Priestess of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Dierna handed the pouch of incense to Ceridachos, and he cast a handful onto the pyre, which was now well alight.

  "The dead has her release, and the answer to all questioning," she said gravely. "It is those who remain who suffer now, from loss, from memory, from regret for things left unsaid or undone. Let us pray now for the living left behind…" Her hand swept out in a wide circle to include us all.

  Pray for me! I thought grimly, amazed to discover that even my astral body could shed tears.

  "Oh Thou Lady of Darkness, lift Thou the darkness that lies upon our souls. As Thou hast cut the thread of life, break Thou the bonds that constrain our spirits, lest our feelings should bind the one we would set free."

  It came to me in that moment that I was not the only one who might have had mixed feelings about the Lady of Avalon, and the spirit of any adept could make a dangerous ghost. The community had the best of reasons for making sure nothing held her here.

  Now the incense was being passed around the circle. As each one threw a pinch on the flames I heard the words, "Thus I release you," followed sometimes by a murmured message of more personal farewell. Smoke and sparks billowed upward to join the stars. And though my fingers could not grasp the incense, I too moved close to the pyre, and with all the truth of my being, offered the woman who had in so many ways shaped my life both forgiveness and farewell.

  "The Lady bounds life with death, and out of death creates life anew," said Dierna when all had finished. "We are the children of earth and starry heaven. By our response to this loss let us transcend it." She took a deep breath. "I bear now the ornaments of the High Priestess. I pray to the Goddess to give me the strength and the wisdom to lead Avalon!"

  As the night drew on the others made their vows, then drew aside to keep watch as the pyre became a framework of glowing lines, and the central core, which had been built with faster-burning fuel, fell to ash. And just as the eastern sky was beginning to pale with the approach of the sun, I willed myself to approach the heap of coals and ashes that remained.

  "Lady, it was you who exiled me, but the Goddess who showed me my way. By example and by opposition you taught me much. Though I walk now in the world beyond the mists, I will do so as a priestess of Avalon!"

  I drew back, for suddenly the world was filled with light as the newborn sun rose above the eastern hills. And in that moment, the dawn wind, rising, lifted the ashes like a swirl of smoke and swept them outwards to fall like a blessing upon the green turf of the Tor.

  It had made me shiver sometimes, when I first learned of that custom, to think that I might be treading on what was left of Caillean or Sianna or one of the legendary priestesses who had followed them. But in truth, the earth of the Tor was just as holy as they. Their dust hallowed it as it blessed them. They were one and the same.

  The priests and priestesses stirred from the stillness of their vigil as if released from a spell. As Dierna looked up, her eyes widened and I knew that she, alone among that company, could see me standing there.

  "This should be your place," she whispered, touching the ornaments she wore. "Will you return to us now?"

  But I shook my head, smiling, and using the full imperial obeisance with which I had always honoured the Lady of Avalon, I bowed.

  At breakfast I was silent, still thinking about the night's visions. The palace burnt in the rioting had been rebuilt and most mornings we took our first meal in a pleasant chamber that opened out onto the shaded walkway that surrounded the gardens. Constantius, finishing his gruel, asked me if I was well. I shook my head. "It is nothing—I had strange dreams."

  "Well, then, there is something I need to discuss with you. I should have spoken of it before."

  I forced my attention away from my own concerns, wondering what on earth this could be. Since Carus's accession, over a year had passed. The reports from the East had been glorious—the cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon had surrendered almost without resistance, and the enemy, distracted by warfare on their own eastern borders, seemed unable to resist the Roman advance. It seemed possible that the Parthians, who had been a looming menace since the days of the first Augustus, might be finally overcome. But what did all that have to do with Constantius or me?

  "Does the Emperor think you can somehow curb Carinus?"

  In the preceding months it had become clear that the gift of imperial power in the city of the Caesars had gone to the young man's head. He had executed the advisors his father had given him and replaced them with his drinking companions. In a few months he had married and divorced nine wives, leaving most of them pregnant, in addition to his other amusements. If Constantius tried to advise him, he was likely to go the way of the others. Surely no amount of devotion to duty would require that useless sacrifice.

  "No… the Emperor has always been a man of justice rather than mercy, and I fear he has ceased to hope that his elder son will prove worthy. So he is looking for a substitute…" he slowed, stirring his spoon around and around in the empty bowl. "He wants to adopt me."

  I stared at him. This was my own Constantius, his hairline somewhat higher and his frame stockier than that of the young man who had stolen my heart thirteen years ago, but the honest grey eyes were still the same. I gazed at the features of the man who had been my mate for a dozen years overlaid by the splendour he had worn when he first came to me in the light of the Beltane fire. If he became Caesar, everything would change.

  "It is not an honour that one can easily refuse."

  I nodded, thinking that I had known from the beginning that Constantius had the potential for greatness. Was this the meaning of my vow to Ganeda's spirit? I would never be Lady of Avalon, but I might indeed become Empress one day.

  "But why you?" I blurted suddenly. "No one could be more worthy, but when did he have a chance to know you so well?"

  "The night of the mutiny, after Probus died. Carus and I hid in a fisherman's hut at the edge of the marsh while the men were rioting, and as men will when the situation is desperate, we bared our souls. Carus wanted to bring back the old virtues of the Republic without losing the strength of Empire. And I… talked to him about what I thought was wrong with us now, and what, with honest government, Rome could be."

  I reached out to take his hand, that warm flesh that I had come to know as well as my own.

  "Oh my dearest, I understand!" With the powers of a Caesar he could do so much—such an opportunity must outweigh any consideration either for his comfort or my own.

  "Until the Emperor returns from Parthia I will not be required to decide," said Constantius, managing a smile. But we both knew that there would only be one possible decision when that time came.

  I heard a clatter of sandals on the flagstones of the walkway and then the door crashed open. For a moment Con clung there, panting.

  "Father, have you heard the news?" he cried when he had got his breath once more. "They are saying that the Emperor is dead in Parthia—struck by lightning in a storm, and Numerian is bringing the army home!"

  * * *

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  « ^ »

  AD 284-85

  As the Empire mourned Carus so did I, though my sorrow was more for Constantius's lost chance for greatness than for the Emperor, whom I had known only for a little while. If I had understood the inevitable consequences of my husband's elevation, I should have rejoiced. Because Carus died when he did, I had Constantius for almost ten more years.

  The Emperor had died as a consequence of the flux which was a constant hazard on campaign. But the death had occurred during a thunderstorm, and when the Emperor's tent caught fire, the troops believed he had been killed by lightning, the most evil of omens. Our forces had been well on the way to conquering Parthia at last, but there were prophecies, it was said, that the River Tigris would forever mark the limits of Rome's eastern expansion. Indeed, there were any number of signs, omens and portents for folk to gabble at in those first, horrified weeks after the news arrived.

 
The troops acclaimed Numerian as co-emperor with his brother Carinus, but refused to continue the war. And so the Army of the East was making its slow way back home while Carinus ran riot in Rome. Did he know that Carus had intended Constantius to supplant him? Suddenly Dalmatia seemed entirely too close to Italia, and when Maximian, who now held the command in Gallia, requested Constantius to join his staff, we agreed that he would be prudent to resign his post as governor of Dalmatia and accept the invitation.

  Our new home was a villa in the hills above Treveri. It was not Britannia, but the country folk here spoke a language not unlike the British tongue, and even two hundred years after Julius Caesar had suppressed them, the Druids were remembered. Someone among the servants whom we had engaged to assist our household slaves must have recognized the fading blue crescent upon my brow, for I soon found they were treating me with a respect that went beyond duty. When I went about in the countryside people would bow before me, and from time to time offerings of fruit or flowers appeared by the door.

  Constantius thought it was amusing, but it made Constantine uncomfortable, and from time to time I would catch him watching me with troubled eyes from beneath the shock of fair hair. It was his age, I told myself, and pretended unconcern. He was twelve now, leggy as a young hunting dog, the big bones out of proportion, and the superb co-ordination that had carried him through childhood likely at odd moments to let him down. If he could have laughed at himself it would have been easier, but Constantine had never had much of a sense of humour. With the approach of adolescence he was becoming reclusive, fearing to expose himself to ridicule.

  But there was nothing wrong with his mind, and Atticus found that he suddenly had a willing pupil, eager to sink his teeth into the meat of Greek philosophy and literature. At present they were studying the works of Lucian. As I directed the girls who were cleaning the mosaic of Dionysos with the dolphins on the floor of the dining room, I could hear the murmur of voices from the study, Constantine's uncertain tenor rising and falling as he translated the passage his tutor had assigned.

  Tomorrow would see the beginning of the month the Romans had named after Mercurius's mother, Maia. In Britannia, I thought, smiling, they would be preparing for the festival of Beltane. If I read the signs rightly they celebrated here as well. The weather, which had been chill and rainy, had suddenly turned warm, and wildflowers starred the green hills.

  I took a deep breath of the sweet air, then paused to listen, as the maids opened a door and Con's voice grew suddenly louder.

  "They saw that… the thing that both the ones who fear and the hopeful ones needed and, uh… wanted the most was to know about the future. This was the reason Delphi and Delos and Clarus and Didyma had ages ago become rich and famous…"

  I paused to listen, curious to learn what they were reading and what my son would make of it.

  "I don't understand," said Constantine. "Lucian says this man Alexander was a fraud, a deceiver, but it sounds as if he thinks that Delphi and the rest of the oracles are just as bad."

  "You must take the statement in context," Atticus said soothingly. "It is true that Lucian was one of the leading Sophists of the last century, and naturally prefers to base his conclusions on reason rather than superstition, but what has aroused his ire in this essay is the fact that Alexander intentionally set out to trick people, pretending to discover the snake in the egg, and substituting another, big one, with its head hidden by a mask in the ritual. Then he told everyone it was Aesclepius reborn and said it gave him the oracles that he had written himself. But it is true that he sent clients to the great shrines to keep the priests from denouncing him."

  I remembered now hearing something of the story. Alexander had been quite famous at one time, and Lucian had not only written about him, but actively tried to unmask him as well.

  "Do you mean to tell me that none of the oracles are true?" Constantine said suspiciously.

  "No, no—my point is that you must learn critical thinking, so that you will be able to judge for yourself whether something is reasonable, rather than accepting blindly what you are told," Atticus responded.

  I nodded: that was more or less what we had been taught at Avalon. It was as foolish to deny that oracles could be faked as to blindly believe in them.

  "That doesn't make sense," protested Constantine. "Those who are wise should decide what is true and be done with it."

  "Ought not every man be allowed to decide for himself?" Atticus said reasonably. "Learning how to think should be a part of everyone's education, just as everyone must learn to care for a horse or use numbers."

  "For simple things, yes," answered Constantine. "But when the horse falls sick you call in a healer and you employ a mathematicus for higher computations. Surely in the realm of the holy, which is so much more important, it should be the same."

  "Very good, Constantine, but consider this—the flesh is tangible, and its ills can be perceived by the senses. Numbers are symbolic of items that can be physically counted, and they are always and everywhere the same. But each man experiences the world differently. His nativity is ruled by different stars, and he has a unique history… Is it so unreasonable to allow him his own perception of the gods? This world is so rich and varied—surely we need myriad ways to understand it. Thus, there are the Sophists, who doubt everything, and the followers of Plato, who believe that only archetypes are real, the mystical Pythagoreans and the Aristotelian logicians. Each philosophy gives us a different tool with which to understand the world."

  "But the world stays the same," objected Constantine, "and so do the gods!"

  "Do they?" Atticus sounded amused. He had been sold into slavery by his uncle, and I suspected he found it more comfortable to believe in no gods at all. "How then, do we reconcile all the stories about them, or the claims of all the different cults, each of which declares that its deity is supreme?"

  "We find out which is the most powerful, and teach everyone how to worship Him," Constantine said forthrightly.

  I shook my head. How simple it all seemed to a child. When I was his age, there had been no truth but that of Avalon.

  "Come now," Atticus was replying, "even the Jews, whose god permits them to worship no other, do not pretend the other gods do not exist."

  "My father is beloved of the greatest of gods whose face is the sun, and if I prove worthy, He will extend that blessing to me."

  I lifted an eyebrow. I knew that Constantine had been impressed by the solar cult of Dalmatia, to which most of the officers Constantius had served with belonged, but I did not realize how far his attempt to model himself on his father had gone. I must find some way to teach him about the Goddess as well.

  Constantine continued, "There is one Emperor on earth and one sun in the sky. It seems to me that the Empire would be much more peaceful if everyone worshipped alike."

  "Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but remember, Alexander the Prophet gave his oracles in the name of Apollo. Just because a man speaks in the name of a god does not mean he is speaking true."

  "Then the authorities should stop him," Constantius responded doggedly.

  "My dear boy," said Atticus. "The Governor Rutilianus was one of Alexander's most devoted supporters. He married the prophet's daughter for no better reason than because Alexander said her mother had been the goddess Selene!"

  "I still think people should be protected from false oracles."

  "Perhaps, but how can you do that without taking away their right to decide for themselves what they believe? Let us continue the translation, Constantine, and perhaps matters will become clearer…"

  For the first time, I wondered if we had been wise to let Constantine study philosophy. He did tend to take things rather literally. But the flexibility of mind that characterized Greek culture would be good for him, I told myself, secretly relieved that it was Atticus who had the task of getting the point across, not I. Still, I told myself as I opened the door to let in the soft spring air, the time wa
s coming when I must talk to my son about Avalon.

  I had sung him to sleep with the teaching songs I had learned as a little girl, and amused him with wonder tales. He knew how the swans returned to the Lake at spring's beginning, and how the wild geese sang in the autumn skies. But of the meaning behind the tales, and the great pattern to which swans and geese both belonged, I had said nothing. Such matters were taught to initiates of the Mysteries. If Constantine had been born on Avalon as Ganeda planned, he would have learned these things as part of his training. But I had willed otherwise, therefore it must be my responsibility to teach him.

  Constantine was a child, I thought as I listened to the two voices. It was natural that he should focus on the surface of things. But it was the external face of the world that was the most varied and full of contradictions. On the surface, there was truth in all the different cults and philosophies. It was only at a deeper level that one could find a single truth behind them.

  "All the gods are one God, and all the goddesses are one Goddess, and there is one Initiator." I had heard that watchword more times than I could count when I was at Avalon. Somehow I must get its meaning across to Constantine.

  The breeze that wafted through the open doors came laden with all the scents of spring, and suddenly I could no longer bear to remain inside. I slipped through the open door and stepped out along the path that led between two rows of beech trees to the high road. I should tell Atticus to give his pupil a holiday—it was too lovely a day to spend locked in one's head debating philosophy. That was the mistake that some of the Pythagoreans, despite their understanding of the Mysteries, had made, to fix their minds so firmly on eternity that they missed the Truth proclaimed by this green and lovely world.

  From our hill I could see fields and vineyards, and the gleam of the Mosella. The town nestled along the river, protected by its walls. Treveri was a place of some importance, a centre for the production of woollen cloth and pottery, with good communications to both Germania and Gallia. Postumus had made it the capital of his Gallic empire, and now Maximian had made it his base of operations as well. They were repairing the bridge again; the local reddish stone glowed pink in the bright sun, but the temple of Diana, higher up on the hillside, was a glimmer of white amid its sheltering trees.