And every spring, Matt had said, he and Loren would bring the first flowers to this grave.
It was almost invisible. One had to know the place. A mound of earth, no stone, the trees at the edge of Mórnirwood for shade. Sorrow and peace together came over Jennifer as she saw Matt kneel and lay his flowers on the mound.
Sorrow and peace, and then she saw that the Dwarf was weeping, and her own tears came at last from the heart that spring had unlocked. For Aideen she wept, and bright Kevin gone; for Darien she cried, and the choice he had to make; for Laesha and Drance, slain when she was taken; for all the living, too, faced with the terror of the Dark, faced with war and the hatred of Maugrim, born into the time of his return.
And finally, finally by Aideen’s grave in Kevin’s spring, she wept for herself and for Arthur.
It lasted a long time. Matt did not rise, nor did he look up until, at length, she stopped.
“There is heart’s ease in this place,” he said.
“Ease?” she said. A weary little laugh. “With so many tears between the two of us?”
“The only way, sometimes,” he replied. “Do you not feel it, though?”
After a moment she smiled as she had not done for a very long time. He rose from near the grave. He looked at her and said, “You will leave the Temple now?”
She did not reply. Slowly the smile faded. She said, “Is this why you brought me here?”
His dark eye never wavered from her face, but there was a certain diffidence in his voice. “I know only a few things,” said Matt Sören, “but these I know truly. I know that I have seen stars shining in the depths of the Warrior’s eyes. I know that he is cursed, and not allowed to die. I know, because you told me, what was done to you. And I know, because I see it now, that you are not allowing yourself to live. Jennifer, of the two fates, it seems to me the worse.”
Gravely, she regarded him, her golden hair stirred by the wind. She lifted a hand to push it back from her face. “Do you know,” she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear, “how much grief there was when I was Guinevere?”
“I think I do. There is always grief. It is joy that is the rarest thing,” said the onetime King of Dwarves.
To this she made no reply. It was a Queen of Sorrows who stood with him by the Godwood, and for all the earnest certitude of his words, Matt knew a moment of doubt. Almost to himself, for reassurance, he murmured, “There can be no hope for anything in a living death.”
She heard. Her gaze came back to him. “Oh, Matt,” she said. “Oh, Matt, for what should I hope? He has been cursed to this. I am the agent of the Weaver’s will. For what should I hope?”
Her voice went to his heart like a blade. But the Dwarf drew himself up to his fullest height and said the thing he had brought her there to say, and there was no doubt in him for this.
“Never believe it!” Matt Sören cried. “We are not slaves to the Loom. Nor are you only Guinevere—you are Jennifer now, as well. You bring your own history to this hour, everything you have lived. You bring Kevin here within you, and you bring Rakoth, whom you survived. You are here, and whole, and each thing you have endured has made you stronger. It need not be now as it has been before!”
She heard him. She nodded slowly. She turned and walked with him back to Paras Derval through the profligate bestowing of that morning. He was not wrong, for the Dwarves were wise in such things.
Nevertheless.
Nevertheless, even as they walked, her mind was turning back to another morning in another spring. Almost as bright as this, though not so long awaited.
There had been cherry trees in blossom all around when she had stood by Arthur’s side to see Lancelot first ride into Camelot.
Hidden among the trees on the slopes north of them, a figure watched their return as he had watched them walking to the grave. He was lonely, and minded to go down to them, but he didn’t know who they were and, since Cernan’s words, he was deeply mistrustful of everyone. He stayed where he was.
Darien thought the woman was very beautiful, though.
“He is still there,” said Loren, “and he still has the Cauldron. It may take him time to put it to another use, but if we give him that time, he will. Aileron, unless you forbid me, I will leave to take ship from Taerlindel in the morning.”
Tense sound rippled through the Council Chamber. Paul saw the High King’s brow knitted with concern. Slowly, Aileron shook his head. “Loren,” he said, “everything you say is true, and the gods know how dearly I want Metran dead. But how can I send you to Cader Sedat when we don’t even know how to find it?”
“Let me sail,” the mage said stonily. “I will find it.”
“Loren, we don’t even know if Amairgen did. All we know is that he died!”
“He was sourceless,” Loren replied. “Lisen stayed behind. He had his knowledge but not his power. I am less wise, far, but Matt will be with me.”
“Silvercloak, there were other mages on Amairgen’s ship. Three of them, with their sources. None came back.” It was Jaelle, Paul saw. She glittered that morning, more coldly formidable than ever before. If there was an ascendency that day, it was hers, for Dana had acted and the winter was over.
They were not going to be allowed to forget it. Even so, he felt sorry for his last words yesterday evening. Hers had been a gesture unlikely to be repeated.
“It is true,” Aileron was saying. “Loren, how can I let you go? Where will we be if you die? Lisen saw a death ship from her tower—what mariner could I ask to sail another?”
“This one.” They all turned to the door in astonishment. Coll took two steps forward from his post beside Shain and said clearly, “The High King will know I am from Taerlindel. Before Prince Diarmuid took me from that place to serve in his company, I had spent all my life at sea. If Loren wants a mariner, I will be his man, and my mother’s father has a ship I built with him. It will take us there with fifty men.”
There was a silence. Into which there dropped, like a stone in a pool, the voice of Arthur Pendragon.
“Has your ship a name?” he asked.
Coll flushed suddenly, as if conscious for the first time of where he was. “None that will mean anything,” he stammered. “It is a name in no language I know, but my mother’s father said it was a ship’s name in his family far back. We called it Prydwen, my lord.”
Arthur’s face went very still. Slowly the Warrior nodded, then he turned from Coll to Aileron. “My lord High King,” he said, “I have kept my peace for fear of intruding myself between you and your First Mage. I can tell you, though, that if your concern is only for finding Cader Sedat—we called it Caer Sidi once, and Caer Rigor, but it is the same place—I have been there and know where it is. This may be why I was brought to you.”
“What is it, then?” asked Shalhassan of Cathal. “What is Cader Sedat?”
“A place of death,” said Arthur. “But you knew that much already.”
It was very quiet in the room.
“It will be guarded,” Aileron said. “There will be death waiting at sea, as well.”
Thought, Memory. Paul rose. “There will be,” he said as they turned to look at him. “But I think I can deal with that.”
It didn’t take very long, after that. With a sense of grim purpose, the company followed Aileron and Shalhassan from the room when the council ended.
Paul waited by the doorway. Brendel walked past with a worried expression but did not stop. Dave, too, looked at him as he went out with Levon and Tore.