Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 01]

by The Fire Sword (v0. 9) (epub)

  The flames in the fire pit flickered and bent. Eleanor screamed now, for the pain increased as she forced her fire onto the other, consuming it. There was a guttering sound, and the cold fire died. A moment later, a small blue flame twisted up, then burst into warm, merry orange.

  Eleanor felt the pain subside until only her right palm burned where the fire had touched her. She shook all over and leaned against her staff for support. Then, against her will, she turned to look at the dragon again.

  Doyle’s dark face looked down at her. The dragon’s head was gone, replaced by curling black hair and great beard. He smiled, and Eleanor’s heart leapt in her chest. The blue eyes twinkled at her, and he reached a clawed hand out to her.

  Arthur moved, bringing up the sword. With a great sweep of metal, he severed the head from the neck.

  "No!” Eleanor screamed. "Doyle!”

  The head arced through the darkness, and no blood gushed from the neck. A slight trickle of some sluggish green stuff oozed out, and then the dragon seemed to disintegrate. First the scales turned to broken leaves, then the flesh curled away into smoke, and finally the bones became glass, shrinking smaller and smaller.

  The Harp rested on the floor of the cave between two quartzy outcroppings. Eleanor peered into the darkness, looking for the head, and saw only a small ball of crystal. She bowed her head, relieved and grieved simultaneously. It had all been an illusion. She felt sick that she had hoped even for a moment that she could somehow get Doyle back.

  Arthur bent over and picked up the Harp. His fingers touched the strings, and clear notes rang out. Then he stood up, took Eleanor by the waist, and led her up the tunnel into the golden light of early afternoon.

  She walked a few steps from the edge of the hole, then sat down on the stony ground, unable to walk another step. Her right palm burned, and she looked at it curiously. The flesh was black, curled, and blistered, like a frostbitten orange. She felt sick, and she began to shake with chill, her teeth chattering.

  Arthur wrapped his cloak around her, then held her against his chest, rocking her gently. He stroked her hair and murmured comforting things she barely heard. The cold burning in her hand seemed to fill the universe, and she wept until her mind darkened and she slipped into a black unconsciousness.

  It was night when she opened her eyes again. The stars gleamed above her, and the darkness was full of the distant roar of the sea and a birdsong. The smell of the sea seemed close, near as her hand, which still throbbed.

  Eleanor raised her hand and found it wound with wet kelp. She sat up and found herself looking into a small fire. Arthur sat beyond it, his back to her, staring at the star-pocked sky, and Sable crouched like a sphinx between them. They were still in the broken confines of the monastery.

  "Arthur.”

  He turned and hurried to her. "How be thee?”

  "Ghastly, if you must know the truth. And hungry.”

  "You have been three days asleep, if sleep you can call what you have done, for it was full of screams. How is your hand?”

  "Bearable. Where did the seaweed come from?” "Sable dragged it here, hissing and saying, I believe, very vulgar things in his own tongue. He has no greater affection for water than most of his kind. I found a sack of grain, barley, I think, in the storeroom, and boiled it into gruel. It has no taste at all, except I burnt it a little, but it will nourish you.” He filled a wooden bowl and handed it to her with a carved spoon. She looked at the handle, worked into a simple interlace, then fell to. He was correct in saying the gruel was flavorless, but it was hot and made her stomach stop complaining.

  Somewhat sated, she held the spoon up. "I guess you have been exploring the ruins.”

  "Yes, a little. I found some old robes to make a bed for you, though your covering is as fine a vestment as I have ever seen. Fit for a bishop, at least. It is very strange, for some rooms are hacked to pieces while the next is untouched.”

  Eleanor fingered the heavy silk across her lap. "What... happened?”

  "You mean, when you got your hand hurt?” She nodded. "It is hard to say. One moment you were an old crone, the next a pillar of fire. Your hair turned red, and there was a flame where your dear face used to be. It was so bright a light, my eyes were dazzled. Then you turned to face the worm and were old again. You screamed at me not to slay it and cried your husband’s name. Then there was nothing but the fire glowing in the pit and the Harp lying on the floor of the cave. The worm vanished.”

  "I thought it was Doyle.”

  "And I thought it was my dragon-self. In that moment before I cut off its head, it bore my own face.” "You were very brave, then.”

  "Brave!” he snorted. "I nearly wet my tunic. But you had warned me it was illusion. And yet I am not certain. In that instant, I felt I slew my monster self.”

  She leaned back onto the pallet of old robes. They had a faint scent of old sweat and incense clinging to their folds, good, real smells that comforted her. "Is the Harp safe?”

  "Yes. I even found an old leather case to cover it. A poor thing for such a splendid instrument. It makes such songs as I have never heard at the slightest touch. They are... like sunlight in summer fields.”

  Her hand throbbed slightly, and her eyelids drooped. "I must sleep again.”

  "Yes. And pray, do not beg me to cut off your hand again.”

  "Did I?”

  "Yes, many times.”

  "Poor Arthur. Arthur Pendragon, brave dragon slayer.” Then she was asleep.

  XXVIII

  They returned to the Scottish mainland as they had come, two days later. The burn on Eleanor’s hand had finally ceased to trouble her. The skin had sloughed away, and all that remained was a strange, black, flameshaped scar running from wrist to the base of the middle finger. Where the creases of her skin crossed it, they seemed to be made of silver—head-, heart-, and lifelines touched by moonlight.

  But she was tired, weary with a kind of bone-wracked grief that made her dark in sunlight. She made an effort to shake away the clouds of despair that threatened her, but to little avail. Eleanor wished no better fate than to lie down by the side of the trail and sleep forever. Even the child within her barely stirred her from her lethargy.

  Arthur made camp, twisting pine boughs off to make a sweet bed for her, then left her to hunt for food. Sable curled at her feet, and she felt the life in him. It coiled up her body like some serpent, but it did not reach her heart. She dozed lightly in the sunlight, dreaming vague visions of Doyle.

  When she awoke, Arthur was fixing dinner, humming to himself. Eleanor sat up, stretched, and gave him a wan smile. They ate in silence. Then he set himself across from her with a very serious face. She cared too much for him to laugh at his solemnity, but it was an effort.

  "I have filled the pot with water. Can you conjure us some wine?”

  "Yes, but why?”

  "Because I think you will need some, and because it is the proper quaff for poets.”

  "All right.” She did what he asked, creating a flinty white wine with very little nose about it. It was so dry on the palate, the mouth nearly puckered. He tasted it, made a face, then grinned.

  "That is a good wine for my song, I think.”

  "Your song?”

  "While you slept, it came to me, back on Iona. I am not any great poet—at least, I have not been before. And perhaps I have just been ensorceled by this precious harp. But it is like a great... river, pressing against some dam in me, this song. It is not unlike to those lays you told me of—I hope.”

  "Which do you mean?”

  "Of Beren One-Hand and Luthien.”

  Eleanor realized with a somewhat guilty start that she had often whiled away their journey with the tales of Middle Earth, judging them more suited to Arthur’s world than the bomb dropping on Hiroshima. But she knew she had done it as well for the similarity between the Shadow over Albion and the terror of Sauron. She had used her own modest store of music, fitting words to familiar tunes as was her w
ont. Some were folk music, a few classical, for her mother had a great fondness for those. So she had fitted "Galadriel’s Lament” to a piece by Faure, and "Tom Bombadil” to an Irish folk song. Now she could not recall if she had made it clear that these were fiction, not history, and she did not know if it mattered.

  Arthur removed the case from the Harp. The long twilight of northern summer was around them, but the instrument gleamed in its own light, as if it had an aura like a living thing. The firelight reflected off the bare breasts of the female figure on the upright, and they seemed to be flesh. He ran long fingers across the strings, and the notes seemed to spring into the air.

  He fumbled for the melody a moment, then found it loud and clear. It was a tune she knew but so slightly altered as to seem new, and he played it through in a kind of overture. Then he started to sing.

  Eleanor listened in amazement to the first verse, then dipped her cup into the wine pot. Arthur had been correct. It was not to be heard with complete sobriety, for he sang of Doyle the Dark and Eleanor Bright Hope, detailing their adventures as if he had been present, and her love as if he had partaken of it. Tears dripped into the wine at the lonely refrain of her unspoken longing for her beloved, and she was three bowls to the bad before he was done.

  The music stilled, and there was a long silence, broken only by Arthur attempting to slake a dry throat with drier wine. Eleanor waited for the slight easing in her chest to pass, but it did not, and she found no words of her own to reply.

  Finally she said, "I see it is true that the hands of a king are the hands of the healer. Thank you, Arthur. You have given me a gift more dear than the wealth of the world. I would shower you with all the diamonds of South Africa and still feel in debt.”

  He blushed and grinned. "Yes, but was it good?” She laughed until tears streamed again, in that dreadful place between joy and sorrow where she could not say what brought the crying. "I don’t know,” she said. "I can’t even tell you if it is 'art.’ I found it wonderful—and terrible—as if you have looked inside me. It comforted me in a way I cannot say. For a moment Doyle was here, present, now—as if he had not died. Ah, Arthur, words are such feeble crafts to bear the weight of feelings. Your Uncle Richard should be green with envy, for he never made a song so splendid.”

  "I have eased your pain, I am content.”

  "Nonsense. That kind of mealymouthed garbage may have pleased your confessor, but it does nothing at all for me. Come on, tell the truth. You are pleased as punch, aren’t you?”

  "I am. I have tried not to be, for it seemed unworthy of me—I mean, I am not as great as the song I created, somehow. Do you think Lennon feels that way when he makes a song?” Arthur had a particular fascination with that music.

  "I don’t know. But I remember a writer who stayed with us once, a distant cousin of my mother’s, and I asked her what it felt like to write a story. And she said that sometimes it was torture—when the words would not come—and sometimes it was ecstasy and always, afterward, she was amazed that she had done it. I was eleven, I think, and very curious, so I sort of spied on her, to see if she was different when she wrote.

  And one day I peeked in her room, and she was leaning her head on one hand and writing as fast as her hand could go. She’d stop, cross out, swear, light a cigarette, pace back and forth. Her hair stood out around her face, because she kept running her fingers through it, and her hands were stained with ink and there were smears of ash on her forehead. She looked like a lunatic. Then she put the pen down, stared at the paper a long time, and she sort of sagged, like all her strength was gone. It was as if some fire I could not see had faded and died. She went away soon after that and did not come back, for the book she had written made my parents very angry. I found it in the library and looked at it, but it made little sense to me at the time.” Eleanor drew herself out of this reverie with a shake.

  "Yes, it was like that,” Arthur answered. "I was almost afraid to sing it for you, but I had to.”

  "I am most glad you did.” She rose and circled the fire and slipped into his lap. Nestling her head against his shoulder, she felt herself relax against his warmth. "I think I am very fortunate.”

  They had followed Sable eastward for three days when they topped a small rise and found a small circle of carts surrounding a camp. They had seen so few people that it seemed a town had sprung up out of nowhere. They crouched down quickly and peered somewhat anxiously at the camp, but it seemed quite ordinary. A fire blazed under a large cauldron; children frolicked in the skirts of women; men carried buckets of water to several shaggy ponies picketed to one side.

  Something about it disturbed Eleanor, and for several moments, she could not say what. "Why don’t they have any dogs?”

  Arthur considered this question thoughtfully. "Perhaps one of the men has taken them off to hunt? But I agree it is a little odd. There are always dogs to give tongue if some stranger approaches in the night.”

  "I do wish Sable could speak, because I’m not sure whether to avoid them or walk down and say 'Howdy.’ The men are not armed, which is also unusual, isn’t it? A band of Reavers would make quick work of them, and even those savages we encountered would give them a fight.”

  "Perhaps they do not foresee any danger.”

  "Why have they stopped? It is just past midday.”

  "I think... they are waiting for someone who arrives even now.”

  A second caravan of wains inched into view across the valley. There were waves and shouts, gestures of greeting, and it was clear they were expected. Eleanor and Arthur crouched on the little rise for over an hour, watching more and more wagons arrive, until there were perhaps fifty scattered across the landscape. The major activity seemed to be gathering firewood, which puzzled her until she noticed that most of it was being piled in one place, a sort of bare circle off to one side.

  Eleanor studied the circle, which was partially obscured by trees, as best she could and saw several stones around it. "I think they have come here to celebrate the Old Religion, Arthur. Let me see—it must be almost August—or did I lose track of the time when I was sick? Lammas, that’s what it is.”

  "Yes, but do we go down and creep away? The local peasantry back in Brittany had not much care for intruders during their celebrations. In truth, they had a tendency to kill them on the sopt.”

  "The British are more phlegmatic than that. They give you a cup of tea first.” Sable turned his golden gaze on Eleanor, rose, and pointed at the gathering below. "I think he means we go down there, Arthur.”

  "Yes. And I think it would be good if you put on that gown the Lady Bera gave you and see if we can get some snarls out of your hair.”

  "Do I look awful?”

  "A bit travel-worn.” Arthur took out the comb he had carved while she slept in Iona and, after a good deal of tugging, managed to tidy her black hair into a semblance of order. Eleanor pulled off her tired old tunic and took out the gift of the Hag. It fell gracefully to her knees, the soft violet linen falling in perfect gothic folds. She tied her cincture into place and was about ready to close up her pack when some inner voice told her to wear the starry cape as well. So she put it on and wondered why he looked at her sharply.

  The panther guided them down into the vale, and they walked toward the encampment. The people turned and gazed at them sullenly until one man came forward. He was perhaps forty, pleasant-looking, and very cheerful. He smiled and smiled, and Eleanor felt a faint mistrust.

  "Greetings, strangers. I’ll bet you heard there was a fair, and you came to find a bargain or two. We have broideries from the Levant and fine steel blades; spices and silks from the East; Lombardy rice, said to be the best in the world, and wine from Provence.” As he babbled, Eleanor decided he was the medieval equivalent of a used-car dealer, and she half expected him to step to one of the carts and say, "Here’s a little beauty; formerly belonged to a widow from York who only used it to go to Mass on Sunday.” She also realized she had not seen a piece of money
since she had arrived in Albion and had not even missed it.

  When he paused for breath, she put in, "No, we were not coming to see the fair.” No one in their right mind would expect to find any business out in the middle of nowhere, unless there was a decent-sized town hiding in the hills somewhere.

  "Where are ye goin’, then?”

  She suppressed an urge to be rude and tell him it was none of his business, or worse, to claim to be on a walking tour from Oxford, but she resisted. "We have matters to take care of in Lothian.”

  "Lothian? An ill-omened place. They say the wind howls out on the plain like a dyin’ man. Others say it is the devil tryin’ to break outta Hell. You don’t want to go there.”

  The man was almost shouting, and she noticed that several women were staring at Arthur and whispering to each other. They looked quite delighted, and one came forward and plucked boldly at his sleeve. Eleanor caught a murmur, garbled words she finally understood as le roi d’ete, though it was said with a dreadful accent. The Summer King. She did not bother to explain that the real summer king was a golden man, not a redhead, with one missing eye. Instead, she pondered the possibilities—one of which was the murder of the king of

  summer. A gaggle of women surrounded Arthur and sort of eased him into the enclosure.

  Eleanor found the situation unwieldy after so many months of near solitude. There were too many people, many of them children, and she could not guess what the people would do. They seemed to ignore her and concentrate on Arthur, and that gave her the chills. She moved slowly between the carts, listening and watching. There was nothing specific to be afraid of, and she was left with nebulous fears. The people around her seemed to be in constant motion, after the used-cart salesman had left them, and she found herself becoming dazzled by the sun. She wanted to crawl under a cart and take a nice nap.

  Closing her eyes, Eleanor thought of the clear waters of Sal’s pool and the smell of willow. It clarified her thoughts and woke her up, but the next thing she knew, someone had popped a rather dusty hempen bag over her head, and she jerked aside just quickly enough to deflect a blow from her skull to her right shoulder. The pain ran down her arm to her hand, which held the staff, and she wished to loosen her grasp. She did not, however.