by Judith Tarr
That gave Edith pause. A noble lady had one thing of her own—apart from her blood and wealth, which belonged to her family—to bring to her husband. That was her virginity.
But she said, “In the old time, a bride brought her fertility, not her ritual barrenness.”
“Indeed,” said Etaine, “and in these degenerate days, would a king understand it?”
“A true king would.”
She was being stubborn. Etaine let Edith know she knew it, without a word or a gesture. “So,” she said. “You would lie with the Horned King, and dance in the fire.”
Edith shuddered. Even her temper could not warm her in the face of that vision: skeletal man-shape on skeletal horse, crowned with the skull and antlers of a stag.
It did no good to tell herself that the Horned King of the rite was another power altogether: living flesh, hot and potent, such as the Huntsman had been before the blight came over him. And in strict truth, it would be a man in a mask—young, one hoped, but wise, and rich in magic.
No use. The corrupted king had seized her soul, twisting himself into it; when she thought of him, that was all she could see.
Etaine broke the silence. “I relieve you of your duties for today. Go, rest, do what you please. Tonight, come to the dance.”
“Have I ever failed to do that?” Edith asked sharply.
“Come to the dance,” Etaine said.
Edith finished what she had begun, which was a small disobedience but rather satisfying. Then she washed her hands and brushed the flour from her skirt and did as she was told.
Or rather, she tried. In half a dozen years, she had had precious little leisure. There was so much to do, to discover, to learn. Even her dreams were full of instruction.
And now she was free to do—what?
She wandered for a while, but everywhere she went, people were busy: preparing for the night, studying their magic and their history and lore, performing the rites that were as constant as the passage of hours in a monastery. There was no place for Edith in any of them, by the Lady’s order—though she supposed she could have joined in, since she was given leave to do as she pleased.
She ended by the lake, wading in the water. The air was warm, but the water still remembered the winter: it was icy cold.
She welcomed it. It helped her focus. When her toes were blue with the chill, she sat on the shore and let the sun warm her.
The puca came stalking toward her, sleek striped cat with his tail at a jaunty angle. He came and went as he pleased, but he was always somewhere nearby, mindful as ever that he had sworn to her his service.
Even in her odd mood, she was glad to see him. He sprang into her lap and made himself comfortable there, kneading her thigh with needle-sharp claws.
He was waiting for something. She began to wonder . . . maybe . . .
But no boat came across the water. No summons came to the Isle. When noon had come and gone with nothing more to say for it than a flock of swans come to feed in the lake, Edith rose, dislodging the puca, and continued her wandering.
She found herself, in the end, in a circle with the youngest acolytes, teaching them cantrips that she had learned when she first came there. Their voices were light and young, and they looked to her with awe, too young to understand that she was old enough to be dressed in white instead of grey.
It was a surprisingly calming exercise, and useful in its way. It reminded her of why she was here, and how far she had come. It passed the time admirably.
By the time the sun began to sink, Edith’s temper was much improved. She was calmer, certainly, if not exactly resigned.
At Beltane the Otherworld lay open, and the great Old Ones could pass through. The blighted Hunt would be riding, and it would be a terrible night in the darker corners of Britain. But here, where the magic was still pure, the powers of light passed freely back and forth.
There were mighty guests at the feast, beings of power and splendor, great lords of the Otherworld. They mingled with the Ladies, and with mortal guests who in the outer world were lords and ladies, wealthy folk of the towns, even a priest and an abbess or two. They all had magic in common, and a love for the old ways.
That was nothing out of the ordinary. All the great feasts were so attended. But there were fewer of the great ones than Edith remembered from her first years there. The blight had spread wider; the magic was weaker. Her father’s sacrifice had strengthened it for a while, but it was losing ground again.
Even here, even tonight, she could feel it. Deep down below the magic of this Isle, the greyness was creeping. Through the music and the dance, she almost thought she could hear the baying of the Hunt.
Her anger was gone, but her mood was dark again. What use after all to pass through the fire, if there was nothing to hope for in the end? Britain was crumbling underfoot. She had been deluding herself, blinded by the magic of this place.
The feast was done, the tables cleared away. In the great circle beyond the circle of houses, a slow drumbeat rose, calling them all to the dance. Its pulse quickened; a pipe skirled. With clapping of hands and stamping of feet, the gathering streamed into the circle.
Edith trailed behind. Her feet that usually could not resist the rhythm were dull and leaden. She was ready to turn and walk away, and keep walking until she had left the Isle altogether, when something made her pause.
The lords of the Otherworld were beautiful, and their dancing was the essence of grace. Gods knew, she had danced with them often enough, and a great pleasure it was. But she had always had a predilection for mortal men. Their beauty was rougher, their grace far more earthbound, but they were her own kind.
Some of them had old blood: they ran taller and fairer than the rest. Others had so much magic that they shone in the dark, and trails of light followed them. They drew Ladies as a lamp draws moths, and as often as not, one of them would dance until he was reeling on his feet. Then one or more of the Ladies would bear him off into the dark, and there celebrate rites that were older even than this dance. And maybe when winter came, another daughter would be born to the Isle, another acolyte to serve the Ladies.
There were mortal guests in plenty, whirling in the dance. But two looked to have just arrived: a man in green and gold, dressed like a courtier, and one in crimson so dark it seemed black in the firelight.
The man in green had the look of the old blood: tall and fair, and he was smiling, leaning toward the dance. The man in crimson was standing perfectly still. His face was in shadow, but Edith could see the wariness in him, in the set of his shoulders and the turn of his head as a skein of dancers flitted past, trailing streamers of pale fire.
The man in green seemed familiar. His magic was very strong indeed. Edith had seen him somewhere, long ago.
Quite in spite of herself, she had slipped into the swirl of the dance. Her body had a mind of its own. It had learned to dance as the Old Ones did, as if it had become the dance. That was a kind of magic, and a great joy, even when she was most troubled.
Someone, whirling past her, crowned her with flowers: the sweet pungency of hawthorn, that of all blossoms was dearest to the old gods. She spun until the world blurred, flower-scent and wild music and pounding of the blood all bound together into a single great enchantment.
CHAPTER 34
It had been a long while since Henry saw a dance of the Old Ones, and longer still since he had been on the Isle of Glass. His mother had taken him there when he was small, to be blessed by the Lady and stared at by the Old Things. Maybe they had laid a destiny on his head, too, but if they had, he had not been permitted to remember it.
There was a most peculiar sense of homecoming tonight, even stronger than when he had come over from France. This was the heart of Britain—and he belonged in it.
He glanced at Robin FitzHaimo. The elaborate clothes and the long curled hair marked him the king’s favorite, but in this place, under these stars, he was much more than that. He was a Guardian of Britain and a great enc
hanter, descendant of old powers and ancient lineage.
So then: what was Henry? Whatever his father’s soul might have been—and there were those who said he was Arthur and Bran and Caswallon come back again—Henry’s body was offspring of a Norman duke and a Flemish sorceress. There was no blood of Britain there, though of Druid magic there was quite enough.
Nevertheless, here was Henry, and here was, however unexpectedly, home. The dance that had begun slowly was swifter now, with a pounding pulse-beat that crept under his skin.
Many of the dancers were crowned with flowers: hawthorn mostly, a scent that to his senses was almost too pungent, and yet it stirred him strangely. There was nothing Christian about this dance, at all. It was purely pagan. It celebrated that least Christian of all rites, the union of god and goddess, flesh and flesh.
Henry loved women. He had never loved a single woman—how could he? They were all beautiful. Young or old, sweet young thing or sour old harridan, every one of them was a wonder of creation.
In the old time, he would have called them incarnations of the great Goddess. In this Christian and constricted age, they were temptation, and he was a great sinner. But ah, such a sweet sin.
Every woman here, whatever her age, was beautiful—truly; marvelously. Every one shimmered with magic. They danced life; they danced desire. They dizzied him with their sweetness.
He had barely eaten before he came here, and never touched the wine—and yet he was gloriously drunk. It was a giddy drunkenness, a surge of happiness such as he had never felt: a pure and unalloyed delight in the world and its beauty.
At the height of it, the dance paused. Or maybe the world stopped.
She was tall—nearly as tall as he—and fair. Saxon-fair, part of him thought: gold and ivory. But the power in her had nothing Saxon about it.
As fair as her face was, and it was very fair indeed, her magic was so beautiful that he stood in awe. The strength of it, the brilliance, and the perfect order of it, trained and honed like a fine weapon, moved him to tears.
In one way or another he had loved every woman he had ever lain with. A good number had borne his children; and he had acknowledged as many as came to him, and provided for them, because he was an honorable man. Some had had magic, and a few had even known what to do with it. But none had been as glorious as this.
It was the place and the dance and this night of all nights, and the sheer beauty of her. He knew that; he was sane, and rational enough when the sun was in the sky. But tonight, it did not matter.
She was staring at him as if she knew him. Her eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted.
He had to kiss them. There was nothing else he could do. Lips, then eyes—the lids trembling, but no resistance in her. She smelled of hawthorn, and of something sweeter beneath: roses, and a hint of herbs. Her hair was soft, slipping like silk through his fingers.
Most women, when he did that, closed their eyes and gave themselves up to him. This one raised her hand to stroke his hair.
Her touch made him gasp. The sheer, simple, casual power in it—the strength that hardly even knew itself—all but drove him to his knees. This was no wanton widow or hot-blooded farmgirl. Nor was she a goddess, although tonight there was that power in her.
He had no words for what she was. That disturbed him remarkably little. For this, there was no need of words.
The dance had moved away from them. They were alone on the edge of the grassy circle, some little distance from the lamps and torches, but not far from the outermost of the fires. A moment ago it had been a mound of woven withies filled with tinder. Somehow, while eye met eye, the flames had sprung up.
That was the first. The rest caught one by one in swift succession. The Beltane fires were lit.
The lady seized Henry’s hand. He was already seeking hers. Their fingers met and wove together. They leaped in a broad exuberant arc.
The flames leaped high. They leaped higher. The lady laughed. Henry grinned. They tumbled together onto sweet and yielding grass.
They lay in fitful light, a flicker that now brought her face into sharp relief, now cast it into shadow. His court dress was much more intractable than her simple linen gown: no more than a long tunic, which slipped off as if meant to do exactly that.
He struggled and cursed at his own clothes, until her hands relieved him of the fight. She seemed to find it amusing to unfasten laces and slip odd bits of silk and fine linen free, uncovering him little by little.
He relaxed slowly and gave himself up to her. She rose over him, bare white body and smiling face, and fingers that lingered over him in places tender and not so tender, making him shiver with pleasure.
She stooped. Her hair streamed down, veiling them both. Her kiss had been warm before. Now it burned.
The music that drove the dance had changed. It was wilder now, its pulse more urgent. It beat in the earth, up through Henry’s body into hers.
She was a maiden. That took him aback. But when he recoiled, her thighs tightened, holding him fast. If there was pain, she offered it to whatever powers she worshipped.
She was the goddess, he the god. They celebrated the rite in the heart of Britain, naked flesh on naked earth beneath the open sky. Her maiden blood fed the land. She drank deep of him, drained him dry.
Henry lay utterly and perfectly spent. The lady lay atop him, breathing hard. After an exquisite while, she lifted herself slightly and slid to the ground, but she did not try to escape his arms.
Somewhat to his surprise, he could speak. “That,” he said, “was the most . . . astonishing thing I ever . . .”
Her lips stopped his, but the kiss did not linger. Her eyes were shut. She traced the shape of his face, slowly, as if to commit it to memory.
Just as he began to wonder if, after all, she was blind, she opened her eyes. They were clear in firelight, taking him in as carefully as her fingers had.
“Henry,” he said. It was very important, suddenly, that she know that. “My name is Henry.”
“I know,” she said. Her voice was low and sweet. Her accent . . .
He waited to hear more, but that was all she said. Before he could move or speak, she rose and turned.
“Your name!” he called after her. “I don’t know your name.”
She was gone, back through the fire into the swirl of dancers.
Henry looked for her. He danced himself into exhaustion, hunting for that one tall, fair-haired lady—but every time he thought that he had found her, the face that turned to his had the eerie otherness of the Old Things.
She had been mortal. He was absolutely sure of that. No Old One had that particular warmth, or that wondrous humanity.
Dawn brightened over the dancing-ground. The Old Things flickered out one by one, vanishing like mist and moonlight. Mortal dancers reveled for yet a while, all who had not gone to celebrate the rite in the orchards and the hedgerows, or stumbled off to more humanly comfortable beds.
Even as sunrise limned the horizon with fire, Robin FitzHaimo picked his way across the field. Henry barely trusted his tired eyes, but he thought he had seen the king’s favorite arm in arm with a lord of the Otherworld, before the light swelled and the Old One melted into it.
Robin seemed content. Henry wished he could have said the same. His body was melting with satiety, but whenever he closed his eyes, he saw her face. She had no name, but he knew her. Down to the marrow of his bones, he knew her.
He would have gone on hunting her across the Isle, but the sun was up and his guide was waiting. There were women in grey and brown and some in white, moving slowly across the field, raking and clearing and carrying the lingering sleepers off to their beds.
None of them was the lady of the night. They bowed to Robin, with glances that found him familiar. To Henry they bowed much lower. Some bowed to the ground. Sometimes they murmured in a language he did not know: the same words, as far as he could tell.
“What are they saying?” he asked Robin.
&n
bsp; FitzHaimo was going to be coy, Henry could tell. Then of course he had to do the opposite. “They are saying,” he said, “‘There is the blessed one, the year-king.’”
Henry stopped short. “The year-king? What—”
“You know what that is,” said Robin.
“What, will I be dead in a year?”
The sky was clear, the air already warm, but Henry felt as if a cloud had passed over the sun. So apparently did Robin: he shivered and made a sign against ill luck.
Henry shook off the cold and the clenching of fear. “Then we’re lucky, aren’t we? It’s a Christian world. Kings die in battle or they die of old age—but after the One died on the Cross, there’s been no need for the rest of it.”
“No?” said Robin. He looked as if he might have said more, but he turned instead and went on across the field, back the way they had come—a night or an age ago.
Henry could have stayed. But there were things he had to do, and people waiting, his brother among them. Women, too. Though when he thought of them, he could see none of their faces. Only hers.
CHAPTER 35
William’s world was a glorious place. He was king; he would have to give up Normandy soon, if his brother came back alive, but meanwhile he was duke in all but name; and he was casting an eye on France. Why not? His father had taken a kingdom that no one believed he could take. Was his son any less a man than he had been?
He could rule it all. God was with him. After that strange sickness of his, with its eerie visions and its inducements to panic, his star had risen steadily higher.
He had even got rid of Anselm. Bloody mistake that was—he had been drunk on terror at the time. The man had proved to be a worse stick even than William imagined, and intransigent in maddening ways. He would not accept a secular lord’s authority. Everything had to come from the Pope. And never mind that there were two of those more often than not, each claiming to be the one and only heir of Peter.
