The Old Magic Page 7

  He dreamed that he was a merlin, like his namesake, a shining falcon that rode the wind. Below him he could see the tops of the trees, and beyond the edge of the forest he could see càstles and hills and rolling meadows. The landscape seemed vividly real but somehow mysterious, as if everything he saw was both itself and standing in for something else. But that was less important to him than the fact that he was free: soaring above the world.

  Then, far below him, movement caught his eye. He looked down, and saw two dragons fighting. The land all around them was devastated by their battle; the trees had been burned to ash and the grass had been frozen, and nothing grew or lived as far as his falcon’s eyes could see, save for one small lamb that lay upon the ground, bleating in terror and pain.

  I must stop this, Merlin thought, and dove at the two dragons, shrieking defiance.

  They were far larger and more powerful than he was, armed with claws and fangs and their deadly breath, but somehow that did not matter to him. He battered at them with his wings, as a flock of sparrows will harry a crow, and at last the two monsters fled, abandoning their battle and their prey. Folding his wings, Merlin dove for the ground, but when he landed, the lamb was gone, and there was a young girl in her place. It was her face he’d seen in the forest pool—her face that haunted his dreams. He reached out to take her hand. …

  Laughter woke him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE COURTS OF LOVE

  Nimue had experienced no more visions after that first one, and she was grateful for that— she feared and mistrusted such things as traps sent by the Old Magic to seduce her away from the New Religion. But as the days passed without incident, she allowed herself to be distracted by the preparations for her journey. Lord Ardent had sent a party of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting to fetch her, and for once in her life Nimue was surrounded by people her own age. As they laughed and chattered, relating tales of life at Vortigern’s court, Nimue allowed herself to hope that the future was not as bleak as she’d feared.

  The party had stopped last night in an inn at the village of Nottingham, and it was late afternoon by the time the travellers reached the edge of Barnstable Forest, which lay between them and the castle where they would spend tonight.

  “They say it’s haunted,” young Lord Aneirin said, staring at the thick woods with gloomy relish.

  “Haunted or not,” Mistress Ragnell answered him stoutly, “it will be slow going to get through such a tangle. We shall have to lead the horses.”

  “Then let us begin,” Nimue said firmly. She vaulted down from her horse’s back, took its reins, and began to lead it along the path into the forest. Reluctantly, the others followed.

  She felt very cross, and was doing her best not to show it. Aneirin was the younger son of Lord Lambert, and this morning over breakfast he’d let it slip that his older brother, Bercilak, was a hostage at court. He hadn’t seemed very worried about it, but all of Nimue’s buried fears about her future resurfaced, and she’d again become reluctant to finish her journey and discover her fate. But the holy sisters at Avalon had taught her not to shirk unpleasant tasks, so she held her misgivings in check and tried to make good time on the homeward journey.

  But as she walked along through the warm summer afternoon, leading her horse, her mind wandered from what might be to what ought to happen. She imagined a dashing young knight ready to fight for her hand, the embodiment of all that was noble and good. …

  “I think we’re lost,” Drust the page said.

  Nimue stopped and looked up, roused out of her daydream. She frowned at the tree. Hadn’t they passed one very much like it an hour ago? She looked around, and realized that there were trees all around them and the path had dwindled to a narrow deer-track.

  “We’re doomed. We’ll be devoured by wolves and no one will ever know what’s become of us,” Aneirin said.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Nimue answered. “Someone must live here, and when we find them, we can ask our way.”

  There was no sign of habitation anywhere along the path, but a few minutes later, as if in answer to her prayers, Nimue spotted a sleeping figure curled up at the side of the path.

  He was dressed in rustic homespun garments. His tattered breeches came only to his knees, and he wore leather buskins on his feet. His tunic was woad-dyed hempen cloth, with twigs and feathers caught in its coarse weave, the seams fraying at elbow and hem. For a moment she wondered if she had stumbled across one of the Pagan forest-spirits who belonged to the Old Ways. But Brother Giraldus swore they had all been banished from the land by the prayers of good Christian souls.

  “How funny he looks!” Ragnell giggled. The other girls joined her, giggling and whispering.

  At the sound, the young man roused from sleep and looked up. His eyes were a vivid blue, clear as the sky, and his expression of dumbfounded amazement at the sight of all these grandly dressed lords and ladies standing in front of him made Nimue smile as well.

  The sound of laughter like the twittering of forest birds woke Merlin from his strange dream. He opened his eyes, and saw an angel standing before him, glowing with light.

  He blinked, and the angel became a mortal woman … the most beautiful he had ever seen. She was wearing a rich gown of ivory and cream, and a golden circlet about her forehead. Her soft brown hair flowed freely over her shoulders, and her mouth was the rich red of raspberries. Merlin scrambled to his feet.

  “Please excuse their rudeness,” she said softly. “We’re travelling to Lord Lambert’s castle and we’ve lost our way.”

  Behind her he could see several other young women, whispering together and laughing as they stared at him. They all wore rich gowns and tunics, and their horses’ saddles and bridles were splendidly decorated, but none of them was as wonderful to look upon as the woman who stood directly before him.

  “It’s about a mile,” he said, pointing. Though he’d never gone there, he’d listened closely when the travellers who visited Ambrosia’s hut spoke of their journeys. “Take the right fork when you reach it. But don’t try any shortcuts. It’s dangerous and you can get lost.”

  She smiled—with relief?—and glanced toward the path he had pointed out. “Thank you, sir.” She spoke with as much simple dignity as if she saw no difference between them, though he was dressed in tattered homespun and she in velvet and silk. “What can we offer you as a reward?”

  “A kiss,” Merlin answered. He’d wanted nothing else from the moment he’d seen her face.

  The women standing with the horses broke out into scandalized whispers that reminded Merlin of the hissing of a flock of geese. “Do you know who you’re talking to?” one of them demanded.

  “This is the Lady Nimue,” another said.

  “Who?” Merlin was honestly puzzled.

  “Lord Ardent’s daughter,” came the huffy reply from the one who had spoken first.

  “She asked me what I wanted and I told the truth.” Merlin said simply. He recognized Ardent’s name—he was the lord who was rumored to have helped Uther and his mother to escape to France, although he now gave every appearance of being a faithful lackey to a tyrannical king.

  Nimue smiled at him. “And I think it’s a fair price,” she said, laughter in her voice. She held out her hand to him.

  He could smell her perfume, and her white skin was soft against his hand. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it—and then pulled her to him and kissed her on the lips.

  I love her, said something inside him. I will always love her. Somehow we’ll be together. “My name’s Merlin,” he whispered.

  “Mine’s Nimue,” she answered, her face still close to his. Then she pulled away and spoke loudly for the benefit of the others. “And I think you’re a very rude young man!”

  She walked back to the others, and they began to move off almost at once.

  “I’ll never forget you, Nimue! We’ll meet again—I can see it!” Merlin shouted.

  She looked back toward him as he spo
ke, and for a moment her face lit with a hope and a promise that matched his own. Then her expression changed to sorrow, and it was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud.

  “I don’t think so, Master Merlin,” she answered sadly.

  Merlin scrambled up into the branches of the tree he’d been sleeping under, so that he could watch her as long as possible. He watched until the horses were invisible through the trees.

  Nimue …

  If only life were as simple as that, Nimue thought to herself as she followed Aneirin and the others through the forest. If only I could just run away with some simple woodcutter like Merlin, and spend the rest of my life far away from kings and crowns! But it was foolishness even to think such a thing. Her life had been all set out for her from the moment she was born; there was no use wishing for adventure or excitement.

  Or love.

  She smiled at the memory of their impulsive kiss. Merlin had been so honest, so direct. His manner had none of the cringing deference that had become typical of the peasantry in Vortigern’s Britain. There was a kind of goodness that radiated from him … it reminded her of the holy brethren of Avalon, but it was somehow different than what she had felt there.

  If I go on thinking this way, I’ll go running back to him and forget my duty! She had dropped behind the others; laughing and talking together, they didn’t notice. There must be a quicker way out of this stupid forest! Angry and afraid of her new feelings, Nimue spotted a path that seemed to run straighter than the broad winding path the others were following. Forgetting Merlin’s warning, she tugged her horse after her, leading it along this new path at a right angle to the rest of the party. In a few minutes, even the sound of their voices was gone.

  Merlin lay in the fork of the tree, turning over his meeting with Nimue in his mind. Ardent’s castle lay not too far from here—if he went there, perhaps he could see her again. She’d looked so sad when she’d walked away, and Merlin wondered why. Perhaps he could help her. Boyish daydreams of ladies and knights filled his head. He could go on a quest for her—he could rescue her from a dragon. He closed his eyes, the better to concentrate on his dreams. …

  Merlin! Help me!

  Suddenly he could hear Nimue’s voice inside his mind. She’d left the path. She was in danger.

  He flung himself down out of the tree and ran, faster than he ever had in his life, toward the sound of the screams that echoed in his mind.

  She lost the trail almost at once, but she’d been sure she could find it again. She was no longer certain where she was, and the rest of her companions were nowhere to be seen or heard. At last Nimue began to worry. She needed to return to them. But before she’d taken a dozen steps in what she hoped was the right direction, the ground had given way beneath her feet. She stumbled, letting go of the horse’s rein, and found herself sinking into a mudhole that had been hidden beneath a fall of leaves. Her elaborate gown clung to her like a shroud, and no matter what she did, her struggles only pulled her deeper into the mud. She realized that there was no bottom to the mire. She would not stop sinking. The mud would pull her down beneath its surface and she would drown.

  Nimue began to scream, hoping someone was near enough to hear her and knowing that nobody was. She tried to pray, so that she could go to God with a pure heart, but all the prayers she knew had been driven from her mind by terror. She would die here on a warm summer day, and nobody would ever know what had happened to her.

  At that moment, Merlin raced into the clearing. “I’m here!”

  “Help me!” Nimue screamed, terrified.

  “Don’t struggle,” he said quickly. “You’ll only sink deeper. Stay calm.” On hands and knees he felt for the edge of the sinkhole. When he found it, he reached out to her, but her struggles had carried her too far from the edge for him to be able to reach her.

  Frantically he cast about for something she could hold on to. If he only had a rope! But by the time he returned home for one, Nimue would have been sucked beneath the surface. He grabbed the longest thing he could see—an old branch—and held it out to her, lying at full length on the ground.

  It was still too short.

  Only her head and arms were above the surface now. In moments she would be gone. And he would have to live the rest of his life without her.

  You have to be long enough. You have to!

  “Grow!” he said desperately. “Grow—grow!”

  Suddenly—as if his words had been the key that unlocked it—the power kindled within him, fuelled by his desperate desire. He felt it tingle in the pit of his stomach, then rush down his arms and through his hands into the branch. The dry, brittle wood darkened, becoming the color of a living branch. It seemed to vibrate in his hands, as though he could feel the heartbeat of the mother tree. And then leaves appeared upon its twigs and it began to grow … longer … longer. …

  Nimue grabbed it with both hands, and Merlin rolled to his feet and began dragging her from the mud. Soon she was close enough to grasp his hands, and he threw the branch aside and lifted her out of the mud.

  She collapsed against him, gasping and laughing with relief, and the combined weight of her and the mud on her clothes sent the both of them sprawling on the ground once more.

  “I told you we’d meet again,” Merlin said, holding her tightly.

  “How did you do that—with the branch?” Nimue asked.

  “I don’t know.” He’d been as surprised as Nimue when the branch had begun to grow. He glanced toward it. “I don’t know. What did I do?”

  “Well whatever it was, it saved my life,” Nimue said. “You deserve one more kiss for that.” Boldly, she pressed her lips to his.

  “Only one?” Merlin said, laughing, and Nimue kissed him again.

  But the moment could not last, and Nimue pushed herself to her feet, staggering with the weight of her mud-encrusted skirts.

  “I have to get back to the others. They’ll be looking for me,” she said.

  “I’ll take you,” Merlin answered. He ran to catch her horse, and led it back for her to mount. “Now that I’ve found you, I don’t want you to get lost again.”

  Once they were gone, a small shrub at the edge of the clearing took a few cautious steps forward. The leaves shimmered as it turned from a shrub to a crouching gnome. Frik straightened up, groaning as he stretched.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered, plucking a sprig of greenery from behind his ear and tossing it away, then brushing himself off. Leaves and bits of twig fell to the ground.

  Glancing around once more to see that he was not observed, Frik stepped cautiously over to the branch that Merlin had tossed aside. Picking it up, he held it under his nose and sniffed it thoroughly, then bit it cautiously.

  “Yes, indeed,” he said aloud. Whatever he had discovered from his examination of the branch pleased him, because he tossed it back to the ground and rubbed his hands together.

  “Young Merlin is using magic. Won’t Her Majesty be pleased? I must tell her at once.”

  There was a flickering shimmer, and Frik vanished.

  Merlin led Nimue’s horse through the forest. She was seated on its back, her skirts still dripping mud. She smiled down at Merlin. “You must come and visit me at my father’s castle. I can’t wait to tell him how brave you were.”

  Merlin smiled, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He knew he’d done the right thing by saving Nimue, but at the same time he felt guilty, as if he’d done something terribly wrong. What he could do frightened as well as elated him. The magic seemed to bubble through his veins, daring him to use it again. He suspected that this was what Ambrosia had warned him about, but why wouldn’t she want him to do something that was so much a part of him?

  “Merlin?” Nimue said, and his brooding thoughts vanished. He smiled up at her.

  “Tell me about yourself,” Nimue urged.

  “Oh,” Merlin said, suddenly shy. “I’m not very interesting. I’d rather hear about you.”

  “Wel
l, I’m not very interesting,” Nimue teased. “I grew up at Avalon Abbey among the holy sisters there. This is the first time I’ve been away from there since I went there as a little girl.”

  “Well, I’ve never left the forest at all,” Merlin said. “I was born here and I’ve lived all my life here. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

  “That sounds nice,” said Nimue. She leaned forward to touch his hair, but just then they heard the sound of voices calling her name. “Oh,” she said, sounding a little disappointed. “They’ve found me.”

  “I should go,” Merlin said, stopping. He looked around. It was later than he’d thought it was—Aunt Ambrosia would have dinner on the table and be wondering where he was.

  “No!” Nimue said.

  She reached for him, but he stepped back, shaking his head. And they’d laughed at his clothes before— the next time he saw them he wanted to make a grand impression, to be worthy of Nimue.

  “No,” he said. “They’d just ask a hundred questions and not believe any of the answers. It’s better this way. Don’t tell them about me—about the magic.” He handed her the reins. He wasn’t sure why it was so important to keep the magic a secret, but his heart told him this was the right choice.

  “But where are you going? Merlin!” Nimue cried.

  “Home—I’m late for dinner,” Merlin called over his shoulder. “But don’t worry. I’ll see you again— soon.”

  “I know you will,” Nimue said, smiling. “I’ve seen it.”

  Queen Mab sat on a throne made of darkness in the center of her palace in the Hollow Hills. She could sense the years passing in the world outside the Land of Magic, but here there was no time at all. It seemed only moments since she’d relinquished the baby Merlin into Ambrosia’s care, and she still suspected that the priestess had tricked her somehow.

  But no matter. Today, the day she had waited for from the moment she had first conceived her plan, had come at last. Merlin had used his magic.