The Hallowed Isle Book One

by Diana L. Paxson

  By the evening’s ending, sorrow had been translated to melancholy on a golden tide of ale. The men went singing to their barracks, and even Igierne’s two women were nodding. She herself had drunk enough to feel an unaccustomed detachment, but she was not yet sleepy. When she had helped her women to their beds, she eased out the door and climbed carefully to the lookout post on the wall.

  A three-quarter moon glimmered between tattered clouds, touching an occasional glint of silver from the restless waves. And from time to time the water would catch a flicker of light from the torches that burned on the walls, as if the people of the sea were celebrating their own festival. Lights had been kindled over the gates, and at the other end of the arching causeway, to aid any spirit that might be uncertain of the road in finding its way.

  Though surely, she thought as she gazed at the shadowed masses of the cliffs beyond it, any spirit that could find a path between the worlds could manage to travel this last little way. She blinked—for a moment she had thought she saw something moving—but when she looked again the land was as dark and featureless as before.

  It is the ale, she thought, shaking her head. I had best seek my bed before I try to walk the moonpath across the sea.

  She made her way down from the wall, choosing her footing with conscious care. The hall seemed warm after the brisk wind outside, and she cast aside her shawl. The pitcher still stood upon the table, half full of ale. It would be flat by morning, and it seemed a pity to waste it when there were so many dead whom she had not yet honored. She filled her cup and raised it high.

  “To Amlodius, shield of the North!”

  She had barely begun the tally of her father’s dead companions when the lamplight flickered wildly and a gust of wind stirred her hair. She looked up. The door to the hall had swung open; three figures were standing there.

  “Be you living or dead, I give you greeting—” She held out the beaker. “In the name of the old gods and the new, be welcome to this hall.”

  They came forward, and the third man closed the door behind them. Igierne blinked, thinking she must have drunk more than she thought, for she found it hard to focus on their features. Then the leader stopped before her and held out his hand to take the cup. He was wearing a checkered mantle she knew only too well, with a golden griffin pin.

  “Gorlosius!” she exclaimed, almost dropping the cup. “What are you doing here?”

  For a moment he hesitated. “Where else should I be on this holy festival?” His voice seemed strained and hoarse, as if he were very tired. “I gave my army the slip and came here. I couldn’t go any longer without seeing you again.”

  Igierne took a step back and snatched up the lamp, but his features were still in shadow.

  “You come here on Samhain Eve, like a spirit from the Otherworld, and you expect me to welcome you?”

  “Is it so strange to expect a wife to welcome her husband?”

  “It is when I am the wife,” she said with a bitter humor, “and the husband is you.”

  One of his men—she thought his name was Jordanus—hovered anxiously behind him. The third man kept to the shadows by the door. Perhaps they were spirits, she thought, her skin prickling, for surely this was not the Gorlosius she had known.

  “Nonetheless,” he said harshly, “this night I’ll claim a husband’s place in your bed!” Before she could react he was beside her, gripping her shoulders with a warrior’s callused hands.

  But not the hands of Gorlosius. He was a living man—so close, she could feel the warmth of his body; her nostrils flared to the scents of sweat and horse—but her flesh knew that this man had never touched her before.

  “I am the Lady of the Lake,” she said in a still voice, “and not to be deceived by lesser magics. In the name of the gods my people swear by I conjure your true form back again.”

  Whether the change was in him or in herself she could not say, but the air seemed to ripple around him, and when it cleared she was looking up into the face of the High King.

  “Why?” she said softly. “Why have you sought to dishonor me?”

  Uthir shook his head. “The disguise was to protect you. The man at the gate thought I was Gorlosius, and let me in.”

  “I asked the wrong question,” Igierne said then. “Why have you tried to deceive me? It is not the way of a lover to court in the guise of another man, nor is it the way of a king.”

  “It is the way of a desperate man . . .” he whispered then, glancing toward the man by the door in appeal.

  “What is that to me?” exclaimed Igierne. She was slow to wrath, but she was growing angry now. “If this is love, it can learn to wait; if it is lust, then burn!”

  “This is the hour in which the Pendragon is destined to beget his son,” said the third man, coming at last into the light. “The child which you conceive in this hour, and no other, shall be the Defender of Britannia.”

  “Merlin . . .” she breathed, remembering how she had faced him across the altar of the Sword. “Is this truly so?”

  He bowed his head. “I have seen it in the heavens.”

  “I will not be coerced . . . even by the stars. . . .”

  Uthir stared at her, his desperation gradually giving way to the awe with which he had looked upon her as he came from his crowning.

  “Lady—I won’t force you.” Taking a deep breath, he got down upon one knee. “You are the White Raven of Britannia; you decide.” He took her hand and gently kissed the palm.

  At the touch of his lips a little shock traveled up her arm. She bit her lip, feeling a warmth spreading through her despite the chill air. She held out her other hand, and trembled as he kissed it.

  “You are so beautiful, Igierne,” he said softly. “You haunt my sleep, and I dream you are my queen.”

  “Truly?” She laughed suddenly, her anger giving way to a fierce exhilaration. “Then as a queen I will claim you! You shall come to my bed, and we will see what ancient soul is hovering in these shadows, waiting to take flesh in my womb!”

  One end of the hall had been partitioned off with curtains and woven screens to give the master of the fortress some privacy. A few swift steps brought her to the entrance. Uthir surged to his feet and followed her.

  In the dim light that came through the curtain she saw him in silhouette, stripping off his mantle and heavy outer tunic, struggling with the buckles of his commander’s belt, and finally letting it drop with a clatter to the floor. She unhooked belt and brooches, pulling first the short-sleeved outer garment and then the long-sleeved undertunic over her head so that she stood shivering in her shift before him.

  He had got as far as his braes. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, and her breath caught as she took in his breadth of shoulder and the fine modeling of muscle in belly and arm. She knelt to unknot his leg wrappings and he bent, plucking the pins from her coiled hair so that it fell in silken masses about her shoulders.

  “Lie down,” he whispered. “If you touch me now I will waste the good seed.”

  She pulled away, looking up at him, and saw that it was true. She wanted to laugh, but her pulse was leaping erratically, and she realized that she had come already to a state of readiness that Gorlosius, with all his efforts, had rarely been able to bring her. She tugged at the neck ties of her shift and as she rose it slid off her shoulders and pooled around her feet. She padded to the bed and lay down upon it, clad only in her hair.

  For one moment longer Uthir hesitated, then he surrendered himself to her embrace, and as the embers flare when new fuel is thrust into the hearth, their bodies caught fire. With arms and legs she held fast as the flames rose higher. Then they exploded in a shower of light, brilliant behind her closed eyelids, and he cried out and arched hard against her and then fell like a slain man back into her arms.

  For a few moments they lay gasping. Then Igierne ran her hands down the rippling muscles of his back and felt him come to life again between her thighs. This time their joining had a sweet deliberati
on that left her panting and helpless in his arms. They made love a third time before they slept, but long afterward, when she thought about that night, it seemed to her that it must have been in the first encounter that she got her son, when all the High King’s hoarded passion was released in that great cry.

  She felt Uthir’s contentment change to the relaxation of sleep, and had time only to draw the blankets over them before oblivion claimed her as well. It was some hours later that she awakened, wondering what had disturbed her, for Uthir lay still beside her and there had been no sound. She opened her eyes, abruptly certain they were not alone.

  Beside the curtains a pale shape moved.

  She blinked, remembering how a trick of the light on the bedcurtains had been able to frighten her when she was a child. But this image grew ever more distinct until she could make out the tense, wiry shape beneath the mantle, the shock of dark hair and staring eyes. Spectral lips shaped her name.

  “Gorlosius . . .” she whispered, answering.

  The shape reached towards her. Then from the pen beside the garden came a cock’s crow, and its features contorted and began to fade.

  Was it Gorlosius’s spirit body or his shade? Igierne lay trembling until in the gray hour just after dawn, when the mist lies heavy on the sea, the stillness was broken by someone shouting. She heard the door to the hall slam open and sat up, pulling the blanket around her, as Uthir began to stir by her side.

  “My lady, my lady! The High King’s men have stormed the fort and struck down Gorlosius. Come quickly, and we will help you to flee!”

  The curtains were flung back. She saw two of her husband’s men, their armor bloodied, their frantic faces stiffening to astonishment as the torchlight showed them who was sitting there. For a moment Igierne’s mind went blank with terror. Then the warrior went down on one knee.

  “Lord Gorlosius, I saw you fall!”

  “I escaped,” said Uthir. As a commander, Igierne thought numbly, he must have developed the ability to sound sensible moments after being awakened by an alarm.

  “Then you must flee again, for the Pendragon will surely come here to secure this stronghold!”

  “If he’s taken Dimilioc then my cause is lost, and I must make peace with him. Go back—tell the men to lay down their arms. The High King won’t condemn them for following their prince!”

  “Aye, my lord—” said the warrior, sorrow replacing the terror in his eyes. He regained his feet and pushed back out through the curtains.

  Igierne let out her pent breath in a long sigh.

  Uthir was already pulling on his clothing. “What a tangle—” he muttered. “But with all the rumors that will fly, I suppose no one will know what’s true!” He belted his tunic and reached for the checkered mantle.

  Igierne still sat with the blanket around her shoulders, watching him. “Does anyone know that?” she said softly.

  He stilled, and the warmth came back into his eyes. A swift step brought him to her side and he kissed her.

  “I know that you’re my queen! Bar the gates after me; and don’t let anyone in until I come for you!”

  It seemed very quiet when he had gone.

  I am a widow . . . thought Igierne, remembering Gorlosius’s anguished ghost. Then, deliberately, she thrust the memory away. I am a queen, she told herself, and set her hands above her belly, where even now the future Defender of Britannia, planted in her womb like a seed of light, was beginning to glow.

  VIII

  THE SIGN OF THE BEAR

  A.D. 471

  “MORGAUSE, YOUR HAIR IS LIKE MY MOTHER’S, THE WAY IT WAS when I was a child,” said Igierne, drawing the comb through the long strands. “It shines like a dark fire.”

  Through the narrow window of the tower a thin spring sunlight glowed on rich fabric, sparkled from the jewelry waiting in its casket, and struck fiery glints from the girl’s long hair. Once, this had been part of the Roman fortress of Eburacum, but Coelius had made it a royal residence. Now his son Eleutherius ruled, and seemed happy to host the wedding of his overlord’s daughter to Leudonus of Dun Eidyn.

  Morgause shrugged as if she were not convinced, but she stood still as her mother took up the next strand and began to tease the snarls free. Poor child, thought Igierne, at fifteen her hair was almost her only beauty. She herself had been the same at her first marriage, a pudgy adolescent with no graces to charm her new husband. She wished they could have delayed this wedding until Morgause grew into her own looks, but Uthir needed the northern alliance now. She could only hope that Leudonus would have the sensitivity to cherish this flower until it bloomed. Now in his thirties, he had buried one wife already, and was newly come to his grandfather’s throne.

  She finished the last lock and smoothed it into place. “There now. Put on the jewels and you will look splendid!” She picked up the necklet of Alban gold.

  “I look terrible,” said Morgause. “I hate this color—”

  “Crimson is traditional,” Igierne began, although she had to agree that this particular shade did not flatter her daughter’s complexion.

  “—and I hate this city. You should have left me on the Isle of Maidens to finish my training. The Isle needs a High Priestess, and if you do not want the position, I do not see why it should not go to me.”

  Igierne stared at her. I do want it, she thought, and each time she had visited Morgause she had wanted to stay with her. But Uthir needed her, and when she was with him, her memories of the Lake became a fair dream.

  “Perhaps one day it will,” she said aloud. “But the Lady of the Lake needs to know the ways of the world as well. And we need you here—”

  “Then why are you sending me to Dun Eidyn?” retorted Morgause, sliding the bracelets onto her wrists.

  “Would you rather we had wedded you to some southern magnate who thinks the old ways are a sin?” exclaimed Igierne. “At least the Votadini still honor the gods. Leudonus’s mother was a Pictish princess. He will know how to value you not only as Uthir’s daughter, but as my heir.”

  Morgause looked thoughtful as she hung the discs of gold filigree in her ears, and Igierne was unhappily reminded that the girl was her only heir, so far as the world knew. In ten years of marriage, she had given Uthir no other child than the one tiny son, born six weeks before his time at Dun Tagell, the Midsummer after his conception, and handed over to Merlin to foster as soon as it became clear that he would live. She had given him her mother’s family name, Artorius, but she would not even know him if she saw him now.

  “Well, at least Leudonus is not a bad-looking man,” Morgause said finally, finishing with the second earring. “And, as you keep reminding me, he is a king.” As she held up the bronze mirror Igierne saw them both for a moment reflected—Morgause ruddy with her father’s dark eyes, and herself still pale and fair. But the bronze canceled out such differences, revealing the elegant modeling of cheek and brow, the firm line of the jaw, and beyond such surface similarities, their pride.

  There was a stir at the doorway. Igierne turned, expecting the women whom she had banished from her chambers, wanting a little time alone with this daughter whom she was about to lose once more. But it was the High King—with Merlin, as usual, behind him.

  “Go out now,” she said briskly. “The other ladies are waiting with your wreath and veil. In a few moments I will follow you.”

  Morgause looked from her mother to Uthir with thinly veiled hostility, but she went without arguing.

  “I hope this marriage will work,” said the king, looking after her.

  “That is the chance you take, is it not, when you marry girls off so young, and without consulting their inclination,” Igierne replied, a bit more sharply than she had intended. “What’s to say they won’t find someone that suits them better when they are grown?”

  Uthir had the grace to flush, and her frown softened. Since their marriage he had put on flesh, and from time to time he experienced episodes of dizziness and joint pain that worried her, but h
e still looked at her with the ardent gaze that had won her ten years ago. With Uthir she had the kind of partnership she had dreamed of, and their physical harmony had only increased with the years.

  “It will be enough if Leudonus is as brisk in bed as he is in battle, since her children may be my heirs . . .” he said thoughtfully.

  “But what about our son? Isn’t it time you brought him to court and acknowledged him? How can he be a king if he is not trained up to rule?”

  “How can he be a king if he’s dead?” Uthir responded. “People tried to poison my brother and me three times before we were fifteen. Aurelianus never did get over it, really. And we were Ambrosius’s legitimate sons!”

  “Are you saying that Artorius is not?” Her voice shook.

  “Not by Church law—we weren’t married ‘til Midwinter. A pity the child came early. Curse it, I myself proved how Gorlosius could have visited you six weeks before. The boy’s too young to face the whispers that will follow once I claim him. People know you bore me a child, but many think he died, and they don’t know where he is now. He is safe, Igierne; let him be!”

  “Is he?” Igierne whispered. She turned to Merlin. “He was such a tiny mite when you took him away from me. Have you told me the truth, cousin? Did he live and thrive, or is he only a few tiny bones in an unmarked grave?” It was a nightmare that haunted her—that Gorlosius’s ghost had somehow blighted Uthir’s seed.

  “On your mother’s soul I swear, I have seen him every year since he was born,” Merlin said quietly.

  “Have you seen him this year?” she exclaimed. “You made me Tigernissa, and as High Queen I command you. Go to him, Merlin, and report to me every detail of how he looks and what he does! Then, perhaps, I will believe.”