“Why can I not see it? Why is it that you can?” she spoke at last.
Percy sighed. “May I sit with you, My Lady?”
Leonora nodded and the girl sat down on the bench beside her. She then told her a long peculiar story of visiting Death in his Keep, and the quest for the Cobweb Bride.
Leonora listened, in particular responding to the part of her own rescue from the chamber of cobwebs underneath the Sapphire Throne. Memories of it had haunted her all day, all sleepless night since their long carriage ride, since her liberation from the debilitating soft morass of—
Whatever it was, Leonora could not remember. She only saw vague snatches of spinning images . . . the strange beautiful blue eyes of the Sovereign, her sublime face hovering close over her. But most often she saw only the gossamer whiteness of cobwebs.
“What was done to me?” Leonora whispered. “How did I die? Why do I not remember?”
“It might be of some use to give you the water from the River Lethe to drink,” said Percy gently. “Unfortunately I have none with me—it can only be obtained at Death’s Keep, and indeed the whole underground river flows there—”
“Oh, God, the water of Lethe!” Leonora’s eyes, vulnerable and tragic, suddenly became wild. “I remember it! That was many weeks ago, indeed, months! Oh, what am I saying, maybe years! I was so young then, maybe fourteen—but no, how could that be? I am seventeen now, so how could it be years when I only entered her service when I was sixteen? In any case, there was a goblet of very strange water, at the Palace of the Sun. Her Brilliance the Sovereign had called it the water of Lethe and instructed me to keep it in my own quarters until she called for it, and to allow no other Lady-in-Attendance near it. I was told to watch over it and make sure no one touched or drank even a drop, for it was dangerous—”
Percy listened closely.
“It is a very strange story, and the time it seems to span makes very little sense, now that I think about it—years, months, weeks?” Leonora continued, while her retinas were seared with the imprint of sky blue eyes. . . . “Her Brilliance had been somewhat indisposed, or possibly saddened somehow, for many days this past spring—or was it two springs ago? Maybe three? No, that is nonsensical! We all noticed it but it was very subtle and hard to put into words. Indeed, it is always difficult to tell moods with Her Brilliance because she is such a delight and brings such joy always—what am I saying! Even now, I think of her as radiant and kind and beloved, when she did all this horror to me! But no, let me continue. And so, she kept me late one evening and instead of retiring for the night, she instructed me to fetch the goblet and to carry this same goblet with her into the Hall of the Sun, and there she sat down upon the Sapphire Throne. . . .”
“Please go on,” Percy said, because Leonora went silent, her words fading, and her eyes appeared lost.
“Yes, she sat upon the throne. No one else was in the hall with us, not even her personal guards. I had thought it very strange at that time, but of course I loved her and obeyed her every command. And thus, she sat on the Sapphire Throne for long moments so that the moon rose and I was growing weary of standing motionless before her. Indeed, her face, now as I remember it, it was so sad! So impossibly sad, as I had never seen her to be, not ever. It was sad and somehow real. Her expression—it hid nothing. No duplicity. And it was tragic, and her eyes—her beautiful blue eyes—they appeared strangely dark in the moonlight, and they glistened with tears.
“Then she turned to me and asked me to give her the goblet. And she told me that whatever happened next, I was not to tell anyone, and if the worst happened, I was to simply turn around and leave the chamber. What ‘the worst’ meant, I did not know. . . . But I was terrified. And then, I watched her drink.”
“How many sips did she take, do you remember?” Percy asked.
“Oh yes! She drank the first sip, and then sat back. And her face became relaxed with utter peace. She looked at me, and her eyes held no recognition, and then she looked at the goblet in her hands, as though considering it. . . . Moments later, she must have made some decision because she lifted it to her lips again and she drank another sip, or possibly a gulp. And immediately her face contorted. ‘No, no, oh, no!’ she exclaimed, and she started to weep, clutching the goblet loosely so that I was afraid it would fall, and its liquid sloshed around from the trembling of her fingers. I had never seen her thus! Oh, what indescribable rending sobs filled her, and she shook and she wept, sitting on the throne, painted by the moonlight! And when I asked if there was anything I could do, she cursed me, and then the very next moment begged me for forgiveness . . . and then she took a deep breath and she drank again—”
“For the third time,” Percy whispered with sorrow.
“Yes, and for the fourth and more!” Leonora’s speech cracked and she pulled in more air into her lungs to continue. “Indeed, she drank down the whole goblet!”
Percy was stunned. She sat clutching her hands in her lap while Leonora paused again. The dusk around them turned from purple to deep indigo. Somewhere behind them the villa lights bloomed forth and candlelight spilled from windows, while the garden lanterns outside were also set to burning by discreet servants.
“She should have died . . .” Percy said at last. “Anyone else in her place would have died, for Death told me that one cannot have more than two sips of the water of Lethe. The third sip means such unimaginable death that it takes you beyond all things and casts you from the world.”
“Oh!” Leonora looked at Percy in new fear. “How then—”
“She is immortal,” Percy said. “She is the Goddess Persephone. My understanding is, she drank death, but death could not take her, and thus an impossibility was created, a paradox. And it broke her.”
“She is a goddess?” Leonora’s expression was disbelief. “But why did she do this senseless thing? Knowing who she was, what did she think—”
“I think she wanted to die. Desperately. She drank on purpose, because she was looking for a way out.”
“A way out of what?”
“Out of the universe. Out of being. Out of performing her divine function.”
Percy rubbed her forehead. “In truth, I do not know—at least I have only an inkling, but I am not certain. But tell me, My Lady, what happened next, after she finished drinking the goblet?”
Leonora frowned with the effort of remembering. “I am not sure, but I think, after she was done drinking, she handed the empty goblet back to me, and her eyes—they were now perfectly empty. No—that is, they were cognizant and intelligent and aware, and she recognized me perfectly. But she was suddenly hard and cold and insensate, and yes, she was wicked—as though she no longer had a heart or a shred of sympathy. As though she, or any living soul inside her, had in fact died. Indeed, the first words out of her lips were, ‘child, what an ugly face you have.’”
“You say this,” Percy mused, “as though her wickedness was a new thing?”
“Oh but it was indeed!” Leonora spoke hurriedly. “Her Brilliance was suddenly different, had become someone she had never been before. I was only seven—oh lord, why do I keep seeing myself at that age in her presence? That is ridiculous! No, I mean, obviously, I must have been sixteen, for surely this all happened only last spring—and yet even now I feel like I had known her all my life—”
“She was different, you say. Which suggests that indeed the water of Lethe had caused her to be what she is now. Caused her to perform acts of cruelty for occult reasons and whatever she thought she was doing when she took you and the other maidens in that chamber, robbing all of you of will and life—”
“No, oh, no! I admit, I do not understand any of it,” Leonora said. “I am suddenly very confused, not only to be told that My Liege, the Sovereign is, as you say, an immortal goddess—which is a bizarre impossibility—but I am confused by my own memories and my own place in this whole thing. Why is time and my recollection of it so distorted? Why do I see myself before her both when I am a c
hild and then later, as a young woman? As if the entirety of my life has been a jewel preserved along a string, covered in unnatural cobwebs. . . . Could it really be some kind of sorcery?”
“That, My Lady, I do not know,” Percy said thoughtfully.
“Or maybe I am just an insane madwoman! A dead one!”
“I do not think,” Percy said gently, “that you are mad. But it is likely that you have been harmed considerably by whatever had come to pass—the events that you in fact cannot recall. Those same events that have made you into the Cobweb Bride.”
Leonora got up from her seat, holding herself up with rigid awkwardness. She stood, balancing stiffly on her feet, her knees trembling from the effort. “I cannot speak of this any more . . .” she announced coldly. “You must forgive me—I remain grateful for your help in rescuing me, and you are always deeply welcome in this house, but—but I cannot—” And with those words Leonora hastened away toward the lantern lights, returning back into the villa.
Percy got up and returned to the house also.
When Percy entered the guest boudoir given to them by the family D’Arvu, Beltain was waiting for her.
Warm candlelight made the large airy chamber comfortable, while outside the windows was an ink-blue evening sky.
“Percy!” he said, and stood up from the deep chair in which he had been seated, still fully dressed. “How did it go?”
“Not well . . .” Percy sighed, and looked up, seeing his familiar grey-blue eyes, and immediately feeling a warm energy surge between them, invigorating her. She stood before him, suddenly a little awkward, remembering all kinds of things that had nothing to do with Leonora or death or the entirety of the world around them. And then she said, “I do not think Lady Leonora is ready to be Death’s Cobweb Bride. Nor do I think she might ever be—or at least not in a long while.”
He nodded, his countenance turning serious, the softness that was directed at her retreating as he focused on what was being said. “She does not want to die. Or rather, she is dead, but she does not want to accept whatever it is that happens after the soul leaves the mortal flesh—the end. For that, I do not blame her.”
“I do not blame her either. But unless she agrees to accept her fate, the world will continue broken as it is.”
Beltain took a step forward and he stood directly before her, so that Percy had to look up even more, while her breath quickened slightly, because she could feel the warmth of his body radiating at her, even without them touching.
“There are other things she told me. . . .” And she related the conversation with Leonora, while speaking softly into the shirt on his chest.
“So we have a mad, damaged goddess . . .” Beltain mused. “I admit, I am still coming to terms with the notion of the classical gods and goddesses living in our midst and the One God allowing it—or sharing the universe with them. Now, it may be that what Lady Leonora has just told you might explain much of this immortal Sovereign’s violent behavior, but not all. Given what appears to be possible, what does she want now? What can she want or expect from the world, from all of us in it?” And he placed his hand on Percy’s bare arm, near her shoulder, his fingers splayed, and moving lightly against her skin.
Percy shuddered with the shock of his touch and looked up at him.
Beltain was looking down at her with intensity, his head leaning in, until his face was directly over her cheek and the wavy locks of his soft brown hair tumbled against her neck. She felt his warm breath on her cheek, and then he whispered, “Sweet Percy . . . let the gods be mad as they may, but . . . I must steal a kiss.”
“Oh!” she said.
He kissed her mouth, hard.
She knew the now familiar yet still impossible-to-believe pressure upon her lips, and she turned into it so that there was no space between them, no breath, no skin.
Soon, both his hands held her face between them, tilting her head back so that she felt as though she was swooning into the floor, into the ground, into the earth itself, while he opened her, consumed her from above and from the inside, and her gaze was turned heavenward, and he was the dome of her sky, its entirety. . . .
They came up for air, and both were shuddering with exultation, with heat and lassitude in their limbs.
“My sweet love,” he said. And his eyes, so near her own, were molten and dark, and soft and oh-so-vulnerable.
Percy placed her hands upon his chest and she leaned into him. She rested the side of her face against him, feeling the linen of his shirt, and through it the heat of his skin and deeper yet, the steady beat of his heart.
And then he gently disengaged himself and stepped back. The bed was just two paces away. “It is getting late . . .” he said, standing and looking at her without end, with the candlelight warming the planes of his face. “You must rest now, Percy, and so must I, for none of us know what will come tomorrow. Now, go on and lie down on the bed, it is all yours . . . while I will stay in the chair.”
Percy looked in uncertainty from him to the great bed with its soft and plush coverings, its many grand pillows with tassels and the delicate linen sheets. “What do you mean, My Lord?” she said. “You need to lie down properly. Come and sleep in the bed, there is so much room!”
“I—” he said. “I am afraid. . . .”
Her lips parted. “Afraid of what?”
He was silent, his gaze brimming with leashed intensity.
“Beltain!” said Percy. And as she said it, she was cognizant that for the first time she was using the black knight’s given name, and doing so entirely without permission. Not that any of it mattered any more.
“If I lie down next to you, Percy, I am afraid that I would—I would not be able to hold myself back. That I would do to you what a husband does to his wife. . . .”
And saying that, he blushed darkly, his cheeks and forehead and neck burning.
She stared at him, and started to flush also. She bit her lip and averted her gaze and looked down at the soft bed coverlet, at the fringe on the pillows and the tassels . . . and then her lips started to quiver with a tiny little smile.
“Get into bed, Beltain,” she said. And she looked up and gazed directly into his eyes.
“You—” he said softly, looking at her in amazement. “But you are so young. . . .”
“I am not! I am not young at all! I’ll be seventeen at the end of May, and that’s only a few months from now! Besides, half the girls my age back in Oarclaven are already wed, with babes in their arms! And yes, I know all about that, they told me plenty! Besides, how old are you anyway? Not all that older than me, I venture, five and twenty, no more! Now, get into bed, or so help me, I will thrash you!”
He shook his head and gasped, but then the beginning of a grin was taking over, and then he started to laugh, his baritone ringing with warmth.
“Oh, my sweet, sweet Percy . . .” He chuckled, then went silent, but his lips retained a malleable softness, and a smile. “I will lie down at your side, but I will not touch you in that way, nor harm you, for you know not of what you speak. . . . I would not impose on your dear body, not at such a time when the world is falling apart and I can offer you little to nothing in return, not even my family home. Even the good ancient name of Chidair is tainted now, so I must first set it aright before anything else. And you are quite young indeed, and you may not want me, or a child of mine, when all is said and done. Thus, let us only sleep now, beloved. We shall lie together as friends. Come!”
In response Percy stepped forward and turned her back to him, saying, “Well then, it will be as you wish, Sir Knight, you ninny—big strong man with your big strong arms and your fool of a brain—as long as you lie down properly and not on some idiot chair. But first, I need to put on my nightshirt, and so you will have to undo these horrid laces at my back instead of one of the maids, all of whom I think have gone to bed, and I would hate to bother the poor girls at this hour, because I dare say they have plenty to do around the house without having to und
ress the sorry likes of me—”
And in the next breath, his fingers were at her back, and she felt their strong touch, and coursing waves of honey-weakness poured into her at every point of contact. And then she realized that his fingers were also trembling. . . .
Percy awoke in the first glimmer light of dawn diluting the thick pitch-black night darkness. The candles had long since gone out, and she was lying in his arms, while he slept, breathing deeply, his body great and warm all around her, and she could feel his virile heat through her long cotton nightshirt.
He had kept his word, and steeled himself all night, lying at her side without touching her at all, not even her hand. . . . And only toward morning, when his sleep deepened, did she come to lie with her head against this chest, her face pressed against his heart, and his arms came to wrap her in an unconscious embrace, even as he slept.
She did not want to move, not ever. This was the only true perfect moment of her being, the only thing real—this one instant here and now, with him.
But Percy took a deep shuddering breath of regret, and then she gently disengaged herself from his arms—the arms of deity, her heart’s one god—for such he had become to her. And she softly slipped from the bed without waking him.
She stood and dressed, and watched him lie there, beautiful in his abandon . . . listened to his sweet breathing.
Oh, how she wanted to kiss his muscular arms, his bronzed shoulder, the side of his neck, his parted lips—all of him.
But she could not—she must not. For he would wake.
And she had to go.
Percy glanced at her beloved one more time. And then, in the thick twilight before dawn, she glanced in the darkest corner of the chamber where the shadows stood thickest. And she walked into them, willing herself to travel, to fade from this place, and to emerge elsewhere.