Part 09 - A Coil of Snakes
I was there.
When Elayne the hand-maiden was made queen for a night, I was there.
As always, there's a long and circuitous set of excitements before any event I tell. One of these days I'll learn to tell a story quick, and make it flow fast like clear water in a stream. But where's the fun in that, all over before it begins and nothing to guess, nothing to remember, nothing to forget? Catch me quick, hoolah, hoolay! I'd rather take all day.
It was simple, this: Lilith first queen of the land more true, by Artur's side as his spy, his hide, her slaughter more bloody than poor Miryamme could ever know. She, poor girl, with her eyes of innocent blue and the straw doll by her side, she could not match the fierce love Lilith gave her father, but stayed sweet innocence, his virgin queen.
Artur still needed his little queen though, and after battle 'twas always the same. He would go to Miryamme's chamber, and whisper sweet words in her ear, and the poor creature would sleep so deep, her little back curled against the king's belly, her skin so smooth it glowed under the silver moon. I could unknot a string, and Emmy and Elayne sleep too, not chasing the poor lamb with her frightened bleat every night.
"Her innocence reminds me, Maer, why I fight the scum from the east." Sworn to De Grance, more like.
Lancilet the prince was accommodated for his care of the queen, for Rednock would take the king's big red horse and Lilith's grey, and break up a sweat huge and hot and his muscles all bulging, curry them down with a brush. Young Lancilet would creep by with a pail and a cloth, and wash the big man down like his own beast, and service the groom with his mouth or his ass, depending on the groom's inclination and how far the horses had run.
The queen didn't always dally and watch, but Emmelyne and Elayne did regularly look. "You said to keep an eye on the prince, Maer, and report all proper and full." Emmy winked, and lifted up her skirts.
"I did, Em," I replied; and found my own need to check the carpenter's work remained solid and straight in the loft. It did, straight and solid into Emmy's helpful wet cunt, while she made sure the balustrade held firm, holding on. That carpenter fellow must have been careless, his work so often needing a check.
In truth, one of my best designs, that stable. Very good sight lines, even if I say so myself.
And Lilith, what she? She would regularly to my chamber come. "Tell me of Nym Nymue, Maer, and Morgayne my mother." She'd look at me with her father's eyes, and insist I tell her destinies and histories, so she could see how the land's women circled around her father and held him safe and made him king. "He's my father, Maer, no woman loves him more."
Truth tell, I believed her. But her birth caul all hidden: I always remembered her tiny baby body covered in it, which Emmy washed away, and I wondered what it meant. I knew Nym Nymue couldn't see Lilith when she turned away, which struck me odd. Surely a portent or two, a spark from a fire or guts from a stoat, something at least, to tell Lilith's truth? She'd look at me with her deep, clear eyes, and tell me where the waters ran.
So the court was made, and prospered a little, and the land settled into a winter. Artur heard tell from merchants and captains that his last message, the six young men sent back in their ship, had impressed the heathen king and made him pause. My ears, better at skulking between the lines, heard tell that they really feared what dragen women would do; and by all accounts, once the whispering was finished, Lilith the new queen was as tall as ten men, grown naked from the rock.
"Their stupid imaginations do you no harm, rumours of giants walking the land. Gogmagog and his bride." I grinned at the king, my friend. "I never knew you were so tall, sire. You hide your height well. You look no taller to me than an average man."
"Seems true, Maer, a useful ploy." Artur looked across at Lilith his daughter who sat making arrows. "But they'll be back, those boatmen. There'll be more blood to wash from our hands, it's not over for us yet."
"There are always deep rivers, father, to cleanse ourselves of blood," said Lilith. "We need to prepare ourselves, train more men, be not afraid."
"I'm not afraid, Lilith, just wary. Weary too, but I hide it."
Ah me, the look in Lilith's eye when he said it.
Lilith made bring an inkster with his woad all black and blue, and made him tattoo a curling twine of a snake on her naked body and that of her father, and it was cleverly made, that encirclement. For when they held themselves just so, and pressed tight hard against each other with their naked arms all around, the body of the snake was one continuous coil around them, made as of one joined creature. And so Artur and his daughter made it clear, and peril to those who doubted, that these two were king and queen for the land, joined in blood and lust and fury, coiled snakes on a dark path.
And Lilith made sweet with Miryamme her father's bride, and kept the simple queen, if not a friend, more like an injured bird that cannot fly. I walked the palisade with Artur by my side and looked down on the meadow by the river, and saw the two women like a mother and a child, Lilith caring for the little queen as if she were her own child, calling to her, "Come, my mother, come dance with me, dancing, dancing, we'll ride a fine horse."
Artur looked upon them both and said to me, "The girl takes my curse and weakens it, Maer. See how she laughs and smiles with the queen."
"It's a natural love, sire, a protective thing."
Artur glanced at me. "Seems like it's many do care for my queen, my helpless creature. I thank them for their kindness."
"She's a sweet thing, sire, but not practical for the land's queen. Your own blood daughter, Lilith, she will bleed for this land, this kingdom. You died tomorrow, sire, she could wear your crown. Men would follow her."
Artur held my gaze, long and hard. "She the first born, Maer, you swear it?"
"By these hands, sire, these very hands you see in front of you." I held my hands out for him to see. "Emmelyne is my witness, she swaddled the girl babe whilst I birthed the whelp."
"The whelp? My son, Maer, and marked king." Artur pointed out the fact of it, as if it was the weather, a dull day.
"I tell it true, lord, I warm not to Mordant your son; nor him me." It was rare I looked Artur straight, but this time I did. "Nym Nymue sees treachery in him, sire, when she trances. She cannot pierce the veil, but his shade blackens her backwards sight."
"And you say she cannot see Lilith, even in clear light?"
"She can see the one but not the other streaming back, that's true. Nymue is afraid of it, not seeing Lilith. Her eyes can't see your daughter straight."
Artur looked down at his arms and the twisted ink upon them, slowly turning his hands over. He looked at me, a stillness in his eyes. "I trust her with my life, Maer."
"I think she take it in both hands, sire."
"Like your hands, Maer, when she was born? A life?"
"Yeay. Her life is powerful born, any fool can see that."
Artur laughed. "You see it, Maer?"
"Not I, sire. I'm blind."
