Ink and Steel

Kit bit down on his tongue, knotted his fist on that nail, the pain shocking, before the memory went further. ah, but I lived.And there was satisfaction in that. “What have you,” like talking through a mouth full of blood. God help me. God have mercy…“What have you done to me?”

“Claimed you,” she said, and shut and latched the door, taking her time, giving him a moment to notice the airy interior of her cottage, the mud-chinked walls hung with tapestries and baubles and herbs. Roses grew through the gaps under the eaves to tangle across the loft where a high window gave them light: a perfumed, nodding mass of flowers. Her loom dominated the single room, her wide uncanopied bed against the far wall, a massive iron cauldron crouched upon the hearth.

“Iron,” he said, and let his bloody hand fall to his side, spattering a few drops on the rush-strewn slates rammed into the earthen floor. “Aye,” she said. “I’m afraid a little steel won’t protect you from Morgan le Fey. And I did no more to you than any lady might. I left you your freedom of speech and deed, which is more than the Mebd would have granted.”

She took up his bleeding hand and studied it; he hadn’t the strength to drag it away, and sagged against the wall beside the door, the stentorian echo of his own breath filling his ears.

“Freedom of deed? When I come to your bidding like a mannerly stud to the breeding paddock.”

“Have I interfered in your comings and goings?” She raised his fingers to her mouth and kissed the blood away. He turned his head as if he could burrow into the rough wool of the tapestry behind him. Her mouth claimed his fingertips. He moaned. She let his hand fall, then, and whispered, “Have I forbidden you London, for all tis foolery that takes you there? Have I forbidden you to amuse yourself as you wish, or made you pace at my heels like a cur?”

“Do I grant you dignity?”

“Arrogance and errantry, and how like a man not to understand what he’s given, and when his mistress is permissive, and how much more pleasant his station than it could be. At least a dog understands kindness.” He pressed his back against the wall, stomach-sick, eyes burning. Even when she stepped back, it was not distance enough.

“A cur, is it? Shall I bark at your door, madam? What dignity includes a slave’s collar and chains, a mark of shame?”

She turned away and moved toward her loom. He couldn’t watch her: it was a sort of agony to be in her presence, and searing pride alone kept him from prostrating himself before her. His fingers stung, still dripping blood.

The coolness of her voice cut through his fury. I see the first approach has come, then. “Who brought the flower to your attention?”

The wall was hard behind the tapestry. He blinked and straightened away fro mit. “Geoffrey the Stag. Wait, no. Puck and Cairbre, and the lamia Amaranth.”

“Excellent.” A rustle as she moved. He wished the taste of blood in his mouth were real; he wanted to spit.

“Look at me.”

He looked.

She stood as proud as a lioness, her long neck a predatory arch under her hair. He could have wept with his need to bury his face in it, but he thought she would have smiled to see his tears.

“You re mine,” she said, coming closer. “Don’t fight me, Kit: I’ve outlived kings and outwitted princes, and bent the noblest of knights to my will. In the end, they all did as I bid, or they died: I was a goddess before I became as you see me now.” Although her fingers cool on his throat, “Even Lancelot never fought me as you do.”

“Lancelot?” A froggy croak, clogged as the troll’s.

“You re worth three of him,” she answered with a storied smile. “Except on the battlefield. Where he was unstoppable. But that’s the sort of swordsman I need least in this new world.”

“Why me?”

“Because the Mebd wanted you, and I could get you for her. And get you from her.” He tried to speak, coughed instead. She stepped back, blessedly, and he battled the words until they came.

“Geoffrey said the Faerie host cannot fight without a mortal man.”

“Tis true. We have no reality apart from thy folk. And thy folk have no magic apart from us.”

“And that’s what you need me for?”

“Yes. That and the pleasure of your company.” A wink turned his stomach and tightened his groin. “You re angry with me. You think what I’ve done to you is a sort of rape.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Rather,” she answered. “But, then, so little of a woman’s lot is what she wills, I cannot see it as much different from a husband’s treatment of a wife. That is not a responsibility I will bear, strictly by merit of my sex.”