Jack Whyte - The Sorcer part 1 - The Fort at River's Bend

She had been watching me, I am sure, as closely as I had been watching her, and when she saw my gaze gone from her face she slopped, suddenly, hear voice falling abruptly silent on a high, clear note, her skirts cascading downward like a waving, draped curtain.

As I sat there, blinking, staring at her still-undulating skirts, awareness of how sudden had been her stop flooded me, and I leaped belatedly to my feet to catch her as she fell over from giddiness. But she stood motionless, unruffled, smiling at me, her eyes clear and even her hair tamed.

"Sit," she said. "Enchantresses do not fall down. Now hear."

As I seated myself again, she came and knelt in front of me. My heart was pounding, and I felt a sense of strange anticipation. She was lovely, and in spite of her exertions, her high breasts showed no sign of heaving.

"Close your eyes, and keep them closed." I did, enjoying the brief vision I had had of her bare, whirling legs.

"Think upon this, Merlyn of Camulod ... " .she said softly, and then she began to speak in a rhythmic, almost singing, cadenced voice that quickly lulled me, compelling me to listen to her words.

"Imagine that a party of strong men, and women, too, came to a sea-girt place called Ravenglass, then disappeared from ken, their whereabouts unknown to living men. Imagine that their enemies sought high and low to find them, and sent spies away throughout the land to hunt them down wherever they might be ... Imagine that these spies all knew a name, a strong man's name, a leader's name, and knew that in finding him, they would find what they really sought and thought to find. Imagine then, that throughout all this land, through Alba and through Eire, too, it was believed that this strong man was nowhere known where men and women throng ... "

Her voice died away, but I sat with my eyes closed for moments longer, hearing and examining the visions she had conjured in my mind. When I looked at her again, she was kneeling still, staring at me, her beautiful hawklike eyes betraying no hint of humour now.

"I saw it," she said. "It's what we've hoped to achieve. Shall I tell you where they vanished to?"

"Yes, if you know where my thoughts are leading now."

"They never left. Their ships left, in the dead of night, but they remained and lived in an abandoned fort. Their leader, Merlyn, changed his name to Cay, and while he led still, in truth, he gave the name of leader to another, not a warrior but a farmer, who would feed them all."

"Hector."

"Aye, Hector. Cay became a simple worker, so that when the spies returned at last, their search frustrated, there was no one called Merlyn known in Ravenglass."

I was staring at her in bemused wonder, amazed by the lucid simplicity of her suggestion and knowing she was absolutely right. Only a few people, to the best of my awareness, knew my real name here in Ravenglass, and for their benefit I could sail away ostentatiously with Connor and young Arthur, to be dropped ashore in some convenient spot a short way along the coast. From there I could make my way back to Mediobogdum, avoiding the town. I would be known simply as Cay. Merlyn would vanish.

"Shelagh! That could work!"

"Of course it will work! Enchantresses are never wrong, you blind man."

She was herself again, swaying lithely to her feet and reaching for her enormous satchel, from which she produced a small skin of wine, a whole cheese, a loaf of bread and a sharp knife. Seeing the knife, I became aware that this was the first time I had seen her without her throwing- knives for a long time, but the awareness was dulled by my amazement over the food.

"Good God! How did you—? Did you know we would be coming here today?"

She threw me a wry look. "Don't be foolish, how could I? But I did know I'd be keeping the boys away from the walls all day, first because of the fighting, and later, I sincerely hoped, because of the celebration. I didn't bring a cup. And I left the boys' food with Turga. Here, eat." She handed me half the cheese and half the loaf, and for the next while we ate in companionable silence-, sitting together on the ground with our backs against the fallen tree. When we were done, and the rich, red wine had left a satisfying feeling of repletion on my tongue, I turned to her.

"That was quite a dance you performed."

"Enchantment. It was an enchantment. It worked, didn't it?"

"It certainly did. Several ways." .

"Hmm. You were not supposed to be gawking beneath my skirts. Could you see my bare bottom?"

I shook my head, smiling, unaccountably comfortable again in this arena. "Unfortunately, no, I could not. But I would have made a greater effort had I known it was bare. Do you know, I was so fascinated by your, upper part, your face and head and hair, that I hardly noticed the other at all?"

"Liar. I saw your mouth fall open."

"How could you have? You were revolving far too quickly."

"Horse turds, my friend. A blink is all it takes to see that look. I stopped at once, for fear you'd have an apoplexy."

"That's unlikely. But my celibacy might have fared badly, had you continued."

She glanced down openly at my lap. "It still works, then? Despite all your single-minded self-denial?" There was no trace of prurience in her voice or her demeanour.

"Of course it does." I shifted position slightly, moving my buttocks in search of more comfort, strangely unfazed now, by this turn of talk. "Mostly in the dead of night, thank God."

"Erotic dreams?"

"Extremely."

"How often?"

"Frequently. Weekly."

"Weekly? After all this time?"

I sniffed. "Perhaps because of all this time. I don't know, and I try not to dwell on it. May we talk about something else?"

She was still gazing at my lap, her expression one of musing. Now she looked me in the eye, straightforwardly.

"Who do you dream about?"

I sighed, shaking my head. "I don't know, most of the time."

Her eyebrows rose in disbelief. "You must know! If a woman is attractive enough to draw your seed without even being there, you must know who she is."

Now I smiled at her incredulity. "It's not a woman, Shelagh, it's a dream, a spectral female form conjured by my body's needs and thy sleeping mind's instructions. I don't know how the conjuration works, simply that it does, and at some unsought, indeterminate time, by some unconscious means, I avail myself of this spectral presence, an incorporeal vessel into which I spill my seed without volition. Most of the time I am completely unaware of having done so. I only remember afterwards by the evidence in the morning."

She was frowning. "Donuil never has such dreams."

"By the Christus, I should hope not! Nor would I, could I reach out to you at night—" I caught myself, choking the words off, but she was barely listening, her brow furrowed in thought.

"You Said 'most of the time.' You don't know most of the time. That means you sometimes do. Who?"

"You, Shelagh. You, my dear. You gave me leave to dream of you, once, to lust after you in my mind. Don't you recall? And so I do, sometimes."

I had surprised her.

"How? I've given you no reason ... "

"No, nor encouragement, for several years, so be at peace. Nor have I lusted after you—not consciously, at least—in recent times. It is not a voluntary thing, on either of our parts."

"I know that. But how? I mean, oh, Dia! I sound stupid."

"Not at all." I picked up the wine skin and took a deep swallow. "You are a woman. Your body does not feel men's lusts, which seem to be more urgent, and more transitory, than women's are. Seem, I say, seem to be. I have no way of knowing if that's true, nor do you."

"It's true enough, I think. Women are slower to arousal than men are, I know that much. Men are sudden and frequent, unpredictable, except for the predictability of their frequency and unpredictability. They recognize no time as being better, more conducive, than another." She paused. "Look, I know you want to talk of other things, but you've told me something here I know nothing about, and I'm dying of curiosity. May I ask you something else?"