fionn. I am Sir Bertran, son of Ywain, guardian of the fountain of Escalados. I had hoped this day to fight a great battle against some foul creature, to gain honor. But instead I have met something so passing strange that I can at least have a tale to tell my grandchildren one day. It would be ignoble for me to fight someone on such a great quest. Is there some way I can aid you?”
“Breakfast, and to allow us free passage, would be good.” Fionn never forgot geography. Escalados fountain was a place he’d had occasion to visit. It was a pinch point for water and electromagnetic energies he’d had to adjust before. It was close enough to here.
Díleas barked in agreement, and danced on his hind legs. Fionn had realized that the dog was quite good at the manipulation of humans . . . and dragons.
Chapter 6
“I think, m’lady,” said Neve firmly, once they were out of earshot of the tower, “that I am going to faint.”
“Must be the lack of food,” said Meb, grinning. “I’m hungry enough to fall over myself.”
“Oh, I am sorry, m’lady. I’ll run to the kitchens . . .”
“You’ll do no such thing, Neve,” said Meb, grabbing her. “Without you I’m lost. I’d probably end up down the well or wandering in on Aberinn and Medraut in counsel and get executed on the spot. Show me the way instead.”
“But . . . but you shouldn’t go there, m’lady. The nobility don’t. Only Mage Aberinn goes down to the kitchens and cellars to magically replenish supplies.”
“He does?”
“Yes,” said Neve, cheerily. “Otherwise we’d be eating our shoes, m’lady. The wars have been that fierce. And the Vanar raiders have burned most of the fishing boats. That was why I came to the castle seeking a place. At least the food is wonderful. There are times that it looks better than it tastes, though.”
Meb was willing to bet that those were the times that it really was old boiled shoe. “Well, if I can go into his tower, I can go into the kitchens. And if anyone asks I will say he told me to, and I’ll bet not one of them will ever check.”
Neve giggled, which, the sensible part of Meb knew, was just the sort of encouragement she did not need. Without Finn to keep her out of trouble . . . That nearly made her cry again, so she resolutely thought about other things until they came to the kitchen of Dun Tagoll—with spits and hobs and great cauldrons . . . and most of them idle. There was, however, new bread. That much her nose told her. There was also a sudden shocked silence at her presence there.
The cook, large ladle in hand, approached tentatively. “What can we do for you, Lady Anghared?” he asked.
So even here they knew who she was. “I have just been speaking with Mage Aberinn in his tower.” Someone would have seen them going there, unless castles were vastly different from villages. By the gasps and nods she could tell that the two weren’t that different. “I came to see the state of the provision of the castle. And also to get a heel of that new bread.” Neve’s struggle to keep a straight face definitely made her worse. “And a jug of small beer.”
“The . . . mage put a stop to brewing. There is wine . . .”
Meb didn’t need to be a mage with great powers to tell that that hadn’t happened. “I won’t mention it to him. Or to those in the hall,” she said with her mouth as prim as possible.
She got the bread and small beer. And smiles as the two of them retreated to her chamber.
“I’m not eating or drinking this alone,” said Meb. “And small beer is the only kind of reward I can give you for coming into the lion’s den with me. He didn’t seem to know that I wasn’t telling him the whole truth all the time, either.”
Neve shook her head. “Eh, my lady, I had a friend back in our village like you. Always up to some mischief.”
“Oh, dear. What happened to her?” asked Meb, already expecting a homily.
Neve shrugged. “She got into a fair amount of trouble, got a few beatings, but mostly got away with it, I suppose. And then she got pregnant.”
“Ah.” It had to end badly.
“Yes, she married the miller’s boy. She was the strictest mother in the village,” said Neve. “You wouldn’t think she was the one who got up to mischief. Or led the rest of us to do such.”
“I was a mouse back in my village most of the time. I was too different. Then the pirates burned our boats, and, well, I had to learn,” she said quietly, trying not to think of who had taught her. Never do the expected . . .
“I just came here when that happened,” said Neve, equally quietly, helping herself to some of the bread without thinking.
“Well, that’s learning too. So you’ll help me? Tell me, quietly, when I am doing something too crazy? I just don’t know. I don’t know where I should be, and what I should do.”
Neve nodded. “When you’ve eaten, m’lady, I’ll take the plate and jug to the kitchens. You should be in the bower. The ladies would be sewing and weaving there now. Maids too. I’m not very skilled.”
“Oh good. That’s two of us.” Meb ate another piece of bread and tossed her tasseled juggling balls in the air, doing a simple one-hand routine, keeping all four balls in the air while Neve stared. “I think this is about all I’m really any good at. Will that do? Mama Hallgerd also showed me how to set stitches and weave flax, and tie netting knots.”
“Don’t show them the juggling! They’ll think you’re . . . I don’t know, m’lady.” They won’t like it. I think it’s wonderful. Like magic. Can you do other things?”
“A few,” said Meb, taking a drink and wiping her lips with the back of her hand. Grinning she said: “I can belch pretty well, too,” and she demonstrated, “but I don’t think that’ll impress Lady Cardun.”
Neve looked as if she might giggle herself into apoplexy as she shook her head.
* * *
Aberinn attempted to look at Prince Medraut without his contempt showing. Medraut was a schemer and plotter. That was normal for the House of Lyon nobles. But it also normally went with courage and mage-power. Aberinn had kept vacant the throne of Lyonesse through two other regents, and seen that the old king never had any heirs to claim it. The mage had kept it for his own son or no one. And as the spell from the cord-blood showed, the child still lived. Aberinn had devoted an entire table to drawing-spells to call the boy back here to claim his own. And he’d seen to it that no one could be anointed as the new king ever since the old king had died. Only those of Aberinn’s line could ever find the ancient font now, for all that it was in plain view.
All of the regents had planned to take power, of course. But none had been as eel-like about it as Medraut. Aberinn was even more certain now that this woman had been Medraut’s plant. The window was a simple trick and could easily have been hidden. And at a stroke, Medraut was free of Earl Alois—his worst enemy from the South—and the royal mage. Aberinn knew there were no other mage-workers of
his ability in Lyonesse—but that was unlikely to worry someone as shortsighted and power hungry as Medraut.
“Do you think she’s really the Defender?” Prince Medraut said, plainly attempting to cover his tracks.
Aberinn wondered just where the regent had found her. She did have some power, he suspected. There were Lyon-blood children conceived on the wrong side of the blankets all over the kingdom. His mother had been one, which had made Queen Gwenhwyfach his cousin. Well, if Medraut wanted to play this game, so could he. “It is possible. Magic will find a way. Of course, if she is, your regency is over, Medraut.”
Medraut shot a quick glance at the royal mage. “That . . . would depend on the rest of the prophecy coming true. Or of her being the true Defender. The real Defender was supposed to come from the past, not this . . . Tasmarin place. Everyone knows that. And anyway, she did not come to be king.” He laughed at his little joke. “She could hardly be that, eh?”
Aberinn decided it best to ignore that attempt at humor. “It is possible that she deceived us as to where she came from. Her accent speaks of the south.”
“She hasn’t got much of an accent,” said Prince Medraut, confirming the mage’s suspicions. “And anyway, I thought the wine was bespelled to make her speak the whole truth?”
“It is possible to magically proof someone against enchantment,” Aberinn did not add “as you know, full well.” After all, who would know better than Medraut about that? The man could lie like a flat fish.
“Yes, but why?” demanded Medraut, with a good show of puzzlement. “Alois would likely have killed me, without her.”
“Really? You had no other safeguards?” asked the mage.
“Yes, but he had already got through the outer ones. If he had that much knowledge, and that much skill . . . and look how he escaped from the dungeon before the torturers could put him to the question. You said you had proofed that cell against enchantments and magics. You told me it would hold the sorceress of Shadow Hall itself. You told me I was safe!”
That was nearly a scream. Perhaps Medraut really was worried? If the girl were not Medraut’s plant . . . maybe she was Alois’s tool? But surely that was too extreme. She could, of course, be the tool of the enchantress in her Shadow Hall. The woman was mad. “No crowned head is ever safe, Medraut. No regent either. I’ll watch her.”
“I think we should kill her quietly,” said Prince Medraut.
“It would have to be subtly done. The commons are already very full of the story. Your hold on Lyonesse is not a strong one, Prince,” said Aberinn.
“Tell me something that I do not know,” said the prince, sourly. “And now they expect me to lead the troops against this latest foe. Can we not change earlier?”
Aberinn shook his head and got up to leave, not trusting himself to speak. Thinking about it with the benefit of hindsight, perhaps his freeing of Earl Alois had been a mistake. Or premature.
* * *
The ladies’ bower was all Meb feared it would be. For a start, it was a-buzz above the clicks of weaving shuttles—like an angry beehive—with woman talk when she came around the corner, following Neve. She grabbed Neve’s shoulder, and they stopped. And Meb proved that eavesdropping is a sure way to prove that you do in fact never hear anything good about yourself.
“. . . she has the magic, but she is not noble. Look at the way she was dressed.”
“And she did not even put her hair up or cover it. Wanton, I tell you. She was in Aberinn’s tower this morning.”
“She does seem very young.”
A gentle voice. The one who had been sympathetic the night before.
“Hmpf.” That was Cardun. “I have never believed that prophecy of Aberinn’s. He’s never done the like before or since. It just came when Prince Medraut had the Royal Council and the earls ready to agree to the vote.”
“Oh, no one could have faked that, Lady Cardun. Why, there was foam coming out of his mouth. It was terrible.”
“It was as real as this ‘Defender.’ She’s a common trollop who was wearing a man’s breeches!”
Meb took a deep breath and walked on into the room. The comments about Aberinn’s fit or the reality of the prophecy—or her—died. Vanished into silence and false smiles.
She gave them one which matched theirs very well, and did her best to look down her nose at them, which was difficult, because she was not very tall. “So this is what the ladies occupy themselves with in Dun Tagoll. How nice.” She hoped that sounded condescending. She’d never really had a chance to do condescension before. There were tambour frames, a bigger loom than she’d ever seen, women sitting and stitching where the light was best. Meb loved fabrics and loved fine embroidery. They just weren’t things that had come her way. She was saved from deep embarrassment, or finding some way to squirm out of this, by a call from outside. It was a panting page. “The prince’s troop is about to ride out, ladies.”
So they all went out to the collonaded cloister above the courtyard to see the brave colors hoisted above the cream of Lyonesse, before they rode out to do battle. The little woman who had been kind to Meb the night before looked as if the sight of it cut her to the quick. She did not go down and bestow favors on the men of the troop. Instead she looked as if she might start crying.
Meb had no one to cheer on either, so she just stayed looking out from between the pillars too. “What is wrong?” she asked, looking at the tight face.
The woman made an effort to smile. “Nothing, Lady Anghared. It just brings back old memories. Painful ones. Cormac, my husband, rode out like this, with my favor on his sleeve . . . oh, more than ten years ago.”
“And he never came back,” said Meb quietly.
“Yes. They say they saw him fall . . . but they also say he’s been seen with the hosts of the Blessed Isles.”
Meb did not know what to say.
“And with the armies of Ys. He was a very recognizable man. But he was as true as steel. He would never betray Lyonesse.”
The “he would never betray me” was left unspoken. But she did not have to say it. “I have two young sons. They too will ride out one day,” she said fatalistically. The “and maybe fight against their father” was also left unsaid.
Desperately looking for something to say, Meb came up with: “You chose my clothes, didn’t you? I’m sorry . . . I don’t think I know your name.”
The woman nodded, looked her up and down. “You were so pale last night I thought the blue might suit you. I think yellows and greens would bring out your color better, dear. I do like the comb, even though I imagine Lady Cardun won’t approve. I’m not surprised you don’t remember much from last night. My name is Vivien. My husband was once captain of the Royal Troop.”
“I think if I wound my hair up just like hers, she’d still say that it didn’t suit me.” said Meb, looking down at the chatelaine in the courtyard, a safe distance off.
Vivien shrugged. “She’s worried about her place. She’s the prince’s aunt.
Meb wrinkled her forehead. “What does that have to do with me? I am sorry . . . I just don’t know what is going on here, lady. I’m . . . I’m out of place. I was . . . living in another land. In what nearly was a war to end all of it . . . we . . . Finn and me, stopped that, and then suddenly I was here.”
“It sounds a rather momentous history for someone who looks . . . How old are you, Lady Anghared?” It was asked kindly, with a gentle concern.
“Um. I think eighteen. It was rather hard to keep track this last while. Might be nineteen,” said Meb, who was better at dealing with outright conflict than this. Was it a trap of some sort?
“They say you’re too young to be the Defender. But at nineteen I had two children. They’re saying a lot of . . . things about you, dear. Don’t give them fuel.”
It was actually meant kindly, Meb decided. And Vivien was plainly more careworn than actually old. “I don’t know if I am this ‘Defender.’ I don’t think so. I think I am just an unhappy person dr
opped here, far from everything and everyone I love. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be your Defender.”
“You saved Prince Medraut from death, and you brought back the queen’s window, a great magic, and Dun Tagoll is defended in every way against those. You frightened Prince Medraut into giving up his sword. You spoke of dealing with dragons . . . The men-at-arms . . . well, I heard about it from my boys. They are both squires. But the haerthmen and the men-at-arms are full of it. So are the servants. Also you’ve been into Aberinn’s tower. Almost no one does that. Don’t let . . . spitefulness hurt you.”
Meb realized that Vivien, too, believed. Or wanted to. She feared for her sons. “I don’t . . . Lady Vivien. I can’t be a lady, let alone your Defender. I don’t want to be.”
“What do you want?” asked Vivien.
Meb sighed. “Something I can’t have, either. Ever. I am not even sure I want to be alive, half the time.”
“I think I understand,” said Vivien, holding her. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve lost everything I ever had. Everything I ever loved,” said Meb quietly, tears starting to form and flow. Vivien said nothing. Just hugged her. There were others weeping and being comforted, so it was not that very obvious. Somehow Meb found herself being taken back to the bower and shown embroidery stitches. She was given an ivory frame, and she concentrated fiercely on it. Trying to lose herself in it. She did love the threads’ silkiness and the bright colors of them.
A little later someone looked at what she was doing. “I thought . . . you said you had never done this before?”
Meb looked at the picture that had started to form out of the tiny stitches. There had been a carefully drawn pattern there, but after a while she had somehow lost the simple flower pattern, and gone on setting stitches according to a pattern in her head, not on the stretched fabric. The dragon was perfectly detailed on the white lawn, and his flame was orange and red and bright, almost seeming to burn out of the material.