Incarnations of Immortality

by Anthony, Piers

  Niobe had generally gotten her way, in life. This time her beauty acted against her. It was, she realized, time that she herself grew up. She would do what had to be done.

  "Cedric, we've been over this matter of age before. It's a chimaera. It really doesn't matter. Love doesn't matter. We're married."

  "Love doesn't matter?"

  "I didn't really mean that. Of course it matters! I meant that I'm ready to do what I have to do, without waiting for something that may never—I mean hasn't yet—"

  "I understand what you mean," he said gravely.

  "I do respect you, Cedric, and I am your wife. There are many women married to men of mature age who don't—who do what is required regardless of their personal feelings. It is time we made our marriage—real."

  "No! Not with one who doesn't love me. It just isn't right!"

  She agreed with him, but had to argue. "Why isn't it?"

  "It would be r—" He stalled on the word.

  She flushed. "Rape?"

  He nodded.

  She felt as if she were in a pit that kept getting deeper the more she tried to scramble out. Where were the euphemisms, the handy oblique references that sugarcoated the unfortunate reality? Cedric wouldn't lie, and neither would she, and on that jagged stone of integrity their marriage was foundering before it began. Where was the way to make it right? They were each trying to do the right thing, and the irony was that they agreed on what the right thing was, yet had to go counter to it. Of course there should be mutual love!

  And there was not. She could give him her body and her best wishes, but not her heart. Not yet. She felt the tears starting again.

  "Oh, don't do that, please!" he pleaded. "I can't stand to see you sad."

  "Cedric, it's not your fault. You're right, you know. You need a woman to love you, and I wish I—" Now the tears overflowed, choking her off.

  "Oh, miss—" he started.

  "Missus," she corrected him, forcing a smile.

  "I'd do anything to make you happy! But I don't know how!"

  "Then make me love you!" she flared.

  There was a silence as they both realized what she had said.

  He shook his head, baffled. "Niobe, how—?"

  "The same way any other man does. Court me!"

  He looked at her sidelong. "You would sit still for that?"

  "Do you think you're some monster, Cedric? If you love me, prove it!"

  "And that I will!" he exclaimed. "Come to the water oak where you sang to me, and I will sing to you."

  "Yes!" she cried, as if it were a phenomenal breakthrough. And, in a way, it was. The realization that he loved her excited and flattered her; she had never been loved that way before.

  They went to the water oak, and she sat on one of its projecting roots, clear of the water, and leaned back against its massive trunk. The hamadryad peered nervously down from the high foliage, wondering what they were up to.

  Cedric stood before her, then dropped to one knee and struck a pose. Niobe kept a straight face, determined not to spoil his effort. He took a breath and sang:

  "Come live with me and be my love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove

  That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

  And all the craggy mountains yields."

  His voice was untrained but strong, and he had good pitch and control, and a great deal of feeling. It was a nice song, with an evocative melody, and she was impressed.

  "And we will sit upon the rocks,

  Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks."

  As he sang, he reached forth to take her hand.

  "By shallow rivers, to whose falls

  Melodious birds sing madrigals."

  At his touch, something happened. Suddenly there was music, as of a mighty orchestra, filling the forest with the power of its sound. His voice seemed to become amplified, magnificent, evocative, compelling, beautiful. She sat stunned, mesmerized by his amazing presence, by the phenomenal music, and she only came out of it when the song ended.

  "...If these delights thy mind may move,

  Then live with me, and be my love."

  As he stopped singing, the grand music also died away. "What's that?" Niobe asked, awed, still holding his hand.

  He looked concerned. "Is something wrong?"

  "That—that music! Where did it come from?"

  "Oh—that. I thought you knew. It's my magic. It runs in our family, off and on. I'm sorry if I—"

  "Sorry!" she exclaimed. "It's absolutely beautiful! How do you do it?"

  He shrugged, letting go of her hand. "It just comes when I sing, when I touch. See." He put his hand on the trunk of the tree, and sang:

  "Come live with me and be my love."

  Niobe heard nothing special—but the tree shuddered as if reverberating to some potent sound, and the dryad almost fell off her branch.

  Niobe put her own hand on the bark, and the orchestra returned.

  "And we will all the pleasures prove."

  "Cedric—it's terrific! It's—an experience!" She was unable to define it further.

  "It's just—the way it is." He seemed nonplused by her reaction.

  "Sing to me again," she urged him.

  "But the song's finished. All that follows is the maiden's response."

  Niobe took his hand. "Then sing that, Cedric!"

  He sang, and the orchestra was with him, buttressing his voice and elevating it to the transcendence manifested before. It was not mere sound or mere music; it seemed to be more than three dimensions, as if pure emotion had been harnessed into melody. Could love, she asked herself, be more than this?

  "If all the world and love were young,

  And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

  These pretty pleasures might me move

  To live with thee, and be thy love."

  These were words of negation, but it didn't matter; the evocative power remained. Niobe realized that anything Cedric sang would have similar effect. She remained entranced until the last verse.

  "But could youth last and love still breed,

  Had joys no date nor age no need,

  Then those delights my mind might move

  To live with thee, and be thy love."

  The song finished, and with it the magic. But now Niobe gazed at Cedric with a new appreciation. He did indeed have magic, and love was possible. "Take me home, Cedric," she told him.

  By the time they reached the cabin, however, Niobe had had a chance to restabilize. It was, after all, only magic; Cedric was no different than he had been, and their situation had not really changed. It made no sense to do anything she might be sorry for later. So she did not push the matter, and Cedric did not, and their marriage remained unconsummated.

  After another week of this, Niobe realized that time was running short. They had been given a full month to themselves; thereafter the relatives would be visiting. Niobe realized this as she was about to sleep.

  "They'll know," she said, abruptly sitting up in bed.

  "Yeah," Cedric agreed from the hearth.

  "Cedric, come over here," she said in peremptory fashion. "We must get this done. We can't face them, otherwise."

  He got up and perched on the foot of the bed. He seemed to be afraid of her. "Cedric, it's really not all that complicated," she said. "We've both been told about the birds and the bees and we've seen animals."

  "You are no animal!" he said, horrified.

  That set her back. This remained awkward. If he had come on like a bull in the mating pen, she would have been appalled, but would have tolerated it; that, her mother had warned her privately, was the way men were. At least the ice, so to speak, would have been broken. She didn't feel quite comfortable with that metaphor, but it seemed to apply. As it was, they were in trouble. "Forget the animals," she said. "Come into bed with me. It's ridiculous sleeping apart like this."

  He moved up, and stretched timorously beside her on the bed.

  "Not in you
r clothes!" she exclaimed.

  "Oh, ma'am, I couldn't—"

  She reached across and took his hand. It was cold and stiff. "Cedric, are you afraid of me?"

  "Oh, no, ma'am!" he protested. But he was shivering.

  "Of—what we have to do?"

  "Terrified," he agreed.

  "Cedric, this is ridiculous. You know I like you, and if you sing to me—"

  "That's the magic, not me."

  And he wanted her to love him, not his magic. He had a point. But she suspected this was mainly an excuse to justify his fear. "Cedric, I know you're no coward. What's really bothering you?"

  "I couldn't—just couldn't do that to you, ma'am."

  That "ma'am" again! She was trying to bring them closer to each other, but was only succeeding in increasing their separation. "Why not?"

  "Because you're so—so beautiful and wonderful and—" He shrugged, unable to express himself properly.

  "But Cedric, I'm your wife!"

  "Not by your choice!"

  This ground was too familiar; she had to get away from it. "But not by yours either, Cedric. We are two people thrown together by circumstance and the will of our families, and they really have tried to do what was best for us, and now we—"

  "A woman and a boy," he said.

  There it was again. He felt inadequate—and she couldn't argue with this assessment, privately. But she knew she had to change that. "But you're growing," she said.

  "I don't think I'll ever be grown enough for you."

  "Oh, Cedric, that's not true!" she protested. But she knew she sounded like a mother encouraging a child. This dialogue was going nowhere. Like all the others.

  She considered, while he lay in uncomfortable silence. After a bit, she said: "Cedric, maybe we're trying to do things too abruptly. Let's start in stages. Take off your clothes, lie beside me under the quilt, and sleep, tonight. Nothing else."

  "You promise?"

  She laughed. "I promise, Cedric. What do you think I could do to you?"

  He had to laugh too, but it was strained. "What if it gets cold?"

  "Then we move together, to share our warmth under the covers. That's the idea, isn't it?"

  "But you—you aren't wearing much."

  She sat up and unbuttoned her nightie, pleased at her own daring. "I'll wear nothing at all."

  He actually rolled over and fell off the bed with an awful thunk. Alarmed, Niobe jumped out, ran around, and bent to help him up. "Oh, Cedric, I'm so sorry! Are you hurt?"

  "Please, ma'am—your shirt—" He turned his face away.

  She glanced down. In the faint light of the dying fire, she saw that her partially unbuttoned nightie had fallen open, exposing part of her bosom. "For God's sake, Cedric, you can look at me! I'm your wife!"

  "It's not right," he said, face still averted.

  "Cedric, look at me!" she ordered. But he would not. Anger flared in her exposed bosom. She got up and stalked back around the bed and plumped back down. What was she to do with this boy?

  Then, through her cooling fury, she became aware of something. She listened.

  He was leaning against the bed and sobbing, trying desperately to muffle it so that she would not know.

  Her emotion spun about in a full turn. "Oh, Cedric!" she breathed, and started across the bed to comfort him. Then she stopped, realizing that that might be the worst thing she could do. She was no mother, and he no child, and these roles had to be avoided like plague. She had thought originally only of her own chagrin at being married to a boy; now she realized that the problem was far more acute for him. She had to find some way to free them both from these perceptions, so that she would be a woman and he a man.

  Tonight was a loss. She would just have to let it grind itself out and try to do better on the morrow.

  She did try on the morrow. "Cedric, let's get drunk."

  He was taken aback. "I never touch the stuff, ma'am."

  "Niobe," she said firmly. "Call me by name."

  "Niobe," he agreed reluctantly. "I don't drink, Niobe."

  "Neither do I. But there's a bottle of white wine on the shelf."

  "I don't know. Some folks get wild when they drink."

  "Yes, don't they!"

  He smiled. He seemed recovered from his distress of the prior night, and she knew she had been right to leave him alone. Tonight she would get him in that bed!

  They opened the bottle after the evening meal. They sat out on the slope of the knoll beyond the cabin and watched the sunset. Each took a small glass of the golden fluid and drank it down. "Oh, it burns!" Niobe gasped.

  "Sure does!" Cedric agreed. "Say, that's good stuff!" He refilled his glass, and she refilled hers, but she sipped her second more cautiously than he did. She was not, she found, all that partial to burns, and anyway she didn't need to get drunk, just him.

  It did not take long for the wine to reach their minds. "Hey, my head feels light!" he exclaimed happily.

  "So does mine," she agreed. "Maybe we'd better go slow."

  "Slow? Why? This is fun!" He refilled his glass, not noticing that she had not yet finished hers, and downed it at a gulp.

  Niobe was getting worried; it was evident that the alcohol was carrying him away, and she wasn't quite sure where it would take him. "Cedric, let's sing!" she suggested, taking his hand so that he couldn't use it to take any more wine, yet.

  "Sure, Niobe," he agreed cheerfully. Without preamble, he sang:

  "Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine."

  The orchestra manifested, because she was touching him. It added its grandeur to the simple song. Again she was entranced. When she had first heard the magic, she had realized that there was more to Cedric than she had supposed. This time she realized that she had developed a definite fondness for him. She could love this bonnie boy, in due course. It was easy to believe that, as the music encompassed her.

  After that he sang a straight drinking song, Three Jolly Coachmen, about a trio that was merry for the evening, knowing that they would be sober and therefore less jolly in the morning. They pontificated on the man who drank light ale—

  "He falls as the leaves do fall, so early in October!"

  And on the one who drank stout ale—a jolly fellow! The background music was becoming somewhat uneven, as his mind was dulled by the wine, as if the players of the orchestra were getting tipsy too. Niobe found that excruciatingly funny.

  As it happened, she knew that song, and had a couple of verses to contribute:

  "Here's to the girl who steals a kiss, and runs to tell her mother.

  She does a very foolish thing; she'll never get another!"

  Cedric, high as he was, laughed with agreement.

  Then she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. He looked startled. He glanced around, leaned forward, and vomited on the ground.

  Oh, no! He had had too much, and gotten sick. He was in no particular distress at the moment, but Niobe knew that this evening, too, was finished.

  She managed to get him inside, and cleaned up, and onto the bed to sleep it off. This time she slept by the hearth.

  In the morning, grim with hangover, Cedric picked up the bottle and stared at the remaining wine. "It looks exactly like urine!" he said savagely, and went to the door and flung it outside. He simply wasn't cut out to be a jolly coachman.

  That evening Niobe tried again. She sat him on the bed beside her, took his hand, and asked him to sing again. She sang with him, and the magic surrounded them, and it was very like love. But when it was time to complete the act of love, Cedric could not. The magnitude of the task rendered him impotent. He was chagrined, but she was in her secret heart relieved; she had tried her very best, and failed. It just did not seem to be time.

  "But Cedric," she said. "You must sleep without clothing in this bed from now on, and I will too."

  He stared at her with dismay. "But—"

  "So we can honestly say we slept together," she explained. "Would a
nyone believe that was all there was to it?"

  Slowly he smiled, as relieved as she. He joined her, naked, in the bed. It was a cheap compromise, but it would have to do.

  Chapter 2 - COLLEGE

  In the fall Cedric went to the local college. It was not far distant, but inconvenient to commute to by foot, and it would have been complex to arrange for a horse. A magic carpet would have been ideal, but reliable ones were still so expensive that it wasn't expedient for this situation. It was best, all things considered, for him to board—and romantic incompatibility did not even enter the picture.

  Niobe sent him off with a kiss and a tear and watched him march away with his knapsack full of clothing. He would buy his books there and pay tuition and board; they had budgeted for it and had a comfortable margin.

  She was depressed when he departed and sorry they had not been able to make their marriage work. Cedric was certainly a fine boy with wonderful magic, and she had become quite fond of him. Of course no one knew about the failure of the marriage—or at least the relatives were too discreet to mention any suspicions. With luck, things would work out better after Cedric had matured a year or two in college, and no one would ever know. As a last resort, she could buy a love potion and take it herself; but if Cedric caught on, he would react negatively, and she really didn't want to deceive him anyway. Love was not really the problem.

  Meanwhile, she was lonely. She could have gone home to her parents for the term, but knew that, if she did, her mother would worm the truth out other, and she couldn't stand the mortification.

  She made do alone. Running the house was simple enough, and she did a great deal of reading and weaving in the days and cultivated the acquaintance of the dryad of the water oak in the swamp. It was an acceptable existence, for the time being.

  She arranged the cabin to suit herself precisely, and it was very comfortable. She worked on the yard, and that was comfortable too. When she had the near portion of the swamp nicely policed, she decided it was time to visit Cedric.

  She rented a horseless carriage for the occasion. This was considerably cheaper than a carpet, but slower, and the wheels bumped over the rutted track, jolting her uncomfortably. Nevertheless she arrived after a day, reaching the college in fair order, though her prim traveling dress was dusted with grime.