Lady of Avalon (39 page)

“What can we do?” asked Elen, oldest of the priestesses. “Avalon was set apart to be a refuge; since the time of Carausius we have kept it secret. We must wait until the fire burns itself out around us. At least we will be safe here…” The others looked at her in scornand, confused, she fell silent.

“We must pray to the Goddess to help us,” said Julia.

“It is not enough.” Taliesin shook his head. “If the King is unable, or unwilling, to sacrifice himself for the people, then it is for the Merlin of Britannia to do so.”

“But we don’t have-” started Nectan, his ruddy cheeks paling, and Ana, despite the first twinge of alarm as she guessed where Taliesin was heading, felt a bitter amusement at the old priest’s obvious fear that they would expect
him
to take on the role.

“-a Merlin,” finished Taliesin. “Nor have we had a priest to hold that title since the Romans first invaded Britannia, when he died so that Caractacus could fight on.”

“The Merlin is one of the masters, a radiant soul who has refused to ascend beyond this sphere so that he can continue to watch over us,” said Nectan, settling back onto his bench. “To incarnate again would diminish him. We may pray for his guidance, but we must not ask him to walk among us once more.”

“Even if that is the only thing that might save us?” asked Taliesin. “If he is so enlightened, then he will know whether it is right to refuse. But it is certain he will not come unless we ask!”

Julia leaned forward. “It did not work in the time of Caractacus. The King for whom the Merlin died was captured, and the Romans slew the Druids on the holy isle.”

Nectan nodded. “And though that was a disaster, the Romans who conquered are the very people whose destruction we are lamenting now! Is it not possible that one day we will live as peacefully with these Saxons as we have lived with Rome?”

The others all looked at him, and he in turn became silent.

The Romans, thought Ana, had possessed a civilization as well as an army. The Saxons were little better than the wild wolves of the hills.

“Even if he were born tomorrow,” she said aloud, “it might be too late by the time he became a man.”

“There is another way that I have heard of,” said Taliesin in a low voice, “when a living man opens his soul to let the Other in-”

“No!” Fear made her voice a lash to strike him. “In the name of the Goddess I forbid it! I don’t want the Merlin-I want you, yourself, here!” She held his gaze with her own, summoning all her power, and after an agonizing interval that seemed to go on forever, saw the hero-light in his grey eyes dim.

“The Lady of Avalon has spoken, and I obey,” he murmured. “But I will tell you this.” He looked up at her. “In the end, there will be a sacrifice.”

Viviane lay in her bed in the House of Maidens, watching dust motes dance in a last ray of sun that slanted past the curtain across the door. She felt bruised inside and out. The older priestesses had told her this was because she had been unprepared for her vision. Her body, tensing in resistance, had set one muscle against another until it was a wonder she had no broken bones. Her mind had been drawn into that other reality. If her mother had not opened her own mind and reached out to find her, she could have been lost.

To Viviane, that was the greatest wonder, that her mother had been willing to run such a risk, and that her own spirit had accepted the other woman’s touch without fear. Perhaps the Lady had only wanted to hear the vision, said the other part of Viviane’s mind that was always doubting. Nonetheless, there was something in Ana’s mind that her daughter’s had apparently recognized. Viviane suspected they were more alike than either would have liked to admit. Perhaps, she thought smiling, this was why it was so hard for them to get along.

But the Lady of Avalon was a trained priestess. Viviane might have all her mother’s talent and more, but unless she learned to use it she would be a danger to herself and everyone around her.

This experience had sobered her more effectively than any punishment her mother might impose. And she had to admit that she deserved it. True, the winter after she arrived had been one of the hardest in memory; the ice that had been an illusion at Samhain had frozen the lake by midwinter, and the marsh folk had brought food to them on sledges pulled across the ice and snow. For a time, they had all been too concerned with survival to think much about training. But since then, Viviane had been mostly going through the motions, almost daring her mother to make her learn.

The door curtain moved, and she smelled something that made her mouth water. Rowan made her way past the beds and set the covered tray she was carrying on a bench with a smile.

“You have slept a whole night and all the day again. You must be hungry!”

“I am,” answered Viviane, wincing as she pulled herself up on one elbow. Rowan pulled back the cloth, revealing a bowl of stew, and Viviane spooned it up eagerly. There were bits of meat in it, which surprised her, for the priestesses in training were mostly kept on a light diet to purify their bodies and increase their sensitivity. No doubt her seniors felt that more sensitivity was the last thing she needed just now.

But, hungry as she was, she found that her stomach refused to accept any more than half the bowl. She lay back with a sigh.

“Will you sleep now?” asked Rowan. “I must say, you look as if you had been beaten all over with sticks.”

“I feel like it too, and I want to rest, but I am afraid I will have nightmares.”

Rowan’s gaze became avid, and she leaned closer. “In the hall they would only say you had seen some disaster. What was it? What did you see?”

Viviane stared up at her, shuddering, even the simple question conjuring back the images of horror. They heard voices outside the door, and the other girl straightened. Viviane sighed in relief as the curtain was pushed aside and the Lady of Avalon came in.

“I see that you have been cared for,” Ana said coolly as Rowan made a quick reverence and scurried away.

“Thank you…for bringing me back,” said Viviane. There was an uncomfortable silence, but it seemed to her there was a little more color in her mother’s cheeks than there had been before.

“I am not…a maternal woman,” Ana said with some difficulty, “which is probably just as well, since I must put the obligations of the priestess ahead of those of the mother. As your priestess, I would have done the same. But I am pleased to see you recovering.”

Viviane blinked. It was not much-certainly not the kind of speech she had dreamed of when as a child she had wondered about her mother. But Ana had given her more kindness just now than in the almost two years she had been here. Dared she ask for just a little more?

“I am better, but I am afraid to sleep again… If Taliesin could play his harp, it would give me better dreams.”

For a moment her mother looked angry. Then some new thought seemed to cross her mind, and she nodded.

When, later that evening, the bard came to sit by her side, he too looked anxious and strained. Viviane asked what was wrong, but he would only smile and say that she had had enough troubles for one day and he would not burden her with his own. And there was no sorrow in the music he drew from the harp’s shining strings; when sleep claimed her, it was deep and without dreams.

The year that followed proved Viviane a true prophet. It gave her a certain standing among the priestesses, but she would far rather have endured their scorn, for the news that began to reach them with the harvest, though insulated by distance, was as bad as it could be. Hengest the Saxon, complaining that Vortigern had not delivered the promised payments, had fallen upon the cities of Britannia with fire and sword. In a few short months all the south and east were devastated, and refugees streamed into the west country.

Numerous though they were, the Saxons had not the force to occupy the entire island. Cantium was in the grip of Hengest; the Trinovante territories north of the Tamesis were the hunting grounds of the East Seax; and the Iceni lands were firmly held by their Anglian allies. Elsewhere, the raiders struck and retreated again. But the Britons who fled did not return to their homes, for how could they make a living when there were no markets in which to sell their produce and their wares? The conquered lands were like a sore on the body of Britannia, and the nearby places grew numb even before the fever reached them.

Farther to the west, life continued more or less unaffected, except for the fear. In Avalon, separated from the world, the priestesses found it hard to enjoy their safety. From time to time, some refugee wandering in the marshes would be found by the little folk. Those who were Christian were sheltered by the monks on their isle, but several of the others came to Avalon.

The High King, despite his Saxon wife, did not sit idle. Little by little, they began to hear how Vortigern had held Londinium, and how his sons were attempting to rally the people and take back their lands, calling for men and support from the undamaged lands of Britannia.

In the spring of the following year, when Viviane was seventeen, one of the marsh folk came through the mists with a different message. The son of the High King had come to seek the aid of Avalon.

In the House of Maidens, the girls had huddled together with all their blankets, for it was early spring, and still cold.

“But did you
see
him?” whispered little Mandua, who had come to them the summer before. “Is he handsome?”

The girl was young but precocious, and Viviane did not think she would last here long enough to be made a priestess of Avalon. But, then, she herself was still a novice, and though she was not the tallest, she was the oldest of them all. Only her friend Rowan remained of the girls who had been here when she arrived.

“All princes are handsome, just as all princesses are beautiful,” said Rowan, laughing. “It is part of the job.”

“Was not this one once married to your sister?” asked Claudia, who had been a refugee of good family from Cantium, though she never spoke of it now.

Viviane shook her head. “My sister Idris was the wife of Categirn, Vortigern’s older son. This is the younger one, Vortimer.” She had caught a glimpse of him as he came in, thin, as dark of hair as she was herself, but taller. Still, she had thought he looked absurdly young to be carrying a sword, until she saw his eyes.

The wooden winter-door at the end of the hall was pulled open, and they all turned. “Viviane,” came the voice of one of the elder priestesses, “your mother wants you. Come, and wear your ceremonial robe.”

Viviane stood up, wondering what on earth this could mean. Five pairs of rounded eyes watched as she settled her cloak around her shoulders, but no one dared to say a word. Would she still be a maiden, she wondered, when she returned? She had heard tales of magics that required such an offering. The idea made her shiver, but at least if it happened they would have to make her a priestess.

The Lady was waiting with the others in the Great Hall, already robed in the crimson garments of the Mother, while old Elen, swathed in black, was clearly the priestess who had been chosen to take the part of the Crone. Nectan wore black as well, and Taliesin was resplendent in scarlet. But no one there matched her white.
It is the Prince we are waiting for,
she thought then, beginning to understand.

Her mother turned, though Viviane had heard nothing, and told her to put on her veil. Prince Vortimer came in, shivering in a white woolen tunic borrowed from one of the young Druids. His gaze fixed on the Lady of Avalon, and he bowed.

Are you frightened? You should be.
Viviane smiled behind her veil as, without a word, the Lady led them from the hall. But as they started up the path to the Tor, she realized that she was frightened too.

Tonight the moon was still a maiden, her shining bow already arching westward as the world turned toward midnight.
Like me,
thought Viviane as she gazed upward. She shivered, for the torches they had set to either side of the altar gave out no heat, and only a fitful light. She took a deep breath as she had been taught, willing her body to ignore the chill air.

“Vortimer, son of Vortigern”-the Lady spoke softly, but her voice filled the circle-“why have you come here?”

The other two priests moved forward, escorting the Prince so that he faced the Lady across the altar stone. From her place at her mother’s shoulder Viviane saw his eyes widen, and knew he was seeing not the little dark woman who was her mother, but the tall and stately High Priestess of Avalon.

Vortimer swallowed, but managed to speak steadily when he replied.

“I have come for Britannia. The wolves tear at her body, and the priests of the Christians can do nothing but tell us that we are suffering for our sins. But there is no sin in the little children burned in their houses, or the babe whose head is smashed against the stones. I have seen these things, my Lady, and I burn to avenge them. I call on the old gods, the ancient protectors of my people, for aid!”

“You speak well, but their gifts are not given without a price,” said the High Priestess. “We serve the Great Goddess, who is nameless, and yet called by many names, and though formless, yet has many faces. If you come to dedicate your life to Her service, then perhaps She will hear your call.”

“My mother was trained on this holy isle, and brought me up to love the old ways. I am willing to give whatever is required for the favor of Avalon.”