The Old Magic

by James Mallory

  And with a terrible, impossible certainty, Elissa—Princess Elissa, daughter of Queen Morgause of Orkney—knew that she was with child.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE COURTS OF THE GREENWOOD

  It was late September, and the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn the yellows and reds of autumn. All the forest creatures, from squirrels to deer, were preparing for winter, and the Witch of Barnstable Forest was preparing too.

  She’d been living here in the north for the better part of a year, and had settled at last into a new life after the months of wandering north and east. Most of the time her nearest neighbors were Border Celts, red deer, and a few peaceful farmers. Many of the country people felt as she did: not yet ready to accept the new religion, but disenchanted with the Old Ways. They, as she, walked a third path, acknowledging the great forces that shaped their lives but not blindly idolizing them. She’d made a place for herself here, providing the populace with the herb-craft and small charms that eased the harshness of a life that seemed somehow drearier with every passing year.

  We’re none of us as young as we used to be, Ambrosia grumbled to herself, straightening up to ease a kink in her back. She’d spent most of the morning fetching water from the nearby spring, and the result of her labor was now steaming away in a large cauldron hung over the fire-pit in the center of the clearing. Elissa did what she could to help, poor child, but these days the heavy lifting fell to Ambrosia’s lot.

  If only that poxy Giraldus hadn’t been so full of himself, Ambrosia sighed. There was no denying that she’d rather have the warm stone walls of Avalon Abbey around both of them than shiver here in this forest hut with winter on its way. But the loss of the Grail had shaken the small religious community badly, and too many there at Avalon had been willing to believe Giraldus’s accusations that it had vanished because Elissa had trafficked with the Dark One. The little community had cast Elissa out, and Ambrosia, infuriated by their intolerance, had gone with her.

  The only Dark One Ambrosia knew was Idath, Lord of the Wild Hunt, and while no one particularly wanted to meet him and journey to Caer Anoeth, the Land of the Dead, he was as much a normal part of life as springtime and harvest. But the Christians’ Dark One was a different matter altogether. They called him the Lord of Lies and feared him passionately. Once Giraldus had accused Elissa of being in league with such a monstrous creature, people had stopped thinking altogether.

  I suppose we’re both lucky they didn’t burn her as a sorceress, and me beside her, Ambrosia thought with a sigh. At least all they had done at Avalon was to cast Elissa out. When Ambrosia heard about it, she’d left the nearby village of Glastonbury to go after the girl and bring her to make her home here in the lonely forest. By then Elissa was great with child, which only confirmed Ambrosia’s secret fears. She knew of only one force vindictive enough to lash out at the heart of the Christians’ power as had happened in the Grail Chapel at the Yuletide.

  Mab.

  Ambrosia was willing to bet anything that Mab had been behind the trouble, and she fretted in her heart over what sort of fairy-begotten child Elissa would birth. Would it take after its mortal mother—or resemble more closely the eldritch force that had kindled the spark of its life?

  In the distance, a twig snapped. Someone was coming up the path to her cottage. Instantly Ambrosia was alert. There was little in this wilderness to attract Vortigern’s attention, but that did not mean the forest was without dangers of its own. Barnstable Forest had become a haunt of the outlaws and landless men that Vortigern’s reign had created. It was part of Lord Ardent’s lands, but he was an absentee landlord, since most of the time Vortigern kept him at court.

  “Ambrosia!” a familiar voice called out, and she relaxed.

  “Herne, you scamp! You scared the life out of me,” she scolded.

  Herne stepped into the clearing, a slain deer slung over his shoulders. He was a young man, little older than Elissa, dressed all in green leather from his boots to his tunic. His long fair hair was tied back with a strip of buckskin, and he carried a bow in his hand.

  “Now, how could a poor country lad like me put something over on the most feared and respected sorceress in the whole forest?” He slung the deer to the ground. “Fresh venison,” he said.

  Once, like her, Herne had been a cleric of the Old Ways: Herne had served Idath in his aspect as Lord of the Wild Things. But as the Old Ways had dwindled and Vortigern’s oppression had grown, Herne had set aside his priestly horned crown. The people needed more than rituals and homilies in those dark days—they needed a champion. Herne could not protect them officiating in a woodland shrine, and so he had made a difficult choice. Now he poached the king’s deer and stole the king’s gold to feed the hungry people of the shire, and lived the life of an outlaw in the greenwood with a price upon his head.

  “And where did that come from?” she asked chidingly. “I suppose it got up and walked out of Lord Ardent’s larder?”

  “I swear to you, Ambrosia, that’s exactly what happened.” Herne grinned at her, then sobered. “I’ve been to Nottingham Market. There’s fresh news of the true king.”

  Ambrosia frowned. The news these days was never good. Vortigern held the land in an uneasy grip while Queen Lionors and Prince Uther were free in the Norman lands. “And which king would that be? I suppose it isn’t good news either way?” she said.

  “Depends on how you think of it. The Queen is safe in Normandy at the court of the French King, raising an army to get Uther’s throne back.”

  “Vortigern won’t like that,” Ambrosia observed.

  “Uther is yet a child,” Herne answered. “He won’t trouble the High King this year or next. But it won’t be long before he’s a man grown, ready to lead his army right down Vortigern’s throat. And Vortigern will be that many years older.”

  True enough. Vortigern was at the peak of his manly strength now. In ten years or fifteen he would be past his prime, weary with years of kingship and fighting, and Uther would be young and fresh and ready to fight him.

  “One king or another, what does it matter to us? Uther’s a Christian, just as his father was. He won’t love us any better than Constant did.”

  “He can hardly be more trouble to us than Vortigern is,” Herne pointed out reasonably. “How fares the Lady Elissa today?” he asked, changing the subject. Over the months she and Elissa had been here, he had grown fond of the young novice, and Ambrosia thought he would marry her if he could.

  “Well enough,” Ambrosia said. “The child should be born before the first snow.”

  Herne hesitated. Ambrosia hadn’t publicized the turn of events that had gotten Elissa expelled from Avalon, but scandal travelled the length and breadth of Britain upon the wings of the wind. All the land knew now that the Christian Grail had vanished through some fault of Elissa’s, and Herne could see with his own eyes that the girl was with child. It did not take a great leap of intellect to guess that the Old Ways were somehow involved—and Herne, like Ambrosia, walked warily where such matters were concerned.

  “Ambrosia!”

  The frightened cry came from within the hut that stood in the middle of the forest clearing. Ambrosia turned toward the sound, and saw Elissa standing in the doorway, one hand clinging to it for support, the other clutching at her swollen belly.

  “The baby—I think it’s coming now,” Elissa gasped.

  She was not dead, but she was less than she had been. The Wheel of the Year spun through its courses as Mab lay unmoving upon a bed made of crystal, tended carefully by the nervous Frik. The magic that was in her guttered faintly, a black flame that might be extinguished at any moment, but slowly she recovered her strength. One thought sustained her: that she had succeeded. She had brought Merlin into the world. Her loneliness, her struggle for bare survival, were ended. The Old Ways would triumph, and her people would no longer be persecuted.

  And one day she opened her eyes, threw back the covering of silvery cobweb lace tha
t Frik had placed over her, and rose from her bed.

  A cloud of sprites, their wings all the colors of a springtime garden, flew into the air and hovered like startled butterflies as she moved. Once the tiny creatures had been of mortal size. In those days humankind had called them the sidhé, the Bright Elves, and had gone in fear of their powers and their wrath. But as the world of men had ceased to believe in them, they had dwindled away to these silly fluttering things that could barely tie knots in a horse’s mane or sour milk in the jug. Mab could hear the high squeaky sounds of their voices as they called back and forth to each other, proclaiming the self-evident news that their mistress was awake once more.

  Fear not, my subjects, Mab thought, watching the rainbow cloud of sprites flutter about the room. Soon you will be as you once were. Soon all will be as it once was.

  This I swear.

  As she expected, Frik appeared almost immediately.

  He was dressed all in white, with tiny glasses perched on the end of his nose and a stethoscope looped around his neck. The black bag that he carried had a large red cross in a white circle painted on its side. Templars? Mab wondered, sorting through all of Time to try to make sense of that strange symbol. Frik looked ridiculous in this costume, but then her servant always looked ridiculous to her. She despised him, and sometimes she despised herself for having him. But that, too, would change once Merlin came into his power.

  “There now. And how are we feeling today?” Frik asked ingratiatingly.

  “Don’t try my patience,” Mab answered. She strode from the bedchamber. Frik dropped his black bag and rushed after her, holding a cloak.

  “You mustn’t risk a chill,” he said self-importantly, tucking it about her shoulders when she stopped.

  Her head whipped around, and Mab regarded her assistant with blazing eyes.

  “That is … that is to say, unless you wish to catch a chill, of course, Madame. Very much your own choice to make, of course,” Frik said hurriedly. “Only … That is to say …” He stopped, obviously at a loss for how to proceed without arousing his mistress’s volatile temper. “I mean, of course—” He gave up. “It was a success, was it not, Madame?” he asked plaintively. Then Frik closed his eyes tightly and waited for whatever came.

  But Mab was in a mood to be forgiving. She patted his cheek with a jewelled hand, and her long black fingernails glittered.

  “Of course it was a success! But you’re wondering, aren’t you, where he is?” she purred.

  Frik gulped, eyes still closed, obviously unable to decide whether to agree with her or deny that he’d ever doubted her success.

  “I thought of creating a full-grown champion, but I decided not to. This way is better. My Merlin will be half-human, half-fairy. He will not have to rely only upon fairy illusion for his magic, because he will also be human. And since he will live among them, the mortals will love him and follow him—but he will also be a wizard, bound to the Old Ways, and so he will follow me!”

  “Oh, I say, Madame, how frightfully clever,” Frik said in relief. “He’ll be a much better champion of the Old Ways than Vorti—I mean, than that other fellow that we just won’t mention.”

  “He will save us all. You and I, Frik, will teach him everything he needs to know to rule Britain and bring back the Old Ways!”

  “We will?—I mean, of course we will,” Frik said, recovering gamely. He looked around. “But—just a trifling matter, my own mistake, certainly—where is he?”

  Normally Mab would have made Frik spend several days as a rock for annoying her so, but today she could not be annoyed. Today victory was in her hands. She smiled at Frik, a truly terrifying sight.

  “He is in the mortal world, being born.”

  The labor was long and difficult, and almost from the beginning Ambrosia grimly realized that Elissa would not survive it. She hid that knowledge from the girl as well as she could through the long gruelling hours of the night, hoping that she was wrong. She had been wrong occasionally in her long career as a midwife. Mothers were tougher than they looked, and the will to live could work miracles.

  But not this time. The child drained Elissa’s strength as it struggled to be born, but somehow Ambrosia could not grudge it that strength. The poor babe would need all the strength he could muster to face the world as it was.

  Elissa had gone into labor at midmorning, but it was dawn by the time Ambrosia was able to at last pull the child from the girl’s pain-wracked body.

  “A boy,” she said with relief. “It’s a beautiful boy.” With no mark of the Old Magic anywhere on his red wrinkled body, something that was a great relief to Ambrosia. Whatever force had begotten him had left no surface marks. She tucked the child into its mothers arms. Elissa’s face was shiny with sweat, her eyes great sunken wells of pain and suffering. She touched her baby’s face with trembling fingers, then held the tiny squalling bundle out to Ambrosia once more.

  “I’m dying,” Elissa whispered.

  “No, no,” Ambrosia said soothingly, though she feared the girl was only telling the truth.

  “You’ve done so much for me, Ambrosia. You took me in when good Christian souls cast me out to die—now I ask you to do one thing more.” She paused, gasping for breath, her face grey with the effort she made.

  “Rest, child, rest—there will be time for this,” Ambrosia said soothingly. She began to move away to lay the baby in the cradle Herne had made for him, but Elissa grabbed a fold of her skirt in a deathly grip.

  “No! You must … you must look after my baby, Ambrosia. Teach him about the Grail—the magic of the loving heart. I beg you—I beg you, Ambrosia!” As she struggled to pull herself upright the bleeding began again, fresh blood staining the bed linens a deep crimson. “Swear it! Swear!”

  Words were power; it was the first thing every acolyte of the Old Ways was taught. Ambrosia hesitated only a fraction of an instant, knowing that the words she spoke here would bind her spirit as unyieldingly as iron shackles would bind her body. “I swear,” she said, and took the infant’s life into her keeping. “Now sleep,” she added, as Elissa’s desperate grip on her skirts relaxed. “I’ll take care of the child.”

  Elissa fell back to the bed, her eyes closing. Ambrosia turned away from the bed, the child in her arms. When she glanced up, she gasped in astonishment.

  The Queen of the Old Ways stood in the center of the hut, dark and jewelled, with her misshapen servant cringing behind her. Her face twisted in a dreadful parody of a fond smile as she saw the baby, and she held out her arms. Ambrosia stared incredulously at Queen Mab, the warm living weight of the child in her arms, and all she could think was: I loved you once. Loved you, hated you, wanted you to come back … it’s all gone now, burned away to cinders.

  “Let me see the child!” Mab hissed in her harsh crow’s voice. Her voice had been beautiful once. Mab herself had been beautiful and loving, once. But that was a long time ago, before Constant had begun his persecutions of her people. And now, despite the imperious tone, it was obvious that Mab was attempting to be ingratiating. Slowly Ambrosia held out the child.

  Mab took it in her arms and gazed down at it, her painted face showing honest emotion. Ambrosia could see that as much as it was still possible for her to love anything, Mab adored the baby.

  So it really was you at Avalon, was it, Queen of Air and Darkness? I thought I recognized the stamp of your handiwork. This trouble is your doing.

  Mab raised the child in her arms and held it up toward the roof of the hut. “I name this child Merlin!” she cried, her voice a harsh cry of triumph.

  “Well, while you’re making gestures,” Ambrosia snapped, losing patience, “save the mother. She’s dying.”

  Mab glanced past Ambrosia to the bed. “No, she isn’t,” Mab said smugly, handing the baby to Frik. “She’s dead!” She smiled triumphantly at Ambrosia.

  Poor child. A pawn in a chess game of queens and kings. Ambrosia walked slowly over to the bed and pulled the coverlet up over E
lissa’s face. “Sleep easy, child,” she whispered sadly. “May angels fly thee home.”

  She rounded on Mab. “What’s your excuse? Why didn’t you save her?” Ambrosia demanded.

  Mab stared at her with wide cat’s eyes, her expression smooth and unmarred by guilt—or even by the understanding that she ought to feel any. “She’d served her purpose,” Mab said, shrugging dismissively.

  “‘Served her purpose’?” Suddenly it seemed as if Ambrosia could feel all the anger seething within her that she had been unable to feel on that long-ago day when Vortigern’s riders had overrun Mab’s shrine. “Served her purpose? You’re so cold, Lady, that if I punched you in the heart I’d break my fist!” Ambrosia turned away, going to the basin beside the bed to wash her hands. “And to think I once served you in the Old Ways!”

  “Then you changed and became a Christian!” Mab sneered.

  “Who told you that?” Ambrosia demanded. She looked past Mab to Frik and nodded to herself. “That snooping, smiling blatherskite! Well, he’s wrong. I’m not Pagan or Christian. I follow my own heart, that’s religion enough for me.” She glared at Mab, ready to fight for little Merlin.

  “Why do you allow her to talk to you like that, Madame?” Frik blustered. He held the squirming newborn child as if he might drop it at any moment.

  “Because she needs me, idiot.” Ambrosia crossed the floor and took Merlin carefully from Frik.

  Mab was pacing like a black leopard deciding when to spring. “Why do I need you, Ambrosia?” she asked, with as much sweetness as she could summon into her viperish hiss.

  “To take care of this child,” Ambrosia answered levelly. She supposed she ought to do Mab the courtesy of being afraid of her; diminished as she was, the Queen of the Old Ways still wielded vast power. But on the day the shrine had been destroyed, the Old Ways had lost their power to frighten or overawe her.