"And why not?" he would say, laughing, when his wife objected to his lurid tales of gods and goddesses changing the world through their magic.
"Because you make them seem like real people," she answered, only pretending to be annoyed.
"As well I should!" Leodegranz shouted. "For I do believe they were all real at one time, as real as you and I."
"Real people who could do magic?"
"Perhaps a little. Or maybe they were just clever. At any rate, they were remembered, and then the legends grew around them."
His wife really was shocked now. "The gods as real people! Such sacrilege!"
Leodegranz laughed. So did Guenevere, to please her father, but she remembered his words. The gods as people? Actual living people, who lived as we all did and suffered from the cold and wind and got knobby with old age? Was it possible? The wild, powerful deities of the Old Religion—Cerridwen, Arionhod, Gwion, Morrigan, perhaps even the Cailleach herself, real?
But then, Guenevere thought, how did they become gods?
She arrived at the place she had come to think of as her chapel. It was a copse of smooth grassland, roughly in the shape of a circle. In the middle of it was a huge rectangular boulder made of yellow rock. With a little imagination, one could think of it as a place where the ancients might have gathered to summon the gods and borrow their magic.
She had come to pray to Brigid, who was one of the great Triple goddesses, embodying the three aspects of woman: maiden, mother, and crone. Once the very soul of Celtic Britain, Brigid had suffered from the incursions of the Romans and, later, the Christians. Now, like many of the traditions that grew from ancient religious practices, the only vestige of Brigid's veneration was the festival of Imbolc, also called "Brigid's Day," in which all the nobles within a day's ride would gather to watch the goddess, in the form of a snake, emerge from the cold ground, thus signaling the beginning of the end of winter.
Of course, since even in those times England had almost no snakes, one small garter snake was prudently cared for year round for the express purpose of releasing it on Brigid's Day to the cheers and applause of the onlookers. If it was a fine day and the snake cast a shadow, then it was said that winter would be late in leaving; but if the day was overcast, those present—and freezing—would be heartened by the knowledge that spring would soon be coming. Either way, a boy from the kitchen was sent out as soon as the crowd dispersed for a day of stag hunting to locate the snake and put it back in its cage, to feed on pantry mice until the following year.
For the women, Brigid's Day held other fascinations. A pilgrimage was usually made to all the wells in the area, since on this day the water was supposed to be capable of healing sickness. A pitcher of water from one of the wells was brought inside the dwelling and used to cool fevers, cleanse wounds, and particularly to ease inflammations of the eye. In exchange, the women left bouquets of snowdrops, gathered in the morning, at the bases of the wells.
But for young girls, the most important part of Brigid's Day was the night before when, during sleep, one was supposed to dream of one's true love.
This was a tradition that bore no weight whatever with any women of the nobility, since they never had anything to say about whom they were to marry; but among the peasants, it was still common practice for girls to braid together the chunky, lopsided-looking rush crosses and then hang them by the hearth as prayers to Brigid to grant them a glimpse of their heart's desire while they slept.
Guenevere learned about it from one of the cooks, who showed her how to hold the straw and whisper the ancient prayers into the fragrant rushes.
"Will I see the man I'll marry?" the girl had asked excitedly the first time she made one of the crosses.
"Like as not," the cook had answered. "And if not this year or the next, keep asking of the Goddess to show you the face of your love, and you'll see it, this I promise."
"Did you see your husband's face, Cook?"
"Aye, that I did. And it was a right handsome face at the time, it was." She sighed. "Alas, he lived only twenty-four years."
Guenevere practiced sighing with her. She decided it felt very womanly.
Now, standing before the great yellow rock in the sacred clearing, she sighed again.
For the night before, as she slept beneath the rush crosses she had woven each year since the family cook had taught her how, the Goddess had indeed granted Guenevere a glimpse of her true love.
She had not recognized him, although that was often the way with dreams. She would not even have recognized herself, except for the fact that she simply knew that she was both the dreamer and the one being dreamed about.
The dream had taken place on this very spot. She was sure of it, because she had seen the big yellow stone in her vision. She had run her hand over its smooth coolness and felt its power surging through her.
"Imbolc," she had whispered. In the old tongue of the Celts, it meant "in the belly," or the quickening of the year. On this day, spring let itself be felt. Beneath the snow bloomed the white flowers that signaled the promise of a new season of life. The world was pregnant, and spring was in her belly.
And the person whom Guenevere was in her dream had rejoiced with a sense of awe and reverence.
"Imbolc," Guenevere said again, trying to summon those same feelings. She smelled the sweetness of the air, the gentleness of the breeze, still cold but mild now, flowing in the wake of winter's passing. She knelt beside the yellow rock and touched it reverently. What came off them into her hands and body was a feeling of inexpressible bliss. Tears sprang to her eyes. She closed them.
And then he came to her. She was back in the dream, remembering with such intensity that it seemed to be occurring all over again, down to the last molecule of scent. He came, tousle-haired, grinning, filled with love for her.
His hands were fairly small, with long thin, fingers. They were the hands of an artist, even though they were callused and usually covered with burns from working with molten metal. These hands he held out to her in love, and she welcomed his embrace.
Then the dream had ended, abruptly and for no reason. Guenevere had awakened in the black of night, longing, longing for those hands that had held her so surely.
And then she remembered where she was, and who. She was the daughter of a noble, and therefore had no right to choose her own mate, or even to dream of him. Her father, Leodegranz, had already betrothed her, in fact.
The suitor he had selected was Prince Melwas of Orkney, a fairly handsome but decidedly stupid fellow from a region so far away that after her marriage to him, she would probably never see her home again. Orkney was cold and barren and windswept, and its inhabitants famous for their joyless taciturnity.
Guenevere's father had no wish to see her married to a man known universally as a dolt, but a bond linking the two kingdoms would have great advantages for Leodegranz. In addition to providing him with allies against the invading Saxons, such an association would strengthen both chiefs in any bid they made for the vast land holdings left by Uther Pendragon.
Uther had died some months earlier without leaving an heir, and the result had been almost immediate civil war. Each tribe made its own claims to the territory stretching from the southwestern shore of England inland to the place of the mysterious standing stones of the Giant's Dance. With Britain in such chaos, Leodegranz had no choice but to trade his only bargaining chip, his daughter, in order to survive during the coming years of tumult.
Since Guenevere understood this, it was with some guilt that she stood here now, in her sacred place, with the intention of invoking the ancient goddess Brigid. She simply could not marry Melwas, especially not after her dream. She had seen the face of the man she loved, and even though she had never met him—indeed, she was not even certain that he existed at all—she wanted no other man in her life.
Turning around slowly, her eyes closed, her hands raised in the ancient pose of supplication, she called out: "Brigid, great transformer, protector
of women, you of the clear sight who has brought a vision of my true love to me, I call upon you to beg your help on this your day of greatest power...."
She did not know where the words came from. They just flowed out of her on a stream of emotion, resonating throughout her body and filling the sacred circle until the air was thick with magic.
"Bring my true love to me, you who are my mother and my friend. Make this a union that will harm none, but will bring joy and satisfaction to all, especially to my father, who has need of me...."
Just then she spied something shining in the brambles, shining so brightly that she was blinded by the flash of it. The thicket was very dense, and it was impossible even to see light behind it, so the sudden sparkle was more than mysterious. Momentarily forgetting her prayer, Guenevere picked up a stick and tried to part the thick thornbushes wide enough to get a better look at the gleaming thing behind it.
To her astonishment, the wiry branches cracked as if they were made of dry twigs. The stick in her hand, which was not particularly thick or heavy, chopped through them like the sharpest axe, until, standing before the object that had reflected such strong light, she dropped the stick and stood, awestruck, with trembling hands.
For before her, stuck into a piece of yellow rock just like the one that marked the middle of her circle, was a magnificent sword with a jeweled hilt and a blade that looked as if it had been made of pure starlight.
Backing up, feeling her heart beating wildly in her chest, she ran back to the castle to summon her father.
"Look!" she shouted, pointing as she ran toward the thicket. A number of men followed behind, amused. It was unseemly for a gentlewoman to run so excitedly, but young Guenevere was so ardent that even her mother's stern admonitions meant nothing to her. "Hurry, Father!"
The noblemen with him had come for the hunt following the short ceremony of watching the snake dart out of its cage, and were in a jolly mood. "Ho, Leo!" one of them called behind him to the portly and puffing chieftain. "I'd say young Melwas had better practice his paces if he's to catch that daughter of yours on her wedding night!"
Leodegranz was not laughing. Inwardly he was blaming his wife for raising such a daughter as Guenevere, who would mortify her family for the sake of a girlish lark. It occurred to him that, demon that she was, she may even have done this as a protest against marrying Prince Melwas. He knew she hated the idea. An effigy, perhaps, Leodegranz thought with mounting apprehension. Oh, Gods, what would he do if Guenevere had set up a scarecrow in a field with some object that identified it as Melwas?
He felt his bowels loosening. That was what came of having an only child who was a daughter. She had been spoiled from the beginning. She had no respect—
The chieftain nearly tripped over the men in front of him, who had come to a sudden halt.
"By the gods!" someone said. It was Lot of Rheged, the most ambitious of the ten kings of Britain. Already his hand was reaching out as he moved as if in a trance through the thicket toward the gleaming sword.
"The thing's not yours by right," said old Cheneus, who was by far the oldest of the tribal chiefs. He had kept his head long enough for the hair on it to grow white by being not only a good warrior, but a fair negotiator as well. "It's Leodegranz's land we're on."
"Aye, mine and the Cailleach's," Leodegranz huffed. "These are the ancient graves of Camlod we're trodding upon. 'Tis the gods themselves placed that sword in the thicket."
"More than a thicket, Father," Guenevere said. "It's stuck into a great rock."
At this, all the men rushed forward into the brambles, heedless of the thorns. But again, the thicket broke to pieces with a touch. As the men moved through it, bits of thorn-bush and vine, dry as ash, flew about them in a virtual cloud.
Lot was in the lead, and broke into a run as he heard the others behind him. "It's no more than a sword," he said stoically, "and it'll go to him that takes it." With a small cry of triumph, he reached it, stumbling, and clasped both hands around its hilt.
But the sword did not budge. Lot tried again, grimacing, the veins in his neck standing out and he strained to remove it from the stone.
"This is someone's idea of a joke," he said irritably, drawing a dagger from its sheath around his waist and stabbing it roughly around the blade. "This is some kind of mortar, no doubt, with the sword placed inside it as a novelty. Is this your doing, Leodegranz?"
"It's not mortar," the chieftain answered. "Any fool can tell the difference between mortar and rock. And get that dagger away, Lot. You'll break the blasted sword."
At that moment, the dagger snapped in two, the tip flying up to cut a deep gash in Lot's hand. With a curse, he stepped back.
"Father, look," Guenevere said, kneeling as she brushed lichen from the base of the rock.
Near the ground, where the stone had been broken, was a faint etching, nearly worn away by time, of a circle surrounded by radiant lines.
"A sun," old Cheneus said quietly. "Ancient symbol of the great King Macsen."
There was a stunned silence for some time, in which the chieftains barely breathed as each took in the meaning of the old chief's words.
Macsen was a legendary hero, a great warrior who had, it was said, once united all of England under his mighty sword. So great were his fighting skills that stone fortresses trembled at the very sound of his name, and the inhabitants of villages took to the hills at his approach.
In fact, such a leader had not existed; England had never been united under a single ruler, though many had tried. Even the most superstitious of men knew in his heart that the story was not possible, because he himself, his family, and his tribe, would never submit to a High King who ruled over the ten chieftains, no matter how powerful he was.
It was the nature of the independent Celts to rebel against all authority. That was why Britain had never submitted to Roman rule, despite centuries of domination. The English had accepted their lot, perhaps, but they had never, ever considered themselves to be Roman; and the instant that the Romans left, the Britons reverted to their old ways, even though many of those ways were patently inferior to the Romans'.
Nevertheless, in the weird circumstance in which the petty Kings now found themselves, gathered around a mysterious stone on which was engraved a very old likeness of a sun, and from which, inexplicably, grew a magnificent sword, it did not take much for them to reconsider the merits of the Macsen story.
"No one knows what happened to his sword," someone volunteered into the silence.
"The gods kept it," someone else answered.
"And hid it until they were ready to choose a new High King."
"Aye," Cheneus said. "And they're ready now."
There was a massed, audible intake of breath. Yes, they all knew it. The gods were ready, and so were the kings. In the wake of the Roman occupation, England had become too difficult to rule in the old ways. The island was no longer simply a collection of farms and tribal strongholds. Great cities had come and gone, leaving in their wake a plethora of blessings and curses: Roads, bridges, new entertainments; and also disease, crime, decay, pollution, mass poverty, slavery, and war with invaders from lands outside of England as well as the ongoing battles among the tribes themselves.
The leaders of these tribes called themselves kings, but each of them knew what they really were: relics from a distant time who were unable to cope with the problems of an entirely new society. What was needed was ...
Well, a miracle.
A miracle in the form of leader who could somehow make the whole country work together to keep the Saxons from conquering and obliterating England.
But who would consent to such a man? Which of the petty chiefdoms would give way and pay homage to another? And how long before the winning chief, the one to be deemed the High King, turned on the others, seizing their land and waging war for his own personal gain?
Only a leader appointed by the gods themselves would do.
And the gods were speaking now.
One among them, only one, would rise to save the ancient land of the Celts.
Leodegranz cleared his throat. "Well, it is my land," he said gruffly. "I imagine that makes the sword mine."
Cheneus shook his head. "Not unless you take it from the stone."
One of the young chieftains from the east pushed his way through the small crowd. "Or I do," he said, gripping the jeweled hilt. Then, shouting, "Christ be with me!" he held his breath and pulled so hard that one could see, even beneath his tunic, the bands of his muscles cording.
But he too failed.
"If you don't mind," Leodegranz said with great dignity, waving the young man aside. With a sniff of disdain, he placed his stubby-fingered, rather soft hands around the hilt. Secretly he thought two things: One was that, since he was clearly the one chosen by the gods to rule over the other kings, the sword would come out easily for him. The second was that the intricate metalwork of the hilt was damned uncomfortable.
After he withdrew, perspiring and embarrassed, and the others took their turns, old Cheneus gave him a wink. "There's no shame in not being able to take that sword, Leo," he said kindly. "As long as you remember to serve the one who does."
There were disgruntled noises all around. Even now, though they all believed they were in the midst of a miracle, the petty kings did not like the idea of giving over their power to anyone else. But the wiser among them knew that the only hope for them all lay in unity.
"We'll let the others try when they arrive," Leodegranz said, squinting up at the sun. "They'll be coming shortly."
The younger nobles squirmed and murmured. Each of them wanted a second chance at removing the sword. Lot actually did grasp it again, only to let it go with a series of muffled curses.
"What if the one who pulls it out is someone like Melwas?" the young king of Northumberland asked. "Must we then serve a fool?"
Leodegranz bristled. "Melwas is to marry my daughter!" he blustered.
"Unfortunately," Cheneus said, "that won't make him less of a fool."
The Third Magic Page 15
