Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (19 page)

“You know you are a seer and can see into a person’s life. It is a gift from your mother. All the women in our line have a gift. Some are powerful queens and warriors; some have great beauty—like your mother. And some have special gifts of prophecy or visions—like me, and now you. You have seen it. Accept it.”

Sabrann shook her head as she looked at Rosmerta in horror.

“Don’t be afraid. You will come with me to the Isle of Sena and serve Brigantu with this gift. The goddess Brigantu always knows who can bear the weight of seeing into the unknown. I will help you learn her ways, for your gifts are powerful and need guidance.”

“No! I will not be slave to anyone,” Sabrann cried.

A deep voice then filled the chamber and echoed Sabrann’s.

“No, Rosmerta!”

Cathbad ap Durot was a tall man, powerfully built, like the warrior he once was, and his presence filled the small chamber. Rosmerta’s attendants moved away, backs against the walls, leaving Sabrann weeping, as she lay on the stone table.

“She is a daughter of the clan of Durot. I told you last night. She belongs here. With me.” His voice was harsh, sharp. “Now, what have you done?”

“Look,
Lord
Cathbad,” Rosmerta replied scornfully, holding Sabrann’s head up for him to see. “I have taken her for
my
own. She is marked for Brigantu. She will never forget who she is now. The prophecy will not be denied.”

The Druid’s eyes grew wide, then narrowed. His voice lowered to an ominous tone, rage in each word he spoke.

“It did not say she was to be a prophet of Brigantu. Her life is here. She will not be your tool, and I will fight you, Rosmerta. A curse on your goddess and a curse on the prophecy!”

With a swirl of his cloak, he turned and pointed his arm toward the chamber. A blue ball of light spun from his fingers and extinguished the pine torch, turning the room pitch black and all in it unconscious.

When Rosmerta awakened, the stone chamber was dark and still. She lit a torch with her own magic. Sabrann and the Druid were gone.

Outside, far above Rosmerta’s head, a strong west wind picked up and a driving rain poured hard over the ancient mound of the long dead. The New Year had begun. The season of cold and death approached and the gods were awake, watching.

“Well, Cathbad, my fine Druid,” she whispered. “You will see. My need is greater, and I will have her. Now she is marked. This prophecy cannot be forsaken, even by such as you.”

CHAPTER 12

Four years later

464 BC

“
S
abrann”
... Someone called her. It was soft, a whisper.

She lay perfectly still, listening. Maigrid? She turned in her bed and slowly looked around the great roundhouse—at the drawn curtain where Culain and Maigrid slept, past Maigrid’s loom standing by the door, at the cooking hearth with its cauldron suspended from the roof by a chain, to the place where Glas lay sleeping. Nothing moved. No one was awake. She heard the soft breathing of Glas, and Culain’s heavy nasal sound. Maigrid never made any sounds. What then? All her senses were alert.

She rose up from her warm covers, a slender shadow in the dim light of dawn. Shivering, she silently slipped on her clothes and a leather belt with her hunting pouch and knife—just to be safe. A necklace of small amber beads that she never took off circled her neck. She reached under the bed covers for the leather thong she always wore, holding her most precious things—a small bag, and her protective amulets. As she dropped it over her head she looked over at Glas’s bed again. Now, he was awake. His open eyes, pale and colorless in the gray light, peered over his heavy, woolen blanket. Sabrann raised a finger to her lips and shook her head so he would not make any sound.

Her fingertips brushed the small, wooden statue of the three mother goddesses, sitting on a small box by her bed.
Matrones ... Guard me.
Her days started and ended with this sacred touch. Their spirits lived in her heart and protected her.

Slipping past her sleeping family, she lit a small brand from the last coals of the fire and cupped her hand around the flame. A light always discouraged nocturnal predators and that might be what had awakened her.

She cracked open the door of the roundhouse, and slipped through it, like a hunter’s fleeting shadow, seen one second and then gone. Cautious, she stood motionless in the entryway outside the door and delicately sniffed the air, every part of her body alert to danger and the unknown something that called to her.

Only familiar scents filled the air: rosemary from Maigrid’s garden, fresh rain far-off, a whiff of charcoal from Culain’s forge. Then she heard a dry rustle, a faint swish, like something moving through tall grass. A night bird trilled a warning. She lifted the final barrier, a hide curtain that protected the door from rain and wind. And there it was.

A deer stood motionless by the stone water trough, looking at her, as though it waited there just for her.

Sabrann held her breath. She had seen it before, but never this close. The light from her small firebrand reflected in its luminous, brown eyes, glinting with green and gold flecks. Its long, curved eyelashes were dark, tipped in gold. The slender neck shone with a coppery sheen on dark red hair.

She knew this deer. She had watched it feeding by the edge of the fields throughout the summer and felt drawn to it. It had watched her, too. The deer always stopped grazing and looked straight at her, then slipped away.

A red deer. Cathbad said they were magical beings that came from the Otherworld of the dead to guide the living into the realms of the gods. To her, it didn’t seem magical—just a beautiful creature that had stayed close by the farm all summer. But she knew magic was everywhere and, sometimes, not where she might expect it. Boldly, she decided to touch it and take a single hair as a talisman. Surely some of the red deer’s god-given power would stay with her then. It might protect her when she returned to Mai Dun. She gulped at that thought.

This summer, she had spent hours and whole days stalking this deer, creeping through tall grasses, hiding in bushes, or waiting for it by a stream’s edge. Now it was here, close as the length of her arm. She reached out. The deer’s ears moved up; the black velvety nose sniffed.

Suddenly, it bounded away, and then, after one backward look, made an effortless leap over the stockade. She quickly ran through the small side gate and followed.

The deer headed west in an easy lope, yet she could barely keep up. Barefoot, twice she fell on the slippery grasses wet with dew, and each time the deer paused in the growing first light, turned, and then sprinted forward again like it was a game. A chase! She laughed. Ever farther they ran: past harvested stacks of barley, around heavy ards and iron scythes, stacked and ready for another day’s work. Weaving across fallow fields covered with flax and mustard and clumps of fat hen gone to seed, and still onward through the most distant barley fields, ripe and heavy with the autumn harvest.

At last, they came to the far edge of the farm. A low, stacked stone fence marked the outermost boundary on this final hill.

Sabrann was breathless. The deer stood before her, waiting.

Exhausted, she crouched with arms bent over her legs, her slim hands grasping her knees. Her sides burned with pain from running; her bare feet hurt from racing over the rough fields.

Sweat covered her face, and her breath was white in the cold morning air. The tunic clung to her back. Barely able to stand, she could not run anymore and waited there, panting.

The dawn sky was empty of any ruler. The old moon had drifted down below the hill, while all along the eastern horizon a low, fiery glow slowly tinted the sky. The air was still, as if the world, in taking a breath, forgot to exhale.

An old granary stood sentry on the crest of the dark hill, its silhouette black against the retreating night sky. Stubble from just harvested barley rose like swords through the ground fog. Then the red disk of the sun crested the horizon and illuminated the hill.

Sabrann stared in wonder at the beauty of the deer, as the first clear light of morning lent its steaming body a coppery haze, turning golden around the beautiful head. Its eyes were almost human. The air glimmered softly.

They watched each other, spell cast, frozen in time. No movements, no blinking. Just once, she thought, let me come near and touch you—just this once. Then, she heard a voice!

Feed me!

She blinked and shook her head. Startled, Sabrann lost her balance and sat down with a thud. Her eyes widened in disbelief. She gasped for air and looked around. There was no one else there. Only the deer.

Again the voice came.

Feed me!

The voice was imperative. She clearly heard those words in her head. Unexpectedly frightened, a shiver ran down her back, her mouth went dry. She touched the protective amulets on the leather thong at her neck.

“What are you?” she whispered.

The deer stood still, off in a corner of the field, calmly gazing at her. There could only be one explanation for the voice she heard: it was the voice of a god.

Gods spoke through magical beings. And they were everywhere. Many beings she could not see filled the world. Some were spirits, who dwelled in the hills and beneath the soil, even in rocks and rivers, and some were animals that had special power and voices. Potent gods and goddesses ruled over them all; they would know if she did not obey—of this she was sure. She touched her amulets again.

Alone in the field with the deer before her, Sabrann was fearful. Her gods and goddesses were real, but had never spoken to her. She only saw visions; she never heard them speak.

Frightened, she whispered, “Matrones help me.”

Always close by were the three, powerful mother goddesses who protected her.
My
Matrones, she thought possessively. Just thinking of them calmed her fears a little. She closed her eyes and sent them a silent prayer of thanks.

They had come to her long ago, when she was four and some child made cruel barbs about her mother—always a lowly slave to some. Cathbad gifted them to her after he found her crying. From a carved chest, carefully wrapped in finest wool, he gave her a small, carved oak figure of the three mother goddesses, who nurtured the world. Each goddess held life-giving bread. A small child nestled on one side, and a lamb on the other. The powerful women were protectors, too—a warrior’s shield rested by one mother.

“It belonged to your mother. They will protect you. Honor them child, for these goddesses are the mothers of all,” he had said. Crudely carved, each face had enormous all-seeing eyes. The small statue emitted a power and presence that drew her to it. She had named them as her own and felt safe ever since, protected by the divine mothers.

It became clear to Cathbad—the child needed a mother. Not long after this he called Maigrid back to Mai Dun as her foster mother.

Almost fifteen now, Sabrann stood tall and thin. A single braid hung over her face, partly covering one tattooed cheek. Her wool tunic hung loosely belted over long braes, the hems ragged and covered with burrs. A hunting knife and leather pouch hung from her belt. She looked like a worker from the fields or worse—a
tràill
.

The deer waited. Sabrann looked at the granary again. Frightened or not, she would obey.

“There should be some food for you there.” She spoke softly, not wanting to frighten the deer away.

Four staunch yew posts held the granary just high enough for cattle to stand sheltered beneath its thatched roof. Woven branch walls protected the stored fodder from rain. Old and weatherworn, one side had a rotted-out hole made by the driving, winter rains and helped by enterprising field mice. A scanty ladder led up the east side to a larger opening. Here, harvested grain passed through to safely dry, and not be pilfered by hungry cattle or a passing bird.

Sabrann had been here before. She discovered it last year on one of her long, secret runs after they first moved to the safety of Maigrid’s farm. Caradoc had died unexpectedly, and his death brought dissension, danger. Many wanted to claim the power of ruling the Durotriges’ wealth, but Sabrann stood in their way. To keep her safe, Cathbad sent her away until she was fifteen and could rightfully inherit the Durotriges’ leadership. Maigrid’s family farmhouse, near the river Tamar on the Belerion border, was far away from the dangers of Mai Dun.