Legacy: Arthurian Saga (172 page)

"I remember."

"Very well. When I married my first
Guenever you warned me that the marriage might be unwholesome for
me. That little girl 'unwholesome'?" He laughed, without mirth.
"Well, now we know the truth of the prophecy. Now we have seen the
shadow. And now we see it falling across Bedwyr's life and mine.
But if it is not to destroy our faith in one another, what would
you have me do? I must give Bedwyr the trust and freedom to which
he is entitled. Am I a cottager, with nothing in my life but a
woman and a bed I am to be jealous of, like a cock on his dunghill?
I am a king, and my life is a king's; she is a queen, and
childless, so her life must be less than a woman's. Is she to wait
year by year in an empty bed? To walk, to ride, to take her meals
with an empty place beside her? She is young, and she has a girl's
needs, of companionship and of love. By your god or any god,
Merlin, if, during the years of days that my work takes me from
court, she is ever to take a man to her bed, should I not be
thankful it is Bedwyr? And what would you have me do, or say?
Anything I say to Bedwyr would eat at the root of the very trust we
have, and it would avail nothing against what has already happened.
Love, you tell me, cannot be gainsaid. So I keep silent, and so
will you, and by that token will faith and friendship stay
unbroken. And we can count her barrenness a mercy." The smile
again. "So the god works for us both in twisted ways, does he
not?"

I got to my feet. The birches moved
and the sun poured down. The stream glittered against my eyes, so
that they watered.

I said quietly: "You see? This is the
final mercy. You no longer need either my strength or my counsel.
Whatever you may need after this of warning or prophecy, you can
still find at Applegarth. As for me, let your servant go in peace,
back to my own home and my own hills, and whatever waits for me
there." I picked the basket up and handed it to him. "But in the
meantime, will you come back with me to Applegarth, and see
her?"

10

When we reached Applegarth it seemed
deserted. It was still very early. Varro had not yet come to start
work, and I had seen Mora from a distance, making her way toward
the village market with her basket on her arm.

The mare knew the way to the stables,
and trotted off, with a clap on the flank. We went into the house.
The girl was there, sitting on her accustomed stool in the window
embrasure, reading. Not far from her, on the stone sill, perched a
redbreast, picking up the crumbs she had scattered.

She must have heard the horse, and
assumed either that I had ridden that morning, instead of walking,
or that a messenger had come very early from Camelot. She had
obviously not expected the King himself. When I went into the room
she looked up, with a smile and a "Good morning," and then, seeing
Arthur's shadow fall across the doorway behind me, got to her feet
and let the book roll together between her hands. "I'll leave you
to talk, shall I?" she said, and turned, in no haste, to
go.

I started to warn her. "Ninian -- " I
began, but then Arthur came quickly past me into the room, and
stopped just inside the door, his eyes on her face.

Be sure that I was staring,
too.

Now that I knew, I wondered how I had
not always known. For eighteen, it was hardly a man's face; an
immature eighteen might have had that smooth cheek and sweet mouth,
and her body under the shapeless clothing was as slim as a boy's
but the hands were not a young man's hands, nor were the slender
feet. I can only think that my own memory of the boy Ninian had
kept me, blindly, to the image of him as he had been at sixteen: my
desire to have him had been strong enough to let me re-create him,
first in the dimly seen ghost of the Lake, then in this girl, so
near to me, so closely watched, and yet not seen, through all the
past long months. And then, perhaps (I thought), she had been able
to use a little of my own magic against me, to keep me blind -- and
so to keep herself beside me, until her purposes were
served.

She stood straight as a wand, facing
us. I suppose it needed no magic for her to tell that we knew. The
grey eyes met mine for the fraction of a moment, then she faced the
King.

What happened then is difficult to
describe. There was the quiet, everyday room, filled with the
scents and sounds of the summer morning; sweet briar and early
roses and the gilly-flowers she had planted outside the window;
last night's burned logs (the nights could still have a chill in
them, and she had insisted on making a fire for me to sit by); the
sweet sub-song of the redbreast as he flew up into the apple boughs
outside. A summer room, where, to anyone of normal perceptions,
nothing passed at all. Just three people, in a pause of
silence.

But to me the air tingled suddenly
over the skin, like water when lightning strikes. I felt the flesh
creep on my bones, and the small hairs on my arms fur up; my nape
stirred like the ruff of a dog in a thunder-storm. I do not think I
moved. Neither the King nor the girl seemed to notice anything. She
watched him gravely, unalarmed, I might have thought unmoved and
barely interested, if I had not been getting these fearsome
currents washing over and through my flesh as the tide washes over
a rock lying on the shore. Her grey eyes held his; his dark ones
bored into her. I could feel the force as the two of them met. The
air trembled.

Then he nodded, and put up a hand to
loosen the cloak from his shoulder. I saw her mouth move with the
shadow of a smile. The message had passed. For my sake, he would
accept her. And for my sake, she would stand the trial. The room
steadied, and I said: "Let me," and took his cloak from him to lay
it down.

The girl said: "Shall I bring you some
breakfast? Mora left it ready, but you were late, so she went to
market. She says the best things are taken if she is not there
early."

She went. The platters were laid ready
on the table, and we took our places. She brought bread, and the
crock of honey, and a pitcher of milk along with one of mead. She
set the latter down at the King's hand, then without a word took
her usual place across from me. She had not looked at me again.
When I poured a cup of milk for her she thanked me, but without
lifting her eyes. Then she spread honey on her bread, and began to
eat.

"Your name," said the King. "Is it
Niniane?"

"Yes," she said, "but I was always
called Nimue."

"Your parentage?"

"My father was called
Dyonas."

"Yes. King of the River
Islands?"

"The same. He is dead now."

"I know that. He fought beside me at
Viroconium. Why did you leave your home?"

"I was sent to the Lady's service, in
the Isle of Glass. It was my father's wish." The glimmer of a
smile. "My mother was a Christian, and when she lay dying she made
him promise he would send me to the Island; I know she intended me
for the service of the church there. I was only six years old, but
he promised her. He himself had never held with what he called the
new God; he was an initiate of Mithras -- his own father took him
there in the time of Ambrosius. So when the time came for him to
keep his promise to my mother, he did indeed take me to the Island,
but to the service of the Good Goddess, in the shrine below the
Tor."

"I see."

So did I. As one of the ancillae of
the shrine she would have been there on the occasion of Arthur's
thanksgiving after Caer Guinnion and Caerleon. Perhaps she had
glimpsed me there, beside the King.

She must have known that, for her,
there was small chance of coming any nearer to the
prince-enchanter, and learning any of the greater arts. Then on
that misty night I had put the key into her hand. It had taken
courage to grasp it, but God knew she had plenty of
that.

The King was still questioning her.
"And you wanted to study magic. Why?"

"Sir, I cannot say why. Why does a
singer first want to learn music? Or a bird want to try the air?
When I first went to the Island, I found some traces of it, and
learned all they had to teach, but still I was hungry. Then one day
I saw..." She hesitated for the first time. "I saw Merlin in the
shrine. You will remember the day. Later, I heard he had come to
live here at Applegarth. I thought, If only I were a man I could go
to him. He is wise, he would know that magic is in my blood, and he
would teach me."

"Ah, yes. The day we gave thanks for
our victories. But if you were there, how is it that you failed to
recognize me, the first time you saw me here?"

She went scarlet. For the first time
her gaze dropped from his. "I did not see you, sir. I told you, I
was watching Merlin."

There was a flat pause of silence, as
when a hand is laid across the harp-strings, killing the sound. I
saw Arthur's mouth open and shut, then the flash of a vivid
laughter in his face. She, looking steadfastly at the table, saw
nothing of it. He shot me a look brimful of amusement, then drained
his cup and sat back in the chair. His voice never altered, but the
challenge had gone; he had lowered his sword.

"But you knew that Merlin was not
likely to accept you as a pupil, even if the Lady could be
persuaded to let you leave her cloisters."

"Yes. I knew that. I had no hope. But
after that I settled even less easily into the life there among the
other women. They seemed, oh, so contented to be penned there with
the small magic and the prayers and spells, and looking backward
always toward the times of legend...It's hard to explain. If there
is something within oneself, something burning to be free, one
knows of it." A look straight at him, equal to equal. "You must
have known it. I was still unborn, hammering at the egg, to get out
into the air. But the only way I could have escaped from the Island
would have been if some man had offered for me, and for that I
would not have gone, nor would my father have made me."

He gave a brief nod, of acceptance
and, I thought, of understanding. "So?"

"It wasn't easy, even, to find time to
be alone. I would watch and wait my chance, and slip out sometimes,
only to be alone with my own thoughts, and with the water and
sky...Then, on the night when Queen Guinevere was missing, and the
Island was in uproar, I -- I'm afraid all I thought of was my
chance to get out without being missed...There was a boat I
sometimes borrowed. I went out. I knew no one would see me in the
mist. Then Merlin came along the Lake road, and spoke to me." She
paused. "I think you must know the rest."

"Yes. So when chance -- the god, you
would say, if you are Merlin's pupil -- made Merlin mistake you for
the boy Ninian, and ask you to come and learn from him, you made
the second chance for yourself."

She bent her head. "When he spoke
first, I was confused. It was like a dream. Afterwards I realized
what had happened, that he had mistaken me for some boy he had
known."

"How did you get free of the shrine in
the end? What did you tell the lady?"

"That I had been called for higher
service. I did not explain. I let her think I was going back to my
father's house. I think she imagined that I had to go back to the
River Isles, perhaps to be married to my cousin, who rules there
now. She did not ask. She put no rub in my way."

No, I thought to myself; that
imperious lady would be glad to rid herself of an adept who must
have bidden fair to outshine her. Among those white-robed girls
this young enchantress must have shone out like a diamond in white
flax.

Behind me, the redbreast flew back to
his perch on the window-sill, and tried a stave of song. I doubt if
either Nimue or Arthur heard it. His questions had changed
direction: "Do you need fire for the vision, or can you see, like
Merlin, in the small drops of dew?"

"It was in dewdrops that I saw the
vision of Heuil."

"And that was a true one. So. It seems
you already have something of the greater power. Well, there is no
fire, but will you look for me again, and tell me now if there is
any other warning in the stars?"

"I can see nothing to
order."

I bit my lip. It was my own voice as a
young man, confident, perhaps a little pompous. He recognized it,
too. He said gravely: "I am sorry. I should have known."

He got to his feet then, and reached
for the cloak that I had laid across a chair. There was a
perceptible flaw in her composure, as she hurried to help him with
it. He was saying goodbye to me, but I hardly heard him. My own
composure bade fair to be in ruins. I, who was never at a loss, had
not had time to think what I must say.

The King was in the doorway. The sun
caught him and sent his shadow streaming back between us. The great
emeralds on Caliburn's hilt flashed in the light.

"King Arthur!" said Nimue
sharply.

He turned. If he found her tone
peremptory he gave no sign of it.

She said: "If your sister, the lady
Morgan, comes to Camelot, lock up your sword and watch for
treachery."

He looked startled, then said harshly:
"What do you mean by that?"

She hesitated, looking in her turn
surprised by what she had said. Then she lifted her palms out, in a
gesture like a shrug. "My lord, I don't know. Only that. I am
sorry."