by Sarah Zettel
“Lynet!” cried the bishop.
Lynet did not heed him. She dropped the bucket, and it sank slowly. The rough motion of the boat shook her and brought waves of bilge up around her breast. Wind and laughter roared in her ears. Acting on desperate instinct, Lynet tore at her purse strings and thrust her hand into the leather pouch and grabbed onto the mirror.
“Ryol!” She cupped both hands around the mirror and bending over it to shield it from the raging waters as best she could. “Ryol! I need to see what’s in this storm. Show me! Show me what’s following us in the storm!”
A solid curtain of rain smacked her in the face. She teetered backward, coughing and mopping at her face, struggling to breathe. When her eyes cleared again she thought the sheets of rain had thickened, but no. She looked again.
In the grey waters, wearing cloaks of rain, swam the morverch. They were grey and black and white like the storm, The flash of lighting was in their eyes as they circled the ship, swimming faster than the surging waves that lifted them up so they could laugh down at the frantic mortals. They grabbed the gunwales of the boat with their long fingers and leaned on it hard, forcing the rail under the water. The master staggered at the oar, almost falling. One morverch heaved herself up, and snatched at him while her sisters tipped the ship still further.
Anger propelled Lynet forward. She thrust the mirror into her purse, lunged for the rail and grabbed hold of a pair of slick grey arms. Her fingers dug into the deathly cold flesh. It was too yielding, as if it kept its shape without aid of bone beneath. She hauled backward with all her might. In the space of one gasping breath, Lynet heaved the sea-woman into the sloshing bilge. The peeling laughter turned to shrieks of outrage as Lynet stood over the thing she had captured and stared.
The morverch were supposed to be crosses between fish and beautiful women, but this creature was neither. Face and arms and shoulders were akin to that of a human, but their color was that of an aging corpse despite the fierce life that burned behind her dark and thickly-lidded eyes. Below the curve of her ribs, she looked more like to a seal than any other thing, with a single powerful, sleekly-furred limb ending in a pair of ribbed flippers. Her human-like torso was without feature. It was the teats and slit on her seal’s body that revealed her sex.
Her dark hair twined around her neck. Lynet seized on those sodden tresses, knotting them in her fingers, and dragging the sea-woman’s head and shoulders out of the bilge waters.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “What do you want?”
The creature only grinned at her, displaying a row of teeth as needle sharp as a pike’s. The boat rolled and pitched as her sisters leaned on it, scrambling to reach her, screaming some word Lynet did not understand. The sour wind wavered.
“What do you want?’ Lynet cried again.
A wave dug beneath the boat, lifting it up and dropping it sharply down suddenly. Men cried out. The creature squirmed in her grip, but Lynet held her fast. The master was shouting again, and the oars made the ship lurch and rock the harder. Wood splintered. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was to keep her grip on this loathsome creature.
“What do you want!”
The creature reached out one corpse-cold hand and caressed Lynet’s arm.
Fear and nausea swept over Lynet, even as another wave washed over the side of the boat. It knocked her flat, rolled her over, filled her lungs with water, and tore the morverch from her hands. Coughing and struggling against her waterlogged clothing, she pushed herself up. She found a pocket of air and breathed deep, shoving her hair out of her eyes and cursing inwardly. The morverch was surely gone. But no! The sea-woman had been caught by the gunwale and trapped against the wooden side of the boat rather than washed over. She squirmed and wriggled to free herself, and her sisters groped for her. Their flailing hands would find each other in a minute. The morverch looked up at Lynet, grinning. Her long fingered hands wound around Lynet’s wrist, the promise of that touch plain. When the next wave came, when she was washed free and, the ship overturned, and Lynet would be dragged down with her.
“A rope!” shouted Lynet. “Help me!” She grasped the morverch’s tangled hair again, hauling her away from the ship’s side.
It was Austell who heard Lynet and waded toward her as the next wave crashed down. The boat rocked, its rail shoved down beneath the waters once more. One sea-woman leapt up and grabbed Bishop Austell. In an eyeblink, grey arms wrapped around his throat. In the next, he was gone as if he had never been.
“No!” screamed Lynet and her grip slackened. The morverch gave a mighty heave, throwing Lynet back and down into the bilge. A hand jerked her up again, and she saw Stef Trevailian standing over her. He pressed the rope into her hands. Screaming, cursing, more like a she-bear than a woman, Lynet reared up over the morverch and threw a loop of rope around her neck. Stef took up the slack, and fought his way back to the mast.
The creature’s eyes grew wide with terrified understanding. She was human in this much. She needed her throat to breathe air and water. Lynet felt that breath under her hands. One more wave and they would be overturned. One more wave and they would all be dragged down as the Bishop had been. But if that wave came, the sea-woman would be hanged from the wreckage of the boat.
The look of hatred the morverch returned hit Lynet with the force of another wave. Lynet jerked backwards, but she kept her hands on the rope. “Let us go,” Lynet demanded. Salt water sluiced off her back and ran down her hair. “When everyone in this vessel is safe on shore, you will be released.”
“My sisters will save me.”
Lynet wiped at her face, glancing up. Not a single arm overhung the rails anymore, and in place of the wild motion of the boat was now the steadier rise and thump of natural waves. The sea-women had pulled back. Lynet could see a pair of them swimming out into the waves, lifting themselves up to try to see her, and her hold on the rope.
“Perhaps they will save you.” Lynet spat out more brackish water. The ship wallowed like a tub now. If the waters rose again, they could still be swamped. “They are swift and clever, and we are slow and dull. But will they gamble with your life to get to ours?”
Another wave, one more wave and they were all dead and cold together. Lynet wanted to pray but she had no strength to do anything but twist the rough rope tighter around the morverch’s throat.
The wave did not come. The rope twitched and jerked. Stef knotting it tight, probably. Lynet did not dare take her attention from the sea-woman. The boat rocked underneath her. Above her, men called to one another, a bare inch from true panic. They were busy with buckets, ropes and oars. The cold bilge sloshed and splashed. Only she and the morverch were still.
Then, the sea-woman dipped her eyes. “Safe on shore,” she hissed. “All aboard will be brought safe to shore. It is sworn.”
“When it is done you will be free,” said Lynet, not loosening her grip in the least. “Not before.”
The morverch hissed, her fury plain, but Lynet did not relent. She felt the boat begin to move. No man was at his oar. They sat or knelt on the heaving deck, gripping whatever was closest, staring all about them. Their boat moved as if caught in the swiftest of river currents. No wave buffeted them. The wind had gone completely still, for all the clouds still hung black overhead and the rain pounded down as hard as hail. The only breeze came from the speed of their passage. Looking into the morverch’s eyes, a vision overtook Lynet. Lynet saw the sea-woman’s sisters surrounding the boat, pulling it forward with their hands, propelling it with their strong tails. Did they feel the rope about their own necks those women of the sea, these cold cousins of hers? In the depths of her thoughts, she was surprised at how easily she held that sodden rope, and pronounced the doom. But she would examine that later. For now, she must get her men to shore.
That shore, green, curved and welcoming approached fast. The boat skimmed over the breakers, lifted on a dozen unseen hands. Its prow cleaved the shallower waves, rushing toward the sho
re. The, the waves and their daughters flung the vessel and all its occupants up onto the strand.
The hull ground against stone and sand, and the sound of splintering wood grated against Lynet’s ears in the second before the boat jerked to a halt they were all flung head first into the bilge and flotsam.
Lynet dragged herself free of the chaos as quickly as she could, one hand still tangled in the rope. The morverch spat at her, but could do nothing more. As the bilge ran from the split hull, the sea-woman sank backward, panting hard, as if the air itself pinned her to the ruined deck.
Lynet struggled to push herself into a sitting position, retching up yet more sea water, when overhead curved a great green wave. She stared up at it in a moment of mute terror before it crashed down on her head. Robbed of sight, of sense, of everything but the horrible roaring of endless water pouring over her, and the frantic, desperate need to breathe.
The waters pulled back, dragging her with them, stretching her out her full length on the sand, but somehow, incredibly, leaving air behind. Lynet gasped and gagged and vomited water, and breathed. Once and again, she breathed, drawing air into her ravaged body, fighting against the pain to keep breathing.
After a small eternity, Lynet was able to dig the heels of her hands into the sand an push herself up on trembling arms. A little further inland, she saw the master and his brothers, and the Trevailains, Lock and Hale. She counted them slowly. Yes, they were all there. She knuckled more water out of her eyes.
The boat was gone, and the morverch with it. They were safe on this shore, drenched and broken, but safe. She stared out at the restless, green ocean.
“Bishop Austell?” she whispered. A wave slipped up and touched her fingertips. She jerked back at once, then, away out on the open waters, she saw them lift their heads, a crowd of morverch, each identical to all the others. They stared at her, all alike in a pure unleavened hatred.
From amid the cluster of her sisters, one sea-woman lifted her head. A red welt around her white throat marked her as Lynet’s former prisoner.
You are all that he said, a voice echoed in her thoughts. We will not forget this. Come to our realm again, little cousin and you will not leave it.
The other sea-women closed around her. The waves came up and the rain came down, and they were gone.
Lynet swallowed. She was empty of strength, frozen almost to death, and water-logged to the core. But the men were climbing to their feet, and she must do the same. She must stand, she must not think about Bishop Austell gone and drowned beneath the waves. Another corpse to add to her own charnel yard. Ah, God, am I never to be allowed to play for lower stakes?
All the men were battered and dripping wet. Stef and Rory both had blood on their hands. Three of the four ship’s brothers had bruises and gashes on their heads and arms. There was something wrong with the way shipmaster held his shoulder.
And there was nothing she could do, nothing at all except lead them onward.
Stooped with pain and shock and cold, she trudged past them, walking inland toward cliffs and rocks, where there might be some kind of shelter, where they might huddle together to pray for Bishop Austell, and for themselves.
Numbly, they all of them followed her, and not even Lynet dared look back.
Chapter Nine
Spring’s thaw had finally taken firm hold in the vales near Camelot. For Gareth, son of King Lot and nephew to the High King Arthur, that meant freedom. Freedom from a world bounded by snow, ice, cold and stone walls. To be sure, a long winter’s night had its pleasures, but for all that, Gareth loved the day, and the wide sweep of the world, especially from the back of a horse at full gallop.
Gareth rode hard. The wind still touched with winter’s spite slapped his face. Despite that, sweat already dampened his padded leather training armor and ran down from under his banded helm. His shield slapped against his back in time to the drumming of his horse’s gallop. Hooves thundered behind him as his fellows, now his rivals, rode fast to catch up with him. His gelding’s legs pumped and its sides heaved from its exertions as Gareth bent low over its head. They careened between the well-spaced orchard trees, Gareth guiding the horse with a firm hand and a fast word. Sir Lancelot had taken on a new boy to train, and had declared that all his squires should ride out with him to put the newcomer through his paces. Gareth grinned, and dug his heels into his horse’s yielding sides once more so the beast put on a fresh burst of speed. Handling the reins while keeping hold of the flimsy wooden stick he carried in place of an actual spear was difficult, but he kept that toy tucked under his arm as he pressed forward. As first among the great knight’s squires, he was not about to let any of the others win this race.
Out of the corner of his right eye, Gareth could just see the new boy, Ewen, pull even with Lionel, and ease then ahead, but he couldn’t maintain his lead and Ewen fell back with the others.
Not bad, though, Gareth thought, bending that much lower over his horse’s neck. Come on, Achaius, let’s show them what you can really do.
The edge of the orchard was drawing near, along with a tree that had come down with the winter storms. With knees, reins, and nerve, Gareth sent Achaius hurtling over the trunk and out into the open fields. Mud spattered up from under the horse’s hooves as he dug in his heels. Achaius barrelled forward without missing a step. The other hoofbeats fell back and mingled with shouts, and not a few curses.
One last set of hoofbeats, though, thundered nearer. A blur of bronze and red swept easily past Gareth as his knight, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, took the lead of the small troop. He shot across the field toward the next rise. Would he take them over it? No. He checked abruptly, wheeling his great red horse around, and riding straight for Gareth. Achaius spooked at the sudden approach, and danced sideways, but Gareth kept his seat and regained control of his mount as the knight charged into the crowd of boys following him, wheeled, and charged Gareth again. This time, Sir Lancelot had the blunt and flimsy spear down and pointed right at Gareth’s chest.
Gareth brought up his own false weapon charged, he held his mock spear out sideways, hoping he could slip past the knight’s spear and knock Sir Lancelot from the saddle. It was a chancy move, but if he could just keep on the straight path …
But his aim was off and Sir Lancelot’s spear struck home first. The hammer force of the blow shattered the light wood, but still bowled Gareth out of his saddle. The world spun until the hard ground slammed against his back and stopped it forcibly. As soon as breath returned to his lungs, Gareth, thankful for the leather and quilting that cushioned him, scrambled to his feet, swinging his shield off his back and yanking his wooden practice sword from its sheath. Lancelot, grinning with a ferocity that made even Gareth’s blood go cold, charged again, spear out and down in a way that would have spelled grim death if it had been a real weapon.
Man and horse bore down on him. Gareth stood his ground, shield up and sword ready. Sir Lancelot had also drawn a wooden sword and aimed it at Gareth’s head. Gareth parried, pivoting aside as he did. His vision wobbled dangerously, but he kept his feet, ready for the next pass. The other boys had formed up in a rough line, staring, the youngest of them pop-eyed, obviously not sure how frightened they should be.
The next pass didn’t come. Sir Lancelot reined in his horse, and turned, the fierce grin still in place. “Good! That’s how it should be done. On your feet and weapon out.” His outland accent made the words tilt and lilt musically. “The man on horseback always has the advantage, but there’s nothing you can do sprawling in the mud crying about your bruises.”
Lancelot dismounted then, and Gareth put up his sword. The Gaulish knight was a fair man. His hair and neat beard shone like brass in the sunlight, and his eyes flashed bright blue. He was not a great man with words, but it was not words that brought such a man fame. Men said that Gareth’s brother Gawain was the greatest of the cadre of the Round Table, but it was beyond Gareth’s understanding how anyone could say that who had seen Sir Lancelot fi
ght. With sword and shield, none could stand before him. On horseback, he was a storm wind and utterly fearless. No show of force could even slow him down. When he sparred in the practice yard, work stopped so all could watch him dismantle his opponent’s defences and drive them to the ground. Not one knight in all of Arthur’s host had ever made Lancelot yield. Not Geraint, not Gawain. Agravain had never even tried.
“Now!” Sir Lancelot roared. “Which of you will stand up to Gareth here! Who will show us what you’re made of?” The knight looked expectantly at the ragged line of boys on horses. Gareth thought Lionel or Brendon might step up. But before either of them could move, Ewen had dismounted and stepped forward.
“Ewen! Good,” boomed Lancelot folding his arms and standing aside. “Make your try!”
Ewen was a full head shorter and at least two stone lighter than Gareth, but the boy had his shield down and pulled his sword, charging before Gareth had chance to get his sword up for a proper parry. He had to duck fast and dance back to buy himself room and time. The boy fought fast and hard, raining down his blows, not prepared to draw breath or give Gareth a chance to draw it, continuing to force him back by sheer speed. Wood creaked and thumped. The blows jolted up his arms to his shoulders as Ewen hammered on him again and again, evidently trying to make up for lack of reach by closing in.
All right.
Gareth turned, angling and curving his path, until he put Ewen’s back to the hill. Then, Gareth began to advance, not really attacking, but driving, easing forward with each deliberate parry and short thrust. Ewen, so intent on getting in one clattering blow, and one more, and one more after that, didn’t feel what was happening, until Gareth lunged forward under his guard, shoved his shield hard against him and sent the boy hurtling backward over a big white stone. Gareth leapt over that same stone, and stood with his sword at Ewen’s throat.