Sword Stone Table

by Sword Stone Table- Old Legends, New Voices (retail) (epub)

  “You’ll come to no harm.”

  “Not the least,” she assured him. Already the fungal threads of her comrades twined around her feet, tickling open the pores of her naked ankles. “You may safely cover my head cloth in no more than the chanting of a pair of recipes. Odeh will know exactly when.”

  “The flowers—”

  “They too.”

  The magician recited the instructions he had given her for midnight travel between distant mountaintops while filling the grave high as Nia’s chin. Odeh patted her cheeks with velvet gentleness and pawed rich loam from behind her line of sight to lie against her ears. Merlin’s recitation became too muffled to distinguish. And her attention became diffuse, opening out into the wood’s underground system, the slow routes of the trees’ shared awareness. Spreading the light, the hum, the liquid proclamation of life. Shutting it down, retracting it, drawing off the precious power to store it within the earth. Within her bones. The quiescent essence.

  Night was a dance without steps, without movement of any kind. Morning came: a smear of sunlight, a reddening of her eyes’ lids. She lifted them and focused on Odeh’s furry face, their pink and silver tongue licking the scum of dirt from her newly exposed skin. Merlin’s long hands scooped the loose soil imprisoning her neck and shoulders, but by the time she’d freed herself enough to look for more of him, he’d gone. Patiently she stirred herself, setting the dirt within her grave aseethe. She emerged unscathed though not unchanged, brushing away the broken tips of tendrils that had formed to nourish her. These would be repurposed in the spring.

  Nia had thought perhaps Merlin would return to her at the burial site with a drink of water or a blanket. Of course with questions. No. He came not at all. She shivered a moment in the sudden loneliness, unable to decide if it was his absence caused it, or her loss of direct contact with the roots of the hazels. Then she went back to the hut on her own. And on her own she stayed, despite her desire.

  * * *

  —

  Snow fell the first night of Christmas. Three and twenty years had passed since Nia left Nakasongola, heading whiteward. This would be her sixteenth such snowfall, but she never tired of them. Bluer than her complexion, shadow versions of the stars, the soft flakes swirled to the low, black Earth from high, cold Heaven.

  “Shut the door, won’t you?” The length of Merlin’s wool-wrapped body radiated warmth bare inches from her back. “It’s not so marvelous to me as to you, this bleak winter.”

  She nodded and moved forward to take and pull the door’s knotted latch cord, feeling the distance between them increase. “Will we still go to the castle in the morning?”

  “Will the king still send a boat to carry us? I say so.”

  Despite practicing her own beliefs as well as she could in alien lands, Nia knew and publicly performed the rites of her hosts’ religions, too. It made her passage easier, her sojourns less troubled. Merlin seemed to have come to a similar accommodation with the Christians’ church. In the lessons given her over months past there had been no mention of Jesus, saints, or apostles, save perfunctory reference to who should be called on to bless which workings, aloud, before witnesses. However, as predicted, King Bear had invited his magician to return to court for the winter’s holy days. And as promised, Merlin had agreed to go. She with him.

  “But Macha—”

  “She slumbers. She won’t miss us.”

  “Will she not freeze? The frost—”

  Merlin glanced down at the flat stones set around the hut’s circular hearth. One short day a short while ago, Nia had watched the snake glide under the largest of them. “I’ll bank the fire with utmost care. We are to be gone no more than a fortnight. Perhaps less. She’ll be fine. I say so.”

  Time was Merlin’s realm, and the principle Nia had discerned behind most of his spells was the deployment of it in surprising spots. The blossoming of the bower, the delving of the cave. Also he dealt in the comprehension of time: of the past’s mysteries; and of the future, the present’s oft-unexpected outcome.

  The dry rustle of twigs disturbed Nia’s thoughts. Odeh’s head pushed through the heather bunched and tied to the hut door’s bottom, golden eyes blinking open as they cleared the brush. Next came the white-gloved forepaws, the limber elegance of their front legs, the liquid torso, muscular back legs, and waving tail.

  “Will they come with us?” Merlin had finally learned from Nia how to talk of her pet. This language had but one option for those neither male nor female.

  Nia had not been apart from Odeh for more than a night since they’d adopted her. “Most likely.”

  “Shall I carry them? The horses won’t bother them?”

  “They weren’t fretted on the way here.” Neither the king’s horses nor the asses of Dijon nor any of the other beasts encountered on their way had daunted brave Odeh. Nonetheless the magician stooped to gather them up and lift them. Odeh tolerated that, as they always did this man’s touch. As they had never before tolerated others’ handling.

  It was this, her pet’s acceptance of him, that encouraged Nia to ignore his avoidance of her, to step over the boundary of his determined disregard for her queries and invitations. To make her meaning plain, she pulled Merlin by his mantle down beside her and sank onto her bed.

  “Ah.” His face in the firelight lent depth to the simplicity of that sound: the depth of the knowledge and the wanting of what was yet to come. Her fingers traced the beardlessness of his cheeks and the strange straightness of his nose, stroked his stern brows, wings of a predator, a protector—

  He reached for her wrist to stop her. “You understand this is not the price of my teaching? Nor of your lodging here—you take me to you freely, of your own will?”

  She laughed and rose and shook off her robe. “And if I didn’t understand by now that there’s no barter involved? After these three moons you’ve held yourself aloof from me? I would be too stupid to understand anything. Too—” She sprang like Odeh in the hope of catching the magician off guard. But he was ready with a half-serious defense of his clothing. She settled for removing his gown to reveal the shirt worn beneath. Then she pressed him down to lie again on the red-dyed linen with which he’d covered her bed.

  Soothing the shirt’s hem gradually upward, she began to expose him. In the firelight his thighs glowed like candle wax, rippling when he rolled away.

  “Stay.”

  He obeyed her.

  “You want me. Why do you deny—?”

  The first rage she’d seen on him fell over his face. “Deny you? Never! But what begins also ends.”

  Tentatively, Nia leaned over his shoulder to take his hands in hers. She met no resistance. “Does it so? Does it truly?” She turned him back toward her. “Have you not taught me otherwise?”

  He laughed a creaking laugh. “Tomorrow we go to the king, to stay under his roof through the year’s return. The young and lusty king.”

  “King Bear and I have met.” Yellow hair, she remembered. Eyes resolved on cheerfulness. Thick whiskers covered his face, and below that his center burned, a belly full of determination. “Do you forget? He sent me here.”

  “I do not forget what has happened. Nor what will.” He lifted himself on his elbows. The shadow of his hair cast itself between them. “I say you’ll lie with him. I have Seen it. And I, damn me for an envious fool, will lie with you now.” He leaned toward her, and they kissed. Nia closed her eyes and Saw anyway—her phantasms or his? The visions ran so swift they blended into one another: fields reaped empty of their corn; harbors crowded with the masts of golden ships and the busy oars of tiny, bright boats; chests of gold coins spilling onto wooden tables where sat fine-wigged ducks and haughty swans…Each sight was more nonsensical than the last, and all the while she and Merlin kissed and touched, these imaginary worlds whirled her merrily away. So to thrust her tongue into the
magician’s ear was to shoot above the roof of a byre and bathe in the silver tails of comets; to shudder at his breath as he suckled on the intricacies of her hair was to rain candied rose petals on a herd of apple-colored oxen. And to hold his heart to hers was to melt into dreams.

  And to wake was to find him staring at her calmly. Objectively. Separately.

  She sat up, holding his regard, such as it was. Then broke it to look around her. The hut had shrunk, once more comprising but one story. On top of a tall reed basket Odeh curled like a cake, unperturbed by the change.

  “What’s that?” Nia asked. She’d never seen the basket before, though she’d been everywhere inside the magician’s home and was as well acquainted with its surroundings. Better acquainted.

  “That is your gift to the king. It will convince him to put you in my place.”

  “I don’t want to take your place.”

  “No matter. He wants you there, or he will. As do I. Now more than ever. You will take him, be the making of him, mold him to be a leader of the land. All will be well.”

  Quickly Nia dressed. Last night she had packed a bundle to bring with her to the castle, after supper, before the snow. Before lying with Merlin. Stepping out into the yard, she saw the far-off heat rising from men climbing the path from the lake, and flocks of chattering sparrows flying up ahead of their disturbance. These must be the king’s men. They were going to arrive soon.

  Behind her the sounds of the hut’s door opening and of shoes crushing snow announced the magician’s advent. Nia turned—but who was this stranger? An elder with white hair streaming out below a dun hood—Merlin’s hood—and Merlin’s pale eyes caught in a web of creases ending in the silver beard covering his suddenly ancient face—

  “Why have you put on this seeming?” Nia asked.

  “Is that what I have done?”

  She nodded slowly. Odeh slunk past Merlin to nose a shallow drift.

  “How old do you think me really?”

  “I—old. But—” But she had thought the years stayed their distance from him, as they did from her and many magicians. Though he’d not shared his method for accomplishing that yet.

  “I was old when King Bear was born. It’s in this guise he’ll expect to see me.”

  Odeh sneezed and backed away from whatever had attracted their interest. They assumed a dignified pose on the train of Merlin’s mantle. Obviously, they perceived no difference in him. This reassured Nia, as did the matter-of-fact manner in which the two spear bearers approached moments later.

  “Hail,” they saluted the magician. Another two men entered the clearing, appearing no more surprised than the first two. “Lord Merlin. Lady Nia.” Back at Nakasongola, her name meant “intention.” Here they used the same word for “brightness.” Close enough.

  The four had brought a pair of boats to carry the magician, the “sorceress,” and their trappings to the lake’s western shore. This part of the trip was restful. Water eased Nia’s heart. Melting frost slid musically from the tips of the lakeside alders’ branches. All was connected, and the drops of moisture rising almost visibly toward the mist-crowded sun would surely rain upon the land where she’d been born. Taking with them her apologies for leaving.

  Transferring their effects from boats to wagon got complicated. The driver disliked cats. When it was finally settled that Odeh and Nia would walk together behind the others (she being a young maiden to the evidence of most men’s limited senses), but a few handspans of light remained of the brief winter day. So Nia traveled the last of the road to the castle in starlight, and was greeted at the gates of Dinas Dinlle by the unsteady fires of braziers.

  Trumpets shouted as the eight of them came into the castle’s courtyard, which was known as its bailey. Surreptitiously, Nia removed one shoe, but the stones beneath her bare foot stayed silent of tales. As they had previously. As had those of the thick walls guarding the bailey also.

  Felled oaks formed the sides of the buildings surrounding her here, and surrounding also the stairs climbing to the dark doorway leading into the largest building, the keep. Then the door’s darkness receded, and out of that dawn stepped the king. Servants following behind him lifted high the torches they bore.

  Under the torches’ flames King Bear gleamed more ruddily than in Nia’s memory. A golden circlet ran between his golden curls, the metal’s color the wanner of the two.

  “My lord! My lady! We wanted your company at supper!” Beckoning them forward, he came to stand at the stairs’ top. “What kept you?”

  Nia gave the king the curtsy these lands’ rulers expected. Merlin bowed. Not low. “We apologize. We came as speedily as possible,” the magician explained, “but it has taken all the day.”

  “Well don’t hang back now!” The king pulled both Merlin and Nia into his embrace. “The other guests have finished eating, but they still await you in the great hall. The bard won’t sing till I order it.”

  Past the torch flickers lay a short, narrow space, with a tapestry hung on its far side. The hanging’s tasseled edges lifted as a youth swept it aside, spilling sudden sounds and momentarily dazzling firelight into her ears and eyes. At first the greenery hanging off railings and garlanded around the hall’s high beams deceived her, with its color and scent and the sighing rustle of leaf against leaf. Had the room become a forest glade? No. Too warm for a wood in a northern winter: currents of air wafted toward her from the burning logs stacked in the wide cavern built at the hall’s far end. This would be a seasonal decoration, a means of marking the birth of their god, as she’d observed happening in other Christian realms.

  Sight adjusting, Nia surveyed those seated at the hall’s tables for familiar faces. King Bear’s retinue had changed in her absence, losing many former members, which was only sensible; they came to him to learn to fight, and this was a time of peace. Of the men gathered round him now she recognized none but the king’s uncle, High Praise, and his foster brother, River. Newer warriors, numbering five by her count, laughed at their ease, swallowing gulps of what must be wine from brass cups.

  These seven men, and the four women with them, stood at their entrance. King Bear introduced the men as customary, by the names of their home villages, which Nia took care to note. The women, also newcomers, were wife of this one, sister of that. The tall fellow known as Hollybush made room for Nia on the bench where he and the others sat, but the king beckoned her nearer, toward his place.

  Merlin was already there. From somewhere he’d acquired a staff, and he leaned on it, ignoring the chair the king had summoned with a wave. So Nia sat in it.

  The king smiled. The woman whose chair had been commandeered frowned. Nia knew her: an artist in clay and fine metals. Beloved was her name. Single and beyond the age of marrying, she had likely striven hard to catch the king’s regard and win the spot next to him that she had just lost. Beloved looked annoyance Nia’s way, but before Nia could relinquish the perilous seat, the harper struck his first song’s first chords. They rang with surprising crispness over the hall’s smoky mutterings, hushing them. Louder men heard the resulting silence and stilled themselves also. Even the whispering of the amputated leaves ceased.

  The maid carrying the wine pitcher vanished momentarily and reappeared empty-handed to crouch by the kitchen’s door. Nia settled herself in Beloved’s chair to listen to the drumless music, a song praising the beauty of local scenery. She would try not to thirst too obviously for the land that had once been her home.

  Nantlle was so much smaller than Lake Nalubaale. Though it was a lake. And Merlin’s solitary hut had many commonalities with Mukasa’s shrine on Bubembe Island. Or, more precisely, with the house before the shrine, where Nia had lived and studied prior to accusations of witchcraft.

  Nor, Nia told herself, was Dinas Dinlle identical with Mbaale, the site of the temple of the war spirit Kibuuka, where she had often visited. T
he walls here walked straight lines rather than curved ones; the roofs here kept away the wet and the cold rather than the sun, whose heat had helped to drive her to these cooler, cloudier climes—along with her escape from trial and execution, and her search for exotic wisdom.

  But some traits the two sites shared, as she had come to accept previously. The men’s fierce faces. The banners lining the walls—though those here were woven of animal hair, not pounded from fig bark. The bard sang of battles like a jali, and of spiritual traditions. The harp he played as he sang sounded like an endongo plucked by someone gradually falling to sleep.

  Measure followed measure, each slower than the last. In addition to fighting the music’s lull, Nia struggled to stay rooted in this domain, a task made doubly difficult by the absence of significant plant life. The artificial hill on which the castle had been raised bore only short-grazed grasses and a tiny garden. Even in winter there would have been comfort in the presence of a slumbering copse of rowan, or even of birch, that least outgoing of trees. With no anchor but the dying boughs of firs and vines of mistletoe she drifted back to the shores of her childhood…

  …to the fish jumping free of the boundary between breathing and drinking, so fat and slippery in her hands she laughed it loose and down it plunged while Maama shrieked at the waste, but the rippling silver glittered so prettily—

  No. Marigold yellow the candle’s glow before her. She must stay awake or offend King Bear’s court and the king himself. In the ruler’s shadow Merlin continued standing, wavering but a little, his sturdiness belying his apparent old age. One glinting eye pierced her like a sentient blade. She pried her gaze away, picked up her cup, took another draft of royal wine. A mistake. It was too strong. Drowning on dry land she sank…

  …low to the lapping waves, but the boat beneath bore her up and carried her on her way to Bubembe, where Maama had prayed her whiteness would be regarded as a sign of Mukasa’s favor and her visions secure apprenticeship under the hand of the Muganda, whose clasp on Nia’s wrist cut sharp—