Lies of Golden Straw

by E. L. Tenenbaum

Still, all these things seemed at odds with the man who only wanted me to spin more and more gold. Had all this only started from curiosity, then continued simply to keep up the pretext? Had he been setting me up all the while for a kingdom, or for a fall?

  Or perhaps it was a momentary lapse in his carefully maintained simplicity, the delight of something as simple as straw turning into glittering gold too much a temptation for a man with a mind like his to turn down. Maybe he simply wanted to see what I would unearth from within the straw, like his palace within the hills, a treasure hidden in the dirt. Perhaps he was only seeking the extraordinary. Perhaps he married me to atone for his behavior.

  My musings were interrupted by the meaningful look he suddenly turned upon me.

  “What?” I asked, slightly unnerved. “What is it?”

  Rainn shook his head, but his expression didn’t change.

  “What’s the look?” I pressed.

  Rainn looked at me, his father, me again. Absently, he squeezed my arm then let his hand rest on my stomach, caressing it with an affectionate rub.

  “It’s as if you may have some royal blood in you after all,” he finally said.

  “Whatever can you mean?” I asked.

  “It means,” and here the king looked me in the eye, but not unkindly, “that for all your charms, you are most certainly not a magical being.”

  My heart hiccupped in my throat, but I kept my face passive. I had long suspected my husband knew most of the truth of the lie I’d been living under, even if he had yet to prove how the straw he’d locked me up with had been spun into gold.

  “Everyone knows a mage can’t spin straw into gold,” he added unnecessarily. “There are limits to their magic.”

  Just then, the baby kicked, and the king looked up, pleased.

  Catching his look, I rather sweetly told him, “I wouldn’t say I’m entirely without magic.”

  Rainn let out an appreciative laugh, which released some of my tension. “I can’t disagree on that,” he agreed amiably.

  He offered me his arm and led me out of the hall.

  But something had changed in my mood then, and it worsened as we passed each portrait on our way to the exit. I could no longer look into the faces of these past monarchs, could no longer take pleasure in sifting through their myriad of names. All I could wonder then was if my child would be here long enough to grace those walls.

  Loopholes

  A few short months later, I held my firstborn son in my arms and that moment was enough to banish anything negative that ever was or ever could be. Looking into his tiny face, all I could think was that I no longer had need for sun nor moon as long as I had him. Rainn believed it tenfold. He’d stop by the nursery at all hours of the day just to look in on his son, hold him in his arms, rock him till he slept. During mealtimes, a smile would overtake his mouth, forcing him to lower his fork until he could remaster his lips enough to eat. There was an extra bounce in his step, an extra light in his eyes, an extra sense of completeness about him.

  And I was going to shatter it all.

  For one week, one short week, I allowed myself to indulge in the delusion that this baby would be mine forever. I spent as much time as I could with him, I slept in the nursery and kept him from the arms of his nursemaids, feeding him myself, caring for him when he cried. I had so little time to give him anything that I wanted him to have everything I could ever give.

  And, in all that time, I didn’t dare name him. Each time, Rainn asked what he would be calling his son, I told him that I was still deciding. Another lie. I knew what I wanted to name him, I just didn’t have the will to do so. Since he’d been born, the invisible band around my heart had tightened so I was constantly stopping to catch my breath. No matter how much I would have liked to ignore it, to forget about that night now close to six years ago when I made a bargain I thought I’d never have to keep, the pain guaranteed that I couldn’t.

  True, Rainn was a king with an army of soldiers and a passel of mages at his call. He was powerful, innovative, immune to lies, and the architect of a palace so marvelous it reassured onlookers of the wonders waiting to be seen in heaven. Still, he was only a man, and could do nothing to stop the force coming for his child.

  By then, I wasn’t either naïve enough to think that I would ever be all right again if I let the little man take away my son. So I turned to the only person I could trust with my dilemma.

  Merlin.

  I sent Kirkin out the morning of the seventh day to summon my one-time best friend and he arrived by nightfall, stone-faced and unwilling. That didn’t stop me from throwing myself into his arms, though. I hadn’t seen him in years, but the moment he walked through the door, the moment those lovely purple eyes found me, the time separating us melted away.

  Merlin resisted responding at first, a sure sign that he hadn’t yet forgiven me for choosing Rainn over him. As if his absence from court hadn’t been proof enough. Until then, I could excuse his lack of visits as part of his need to use every minute to make himself a true mage, but his hesitation to hug me back reminded me otherwise. For my part, I hugged him even harder until he finally yielded, encircling me in arms that had never lost their warmth.

  What I wouldn’t give to feel that just one more time.

  It was several moments before either of us moved, and when we finally broke apart, we spent some time more studying each other’s faces, seeking out the changes that come from the passage of time.

  Some parts of Merlin were different. His beard was longer and his eyes more tired, but many other things were still the same. There was still a light in his gaze when his eyes met mine, there was still a quirk to his lips saying that though he wasn’t here to make trouble, he wasn’t entirely innocent of whatever mess was about to unfold. All these years later, I suspect those things remain unchanged.

  “Millie,” Merlin softly broke the silence, using the name he’d given me the first day we’d met in a small schoolroom, and I didn’t correct him.

  For in a way, having been apart all these years, wasn’t this a first of sorts, again? The only difference was that this time we wouldn’t be together as long as before, wouldn’t be together forever as we’d thought before. But I didn’t know that then.

  “Thank you for coming,” I rushed to say. “I know this isn’t easy, but you’re the only one who can help. Please...you promised to be there for me.”

  Merlin raised a hand to his chest and lowered it almost as quickly. Had there been a tight band of promise suffocating his heart all these years, too? Perhaps, considering the way his face darkened at its mention.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Nothing, yet,” I replied. “That’s why I need you.”

  Merlin tilted his head to the side. “What’s this about?” he asked carefully, searching my face for unspoken answers. “Why not ask the king’s help?”

  I reached out my hand to him and he took it reluctantly. I pulled him gently after me and led him to the crib where my son was sleeping, oblivious to the dark future looming over him. Merlin released my hand the moment he saw the baby.

  “What does he have to do with anything?” he questioned sharply.

  “Well,” I began, quite unsure of how to explain that I’d promised him away well before I even knew he would be born. “Remember the magical little man?”

  Merlin’s brow dove into his nose. He looked at me, then the baby. He shook his head.

  “You didn’t.”

  “Sort of,” I confirmed.

  “I don’t believe this,” Merlin snapped. “Even of you.”

  The last part was said quietly, and it stung like a scorpion. Only then did I realize the extent of the trust I’d broken between us. But there was no going back. I wouldn’t, even if I could. My life may not have turned out the way I dreamed it would, but it was still good. So why give it up? Besides, it wouldn’t solve anything.

  “What was I to do?” I demanded. “I had nothing left to give, and when he a
sked for the firstborn child I would have with the king, I thought it a bargain I’d never have to keep. I thought you and Yarrow would defeat him! How could I have thought the king would ever see fit to marry me?”

  “Does His Majesty know about this?” Merlin asked.

  I shook my head fiercely. “No, absolutely not. And he cannot know about it, either. Merlin, it would destroy him, and then me.”

  Merlin pursed his lips and stood with arms akimbo. Then he began his mad pacing, his sudden vanishing and reappearing about the room, and all the while I could feel the disappointment, the shame, the anger, radiating off him.

  “I can’t—” poof “believe—” poof “that you would agree—” poof “to give up your child—” poof.

  “I didn’t want to!” I insisted before he could finish. “I simply nodded when he suggested it.”

  Merlin suddenly became very still.

  “What?” I asked, a new kind of worry taking over at his sudden change in behavior. “What now?”

  “You never actually said anything?” Merlin repeated.

  I shook my head. A slight smile struggled for release, but Merlin fought it down.

  “This may be very good for you,” he said.

  “What? How?”

  “Because you didn’t actually say yes,” Merlin calmly replied.

  I could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind. He nodded to himself but didn’t care to enlighten me any further.

  “When will the little man be here?” he wanted to know.

  “I’m not certain,” I replied. “I only assumed it would be soon.”

  Merlin nodded. “I will stay with you until he comes,” he decided.

  “And until then?” I asked.

  “Until then,” Merlin said, tucking up his feet to sit in comfortable levitation, “we wait.”

  It wasn’t a secret that Merlin was visiting. Having been summoned by Kirkin for me, he had entered the palace through the main gate. After we’d spoken, he’d joined us for dinner in the main dining room where he was emphatically greeted by my husband with all the respect due someone of his status.

  “Mage Merlin,” Rainn called out when he entered, “it has been too long.”

  “Your Majesties.” Merlin bowed his head modestly to us. “Forgive my prolonged absence,” he added to the king, “much has demanded my attention.”

  He sounded like he was simply getting his master’s previous affairs aligned, but I knew he was referring to his desperate efforts to gain as much magic as he could so no one would ever know that he hadn’t inherited his master’s powers. He also hadn’t been very keen on seeing me again, but that was our business.

  I sat to the king’s right and he now signaled Merlin to sit in the chair to his left. “What finally brings you here?” he inquired genially.

  “The crown prince,” Merlin replied easily. “I offer my humble congratulations to the proud parents.”

  Rainn beamed at the mention of his son. “A wonderful, wonderful boy,” he said.

  “Which of His Majesty’s illustrious ancestors is he to be named for?” Merlin inquired.

  The king’s smile grew. “You’ll have to ask Queen Emalyn,” he replied.

  Merlin raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “I have allowed her to choose the name, though she’s too long indecisive,” he explained. “Perhaps you can help persuade her decision.”

  Only then did Merlin look at me quickly with what to others would have been a friendly smile. But I knew how to look beyond it. I don’t think the king knew that Merlin had been the first one to name me, but Merlin certainly understood what it meant for me to choose my firstborn’s name, and why I was so hesitant to name him at all.

  Later, Merlin joined me to “meet the kingdom’s future.” By then, the court knew that we’d grown up together, so there seemed nothing amiss about us finding a quiet corner to talk.

  Since the little man hadn’t yet come, and since I knew from the growing pain in my heart that he was bound to very soon, we bunked down in the nursery that night. I rocked my baby to sleep in my arms and kept him from the nurses by insisting I didn’t want to move him before he awakened to be fed again. Merlin, well, Merlin wasn’t exactly seen by those who didn’t need to know he was still in the room.

  Now, in the dark of the nursery, my son’s relaxed breathing warming my chest, I sat across from Merlin and thought about how much my husband could never know. Over the years, we had forged a warm relationship, but how true, how deep could it ever be, when a lie was rooted in the foundation? Even after that day in the portrait hall when the king informed me he was well aware I hadn’t told the whole truth of those tests.

  Merlin, who had been floating comfortably, stretched out his legs and came to stand over me. He looked down warily at my son, hesitantly reaching out to just let the tips of his fingers brush the side of his soft cheek.

  “What would a little man want with a baby?” I asked quietly.

  Merlin shook his head. How were either of us to understand a magical being who was neither old nor young, possessing abilities he shouldn’t have and powers to rival those of every mage in the kingdom?

  Merlin crooked his finger at a chair in the corner, sliding it across the floor and stopping it across from me. He heavily lowered himself into it. Away from curious eyes, he looked exhausted, unnaturally so, and I couldn’t help but think of the different courses our lives had taken ever since the evil imp had shown up and worked his dark magic. No matter what Rainn thought he knew, we were both still living under the pretext of false words.

  “How have you been?” I asked gently.

  “Busy,” he replied, packing that one short word with all the past few years had wrought. “Studying. Seeking.”

  “And what has that yielded?” I wanted to know.

  Merlin shook his head. He raised one hand and brought forth a glowing purple orb. He watched it float above his hand, bobbing it up and down, back and forth, playing with it as if it were a game of sorts. “I’ve increased my power in small increments, but nowhere near the amount it should be. It could take the rest of my life to really reach the level of mage, but by then, my powers will have to assume new expectations. There’s also the matter of apprentices I’m hardly qualified to train, but that’s been set aside for the time being.”

  “How did you manage to get out of it?” I asked.

  “I didn’t,” Merlin replied. “The little man still has everyone scared and all mages are expected to devote their time to his finding, capture, and elimination.”

  “But—” I began.

  “But nothing,” Merlin cut in. “We’ve searched everywhere and found nothing but rumors and myth. If I didn’t worry about what it would mean for you, I would have called all the others here tonight.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  Merlin shook his head, refusing my gratitude. “It doesn’t mean I won’t still. We must first discover what the little man is about. In the meantime,” here, he leaned over and said a few words, sending the orb over my son, where it slowly sank into him, “a tracking spell, so we might at least find him should he be taken.”

  A soft chuckle, more evil than a positive thing like laughter should ever be, echoed against the walls. And then there was the little man, walking toward us from where he’d materialized in the center of the room. “Surely you don’t still think your magic a match for mine, dearie?”

  I shuddered involuntarily. The magical man who had once been the key to my salvation was back as the harbinger of my doom. Where once I may have been relatively pleased to see the little imp, I could hardly look at him now. No matter how he spoke, no matter how he looked, he was nothing but disgusting and evil to me. Little my feelings would do to save my baby though.

  The little man took a step closer and suddenly Merlin was out of his seat and blocking his path, shielding me with his body as much as he could. His chair made a beeline to sideswipe the other magical who easily deflected it with a wave
of his hand. The chair made a sharp turn and ended up tripping end over end before landing upside down with a sharp thud.

  “Stay away from her!” Merlin cried, both hands suddenly illuminated with a fiery purple glow. I couldn’t see him, but I knew his eyes were blazing, lit from within by the intensity of his anger, and fear.

  The little man laughed louder this time. “Stand down, wizard,” he said, unnerving me with how easily he knew of the limited extent of Merlin’s power, “you have no place to interfere. This bargain must be met,” he added scornfully, “or your queen will die and I will take what is anyway mine.”

  As soon as he said those words, that dull, long ignored weight grew unbearably heavy within my chest. It pressed down, down, squeezing my heart so I felt it would implode inside me. My breaths grew shallow. I could only choke in protest.

  Merlin’s fists clenched in reaction, but he didn’t dare turn to look at me. “Your bargain was flawed, little man,” he said defiantly.

  “And yet it bound our hearts, so it is valid,” the malicious little imp needlessly pointed out.

  My breaths were getting more and more ragged, my baby was getting harder and harder to hold. I wanted to put him down and rip away the collar of my dress, but knew it would scarcely do me any good. I sat helplessly in the chair, my grip loosening against my will, black spots forming in the corners of my eyes. I struggled to hold on. He would have to take the baby over my dead body. He seemed intent on that.

  “She never said yes!” Merlin cried, cutting to the point with little time to lose. “So she must be given a chance.”

  This actually stopped the little man from coming forward for a moment as he thought about Merlin’s challenge to our bargain, clearly replaying the night when he’d spun the last room of straw into gold. He exhaled slowly, but didn’t speak at first, which I took as a good sign.

  “All right, Mistress Miller,” he conceded, and I felt the bonds around my chest give way enough for my breath to return. I gulped in deep lungfuls of air, tears streaming down my face. “What shall it be?” the little man went on, his expression not in the least concerned that this slight hiccup would alter his plans in any way.