Merlin's Booke (19 page)

“The first day went splendidly,” remarked Sonda at the table.

“No one ever questioned
that
one's head knowledge,” groused Hesta, using her own head as a pointer toward the table where the girls sat.

Mother Argente clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a sound she made when annoyed. The others responded to it immediately with silence, except for Mother Morgan who was so deep in conversation with a server she did not hear.

“We will discuss this later. At the hearth,” Argente said.

The conversation turned at once to safer topics: the price of corn, how to raise the milling fee, the prospect of another visitor from the East, the buyer of Veree's sword.

Morgan looked over. “It shall be the arch-mage,” she said. “He will come for the sword himself.”

Hesta shook her head. “How do you know? How do you
always
know?”

Morgan smiled, the corners of her thin upper lip curling. There was a gap between her two front teeth, carnal, inviting. “I know.”

Sonda reached out and stroked the back of Hesta's hand. “You know she would have you think it's magic. But it is the calendar, Hesta. I have explained all that.”

Hesta mumbled, pushing the lentils around in her bowl. Her own calendar was internal and had to do with forging, when the steel was ready for the next step. But if Morgan went by any calendar, it was too deep and devious for the forge mistress' understanding. Or for any of them. Morgan always seemed to
know
things. Under the table, Hesta crossed her fingers, holding them against her belly as protection.

“It
shall
be the arch-mage,” Morgan said, still smiling her gapped smile. “The stars have said it. The moon has said it. The winds have said it.”

“And now you have said it, too.” Argente's voice ended the conversation, though she wondered how many of her women were sitting with their fingers crossed surreptitiously under the table. She did not encourage them in their superstitions, but the ones who came from the outer tribes or the lower classes never really rid themselves of such beliefs. “Of course, it shall be a Druid. Someone comes once a year at this time to look over our handiwork. They rarely buy. Druids are as close with their gold as a dragon on its hoard.”

“It shall be the arch-mage himself,” intoned Morgan. “I know.”

Hesta shivered.

“Yes,” Argente smiled, almost sighing. When Morgan became stubborn it was always safest to cozen her. Her pharmacopeia was not to be trusted entirely. “But gloating over such arcane knowledge does not become you, a daughter of a queen. I am sure you have more important matters to attend to. Come mothers, I have decided that tonight's reading shall be about humility. And you, Mother Morgan, will do us all the honor of reading it.” Irony, Argente had found, was her only weapon against Morgan, who seemed entirely oblivious to it. Feeling relieved of her anger by such petty means always made Argente full of nervous energy. She stood. The others stood with her and followed her out the door.

Elaine watched as Veree marched up to the smithy, this time with an escort of four guides. Veree was without the white robe, her forge suit unmarked by fire or smoke, her hair bound back with the golden string but not as tightly as when Hesta plaited it. Elaine had done the service for her soon after rising, gently braiding the hair and twine together so that they held but did not pull. Veree had rewarded her with a kiss on the brow.

“This day I dedicate to thee,” Veree had whispered to her in the courtly language they had both grown up with.

Elaine could still feel the glow of that kiss on her brow. She knew that she would love Veree forever, the sister of her heart. She was glad now, as she had never been before, that she had had only brothers and no sisters in Escalot. That way Veree could be the only one.

The carved wooden door of the smithy closed behind Veree. The girls, giggling, went back to their chores. Only Elaine stayed, straining to hear something of the rites that would begin the second day of Veree's Steel.

Veree knew the way of the steel, bending the heated strips, hammering them together, recutting and rebending them repeatedly until the metal patterned. She knew the sound of the hammer on the hot blade, the smell of the glowing charcoal that made the soft metal hard. She enjoyed the hiss of the quenching, when the hot steel plunged into the water and emerged, somehow, harder still. The day's work was always difficult but satisfying in a way that other work was not. Her hands now held a knowledge that she had not had two years before when, as a pampered young daughter of a baron, she had come to Ynis Evelonia to learn “to be a man as well as a woman” as her father had said. He believed that a woman who might some day have to rule a kingdom (oh, he had such high hopes for her), needed to know both principles, male and female. A rare man, her father. She did not love him. He was too cold and distant and cerebral for that. But she admired him. She wanted him to admire her. And—except for the blood—she was not unhappy that she had come.

Except for the blood.
If she thought about it, her hand faltered, the hammer slipped, the sparks flew about carelessly and Hesta boomed out in her forge-tending voice about the recklessness of girls. So Veree very carefully did
not
think about the blood. Instead she concentrated on fire and water, on earth and air. Her hands gripped her work. She
became
the steel.

She did not stop until Hesta's hand on her shoulder cautioned her.

“It be done for the day, my daughter,” Hesta said, grudging admiration in her voice. “Now you rest. Tonight you must do the last of it alone.”

And then the fear really hit her. Veree began to tremble.

Hesta misread the shivering. “You be aweary with work. You be hungry. Take some watered wine for sleep's sake. We mothers will wake you and lead you to the glade at moonrise. Come. The sword be well worked. You have reason to be proud.”

Veree's stomach began to ache, a terrible dull pain. She was certain that, for the first time in her life, she would fail and that her father would be hurt and the others would pity her. She expected she could stand the fear, and she would, as always, bear the dislike of her companions, but what could not be borne was their pity. When her mother had died in the bloody aftermath of an unnecessary birth, the entire court had wept and everyone had pitied her, poor little motherless six-year-old Gwyneth. But she had rejected their pity, turning it to white anger against her mother who had gone without a word. She had not accepted pity from any of those peasants then; she would not accept it now. Not even from little Pie, who fair worshiped her. Especially not from Pie.

The moon's cold fingers stroked Veree's face but she did not wake. Elaine, in her silent vigil, watched from her bed. She strained to listen as well.

The wind in the orchard rustled the blossoms with a soft soughing. Twice an owl had given its ascending hunting cry. The little popping hisses of breath from the sleeping girls punctuated the quiet in the room. And Elaine thought that she could also hear, as a dark counter to the other noises, the slapping of the Tamor against the shore, but perhaps it was only the beating of her own heart. She was not sure.

Then she heard the footsteps coming down the hall, hauled the light covers up to her chin, and slotted her eyes.

The Nine Mothers entered the room, their white robes lending a ghostly air to the proceedings. They wore the hoods up, which obscured their faces. The robes were belted with knotted golden twine; nine knots on each cincture and the golden ornament shaped like a circle with one half filled in, the signet of Ynis Evelonia, hanging from the end.

The Nine surrounded Veree's bed, undid their cinctures, and lay the ropes over the girl's body as if binding her to a bier.

Mother Argente's voice floated into the room. “We bind thee to the isle. We bind thee to the steel. We bind thee to thy task. Blood calls to blood, like to like. Give us thine own for the work.”

The Nine picked up their belts and tied up their robes once again. Veree, who had awakened some time during Argente's chant, was helped to her feet. The Mothers took off her shift and slipped a silken gown over her head. It was sleeveless and Elaine, watching, shivered for her.

Then Mother Morgan handed her a silver cup, a little grail with the sign of the halved circle on the side. Mother Sonda handed her a silken bandage. Marie bound an illumined message to her brow with a golden headband. Mothers Bronwyn and Matilde washed her feet with lilac water, while Katwyn and Lisanor tied her hair atop her head into a plaited crown. Mother Hesta handed her a silver knife, its tip already consecrated with wine from the Goddess Arbor.

Then Argente put her hands on Veree's shoulders. “May She guide your hand. May She guard your blood. May the moon rise and fall on this night of your consecration. Be you steel tonight.”

They led her to the door and pushed her out before them. She did not stumble as she left.

Veree walked into the glade as if in a trance. She had drunk none of the wine but had spilled it below her bed knowing that the wine was drugged with one of Mother Morgan's potions. Bram had warned her of it before leaving. Silly, whiny Bram who, nonetheless, had had an instinct for gossip and a passion for Veree. Such knowledge had been useful.

The moon peeped in and out of the trees, casting shadows on the path, but Veree did not fear the dark. This night the dark was her friend.

She heard a noise and turned to face it, thinking it some small night creature on the prowl. There was nothing larger than a stoat or fox on Ynis Evelonia. She feared neither. At home she had kept a reynard, raised up from a kit, and had hunted with two ferrets as companions in her pocket.

Home!
What images suddenly rose up to plague her, the same that had caused her no end of sleepless nights when she had first arrived. For she
had
been homesick, whatever nonsense she had told little Pie for comfort's sake. The great hearth at Carmelide, large enough to roast an oxen, where once she had lost the golden ring her mother had given her and her cousin Cadoc had grabbed up a bucket of water, dousing the fire and getting himself all black with coal and grease to recover it for her. And the great apple tree outside her bedroom window up which young Jemmy, the ostler's son, had climbed to sing of his love for her even though he knew he would be soundly beaten for it. And the mews behind the main house where Master Thom had kept the hawks and let her sneak in to practice holding the little merlin that she had wanted for her own. But it had died tangled in its jesses the day before she'd been sent off to the isle, and one part of her had been glad that no one else would hunt the merlin now.

She heard the noise again, louder this time, too loud for a fox or a squirrel or a stoat. Loud enough for a human. She spoke out, “Who is it?” and held out the knife before her, trembling with the cold. Only the cold, she promised herself.

“It is I,” came a small voice.

“Pie!” Her own voice took back its authority. “You are not supposed to be here.”

“I saw it all, Veree. The dressing and undressing. The ropes and the knife. And I
did
promise to help.” The childish form slipped out from behind the tree, white linen shift reflecting the moon's light.

“I told you all would be well, child. You did not need to come.”

“But I
promised.”
If that voice held pity, it was self-pity. The child was clearly a worshiper begging not to be dismissed.

Veree smiled and held out the hand with the cup. “Come, then. Thou shalt be my page.”

Elaine put her hand to Veree's gown and held on as if she would never let go and, so bound, the two entered into the Goddess Glade.

The arch-mage came in the morning just as Morgan had foretold. He was not at all what Elaine had expected, being short and balding, with a beard as long and as thin as an exclamation mark. But that he was a man of power no one could doubt.

The little coracle, rowed by the same ferret-faced woman who had deposited Elaine on the isle, fair skimmed the surface of the waves and plowed onto the shore, leaving a furrow in which an oak could have been comfortably set.

The arch-mage stood up in the boat and greeted Mother Argente familiarly.
“Salve, mater. Visne somnia vendere?”

She answered him back with great dignity.
“Si volvo, Merline, caveat emptor.”

Then they both laughed, as if this exchange were a great and long-standing joke between them. If it was a joke, they were certainly the only ones to understand it.

“Come, Arch-Mage,” Mother Argente said, “and take wine with us in the guest house. We will talk of the purpose of your visit in comfort there.”

He nodded and, with a quick twist of his wrist, produced a coin from behind the boat woman's right ear. With a flourish he presented it to her, then stepped from the coracle. The woman dropped the coin solemnly into the leather bag she wore at her waist.

Elaine gasped and three other girls giggled.

“The girls are, as always, amused by your tricks, Merlin,” said Mother Argente, her mouth pursed in a wry smile.

“I like to keep in practice,” he said.
“And
to amuse the young ones. Besides, as one gets older the joints stiffen.”

“That I know, that I know,” Argente agreed. They walked side by side like old friends, moving slowly up the little hill. The rest of the women and girls fell in behind them, and so it was, in a modest processional, that they came to the guest house.

At the door of the wattle pavilion which was shaded by a lean of willows, Mother Argente turned. “Sonda, Hesta, Morgan, Lisanor, enter and treat with our guest. Veree, ready yourself for noon. The rest of you, you know your duties.” Then she opened the door and let Merlin precede them into the house.

The long table was already set with platters of cheese and fruit. Delicate goblets of Roman glass marked off six places. As soon as they were all seated with Argente at the head and Merlin at the table's foot, Mother A poured her own wine and passed the silver ewer. Morgan, seated at Argente's right hand, was the last to fill her glass. When she set the ewer down, she raised her glass.