Part 36 (1/2)
Knowing very well that if he didn't take some kind of action now they'd remain sprawled on the stairs, he gathered her up. ”I can't give you the lightning.”
She smiled as he carried her up. ”You already have.”
Later, hours later, they knelt on the tumbled bed, feasting on pizza by candlelight. Ana had lost track of time and had no need to know if it was midnight or approaching dawn. They had loved and talked and laughed and loved again. No night in her life had been more perfect. What did time matter here?
”Guinevere was no heroine.” Ana licked sauce from her fingers. They had discussed epic poetry, modern animation, ancient legends and folklore and cla.s.sic horror. She wasn't sure how they had wound their way back to Arthur and Camelot, but on the subject of Arthur's queen, Ana stood firm. ”And she certainly wasn't a tragic figure.”
”I'd think a woman, especially one with your compa.s.sion, would have more sympathy with her situation.” Boone debated having a last piece from the cardboard box they'd plopped in the center of the bed.
”Why?” Ana picked it up herself and began to feed it to him. ”She betrayed her husband, helped bring down a kingdom, all because she was weak-willed and self-indulgent.”
”She was in love.”
”Love doesn't excuse all actions.” Amused, she tilted her head and studied him in the flickering light. He looked gloriously masculine in nothing but a pair of gym shorts, his hair tousled, his face shadowed with stubble. ”Isn't that just like a man? Finding excuses for a woman's infidelity just because it's written about in romantic terms.”
He didn't think it was precisely an insult, but it made him squirm a little.
”I just don't think she had control of the situation.”
”Of course she did. She had a choice, and she chose poorly, just as Lancelot did. All that flowery business about gallantry and chivalry and heroism and loyalty, and the two of them justified betraying a man who loved them both because they couldn't control themselves?” She tossed her hair back. ”That's bull.”
He laughed before he sipped his wine. ”You amaze me. Here I've been thinking you were a romantic. A woman who picks flowers by moonlight, who collects statues of faeries and wizards, and she condemns poor Guinevere because she loved unwisely.”
She fired up. ”Poor Guinevere-”
”Hold on.” He was chuckling, enjoying himself immensely. It didn't occur to either of them that they were debating about people most considered fictional. ”Let's not forget some of the other players. Merli n was supposed to be watching over the whole business. Why didn't he do anything about it?”
Fastidiously she brushed crumbs from her bare legs. ”It's not a sorcerer's place to interfere with destiny.”
”Come on, we're talking about the champ here. One little spell and he could've fixed it up.”
”And altered countless lives,” she pointed out, gesturing with her gla.s.s.
”Skewed history. No, he couldn't do it, not even for Arthur. People- witches, kings, mortals-are responsible for their own fates.”
”He didn't have any problem abetting adultery by disguising Uther as the Duke of Cornwall and taking Tintagel so that Igraine conceived Arthur in the first place.”
”Because that was destiny,” she said patiently, as she might have to Jessie. ”That was the purpose. For all Merlin's power, all his greatness, his single most vital act was bringing Arthur into being.”
”Sounds like splitting hairs to me.” He swallowed the last bite of pizza.
”One spell's okay, but another isn't.”
”When you're given a gift, it's your responsibility to know how and when to use it, how and when not to. Can you imagine how he suffered, watching someone he loved destroyed? Knowing, even as Arthur was being conceived, how it would end? Magic doesn't divorce you from emotion or pain. It rarely protects the one who owns it.”
”I guess not.” He'd certainly had witches and wizards suffering in the stories he wrote. It gave them a human element he found appealing.
”When I was a kid, I used to daydream about living back then.”
”Rescuing fair maidens from fiery dragons?”
”Sure. Going on quests, challenging the Black Knight and beating the h.e.l.l out of him.”
”Naturally.”