Copyright
Copyright 1995, 2010 by Anne Eliot Crompton
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crompton, Anne Eliot. Merlin's harp / Anne Eliot Crompton.
p. cm. Summary: Niviene, the daughter of the Lady of the Lake, recounts her life as a member of the Fey, sister of the knight who would be known as Lancelot, and student of Merlin as she discovers her destiny at the court of King Arthur. [1. FairiesFiction. 2. Merlin (Legendary character)Fiction. 3. Lancelot (Legendary character)Fiction. 4. Arthur, KingFiction. 5. Lady of the Lake (Legendary character)Fiction. 6. GrailFiction. 7. Great BritainHistoryTo 1066Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.C879Mer 2010 [Fic]dc22
2009035980
Geoffrey Ashe, in his book The Discovery of King Arthur, suggests that the reason the historian Gildas never mentioned King Arthur by name was that Arthur had robbed Christian monasteries for his war chests. (Gildas wrote judgmental history.) This exciting theory became a pillar of Merlin's Harp.
Anne Eliot Crompton
A Counsel Oak Leaf Song
Water rising under rock
Breaks earth's lock,
Floods thirsty roots,
Nurtures sap and trunk and shoots,
Greens and plumps each greedy leaf
Till dappled sunlight like a thief
Sucks leaf-water as I breathe,
Makes of mist an airy wreath
To drift and float and wander high
To the sky,
And fall again,
Sweet, rich rain,
Run under rock and
Rise again.
Merlin's Harp
When I was yet a very young woman I threw my heart away.
I fashioned a wee coracle of leaf and willow twig and reed, a coracle that sat in the hollow of my two palms. In this I placed my wounded, wretched heart, and I set it adrift on the rain-misted wavelets of the Fey river, and I watched it bob and whirl, sail and sink. Ever since then I have lived heartless, or almost heartless, cold as spring rain, the way Humans think all Fey live. Humans I have known would be astounded to learn that I ever had a heart that leapt, brightened, fainted, quickened, warmed, embraced, froze, or rejected, like their own.
I grew up in a strangely Human way in a home, with a sort of family. My mother Nimway, my brother Lugh, and I lived in Lady Villa on Apple Island, which Human bards have named Avalon. I say we "lived" there. Most nights we slept within the villa walls. We cooked many a meal over the stone circle fireplace in the villa courtyard. When we sought each others' company we looked in the villa, in certain of the old rooms, a special room for each of us. My mother's room had faded waves painted on its walls, and strange, leaping fish, such as we never caught in the Fey lake. My small room was painted about with vinesunlike those that clung to and camouflaged the villa wallsand clusters of purple fruits. Because of these pictures, Lugh and I always believed that there were worlds beyond the Fey forest, where mysterious creatures lived. Few Fey children grow up knowing that.
Like other children, I went away to join the Children's Guard as soon as I could care for myself. But unlike other children, I remembered the villa as my home, I remembered the Lady, my mother, and I always knew that Lugh, the big, pale boy who often stood guard with me, was my born brother. We had sucked the same breasts and learned to walk on the same cool, tiled floor. We were special to each other, as no other two children were.
And though I never said so till our Guard time ended, and then only to my best friend, Elana, I always knew that when I grew up and left the Guard I would go home.
The villa grew about us and entwined our lives as vines entwined the villa. Apple Island held us apart from mainland Fey forest and our silent Fey neighbors. Living on the mainland we would have glimpsed neighbors from afar, as we glimpse other wild creatures; by slow, easy approaches we would have come to know many of them by name, and some as friends. But the lake trapped us, for the most part, with each other.
Living like this, as in a Human family, I grew an almost Humanlike heart. This was a deformity. Even on the bright spring morning when I climbed Counsel Oak with my best friend Elana, I knew I could not live much longer with this heart.
The Lady, who knew so much, must have known I had it.
Elana knew. She did not mind because she had a heart too. In truth, hers was bigger and warmer than mine, and fast growing desperate. I could have had no notion how desperate, for such intensity had no precursor in our Fey world.
Counsel Oak towers over all the apple trees of Avalon. At that time his massive trunk yawned half-open where it had been split by a bolt from heaven long ago. A lesser tree would have drooped and dropped and given back its life to the Goddess. But the young oak that we would call Counsel reared on up, seeking the sun.
Up we climbed, Elana and I, from huge branch to smaller branch, past new leaf and mistletoe, through thrush song and warbler flight. A few days before we had left the Children's Guard at last, still wrapped in the "invisible" cloaks in which Guards spy from treetop and thicket on the Human kingdom beyond our forest. We had lingered a bit, building shelters and scavenging. Then I had said to Elana, "Come home with me." And Elana had come.
I perched now in the highest crotch that would bear my very slight weight. Elana settled lower, for she was a big girl; she carried real weight. Together we looked out over all of Apple Island, and the Fey lake with its dark, encircling forest, and the small, shimmering streams that fed the lake, and the wide river that flowed away east to the kingdom.
Uncounted white-blooming apple trees crowded the island below us. The trees hid Avalon's two dwelling dens, but I knew where they were. Otter Mellias's newly built cabin stood on stilts over the water on the east shore. Lady Villa crouched among willows on the west shore. Had we climbed Counsel Oak in times long past we could have seen the villa from here. It would have shone out at us, dazzled us, white stone among bright gardens. We might have seen giant, Human figures like those painted on the villa walls stride across the courtyard, or talk beside the fountain. The fountain spat water back then, so the Lady said.
Elana whistled like a blackbird. I looked down and saw her raise plump hands in silent sign-talk. She signed, Listen to the leaves.
I had told her that Counsel's rustling leaves gave advice. So the Lady said. Now I listened to the leaves, but heard no words. I shrugged.
