“They hated me for what they were and what I was, and abandoned me long ago. As if I could help my nature.” The bitterness lay in every syllable of her words.
Dylan could almost hear his mother saying, “Life is not fair. We just have to make the best of it.”
“Then let us dance, milady. We need no musicians. I am a fair whistler, and I know all the dances of the court of Arthur of Albion.”
Melusine looked at him, great jewels of tears hovering in her dragon eyes. They rose together and stepped away from the great table. Up and down the hall they trod stately measures of dances old and new; she hummed, he whis-tied, and they laughed like children at their occasional awkwardnesses. Her tail and train left pathways in the crumbling reeds, and his boots made a ruin of the rest.
“The dawn comes, dear friend, and I must go. Sleep before the fire. None will disturb you. And go upon your journey with a good heart.”
Dylan leaned forward and kissed the sharp cheek of the dragon-woman, his lips feeling the slight scaliness of her skin without revulsion. She gave a sigh, a sound like the wind moaning through poplar trees, and rested her proud head against his shoulder for a long moment, one arm caught around his slender waist, the other across his chest, the delicate fingers brushing his throat.
Then she was gone, and only the tracks amongst the rushes and the presence of two goblets and a flagon assured Dylan he had not dreamt the whole encounter.
V
Aenor rubbed her forehead, then shrugged her shoulders to ease the constant ache. The continuous clamor of hammer upon anvil within the great galleries of the King’s court left her numb, and she had a ceaseless headache. The air was sere and filled with flying smuts from the forge fires, and she was as filthy as the poor misshapen dwarves who scurried from anvil to anvil, bearing baskets of coals or refilling the great stone basins of greasy water used for tempering. Her lungs seemed to hurt from the dry air.
At first she had sat on the floor of the little cavern they had led her to, coiled in a wretched dwarf blanket which barely covered half her body, heedless of her surroundings. She slept and dreamt but remembered nothing. The King spoke to her sometimes, but she only stared at him in mute incomprehension.
Then, a few sleeps ago, she had cried out in her dream, and when she opened her eyes, a flood of memory had swept her mind. Her voice returned, and with it hunger and thirst and a sullen fury. She had left her chamber and walked out into the nearest forge gallery, sat on a convenient rock, and stared at the work of the King’s court. Now she knew the names of the various masters and the objects they labored over, and each moment brought her fresh knowledge. The spell singer’s work was failing.
The green gem rested against her throat, the sword depending awkwardly from it, the weight making her shoulders ache; with a start she realized there was another way to carry the burden. The strange braid of silvery hair which held the stone was not long enough for her purpose, but some pieces of her meagre blanket would serve. She bit at the rough and filthy cloth and tore off two ragged strips, lifted the jewel and sword over her head, then tied the cloth to the short sword, knotting them tightly, then bound the pieces around her slender waist. That was much better, she decided, as she shifted her weight back and forth to accustom herself to the feel of the sword on her left hip. The blade tore at the remnants of her pleated gown along her thigh. Her movements upon the uneven floor of her chamber made her remember the rough cobbles of the practice yard, all gold and warm with sunlight, and she gave a little cry of pleasure.
Aenor unknotted the waist tie and grasped the hilt of the sword. She moved it through the air, slowly at first, then more rapidly, her arm muscles protesting a little at her sudden abuse. Her faint shadow on the chamber wall echoed her motions, and she heard a gruff voice in memory admonishing her to do this or that. Breathless and sweat sheened she finally ceased her exercise, wiping her face with a grimy sleeve. Her head ached less now, and a slow smile lifted her lips as she retied the sword to her waist at a slightly different angle. She curled her left fingers over the green gem and felt a tiny thrill of power run along her muscles and bones. It was almost like a song.
Pondering that, Aenor walked out into the first gallery and took her now accustomed seat. The forge masters did not notice her any longer, but several of the dwarves looked up from their tasks, and one gave her a wide grin before he scurried off for more coal.
The King, Alphonze, was making his progress up one side of the gallery, checking the work of the masters. He seemed unaware of the occasional glances they cast at his hack, sullen looks of envy or even anger. He was tall and well-made, his black hair circled with a crystal band of shifting rainbow hues, his black tunic crossed with an argentine baldric bearing dark glass bells, almost invisible in the flickering red light of the court. No crystal lamps hung from the cavern ceilings here, and no stone harps resonated in the walls. There was nothing but great forges and the river of molten rock that split the chamber in two, emitting a constant ruddy glow.
Like hot blood, she thought, and puzzled over that. Each waking now brought memory and strange ideas, and Aenor struggled to sort them out, so that sometimes she fought against sleep lest she be overwhelmed. She let the thought pass and watched the steady rise and fall of strong but slender arms above hammers great and small, the scurry of dwarves and the shifting patterns of the molten river.
Alphonze gazed at her and arched his brows. A flicker of doubt seemed to flash in his pale eyes. They made her remember another pair of eyes, grey-blue eyes beneath a tumble of curling black hair, a flattish nose and a grin which split a wide beard. Eyes like the stormy sea. But that was just a dream, a memory of some long dead person, no doubt.
“Greetings, Aenor-child.”
“Greetings, O King of Rackets,” she answered, surprising herself as well as Alphonze, for she had not previously answered his occasional questions. “No wonder the Queen keeps your court so distant. It is dreadfully noisy—and most inharmonious.” Her tongue seemed compelled to exercise after long disuse.
The King scowled, and several forge masters paused to look at them. “The Queen does not keep me here.”
Aenor smiled because she knew it was a lie. The forge masters and the King were excluded from the Queen’s court out of the Queen’s distaste for artifice. That which could not be made from song was displeasing to her and to her court, while the King’s men held in contempt anything that had not come from their skillful hands.
‘ ‘Then I must suppose you enjoy the stink of forges and the light of your fires. It is surely a shame you cannot sing, but only croak like . . . like frogs.”
The King flushed an ugly red. It was a very sore point amongst the White Folk that the females could make beauty by their voices alone but the males must labor with their hands. The guards and male courtiers could do neither, and were regarded with contempt by all except themselves. “You know nothing, stupid clay girl.”
Defiance rose in her throat like a sweet draught of clear water, and she curled her palm over the beryl. “I know you rule by Elpha’s grace—and that you cannot even make a circlet for your brow but must beg it from her. ’ ’
“That is not true!” At his bellow of rage the hammers fell silent and the forge masters almost smirked. The dwarves cringed and shuffled hurriedly towards the shadows about the walls.
“So why do you wear that thing instead of a crown of gold or silver?”
“It is a mark of honor.”
“Like the collars of the dwarves?” Aenor felt her heart pound with excitement.
Alphonze turned on his heel and marched over to the closest forge, wrested the hammer from the master there, then plunged his hand into the molten river and drew out a huge mass of living rock. Globules of it dripped down and spattered on the cavern floor, glowing redly for a moment before dulling to grey.
The King slammed the mass onto the forge, shouted for coal and a bellows worker as the forge masters watched avidly, and began to ply his hammer
. A dwarf was shoved out of the huddle of tiny bodies in the shadows by his terrified fellows, and he trudged forward reluctantly. He worked the bellows without energy until the King kicked him into obedience.
The hall rang with the furious blows of the single hammer while the forge masters clustered a good distance back from the King. They hissed between them at this folly, for it was an open rebellion for the King to try to crown himself. No one had done that since Alfgar the Accursed, he who stole the green jewel from the Crystal City and brought the exile of the White Folk artificers. He who was the ancestor of the troublesome female who now provoked Alphonze to madness. They eyed her with both loathing and speculation, wondering if any amongst them were powerful enough to rescue the gem from her grasp and restore the supremacy of the artificers over the singers, and more immediately, which of them would take the King’s place if the Queen discovered what had occurred. They cast uneasy glances at one another, wondering which of them would perish in the inevitable war that would follow. They were ancient and could recall the sweet smell of grasses beneath their feet, the time before they had strutted their pride before the Lord of the Living and been reduced to gloomy darkness. They hated the King’s court and yearned for the Queen’s light, but they wished to continue even at their forges rather than to cease their existences.
Aenor was caught between pleasure at her mischief and a faint sense of sadness she could find no reason for. The sorrow grew until it was a heaviness in her throat, a necklace of song which lay in her chest like a stone. White Folk would perish as surely as if she had cut them down with the sword at her side, and that was somehow not what she wanted. She wanted light, sun and rain, and the feel of clean air in her lungs, not death and destruction. She clenched her hand around the jeweled hilt of the sword until its facets cut into her palm.
She looked at her grimy hand, licked the wound and tasted ash and salty sweat and sweet blood. The song surged up the column of her throat like a sudden spring of water, flowed across her tongue and rang across the echoing chamber. The notes were sad and joyous at once, full of memories of green life and golden life.
Alphonze dropped his hammer as if it burnt him, and the half-made circlet in his hand rolled off the anvil and into the glowing coals of the forge, unnoticed. For a long moment his face was transformed with joy at the beauty of her voice. Then his eyes widened in something like horror as he realized who the singer was.
Alphonze gave a harsh shout and Aenor faltered. The forge masters and the King stared at her as the song paused within her, half completed. She looked down at her hand, aLwhere a slight cut had existed and vanished, and remembered the taste of blood. Aenor shuddered slightly. She wanted light and life, not bloody death. She gazed down at the beryl, now reflecting redly in the forge light, and saw it as a thing both grand and dreadful. She would have flung it into the molten stream if she possessed the strength. Her shoulders bowed a little under the burden of the unfinished song. There was so much she did not understand, so much that mere memory did not provide.
“How did you . . . how dare you sing!” Alphonze was caught between puzzlement and outrage.
“I have been a long time with the Queen,” she answered, musing.
“It is not possible. You are clay, a nothing. You have no beauty in you.”
The sullen rage kindled in her breast once again. “Beauty! What do you know of beauty, you grubbing mole? This trash you pound out on your anvils is nothing ... to a rose.” For a moment she recalled a heady smelling bloom, the petals red and crystal-limned with silvery dew.
“You cannot make a rose, you ill-gotten monster.” “Are you certain?” She explored the possibility as she spoke, feeling a new song murmur in her heart. It was so filled with yearning that her eyes brimmed with forbidden tears. They cascaded down her cheeks and slid onto her throat.
“No,” whispered the King. Then he turned to the masters. “Get back to work. I ... I will inform the Queen.”
Aenor watched him leave and returned to her chamber. She folded the scraps of her blanket into a pad and sat on it, crossing her ankles tailor-fashion and resting her elbows on her knees, her chin on her palms. She swallowed in a dry throat, aware that her sudden display of power would probably bring the Queen and her spell singers down into the King’s court to send her once more into mindless oblivion. I will not forget this time. Somehow I will remember all that I yearn for. My song ... is so weak. They are too skilled—and I am alone. So alone. Would that I could sing another into being, a host of those I remember. But they are dust and moldering bones. I will not despair or surrender. I have power, and I must think how to use it. It is like the sword; it requires practice.
Aenor found she was weeping again, so she brushed the tears away fiercely, straightened her shoulders, and struggled with her nearly overwhelming terror at the power of the spell singers over her mind. The chill of the cavern crept into her bones, and she felt small and helpless. Her hand brushed the hilt of the sword, and she stared at it. / wonder if I could slay them? She bit her lip thoughtfully, then stood up and untied her makeshift sword belt.
She lifted the sword above her head, pointing at the ceiling, her feet a shoulder width apart. Aenor felt a strange sensation, a surge of energy from her soles to the hand which held the weapon. It jolted her almost painfully and she heard a roar from the forge gallery. Screams and shouts followed, and she dashed out to see what had happened.
The molten stream seethed and bubbled, overflowing its confines on one bank and sending huge lumps of red-hot rock flying through the air. The forge masters and dwarves scurried around in confusion as anvils and forges vanished in a glowing tide. She watched a hapless dwarf get smashed by a huge piece of burning rock, then turned away, weak and heartsick. I have all this power, and all / can do is destroy things with it, Aenor thought as she stumbled back to her cavern, huddling under her inadequate blanket in misery.
VI
Dylan rubbed his eyes, yawned, and stretched. Then he curled his arm under his head and focused unseeing eyes on the deserted hall. He had a vague wish for the strange and bitter brew his mother sometimes conjured on wintery mornings or when the wine had flowed too freely. It tasted dreadful, but it sharpened the wits. “Coffee,” she called it, and said it had civilized the Vikings. When he asked her what a Viking was, Eleanor just smiled, shook her head and said, “Men in funny hats.”
The fire was out and the hall was chilly. Dylan sat up and set about rekindling it. His dreams had been odd, and he was not quite certain what had been real and what a product of sleep. Had he really danced with a woman who was part dragon? Or was it part of the dream of that other woman, the fair one, who lifted the sword she bore and made mock battle with her shadow upon the wall? He chewed bread and cheese and tried to sort out the images. She was quite able with the weapon, he decided, and discovered he did not much care for the picture. The only woman he had ever known who wielded a blade was his mother, and she had never done so in his sight. He had, however, seen her use her rowan rod as a quarterstaff once upon a drunken ruffian in the streets of London. She’d caught him first in the belly, then upon the jaw, and stepped across his groaning, fallen form with a brisk shake of her wide skirts and an audible sniff of disdain. Why couldn’t women just stick to their knitting and leave swordwork to men, as was intended by nature? And why did his mother intrude at every turn?
Finally he gathered up his belongings and quit the hall. He stopped at the well in the courtyard and pulled up a bucket of water and splashed it on his face, then wiped himself dry with his sleeve.
The licome stared at him across the wall. “Good morning, big fellow.” It bobbed its head and pawed the flagstones in response. “Have you ever been to Paris? And will you bear a man’s weight upon your back, I wonder?” The beast regarded him with silvery eyes and made no reply. “Probably not. Besides, what saddle in the world would be fine enough?”
Dylan left the ruined keep and the licome came with him. They passed the yew alley a
nd returned to the tangled forest while the man tried to find his sense of direction. This was difficult, since he was uncertain where he was, and the grey overcast hid the sun sufficiently to make him unsure. Finally he set off in a direction he believed to be east.
A snort and a nudge between his shoulders startled him. The licome clamped strong white teeth into the leather of his jerkin and pulled.
“What?”
The animal half dragged him backwards and gave a high squeal. After a minute, Dylan decided that he was either heading wrong or the dark beast wanted him to ride.
He shifted his packs and the animal released its teeth. Dylan found a low stump and got on it. The licome stood at right angles, just as a well-trained horse might, and with a little trepidation, the man swung his leg over the narrow back. It was considerably less comfortable than a horse, and he was not used to riding bareback, but it was possible. Dylan clung to the rough mane, longed for a bridle of some sort, and the licome plunged into the forest.
After a very short time, Dylan leaned forward and lay his chest along the splendid neck and drew his arms around it lightly. It was a bone-rattling ride, for the licorne was gaited differently than a horse, and its sharp spine dug into his groin rather painfully. He longed for a pad, a saddle or just about anything between him and his strange steed. After a time his well-trained body stopped complaining, or rather the aches became so general that he ceased noticing them.
By dusk he was exhausted, and when the licorne halted in a birchwood copse, he slid to the ground in a kind of mute misery. Dylan forced himself to his feet and stretched cramped muscles and aching arms into motion. The licorne was damp with fine sweat, and smelled of exertion. Dylan was filthy with dust and sweat himself, but he wiped the beast down before he did anything else. The licorne bore these attentions with calm majesty and seemed none the worse for the wild ride, but Dylan was more tired than he had been after a day’s tourneying.
Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 02] Page 6