Free The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart

Lambis in a few hours’ time. Now stop that, it gets us nowhere. Stop thinking, and go to sleep. Did you ever hear the legend of the moonspinners?’
    â€˜The what?’
    â€˜Moonspinners. They’re naiads – you know, water nymphs. Sometimes, when you’re deep in the countryside, you meet three girls, walking along the hill tracks in the dusk, spinning. They each have a spindle, and on to these they are spinning their wool, milk-white, like the moonlight. In fact, it is the moonlight, the moon itself, which is why they don’t carry a distaff. They’re not Fates, or anything terrible; they don’t affect the lives of men; all they have to do is to see that the world gets its hours of darkness, and they do this by spinning the moon down out of the sky. Night after night, you can see the moon getting less and less, the ball of light waning, while it grows on the spindles of the maidens. Then, at length, the moon is gone, and the world has darkness, and rest, and the creatures of the hillsides are safe from the hunter and the tides are still . . .’
    Mark’s body had slackened against me, and his breathing came more deeply. I made my voice as soft and monotonous as I could.
    â€˜Then, on the darkest night, the maidens take their spindles down to the sea, to wash their wool. And the wool slips from the spindles, into the water, and unravels in long ripples of light from the shore to the horizon, and there is the moon again, rising from the sea, just a thin curved thread, re-appearing in the sky. Only when all the wool is washed, and wound again into a white ball in the sky, can the moonspinners start their work once more, to make the night safe for hunted things . . .’
    Beyond the entrance of the hut, the moonlight was faint, a mere greyness, a lifting of the dark. Enough to save Lambis a fall or a sprain; enough to steer his boat into hiding without waiting for daylight; but not enough for prying eyes to see the place where Mark and I lay, close together, in the dark little hut. The moonspinners were there, out on the track, walking the mountains of Crete, making the night safe, spinning the light away.
    He was asleep. I turned my cheek on the tickling shrubs. It met his hair, rough, and dusty, but smelling sweetly of the dried verbena in our bed.
    â€˜Mark?’ It was barely a breath.
    No answer. I slipped a hand down under the khaki jacket, and found his wrist. It was clammy, and warm. The pulse was still fast, but regular, and stronger. I tucked the coat round him again.
    For no reason, except that it seemed the thing to do, I kissed his hair, very lightly, and settled myself down to sleep.

5
    There bathed his honourable wounds, and dressed
    His manly members in the immortal vest.
    POPE : The Iliad of Homer
    I got some sleep – enough – though I was stiff when I finally woke. Mark was still sound asleep, curled back against me. His breathing sounded easy and normal, and his skin, where I cautiously felt it, was cool. The fever had gone.
    It was still early. The light which came through the doorway was pearled, but without sun. My wrist was somewhere under Mark’s cheek, and I dared not move it again to try to see my watch. I wondered whether the cool light were only that of early morning, or if, today, those cirrus clouds were lying lower, across the sun. In some ways, it would be better for us if they were; but they would be cold and damp; and, until we had blankets . . .
    The thought brought me fully awake. Lambis. Surely Lambis should have been back by now?
    I raised my head cautiously, and tried to turn my wrist where it lay under Mark’s head. He stirred, gave a little grunting snore, and woke. He put a hand up to rub his eyes, and then stretched. The movement pushed him against me, and the discovery brought him round with a jerk that must have hurt his arm.
    â€˜Why, hullo! Good heavens, I’d forgotten you were there!