She was a charged vessel of power, like the Holy Regalia which it was death to touch unprepared, and all this power of her long preparation would be hers to bind the Merlin to her ... but she must wait for the tide to slacken and fill again; at the dark moon she must take the other tide which came of the other side of the moon ... not fertile but barren, not of life at all but of dark magic older than human life ... .
And the Merlin knew these things; he knew of the old curse of the dark moon and the barren womb ... he must be so wholly enspelled by her that he would not even wonder why she had refused him at the spring tide and sought him out at the slack. She had one advantage: he did not know that she knew these things, he had never seen her in Avalon. Yet the bond went between them both ways, and if she could read his thoughts, he might read hers; she must guard herself every moment lest he see within and guess her purposes.
I must so wholly blind him with desire that he will forget ... forget all he has been taught in Avalon. And at the same time, she must not be overcome by his desire, she must contain her own. It would not be easy.
She began to frame in her mind the next wile she would use on him. Tell me of your childhood, she would say, tell me how you were so hurt. Sympathy would be a powerful bond; she knew just how she would touch him with the very tips of her fingers ... and she knew, in despair, that she was seeking out ways to be near him and touch him, not for her work but for her own hunger.
Can I make this spell without bringing myself, too, to ruin?
"YOU WERE not at the Queen's feast," murmured the Merlin, looking into Nimue's eyes, "and I had made a new song for you. ... It was the fulling of the moon, and there is great power in the moon, lady ... ."
She looked at him, all intent. "Truly? I know so little of these things ... are you a magician, my lord Merlin? I sometimes feel helpless, that you are working your magic on me ... ."
She had hidden herself at the full moon, sure that if he looked into her eyes at that time he would be able to read her thoughts and perhaps divine her purposes. Now that the strength of that magical tide was past, she could, perhaps, guard herself from him.
"You must sing me your song now." She sat listening, feeling her whole body quiver as the harp strings quivered under his touch.
I cannot bear it, I cannot ... I must act this time as soon as the moon is dark. Another of these tides, she knew, and she would succumb to the flood tide of hunger and desire she was building between them ... and I would never be able to betray him ... I would be his forever, for this life and beyond ... .
She reached out and touched the twisted lumps that were his wrist bones, and the touch thrilled her with longing. She could only imagine from the sudden dilation of his pupils, the swift intake of his breath, what it had done to him.
Betrayal, she thought, under the inexorable laws of fate, betrayal would be punished a thousandfold by the Goddess, in life after life; betrayed and betrayer would be punished and bound together for love and hate for thousands of years. But she did this at the command of the Goddess, she had been sent to punish a traitor for betrayal ... would she then be punished in turn? If it were so, then there was no justice even in the realms of the Gods ... .
Christ said true repentance wipes out all sin ... .
But fate and the laws of the universe cannot be so easily set aside. The stars in their courses do not stop because someone cries out to them, Stop!
Well, be it so; perhaps she betrayed the Merlin as part of a deed done by one of them before the ancient land beneath the waves had sunk into the sea. It was her fate, and she dared not question. He had stopped playing and closed his hand softly over hers; as if in a daze, she laid her lips to his. Now, now it is too late to turn back.
No. It had been too late to turn back when she had bowed her head and accepted the work Morgaine laid on her. It had been too late to turn back when she swore the oath to Avalon ... .
"Tell me more of yourself," she whispered, "I want to know everything about you, my lord ... ."
"Call me not so. My name is Kevin."
"Kevin," she said, and made her voice soft and tender, just brushing her fingers again over his arm.
Day by day she wove her spell, with touches and glances and whispered words, as the moon waned away toward darkness. After that first, swift kiss, she withdrew again, as if he had frightened her. It is true. But it is more that I frightened myself ... never, never in all the years of seclusion had she suspected herself of being capable of such passion, such hunger; and she knew that her spells were enhancing it in herself as in him. At one point, teased beyond endurance by her whispered touches, the soft brushing of her hair against his face when she bent over him where he sat at his harp, he turned and seized her and crushed her to him, and she struggled in real, not pretended, fright this time.
"No-no, I cannot-you forget yourself-I beg you, let me go-" she cried out, and when he only clasped her closer, burying his face in her bosom and covering her breasts with kisses, she began to cry softly. "No, no, I am afraid, I am afraid-"
He let her go then and drew away, almost in a daze. His breath was hoarse and hard. He sat with his eyes closed, his twisted hands hanging limp. After a moment he murmured, "My beloved, my precious white bird, my own sweetheart-forgive me-forgive me-"
Nimue realized that now she could use even her own very real fear for her own ends. She said, whimpering, "I trusted you. I trusted you-"
"You should not," he said hoarsely. "I am no more than a man, and certainly not less than one ..." and she cringed at the bitterness as he added, "I am a man of flesh and blood, and I love you, Nimue, and you play with me as if I were a lapdog and expect me to be tame as a gelded pony ... do you think because I am a cripple I am less than a man?"
In his mind Nimue could see, clear and mirrored, memory of a time when he had said this to the first woman who had ever come to him, and saw Morgaine reflected in his eyes and his mind, not the Morgaine she knew but a dark, bewitching woman, soft of voice, yet somehow terrible too, worshipped and also feared because through the daze of passion he could remember that suddenly the lightning would strike ... .
Nimue reached her hands to him and knew they were trembling and that he would never know why. She guarded her thoughts carefully and said, "I never thought that. Forgive me, Kevin. I-I could not help myself-"
And it is all true. Goddess, it is all true. But not as he believes. What I say is not what he hears.
And yet for all her pity and desire there was a thread of contempt too. Otherwise I could not bear it, to do what I do ... but a man so nakedly at the mercy of desire is contemptible ... . I too tremble, I am torn ... but I will not be at the mercy of my body's hunger ... .