She lay down beside him, her head on his chest, breathing in his sweat and listening to the shallow rise and fall of his breathing. She whispered words of love like an incantation, but Alymere was beyond hearing them. He drifted into dream, once more transformed into the cloven-hoofed piper, though now he led Blodyweth on a merry dance through the very glade where they had first made love. She did not catch him, and her laughter rose above the melody of his pipes, filling his head and his heart while he slept on. Ahead of him, through the trees, he saw a man he knew better than he knew himself — though as he neared the mask melted, shrivelling until all that remained was bone and a death's head grin. His father turned and bolted, disappearing into the trees. The piper gave chase. Every time the dead man glanced back over his shoulder Alymere saw he wore a different mask, and the last mask before he woke, sweating and screaming, was that of his uncle, Sir Lowick.
Long after the bird had flown, his bed-mate still wore the shadows of its wings.
Come morning she was gone.
Twenty-Nine
Alymere awoke with a raging thirst.
He pushed himself out of the low bed and walked unsteadily toward the window. Even those five steps were enough to exhaust him. He leaned heavy on the windowsill. Beads of sweat ran down his brow, but this was the honest sweat of toil, not the sickly sweat of fever. His head pounded and his mouth was drier than a witch's withered teat, but these things only reminded him that he was alive. And today was a good day to be alive.
Shades of green were the first thing he saw of the new world beyond the window. The snow had gone. Spring owned the land. Pollen blew on the wind and the sky was a ceaseless cobalt blue. Alymere threw the window open, eager to breathe in the fresh air.
This was his father's house. This was the room he had grown up in as a child. Once, so much of his life had been lived in these four walls, though they seemed so much smaller now. Here he had rescued fair maidens, slain dragons and quested for lost treasures. Here he had bent his knee before the great kings of the land and fought side-by-side with the grail knights for the honour of Camelot. Here he had loved and lost and won the hands of the fairest, worn their favours and been welcomed to the Round Table a hero. Here he had been a child.
He had so many memories of this place, not all of them good.
Behind him, the chamber door opened. He didn't turn.
"It's good to see you up and about, my lord," Gwen said. He saw her reflected in the glass. Her hair was pinned up and she looked a good ten years older than the last time he had seen her. She hesitated by the edge of the bed. Her coyness was touching, but given what they had shared, seemed misplaced. He turned away from the window and walked towards her, managing three unsteady steps before he stumbled forward into her arms. She caught him easily and Alymere leaned in, his lips only inches from her ear, and whispered, "Thank you." They were the first words he had spoken, and they came in a voice that wasn't his own. The smoke had damaged his throat every bit as much as the flames had damaged his face.
He held her a moment longer than was necessary, then leaned back so that he might look at her properly. She did not pull away from him, but neither did she seem entirely comfortable with his scrutiny. Was he so ugly that even a dried-up old maid couldn't bear the sight of him? The thought burned. He felt his anger well up then, and imagined for a moment lashing out to strike the woman across the face. The intensity of feeling shocked him. He swallowed it down, though at his side his hand trembled as though with palsy. She had saved his life and in repayment he imagined striking her? She had been nothing but kind. It didn't matter if she only cared for him out of guilt or honour, because he had saved the child — her child, now. She had been at his bedside day and night when others had left him alone to live or die.
He stepped out of the embrace and turned away, unable to bear the shame of his own thoughts. She watched him through the streaked glass of the window. It was not so easy to hide in such close confines and he wasn't strong enough to walk away from her. How could his mind sink so low? How could he fail to see the good in a simple act of kindness? She had brought him back to himself the only way she knew how. There was no devilry in it. Shame burned in him as hot as any lingering damage from the flames. He looked away.
"I should leave," Gwen said. She sounded unsure, frightened, as though she sensed his inner turmoil and just how close he had come to lashing out. But she didn't move. She was waiting to be dismissed.
"No, please," Alymere said. "I am sorry. Stay."
"If you wish, my lord."
"I do. I owe you my thanks," he said, sinking down onto the bed.
"You do not owe me anything, my lord. It is I who owe you, for the gift you gave me. You saved the lives of two people that day." He thought for a moment she meant the mother, but he remembered too well the look in her dead eyes and the funeral pyre. "With my John gone, and so many of my friends, you gave me something to live for in that little girl. I would not be here without her."
"And I wouldn't be here without you, of that I am in no doubt. You saved my life."
She sat down beside him. There was no intimacy in it, no gentle brush of thigh against thigh, nothing to suggest that they had been lovers. But at least the fear seemed to have left her, and for that he was grateful. If she did not fear him, perhaps he should not fear himself?
He began to doubt his memories.
Had their bodies really joined in communion or was that another fragment of delirium? Some dream-image conjured by his feverish mind as it sought to find a way back from the brink? Why would she have crawled into bed beside him? She was old enough to be his mother. He looked her in the eye but saw nothing beyond gratitude there. He made a decision, then. He chose to believe it did not happen.
"Tell me about the little girl and your new life," he said, kindly. "What did you call her?"
"Alma," she said.
"And do you feed her soul as she does yours?8 Is she happy, Gwen?"
"Yes, my lord, I believe she is."
"That is good. I am not sure we can ask for more, can we? Children should be happy. They should not have to know about death," he was talking about himself then, about his father and this place. "Gwen, do you ever think you see ghosts?"
She thought about it for a moment, although she couldn't know why he had asked. "No, my lord."
"Nor I. More's the pity, for I should dearly like to see my father one last time. To say goodbye. I was born here, do you know? In this house. I lived so much of my life here, and then my father died and everything changed."
"I am sorry."
"There's nothing for you to be sorry about. This is my life; I have long since made my peace with it. But that does not mean that every now and then I do not think about what it would be like to speak to my father man-to-man. It is one thing for a boy to say I love you, it is unconditional, but it is quite another for a grown man to share such a bond, I think."
"Perhaps it is so, my lord, but who is to say that unconditional bond ever changes? Who is to say that a son's love isn't always unthinkingly given? Would it even make a difference?"
"I never got to say goodbye," and there it was, the one regret of his life expressed in six simple words. He didn't need to see ghosts, not when there were so many memories alive in everything around him. "Help me, Gwen. I would get out of this house. It only makes me maudlin."
"Is that wise, my lord?"
"Perhaps not, but when is anything I do considered wise? I am still allowed to hide behind the folly of youth for a few more days yet." He held out his hand.