by Lisa Cach
“And what actions revealed to you your feelings for me?”
“I went to the Isle of Mona for you—though I didn’t understand at the time that that’s why I did it.”
“You went because I wouldn’t help with calling the wind, otherwise.”
He slid his hands up to the top of my arms, his thumbs stroking the sensitive place where arm joined body. “I could have persuaded you to help; I could have found something else you wanted. No, I must have gone to Mona because it meant so much to you, and it meant we would be alone together on the journey. I must have taught you to swim and spent so much unnecessary time on the presentation of Skalibur because, again, I wanted to spend time with you. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“You still don’t sound like you’re sure of your own heart.”
“Because I’ve only just now realized what my own choices meant. When you said you were going to leave Britannia . . . I felt like someone had slashed my belly and my guts were falling out. That’s what love feels like, isn’t it?”
“I wish I could say no,” I whispered, the immensity of what he was saying sweeping over me. This was no boyish infatuation. He was a grown man experiencing love for the first time, with all its promise of pain. And I was the object of his devotion.
I had been so busy wallowing in my heartbreak over Arthur, I hadn’t paid attention to signs that his interest in me went beyond friendship. I would have sworn there hadn’t been any.
“Is there any chance that you could feel the same way about me?” he asked, and never had I seen such vulnerability as was now on his face.
“I . . . I don’t know. My heart has been elsewhere; I never thought . . .”
“In time, might it happen? Or are you repulsed by me? Does it seem impossible?”
“Not impossible, no. There have been moments . . . But it’s too soon, Maerlin. I’m not ready to love again.”
The thin shred of hope I offered him was all he needed: his eyes flared green. In that instant I feared I had made a dreadful mistake in not closing off all possibility of romance between us. I had not lied, though: there had been moments when I’d wondered what it would be like to have him as my lover, my mate. The imagining had gone no further than a brief fantasy of sharing Phanne talents with an equal, and never having to explain what they made me do. And I couldn’t dismiss the heady prospect of lying with him, our minds linked even more deeply than our bodies, giving and taking pleasure with me in a way that no normal man could.
He bent down and kissed me, gently. In that brief touch I felt the bond that had formed already between us, and the promise it offered of so much more.
“I’ll wait,” he said.
And within me I felt the fluttering possibility that he might not wait in vain.
7
I stayed in Maerlin’s workshop from then on, not wanting to risk being spotted by Mordred or any of his men. Maerlin was often gone, as Ambrosius had many duties for him, but Terix, Una, and faithful Bone spent time with me, and Terix brought me my cithara so I could lose myself in music instead of dwell upon what was happening with Arthur and Wynnetha.
At night I shared the small bed with Maerlin, who said he wouldn’t risk leaving me unprotected and alone through the dark hours. We both knew that that wasn’t the reason he stayed; he wanted to be near me. I’d objected to him spooning me, my rebellious streak not wanting to feel so caught in his embrace, and the consequence on that narrow mattress was that I spooned him instead, my knees tucked up behind his thighs, my arm over his waist, and my cheek resting between his clothed shoulder blades. It had the curious result of making me want him more than if our positions had been reversed. My lower arm was in the way, depriving me of full contact; with my face to his back I felt like I was asking for his attention and not getting it. Halfway through the second night I made him lie on his back so I could sprawl against his side and half over him, and feel his arm around my shoulders.
I stayed alone in the workshop while the wedding took place. The sun came out, the first pale green leaves unfurled from the trees, and small, brave flowers dotted the fields. Wynnetha and Arthur were married according to rituals Briton, Saxon, and Christian—Horsa had rounded up a Roman priest—as if the triple ceremony could make the union of tribes too strong to ever be broken.
The sounds of the celebration echoed up to the workshop and when evening fell I stood in the doorway and watched as the air above the villa filled with Maerlin’s exploding colors. It was late when he returned to me, flush with his success and exhausted by the strain of acting as Ambrosius’s translator and chief negotiator.
As we settled into bed, the workshop lit only by the dying fire in a brazier, he talked of the alliances being cemented and how everyone had agreed to swear an allegiance on the morrow to the newly created federation of tribes, composed of both Britons and Saxons. There would be peace, mutual protection, easier trade, and from it all should flow prosperity for the people, from the lowest field worker to the noblest chief.
“Ambrosius’s dream is finally becoming reality,” Maerlin said in soft amazement, his arm holding me close. “Arthur will serve as war leader in times both of crisis and of peace. He’ll work with captains from all the tribes, creating a hierarchy through which they can work together. Their organizational skills and discipline are what gave the Roman armies such power, as well as their taking in so many diverse peoples as their own.”
“ ‘Join us or die,’ ” I said.
“Well, yes, but it worked. I had thought both the Britons and the Saxons too provincial to see that it could work for them, too. I’m astonished. I wouldn’t have thought a marriage could bring everyone together like this. The agreement is so thorough, so complete . . . I almost can’t believe it.”
“Even Mordred, and Druce?”
“Druce spoke of welcoming help against the Irish and the Picts, while Mordred couldn’t stop talking about everyone using his southern ports for overseas trade.”
“He sounded so fiercely independent, when I knew him at Tannet Fortress,” I said. “Never would I have thought gold would sway him, especially not when he’s just lost Wynnetha and the promise of all her lands.”
“He didn’t ever care about her, though, did he?” Maerlin said. “It was all gold to him. He was foiled one way, but is clever enough to open a channel to another.”
“I wonder that his pride can stand it.”
“Gold is a great salve to such wounds,” he said.
“In my experience, blood has been the greater healer.”
“Civilization demands otherwise.”
“And you think Mordred so civilized,” I said, my doubt clear.
“I wouldn’t have. And yet, here we are. It must be Skalibur that has helped convince everyone, as much as the wedding. The way the lake glowed green . . .”
He rambled on about the sword and the presentation, which I knew was a way of savoring the role he had indirectly played in bringing about this great alliance. After he had worked for so many years toward this, I could do nothing other than let him go on about his success, and added encouraging sounds although my mind was elsewhere.
With every word he spoke about the sword, I saw again Arthur in the water, gazing up at me with recognition and the first dawning awareness that I had done what I had for reasons greater than myself, and greater than he and I. And with every word about the Briton-Saxon alliance, I imagined Arthur in bed with Wynnetha under him, joining their bodies as a tangible symbol of that new bond.
I’d given up a chance at love so that Skalibur could be born and a large portion of Britannia united. And I wished that something so noble felt better. The goodness of a deed had nothing to do with how it made me feel, and I was not enjoying being reminded of it.
Wanting to silence him, I slid my hand down Maerlin’s torso as he talked. He didn’t stop until my hand did, on the clot
hing over his soft cock. I lightly rubbed him, and through the layers of his tunic and breeches I felt his mentula filling. He grew sideways at first, caught in fabric, then as he hardened he sprang free, pointing up at his navel. I wrapped my palm over the head and squeezed gently through the cloth. Maerlin’s breath rasped.
“I was wondering,” I said, “whether we could feel the same desire for each other if we didn’t touch skin-to-skin.”
“You have your hand on my answer.”
“Which is all very well for you. It says nothing about me.”
He grinned and rolled me under him, lodging his legs between mine, the ridge of his arousal pressing against my folds through the linen of my chemise. “My lady is a woman of reason, and needs evidence of what I already know.”
“I try to trust you and take your opinion as fact, but . . .”
“Showing is more effective than telling.”
“So are you going to show me, or are you going to lie there talking about it all night?”
My chemise proved little barrier between his agile fingers and my sensitive skin, and when he put the damp of his mouth over my nipple, I might as well have worn nothing at all. More quickly than I’d have guessed, I was hearing the hum of my bees and writhing beneath his deft touch. He knew that lesson few men did: that the lightest stroke could be the most devastating, against skin and folds that craved so much more.
“You’ve made your point,” I gasped, my hips rising toward him as I started to pull up the hem of my chemise. My passage ached with emptiness, and I wanted that hard length of him inside me. “I think we have to move on to skin-to-skin. There’s no way around it.”
He pinned my chemise to the mattress and raised his head as he thought, his eyes lightly glowing green. “My lady challenges me again.”
“Your lady is done with challenges, and wants you.” I reached down, pawing at his clothed self, trying to draw him upward so I could grasp his cock.
He rolled off me and sprang from the bed; I barely had time to mew in disappointment before he was back, the white stone pestle from the mortar in his hand. It had bulbous ends: a small spherical bulge at the top and a larger one at the wider bottom. I eyed those cocklike ends and shook my head. “No, Maerlin, not that. You don’t need to—”
“But I do need to. And I find I very much want to.”
He put his knee on the bed and I pushed myself away from him, starting to scramble backward, although there was no place to go. He moved over me on all fours, hands and knees pinning my clothing to the mattress.
“Don’t,” I said.
He met my eyes, gazing into them until I stopped struggling and gazed back, my fears calming even as my arousal heightened. He tilted his head, looking like a predator contemplating his captured prey. “I won’t,” he said, “if it’s not what you wish. All I ask is that you be honest about your desires. If there’s anyone you should never feel shy with, it’s me.”
He couldn’t know that his words were an echo of Sygarius’s, so long ago. And yet, how different they were coming from a man who knew I was a free creature, and his equal—or as near an equal as he ever considered anyone. In some ways it had been easier as Sygarius’s slave, for then I had had no choice except to experience whatever he wished me to, my body his to command, its reactions beyond my power to control.
But Maerlin was not Sygarius. He would not impose his will on me. What Maerlin wanted of me was more frightening: for me to freely choose to be with him. To trust him. And for me to admit that I wanted him to fuck me with a marble pestle.
It wasn’t that I wanted the pestle instead of his cock; I didn’t. It was his eager desire to use it on me that made my sex throb.
I parted my thighs within the confines of my chemise, watching his reaction.
The color in his eyes flared, and his whole body tightened. Though we did not touch, I could feel his arousal coming off him like the heat from a flame.
He released my pinned clothing and pushed up the hem of my chemise. I raised my knees, planting my feet to either side of him, and let my legs fall open like butterfly wings. He was still on all fours, one arm braced to my side so he could hover above me, watching my face.
“Large or small?” he asked, a quirk of amusement on his lips.
It took me a moment to understand he meant which end of the pestle. A shiver went through me. “You choose,” I said, curious which he’d go for.
His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, in a hidden smile. “Small. I’d always rather have fine control than brute force.”
“Each has its place.”
“Not with so delicate a flower as this,” he said, and I felt the cool, rounded end of the pestle against my gates. He slid it in short, gentle strokes against me, pressing just hard enough to push my gates slightly ajar before withdrawing, over and over. Nowhere else on my body had contact with him; I was floating alone, with the solitary sensation of that cold bit of stone. I raised my hips toward it, as hungry as ever for touch.
“That’s not enough,” I complained softly. “I’ll get nowhere like this.”
“I’m not even touching you, and I can feel how greedy you are,” he said. “Too bad for you that I also know how much you like having your pleasures held out of reach.”
I made a noise of frustration and glared at him. His smile spread from his eyes to his lips, and he lifted the pestle away so that I felt nothing. At my scowl, he chuckled. “Always wanting what you can’t have.”
“Don’t we all?”
He tilted his head, his face softening. “And what a gift it is when someone gives it to us.”
The touch of the pestle returned, and in slow, careful thrusts of increasing depth, he slid it within me. He watched my face with the attentiveness of a cat stalking a bird, each flicker of emotion caught and analyzed, his movement of the pestle changing to find the exact angle, the exact motion that made me lose all awareness except of the pleasure he was creating. That rounded end found the hidden place inside my passage where deep sensation lurked, and rubbed it in slow circles. All I could do was lie there and let him guide my pleasure at the pace he chose. He built my passion with both patience and excruciating thoroughness, until my hands were gripping at the mattress and my toes curling, though I didn’t dare move my hips for fear that I’d jog him loose from that exquisite point of contact.
“Maerlin, please,” I begged as I felt myself climbing toward my peak, only to have him slow the pestle’s motion once again, keeping me from my release.
“Say you’ll stay with me.”
“What?! No. I won’t stay here.”
“A year and a day, that’s all I’ll ask. Not so very much time. We’ll leave together once the purpose of the chalice is revealed.”
“I can’t stay.”
The pestle stopped, and slowly withdrew, leaving me empty and throbbing, half a heartbeat from fulfillment. Frustration flared, lit by anger. “This is what you do when you don’t get what you want?”
“So impatient,” he said, and then I saw that he was tugging at the ties to his breeches. He shoved the garment down and sat on the edge of the bed, and with one sweep of his strong arm scooped me up. The next thing I knew, I was facing him, straddling his lap. “I want to remind you what we have, what you’ll never have with anyone else.”
His fingers found me, and guided his hard arousal through my gates. I held on to his shoulders and let my head drop back as he pulled me down onto him and that strange Phanne languor spread from flesh to flesh. The desire I’d felt before seemed a mere tickle in comparison to the wave of sensation spreading from that contact.
Feel what I feel, he said into my mind, and then opened his.
I felt his cock as if it were my own, squeezed by wet, elastic warmth. It felt like having a man’s mouth on my stamen, only spread out over a larger area. I felt the need to thrust, even as I felt my ow
n pleasure at his presence inside me, my own need to rock upon him, to contract against his firmness.
I opened my sensations to him, and he swept inside me. His power met my own, thrumming inside us both; he helped me hold it gently to the edges, letting us feel our pleasure without losing ourselves in a vision.
He wet his finger with his mouth, and I knew as he pressed it against my back entrance that he’d gotten the idea from me. He gripped the back of my head and plunged his tongue into my mouth as his finger plunged in from behind, piercing me now in three places and sending that cool wash of erotic sensation flooding into me. It was a deluge I could not escape, nor did I wish to. I wrapped my arms around his neck and rode him, rocking up and down on that rod so slickly oiled with my own desire.
A year and a day, he said. Promise that we’ll have this for a year and a day.
Why so long?
It’s all the gods of Annwyn allow, when they visit this human plane. A year and a day for you, my goddess, to dwell with me.
To feel pleasure like this, of a power surely known only to the gods . . . To be known by another person, within and without . . . with no judgment, no misunderstanding, no hiding from what we were . . .
I felt the temptation of it. I could lose myself in this, becoming not just Nimia, but Nimia-Maerlin. With two minds linked, and two bodies that could feel each other’s pleasures, what chance of betrayal could there ever be? With that Phanne erotic charge, our passion for each other would never fade. I would learn all that he knew; he would help me search for the labyrinth. He was my partner as no one else could ever be.
Yes. A year and a day, I said.
His joy flooded through me, and somewhere in its ocean we both found our release.
We collapsed together on the bed, panting, entangled with one another. I wouldn’t let him pull out of me, and threaded my fingers into his hair, holding him trapped as if I were laying my claim. His heart pounded beneath my ear.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
