Chains of Gold (28 page)

“No,” I told him, “you did not.” This youth, this winterking, whoever he was, did not bear it as silently as Lonn had.

“I should have screamed. I should have screamed.” Lonn was panting. “Perhaps it would have let some of the venom out. Aaah!” He twisted as if caught by a long lash. “Mother, it hurts!”

He crouched with his whole borrowed body clenched against agony, every muscle twitching, tensed to flee, but he could not flee. He stayed as still as if bound by invisible chains.

“Mother of us all, the pain!” he burst out. “You are cruel, cruel—” He closed his eyes hard against her, against torment. “Did I disgrace myself?” he asked, gulping, “Befoul myself?”

“I do not recall that you did,” I told him, quite truthfully. Perhaps he would not remember how I had stood with eyes tightly shut.

“I hope not.…”

Arlen was biting his lip, face aquiver, reaching out toward Lonn but afraid to touch him. I took Arlen's hand to comfort him—and Lonn gasped and writhed as if the full force of agony had only just then struck him.

“Rae!” The words slipped out between sobs. “Art. Help—me. Hold me.”

We put our arms around him, and around each other as well, and we drew him to us, close, gathered him against us so that the three of us made a sort of flower of three petals, or a pod, a cluster, huddled against harm. We embraced him, murmuring to him, soothing him as if he were our child. I kissed his face, laid my head for a moment on Arlen's shoulder. Then the distant winterking shrieked again, and Lonn groaned aloud in anguish.

“Courage,” Arlen whispered to him. “It must soon be over.”

It was not. How could the evening seem longer than the day had been? The three of us cowered in the darkness beneath the willows, clasped tight each to each, hearing the sounds of pain, feeling the hot breath of cruel hatred; it was alive in that night on that island; it prowled. We all shook in terror of it, and Lonn trembled in agony of another sort, and strained and moaned in our arms. Toward the end he screamed at last, scream after long desperate scream, wild screams that echoed across the black water. His whole body quivered, his soul seemed torn out with those screams. But the Gwyneda would not have heard him, for they were far gone in their frenzy by then—and then in the distance the death roar sounded, and Lonn slumped limp against us.

“It is over,” Arlen breathed.

He got up shakily. I sat and held Lonn's head and upper body on my lap, weeping; we were both weeping, Arl and I. But Lonn did not move or weep. Arlen built a small fire, just fire enough for us to see by, and he knelt beside me and started gently, ever so gently, to strip the body.

Not a corpse, exactly. Lonn still softly breathed. But he lay pale and still with lidded eyes—I smoothed the lids with my fingertips and let my tears fall on the face. Our sorrow was keen and real, for we were sending Lonn away. He was our friend, the winterking who had died. We would never see him again.

“He bore it nobly,” Arlen said, his voice far from steady. “No draught of mead to soften it, no glamour, serpent power of the goddess. Only poor human comfort.…” His voice caught, the words faded.

We had with us what we needed, the towels of linen, the soft fleeces, new napkins for washing, and some things Ophid had provided, basins of silver, a richly embroidered mantle. We laid the body on the soft fleeces and washed it tenderly with wine, three times, until the wine was all gone. And then we washed it in like wise with milk. Lonn still breathed, but he seemed quite unaware of us, and I felt a pang of pride for him. This was his choice, his going: his the struggle and his the victory.

“I loved him like a brother,” Arlen said, tears finally stilled, and I hoped that in some sense Lonn had heard.

The third time we washed him with the milk, until it was all gone, and then we washed him with river water warmed over the fire. And then I gathered him up and held him to my bosom as I dried him with the linen towels, held him to my bosom and warmed him and gathered him close and rocked him as if he were a child. He lay limp, he never stirred, but the holding of him set me to weeping again. I cried softly, easily, and I noticed light amidst the looping branches of the willows. We had done our vigil, and it was dawn.

New clothing for Lonn, tunic of soft velvet and breeches of doeskin, fit for a king's son; there had been time enough to stitch them on our journey. Arlen slipped the things on him. A lapping sounded at the shore beyond the willows, and in a moment Ophid walked up to us.

“Look,” he said. “I have borrowed you a worthy bier.”

We looked, and gasped. It was a great swan boat, larger than the others we had seen, grand and high-headed, and the swan swam as red as blood, a shining lacquer red, and its beak and eyes were gilded.

“All the dead of the Sacred Isle go down the river,” Ophid said, “one way or another. This is the bird that carries them in state.”

“Let us make of it the softest couch we can,” said Arlen.

He took the fleeces and all the blankets he could gather, blankets of finest wool, and he and Ophid piled them high while I held Lonn in my arms. Then they came and wrapped him in the rich red mantle emblazoned with thread of gold, slipped it around his shoulders and fastened it at his throat with a serpent clasp. Then Arlen took him from me and carried him to the swan boat, laid him there straight and stately with the mantle spread and trailing like wings about him, and the waist of his green tunic was bound by a golden chain.

The swan sailed away. We followed in the cormorant. In slow and silent progression we swam down the Naga, seeming at times to hardly more than drift, and all the noble folk along the bank stared at us, stared at Lonn lying so still in the great red swan, and some of them knelt, and some averted their eyes as if they had seen an omen.

We came to the crannog that bore the cenotaph.

“There are bundles of sweet reeds for strewing,” Ophid told us, “and three beeswax candles for light. I will leave you.”

“Thank you,” Arlen murmured to him. He stepped into the shallows and lifted Lonn from his couch, carrying him cradled against his shoulder. I gathered up the bedding. The swan gravely bowed its head in salute, lowering its gilded beak to the surface of the water. Then it turned and sailed away upstream to its home, leaving us.

I spread blankets on the grass above the stone of the shore, and we laid Lonn there. I stayed with him while Arlen prepared the tomb. They sky had darkened, purple-gray clouds scudding, and the yew trees by the cenotaph were turning up the pale undersides of their small evergreen leaves. As Arlen came and stood beside me, a rumbling sounded in the sky.

“Thunder?” he exclaimed. “In winter?”

We stared at each other for a moment. We had not thought such great events were afoot.

“Well,” said Arl at last, “we had better get Lonn within before it storms.”

We placed him on our stoutest blanket and tugged him gently through the passageway, Arlen before, pulling, and I behind to guide. Candlelight made a great difference; the place seemed not dark and frightening, as I remembered it, but hushed, dim, awesome and silent under great stones. And quite empty, no bones, not even those of birds or vermin. And the air within was as sweet as that without. Under the vault of the corbeled main chamber lay a great stone slab draped with woolens and fleeces. Fragrant rushes were strewn about, and by the stone the three candles burned with a serene, unwavering light.

From outside, distant, came the sound of rain, as if the goddess softly wept.

“Sleep in peace, Lonn,” Arlen murmured as if Lonn could hear him. As perhaps he could.

We laid him straight and regal on the slab, arranged his rich cloak in folds about him, crossed his hands on his chest. Then from under our own tunics we brought forth satin bags, opened them, and spilled forth treasure with a soft rustle as of serpents: clasps and jeweled brooches and armbands and the chains, ever the golden chains. All around Lonn and on him, by his head, his hands, his feet, in the folds of his tunic and mantle we placed our gifts of treasure, the red gold and the white gold and the gold as yellow as the sun, and on his chest the golden chains; we held nothing back. I even took off the golden chain from around my neck, the one the goddess my mother had given me, and placed it around his own. We upended the bags to make sure that not so much as a single small and shining jewel remained within them.

“These things are yours to keep forever, Lonn,” Arlen told him. “Our gifts of love, freely bestowed. Unasked for.”

Lonn's quiet breathing shuddered slightly and then softened into a sigh, as if he had only just then ceased to weep.

“Go with—all love.…”

Arlen's voice broke on the words, and tears slid down his face, the very quiet, easy tears of an old sorrow. It was time for Lonn to take passage, he who had died two years before.

“Go decked in glory to the dance,” I murmured.

We were both weary, very weary, too weary to wonder very much what might happen next. Soft wash of rain outside seemed very far away. Arlen sat down on the ground amidst the sweet rushes as if to keep a vigil, and I sank down and rested my head against the stone of the slab near Lonn's feet. For no reason I was humming to myself, a lulling hum such as one might use to send an infant off to sleep. And after a hazy time I became aware that Arlen had risen to his knees, head up like that of a questing stag, gazing with open mouth and caught breath. And I also sat up and looked.

Lonn was fading. I could yet see his face, so still, his lidded eyes, but he looked somehow—insubstantial, as if a touch would have gone through him, and I inched away from him lest I should touch him by chance. Then I could no longer clearly see his face. He looked wavering, hovering, a shadow on the slab, and within that shadow—a smaller form—

“Wait,” Arlen whispered to me, seeing my arms rise, my hands reach out, and I stopped them in midair, and I stopped breathing.

Lonn had not yet finished his passing. His presence yet lingered, a watery sheen in the candlelight, nothing more—and then I sensed or felt a gentle exhalation, sigh of earth, breath of the goddess, and he was gone, truly gone. One short candle guttered and went out.

And there on the slab lay treasure and shapeless cloth, and amidst the velvet and the chains of gold lay—the babe, a sturdy boy baby of a year and more, naked and sleeping peacefully, and on his small left shoulder was the serpentine mark I remembered so well.

“Oh, mighty Mother,” I whispered, afraid to touch him lest he somehow not be, after all, breathing, lest he somehow not be real.

“Go ahead,” Arlen urged.

The soft, soft feel of that rose-petal skin.… He was as solid as I. Gently, gently I lifted him, and he opened his eyes but did not cry, only crowed in baby wonder and reached out to pat my cheek. Touch of that tiny hand seemed all I would ever want of happiness. And oh, the faint, sweet fragrance of the little one's hair.… I stood in a daze of joy, holding him, joy too deep for tears or laughter, and Arlen put his arms around both of us, and bowed his head in gesture of wordless praise.

“Out,” he said, and we wrapped the babe warmly and left the empty tomb and the candles burning down.

The rain had stopped, and the thunder, and the sun was shining through clouds. We stood outside the entry and gazed about us as if the whole world were made anew. Overhead arched a bright rainbow, the celestial serpent. The child babbled and reached out toward it.

“There,” Arlen said. “His name is Davin, sky glory, the rainbow.”

The little one looked at his father, owlish, his eyes round and innocent and the same greenish shade as Arlen's.

“Davin,” I repeated.

And so his name was, all his life, even after his passage.

Food awaited us, dried fruit, Ophid's gift. We ate—little Davin ate eagerly. And by the time Ophid came for us, Arlen had sealed off the entry to the cenotaph. Forever empty that tomb would remain, and forever Lonn's.

EPILOGUE

That was long ago. I am old now, and Arlen's russet hair has gone white, though he still works as hard as ever. We earned our way through honest toil after we left our treasure with Lonn, and Davin grew tall and honest and kindly like his father, with only a trace of something otherworld about him, something wise. He left when he was grown to join the sorcerers beyond the burning sea in their struggle against my marauding father Rahv. I have sometimes hoped he might have found Briony.… And we had three other sons, Arl and I, and two daughters, and found joy in them all.

We have never been visited by Lonn again, for which we are both glad and sorry. He was at once hero and scapegoat and grasping villain, greedy for more of life and love—are we not all? But all the misfortunes in my life seemed mild once I had Davin back. And the goddess has never withdrawn her favor from us, Arl and me. Neither Rahv nor any other enemy has ever troubled us here in our mountain haven, and I think none ever will. We will live out our lives in peace in this place and nod by the fire sometime in a final sleep, sometime when we are very old. Together. Bound as by a chain of gold.

About the Author

Nancy Springer has passed the fifty-book milestone with novels for adults, young adults, and children, in genres including mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, magic realism, horror, and mystery—although she did not realize she wrote mystery until she won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America two years in succession. Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Springer moved with her family to Gettysburg, of Civil War fame, when she was thirteen. She spent the next forty-six years in Pennsylvania, raising two children (Jonathan and Nora), writing, horseback riding, fishing, and bird-watching. In 2007 she surprised her friends and herself by moving with her second husband to an isolated area of the Florida Panhandle where the bird-watching is spectacular, and where, when fishing, she occasionally catches an alligator.