by Sarah Zettel
He licked his lips and tasted brine. “Camelot will not answer. They have ignored us in all this disaster.”
“Camelot will answer.” Morgaine’s words were dark and they were certain. “Guinevere will come, and I am not ready for her, yet.”
That last word was as cold as the morverch’s. It held a deeper threat than any he had ever known, long and old and infinitely patient.
He turned to his cousins yet again.
He did not have to speak. They had heard and understood, probably more quickly than he. The nearest of them shook her head, in anger and sorrow both.
There are laws, Cousin. For each deed and doing, there is a price.
“What price?” asked Colan.
All the morverch looked past him, glowering at Morgaine on the shore. Morgaine did not make one sound. Could she see their anger? Of course she could. Morgaine’s eyes would not miss such burning resentment.
Come with us, Cousin and no more will be asked of you. By any. His cousin once more lifted her cold hands from the water. A single strand of weed twined around her wrist, dripping silver and trailing down to mingle with the curling locks of her hair. Come to us and you may do just as you choose.
He saw their world then; the cool, eternal twilight and the sudden shafts of sun, how they flew free of even the hand of God that pinned man to earth. He felt the threat of death, time and care fall away. Nothing mattered but those who flew beside him through that half-light realm, not life, not soul. That was for the land, and the land was far away.
He strained toward that dream, but as he strained, he felt another tie binding him. It was not duty, not blood or his deeds and damnation. It was Morgaine, there on the shore. It was her will and his oath together holding him there. Anger rose up slowly, swelling like a storm wave. He had not felt the reality of that bond, but now that he knew it was there, he knew he would never lose the touch of it again.
She was using him. With that kiss she had demanded she had bound him to her because she needed what he could do now. He would have cried out to God, but God had made it abundantly clear that He was willing to leave his unrepentant prodigal to drift in this storm of lesser powers.
Very well.
Suddenly reckless, Colan caught up his cousin’s hand. She smiled. She thinks she has me.
“Listen to me, cousin,” he said softly so that Morgaine could not hear. “My sister has broken faith and cast me out. It is because of her I make my pact with Morgaine. Lynet, left me with nowhere else to turn. If not for that, I would not trouble you … but nor can I join with you.” They had known this when they cast out their invitation. He was sure of it. They tempted him for the same reason Morgaine had tested him, to see what he would do. “You spoke truly. I have made my choice, and I must be true to word and deed already committed. I know you would not welcome me if I were otherwise.”
He felt the push and pull between his strange cousins, and knew they communicated heart to heart.
We can raise up the seas against your sister, against our cousin, if she comes to us, said the morverch. Her voice in his thoughts was flat yet keen, rhythmic as the waves and biting as the winter wind. But if you would have it done, the price will be another life. If you seek death from us, you must pay for it with your own death. You must give us a life, Cousin, by blood or word. No stranger to you may pay this price in your stead.
A life. The words pulsed in him. Another life. He looked to the woman who stood on the shore, and those who waited in the sea. He remembered all he had felt this morning. He felt himself leaning toward Morgaine, wanting to prove himself to her, to show his strength and his loyalty. This was true, and it was false. It was true because in his heart he wanted God and all the world to see him lead his land to safety where his father could not. But it was false, for Morgaine had bent and bound that desire to her own usage.
“A life for this deed,” he said quietly, facing the morverch once more. “One that is bound to me and mine to give. This I promise you.”
Did they know? He felt their currents running through him, bemused and shrewd. Oh, they knew. They perhaps had even hoped for it.
His cousin slid toward him. Whether she rose up or he sank down, he was not sure. But now her eyes were level with his own. For a moment, she pressed her cool cheek to his. Beware of her, Cousin. Her plans run deep and long, and her eye sees farther in the dark than yours does at noon. We would not willingly harm you, but the caprice of humans is not ours. We will do as we have said, and take what has been promised.
“I understand you.”
She glided away again to join her sisters. She smiled at him, and that smile was wicked and wild, sharp and fierce. Then she and all her sisters receded until their white forms mingled with the green and white sea waters, and all the wild liveliness contained within them released itself into the sea again, causing the waves to rise up and rush forward. The surge wet Colan to his chest and filled his ears with a roar that sounded like nothing so much as laughter.
The dream and the wonder were all gone. With clumsy, heavy strides, Colan dragged himself out of the frigid ocean to stand beside Morgaine.
“What did they say?”
For a confused moment, it was strange too look on her, so colorful and so still. The morverch filled his thoughts and senses. It would be a long time before he shook them off. Still, he mustered his attention for the woman in front of him. It would not be good to let his mind drift while he spoke with her. “They will do this thing, but there is a steep price. I must deliver to them a life, mine or another.”
She inclined her head regally. “You have done well, Colan. Do not fear. A life will be found.”
Heart and pride warmed to these words, and his belly knotted to feel it happening. “I am not afraid, my lady. I knew it would be so.”
“You are learning quickly, my young lord. I am pleased.”
“Thank you, my lady.” He bowed, a gesture which pleased her. She walked past him, and he followed her back up the steep, ragged path. The winds were bitter against his drenched skin and he clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. When they reached the horses once more, he undid the hobbles and helped Morgaine into her saddle, as befitted a good servitor, before he mounted his own horse.
“Where do we go now, my lady?” he asked, taking up his reins.
As she turned to look at him from one dark eye, Colan realized he had made a mistake. He had asked no questions when they came here, why should he ask them now?
“We go home, since you ask, my young lord,” she answered him, her words now holding a subtle edge. “We go home to wait.”
She wheeled her horse around and rode toward the east and the rising sun.
Chapter Eight
The cost of the passage was the horses.
The ship’s master, a dour man whose four younger brothers who plied the oars with him, would not hear talk of gold. It would weigh him down, he said. His eyes glinted at the sight of the horses, though, betraying the fact that here was the answer to some dream, or debt. He was nominally Lord Donyerth’s man, and the vessel he worked was nominally Lord Donyerth’s ship, but the men who risked their lives on the channel were hard to hold, and could be dangerous if they decided to give their aid to an enemy. For Donyerth to compel the man’s service in Lynet’s name would mean another rumor and another grudge left behind them. Worse, it would mean more delay, for unwilling men seldom worked quickly. Of course, the master knew all of this, and it made him willing to stick to his original price in the face of all the persuasion Captain Hale and Lord Donyerth used against him. For passage up the channel for the six of them, it would be six horses and nothing less.
“Give him what he asks,” said Lynet when Captain Hale brought her the news. “Find out from Lord Donyerth if we are likely to find new mounts when we land at Huntspill. If we cannot, then he must spare us some.”
This much Donyerth could do. He provided six fresh mounts to replace their tired beasts now in the shipmaster’s han
ds. Lynet had Hale count out some of their small store of gold as promise against the horses’s return. Donyerth did not want to take it, but he did not turn it down either. He knew it was vital Lynet be seen as generous, and he and his lady made deep obeisance to her as they parted. That was a far better story to leave behind her.
The tide turned early that morning, shortly after full light. Bishop Austell celebrated mass with Donyerth’s priest and they all took communion before setting out for the bay and their ship, where the shipmaster and his sons waited on the pebbly shore.
Donyerth’s horses were experienced sailors it seemed. They did not protest when they were led aboard the low, round craft, nor when they were hobbled together. Lynet and Bishop Austell were bid to make themselves as comfortable as they could in the blunt bows. There they sat among nets, chests and coils of rope, so close together that their elbows bumped when the boat dipped unexpectedly. Hale, Lock and the three Trevailian brothers lent their hands to the work of casting off and plying the oars to pull their ship out into the open waters. There, the master raised the sail to catch the brisk morning wind and took his place at the steering oar.
Cambryn was inland from the coast, but not so far that Lynet had never sailed before. The steady rise and fall of the ship as it ran along the turquoise waves was deeply familiar to her, as was the creak of the wood and the smack and spray of the water. Sea birds trailed in their wake, hoping they’d churn up a fish or two with their passage, and the air smelled of fresh salt and cool water. Lynet inhaled it gratefully. Her head was still clouded and heavy from her strange night, but the cold air speedily cleared it.
If all went well, they would be two days on the water and another two on the land. Four days journey altogether, if wind and weather held. Five, or six, or longer if it did not. Her fingers curled around the mirror in her purse. Five or six days to get to Camelot, then. How long to get back? And what help could they gain? She thought about Ryol’s tale of his powers. Could he see into the future, her spirit servant? Could he perhaps show her what she would meet at Camelot and how long it would take to accomplish their task? It would surely be worth asking. She itched to try. It would be a fine thing to drag certainty out of the morass of things unknown surrounding her.
“You are quiet this morning,” said Bishop Austell, breaking her reverie in two. He had wrapped his brown travelling cloak around himself and only the edges of his rich ecclesiastical robe showed. “Lady Cyda was concerned for your health, you know.”
Lynet chuckled softly. When one was the mother of nine, one could not help becoming mother of all, she supposed. “Lady Cyda concerns herself unduly. I slept heavily, that’s all.”
“That’s good to hear,” said the bishop, but there was a hint of skepticism in his voice. “It would be no wonder if sleep was a stranger after all you have been through.”
Lynet shrugged and pulled her own cloak more closely about herself. The wind was growing colder, or she was. “We are all in God’s Hands.”
“Very pious of you, my daughter,” Austell replied drily. He sat in silence for a long moment, watching the oncoming waves. The wind ruffled his grey hair, and seemed to carve the lines of his weathered face that much more deeply. “I’ve been to many a war with your father. I prayed to God to bring us victory and exhorted the men to believe that He held us in those Hands you mentioned. I also gave the supreme unction to those same men as they screamed out for death.” His voice was so soft the wind nearly carried it off. “It is a terrible thing to see a man wounded in war die. They do not go quietly or well. There were times when I wished God would strike me blind before I had to witness it again. I still spend sleepless nights from it, and not one of those men I readied for death was my father, nor had the hand that struck them down been dear to me.”
Lynet bit her lips and tasted the salt on them. She tried to push his words away from her. She thought instead how she was thirsty already, and of the skins of small beer and watered wine they had with them. It would do no good to move away to get one, however. Bishop Austell would be right here when she returned.
“You are not alone, Lynet,” he went on quietly. “God and Holy Mary are with you. I am not your kindred, but such as I am, I am with you too. You need not carry your burdens all yourself.”
She bowed her head, more than a little ashamed at her own reticence. “I know that, Bishop. I …” Words failed her. She clutched her purse as if it were a human hand. “I cannot give over to grieving. Not yet. When we reach Camelot, when the queen is sworn to aid us, then I can mourn. Then.”
Bishop Austell nodded. “Be the soldier, Lynet, as you must. But when your war is over, God will still be here, and so will I.”
Lynet could not look at him. To do so would be to bring down tears she did not wish to shed. “Thank you.”
They sat like that for awhile, shoulder to shoulder, surrounded by wind and riotous water. The understanding reached between them made their silence companionable, and Lynet was grateful for it.
Slowly, subtly, Lynet became aware of a change in the air. The chill of the wind that blew her braided hair back deepened. The sunlight tarnished as a haze covered the blue sky. The waves that smacked the bow grew irregular, now small, now great enough to splash across the rail and spatter their hems. The haze overhead sagged and thickened into mottled grey clouds.
The shipmaster gazed at the sky, tugging his mustaches and muttering to Captain Hale. Lynet could not hear what he said but she did not need to. There was no one on this ship who could not recognize the signs of an approaching storm. Hale heaved himself off the bench and made his way forward, staggering a little against the unsteady rhythm of the ship. In the time it took him to cross the deck to them, the wind sharpened. It had picked up a sour smell, and then Lynet noticed something else. The birds had gone. They sailed alone on the steepening waters. The horses whickered and shuffled, their hooves clopping and scraping on the unsteady deck, and their ears flattened back against their skulls.
Captain Hale bent close. “The master wants to take us in!” he bawled in her ear, pointing toward the misted mounds of the coast on their right hand. Lynet nodded. The thought of delay pained her, but she was in no way inclined to race this sour, darkening wind.
The master had not waited for her assent in any case. He gripped the steering oar and shouted orders to his brothers to short the sail and get on their oars, damn them! Did they want to miss the bay and face the cliffs in this?
Hale got himself back to his own bench to grasp the oar with one of the shipmaster’s brothers. A wave hit the bow hard, washing over the rail and drenching Lynet’s knees with a shock of cold water. The deck tilted beneath her and she gripped the gunwale hard to keep from sliding into the bishop. Another wave washed over her hand and sloshed down to add its bulk to the bilge. A horse whinnied, a high, frightened sound. The master shouted, and the oarsmen strained, and slowly the ship turned its prow toward the land.
The bay was a little ahead of them, lying low, green and deep between the teeth of the grey cliffs. The rising waves slammed themselves against the hidden rocks, creating mighty breakers that caused Lynet’s stomach knot itself up. The wind rose again. Ropes, sails and deck all creaked. Another wave rolled over her arm, and yet another over her legs. The bilges sloshed back and forth, drenching her up to her shins. The prow pointed toward the space of relatively calm water between the nearest breakers.
“Pull!” shouted the master. “Pull you bastard sons! Pull if you don’t want to meet the devil face to face! Pull!”
One of his brothers hung on the boom, pulling back with all his strength to keep the sail angled toward the wind, but the wind died down in an instant, making the rope go slack, catching the man off balance so he dropped to the deck. In the next breath, the wind redoubled, and the boom swung round. The mast bowed and creaked. The ship flung itself sideways so violently the rail dipped under the water. The waves rolled over them, shoving Lynet down to her neck in icy water. Surrounded by the shouts
of the men and the screams of the horses, she thought for sure they must go down.
But they bobbed upright again, so that they were only shin deep in a frigid pool of seawater, ropes and flotsam. The rain started down then, driving as hard and cold as if a second ocean fell from the sky. As soon as Lynet spat the seawater from her mouth and wiped it from her eyes she saw the other thing. They were now headed straight for the breakers. The longed for bay was now too far to the right, and the hidden rocks waited ahead.
Another wave and then another pummelled them. The horses shrieked, and one tried to rear just as a great wave poured down over them. Amid a rush of harsh water and despairing, almost human cries, a rope snapped with a sound like a bone breaking, and every last one of them tumbled out into the ocean. Lynet cried out, and lurched uselessly toward the place where they had once been. One panicked brown head lifted above the waters, and then the waves took that last beast down.
The master bellowed, but there was no need. Every man threw himself against the oars, pulling back with all his might while the master fought the steering oar to bring them about. Sea room. They needed sea room. They’d missed the bay and now open water was their only hope. They might be able to ride the waters in their flimsy cask, but if they came up on the breakers they would be ripped open and flung to the merciless waters as easily as their horses had been.
“Bail, Lynet!” hollered another voice in her ear. Bishop Austell shoved a bucket into her half-frozen hands.
The touch of the sodden wood jolted Lynet into action. She crouched down until the bilge was up to her hips and frantically began to scoop water up, pouring it into the sea which only rolled it right back over the sides. The rain drummed down on her back. The wind roared as it pushed and the rocking sea hissed as it pulled, and someone was laughing at her ridiculous efforts with bucket and prayer.
Someone was laughing.
Lynet lifted her head, the bucket dangling useless in her hands. The rain smacked her face, and the bow ducked dangerously low, making her stagger although she was already on her knees. There it was again. Laughter. A peeling, gleeful sound on the roaring wind.