The Hallowed Isle Book Three (2 page)

As the cloth fell away, she felt her awareness shifting so that she saw with doubled vision the ancient cauldron of riveted silver plates on which goddess-faces and the images of strange beasts stood out in low relief, and a vessel of pure Light, outshining the fires.

A white-clad shape moved forward. From a silver pitcher, water poured into the cauldron in a glistening stream. The light grew brighter.

“I bring water from the ocean, the womb of the world. Receive the offering!” the voice was that of Nest.

Another moved into the radiance. “I bring water from the Tamesis, lifeblood of the land—” More water glittered through the air.

One by one the priestesses emptied their pitchers. The water they offered came from each of the great rivers that drained Britannia, and from the sacred springs.

“I bring water from the Isle of Mona . . .” chanted Morut.

“I bring water from the blood spring of Afallon . . .” sang Ceincair.

The light grew; glowing figures moved within a bright haze. Igierne stared into the glimmering depths of the Cauldron.

“Speak to us, Lady,” she whispered. “In this moment when the doors open between the worlds, show us what is to be.. . .”

With that prayer, all other awareness became peripheral. The light welled up around her and she was free.

She saw Britannia laid out below her, picked out in lines of light as one Beltain fire signaled another across the land. Disciplines practiced for so long they had become instinct turned her mind toward those whose future she must see.

Beltain fires blazed on the hills above Isca. Igierne's gaze followed the flicker of light and shadow as men and women danced around them. Her son Artor was there, with Betiver and Cai, and that odd Saxon boy who they said was Hengest's grandson. Girls came to the king, laughing, and he kissed them and drank the mead they offered, but though many of his men allowed themselves to be led off into the leafy shadows, and Gualchmai was no doubt there already, Artor remained by the fires.

Is this how you honor the Goddess, my child?
Igierne thought ruefully, and heard, as if in agreement, a ripple of silvery laughter. But Artor had grown up suspecting himself a bastard, she remembered with sudden pain. No wonder if he took care where he sowed his own seed.

He must have a queen to act as your priestess, Lady!
she told the bright darkness.
Show me the woman who will share his bed and his throne!

The image shattered. Colors ran in swirls of liquid light, painting a land of folded hills and peaceful woodlands, altogether a gentler country than the Demetian shore. In a sheltered valley the villa of a British prince lay dark while his tribesmen revelled in the meadow below. But at the edge of the firelight something stirred. Igierne's vision focused; she saw a slim girl-child with amber eyes and a cloud of red-gold hair clutching an old blanket around her as she watched the dancing. Even standing, she seemed to sway like a young tree in the wind. She would be beautiful in motion.

As the image dimmed, the Voice of the Goddess sounded in Igierne's awareness once more—
“She is Leodagranus' daughter. Her name is Guendivar
. . .”

She is young, yet
, thought Igierne,
too young to understand what this means, I must find her and prepare her for her destiny
.

Images flickered before her: Guendivar grown, her bright hair crowned with flowers . . . laughing, dancing, racing through the woods on a grey dappled mare . . . and older still, her face racked by grief and looking for the first time like that of a mortal woman and not a maiden of faerie. Igierne strove to see more, but the vision became a blur that left her dazed and dizzy, floating in the void.

With an effort she regained her focus. To foresee fate did not necessarily show one how to change it, for the ancients held that it was always changing, and in seeking to avoid the end foretold many a man had instead been its cause. Better to seek knowledge of events nearer to hand, so that one might, if not prevent, at least prepare to meet them.

Morgause . . 
. With a regretful recognition that her concern sprang more from duty than desire, Igierne sought to see the outcome of her daughter's pregnancy.

On the height of Dun Eidyn the Votadini warriors drank to their king. She saw Morgause bearing the horn among them, too heavily pregnant for dancing. From time to time she would pause, biting her lip for a moment before continuing her round.

The child will come very soon
, thought Igierne,
does she know it?
But this was Morgause's fifth pregnancy. She must know her own body's signals by now. It was stubbornness, not ignorance, that kept her on her feet this Beltain Eve. Igierne suppressed the irritation that thoughts of her daughter too often inspired.

Will the birthing go well? What will this child bring to Britannia?

Vision was dazzled by the blaze of morning light on water. But in the next moment a tide of red replaced it. A child's angry wail deepened into the battlefield roar of an army. Fear for her daughter gave way to a deeper terror as she saw Morgause, her features sagging with middle age and twisted by hatred, and beside her, a boy whose features were a younger, fairer, reflection of her own, with a hint of someone else in the line of the jaw that Igierne could not quite recognize. Was it that which set something deep within to shivering, or was it the spark of malice in his eyes? Red darkness swirled across her vision: a raven banner tossed against a fiery sky. And then it was a flight of ravens, and a Voice that cried—

“
He shall bring blood and fire and the end of an age . . . All things pass, else lack of balance would destroy the world
.”

Igierne writhed in soundless repudiation, knowing, even as she hated it, that this Voice also was divine. And then, like cool water, the Goddess as she had always known Her spoke in her soul.

“
Fear not. While the ravens ward the White Mount, the Guardian of Britannia will remain.. . .”

She felt herself falling back into her body, starlight and firelight and the light of her visions shattering around her like a mosaic of Roman glass. Desperately she tried to fix the pieces in some pattern that would retain its meaning, but they were moving too fast.

“
Merlin!”
her soul cried, “
Merlin, hear me! Beware the child that is born the first of May!”

Then it was over, though she ached in every limb. Igierne felt soft hands helping her to sit upright, heard a murmur of shock and concern.

“My lady, are you all right?”

“I will be . . .” she muttered.
Artor
—she thought, 7
must speak with him soon
. Then she took a deep breath and opened her eyes to see the gibbous quarter-moon staring down at her from a sky that was already paling before the first light of Beltain's dawn.

At dawn on Beltain, Morgause went out with her women to bring water from the sacred spring. Before sunrise the air was brisk and Morgause was glad of the fleecy cloak she wore. Unbalanced by the great bulge of her belly, she moved carefully, picking her way down the rocky path in the uncertain torchlight and the light of the waning moon that was more deceptive still. From the group of maidens who walked with her came laughter, swiftly hushed. The child in her belly stirred, then stilled. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, the unaccustomed motion would lull him to sleep. He had kept her wakeful half the night with his kicking, as if he could not wait for the womb to open and set him free.

To walk from the fortress down to the base of the cleft below it and back could take half the morning, and the return climb required considerable stamina. The women, eyeing the queen's distended belly, had begged her to let one of the chieftains' daughters who attended her represent her in the ceremony, but Morgause refused. For a girl to take her place in Leudonus' bed during her pregnancies did not threaten her position, but her condition had not permitted her to dance at the Beltain fires. Morgause would allow no one to usurp any of the other sacred duties of the queen.

“It will be safe enough,” she told them. “The babe is not due for another half moon.” This was not quite true—she knew very well that this child had been conceived in the rites at the feast of Lugus, and so her pregnancy was now full term. But her other children had come behind time, so she told the lie without compunction.

Men might speculate, when the queen's sons were born some nine moons after a festival, but those who did not follow the old ways could never be certain they were not of Leudonus' begetting. The majority of the Votadini tribesmen believed, like Morgause, that her children were a gift from the gods.

For a moment vision blurred; the torchlit darkness of the road became the festival ground, and the chill of dawn the warm summer night of Lughnasaid. The people were shouting, a hero came to her in the darkness of the sacred enclosure, filled with the god, and then the dark fire of the goddess reft her own awareness away . . .

Morgause trembled again, remembering. It was only afterwards, listening to folk speak of the bull-fight and how the young king from the south had saved the fallen priest of Lugus and completed the ceremony, that she understood that it was Artor who had lain in her arms.

She had considered, in that moment of realization, seeking out the herbs that would cast the child from her womb. But the gods had willed that her brother's seed take root there. She did not dare deny them. Morgause was built for bearing, but a woman offered her life in childbed as a man marched into battle. Soon, now, the gods would judge both mother and child. And if such a child lived . . . surely he was meant for a mighty destiny.

A stone turned under her foot and she grasped at the arm of Dugech, who walked beside her.

“Lady, please, let me send for a litter to take you back to the dun!”

Morgause shook her head. To give up now would be an admission of weakness. She straightened defiantly.

“Then let us carry you down—”

Morgause started forward again without answering. The sky was growing lighter. The far side of the cleft stood in stark outline against that pallor; a gulf of darkness gaped below.
I am descending into the Underworld
, she thought, suppressing panic. For a moment she considered letting Dugech have her way, but now that the exercise had got her blood running, she felt better than she had before.

“The rite requires that I walk to the spring, and it will do me good. I have sat too long indoors. Only stay close so that I do not fall.”

They moved on. The pallor above brightened to a pearly grey, and then, as the torch flames grew pale and the shapeless masses of shadow that edged the path became shrubs and trees lightened, with a hint of rose. They had reached the crossroads where the way that ran down the vale crossed the path that descended from the dun. Morgause turned. Behind the jagged peak of the Watch Hill the sky was beginning to flame with gold.

She tried to hurry then, ignoring the slow ache across her lower back. She wished now that she had called for the litter, but she had almost reached the spring. With relief she felt the pathway level out and took a deep breath of moist air. Beneath their mantles the white linen garments of her maidens glowed. Morgause paused to undo the pins that held her own cloak and straightened gratefully as its weight slithered to the ground. The flesh on her arms pebbled at the touch of the brisk air, but her blood was still heated from the walk and she did not mind the cold.

She beckoned to red-haired Leuku, who was carrying the bronze vessel, and strode toward the spring. To the east the sky was bright gold. Overhead the heavens glowed pale rose, but the scattered clouds, catching the sunlight, had hung out banners of flame.

The women stood in silence, watching that radiance intensify until the rock above was edged with a sliver of flame. As the sunwheel rolled up the sky, light blazed between the birches and sparkled on the waters of the well as if a fire had been kindled within. Pent breath was released in a shout—

“Water of life from the depths upwelling—” sang the queen.

“Bring us thy blessing!” her maidens chorused in reply.

“Fire of power from the heavens descending—”

“Bring us thy blessing!”

“Fire in the water kindling cool flame—” she sang then, and waited for the others to reply.

“Power we drink and protection we claim.”

Carefully, she bent and tipped the rim of the kettle so that the glittering water trickled in. As she began to stand up, the ache across her loins became a sudden pang. For a moment Morgause could not move. When she could breathe again, she straightened, telling herself it had only been another preliminary pain. She had been having them for weeks, and knew them for the distant thunder that heralds the storm.

But with her next step, Morgause felt a trickle of warm fluid between her thighs, and understood that the time of waiting was done.

“My lady!” cried Dugech as the gush soaked the back of the queen's gown.

Morgause managed a smile. “The waters of my womb flow like those of the holy well. Let them be my offering.. . .” She held out the cauldron, and Leuku, her eyes wide, took it from her hands.

Without waiting for orders, Dugech whispered to one of the younger girls and sent her sprinting back up the trail.

“Let us spread our mantles to make a bed for you, lady, and you can lie down until the litter arrives.”

Morgause shook her head. “I walked half the night to bear my first child. This labor will go easier if I get as far as I can under my own power.” She knew that she was challenging the gods, but so long as she was moving, she could maintain the illusion that this process was under her control. Ignoring the shocked protest of the maidens, she started back along the trail.

From time to time a pain overwhelmed her and she would pause, gripping Dugech's shoulder until it passed. But it soon became apparent that this child was in a hurry to come into the world. By the time they reached the crossroads, the pains were coming swiftly. Morgause swayed, dragging in breath in hoarse gasps. The women were piling their cloaks on the grass beside the road. Dugech took one arm and Leuku the other, and Morgause could no longer resist them. Biting her lip against the pain, she let them help her down to lie with her back braced against the bank where the pale primroses grew.