Lady of Avalon (15 page)

It was like sunlight coruscating from the ice-sheathed branches of a winter wood; it was like the blaring of trumpets, a shimmer of notes from all the harps in the world; it was all bliss and all beauty. He was the Head of the Dragon, and he floated at that incandescent point which was the center of the world.

But, after an eternity beyond time, it seemed to him that someone was calling him by his earthly name.

“Gawen…” The call was faint with distance, a woman’s voice he ought to know. “Gawen, son of Eilan, return to us! Come forth from the crystal cave!”

Why should he, he wondered, when here was the end of all desire?

Could he? he wondered, immersed in this blaze of beauty which had neither beginning nor end.

But the voice insisted, separating into three voices sometimes, then joining once more in a single cry. He could not ignore it. Images came to him of a beauty which was less perfect but more real. He remembered the taste of an apple, the flex of muscles as he ran, and the simple human sweetness of a girl’s hand touching his own.

And with that memory came her face.
Sianna…

I must go to her,
he thought, reaching out into the radiance. But he could not leave when he could see nowhere to go.

“This is the test of Air,”
came another memory.
“You must speak the Word of Power.”

But they had not told him what that word might be.

Fragments of old tales shimmered in his awareness-the stories old Brannos had told him, bits of bardic lore. Names were magic, he remembered, but before you could name another, you first must name yourself.

“I am the son of Eilan, daughter of Bendeigid…” he whispered, and more reluctantly, “I am the son of Gaius Macellius Severus.” There was a sense of anticipation in the presence that surrounded him. “I am a bard and a warrior and a Druid trained in magic. I am a child of the holy isle.” What else could he say? “I am a Briton and I am a Roman, and…” Another memory came to him: “I am the Son of a Hundred Kings…” That seemed to mean something here, for the radiance flickered, and for a moment he glimpsed the way. But still he could not move. He groaned, dredging his mind for another name. Who was he? Who was he
here?

“I am Gawen,” he answered, and then, remembering the force that had swept him inward, “the Pendragon…”

And with that word, he felt himself lifted, rushed through a tunnel of light by some force beyond comprehension that thrust him to the top of the Tor and flung him, gasping, onto the moist turf inside the circle of stones.

For several moments, Gawen lay panting. His ears were ringing; only gradually did he become aware that somewhere in the distance birds were beginning the first tentative chirps that would greet the coming day. The grass beneath him was wet. He had fingers… He clutched at the grass, feeling its strength, drawing in the rich scent of damp earth. He realized with a pang of loss that he was merely human once more.

There seemed to be a great many people gathered around him. He pushed himself upright, rubbing his eyes, and found that not everything was back to normal, for, although the sun had not yet risen, everyone he looked at was haloed in light. The greatest radiance came from the three figures before him-three women, robed and veiled with the ornaments of the Goddess on breast and brow.

“Gawen, son of Eilan, to this sacred circle I have called you…”

They spoke in unison, and the hair lifted on his neck and arms. He managed to stand up, only momentarily embarrassed to find he was still naked. Before
them
-before
Her
-he thought he would have been naked even if he had been wearing clothes.

“Lady,” he said in a hoarse voice, “I am here.”

“You have passed the tests the Druids set you, and endured the ordeals. Are you ready to take oath to Me?”

Gawen managed some sound of assent, and one of the figures moved forward. She seemed taller than the others, and slender, though a moment ago they had all been equal. Above her white veil a garland of hawthorn made for her a starry crown.

“I am the Maiden, forever Virgin, the holy Bride…” Her voice was soft, sweet.

Gawen strained to make out the features beneath the veil. Surely this was Sianna, whom he loved, and yet her face and form kept changing, and the love he felt for her was sometimes that of a father, and sometimes a brother’s fierce affection, and sometimes that of the lover he would like to be. Only one thing was clear to him-he had loved this girl many times before, in many ways.

“I am all beginnings,” she went on. “I am the renewal of the soul. I am Truth, which cannot be soiled or compromised. Will you forever swear to help what is good come to Birth? Gawen, will you swear this to me?”

He drew in a deep breath of the sweet dawn air. “I swear.”

She came to him, lifting her veil. It was Sianna he saw as he bent to kiss her lips, Sianna and something more, whose touch was like white fire.

Then she was moving away from him. Trembling, he straightened as the middle figure came toward him. A wreath of wheat ears crowned her crimson veil. Who, he wondered, had they found to play this role in the ritual? Alone, she seemed in one moment smaller, and in the next gigantic, a massive figure whose throne was the whole world.

“I am the Mother, forever fertile, Lady of the Land. I am growth and strength, nourishing all that lives. I change, but I never die. Will you serve the cause of Life? Gawen, will you swear to me?”

Surely he knew that voice! Gawen peered through the veil, and flinched from the flash of dark eyes. But he recognized, with a sense other than sight, the Lady of Faerie, who had rescued him.

“You are the Door to all I desire,” he said in a low voice. “I do not understand you, but I will serve you.”

She laughed. “Does the seed understand the power that makes it burst from the darkness into day, or the child the force that thrusts it forth from the safety of the womb? That you should be willing is all I require…”

She opened her arms, and he stumbled into them. When he knew her as the Lady of Faerie there had always been a distance between them. But in the softness of the breast against which he lay there was a totality of welcome that made him weep. He felt himself a tiny child, cradled in soft arms, soothed by an ancient lullaby. His real mother was holding him. A memory he had repressed since infancy now recalled her white skin and bright hair, and for the first time in his conscious life he knew that she loved him…

And then he was standing once more, facing the Goddess, and Her third shape moved painfully forward to confront him. Her crown was made of bones.

“I am the Crone,” she said harshly, “the Ancient One, the Lady of Wisdom. I have seen everything, endured everything, given everything. I am Death, Gawen, without which nothing can be transformed. Will you take oath to me?”

I know about Death,
thought Gawen, remembering the empty, accusing stares of the men he had slain. Death had struck men down as a reaper scythes the harvest that day. What good could come from that? But even as he remembered, the image of sheaves of grain in the cornfields came to mind.

“If it has some meaning,” he said slowly, “even Death I will serve.”

“Embrace me…” said the Crone, as he stood staring.

Nothing in that bent figure attracted him. But he had sworn, and so he forced leaden feet to carry him toward her, to stand as her black veils stole vision, and her bony arms locked around him.

And then he felt nothing, only floated in a darkness in which, presently, he began to see stars. He stood in the void, and facing him he saw the woman, her veils floating around her, a beauty beyond youth in her eyes. It was Caillean, and it was someone else, whom, in ages past, he had served and loved. Bowing deeply, he saluted her.

And then, as before, he was himself again, trembling with reaction as he gazed at the priestesses, black and white and red. In the east, the sky was beginning to glow with the first blush of the coming dawn.

“You have sworn, and your oath has been accepted.” Once more, they spoke in unison. “One thing only remains, to call down the spirit of the Merlin, that he may make you priest and Druid, servant of the Mysteries.”

Gawen knelt with bowed head as they began to sing, waiting. It was at first a wordless music, note building on note until he felt his flesh tingling with the vibrations of that sound. Then came words, though they were not in any tongue he knew. But the need, the supplication, was clear.

Wise One,
he prayed,
come to us, if you will, come through me. For we badly need your wisdom here!

A choked sound from someone in the circle brought him upright, blinking at the blaze of light. At first he thought that the sun had risen and the Master of Wisdom had not come. But it was not the sun.

A pillar of radiance shimmered in the center of the circle. Gawen called forth his own light to protect him, and with altered vision saw the Spirit they had summoned, ancient and yet in his prime, leaning on the staff of his office, with the white beard of wisdom spilling across his breast and a circlet set with a shining stone upon his brow.

“Master, he has sworn,” cried Brannos. “Will you not accept him?”

The Merlin looked around the circle. “Accept him I shall, but it is not yet time for me to come among you.” His gaze came back to Gawen, and he smiled. “You have sworn, and taken the priesthood upon you, and yet you are no mage. In the crystal cave you Named yourself. Say, then, my son, by what Words you were freed?”

Gawen stared at him. He had always been told that what happened at such moments must be forever a secret between a man and his gods. But as he remembered what he had said, he began to see why these names, unlike all others, must be proclaimed.

“I am the Pendragon…” he whispered. “I am the Son of a Hundred Kings…”

A murmur of wonder rippled around the circle. The air grew brighter. The eastern sky was ablaze with golden banners and sunfire rimmed the hills. But that was not what they were looking at. Gawen felt upon his brow the shining weight of a golden diadem, and saw his body enveloped in a royal robe, embroidered and gemmed as no artist now living in the world could do.

“Pendragon! Pendragon!” the Druids cried, giving him the title of the Sacred King, who rules by the spirit, not the sword, the living link between the people and the land in which they dwell.

Gawen lifted his arms in acceptance and in salutation, and the sun rose before him, and glory filled the world.

They had told him to rest, but to lie on a bed of sheepskins, bathed and dressed in a tunic of embroidered linen, seemed scarcely more real than the ordeal he had endured. Gawen could not deny what had happened to him, but he did not begin to understand it. The Druids called him Pendragon, hailing him as a priest-king, like those who had ruled in the lands now drowned beneath the sea. But it seemed to him that the Vale of Avalon was a very small kingdom. Was he, like the Christos whom Father Joseph had called a king, to have a kingdom which was not of this world?

Perhaps, he thought as he sipped watered wine from the goblet they had set by his side, when this night was over he and Sianna would reign as king and queen in Faerie. The thought made his heart pound. He had not seen her since the ritual in the dawning. But tonight she would dance around the Beltane fire. And as a king he would walk among the revelers, with the power to choose any woman who might catch his eye. He knew already which one he wanted. Despite his time in the Army, since first he had seen Sianna there had never been any other girl he would have chosen for his first experience of a woman’s love.

He found himself growing ready even thinking about it. If things had gone according to plan, they would have come together a year ago, but he had deserted her. Had she waited? He had dreamed that she had, but he knew the pressures upon the priestesses to participate in the rites, and had not dared to ask. It did not matter. In spirit she was his. From across the waters of the marshes drifted a faint tremor of drums. Gawen felt his heart beating with them, and smiled even as his eyelids closed once more. Soon, it would be soon.

Next year, thought Caillean as she surveyed the dancers, they might have to move the celebration to the meadow at the foot of the Tor. In the open space beyond the stone circle there was hardly room for the Druids and the young priestesses, and marsh folk were still arriving, watching from the edge of the firelight with wondering dark eyes. It was amazing, really, how fast the word had been carried, but of course the old hunter who had been summoned to tattoo Gawen’s dragons would have told them.

The priestesses, of course, had known what had happened since this morning, when the Druids had come back down the hill with glory in their eyes. She thought she sensed a certain edge to the anticipation natural to the holiday, an intensity that had not been there before. Certainly they had taken extra pains with their hair and ornaments. Tonight the King would walk among them. Whom would he choose?

Caillean did not need to look into a silver bowl of water to know the answer. Even if he had not loved Sianna since they were children, since he had seen her as the Maiden Bride that morning, his heart would be full of her grace and beauty. The priests and priestesses of Avalon did not marry in the human way, but when they came together in the Great Rite they were the vehicles by which the Lord and the Lady were united. What was going to happen here tonight would be a royal wedding, and Gawen’s joining with Sianna would bless the land.

She had known that Gawen had been born to some great destiny, but who could have imagined this? Caillean smiled at her own enthusiasm. In her own way, she was as dazzled as any of the young priestesses, dreaming of Gawen and Sianna as sacred king and queen, who would rule the soul of Britannia from Avalon with herself behind them.

Two oxen had been purchased for the festival and roasted on spits at the bottom of the hill. Their meat was being carried up to the top in baskets, and the folk of the marshes had brought venison and waterfowl and dried fish as well. Heather beer in skin bags, and mead in jars of earthenware, made their own contribution to the merriment. And in the space between the crescent of feasters and the stone circle blazed the Beltane fire.

If she sighted southwest she could see the glow of the fire that had been lighted on the Dragon Hill there. She knew that from that place another fire would be visible, and another, all the way to Land’s End, just as the ley that led northeastward to the great circle of stones by the sacred hill was on this night marked by fire.

On this night,
she told herself with satisfaction,
on this night, all of Britannia is webbed with light that even the once-born without spirit sight can see!

A maiden of the marsh folk, her cloud of black hair bound back with a wreath of eglantine, knelt before the priestess with shy grace, offering a basket of dried berries preserved in honey. Caillean pushed back the blue veil from her brow and took some, smiling. The girl, glimpsing the silver crescent that gleamed above the smaller half-moon tattooed on the priestess’s brow, made a sign of reverence and looked quickly away.

When she had gone, the High Priestess left her face uncovered. This was a night of festival, when the doors opened between the worlds and the spirit swung free. There was no need for mystery. The veil was only a symbol anyhow-Caillean knew how to draw an illusion of shadow across her features when there was need. The maidens they were training were convinced that she, like the Faerie Queen, could appear out of thin air.

To the sound of the drum that had pulsed like a heartbeat beneath the sounds of celebration was added suddenly a ripple of harpsong. One of the young Druids had carried his lap harp to the top of the Tor. Now he sat cross-legged beside the little dark drummer, fair head cocked to one side as he listened for the rhythm. In another moment the bittersweet bray of a cowhorn pipe joined the music, leaping about the chiming chords of the harp like a young calf in a field of flowers.

The girl with the eglantine wreath began to move to the music, arms twining, slim hips shifting beneath the doeskin garment she wore. Hesitantly at first, and then with more abandon, Dica and Lysanda joined her. The drumming quickened, and soon their brows shone with perspiration and the thin blue stuff of their tunicas began to cling. How beautiful they were, thought Caillean, watching. Even she found herself swaying to the music, and it had been many years since she had danced at a festival.

It was a change in the pattern of the dancing that alerted her, a ripple of motion like the shift in the current when a man steps into a stream. Dancers swayed aside, turning, and Caillean glimpsed Gawen. He wore the white kilt of a king, belted in gold. A royal medallion of ancient workmanship lay on his breast, and green oak leaves formed his crown.

Besides those, only the blue serpents etched into his forearms adorned him. But he needed nothing else. Those months of Roman training had sculpted his upper body and put hard muscle on his calves and thighs. More than that, the last youthful softness had been honed from his features; the good bones defined his face, everything in balance now. The boy whom she had loved and feared for was gone. This was a man.

And, she thought, seeing the radiance that glimmered about him, this was a king. Did she want him? Caillean knew that she still had the power to wrap herself in a glamour beside which even Sianna’s radiant youth would pale. But if, as she suspected, the tie between them was a thing of the soul forged in ages past, Gawen would choose his true mate even if she appeared a hag. In any case, Sianna was young, and she could give Gawen a child, as Caillean, for all her wisdom and all her magic, could never do now.

He is not the beloved of my soul,
she thought with a touch of sorrow.
The soul of the man who should be my mate is not incarnate in a body now.
Her attraction was only a natural response to the overwhelming male magnetism of the King and the power of the Beltane fires. On this night Gawen was everyone’s beloved-male or female, old or young.

Was this how Eilan had seen the boy’s father when he came to her beside the Beltane fire? Gawen was taller than Gaius had been, and though the proud arch of his nose was all Roman, it seemed to her he had something of Eilan in the set of his eyes. But in truth, at this moment Gawen did not really resemble either parent, but someone else whom she had known, in other lifetimes, long ago.

“The Year-King,” ran the whisper as he moved among the dancers, and Caillean repressed a pang of foreboding. This boy’s father had claimed that title before he died. But Gawen bore the sacred serpents. He was not merely the Year-King, who for one cycle of the seasons is honored and then, if the times require it, is sacrificed, but the Pendragon, who serves the land as long as he lives.

The maidens clustered around him and drew him into the dance. She saw him laughing, taking a girl by the hands and swinging her around, then leaving her breathless and laughing while he moved to another, clasping her in a brief embrace, and sending her spinning into the arms of one of the young men. They danced until everyone but Gawen, who seemed ready to go on all night, was gasping. Then he allowed them to lead him to a seat, covered with soft deerskins like the one on which Caillean was sitting, on the other side of the fire.

They brought him food and drink. The drumming ceased, and only the sweet trilling of a bone flute continued to ornament the babble of talk and laughter. Caillean drank watered wine and surveyed the gathering with a benign smile.

It was the return of the drum, soft and steady as a heartbeat, that made her turn.

The drummer, a man of the marshes himself, must have known what was coming, but Caillean frowned, wondering what Waterwalker and the ancient who walked with him were intending now. Nothing hostile-beyond the sheathed knives at their belts they were unarmed-but something more serious, or perhaps she meant solemn, than the playful abandon of the festival. Three younger men escorted them, watching Gawen with shining eyes. What were they carrying? She got to her feet and moved softly around the fire so that she could see.

“You are king.” In Waterwalker’s guttural tones it was a statement, not a question. His gaze flickered to the dragons on Gawen’s arms. “Like the old ones who come from the sea. We remember.” The elders nodded. “We remember the old tales.”

“It is so,” said Gawen, and Caillean knew that he was seeing former lives that his initiation had allowed him to remember. “I have come once more.”

“Then we give you this,” said the old man. “From a fallen star our first smiths forge it-oh, long ago. And when it is broken, a sorcerer of your people made it whole. In that time, lord, you use it to protect us, and when you die, we hid it away.” He held out the bundle he had been carrying, a long shape swathed in wrappings of painted hide.

A silence fell as Gawen accepted it. Caillean could hear the pounding of her heart, heavy and slow. Within the wrappings, as her own returning memories had told her it must be, lay a sword.

It was a long, dark blade, about the size of a Roman cavalry sword, with the leaf shape she remembered from the bronze blades the Druids used in ritual. But no bronze ever had that mirror sheen.
Star metal…
She had heard of such blades but never seen one. Who would have thought the marsh folk had such a treasure in their keeping? It did not do to forget that, though they might be humble, their tribe was very old.

“I remember…” Gawen said softly. The hilt fitted his hand as if it had been tailored to his palm. He lifted the sword, and flickers of reflected firelight danced across the faces of those gathered around him.

“Then you take it, to defend us,” said Waterwalker. “Swear!”

The sword swung upward with weightless ease. The boy Gawen had been would have dropped it. A deft twist of the wrist sent it slicing the air. How strange, thought Caillean, that it was the Romans who had trained him to become a protector of those whom they themselves oppressed.

“I have sworn to serve the Lady,” Gawen said softly. “Now I swear to you also, and to the Land.” He turned the blade and drew the edge across the fleshy part of his hand. It did not take much pressure-the thing was serpent-sharp-and in a moment dark blood welled along the cut and began to drip onto the ground. “For this life, and this body,” he went on. “And as for my spirit, I renew the oath I swore before…”

Caillean shivered. What memories
had
the lad recovered when he was in the hill? With luck, they would wear away as time went on. It could be hard to live normally if one remembered one’s past lives too well.

“In life and death, lord, we serve you.” Waterwalker touched his finger to the blood on the ground and then brought it to his forehead, leaving a red smear on his brow. The other young men did the same, then ranged themselves around Gawen like a guard of honor, two to either side. The young Druids who were watching looked rather bemused, as well they might, trying to understand this transformation of one who had been a boy among them until the year before.

Caillean glanced upward. The stars were wheeling toward midnight, and the fire was beginning to burn low. The astral tides were turning; the time for the working of the deepest magics was near.

“Where is Sianna?” Gawen asked softly. Caillean realized that even before they brought him the sword he had been scanning the crowd.

“Go into the circle. Call your bride, and she will come.”