Part 16 (1/2)
Yes, this was that kingdom she had antic.i.p.ated, that she had longed for. The clash with Hatiphas now forgotten, she pushed open the bronze door. The tinkle of water from bronze dolphins' mouths, falling into a stone basin, harmonized with the sweet tones of a lyre unseen. Gra.s.s like new-tied carpet cus.h.i.+oned her feet. She recognized this courtyard-and the door at its far end. Relief washed over her as she dismissed a fear she had not previously admitted to consciousness: that the real palace would not to be identical with the rooms, corridors, and courtyards of her dreams. But they were. Vindicated, she strode confidently ahead.
”Wait!” Hatiphas murmured, in the low tones of a servant. ”My master is still below, awaiting you.”
”I know the way to his chambers,” Pierrette said with a bright, false, girlish smile. ”I'll wait for him on the bench just inside the doorway, and when he removes his golden bulls-head helm, and seeks to set it in itsaccustomed place he'll discover . . . me.” The artificial nature of her smile was easily explained:this Minho was not the man of her dreams. Her Minho would have known already that she was here, and would have been on hand to greet her-wouldn't he?
Hatiphas was also discomfited. He was perplexed. Being used to an environment where everything was predictable to a man of influence and stature, and was thus controllable, he was also angry-again. This pert, unpredictable sprig of a girl had upset his most careful plans, and continued to demonstrate that he could not fit her spontaneous flitting into any kind of sensible arrangement at all.
He did not follow her into Minho's private chambers-what harm could she do there?-because he wanted to find his master immediately, and to warn him that he must not take anything she uttered or did at face value. Her influence was disruptive of the peaceful fabric of their placid lives, and might, he feared, even be . . . dangerous.
Pierrette, had she been privy to his considerations, might have agreed with him. As soon as the door had shut behind her, a further reality struck her with almost physical force: there, when she raised her eyes, was the very spot where she had lit, where her seagull's webbed feet had spread on the blue cap tiles of the parapet wall. ”Find the Isles and their king, and then . . . you must destroy his kingdom, and he must die.”
She knewwhat could destroy the Fortunate Isles. As yet, she had no idea of just how to bring that destruction about. And, as yet, she intended as firmly as ever to find a different solution to her dilemma, one in which her visions-now demonstrated to have been accurate in the small details-would be entirely fulfilled, in which she would indeed marry Minho, and sit upon that gold-and-ivory throne that even now awaited, she was sure, where the last great black promontory projected into the endless western ocean.
But solutions and decisions must wait-she heard a clipping of leather soles on the tesselations of the corridor, and knew that her brief respite for musing was at an end. She composed herself gracefully on the bench, and shook her dress out so that it fell in soft folds from her knees to the floor, its wrinkles entirely gone now.
The door swung wide. The figure emergent in its marble frame was taller than a man should be, and its head was not human: great horns sprung from it. From its nostrils gouted puffs of white, herb-scented smoke. Then Minho, sorcerer-king of the Fortunate Isles, reached up with altogether human hands and lifted his heavy headpiece from his shoulders-and as he turned to set it in its accustomed place, he gasped. ”I was sure you had come. I felt a tremor in the earth when your feet touched my sh.o.r.e. But then, when you did not arrive among the welcomers . . .”
Pierrette smiled. Minho's aquiline features, his coiled ringlets of dark hair, contrasted with his present expression of boyish petulance. ”Should I apologize for upsetting your plans? I won't. You could have warned me, somehow. I was in no condition, after a long sail, for a ceremonial occasion.”
Petulant became crestfallen. ”If you knew how difficult it was even to send you that star-map, you wouldn't berate me. Events beyond my sh.o.r.es have become mysteries to me, and clouds of uncertainty obscured your pa.s.sage even along my own waterways. Why, even now . . .”
”We've only just met,” Pierrette interrupted, ”and we're bickering like my father and his wife.” She imitated Gilles the fisherman: ”Granna, my dear, I waited all morning in the olive grove!” And then: ”Gilles, your memory's gone the way of your teeth. You were to meet me at my market stall.” Minho laughed. ”In truth,” he mused, resting his bull's-head helm on the floor and slipping in the same motion onto the bench beside her, ”we are just such an old couple, and have known each other far longer than those two.” He put his hand on her knee.
She lifted it away. Hatiphas's revelation of Minho's vicarious lovemaking rankled. ”You know me because you've hidden behind the eyes of others whom I've loved-but for me, you are a vision seen in the Otherworld, a child's dream. Give me the time I need to know you in this world.” She had not been offended by his touch, but she was confused by her own reaction to it. ”Where were you when I was trudging the waste and forests of Armorica?” she asked silently. She had labored, struggled, and risked everything at the hands of Vikings and theGallicenae, and had spent months on the rivers Rhoda.n.u.s and Liger to get here. His casual possessiveness rankled. Where, indeed, had he been, and what travails had he endured, for this moment to come about?
He smiled broadly. ”You are indeed a fresh breeze in this, my ancient land. It's hard to remember that once I did not get anything I wanted merely by lifting an eyebrow. But now, come-there is fresh fruit laid out on the terrace above.”
Following him, she noted his easy grace, his broad shoulders, and wasp-fine dancer's waist, and imagined him vaulting over the horns of a bull-but she did not imagine herself held in his arms, her hands on that waist. Why? What was so different, now, from when she had been here in the Otherworld?
Just as she saw details of architecture and design that she had not remarkedthen , there was complexity in a real relations.h.i.+p that eluded a dreamer. She now perceived Minho not as a misty ideal, but as a person who, like all persons, had flaws. He had admitted one. What others were there? Those other times, she feared reality had adjusted itself to the needs of her vision. Her own memories of Anselm's keep, a lesser replica of this palace, had perhaps supplied her mind with what detail she thought she had observed in fact. When a moment became more intense than she could bear-as when Minho had kissed her-she had fled in a flutter of feathers on magpie's wings. Now, having stepped ash.o.r.e on solid stone without dreamlike flexibility, she must deal with the equally indurate reality of Minho himself, with complexities unknown to her, as she would with any new-met stranger, because this was no dream, and she did not think she could flee in any form but her own, with all its limitations.
She was, she decided, not the callow child she had been when Minho courted her ephemeral Otherworld self with sweet words, meaningful gazes, and the promise of immortality. He would have to court her still.
”How lovely!” she exclaimed when she saw the silver, gold, and electrum platters laden with peeled, sliced fruit, many varieties entirely unknown to her. She chose a slice of apple-then hesitated, and murmured soft words.
Minho's brow wrinkled as if she had insulted him. ”Why did you do that?” he asked. ”You don't need such spells, here.”
Caught-the spell she uttered was supposed to prevent a guest from incurring obligation to a host with each bite she took-Pierrette decided to brazen it out. She smiled mischievously. ”Really? Then are all your promises as vapid? A girl might hope no detail would be too small to consider-if a man really wanted her . . .”
His smile took long, glacial moments to form. Then: ”You warned me, once, didn't you? You said your presence here would upset every balance, would shake my palace . . .” She laughed. ”Of course! And I am no liar. I will do that. Can you bear it?”
”For you . . . I could bear anything at all.”
Could he? She kept smiling. What, she wondered, would he do if she required him to come with her into the world of mankind, forsaking this splendor? What if . . . she had to concentrate to maintain her smile . . . she asked him to let down the great spells that preserved his land in this eternal moment, and become . . . mortal?
He clapped his hands, and musicians emerged from an alcove with flutes, lyres, and tambours. They struck up an airy tune. Most of the entertainers were men, wearing only the Cretan kilt, but several were women . . . Pierrette blushed. All were bare-breasted. That, she reminded herself, was the Minoan style.
But though she knew that, and though the musicians were unembarra.s.sed by their exposure, Pierrette was not. One tambourist's mature b.r.e.a.s.t.s swayed heavily with the motion of her upraised arms; a lyrist's small, pointed adornments seemed almost to brush the strings of her instrument. A young flautist's chest, hardly swollen at all, inflated and deflated regularly with the trills and warbles she produced.
Pierrette pulled her eyes away, and focused on Minho. ”I see no meat on your table, King of the Fortunate Isles. Have you no taste for it?”
”You're baiting me. Can meat be eaten without tasting the death throes of kine or fowl? Fresh, foamy milk I can furnish, or aged cheeses of every flavor. There are boiled eggs and pickled ones, if you crave animal food. Try one of those with a pinch of salt . . .”
She shook her head. ”Yes, I was baiting you. I know you banished everything painful or ugly from your domain, long ago-and though I enjoy a well-roasted haunch, or a crispy pullet sprinkled with rosemary, I can forgo such treats, if I must.”
What was the expression that pa.s.sed so quickly across his face? For a moment, had the sorcerer-king regretted the inclusiveness of his spells? Had he, just for the blink of an eye, remembered some favorite dish he had not tasted these two thousand years?
Quickly, she changed the subject. ”In the keep of my master Anselm-once your student Ansulim-the sun always stands at high noon. Is it so here also?”
Minho laughed indulgently. ”My erstwhile student's skills are rudimentary. How would olives know when to bloom, in eternal daylight? Wouldn't the pansies exhaust themselves? And the heliotropes? Would their stalks stiffen, if their flowers always faced zenith? No. Here, the sun traverses the sky, but like your master's little enclave, no time pa.s.ses in the world outside, unless I wish it to, and no one within ever ages a single day.”
”Will you show me the spells that make it so?” she asked. ”I've spent ages in Anselm's library, learning the nature of magics, and how spells mutate as the premises that underlay them are forgotten or reinterpreted. What a joy it would be to study yours-masterful spells uncorrupted by the flow of years, the rise and fall of peoples and their changing tongues . . .”
”With all my lovely land to explore, you want to bury your face in dusty archives instead? You'll have all eternity for that. Tomorrow I'll begin to show you . . .” She allowed him to describe the wonders of his island kingdom, but her mind strayed elsewhere. Did these apples really taste flat, those pears insipid, and that pomegranate sweet, but without savor? Indeed the sun moved across the sky, though not as quickly as she might have wished. At last, when its ruddy glow painted half the heavens with rich mauves and ochers, with incarnadine flames edged with lemony yellow, she rubbed her eyes. ”I haven't slept the night through for ever so long,” she said apologetically. ”On a boat, one must always remain alert for a changing wind or a coming storm.”
”Of course,” said the king. ”Tonight, you shall sleep on a bed of cloud, with a coverlet as light as a child's dream.” Again he clapped. A lovely girl of indeterminate age responded to his summons. Despite her Cretan dress, which left her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bare, Pierrette could not decide if she were child or woman.
”I'll settle for a straw pallet that doesn't rock with the waves,” Pierrette said to Minho, resisting the girl's delicate tugging, ”and plain wool or feathers will suffice to cover me.”
”Whatever you want,” he replied offhandedly. ”Neheresta will see that you have just the thing. Until morning, then-though I shan't sleep a wink, just knowing you are at last here, and so near my own bed . . .”
Pierrette yielded to the girl, Neheresta, and allowed herself to be led through several fine rooms of marble and polychrome stone, painted between their pilasters with brilliant scenes of fishermen at sea, of oliviers in their groves. Neheresta pushed open a door, then waited while Pierrette entered. She smiled when Pierrette exclaimed how amazing it was-to the last detail a replica of her chamber in Anselm's keep, even to the heavy curtains at the window, that at home would have kept the perpetual noonday sun at bay.
When Pierrette sniffed and crinkled her mattress, it gave off the sweet aroma of fresh, soft straw, and the coverlet was the same indigo wool as her own. A tray displayed vials of oils and unguents identical to the ones that occupied the little table against the wall of her own room. She found a bronze chamberpot in an alcove. It was s.h.i.+ny and unblemished, as if it had never been used. Oddly, though hours had pa.s.sed since she had used the wooden bucket aboard her boat, she felt no need at this time. Perhaps Neheresta's presence inhibited her.
When Pierrette loosened her cincture, Neheresta essayed to help her undress. ”I don't need help,”
Pierrette said, not ungently. ”You may go now.” Neheresta's eyes abruptly filled with tears. ”Must I?” she asked, her inflections only superficially childlike. ”I wish to stay here, with you.”
”There is only the one bed. Won't you need to sleep too?”
”I won't thrash about, or make noises in my sleep,” she said. ”Perhaps you'll allow me to rub the aches from your back and shoulders.”
Pierrette had often shared a bed with far larger and more obtrusive companions, and this bed was-as she noticed now-considerably wider than her own narrow one. But when she was disrobed, Neheresta produced no s.h.i.+ft or other sleeping garment for her. She just turned back the coverlet, and waited expectantly for Pierrette to get in. Then she slipped out of her own kilt and sandals, and slid gracefully beneath the soft, light wool.
Pierrette was not accustomed to being taken care of by another person, let alone a naked one, but when Neheresta's small hands urged her to roll over onto her stomach, and began ma.s.saging her shoulders and upper arms, it was not difficult to succ.u.mb to the delight. Neheresta's skilful fingers found aches Pierrette had not known existed, and kneaded them away. Once Pierrette had relaxed under her ministrations, the girl smoothly swung one leg up over the small of her back, straddling her. The unfamiliar sensation of that small, smooth body intimately pressing against her created whole constellations of new tensions. Those in turn Neheresta labored to dispel. Soon enough, such was her fatigue, Pierrette began to doze.
She awakened abruptly to a different kind of sensation: a warm, rich, heady glow that radiated from the depths of her body. She gasped, and reached to pull away Neheresta's hand-but the arm she grasped was as rigid as iron, and would not be moved, and the fingers curved at her neck were no less unyielding.
”Be at ease,” her companion's voice whispered, almost in her ear. ”Thisache is greater than any other.
Soon, it will be gone, and you will sleep as never before.” Neheresta continued her attentions, and despite herself, Pierrette succ.u.mbed as inevitably as the rocks of the sh.o.r.e succ.u.mb to the waves and the rising tide.
Later, pus.h.i.+ng aside the veils of sleep, Pierrette rose on one elbow and looked at her bedmate, sprawled innocently beside her. As if her gaze was as solid as a touch, Neheresta opened her eyes. ”Is this what children learn, here, in the Fortunate Isles?” asked Pierrette.
”Does a child look out from your eyes, that spent a century poring over your master's ma.n.u.scripts, while your friends and your father aged not a day on the outside? I was a woman grown sixteen centuries before the apprentice Ansulim departed here on his ill-fated mission. In all those years, and in the centuries since, you are the first new person I have loved. Would you begrudge me that, because of my child's face and my girl's body?