Lady of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “The ravens feast on both friend and foe. Homes lie in ruins, bands of fugitives wander the land.”

  The High Priestess straightened, frowning. If the rebels had been beaten easily, Rome would think no more of these troubles than of any other flare-up. If the tribesmen had destroyed the Roman force completely, the Empire might give up Britannia. But this halfway disaster would only enrage them.

  “Gawen, where are you?” Sianna whispered, shaking.

  Caillean stiffened. She still had some connections in Deva. She knew that the boy had gone to his grandfather, and then been sent to the Ninth Legion in Eburacum. Since then she had lived in fear that Gawen might have been in the battle. But how could the girl know? She had not intended to have Sianna search for him, but she knew the strength of the link between them, and she could not resist the opportunity to use it to learn what she, too, desperately desired to know.

  “Let your vision expand,” she said softly. “Let your heart lead you where you must go.”

  Sianna grew, if possible, even more still, her eyes fixed on the swirl of light and color in the bowl.

  “He is fleeing…” she said at last, “trying to find his way home. But the land is full of enemies. Lady, use your magic to protect him!”

  “I cannot,” Caillean replied. “My own strength can ward no more than this Vale. We must pray to the gods.”

  “If you cannot help him, then there is only one who can, nearer than the Goddess, if not so powerful.” Sianna straightened with a shuddering sigh, and the surface of the water went abruptly blank. “Mother!” she cried. “Your fosterling is in danger! Mother—I love him! Bring Gawen home!”

  Gawen jerked upright, listening, as a whisper of sound swept through the heather. It grew louder. On his cheek he felt the chill brush of cold air and settled back again. It was only the wind, rising as it always did at sunset. It was only the wind, this time. In the three days since the battle, it seemed to him, he had done nothing but run and hide. The bands of marauding Brigantes and disorganized units of legionaries were equally a danger to him, and any herder might betray him. He could survive by trapping small game and stealing from farmers’ store sheds, but the weather was getting colder. In the north he was one of many who had fled the battle, in danger from both sides. But when he moved south he would be an obvious fugitive. Technically he was not a deserter, but the Romans, still smarting from their defeat, must be looking for scapegoats.

  He shivered and pulled his cloak around him more tightly. Where could he go? Was there anywhere, even Avalon, where a man with his divided heritage could be at home? He watched the last of the light fade in the west and felt hope dying in his soul.

  That night he dreamed of Avalon. It was night there as well, and on the Tor the maidens were dancing, weaving among the stones. There were more of them than he remembered; he searched for Sianna’s bright hair. Through shadow and moonlight the figures wove their pattern, and as they moved, the grass of the Tor seemed to glimmer with an answering glow, as if their dance had awakened a power that slept within the hill.

  “Sianna!” he cried, knowing she could not hear him. And yet, as her name left his lips, one of the figures paused, turned, extended her arms. It was Sianna; he recognized the lithe poise of her body, the tilt of her head, the radiance of her hair. And behind her, like a shadow, he saw the figure of her mother, the Faerie Queen. As he watched, the shadow grew, until it was a door into darkness. He shrank back, fearing to be engulfed by it, and some sense beyond hearing perceived her words—“The way to all that you love is through Me….”

  Gawen woke in the dawning, cold, stiff, but, oddly, a little more hopeful. His snares had caught a young hare, whose meat eased his hunger. It was at midday, when he had ventured down to drink at a small spring, that his luck turned evil once more. He should have moved on as soon as he had eased his thirst, but the afternoon had turned warm and he was very tired. Sitting with his back against a willow, he allowed his eyes to close.

  He woke suddenly, aware of a sound that was not the wind in the trees or the gurgling of the stream. He heard men’s voices and the tramp of hobnailed sandals—now he could see them through the screen of leaves—Roman soldiers, and not the demoralized stragglers he had been encountering. This was a regular detachment under the command of a centurion.

  They would recognize his tunic as legionary issue, he thought, instinctively looking around him for cover. Behind him was a hill, its slopes covered with tangled trees. Crouching, he moved toward it, pushing aside the branches of the willow tree. He was on the lower slope when they saw him.

  “Halt!”

  For a moment the authority in that voice stopped him. Then he pushed on, and a thrown pilum slashed through the brush beside him and rattled over stone. Gawen snatched it up and automatically flung it back again. He heard someone swear and scrambled onward, realizing too late that, if they had not intended to follow before, they certainly would now.

  He had begun to believe he would get away when the slope ended abruptly where some ancient convulsion of the earth had wrenched apart the stones. He teetered at the edge of the gorge, looking from the sharp-edged rocks below to the weapons of those who pursued him. Better to go down fighting, he thought desperately, than to be dragged back in chains to be tried for desertion.

  Gawen could see their faces now, red with exertion but dreadfully determined. He drew his long dagger, regretting that he had thrown back the spear. And then someone called his name.

  He stiffened, but the legionaries had no breath for calling, even if they had known who he was. It must be the rush of blood in his ears that was deceiving him, or the wind in the stones.

  “Gawen—come to me!” It was a woman’s voice. Involuntarily he turned. Shadow veiled the depths below, deepening even as he looked at it. “Remember, the way to safety is through Me….”

  Desperation has driven me mad, he thought, but now it seemed to him he saw dark eyes luminous in an angular face framed by waves of dark hair. The fear went out of him in a little sigh. As the first of the legionaries reached the ledge on which he stood, Gawen smiled and stepped out into the void.

  To the Romans, he seemed to fall into darkness. A chill wind came up then, like the breath of winter upon their souls, and not even the bravest cared to search down into the chasm for the body of the man they had pursued. If he had been an enemy he was dead, and if a friend, a fool. They climbed back down the hill, curiously unwilling to discuss what they had seen, and by the time they rejoined the rest of the troop, the incident was receding into that part of the soul where one remembers evil dreams. Not even the centurion thought to include it in the report he made.

  Certainly they had other, more pressing matters to concern them. The remnants of the shattered Ninth Legion slowly made their way back to Eburacum, where the Sixth, posted up from Deva, received them with barely restrained contempt. The new Emperor Hadrianus was said to be furious, and there was talk that he might actually come to Britannia himself to take matters in hand. The survivors of the Ninth were to be transferred to other units, elsewhere in the Empire. It was not surprising if they responded with a sullen silence to any questioning.

  Only the centurion Rufinus, who had actually cared about the recruits under his command, had a word to spare for the soldierly old gentleman who had also come up from Deva. Indeed, he remembered young Macellius. The boy had been sent off as a scout and might well have missed the great battle. But no one had seen him since that day.

  Then the Sixth marched out to begin the long, brutal task of re-pacifying the north, and Macellius went home to Deva, still wondering about the fate of the boy whom he had learned in a few short months to love.

  That year winter came hard and wet. Storms blasted the north, and heavy rains made the whole Vale of Avalon a grey sea that turned its hills into true islands on which folk huddled and prayed for spring.

  On the morning of the equinox, Caillean awakened early, shivering. She lay swaddled in wool blankets, and
the straw pallet on which she lay was covered by sheepskin, but the damp chill of the winter had gotten into everything, including her bones. Since her moon blood had ceased to flow, she had been healthy and vigorous, but this morning, remembering how her joints had pained her throughout the winter, she felt ancient. Her heart pounded with sudden panic. She could not afford to grow old! Avalon was thriving, even after a season like this one, but there were so few trained priestesses that she could depend on. Avalon could not survive if she were gone!

  She took a deep breath, willing her heart to steady, forcing taut muscles to relax again. Are you a priestess? What has become of your faith? Caillean smiled, realizing she was scolding herself as if she had been one of her own maidens. Cannot you trust in the Goddess to take care of Her own?

  The thought eased her, but in her experience the Lady was most disposed to help those who had already tried to help themselves. It was still her duty to train a successor. Without Gawen, the sacred bloodlines which Eilan had given her life to continue were lost, but that was all the more reason for Avalon, which preserved her work and teachings, to endure.

  Sianna…, she thought then. It is she who must follow me.

  The girl had sworn the vows of a priestess, but she had been ill at the feast of Beltane and had not gone to the fires. And then she had become the guardian of the well. But that could be done by one of the younger girls. It had been hard for some of the priestesses who had known the enforced chastity of the Forest House to see the value in allowing the priests and priestesses to lie down together in the ritual. Those who did so were not making love for their own pleasure, or not entirely, but as representatives of the mighty masculine and feminine forces that men called gods. The future High Priestess of Avalon must make that offering.

  This year, I will accept no excuses. She must complete her consecration, and give herself to the god.

  Someone scratched at her door and she sat up, wincing at the chill.

  “Lady!” It was Lunet’s voice, breathless with excitement. “Waterwalker’s boat is pulling in at the landing. Someone is with him. It looks like Gawen! Lady, you must come!”

  But Caillean was already in motion, stepping into her sheepskin boots with the fleece still inside and pulling on her warm cloak. When she opened the door she blinked at the brightness of the day, but the air, which a moment ago had felt so cold, seemed now as invigorating as wine.

  They met on the path. Below, Waterwalker was already pushing his craft away from the muddy shore. Lunet and the other priestesses who had been awakened by her shouts hung back, staring at Gawen as if he were returning from the dead.

  Examining him, Caillean understood their uncertainty. Gawen had changed. He seemed taller, and thinner, but there was hard muscle on that long frame, and the strong-boned face he turned to her was unmistakably that of a man. But wonder filled his eyes.

  She shook her head and waved the others away. “Silly girls, this is not Samhain, when the dead return, and he is no ghost but a living man. Go get him something hot to drink and dry clothing if you can think of nothing else more useful—go on!”

  Gawen stopped, looking around him. Softly, Caillean spoke his name.

  “What has happened?” he asked, focusing on her at last. “There is so much water, but I saw no rain, and how can buds be coming on branches that were just losing their leaves?”

  “It is the equinox,” she said, not understanding.

  He nodded. “The battle was a moon before it, and then for some days I wandered….”

  “Gawen,” she interrupted, “the great battle in the north was fought last harvest tide, half a year ago!”

  He swayed, and for a moment she thought he would fall. “Over six moons? But since the Lady of Faerie saved me only six days have passed!”

  Caillean took his arm, beginning to understand. “Time runs differently in the Otherworld. We knew you were in danger, but not what became of you. I see that we must thank the Lady of Faerie for preserving you. Don’t complain, child—you have missed the winter, and it was a hard one. But you are home now, and we must decide what is to be done with you!”

  A little shakily, Gawen sighed, and then managed a smile. “Home…It was only after the battle that I understood I have no place in either Roman or British lands. Only here, on this isle that is not wholly in the world of men.”

  “I will not force a choice upon you,” Caillean said carefully, suppressing her excitement. What a leader for the Druids he could be! “But if you have taken no other vows, the dedication you were going to make before you left us is still open to you.”

  “In another week I would have made my oath of allegiance to the Emperor, but the Brigantes came, and we were sent out unsworn,” answered Gawen. “Brother Paulus will be livid.” He grinned suddenly. “I met him as I was coming up the hill and he begged me to join his brethren. I refused, and he shouted something—What has happened to the Nazarenes since Father Joseph died? Paulus seems even crazier than he was before!”

  “He is Father Paulus now,” answered Caillean. “They have chosen him as their leader, and he seems determined to make the rest of them as fanatical as he. It is a pity, after the many years in which we lived side by side in peace upon this hill, but he will have nothing to do with a community where a woman rules. None of our folk have spoken to theirs for many moons. But he does not matter,” she went on. “It is you who must decide what you will do now.”

  Gawen nodded. “I seem to have done six moons of thinking in the Otherworld, for all that the time seemed so short. I am ready”—he paused, gazing around him at the weathered huts and then up at the stone-crowned Tor—“to face whatever fate the gods will give me now.”

  Caillean blinked. For a moment she had seen him ablaze with gold like a king, or was it fire?

  “Your destiny may be greater than you suppose…,” she said in a voice that was not her own.

  Then the moment of vision passed. She looked up to see his reaction, but he was staring past her, and from his face all the weariness had fallen away. Caillean did not need to turn to know that Sianna was standing there.

  The new moon was setting. Through the entry to the low brush hut in which they had put him, Gawen could just see her fragile sickle brushing the edge of the hill. Poor baby moon, hurrying to her bed; in a few moments she would leave him in darkness. He shifted position uncomfortably and settled himself once more. It was the night before the Eve of Beltane. Since the setting of the sun, when the new moon was already high, he had been here. It was a time for him to meditate, they had told him, to prepare his soul. It was uncomfortably like those long hours when he and Arius had waited for the battle between the Romans and the Brigantes to begin.

  Nothing but his own will held him here. It would be easy enough to slip away through the darkness. Not that the folk of Avalon would have cast him out if he changed his mind—they had asked if he sought initiation of his own will again and again. But if he had refused this, and stayed, he would always have seen the disappointment in Caillean’s eyes, and as for Sianna—he would have faced far more than whatever they planned to do to him for the right to claim her love.

  He looked out again. The moon had disappeared. A practiced glance at the positions of the stars told him that midnight was near. Soon they will come, and I will be waiting. Why? Was it only his desire for Sianna that had held him, or some deeper compulsion of the soul?

  Gawen had tried to run away, and found he could not evade his own divided nature. It seemed to him now that to choose something to serve, and give himself to it completely, was the only way to unity.

  Something rustled outside; he looked up and saw that the stars had moved. The Druids, their white robes ghostly in the starshine, were gathering.

  “Gawen, son of Eilan, I call you now, at the hour of nights high noon. Is it still your desire to be admitted to the sacred mysteries?” The voice was that of Brannos, and it warmed Gawen’s heart to hear it. The old man seemed ancient as the hills, his fingers
were now so twisted by joint ache that he could no longer play the harp at all, but at need he could still act with the power of a priest at the rituals.

  “It is.” His own voice was hoarse in his ears.

  “Then come forth, and let the testing begin.”

  They took him, still in darkness, to the sacred well. There was something different in the sound of the water. Peering down, Gawen realized that the flow had been diverted. He could see steps leading down into the well shaft, and the niche in its side.

  “To be reborn in the spirit you must first be purified,” said Brannos. “Go down into the well.”

  Shivering, Gawen stripped off his robe and clambered downward. Tuarim, who had taken his vows the previous year, followed him. He started as the young man knelt and snapped a pair of iron manacles around his ankles. He had been told to expect this, and knew that he could release himself if his courage failed him, but the cold weight of metal on his flesh filled him with an unexpected fear. Yet he said nothing as he heard the rush of water, released, beginning once more to fill the well.

  The water rose swiftly. It was bitterly cold, and for a time he could think of nothing else. But every one of those priests whom he had remembered with scorn when he was being trained as a soldier must have been through this; he would not flee what they had endured. He tried to distract himself by wondering if the sacred vessel Father Joseph had spoken of was still here, or whether Caillean had taken it for safekeeping. If he tried, he thought he could sense something, an echo of joy beyond pain, but the waters were rising.

  By the time the water reached his chest, Gawen could hardly feel the lower parts of his body at all. He wondered if his muscles would obey him well enough to escape if he tried. Had this all been a trick to make him go to his death unprotesting? Remember! he told himself. Remember what Caillean taught you! Summon the inner fire!

  Cold water embraced his neck; his teeth were chattering. Desperately he grasped for a memory of flame—a spark in the mind’s darkness that flared as he sucked in air and then exploded through every vein. Light! He refused to know anything other than that radiance. For a moment then, he seemed to see a tumult of shadow split by a single lightning stroke that divided light from darkness and in a chain reaction sent pattern, order, meaning, into the world.