“I’ve never seen anyone who throws better than you. I have never seen spears like those, either.”
“That’s because there are none. These spears have no equal.”
“I shall call you Hastatus,” she said then, sounding very grown up and sure of herself. “It means a spearman. Do you mind having a new name?”
“No,” I said, smiling again. “Not at all. Not if it is bestowed by someone as skilled and gracious as you are, Lady Maia.”
A flicker of something that might have been annoyance crossed her face, and I thought I had offended her with my levity, but then she nodded. “So be it, then. You shall be my Hastatus. And I’m glad you don’t like Cynthia. I don’t either, but most people simply can’t see beyond her face.” She flicked a hand in farewell and was gone, leaving me somewhat astonished by her last words and even more so by her unexpected percipience. I had been sure that no one suspected my dislike of her sister, Cynthia, because I had gone to great lengths to conceal it, for reasons that I could not define even to myself. And yet this Maia, a mere child, had seen through all my dissembling and had clearly identified my dislike of her sibling. That, in itself, was surprising enough, but upon further thought I began to perceive for myself that young Maia was much wiser than I would ever have suspected, and mature far beyond her years. At an age when most girls were besotted with outward appearances of beauty and attractiveness, this child was astute enough to know, to her own satisfaction, that physical, facial beauty is a mere façade, an external coating, and one that few people ever try to see through or beyond. I found myself smiling in admiration and wonderment as I followed her out of the building, hoping to speak with her again, but she had long since vanished.
In the morning we turned out to bid farewell to Symmachus and his party, and I was surprisingly reluctant to see them go. Cynthia, I noticed, had apparently changed her mind about me, for she did not address a single word to me, and she left for home without deigning to glance in my direction. Maia the Brat sat beside her, and although she did not smile upon me either, she at least rewarded me with a tiny, private flip of the hand as her carriage pulled away.
Tristan nudged me as the wagons left and nodded toward Bors, who stood forlorn, gazing hopelessly after his disappearing love.
“Look at him, poor fellow. I remember how that feels, to watch your first love ride away forever. But he’ll get over it quickly. We all do.” He looked back at the retreating wagons. “That’s quite the young lady. I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like her.”
I managed to find a smile to mask my disagreement. “Cynthia? She’s unique, I’ll grant you, but I think I may not die of grief if I never see her again.”
He grunted, a single, muffled bark of amusement and agreement. “I believe you there, but I wasn’t talking about the beautiful Cynthia. It was her sister I meant.”
“Who, Maia the Brat?” I laughed aloud. “She is a delight, I’ll not begrudge her that. And she’s quick, and clever, and has a mind of her own. But she’s just a child, for all that, a little girl.”
“A little girl … aye, right. You come back and tell me that in three or four years, if we ever run into her again. I guarantee she’ll be the loveliest creature you’ll ever have seen. She’ll bewitch you, just as her sister bewitched Bors.”
I laughed again. “Not me, Tristan. I’m unbewitchable.”
“She doesn’t think so now, not that one, believe me. She likes you very much, and not in the way you obviously expect of a twelve-year-old.”
“Maia? Come on, man, I’ve barely spoken to the child, and when I did we talked of throwing spears.”
He shrugged elaborately and held up his hands. “Your pardon then, forget I mentioned it, but I know more about that young woman than you do.”
I looked at him in surprise. “You do? How can you?”
He grinned at me and danced away, his arms raised defensively as though he expected me to pummel him with my fists. “I ask questions, and I listen to the answers, and so I learn much more than those who never ask and far, far more than those who ask but never listen.” Knowing he was baiting me, I refused to rise to his goad, but he kept going anyway. “The young woman has a mind of her own … but she has secrets, too. And she would rather be a boy, at this stage in her life, so she trains with weapons when she is at home in Chester, where all her people love her. And her name is not Maia, although she wouldn’t tell you that.”
Suddenly I found that I had lost patience with his bantering. “Don’t play the fool, Tristan, of course her name is Maia. I had it directly from her mother.”
He sobered instantly, looking at me eye to eye, the smile on his face fading as swiftly as the humor left his tone. “Stepmother, Clothar. Demea is her stepmother. The child was born on the first day of May—hence the name, Maia. And Demea and Symmachus met and fell in love in the month of May when the child was three, and they were wed the following May. But only after that did Symmachus start calling the child Maia, to please his new wife and to ingratiate her to the child. Little Maia’s name had been the same as her real mother’s prior to that, and the Lady Demea preferred not to be reminded of that name or to have her husband reminded of it. The child’s real name is Gwinnifer. Mind you, she seldom uses it, save among friends.”
Gwinnifer. I had never heard the name before but it resonated, somehow, in my breast. I swung around on my heel to look after the cavalcade, but they had long since passed out of view, and the road lay empty.
IX
MERLYN
TELL ME ABOUT THE DREAM you had … when Germanus spoke to you.”
I sat gaping at my questioner, wondering how he could have known of such a thing, and he smiled and waved a hand toward a table to his right, where papers and parchments were strewn in apparent chaos.
“Enos sent me a letter telling me about it and alerting me that you were on your way here. He had no way of knowing which of you would find me first—you, personally, or one of his priests—but he sent the letter anyway, anticipating that one of his people might reach me and warn me of your coming. So, when was this dream?”
I shrugged and leaned back into my chair. “I cannot say, with any certainty, Master Merlyn. It was at the end of the winter. Most of the snow had vanished, and Bishop Enos had finally been able to go out into the countryside, about his work. The earliest bloom of flowers had come and gone again … it was the end of March, perhaps early in April.”
I was sitting comfortably, in a folding, curule-style armchair that had a leather seat and back, and the man across from me, in an identical chair, almost smiled, the right side of his mouth twitching upward. “Do you mean to say that you had lost track of time?”
“Completely. It sounds ludicrous, I know, but it is true, nonetheless. We were very bored in Verulamium and it was a long, harsh winter. We would have left much sooner than we did, purely for the sake of moving, had it not been for Perceval’s injury. We were held down by that, waiting for his leg to heal.”
“It did heal, though, and remarkably well.”
“Aye, considering the damage he did to it. He walks now with only the slightest limp, and that will soon be gone. He grows stronger every day. But it was fortunate that his brother Tristan was there with us and knew what needed to be done.”
“Aye, it was indeed. Now tell me about this dream of yours, if you will.”
I shrugged again. “It was a dream, what more can I say? I dreamt it.”
“But it had a salutary effect upon you, did it not? Greater than any dream you had ever known. You told Enos that it was the most realistic dream you had ever had, and that it had forced you to change your plans. It sent you off to look for me, did it not?”