Lady of Avalon (13 page)

“You’re twitchy because of the waiting.” Arius grinned suddenly. “I know-I’m nervous too.”

That must be it. His doubts were the thoughts a man has before a battle, that was all. Gawen managed a laugh, suddenly very glad that Arius was with him, and returned to his survey of the northern hills.

It was Arius who first sighted the enemy. He came running back up from the thicket where he had gone to relieve himself, waving his arms in excitement, and Gawen, slipping back through the tangle of pines, saw the dustcloud to the west, where the sun was already sliding toward the hills, resolving into a moving mass of men and horses.

The Brigante advance was slowed by captured oxcarts laden with spoils. A mistake, thought Gaius. One of the greatest strengths of the tribes was mobility. But there were more than he had expected-thousands of them. He looked southward, where the Legion should be waiting, calculating time and distance.

“We’ll watch until the main body of the enemy has passed and then light the fire.”

“And then what?” asked Arius. “If we get cut off from our own lines, we’ll miss all the fun.”

“If we wait, the battle will come to us.” Gawen did not know whether to hope or to fear that was true. The danger, it occurred to him then, was going to be in the moments between the lighting of the fire and the appearance-
if
they had reached their position and seen his signal-of the Roman Army.

The enemy was almost below them now, Brigantes by their gear, though he could see some of the wilder tribesmen from the north riding in the van. Arius caught his eye, and then, frowning grimly, pulled out his flints and steel. It took several tries to get a spark, but soon a wisp of smoke curled up from the tinder, which strengthened as they added kindling, and then burst into vigorous flame. A judicious application of green stuff turned the white smoke to grey; the plume wavered, then strengthened, staining the sky.

Could the Romans see it? Gawen tensed, staring. Light sparkled suddenly across the rim of the far hill. He recognized the silver shimmer of lance points, and one flare of gold.
The Eagle…
Wordless, he pointed at the legionary standard, and Arius nodded. A blur of shadow grew beneath it, deepened, spilled down the slope, inexorable as the tide. Sweet with distance, trumpets blared, and the moving mass became three columns, the center slowing while the two flanks advanced along the higher ground to either side.

The Brigantes had seen them too. For a moment they faltered; then a discordant bawling came from their cowhorns. A ripple of movement passed through the crowd of men as shields were shrugged from back to arm and lances swung forward. Gawen and Arius, making their way down the far side of the crag, paused as the yelling intensified, pulling at a screen of junipers to see.

The Roman formation advanced with the remorseless regularity of one of their war machines, blocs of men moving in straight lines at a steady pace, flanks curving out to protect the center. The Celtic rush pulsed with the wild energy of a wildfire, roaring toward the foe.

The British could see the Roman plan, but no one, not even their own leaders, could ever be sure what the Celtic warriors would do. And in the moment when it seemed that the entire Brigante force would be surrounded and crushed by the Roman foundation, several bands from the wilder tribes who rode with them broke away suddenly.

“They’re running!” exclaimed Arius, but Gawen said nothing.

They did not look panicked, but furious, and in another moment it was clear that they were swinging around to charge down upon the Roman flank, not running away. Suddenly the high ground, which had allowed the Romans to get beyond the center of the enemy, became a disadvantage, for the Celtic horsemen were higher still. Screaming, they sent their surefooted ponies hurtling down the hill.

On that ground, no infantry could stand against them. The legionaries went sprawling, trampled by the horses or by each other as they tried to get out of the way. The confusion spread through the ranks. From above they could see the orderly pattern unraveling, the flanks recoiling upon the center just as its front line encountered the main group of the unmounted Brigante warriors.

The two scouts watched the seething mass of men with horrified fascination. Gawen remembered suddenly how once, when he had dropped a squirrel with a thrown stone, it had fallen into a nest of bees. In moments the poor beast had disappeared beneath hordes of attackers. Unbelievably, that was what he was seeing now. Watching, he winced at every blow. Was it more horrible to be in the thick of battle, he wondered, or here, where he could die a thousand deaths in sympathy?

But the Romans, better armored against the stings of these enemies, were not entirely overwhelmed. Many died where they stood, but those who could do so broke and ran. The Commander and his staff had stationed themselves on a small rise. The bright cloaks began to move as the first wave of retreating soldiers reached them. Could Donatus rally them?

Gawen never knew if the Commander had even tried. He saw the red cloaks retreating, saw them engulfed by the rout, and then the flash of bloody swords as the British caught up with them. The Legionary Eagle tossed above the fray for a few desperate moments longer, then went down.

“Jupiter Fides,” whispered Arius, his face the color of cheese. But Gawen, seeing the flock of crows that whirled above the battle, knew that the deity who ruled here was no god of Rome but the Great Queen, the Lady of Ravens, Cathubodva.

“Come on,” he whispered. “We can’t help them now.”

Arius staggered as they picked their way down the far side of the hill. But Gawen, who felt none too steady himself, had no time for sympathy. His senses were strained to the limit, seeking for danger, and when he heard, above the tumult of the battlefield, the clank of metal against stone, he shoved the other man down into the bracken beside a little stream, hissing at him to be still.

They lay like hunted rabbits as the sounds grew louder. Gawen thought of the severed head they had seen at the farmstead. The tribesmen took heads sometimes as trophies. For a moment he had an awful vision of his own head and that of Arius grinning from poles outside some northern warrior’s door. His gorge rose and he swallowed, afraid that if he was sick he would be heard.

Through the ferns Gawen saw scratched bare legs, and heard men singing. They were laughing, chanting in disjointed phrases that would become a song of victory. He listened to the blurred speech of the north and tried to make out words.

He was startled into looking up by a convulsive movement at his side. Above the heads of the tribesmen swayed the Legionary Eagle. He felt Arius rising and reached out to stop him, but his friend was already on his feet, drawing his
gladius.
The flash of sun on steel stopped the singing. Gawen rolled to a crouch, his own blade ready, as the Brigantes began to laugh. In alarm he realized there were nearly two dozen.

“Give me the Eagle!” Arius said hoarsely.

“Give me your sword!” said the tallest in accented Latin. “And maybe we will let you live.”

“As a slave among the women-” said one of the others, a big man with red hair.

“Oh, leave him for their amusement!”

“They’ll just love those curls-maybe he’s really a girl, following her man to war!”

From his companions came a spate of lewd speculation in the British tongue regarding what the women would do to him. For a moment, Gawen, caught between fear for his friend and a gibbering panic that urged him to run away, could not move. Then he found himself rising to his feet.

“This is a madman,” Gawen replied in the same tongue, grabbing the tail of Arius’ tunic to halt him. “The gods protect him.”

“We are all madmen.” The Brigante chieftain eyed him warily, trying to reconcile the British speech and the Roman gear. “And the gods have given us the victory.”

True enough,
thought Gawen,
and I am the craziest of all.
But he could not stand by and let his friend be killed. That memory would have sent him mad indeed.

“The gods of our people have been kind,” answered Gawen, babbling, “and they will not care to see you dishonor the gods of your beaten foe. This one is their priest. Give him the Eagle and let him go.”

“And who are you to give us orders?” asked the chieftain, his face darkening.

“I am a Son of Avalon,” answered Gawen, “and I have seen Cathubodva riding the wind!”

From the tribesmen came an uneasy mutter, and for a moment Gawen hoped he was going to get away with this. Then the redheaded man spat and lifted his spear.

“Then you are a traitor and a fool traveling together!”

At the movement, Arius jerked free. Gawen was just a moment too late to catch him as he charged, but he could see, with excruciating clarity, the arc the Brigante spear cut through the sky.

A breastplate might have repelled it, but scouts wore only a heavy tunic of hide. Arius staggered as the blade pierced his breast, his eyes widening in surprise. Even as his friend fell, Gawen knew the wound was fatal. But that was the last coherent thought he had for some time. The face of Cathubodva rose before him and, screaming, he charged.

He felt the impact as his blade struck flesh. Without thinking, he parried a blow and ducked under the man’s arm. At close quarters the Celts could not swing their longer blades. His shorter sword stabbed upward, biting into flesh, scraping on bone. The long hours spent in sword drill directed his blows, but it was Druid curses that he was shouting, and to his enemies they were more deadly than his sword.

Gawen sensed first a faltering, and then, suddenly, no one was attacking him. He blinked, gasping like an over-driven horse.

He saw Brigante warriors disappearing over the rise. Eight bodies lay sprawled on the bloody ground. Staggering a little as the spirit that had filled him drained away, Gawen made his way back to Arius. His friend lay still, staring emptily at the sky. But nearby, where one of the fleeing Brigantes had tossed it, lay the Eagle of the Ninth.

He should bury his friend, Gawen thought dimly. He should lay Arius in a hero’s mound with his enemies around him and the Eagle for a monument. But he knew he did not have the strength, and it would make no difference. Arius would still be dead, like all the others. Even the Eagle was nothing to him now except a reason for men to kill.

I don’t belong here…,
he thought hazily. The sword slipped from his hand. With clumsy fingers he pulled at the lacings of his leather tunic. It was better without the heavy gear, but he still stank of blood. In the silence, the trickling of water from the little burn called him. He stumbled back through the bracken and plunged his face into the chill water where the stream had hollowed out a deep pool, washed the blood from his arms and legs, and drank again. To his amazement, only a little of the blood was his own. The water made him feel better, but the stain of blood, the blood of his own people, was still on his soul.

I have not taken an oath to the Emperor,
he thought.
I don’t have to stay in the Army to be a butcher!
Could they keep him if he went back to Eburacum? He did not know, and surely the disgrace would kill his grandfather. Better the old man should think him dead than believe that the horror of battle had made him run away. It was being a killer that he was afraid of, he thought, looking at the men who lay on the ground, not of being slain.

Finally he got up. Among the bodies, the gilded wings of the Eagle glinted balefully in the light of the setting sun.

“You, at least, shall destroy no more men!” he muttered, lifting it, and bore it back to the stream. The waters of the pool closed over its brightness, as water had hidden the gleam of many another treasure offered by his mother’s people to the gods.

On the other side of the ridge men might still be fighting and dying, but here it was silent. Gawen tried to think what to do. He could not go back to the Legions, but his Roman features would damn him among the tribes. There was just one place, really, where they had not cared whether he was Roman or British, but only about what was in his soul. Suddenly, with an aching intensity, he wanted to go home, to Avalon.

“Let it go, that’s right,” she murmured. “Breathe in…and out…and look at the surface of the pool.” She felt her own vision flickering as she breathed in the magic of the burning herbs, and looked quickly away, anchoring her awareness firmly in the present.

Sianna sighed and swayed forward, and Caillean steadied her. She had been certain the girl would have an aptitude for Seeing, but until Sianna had been sworn as a priestess it was not right to use her so. Then Gawen had run away, and the girl had moped and grown so thin Caillean had forbidden her to work any kind of magic. Only in the past month had she begun to recover her spirits. It was a relief to Caillean to see it. The daughter of the Faerie Queen was the most talented of the young girls who had come to them for training, and no wonder, with her heritage. The High Priestess had been harder on her than on the others, and she had not broken. This, if anyone, was the maiden who would be able to learn all of the ancient magics and wield them when she herself was gone.

“The water is a mirror,” Caillean said softly, “in which you can see things far off in distance and time. Seek now the summit of the Tor, and tell me what you see…”

Sianna’s breathing grew deeper. Caillean matched it, relaxing a little of her own control in order to share the vision while retaining her connection to the outer world.

“I see…the ring stones shining in the sun… The Vale is laid out below… I see patterns…glowing paths that pass through the isles, the shining road that comes up from Dumnonia and passes toward the eastern sea…”

Through half-closed lids, Caillean glimpsed the surface pattern of hill and wood and field, and beneath it, the bright lines of power. As she had hoped, Sianna could see the inner world as well as the outer.

“That is well, very well,” she began, but Sianna was continuing-

“I follow the shining path; northward it leads toward Alba. Smoke rises; the borders are soaked in blood. There has been battle, and the ravens feast on the slain…”

“The Romans,” breathed Caillean. When word of the uprising had come to them, the Druids had agreed to lend their power to help, and the priestesses, fired by their enthusiasm, were eager to join with them. Caillean remembered the first surge of exultation at the prospect of driving out the hated Romans at last, and then the doubt-was this the right way to use the power of Avalon?

“I see Romans and Britons, their bodies tangled together on the battlefield-” Sianna’s voice shook.

“Who won the battle?” Caillean asked. They had sent forth their power; they had heard there was fighting. And then nothing. If the Romans themselves knew what was happening, they had not allowed the news to travel far.

“The ravens feast on both friend and foe. Homes lie in ruins, bands of fugitives wander the land.”

The High Priestess straightened, frowning. If the rebels had been beaten easily, Rome would think no more of these troubles than of any other flare-up. If the tribesmen had destroyed the Roman force completely, the Empire might give up Britannia. But this halfway disaster would only enrage them.

“Gawen, where are you?” Sianna whispered, shaking.

Caillean stiffened. She still had some connections in Deva. She knew that the boy had gone to his grandfather, and then been sent to the Ninth Legion in Eburacum. Since then she had lived in fear that Gawen might have been in the battle. But how could the girl know? She had not intended to have Sianna search for him, but she knew the strength of the link between them, and she could not resist the opportunity to use it to learn what she, too, desperately desired to know.

“Let your vision expand,” she said softly. “Let your heart lead you where you must go.”

Sianna grew, if possible, even more still, her eyes fixed on the swirl of light and color in the bowl.

“He is fleeing…” she said at last, “trying to find his way home. But the land is full of enemies. Lady, use your magic to protect him!”

“I cannot,” Caillean replied. “My own strength can ward no more than this Vale. We must pray to the gods.”

“If you cannot help him, then there is only one who can, nearer than the Goddess, if not so powerful.” Sianna straightened with a shuddering sigh, and the surface of the water went abruptly blank. “Mother!” she cried. “Your fosterling is in danger! Mother-I love him! Bring Gawen home!”

Gawen jerked upright, listening, as a whisper of sound swept through the heather. It grew louder. On his cheek he felt the chill brush of cold air and settled back again. It was only the wind, rising as it always did at sunset. It was only the wind, this time. In the three days since the battle, it seemed to him, he had done nothing but run and hide. The bands of marauding Brigantes and disorganized units of legionaries were equally a danger to him, and any herder might betray him. He could survive by trapping small game and stealing from farmers’ store sheds, but the weather was getting colder. In the north he was one of many who had fled the battle, in danger from both sides. But when he moved south he would be an obvious fugitive. Technically he was not a deserter, but the Romans, still smarting from their defeat, must be looking for scapegoats.

He shivered and pulled his cloak around him more tightly. Where could he go? Was there anywhere, even Avalon, where a man with his divided heritage could be at home? He watched the last of the light fade in the west and felt hope dying in his soul.

That night he dreamed of Avalon. It was night there as well, and on the Tor the maidens were dancing, weaving among the stones. There were more of them than he remembered; he searched for Sianna’s bright hair. Through shadow and moonlight the figures wove their pattern, and as they moved, the grass of the Tor seemed to glimmer with an answering glow, as if their dance had awakened a power that slept within the hill.

“Sianna!”
he cried, knowing she could not hear him. And yet, as her name left his lips, one of the figures paused, turned, extended her arms. It was Sianna; he recognized the lithe poise of her body, the tilt of her head, the radiance of her hair. And behind her, like a shadow, he saw the figure of her mother, the Faerie Queen. As he watched, the shadow grew, until it was a door into darkness. He shrank back, fearing to be engulfed by it, and some sense beyond hearing perceived her words-
“The way to all that you love is through Me…”

Gawen woke in the dawning, cold, stiff, but, oddly, a little more hopeful. His snares had caught a young hare, whose meat eased his hunger. It was at midday, when he had ventured down to drink at a small spring, that his luck turned evil once more. He should have moved on as soon as he had eased his thirst, but the afternoon had turned warm and he was very tired. Sitting with his back against a willow, he allowed his eyes to close.

He woke suddenly, aware of a sound that was not the wind in the trees or the gurgling of the stream. He heard men’s voices and the tramp of hobnailed sandals-now he could see them through the screen of leaves-Roman soldiers, and not the demoralized stragglers he had been encountering. This was a regular detachment under the command of a centurion.

They would recognize his tunic as legionary issue, he thought, instinctively looking around him for cover. Behind him was a hill, its slopes covered with tangled trees. Crouching, he moved toward it, pushing aside the branches of the willow tree. He was on the lower slope when they saw him.

“Halt!”

For a moment the authority in that voice stopped him. Then he pushed on, and a thrown
pilum
slashed through the brush beside him and rattled over stone. Gawen snatched it up and automatically flung it back again. He heard someone swear and scrambled onward, realizing too late that, if they had not intended to follow before, they certainly would now.

He had begun to believe he would get away when the slope ended abruptly where some ancient convulsion of the earth had wrenched apart the stones. He teetered at the edge of the gorge, looking from the sharp-edged rocks below to the weapons of those who pursued him. Better to go down fighting, he thought desperately, than to be dragged back in chains to be tried for desertion.

Gawen could see their faces now, red with exertion but dreadfully determined. He drew his long dagger, regretting that he had thrown back the spear. And then someone called his name.

He stiffened, but the legionaries had no breath for calling, even if they had known who he was. It must be the rush of blood in his ears that was deceiving him, or the wind in the stones.

“Gawen-come to me!”
It was a woman’s voice. Involuntarily he turned. Shadow veiled the depths below, deepening even as he looked at it.
“Remember, the way to safety is through Me…”

Desperation has driven me mad,
he thought, but now it seemed to him he saw dark eyes luminous in an angular face framed by waves of dark hair. The fear went out of him in a little sigh. As the first of the legionaries reached the ledge on which he stood, Gawen smiled and stepped out into the void.

To the Romans, he seemed to fall into darkness. A chill wind came up then, like the breath of winter upon their souls, and not even the bravest cared to search down into the chasm for the body of the man they had pursued. If he had been an enemy he was dead, and if a friend, a fool. They climbed back down the hill, curiously unwilling to discuss what they had seen, and by the time they rejoined the rest of the troop, the incident was receding into that part of the soul where one remembers evil dreams. Not even the centurion thought to include it in the report he made.

Certainly they had other, more pressing matters to concern them. The remnants of the shattered Ninth Legion slowly made their way back to Eburacum, where the Sixth, posted up from Deva, received them with barely restrained contempt. The new Emperor Hadrianus was said to be furious, and there was talk that he might actually come to Britannia himself to take matters in hand. The survivors of the Ninth were to be transferred to other units, elsewhere in the Empire. It was not surprising if they responded with a sullen silence to any questioning.

Only the centurion Rufinus, who had actually cared about the recruits under his command, had a word to spare for the soldierly old gentleman who had also come up from Deva. Indeed, he remembered young Macellius. The boy had been sent off as a scout and might well have missed the great battle. But no one had seen him since that day.

Then the Sixth marched out to begin the long, brutal task of re-pacifying the north, and Macellius went home to Deva, still wondering about the fate of the boy whom he had learned in a few short months to love.

That year winter came hard and wet. Storms blasted the north, and heavy rains made the whole Vale of Avalon a grey sea that turned its hills into true islands on which folk huddled and prayed for spring.

On the morning of the equinox, Caillean awakened early, shivering. She lay swaddled in wool blankets, and the straw pallet on which she lay was covered by sheepskin, but the damp chill of the winter had gotten into everything, including her bones. Since her moon blood had ceased to flow, she had been healthy and vigorous, but this morning, remembering how her joints had pained her throughout the winter, she felt ancient. Her heart pounded with sudden panic. She could not afford to grow old! Avalon was thriving, even after a season like this one, but there were so few trained priestesses that she could depend on. Avalon could not survive if she were gone!

She took a deep breath, willing her heart to steady, forcing taut muscles to relax again.
Are you a priestess? What has become of your faith?
Caillean smiled, realizing she was scolding herself as if she had been one of her own maidens.
Cannot you trust in the Goddess to take care of Her own?

The thought eased her, but in her experience the Lady was most disposed to help those who had already tried to help themselves. It was still her duty to train a successor. Without Gawen, the sacred bloodlines which Eilan had given her life to continue were lost, but that was all the more reason for Avalon, which preserved her work and teachings, to endure.

Sianna…,
she thought then.
It is she who must follow me.

The girl had sworn the vows of a priestess, but she had been ill at the feast of Beltane and had not gone to the fires. And then she had become the guardian of the well. But that could be done by one of the younger girls. It had been hard for some of the priestesses who had known the enforced chastity of the Forest House to see the value in allowing the priests and priestesses to lie down together in the ritual. Those who did so were not making love for their own pleasure, or not entirely, but as representatives of the mighty masculine and feminine forces that men called gods. The future High Priestess of Avalon must make that offering.

This year, I will accept no excuses. She must complete her consecration, and give herself to the god.

Someone scratched at her door and she sat up, wincing at the chill.

“Lady!” It was Lunet’s voice, breathless with excitement. “Waterwalker’s boat is pulling in at the landing. Someone is with him. It looks like Gawen! Lady, you must come!”