The Dragon Lord's Daughters (26 page)
Read The Dragon Lord's Daughters Online
Authors: Bertrice Small
“I can wipe the memory of you from his very thoughts!” the Lady threatened.
“Aye,” Maia agreed, “you can, Lady. But you will never wipe the memory of me from his heart any more than you were able to extinguish the memory of Lancelot from your heart.”
“Do not dare to speak to me of that . . . that man!” the Lady cried. Her hair and her skirts swirled about her in her agitation.
“Are fairy folk perfect?” Maia asked.
“Nay, of course not!” the Lady said impatiently. “Why do you ask such a foolish question, girl?”
“You can make mistakes like mortals,” Maia said.
“Aye, but not as many,” the Lady said.
“Then accept the fact that while you love your son, Lady, you erred in your judgment of his father,” Maia responded. “The Lancelot of legend was brave and noble. The Lancelot you knew was brave, yet frail. A man easily bewitched into misbehavior with other women. Had you not stolen him away from Elaine of Shallot you might not have suffered this tragedy of your heart. You are every bit as responsible for what followed as he was, yet you set the blame entirely upon my race.” She shivered now as the rising wind began to cut through her cloak, and her feet grew numb in their boots.
“Bold girl, you know nothing!” the Lady cried, and then in a clap of thunder she disappeared.
Maia sighed. Then turning from the battlements she reentered the castle, locking and barring the door behind her, and returned to her apartments. Drysi sat dozing by the fire. Maia added more wood to the hearth, and sat down heavily. The old woman was immediately alert.
“You have returned, child,” she said.
Maia nodded.
“Did the Lady answer your summons?” Drysi wanted to know.
“She did,” Maia acknowledged, and proceeded to tell the old lady what had transpired between her and the Lady of the Lake. When she had completed her recitation she stood up again. “I must bring wood up from the hall if we are to get through the night, Drysi. The Lady is not yet ready to admit her defeat. I will be back.” Then Maia left the nursemaid again, going down the stairs into the hall. For the next several hours she brought armload after armload of wood upstairs into her apartments so that she might keep the fires going through the night and into the next day. She foraged in the kitchens a second time, bringing back a cold meat pie, a ham, more bread, and a half wheel of cheese. She chopped up winter vegetables, and a dressed duck she found in the cold pantry, putting them into a pot with water and wine. All of this she carried upstairs and then returned downstairs for several skins of water and a carafe of wine. When she had finally finished the winter day was ending. She set the pot over the fire to boil itself into a stew. As long as she could find food and fuel they would survive.
Drysi spent her day dozing and watching the girl as she went about the task of making their confinement comfortable. She spooned up the dish of duck stew that Maia had prepared, mopping every bit of gravy from her bowl with a chunk of bread. She shared a bit of cheese and an apple with her young companion thinking that if anyone could save Emrys Llyn it was his wife.
“Come, Drysi,” Maia finally said when she had cleaned up the remnants of their supper, “and I will help you into bed. I can sleep on the trundle.”
“Nay, child,” Drysi told her. “I am more comfortable in my chair here before the fire than I would be in bed. Wrap that fur lap robe about me, and build up the fire.”
Maia did as she was bid, putting a footstool beneath the old woman's feet. Then she kissed Drysi good night, and found her own bed, waking twice in the night to be certain that the fires were still going in both her hearth and Drysi's. She did not sleep well, for there were too many thoughts swirling about in her brain. Where was Emrys?
And would she actually be able to overcome the Lady of the Lake, and regain her husband again? What would happen to her if she couldn't? Her father's keep was two days away, and she wasn't even certain she knew how to get there. And right now it was impossible, for she could not reach the stables to get a horse. And what was happening to the animals? They must be very hungry and thirsty by now. Tomorrow she would attempt to get across the castle courtyard. There was so much to do, and she was but one girl. Maia felt the tears come, and she wept silently into her pillow. She had to prevail. She simply had to prevail over the Lady! Her happiness depended upon it.
The next morning Maia awoke before the dawn, and dressed herself in the warmest clothing she could find. Bringing Drysi a cup of hot milk with a slice of bread and cheese, she left the old woman. The hall outside the apartment was bitterly cold. The castle walls were covered in a layer of silvery white frost, and she could see her breath.
“Damn the creature!” Maia muttered beneath her breath as she hurried along.
Reaching the main door to the castle she unbarred it and pulled it open. The sun was beginning to rise, coloring the skies above with red, orange, lavender and a deep pink. Maia drew a deep breath, and the icy air burned her lungs. Undeterred she set forth from the castle, slowly making her way across the courtyard to the stables. Finally reaching them she pulled the doors open. The stables were as empty of inhabitants as the castle was. She closed the doors to the building and struggled on to the barn. It, too, was empty. Not even a cat remained. Maia followed her footprints in the snow back to the castle, yanking the door shut behind her.
Now she began the climb back upstairs to the battlements of Ile du Lac. Unbarring the door and unlocking it she went out again to the precipice overlooking the lake. The winter sun was skimming across the horizon and turning the surface of the lake golden with its light. Maia snuggled into her hood and drew her cloak about her.
“Lady, come forth, damn it! It is time we settled this matter between us. I want my husband back! I need him, and he needs me.” Her voice echoed in the silence. Not even a bird called back.
“I am with child!” Maia said.
The rumble came in a fierce rush, and then the Lady appeared in the middle of the lake as was her custom.
“Bold girl, you lie!” she said, but the very tone of her voice indicated that she was not certain if Maia lied or not.
“I do not,” Maia responded calmly, standing straight and looking directly at this beautiful fairy who was her mother-in-law. “I am with child,” she repeated.
“How can you be certain?” the Lady demanded.
“Lady, I am the second of four children, and my eldest sister has two,” Maia answered. “You amended the curse on him yourself. You said he would regain his full mortality and sire children when he found true love. Is this not the real proof you seek, Lady? Emrys is now a mortal as he has wanted to be, and I carry his child!”
“Does my son know?” the Lady asked.
“I wanted to make certain I was not mistaken,” Maia said. “I planned to tell him the morning I awoke only to find you had stolen him away. I had been so concerned that I was not with child as quickly as my sister that I missed the first signs of my condition.”
For a long moment the Lady of the Lake was silent. Then she said, “I will send you in safety to your father's keep, Maia Pendragon.”
“No,” Maia told her. “This is your grandchild, Lady. This is how we members of humankind gain our immortality. It is through our offspring, and those that follow from their blood. Give me back my husband that he may know his child.”
“No! I above all others know the pain of seeing those you love grow old and die. I will not do that to my son.”
“Were you there when Lancelot died, Lady?” Maia asked the fairy.
The Lady nodded. “He came back here. Here to Ile du Lac. Here to me. But I had already wrapped the castle and its inhabitants in my spell. His home was gone, and so I raised up a small dwelling on the lakeshore where he might take his ease. He had been fighting in France, and anywhere his sword could be hired. Now he was old and could no longer fight, so he came back to me. Came back, and I saw my handsome and unfaithful husband, his limbs thin, his face drawn and gray, his once beautiful dark hair faded and streaked with white.”
“Yet you loved him still,” Maia said softly.
The Lady nodded. “I loved him still,” she agreed, “but alas, my magic could not protect him forever, for you mortals are so very frail. I told him what I had done to protect our child, and he smiled, pleased. But as each day passed he grew weaker, and finally, as I sat by his bedside, and held his hand, he died, another woman's name upon his lips. Gwynefr. Your ancestor's cursed queen, Maia Pendragon.”
“She was no blood of mine, Lady,” Maia responded. Then she said, “Emrys would choose his mortal side, Lady. He would live as a man lives. Let him!”
“I cannot see my son grow old and die,” the Lady said.
“Why?” Maia demanded. “Because you would be alone, Lady?”
The Lady of the Lake grew agitated with the girl's words. “You dare . . .” she began.
“I would dare anything to regain my husband!” Maia cried. “Give him back to me, Lady! You cannot keep his love by keeping him from me, and from his child.”
“You are the most stubborn girl!” the Lady said, and then she disappeared in a rumble of thunder as she had the day before.
Sighing, Maia reentered the castle. Every time she backed the fairy woman into a corner with her logic, the Lady disappeared. It was impossible to reason with someone who wasn't there. She spent the rest of the day as she had the previous. Hauling wood from the great hall to her apartments. Going out into the kitchen courtyard she lowered the bucket into the well, banging it several times against the glaze of ice covering the surface until the bucket dipped into the water. Maia filled the water skins from the bucket, and returned to her chambers.
“What had the Lady to say this day?” Drysi asked her.
“How do you know I spoke with the Lady?” Maia returned.
“Of course you spoke with her,” Drysi said. “You have not given up hope of finding your husband.”
“I told her I am with child,” Maia replied.
“And are you?” Drysi asked.
Maia nodded, and then a few tears slid down her face. “I was going to tell Emrys that day,” she explained to Drysi.
“What did the Lady say?” Drysi demanded to know.
“She offered to return me to my father's house,” Maia responded. “I refused.”
“Of course you refused,” Drysi said. “You were wise to do so. She knows that if her son learns he is to be a father she will lose him as she lost his father.”
Maia brushed the tears from her face. “I will not give up my husband,” she said. “In the spring I will go to my father, and he will give me the loan of servants. I will remain at Ile du Lac until my husband returns to me, and I will raise our child alone if I must, Drysi.”
Maia toasted bread and cheese that evening, setting a slice of ham upon it. She and Drysi drank wine from the carafe on her sideboard. And then they slept. When Maia awoke the following morning she sensed that something was different than the two previous days. Arising she went out into the dayroom where Drysi still slept. Gingerly she opened the door to her apartment, and stepped out into the hallway. The air within the passage was warm, and the frost had gone from the walls. She moved back into her own apartments. The pile of firewood she had so laboriously hauled upstairs from the great hall was gone. So was her cache of food, but on the sideboard was a covered tray.
Maia lifted the cover off the tray. Beneath she discovered two trenchers of bread filled with hot oat stirabout flavored with honey and heavy cream. There was a bowl of hard-boiled eggs, a cottage loaf, a dish of plum jam, and a little crock of sweet butter. She heard Drysi awakening behind her, and turned to her saying, “Look, old woman, we are to be magically fed this morning.”
Drysi cackled a dry laugh. “So your husband's mother has a conscience,” she remarked. “I do not know if I am surprised or not.”
“But how?” Maia wondered aloud.
“Ask not, child. Let us just eat, and be glad,” Drysi replied.
They split the contents of the tray between them. Maia had to admit that she felt better for the hot cereal. When they had finished she set the tray back upon the sideboard, and when she looked again it was gone.
“The castle is warm again,” Maia said. “The frost is gone from the walls.”
“Go down and see if anyone is here but us,” Drysi suggested.
Maia took up her cloak, and leaving the old lady, inspected the entire castle; but though the fireplaces were all burning, and the frost was indeed gone, there was no one about that she could see. She opened the door to the courtyard, and saw that a path had been shoveled to the various outbuildings nestled beneath the castle walls. The castle gates were wide open. Wrapping her cloak tightly about her Maia walked through them and down the shoveled path to the lakeside.
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