Priestess of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Con touched my elbow. "It is almost dark. The Roman should be coming soon."

  "Thank you," I nodded, glancing up at the clouds that loomed to the north. Even the folk of Avalon could not call rain from an empty sky, and we had had to wait for a weather pattern that would serve my purpose. I had held the clouds at bay throughout the afternoon. Now I released some of the energies that bound them, and felt on my cheek the chill damp breath of the storm.

  To learn that Heron's vision of the death of the Emperor had been a true Seeing was encouraging. The men who drank at the taverna near the lead mines were full of gossip. It was said that Claudius had willed the Empire to another general called Aurelian, by-passing his own brother, Quintillus, who, after an abortive attempt at a coup, had died by his own hand.

  "He will come, never fear," said the Druid who had been waiting for us. "These Romans are creatures of habit, and every evening for the past week he has come this way."

  "He is fair-haired?" I asked once again.

  "As fair as bleached flax, with the mark of Mithras between his brows."

  I reached up beneath my veil to touch the blue crescent tattoed on my own forehead. He is an initiate, I reminded myself, and may see more than an ordinary man. I will have to be careful.

  From beyond the curve of the road came a curlew's piping call, an unlikely sound for the high moors, but the Roman whose coming it signalled would not know that. I took a deep breath, lifted my arms to the heavens, and released the clouds.

  In moments I felt the first spatterings. By the time the figure on the red mule came into view the rain was driving down in sheets, as several storm fronts that would have passed over one at a time simultaneously released all their stored rain.

  Our quarry had pulled up in the tenuous shelter of an elder bush, holding his sagum cloak half over his head in a vain attempt to protect it. For a little longer I watched him.

  "Stay out of sight," I told the two Druids, wrapping my mantle more securely, "but when I move, follow me." I gave my mount a kick and reined it across the slope below the road.

  "Help—oh, please, help me!" I called in the Roman tongue, pitching my voice to carry above the storm and hauling on the reins of the pony, who had started to plunge as if to make my plight a reality. For a moment nothing happened, and I let the pony move forwards, clutching its mane. "Can anyone hear me?" I cried again, and saw the red mule at the rim of the hill.

  I was wearing a white mantle so that the Roman should be able to see it even through the storm. I screamed and gave the pony a good kick, hanging on desperately as it galloped down the hill. I heard a Roman oath and the crashing of brush as the mule scrambled after me, but we were all the way down the hill and well into the tangle of oak and alder beyond before the Roman caught up with me.

  "Lady, are you hurt?" His voice was deep, and so far as I could see beneath his sagum, his body seemed sturdy, though he was tall. He grabbed for the reins that I had artistically allowed to fall as he arrived.

  My pony ceased to struggle, recognizing a master's hand, and freed of the need to divide my strength between my mount and the storm, I drew the next squall shrieking down upon us.

  "Thank you! Thank you! The pony ran and I feared I would fall!"

  He edged the mule closer and put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him gratefully, aware now just how long it had been since I had done much riding. His warmth spread through me faster than I would have expected. Perhaps Heron was right, I thought dimly, and he really was the sun.

  "I must get you to shelter," he muttered against my hair, and a shiver ran through me at the touch of his warm breath. The storm had expended its first fury, but the rain was still driving down.

  "That way—" I said, pointing south. "There is an old tile shed." The tile-makers had not yet started work for the summer: we had slept there on our journey here.

  By the time we reached the shed, I did not have to feign exhaustion. My knees gave way as I slid down from the pony, and only the Roman's quick reactions saved me from falling. For a moment he held me, and I realized that we were matched in height. In what else would we be a match? I wondered then, feeling the strength in his arms.

  Not that I was likely to find out. The Council, in its wisdom, had decided to bind the Roman to our cause by giving him one of our number in the Great Rite at the Beltane fires; but the priestess whom the lots had selected to be his consort was not me, but Aelia.

  I watched, shivering, as the Roman proceeded with swift efficiency to build a fire. At least the tile-makers had left plenty of fuel for it. The little flame leapt and kindled, revealing a sinewy arm, strong cheekbones, short hair plastered close to his head and darkened to old gold by the rain. As the fire began to catch in the larger branches, he stood to unfasten his sagum and drape it, dripping, over one of the low beams. He wore a tunic of good, grey wool edged with red. A short sword in a well-worn leather sheath hung at his side.

  "Let me take your mantle, Lady," he said, turning. "The fire will warm the air in here soon, and perhaps it will dry—"

  The fire flared suddenly, for the first time revealing him fully, and my world stood still. I saw intelligent grey eyes that enlivened a rather ordinary face, permanently reddened by exposure to sun and wind and pinker than ever from the cold. Tired and wet, he was hardly at his best, but he would never be famous for beauty. His colouring proclaimed him Roman by culture rather than ancestry; he hardly seemed the stuff of prophecy.

  Yet I knew him.

  In the ceremony that made me a woman, the Goddess had shown him to me. He was the lover who would claim me at the Beltane fires, and I was the woman who would bear his child…

  The Druids found the wrong man, I thought desperately. This is not the hero of Heron's vision, but of my own…

  And if they were the same?

  I do not know what my face showed at that moment, but the Roman took a step backwards, lifting his hands in self-deprecation.

  "Please, domina, do not be afraid. I am Flavius Constantius Chlorus, at your service."

  I felt myself flushing as I realized that I hardly looked my best either. But that was as it should be. He must see me as ugly, old even, until I knew… until I knew whether he was my destiny…

  "Julia Helena thanks you," I murmured, giving my own Roman name. It felt as strange on my tongue as the Latin. The girl who bore that name had lived another lifetime, ten years ago. But suddenly I wondered if she was destined to live again.

  A leather flask hung at his side. He pulled the strap over his head and held it out to me. "It is only wine, but it may warm you—"

  I managed a smile, and turned to rummage in my saddlebags. "And I have here a little bread and cheese and dried fruit that my sisters packed for me."

  "Then we will feast." Constantius seated himself on the other side of the fire and smiled.

  It transformed his face, and I felt a rush of heat that seared my flesh like fire. Wordless, I held out the loaf of bread, and he took it from my hand. I had heard once that in the hill country, to share a meal, a fire and a bed made a marriage. We had the first two already, and for the first time in my life I felt the temptation to deny my vows.

  When my fingers brushed his, he had trembled. My extended senses knew that at a level below thought, he was responding to my nearness. My Druid escorts were outside somewhere. They would not disturb us unless I screamed. It would take very little, a step in the Roman's direction, a shiver as if I was cold and needed his arms to warm me. A man and a woman, alone together—our bodies would do the rest without direction.

  But what of our souls?

  To come to him without honour would destroy that other thing, sweeter even than the desire that heated my body: the potential that I sensed between us. And so, although I felt like a starving woman pushing food away, I edged back, drawing ugliness around me like a tattered cloak, the reverse of the glamour a priestess knows how to wear.

  Constantius shook his head a little, cast a frowning gla
nce at me and looked away. "Do you live nearby?" he asked politely.

  "I dwell with my sisters on the edge of the marshes," I answered truthfully, "near the isle where the Christian monks have their sanctuary."

  "The isle of Inis Witrin? I have heard of it—"

  "We can come to my home tomorrow before the sun is high," I said. "I would be grateful for your escort—"

  "Of course. The men who oversee my family's holdings would rather I had never come here—they will not care if I miss a day or more," he added bitterly.

  "How did you come to riding the back roads of Britannia? You seem a man of authority," I asked with real curiosity.

  "Not to mention family connections." There was an edge to the bitterness now. "My grandmother was sister to the Emperor Claudius. I wanted to make my own way by ability, not patronage. But since my great-uncle tried to seize the Imperium, and failed, I will settle for simply staying alive. The new Emperor has good reason to distrust men of my family."

  He shrugged and took a pull from the wineskin. "My mother's family has investments here in Britannia—an import company in Eburacum, and an interest in the lead mines, and it seemed a good time to send an agent to check on them. At the moment, the Gallic Empire is safer for me than Rome."

  "But will not Tetricus and… what is his name, Marius, consider you a danger?"

  Constantius shook his head and laughed. "It is Victorina Augusta who really rules. They call her the Mother of the Camps, you know, but she has little attention to spare for Britannia. So long as she gets a share of the profits, they will leave me alone. Emperors may come and go, but business makes the world go round!"

  "You do not sound very happy about it," I observed. "I would not have guessed you for a merchant."

  For a moment that grey gaze held my own. "And what did you think I was?"

  "An army man," I answered, for thus, in vision I had seen him.

  "Until a few months ago that was so." His face darkened. "I was born at an army post in Dacia. It is all I know, all I ever wanted to be."

  "Are you so eager for battle?" I asked curiously. He did not seem bloodthirsty, but how could I know?

  "Say rather, that I want what battle can win," he corrected. "Justice. Order. Safety for the folk beyond the frontier so that peace can grow…" He fell silent, his ruddy skin reddening further, and I judged he was not a man who often let his feelings show.

  "Your fortunes will turn," I assured him. For a moment he eyed me uncertainly, and I reinforced the illusion that disguised me. "But now we should sleep," I went on. "Tomorrow's journey will be difficult after such a storm." But in truth, it was not the riding that had exhausted me, but the effort to conceal my essence when what I really wanted was to offer him my body and my soul.

  The rain had stopped by morning, but as I had anticipated, as the day grew warmer, the saturated ground gave up its excess moisture in wisps of fog. As we rode it grew thicker, until tree and meadow disappeared and the only thing visible was the path.

  "Domina," said Constantius, "we must halt, before we wander from the road and end up sinking in some bog."

  "Do not be afraid. I know the way," I answered him, and indeed, I could feel the power of Avalon drawing me forwards. We had come around by the higher ground to the north and east, where a narrow neck of land ran out to the isle.

  "I am not afraid, but I am not a fool, either!" he snapped back at me. "We will go back to the shelter and wait for the weather to clear." He reached out to take my bridle rein.

  I kicked the pony forwards and reined it sharply around. "Flavius Constantius Chlorus, look at me!" I let the illusion of ugliness fade and called up the power of the priestess to take its place. I could tell I was succeeding when his face changed.

  "Lady—" he breathed, "now I see you as I did before…"

  I wondered what he meant, as this was the first time I had used the glamour, but the power was continuing to build around me.

  "I have been sent to bring you to the holy isle of Avalon. Will you come with me freely and of your own will?"

  "What will I find there?" He was still staring at me.

  "Your destiny…" And Aelia, I thought then. For a moment I wanted to cry out to him to turn, to flee.

  "And will I return to the human world?"

  "It is there that your fate will be fulfiled." Ten years of discipline spoke through me now.

  "And will you go with me? Swear!"

  "I will. I swear it by my eternal soul." Later, I told myself that I had believed he was asking if I would go with him to Avalon, but I think now that a deeper wisdom made that vow.

  "Then I will come with you now."

  I turned, lifting my arms to draw down the power, and as I spoke the spell, the world changed around us, and with the next step the mist was rolling away to either side and we entered Avalon.

  Since dawn the drums had throbbed through the earth of the holy isle, the heartbeat of Avalon, filled with the excitement of the festival. White hawthorn weighted the hedges, and creamy primroses and bluebells flourished beneath the trees. It was Beltane eve, and all the world trembled with expectation. All but Aelia, who was trembling with fear.

  "Why has the Goddess laid this upon me?" she whispered, curled upon the bed that had been hers while we awaited initiation. There were currently no priestesses in training, and they had given the house to us to prepare the Beltane Bride for the festival.

  "I do not know," I answered her. "But we have been taught that often Her reasons for setting our feet upon a path are not apparent until we reach its ending…" I spoke for my own sake as much as for hers. In the three days since I had brought Constantius to the isle I had not seen him, but he haunted my dreams.

  Aelia shook her head. "I never intended to go to the Beltane fires. I would happily have lived a virgin until my life's end!"

  I put my arms around her and rocked her gently. Our unbound hair mingled on the pillow, dark gold and light. "Constantius will not hurt you, darling. I rode with him for two days—he is a gentleman…"

  "He is a man!"

  "Why did you not tell them of your fear when they chose you?" I stroked her hair. And why, I asked myself, had the lot not fallen on me?

  "We swore obedience to the Council at our initiation. I thought they must know best…"

  I sighed, understanding how it must have been. Of us all, Aelia had always been the most biddable. For the first time I wondered it the lot had fallen upon her entirely by chance.

  "They said the Goddess would give me the strength to do it, but I am afraid… Help me, Eilan! Help me to escape this, or I will drown myself in the sacred pool!"

  I stilled, understanding in a single instant how I might fulfil both her desire and my own. Or perhaps I had already planned it in some secret part of my soul, and only now, like some moulting insect hidden in the soil, had the idea emerged into the light of day. Justifications came easily—Aelia was the choice not of the Goddess, but of Ganeda. All that was required was a virgin priestess.

  It did not matter who she was, so long as she came willingly to the fire. And the substitution would be so easy. Though she was paler in colouring than I, and thinner as well, Aelia and I were enough alike for newcomers to mistake us. The younger girls nicknamed us the sun and the moon.

  The one reason I did not give myself was the true one—that Constantius Chlorus was mine, and it would be like death to see him lead another woman to the bridal bower.

  "Ssh… be easy…" I kissed Aelia's soft hair. "Both the Bride and her attendants go veiled to the ceremony. We will exchange clothing and I will take your place in the ritual."

  Aelia sat up, gazing at me wide-eyed. "But if you disobey, Ganeda will punish you!"

  "It doesn't matter…" I answered. Not once I have spent the night in Constantius' arms!

  The firelight, seen through the sheer linen of my veil and the screen of branches, filled the circle with a golden haze. Or perhaps it was the aura of power that the dancers were raising, for w
ith each circuit around the bonfire it grew stronger. All the folk of Avalon were here in the meadow at the foot of the Tor, and most of the people from the Lake village as well. My whole body vibrated as the earth shook to their footfalls, or perhaps it was the beating of my heart. I could feel the dancing building to its crescendo. Soon… I thought, licking dry lips. It would be soon…

  The other maidens shifted restlessly on the bench beside me, Heron and Aelia and Wren, all of us clad alike in green gowns and veils and garlands of spring flowers. But only I bore the hawthorn crown. My skin still tingled from the water of the sacred pool, for we had all helped to bathe Aelia, and in the process been cleansed ourselves. I had shared her fast and her vigil; all the ritual requirements had been completed. This substitution might be disobedience, but at least it would not be sacrilege.

  "The Roman has been bathed and prepared as well," said Ganeda, who waited with us. "When he arrives, you will be brought out to him. Together, you will partake of the sacred food, and together you will enter the bower on the far side of the dancing floor. You are a virgin field, in which he will sow the seed that will engender the Child of the Prophecy."

  "And what will I give to him?" I whispered.

  "In the outer world, the female is passive while the male initiates action. But on the inner planes, it is otherwise. I have spoken with this young man, and at present fortune does not smile upon him. It is for you to awaken his spirit, to arouse and activate the higher soul within him, that he may fulfil his own destiny and become the Restorer of the Light for Britannia."

  I dared not ask more, lest my voice be recognized, and then I heard a change in the drumming and my throat began to ache so with tension that I could not have spoken if I had tried.

  The Druids were coming in, their white robes washed with gold by the firelight, wreaths of oak leaves upon their hair. But as I watched I caught a glimpse of brighter gold among them. The people were cheering; the air throbbed with wave upon wave of sound. Dizzied, I shut my eyes, and when I opened them again I blinked, dazzled by the golden figure who stood before the fire.