Percival's Angel Page 2

  If only I could vanish from here in a breath, like the Fey!

  But soft! Consider. On the other hand…These are but men. I am a man. Sir Edik tells me my new beard the Fey laugh at heralds Human manhood.

  Therefore, if these can shine like Gods, ride giant horses, draw huge knives, so can I! If they will tell me how.

  “I will bring meat, Sir. Give me but time.”

  With a clang, the third, silent knight of the rountable slid down his horse and fell flat, beak-shielded nose to earth.

  ***

  Three ladies spun and carded wool in Nimway’s sunny courtyard.

  Around them strong young greens lanced up to light between flagstones. Ancient rooms, once bright with paint and plaster, quietly decayed. Silently, Lady Villa groaned under its ever-growing weight of vines.

  Outside, the apple trees of Avalon bloomed pink and white; gathered like courtiers around their king, the mighty Counsel Oak, which crowned Apple Island.

  Around Apple Island the Fey lake rippled away to far, forested shores. Well out from the magic island a few small fishing coracles drifted, dragging nets; and one coracle set off from the western shore, poled vigorously straight for Apple Island.

  But the three ladies working in the courtyard did not sense its coming. Not even Nimway, Witch-Lady of the Lake, noticed its approach.

  Small and dark, she perched on the rim of the long-dead fountain. White braid swung down her back into the fountain. Green gown folded quietly down over little feet. She spun carefully, watching the whorl like a Human child just learning; for indeed, Nimway was learning a Human skill her folk had never used. Unless one could see the huge white aura that misted around her, the fearsome Lady of the Lake appeared mild enough.

  Human Alanna could not see the aura. But by another sense (which she called her “shivers,”) she had suspected the Lady’s Powers from the first. She balanced solidly on the fountain rim at a respectful distance, twirling her spindle with the absentminded skill of long, long use. Her gray braid was coiled into a crown. Her gown had once been blue. During her forest years it had faded, and been patched so many times in other faded colors that now she appeared clothed in light and shadow, fine forest camouflage.

  Cross-legged on the ground at a small distance, “young” Ivie carded wool. Ivie was not Alanna’s daughter, but she had always been treated as such. Of the three, she alone wore the usual Fey outfit of dun shirt and pants stolen from peasants beyond the forest. But her bright red hair, cascading wildly down into her pregnant lap, betrayed her Humanity.

  Alanna glanced down at Ivie appreciatively. Maturity had clothed Ivie in beauty unguessed when she first came with Alanna to the Fey forest. Does she regret that, now? Does she sometimes wonder what her life might have been, back in Arthur’s Kingdom? Ah, well. Too late to wonder, now.

  Alanna looked around the courtyard, delighting in the spring sunshine, noticing the ruin and decay that sunshine softened. Strange to think that Humans lived here, once! I’ll wager Roman ladies sat right here in this courtyard, spinning, like us! What did the Lady say?

  “Niviene gone back to Arthur’s Kingdom with Merlin.”

  Ah. Time to say this once again. “They go to safeguard Arthur’s Peace, Lady. A very urgent mission.”

  “Maybe. For Humans.”

  “For your Fey, as well. Without the Peace that their magic guards, Human enemies might come and ravage your forest.”

  “M-hm.”

  To herself, Alanna thought, That may well happen, magic or no magic, Arthur or no Arthur. Aloud, she said, as she had said before, “I know you miss your daughter. Well I know that pain! Yet you are blessed to have a grown daughter, Lady! You must be the only Fey in the forest to know that joy.”

  The Lady sighed. Her twirling spindle slowed, and idled. “My little ones grow up here, Alanna. In this villa.” In courtesy to her Human friends, Nimway spoke Human words, not fluently.

  “You have told us.”

  Predictably, Nimway continued. “Was like Human home. Safe. Solid. Like Goddess make villa, lake, island, all same time. Little ones grow. Go free in forest.

  “But then come back! And back and back! And I…always glad to see them. Now I think…” Nimway fell silent.

  Always before she had stopped at this point in the story. Alanna spun on, content with this. But Ivie raised serious blue eyes from her wool. This time she said, “Tell us, Lady. What do you think?”

  The Lady put down her spindle. She raised her hands to finger-speak. Alanna leaned forward frowning, concentrating on the Lady’s fingers.

  But then Nimway seemed to remember that her Human friends barely understood finger-talk. Her hands sank again to her lap.

  “I think…I wish…I let my little ones go, free in forest, and forget them. Like others do. Old Ways wise, after all.”

  “But why, Lady!” Ivie studied the Lady’s face the way, as a child in the Human world, she used to study numbers drawn on slate.

  “Niviene goes away, I hurt. Here.” Thin fingers sketched the Lady’s ribs. “Breath hard. Sun dark. Is like a…” The lady finger-spoke a word the Fey avoided…Sickness.

  Alanna nodded sympathy. “But then Niviene comes back. Always, she comes back.”

  “And I breathe again. Sun shines. But is ill, Alanna, is very ill, to see sunlight only in another’s face.”

  “Humans call that Love.”

  “Love ill thing! Long I know that. My folk know it forever. Only I dare love. Pay dear! My son Lugh, he go out into Kingdom. Never come back.”

  “We say, ‘Never is a long word.’”

  “True! And no sooner do I learn that, Merlin take Niviene away with him. And I must learn again! True, now I wish I follow Fey wisdom!”

  Alanna’s very real sympathy mingled easily with flattery. “You are known to be wisest of all.”

  “Except in this. Now am old, can say, ‘Aye. Took wrong step. Sacrificed to Goddess. Gave Her little ones. She lives in them now. Good.’

  “But then, failed! Did not turn them free. Did not live for self. Since stole my Lugh, never live for self!”

  Alanna’s spindle slowed. “You stole Lugh?” From the peasants out there? “Lugh is Human?”

  “Why you think he go out there? It call his blood.”

  “Ah…Men love adventure.”

  “Not Fey men. Lugh go back to his kind. When I little, free in forest, I tame lonesome fawn. Then, he bound away to first herd he see. Should learn lesson then!”

  Ivie’s carding comb lay idle on her knee. She asked, “But why did you steal the child?”

  “Why? Same like others. I think I barren. Yet must sacrifice to Goddess. Half sacrifice better none.”

  Alanna glanced down at Ivie’s gray wool. The Children’s Guard stole this wool on their night raids to peasant villages. In return, the Lady gave them a share of the spun and woven cloth. Mostly, the children stole bread and cheese from the villages, but sometimes clothing; and, on occasion, newborn infants.

  Softly she asked, “Lady, did you yourself go forth on a night and steal your son from a peasant hut? Or did a Child Guard bring him to you here?”

  “Neither one nor other. Why ask?”

  “I think…I seek to know you. I do not think I see you creeping into a peasant hut…”

  “No one knows other, Alanna. Even I. See minds. Know thoughts. Not know all.”

  Despite years of friendship, the Lady herself knew very little of Alanna’s Human life. What she knew sounded to her like a fairy story, full of dark enchantment and mystery. Long since, Alanna had given up trying to answer her constant, amazed, “What? But why?”

  The Lady said now, “Lugh, gift.”

  “Gift?”

  Ivie folded her hands over her unborn child. The spindle slept in Alanna’s lap.

  With hesitating words and finger-t
alk, the Lady told.

  Long ago, a very young Human girl stole by night to the forest edge.

  Still as a sapling in deep shadow, Nimway watched the child waver toward the forbidden tree line. Dressed in rags, hunched and stumbling, she clutched a bundle to her small chest. “I wonder. She too young to bear babe.”

  High in an oak a Child Guard also watched the girl, poisoned Bee Sting doubtless ready in his hand. Nimway called up to him like a bird startled out of sleep. Not even her Fey eyes could actually see this guard, wrapped in his “invisible” cloak and darkness, among a thousand leaves; but she stretched Spirit, and felt his ready hand relax. With her, he would wait and watch.

  The little girl came close to the first trees, and paused. Nimway watched her peer about, up at the near-full moon and ahead, into shadowed forest. Fey eyes might have distinguished Nimway from a sapling. These keen young Human eyes passed over her without a glance.

  This far a Human might come, and yet walk away.

  The girl heisted the bundle higher and drew a deep breath. (Sapling Nimway in the shadows heard that breath drawn and sighed out.) She squared small, thin shoulders and walked into the forest.

  No bird called. No poisoned dart flew.

  Tall as Nimway, but too young for her burden, the girl knelt among the raised roots of the guard’s oak. She laid the bundle down and made to draw back away. But the bundle cried out.

  A newborn voice called out to the child mother, and to “barren” sapling Nimway.

  (Later, Nimway found she had raised her arms toward that cry. Eyes on the bundle, the girl never noticed movement nearby. But Nimway had to hold her arms up and out like sapling branches till she feared they might break off.)

  The child dared an angry whisper. “Shush yourself!”

  The bundle cried louder. (Its cry echoed in Nimway’s breasts and blood and bones.)

  The girl lifted a small, thrashing figure from the bundle and bared her little breast.

  Nimway and the guard above heard every eager gulp and swallow, as the infant nursed. Later, the child bent her dark head close to his and whispered. Likely she explained to him what she was doing, and why; but sapling Nimway heard no words.

  He quieted. Very carefully, the child laid him down in his rag bundle between oak roots. Very carefully she leaned away back and stood up. She cast a frightened glance into the silent forest before her. Then, to Nimway’s astonishment, she spoke aloud.

  “You Good Folk! You allus want babes. So folks say. You come get this babe. You can have him free. You come pick him up. I can’t.”

  As she backed away from the oak roots, a twig snapped under her heel.

  She jumped like a shot hare, turned, and stole quickly away out to the open field. After that one sharp sound, she likely thought she made no more.

  A sleepy bird chirped behind her retreating back.

  Out in the moonlit field she made an easy target.

  But like a wounded hare she loped away. No poisoned dart whistled after her.

  Within the forest fringe this child had seen nothing she could betray to her world. If a sapling had raised sudden branches, she had not noticed. If birdcalls had broken night silence, they meant nothing to her. She could be let go.

  Ivie murmured, “She must be the only Human who ever escaped you!”

  The Lady shot her a baleful glance so quick a blinking eye would have missed it, and jabbed a finger signal. So far, you have escaped me!

  Nimway glided forward and plucked the babe out of his rags. He lay large in her arms as in his young mother’s; heavy with health, warm with sleep, buxom. “Skin soft like flower petals…But you know that, Alanna.”

  Astounded, Alanna watched a tear steal down the Lady’s cheek. She had not thought the Fey could weep.

  Ivie’s blue eyes filled in sympathy.

  The Lady blinked. She picked up her spindle and resumed work.

  “Then,” Alanna ventured, “you did not steal your Lugh at all. He was a gift. The mother said, ‘Come pick him up.’”

  “Hah! That guard think I steal him! Had his mouse spy eye on that babe, be sure!” To barter with some barren Fey.

  Alanna thought aloud. “But you were not barren, Lady…”

  “I learn that later, with Niviene. Do you two forget what we do here?” Now the Lady spun furiously. Alanna and Ivie took up their work.

  Ivie mumbled thoughtfully, “I don’t think I will ever turn my child loose, free in the forest.” The child in her belly thumped a visible, happy response.

  “What you do, then? Keep it by you, like Alanna keep her son?”

  “Why not, indeed?”

  The Lady hiccupped a wee, malicious laugh. “You ever see young fellow miserable like Percy?”

  Alanna gasped.

  “You know this, Friend. We talk this before.”

  Tears dimmed Alanna’s sight. Wool and spindle and her own lap swam together. “You…you have said this.”

  “More than once. Quick you forget!”

  “I am only Human.”

  “I forget that, for love. Here we see love—confusion! What else I tell you more than once?”

  “You have said…you say…my Percy…”

  “Will leave you. Surely will, Alanna.”

  “No. No.”

  “Is only matter of time, chance. Like my lonesome fawn, Percy run to first Human herd he see.”

  “Ah, but he will see none! I have sacrificed my life, more life than I thought I would have, to assure that he will see none.”

  The Lady said quietly, implacably, “Is no assure, Alanna. Is never assure. So love is needless burden.”

  Alanna wiped a patched sleeve across her eyes, looked up at the Lady. Firmly, she said, “Love is the meaning of life.”

  “Ha! Not even Humans think so! Ivie? You think so?”

  A small voice said, “Lady!”

  Startled, Alanna jumped. Her spindle rolled and fell.

  At her knee stood a small person wrapped in a Child Guard’s “invisible” cloak. Tearily, she watched the cloak drop away. Percy’s little friend Lili drooped there, dark eyes wide, braid full of twigs and leaves. Lili panted and sweated. She must have run fast. She must have poled a coracle very fast across the lake for her small breasts to heave so under her shirt.

  Calmly, the Lady acknowledged her. “Lili.”

  Alanna bent to pick up her spindle.

  Lili gasped, “Percy…talking Human…with three Humans.”

  Alanna’s fingers froze on her spindle.

  “Humans? In the forest?” The Lady’s soft voice held wonder, and threat.

  “They…won’t get out…But Lady, I know a little Human talk. Percy taught me.”

  “So?”

  “Can you cast a spell so far? To stop them telling Percy about…Knights…and King Arthur…and the rountable?”

  Darkness flooded Alanna.

  She heard Ivie’s frightened voice call, “Alanna!” And nothing more.

  ***

  Three days I hunted Percy. Followed his scent. Rain washed it away. Followed his tracks. Lost them in a stream. Climbed to his tree-den. From the bottom of the oak I knew Percy was not there. No smell of Percy. But still I climbed to make sure there was no Percy. I tried out pool, where he had met those fool, doomed knights. No Percy.

  Here and there I met Fey. “Have you seen Big White Percy?” No one had noticed him. All too busy dividing up the knights’ baggage.

  I even asked the fairies I saw, bright small ones and misty tall ones. They paused, as if they heard me. They looked at me, and vanished. As always.

  Here it is bright evening on the third day; and I think of the Cliffs.

  Why not sooner? Why not first thing?

  Because the Cliffs are not part of my forest. Like everyone else I skirt around them,
avoid the sight of them. The Cliffs that lean over rocky North River smell of Death.

  Women who bear malformed babes usually drown them. But sometimes they toss them off the Cliffs.

  Old Fey who decide to die toss themselves off. Bones wreathe the rocks of North River.

  Naturally, Fey avoid the Cliffs. But not Percy. Long ago I found out that he cannot smell Death, or much else. The Lady says that’s a Human trait.

  Percy used to go off and play by himself at the Cliffs, when the Child Guard scoffed at him. He told me once he had rigged a vine to climb up and down.

  I come to the top of the Cliffs. I hold my breath against the stink and look down over.

  It’s not so far down. Just far enough to kill.

  Down there roaring North River boils about its rocks. Here and there, bones. Percy? I strain my eyes, searching.

  No Percy.

  I sigh relief, and draw back from the edge.

  I smell Percy. Follow Percy smell around a boulder. There sits Percy on the edge, back to me, feet dangling over.

  For a while I stand quiet, watching Percy’s sturdy back. His solid shoulders. Sunset bright in his bright hair. Gods! This is my real, Big White Percy, breathing and alive; and I can hardly believe the way my ribs expand, how deep I can breathe, now I see him safe!

  But soft; don’t startle. Percy smells of agitation. I cannot see his aura in this clear light, but I know it must be flaming like a forest a-fire. Surprise him, he could go right over the edge.

  I scratch the boulder beside me. Over and over I scratch, as if to file down my nails. Not surprisingly, Percy hears nothing at first. His ears are full of river-roar.

  Louder I scratch; by now, Fey ears would notice something. Finally, even Percy notices a discordance in the river-roar, and looks over his shoulder.

  “Don’t watch me like that!” He roars louder than North River. “Let me know if you’re watching me! Goddamn spy!”

  I kneel just behind his shoulder, not right at the edge. I do not dangle my feet over. I shout, “Percy. I’ve been hunting you.”