Priestess of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "It's a puppy!" I exclaimed, as a black button of a nose appeared beneath the eyes. "The poor thing!"

  "Looks like a drowned rat to me." muttered Philip, but he was already pulling off his wool mantle and thrusting it at me to keep me from using my own shawl.

  Gently, I scraped away the leaves and mud in which the puppy was tangled and lifted it out. There was no hint of warmth beneath my hand: I would have thought it dead had it not been for the desperate regard of those bright eyes. Murmuring softly, I cradled it against my breast, and imperceptibly, an emptiness that had been there since I lost Eldri began to fill.

  "Be careful," said Coristantius. "It may be sick, and it will certainly have fleas."

  "Oh yes," I answered, though in truth, I wondered if even a flea would be interested in the skin and bone beneath my hands. But I could feel the flutter of a heartbeat. "I will give this poor mite every care."

  "I will be going, then," said Constantius as the horse sidled nervously.

  "Yes, of course." I looked up at him, and something that had been strained in his face eased. His returning smile was like a caress. Then he pulled up the hood of his byrrus, reined the horse around, and put it into a splashing trot down the road.

  When he had gone, I settled the puppy securely against my breast and carried him inside. A bath and a good meal improved his looks, though his breeding was as mixed as the population of the Empire. His ears were floppy, his coat a mixture of black and white, and there was a hint of a plume to his tail. The size of his paws suggested that if early starvation had not stunted him, he might grow to be a big dog indeed.

  The eagerness with which he lapped up the bowl of broth Drusilla prepared for him demonstrated a commendable will to live.

  "What will you call him?" asked Philip, less dubious now that the dog was clean.

  "I was thinking of "Hylas", after the lover of Heracles whom the nymphs drowned in the pool. In these parts that is a popular tale." Indeed, it was in Chios, a few days' journey to the east along the coast, that Hylas was supposed to have been lost when the Argonauts stopped there on their way to capture the Golden Fleece.

  "He certainly looks as if someone tried to drown him," the boy agreed, and so the dog was named.

  That night Hylas slept in my chamber, and although my bed was still empty, it comforted my heart a little then and during the lonely months after Constantius had followed the Emperor southward to Syria to once more hear the patter of paws at my heels.

  Constantius had been right about the weather. With summer, the sun shone triumphant from a cloudless sky and baked the grass on the hills to gold. The windows that had admitted so many draughts in February were thrown open to let in the sea breeze in the morning, and the wind off the lake in the afternoon. The local people said it was quite reasonable for the season, but after the mists of Britannia, I found the heat oppressive indeed.

  By day, I dressed in the sheerest of gauzes and lay beneath a linen shade by the fountain in the atrium, Hylas panting by my side. At night I sometimes walked by the lake, the dog scampering ahead of me and Philip, clutching a cudgel and glaring suspiciously around him, a step behind. From time to time I would receive a letter from Constantius, who was marching, in armour, through country that made Drepanum sound as cool as Britannia by comparison. When we heard of the victory at Ancyra, the magistrates had ordered a great bonfire lit in the forum, and again after the good news from Antiochia.

  With summer, a number of noble families from Nicomedia had transferred their households to Drepanum. Several of the women also had husbands who were with the Emperor, but we had little in common. Drusilla, who picked up all sorts of gossip at the market, told me that the word was going about that I was not Constantius's wife, but a girl he had found at an inn and made his concubine, and I understood why the ladies had been so distant. She was full of indignation, but I could hardly resent an opinion that from the legal point of view was true. There had been no marriage contract, no exchange of gifts or alliance of relatives to solemnize our union, only the blessing of the gods.

  And in truth, I was glad to be relieved of social obligations, for with the nobles had come some of the Emperor's philosophers, and one of them had a skinny young apprentice called Sopater, who in exchange for what I could spare from the housekeeping money and a taste of Brasilia's cooking, was willing to tutor me.

  The Greek I had learned as a child was rusty, and in this country I needed the common tongue to speak with tradesmen, and the more rarefied language of the philosophers to read the works of Porphyry and others who were making such a stir.

  Sopater was both young and earnest, but once he relaxed sufficiently to look me in the face at our lessons, we got on well, and if during those long summer days it was too hot to move my body, at least my mind was active. I needed the distraction; for after the great battle at Emesa, I had received no word from Constantius, or of him, at all.

  But just at dusk one evening shortly after midsummer, when I had finished my bath and was considering a walk by the lakeside, I heard a commotion outside, and above Hylas's furious barking, a voice that made the breath catch in my throat. I dragged the nearest garment over my head, and with tousled hair and the sheer tunica unbelted, ran out into the entry.

  In the light of the hanging lamp I saw Constantius, fined down by the campaign to bone and muscle, his hair bleached to pale gold and his skin brick-red from the sun. He was alive! Only in that moment did I admit to myself how deeply I had feared his death in those desert sands. From the look on his face I realized that with the light behind me I might as well have been naked. But what I saw in his gaze was something more than desire, it was awe.

  "Domina et dea…" he whispered, which was a title even the Empress did not claim, and yet I understood, for in that moment I saw him, as I had seen him at that Beltane on Avalon, as the god.

  I motioned to the servants to leave us, and then, holding out my hand, drew him after me into our bedchamber. Hylas, after the first flurry of barking, had fallen silent; perhaps he had recognized Constantius's scent as belonging to this room. As we moved towards the bed, I heard him flop down before the door.

  After that I ceased to think about the dog or anything else beyond my own need for the man in my arms.

  We came together in that first frantic encounter like wanderers in the desert who finding an oasis, were desperate to assuage our thirst. Struggling with each other's garments, we fell upon the bed. Later, I was to find my tunica in a corner, torn in two. When we had shuddered to completion, I held Constantius in my arms, waiting until his galloping heartbeat slowed.

  "Was the fighting very bad?" I asked as I helped him to remove the remainder of his clothing.

  Constantius sighed. "The Arabs plagued us all the way through Syria, picking off men with arrows, trying to raid the baggage train. When we reached Palmyra, Zenobia was ready for us. We couldn't take the place by assault—the Emperor himself was wounded—so we had to sit down to a siege. Aurelian offered terms, but she thought the Persians would save her. Only their king, Sapor, died, and they were too busy fighting each other to worry about Rome. Then Probus finished dealing with Egypt and came to reinforce us. It was all over, and Zenobia knew it. She tried to flee, but we caught her and brought her back in chains."

  "So you won—you should be triumphant," I commented, reminded of Boudicca, and repressing my instinctive sympathy.

  He shook his head, stretching out and settling me with my head pillowed on his arm. "Zenobia had sworn to kill herself if captured, but she panicked, put all the blame on Longinus and the other men who served her. And Aurelian executed them. So she will walk in his Triumph after all… I understand why they had to die," he added after a moment had passed, "but it left a bad taste all the same. At least the Emperor… did not appear to enjoy it."

  Oh my poor love, I thought, turning to cradle his head against my breast, you are tempered too finely to be used for this butchery.

  "When we had won the city… the oth
er officers took women," he whispered then. "I could not do it, not with all that death around."

  I tightened my grip, unreasonably pleased, whatever the reason, that he had been faithful. It was not something I had a right to ask, but it certainly, I thought with secret amusement, explained the intensity of his need.

  "You are life…" murmured Constantius.

  His lips brushed one nipple. I could feel both of them harden at his touch, and the rekindling of the fire between my thighs.

  "I have seen so much killing… let me make life in you…"

  His hands moved upon my body with a deliberation and a need more compelling than his first compulsion, and I found myself opening to his touch more deeply than ever before. At the ultimate moment he rose above me and I saw his features by firelight, focused in ecstasy.

  "The sun!" he gasped. "The sun shines at midnight!"

  At that moment my own completion came upon me, and I could not tell him that it was only the light of the bonfire they had kindled to celebrate the Emperor's victory.

  In the silent hour before dawn, the only time, at this season, that it was truly cool, I rose to relieve myself. When I returned from the privy, I stood for a time, gazing out of the window and enjoying the touch of the chill air on my bare skin. The fire in the forum had burned out, and sleep, that next to death was the greatest of conquerors, had overwhelmed the revellers. Even Hylas, who had roused when I did, had lain down again.

  A sound from the bed made me turn. Constantius was clutching at the bedclothes, groaning. As I watched, tears squeezed from beneath his tight-shut eyelids and began to roll down his cheeks. I hurried back and lay down beside him, winding him in my arms. Once, I thought, I had been the one who had the nightmares, but since I left Avalon I did not dream any more.

  "It's all right," I murmured, knowing it was the tone that would reach him, not the words. "You are all right now—I am here…"

  "The sun shines at midnight—" he groaned. "The temple burns! Apollo! Apollo is weeping!"

  I soothed him, wondering if this was something he had seen on the campaign. The Emperor's personal deity was the sun-god—I could not believe he would willingly destroy a sanctuary, but I had heard that in warfare the destruction sometimes got out of hand.

  "Hush, my love, and open your eyes—it is morning, do you see? Apollo is driving his chariot above the rim of the world—"

  With lips and hands I set out to awaken him, and was rewarded presently when he quickened to my touch once more. This time our loving was slow and sweet. By the time we had finished, Constantius was awake once more, and smiling.

  "Ah, my queen, I have brought gifts for you—" Naked, he padded over to the bag that someone had brought while we slept and set just inside the door. "I meant to array you in this for our first night back together, but you are more beautiful clad only in your night-dark hair…'

  He rummaged in the bag, and pulled out something wrapped in unbleached linen. As the rough cloth fell away, a blaze of colour smote the eye. Constantius shook out a silk chiton dyed the true, imperial purple, and held it out to me.

  "My love, it is too splendid!" I exclaimed, but I took the garment, wondering at the fine weave of the fabric, and slipped it over my head. I shivered as the silk caressed my skin and swayed, feeling the soft folds mould themselves to my body.

  "By the gods, purple becomes you!" he exclaimed, his glance kindling.

  "But I can never wear it," I reminded him.

  "Not outside," he agreed, "but in our bedchamber you are my Empress and my Queen!"

  And in bed or out, you, my beloved, are my Emperor! I thought, admiring the powerful balance of his naked body, but even here I dared not speak those words aloud.

  Constantius put his arm around me and drew me to the east-facing window. I sighed, replete with loving, feeling in my body a sense of fulfilment I had not known before. Surely, I thought then, I must come away from such a night as this had been with child.

  Together we stood watching as the sun, like a victorious emperor, lifted above the horizon and banished night's mysteries from the world.

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  « ^ »

  AD 272

  In Britannia, September had been a month of misty sunshine, but the forum at Naissus blazed with light beneath a brilliant blue sky. From the shade of the awning that had been raised to shelter the families of the imperial officers I could feel the waves of heat rising from the cobbles of the square. I had hoped, when Constantius told me of his new posting, that the plains that bordered the Danuvius in Dacia, being farther north, would be cooler than Bithynia, but in the summer, this inland city seemed even hotter than Drepanum, which had at least sometimes got a breeze from the sea. I could feel perspiration gathering beneath the fillet I wore to hide the crescent moon tattooed upon my brow. I took a deep breath, hoping I would not faint. Three months into pregnancy, I was still sick in the mornings and at intervals throughout the day.

  Perhaps it was hunger that was making me feel so light-headed, I thought then, for I had not dared to eat before the ceremony, or perhaps it was the heavy scent of the incense. Two priests swung censers beside the altar; with each swing, more smoke swirled into the air. The haze drifted like a gauzy curtain before the columns that formed the western side of the square where the ground fell away towards the River Navissus. Beyond the tiled rooftops, a gleam of water, fields gold with stubble and low blue hills wavered in the heated air, insubstantial as a dream.

  "Are you unwell?" Someone spoke nearby.

  I blinked, and focused on the bony, dark face of the woman beside me. With an effort I remembered that she was called Vitellia, the wife of one of Constantius's fellow Protectores.

  "I will be," I answered, flushing. "I'm not ill, it's just—" I felt myself colouring agin.

  "Ah, of course. I have borne four children, and I was sick as a hound-bitch with three of them—not that dogs generally have morning sickness—" she added, large teeth showing as she smiled. "The first one I bore when we were stationed in Argentorate, the second and the third in Alexandria, and my last boy was born in Londinium."

  I gazed at her in respect. She had followed the Eagles all over the Empire. "I come from Britannia…" I said then.

  "I liked it," Vitellia gave a decisive nod, setting her earrings swinging. A little golden fish winked from her breast, suspended from a fine chain. "We still have a house there, and perhaps we'll return when my husband retires."

  The procession was almost at an end. The flute players had spread out to one side of the altar, and the six maidens, having scattered their flowers, took up their position on the other. The priestess who walked behind them halted before the altar and cast a handful of barley into the fire that burned there, calling on Vesta, who lived in the flame.

  "I had heard you were from the Isle," said Vitellia. "Your man came back from exile there and did so well in the Syrian campaign he's been made a tribune."

  I nodded, appreciating her matter-of-fact acceptance of my somewhat ambiguous marital status. Since Constantius's promotion, some of the women who had pointedly ignored me before had become gushingly respectful, but Vitellia struck me as the sort of woman who would behave the same to a fish-wife as to an empress. The thought turned my gaze back to the forum.

  The Emperor presided from a shaded dais behind the altar, with his senior officers around him. Seated on his throne, Aurelian looked like the statue of a god, but when Constantius presented me I had been surprised to find him a small man, with thinning hair and tired eyes.

  Automatically, my gaze moved to the end of the line where Constantius himself was standing, just at the edge of the shade. When he moved his breastplate caught the sunlight. I blinked—for a moment he had seemed to stand in an aureole of light. But of course, I thought, smiling, he always looked like a god to me. The armour flashed again as he straightened, and I saw that the priests were coming through the archway with the sacrificial bull. The animal was white, its
horns and neck garlanded with flowers. It moved slowly; no doubt it had been drugged to prevent any inauspicious struggle from marring the ceremony. The procession came to a halt before the altar and the priest began to intone the prayers. The bull stilled, its head drooping as if the droning incantation had been a sleep spell.

  A second priest moved forward, hard muscle bunching in his arms as he lifted the pole-axe. There was a moment of stillness, then it blurred downward. The resounding 'thunk' as it struck the animal's skull reverberated from the columns. But the ox was already sinking to its knees. As it fell, one priest caught its horns, holding them long enough for the other to plunge the knife into the beast's throat and jerk crossways.

  Blood rolled across the stones in a red tide. Several of the men who were watching averted their eyes, crossing themselves in the Christian sign against evil. It is only evil for the bull, I thought ruefully, or perhaps not even for him, if he consented to be the offering. Surely the Christians, who worshipped a sacrificed god, knew that death could be holy. It seemed rather small-minded of them to deny that sanctity to all religions but their own.

  Holy it might be, but as the sickly-sweet scent of blood overwhelmed the incense on the air I felt my gorge rise. I drew my veil across my face, and sat very still, breathing carefully. It would be impolitic as well as unlucky to disgrace myself at the ceremony. A pungent whiff of herbs cleared my head and I opened my eyes.

  Vitellia was holding out a spray of lavender and rosemary. I took another deep breath and thanked her.

  "Is it your first child?"

  "The first that I have carried this long," I answered.

  "May God's Holy Mother bless you then, and bring you safe to term," said Vitellia, looking back towards the forum with a frown.

  It was not a scene to enjoy, I thought, but I did not quite understand her disapproval. I tried to remember if her husband had been one of the men who crossed himself when the bull was killed.