"By the Christ, Shelagh, you confound me." I sagged back in my chair, completely at a loss. "You have been conspiring to alter my very life!"
"Aye, my dear, but only with myself. Not even Tressa knows what I have been thinking." She was completely uncontrite, smiling at me. 'Think of it, Cay—think about what a nod of the head could mean to you: companionship, a ready wit to keep you agile and alert, a clever woman's mind around you with a pleasant smile and a willing, cheerful bedmate on cold, dark nights ... even on warm, dark nights. All those you need, Caius Merlyn Britannicus, and all of them are there in young Tressa. And no fear of siring children." She paused, blinking, and her smile faded to soberness. "Even the boy would benefit from such a case, for Tressa's need to mother is fierce and strong."
Then, in a quieter voice, she added, "Think you I would advise you lightly in this, Cay? Or wrongly? Or that I would bestow those blessings I covet on someone unworthy?"
I stood up slowly, my mind spinning as I saw the implications here. But before I could find the words with which to respond to such an amazing series of statements, questions and revelations, the door swung open and Dedalus strode in. He almost skidded to a halt when he saw my expression and then Shelagh, sitting opposite me.
"Now, by the Christ! Forgive me, Merlyn—Cay, I mean—for charging in like this without a knock or bidding. I had no thought you might be occupied. Shelagh, your pardon, I'll—"
"Please, Dedalus, enough!" Shelagh rose to her feet, cutting him off with a smile and an upraised palm. "Our talk is done and I was about to leave." She smiled at me. "Think on what I have said, Cay, and consider it at length. There is no need for haste, in any direction. When you are ready to talk further, come and see me." She nodded again to Dedalus and left us with a smile.
Dedalus stepped to the window to watch her walk by, then turned to me. "Again, your pardon, Cay. I entered without thinking."
I barely heard what he said—my mind still reeling with the portent of Shelagh's last pronouncements—but I realized I was being uncivil, so I shook myself mentally and forced my attention to rest on my new visitor.
"What was that? No, no, no. Think no more of it, Ded. You know my door is always open to you. As Shelagh said, our talk was over. We were but making conversation when you arrived. What's that you have there?"
He carried two long pieces of wood clutched beneath one arm. He moved to a chair and seated himself, laying one end of them on die floor and leaning them against his leg as he launched into a long description of what they were and how he had found them. But he might as well have been speaking Attic Greek, for all that I absorbed of what he said, because my mind remained fixed upon what had just passed between Shelagh and me—the deafening knowledge that Tressa was barren! My face must have portrayed a certain interest, nonetheless, because Dedalus kept talking. But as he droned on, his tone changed from a mere accompaniment to my confusion into an annoyance, and eventually I jerked my hand upward in a peremptory gesture of restraint. He stopped speaking immediately.
"Ded, my friend, I must ask you to forgive me, but I have barely heard a word of what you have been saying. My head is filled with other matters."
He sat frowning at me, clearly concerned for me.
"Are you all right, Cay? Is something wrong?"
I shook my head, finding the ability to smile, albeit ruefully. "No, Ded, there's nothing wrong ... nothing that can be changed, at any rate. It's simply ... I have too much on my mind—too many things, all small enough but all demanding redress. Shelagh's contribution, though among the least of them, was simply one more complication than I had thought to face at this particular time. Your input then, my friend, has come as surfeit. Can you excuse my lack of courtesy?"
"Tchah! What lack of courtesy?" He rose to his feet, smiling. "I was the one who thrust myself in here without thought. I was but passing by, on my way to meet with Mark, when I thought to show you these things that I have found." He hefted them into the air, catching them beneath his aim again. "But they are solid, as you see, so they won't dry up and disappear. Deal with the problems on your mind, and when you're ready, I won't be hard to find. Can I help you with anything?" I shook my head, wordlessly, and he shrugged and made his way to the door. "I'll leave you to it, then, until later."
When he had gone I stood staring at the door, my mind in some kind of stasis, empty of all intelligible thought. But then the image of Tressa came back to me, to be replaced immediately by Shelagh's smiling face and the sound of her voice. I moved to sit in my most comfortable chair, allowing my calamitous thoughts to swirl and surge around in my mind. They were, however, too disturbing and too turbulent to be dealt with sitting still, and soon I was pacing my floor from one end to the other, tracing and retracing the same path as I grappled with the welter of my feelings and emotions. Finally, I stopped before the window where Shelagh had stood and leaned out into the still- bright afternoon. All at once I was aware of what it was that had been troubling me about Shelagh's declaration: it contained an inconsistency, so frail as to be almost nebulous, yet tantalizingly present, demanding recognition.
Shelagh had chosen Tressa as a mistress for me, and some inner, disapproving part of me was slightly scandalized by that. She had searched diligently, by her own admission, and had chosen carefully, selecting Tressa over all others. Then, her choice made in secrecy, she had implemented her design and I had refused the offered prize. Only then, in the face of that refusal, had she acknowledged her intent and her manipulation of events for my personal and private benefit. It was, in one evident sense, the gesture of a true and loyal friend, selfless and generous and noble-hearted. And yet ... and yet, it was flawed.
I could not marry Tressa, for a myriad reasons including my own oath never to take a wife. Shelagh, however, even though she knew nothing of that oath, had not sought to find a wife for me. Instead, she had found a potentially willing mistress who would never be a threat, either to my destiny with Arthur, or to that dear place, that shrine sacred to my long-dead Cassandra, shared now by her memory and by Shelagh herself, in my deepest heart. Most particularly, however, the woman she had taken such pains to find could never tie me to her in the future through the bonds of children.
I knew beyond a doubt that Shelagh had laboured well on my behalf, but now I knew also that she had laboured not quite selflessly or self-effacingly. That physicality which she might not provide herself she had provided otherwise; but die strangely passive secret, amorous, excitement-filled attraction to each other that we shared, on the other hand, she had safeguarded wholly, in her role as panderer ... As the full realization of what had passed here flooded through me—Shelagh's tacit, even unconscious acknowledgment of the love she held for me—I found myself smiling again, broadly this time, and filling my lungs with the aromatic air of late afternoon as I bounded out of my quarters and made my way towards Mark's carpentry shop, feeling like a boy released from his lessons.
Dedalus was still there when I arrived, as was Lucanus, the latter sitting on an upturned barrel in the yard fronting Mark's workshop. They were talking of furnishings with Mark, admiring the matching patterns of the close-grained boards in a table he was making. They were all pleased to see me, and when the greetings were all done I turned to Dedalus.
"Now I can concentrate on what you wanted to discuss. You brought some things to show me. Do you still have them?"