Merlin's Harp Read Free

into the courtyard, I had heard the Lady say it clear as a cuckoo. "Arthur! A good thing it was we gave the sword to your Arthur."
      I paused on the trail, grasping at memories like dreams. This name Arthur…Bear Man?…conjured up a Human hero, an armed giant astride a huge horse, one of whom Merlin might sing a Latin lay.
       Arthur will drown both you witches.
      Most likely Arthur was a common kingdom name?
      Under my shirt, Otter Mellias's crystal warmed my breast.
      Smiling, Otter Mellias stepped into my path.
      Mellias was smaller than I, thinner, sprightlier. He wore quiet dun deerskin, invisible as our cloaks, but sunlight woke new winking lights in his braid, at his neck, wrists, and ankles. I had never seen gems before, but I knew that these were gems, and I knew whose they had been.
      I said coldly, "Mellias, that Human back there. What will you do with her?"
      He smiled at me close-mouthed, shielding his fierce canines. Well I knew that Mellias liked me. I thought I might like him, too, at the next Flowering Moon dance. I was feeling ready, maybe…almost… for my first lover.
      "Niviene!" He murmured, "You are jealous of my bronze girl."
      I shrugged this off. "She is the first Human to set foot here since the Romans. The Lady will not be pleased."
      "The Lady is like an Old One, from before the Humans came. I respect her magic endlessly. But she is my friend. Almost like you, Niviene. So do not fear for me."
      I recoiled as though from a rearing adder. "Fear! I fear for none, Mellias—least of all for you!"
      "Good. You have no heart, Niviene. One of these days your power will rival the Lady's." Mellias looked past me to Elana. "What do you think, will Niviene dance with me when the moon flowers?"
      Elana, behind me, must have answered him with her fingers. He laughed. "One of you girls, think of me! I think of you all the time. When you see the moon rise in flower, when you hear drum and pipe, remember me. Either one of you. Both of you." But Mellias's brown eyes clung to mine.
      For the space of a haughty sigh I looked away and Mellias vanished.
      I said to Elana, "Let's go home."
      Lady Villa is built of earth's bones; rock. Yet not rock as it lies in earth, but what the Lady called "dressed rock." As a child I thought it must certainly have been formed by magic. I could not believe that Humans had raised it, stone by stone. But so the Lady said.
      I cried, "Humans have no magic !"
      "Be not so sure, Niviene. Remember, Merlin is half Human. Human druids and witches work magic. Then too, the strongest power in the world is a Human mystery of which we Fey are ignorant."
      I stared up at her.
      "Well. Every creature has its own mystery. But as for this villa, Humans built it as they usually build, with hands and iron tools."
      Disbelieving, I looked around at the thick stone walls, the flagged floors on which I had learned to walk. "Those villagers out there in the kingdom did this with their hands?"
      "Their great grandfathers did. But it was not their idea. They built it for the Romans who lived here then."
      "Where are these Romans now?"
      "They went away. Then the forest moved in, and the boar and the bear and the Fey. Nothing remains here now of the Romans but this villa and the apple trees."
      For many years no one had sheltered in the villa. It stood out, stark white stone against the green or dun island. Looking across the lake, neither friend nor foe could fail to see it. So the villa housed bats, owls, and adders till slowly, gently, it sank back into the forest. Kind vines crawled over it. Lichens greened the harsh white stone. Apple saplings and alders crowded against its walls. And one day the Lady, heavy with child—with me!—looked across the lake and saw the villa only because she knew it was there.
      Hah! The perfect birthing den! Sheltered, defensible, and nearly invisible now. She heaved herself into the