Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley [515]
And the Goddess appeared to prevent that profanation. . . . Nimue had had enough training in the Mysteries to know what she had witnessed; even now a shiver went over her at the thought of what had passed among the Companions on that festival day. She had not wholly understood, but she knew that she had touched the greatest holiness.
And the Merlin would have profaned this. No, he must die like the dog he was.
The harp was silent. Kevin said, “I have a harp for you, lady, if you will accept it. It is one which I fashioned with my own hands when I was a lad on Avalon, and first come there. I have made others, and they are better, but this is a good one and I have carried it long. If you will accept it, it is yours.” Nimue protested that such a gift was all too valuable, but inwardly she was overjoyed. If she should possess something so valuable to him personally, something he had fashioned with his own hands and labor, then would it bind him to her, just as if it were a lock of his own hair or a drop of his blood. There were not many, even in Avalon, who knew that the law of magic went so far, that something which had been so intimately intertwined with the mind and the heart and the passions—and Nimue grasped that music was his deepest passion—retained even more of the soul than hair clipped from the body retained the essence of the body.
She thought with satisfaction, He himself, of his own free will, has put his soul into my hands. When he sent for the harp, she caressed it; small and crudely made as it was, the post had been worn smooth with resting against his body, and his hands had touched the strings with love . . . even now they lingered on it tenderly.
She touched the strings, testing their music. In truth, the tone of the harp was good; he had somehow managed that perfect curve and structure that made the soundingboard echo the strings with the sweetest tone. And if he had done this as a boy, with those mutilated hands . . . again Nimue felt the surge of pity and pain, Why did he not keep to his music and meddle not in the high affairs of state?
“You are too kind to me.” She let her voice tremble, hoping he would think it was passion instead of triumph . . . with this, soon he will be mine, possessed body and soul.
But it was too soon. The great tides of Avalon running in her blood told her that the moon was waxing; such great magic as this could be worked only in moon-dark, the slack time when the Lady sheds none of her light on the world, and her hidden purposes are made known.
She must not let his passion grow beyond bounds, nor her own sympathy with him.
He will desire me at full moon; this bond I am forging is a double-edged sword, a rope with two ends . . . I will desire him as well, I cannot prevent that. For an enchantment to be total, it must involve both enchanter and enchanted, and she knew, with a spasm of terror, that this spell she was weaving would work on her too, and rebound on her. She could not pretend passion and desire; she must feel them as well. She knew, with a fear that wrung her heart, that even as the Merlin would be helpless in her hands, so it might well be that she would come to be helpless in his. And what of me, O Goddess, Mother . . . that is all too great a price to pay . . . let it not come on me, no, no, I am afraid. . . .
“Well, Nimue, my dear,” Gwenhwyfar said, “now that you have the harp in your hands, will you play and sing for me?”
She let her hair curtain her face as she looked timidly at the Merlin and murmured, “Shall I, then?”
“I beg you to play,” he said. “Your voice is sweet and I can hear that your hands will bring enchantment from the strings. . . .”
They will indeed if I am favored of the Goddess. Nimue set her hands to the strings, remembering that she must not play any song of