The press of the trees began to thin. He saw moss growing on one side of the trunks, and knew from his uncle's teaching that he could use such knowledge to find his way back out of the forest. It was as good as a mile marker and a signpost for charting the passage of the sun.
And then the forest opened up into a grove. The red hart stood in the centre of it, drinking from a crystal blue pool while the crow settled on a dolmen that seemed to form a gateway on the far side of the clearing. For a moment Alymere thought he caught sight of another place through the stone arch, but the illusion was broken as a woman stepped through it into the grove. She was breathtakingly beautiful, with a garland of summer flowers tangled in her hair. Sunlight streamed down all around her, bathing her in its radiance.
But it wasn't the woman that stopped Alymere dead in his tracks, nor the sight of the crow bursting into flight in a flurry of wings to settle on her shoulder a moment, but the shift in temperature. It was as though he had stepped out of the heart of winter into the warmth of spring in a matter of a dozen paces.
She wore a simple white dress that hugged her body. Her long black hair cascaded down her back, with rings of daisies woven into the curls. A blush of colour filled her cheeks as she smiled at him. It was a smile to fire the blood and stop the heart at the same time.
Alymere felt a thousand urges welling up inside him all at once, each one undeniable — lust, hunger, adoration, protectiveness — but more than anything, seeing her, being near to her, he felt alive.
The Spring Maiden stood beside the red hart, stroking its glossy pelt, then knelt, cupping her hands in the water and offering it to the majestic animal. The hart drank from her hands. Alymere had never seen anything like it in his life and doubted he ever would again.
Had he not been so taken with her beauty he would have seen the reflection she cast in the water. In the truth of the pool she was anything but beautiful. In the water the flowers in her hair became corpse blossoms, the blush in her cheeks gave way to grey, cracked and withered skin, and her eyes, so full of summer, darkened and became sunken hollows set deep in her pinched skull. Her glossy black tresses reflected back as thin clumps of grey hair and patches of psoriasis-crusted scalp. The beauty mark on her left lip was a wart in the water. Her simple white dress which hugged her like a long lost lover was transformed into the black shift of a crone in mourning. Where youth and beauty gazed into the pool, death looked back out of the water. But Alymere was young, his heart naive. He saw only beauty.
And when the Crow Maiden opened her mouth, her words were every bit as seductive as her borrowed demeanour.
Eight
"Alymere the Undecided," the Crow Maiden crooned, her voice breathy. He found himself taking another involuntary step toward her. She offered her cupped hands to him as though offering him the chance to sup from them as the hart had done, but even as he took a second step the water trickled between her fingers. It splashed on the dirt, muddying the soil between her toes. "Alymere, Destroyer of Kingdoms. Alymere, Killer of Kings. Alymere, Champion of the Wretched. Alymere, Saviour of the Sick. Or will it simply be Alymere, son of Albion? All of these futures I see before you, though none of them are writ on your flesh and bones indelibly. You could be all of these and more, or none of them. So which is it to be, young Alymere?"
He fell to his knees.
The sudden movement startled the crow into flight. It launched into the clear blue sky in a fury of feathers, cawing raucously as it climbed higher.
She laughed then, a beautiful sound, although her laughter echoed the crow's cawing perfectly.
"There is no need to worship me. I am not your goddess. Arise, young Alymere. Arise."
"How do you know my name?" he asked. It was the most obvious question, and one he could find no rational answer for.
"I know everything about you, Alymere Orphan-Knight."
"I am not a knight," he said, fastening on to the obvious fallacy in her words, reminded of Sir Bors's jests when first he had set foot inside Camelot so many months ago.
As the Crow Maiden said, "You will be. That is your destiny; to rise and take your father's seat at the Table," he knew she was right. "But more interesting, surely, is the question, what else do the Fates have in store for you? What other days and hardships, what other triumphs and tragedies await the Undecided? Do you want to know?"
Before he could answer, the Crow Maiden's mouth split into a broad smile. Had he looked closer he would have seen her crooked yellow teeth, but he only had eyes for youthful beauty and no time for the decay beneath. She said, "No matter, I couldn't tell you even if you did," and he believed her. "So much is dependent upon so much else. But know this, Alymere: you have been marked. You are an actor on the world's stage. You have it within you to make the world dance to your whim, should you choose. All you need to do is make a decision, set your first foot on that path to any of the many futures that await you."
"I don't understand," he said, looking up at her. She really was heart-stoppingly beautiful. The way the sunlight touched her face; the way her eyes sparkled, so full of mischief and fierce intelligence; the way her rich red lips parted and the blush touched her cheeks; the way her dress clung to the swell of her teardrop breasts and the curve of her hips. What he felt inside went beyond desire. Like the forest itself, it was primal.
"And neither should you. Not yet. But you will."
He wrestled with the emotions warring within him, trying desperately to exert some small mastery over them. "Why did you bring me here?" he asked. "Surely not just to taunt me with riddles I cannot hope to understand? Was it to not tell me my future? It seems like great lengths to go to merely to impress me with your beauty." The more he spoke, the more he found his confidence returning, as though the simple act of questioning her somehow unravelled a little of whatever enchantment she had woven around the grove.
"So young and yet so wise, you are. Perhaps I should call you Alymere the Knower, or Alymere, Arbiter of Truth? That has a certain ring to it, don't you think? Could that be your destiny?"
"I don't know what I think, my lady," he said, finding his manners at last. "Perhaps you should tell me?" The harshness of his own words surprised him. He lowered his gaze, ashamed. No sooner had he found his manners than they deserted him once more. She did that to him. She unnerved him.
"Do you know who I am, Alymere?" the Crow Maiden asked.
He shook his head.
"Then I should tell you, don't you think? You shall call me Blodyweth,2 though I have many names. I think I like this one best, so it is only right that you should know me by it. It is such a pretty name, don't you think?"
He nodded, again slightly lost in her nearness. He was inexperienced in the ways and wiles of women, and such was her heady fragrance that he found himself intoxicated as she drew closer to him, drunk on her beauty and the perfumes coming from the garlands in her hair. No amount of flirtation — nor, for that matter consummation — could have prepared him for the effect the Crow Maiden was having upon his soul.
"This place is my sanctuary." She spread her arms wide to encompass the entire grove, the rippling pool, the stone arch and all of the trees. Not her home, but her sanctuary: her safe haven. "It is sacred to me, but more, it is sacred to Albion itself. It is the very heart of the old country. There is power here. The old ways are strong in the earth. No doubt you have noticed winter's reach does not extend quite this far into the Summervale."
"Are you a witch?" He blurted out the question, not answering her.
She laughed again, not unkindly. Above her, the crow heckled with its ear-splitting caw. The sound echoed around the grove, sounding as though it travelled miles before folding back in on itself. It was a disconcerting sound. "Hardly, but if it helps you to think of me that way, by all means, I shall be a witch for you. All you need to understand is that winter cannot touch the Kingdom of Summer."