The Dragon Lord's Daughters

by Bertrice Small

  “It is not my magic that surrounds my wife, Morgant,” he told the half-fairy girl, “but by threatening Maia in my very presense, and by the knowledge I have gained this day about your cruelty, I must send you from Ile du Lac now. You have a choice to make, Morgant. Will you choose to be all human, or all fairy?” He knew the answer even as he asked her.

  “I shall be happy to be relieved of my humanity!” Morgant cried. “But once I have my full powers, I shall be revenged upon you, Emrys Llyn. You and your wife!”

  “Go!” his deep voice thundered. “By the power I still retain as Lord of the Lake, I release you from your humanity. Go, Morgant, and do not return to trouble us! You will be welcomed in my mother’s realm, but never again in mine!”

  And before their eyes Morgant faded from their sight, and was gone.

  “Twice today you have been my knight,” Maia said softly to Emrys.

  He took her into his arms, and looked down into her face. “I love you,” he said simply. “And now, tell me how you are protected from fairy magic.”

  “Gorawen, my father’s concubine. You know she practices magic. My mother feared for my safety here at Ile du Lac, and it would appear that her fears were indeed justified,” Maia said with a small smile. “Gorawen wove a small spell of protection about me before I left Dragon’s Lair. I doubt it would protect me from your mother, but Morgant had not such strong powers that I could be harmed.”

  “My mother is wrong,” he replied. “Humans are not weak, but rather most resourceful, I think.” Then he bent and kissed her. “Now, my love, we must consider well how to convince my mother to release me from the curse so you and I can get on with our lives.”

  “And you must give the other fairy folk here the option of remaining with us, or going into the fairy kingdom,” Maia told him. “Some may now be afraid, as you have refused to allow your mother to test my love.”

  “I need no further proof, Maia,” he responded

  “I know,” she said. “I will always love you, Emrys. From the moment you entered my life I knew there was no other man for me. And if I must grow old while you remain youthful, then so be it, for I shall be happy that you remain at my side.”

  “Yet if you grew old, and I did not, I do not think I could bear it,” he replied softly. “We must convince my mother to release me.”

  “She will be softened by a grandchild,” old Drysi spoke up. “And convinced by your determination to stand by each other. Do not allow her to bully you, my children.”

  “We will not,” Emrys Llyn told his old nurse.

  “Never!” Maia echoed her husband’s sentiments.

  Chapter 12

  Maia awoke with the awareness that she was very cold. Emrys was not by her side, and she half rose to see that the fire was out in the hearth. How odd, she thought, realizing at the same time that the castle was deathly quiet. Reluctantly she climbed from her bed, picking up and quickly donning the fur-lined robe, slipping her feet into a pair of fur-lined house boots. “Emrys,” she called, but he did not answer. Maia moved through their apartment, noting as she did that the fire in the dayroom hearth was also dead. She departed their private apartments, making her way to the great hall of the castle, finding it empty, dead coals in all of the fireplaces. There was no one to be found. She descended the stairs into the kitchens. Empty. The cook fires out.

  Maia was beginning to become very frightened. What had happened? Where was Emrys? Where were all the other inhabitants of Ile du Lac? Why were all the fires out? With great difficulty she pulled open the great front door to the castle. The storm had blown itself out and away, but it was bitter cold. The courtyard was high with snow, none of which had been shoveled away to make a path to any of the outbuildings. Maia pushed the door shut, and then she climbed the staircase to Drysi’s tower rooms. To her relief the old woman was still there.

  “Drysi! Praise God and his Blessed Mother. The castle is deserted. The fires are all out. I cannot find Emrys.”

  “ ’Tis the Lady’s doing,” Drysi said, shaking her head. “She means to test you despite her son’s wishes. He has not the power to overcome her, I fear.”

  “Can you walk, Drysi?” Maia asked the old lady. “I cannot keep all the fireplaces in the castle burning, but I will keep the two in our apartment alight, and we will be comfortable and safe there.”

  “I can get down,” Drysi answered Maia. “It is the getting up that is difficult, child. But I must have my things with me.”

  “Tell me what you want, and I will bring them,” Maia told her.

  The old lady instructed Maia to pack a basket with her hairbrush, and several warm gowns. She nodded her thanks as Maia helped her from her bed, wrapping her in a robe, and slipping house slippers on her wrinkled feet. “You are a good child,” she said.

  Maia helped Drysi down the winding staircase from her tower room, and into the apartments she shared with her husband. Settling Drysi in a chair she tucked a fur robe about the old lady, then hurried to relight the fires, working the flint and stone until the pile of straw in the thick kindling finally blazed up. When the fire was well established Maia took a torch, and lit the hearth in the bedchamber as well.

  “We will have to cook here, too,” she said. “I will go to the kitchens to find what food I can. At least it is winter, and the food will not spoil if it doesn’t freeze. Ile du Lac is constructed of stone. I noted earlier that the hoarfrost is already beginning to touch the interior walls. Without heat the castle will become frigid.” She turned to her companion. “Why has she done this, Drysi, and what can she hope to accomplish by it?”

  “She seeks to drive you away, child,” Drysi responded. “Yesterday her son did something that he had never before done. He stood against her. And he stood with another woman by his side. The Lady both loves and hates her son. She cannot forgive him his mortality, nor can she forget that he is Lancelot’s son as well as hers.”

  “But she loved Lancelot, and she protected their son from Elaine of Shallot’s curse. She has kept him safe for centuries, and he has had two other wives before me,” Maia said.

  “Aye, but she knew that her son did not love those poor girls, and she knew that the jealous Morgan twould see to their demise,” Drysi replied. “Emrys would remain hers, and that is what she wants. He is all she has left of Lancelot, and if he embraces his mortality he will grow old and die like all humans. Then who will she have to love? The Lady is like all of us, human or fairy. She needs love, Maia, my child.”

  “Are you human or fairy, Drysi?” Maia asked.

  “Lord, child, I am as human as you are. I was just preserved along with all the other inhabitants of Ile du Lac those many centuries ago. I will die sooner than later, but I will not die until I have seen my laddie safe,” Drysi told the girl.

  “What am I to do?” Maia asked the old woman. “How am I to get my husband back from the Lady? I will not be driven away! I love Emrys!”

  Drysi shook her head. “I do not know,” she said. “The Lady will come to you, you may be certain of it. She will tell you what she wants.”

  “But if she loves Emrys as you say she does, what can I possibly give her in exchange for him?” Maia wondered aloud. Then she straightened her shoulders, and said, “I will go to the kitchens and find us some breakfast. You will be here when I return, won’t you, Drysi?”

  “If the Lady had wanted me, child, she would have taken me with all the others,” Drysi said. “I will be here.”

  Maia ran from the chamber and hurried to the kitchens. She found a tray and put a pitcher of frosty milk on it. She found a loaf of yesterday’s bread on a shelf, a slab of bacon, and a wedge of cheese. She piled them with a knife, a toasting fork, two plates, and two mugs onto the tray, and made her way back upstairs to her apartment. To her vast relief Drysi was still there, dozing in her chair. Setting the tray down Maia sliced the bread, cheese and bacon. She toasted the bread on the end of the fork. Then using the same utensil she fried each of the bacon slices,
laying each across the toasted bread as it was done with a slice of cheese. And while she cooked she took the chill off the pitcher, placing it carefully in the ashes of the fireplace. Finally she took a pear from the bowl on the sideboard, and peeling it, she sliced it into several juicy pieces, dividing the fruit equally between herself and the old woman. Then she woke Drysi.

  “I have prepared us a meal,” she told her.

  “You are resourceful, my child,” Drysi said.

  “All of my father’s daughters know how to cook, and keep house,” Maia replied as she poured them each a mug of the slightly warmed milk. “My mother said a woman could not know if her servants were doing their duty if she did not know that duty herself.”

  Drysi nodded as she eagerly ate. She seemed to have more teeth than most old women, or else her gums were very hard. She particularly appreciated the slices of fruit, and the juice from it drizzled down her pointed chin. She nodded her thanks when Maia leaned over and wiped the sticky sweetness from her face. When she had finished all the young woman had set before her she said, “Now, my child, what will you do?”

  Maia sighed deeply, but then she said, “If the Lady hopes to wait us out we will freeze to death, Drysi. There is wood by all of the fireplaces in the hall, and I will haul it up here so these two rooms at least will remain warmer than the rest of the castle. But when the wood is gone we are, I fear, lost. The courtyard is filled with snow, and no paths cleared to the woodsheds, stables, or barns. The creatures will die without food or water. I cannot even escape this place and attempt to return to my father’s house for help. We cannot wait upon the Lady’s pleasure, Drysi. This matter between us must be settled quickly!”

  “But how?” the old woman wanted to know.

  “I am not certain,” Maia admitted. She wanted to cry with her fear and her frustration, but she bravely swallowed back her tears. They would gain her nothing, and she could not let Drysi see her distress. Her companion needed to believe that there was hope, and that shortly all would be restored to its natural state. “I need to speak with the Lady,” she decided aloud, “but will she speak with me?”

  “Call her,” Drysi said.

  “What?”

  “Call her,” the old lady repeated. “Go up to the battlements and call her. You must be able to see the lake itself or she will not answer you. She will pretend she doesn’t hear you, but with the lake in your view she has to answer you, child.”

  “Will you be all right here alone?” Maia wondered.

  “Put some more wood on the fire and I will be fine,” Drysi assured her.

  Maia set two more good pieces of wood into the blaze, and then she took up her outdoor cape from her trunk and wrapped herself in it. “Wish me luck, Drysi,” she said to her elderly companion.

  “I do,” Drysi responded, “but you will need more than luck, child. The Lady is clever and she will seek to outwit you. She does not want her son choosing his mortality over his magical heritage. But Emrys is in love with you, and that is just what he wants. He has always wanted to be just a man. The Lady does not understand that, but unless you can convince her that losing her son to humanity will not cost her her son, she will fight you with every magical skill at her command,” Drysi warned.

  “If she truly loves him she will sacrifice her own needs for his,” Maia replied.

  Drysi laughed. “Child, child, it is clear you know little of fairy folk. They can be the most selfish of creatures ever created, and the Lady is. You will need to outwit her, or you are lost, and Emrys too. My laddie is not a man to give his heart lightly. He loves you, Maia Pendragon. Whatever happens he will never love another. If you lose this battle with the Lady, both of you are condemned to a loveless existence.”

  Maia bent down and kissed the old woman’s withered cheek. “Then wish me good fortune, Drysi,” she said, “for all our sakes.” Then she hurried from the chamber. Climbing the narrow winding stairs to the top of the castle Maia shivered with the bitter cold that had invaded Ile du Lac. At last she reached the door that opened out onto the battlements. It was barred. She struggled to lift up the heavy wooden beam, and after some minutes was successful. It dropped noisily to the cold stone floor with a thunk, but the door was also locked. Undefeated Maia drew forth her chatelaine’s keys, and finding the right key inserted it and unlocked the door. The door swung open. She was grateful it did not open out, for the battlements were deep in snow.

  Maia stepped gingerly out. She had gauged carefully the number of steps she would have to take to reach the edge of the battlements and see the lake. They were thankfully few, and while her feet were cold, the snow did not soak through her fur house boots. Although the snow had ceased, the skies above her were lowering and both gray and white in color. Only the dark color of the forest beyond the lake broke the monotony of white. The lake appeared frozen, but Maia knew that the lady could rise above it should she choose to do so. The cold air was beginning to burn her lungs, but Maia nonetheless took a deep breath, and called loudly, “I ask the Lady of the Lake to come forth and treat with me!”

  Silence greeted her. Even the birds were quiet this morning.

  “Lady, I know you are there,” Maia called. “You have used your great magic in your attempt to overcome the love your son and I have for each other. Are you so afraid of me that you cannot face me, Lady?”

  The silence was now broken by a faint rumble, but nothing more.

  “I know fairy folk do not play by the same rules as we mortals,” Maia continued, “but you cannot change Emrys’s heart by separating us, Lady. And knowing that you fear me gives me power over you, does it not?”

  The rumble from beneath the lake now was quite discernable. Fog swirled over the ice, which suddenly cracked loudly, and Maia saw her rival standing just above the water in the center of the lake. She thought again as she had the first time she had seen the Lady that this fairy woman was incredibly beautiful with her swirling silver-gold hair and her deep blue eyes. Her gown, all in shades of blue, blew in the faint breeze her arrival had caused to spring up.

  “What makes you think that I would be afraid of you, bold girl?” she demanded of Maia in an icy voice.

  “If you are not afraid of me then why take Emrys from me? And all the others who dwell at Ile du Lac but for old Drysi?” Maia demanded. “Why isolate me? You have even made it impossible for me to flee you. Will you have me dead then, Lady?”

  “I care not if you live or die,” the Lady said coldly.

  “You care,” Maia murmured softly.

  “You play a dangerous game, Pendragon’s daughter,” the Lady responded.

  “I play no game with you, Lady. I simply want my husband returned to me,” Maia told the Lady. “You had no right to steal him unwillingly away.”

  “What makes you think it was unwilling?” the Lady replied. “Perhaps my son has grown bored with you, and needed my help to rid himself of you.”

  Maia laughed aloud. “Nay, Lady, Emrys is not bored with me, nor will he ever be, I promise you.” Then she grew serious. “Oh, Lady, you are his mother, and I cannot take that away from him, nor would I. But I am his wife. Emrys loves me. You cannot replace that love in his heart for me any more than I could replace the love in his heart for you. A mother and a wife share the man. Each has her place in his life. Surely you understand that.”

  “He would be mortal,” the Lady said. “This is your doing, and I will not have it!”

  “He is already half mortal. It is his right to choose the world in which he prefers to reside, Lady. He had, I believe, made that choice even before we met.”

  “I can wipe the memory of you from his very thoughts!” the Lady threatened.

  “Aye,” Maia agreed, “you can, Lady. But you will never wipe the memory of me from his heart any more than you were able to extinguish the memory of Lancelot from your heart.”

  “Do not dare to speak to me of that . . . that man!” the Lady cried. Her hair and her skirts swirled about her in her agitat
ion.

  “Are fairy folk perfect?” Maia asked.

  “Nay, of course not!” the Lady said impatiently. “Why do you ask such a foolish question, girl?”

  “You can make mistakes like mortals,” Maia said.

  “Aye, but not as many,” the Lady said.

  “Then accept the fact that while you love your son, Lady, you erred in your judgment of his father,” Maia responded. “The Lancelot of legend was brave and noble. The Lancelot you knew was brave, yet frail. A man easily bewitched into misbehavior with other women. Had you not stolen him away from Elaine of Shallot you might not have suffered this tragedy of your heart. You are every bit as responsible for what followed as he was, yet you set the blame entirely upon my race.” She shivered now as the rising wind began to cut through her cloak, and her feet grew numb in their boots.

  “Bold girl, you know nothing!” the Lady cried, and then in a clap of thunder she disappeared.

  Maia sighed. Then turning from the battlements she reentered the castle, locking and barring the door behind her, and returned to her apartments. Drysi sat dozing by the fire. Maia added more wood to the hearth, and sat down heavily. The old woman was immediately alert.

  “You have returned, child,” she said.

  Maia nodded.

  “Did the Lady answer your summons?” Drysi wanted to know.

  “She did,” Maia acknowledged, and proceeded to tell the old lady what had transpired between her and the Lady of the Lake. When she had completed her recitation she stood up again. “I must bring wood up from the hall if we are to get through the night, Drysi. The Lady is not yet ready to admit her defeat. I will be back.” Then Maia left the nursemaid again, going down the stairs into the hall. For the next several hours she brought armload after armload of wood upstairs into her apartments so that she might keep the fires going through the night and into the next day. She foraged in the kitchens a second time, bringing back a cold meat pie, a ham, more bread, and a half wheel of cheese. She chopped up winter vegetables, and a dressed duck she found in the cold pantry, putting them into a pot with water and wine. All of this she carried upstairs and then returned downstairs for several skins of water and a carafe of wine. When she had finally finished the winter day was ending. She set the pot over the fire to boil itself into a stew. As long as she could find food and fuel they would survive.