Sword Stone Table

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

  Here the unearthly light vanished, and everything was pitch-black. The sound of Britomart’s breathing was loud in her ears, and her mouth felt dry. She tapped her way forward with the tip of her spear, trying to make sure that each new step would leave her foot resting on solid ground. The walls seemed to press in around her, and Britomart had the horrible sensation that even in the darkness, she was being watched. She was afraid. She kept walking.

  The span of a single step took Britomart from the hallway out into another large room and from utter darkness to light like the noontime sun. Britomart’s eyes watered, and she blinked rapidly, trying to get the spots to recede from her vision so she could see where she was. Finally the room swam into focus. Its ceiling was lower than that of the other room, but it was held up by a small forest of stone columns, each carved with a different set of geometric patterns.

  In the center of the room stood one column thicker around than the rest. To it was chained a young woman whose eyes were glassy and unfocused, the front of her dress stained red with blood. She swayed drunkenly, and it was clear that only the chains were keeping her upright. Britomart had never seen the woman before, but there was something about her that Britomart recognized regardless: something she’d already seen dimly in a mirror. Her breath caught, and she had to recall herself to her purpose with a will. Next to the column stood a tall, thin figure whom Britomart had already met. He was fiddling with something on a low table.

  “Scudamore!” Britomart called, shifting her stance and readying her spear. “Let that woman go or I will make you do so.”

  The figure turned around, and the first thing Britomart realized was that he was not Scudamore. He was as like Scudamore as a twin, right down to the way his hair was pulled back in a braid, but his eyes were milky white, not gray, and threaded with bright blue veins. The second thing she realized was that in his hands he held a silver basin and in that basin was a heart. The heart was still beating. Britomart’s stomach lurched in horror.

  “I don’t care what my half-wit brother promised you,” the figure said. Even his voice was like Scudamore’s. “She is to be my wife, and I won’t be sharing her. So you can just run along and let me eat her heart so that she will love me.”

  “I can’t let you eat someone’s heart!” Britomart exclaimed in horror.

  “Whyever not?” Scudamore’s brother said. He sounded genuinely confused.

  “Because it’s not yours to eat,” said Britomart. Her gaze flickered back and forth between him and the captive woman. Britomart couldn’t understand how she was still breathing. She was bleeding steadily—her very heart was removed from her chest—but she was alive. “Give it back to her and let her go.”

  “You’re trying to trick Busirane! You just want to eat her heart yourself.”

  Britomart made a quick, fervent promise never to pick up another enchanted looking glass so long as she lived and then refocused on what she had to do. She took a step forward, keeping the spear trained on Busirane. “Give her back her heart and let her be.”

  “Shan’t,” Busirane said, holding out the bowl at arm’s length. “I’ll eat her heart and draw dread sigils in her blood, and you can just go away.”

  “I won’t warn you again,” Britomart said, trying her best to sound intimidating. She adjusted her grip on the spear handle, achingly aware of how it had been worn smooth by practiced hands over the years. She hoped the weapon that had once served Queen Angela so well on the battlefield wouldn’t fail her now.

  “You are tiresome and troublesome,” Busirane said. He set the basin on the floor and then, with a flick of his hand, conjured a sword out of thin air. “You’re boring me, and when people bore me, it’s not fun and I do rather tend to kill them.”

  The words were hardly out of his mouth before he’d begun his attack, swinging the sword doublehanded in a great arc aimed right at her neck. Britomart gritted her teeth and parried him as best she could. A sword was deadlier at close quarters, but Busirane had to get near her to use it, and Britomart was able to use the length of the spear to her advantage. She remembered overhearing one of her father’s battlefield tales, how insistent he’d been that the Battle of Camlann had really been won by attrition. “Let them tire themselves out!” King Ryence had bellowed, thumping his flagon of ale on the tabletop. “Only sensible way.”

  Britomart tried to do that now. Her shoulders and arms ached with matching the force of Busirane’s blows against spear and shield, but she did, and the ebony wood of the spear handle resisted all splintering. Busirane grew frustrated, and the more frustrated he became, the wilder and clumsier his strokes grew. Slowly and steadily Britomart was able to herd him toward a far corner of the room. He didn’t notice what she was doing until the moment Britomart made a wild gamble. She thrust forward with the spear, catching the head of it against the hilt of Busirane’s sword and tugging it from his hand. Then, as quick as she could, she pulled back the spear and let it fly. It sailed through the air, straight and true, and pinned Busirane to one of the pillars by his long braid.

  “Cruel! Cruel!” Busirane wailed as shrilly as if the spear had pierced flesh.

  Britomart set down her shield and gave herself only a moment to catch her breath before she staggered over to pick up the silver basin. She had never thought of herself as a squeamish person, but she couldn’t make herself do more than glance at the beating heart. “Tell me how to put it back.”

  “You can’t!” Busirane said, his mouth curving into a gleeful, sharp-toothed smile. He wriggled against the pillar. “Because a heart can only be taken by force or freely given, and who would ever freely give up control over another? You hold in your hands the heart of the fair Lady Amoret. Let me go and I’ll show you how to—”

  “Enough,” Britomart said, disgusted. She’d have to figure out how to do this herself, because she couldn’t stand to listen to another word from him. She wasn’t even sure how much she could believe what Busirane said. A knowledge of magic was all well and good, but it was hardly the same as an understanding of people. She turned away from him and walked over to the Lady Amoret, whose dull eyes betrayed no understanding of what was going on around her.

  Britomart looked down at the heart in the silver basin and then at the gaping wound in Amoret’s chest. Her own heart gave a pang of sympathy. All she knew was that she had to give it back and that her destiny so far had not hurt her. Britomart reached into the basin and picked up the heart. It was hot and slippery in her hands, like no piece of meat she’d ever handled, because it was alive. This was a person’s living heart.

  As gently as she could, Britomart took the heart and placed it into the wound in Amoret’s chest, trying to press the torn flesh together over it. For a moment nothing happened, and Britomart felt like a fool. Surely something so simple could not be enough to reverse the effects of such heinous magic?

  Then Amoret’s eyes fluttered, she heaved in a great, pained breath, and beneath her fingers Britomart could feel flesh knitting back together and ribs reforming. She couldn’t tear her gaze from Amoret’s face, however, because the change that came over it was so very arresting. There was not just awareness creeping into Amoret’s dark eyes; there was animation and intelligence and wit. As her heart started to beat again, a flush of color brought warmth to her cheeks and a tinge of red to her lips. She was, Britomart realized, very lovely.

  For a moment Amoret stared at her in confusion, but then her face cleared and broke into a brilliant smile. “Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed. “You’re the woman from the mirror. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I’m Britomart,” Britomart said, feeling stupid and slow. She was acutely aware of the warmth of Amoret’s side, still beneath her hand. She hadn’t expected this—she didn’t even know what this was. What had she done to make this woman look at her not merely with gratitude, but with something closer to joy?

  From behi
nd her, she heard Busirane say, “Oh, just my luck—of course it’s a destiny thing. Typical.”

  “That’s a lovely name,” Amoret said, smiling at her. “Do you think you could be a dear and release me? Only, I think I’ve been here a very long time, and I’ve got rather a cramp in my foot.”

  “Oh!” Britomart said, taking a hurried step back. “Yes, of course.” She picked up her sword and swung it at the chain holding Amoret to the pillar, severing its lock.

  “That is so much better, thank you very much,” Amoret said. She pushed the length of chain down over her hips and then stepped out of it, brushing the dirt of it from her hands. She looked entirely composed. If not for the gash in her bloodstained gown and the disarray of her curls, she could have passed for any of the most elegant visiting ladies whom Britomart had seen being led to the high table for a feast at her father’s keep—although none of them had ever caught and held Britomart’s gaze so effortlessly. “Did you have a plan for getting us out of here?”

  “Um,” Britomart said eloquently.

  “She was to be my wife! You owe me compensation!” Busirane said.

  Amoret wheeled on him. “Compensation? For what, you sniveling little worm? You set a curse on my home, you made crops wither in the fields, you kidnapped me—I should take her sword and run you through with it.”

  “But I did it for love, my sweet!” Busirane said in a wheedling voice that made Britomart’s skin crawl. “Don’t you see that? If you were mine, I’d keep you safe forever, I promise. All I’d have to do is eat your heart.”

  Britomart was tempted to hand over her sword to Amoret there and then. The very sight of Busirane disgusted her, and she’d never even been touched by him. But then she looked more closely at the expression on Amoret’s face. The composure was gone, and in her eyes and the trembling line of her mouth was a great and terrible grief. Something different was required.

  “What do you need?” Britomart asked, hoping her tone truly conveyed the depth of her sincerity, a sincerity that somehow went beyond the requirements of mere chivalry. “Please, let me help, if I can.”

  “I need to know that he can’t follow me,” Amoret said. “I need him to suffer the way he made me suffer—never knowing if there would be an end.”

  “Why do you talk about Busirane without looking at him?” Busirane shrieked. “Rude!”

  Britomart could work no magic, but she could act. She sheathed her sword, retrieved the length of discarded chain from the ground, and brought it to Busirane. She looped one end of it around his ankle, and with a strength she hadn’t thought she possessed, she pressed the links together to form a single circle too small for him to wriggle his foot through. The other end she ran around the pillar and similarly fastened tight. When Britomart was done, she was sweating, but Busirane was chained there like a dog, unable to move. She pulled the spear from the column with a fierce sense of satisfaction, picked up her discarded shield, and then turned to Amoret. “My plan is to walk out of here,” she said.

  Amoret let out a shaky breath. “Yes,” she said. “Please.”

  Busirane shrieked. “You cannot leave Busirane here all alone! That is not fair, it is not kind!”

  Britomart ignored him. “Lady Amoret?”

  Amoret nodded, and they walked side by side from the room and into the hallway. It wasn’t as narrow as Britomart remembered. In fact, it seemed less like a dark room and more like an avenue of trees whose branches met far overhead. And then they were in the first room, only now the tapestries hung on walls of raw, unworked rock, and with each step it seemed that Amoret regained a little more of her composure.

  “I’ve seen these before!” Amoret exclaimed, pointing at the tapestries. “I know I have—or something like them. These ones aren’t finished. They should say ‘Be bold but not too bold, lest your heart’s blood should run cold.’ ”

  “Why would anyone want such wall hangings?” Britomart took a cautious step closer, examining them more carefully than she had before. The silk and woolen threads were dyed in far brighter hues than she’d ever thought craftspeople capable of. The bloodred pennant wielded by one embroidered soldier was in fact so lifelike a red that it truly did look like heart’s blood. That it…Britomart’s eyes widened, and she took a careful step back.

  “I’m quite determined never to ask,” Amoret said firmly. “But if we wish to leave, perhaps we should find a path between daring”—she pointed to one tapestry in which two lovers embraced passionately—“and foolhardiness.” She gestured to another tapestry in which one lover wept over another’s fallen body. In between those two hung a third that showed nothing but a tangle of vines—rather, Britomart realized, like the patterns covering the walls of Queen Angela’s tomb.

  “Shall we?” Amoret asked, and when Britomart nodded, she tugged the central tapestry to one side. Behind it was a huge split in the rock. Through it Britomart could see green trees and a shaft of early-morning sunshine.

  “Oh!” That smile reappeared on Amoret’s face and remained as they walked out into the light. It hadn’t seemed so long to Britomart, but the whole night had passed. The grass under their feet was wet with morning dew and birds were singing. The woods seemed somehow more alive than they had before. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw sky.”

  “I’m glad to have helped you to see it again, Lady Amoret,” Britomart said. She was relieved herself to be out in the fresh air and could not imagine how much more that was the case for her companion.

  “I think, since you have saved my life,” Amoret said, “that you can dispense with the formalities. Amoret, please. Besides—”

  “There you are!” a familiar voice broke in: Scudamore walking through the clearing toward them, his arms spread wide. “You have brought me my wife, as I was sure you would. I knew she would choose Scudamore over Busirane! She has excellent taste, you know.”

  “Amoret is not yours,” Britomart snapped, surprising herself not just with the vehemence of her reply but at the clear ring of jealousy to it.

  At the same time Amoret said, all cold fury, “I am no one’s wife, sir, and I will never be yours.”

  “But I want her!” Scudamore whined.

  Britomart drew her sword. “If you don’t leave her alone, I will drag you into that fortress and chain you up next to your brother, and the two of you can fight over each other for as long as you wish.”

  Scudamore’s jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t.”

  “She would!” Amoret said. “Because I know her, I have seen her, and I know that she is valiant in a way you could never be. And I am telling you right now, Scudamore of the Tower of Glass: there is no part of my destiny beyond this day that has you in it. I will leave this place with the Lady Britomart, and neither you nor another of your kind will ever trouble us again. This I hold you to.” She stamped her foot once she’d finished speaking: a piece of punctuation to as binding a geas as Britomart had ever heard.

  Scudamore wept and wailed, but there was no gainsaying a proper geas. His moans faded into the distance as Britomart and Amoret walked away, toward where the roan still waited. The horse whinnied softly as Britomart approached, letting her pet its velvety muzzle, and then stood patiently as she strapped her pack and arms to its back.

  There was of course only room for a single person in the saddle, so Britomart insisted that Amoret be the one to take it. Amoret tried to refuse at first, but Britomart pointed out that she had been lately injured and needed to save her strength as much as possible. Amoret had to hitch up her skirts before Britomart helped her into the saddle, which meant that Britomart caught a flash of pale thigh that made her blush. She didn’t know why, exactly. It wasn’t as if Britomart had never seen another woman naked before, in the bathhouse or while changing. There was simply something about Amoret that caught both her attention and her breath. She couldn’t remember ever wanting to touch be
fore.

  Her embarrassment was soon forgotten, however, as she took the roan by the bridle and led it along the river toward the edge of the woods. She and Amoret talked as they traveled. The conversation was surprisingly easy and free, for all that what they talked about was sometimes anything but: about Britomart’s family, and Merlin’s pronouncement, and how Busirane had taken Amoret unawares on her way home from the ten-day market. Britomart had the sense that she had known Amoret for years, although it had only been hours.

  By the time they reached the edge of the woods, the sun was high overhead. They could continue along the bridle path and make their way back to the stronghold of King Ryence, or they could strike out across the meadowlands toward the low foothills just visible in the distance. If Britomart’s hazy memories of her schoolroom map were correct, beyond those foothills again were the plains leading to Amoret’s homeland. Two weeks’ journey or more.

  “I could take you back,” Britomart offered, and meant it.

  Amoret, though, shook her head. “There is no one left there for me. I would rather accompany you, if you’ll have me.”

  “I would gladly travel with you,” Britomart said, ducking her head. She had no idea how best to respond to the warmth in Amoret’s voice; she was not accustomed to thinking of herself as bold. “Though I have nowhere to go for now except to my father’s castle, a few days’ journey from here. My parents will be worried, I’m sure.” To own the truth, she was quite sure that they would be furious. She winced as the thought of what Queen Morvydd was likely to say when she returned home. The edge of her mother’s words could cut more deeply than her father’s more straightforward wrath. Still, she felt a tug behind her breastbone, calling her home. Wherever else she might go now, whatever other horizons she might see, she needed to go home first.