Drysi spent her day dozing and watching the girl as she went about the task of making their confinement comfortable. She spooned up the dish of duck stew that Maia had prepared, mopping every bit of gravy from her bowl with a chunk of bread. She shared a bit of cheese and an apple with her young companion thinking that if anyone could save Emrys Llyn it was his wife.
“Come, Drysi,” Maia finally said when she had cleaned up the remnants of their supper, “and I will help you into bed. I can sleep on the trundle.”
“Nay, child,” Drysi told her. “I am more comfortable in my chair here before the fire than I would be in bed. Wrap that fur lap robe about me, and build up the fire.”
Maia did as she was bid, putting a footstool beneath the old woman’s feet. Then she kissed Drysi good night, and found her own bed, waking twice in the night to be certain that the fires were still going in both her hearth and Drysi’s. She did not sleep well, for there were too many thoughts swirling about in her brain. Where was Emrys?
And would she actually be able to overcome the Lady of the Lake, and regain her husband again? What would happen to her if she couldn’t? Her father’s keep was two days away, and she wasn’t even certain she knew how to get there. And right now it was impossible, for she could not reach the stables to get a horse. And what was happening to the animals? They must be very hungry and thirsty by now. Tomorrow she would attempt to get across the castle courtyard. There was so much to do, and she was but one girl. Maia felt the tears come, and she wept silently into her pillow. She had to prevail. She simply had to prevail over the Lady! Her happiness depended upon it.
The next morning Maia awoke before the dawn, and dressed herself in the warmest clothing she could find. Bringing Drysi a cup of hot milk with a slice of bread and cheese, she left the old woman. The hall outside the apartment was bitterly cold. The castle walls were covered in a layer of silvery white frost, and she could see her breath.
“Damn the creature!” Maia muttered beneath her breath as she hurried along.
Reaching the main door to the castle she unbarred it and pulled it open. The sun was beginning to rise, coloring the skies above with red, orange, lavender and a deep pink. Maia drew a deep breath, and the icy air burned her lungs. Undeterred she set forth from the castle, slowly making her way across the courtyard to the stables. Finally reaching them she pulled the doors open. The stables were as empty of inhabitants as the castle was. She closed the doors to the building and struggled on to the barn. It, too, was empty. Not even a cat remained. Maia followed her footprints in the snow back to the castle, yanking the door shut behind her.
Now she began the climb back upstairs to the battlements of Ile du Lac. Unbarring the door and unlocking it she went out again to the precipice overlooking the lake. The winter sun was skimming across the horizon and turning the surface of the lake golden with its light. Maia snuggled into her hood and drew her cloak about her.
“Lady, come forth, damn it! It is time we settled this matter between us. I want my husband back! I need him, and he needs me.” Her voice echoed in the silence. Not even a bird called back.
“I am with child!” Maia said.
The rumble came in a fierce rush, and then the Lady appeared in the middle of the lake as was her custom.
“Bold girl, you lie!” she said, but the very tone of her voice indicated that she was not certain if Maia lied or not.
“I do not,” Maia responded calmly, standing straight and looking directly at this beautiful fairy who was her mother-in-law. “I am with child,” she repeated.
“How can you be certain?” the Lady demanded.
“Lady, I am the second of four children, and my eldest sister has two,” Maia answered. “You amended the curse on him yourself. You said he would regain his full mortality and sire children when he found true love. Is this not the real proof you seek, Lady? Emrys is now a mortal as he has wanted to be, and I carry his child!”
“Does my son know?” the Lady asked.
“I wanted to make certain I was not mistaken,” Maia said. “I planned to tell him the morning I awoke only to find you had stolen him away. I had been so concerned that I was not with child as quickly as my sister that I missed the first signs of my condition.”
For a long moment the Lady of the Lake was silent. Then she said, “I will send you in safety to your father’s keep, Maia Pendragon.”
“No,” Maia told her. “This is your grandchild, Lady. This is how we members of humankind gain our immortality. It is through our offspring, and those that follow from their blood. Give me back my husband that he may know his child.”
“No! I above all others know the pain of seeing those you love grow old and die. I will not do that to my son.”
“Were you there when Lancelot died, Lady?” Maia asked the fairy.
The Lady nodded. “He came back here. Here to Ile du Lac. Here to me. But I had already wrapped the castle and its inhabitants in my spell. His home was gone, and so I raised up a small dwelling on the lakeshore where he might take his ease. He had been fighting in France, and anywhere his sword could be hired. Now he was old and could no longer fight, so he came back to me. Came back, and I saw my handsome and unfaithful husband, his limbs thin, his face drawn and gray, his once beautiful dark hair faded and streaked with white.”
“Yet you loved him still,” Maia said softly.
The Lady nodded. “I loved him still,” she agreed, “but alas, my magic could not protect him forever, for you mortals are so very frail. I told him what I had done to protect our child, and he smiled, pleased. But as each day passed he grew weaker, and finally, as I sat by his bedside, and held his hand, he died, another woman’s name upon his lips. Gwynefr. Your ancestor’s cursed queen, Maia Pendragon.”
“She was no blood of mine, Lady,” Maia responded. Then she said, “Emrys would choose his mortal side, Lady. He would live as a man lives. Let him!”
“I cannot see my son grow old and die,” the Lady said.
“Why?” Maia demanded. “Because you would be alone, Lady?”
The Lady of the Lake grew agitated with the girl’s words. “You dare . . .” she began.
“I would dare anything to regain my husband!” Maia cried. “Give him back to me, Lady! You cannot keep his love by keeping him from me, and from his child.”
“You are the most stubborn girl!” the Lady said, and then she disappeared in a rumble of thunder as she had the day before.
Sighing, Maia reentered the castle. Every time she backed the fairy woman into a corner with her logic, the Lady disappeared. It was impossible to reason with someone who wasn’t there. She spent the rest of the day as she had the previous. Hauling wood from the great hall to her apartments. Going out into the kitchen courtyard she lowered the bucket into the well, banging it several times against the glaze of ice covering the surface until the bucket dipped into the water. Maia filled the water skins from the bucket, and returned to her chambers.
“What had the Lady to say this day?” Drysi asked her.
“How do you know I spoke with the Lady?” Maia returned.
“Of course you spoke with her,” Drysi said. “You have not given up hope of finding your husband.”
“I told her I am with child,” Maia replied.
“And are you?” Drysi asked.
Maia nodded, and then a few tears slid down her face. “I was going to tell Emrys that day,” she explained to Drysi.
“What did the Lady say?” Drysi demanded to know.
“She offered to return me to my father’s house,” Maia responded. “I refused.”
“Of course you refused,” Drysi said. “You were wise to do so. She knows that if her son learns he is to be a father she will lose him as she lost his father.”
Maia brushed the tears from her face. “I will not give up my husband,” she said. “In the spring I will go to my father, and he will give me the loan of servants. I will remain at Ile du Lac until my husband returns to me, and I will rai
se our child alone if I must, Drysi.”
Maia toasted bread and cheese that evening, setting a slice of ham upon it. She and Drysi drank wine from the carafe on her sideboard. And then they slept. When Maia awoke the following morning she sensed that something was different than the two previous days. Arising she went out into the dayroom where Drysi still slept. Gingerly she opened the door to her apartment, and stepped out into the hallway. The air within the passage was warm, and the frost had gone from the walls. She moved back into her own apartments. The pile of firewood she had so laboriously hauled upstairs from the great hall was gone. So was her cache of food, but on the sideboard was a covered tray.
Maia lifted the cover off the tray. Beneath she discovered two trenchers of bread filled with hot oat stirabout flavored with honey and heavy cream. There was a bowl of hard-boiled eggs, a cottage loaf, a dish of plum jam, and a little crock of sweet butter. She heard Drysi awakening behind her, and turned to her saying, “Look, old woman, we are to be magically fed this morning.”
Drysi cackled a dry laugh. “So your husband’s mother has a conscience,” she remarked. “I do not know if I am surprised or not.”
“But how?” Maia wondered aloud.
“Ask not, child. Let us just eat, and be glad,” Drysi replied.
They split the contents of the tray between them. Maia had to admit that she felt better for the hot cereal. When they had finished she set the tray back upon the sideboard, and when she looked again it was gone.
“The castle is warm again,” Maia said. “The frost is gone from the walls.”
“Go down and see if anyone is here but us,” Drysi suggested.
Maia took up her cloak, and leaving the old lady, inspected the entire castle; but though the fireplaces were all burning, and the frost was indeed gone, there was no one about that she could see. She opened the door to the courtyard, and saw that a path had been shoveled to the various outbuildings nestled beneath the castle walls. The castle gates were wide open. Wrapping her cloak tightly about her Maia walked through them and down the shoveled path to the lakeside.
“Thank you, Lady,” she called, but all was silent. Not even the wind made a sound, and the icy surface of the lake remained smooth. Maia turned, and walked back to the castle. For the next few days she and Drysi ate from the trays that magically appeared in Maia’s dayroom twice daily. Their fires burned without wood being added. The Lady was caring for them for whatever reason, but the Lord of the Lake remained missing. Finally, when ten days had passed, Maia had had enough. She climbed to the battlements one bright morning, and called forth the Lady of the Lake once again.
The air had the faintest hint of warmth in it this day. It would be March shortly.
Maia stood straight. Her voice was stronger than it had ever been. She had to do this. For herself, for the child now growing in her belly, for Emrys. “Lady, come forth! It is not enough! You must return my husband to me.”
“Must? Must?” The Lady appeared without her usual trumpet of thunder. “You are in no position to make demands of me, bold girl,” she told Maia.
“You fear being alone in this world where magic is fast disappearing,” Maia said quietly. “But it need not be that way, Lady.”
“What do you mean?” the Lady asked. “If my son grows old and dies I will be alone. If he embraces his mortality that is what must happen. If I convince him to let only fairy blood run in his veins, he will be forced to watch you grow old and die. I know he loves you, and such a happening would break his heart.”
“He is a mortal, Lady. And, aye, he will grow old one day and die. But his blood will live on in his sons, and his sons’ sons,” Maia explained. “You need never be alone. Ever! And as long as there are those who believe in you, your magic will never die.”
“It is the way of the world to forget, Pendragon’s daughter. To see, and yet to not believe. Emrys knows of the olden times for he was born into them. He will never forget, and he will always believe,” the Lady said.
“And for this you would condemn him to a loveless life?” Maia replied softly. “Your very actions make true Elaine of Shallot’s curse upon the son of Lancelot. You have not protected him at all, Lady.”
“You do not understand!” the Lady cried.
“Nay!” Maia cried back, “I do not! Listen to me, Lady. I did not seek out your son. He sought me out, coming to me first in my dreams, until I sent away all of my suitors and waited for him to come to me. He did, and when he did he asked my father for my hand. My father was reluctant to give his permission, for he sensed that something was not right with your son. But I swore I should have no other, and so we were married. I conceived this child in my belly, Lady. It was meant to be. Emrys and I were meant to be. Give him back to me! Give him back!” And Maia stamped her foot in frustration.
For a long moment the Lady looked as if she could not make up her mind. Maia’s words but gave proof of what she had been refusing to see or understand. Her son wanted to embrace his mortality. He loved this mortal woman. She was ripening with his child. And this morning the Lady of the Lake had seen a single silver strand in her son’s ebony hair. The locks of fairy men never changed. Though she sought to prevent it, Emrys had embraced his mortality even without her permission. The reality of it all pained her greatly, and with a great cry of sorrow the Lady disappeared beneath the lake.
Maia began to weep with her desperation, and then she felt his hands upon her shoulders. “Emrys?” she whispered, half frightened.
He turned her so that she was facing him. “It is I,” he said, his deep blue eyes hungrily scanning her beautiful face.
Maia burst into a great flood of tears. “Is it really you?” she sobbed. “This is not some magical trick of your mother’s?” Her hands ran over his face and shoulders.
“It is I,” he promised her, and then his mouth descended upon hers in a burning kiss. And when he had satisfied himself with her lips he kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, the very tip of her nose.
“But how?” Maia sobbed. “She was so obdurate.”
“I am not certain, my darling,” he said, “but I suspect the strength of your love for me was too great even for her magic, and that was what finally overcame her.” His big hand caressed her face.
“Are you really mortal now?” Maia demanded to know, sniffling.
“I am mortal,” he said. “When she spirited me away I told her it was what I wanted. Under fairy law she had no choice but to accept my wishes though she tried hard to convince me otherwise, my love.”
“I am with child,” Maia told him, a small smile touching her lips now. He was safe! Emrys was back with her, and he was safe.
His whole face lit up with the evidence of his joy at her words. “We are to have a child, Maia?”
She nodded.
“Does my mother know?” he asked her.
“Aye. I told her when I demanded your return,” Maia replied.
He laughed aloud. “You demanded of my mother? You are a brave woman, wife. I do not think anyone has ever demanded anything of the Lady.” He chuckled, imagining how his mother had reacted to this girl’s behavior. “Let us go in and see if my mother has returned everyone back to the castle. Were you all alone, my darling?” He helped her through the door into the hallway, locking and barring the door behind them.
“Nay, Drysi was with me. The Lady forgot her, and I found her in her tower, Emrys. I helped her to our apartments, and took care of her. I brought wood for the fires, and found food in the kitchens with which I fed us until the last few days when your mother began to relent. The frost fell from the castle walls. The fires never went out although there was no one tending them. And food appeared beneath a covered tray on our sideboard. I had so little to do then that Drysi and I played chess, and hare and hounds. She is good company, Emrys.”
“Drysi was with the rest of us, Maia,” he told her. “I think it was my mother who must have taken her form in order to see what kind of a human you really were, my lov
e.”
“Your mother?” Maia gasped. “No, no! It was Drysi. You should have heard the things she told me, Emrys. It had to be Drysi.”
“And I tell you that Drysi was with me,” he told her. “She was very irritated to be removed from her cozy tower, and complained bitterly to my mother. And she does not play chess, or hare and hounds, Maia. Her sight is not good enough. Nay, it was my mother, and you surely impressed her else nothing you said could have saved us.”
“Then I owe her more than I can ever repay her,” Maia said. “Still, she might have trusted you to have chosen the right woman to marry.”
“After the first two debacles?” He chuckled as they entered their apartments to find them empty. “I think not, knowing my mother. She never had a high regard for humanity to begin with, and my father’s behavior but compounded her opinions.”
“Her greatest fear is being alone, Emrys,” Maia said. “I have told her with our progeny, and their descendants, she will never be alone, for we will teach them to know and respect her. I am not certain she believed me.”
“Then you and I must prove her wrong,” the Lord of the Lake said to his wife.
The winter loosened its grip upon the land about Ile du Lac. The Dragon Lord, his women, his son and remaining daughter came at Beltaine on May first. They celebrated beneath the full moon, honoring the old ways. Three months later Maia was delivered of her first child, a daughter. Several days after the child’s birth Emrys and his wife took the infant down to the lakeshore, and called on the Lady to come to them.
Rising from the blue waters the Lady reached out to take her grandchild into her arms. Her beautiful imperious face softened as the infant looked up at her with eyes as blue as her own, and a tuft of silver-blond hair. “What is her name?” the Lady asked.
The Dragon Lord's Daughters Page 24
