by Lisa Cach
I knew Maerlin had told Brenn what had happened; they shared a bond of friendship that was nearly as deep as the one Maerlin had with Arthur. “I’m not sure Maerlin even understands why Arthur got so upset,” I said. “He was surprised by the depth of it; he thought it irrational.”
“That’s blind even for Maerlin. Maybe a little too blind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Even Maerlin knows a man is going to be upset if his brother sleeps with his woman—even if the sleeping’s done in an oak tree during some strange ritual I won’t pretend to understand and don’t really want to think about.”
My cheeks burned. “No, better that you don’t,” I murmured. “You think he feels too guilty to admit to himself that what we did was hurtful to Arthur?”
“I think he might have wanted to be with you too much to care about the hurt it caused.”
“Maerlin?” I laughed. “No, you misunderstand. There’s attraction, yes, but it’s all physical, all part of being Phanne.”
“Maybe you wanted to be with him, too.”
“Yes, but only for this . . . this . . .” I waved my hand in the air, searching for words to make him understand. “The power—it’s something that must be explored.”
“I won’t deny that the winds grew stronger while you were . . . in the tree.” Plainly he’d rather not say exactly what we were doing in the tree.
“You know there’s more to the power than that.”
“Do I? I’ve never felt it. How, then, can it be real to me? I’m a man of the solid earth; I know nothing of ‘powers.’ And neither does Arthur.”
I knew he was trying to make me feel better, in a strange, backward way; that he meant to have me understand how impossible it was for Arthur to make the necessary mental leap to accept what had happened. For all that Maerlin and I could do, there was very little of it that could be seen and proved to be real. Most of Maerlin’s gifts were products of his own ferocious intelligence. Even the prophecies we made were so vague that some might argue they were more imagination than real.
I thrashed about in my mind, searching for something that could make him understand, some words that would speak of my experience of being Phanne, and Maerlin’s. And Una’s, too, though she was just coming into her powers.
But what were words? Hollowness that could speak lies or truth, and the speaker might not even know which left her mouth. She could be as ignorant of what was real as the listener.
That only left one course: showing.
“We share blood,” I said.
Brenn lowered his chin in an accepting half nod. His copper eye squinted in suspicion. “So we do.”
I reached across the space between us, palm up. “Give me your hand.”
He shied. “What are you up to?”
I chuckled at the sight of fearsome Brenn, who made even seasoned warriors doubt their skill, cowering at the thought of taking my hand. “Not afraid of me, are you?”
“I’m scared enough of Maerlin and Una to know better than to think my own daughter might not have danger up her sleeve.”
I wiggled my fingers and raised my brow.
He puckered his mouth and laid his rough paw over mine, my hand disappearing inside his broad grip. It was like being held by a chunk of sun-warmed bark.
“I’m not very good at this yet,” I said by way of warning, and felt his arm jerk as if to draw away.
“There’s not going to be blood spewing out my one good eye, is there? I won’t fall off my horse? Soil myself?”
“Stop it,” I scolded. “I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Like it will make me feel better, knowing that? Now you can’t concentrate. I’m going to come out all over in boils, aren’t I?”
“Brenn,” I growled.
He made muttering noises, then squeezed my fingers and went quiet, our held hands pulling and relaxing as our mounts moved down the road in their rocking gait.
When I hadn’t been too busy hating myself to be able to think over the past couple of months, I’d been trying to learn how to contact those with whom I shared blood, or the men I had been with. Terix had offered to let me practice with him, but I could sense how it unnerved him, to know I might be peering into his mind without his knowledge. It was far more comfortable to work on my skill with Maerlin, who knew when I was mentally reaching for him and knew how to protect any part of himself he did not wish me to see.
I’d tried as well to reach Clovis. Arthur. My son, Theo. Even Alaric, in far-off Tolosa, and Jax the pirate, who might be anywhere upon the seas. I hadn’t the skill yet to see any of them, though. There were glimpses, fleeting images and emotions, but I couldn’t be sure I had truly seen that moment of a delighted Theo grasping at and pulling Basina’s silver-streaked hair; of Jax feeling a rush of bloody pleasure as he stepped onto the deck of a galley just conquered; of Clovis sitting alone with a flagon of wine, loathing the thought of his Christian betrothed, Clothilde, and remembering with longing and regret the feel of my body against his, and silently fueling a hurt anger that I had left him.
It seemed more likely that I had created such visions out of my own wishes, than that they were real. Maerlin had warned me that the greater the distance, the greater the difficulty. In his years of trying to master the skill—impossible, apparently, for a Phanne male except with his Phanne kin—he had had many such imaginary contacts that he’d hoped were real, but had often proved to be false.
So it was not without self-doubt that I tried to reach into the mind of Brenn, this man who had fathered me but whom I knew so little. I searched; I pressed with my mind; I listened and tried to open myself.
Nothing.
Maybe it wasn’t possible with non-Phanne kin; Maerlin hadn’t known whether it was or not. The blood tie might not be enough. There was too little shared; he was male and I was female. All we had in common was my mother, Ligeia.
As I had the thought, I sensed a ghost of my mother in Brenn’s mind. Yes, there: a flash of memory, of Ligeia lying pressed up against his side, asleep, naked in the mountain sunlight. His feeling of disbelief that she was real, and a dread that this might be a fever dream from which he’d wake, alone.
And one day, he had.
Ligeia was the key with which I unlocked his mind. I followed that day on the mountain to the battle that had cost him the eye and the arm, and the moment when Ligeia had spoken to him as he lay close to death from infection. I saw him meet Maerlin, and felt his reaction to the spiral tattoos. I followed him across Europe with Maerlin, meeting other Phanne and asking, always asking, after Ligeia. I saw him come to Britannia.
I saw that at the final moment, the moment when he could have gone in person to Mona to ask after Ligeia, he had faltered. Too many years had passed, too much had happened. The dream had become greater than any possible reality. To find her risked shattering the dream forever, and leaving him in a raw waking world without the comforting magic memory of a week in the mountains with a woman too beautiful to have been real.
Deep inside, he knew that they were not meant to be together. He was a man who had found his place in the world, and he had wisdom enough to sense that both that place and his own hard-worn self would be a poor fit for the ethereal Ligeia.
And then I’d come to Corinium and his world had tilted, threatening to spill him off its edge. He saw parts of himself in me; he also saw Ligeia in me; and still he felt astonishment that I could be his, and exist. Just as I continued to feel astonishment at him.
He was wary of me. Intrigued. He feared I would leave. Feared he would disappoint me, or had disappointed me. He worried over my future. He wished I could have Arthur, a man of honor, strength, and kindness . . . but suspected Maerlin might be the better match. One of my own kind, and yet—
Yet he could not wish Maerlin on any woman, much less his daughter. He loved the man, respected h
im, was his friend; and knew him well enough to know that a woman would be hard-pressed to find a crumb of joy at his side.
Then there was Terix. He’d dismissed Terix as a clown at first. Useless. An actor, an entertainer, his one redeeming feature being that he was as loyal to me as Bone was. His estimation had gone down even further when Terix came to be trained, and Brenn discovered how woefully inadequate his sword skills were.
Bit by bit, however, Terix was beginning to win his respect. Not for his fighting skills, which would never be excellent; not even for his persistence, although that helped. What impressed Brenn was Terix’s buoyant spirit.
“You like Terix,” I said aloud. “You see how even when he is ground down with exhaustion and is beaten by every opponent, even while lying on his back with dirt and blood on his face, he still finds a turn of phrase to make others laugh.”
Brenn grunted in affirmation.
“You doubt he’ll ever be a great warrior,” I went on, “but you think he’s immensely valuable. He lightens hearts. He can heal an infection of bad morale, and can make hard work almost . . . fun. You would have him in Ambrosius’s army, if he would stay. But mostly you train him hard because you know he may not, that he will follow me wherever I go, and that there might come a day when Terix is all that stands between me and death.”
His shoulders and back were tense, his jaw moving in grinding thought. “Any observant eye could see that. Is this supposed to be a show of your Phanne powers?”
Apparently not. How’s this? I said into his mind, and felt his whole body startle, strong enough to make his horse dance sideways and almost pull our hands apart.
“What are—” Did I just hear her— “Did you say something?”
Think of your favorite food.
In his mind, without his bidding, an image cropped up along with smell, and taste. I gagged. “Raw oysters? Really? You couldn’t like honeyed almonds or baked apples?”
“Woman food,” Brenn groused. “Men like meat.”
“If that’s what you want to call raw oysters.”
“They remind me of home. Armorica.” Another image started to form in his mind.
“And they make you think of—”
A vivid picture emerged of the similarity between slurping an oyster and laying his tongue against a woman’s sex.
“Oh—ah, er . . .” I dropped his hand. That wasn’t a picture either of us needed to share.
His face turned as scarlet as I felt my own going.
“So you can get into a man’s mind,” he said, his voice gruff with embarrassment. A shudder ran over him, and then he twitched his shoulders as if shaking off a ghost.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It was all I could think of, to show you that Phanne powers are real.”
“Does Arthur know you can do that?”
I shook my head, not meeting his eye.
Brenn was suspicious. “You haven’t done that to him without his knowing it, have you?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t admit out loud that I’d deliberately pushed Arthur past his scruples so he would lie with me in the forest; that I’d taken unfair advantage because I’d wanted him so badly and thought my own judgment better than his.
“Nimia . . .” Brenn sighed, and I heard the disappointment in his tone.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that all was fair in love and war, only I knew it wasn’t true. Instead I hunched my shoulders and played with the horse’s mane, self-loathing bubbling up from its endless spring. “I won’t do it again.”
“Not that I blame you for it,” he conceded with honesty. “I imagine it’s a hard temptation to resist, looking into the mind of someone you yearn for.”
“But love should be the greatest reason not to do it.” I wouldn’t admit that what I’d done to Arthur was worse than taking a peek into his thoughts. I’d manipulated him. “It shows no respect, and what type of love shows no respect?”
“The scared kind. The desperate, uncertain kind.”
I made a soft grunt of agreement. “True enough.”
“You can’t ever let fear drive you, Nimia. It’ll bring you nothing you want, and everything you don’t.”
“You sound like Maerlin.”
“He and I have talked about it often enough, in regards to fighting. I don’t think he feels fear the same as other men, though; he can snuff it out on a whim. It’s harder work for the rest of us to overcome it. And when it comes to love, some of us never do.”
I knew he meant Ligeia. But maybe his meaning went beyond her and encompassed his feelings toward all women. He was unmarried, after all, and seemed likely to remain so.
We’d reached the walls of the city and our conversation ended as we entered through the north gate, our attention shifting to the bustle of the town and anticipation of seeing Skalibur.
The metalsmith’s shop was small but prosperous looking, its sturdy shutters over barred windows in good repair, and both the shutters and the iron-banded door were fitted with overlarge locks that served as a visual warning to thieves. The mastiff sleeping in one corner indoors was another, although the dog only opened one yellow eye at our entrance and went back to sleep. Maerlin greeted the smith, and as the man disappeared into the back to fetch the sword, Una and I looked over the wares.
Wooden racks attached to the wall displayed pins, brooches, bracelets, earrings, and necklaces, all of simple metals and lesser stones, though the designs were elegant and showed off the smith’s skills; his more precious goods were surely tucked safely away and brought out only for those with heavy purses. On the wall behind the counter, safely away from customer’s hands, was a large shield covered in fine wirework, with brilliant jewel-toned enamel colors between the metal lines. The border was a rope of twining green leaves against a bed of white, in the center of which a crimson lizardlike creature with wings rose on its hind legs, fire pouring from its mouth.
“What’s that?” I asked Brenn, nodding toward it.
“Eh. Ceremonial shield. No good for fighting.”
“I mean the red creature.”
Una answered, “It’s a dragon. They live in the caves under Britannia; didn’t you know? They protect the land from invaders.”
“They don’t seem to be doing a very good job of it, given the Saxons.”
Una gestured toward the mastiff. “Maybe they’re sleeping, like that fellow.”
“In the distant east they speak of dragons, too,” Maerlin said, overhearing us, “though most say they all died off long ago. I saw the ancient skull of one, dug out of the earth. It was like this,” he said, and held out his arms to show the size of it, “and had teeth as big as my hand.”
We all stared at the shield. “I hope they stay asleep,” I said.
“I don’t,” Una said.
Brenn growled, “Course you don’t, you bloodthirsty little mink.”
Una grinned.
I caught Maerlin watching them, his head tilted slightly to the side as if trying to understand an alchemical mystery. I wondered if he wished he could relate to Una so easily, or whether he was only surprised that Brenn could, and would want to.
The smith returned carrying what could only be Skalibur, wrapped in a length of undyed woolen cloth. He set it on the counter with great care and breathed in deeply through his nose, his hands trembling as he grasped the edges of the cloth to unfold it. He hesitated, looking up from under his bushy brows at us. “This is not my work,” he warned.
Maerlin leaned forward. “You hired it out, when I specifically asked you to do it?”
The smith dropped the cloth and waved his hands. “No, no, I did as you asked. It is my work—except for that which you hired others for, the scabbard, the grip. I mean . . .” His arms fell helplessly beside him. “It was as if some genius not my own moved my hands. It was as if the sword knew what it was, w
hat it had always been, what it forever would be . . . and it was guiding me. I felt like I was only putting back into place pieces that had always been together.” He shook his head and reached again for the cloth. “I’m not making sense to you, am I? Though the scabbard-maker felt the same, and he who made the grip . . .”
“You’re making perfect sense,” Maerlin said. “The green stone found its way to us, knowing it was meant for the sword.”
Una leaned against the counter on her forearms. “I had it.”
The smith flinched and blinked at her. “Oh, hello. I didn’t see you there.”
“Nimia’s mother gave it to me on the Isle of Mona,” Una went on, ignoring his reaction to her, “years and years ago, and said someday that Nimia would come for it. And she did.”
“Where did Ligeia get it?” Brenn asked.
I knew this was the first he’d heard of the origins of the stone. Maerlin had tried to keep it a secret between us, to add to the mystique of the sword; an unnecessary precaution, from the sounds of it. The sword was capable of creating its own magical aura.
Una shrugged. “Maybe she got it from someone, who got it from someone, who got it from someone, all the way back to the beginning of time. And maybe, way back then, it was part of Skalibur.”
The smith stuck out his jaw and chewed his upper lip, nodding. “That might be the way of it.”
Una acted for all of our impatience and folded back the cloth. The scabbard showed first, and I got an impression of fine tooling and dye work in a scrolling pattern of vines that ended with tendrils in complex spirals, all very impressive, yes, yes, let me see the sword itself! We all leaned forward as the hilt was uncovered and light caught the gleaming metalwork.
It was simpler than I’d expected, and yet far more beautiful. It looked to be an organic thing that might have grown from a vein of silver, out through the rich earth and into the lush vegetation above. There was not a straight line to it, nor a hard angle; it was all sweeps and loops and curves, with a grip that invited touch. Maerlin picked it up and our eyes were drawn to the green stone protruding from the end of the grip in a thick ring of bronze. The setting allowed light to pass through it, making the stone take on the cool, entrancing luminescence of sunlight passing through lake water.
