Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon

by Diana L. Paxson

  “Do you value him?” A spark of cunning flickered in the king’s gaze. “Perhaps I shall keep him here as a hostage for your cooperation.”

  He thinks that fear will chain me, thought Velantos, and realized with surprising pain that it was almost true. But then, Korinthos could not have been conquered by a stupid man. The smith could play for his own life, but dared he risk the boy? Life, or that which made life worth living? Which would Woodpecker choose?

  “I need him,” he said quietly, hoping that his voice did not betray in how many ways that statement was true. “Send us together, outfitted like men of worth, and I will do marvels.”

  “Is he your eromenos?” the king asked curiously. Velantos was grateful that he did not use a cruder word. If Aletes thought he understood their relationship, it was more than Velantos did himself. But it didn’t matter what the king believed, so long as he agreed.

  Velantos managed a shrug. “Separate us and you might as well set us to herding goats on the hills, for all the use we will be.”

  “You won’t go running back to Tiryns?”

  Velantos felt his face grow bleak. “Tiryns—my city—is dead. Mykenae is fallen. There is nothing for me there, nothing for me in any of the lands of the Middle Sea.”

  Aletes sat back, rubbing his bare upper lip. “I didn’t get where I am by refusing to take a chance—” he said finally. “I suppose we will have to find you some proper clothes . . .” The king sighed.

  WOODPECKER JERKED AWAKE AS the door slammed. “Are you drunk?” he asked as Velantos stumbled against the bed frame. “Are you hurt? What did he say to you?”

  The rawhide straps groaned as the smith sat on the edge of the bed and began to unwrap his woolen leggings.

  “We’re goin’ on a journey—” Velantos gave an uncharacteristic snort of laughter. Woodpecker’s nose twitched at the scent of wine. “Cap, cape, an’ sword. Goin’ to the end of the world, but we’re gonna be free . . .” He swung his legs onto the bed, gave a hiccup, and fell over onto his side.

  “Velantos!” Woodpecker exclaimed, but the only answer was a snore. He had seen men drink to drown sorrow, but why dull one’s wits for joy? If there had been any wine in the room, he would have taken a swig himself to dull the frustration he was feeling now. The headache Velantos was likely to have in the morning would not improve his temper, but at least he would be conscious. He would have to give up the whole story then.

  Woodpecker pulled the covers up and curved his body against the other man’s to make a cocoon of warmth against the chill. His mind raced with speculation. North . . . he thought, with a curious lurch of the heart. In Tiryns the northern horizon had been walled by mountains. It had been easy to pretend the world ended there. But the citadel of Korinthos faced northward, and now they would be traveling into the heart of the Great Land.

  But that was still a long way from home. . . .

  WOODPECKER HAD HEARD OF mighty mountains in the country of the Ai-Ushen, but except for the very highest, men said that their coverings of snow melted when summer came. The mountains the travelers from Korinthos were facing now were surely the pillars of the sky. Tier upon tier they rose, snow and bare rock frowning above darkly wooded slopes and patches of meadow.

  He drew in a harsh breath, feeling the chill air sear his lungs. The mountain dwellers they had hired to guide them through the passes laughed when they saw the lowlanders panting and said they had been spoiled by too much fat air. They might be right, thought Woodpecker as the path leveled and he paused to catch his breath. Certainly he had never known air so clear. A peak like a god’s hat looked close enough to touch, though he knew it was many leagues away. Only the eagles traveled freely here.

  This is Diwaz Pitar’s land, he told himself, or at least it did not belong to Posedaon. They had been in Istria, waiting for the passes to clear, when they had felt the earth shake. He had still been recovering from the journey north along the coast, and for a moment thought he was at sea again. It was many days later when a battered ship brought news of the earthquake that had leveled what remained of the citadels of Tiryns and Mykenae. Queen Naxomene had been a true oracle. Korinthos had not fared much better, but even before they left, King Aletes had been planning to build a great house on the ruins of the old town below. The Dorians did not need the citadel. They were the enemy it had been built to repel.

  He heard stone crunch behind him as the line of porters caught up, and started into motion again. They had abandoned the wagons several days ago. No wheeled vehicle could manage these paths. The princess was the only one riding, in a covered chair carried by the sturdiest slaves her father had been able to find, and when the way grew too steep, even she had had to get out and climb.

  At least the trail was well marked. At regular intervals they would find a cairn of stones piled up in offering to the mountain spirits, or perhaps to honor men who had perished here. There was one just ahead—he bent to pick up a shard of granite to add to the pile. With all its dangers, this was a major trade route. The wealth of the northern lands—furs and amber and copper from the mountain mines—flowed over these passes, and in return came amphorae of wine and rolls of fine cloth and weapons and ornaments of worked bronze and gold.

  “Move, boy—” grunted Velantos, and Woodpecker shook his head and continued to climb.

  THAT NIGHT THEY CAMPED at the edge of a mountain meadow, in a three-sided shelter of rudely piled stone they roofed with a length of oiled wool. Velantos, who by the end of the day was limping badly, eased down by the fire with a skin of wine, too tired to do more than glare when Woodpecker asked if he wanted to climb up the slope a little to watch the sun go down.

  Still grinning at that answer, the boy found a spot beneath an overhang of rock that gave a little protection from the wind and settled himself on a flat stone. Below him a fold of the mountains wound northward, its depths lost in shadow while the western sides of the peaks flamed with rose and gold. Earlier, he had seen some kind of brown goatlike creature bouncing from crag to crag, but now the mountains were still, the hush so deep it echoed in the ear like a sound. Peace . . . he thought, caught in the timeless moment, in which he was one with the pine tree that clung to the rock and the starry white flowers that nodded where a little soil had collected among the stones.

  He jumped at the sound of voices and turned to see Leta clambering up the slope, followed by a panting maid. He rose politely, wondering why she had dragged the poor woman after her. Since her betrothal the princess had been strictly guarded, but her virginity was hardly in danger here, where no one in his right mind would take off his clothes. They were all wearing northern breeches and leg wrappings, as well as long-sleeved tunics, sheepskin vests, and cloaks of tightly woven wool.

  “My lady—” He gestured toward the flat rock. “Will you be seated on your throne?” She had a pretty laugh, which was why he had said it. He grinned and remained standing, leaning against the cliff. “And enjoy this beautiful evening—” He gestured toward the distant peaks, where banners as deeply pink as the flowers that grew in another pocket of soil just below him flew now in a golden sky.

  “It is beautiful,” she echoed softly. “I will not forget this. To have seen it almost makes up—” She bit back her next words.

  For being sent to the back of beyond to marry a stranger? He knew better than to say that aloud. The warm light gave her skin some unaccustomed color. She might be almost pretty if she were happy. He hoped her barbarian prince would be kind to her.

  “Were you born a slave?” Leta said suddenly.

  I was a king’s son, so they say— thought Woodpecker. But if all the slaves who said they had been nobles before they were snapped up by pirates and sold were telling the truth, there would have been no one left to inherit the land. Anyhow, he supposed she would have thought his own homeland even more barbarous than the place to which they were going. I must not think of that . . . He fixed his gaze on the mountains once more.

  “I don’t mean to i
nsult you—” she went on. “I used to think that nothing could be worse, but I have no choices either, only a more comfortable captivity.”

  Woodpecker cast a quick glance at the maidservant, who was doing her best to pretend deafness. But if she was her mistress’s confidante, she would have heard all this before.

  “We always have choices,” he said slowly. Before they left, the king had formally given him his freedom, but their guards still treated him as a slave. “I choose not to think about what I was before, only about what I am going to be.”

  She nodded without speaking. The light was fading, the shadowed slopes deepening to purple as the sky turned to rose. The peaks on the other side of the valley were etched in black against that glowing sky. Warmth as well as light was ebbing with the end of day.

  He was about to suggest they go back to the fire when a flicker of movement brought him around. The princess screamed as a lithe shape soared from the cliff, but Woodpecker was already in motion. His leap landed him on something with muscles like writhing snakes encased in thick fur. A feline screech assaulted his ears as he clutched with arms and legs, grabbing for a stranglehold. A clawed foot whipped past, searing his thigh. He yelled and tightened his grip convulsively, feeling the impact of each stone as they rolled down the hill.

  He heard shouting, a javelin rattled past. A stone scraped his shoulder; another loomed up before them and they crashed to a halt. He could feel the muscles beneath him contracting; he yelled and wrenched and heard the crack of bone. The beast convulsed and then went limp. He collapsed atop it and lay panting as every part of his body began to complain.

  “Woodpecker!” Someone had brought a torch. The light flickered over Velantos’ agonized face, the princess behind him, the tall figures of the guard.

  “I’m all right . . .” He struggled to sit up, blinking.

  “Is it a lion?” asked Leta, leaning over him to see. Woodpecker turned and looked. Stretched out, the cat’s body reached his shoulder; it was longer if you counted the tail, covered in grayish dun fur mottled with black spots. In death the creature was still snarling. There were black tufts on the flattened ears.

  “A lynx,” said their guide. “He hunt the chamois on the cliffs. It’s good there’s no cut. The skin will make a fine cape to witness your glory.”

  “My glory?” Thinking back, Woodpecker wasn’t at all sure the cat hadn’t broken its head on the rock before he broke its neck, but the men who had been sent as Leta’s escort were grinning. One of them brought up his arm in a salute Woodpecker had never received before.

  “Come on, hero,” said Velantos, getting a muscular arm under his shoulders and heaving him upright. “We’d better see to your wounds.”

  THIRTEEN

  King Aletes had boasted of the forests beyond the great mountains, but not until the travelers left them behind and crossed the plain that rolled away from their feet did Velantos begin to understand. On the other side of Danu’s river the countryside belonged to the trees. Except where humans had hacked them down for field and meadow they flourished, a mixed forest of oak and beech and ash, of chestnut and elm, and the occasional glimmer of white where graceful birches grew. He did not believe the hills of his homeland could ever have been so thickly wooded. Such growth needed deep soil and abundant rain.

  At first he had enjoyed the luxuriance, but soon he began to find the thick growth claustrophobic, or perhaps it was the atmosphere at Bhagodheunon, where the king’s smith and the king’s son saw him and Woodpecker as rivals. He had done his best to keep his promise to King Aletes, but he felt a sneaking gratitude for the accusations, however unwarranted, that, after no more than two moons at the Dun had set him and Woodpecker on the road once more.

  He heard the boy swear and saw that the pony had stopped short in the path. That was not unusual—the wretched animal had shied at the prospect of crossing streams, stopped short to snatch at every tempting hummock of grass, and spooked each time the wind stirred the trees.

  “What is it this time?” asked Velantos wearily. They had been on the road since before dawn, if you could dignify the trail they were following by that name.

  “I think the girth is rubbing his side,” came the reply.

  “Would it help to loosen it?” Velantos stumped back to see. Neither he nor Woodpecker had much experience with horses, a fact of which the pony, a sturdy chestnut-colored animal with a white blaze down his nose, seemed determined to take advantage.

  “Only if you want your tools all over the road,” grumbled the younger man. “I suppose we must be grateful to the king’s smith for packing them, but they do unbalance the load.”

  “Yes, we should thank Katuerix—” Velantos said repressively. “Wherever we end up we will need to make a living. Those tools are more valuable than gold.”

  “I’m sorry!” Woodpecker burst out, stopping short in the road. “But it’s not my fault! Princess Leta was kind to me because I reminded her of home. I never touched her, never even spoke to her alone! That would have been crazy. What did I ever do to make King Maglocunos doubt my sanity?”

  “I know, I know.” Velantos pulled a bit of leather from his pack and set about devising a pad. In truth, he suspected the princess had been attracted by Woodpecker’s broadening shoulders and sweet smile. Now that he was growing into his height, he promised to become an impressive man.

  “It is not your fault, lad. He doesn’t know you as I do, and he seems to be one of those who believes in striking first and working out the rights of the matter later on.”

  “And I’ve no kin to demand compensation if he had succeeded in killing me,” Woodpecker added bitterly.

  Velantos finished adjusting the pad and tugged at the rein. They had left the Dun in a hurry, when Katuerix came with a warning that the king was sending men to kill the boy at dawn. “Go north,” the smith had told them. “You’ll be out of Maglocunos’ territory when you reach the coastal plain. Go to the City of Circles. Rumor is they have had some bad floods, but they should be all the more willing to welcome another good smith there.”

  “Are you sure he was telling you the truth?” asked the young man. “Maybe this was a clever way to get rid of his competition.”

  “I suppose so. I never could convince him I had no ambition to take his place with the king. But I thought he wanted my help experimenting with those bits of bog iron he found.”

  “I thought the war band liked me!” Woodpecker echoed, suddenly sounding very young.

  “The men who came with us from Korinthos like you,” Velantos corrected. “The others, the ones who’ve never traveled past the river, much less the great mountains, are suspicious of anything they don’t understand. Be grateful the dog-king isn’t hunting us with his hounds. His reasons have nothing to do with his feelings. If he decided to remove you, it is because he thought it the most practical way to deal with a threat. If he is not chasing us, it is because we have solved his problem another way.”

  “I suppose you would know . . . I may be the son of a king, but I did not grow up in a royal hall.”

  “A king’s son?” Velantos looked at him in astonishment, then wondered why he had not recognized the breeding implied by the boy’s manners. “You have never spoken of your history, and I am ashamed to say that I never thought to ask you.”

  “Why should you?” Woodpecker looked back with his swift grin. “I was doing my best to forget it myself. He ruled no great city like yours, and he died when I was only a few months old. I grew up in hiding, not that it matters now. Slaves have no history.”

  Velantos nodded. “I was beginning to learn that. But in the past year I have also learned that there is a world beyond my forge.” He broke off as a grouse flew up in a clatter of wings and the pony reared. By the time they got the beast calmed, it was almost noon.

  They were passing through a grove of mixed oak and ash; bracken grew thickly on the forest floor. Ahead of them sunlight glowed golden through the green leaves. In the next moment they
had come out into a clearing where the ferns gave way to grass and summer flowers. In its center grew a group of three silver birches, fair as maidens bending in the dance.

  “Potnia!” he breathed, making a gesture of reverence, for surely they were worthy of the goddesses. Clearly he was not the only one to think so. An image braided of straw and ornamented with strips of cloth had been bound to the trunk of the middle tree, its ribbons fluttering in the slight breeze.

  “Should we be here?” breathed Woodpecker, his eyes going wide.

  Velantos nodded. “We need to eat and let the pony graze. If we are respectful, I don’t think that the Lady will mind. Help me unload the beast. While we are resting, maybe we can devise a better harness as well.”

  Katuerix had brought them hard loaves and a mixture of dried meat and fruit for the journey. Velantos laid a little of each at the foot of the tree and poured out some water.

  “Potnia Theron, I salute you. Receive this gift, which is all I have, and ward our journey, and if we come safe to a place where I can earn my living, I will make you a better offering.” If their pony kept misbehaving, she might get a horse. He stepped back, wondering if this was like one of the sanctuaries they had at home where the god spoke through the whispering leaves, but the air was still.

  When he returned, Woodpecker was still looking anxious, but he had started eating with the appetite of the young and healthy as soon as the offering was set down.

  “Have you ever thought of going home?” Velantos asked when he had taken the edge off his own hunger.

  “No!” Woodpecker replied—too quickly? “It has been too long. They will all have forgotten me!”

  Velantos looked at him from beneath bushy brows. The lad sounded very sure . . . and yet ever since Woodpecker had admitted his lineage the smith had been thinking about what Apollon Paion had said to him. Where was he destined to forge the Sword from the Stars? And for the hand of what king?