Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon

by Diana L. Paxson

  And if I live, I will. He will be right to fear. . . . “Are you moving me now because they know I was in the Dales?” he said aloud.

  “That is what we have heard,” the priest replied.

  “What story will you tell to explain my presence this time?” On the moors, he had been an orphaned cousin needing a home. By the time he was moved to the Dales, he had learned enough about sheep to be taken on as a herdboy. But he did not think there would be many sheep by the sea.

  “Analina’s father needs another clerk. The port where the tin traders put in is a busy place, where people from all over the island come to trade. Your northern accent will not seem too strange. You will be known as Kanto there.”

  Woodpecker sighed. This would be the third name they had given him, and none of them was his own. Until they let him settle down somewhere, he would never learn who Mikantor might be.

  “It’s not my accent, but my counting that will sink me,” he said when the silence had gone on too long. “If you want sheep counted, I’m your man, but I don’t know about anything more complicated than that.”

  “When we camp for the night we shall practice.” The priest grinned. “I have brought slates along for that very purpose. You were quick at your sums, as I recall. We’ll have you calculating higher numbers in no time at all.”

  Woodpecker groaned. He had been very glad to leave the sheep behind, but suddenly he missed them.

  ANALINA’S FAMILY LIVED IN a village that bordered the curve of a bay that faced south. When Woodpecker looked through the open door of the store shed, he could see across the thatched roofs of the houses to the water, blue today, with a ruffling of whitecaps fluffed up by a light breeze, to the pointed island that guarded the bay. After the windy silences of the moors and the Dales, to share the busy life of a community again had been a shock. The clustered houses reminded Woodpecker of the Lake Village. Whether raised in argument or laughter, you could always hear human voices in Belerion. Although at first he had started at every sound, people, however noisy, were much more interesting than sheep. The sea breeze made the blood race in his veins. He fancied that beneath the briny scent of the ocean he could smell more exotic odors from lands whose names he was just beginning to learn.

  Or perhaps it was the things in Master Anaterve’s store shed that he was smelling, he thought as he picked up his lump of chalk and his slate and turned back to the pile of fleeces he was tallying. Logs of a wood called cedar lay across the rafters, and bags of aromatic herbs hung from the walls, brought by the winged ships that everyone said would be returning as soon as the season of storms was past. Until now, it had never occurred to him to wonder where the traders who brought oxcarts full of goods to the great festivals got their wares.

  Master Anaterve was a dealer who collected anything he thought might sell, but especially the bun-shaped ingots of tin he got from the miners who scraped the ore from the “tin streams” on the moors and smelted it in rude furnaces. In the world of the great, bronze was more valuable than gold, and since the gods in their wisdom had chosen to place the sources of copper and tin in such widely divergent regions, to create bronze required trade.

  But the relative value of the ingots in relation to a hundred other commodities was a constantly shifting calculation. How much was a fleece worth, or a golden earring, or an ingot of tin, when the basic unit of value was a cow? Within a few days Woodpecker had realized why the merchant required the services of a servant who could count a pile of ingots more than once and get the same total each time.

  And after half a year with the merchant he thought he understood why the Lady of Avalon had sent him here. A sheepherder worried about taking care of his family. A king had to care for a whole tribe, and the key to getting all those things a family could not make for itself was trade. To acquire those things, and to make the weapons to defend his people, a king must have bronze. If the Great Land needed tin from Belerion, no less did the Isle of the Mighty need the copper with which it must be combined, and the supply of accessible ore in the mines from which the Ai-Ushen had derived their wealth was coming to an end.

  He cast an indulgent glance at Master Anaterve, who was examining the latest load of tin to come down from the hills. The merchant was a good man, who drove a hard bargain but an honest one, and believed that men would always act rationally if they understood where their best interest lay. But two years with the tribes had shown Woodpecker another side of humanity. When times became too dire, he thought unhappily, men gorged like starving wolves. That was not really greed, but the desperation of those who grabbed what they could because there was no predicting what they might need.

  Just as I can’t predict my future, he thought with a return of the depression that had kept him from forming close ties in any of the places he had stayed. In his mind he knew that he had been moved around because Galid was actively seeking him again, but in his heart he suspected that Lady Anderle had some magic that told her when he got too comfortable. The day I admit, even to myself, how much I like it here, I expect Larel to come striding down the road. But he couldn’t help hoping that they would let him stay long enough to see the trading ships come in.

  “Fair weather . . .” said the merchant, coming out to stand at his side and shading his eyes with one hand. “The ships from Tartessos will be arriving soon, with their white sails like the wings of swans.”

  Had he picked up the older man’s eagerness, Woodpecker wondered as Anaterve took up the list he had been working on, or was it something in the air? The ships came at the time when the swans winged eastward across the clearing skies, and he had been hearing them off and on all day. His nose wrinkled as the scent of smoke mingled with the briny scent of the sea.

  “Is someone burning brush?” he began, and then, “Look—smoke is rising from the island. There must be a fire . . .”

  He broke off as Anaterve turned, a smile lighting his face like a new dawn. “A beacon fire!” the merchant exclaimed. “As soon as the weather clears we post a watcher there. It is a ship, lad!” He pounded the boy’s shoulders gleefully. “The Tartessos wing birds coming at last! Run and tell my wife to start cooking. The word will spread like lightning, you’ll see, and everyone and his cousin will be coming in to see what they have brought this year.”

  But a messenger was hardly needed, thought Woodpecker as he hurried down the hill to the house. He was not the only one to have seen that column of smoke, and the hubbub of excitement was echoing through the town.

  MASTER ANATERVE HAD SPOKEN truly. By the time the two ships had anchored in the lee of the island, the meadow outside the town was sprouting tents above the trampled flowers. Beyond them, rough pens had been thrown up to hold the sheep and cattle that would feed all these people. The foreigners would be buying animals and grain as well to replace their stores. Anaterve’s store shed acted as a clearinghouse for much of this barter, and Woodpecker was kept busy tracking credit amassed and expended. The primary reason for the Tartessans to make so long a voyage was the ingots of tin that had been collecting in the merchants’ sheds, but luxury items like river pearls and jet and the pelts of wolves and bears would not take up much room, and a few captives and criminals sold as slaves would serve as extra labor on the voyage home.

  It was not until the day before the Tartessan vessels had announced for their departure that things grew calm enough for Woodpecker to take an afternoon off to wander down to the harbor. Beneath awnings of striped wool they had laid out trays with ornaments in bronze and gold. One necklace had gold beads interspersed with others of a shiny blue that they told him was called faience. It would have suited Tirilan. With what Anaterve owed him he might have bought one bead, he thought, and laughed, and moved on. Another booth held a display of bronze daggers from the Middle Sea whose ivory hilts were wound with wires of gold. Weapons fit for a king, if any of their kings still had the wealth to buy. All those he knew of had spent it already to keep their people fed. There were lengths of wool and linen
woven in patterns no one here knew, and pottery vessels burnished to gleaming smoothness inside as well as out.

  Not from here . . . all those bright objects seemed to say. We come from another world where the sun shines warm on a blue sea. That sun had browned the skin of the men who sold them, dark-haired, wiry men in white linen kilts and striped cloaks who chattered in a strange swift language and wore gold in their ears. Arganthonios was the name, or perhaps the title, of their king. Anderle wanted him to learn about the world—what if he went with these men to see the lands where the geese went when they flew southward in the fall? But even as the thought came to him, he knew he would never go so far, not when he still woke from dreams of the Vale of Avalon with his face wet with tears.

  As the day waned, a rougher element was coming into the village, drovers who had brought the animals that were now mostly consumed or sold. They had credit markers in their pouches, and a healthy appetite for ale and that strange blood-colored drink called wine that was made from some fruit that grew in the southern lands. Woodpecker had tasted it in Master Anaterve’s house and not liked it much. Some of the men were drunk already, swearing or singing and offering convivial swigs from their wooden beakers of beer to passersby.

  Woodpecker took a moment to gaze across the water at the ships, their high carved prows gilded by the setting sun. The trading had gone well and Analina’s mother was cooking something special to celebrate. But it was time he was getting home.

  As he turned, a heavy body lurched against him, throwing him against a wall.

  “Why’d ya shove me?”

  “I’m sorry—” the boy began, recoiling from the blast of beery breath as the man reeled toward him. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Drink wi’ me!” the fellow said then. He was a stocky man in a stained tunic whose face was mostly obscured by a brown beard. There was something familiar about him; Woodpecker thought he might be one of the men who had escorted the trader who came down from Azan with a load of hides. The man had hung around Master Anaterve’s shed, asking stupid questions, until his master and the trader had finally come to terms.

  “Thank you, but I’m late for my dinner, and—”

  “Don’ wanna fight? Gotta be my frien’.” The man went on as if he had not heard. “Come on—have a drink wi’ me!” A hard hand closed on Woodpecker’s shoulder.

  If he made a fuss, he would sound like a little boy. He supposed he could spare the time for a sip of beer, and clearly the fellow would not give up until he gave in. Shaking his head, he let the man propel him around the corner toward the drink stall.

  But at the end of the alley there was no drink stall, only three more men with cudgels, and suddenly the one who had hold of him did not seem drunk at all. Woodpecker started to struggle, trying to remember the wrestling moves he had learned at the Tor. A lucky kick hooked one man’s leg and brought him down. Woodpecker twisted, wrenching his shoulder free, and dove for the emptied space. He glimpsed the other man’s cudgel whirling toward him; then a blinding pain exploded in his head and he knew no more.

  CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED WITH A wave of nausea and a throbbing ache as if a bronze smith was beating out a spearpoint on his skull. The earth seemed to be moving up and down, and there were two moons in the sky. Did I get drunk? He could not remember it, but he dimly recalled that was often the case. He took a careful breath, and the nausea eased a little, but the surface beneath him was still heaving, and the fresh air smelled strongly of the sea.

  It was the sea. He could hear it, and feel the stretched hide covering of the boat beneath him, the kind that fishermen used to fish the bay. He tried to push himself up so that he could see, and it was then that he discovered that his hands and feet were bound.

  “Hey, Izri, the calf has decided to join us again!” Someone gave a rough laugh.

  Woodpecker twisted around and saw the man who had accosted him, as disreputable as ever, but no longer inebriated, if he had ever been drunk at all.

  “Who are you?” he managed. “Why have you taken me?”

  “Who we are don’t matter. ’Tis what we are, and that’s Galid’s men,” said one of the others. “An’ ye’ve led us a fine chase. Thought we had ye at the shepherd’s, but someone heard we was sniffing and got ye away. But to put ye with a trader, now, that’s like hidin’ a bull calf at a fair. People always comin’ by—one of ’em’s bound to tell Galid ’bout the smart lad with the red hair.” The third man, who was rowing, gave a grunt of agreement.

  The shock of that name left Woodpecker’s mind for a moment far too clear. He pulled at his bonds, but whoever had tied them knew his trade.

  “What are you going to do with me?” His voice still had a tendency to squeak under stress and he tried to keep it low.

  “Galid hears you’re in Belerion an’ sends us. He wants to see you—”

  “So’s he can finish what he started fifteen years ago,” said the one called Izri, and they all laughed.

  “Queen Zamara’s got no male kin left—you’re the last of that line. When you’re dead, she’s got no choice but to make Galid king.”

  Woodpecker swallowed. They were angling eastward across the bay. On their right the island bulked black against the stars. Ahead a gleam of light showed where the Tartessan ships lay at anchor, preparing for tomorrow’s journey.

  “I hope he rewards you well,” he said bitterly. “Of course the Lady of Avalon would pay better—” he added then. “Lots of gold at the Tor, from ancient times.” Of course most of it was attached to ritual robes and gear, but although he had sometimes wondered whether Anderle even liked him, he was unhappily certain that to get him back she would strip Avalon bare. “And when she learns who gave me to Galid, she’ll hunt you down,” he added into the silence. “When she begins to sing to the spirits, I don’t think his luck will cover you.”

  Was he imagining that the man at the oars was rowing more slowly? “I promise you I’m more valuable alive.” He waited, poised between hope and dread.

  “ ’ Tis true, he’s a likely lad—” Izri said thoughtfully. “Pity to waste him, especially if Galid’s a niggard with the reward.”

  “What d’you mean? He’ll have our heads if we let the lad go.”

  “Sell him—” the first man replied. “There’s the Tartessan ship over there, all set to haul anchor and go. We give them the boy; they give us gold. He’s gone from the island, so there’s Galid’s purpose served—”

  “He’ll slit our throats—” repeated the other man.

  “Not if we tell him the lad threw himself overboard tryin’ to escape and got drowned.”

  “Hunh! Well, let’s find out what they say—”

  Woodpecker felt the boat dip as the left-hand oar bit deeply and the craft began to turn. Soon—too soon?—they bumped up against the big ship’s side. Wait, thought the boy. Suddenly this didn’t seem such a good idea after all. He might have found a way to escape his captors between Belerion and Azan-Ylir, but unless he wanted to swim home, from the sea there was no escape at all. But the man who had hit him was already climbing up the rope ladder. Then the others dragged him over the side and dropped him like a netted fish at the captain’s feet.

  “Is so—” came the foreign voice. “Is a well-grown boy. Ugly, like all you folk, but seems strong. I give you, hmm, three good daggers for him, and a jar of wine.”

  Such an easy transaction? Was his fate decided so soon? Woodpecker’s head throbbed as they hauled him to his feet. For a moment only his captor’s hands kept him upright.

  “Thank you for my life—”

  “You think that was mercy?” came the equally low-voiced reply. “May be you’ll come to wish you’d died, before you’re done. But make of your life what you can. . . .”

  And then they were gone. Someone cut the rope that bound his feet and pushed him along the walkway to the end of the ship. From the smell, he guessed this must be where they were keeping the wretches they had bought already.

  “What they
call you, boy?” said the man—one of the sailors, he supposed.

  For a moment he could only stare. In the past two years he had had so many names.

  “Woodpecker,” he said finally. He would have to wait a long time to claim the name of Mikantor now.

  BY TORCHLIGHT THE WATERS of the sacred pool looked as red as the stain they left upon the stones. Anderle sat on her carved chair, a silver bowl that had been filled with that water on the little table before her. Her long hair fell down to either side of her face, blocking distraction and focusing her vision. The ornaments of the high priestess trembled on her brow.

  The regalia and the ceremony were traditional, intended to impress the priests and priestesses who formed the circle around her so that they could raise the energy to speed her on her way, but tonight Anderle knew that she needed those symbols just as much as they did. She felt old and empty, drained of power. Woodpecker, no, Mikantor was gone.

  Did it matter? Did anything matter now? She had raged when word came that the boy had disappeared from Belerion. By the time Larel got there, Galid was proclaiming that the last heir to the royal line of the Ai-Zir was drowned, and where he had ruled as a robber, he claimed now the name of king.

  And she could not tell whether the ritual for which they had gathered was the wise response to the need to plot a new course, or a desperate denial that the hope for which she had suffered and sacrificed so much had finally failed. But whatever her reasons, she must attempt it now. She gave a short nod, and the others began to sing, a minor, wavering chant whose words had been ancient when the priests from the Drowned Lands first came to these shores.

  “Sink down, sink down, release the mind, go deep—

  Beyond the door of dreaming and of sleep,

  Take now the path beside the holy tree,

  Behold the sacred waters and be free.”

  The priestess took a deep breath and then another, letting the air out slowly, counting, in and out and in and out again, relieved to find a lifetime’s discipline overcoming the madness of a single moon. Thank the gods for the ancient methods. Already she could feel her heartbeat slowing, awareness narrowing to the familiar focus of trance. She could remember what had happened, remember even her anguish, but now she observed it with a detached curiosity. Passive, she waited for Larel’s word.