And now Raven, in the moonless night, screamed aloud, a high, eldritch crying, like a woman in childbed. Three times the shrill cry trembled over the Tor, and Morgaine shivered again, knowing that even the priests on the other island that lay corresponding to their own must waken in their solitary cells and cross themselves, hearing that haunted cry that rang between the worlds.
After the cry, silence, a silence which seemed to Morgaine filled with breathing, with held breath even, from the unseen initiates who now surrounded the dreadful solitude inhabited only by the three motionless priestesses. Then, gasping and choking, as if her voice were long disabled from the silence, Raven cried out:
"Ah-seven times the Wheel, the Wheel with thirteen spokes, has turned about in the sky ... seven times the Mother has given birth to her dark son ... ."
Again the silence, deepening in contrast, except for the choking gasps of the entranced prophetess. She cried out, "Ah-ah-I burn-I burn-it is time, it is time ... " and lapsed again into the clotted silence, pregnant with terror.
"They run! They run in the spring rutting, they run-they fight, they choose their king-ah, the blood, the blood-and the greatest of them all, he runs, and there is blood on the antlers of his pride ... ."
Again the silence lengthened, and Morgaine, seeing in the darkness behind her eyelids the spring running of the deer, saw again what she had seen in a half-forgotten glimpse in the silver bowl-a man among the deer, struggling, fighting ... .
"It is the child of the Goddess, he runs, he runs ... the Horned One must die ... and the Horned One must be crowned ... the Virgin Huntress must call the king to her, she must lay down her maidenhood to the God ... ah, the old sacrifice, the old sacrifice ... I burn, I burn ... " and the words began to choke over one another and die in a long, sobbing scream. Behind her, through her closed eyes, Morgaine saw Raven fall senseless to the ground and lie there, gasping, her gasps the only sound in the deepening silence.
Somewhere an owl called; once, twice, three times.
Out of the darkness, priestesses came, silent and dark, blue gleams on their brow. They lifted Raven tenderly and bore her away. They lifted Morgaine too, and she felt her throbbing head tenderly held to a woman's breast as they carried her away. Then she knew no more.
THREE DAYS LATER, when she had recovered her strength somewhat, Viviane sent for her.
Morgaine rose and tried to dress herself, but she was still weak, and accepted the help of one of the young priestesses, grateful that the girl was under silence and did not speak to her. The long fasting, the terrible sickness brought on by the ritual herbs, the strung tension of the ritual, still gripped at her body; she had eaten a little soup the night before, and some bread soaked in milk this morning, but she still felt sick and empty after the long strain, and her head throbbed, and her moon-dark bleeding had seized her with a violence never felt before; this too, she knew, might be the aftereffect of the sacred herbs. Sick and incurious, she wished that Viviane had left her to recover in peace, but she did Viviane's will as she would have done that of the Goddess, had the Goddess leaned down from Heaven and spoken a wish aloud. When she was dressed, and had braided her hair and wound it with a deerskin thong, and painted the blue crescent on her forehead with fresh blue dye, she went along the trail to the house where the High Priestess lived.
As was now her privilege, she entered without knocking or announcing her presence. Somehow in this house she always visualized Viviane waiting for her, seated in the thronelike chair as if she were the Goddess on her dark throne, but today Viviane was moving about at the back of the room, and the fire was not lighted, but dark and cold. Viviane wore her simple robe of undyed wool with a hood tied over her hair, and for the first time it came sharply on Morgaine that Viviane was priestess, not now of the Maiden or of the Mother, but of the ancient wise-woman-who was also the Old Death-crone. Her face looked lined and haggard, and Morgaine thought, Of course, if the rites made Raven ill, and myself, and we are both young and strong, what must it have done to Viviane, who has grown old in the service of her whom we serve?
Then Viviane turned and smiled at her, a loving smile, and Morgaine felt again the old surge of love and tenderness. But as was fitting a younger priestess in the presence of the Lady, she waited for Viviane to speak first.
Viviane gestured to her to sit. "Have you recovered, child?"
Morgaine let herself drop to the bench, and knew that even from the short walk she was exhausted. She shook her head.
"I know," Viviane said. "Sometimes, when they do not know how you will react, they give you too much. Next time, do not take all they give you-judge how much you can take-enough to give you the Sight, but not enough to make you so very ill. You have that right, now; you have reached a stage where obedience may be tempered with your own judgment."
For some reason those words rang again and again in Morgaine's mind: tempered with your own judgment, tempered with your own judgment. She thought, I am still sick from the drugs they gave me, and shook her head, impatient, to clear away the sound and listen to Viviane.
"How much did you understand of Raven's prophecy?"
"Very little," Morgaine confessed. "It was mysterious to me. I am not sure why I was there."
"Partly," Viviane said, "to lend your strength to her; she is not strong. She is still abed, and I am concerned about her. She knows how much of the herb she can take, yet even that little seemed to be too much; she vomited blood, and is passing more. But she will not die."
Morgaine put out a hand to steady herself; she felt hollow, and a sudden wave of sickness passed over her again, leaving her pale and giddy. Without excuse she stood up, staggered outside and vomited, bringing up the bread and milk she had swallowed that morning. She heard Viviane speak her name, and when she had done and stood clutching the doorframe, retching, she found one of the young attendant priestesses there with a cloth to wipe her face; it was wet and smelled faintly of sweet herbs. Viviane steadied her step as she came back inside, then handed her a small cup.
"Sip it slowly," she said.
It burned her tongue and for a moment exaggerated the feeling of sickness-it was the strong spirit distilled by the northern Tribes, water-of-life they called it. She had tasted it only once or twice. But when it was down she felt a strong warmth spreading out from her empty stomach, and after a few minutes she felt better, steadier, almost euphoric.
"A little more," Viviane said. "It will strengthen your heart. Now, do you feel better?"
Morgaine nodded. "Thank you."
"Tonight you will be able to eat," said Viviane, and in Morgaine's strange state it sounded like a command, as if Viviane could command her very stomach to behave itself. "So. Let us talk of Raven's prophecy. In the ancient days, long before the wisdom and the religion of the Druids came here from the sunken temples in the western continent, the fairy people- of whom we are both born, you and I, my Morgaine-lived here on the shores of the inland sea, and before they learned how to plant the barley and reap it again, they lived by gathering the fruits of the land, and by hunting the deer. And in those days there was no king among them, but only a queen who was their mother, though they had not yet learned to think of her as the Goddess. And since they lived by hunting, their queen and priestess learned to call the deer to her, and ask of their spirits that they sacrifice themselves and die for the life of the Tribe. But sacrifice must be given for sacrifice-the deer died for the Tribe, and one of the Tribe must in turn die for the life of the deer, or at least take the chance that the deer could, if they chose, take his life in exchange for their own. So the balance was kept. Do you understand this, my darling?"
Morgaine heard the unaccustomed endearment, and wondered dimly in her sick and drunken state, Is she telling me that I am to be the sacrifice? Is my life chosen for the Tribe?
It does not matter. I am given to the Goddess for life or for death.
"I understand, Mother. At least, I think I do."
"So the Mother of the Tr
ibe chose, every year, her consort. And since he had agreed to give his life for the Tribe, the Tribe gave him of their lives. Even if little children at the breast starved, he always had abundance, and all the women of the Tribe were his to lie with, so that he, the strongest and best, might sire their children. Besides, the Mother of the Tribe was often old past childbearing, and so he must have the choice of the young maidens, too, and no man of the Tribe would interfere with what he wanted. And then, when the year was past-every year in those times-he would put on the antlers of the deer, and wear a robe of untanned deerskin so that the deer would think him one of their own, and he would run with the herd as the Mother Huntress put the spell upon them to run. But by this time the herd had chosen their King Stag, and sometimes the King Stag would smell a stranger, and turn on him. And then the Horned One would die."
Morgaine felt again the ice down her spine that she had felt when, on the Tor, this ritual had been enacted before her eyes. The year's king is to die for the life of his people. Was the drug still working in her mind, that she could see it all so clearly?
"Well, time has moved on, Morgaine," Viviane told her quietly, "and now those old rites are no longer needed, for the barley grows and the sacrifice is bloodless. Only in times of great peril does the Tribe demand such a leader. And Raven has foreseen that this is a time of such peril. So once again there will be a testing of one who runs the risk of death for his chosen people, so that they will follow him unto death.
"You have heard me speak of the Great Marriage?"
Morgaine nodded; of this, Lancelet had been born.
"The Tribes of the fairy folk, and all the Tribes of the North, have been given a great leader, and the chosen one will be tested by the ancient rite. And if he survives the testing-which will, to some extent, depend on the strength with which the Maiden Huntress can enchant the deer-then he will become the Horned One, the King Stag, consort of the Virgin Huntress, crowned with the antlers of the God. Morgaine, I told you years ago that your maidenhood belongs to the Goddess. Now she calls for it in sacrifice to the Horned God. You are to be the Virgin Huntress, and the bride of the Horned One. You have been chosen for this service."
It was very still in the room, as if they stood again in the center of the ring stones in ritual. Morgaine dared not break the silence. At last, knowing that Viviane was waiting for some word of consent-what had the words been, so long ago? I(is too heavy a burden to be borne unconsenting -she bowed her head.
"My body and my soul belong to her, to do with as she will," she whispered. "And your will is her will, Mother. Let it be so."
15
Since she had come there, Morgaine had left Avalon only two or three times, and then only for short journeys into the countryside at the edges of the Summer Sea, so that she could become aware of the nearby sites which retained, despite disuse, their old power.
Time and place were now none of her concern. She had been taken from the Island at dawn in silence, cloaked and veiled so that no unpriestly eye might see the consecrated one, and carried in a closed litter so that not even the sun might shine on her face. In less than a day's journeying from the enclosure of the sacred island she had lost all awareness of time and space and direction, lost in meditation, dimly aware of the beginning of the magical trance. There had been times when she had fought against the onset of the ecstatic state. Now she welcomed it, opening her mind full to the Goddess, inwardly imploring the Goddess to come into herself, the instrument, and possess her, body and soul, so that she might act in all things as the Goddess herself.
Nightfall; a moon nearly at full came dimly between the curtains of the litter. When the runners stopped, she felt it bathing her in cold light, like the kiss of the Goddess, and felt faint with the beginnings of ecstasy. She did not know where she was, nor did she care. She went where they led her, passive, blinded, tranced, knowing only that she went to meet her destiny.
She was inside a house, then she was put into the hands of a strange woman, who brought her bread and honey, which Morgaine did not touch -she would not break her fast again until she did so with the ritual meal -and water, which she drank thirstily. There was a bed, so placed that the moon fell upon her; the strange woman moved to draw the wooden shutters closed and Morgaine stopped her with an imperious gesture. She lay much of the night tranced, feeling the moonlight like a visible touch. At last she slept, but fitfully, wandering in and out of sleep like an uneasy traveller, strange images flickering in her mind-her mother, bending over the fair hair of the intruder Gwydion, her white breasts and coppery hair somehow forbidding instead of welcoming; Viviane, only somehow she was a sacrificial beast and the Lady of Avalon was leading her somewhere on the end of a rope, and she heard herself say fretfully, You needn't pull, I am coming; Raven, soundlessly screaming. A great horned figure, half man, half animal, suddenly thrusting aside a curtain and striding into her room-she woke and half sat up, but there was no one there, only the moonlight, and the stranger woman sleeping quietly at her side. Quickly she lay down again and slept, this time dreamlessly and deep.
About an hour before dawn they awakened her. Now, in contrast to the tranced unawareness of the previous day, she was wide awake and sharply aware of everything-the cold fresh air, the mists stained with pink where soon the sun would rise, the strong smell of the little dark women in their garments of badly tanned skins. Everything was clean-edged and brilliantly colored, as if fresh this moment from the hand of the Goddess. The dark women whispered among themselves, not presuming to disturb the strange priestess; she heard them, but she knew only a few words of their language.
After a time the eldest of them-the one who had welcomed her and led her inside on the previous night, and whose bed she had shared-came to Morgaine and brought her fresh water. Morgaine bowed to thank her, the salute, priestess to priestess, and then wondered why. The woman was old; her hair, long and tangled and fastened with a clasp of bone, was almost all white, and her dark skin bore faded blue stains. Her garment was of the same imperfectly dyed skin of the others, but over it she wore a cloak of deerskin, the hair still clinging to it, painted with magical symbols; and about her neck were two necklaces, one of beautiful amber beads-Viviane herself owned none finer-and the other of bits of horn alternating with exquisitely chased gold bars. She carried herself with the authority of Viviane herself, and Morgaine knew that this was the tribal Mother and priestess of the people.
With her own hands, the woman began to prepare Morgaine for the ritual. She stripped her naked, and painted the soles of her feet and the palms of her hands with blue dye, and renewed the crescent moon on her brow; on her breast and belly she outlined the full moon, and just above the dark patch of Morgaine's body hair she painted the dark moon. Briefly, almost perfunctorily, she parted the girl's legs and probed a little: Morgaine, beyond embarrassment, knew why she was searching. For this rite, the priestess must be a virgin. But the tribal priestess would find nothing wrong; Morgaine was untouched, but she felt a sudden half-pleasurable moment of fear, and at the same moment she was conscious that she was almost fiercely hungry. Well, she was trained to ignore hunger, and after a time the hunger left her.
The sun Was rising as they led her outdoors, robed in a cloak like the old woman's, with the magical signs painted on it-the moon, the antlers of the deer. She was aware of the stiff astringency of her painted body, and some part of her mind, very far away, stared with amazement and a moment's contempt at these symbols of a mystery far older than the Druidic wisdom in which she had been so carefully schooled. That was momentary and vanished at once; the belief of generations ancient past knowing invested this rite with its own power and holiness. She saw the round stone house behind her; across from her was another, and they were leading forth a young man. She could not see him clearly; the rising sun was in her eyes, and she could see only that he was tall, with a shock of fair hair, and strongly built. He is not one of their own people, then? But it was not for her to question. The men of the trib
e-and especially an old man, with the gnarled swollen muscles of a smith, blackened like his own forge-were painting the youth's body from head to foot with the blue woad, covering him with a cloak of untanned raw skins, smearing his body with the deer fat. On his head they fixed antlers; at a low word of command, he swung his head to make certain they could not be dislodged, no matter how he moved.
Morgaine looked up to see the proud swing of that young head, and suddenly she felt a ripple of awareness run down her body, cramping her calves, running into the secret parts of her body.
This is the Horned One, this the God, this the consort of the Virgin Huntress.
They wound her hair in a garland of crimson berries and crowned her with the first of the spring flowers. The precious necklace of gold and bone was reverently taken from the neck of the Mother of the tribe and placed around her own; she felt its weight like the very weight of magic. Her eyes were dazzled with the rising sun. They placed something in her hand-a drum, taut skin stretched over a hooped frame.
As if it came from somewhere else, she heard her own hand strike it.
They stood on a hillside, overlooking a valley filled to the brim with thick forest, empty and silent, but within it she could sense the life in the forest-the deer moving on silent, slender feet, the animals climbing in the trees, and the birds nesting, darting, moving, asurge with the life of the first running tide of the full moon of spring. She turned for a moment and looked behind, on the hillside. Above them, carved white in the chalk, was a monstrous figure, human or animal she could not tell, her eyes were blurred; was it a running deer, was it a striding man, phallus erect and filled with the spring tide, too?
The Mists of Avalon Page 25
