by Whyte, Jack
"Luke, I have something to ask you."
"Ask away," he replied, but then he stopped again and turned to face me, alerted perhaps by something in my tone, and his face underwent a sudden change to dismay. "Oh, Aesculapius," he said, almost groaning. "There's that look that reeks of celibacy. Not today, Merlyn, I beg you. I would rather run and try to jump over these walls than talk of celibacy on such a wondrous afternoon."
"No, please listen to me, Luke. You might actually enjoy what I have to say."
One eyebrow climbed high on his forehead. "Oh, you think so, do you?"
"Aye, I do. I have decided, conclusively, that celibacy is not for me."
Lucanus threw back his head and raised both hands outward to shoulder height, then revolved slowly in a complete turn, his eyes closed and a look of ecstasy upon his thin, ascetic features. I heard a strange, thin sound issue from his nostrils and increase in volume until it was a ringing, high-pitched hum. Then, as I watched in amazement, never having seen him do anything remotely like this in all the years I had known him, he opened his lips and sang the note, unaltered, holding it high and pure in pitch until the breath in his lungs ran out, after which he took another breath and sang in a monotone, holding the last syllable until his breath ran out again, "Thanks be to all the gods of medicine and all their ideas of enlightenment ... "
I had not moved throughout this strange performance, not knowing whether to laugh or help him to lie down, and I saw amazement mirroring my own on the faces of the four workmen close enough to hear and see what was going on. Now Luke gazed at me fiercely.
"How did you come to this wondrous decision, and why? Who is she?"
"Tressa," I replied, keeping my voice low, for his ears alone. Until the moment the word passed my lips, I would not have believed I'd ever say it.
"Then blessed be the bounteous Tressa, and I shall rejoice to see you smug and smiling, sated and uxorious in future."
"Uxorious? I am not speaking here of marriage, Luke."
"Nor should you be, my boy, at this stage, but you are speaking of sanity and freshening gale winds of sound good sense. Come, let us walk, for I find the thought of speech on celibacy has suddenly become much less oppressive. I have words to say to you, now that you appear disposed to hear them."
And so we walked, back and forth beneath the stone walls of the ancient fort, and my old friend held me close, my arm tucked firmly beneath his as he spoke of his own agonizing over the requests I had made of him in the recent and not-so-recent past. He had felt all along, he said, that I was in error with my wishes on the matter of celibacy. I had been fleeing towards it, he believed, and he knew well that flight from life was no way to achieve the condition which I thought I desired so profoundly. He had come to believe, to be convinced, that I was determined to launch myself along a road that must surely lead me to failure and frustration, and so he had avoided the topic to the best of his ability. .
Now that I had decided to abandon my unrealistic wishes, he informed me, he could hope that I might find far more satisfaction in the little he could teach me of the celibate way of life, for he was prepared, much more so than before, to teach me what he knew of the philosophy that underlay the discipline.
I was surprised to hear him say these things, and I asked him to explain. He reminded me that my original thought had been to learn self-mastery in celibacy, hoping to use that same self-mastery to aid me in my teaching of Arthur. There was nothing arcane in self-mastery, per se, Lucanus said. That was a matter of pure discipline, and I was already close to being adept in the skill, simply by virtue of the life that I had led. Gaining the arcane lore of the magi who had mastered asceticism and self-denial was an exercise in a further discipline that lay beyond mere sexual self-denial, and that lore, he declared, was superfluous, something of which I had no need at all. My gifts, he swore, my own abilities, already lay in my possession; all I required to make the best and finest use of them was equanimity and peace of mind, both of which lay securely rooted in self-confidence. When I had once decided who and what I was, and had accepted and embraced my role in life, he was convinced all those gifts and abilities would be unleashed and would flourish.
Just beyond the half-way point of our circuit of the walls, ahead of us and rushing towards us, a group of noisy children approached, milling around like fallen leaves in a high wind. We stopped to allow them to swirl by us in a babble of high, excited voices, parting around us and ignoring us as though we were invisible. Lucanus turned to watch them recede into the distance and then walked for a long time in a silence I had no desire or need to break.
"Do you know, Caius," he eventually said, "I can't remember ever having run like that, although I suppose I must have. I was a child once, you know."
"So long ago, my friend, that you cannot recall being one?"
"Oh, I remember well enough ... Some parts of it at least. The happy parts, mainly, but those seemed very few. Do you remember your boyhood?"
"Aye, vividly, and with pleasure. Uther and I enjoyed a childhood shared by few, filled with the joy of being who we were. We spent every autumn and winter in Roman Camulod, and every spring and summer in Celtic Cambria, although the bruises that we gathered were the same in both places."
"Aye, and they were plentiful, I'll warrant. But speaking of bruises, what is happening with that blemish on your chest? Have you been exposing it to healing air, as I suggested?"
"Aye, I have, but not apurpose, now that I think of it. Since the arrival of your scroll and your assurance that the mark is not what I once feared it was, I've lost awareness of it. But I have been going bare-chested recently, thanks to the clement weather."
Lucanus stopped and turned to face me. "Let's have a look at it. Undo your tyings."
I was wearing only a simple tunic, slashed at the neck and tied with a decorative cord, and I undid it, pushing the material aside to bare my right breast. Lucanus peered at it and sniffed. "Aye, as I thought, it seems to be receding. I remember it as being larger. It will be gone within the month, I'd wager."
He moved on and I walked beside him, adjusting my tunic as he murmured something about the pleasantness of the day.
At that point, seeing that we had completed our circuit of the walls and come close to our living quarters, where a throng of people were milling about, he stopped and turned to face me squarely, reaching out to grasp me by the shoulder and demonstrating that his grip was younger and stronger than his thin face might suggest. In perfect seriousness, he told me that my decision was absolutely the right one to make, and then he went on to embarrass me by saying that he considered me to be the finest man that he had ever known, including my own father, and that he could think Of no one better equipped than me to face the task I had set myself.
The boy Arthur would be a king, he said, under my guidance, but given that guidance and the attributes we knew the lad to possess, he believed implicitly that Arthur Pendragon would grow to be a king whose like had never lived in Britain. Not an emperor like Alexander, but a king, conquering no new lands but nurturing and strengthening his own, and gaining for himself a name and reputation that would never die, no matter what came after him.
When he stopped speaking, Luke's eyes were awash with unshed tears, and I had to swallow hard to subdue the lump thickening in my own throat. Thereafter, we were silent until we parted before his door. There was no more to say.
That night, when all our new colonists were gathered at dinner, I crossed to where young Tressa sat among the other newcomers from Ravenglass and sat down beside her. My advent, unprecedented though it was, seemed to provoke no comment, and Tressa betrayed no sign of nervousness or curiosity. She simply welcomed me and then spent the entire mealtime talking pleasantly of general trivia with the others, a conversation in which I joined without reservation. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.
When the meal was over and the gathering broke up, I walked with her out into the evening air, which held a chill and the promise of a late fr
ost. She shivered and clasped her arms over her breast; I unfolded my cloak, which I was carrying over my arm, and draped it about her. She stopped, surprised, and favoured me with a lingering, speculative glance.
"Don't be upset, Master Cay, but what are you about?'
I smiled at her. "What do you think I am about, Tressa?"
She shook her head slowly, smiling faintly in return. "I know not. How could I? This is the first time you have ever paid any heed to me at all, and today you almost ran away from me, I thought. But suddenly now you're sitting with me, looking at me, talking to me, and now wrapping me in your fine cloak."
I realized that I had lost all awareness of what I had thought of in the past as her alien speech patterns. Her voice sounded perfectly normal to me now. I nodded. "I almost did run away from you today, but I have had time and opportunity to think since then. Will you forgive me?"
"Forgive you?" She laughed, a delightful, gurgling sound, deep in her chest. "Why, what have you done that should require forgiveness? I've noticed nothing."
"Well, I have been afraid of you, for one thing."
"What?" She stiffened. "Why would you say a thing like that, Master Cay? Are you making sport of me? If 'tis so, and I think it must be, then I shall leave you now, for I have done nothing to warrant that."
"Shh! Hush." I raised my hand gently as though to touch her mouth and she stilled instantly, watching me from wide eyes. I laid my fingers softly against her cheek and touched the cushion of her lips with the pad of my thumb. "I had no thought to mock you, lass. I spoke the truth. I was afraid of you, foolishly, because I was afraid of me and how I wanted to respond to you ... to the way you make me feel." I leaned closer to her, stooping my head to gaze into her eyes. "Do you have any notion of how you make me feel?"
Even had she been blind, the tone of my voice would have told her the answer to that question. She nodded, hesitantly, speaking past my thumb which remained in place, hovering lightly over her mouth. "I—I think so, now."
"And does that displease you?"
"No ... But—"
"But what?"
"What would you of me now, now that I know?"
I felt her warm breath against the pad of my thumb and smiled again, amazed at how much ease I felt in such an unfamiliar situation. I might have known this girl for years, and her face was filling all my vision, occluding Shelagh and even my dear wife Cassandra with the magic power of her nearness.
"What would I of you now? What would you give? I'll ask you few your friendship and your warmth, your smiles and laughter and your ready tongue."
She had not moved, or made any effort to remove her cheek from contact with my fingers. Now, as I paused, she turned her head infinitesimally, increasing the pressure of her cheek against my hand almost imperceptibly.
"And?" she whispered.
"And, should you care to bestow anything at all on me, I'll ask you for your companionship, your softness and your self, Tressa."
"What else, Master Cay?" Her voice was the merest whisper.
I became aware that others were moving about us, but I did not care. I brushed my thumb across her lips, feeling them move and alter their shape, and then I pulled slightly downward, folding her lower lip outward until I felt the moist warmth of soft underlip against my skin.
"I'd have you stop calling me Master Cay. My name is Cay, plain Cay, to all my friends. And I would—will ask you for a kiss ... "
"Come." In less than a blink, she had me firmly by the hand, leading me away from the area of the dining hall. "People were starting in to listen," she said eventually, when we were well removed from everyone, but her hand retained its hold on mine. "Have you a fire in your rooms?"
"Aye, if it's still alight. I built it up before I left, but the wood we're burning nowadays is dry and burns up quickly."
"And have you wine, that we might spice?"
"I have."
"Then go you and prepare it. I must fetch my work- basket."
"How so? I had no thought of asking you to sew for me, seated before my fire ... not tonight."
She grinned and squeezed my fingers, and even in the moonlight I could see her eyes dancing. "Nor had I thought to sew for you tonight. I cannot sew and hold a cup of heated wine, nor anything else that's warm and spillable." The ambiguity of that brought my entire heart up into my mouth, but she had moved on. "But I must have my basket, for I'd not like to leave it unattended for too long. It contains my very life, all of my tools and treasures."
I felt my blood grow thicker and a pulse began to beat quite palpably in my right temple. "But you left it behind you to go to dinner."
"Aye, I did, but without risk—everyone else was dining, too. Now they will all be back, save me, and the temptation to invade my basket during the night might be too strong for ... certain people. I find it foolish to hold out temptation when I would suffer by having someone yield to it ... " She was still smiling, looking up at me, her head cocked to one side. "Don't you think that wise?" I nodded, suddenly struck mute. I saw her eyes watching my Adam's apple, seeing my nervousness, and then she nodded, too, and her voice sank to a whisper. "Good, then I shall go and fetch it, and when I return, you may have your kiss in return for allowing me to share your fire and wine." She turned to leave, but I stayed her with tightening fingers.
"And what of sharing my bed, Tressa?"
She grinned, her eyes alight in the moonlight with wicked mischief. "Now there is a temptation worth the offering and the yielding. Why do you think I felt die need to bring my basket? Go you and build the fire up, now,"
I found the fire still smouldering, and after I had lighted several of my beeswax candles from the tallow lamp I had left burning, I stirred it back to life, adding new kindling first, and then stout logs. Then I filled an earthen pot with wine and placed it upon the metal hob over the flames, adding a generous pinch of the last remnants of the precious spices brought to Luceiia Varrus from beyond the seas in years gone by. Too little of this mixture of dried and crushed exotic essences remained then to permit profligacy in the use of it, for it was literally irreplaceable, and I used it only on the most important and celebratory of occasions. I had shared, some of it with Ambrose and with Joseph no more than a week before, and this night, I had no doubt, was to be one deserving even more celebration.
I was still working on the preparation of the infusion when Tressa knocked gently and entered, wearing her own long cloak now, over mine, and carrying her precious basket. She stopped inside the door, laid her basket on the floor and pulled the door closed behind her, barring it securely. She then hung my cloak and her own on the pegs on the wall. I had closed and barred the shutters before going out.
'The wine will be ready directly," I said. "Have you tasted it before?"
"Yes, several times. Shelagh made it for me."
"Ah! It's Shelagh's wine you've had, mixed with her fiery honey. This is quite different, prepared with spices from the eastern Empire, whereas Shelagh's mix is made from herbs and simples gathered here in Britain—or in Eire. You may not like this potion."
She came directly to where I stood by the brazier and stood gazing down at the liquid that was beginning to simmer gently in the pot. The parting in her long, rich, dark- brown hair shone pearly white, clean. She raised her head to look at me, no trace of shyness or false coyness in her face. "Your kiss," she said, tilting her head up to me.
I have never forgotten the wonder of that kiss, the first of countless thousands that I was to share with her. I had to stoop to reach her mouth, and I did so hesitantly, quite unsure of how, or if, I ought to touch her with my hands. The result was that I touched her with my lips alone that time, no other contact occurring between our bodies. My awareness of the flaring heat of the fire against my bare leg vanished instantly in the sensation of that first contact with her mouth, banished by the amazing softness of her cushioned lips and the resilience with which they adjusted to the shape and pressure of my own.
She was
as tentative as I, in those first moments, gentle and hesitant, unsure, yet both of us gained strength and confidence with every heartbeat and the steady, infinitesimal increase of pressure as our lips and mouths expanded with the pleasure and excitement of the kiss. I moved my head, sideways, and she responded equally, and suddenly the moistness of her lower underlip sent surges of ecstatic intimacy racing through my brain, so that I caught my breath and opened my own mouth to her, sucking her lower lip, full and succulent, entirely into my mouth. She stiffened and her arm came up quickly to clasp my neck, pulling me close, and then my hands were filled with her, the divided column of her back in one, the cup of her soft belly filling the other as her breasts cushioned my ribs. I felt myself grow dizzy with desire and then she was pulling away from me, catching her breath and sweeping the disordered hair back from her forehead.
'Tend to the wine, Master Cay. I must tend to me." Her voice was shaky, breathless.
"I told you, my name's Cay, no Master here."
She exhaled in an emphatic puff. "I know it is, and those who know me well may call me Tress, not Tressa ... but right then, at that moment, you felt like a master." She looked about her. "Now ! Wine, if it please you."
As I bent to remove the clay pot carefully from the hob, she moved away, into my sleeping chamber, and I heard her moving purposefully about in there. I poured wine into two cups and replaced the pot, swinging the hob away so that it did not rest directly over the coals. Just as I thought to ask her what she was about, she came back into the main room, her arms filled with the cured animal skins I used as bedding when I went campaigning. As I stood there watching her, a steaming cup in each hand, she dropped the double armload on the floor before the fire and spread them out with her feet and hands, making a double layer. That done, she brought a low stool from against the wall and placed it to one side, after which she lowered herself to sit on the skins and reached for a cup, smiling up at me.
