Free Merlin's Wood (Mythago Wood) by Robert Holdstock

midnight before Rebecca crept into bed. She was naked and bitterly cold. She pressed her feet against the complaining man, warming her hands on his stomach, laughing as Martin struggled. They soon relaxed below the covers and eventually turned to face each other, kissing gently, savouring the fumes of garlic and cider.
    ‘You were a long time. I would have been worried, but I passed out. Must have had a lot to talk about to Conrad.’
    ‘He didn’t stay long. I think he was still a little frightened of me. He ate what I took him, and we shared the cider and remembered old times. He didn’t want to talk about Sebastian and the wolf-thing that had killed him. I told him you’d told me and all he said was, “Then everything, now, is in its cold home. It’s done with, and with Eveline gone, and the lake so quiet, perhaps the storm has passed.” Then he went back tothe forest, asking me to thank you. I stayed by the well. It’s a nice place, there. You can smell the water rising through the hill. Everything by that well is vibrant, very pure, very clear. I spent a long time thinking.’
    ‘Thinking about what?’
    Her touch was suddenly intimate. He felt aroused and reached around her to draw her body very close.
    ‘Thinking about what?’ he repeated.
    As they kissed, Rebecca whispered, ‘About staying in Broceliande, learning how to run a small farm. About you, how much I love you, now that I allow the feeling to surface. About us, how natural it feels to
be
us. About a child …’
    Martin was stunned. His lips found Rebecca’s, his hands found hers, fingers entwining as she wrestled him underneath her, to lie on him, her hands, then, holding his face, her mouth a moist presence on his eyes and cheeks as she took him into her, holding him close, holding him tightly until first light, first dew, and the first call, an urgent one, for the bathroom.
    The first green had been on the woods for a week, now, and the last of winter had been seen off.
    Martin waited by the gate as the eight horsemen cantered towards him, doffing his beret as they swept past leading a riderless mare. One blew a short, brass horn, the others waved flowered staves and screamed at the tops of their voices as they passed. Laughing, they wheeled around and trotted back, resplendent in their short white jackets and black trousers. Bells on thespurs of their black boots made a constant jangling as they waited for the groom.
    Martin climbed into the saddle of the ninth horse, feeling the strength of the animal below him, holding her head back as she tried to stretch. Further away down the path, towards the village, the bride’s canter was approaching noisily, the five horns sounding their high-pitched, sweeter notes. Rebecca, in the centre of the gallop, was a tall shape, robed in green and white. The women in her entourage were trousered in black, with white jackets and wide-brimmed, rose-decked hats. The arc of flowers-and-ivy, held between them, wobbled as they approached, and the groom’s party kicked-off for the church, mud spraying, laughter punctuating the high-pitched challenge of the party.
    Father Gualzator opened the main gate to the church grounds as the groom’s riders cantered through and reined-in. The horses were led aside, and Martin and Jacques (who was battered, bruised and stiff from the ride) walked into the church, which had been cleared of the pews and chairs, a wide hall, the thorn and the cross in the centre.
    When Rebecca rode through the open doors, cantering noisily around the edge of the stone-flagged floor, she streamed confetti behind her as was the custom, but watched Martin all the time with eyes that were radiant and longing. The child inside her was almost unnoticeable below the green dress, although she held her belly carefully as she swung from the saddle by the door, and was escorted to the thorn and the cross.
    In the light from the high windows they weremarried. The child kicked as they kissed and took the