Lady of the Light

by Donna Gillespie

  The lead horsemen would soon be abreast of her. Panicked afresh, Auriane dropped beneath the surface, struggling along with Brico’s chin still supported in the curve of one arm; she had no plan but to swim underwater until her tortured lungs could bear it no more. Good sense demanded she free herself of her burden, but she couldn’t bring herself to release Brico’s body to roll and tumble like some broken tree limb on the rough hands of the river. Brico deserved sacred rites, with those who loved her ringed round her pyre.

  When Auriane came up gasping, a horseman with bright, needling eyes and a thick, stubbled neck was pointing her out with his decurion’s staff, and bellowing. “Look, there’s another. Is he living?” A pause, then—“It’s the woman. Bring up the nets!”

  “Are you addled?” came a shout from the opposite bank. “Nothing mortal could’ve survived that fall.”

  “It’s one of our boys. Hurry on now, get ahead of him!”

  Auriane spat out bloody water and swam hard, paddling frenziedly with one arm. The fishermen’s nets were vast, and weighted with lead. I’m done. Even if I weren’t dragging poor Brico I can’t outswim a galloping horse.

  The decurion of cavalry pulled his mount to an agitated halt; his embossed bronze cuirass glinted like a wolf ’s eye in firelight. Turning round to the horsemen coming up behind him, he roared, “It’s the woman, I say! She gets free and I’ll see every one of you demoted to the messenger service.”

  She had as much chance as the scurrying beetle beneath a descending foot.

  This man gave his horse a hard kick; his armored and filleted mount broke into a heavy canter, taking him a short distance ahead of her. A horseman on the opposite bank kept apace. Then the whole company broke into a slow gallop, their sturdy mounts hurdling fallen alders, crashing noisily through hawthorn bushes, swerving round rockfall on the bank. The steady creak of leather, the sinister jingling of bits were alarmingly close at hand.

  The insidious river was obliging them now, narrowing in this place; she felt she was swimming into the neck of a stoppered bottle. As more horsemen crowded alongside her, again she heard broken bits of their speech—

  “Pull back! Let the Batavians have her. They need the commendation.”

  “That’s not the woman—your eyes are failing!”

  “—plenty of time to bicker over this after we’ve netted her—”

  Just ahead, the nets flared out. They struck the water simultaneously, then floated out sinuously as some tentacled sea creature, entwining in one another, forming a single strand across the river.

  Tentacles of death. All hope’s gone. They have me.

  Then came the appalling thought—Give them Brico’s body. Auriane didn’t think they had seen Brico at all; the maidservant was weighted down by the implements of iron she wore at her belt; her wan face scarce broke the surface. If the men lost time hauling in the wrong body, she might have some small chance of escaping. But it would be a profane thing, for which men and gods would condemn me.

  The current propelled her rapidly toward the nets. When she was but a horse length away, Auriane released Brico to the river.

  Dear Brico. I leave you among strangers. This is dreadful; they’ll give you no rites.

  She filled her lungs with a great reserve of air and dove straight down, like an otter. The muscular arms of the current gave her a powerful shove. She’d hoped to swim beneath the nets, but almost at once, she was struck by lead weights. She thrashed about, wrestling blindly with the stubborn webbing, then gave it up and dove deeper, while the net grabbed at her with light, eager hands.

  Above her she felt several tugs as Brico’s body was snagged, then began rolling in the net.

  Auriane knifed into slimy river bottom. The feel of it repelled her—this was like plunging into a vat of viscera. A creature in serpent form glided across her back. Something jealous of the living, something half-human, half-fish, wormed up from the silt, fastening onto her arms and legs with pulpy, gray hands that were tentative, voracious. Nixes. Fria, beloved Mother, keep them off me!

  It was not the Nixes; it was only a net. The lead weights brought it down and down until it molded itself about her, clinging like a skin.

  The vigorous current dragged her onward; she was a plough cleaving a furrow through malign slime. But it wasn’t enough to pluck her from the net’s thousand hands; her every move delivered her deeper into their grasp. The tribe of fish-beings pressed close, sucking her warmth into their cold bodies.

  Then her father’s sword was in her hand. She had no memory of unsheathing it; it was simply there, quick as an old, loved memory. Bracing herself in mud, she executed a slow crosscut followed by a languorous upward strike through accumulating masses of net, carving a door through which she might escape.

  She was a living woman in mortal combat with the Nixes.

  The blade was keen; the net’s tautness released at the barest touch. The Nixes flashed back as one before a weapon full of strong ghosts.

  She fought with a wild, hopeful madness, through a time that felt infinitely extended, but allowed in fact for fewer than a dozen heartbeats. Her strength drained off as she encountered more, and ever more netting. A hundred blind, watery horrors came for her. The Nixes’ advantage was terrible—they could breathe; she could not. They could play with her until she drowned.

  Night was on her lungs. Death-knowledge flashed through her limbs. A mute scream burst in her mind.

  I die in muck. And it’s only my due. I abandoned my people and lived in luxury with Marcus. And then, I betrayed him. My life is a desecration. Now I settle my debt for breaking sacred law . . .

  Her panic was a phantom billowing ever larger until it condensed into one yawning Nix’s mouth with fine, sharp teeth—but she didn’t turn her face from it, even as a muscular throat forced her down into intestinal darkness. Death swallowed her; terror was triumphant. Fright swelled; her body could contain it no more—then it burst her open like some pod. And all dissolved into an exquisite, nurturant warmth, and she knew a rapture beyond what she’d thought possible in this world, a beauty greater than what babes knew at the breast, what lovers felt at the moment of honeyed flooding when they melted into one creature. All fears and sorrows she’d ever known seemed no more than shadows cast by oft-repeated dreams. Deep in the murk, she found a sun—a fiery face both majestic and maternal, that she could only call by the name of Fria, the deity she knew from her cradle. She felt she stood very close to the Fates.

  There were no Nixes in the river now. They needed her fright to thrive.

  She managed a ponderously slow cross-stroke that spun her about—I thank every spirit that delivered this sword back to me—and a dense clot of netting fell away. Then she executed a downward diagonal that looped back on itself—and she was free.

  She spurted off like a squid, rejoining the determined current. The sunny warmth followed her. Rolling onto her back, briefly she exposed her face to the sky, and knew again the unbearable sweetness of air. Then she sank into the river and sped off again, propelling herself with strong frog kicks, speeding farther into a hallowed radiance that seemed to heal all wounds. Honor all that’s befallen you as if it were Fria herself, Ramis had said—and in that moment, Auriane did so. And the radiance flashed out, vast and high as the World Tree, and she knew, then, what an encompassing peace lived in latching on to nothing, in being as naked and free of thought as the beast in the field. It was fighting to hold to one shape, one place, one course, one being, that brought pain like being flayed alive.

  When Auriane broke the surface she found a stout tree limb and clung to it, gasping, feeling like a babe freshly pulled from the womb, wondering if she’d gone blessedly mad. A length of severed netting draped her head like a bridal veil, and wound round one arm like water weeds—one of her countrymen might have taken her for a fish woman.

  The cavalrymen. Were they close?

  Far upriver, the men huddled on the banks grew ever smaller as the current hurried her al
ong. They seemed intent upon the efforts of a man with a grappling pole who probed at something caught in the nets. Brico, beloved friend, how I misused you . . .

  But the ruse seemed a success.

  I’m free. She whipped about and started swimming like a sprinting runner. The powerful current doubled her efforts, hurling her northward on fluid, nimble hands, back to her forest home. It seemed that all within her sight—from the blooming ramsons along the bank, to the mossy stones that jutted, glistening, from the shallows, to the fine lace of overarching branches above—were suffused with a numinous glow, a silver fire, as if the moon flowed into them. She was not aware she was seeing with a seeress’s eyes. She just thought things had always been so.

  She glided smoothly as a hawk on a shining sheet of black water, moving through the forest’s striking silence while gods’ eyes watched, unblinking, from the foliage. The water felt warm, like some heated bath or healing spring. Ramis’s baffling words of last summer sounded in her mind—If you do nothing, a river will decide.

  Had the Fates claimed her violently for some new life? A lawless river would be their perfect instrument. If so, it would be a fugitive freedom, in which she dared not ever again set foot on imperial lands. And a harshly cold one, bereft of Marcus, lived out in a land where Arria was so distant she might as well have been taken off by death. And where Avenahar—if Auriane could find her—might shun her mother in a fresh fit of wrath.

  But in her holy fever Auriane saw only the beauty of all the fine, unseen webs, the kindness of this bloodstream of the Fates that bore her swiftly along, the nobility of the help one creature gives another—and behind them all, the fiery love of Fria herself, bright Mother of Light, spilling lavishly into all creatures, all things. She was stripped of every possession except for the plain gold ring that was a pledge of love from Marcus and a sword inhabited with her father’s ghost. Yet she felt as wealthy as if she were mistress over a hundred estates.

  There were no sounds in all the world but the ghostly rush of water. In this place, stands of gray alders lined the riverside—a forest of stilled dancers, elegant, stylus-thin, their bristling limbs outstretched in a mute shout of joy. This was well; the alders would shelter her when she gained the bank. She doubted her captors would be content to conclude that she’d drowned; they wouldn’t move on before mounting a search of the countryside.

  On a small spur of land jutting into the river course just ahead was a tree that stood alone—an ancient willow. The haunted, water-loving tree seemed to float in another world. Its shape was stark and peculiar, both droll and divine—masses of long, straight branches shot out of a bulbous trunk bunched like a defiant fist. It was great-breasted old crone with a fine fan of hair.

  The dead lived in willows. She watched it in reverent silence.

  The current dragged her closer. A solitary human figure stood beneath the willow.

  Auriane almost dove beneath the surface again.

  Fearful amazement broke through her tranquil haze.

  It was Ramis.

  She cannot be here. She is in Rome.

  Ramis stood straight as a sword among the tangle of long grasses and aromatic agrimony stalks on the wilder bank. The lone willow seemed some spreading throne behind her, or a sky-door through which she’d come.

  My eyes play tricks.

  Perhaps I drowned and don’t know it yet.

  Auriane looked again and the old seeress was still there, impossible as a star in day, her image as solid as the willow’s trunk—though her pale robe hung straight down, stately and still, in spite of the fact that a stiff wind was blowing. Somehow she was there but not there—she’d cast her mind across the world like some far-flung shadow. A smooth, graceful quiet lay round her, and the air about her crown of hair seemed oddly brighter than elsewhere. Such love and comfort were shed from her that Auriane began to swim in that direction; she could hardly help herself. Once, the shoal-riffled waters broke over her head, driving her under. In the watery silence Auriane felt a nimble consciousness fitting itself round her own; a familiar voice butted its way into her mind.

  Ah. You’re stronger than I thought. And I thought you couldn’t surprise me anymore.

  A pity you had to exhaust yourself so in that forty-year-long gallop away from me. Some fates are set, Auriane.

  I tried to tell you.

  Auriane scarce had the wit to consider those words’ meaning; she just found herself helplessly glad of a companion. By what deed of gods are you here?

  No deed of gods, came the mute reply. You’ve opened a pathway for me.

  Auriane came up again and saw the falcon hanging in the sky above Ramis, beating powerful wings in a way that suggested surprise and joy; it dropped like a stone, then rushed at Auriane. Words poured into her mind and she did not know if they came from Ramis, the winged creature, or the rushing waters.

  Auriane. I charge you to touch a living torch to the one that grows cold. And you will bear it on as long as you live, and give it over to the next of your line.

  She gave a low cry of protest. She sensed spirits, the living and the dead, pressing the breath from her. The sole thought she could form was—But it is too late. Your staff’s been claimed by another.

  Ramis’s answer was a smile like gentle summer.

  All right, then. I battle you no more. Ramis, you have rightly won. Though I can’t imagine being the eyes for so many when I’ve such a frail trust in my own sight. I’ll never be as loved as you were, or as strong, but you would have me, so I’ll take the oath on the sacred earth.

  I’ll do whatever I must, to be your successor.

  A wavelet dashed itself into her eyes. When her blurred vision cleared, Ramis was gone.

  Auriane swam toward the strange willow, suspecting that Ramis had shown herself in that place to tell her—Come to the bank, here; in this place, it is safe.

  She ploughed through a rippling blanket of bogbean plants with their starlike flowers in crisp bloom. As she grasped an alder root and hauled herself from the water, the brisk wind found her wet clothes and she felt encased in ice. Shivering, she put a hand to her belt, relieved to discover she hadn’t lost her fire-drill; she could make a fire when she needed to. Intent as an elk, she listened for the clink of iron on iron, horses’ snorts, any sound that might signal the cavalrymen’s approach. She was met with nothing but windy silence.

  After a short search Auriane found some flowering hawthorn. She knelt by the riverbank and cast the petals into the water while intoning a prayer, asking the kindly spirits of this place to take Brico’s ghost into their arms.

  She was startled by the rattle-and-clatter of fast-beating wings from the opposite bank. Storks. As their ragged formation expanded across the sky, briefly they took the shape of the runic sign her people called dagaz—the advent of dawn.

  The sign for rebirth.

  She broke into bleak tears full of weakness and hurt, pressing Marcus’s gold ring to her breast. A break of day without you, Marcus.

  She was strongly aware, then, that this river gushed on until it poured into another, the Mother River, whose wide waters eventually intermingled with the Mosella, which wriggled backward to Marcus Julianus’s villa—and her lost life. Somehow it brought a meager comfort to know all these waters were connected, just as this newborn life was the child of the one from which she’d been roughly exiled. Her life was proving to be a chain of worlds, each with a greater and louder ancestral chorus than the last.

  For the last time, she looked toward the broken bridge. The men on the banks had grown so small, they had no nation or clan. Moving in concert, they were dragging the body of a woman from the waters. Rest in Fria, poor Brico.

  Then her strength flowed out in a rush. Where the roots of the willow formed an earthen pocket, she crawled in, then covered herself with the wet cloak. There, in the lap of the guardian willow, she sank gratefully into a fathomless sleep.

  SHE DID NOT awaken on her own. She was roused. The crackle of
brisk, decisive footsteps through the grasses, the sharp mutterings of men, prodded her back into the world. Once again, she heard that loathsome jingling of bits . . .

  Her mind still burdened with sleep, she fumbled for the grip of her father’s sword. And made the discovery that she was too wearied to rise. Terror and acceptance claimed her together. The exhausted prey awaits the wolf.

  Chapter 32

  After the passage of thirty days

  Witgern and Avenahar struggled through dog rose; hooked thorns tore at their woolen leggings. A hundred paces ahead, a green stone dominated the meadow, rising like a stark island in the weedy sea, a gargantuan surprise that seemed the lolling head of a primitive behemoth that had expired there at the time of the world’s creation. “This is the place,” Witgern said, extending an arm to stop her. “Stay here lest this be an ambush.”

  “But who else but my mother would have this ring?” Avenahar looked again at the warm, low-glowing beauty nested in her palm, with its pin-sharp inscription declaring, Anima Mea.

  “Anyone could have stripped that ring from Auriane’s drowned body. And the noblest of messengers can be corrupted by torture.” Saddened by the undimmed light in Avenahar’s eyes, he added more gently, “You must quell your hopes. The river was high. The banks were well watched. Don’t lull yourself into believing she could be living, and free.”

  Conflicting tales of Auriane’s end had filtered out into the forest.

  The report that gave Avenahar no peace claimed that Auriane had survived the breaking of the bridge and managed an audacious escape, hurried along on the rough hands of the river. But as she lay on the bank depleted of all strength, she’d been seized by a Thracian auxiliary cavalry unit attached to the Twenty-second Legion.

  To learn she was recaptured after such a noble swim, Avenahar thought. It makes me want to have no more to do with this world.

  “So take that garland from your spear.” Witgern’s words came out hoarse and fierce; he, too, was feveredly hoping.