Merlin's Harp

by Anne Eliot Crompton

  * * *

  Humans think all Fey are small folk. That used to be true, back before Fey and Human blood mixed—so said the Lady. Now, we Fey are still small by Human standards, but not as small as Humans think. I believe it is the Children's Guard that keeps this myth alive.

  A Human daring an edge of forest at dusk or dawn may glimpse a small, charcoal-painted face; a small hand may threaten with a poisoned dart. Before the Human's startled eyes, face and hand vanish in the swirl of an invisible cloak. The Human stands staring, hair stiff on head, neck, arms, and legs.

  If he continues to stare, he may get a poisoned dart in the throat. That ends that story. If he retreats swiftly, he may tell the story at his home fire, or in the village tavern. "Little, it was," he may whisper, glancing about him, still fearful. "No bigger than my young Tommy, mark me." And some wiser man informs him, "That's but natural. Don't you know, all of them Good Folk are little."

  (My own height is quite usual among the Fey. For years now I have traveled the Human kingdom disguised as a Human boy, maybe twelve years old. Only here and there, now and then, an innkeeper or shepherd has crossed cautious fingers behind his back.)

  I met Elana in the Children's Guard. She drew me from the first, maybe because she reminded me of Dana with her coarse, redbrown hair and surprisingly solid build. Maybe it was simply fear that drew us together. We were "free in the forest" for the first time together, and quite frightened, though Lugh showed and taught us much. By then, he was a Guard Leader, the only sort of leader most Fey ever acknowledge in their lives.

  Elana asked me, "Why is Lugh so kind to you, Niviene?"

  Easily, carelessly, I told her, "He is my brother."

  "What? He is your what?"

  "We have the same mother."

  "Oh? How do you know?"

  "We all live together. We are…we are…"

  "Very good friends?"

  "That, and more." I could not explain it in words.

  But Elana understood. Something in her nature understood and responded, though she had never heard Merlin's stories, and knew nothing of Human-type relationships.

  "Listen," Elana said later. "I want to be your brother too."

  "You can't be that."

  "I know I don't have the same mother. But we could pretend."

  "Oh, yes!" The idea brightened my heart. "But you still can't be my brother. You have to be my…" I remembered Merlin's word. "Sister. That's what you'll be. You be my sister, and I'll be yours."

  Under cover of night, the Guard raided nearby villages. Humans see poorly at night, and we slipped among granaries and byres like shadows. Elana and I went together, each toting a sack as big as herself.

  When we found bread, cheese, or cloth on a doorstone we left that hut alone, then and for a while after. Lurking in dusk I have heard a woman tell her child, "Go put this oatcake out for the Good Folk." Her man, gobbling soup within, knew nothing of it. He would have called it waste of a good oatcake. But the wife knew that a bare doorstone meant real waste.

  Finding no offerings, we Good Folk laughed openmouthed, showing off our dagger teeth, and robbed the hut.

  We snaked our ways into dark, fetid hut or sweet-smelling granary and filled our sacks. We stole into the byre and milked the goat. Close by many a sleeping family we tiptoed, watching them toss and turn together, kick and push and yank at their bedclothes. We watched infants nurse at sleeping mothers' breasts.

  Rarely, a Fey might steal a sleeping infant from his mother's bed. It was almost as easy as stealing a loaf of bread, so said the Lady. Elana and I never did that, for we never had a customer waiting back in the forest. Fey mothers whose babies had died bartered for these babies; or Fey women unblessed by the Goddess, who wished to sacrifice to Her nonetheless by raising a child, though they could bear none.

  At times I sensed a presence that hovered in the close heavy air of these Human dens. But I would live long and travel far before I understood that presence, the Human mystery of which the Lady had told me, of which we Fey are ignorant.

  Once an ancient man sat up and looked at me. As he moved his aura flared, a low dull flame in the dark. Among us Fey such a decrepit oldster would by now have wandered away to give his bones back to the Goddess. But Human families keep their old ones close, and their sick ones, and sometimes even deformed children.

  I stood still as a cornshock, leaning forward, one hand outstretched to snatch the spread cloak off his feet. I slowed my breathing. Across the hut, Elana stuffed bread and cheese into her sack. She did not know the old one was awake, and I could not signal her.

  The ancient swung stringy legs off the pallet. I guessed he was making for the piss pot, and we would collide. I could not tell whether he saw me. Human eyes are weak in the dark, and many oldsters cannot see well even by daylight.

  He gathered himself to rise, and looked up into my face. A long moment he sat, eyes meeting mine. Then he folded his hands, bowed his head, and watched me from under lowered brows.

  He saw me. He saw me, but he would do nothing. He would not yell and wake the sleepers, or scramble up and grab me, or even hold on to his cloak. He thought I could point at him, intone a word, and turn him into a toad.

  Joyous power surged through me. I drew the dark cloak up, away, and over me. For him, I vanished into darkness. Then I touched Elana's shoulder. We tiptoed out the door.

  We ran lightly away. That is, I ran lightly. Elana bounded like a fat hare, heels thumping earth. Safe in the shadow of the Fey forest, we burst out laughing.

  Later we murmured together under the old man's smelly bedcloak about boys, men, and sex. We had to murmur. We could not sign in the dark. I said, "I don't want to."

  "You mean, you aren't ready."

  "What about you?"

  "Hshh!" groaned a companion across the small fire. "Are you two going to talk all night?"

  "I'm ready!" Elana whispered.

  "But you don't."

  "It's…hard to explain."

  "Hushshshshs!" from across the fire.

  "Try. Explain."

  Elana squirmed further under the cloak and I followed. It smelled, down there, of Human and age, dust, sweat, meat, soup, sickness. Someone had vomited on this cloak, long ago. Elana's breath on my cheek smelled of thyme and trout. Her whispered words tickled first my ear, then my thought.

  "It's…There is one."

  "One what?"

  "One man, silly. Or boy, rather."

  "So why don't you?"

  "See, there's only one. One only. And he doesn't want me."

  "That's funny," I giggled.

  Across the fire our sleepless companion sighed, gathered up his cloak and wandered off in search of peace.

  "It is not funny! It feels bad. In here." Elana took my fingers and pressed them where her heart beat, under her soft-sprouting breast.

  Repentant, I kissed her cheek. "Why don't you try someone else, then? At the next Flowering Moon dance. There's lots of boys, Elana."

  "Not for me. There's only one for me." Elana wept.

  I lay astonished, feeling her heart beat under my fingers, feeling her tears warm on my face. I remembered something.

  "Elana, my mother has a friend called Merlin."

  "The mage. I know."

  "He used to sing Human songs to us—old stories about heroes and princesses."

  "So?"

  "Elana, in those stories the Humans used to feel like you do."

  Elana stiffened. "They did?"

  "Yes. There would be only one for them, and if they couldn't have that one they would go meet a dragon or something…they didn't want to live."

  "I thought…I thought it was just me!" The warm tears still flowed, but the beating heart quieted like a bird that you hold still in the dark between your palms.

  "No, it's something Humans feel. But most times those Humans were bewitched."

  "Bewitched!"

  "They had a spell on them. That's why they felt that way."

  "G
ods!"

  "Maybe you are bewitched."

  "How do you get over being bewitched?"

  "I don't know. In the stories, they never do." I dried Elana's closing eyes with a cloak-corner.

  "So what do they do, in the stories?"

  "Either they meet and love, or they let a dragon eat them. Something like that."

  "Hah! I've never seen a dragon, have you?"

  "Elana, let's sleep now."

  "In this stink?"

  Half-laughing now, we wiggled our heads out from under the cloak and gasped clean night air.

  * * *

  Merlin said, "I dreamt a summer storm."

  "Not serious," the Lady said.

  "Not serious for Arthur. As you well know, I take no store in the woman."

  They knew about Mellias's captive, and about her Arthur. They knelt together at the courtyard fireplace where Lugh's trout cooked on the hot stones. Lugh crouched with them; and Elana and I drifted near in our invisible cloaks, drawn by the hot fish smell.

  "You would not mind," the Lady asked, "if her body fed our starved apple trees?"

  Her braid was still midnight black. Merlin's bush of hair and beard had gone gray. They leaned together like an aged pair of geese, like a long-married Human couple.

  "I would not mind," Merlin said. "But you might."

  "Why should I mind?"

  "You don't expect Arthur to sit still and accept the theft of his wife?"

  "Why should he not? You have told me there is little love there."

  Merlin sighed. "This is not a matter of love, Nimway. It is a matter of pride."

  "Pride?…Oh. Pride."

  "You understand."

  "I am trying."

  "Arthur may well gather his iron-armed, mounted companions and charge into your forest. No children's poisoned darts would stop that charge."

  "What harm could they do? Those awkward giants armed like beetles could not catch a one of us!"

  "Your forest would be known, Nimway. No longer enchanted and forbidden." Thoughtfully, Merlin stroked his gray beard. "All this while I have magicked for Arthur to save your forest from Saxon invasion. Now it seems Arthur may invade it himself."

  The Lady smiled, close-mouthed. "You magicked for Arthur himself, Merlin. The Human part of you has always loved Arthur."

  "That is true." Merlin admitted it gravely. "You may smile. You did not carry the newborn child through the storm in your cloak."

  "Not that child, no."

  "You did not watch him grow, and keep the secret. And you are not Human."

  "Thank all Gods!"

  "There may be two ways to look at that matter too, Nimway. Every story has at least two sides." Merlin gazed deeply at the Lady a moment, then swung away to pace. "For Arthur's sake I would forget the woman. Her stars and his are wrong together. I told him as much before the marriage."

  "That must have been the only time he disregarded you."

  "It was. That time, Human politics outweighed reason. But for your sake, Nimway, for the sake of the Fey, she must go home, safely and soon."

  Forgotten Lugh squawked, "But she can't simply walk out of here!"

  His voice broke as he made this astonishing, clear statement—as though he knew whereof he spoke—in front of the wise Lady and Mage Merlin.

  He blushed from his dark hairline down to the neck of his tunic. (Lugh was the only Fey I ever knew who was fair enough to blush. Well, there was Elana, but I suspected her of Human blood anyway.)

  Merlin and the Lady stared at Lugh. A tension tingled the air.

  He glanced from one to the other and back, lowered his lustrous dark eyes and tossed his hair forward like a shield. He leaned to spear a trout with a stick. Wresting it into his bark bowl, he explained gruffly, "You know I study the kingdom and know somewhat what goes on there."

  The Lady trilled a low, light laugh, as a bird may call after thunder. "In truth," she murmured, "I wish you studied less and knew less!"

  Merlin's bent brows relaxed. He said, "Knowledge is always good, Nimway. What do you know, young Lugh, that we have not considered?"

  So gently had Lugh and I been raised, so safe did we feel in Lady Villa—our home—that Lugh straightway raised his head, brushed his hair back with his hand, and began to speak in his new, manly tones, with no break in his voice.

  He spoke of Human mysteries: marriage, law, war, Saxons, alliances. Merlin and the Lady exchanged amused glances.

  He spoke then of Gwenevere—the woman we found under the apple tree—of her famous beauty (so Humans accounted her beautiful, as I did myself!) and of her well-known headstrong nature. (Headstrong? Not just now.)

  Merlin said gently, "All this we know, Lugh."

  "But you must then realize, Sir…True it is that she must go home! But she cannot walk away like a village girl some Fey fool has ravished and let go!"

  Merlin said, "You may not believe this, but queens can be bewitched like peasants."

  "Oh, I know!" Lugh cried. He saw now that he was not being seriously consulted, but played with. He blushed again, this time from anger. "Like the girl I mentioned just now, she can walk out of here and speak of trees that held her prisoner, and deer that turned into lovers, and how days passed like moments. And our forest will be all the safer because she walked out of it."

  Merlin smiled. "So, what are you saying?"

  "I'm saying…well, for one thing, she cannot leave here in the rags she is wearing."

  The Lady asked softly, "How do you know what she is wearing, Lugh?"

  Lugh flung down his bowl, fish and all, and stamped on it. The fish being sizzling hot, he then hopped about a while with no semblance of dignity. No one smiled. Courteously, we all waited for his answer.

  "Very well!" he gasped finally. "Very well! I have seen her. She's been here some days now."

  Merlin asked, "Have you played with her?"

  "They…they didn't give me a turn."

  "That is well," Merlin said slowly. "That is very well. Yes, you are right. Gwenevere must be better dressed."

  "And she cannot walk alone!"

  "Why not?"

  "Gods, she cannot walk at all! She must ride away on a palfrey, led by a…"

  "A trusted knight."

  "Yes."

  Merlin glanced at the Lady. She looked up into the shining sky, and then away from us. Face turned away from us, she shrugged.

  Merlin said, "Lugh. You used to play Tournament with the village boys, did you not?"

  "I…yes." Lugh's voice cracked on the word. Merlin had taken him by surprise.

  "You can handle a horse."

  "Why, yes. I mean, I suppose so."

  "You know how to handle arms. Not in combat, but so you won't stumble over them."

  "Oh, yes. I can handle arms!" Lugh's stormy face began to clear.

  "You would no doubt enjoy a journey into the kingdom."

  Lugh swallowed, choked, coughed. "Anything I can do! …Any way I can serve!"

  "Fear not," Merlin soothed him, unnecessarily. "I will go with you."

  Joy burst like fire out of Lugh. His reddish aura, which had been invisible in the strong light, now swept over and around him like a cloud. His face shone like the sun, his eyes gleamed like stars.

  Erect as an angry serpent the Lady turned and glided away from us. Her long gown swished on the paving stones, a sound like coming rain.

  * * *

  Elana said, "Lugh is going!"

  I replied, "He has always wanted to."

  We lay close together on soft moss under Counsel Oak. A spring breeze rustled Counsel's leaves. Thrush and warbler talked among the leaves, and cuckoos argued across the island.

  Elana said, "But where? But why?"

  Elana had never heard Merlin's kingdom songs. The other day she had looked for the first time on Dana in the villa entrance, and the foreign fish leaping on the wall; she had gazed at them blankly, with mindless eyes. Elana had no conception of a world beyond our forest. She saw Lugh w
andering off into the open, terrifying distance of the kingdom into…nothing.

  The thought of trying to explain numbed my tongue. I shrugged and repeated, "Always he has wanted to go out there. Since we were little. Merlin used to say he would outgrow it—like a tic, you know."