Bernard Cornwell - The Winter King

I looked into her eyes and knew this was no small thing, no childhood game, but an oath that would bind me throughout this world and maybe into the next. For a second I was terrified of all that was to come, then I nodded and somehow managed to speak. “Agreed,” I said.

“And so long as you carry the scar, Derfel,” she said, 'your life is mine, and so long as I carry the scar, my life is yours. Do you understand that?"

“Yes,” I said. My hand throbbed. It felt hot and swollen while her hand felt tiny and chill in my bloody grip.

“One day, Derfel,” Nimue said, “I will call on you, and if you do not come then the scar will mark you to the Gods for a false friend, a traitor and an enemy.”

“Yes,” I said.

She looked at me in silence for a few seconds, then crawled up on to the pile of furs and blankets where she curled herself into my arms. It was awkward to lie together for our two left hands were still bound, but somehow we made ourselves comfortable and then lay still. Voices sounded outside and dust drifted in the high dark chamber where the bats slept and the kittens hunted. It was cold, but Nimue pulled a pelt over the two of us and then she slept with her body's small weight numbing my right arm. I lay awake, filled with awe and confusion over what the knife had caused between us. She woke in the middle of the afternoon. “Gundleus has gone,” she said sleepily, though how she knew I do not know, then she extricated herself from my grip and from the tangled furs before unwrapping the cloak that was still twisted around our hands. The blood had crusted and the scabs tore painfully away from our wounds as we pulled apart. Nimue crossed to the sheaf of spears and scooped up a handful of cobwebs that she slapped on to my bleeding palm. “It'll heal soon,” she said carelessly, and then, with her own cut hand wrapped in a scrap of cloth, she found some bread and cheese. “Aren't you hungry?” she asked.

“Always.”

We shared the meal. The bread was dry and hard, and the cheese had been nibbled by mice. At least Nimue thought it was mice. “Maybe the bats chewed it,” she said. “Do bats eat cheese?”

“I don't know,” I said, then hesitated. “Was it a tame bat?” I meant the animal that she had tied into her hair. I had seen such things before, of course, but Merlin would never talk of them, nor would his acolytes, but I suspected the odd ceremony of our bloody hands would let me into Nimue's confidence. And it did, for she shook her head. “It's an old trick to frighten fools,” she said dismissively. “Merlin taught it to me. You put jesses on the bat's feet, just like falcon jesses, then tie the jesses to your hair.” She ran her hand through her black hair, then laughed. “And it frightened Tanaburs! Imagine that! And him a Druid!”

I was not amused. I wanted to believe in her magic, not have it explained as a trick played with hawk-leashes. “And the snakes?” I asked.

“He keeps them in a basket. I have to feed them.” She shuddered, then she saw my disappointment.

“What's wrong?”

“Is it all trickery?” I asked.

She frowned and was silent for a long time. I thought she was not going to answer at all, but finally she explained, and I knew, as I listened, that I was hearing the things that Merlin had taught her. Magic, she said, happened at the moments when the lives of the Gods and men touched, but such moments were not commanded by men. “I can't snap my fingers and fill the room with mist,” she said, 'but I've seen it happen. I crn't raise the dead, though Merlin says he has seen it done. I can't order a lightning strike to kill Gundleus, though I wish I might, because only the Gods can do that. But there was a time, Derfel, when we could do those things, when we lived with the Gods and we pleased them and we were able to use their power to keep Britain as they wanted it kept. We did their bidding, you understand, but their bidding was our desire.“ She clasped her two hands to demonstrate the point, then flinched as the pressure hurt the cut on her left palm. ”But then the Romans came,“ she said, 'and they broke the compact.”

“But why?” I interrupted impatiently, for I had heard much of this already. Merlin was always telling us how Rome had shattered the bond between Britain and its Gods, but he had never explained why that could happen if the Gods had such power. “Why didn't we beat the Romans?” I asked Nimue.

“Because the Gods didn't want it. Some Gods are wicked, Derfel. And besides, they have no duty to us, only we to them. Maybe it amused them? Or maybe our ancestors broke the pact and the Gods punished them by sending the Romans. We don't know, but we do know that the Romans are gone and Merlin says we have a chance, just one chance, to restore Britain.” She was talking in a low, intense voice. “We have to remake the old Britain, the real Britain, the land of Gods and men, and if we do it, Derfel, if we do it, then once again we will have the power of Gods.” I wanted to believe her. How I wanted to believe that our short, disease-ridden and death-stalked lives could be given new hope thanks to the goodwill of supernatural creatures of glorious power. “But you have to do it by trickery?” I asked, not hiding my disillusion.

“Oh, Derfel.” Nimue's shoulders slumped. “Think about it. Not everyone can feel the presence of the Gods, so those who can have a special duty. If I show weakness, if I show a moment of disbelief, then what hope is there for the people who want to believe? They're not really tricks, they are…” She paused, seeking the right word. '.. insignia. Just like Uther's crown and his torques and his banner and his stone at Caer Cadarn. Those things tell us that Uther is the High King and we treat him as such, and when Merlin walks among his people he has to wear his insignia too. It tells people that he touches the Gods and people fear him for that.“ She pointed at the door with its splintered spear-rent. ”When I walked through that door, naked, with two snakes and a bat hidden under a dead man's skin, I was confronting a king, his Druid and his warriors. One girl, Derfel, against a king, a Druid and a royal guard. Who won?"

“You.”

“So the trick worked, but it wasn't my power that made it work. It was the power of the Gods, but I had to believe in that power to make it work. And to believe, Derfel, you must devote your life to it.” She was speaking with a rare and intense passion now. “Every minute of every day and every moment of every night you must be open to the Gods, and if you are, then they will come. Not always when you want them, of course, but if you never ask, they'll never answer; but when they do answer, Derfel, oh, when they do, it is so wonderful and so terrifying, like having wings that lift you high into glory.” Her eyes shone as she spoke. I had never heard her speak of these things. Not long ago she had been a child, but now she had been to Merlin's bed and taken on his teaching and his power, and I resented that. I was jealous and angry and I did not understand. She was growing away from me and I could do nothing to stop it.

“I'm open to the Gods,” I said resentfully. “I believe them. I want their help.” She touched my face with her bandaged hand. “You're going to be a warrior, Derfel, and a very great one. You're a good person, you're honest, you're as foursquare as Merlin's Tower and there isn't any madness in you. Not a trace; not even a wild, desperate speck. Do you think I want to follow Merlin?”

“Yes,” I said, hurt. “I know you do!” I meant, of course, that I was hurt because she would not devote herself to me.

She took in a deep breath and stared into the shadowed roof where two pigeons had flown through a smoke hole and were now shuffling along a rafter. “Sometimes,” she said, “I think I would like to marry, have children, watch them grow, grow old myself, die, but of all those things, Derfel' she looked at me again ”I will only have the last. I can't bear to think of what will happen to me. I can't bear to think of enduring the Three Wounds of Wisdom, but I must. I must!"