Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon (38 page)

I
am the one who must be wary,
he thought then.
She
wants
something of me.
Growing up in a royal hall he had learned to be careful with powerful people who wanted things.

“I see you have your own tools,” she said pleasantly as he began to lay them on the workbench. “Is there anything else you will need?” Her voice made him think of honey warmed by the sun, but the lovely line of her lips gave nothing away.

He directed his gaze back to the smithy. Everything seemed to be of good quality, and had been well maintained. The firepot was set in a stone hearth. It too was hollowed from stone. A pipe of fired clay led from its side through the wall of the hearth and out to connect to the wind channel and the two bellows bags.

“Deerskin on bellows is old—” He pointed to the stiff leather. “Need make new.”

“I will see about getting you appropriate hides. The hunters of the Lake Village can kill a doe, and their women sew leather well.”

He nodded, deliberately not meeting her eyes. Had Medea looked like that, he wondered—small and pale, with a mass of dark hair whose tendrils escaped the braids wound around her head as if their power was too great for such bindings? What would that hair look like unconfined?

He thrust the image away and counted the fire tools, neatly racked in a wooden stand. The space in his chest had barely been enough for his hammers and other tools. And there too were a stout oaken bucket for water, a quenching tank, and a tightly woven basket for ashes, lined with clay. The charcoal would be kept in the shed outside. He hoped the shed might also contain clay for making molds.

Between the hearth and the workbench stood the anvil, a block of granite set into a section cut from the trunk of a mighty oak. He had brought with him a selection of smaller anvils made of bronze that he used for fine work, but for large pieces, the granite would do well.

“What will you make first?” asked Anderle.

“Spearheads,” grunted the smith. “Galid steals mine.” That memory burned in his belly, though not as badly as his brief return to slavery must trouble Mikantor.

Velantos still shuddered when he remembered how close the younger man had come to snapping. If Mikantor had fought, Galid’s minions would have brought him down.
And me, as well,
he thought grimly,
for no amount of sense would have kept me from trying to defend him.
Which would at least have solved the problem of how he could survive without Mikantor in this strange land.
Or whether I would even want to . . .
he thought wistfully. Already Galid’s threat was forcing them apart, he to the smithy and Mikantor to the training field, but at least here he would have work to do.

“Galid . . .” echoed the priestess. Her voice thinned, and Velantos felt that thrill of danger once more. He grimaced. She was half his size and weight—he could
break
her—so why did tension stiffen his limbs?
All
of his limbs, he realized, turning abruptly so she would not see how his body had responded. He set a piece of scrap bronze on the anvil and picked up the square-headed hammer, channeling his arousal into a blow that made the metal ring.

If this is what the woman’s presence does to me,
he thought ruefully,
I predict I will be working long and hard. . . .
And that was just as well, for Mikantor’s men would need arms.

“Galid needs killing,” he growled. “You find me bronze and I make spears.”

“You will make swords . . .” she corrected softly. She had come so close he could smell her scent, like warm earth and flowers. “You will make
the
Sword, for Mikantor.”

He jerked as Anderle’s small hand gripped the hard muscle of his forearm, and turned despite his resolve, falling into the darkness of her eyes.

“A sword for a king . . .” she whispered, “and you are destined to make it. I have
seen
the Sword, Velantos, forged in fire!”

He could feel that fire blazing between them. With an oath he pulled away, breathing hard.

“Go!” he said harshly. “Send me workmen; I say what I need. But you go now—this is not your Mystery!” He twitched to the breath of air as she went by.

“Is it not?” The light flickered as she passed through the door. As her footsteps faded, he heard her laugh.

 

 

 

NOW THAT IS A MAN! Anderle laughed again as she sped down the path. She had forgotten what it was like to respond to a man’s power. When Tirilan was mooning over Mikantor, she should have shown more sympathy, though how could she have known? Even when she was besotted with Tiri’s father, Anderle had never felt such a fire in the blood.

It was clear that Velantos felt it too. Her lips twitched as she recalled his reaction. She had known he would work hard for Mikantor, but now, she thought, he would labor with all the passion he possessed to prove himself her equal in power.

Sexual attraction was a mighty force. The traditions of Avalon had a great deal to say about the ways in which it could be used to raise and channel energy. In the most esoteric teachings it was the female who was the awakener, whose energy aroused the male to purpose and power. And the power was greatest when it was channeled into labor of body or spirit rather than being grounded in the act of love.

Which was rather a pity, she reflected, remembering the hard muscle beneath the taut skin. If the rest of his body was as powerful . . .

It doesn’t matter,
she told herself firmly as she crossed the bridge that covered the low ground between the isles. His body had to be capable of the work he was needed to do. He could have been as ugly as the son of the Chiding One and she would still have put forth her power to attract him. Her business was his soul. That she might find denying the body’s claims as painful as he did was not relevant. She was the Lady of Avalon, and her life belonged to the land. To bring the Son of a Hundred Kings to power, all sacrifices were justified.

By the time Anderle reached the courtyard where the community gathered on sunny days, she trusted that her flushed cheeks could be put down to exercise. Mikantor was waiting for her there. A healthy young animal, she thought, appreciating the picture he made with the sunlight glinting on his hair. Velantos was too rugged, too dark, to be beautiful. Why did the younger man not stir her blood? But of course, Mikantor was like a son to her. Surely that was reason enough—she thrust all other thoughts away.

“Did you get Velantos settled in the smithy?” Mikantor asked as she sat down beside him. “Does he have everything he needs?”

As opposed to everything he might want?
Anderle smiled. “He will need supplies,” she said aloud. “When you go over to the Lake Village, you can make the arrangements.”

“I am going to the village? Of course I want to see them all, but I thought there were things—”

“This is one of them,” said Anderle. “You cannot achieve the task to which you are called alone. You will need Companions. Ganath and Beniharen follow you already, but they are not warriors. The people of the Lake have fine scouts and hunters. Your foster brother Grebe is of an age to be useful. Talk to him, see if you want him in your band.”

“Yes, of course,” Mikantor said thoughtfully. “Now that Velantos has his forge I need to get started on the rest of it. But you have to understand, it is very important that he should be happy here—”

No,
thought the priestess,
it is very important that he be
productive
. A little unhappiness is often a goad, where content would only sap the will to achieve.

“We had to leave Bhagodheunon because of me, and then I dragged him with me across the sea—” Mikantor went on. “I can still remember how strange his country seemed to me, and I am sure he is feeling just as unsettled in mine.”

“Leave him to me . . . though if I am to be . . . helpful . . . perhaps you had best tell me a bit more about him,” Anderle replied. “I suspect he is not very forthcoming at the best of times—is that not so?” If things went as she expected between them, she might be the
last
person to whom the smith would want to open his heart. But it made sense to gather as much information as possible about someone who was so important to their cause.

Mikantor began to laugh. “He says himself that he can be like a bear with a sore head, but he never turned his temper on me—well, almost never, and then it was because he was in pain . . .”

Anderle gave him a quick look. “If you were his slave, I’d have thought you would be glad to see the last of him.”

Mikantor frowned. “By their law he owned me, but he treated me as another human being from the first day. Not an equal, for I was only an ignorant boy, no better with his language than he is with ours now, but a fellow creature. He never demanded more of me than he did of himself. For Velantos, it is the work that matters above all.”

“That, I can understand . . .” Anderle found herself smiling.
And I will give you work, man of the south, and until it is done spare neither you nor myself, whatever the pain!

 

 

 

TIRILAN LAY ON HER bed, still wakeful, though midnight had come and gone. Through the narrow window she could see the waxing moon. Did Mikantor, who slept in the priests’ dormitory with Ganath and Beniharen, watch the moon as well, or did he enjoy the sleep that was the normal reward of healthy exercise? He had spent the afternoon on the playing field, testing his archery against that of Grebe. They could not know that she had watched them, feasting her eyes on the graceful flex and release of his body as he bent the bow.

Since that morning when he first arrived, they had not spoken. Her memory of those moments seemed a part of the dream that had sent her to meet him on the shore of Avalon.

I gave him the blessing of a priestess,
she thought sadly,
when what I wanted was to kiss him like a lover. And he looked at me like a man who sees the Goddess, not one who welcomes the woman he desires.

She had thought that when they met again that would change, that he would realize she was a human woman, and they could begin to reclaim the friendship they had shared so long ago. When they parted he had been a boy, and she had been a dreaming girl, and neither had any concept of the body’s needs.

If he had stayed, we might have made those discoveries together.
From the appreciation with which he had looked at the priestesses, she thought he was not without experience. But she had been taught the theory and forbidden the practice.

When Mikantor encountered her at meals, or on one of the paths, his gaze flew to her face and then flicked away. Was he still seeing her as the Goddess, or had he learned that she had taken her vows and was not for any man? She could not even blame her mother this time. It was the Goddess Herself, or whoever had sent that dream in which she was the one who must make Mikantor a king, who had sent her to give him that blessing.

But her mother seemed to have taken charge of the king-making as well, she thought resentfully, sending word to the other priestesses of the sisterhood, summoning men to a conference at the Tor.

It is my own fault . . .
she admitted,
for thinking that the Goddess gave me a destiny.
But short of stripping naked and surprising Mikantor when he went down to the Lake to bathe, she did not see how she could get him to think of her as a woman now.

Lady, help me,
she prayed.
Because seven years have made him a man, and beautiful, and I do not know if the boy I loved is still there at all.

But the moon did not reply.

EIGHTEEN

S
ummer had come to Avalon, with more days of sun, or at least cloud, than rain. Only a few sections of the playing field squished underfoot, for which the young men who had come to join Mikantor’s band were grateful. He stood watching them now as they used practice blades to go through the stylized sword moves.

“I wish my uncle had come with us,” said Aelfrix, who was standing beside him with a waterskin filled with tea made from the hips of the wild rose. Anderle had sent it down to refresh them.

“Bodovos would have made you work harder,” observed Mikantor.

“I know, but at least we wouldn’t spend so much time standing around . . .”

Mikantor could only agree. He wished he had paid better attention during the endless drills Bodovos had imposed on the City of Circles Guard. But it had never occurred to him that he might need to pass on the knowledge imprinted by constant practice in his muscles and nerves. He knew how to
do
these things, but not to how to explain them. Far too often, drill would come to a halt while the instructor tried to remember the next step in an exercise.

The one advantage was that he himself had recovered all his old form. He might even have improved, although without a skilled swordsman with whom to spar there was no way to know. Possibly the lack of a convenient inn at which to drink with his companions had something to do with it. With two pure springs to draw from, fermented drinks were only for ritual use at Avalon.

“Crack! Clack!” The men worked their way back and forth, swinging the wooden blades Velantos had carved to have the general weight and shape of the swords he would be casting as more metal came in. In the meantime, the bronze stored in the old smithy had already been made into spearheads, so the men were not completely unarmed. Perhaps this afternoon they should switch to practice with the spears.

What Mikantor was going to
do
with these young warriors once he had trained them was still something of a question. Some of them, he suspected, simply craved the excitement of battle, but most came from places that had suffered from Galid’s depredations. They assumed he would be going after the usurper to avenge his parents. But if he succeeded, what then? His aunt, the rightful queen of the Ai-Zir, had died while he was away. Anderle said that his cousin Cimara led a sad, circumscribed life on her farmstead, with the title of queen but no power. Galid had killed every man who dared to court her, so she had no children either. He thought he had seen her once at a festival, but she did not know him. If he got rid of Galid, would she even want him?