Authors: Tanith Lee
As time went on, Cuzarion began to think
less and less of who he was, who he had been, his other life. He thought more
and more of Elaidh. And as he thought more of her, he saw her more and more
clearly. At first she seemed plain, but very graceful. Then she seemed lovely,
and then beautiful. At last she seemed the only living thing, so that if a bird
exquisitely sang, somehow it was Elaidh, and when it flew, it was Elaidh. And
the dawn was Elaidh, and the evening star, and the moon.
“I should like to stay with you,” said
Cuzarion, “for ever.”
“That is hardly possible,” said Elaidh.
“Because you will never die, and I
shall?”
“One day I shall die.”
She led him into the wood at dusk. The
grass was thick with clovers and warm still from the sun. They became lovers
with finesse, and ease, for each had been a lover before.
And at first Cuzarion was most happy.
But then, he was less happy. He became content, then static, then restless.
And Elaidh became again only beautiful.
“Elaidh, I must get home. How long have
I been away?”
“One month,” said she.
“So long—it seems only a day or so—”
But she knew he lied.
“You’ll understand my difficulty,” said
Prince Cuzarion. “My father is old and gives over much of the running of things
to me. Besides—I was to marry.”
“She’ll be that impatient.” said Elaidh.
From her face you could tell little, only perhaps that she had spoken in this
way before, once, twice.
“Yes, she’s a royal girl, and she will
be very angry.”
“What is her name?”
“Oh—some royal name Sapphyra, that’s her
name.”
“Will you not give her up,” said Elaidh,
“for me?” But she spoke in a light and mocking manner, and Cuzarion smiled.
“Would that I could,” he said. “Kingdoms
depend on it.”
“Go up to the monastery, “ said Elaidh. “Say
the sea cast you here, but now you’d be going home. The priests are wealthy and
wise and will find you a ship.”
“Come with me, Elaidh.”
“I? Come with you where, and to what?”
“In my own country—maybe we can make an
arrangement, you and I. It’s not unknown. I must marry the princess, but even
so, there will be times when I can get free of her.”
“No, then. I will not be going with you
for that.”
Cuzarion was sorry. He felt badly about
himself. And so he walked off through the fields of mustard and lavender and
mint, and among the olive groves where, as the soft wind blew, every leaf
flashed, like the silver tails of a thousand fish.
When he came back near evening, Elaidh
was not there. He searched a long while, even standing at the edge of the dark
blue sea, calling her. But she was gone. She was gone for good. After a day or
so, he walked up to the monastery where the priests were gracious to him, for
he was a prince, charming, and well-read.
The
ocean is not made of tears, though one might think it. No, it is the other way
about, for the water of the sea is in us, in our blood, and when we cry, we cry
the sea’s own salt water.
The princess whose name was Sapphyra,
had herself done some crying, but that was now over. She had a fair face of
sharp features, and raven-black hair.
“How good it is, to see her cheerful
again,” said her maids. “A year ago, when she thought him dead, she grieved so.”
They did not add that while she grieved, she had pinched and slapped them every
day.
Now the princess, and her three highest
attendants, were gathering flowers, in the palace’s wild gardens that ran to
the shore. In one more day, Sapphyra would be married to the Prince Cuzarion,
and the garlands—which others would weave from the flowers—were for her
wedding: A quaint custom.
“Who is that?” said the First Attendant,
straightening up with her armful of lilies.
“Some great lady,” said the Second
Attendant, “standing by to watch.”
“She’s only a girl, she is,” said the
Third Attendant.
Then Sapphyra turned and looked.
There the woman stood, under a tamarisk
tree. In the sunlight, she shone like a church window. Her gown was silver,
there were diamonds in her hair, and on her fingers three red ruby rings of
incalculable price.
“Good day, madam,” said Sapphyra, feeling
quite undressed in her embroidered morning-wear.
The woman nodded. “You are the Princess
Sapphyra?”
“I have that joy.”
“Long then, may you be joyful,” said the
woman.
“But let me ask,” said the princess,
frowning somewhat, “your own name, and your purpose.”
“My name is Elaidh, and my mother was a
mermaid. I am here to offer you my wedding-gift.”
A great silence had fallen in the wild
gardens. Even the daylight nightingale had left off her song.
“A gift? Why should I deserve one from
you?”
“Ah,” said Elaidh, sadly, “you must take
my word for that.”
The three Attendants were in a fuss.
They bustled about, and everywhere
flowers fell from their hands and out of their gilded baskets. But Sapphyra
said, “If I should accept your gift, how am I to receive it?”
“You must come down to the shore,” said
Elaidh.
The Attendants did not wish to. But
Sapphyra took hold of them and shook them.
“Do you know nothing? The mermaid-kind
are wealthy beyond all thought. And see—the gems all over her—why, even her two
shoes are studded with pearls.”
“And why should she need shoes,” said
the Third Attendant pertly, “if her mother was a fish?”
But Elaidh was walking slowly away by
now, and Sapphyra soon followed. The Attendants unhappily went after.
The sea came gently to the gardens, it
was there an ocean of low tides.
But Elaidh stood, with her pearl shoes
in the water. “Now, princess Sapphyra, you must be brave, and trust me. For I’m
set to show you an astonishment of this world, which is a treasure-hoard of the
mermaids. But to see it, you must come down with me, under the waves.”
At this, all three Attendants began to
scream, but such silly little screams, like operatic mice.
Besides, Sapphyra turned and slapped
them. One! Two! Three! After which there was only snivelling.
“They must come down too,” said
Sapphyra, spitefully.
“Very well,” said Elaidh.
So she stepped up to each of the women,
and kissed her on the lips, and as she did so, into each of their mouths she
blew her pure salt breath.
This dazed them a touch. So, when she
walked out into the sea, they went after her, lifting their skirts foolishly,
to keep them dry, until the water closed over their heads.
Down
and down sank the princess and her maids, after the swift form of Elaidh—who
seemed to fly through the water.
The light left the sea. It grew dark and
then black. But everywhere in the black it was lit up by gleaming objects, some
of which were stones, or plants, and some of which were glowing fish with eyes
like candle-flames.
Huge rock-faces rose about them, and
from the ledges of these, bloated shapes sometimes launched themselves, and
flapped off like crows. Then they came into an orchard of corals, which were
all in razor blossom.
Now and then Elaidh spoke to Sapphyra
and her ladies, and through the sorcery of her breath, or her mind, they heard
her, although they themselves could not utter at all.
“There is a giant octopus,” said Elaidh.
“Never fear him, he knows not to be discourteous to me.” Or, “Look there, the
wreck of an antique galleon.” The octopus was a cause of discomfort to the
princess and her ladies, though he did no more than blink his eye at them. The
galleon filled them with terror, for the bones of men lay over its decks, and
even the figurehead had become a skeleton.
But then Elaidh led them through a
forest of tall seaweeds, everyone of which was like a long, six-fingered hand.
And then they passed through a tunnel of the rock, and coming out, they were in
a vast cavern, elsewhere open only at its top. But somehow, through this opening,
miles up, the sunlight entered, and came down and illuminated the space, and
the floor of fine, moon-white sand.
Sapphyra and her ladies stopped,
balanced in the sea, and staring.
“Here,” said Elaidh, “as I promised you,
is a treasure of the mermaid-kind.”
On every side went up heaps and actual
towers of riches, such as would surpass the trophy chambers of an emperor.
There were caskets and chests of golden coins and silver, and cascades of
pearls, emeralds and diamonds. There were statues of solid gold with eyes of
opal, and unusual artefacts of gold, one of which was a model of a golden
palace, very intricate, and large enough a child could have played in it. It
had windows of carnelian, amethyst and chrysoprase, and roofs of polished
ivory.
The ladies seemed to forget their
terror. They floated to and fro, handling things and exclaiming silently, so
crystal bubbles blew out of their mouths like words.
“You may take anything you can carry,”
said Elaidh.
At this, Sapphyra strove to pick up the
gold palace, but Elaidh came to her and pressed her arm. “For you, princess,
there is another treasure.”
Then Elaidh drew Sapphyra aside into a
second cave. And here Sapphyra lost all her composure. For from the floor to
the ceiling, the cave was piled with jewels of a shining, heavenly blueness,
some set in gold and some strung in ropes, some burnished, and some cut so they
had become like stars of the northern pole. And some were larger than a man’s
hand. They were sapphires.
“For your name,” said Elaidh. “Take whatever
you want.”
Then Sapphyra made an apron of her
skirt, and she darted about the cave, until she had gathered everything she
could, and rather more. And still she was digging out rings and necklaces and
putting them on, and tying others into her corset ribbons and her black hair.
After a time, however, a louring
weariness seemed to overtake her. She sat down on the sand, holding the
treasure to her. Then she spoke to Elaidh, and though no words were to be
heard, Elaidh heard them.
“Madam,” said Elaidh, “it is a great disservice
I have done you, although I did it without malice, or intent, without thinking.
Listen now. Keep these jewels from your husband, the prince. Then, when a time
comes that what you wish for most you find you do not have, put on some of
these gems, and go to him. Then he will give you back what I have taken from
you. And if it is really mine, it is also his, and shall be yours.”
Riddles! said the crystal bubbles from
the lips of the princess.
But next moment Elaidh raised her up,
and gave her a push that sent her spinning, and Sapphyra found, to her
indignation, she was rushing out of the cave, and up and up through the
light-changing water, with the three Attendants whirling around her. Until all
four broke the skin of the sea, and fell out on the sands of the earth. And
there lay the tame wild gardens of the palace, and all around the gold and
jewels that had tumbled from their skirts.
Years
passed. To the prince and princess they seemed only a few in number. So that,
should they add them up, they were startled always. To others, the number of
the years was more than twenty-five.
They were not often together, the
prince, the princess.
She would be at cards, or at her
dressmakers, or she would be lying on her sofa, eating something that had to do
with chocolate. Or in the theatre, in a dream.
He would be riding, and then he would be
aching from the ride. He would be up all night to drink or gamble. Or, now and
then, with one of the scatter of his mistresses. Or he would play the piano in
the echoing marble music-room of the palace, surprising himself by how often
his fingers stumbled on the keys.
There was a solitary odd story told of
the royal couple.
At the start, for a decade, almost, they
had been childless. Then one day the princess had given birth—astounding the
physicians who had, it seemed, burst in too late to do more than ponder the
flawless child—and shake their heads over its largeness and the adjacent
slenderness of the princess, which had persisted throughout her term, right up
to the morning of the child’s unheralded appearance.
Once, at a dinner some months later, the
princess had drunk a great deal of champagne. Pointing at a sapphire necklace
she had on, she exclaimed, “Do you see this? This is the reason for my child.”
Which was thought, by the assembly, very daring, perhaps rather too bold, and
also most curious.
More curious still was the truth. But
there came a night the prince told it to his heir, the son the Princess
Sapphyra had shown to him that morning, eighteen years before.
The boy entered the music-room, and
found his father, the prince, seated there at the piano.