by L. K. Rigel
She pulled away and closed her eyes, her heart racing. Her body was on fire. This made no sense. She wasn’t even attracted to the great ruddy hulk. Despite the electric sizzle in his touch. She wasn’t attracted to anybody. Not now. At present, she had no confidence where love was concerned, not in her judgment of men or in herself as a lover.
Gradually her senses brought the world into better focus. Seagulls screamed over the bay. Horses’ hooves clump-clumped on soft dirt. Marion chatted with Ian about Sharon. Lilith opened her eyes. No one had noticed her discomfort.
She could feel Bausiney watching her, but if she looked at him she’d lose it. Instead, she examined the village and the cliffs beyond.
Great gods, and sheesh! Again her heart was in her throat. Just south of the village, clinging to the cliffs’ edge—it was the oak tree from her dreams. Its dramatically wide branches spread out over the sea on one side and over the land on the other. At its base, a woman in a long black cloak stood with one palm resting on the tree’s trunk.
It was Elyse. Watching her. Waiting for her.
You’ve come at last. The same words, same voice she’d heard at Tintagos Halt.
“Who is that?” She turned to her fellow passengers.
“Who what?” Ian said.
“The woman by the tree.”
“Are you seeing ghosts, dear?” Marion said.
Lilith looked again, and there was no one there. Was she having waking dreams now? “Maybe I was seeing things.” She tried to make a joke of it. “I haven’t slept well lately.”
The ladies fell into travel-weary silence while Ian and Bausiney debated whether there was enough liquor stocked at the inn. Lilith leaned back and watched the tree, listening to the horses’ rhythmic clop-clop. After a while Bausiney said, “Miss Evergreen, I’m told you’re the one tourist who’s come for our lovely scenery alone and not the lure of Glimmer Cottage.”
“Excellent,” Bella said. “One less in the competition.”
“It’s not a competition, dear,” Marion said. “The wyrding woman will know the one and will choose her, simple as that.”
“My wager’s on Evergreen here,” Ian said.
“Shush, Ian.” Marion patted his knee. “We have no favorites at the Tragic Fall.”
Ian made a face. “Anyone who sees a ghost at Igdrasil is a winner in my book.” He said Igdrasil with tenderness—even love.
“Igdrasil?” Lilith said.
“The tree.” Bella shook her head with disdain. “The great world tree of Dumnos. It has a name.”
“Bella is a veritable encyclopedia of Dumnos,” Cammy said. “She’s been elbow-deep in research since the announcement.”
“What does it matter?” Bella said. “It’s all up, isn’t it? Game over. She’s the one.”
“Not possible,” Bausiney said drily. “She’s an American.”
Poor Bella. She didn’t see that the entire event was a pantomime. A tourist promotion. It was cruel someone didn’t enlighten her. Besides, even if by an impossible breach of plausibility the Handover were on the level, the celibacy involved wouldn’t do. Lilith was off men for now, but not forever.
Take Bausiney, for instance. He wasn’t the handsomest of men, but she could already see he was clever and funny and he oozed sexual…competence? The mad random bout of lust had passed, but a strange afterglow of attraction persisted. And she liked it.
Something inside her had changed, maybe with her first breath of Tintagos air. She was alive in a way she’d never felt, as if Dumnos’s atmospheric conditions had affected her too. No, she wouldn’t be off men forever.
The carriage crossed into the village square and slowed to a crawl to avoid hitting tourists in the streets. Lilith could well believe every room in the village was taken. They rolled to a stop at the Tragic Fall Inn, and the footman climbed down to unload the luggage.
“Take it all inside, Trenam,” Bausiney said.
“Yes, my lord.” The footman gave a cursory bow.
“Heavens.” Cammy pointed to a wooden placard above the inn’s doorway. It boasted a grotesque painting of two horses’ heads, one white with a black blaze on its forehead and one black with a white blaze. Their nostrils flared and their teeth were bared in unnatural grimaces, their eyes wide with terror.
“Those are the horses that fell,” Bausiney deadpanned. “Tragically.”
He kissed the back of Cammy’s hand and laid on the charm. “I wish you a pleasant stay in Tintagos.” Cammy curtsied and giggled, and Bausiney moved on to Bella with the same routine. He repeated the exercise with Lilith—except that he wished her a very pleasant stay and lingered half a beat over her hand. She wondered what it would be like to feel those lips on other places.
The way he lifted the scarf from her shoulders felt intimate and familiar. Heat flowed through her again, like lava. Not like the wild weirdness in the carriage; this was old-fashioned, mundane desire.
“You’ll be warm inside,” he said.
She was warm inside already.
“I see the mist and rain of Dumnos have no respect for summer,” she said. “I assure you I did pack a sweater.” A lock of his russet hair fell over his eyes, and she fought the urge to tuck it up under that outrageous hat.
He draped the scarf over one shoulder like a knight’s favor from his lady fair and climbed into the carriage. He was still standing as it pulled away. “I’ll call for you tomorrow at ten o’clock sharp. First stop, Tintagos Castle!”
He doffed his hat just when the carriage hit a rut and pitched him forward. He disappeared then popped up again, arms outstretched to show he was unharmed. Lilith laughed along with the French girls. No denying it, Bausiney was quite likeable in his roguish way.
Inside ready to check them in, Marion waited at the desk. Behind her was a life-size photo of a young woman. “Is that you?” Lilith asked. “No, wait. Your mother?”
The woman in the picture had straight dark hair down to her elbows, heavy eye makeup, and white lipstick. She wore a plaid miniskirt under a leather jacket trimmed with fringe and white go-go boots. Through a trick of the camera, it looked like a statue of Eros had perched on her shoulder.
A brass plate on the frame said Countess Dumnos.
“My older sister,” Marion said. “At Piccadilly Circus, ages ago.”
Cammy said, “Your sister was Lord Tintagos’s mother?”
“He is my nephew.” Marion handed them their room keys and rang for a porter.
“Who is Lord Tintagos?” Lilith asked.
“Cade Bausiney.” Bella scoffed. “The man you were practically snogging all the way from the Halt. Soon to be the Earl of Dumnos.”
“Not soon, let us hope,” Marion said. She handed Lilith her room key. “Lord Tintagos is Cade’s courtesy title.”
“Courtesy?”
Bella pounced on Lilith’s revealed ignorance. “His lordship was right. You can’t be the one.”
“I promise you, Bella. I am not the one.” Great gods. She’d already said she wasn’t here for the event. If Bella’s eagerness was an indication of the general feeling, there had better be more to this Handover than a show. Some fabulous consolation prizes were in order, or Lord Tintagos was going to have some very angry customers on his hands.
“The peerage does confuse me,” she said. “Everything I know about it comes from watching Masterpiece Theater.”
“He’s not dead yet.” Marion looked pointedly at Bella. “But he rarely leaves Bausiney’s End, the family estate. And yes, Cade will one day be Earl of Dumnos.
“Great gods,” Lilith said.
“Cade might think so.” Marion finally smiled. “But we try not to confirm his self-opinion.”
In her room, Lilith put away her clothes and ordered a pot of tea and a slice of chocolate cake sent up. After the meal on the train she wasn’t that hungry, and her inner clock was still giving her grief. She just wanted a little something and some rest. The waiter left a tray with a note tucked under the teapo
t.
We can’t all be wyrding woman, but some of us have our methods. This tea will give you restful, dreamless sleep. Marion.
How thoughtful. The Tragic Fall wasn’t the Dorchester, but it had charms of its own.
4
Frona’s Daughters
10th century Dumnos
Dumnos was a land of rain and mist, but not today. When Elyse emerged from the woods with the morning’s collection of fungi and botanicals, she expected the usual comforting blanket of mist. Instead, sunshine drenched the rolling landscape all the way to Tintagos Castle. The god Aeolios was abroad and in a bad mood, driving the winds in all directions and blowing the sky clear.
To the west beyond the cliffs, light danced on the waters of the Severn Sea. The glare hurt Elyse’s eyes. The great world tree Igdrasil seemed oddly precarious without its misty shroud. Perched at cliff’s edge, a stark silhouette against the sky, the ancient oak’s branches spread over land and sea.
Mother said Igdrasil would live forever. It connected the earth to Brother Sun and Sister Moon above and to the chthonic gods below. The pulsing energy which streams through all things was enhanced and focused in and near the tree.
Seeing Igdrasil reminded Elyse of her problem. She was seventeen and still had not come into her power. It was humiliating. Her sister Lourdes had been working spells for seven years. Their mother Frona was the most skilled wyrder in Dumnos, the king’s oracle. Elyse could practically taste the wyrding power all around her. Sometimes she would swear it had entered her, but the instant she tried to access it—nothing.
She put down the basket. This never worked, but she had become superstitious and afraid not to try. She stretched her arms toward the world tree.
“Igdrasil, give me my power!”
She strained to grasp the wyrding force, to pull it in, to harness it. Her shoulders tingled, and she felt sick to her stomach. Her knees shook. It was coming this time!
But no. The flow of power slipped away like quicksilver. The tingling stopped. The nausea faded. She sank to the ground. One tear rolled down her cheek, but she would not cry. She had to believe her mother. Any time now, Elyse. Lourdes didn’t come into her power until she was sixteen.
But Elyse would be eighteen next month.
She sighed and picked up the basket and started homeward. King Jowan had once invited them to leave Glimmer Cottage and live within the keep at Tintagos Castle. Lourdes had been all for it, but Mother had declined. Thank sun and moon.
Elyse loved the woods, the cool of its shade and the smell of leaves and dirt, the rabbits and foxes and deer. Often when she gathered herbs and flowers, she sensed them watching her. If she sat very still, a rabbit or fawn might lie down beside her and even let her pet it. She couldn’t imagine living at the castle with all those people.
As king’s oracle, Mother spent a lot of time at Tintagos. In fact she was expected there this morning on some urgent matter of state, but Hector was still in the paddock, grazing and unbridled, and the wagon was on its blocks. It could only mean she was feeling worse. Since the Great Wyrding, Mother had been unwell, and Lourdes’s recent infatuation with Prince Galen hadn’t helped.
Elyse’s favorite crow scolded her from the garden yew tree as she passed by on the way to the mudroom. While she changed to her indoor slippers, a scolding of another kind sounded from the kitchen.
“Don’t say that, Mother. I don’t believe it.”
Lourdes. Talk about bad moods. Aeolios had nothing on Elyse’s sister.
“Not after he danced with me so…so boldly at the king’s birthday feast.”
“You must believe it, Lourdes. Prince Galen is betrothed to another. Though I admit his behavior was odd that night. I’d have thought him incapable of casual flirtation.”
Elyse let out her breath, relieved. At least Mother was well enough to be up and listening to Lourdes’s crisis of the day. Elyse took her apron down from the hook and waited for a break in the conversation.
“It wasn’t casual and it wasn’t odd,” Lourdes said. “Galen loves me. He’ll never agree to marry some Sarumosian shrew he’s never met.”
Poor Lourdes.
“He will marry her,” Mother said. “Galen knows his duty. Dumnos needs this alliance with Sarumos to assure them we’re no threat. Queen Elfryth made that quite clear during my visit.”
“I’m not afraid of Elfryth,” Lourdes said.
“Then you’re a fool,” Mother said. “The queen has convinced her husband to support the monasteries, and that could be the end of us all.”
“Dumnos will last forever.” Lourdes tossed her head, and her hair shimmered like a black waterfall.
“I wasn’t referring to Dumnos,” Mother said. “Wyrders are always complaining about the fae, but they dismiss the monks as simple fools. Elyse? Is that you?”
Still in the mudroom, Elyse chuckled to herself. Mother could always tell when she was nearby. “It was the swords,” she said, entering the kitchen. “King Edgar is afraid of them.”
“Very good, dear.” It wasn’t clear if Mother referred to the logic or the morning’s gleanings, but either way the approval felt wonderful.
“Little miss clever cauldron.” Lourdes snapped a kitchen towel at her—but she winked good-naturedly. Once in a while she noticed Elyse was alive in the world.
“Where is Meduyl?” Elyse looked around for the housemaid.
“She’s gone home for a few days to help with the new baby,” Mother said. She started chopping a clump of parsley but stopped and looked at Elyse. “It was indeed the swords that provoked Sarumos.”
This mess with Sarumos had been set off by such a small thing. Last year Mother had wyrded a batch of iron for the blacksmith who made her cauldrons and cooking pots. The wyrding rendered the iron more supple and gave it extraordinary strength. The smithy needed less material, and the resultant pots were far lighter than before. He used the leftover wyrded metal on other orders.
It wasn’t long before everyone wanted things made from the stuff.
King Jowan declared a holiday, and on that day Frona led the wyrders of Dumnos in a massive wyrding of all the iron ore buried beneath the kingdom. Everyone had been delighted with their lighter pots and pans. They distributed heat evenly, and some swore they were easier to clean.
King Jowan’s swordsmith used the new iron to make weapons lighter and stronger than any before. With such a sword, a Dumnos fighter of average skill was instantly faster and more accurate than the best knight of Sarumos. And King Jowan had to go and rub it in.
“I wish the king had not made King Edgar a gift of the swords.” Mother continued chopping.
“Male pride,” Lourdes said. “How could he resist? At last Dumnos has something better than Sarumos.”
“He should have sent a cauldron.” But Elyse’s joke failed. She tried a different subject. “The hawthorn and wild garlic are in season, Mother. I found the first blooms.” She took the white and yellow flowers out of the basket and spread them on the worktable.
“You have such talent,” Mother said. “You know before anyone where to find the best botanicals.”
“I’m a veritable fairy queen.”
Mother winced. “Your power won’t be denied you much longer.”
If only that were true. Elyse couldn’t tell if Mother’s grimace was for Elyse’s self-deprecation or from pain, but in any event a strong tea made from the fresh flowers would calm her heart and bolster her strength. Elyse put the kettle on the hook over the kitchen fire.
“Why does anything have to change?” Lourdes couldn’t let it go. “I won’t believe Galen’s betrothed until he says so to my face.”
And why did you have to fall in love with the wrong man when you have so many to choose from?
Of course Elyse didn’t say that aloud, but it was true that Lourdes could have any other man she wanted. Elyse always felt like a sputtering candle beside her sister’s blazing beauty. Elyse had drab yellow hair, and Lourdes’s tresses were
as black as raven feathers. Elyse’s eyes were dull gray-blue; Lourdes’s were deep green and sparkled. Lourdes favored their mother. Elyse looked like the father she’d never known.
On the night of the king’s feast Lourdes had been particularly dazzling, and Prince Galen had danced with her more than anyone. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm of that night had not flowered into something more enduring.
“I’ll wyrd him,” Lourdes said. “I’ll make him love me.”
“No.” Mother flicked her wrist, and Lourdes jumped. But this wasn’t a wyrd; it was a warning. “You already know that would be futile.”
Lourdes blushed purple. Sun and moon! She had wyrded Prince Galen at the feast.
“But that’s impossible,” Elyse said. “The magics don’t work on royalty. Brother Sun and Sister Moon have decreed it.”
“The high gods have forbidden us to use magics on royalty.” Mother’s gaze stayed on Lourdes. “Not quite the same thing as making them unworkable.”
The ground seemed to shift. This was news to Elyse—and it would be news to the royals. Protection wasn’t immunity.
“The royals believe they’re immune to magics, and that’s a useful state of affairs,” Mother said. “It would serve no good purpose to enlighten them on the finer point.”
Indeed. Would King Jowan be such a good friend to wyrders if he knew he was susceptible to their spells?
“At all events, all magic is impotent on everyone where love is concerned.” Mother continued chopping the parsley. “Oh, you can play at it, and at first you’ll think your spell has worked. But love is immune to the magics. Desire can be wyrded. Not delight.”
“Then I’ll make him desire me,” Lourdes said. “It’s the same thing.”
“It is not. Foolish, foolish girl.” The parsley was turning to mush. “And even desire requires too much. The wyrding fades over time, and soon so much strength is needed for the one spell that you have to choose: your heart’s desire or your very life.”
“What is life worth without my heart’s desire?”
Despite the melodrama, Lourdes had a point. Elyse said, “Mother, don’t you always say love is the only thing that makes life worthwhile?” Maybe their mother was too old to appreciate love anymore.