Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon (39 page)

And was king of the Ai-Zir what he wanted to be? He had been born in Azan, but Galid had kept him from growing up there. He thought of the Lake Village or Avalon as home. He agreed that Galid needed killing, but how could he help the other tribes if they thought of him as a man of Azan?

They had taken a break to share the tea when Aelfrix came running back with the news that two more recruits had reached the isle. Mikantor looked around at the young men who were lounging or lying exhausted on the grass. He had tried to be honest with them, making no promises except for the training itself. One day he would want an army, but for now the number of his Companions must be limited to a group that could move swiftly and that he could afford to feed.

His foster brother Grebe had been the first to join him here. He was already a good field archer, but knew nothing of the sword. Acaimor and Romen were almost as dark and slim as Lake Folk, strong and fast. They had come up from the Ai-Utu lands, because Romen remembered Mikantor from his time in Belerion. Pelicar, as tall as Beniharen but fair, like him was from the People of the Boar. He was a son of their queen, accustomed to rule, and was proving an able commander. Dun-haired Tegues had been a boyhood friend of Ganath and followed him. Adjonar was the first of the Ai-Zir to find the courage to join the man they hoped would deliver them from Galid.

If we can watch over each other, we shall not do so badly
, thought Mikantor.

As the newcomers approached, those who had been relaxing sat up, not yet hostile, but watchful as sheepdogs.The young man in the lead was of middle height and as black bearded as Velantos. In fact he had very much the look of the smith. As he neared, Mikantor held up a hand in greeting, “Be welcome, man of the south,” he said in the Akhaean tongue.

The fellow stopped short, a white grin appearing in the midst of the short beard. “ ’ Tis true then, you dwelt at the Middle Sea!” The accent was odd, but clearly the man had understood him. “Ach, I don’t know the old speech well enough,” he added in the language of the tribes. “I am called Lysandros son of Ardanos. My grandfather came here with Brutus after Troia fell. We took land in the southeast, where the white cliffs are.”

Relieved to have guessed right, Mikantor clasped Lysandros’ hand. “You will have to talk with Velantos of Tiryns, our smith.”

“An Akhaean?” Lysandros grimaced, and Mikantor guessed he had been raised on tales of the rape of Troia.

“Troia has been avenged,” said Mikantor. “Tiryns has fallen to the Children of Erakles, and Mykenae and Korinthos as well. Your people and Velantos are equally exiles now.”

Lysandros shrugged and then grinned. “Very well, but do not tell my grandfather I have sat down in peace with an Akhaean!”

“And who is your companion?” Mikantor nodded toward the other man, a wiry fellow with reddish hair who hung back as if unsure of his welcome.

“His name is Ulansi,” began Lysandros—

“And he is a filthy traitor, come to spy on us for Galid!” Adjonar interrupted him.

Mikantor raised an eyebrow. “Then we should at least grant him credit for courage. You, Ulansi, come here if you please. Is what Adji saying true?”

“If you mean did I serve in Galid’s band, yes, it’s so—” the newcomer said slowly. “He came to our steading looking for men. If my father had refused to let me go, he would have burned us out. To agree was the only way I could save my home. But as for the other accusation—never! Even before the next year, when the Ai-Ushen wiped out my family—and Galid did nothing to avenge them—I would have done all in my power to bring him down.”

“I see . . .” Mikantor said slowly. It was a plausible story, but then it would be, if Galid had sent a spy. And yet there was little damage the man could do here at Avalon. Anderle would see into his heart and know if he was true. “Serving with Galid, you would know how he likes to fight, and how he trains his men . . .”

“Yes, lord.” Ulansi’s eyes brightened. “That is why I have come. If I must bear the name of traitor”—he glared at Adjonar—“it will not be for betraying
you
!”

Mikantor nodded. “You will be tested, of course, but I am inclined to trust you. My own teacher always said that a wise man knows his enemy, and I have been out of the country for a long time. To most of us Galid is as evil as Guayota, loathed for what he does, but we do not know
why
. I need to know how he thinks, what he wants . . .”

Ulansi looked taken aback by Mikantor’s intensity, but he answered with a bow. “Lord, I was not in his counsels, but he has grown proud, and did not always watch his tongue before the men. I will try to remember what I heard, and help you in every way I can.”

 

 

 

THE BRONZE BLADE FLEXED as Velantos laid it on the anvil, picked up one of his round stone hammers, and began to tap the edge. “By strength and skill the sword is made—hammer hit and harden blade!” he whispered, timing his strokes to the spell until he had established and internalized the rhythm, moving back and forth along the blade. Being hammered made the bronze harder—as the troubles he had endured had done for Mikantor. He looked back at the younger man, who leaned against the frame of the open door of the smithy watching him.

“The metal we got from Belerion was good, then?”

“Very good. Your friend the merchant chose well,” Velantos replied. This was the second of the leaf-shaped swords he had cast since his arrival at Avalon, but the first with the new bronze.

Mikantor laughed. “I think Master Anaterve still feels guilty for letting me be snapped up by Galid’s men under his very nose. He seemed quite happy to support the cause.”

“You gave the first sword to Pelicar?” Velantos asked.

“He is a queen’s son and had some training already. The others are working their hearts out to win the second blade! They’ve taken to practicing the hero feats as well. It will be a long time before we can do anything with chariots, but the playing field is large enough for races and the long jump, and the grass soft enough for tumbling and wrestling.”

Velantos turned the sword and began to work down the other edge. Once he had crafted ornaments in gold for queens. If Mikantor was victorious, there might be time for such things once more. In the meantime, the blade had its own deadly beauty. And so, he thought as he looked at the young man again, did Mikantor.

There was a clarity to his features that had not been there before, as if the responsibility he now carried had stripped away the last of his boyhood. Mikantor might still doubt his ability to bear that weight, but despite his ambivalence, returning here had clearly been the right thing for him to do. Whether it was the right thing for Velantos remained to be seen.

It was inevitable that they should grow apart now that Mikantor was a man. It would have been wrong for him to try to hold the lad to their old companionship. But how he missed the days when they had shared everything. Moments when they could talk quietly were becoming increasingly rare, and if—when—the fighting was done they would be rarer still. When Mikantor was safe in his rightful place, the smith would leave, though where on this earth he might find a home he could not say.

“The men are shaping well,” Mikantor said thoughtfully, “but they are still thinking of themselves as Boars or Rams or Frogs or Hares instead of as members of my band. Except for Adjonar, that is,” he added, “who seems unwilling to breathe the same air as Ulansi, much less claim kinship. It was different in the guard, where everyone was born to the City or had come in from the countryside.”

“That will change when they face the enemy,” said Velantos. “When I was young, there was an old man at Tiryns who had been with Agamemnon at Troia and was always ready with a tale. He said that when the Akhaeans were stuck at Aulis waiting for a wind, the men of the different cities were ready to cut each other’s throats, but they were all one people when they lay before the walls of Troia.”

“Goddess, don’t say that to Lysandros!” exclaimed Mikantor. “He learned to hate Akhaeans at his grandda’s knee, though to him both Troia and Tiryns are as legendary as the Blessed Isles.”

“I know.” The smith smiled. “He looks at me as if I’m about to turn into a gorgon. It is a pity. I would enjoy talking to someone other than you with whom I don’t have to speak like a child.”

“It will come—you are much more fluent already,” Mikantor said earnestly. “Would it help if I sent one of the men here each day to help you?”

Velantos’ reply died on his lips as a sound or a scent or some sense beyond either turned him toward the doorway. Anderle stood there. As always, she seemed limned in light, and as always, her presence sent a flash of heat through his core.

“A man whose daughter serves in Galid’s hall has arrived with news. The usurper knows that you are here.” The priestess had clearly come in a hurry, dressed in an old gown and without her veil. Velantos noted the sparkle of perspiration at her brow and the pulse at her throat and looked quickly away.

“He’s coming?” Mikantor straightened.

“That’s a reasonable assumption,” Anderle said dryly.

“We will have to leave. We cannot risk an attack on Avalon. This is not unexpected. Grebe and I have discussed what to do. There are places in these marshes that only the Lake Folk know. We can disappear like mist in the reeds and live on the land.”

“That helps bind your men,” said Velantos with a wry smile. “I pack tools. . . .”

“But you cannot go with them!” exclaimed the priestess. “You must stay at the smithy to forge the Sword!”

“Swords
—
”
corrected Velantos, glaring. This was becoming an old argument between them. The blade Mikantor already bore was the best he had been able to make when they were in the City of Circles. He saw no point in trying to improve on it when what was needed was more blades for Mikantor’s men.

“And be taken by Galid?” objected Mikantor.

“I can hide one,” Anderle answered, “but not a whole band.” She turned to Velantos, and her gaze was like the heat of the forge. “Swords, then. How many will you be able to make when you are skulking in the marshes?”

“But you cannot—” He looked at Mikantor and his voice failed.
Cannot go without me . . . cannot leave me alone with
her . . . He did not know which he feared more. But he could not say so, could not cling, could not even look at Mikantor lest the younger man see the desolation in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, keeping his voice from wavering with an effort of will. “Is true I need the forge. I stay here.”

 

 

 

THE NEW MOON WAS sliding toward the distant sea. Soon she would sleep beneath the waves, but on Avalon, there was no rest. Some were busy at the ovens, baking trailbread and stuffing into lengths of cured gut the mixture of pounded dried meat and berries that would stay good for moons if it was kept dry. Others were putting the last stitches into garments for Mikantor’s men. Tirilan had snatched up several lengths of felted and oiled wool and the cords and wooden toggles that would turn them into rain capes and carried them off to her cubicle, afraid that if she worked alongside the others she would start weeping and they would ask her why.

She stabbed the bone needle through the cloth to bind the cut end of the wool and felt a tear splash hot upon her hand. Would her tears add protection? If so, let them fall. Let each tear be a blessing to keep the wearer of this cape from harm. And if the tears were not sufficient, an embroidered sigil of protection would be a more visible reminder. As she finished the last of the capes, she took up another needle and threaded it with yellow wool.

In another part of the complex of buildings that housed the community someone was singing a silly song about the adventures of a cuckoo bird. Tirilan smiled through her tears. Mikantor had been the cuckoo thrust into the Lake Village nest, but he had grown up beautiful, powerful, and fierce as a swan.

She looked down, and realized that the stitches she had just put in made the beginning of the shape of the bird. Let this one be for Mikantor, then. If she could not be there to protect him with magic, let her love be bound into the cloth. Stitching more swiftly now she finished the figure and began to add more—a lightning bolt, a tree, a bull, all the symbols of strength and power she could think of, intertwining across the shoulders of the cape in a frieze of protection. Finally, she added the winged sun that their ancestors had brought from the Drowned Lands and the triple moon of Avalon.

The young moon had already set, and the air was taking on the fresh damp scent that preceded the dawn. At this season the sun would rise early, and Mikantor wanted to move out with the break of day. Tirilan gathered up the capes and made her way down the passage that would let her take the shortcut across the garden. She stopped short as she realized that someone was sitting on the bench by the sundial, and in the next moment realized that it was Mikantor.

Goddess, my thanks for this blessing!
She took another step.

“Tirilan, is that you?”

She nodded. Her heart was thumping so madly she did not know if she could form words.

“Do you have a moment to talk to me?” The uncertainty in his tone wrenched her heart. Slowly she moved toward him.

“Do you remember that argument we had here about our ages? When I found out I was not who I thought I was? Now that I know, it still seems unreal. I have learned to face my own dangers, but what gives me the right to risk the lives of others?” He peered at her through the darkness, and when she did not answer, moved over and patted the bench. “Will you sit with me, or is that not permitted by your vows?”

At his words a surge of warmth freed her and she took the steps that would bring her to his side.
It is discouraged,
she thought,
lest we fall into temptation—
Temptations like the solid warmth of him, that made her want to clasp him in her arms. All the men had scrubbed themselves thoroughly that afternoon—the last chance they might have to get really clean for some time—and she could smell the scent of the bath herbs on his hair.