Merlin's Harp

by Anne Eliot Crompton

  * * *

  White-robed and flower-crowned by Aefa, I perched on the lowest branch of a vine-laddered oak near the river. I watched the Flowering Moon rise, and listened to distant drums.

  In glades from here to the west edge of the forest the Fey were gathering to dance. Their drums were soft, like heartbeats, not much louder than the crackling fires the dancers circle. They were coming by coracle down many a stream. They were coming on foot along many a game trail. I thought the Lady must be poling away from Avalon now, arrayed in shimmering robes, Merlin's best gifts. I thought that somewhere Elana must be moving toward the nearest drum, and breathed a spell for her, that some man at the dance might help her forget my brother.

  If Mellias were here he would dance tonight in swinging otter skins and antlers. His eyes would glint this way and that, searching for me. Mellias had long desired me, and tonight I thought I might desire him. Throughout my body I felt a warming and softening I had never known before.

  But Mellias was out in the kingdom playing Lugh's deaf servant. He might be lying in straw, or scrubbing crocks. He might not even see the Flowering Moon through the roof and walls around him! If he saw or felt the Moon he might bed some serving girl, like Yseult's "maid." But she had better beware, poor fool! Out in the kingdom the Goddess's best gifts can curse.

  I wanted to make my way toward the nearest drum, but a voice in my head told me, Wait.

  So I waited for I knew not what, sitting so still in the oak a passing owl brushed my face with his wing. I might have taken that for a warning.

  Far off, three drums spoke and answered each other. Close at hand, a nightingale trilled. Beyond that, a threatening voice bawled.

  Was it Fey, Human or animal? Did it come or go?

  It yawped rhythmically, savagely, always nearer. I drew my feet up on the branch and wished my gown were dun-colored. I must stand out in shadow like the white doe.

  Something crashed, thumped, and panted through underbrush. Something rushed past under my branch.

  My white doe. I glimpsed wide eyes and ears laid back; I smelled terror. Three breaths later she splashed into the river.

  The oncoming voice belonged to a hunting hound in full cry. I had never heard it before, for Humans did not hunt our forest. But I recognized it from stories. The hound might be lost and searching his own meat. Or Human hunters might follow him. How could either dog or hunters have passed the Children's Guard?

  Gods, the Guard had gone dancing! It was left for me to handle this invasion, armed only with the knife in my belt.

  I scrambled down the oak, plucked up my gown in both hands and ran to the river.

  There swam the white doe upstream, silver head and shoulders trailing a silver wake. I called to her, "Sister, I guard the trail!" Standing astride her trail I drew my knife and faced the great hound that came rushing.

  Nose to earth, baying, he ran almost into my feet. I had the knife ready to plunge when he jerked back, trembled, and growled.

  Underbrush cracked behind him.

  The hound stood tall as the doe, dark-coated, stinking. I exerted my aura and let it stab the air, burning like green fire. I felt it tingle and glow, and the hound saw it. Puzzled, he drew back and crouched. This technique had turned boar and wolf before; I was pleased to see it work on a dog, who lives with Humans and might be harder to turn. But would it work on the Human who now stepped out of shadow?

  No; for he, a mere Human, could not see my aura.

  He came alone, one panting, sweating hunter, smelling like his dog; a big man, a giant. Sweat gleamed in his dark curls and beard. Metal gleamed at his throat, on his hands. He strode toward us, then stopped and made a hand sign I did not then recognize. "God's blood!" he panted, and backed off two steps.

  I stood firmly across his path, grinning openmouthed, gown and teeth and ready blade glistening in moonlight. I was set to take him with my knife; I had marked where to stick it, and crouched to leap, when I saw his resolve crumble.

  He paled, his mouth fell open. Again he hand-signed, sketching a magic design in the air between us, and drew back another step.

  I knew then what he thought. I laughed openmouthed. I need not sacrifice my life to take his. The wise deceptions of the Fey, practiced for generations on his kind, had disarmed him without a blow.

  I could play with him. Quietly I asked, "Stranger, do you seek the dance?"

  "Dance?" He held one hand outstretched, ready to sign again. (Now I realized he was signing against evil, calling his Gods to his aid.) A great, heavy ring shone on his meaty third finger.

  "You hear the drums. Do you seek to dance with the Fey?"

  He shuddered visibly. "Lady." He gulped. "You know well that I seek the white deer. I will gladly give up that chase."

  Now, that was a brave admission! Thinking I was myself the white deer, transformed—or she was me—he confessed to the hunt.

  His courage interested me. I studied him. The drums beat, my blood stirred and beat; the Flowering Moon sailed high.

  I need not go to the dance. Mellias would not be there. And here the Goddess had delivered a strong, handsome, terrified man into my hands. Human, to be sure. But I would be far from the first Fey to couple with a Human.

  Now I smiled close-mouthed, sheathing my teeth. I glided to him and gripped his large wrist in both hands. He leapt like a shot hare. Sweetly I smiled up at him. "Come," I cooed, "you are tired from the hunt. Come with me and rest." I led him back to the great oak. His dog followed us, growling and whining.

  Among the reaching oak roots we sat down together. My man was pale; his teeth were chattering. If he were to do much for me he would need reassurance. I leaned against his side and murmured, "Now. Tell me about you."

  "About me."

  "Not your name, I need not know that." His shoulders relaxed half a finger. He thought if I knew his name I could magic him anytime, from any distance. He was beginning to hope he might live through this.

  "Tell me…" I was getting the solid feel of him now. Overwhelming. "How did you come here?"

  "You know I followed…you."

  "Did no one warn you?"

  "Yes. Yes, I was warned. No one would follow me."

  "Yet you came."

  "Lady," he said with forlorn pride, "I am a warrior."

  And so he was, in truth! I could not see his aura in the evening shadow, but it poured over me like a waterfall, vibrant, powerful, tingling. This was a Human hero. Merlin sang tales of just such men as this.

  I murmured, "I led you here because I want you." And I stretched up and kissed his bearded cheek.

  His shoulders slipped a bit looser. Hope—and energy—grew in him.

  "Tell me now, Man, where are you from? Your speech tells me you come from far away." So did his moving aura, his ring, and the wide metal collar that almost circled his neck.

  Sure now of my immediate intentions, he found voice. He fed me a wonderful story that Merlin should have sung, of humble beginnings and violent adventures, of a mage and a lady who gave him a magic sword, with which he killed nine hundred enemy Saxons in a single battle, and so became chief of his people.

  I suspected he was no more the chief than I was the white doe. But the tale was true in spirit, he was a true warrior, such as Humans and bards admire. And I was a hotly eager virgin, and the moon sailed high, and the drums beat. I wound my fingers among his coarse curls. "And what do you do now?"

  "I fight Saxons. Holding the Saxons back from our lands is my lifework."

  The only lifework I knew belonged to women, daughters of the Goddess. The thought that a man might claim a lifework was new to me.

  "I thought you killed all the Saxons."

  "Always, more come."

  "You always win these battles?"

  "I would not be here if I did not."

  And he was here, strong and warm, huge and foolish. His smell was not good, but the rising smell of my own lust covered that. Like most Humans, he probably carried fleas and lice
. I could deal with those later.

  Very courteously he asked me, "Is this what you want? You are sure?" For, of course, if he displeased me I could turn him into a hedgehog.

  Vinelike, I twined around him. His dog lay down to watch us, head on paws. Far off the drums beat. Nearer, the nightingale sang.

  * * *

  The Lady Nimway took occasional Human lovers. Afterward she would send them straight into the small, cruel hands of the Children's Guard. "Walk north along the stream," she might say. "That will bring you out of the forest." And the man, who half-expected to be turned into a stoat, would kiss her hands and walk north till a poisoned dart found his throat.

  No Human lover of hers ever returned to his hearth, or to the wife watching for him at the door. No true tale of our forest and its trails ever reached the kingdom. For when we Fey deal this way with Humans, the rule is Love and Death. First love, then death.

  At first light I rose on my elbow and looked my man over. Hair and beard were black, skin faintly brown; embroidered red and black dragons adorned his fine wool tunic; his collar was a golden torque. His sleeping aura pulsed, a strong, rich orange. Gods, I thought, maybe he really is a chief! Well, never mind that. What do I do with him?

  He woke. At sight of me his gray eyes jerked wide. He had expected me to vanish with the moon.

  I laughed, close-mouthed. "I am still here." He sat up and looked down at himself. "You are still here." I assured him. No roots grew from his feet, nor wings from his shoulders.

  Whining, his hound crawled toward him.

  I said, "I will take you out of the forest."

  He never blinked. Maybe he did not know the rule I was breaking. He said, "Tell me something."

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Outside this forest, is it today, or a hundred years from now?"

  I did blink.

  "Harpers sing of men who pass a night in…such forests. When they return to earth, a hundred years have passed."

  I had never heard that good story! "Would that matter?"

  "Well. In a hundred years without me, the Saxons might have won."

  He took himself seriously, this maybe-chief. "Perhaps you would prefer to stay here?"

  "Give me the Saxons."

  I laughed, glad of my decision. He deserved to live. "I will take you out; but first you must eat."

  To allay any suspicion, I ate with him. We shared Aefa's stolen bread and cheese; but he alone ate Grand Mushroom, enough to bewilder three giants. Dizzying, he said to me, "Ask me a boon, Lady. Ask what you wish."

  "You must have enjoyed the night."

  "Ask quickly…I cannot keep awake…"

  "You have given me my boon already." (I knew not then that I spoke but the truth.)

  He tore the red-gleaming ring off his finger and pushed it down onto mine. It rolled around on my small finger, around and up and down. To save it I dropped it into my pouch with Gwen's hair and Mellias's crystal.

  The giant's aura winked and shrank. The dog saw this and whined.

  "He will do very well," I told the dog. "If you could tell what you know, I would feed you Grand Mushroom too." The man was now too mazed to hear me.

  Once in the coracle—half-stumbling, half-dragged—he slumped against the rim. His eyes slid shut. I climbed in, took up the pole and pushed off. Downriver we rode, the hound swimming behind us. In the same opening, thinning woods where Elana and I had dressed Gwen, I pulled the coracle ashore and heaved my hero to firm ground. He sprawled. His dog pattered up, shook himself, and stretched out beside him. My Human was well guarded.

  I hesitated. This was a man of real power. Suppose, when he woke, he remembered!

  Unlikely. He might remember one or more details of the night, but it would all seem like a dream. I felt sure that what he might remember could do us no harm. So I left him.

  Standing, poling upstream, I laughed aloud. There was one hero who would chase no more white deer! I laughed richly, savoring the joke, and the joy of the night just past; and that was good, for I was not to laugh again soon.

  Flocks of ducks rose, clapping their wings, before the coracle. Air was loud with bird cries, water loud with rushing, morning light beamed and sparkled. Among tall reeds my white doe drank, her little white kid at heel. "We did well, sister," I told her. "You brought me my first lover. I saved your life. Be well now, you and your children." So I blessed her, not knowing I had the true power to bless, and poled on by.

  Near my clearing I paused to lift my tunic and trousers from the overhanging branch where Aefa had hung them. For this service I would teach her the warts-off song.

  I poled on toward Apple Island, Avalon, my home. I had made a hard peace with my brother's loss and my friend's weakness. I had cast aside virginity and known deep pleasure. I felt strong, gifted, fit. I hummed a poling song.

  The river narrowed and flowed faster. Ducks thundered up before an unmanned coracle bobbing downstream.

  Two swans glided beside the boat. One on each side, they pecked at greenery that trailed over the rim. The coracle was mounded with greenery and flowers. Gods, it was a floating garden!

  Curious, I poled to intercept the drifting coracle. The boats bumped midstream. With one hand I leaned on the pole, with the other I gripped the floating garden's rim.

  Down there, under flowers, on flowers, Elana lay asleep.

  She was dressed for the dance in a bleached linen gown. Buttercups crowned her sunny brown hair that trailed on the sunny brown water. Her aura, pale already in the daylight, was a narrow, diminishing quiver of gray. "Elana? Elana!" My friend must have consumed six times the Grand Mushroom I had fed my man. When she floated past East Edge and into the kingdom, Elana would be dead.

  Lugh had left her behind. So she had left him behind, forever. She had gone farther from him than he had gone from her. And she had made sure he would not forget her. Even if Lugh never saw her floating garden, he would hear of it. Harpers would sing this tale for years to come.

  I said, "Elana. Lugh will forget you. At first he will wonder and grieve, but then he will turn back to his new life and forget. Do you think a little of Lugh's grief worth your life?" (And all the seasons ahead, Flowering Moons, babies, friends, lovers, feasts, and fasts!)

  Elana sighed.

  "Elana." My arms ached, holding both coracles still in the current. "Elana," I said, "I will forget you too. I must forget you. But I will always remember what you have shown me. Never, never, will I love any being the way you have loved Lugh!" I reached to touch her hand; my exhausted arms let the coracle slip. I muttered, "Elana, next time be born Human. You would make a much better Human."

  And in my head I heard Elana answer, I was.

  "Elana?"

  Then I knew. Some Child Guard once leaned over a Human bed and lifted a sleeping infant away, and ran to sell it in our forest for a new shirt, or maybe a boar-tooth necklace. Or maybe the bereaved Fey mother herself came gliding out from the trees at midnight to snatch away the baby. Or maybe the Human mother, herself, bore her child secretly at a forest edge and left it there. Humans normally have warm, commanding hearts, but I have heard tales. Elana was a changeling.

  The revelation stunned me.

  I knew from Merlin's tales that Humans sometimes lay their dead in flower-cloaked coffins. Elana's boat was just such a coffin. I leaned on my pole and watched the coffin and its attendant swans ride downriver.

  Very soberly, then, I poled on home to Apple Island. Much had come to pass in a few days. But that morning, poling strongly upriver, I did not even know all that had come to pass.

  I would have been even more sober had I known that even as I tricked and trapped my human lover, the Goddess tricked and trapped me. Her power flowed into my body on the tide of his seed. Now at this moment She sat in my center, spinning her dark, holy thread like a deeply satisfied spider.

  The Goddess and I were one.

  A Merlin Song

  A near-grown child of herder folk,


  A maiden, paused beneath an oak.

  Watching her father's sheep, she stood;

  A lad stole out from the mysterious wood.

  A brown boy he, and small and quick,

  His every move a twinkling trick.

  All summer did those children play,

  The herder-maiden and the Fey.

  Then winter came. He slipped away,

  And left the maid his debt to pay

  In hovel dark she bore her child

  And named him for his father wild: