Avilion (Mythago Wood 7) (25 page)

Yssobel could hear the gentle stroke of oars. Aware that the shield men were lined up, watching the water and paying no attention to her, she lifted her head slightly. The reeds parted and a snub-bowed barge nosed into the shallows. It was wide and ugly, with a crude sail drooping around a roughly hewn mast. Two tall men stood at the stern, each with a long pole which they pushed easily into the mud. Two women in brilliant red and green garb, their faces veiled in white, held short oars. The barge was trimmed with purple, and the long, lean shapes of three hares, dancing in a circle, had been carved into the prow itself.

The two women rose to their feet and beckoned to the shield men to bring the bier onto the vessel. Yssobel felt herself lifted, then raised onto shoulders. One of the men cried quietly, others whispered words that might have been goodbye, or good fortune, or good journey.

Eyes closed, breathing hardly at all, Yssobel waited for the bier to settle into the barge. She lay between the two women.

The men dug their poles into the mud and pushed away from the shore. The two women sat beside the bier, staring ahead of them, unmoving, watching the land until the barge turned and faced open water. When they were out on the lake again, they lifted their veils, took up their oars and began to stroke slowly and steadily. They sang softly. Yssobel watched the clouds through the face-helm, experiencing a strange peace.

After a while the poles were placed down and the men crouched and took the oars from the women. The barge shifted on the water as a breeze came up and the crude sail unfurled and stayed. The men stared impassively ahead, but Yssobel was suddenly aware that one of the women was watching her from the corner of her eye. She tried to breathe as shallowly as possible, keeping her eyes closed, sensing the woman rather than seeing her.

A hand rested on her chest. A voice whispered so quietly that it might have been the passing hiss of a breeze: ‘Stay still. Don’t arouse the boatmen. If you do, they’ll turn the barge around. They are dedicated to their task, and you are not the task.’

That same woman lifted her white veil. A pale, drawn face turned to look down at Yssobel, a face without decoration and almost without blood; ghostly, yet kind.

Again they sang, this time in harmony, but they sang in a language that was obscure even to Yssobel’s green side, though she sensed that its theme was life being rescued from the hill of crows and taken to the island of the lost.

She repressed all tendency to engage with these women in case she should respond without control and make herself known to the wrong eyes.

Night came and the stars appeared. The sail billowed out and the lake became choppy. She couldn’t hold her bladder any more and hoped that the men would not notice the sudden release, though she was so thirsty that her body was preserving water.

With the new dawn the sail flopped, and the men tied it to the mast and picked up the long poles, pushing down into the shallows, feeling for the lake bed.

Suddenly the barge was passing through the upper branches of drowned trees. The women pushed with their short oars and the vessel at last came to a slow halt on the lake’s bank. The men jumped down and hauled the barge further onto the land. Each then took one end of the crude bier, lifted it and carried it ashore.

Something was said. Angry words spoken by one of the barge-men. From his gestures it was clear that he was questioning the lightness of the corpse; that he was suspicious.

The other man reached down suddenly, lifting the helm from Yssobel’s face, and the act of audacity was exposed. A hand hauled at Yssobel, dragging her upright. It was one of the women. The men glowered, reaching for the knives at their waists, but the two women shed their robes of red and green, exposing leather armour of the same colours. They were a striking sight, one, clearly the younger of the two, with luxurious black hair, the other with long braids of silver.

There was an exchange of shouts and threats. The older of the men leaned towards Yssobel, his pale eyes furious. ‘What have you done?’ he asked in a voice that sounded like a wolf’s growl. ‘What have you done with the man we came to fetch?’

‘I took his place. I had my reasons.’

‘Get back in the barge,’ said the other. ‘Do it now.’

‘She stays,’ said the younger woman, stepping in front of Yssobel.

The man nodded slowly, looking between all three of the women. ‘But we don’t. We’ll fetch the man who waits for us, and when he arrives here you’ll pay for this with more than your life.’

The boatmen spat on the ground, then turned away and pushed the barge from the shore, leaping aboard and taking up the poles. For a long while Yssobel watched them go, aware that hands were on her arms.

When at last she looked round, she saw that she was being greeted by warm eyes and warm smiles. The younger woman said, ‘I’m Uzana. My sister is Narine.’

‘Where am I? Is this Avilion?’

‘It’s a part of it, but remote,’ Uzana said. ‘This is one island among many islands. We know them quite well. And a friend of yours is waiting for you. Though he doesn’t know it.’

‘How do you know?’ Yssobel asked, confused.

‘We read your dreams.’

‘Welcome to the place you’ve made your own,’ said Narine.

 

During Yssobel’s long transit across the lake, her red side had abandoned her.

Her green side, existing in a different realm, did not recognise at first the place to which she had come. As the barge drifted away, angry abuse being shouted from it by the men on board, Uzana helped Yssobel remove Arthur’s armour and fold it carefully, ready to be stowed on the packhorse which Narine had fetched out of cover, along with their own mounts. There was a fourth horse, saddled and bridled, with green colours tied to its mane and fetlocks. Narine tossed Yssobel the reins.

‘We have a long ride. Do you need to wash? Take relief?’

‘Both. And food and water. That lake was a long crossing, and I was supposed to be dead. I held for a long time, but couldn’t hold for ever. I need to get clean and feel alive again.’

The two women laughed at something private while waiting for Yssobel. Then they passed her a flask and a good-sized piece of cold beef, which she chewed as they started off at a slow pace.

They broke to a canter as they approached a narrow defile in a dwarf-tree-covered hill. As they eased their way through the narrow, treacherous and winding gap, Yssobel asked, ‘If this is not the Isle of Avilion, what is it?’

‘Wait!’ called Narine, riding at the front.

They emerged from the hill and were looking down at a shoreline - rocky coves and short sandy beaches. The cliffs behind were riddled with caves, and there were bright, white-marbled structures scattered here and there.

‘Which island is it?’ Yssobel persisted.

‘The island of the lost,’ Uzana said, and Yssobel was startled, but pleasantly so.

‘But I know a song about this place! My mother’s song. She always called it the Song of the Islands of the Lost.’

And my grandfather is associated with the place, she thought. It is the first of his rune snakes.

Without thinking, without noticing the alarm on her new companions’ faces, she started to sing the song that Guiwenneth had been so fond of. Almost at once, Narine had clapped a hand to Yssobel’s mouth, silencing her. Uzana reared as her horse reacted with alarm, then reached out to squeeze Yssobel’s arm. She was shaking her head, but smiling.

‘Don’t sing it! Don’t ever sing it! If you do, then, like your friend, you’ll be lost.’

Who was this friend? Yssobel wondered. And then remembered Rianna’s sad words:

‘She was singing that lovely song. The sad one. The one that suddenly bursts into joy.’

‘Come on!’ Narine urged, but Yssobel held back.

‘I don’t understand. There is something I don’t understand.’

The other women turned around to look at her. Patient, now. Time seemed to stop; there was silence in the air.

 

And Yssobel said, ‘You came for the dead, didn’t you? That’s what I was taught. You came for Arthur after his death.’

They laughed.

‘Death?’ questioned Narine. ‘We come for all deaths. Even the living ones. We’re collectors. Especially from battlefields.’

‘Some of the dead hold on,’ Uzana added. ‘They value what they’ve been given and will not give it up.’

And Yssobel asked, ‘Then what are you?’

‘Waylanders,’ Narine replied.

‘We show you the way to other lands.’

‘Sometimes we’re called “waylands”.’

‘Guides, leaders, valks, morgvalks, peckcrows, morrikans . . .’ Uzana added.

‘So many names.’

‘So simple a task.’

They laughed again, but kept their gaze on Yssobel.

Yssobel thought for a moment. ‘And the task?’

Narine said, ‘To take you to where you have to go.’

‘And to take you carefully. We care about the journey.’

‘But you came for Arthur!’

And Uzana said softly: ‘We’ll come for him again, if needs be.’

Narine went on, ‘As we crossed the lake, our world changed. A world shift. It happens to us. We suddenly knew, on the lake, that we were coming for you.’

‘How?’ Yssobel asked, confused but not disturbed by what they were saying.

‘I told you,’ said Uzana. ‘We read your dreams.’

Yssobel said: ‘I still don’t understand. In my dream, in my father’s story, he was taken to Avilion by three queens.’

‘Well, weren’t there? Three?’

‘That man, that warlord we came to collect,’ Narine said fiercely, ‘He was his armour. As for how much more he was than that - who knows?’

‘And you wear Arthur’s armour now! Queen and king in one.’

‘Virgin beauty, soft-skinned, encased by bloodied leather.’

Narine agreed, smiling and glancing at Yssobel. ‘Iron-cut, yes, and deeply wounded, but strong enough to bear the blows.’

‘For a while at least,’ the other woman added. ‘Strength contained, concealed in strength.’

‘Life, vibrant, in the vale of death. Which is why you will be tested!’

‘Welcome to the place you’ve made your own.’

‘Indeed!’ said Narine. ‘Now, let’s get on!’

Yssobel in Avilion

In his dreaming, he had seen her: the flame-haired girl, riding towards him.

In his dreaming, he had loved her. There was passion in his dreaming.

A cool sea breeze accompanied him as each day he walked to where the beach began, to the soft sea touch, and stood there; sometimes spear in hand, sometimes shield upon his back. In anticipation.

Eyes closed; asleep yet not asleep.

Not singing, now. Not here.

He had sung the song of the Island of the Lost, and was lost until awakened fully. In the half-awakened part of him, below Lethe’s comforting, concealing shroud, below her sleep-veil, he knew that this was no more than rehearsal time.

This was his life in practice. This was the dream of the dream to come.

The flame-haired girl would rouse him.

And sometimes he whispered her name:

Yssobel.

 

‘There he is,’ said Narine. ‘There’s your man.’

I recognised him at once. He was older, though not by much. He was standing at the edge of the strand, leaning on a spear, a shield cast in front of him, half in the water. He was staring out to sea; wistful yet mournful.

I dismounted, flung Uzana the reins. ‘Are you safe?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes.’

‘He looks aggressive. Are you sure he is a friend?’

‘Very much my friend. But stay close. There’s something not right here. But yes . . .’

I looked at my horse-straddling companions as they leaned down to rest after the hard ride. ‘Yes, I feel safe.’

 

Dear Odysseus.

He looked so confused, but recognised me as I walked up the shore towards him. I was unarmed. He dropped the spear. He acknowledged me with a quiet smile, and then turned away.

‘Follow me,’ he whispered.

Built into the cliffs behind the sea was the entrance to a palace; it was identical to the marbled gateway that had led to his cave in Serpent Pass, though beyond the pillars there was an open gate, not the grim mouth of a hollow in the hill.

‘Do you know who I am?’ I asked as we walked.

‘I do. I do. Though memory is faint for the moment.’

‘We were lovers. In a different place. Don’t tell my father. I lied to him.’

‘I think we were,’ he agreed. ‘Though I think a greater task, a greater love is coming to me.’

‘You’re right. I won’t tell you her name. Nor the perilous journey you’ll make to find her, though I’ve read of it. I know of it.’

‘Don’t tell me.’

‘I won’t.’

He paused, turned back. ‘You know more of me than I know of myself, then. Though I already have an idea, as you’ll see.’

‘I will never betray the trust that comes with knowing you so much. I need you for a while. Be my friend, please; just for the time I need you.’

He looked at me, not so much confused as curious. Then he bowed his head. ‘I accept that. Now follow me. I will take you to a frightening place. Perhaps I need you too. Who knows? Who knows where fear of the future grows?’