Voices of the Stars

by Rowena Whaling

  Bedwyr forfeited the Games to him. It was done. Cuthbert the Scald was this year’s Champion.

  He walked forward to stand before Lady Vivianne, to make his vow of offering the representation of his life in sacrifice and Thanksgiving to the Gods. This he did, then he looked at me.

  “Oh, my Lady of the Lake, may I ask a boon of you?”

  “Yes, of course. You will be granted the every desire of your heart... as long as it is something within my right to grant...” said Vivianne.

  She was no man’s fool. She looked at me and then back toward him.

  “What is it you ask?”

  “I ask to be introduced to the lovely Lady who is beside you, if I may.”

  Lady Vivianne made the introduction and he asked if he might later walk with me for awhile.

  Of course, our walk had had to wait, for there were many congratulations and other introductions to be made before his Time would be free.

  In the meanwhile, I was flushed. I was enthralled. Had he captured the Muse within me, or my heart? Eventually the beating of my heart began to slow toward its more usual pace. It was his Art that had captured me – not the man. Yet somehow it was hard to separate the two. What would I say to him?

  He had awakened my Muse from her long drowse. I hurriedly found a piece of reed to dip into a muddy puddle and then scratched some words onto my undergarment, which I had stretched over my lap.

  Before very long, Cuthbert was back at my side. I was still Enchanted. I could do naught but smile at him like a silly girl.

  “Oh, my Lady Morgan, I hold nothing but honourable intent toward you – may I touch your beautiful delicate hands? They are the hands of an artist. I noticed how gracefully you held them in your lap, when I approached the Lady. I know that you are a Priestess of the Goddess, but I do not know what work you do here at the Order… surely nothing of hard work – for your hands look as soft as an infant’s. May I touch them? Only if it would not make you feel uncomfortable...”

  “Cuthbert, you may hold my hands. But you must understand that it will go no farther than that between us.”

  “Oh, my Lady Morgan, I hold no expectations...”

  There was a very awkward silence...

  I could not help but to wonder why I had said that? I thought, “I am bound to no one man. Lucian – whose ribbon I still held – had raised desire within me when first I saw him on the field. What would I do about that?” Nothing, I suppose, for I had seen Arthur’s reaction and shameful behavior in response to my accepting Lucian’s cloth and granting my favour to him.

  “Cuthbert, I was enthralled by your poetry and your beautiful voice as well as with the deep tenderness with which you sang it. Truly, I am unable to explain the depths to which you have touched me. You have inspired me. I thank you for this gift. Should I live to be one hundred years, I will always remember it – and you. I wrote these words for you, in the hope that they may express my feelings better than I could speak them at this moment.”

  He held my hands then. It was as if a spark had jumped from a Fire onto them... “So then,” thought I, “I am still swept away...”

  These are the words I sang to him...

  “How I Love your Dark Music,

  Passionate Vision,

  Words so bitter-sweet...

  Haunting, yearning, exquisitely burning

  My heart falls at you feet...”

  I have not seen him since that Day...

  Lucian

  It was upon that Day that I met Arthur – Arthur, in all of his colours and passion. It was then, too, that I first laid my gaze upon Morgan. I was so young then... How could I have known that my life – or the better part of it – would be spent entwined in Arthur’s glory, as well as in my Love for Morgan. That Day is as clear to me as if I were re-living it. First, I was to meet the one man in this world that could have made me willingly leave my family and my beautiful home in Rome to live in the dreary, Misty land of the Britons. Yes, this I would gladly do for the young King whose rising star had already been so brilliantly acclaimed, near and far.

  The Games were thrilling. Oddly, the weather was perfect. I could not have been more excited.

  Then I saw her... She was sitting in one of the seats of honour, just beside the Lady of the Lake. She was the most beautiful girl – well, perhaps I should say young woman – I had ever seen. I still remember what she wore. She was dressed in grey, which somehow enhanced her flawless, dusky skin and vibrant black eyes. I thought: “Have I been stunned by the brilliance of the Sun? The Sun, yes, it must be the Sun that makes her long, black hair glisten so.” She stood out in contrast to all others around her. My heart has been hers ever since.

  But, my heart holds Love for another, too – Arthur, my King and my friend. In all the world, he is the man I hold in highest esteem.

  Yet, later, on that very Night, I was to learn of their tragic Love for one another.

  From that Time until this I have honoured Morgan’s stated desire that we be no more than friends. Yet, I have always thought that I saw more than friendship in her eyes that Day... I had offered a strip of cloth to her – torn from my tunic – as an emblem of my desire to know her better, and she had accepted.

  Arthur

  “How long? How long have I slept?”

  “Three Days. You lost a lot of blood. You could have died! And a good thing it is that this is not your sword arm...”

  She was angry. When I was just a little bit better, I knew that she would not hold her feelings back from me.

  I tried to remember – had she ever shown anger toward me before this?

  Oh, yes, I remember. When I was seven, she found me swimming in a deep Creek, with very swiftly rushing Water and many large boulders. Yes, I remember everything.

  The next Day I awoke feverless. Morgan was still there. She had fallen into sleep on a pallet on the floor beside me. I tried to raise myself. The pain was still severe, although a bit better. My head was still swimming. “...still drugged, then...” thought I. I fell back with a groan and Morgan awoke.

  “Arthur? Are you better?”

  She felt my head and my hands.

  “Good – no fever. Thank the Goddess, you will be alright.”

  She looked pale – with dark circles beneath her swollen eyes. Had she been crying for me, then? What more harm have I caused? She smiled at me, but it was forced; I could tell...

  Then she said, “Lucian – he has asked about you every hour of the Day, so sick with grief is he over the cut he inflicted upon you. But, Arthur, he is not to blame for this. What were you thinking?!”

  So here it was – her anger – about to bubble over like a boiling cauldron. Fair enough – I knew that it was deserved.

  “I know it was my fault Morgan, but why do you find the need to protect Lucian so?”

  Puzzled, she said, “What is wrong with you, Arthur? I asked you what you were thinking to behave as such...”

  “As such a fool? Morgan, you do not want to know what I was thinking.”

  She looked surprised and then became silent. She was staring at me – through me – comprehension dawning in her eyes. She held my gaze. Large tears began to roll down her face. So, then – she had read my thoughts and felt my feelings.

  “Oh, Arthur, what will we do?”

  “Let me say it then, Morgan... I Love you more than everything and want you more than life. This I have lived with, but you, you could not keep your eyes from him and when he expressed his desire for you... I just went mad. Mad with fear and jealousy. I have been a fool – a fool to not realise and accept that you will be Loved by other men. It is your right. I cannot have you in the way that I want to or try to keep a hold upon you. You are not mine as wife or lover, nor will you ever be. I know this well. But in my heart... in my feelings... I am tortured by the picture of you in someone else’s arms – and bed.”

  “But Arthur, we – this land – needs you as King. And I do Love you!”

  “Yes, I know,�
�� I interrupted “As brother.”

  “But I do Love you, Arthur. I could not bear your Death. There is an old adage, which says: ‘The King is the land and the land is the King.’ You are our shining hope. What if you were to lose your concentration on a real battlefield, or if you let your troubled heart lead you to recklessness? All would be lost.”

  “Morgan, without you, all is lost to me. I know that I will ever be tortured by this.”

  “It cannot be, Arthur!”

  “Then, Morgan, what I beg from you now, is that you use your Magics to remove this all-consuming, overpowering Love I hold for you. Make this Love go away. Let me only Love you as my dear sister – for truly I Love you that way, too.”

  Morgan looked at me, sadly and wearily.

  “I do not desire Lucian, Arthur.”

  “That is not the point, Morgan. You will Love someone, someday. This, I do not think I can bear.”

  “Arthur, there is no Magic to cure Love and no Mysteries which can extinguish it. The Flame of Love burns brightly – Sometimes eternally.”

  I felt woozy, faint. I exhaled and fell back onto my bed.

  “Oh, Arthur, I would do anything for this not to be so. Forgive me for scolding you, especially since you are still so weak. Give me your leave to go now and I will ask the Goddess what can be done for our great trouble. Here, I will leave young Gwenda to watch over you.”

  Chapter 19

  An Eternal Love

  Morgan

  So profound was my sadness and worry – for I could never in this life give to Arthur what he wanted of me. I knew this. He knew this – but how to fix it?

  He must never learn of my feelings for Gwyddion, whatever they are, for Gwyddion is like a Father to him. Oh, but mine is not a great Love for Gwyddion – surely not in the way a woman Loves a man. Perhaps it is more an infatuation with his intellect and Spirit. I may never fully understand my feelings for him – only that I feel a-flutter when he is near. Then there is the fact that Gwyddion seems to have no desire for the flesh of women, or if he does, he has chosen never to express it. Perhaps he has buried it so deeply beneath his vast and complex genius that even he knows not the whys or hows of the thing. I have often wondered if Gwyddion believes that he is like the hero Samson of the Hebrews, who lost his strength through the cutting of his hair by a faithless lover. For, this is what I think I have read within him – that he fears the transfer of his Love – his energy – into another and that somehow that act would drain him of his Magical powers. Betimes I have wondered too, if this may not be more than an irrational fear of his. He could be right, if this is indeed his fear. I have wondered if he could feel a premonition of some distant Fate he may suffer.

  I chided myself: “Perhaps all of this musing on my part is a way of putting off what must be done – to leave my own sadness and desires behind and to seek the Wisdom of the Voices.”

  So, I dressed in my Enchantress robes, brought along a long and pointed Crystal that I had found at the mouth of the Cave beneath the Tor, and then climbed the spiral path to the Stone Circle at its summit. There I built a Fire and upon it offered the Crystal as a libation to the Spirits of Fire. When – and if – the Fire intensified enough to shatter the Crystal, I would have the sign that my entreaty had been heard. This being done, I shed my clothing; and naked as at my birth, I laid myself, once again, across the Green Star Stone.

  Always there is a Wind upon the Tor, and although it was the warmest Time of the year, I felt chilled. Was that a feeling of foreboding? I tried to relax.

  About the Time of my seventeenth year-turn – in my second year of training – the Lady Vivianne herself began to teach me how to, at will, go to a place of my own Creation in the Otherworld. She taught me how to use deep breathings which, when combined with a certain hand gesture and the closing of my eyes, would transport me to that place – my place. This method was to be used whenever I must traverse the Other Realms when alone, with no one to Drum or Hum for me.

  “And” said she, “there will be many such Times.”

  She painstakingly worked with me to lead me through the Creation of my own place of entrance into the Otherworlds, one chamber at a Time...

  “It should be everything that you imagine a magnificent chamber to be. Create it in what dimensions and in what manner and with what furnishings you would most desire it to have. Begin with an entrance – a gateway or a doorway.”

  To this I had given much thought. The entryway into my chamber was an arched top, rough, wooden door. From there, this chamber eventually grew from “my chamber” into “my world” beyond form.

  So, when I laid myself down across the Star Stone in the deepening of twilight that Day, I made my hand gesture and began deep breathing. I continued... eleven, twelve, thirteen breaths – knowing that upon the closing of my eyes during this practice, I would be transported into pure other-consciousness and, once there, to be held to my flesh by an imaginary “Silver Cord” which would keep me alive – for if this “Silver Cord” were to break, my breath would leave my body and fly with my Spirit to the Stars. So, I closed my eyes and entered the world of Trance.

  Whenever there, I find myself in an enormous Cavern on a footpath. The pathway follows the curvature a great rocky outcropping jutting from the wall of the Cavern. This outcropping is itself the size of a small cottage. The edge of this outcropping lies to the left of the path, and just to the right of the path is a great precipice, falling into the depths of the Cavern. There are wooden posts running along the right edge of the footpath – with thick ropes tied between them – to prevent one from falling over the precipice into the deep unknown. Far below is its floor. It is immense... dark... and yet I can see as if on a clear, Full Moonlit, Starry Night.

  My Bees await me on the footpath. They speak to me in words here. The Fawn that I had Loved so very much as a young child – who Morganna’s Wildcat, Terror, had torn to shreds and half eaten – greets me. I pet her.

  Across the breadth of the Cavern is another, seemingly wider ledge. Animals play there.

  Always it is the same.

  I see that, not far ahead, the path ends abruptly where a narrow ravine interrupts its progress. There is a swinging rope bridge to allow passage across the ravine to the far ledge. At the bridge’s end there is another footpath, at a perpendicular angle to the bridge, forming a crossroads of sorts.

  I take two steps forward, crossing the path. There, in front of me is an ancient, rough wooden door, with iron brackets, crossbars and an old rusted latch.

  Always there needs be a key... I say, “Where is my key?” The key appears before my eyes. I put it into the latch, pull the latch down with my hand to open the door and enter. As I step into the first chamber I see that just to the right of the doorway, hanging upon the wall of entry, is an oil lamp. I raise my first finger to make a motion toward the lamp and the Flame flares. I close the door behind me. Now I am ready to begin my work.

  I look around the chamber. This is my library. On the left there is a long wall with wooden shelves filling its entirety – floor to ceiling. The shelves are filled with leather bound manuscripts – books and scrolls of vellum and woven pages, containing the Wisdom of the Ages. They are all here for the reading; all here for me. Yet, I have never opened one of them to peer inside. Each Time I wonder, “What am I waiting for?”

  There is a trestle table in the middle of the room, with a three legged stool pushed beneath it. Behind the table and stool, on the far right wall there is some straw bedding with woolen blankets tightly wound around it and Wolf pelts covering it. I have yet to lie upon it.

  Beyond the trestle table, toward the opposite wall from the door of entry, there sits a large chest. Upon it, leaning against the wall, is a polished bronze mirror.

  Things change in here sometimes. It happened once upon my being here that suddenly, atop the chest – which had always before been bare wood – lay a long cloth of finest gold and scarlet silk, embroidered with fanciful Animals,
flowers, and leaves. Long fringes hung from its sides. Upon that same Day I saw sitting there a golden sphere, with indentions all over its surface. I, as yet, do not understand the function of this strange sphere. There also appeared at that Time a wooden box on the floor in front of the chest. I feared to open it. It seemed somehow a portent of some evil yet to be visited upon me. “Why?” I asked myself, but never have I gained an answer. The box remains there, unopened.

  To the left of the chest and mirror is an open doorway into a dark, short corridor. I walk through it and one step down then turn to my left and yet another doorway faces me. This one is always open, too.

  Through this passage is a great chamber, with a red mud brick floor – which bricks have been baked hard and buffed to a low sheen. This is a vast chamber – spacious and never crowded. It is always cool, dim, and slightly humid. All the walls are made of grey Stone.

  On the long left wall, there is a kind of Waterfall or fountain. Its stream is narrow yet more than a trickle. The Water falls from ceiling to floor, into a short, round Well or basin, which lies beneath it. It makes a delightful, melodic, splashing sound. I have always Loved the sound of falling Water. Perhaps that is why it is here.

  On the right side of the hall is a seating area, with a coloured wool rug from Byzantium, spread upon the floor for warmth and comfort. Two low benches face one another on either side of the rug. On these are carefully placed Bearskins, to provide softness whilst sitting upon them.

  Against the far right wall is a great Fire chamber, large enough so that I can stand within it, reaching both arms out from my sides – or reaching up – without ever touching the Stones of its inner walls. Mind that I have never before seen such a Fire chamber in this world of form – only have I heard of the one that is in the fortress of the late Vortigern, which Gwyddion, The Merlin designed. Within the Fire chamber a large cauldron is hanging from a strong iron arm that swivels. There are forged Firedogs to support the logs. They are ornamented with Dragon’s heads on their fronts.