stone arch and all of the trees. Not her
'Are you a witch?' He blurted out the question, not answering her.
She laughed again, not unkindly. Above her, the crow heckled with its ear-splitting caw. The sound echoed around the grove, sounding as though it travelled miles before folding back in on itself. It was a disconcerting sound. 'Hardly, but if it helps you to think of me that way, by all means, I shall be a witch for you. All you need to understand is that winter cannot touch the Kingdom of Summer.'
For a third time Alymere made the sign of the cross, though this time it was greeted with derision.
'That will not help you here,' Blodyweth told him, enjoying his discomfort.
'What do you want from me, witch? Speak plain,' Alymere said, finding his courage.
'What do I want from you?' the Crow Maiden smiled again, though this time the veneer of perfection cracked subtly, hinting at the hag that lurked beneath the pretty little maiden. In that instant he caught a glimpse of death in her eyes and it chilled him to the marrow. Yet still it wasn't enough to break her spell on him. 'It is not what I need from you, it is what the land needs from you, what your king needs from you, and what, most of all, you need from yourself. All three are in grave peril, young knight. That is why the hart brought you to me.'
Three black feathers fell from the cuff of her dress, turning and turning again as they fell down to the ground. One of them landed between her toes and seemed to melt back into her skin, but Alymere was oblivious. He gazed up, full of longing, at her face.
'What would you do for your king?' She asked.
'Anything,' he said without hesitation.
'What would you do for your land?'
A trickier question, being a much more nebulous concept, but again he offered the same answer, 'Anything.'
'What would you do for me?' He had expected her to ask what would he do for himself. She didn't. He offered her the same answer again without thinking.
'Anything.'
'As it should be,' she said.
Nine
'Every possible fate is woven together like threads to form something more, something greater. Each thread of fate becomes the warp and weft of the tapestry that is this life. Imagine being able to unravel each thread, to be able to pluck it from the weave and recreate the pattern in any way you so wished,' the Crow Maiden said. 'That is what we are, single threads.'
Alymere didn't understand. It didn't matter. He didn't want her to stop talking. He just wanted to listen.
'Some parts of the pattern must never change, and others are more… malleable,' she continued. 'I know you will claim your father's seat at the Round Table, that is woven into the tapestry and cannot be changed, but the rest,' the Crow Maiden's smile was gentle, 'you are a dangling thread, Alymere the Undecided. I cannot tell you the future because you haven't decided it for yourself.'
She could see he didn't understand, so she took one of the flowers from her hair and told him to watch as she plucked the petals from the daisy one by one. 'He loves me,' she said, blowing the white petal away from her fingertips, 'He loves me not.' And another petal was blown away. 'He loves me.' Again and again until the flower's stem was denuded. The final petal left her lips to the promise of: He loves me. 'It's a children's rhyme, but it demonstrates the fact that, whilst it seems that nothing is decided, from the moment the flower began to bloom whether he loved me or not was always going to be dictated at this point of time. It was decided, even though I hadn't so much as pulled that first petal away. It is the stem that never changes. Without it, the flower couldn't exist. And like most of us, the flower only wants to be loved.'
He watched the way her lips moved, willing to believe every word they said.
She took a second flower from her hair, a bluebell this time, and crushed it between her fingertips. 'But not all beautiful things are cherished.' Her words — love, cherish, beauty — conjured an image in his mind of some peaceable kingdom, a place of love and beauty, tranquillity, harmony. A place like this, he realised, looking around the grove. What had she called it? The Summervale. He felt the warmth settling on his shoulders, as though intensified by her words. He began to sweat beneath his thick travelling cloak and his mail shirt. He unclasped the hook fastening it around his throat and let it fall to the ground. He was still too hot. He pulled at his mail shirt, starting to lift it over his head.
'Think on this,' the Crow Maiden said. 'Some strands of the tapestry exist merely to mar it; almost as though there is beauty in the imperfection.'
Alymere cast the mail aside. He felt so much better for having his skin bare, more in touch with the world around him, closer to it. 'You are speaking in nonsense words. This is no tapestry,' Alymere thumped the ground. 'This is Albion. This is a forest, that is a lake. Those are oaks and if I pluck this strand of grass and rub it between my fingers it doesn't all come undone. The oaks are still oaks, the stones still stones and the lake is still a lake. The world doesn't work like that.'
'Then let me speak plainly to you,' she said. 'These oaks, these stones, this lake, all of this — everything you can see, everything you can't, all of it — is in danger. These are the petals on the flower, and you, Alymere, you are the stem. Should you fail they will all wither and die.'
'How can I fail if I don't know what I am supposed to do?' he said.
She placed her hand flat on his chest. Where he saw soft fingers he felt long talons sinking in deeper and deeper in search of his heart.
'Tell me,' he pleaded. 'How can I serve you?'
Instead of answering him, the Crow Maiden gathered the hems of her dress and drew it up over her head. She stood naked before him.
'There is one thing you can do for me,' she said.
'Anything,' he said eagerly.
'Love me,' she said. 'Love me unconditionally, body and soul,' and opened her arms to him. Alymere couldn't help himself. He stood on unsteady legs and stepped into her embrace. She whispered into his ear, crooning soft words, sweet deceits. 'If you can do that, you can do anything.'
'I can do that,' he promised.
Only when he was lost inside her did the Crow Maiden dare whisper, 'Do you love me?'
'Yes. Yes.'
'Tell me again, what would you do for me?'
'Anything,' he said breathlessly.
Her smile widened, turning predatory. Alymere could not see the cracked and broken teeth in the cemetery smile. He had his face buried in the nape of her neck, tasting her sweat and breathing in her sex.
'Anything?' she whispered in his ear.
'Yes,' he said, all the promises in the world were nothing though, until he spilled his seed, sealing the pact between them.
Ten
They lay together on the soft grass, spent.
For all the pretty words she had used, there really was beauty in that moment. Beauty and peace.
She owned him then, body and soul.
Alymere rolled onto his elbow. He looked down at her, seeing finally that there was nothing innocent about
