B007IIXYQY EBOK (79 page)

Mother of the gods, preserve me! It is a breech. I will suffer long and die, and the child will be strangled by the birth-string.

Each pang brought increasing terror, until she was in the throes of a fright greater than any she ever experienced in battle.
I thought I had more courage than this!
she thought despairingly.
It is because I can do nothing
…
but endure.
Agony owns me. My own body is my foe. As long as it pleases, it can put me to the torture.

Her whole spirit shrieked for the steadying arms of her mother.

Why am I alone? All your kin should gather round at the birth of a child.

The wolves’ cries were closer, hungrier.

She heard fast-approaching steps.

“Helgrune,” Auriane called out, not really wanting Helgrune, thinking there was something decidedly reptilian about the woman, but desperately wanting a human presence. She struggled up and turned to the doorway. Helgrune was nowhere about.

“Helgrune?” she said again, increasingly uneasy. There was no answer but the wolves, and those swift, sure steps, rapidly coming closer.

What stalking creature of the night might this be?

A tall, hooded figure filled the doorway.
It is some minion of Geisar’s, come to drag me to death. It is blue-faced Hel herself, come to strangle the child and drain my blood.
Weakly Auriane struggled in the direction of the water jug, with some dim plan of using it as a weapon.

An instant later she recognized Ramis.

She has come!
Auriane collapsed back onto the straw and wept openly with relief.

Ramis strode in and dropped down beside Auriane. The old woman cradled her head in her arms as if Auriane were her own child. “Cry out all you wish,” she said soothingly. “It does not shame you. It is far better, and it relieves the pain.” Ramis held her tightly through the next grip of agony.

As Auriane clung to her, she could not remember why she ever thought Ramis august and forbidding; the old priestess was gentle and human as her own mother. Auriane understood then Ramis loved her greatly and without reserve, and had always.

“The babe,” Auriane whispered feebly. “It is turned round.”

But already Ramis had her hands on Auriane’s stomach and was lightly, vigorously kneading; gradually, surely, those strong hands shifted the child into the position of readiness. “It is no matter,” she said gently as she worked. “Close your eyes, breathe evenly, and think on the flame.”

When after long moments this was done, Ramis rose and moved swiftly about, putting things the way she wanted them, bringing an extra torch for more light, laying white linen on the straw. She gave fast, precise orders to Helgrune, directing her to set a cauldron on the fire before the hut, then rapidly naming off the herbs she wanted brought from the drying-shed. As the water began to boil, Ramis added the herbs, each at its proper time. Then she brought Auriane a clay cup brimming with a mysterious, pungent drink. Ramis’ birthing herbs were among her close-kept secrets. Auriane guessed there was ergot from rye to stimulate the contractions, as well as motherwort, shepherd’s purse, parsley, and rue. To ease the torment, she supposed there were henbane and hops and a measure of balm and celandine. Whatever it was, it was strong and gentle. Within moments the dark drink took merciful hold of her, and a soothing mist blotted out fear, muted the pain, even softened the howling of the wolves. Ramis directed Helgrune to sponge Auriane’s stomach and thighs with the same steaming mixture; the bouquet of medicinal vapors brought a hazy tranquillity to them all. Auriane’s deep, troubled breathing filled the small room.

Dimly Auriane was aware that as night progressed and the stars made their passage across the black sky, Ramis never let her go; the old priestess spoke to her ceaselessly, and Auriane was strengthened and steadied by that voice that sometimes chanted, sometimes spoke poetry, sometimes gave homely advice or told old tales; it gave her something to cling to outside the pain. She later remembered little of this constant talk, except for a few words Ramis spoke near dawn:

“…and this, too, is an initiation, you see, as much as first blood or first battle…for a birth tests the soul in every way, calling for love to the limit, courage beyond day-to-day imagining, and the strength of an aurochs…. At the same time it washes you clean and makes your spirit anew…for
you
are reborn with the babe…. Know that you cannot come into your full human power until you know this divine power of giving life to a child.”

Auriane realized then she had always thought of birth as a woman’s sacrifice for her child; she had never thought it might also be a part of a mother’s own path to gathering knowledge of life and death.

As the first ghost-pale light formed a halo over the eastward hills, Ramis turned her attention from Auriane to the child.

“The difficulty now is with the babe,” Auriane heard Ramis whisper to Helgrune. “The child fears to emerge…for the little one senses, through her mother, that the world is all terror and tragedy.”

With her hands on Auriane’s stomach, Ramis began speaking fervent encouragement to the child to allay her fears of coming into the world. Then Ramis directed Helgrune, who was unusually strong, to pull Auriane up into a squatting position.

The pain that struck Auriane then obliterated thought. She forgot even her humanity—she was some hapless beast, being slowly, relentlessly, rent in two. She cried out to Ramis to take her back to Chattian lands so she could be laid in her own earth at death.

I cannot die this way!
all her mind screamed. The birth seemed some impossible hurdle raised up higher than nature permits a creature to leap. Yet leap it must, if it is to live. To nature there is no appeal.

Outside a dawn wind sprang up; it lashed the branches of the alder tree against the roof. Auriane felt all her viscera were being drawn out through her womb. Then suddenly the mountain of agony was released. A great ocean-tide rushed out of her.

She felt vastly empty. All was small, quiet and still.

Gently they laid her back on the straw. She felt light as a ghost, fearful she might float off like a cinder and be lost. She lay there trembling between heaven and earth, reduced to pure spirit, hovering peacefully above the beaten body she left behind.

Then she heard the rapid, spilling notes of a pipe, a sound glittering with life-love and light. She struggled up far enough to see Helgrune playing an alder-pipe and Ramis cradling an impossibly small, red creature that steamed in the frigid air. Distantly Auriane heard the child’s fragile, gasping cries—the plaint of a gentle seagoing creature rudely thrust into the harsh world, forced to take in chill air, to battle hunger and lifelong uncertainty.

Some are strong enough, some are not. Ramis, give this child more strength than I had.

Ramis swiftly ascertained what she already knew—the babe was a girl. She cut the birth-string with a bronze knife, then laid the little creature on her mother’s belly. The child had fleecy black hair, a color Auriane had never seen on a newborn—the banner of her foreignness. Auriane met the babe’s glassy orbs steadily, while tears of amazement blurred her eyes. She was fascinated by what she saw there. Those squirrel-bright eyes seemed full of tales of another world.

“Who are you?” Auriane whispered to the girl while Ramis looked on, smiling. “Someone from remote times, I think. You seem surprised to find the world this way.” Someone from the time of peace and wandering, she thought, from before the coming of iron. But Auriane saw a glint of Baldemar there, and a flash of Gandrida; poor Arnwulf, too, peered out of those eyes.

You are a living record of great spirits…that somehow married themselves to Decius and his black-headed kin, dedicated to our destruction. A strange mismatch of souls…yet all exist so harmoniously in those eyes. Ramis once said, “To me, none are foreign,” and only now do I know fully the wisdom of this. The two rivers flow together in you, mingling without a thought.

Helgrune gave Ramis a slender phial filled with waters from the sacred lake. Auriane looked questioningly at Ramis. Before the water-blessing could be performed, the child must have a name.

Ramis knelt down and looked closely into the child’s eyes, struggling to read the shadowy soul-shape within. Meditatively she nodded. “There is a strong and definite presence here, dominating the others….” Ramis considered a moment longer, then declared with finality: “She is Avenahar.”

Avenahar was the mother of Gandrida, known to Auriane from Athelinda’s tales. Like Gandrida, she too was called the Wise in Council; Athelinda said she could stun a deer with her eyes.

“Avenahar,”
Auriane said, testing the sound of it. She reached out with a fragile hand and grasped Ramis’, a mute gesture of overwhelming gratitude for all she had done.

Ramis then began the ritual. First she took a fir bough and set it aflame, then passed it quickly three times around the child’s head to clear the air of polluting influences. The ghost of the fir tree was said to love all newborn children. Next she took a drop of water from the phial and daubed it on the child’s forehead.

“Let the water cleanse!” Ramis’ voice rang out with a slight tremble. She smeared a second droplet on the child’s chest. “Sorrows of past ages, begone! Let all wickedness that afflicted you in lifetimes past be banished by water. Evil beings, hurtful things, leave this child forever, in the name of all-seeing Fria.” She sprinkled droplets of the remaining water over the babe’s head. “You are Avenahar, come again. You are Avenahar, shining and new.”

Then she helped the girl find Auriane’s breast. The moment was unending, all-sustaining. Draw in the soul-milk that makes you our own, Auriane thought. Drink in my love.

“I bless you with milk,” Auriane said weakly, finishing the ritual naming-words. She put a droplet of her milk on the girl’s forehead. “My blood is your blood. My kin are your kin. None can deny you fire and water. I name you Avenahar.”

And I will be with you forever,
she added in her mind. Let none say otherwise. If you are severed from me, Avenahar, I will bleed all my life’s blood and die.

Before exhaustion overcame Auriane and she fell into sleep, she made a last entreaty to Ramis. “When you read her future, my lady, I beg you, whatever it is, keep it from me.”

Then came the days of flowers and milk overflowing; Auriane often went ashore with Avenahar on her back, walking the grassy meadows. The glades and valleys were intoxicated with color; everywhere were the nodding, checkered flowers of snakeshead, the pink flush of woodland anemones. On these days Auriane would hurl a spear at a tree until exhaustion came, with Avenahar nearby in her wicker cradle, watching with huge, uncritical eyes. Or she would restlessly walk the island, nursing the child; it relieved her grieving to feel the tiny mouth drawing her milk.

Once again the garments of Eastre brushed past, her sunny hair streaming down as she moved through the season, unmindful of how her coming resurrected the pain of Baldemar’s death.

Summer came in earnest, laying vivid veils of green, bringing ever more color—the violet of hyssop flowers, the yellow of cowslips, the salmon shades of fragrant meadowsweet. Waterbugs streaked over glassy pools; clouds of bees hummed hymns to the sun.

One morning when Avenahar had lived through three moons, Auriane and Helgrune were busy in the drying-shed, laying out freshly gathered coltsfoot. Ramis had journeyed off to some distant chief to give counsel concerning a marriage. Auriane had not wanted her to go, sensing she might need her that day.

They heard an unaccustomed sound; steadily it grew louder. When Auriane realized it was the drumming of many horses’ hooves, she whisked Avenahar from the wicker cradle and held the child tightly to her breast.

Then came the villagers’ shouts and dogs’ barks; now the battering of hooves was very near. As yet they could see nothing; the riders were concealed by a stand of alder.

The party seemed to have halted by the horse sheds; Auriane heard welcoming neighs and men’s shouted questions. Then the thunder began again. And a party of thirty and more horsemen emerged from behind the alders, approaching the lakeside on its marshy, deserted shore.

They halted just across the water.

Helgrune seized Auriane’s arm, meaning to drag her into the shadows of the shed. “Quickly. Hide yourself,” she whispered. “Who are those bold ruffians? How dare they ride so close!”

“Helgrune, let me go,” Auriane said as she fought her way free. “Do you think they do not know I am here?”

Auriane moved closer to the island’s bank, showing herself to the shaggy band draped in bearskin cloaks; Helgrune followed, a step behind. The party’s many upright spears formed a dense thicket. Dully gleaming warrior’s rings girded their upper arms. The band’s leader held aloft a cat skull stained with ocher, mounted on a yew pole.

“They are my own people, Helgrune. You must not fear. They’ve come for me.” Auriane struggled with a confused mix of joy and fright, unsure what this party’s intention was. She stood utterly still, Avenahar in her arms, a wary animal poised to protect her young.