"By Mryddin, it's the boy," Emrys muttered, standing up shakily. "Go back!" He slapped at the air with his big hands. "Damn you, Griffith, I told you not to follow!"
"Take me with you, Da!" the boy shrieked. "I must be with you. The spirits have told me. Come back, I beg you, Da!"
Shaking a fist at his son, Emrys sat down with a thump that rocked the boat precariously. "Disobedient imp. I'm shamed by the lad, truly shamed."
"He loves you very much," Jilda said. She stood up. "Very much. Look."
Throwing off his shoes, the boy splashed into the water and started swimming the long distance to the boat.
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"Is he in the water?" Emrys boomed, trying to rise. "I can't see that far." Jilda pushed him down. The big man's face was strained with worry. "Ah, I suppose he'll give up soon enough and go home," he said with a forced casual air.
The boy swam, a half-mile, a mile. The boat sailed further out to sea, the distance between it and Griffith growing longer with each minute, but the boy continued to flail doggedly on course.
"Is he still coming?" Emrys asked nervously.
"He is."
"Fool. Thinks he'll catch us."
Jilda watched the tiny swimmer, her dress blowing in the gusting wind. "No. He knows he cannot catch us," she said quietly. "All the same, he will not give up." She crossed her arms in front of her. "I was wrong about that one. He calls himself a coward, but his spirit has the strength of ten warriors." She watched him silently for fully another five minutes while Emrys snorted and shifted in his seat, pretending unconcern for his son. Then, without warning, Jilda stripped off the leather cape she wore around her shoulders, and her shoes of sewn skin, and the green dress that fluttered like a sail, until she stood naked on the bow of the boat.
"What in the hell are you doing?" Remo shouted. "Let's just turn the boat around, for God's sake-"
"The boy will not live long enough for that. I have seen drowning men before." She jumped high into the air and dived. She hit the water like a knife, without a ripple, emerging a hundred yards away. With smooth, long strokes she swam to him and carried him back in her arms to the boat.
"Da," Griffith gasped breathlessly as he climbed in. "The Lady of the Lake! The Lady of the Lake came for me. The spirits said I would be protected."
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"Silence," Ernrys roared, swatting the boy with the back of his hand. "We've lost a whole day because of your foolish ways. Now we'll have to take you back."
"He comes with us," Jilda said.
"Ah, no. I'll not be hampered by such a one as talks to ghosts and tries to drown himself." He coughed politely, handing Jiida her dress. "I'll thank you, though, for saving his life, miss. Not that he deserved it."
Jilda took the dress, but made no attempt to put it on. "He is one of great faith. Perhaps we will need that in the days to come. My people, too, believe in spirits." She slipped on her shoes. "I will look after him," she said.
She dressed quickly, utterly unself-conscious of her nakedness. Her hair, wet and sparkling in the sunshine, looked as if it belonged to a sea nymph. Her eyes had changed color again to match the steel blue of the water.
"Sam, Jilda, Gullikona," Remo recited. "Are you the Lady of the Lake, too?"
The steel eyes smiled slyly. "I am what I must be," she said. "Like all of us."
Out of the corner of his eye, Remo saw Emrys fumbling to put his arm around the shivering, beaming boy.
Chapter Eighteen
A negotiation was underway on the campus of Du Lac College in Minnesota. The two-story ivory-colored mansion that was the home of the college president was ringed by a squad of thirty National Guardsmen, carrying rifles, and staring at a small hillock thirty yards away where two men were talking.
Behind the two men was a crowd of 300 students, dressed in the 1980s version of sixties Greenwich Village chic. There were a lot of bandanas and ripped T-shirts, along with designer jeans and hair died orange and purple and green.
Smith moved into the crowd of students who parted to make way for him, then closed in to swallow him up.
"Who are you?" a female student asked.
"Dr. Feldmar's assistant," Smith said. "She around?"
"Like I haven't seen Birdie yet. She ought to be here."
"Like this is her show, right?" Smith said.
"Yeah."
Smith looked toward the small grassy knoll halfway toward the college president's mansion.
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One of the two men there was Smith's age, but he wore cutoff jeans, and a flowered shirt with a black bandana around his open throat. The other man was younger but conservatively dressed in a sports jacket, dress shirt and slacks.
Smith moved through the crowd so he could hear the two men talking.
"We want an end to racism on campus," the older man was saying. He looked bored.
Smith said to a young woman standing next to him, "Who is that guy?" The young woman was bouncing a rock the size of a chicken egg up and down on the palm of her hand.
"That's Vishnu," she said.
"Who's Vishnu?"
"Who are you anyway?" the woman asked suspiciously.
"Robin's assistant," Smith said. "I'm new here."
"Oh. I guess it's all right then. Vishnu's the chairman of the ERA movement. Vishnu's not really his name, but it was his name last year when he was God, and everybody liked the name, and he kept it even if he isn't God anymore."
"ERA?" Smith said. "Equal rights?"
"Naaah," she said in disgust. "End Racist America. It's our new movement. Turn America over to Cuba as a colony."
"Good idea," Smith said.
"Robin's idea," the woman said.
"Who's the other man?" Smith asked.
"Jeez, you don't know anything,. That's President McHale."
"He's younger than Vishnu," Smith said.
"We're against ageism," she said. "Students don't have to be young."
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The two men on the small knoll were arguing now. The college president said, "What racism?"
"We want black professors in every department."
"We've got them," President McHale said.
"Tokens," Vishnu said. "Meaningless tokens. What about Agent Orange?"
"What about it?"
"What have you done about it?" Vishnu demanded.
"We've kept it off campus," McHale said.
"Words. More words. What about dioxin?"
"What the hell have we got to do with dioxin?" McHale demanded.
"What did you ever do about it?"
"What did you ever do about it?"
"I'm not on trial here," Vishnu said.
"I didn't know I was either," McHale said.
"What about AIDS?"
"Campus health center's got a program."
"More words. Just words," Vishnu said. "All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for people like you to do nothing.''
"What do you want me to do?" McHale asked.
"It is not for us to dictate your responses."
"Since when? You try to dictate everything else."
Smith had heard enough. He turned back to the young woman. "Where is Robin?" he asked.
"She wanted to be with us today, but she had other business."
Smith was reminded of reluctant generals in World War II who were always bemoaning the fact that they wouldn't be able to go over the top with their men when the shooting started.
"What business?" Smith asked. "I thought everything she did was here."
"Robin's a leader," the young woman said. "She's got
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organizations all over the country. Not just this one. We're small."
The student leader turned his back on President McHale and pulled a paper from his pocket. He looked at the students massed a few yards away from him, then turned back to the college president.
"Our leader," Vishnu said, "warned us of this. She said and she told me to repeat it to you: that this fascistic, imperialistic, genocidal college administration ..."