Perhaps I could have pitted the force of my stubborn self-will against that sending, if only for a day, and turned back to see Annie safely pastured. But I did not. I wanted to go on.
I straightened Annie’s forelock between her eyes, for all the good that did. “Sweetheart,” I whispered to her, “I’m so sorry.”
I got on her again and rode at the walk, seeking the softest ground. The rocky uplands gave way to copses of willow and rowan, and I rode a twisting course over the loam and leaves beneath the trees, hoping Annie’s hoof would get no worse.
But it did. By evening the hoof had begun to split.
By evening also, copses of maple had given way to such wilderness as I had never seen. Huge trees—their ivy-shrouded trunks of greater girth than Annie and I put together, towering so high I could not see the sky—tree giants whose names I did not know shadowed me all around, and the darkness at night in that forest was like the darkness underground. By the last whisper of gray twilight I gazed up, seeking a glimpse of even a single star, and saw only a mesh of branches in which clustered—dark moons? Black posies with no stems? Balls of something that seemed to belong neither to earth nor sky.
“Annie,” I murmured, “is that mistletoe?” It had to be. Then these were oak trees. And this was a druid wood.
I did not sleep much that night.
In the morning I saddled and bridled Annie and loaded my gear, then looked again at her hoof, bit my lip and started walking, holding the reins as she limped along behind me.
“Please let us pass,” I said to the wilderness, for I felt as if it were alive, watching us, and not at all sure it liked us. The air felt thick and shadow gray, as if a cloud had caught and settled there, as if the sun never shone.
I needed to set a course mostly uphill in order to cross the mountains, but the way was blocked by rocks, tangling vines, fallen trees, some of them greater of girth than I was tall. The forest twisted and turned me so that I lost all sense of getting anywhere, and it was full of strange sounds; leaves rustled when there was no wind, trees groaned, and sometimes I seemed to hear something or someone laughing at me. Once I heard a scream that might have been human or not. I listened, listened, and learned nothing, and sweated with fear so that I could not slow down, stop, rest, let Annie rest. Every moment, some snicker or whisper in the forest spurred me on, and at the same time the song of Avalon buzzed in my bones, urging me onward until every muscle ached.
Some slopes were so steep that I needed to hang on to saplings to pull myself up. And I needed the use of my hands to drag deadwood aside or bend branches away, and between that and holding on to the reins to lead Annie, I tripped over my long skirt until, in exhaustion and a kind of muted fury, I sat down on the dirt, took my knife and hacked off a quantity of lovely blue velvet. I threw the cloth aside, but then for a wonder I had an intelligent thought, and I retrieved it and said, “Annie, give me your foot.”
I suppose I was talking to keep myself from looking over my shoulder all the time, to pretend I was not all alone, but Annie just gave me that blank stare horses do so well. I stood up, looped the reins over her neck, lifted her foot and wound the cloth around and under her split hoof, then tied it in place as sturdily as I could. This solved nothing, I knew, but I hoped it would make her more comfortable. “Poor Annie,” I told her, then I sighed and struggled on, and Annie hobbled behind me so closely that sometimes she nuzzled the back of my neck. It took me a while to realize that I had left the reins looped over her neck. She was following me on her own.
By evening, in my fine boots and fine hose, I was limping almost as badly as she. And I was still hearing the laughing voices in the forest. And it was raining. I did not sleep much that night either.
I have always been stubbornly slow to deal with anything that fails to take heed of my plans. When gray morning came I padded my blistered feet with kerchiefs inside the boots, and I replaced the wrapping on Annie’s hoof with a new one just as thick, but I put the saddle and bridle on her again. Then we limped on as before, uphill through the shadows under towering trees whose names I did not know, winding our way between crags and deadfalls, tripping over roots and vines and fallen limbs and into hollows hidden under drifts of leaves even though it was the height of summer. I hated that forest by then, but feared it so much I did not dare to show my hatred. When for perhaps the fortieth time a branch knocked the straw bonnet off my head, I said, “Keep it,” and walked on. Around midday something in my mind snapped to attention and saw both sense and hopelessness. I stopped, pulled the saddle off Annie and tossed it aside, and took off the bridle and did the same. After I had rigged the packs so that they would stay in place on her back, we went on.
Again, this solved nothing except that Annie limped on with a free head and a lighter load. But I smiled when I felt her warm breath stirring the hair over my ear.
Our luck changed then, or so it seemed. Sometime that afternoon we happened upon a path of sorts running up the mountain, and we followed it.
I did not have the sense to turn aside and hide in the forest when I heard the clatter of hooves approaching from in front of us.
I suppose he did not hear us, for he was making more noise than we were. And in that shadowland we came almost nose to nose before he saw us and stopped, staring.
I answered his stare and did not smile, for I did not like his looks. I have never liked it when men don’t keep their beards and hair clean. He rode a fine horse, but he was no knight; he wore a dirty leather jerkin and no hat. Behind his horse trailed several others roped together. Only two carried his packs; the others wore headstalls and saddles with gear lashed to them, bridles and swords and spears and such.
“Well, greetings to you too,” he said.
I didn’t like his smile. It was yellow and oily. It was not until afterward that I realized he had every right to stare at me standing there with my hair none too clean either, escaping from its braids, and my old brown frock over my hacked-off velvet gown and Annie following me with no headstall, no lead rope, in her velvet footgear.
“Greetings,” I mumbled. “What news?”
Instead of answering me he jerked his chin toward Annie. “That’s a pretty pet you have there.”
I did not answer.
“What is she? An Irish pony?”
I just looked at him, stupid with weariness.
“There’s good breeding in her. What’s wrong with her? Cracked hoof?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“She just needs to rest, then. Trim it, let it grow out again, good as new.”
I nodded, but this was cold comfort. There was no haven in this wilderness where I could stop and let Annie rest and not starve to death myself. Also, I had to go on. The call of Avalon would not let me do otherwise.
He must have seen something of the thought in my face, for he said, “You need a horse you can ride? I’ll trade you.”
I did not respond, so dull with weariness that the words made no sense to me.
“The dun, or the bay at the end there, or even the chestnut gelding,” he said. “They’re strong, sound horses, carry you anywhere you want to go.”
He wanted to barter me a horse in trade for Annie? It was barely thinkable, yet . . . I looked full at him for the first time and saw him eyeing Annie the way I had sometimes seen the menservants back in Tintagel eyeing the scullery maids.
He said, “I’ll take her off your hands. I know a place not too far down country where they’ll pasture her.”
At the time I still thought that there were ways to make right decisions and wrong decisions, and I stood with my breath stuck like a lump of ice in my chest, trying to think what would be right. Avalon called to me, sang and sobbed and cried out in me, Avalon, Avalon, hurry, you’re sent for, and I could have a strong horse to carry me quickly there, and Annie—maybe Annie would be better off not having to stumble along after me....
“I’ll even throw in an old bridle, and a blanket for you to ride on,” the hors
e trader said.
I looked at Annie, and it wasn’t just her beauty, or even the way my every memory of Thomas looked back at me out of her gentle dark eyes; it was—it was her faithfulness. I could not let her go. Avalon be cursed, I just couldn’t do it.
I shook my head, bent my gaze to the stones of the trail and began to trudge on.
“I’ll throw in a saddle,” the horse trader cried.
“No. Annie stays with me.”
For a few breaths there was a silence as Annie and I made our slow way past him and his mount. Then he shouted after me, “You’re a fool, missy!”
Oddly, this made me smile. Looking back at him over my shoulder, almost laughing, I said, “I know it.”
My smile must have touched him somehow, for he pressed his lips together, then grumbled, “Beware. The tor’s infested with knights errant.”
That made me lose my smile. It chilled my spine, and I turned around to look at him as if to ask him to please say he was joking. Knights errant knew only one rule: Might Meant Right. Later, Arthur and his jolly round table were able to change that somewhat—much later. But till then, knights without a lord meant only trouble.
The horse trader saw my shock and gave me his greasy grin. “Fighting like rats in a barrel. That’s where I got this lot.” He jerked his head at his string of horses. “Victor doesn’t always get the spoils. Not if the victor’s dead too.”
“Oh.” Half sick, I took a long breath. “I’ll be careful. Thank you.”
“You’re still a fool,” he snapped, and he rode on with his nags trailing behind him.
Annie nuzzled the back of my neck as I walked on, footsore, ever deeper into the wilderness of which I did not then know the name: the Forest Perilous.
9
THAT ROUGH, DIRTY, GREEDY RASCAL OF A HORSE trader was a gentleman compared to what lay ahead.
Thanks to his warning, when next I heard the rhythm of hooves on stone, I turned aside from the track. If I had not lamed Annie, damn my stupidity, she could have carried me swiftly into the forest and away—but as it was, we did not have much time. I grabbed Annie by the forelock and whispered to her, “Hurry!” But she had not hobbled much more than ten limping steps off the path when, with his chain mail jangling and the saddle leather creaking under his armored weight, the knight rode past. All I could do was freeze like a rabbit, staring, and hope the knight did not look my way.
Luck was with me. He rode with his visor down, so unless he turned his head he could see only straight before him. I noticed smears of brownish red on his shield and armor—at first I thought it was rust, but a moment later I knew better—then I had to choke back horror that would have made me cry out. At his knee, hanging by its hair, swung the severed, dripping head of what had once been a man.
He rode past, and I leaned against Annie’s solid warmth and took several deep breaths to keep from retching.
Then we went on. A small distance up the trail Annie shied; any horse will shy at the smell of fresh blood. Just off the path lay the beheaded body. I shuddered and passed by.
Later that same day I barely got Annie off the path before another knight passed by, this one with a squire riding behind him. The knight wore his visor, but it was just blind luck that the squire did not see us.
The next day luck turned against us.
That day for a wonder the sun shone golden through the green trees. The sunshine lifted my heart. But for years afterward I distrusted such green-gold days, as if they might mean a cruel trick of fate.
I remember how the sunlight gleamed on the black charger decked in scarlet as the knight rode up the path, as I watched him from between the trees with Annie by my side, as I kept silence, almost certain that he would pass by like the others. I remember how sun rays glistered on his hulking trunk draped in chain mail, his greaves, his gauntlets, his red-plumed helm, his visor behind which I could see only shadow. I remember how that golden light caught on his sword hilt and the device on his shield—a red griffin rampant. I remember how it glinted on the lance his squire carried—
I gasped. The squire was Thomas.
The knight heard my gasp and turned his head. “Oh ho,” he said, wheeling his charger and spurring it toward me.
I scarcely heard him or saw him, for Thomas’s wide-eyed gaze met mine, and time had stopped for me. Thomas. His shoulders broader, his jaw harder, and a shadow in his sky blue eyes that was new to me, but still that steady regard. True Thomas.
The knight halted his steed beside me, reached down and seized me above the elbow with a grasp of steel.
Shock made me scream and struggle even before I realized what was happening. With all my small strength I strove to wrench myself free from his rough grip, glimpsing his wintery eyes through his visor. My thrashings only made him scowl. “Stupid wench,” he growled, tightening his fingers. “Stop it. You’re mine.” Might meant right. Because he was stronger, he could take me and do what he would with me.
As if from another, kinder world I heard Thomas cry, “Annie!” and shout something I did not understand. Annie shrilled and reared, striking the knight full in his mailed chest with both forehooves.
She almost unseated him. Only the high cantle of his saddle kept him from toppling. He lost his grip on me, and let out a yell of anger. Off balance from pulling against him, I fell hard to the rocky ground, and there I lay with the breath knocked out of me, gawking up uselessly. I saw Thomas charging, riding low over his horse’s neck with lance couched, spurring the steed between trees, trying to save me. I saw Annie rear again—
The knight drew his broadsword and lopped off Annie’s head.
Just like that, like killing a rat. My Annie.
I saw the sword flash like a brown trout leaping, saw the spurt of vivid red—heart’s blood, brighter than any flower that ever bloomed. Annie’s blood. I saw her head fly, her eyes still living and terrified for a moment as she died.
At the same time Thomas drove into the knight with the lance. But the knight wheeled, and Thomas’s blow slipped off his breastplate. The knight bellowed, “What! Traitor!” and his shield struck the lance aside. With his sword already reddened by Annie’s blood he turned on Thomas.
No. Please, no. I lurched to my feet. Thomas had no armor, no weapon, not even a leather jerkin to protect him. He threw up his arm to block the first blow and gave a shout more like a scream: “Morgan, run!”
I stood by Annie’s lifeless body. I saw blood, that reddest of all reds, well from Thomas’s arm and shoulder. The sword lifted again.
I snatched the milpreve out from under my dress; it blazed like blue fire, so bright it blinded me, so hot it burned my hand, but not as hot as the fire dragon inside me roaring, raging, rearing to smite. I shrieked, “Death to that knight! Kill him! Kill—”
The power knocked me off my feet, slammed me against an oak and drove me to the ground. I did not get to see the knight fall dead.
I awoke a few moments later feeling as if his gauntleted fist had struck me down. Thomas crouched over me, clutching his wounded arm and panting with pain. Blood trickled between his fingers.
“Thomas!” Weak and dazed, I struggled to my knees beside him.
“You saved my life,” he whispered.
“Who saved whom?” I ripped at the frock I wore over my dress and managed to yank it off. Easing his hand aside, I started to wrap the wound, trying to stop the flow of blood.
“Morgan,” he murmured, and he leaned his head against my shoulder and fainted.
I piled on top of Annie’s body anything that I could find to keep the carrion birds off her: branches, stones, the dead knight’s shield and mail and armor. I wrested all his warrior gear off him and left him sprawled in his woolens; the crows and ravens could have him. Let them feast on him soon; it galled me to see not a mark on him. His dead eyes staring out of his grizzled beard looked surprised, that was all. I wanted to put my heel to his cruel nose and cave his face in for hurting Thomas and killing Annie, but I didn’t do
it; I knew the memory would sicken me later, and there was already enough to sicken me.
By the time I got Annie covered, I no longer noticed that I was crying. Sobs came out of me rhythmically, just a noise like the turning of a mill wheel. I kept an eye on Thomas lying wrapped in my mantle on a patch of moss under a gigantic tree. He had a deep cut in his shoulder and a long bloody gash in his arm. I had wrapped the wounds as tightly as I could and swaddled his arm against his body so that he would not move it, then laid him there. He had not stirred or moaned, and I hoped he was still unconscious of his pain, but as I finished building my makeshift cairn over Annie, he turned his head and whispered, “Morgan.”
I trotted over to him and knelt beside him. He looked up at me, his blue eyes narrow and clouded. His free hand wavered toward my face.
He murmured, “Don’t cry.”
Reminded that I was crying, I could barely hold back the sobs. Tears ran down my face.
Thomas whispered, “Is it—Ongwynn?”
“No.” I rubbed my face dry with my blue velvet sleeve; it was filthy and I am sure so was I. “No, Ongwynn was well when I left.”
“Morgause?”
“She’s with Ongwynn.”
“But why—why are you—”
“Hush.” Later I would tell him why I was out here wandering the mountain, why I had gotten Annie killed, curse everything, curse Avalon and the sending that had brought me here, curse my idiocy that had made Annie lame, curse that foul knight—I felt fiercely glad that I had killed him. But at the same time the memory of my own power chilled me.
Could I kill people anytime I wanted now?
Could I plan for this? Or did rage make me do it?
Whom would I kill next?
I shivered and brushed the thoughts aside. There was no time for thinking right now. “We have to move,” I told Thomas. “Get away from here.” Away from the path and away from the bodies.
I Am Morgan le Fay Page 9
