"Oh no," said Nimue with mocking laughter. "What would we do if they came dancing in here! Why, we would have earth all over the hall, and all our maids with mops and brooms would not be able to clean it! Leave the trees where they are, I beg you, and sing!"

The Merlin put his hands to the harp and began to play. Nimue sat beside him on the floor, her great eyes looking up, intent, into his face. The Merlin looked down on the maiden just as a great dog might watch its master-with humble devotion and utter preoccupation. Gwenhwyfar took such emotion almost for granted. She herself had been the object of intense devotion so often that she never thought twice about it-it was simply the homage that men paid to beauty. Perhaps, though, she should warn Nimue, lest her head be turned by it. Yet she could not imagine how Nimue could sit so close to his ugliness or look at him so attentively.

There was something about Nimue that puzzled Gwenhwyfar. Somehow, the girl's concentration was not quite what it seemed. It was not the delight taken by one musician in another's work, nor was it the artless admiration of a naive maiden for a well-travelled and mature man. No, thought Gwenhwyfar, and it was not a sudden passion, either; that she could have understood and, in a sense, sympathized with-she herself had known that sudden overpowering love which sweeps away all obstacles. It had struck her like lightning and had ruined all her hopes that her marriage with Arthur could be a good and proper one. It had been a curse, yet she had known it was something that came of itself, over which neither she nor Lancelet had any power. She had come to terms with it, and she could have accepted that it had happened to Nimue-even though Kevin the Merlin seemed the most unlikely object for such a passion. But it was not that ... she did not know how she knew, but she knew.

Simple lust? It might have been that on Kevin's part-Nimue was beautiful, and even though the Merlin had been most circumspect, she might have kindled any man; but Gwenhwyfar could not believe that Nimue had been likewise roused by such a one when she had remained courteous but cool and unattainable to all of Gwenhwyfar's handsomest young knights.

From where she sat at the Merlin's feet, Nimue sensed that Gwenhwyfar was watching her. But she did not turn her eyes away from Kevin. In a way, she thought, I am enchanting him. Her purpose demanded that she have him completely at her mercy-her slave and her victim. And again she stifled the flash of pity that she felt. This man had done worse than simply revealing the Mysteries or the secret teaching; he had given the holy things themselves into the hands of the Christians, to be profaned. Ruthlessly, Nimue refused to consider her next thought, that the Christians had not intended profanation but hallowing. The Christians knew nothing of the inner truths of the Mysteries. And in any case the Merlin had betrayed a sworn oath.

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 Avalon that he would remember and recognize. She began to play a drinking song she had heard at the court, with words none too proper for a maiden; she saw Gwenhwyfar looking scandalized, and thought, Good, if she is shocked by my unmaidenly behavior, she will not inquire too deeply into my motives. Then she played and sang a lament she had heard from a northern harper, the mournful song of a fisherman out on the sea, looking for the lights of his home on the shore.

At the end of the song she rose, looking shyly at him. "I thank you for the use of your harp-may I borrow it again, that my hands may keep their skill?"

"It is my gift to you," said Kevin. "Now that I have heard what music your hands can bring from it, it could belong to no other. Keep it, I beg you-I have many harps."

"You are too kind to me," she murmured, "but, I beg you, now that I can make music for myself, do not abandon me or deprive me of the pleasure of listening to yours."

"I will play for you whenever you ask me," Kevin said, and she knew that his heart was in the words. She contrived to brush against him as she leaned forward to take the harp.