With a Tangled Skein Read online

  “Cedric, you really don’t need to call me ‘ma’am,’“ she said gently.

  “Well, it’s a term of respect for an older—” He broke off.

  Niobe smiled again. “Now we’re even, Cedric. I misspoke myself outside, and perhaps you did the same, now. We are in a difficult situation, but we must make the best of it. In time we shall not notice the five-year difference in our ages; it is little enough, really. Were it reversed—”

  “Yeah, the men figure sixteen is prime for a girl,” he agreed. “Funny, isn’t it!”

  “Perhaps it is a prime age—if a person is not interested in getting a genuine education.”

  He turned serious again. “You know, all my family have been smart in—you sure about the school?”

  “I am if you are, Cedric.”

  “I certainly am! I want to get smart.”

  “Lots of luck,” she murmured.

  He winked at her, and she realized he had caught the irony. She blushed, suddenly and hard; he was smart enough to know what she thought of him. “I did it again,” she said through her burning face. “I owe you one.”

  “No, you already paid me when you told me the subjunctive, ma’am. Oops!”

  She started to laugh, halfway hysterically. He joined her. They both knew it wasn’t funny, but it cleared the air somewhat. They finished their breakfast in silence.

  The day warmed rapidly. Niobe dressed and finished with the dishes and straightened up the cabin, for she believed in order. Cedric carried more split wood inside so that there would be no problem the following morning. Then it became awkward again, for they had nothing else to do. This was not normally a problem for the newly married, Niobe knew, so no provision had been made.

  “I can set up my loom,” she said. But it didn’t seem appropriate, this first day.

  “I can go scout a trail to run on,” he said.

  That was right; he had mentioned being interested in track. If he returned to school, he would have the opportunity, so training would be in order. But he, too, was doubtful, knowing that this was not what honeymooners were supposed to be doing.

  “Let me help you,” she said. “We can take a walk through the forest, exploring it. I’m eager to verify the local magic.”

  He smiled. To take a walk together: that was a suitable occupation. “And leave the axe behind,” he said.

  “So as not to frighten the trees,” she agreed.

  They walked, and it was beautiful. The foliage had not yet been jaded by the heat of summer, and the bright sunlight kept the mosquitoes at bay. They discovered a path that led down into the swamp, where the bases of the trees became swollen and the green moss climbed high. Now Niobe’s expertise in wild magic came into play. She showed him how the huge water oaks of the swamp extended protective spells for the little fish who lived among their roots and helped fertilize them with their droppings, and how the hamadryad, or tree nymph, could be glimpsed if one had the patience to be still and really look for her. “She dies when her tree dies,” she explained. “That’s why she’s so sensitive to the sight of an—” She paused, then spelled it, “A-X-E.”

  “She’s real pretty,” he agreed. “Almost as pretty as you. From now on, I’m not cutting no—not cutting any live wood.”

  Niobe felt a warm wash of pleasure. It was foolish, she knew, but she liked being reminded she was beautiful, and nymphs were the standard against which mortals were measured. Nymphs were eternally youthful and supple— as long as their trees were healthy. A woodlands specialist could diagnose the ills of a tree merely by looking at its nymph.

  They went on, getting their feet muddy in the slushy sections of the path. “Maybe we could drain this bog and farm this rich soil,” Cedric said.

  “Drain the bog!” Niobe repeated, shocked. “But it’s vital to the forest! It’s a recharge region for water. It stores excess rainfall and sustains the plants when there’s a drought. Without the wetlands, the land would lose many of its best trees, and not just those that grow in it. The water table extends everywhere, and the roots find it—but the wetlands keep the level right.”

  Then, in her enthusiasm for the wetlands, Niobe burst into song:

  “I want to waltz in the wetlands,

  The swamps, the marshes and bogs (oh, the bogs).

  Yes, I want to waltz in the wetlands

  With the birds and the fish and the frogs.”

  Cedric watched and listened, open-mouthed, until her conclusion:

  “I want to waltz in the wetlands, a place where nature gets by

  And I... will cry... will cry when the wetlands are dry.

  Yes I... will cry... will cry when the wetlands are dry.”

  She was so moved herself that the tears were streaming down her face. Cedric seemed awed. “Niobe, I don’t want you to cry! I’ll never drain the wetlands. Never!”

  She smiled at him, then accepted his handkerchief to wipe away her tears. “It’s only a song, Cedric.”

  “It’s only a song,” he agreed. “But you—you’re special.”

  “Thank you,” she said, touched. She knew she was not any great singer. The fit had come on her unexpectedly, and she had half expected him to laugh. Obviously he was impressed, and that was very flattering.

  They completed their survey of the region and returned to the cabin. It occurred to her in retrospect that for the first time he had called her by her unadorned name. She wasn’t certain how she felt about that, but she had after all made an issue of his calling her “miss” or “ma’am” and certainly he had a right to use her name. He was after all her husband—in name.

  “I’m going to study the wetlands!” he declared abruptly.

  Ah, the impetuosity of youth! “They are worth studying,” she agreed carefully. “But of course you shouldn’t restrict your interests.”

  He just looked at her. She had seen that look in the eyes of the family dog when he had been praised and patted. It was going to take time to adjust completely to this situation.

  Nevertheless, they felt more comfortable with each other now. Niobe fixed their meals from the stores in the cabin, and when these were depleted, Cedric hiked into town to buy more and haul them back in his knapsack. He liked to hike; he was a very physical person, with the burgeoning energy of youth. But they also played games together, including a contest of riddles. She quickly discovered that he had a remarkably agile mind and could best her readily at this sort of thing. She fed him the riddle that had stymied her family for years: it concerned six men trying to cross a river using a boat for two, with certain conditions. He solved it immediately, as if it wasn’t even a challenge. He also caught on to the nuances of correct speaking so rapidly that he was soon perfect. She could understand, now, why his family had a scholarly tradition.

  Meanwhile, he showed her how to manage the physical things, such as stacking wood for the winter so that it wouldn’t rot and emptying the base of the outhouse. But she continued to sleep on the bed, and he on the hearth; there was no physical romance between them.

  In two weeks Niobe came to know Cedric very well and continued to be impressed by his superior qualities. He was a strong and smart youth, with an amiable disposition and good potential—but he was a youth. He was also her husband. Niobe knew she could not send him away to college without consummating the marriage. But how was she to go about it? She had no experience in this aspect, and no great inclination. Still, it was evident that Cedric was not going to initiate the matter; he treated her with a respect bordering on worship. So it was up to her.

  “Cedric,” she said one pleasant afternoon.

  He met her gaze, then looked away shyly. “Ah, Niobe, and has it come to that now?” At times he seemed almost to read her mind.

  “When the honeymoon is over, my mother will ask me, and your father will ask you. For the news.”

  He sighed. “That they will. But I am not so naive as to think I could force my attention on a woman who doesn’t love me.”

  He h
ad an excellent grasp of the fundamentals and he expressed them well. “Oh? You have been loved before?”

  He shook his head, embarrassed. “Never. I lack experience.”

  “So do I,” she admitted.

  “But you are supposed to lack it!”

  She had to laugh. “Cedric, I am sure that had you been permitted to wait until you could marry at my age, you would have had it. But I hardly condemn you for this particular lack. It means you come to me—pristine.”

  “I’m only sixteen,” he reminded her defensively. “Aye, there’s talk among boys, but I’ll wager I’m not the only one who never—” He shrugged.

  “Of course,” she agreed quickly. “A double standard is hypocrisy. It is best that a man and a woman come to—” She hesitated. “To learn together.”

  “It is hard to—” He, too, hesitated. “If you loved me as I love you, it would be—” He faltered as he saw her react, then blushed.

  “What did you say, Cedric?”

  “‘Twas a slip o’ th’ tongue,” he said, slipping back into his idiom as he reddened further. “I apologize.”

  “You apologize—for loving your wife?”

  “But you know,” he said miserably. “It isn’t real!”

  “The marriage, or your love?”

  He scuffed his foot. “Oh, you know. You’re such a fine woman, so lovely I get lightheaded just from looking at you, and you know so much, you’re so poised, you deserve so much better, and you certainly didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to make it worse for you. I’m just a kid.”

  Niobe, her pulse racing, focused on the single thing. “When? When did you know you loved me?”

  He shrugged, as if passing it off as something beneath notice. “That first day—when you sang in the swamp. When you cried for the wetlands. I never heard anything so—” He spread his hands, lacking a word.

  “But I’m not even a good singer!”

  “You believe!’“ he said seriously. “You really do love the wetlands—and I do too, now, because of you. What you love, I love.”

  “Cedric, you never said—”

  “And make another fool of myself?” he asked with mild bitterness. “And maybe drive you away? Because here’s this gangling boy mooning over you? I’m not that stupid.”

  “Cedric, you aren’t stupid at all! You’re a fine lad—a fine young man! I’m sure that—”

  “Please, can’t we just forget it?”

  “No, we can’t! Cedric, I can’t claim I love you—that sort of thing is more gradual with a woman, and—”

  “And there has to be a man.”

  “Cedric!”

  He just looked at her, and looked away. She knew there was no way to make him lose sight of the truth: that she didn’t see him as a man.

  Niobe had generally gotten her way, in life. This time her beauty acted against her. It was, she realized, time that she herself grew up. She would do what had to be done.

  “Cedric, we’ve been over this matter of age before. It’s a chimaera. It really doesn’t matter. Love doesn’t matter. We’re married.”

  “Love doesn’t matter?”

  “I didn’t really mean that. Of course it matters! I meant that I’m ready to do what I have to do, without waiting for something that may never—I mean hasn’t yet—”

  “I understand what you mean,” he said gravely.

  “I do respect you, Cedric, and I am your wife. There are many women married to men of mature age who don’t—who do what is required regardless of their personal feelings. It is time we made our marriage—real.”

  “No! Not with one who doesn’t love me. It just isn’t right!”

  She agreed with him, but had to argue. “Why isn’t it?”

  “It would be r—” He stalled on the word.

  She flushed. “Rape?”

  He nodded.

  She felt as if she were in a pit that kept getting deeper the more she tried to scramble out. Where were the euphemisms, the handy oblique references that sugarcoated the unfortunate reality? Cedric wouldn’t lie, and neither would she, and on that jagged stone of integrity their marriage was foundering before it began. Where was the way to make it right? They were each trying to do the right thing, and the irony was that they agreed on what the right thing was, yet had to go counter to it. Of course there should be mutual love!

  And there was not. She could give him her body and her best wishes, but not her heart. Not yet. She felt the tears starting again.

  “Oh, don’t do that, please!” he pleaded. “I can’t stand to see you sad.”

  “Cedric, it’s not your fault. You’re right, you know. You need a woman to love you, and I wish I—” Now the tears overflowed, choking her off.

  “Oh, miss—” he started.

  “Missus,” she corrected him, forcing a smile.

  “I’d do anything to make you happy! But I don’t know how!”

  “Then make me love you!” she flared.

  There was a silence as they both realized what she had said.

  He shook his head, baffled. “Niobe, how—?”

  “The same way any other man does. Court me!”

  He looked at her sidelong. “You would sit still for that?”

  “Do you think you’re some monster, Cedric? If you love me, prove it!”

  “And that I will!” he exclaimed. “Come to the water oak where you sang to me, and I will sing to you.”

  “Yes!” she cried, as if it were a phenomenal breakthrough. And, in a way, it was. The realization that he loved her excited and flattered her; she had never been loved that way before.

  They went to the water oak, and she sat on one of its projecting roots, clear of the water, and leaned back against its massive trunk. The hamadryad peered nervously down from the high foliage, wondering what they were up to.

  Cedric stood before her, then dropped to one knee and struck a pose. Niobe kept a straight face, determined not to spoil his effort. He took a breath and sang:

  “Come live with me and be my love,

  And we will all the pleasures prove

  That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

  And all the craggy mountains yields.”

  His voice was untrained but strong, and he had good pitch and control, and a great deal of feeling. It was a nice song, with an evocative melody, and she was impressed.

  “And we will sit upon the rocks,

  Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks.”

  As he sang, he reached forth to take her hand.

  “By shallow rivers, to whose falls

  Melodious birds sing madrigals.”

  At his touch, something happened. Suddenly there was music, as of a mighty orchestra, filling the forest with the power of its sound. His voice seemed to become amplified, magnificent, evocative, compelling, beautiful. She sat stunned, mesmerized by his amazing presence, by the phenomenal music, and she only came out of it when the song ended.

  “... If these delights thy mind may move,

  Then live with me, and be my love.”

  As he stopped singing, the grand music also died away. “What’s that?” Niobe asked, awed, still holding his hand.

  He looked concerned. “Is something wrong?”

  “That—that music! Where did it come from?”

  “Oh—that. I thought you knew. It’s my magic. It runs in our family, off and on. I’m sorry if I—”

  “Sorry!” she exclaimed. “It’s absolutely beautiful! How do you do it?”

  He shrugged, letting go of her hand. “It just comes when I sing, when I touch. See.” He put his hand on the trunk of the tree, and sang:

  “Come live with me and be my love.”

  Niobe heard nothing special—but the tree shuddered as if reverberating to some potent sound, and the dryad almost fell off her branch.

  Niobe put her own hand on the bark, and the orchestra returned.

  “And we will all the pleasures prove.”

  “Cedric—it’s terri
fic! It’s—an experience!” She was unable to define it further.

  “It’s just—the way it is.” He seemed nonplused by her reaction.

  “Sing to me again,” she urged him.

  “But the song’s finished. All that follows is the maiden’s response.”

  Niobe took his hand. “Then sing that, Cedric!”

  He sang, and the orchestra was with him, buttressing his voice and elevating it to the transcendence manifested before. It was not mere sound or mere music; it seemed to be more than three dimensions, as if pure emotion had been harnessed into melody. Could love, she asked herself, be more than this?

  “If all the world and love were young,

  And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,

  These pretty pleasures might me move

  To live with thee, and be thy love.”

  These were words of negation, but it didn’t matter; the evocative power remained. Niobe realized that anything Cedric sang would have similar effect. She remained entranced until the last verse.

  “But could youth last and love still breed,

  Had joys no date nor age no need,

  Then those delights my mind might move

  To live with thee, and be thy love.”

  The song finished, and with it the magic. But now Niobe gazed at Cedric with a new appreciation. He did indeed have magic, and love was possible. “Take me home, Cedric,” she told him.

  By the time they reached the cabin, however, Niobe had had a chance to restabilize. It was, after all, only magic; Cedric was no different than he had been, and their situation had not really changed. It made no sense to do anything she might be sorry for later. So she did not push the matter, and Cedric did not, and their marriage remained unconsummated.

  After another week of this, Niobe realized that time was running short. They had been given a full month to themselves; thereafter the relatives would be visiting. Niobe realized this as she was about to sleep.

  “They’ll know,” she said, abruptly sitting up in bed.