Lady of Avalon (38 page)

“I am not frightened. I am angry!” hissed Viviane.

“Then why are you shaking so hard you can hardly hold on to my hand?” The fair girl laughed. “Truly, there is nothing to fear. The Lady does not bite. She does not even bark much if you are careful to do what she says. A time will come, believe me, when you will be glad you are here.”

Viviane shook her head, thinking,
If my mother showed her anger, I might believe she loved me…

“And she always lets us ask questions. She is impatient sometimes, but you should never show that you are afraid of her-it makes her very cross. And you should never let her see you cry.”

I have started well, then, with my defiance,
thought Viviane. When she thought about her mother on the way here, this was not how she imagined their reunion would be.

“Had you ever seen her before?”

“She is my mother,” said Viviane, momentarily enjoying the girl’s consternation. “But I am sure you know her better than I do-I have not seen her since I was very small.”

“I wonder that she did not tell us!” exclaimed Rowan. “But perhaps she thought we would treat you differently. Or perhaps it is because we are all, in a sense, her children. There are four of us novices now,” the girl chattered on, “you and me and Fianna and Nella. We will sleep together in the House of Maidens.”

They had reached the building. Rowan helped her strip off her travel-stained clothing and wash. By this time Viviane had no regrets for the clothing of the world. She would have happily donned a sack, as long as it was clean and dry. But the gown into which Rowan bundled her was of thickly woven oatmeal-colored wool, and the cloak of grey wool, pinned around her shoulders, both soft and warm.

When they came to the hall, they found that the Lady had changed as well. All traces of the old woman were gone. She stood up now in a robe and mantle of dark blue, and a garland of autumn berries rested on her brow. This time, as Viviane looked into those dark eyes, she recognized, not the mother she remembered, but the face she saw when she herself looked into a forest pool.

“Maiden, why have you come to Avalon?”

“Because you sent for me,” said the girl. She saw her mother’s eyes darken with anger, but remembered what Rowan had said and faced her boldly. The ripple of nervous laughter that had started among the girls who stood behind her faded at the Lady’s glance.

“Do you seek admission among the priestesses of Avalon of your own free will?” the Lady said tightly, holding her gaze.

This is important,
thought Viviane.
She could order Taliesin all the way to Mona to fetch me, but he cannot compel me to stay here, nor can she, for all her power. She needs me, and she knows it.
For a moment, she was tempted to refuse.

In the end she decided to stay neither from love for her mother nor out of fear, nor even from the thought of the cold world outside, but because, during that journey across the lake and earlier, traveling with Taliesin, senses that had been dormant while she lived on the farm had begun to awaken. When her mother brought them through the mists, Viviane had tasted the magic that was her heritage, and she wanted more.

“For whatever reason I came, I wish to stay here-of my own free will,” she said clearly.

“Then I accept you in the name of the Goddess. Henceforth you are consecrated to Avalon.” And for the first time since she had arrived, her mother took Viviane into her arms.

The rest of that evening was a blur to her-the admonitions to hold all the women of the community as her kin, and the names by which they were introduced to her; her own promise to remain pure. The food was simple but well prepared, and, exhausted as she was, the warmth of the fire had sent her half to sleep before the meal was done. Laughing, the other girls bore her along with them to the House of Maidens, showed her a bed, and gave her a linen shift that smelled of lavender to wear.

But she did not fall asleep immediately. The bed was strange to her, as was the breathing of the other maidens, and the way the building creaked in the wind. Like a waking dream, all that had happened since Taliesin came riding up to her foster-parents’ farm passed through her memory.

In the next bed she could hear Rowan turning. Softly she called her name.

“What is it? Are you cold?”

“No.”
Not in body,
thought Viviane. “I wanted to ask you-for you have been here for some time-what happened to Anara? How did my sister die?”

There was a long silence, and then, finally, a sigh.

“We only heard whispers,” said Rowan. “I don’t know for sure. But…she finished her training, and they sent her out beyond the mists to make her own way back. More than that, perhaps even the Lady does not know. And you must not say I told you-since then Anara’s name has not been spoken. I only heard that when she did not return they went out searching, and found her floating in the marshes, drowned…”

“Four Treasures there are that have been guarded at Avalon since the Romans came to this land,” said the bard. “Do you know what they are, and why they are held holy?”

The four novices were sitting together on the grass, their cropped heads tilted as they listened, fair and red and dark and brown. Their hair had been cut for convenience, as was customary in the summer. Viviane had protested, for her hair had been her chief beauty, glossy and thick as a horse’s mane. But if the girl cried, she had done so only when she was alone.

The fair girl, Rowan, was lifting her hand. “One of them is the Sword of the Mysteries, is it not? The blade borne by Gawen, who was one of the ancient kings?”

“Gawen bore it, but it is far older, forged from the fire of heaven…” The bard’s voice took on the cadence of poetry as he recounted the legend.

Viviane sat with a rapt face, listening. Ana had thought of telling her that the hair-cutting had not been meant as a punishment. But the Lady of Avalon did not explain her actions, and she would do the child no favor if she coddled her. Her breath caught as a vision of Anara’s pale face beneath the water, her hair tangled in the reeds, superimposed itself upon Viviane’s. Once more she told herself that Anara had died because she was a weakling. For her own sake, Viviane must do and suffer whatever was necessary to make her strong.

“And what are the other Treasures?” Taliesin was asking now.

“There is a Spear, I think,” said Fianna, sun gleaming on her autumn-colored hair.

“And a Platter,” added Nella, as tall as Viviane, though she was younger, with a tangled mop of brown curls.

“And the Cup,” Viviane added in a whisper, “which they say is the same as the Cauldron of Ceridwen, and the Grail that Arianrhod kept in her temple of crystal, all set about with pearls.”

“It is all of those things, for it contains them, as it both
is
and contains the holy water of the well. And yet, if you were to look upon them unprepared, they might seem no different from any other such gear-and that is to teach us that there can be great holiness even in the things of everyday. But if you touched them”-he shook his head-“that would be another matter, for it is death to touch the Mysteries unprepared. And that is why we keep them hidden away.”

“Where?” asked Viviane, her gaze sharpening. With what, wondered her mother-curiosity, or reverence, or desire for power?

“That also is one of the Mysteries,” Taliesin answered, “that only those initiates know who are called to be their guardians.”

Viviane sat back, her eyes narrowing, as he went on.

“For you, it is enough to know what the Treasures are, and what they mean. We are taught that the Symbol is nothing and the Reality is all-and the reality that these symbols contain is that of the four elements from which all things are made-Earth, and Water, and Air, and Fire.”

“But haven’t you told us symbols are important?” said Viviane. “We talk about the elements but we can’t really understand them. Symbols are what our minds use to make magic-”

Taliesin looked at the girl with a smile of peculiar sweetness, and Ana felt an unexpected pang.
She is too eager,
she told herself.
She must be tested!

She saw Viviane shiver, and then turn, and, despite the glamour, the girl saw her mother standing there. Ana returned her gaze coldly; and after a moment Viviane flushed and looked away.

The Lady turned then herself and passed swiftly back through the trees.
I am in my thirty-sixth year,
she thought,
and still fertile. I can make more daughters. But until I do, that girl is my only child, and the hope of Avalon.

Viviane sat on her heels, rubbing the small of her back. Behind her the scrubbed stones of the path steamed gently; before her the dry stones lay waiting. Her knees hurt too, and her hands were red and chapped from constant immersion. As they dried, the stones she had finished looked just like the ones ahead of her, which was not surprising, since this was the third time they had been washed.

The first time was understandable, since the cows had strayed from their pasture and fouled the path. And there had been justice in assigning Viviane to do the cleaning, since she had been herding the cows at the time.

But the second and third scrubbings were unnecessary. She was not afraid of hard work-she had been accustomed to work on her foster-father’s farm-but what was the spiritual significance of repeating a job she had done carefully and well? Or of herding cattle, for that matter, which she could have done at home?

They would have her believe that Avalon was now her home, she thought sullenly as she dipped the brush into the pail and made a careless swipe across the next stone. But a home was where you were loved and welcome… The Lady had made it perfectly clear that she had brought her daughter to Avalon not out of love but from necessity. And Viviane reacted by doing what was asked of her sullenly and without joy.

It might have been different, she told herself as she went on to another stone, if she had been learning magic. But that was for the senior students. The novices got only children’s tales and the privilege of acting as serving maids for the community. And she couldn’t even run away! Occasionally one of the older maidens would attend upon the Lady when she traveled, but the younger girls never left Avalon. If Viviane tried, she would only lose herself in the mists, to wander until she drowned in the marshes as her sister had done.

Perhaps, if she begged him, Taliesin would take her away. She believed that he loved her. But he was the Lady’s creature-would he risk her wrath for a daughter who might not even be his own? In the year and three-quarters since she had been here, Viviane had seen her mother truly angry only once, when Ana learned that the High King had put aside his wife, a woman trained in Avalon, and taken the daughter of the Saxon Hengest as his bride. With the true target out of reach in Londinium, there had been no outlet for the Lady’s fury at the insult to Avalon, and the atmosphere of the isle had throbbed with such tension Viviane had been astonished to look up and see the sky still blue. Clearly what her teachers said about the necessity for an adept to control his or her emotions was true.

I will just have to outwait her,
Viviane told herself as she inched forward.
I have time. And when I reach the age for initiation and they send me through the mists, I will simply walk away from here…

The sun was setting, turning the clouds to banners of gold, and the air had the hush that comes when the world is poised between night and day. Viviane realized that she would have to hurry to be done before dinnertime. And the water was almost gone. She pushed herself to her feet and started down the path, the pail clanking by her side, to get more.

An ancient stone chamber surrounded the well shaft, which was only uncovered for certain ceremonies. A channel led the water to the Mirror Pool, into which the priestesses looked when they wished to see the future, and from there the overflow was diverted around through the trees to a trough from which it might be drawn for drinking or for other purposes, such as scrubbing the stones.

When Viviane passed the Mirror Pool, she found her steps lagging. As Taliesin had taught her, it was the Reality, not the symbol, that mattered, and the reality was that the water in the trough was exactly the same as the water in the Pool. She looked around her.

Time was passing, and there was no one to see… Viviane took a quick step sideways and bent to dip her bucket in.

The Pool was full of fire.

The bucket slipped from her grasp and clattered over the stones, but Viviane sank to her knees, staring. She clung to the rim of the Pool, whimpering at the images she saw there, unable to look away.

A city was burning. Red flames licked at the houses, shooting up in tongues of gold when they seized some new source of fuel, and a great pillar of black smoke stained the sky. Figures were moving, black against the brightness, carrying goods out of the burning houses. For a moment she thought the people were trying to save their possessions; then she saw the flare of a sword. A man fell, blood spouting from his neck, and his murderer laughed and tossed the casket he had been carrying onto a blanket where more such fragments of people’s lives were already piled.

Bodies lay in the streets; in an upper window she saw a face, its mouth opening in a silent scream. But the fair-haired barbarians were everywhere, laughing as they slew. Vision recoiled, expanded to take in a wider scene; on the roads that led out of the city people were fleeing, some of them with animals to draw the carts that held their possessions, others pulling the carts themselves, or dragging bundles, or, worse still, staggering onward with nothing, even their eyes emptied of sense by the horrors they had seen.

She had seen the name “Venta” on an overturned stone, but the broad lands that surrounded the city were flat and marshy; this was not the Venta of the Silures. What she was seeing must lie far to the east-the capital of the old Iceni lands. Her mind clung to such calculations, seeking to distance itself from what she had seen.

But the vision would not release her. She saw the great city of Camulodunum with its gate in flames, and many another Roman town shattered and burning. Saxon rams battered down walls and smashed gateways. Ravens hopped aside as bands of plunderers swaggered down deserted streets, then returned to feast on the unburied bodies once more. A mangy dog, grinning triumphantly, trotted across the forum with a severed human hand in its jaws.

In the countryside the destruction was less complete, but terror swept the land clean with its dark wing. She saw the folk of isolated villas bury their silver and make their way westward, trampling the ripening grain. The whole world, it seemed, was fleeing the Saxon wolves.

Fire and blood ran together in crimson swirls as her eyes filled; she sobbed, but she could not look away. And gradually she became aware that someone was speaking, had been speaking for a long time.

“Breathe deeply… That is well… What you see is distant, it cannot harm you… Breathe in and out, and calm yourself, and tell me what you see…”

Viviane released her breath in a shuddering sigh, took the next more easily, and blinked away the tears. The vision still held her, but now it was as if she were seeing pictures in a dream. Her consciousness floated somewhere outside her body; she was aware, without much caring, that someone was asking her questions and her own voice was answering.

“I suppose the girl is truthful? There is no possibility that she was hysterical or making this up to get attention?” asked old Nectan, Arch-Druid and chief of the Druids of Avalon.

Ana smiled sardonically. “Do not comfort yourself with the thought that I am protecting my daughter. The priestesses will tell you I have shown her no favor, and I would kill her with my own hands if I thought she had profaned the Mysteries. But what purpose in inventing such a tale unless she had an audience? Viviane was alone until her friend wondered why she had not come in to dinner and went to look for her. By the time I was called, she was deep in trance, and I think you will admit that I must know the difference between true vision and playacting.”

“Deep in trance,” echoed Taliesin, “but she does not yet have the training!”

“True. And it took all of mine to bring her back again!”

“And after that, you continued to question her?” asked the bard.

“When the Goddess sends a vision so sudden and overwhelming, it must be accepted. We dared not refuse the warning,” said the Lady, repressing her own unease. “In any case, the damage was done. All we could do was to learn as much as possible, and tend the girl after-”

“Will she be all right?” asked Taliesin. His face had lost all color, and Ana frowned. She had not realized he was so fond of the girl.

“Viviane is resting. I do not think you need to worry-she comes of a tough breed,” Ana said dryly. “She will be sore when she awakens, but if she remembers anything it will seem distant as a dream.”

Nectan coughed. “Very well. If this was a true vision, then what must we do?”

“The first thing I have done already, which is to send a messenger to Vortigern. It is now high summer, and the girl saw fields ready for harvest. If the warning comes now, he will have a little time.”

“If he will use it,” Julia, one of the senior priestesses, said dubiously. “But that Saxon witch leads him about by his-” At Ana’s expression she fell silent.

“Even if Vortigern mustered his whole houseguard and rode against Hengest he could do little,” Taliesin put in quickly. “The barbarian numbers are now too great. What are the words you have told us Viviane cried out at the end?”

“The Eagles have flown forever. Now the White Dragon arises and devours the land…”
whispered Ana, shivering.

“It is the disaster we feared,” said Talenos, a younger Druid, heavily, “the doom we hoped would never come to be!”

“And what, besides wailing and beating our breasts like the Christians, do you suggest we do?” Ana asked acidly. It was as bad as he had said and more, she thought, remembering the horror in Viviane’s words-and her belly had been too tense for her to eat since she had heard them. But she must not let them see that she was sick with fear.