Lady of Avalon

  Next year, thought Caillean as she surveyed the dancers, they might have to move the celebration to the meadow at the foot of the Tor. In the open space beyond the stone circle there was hardly room for the Druids and the young priestesses, and marsh folk were still arriving, watching from the edge of the firelight with wondering dark eyes. It was amazing, really, how fast the word had been carried, but of course the old hunter who had been summoned to tattoo Gawen’s dragons would have told them.

  The priestesses, of course, had known what had happened since this morning, when the Druids had come back down the hill with glory in their eyes. She thought she sensed a certain edge to the anticipation natural to the holiday, an intensity that had not been there before. Certainly they had taken extra pains with their hair and ornaments. Tonight the King would walk among them. Whom would he choose?

  Caillean did not need to look into a silver bowl of water to know the answer. Even if he had not loved Sianna since they were children, since he had seen her as the Maiden Bride that morning, his heart would be full of her grace and beauty. The priests and priestesses of Avalon did not marry in the human way, but when they came together in the Great Rite they were the vehicles by which the Lord and the Lady were united. What was going to happen here tonight would be a royal wedding, and Gawen’s joining with Sianna would bless the land.

  She had known that Gawen had been born to some great destiny, but who could have imagined this? Caillean smiled at her own enthusiasm. In her own way, she was as dazzled as any of the young priestesses, dreaming of Gawen and Sianna as sacred king and queen, who would rule the soul of Britannia from Avalon with herself behind them.

  Two oxen had been purchased for the festival and roasted on spits at the bottom of the hill. Their meat was being carried up to the top in baskets, and the folk of the marshes had brought venison and waterfowl and dried fish as well. Heather beer in skin bags, and mead in jars of earthenware, made their own contribution to the merriment. And in the space between the crescent of feasters and the stone circle blazed the Beltane fire.

  If she sighted southwest she could see the glow of the fire that had been lighted on the Dragon Hill there. She knew that from that place another fire would be visible, and another, all the way to Land’s End, just as the ley that led northeastward to the great circle of stones by the sacred hill was on this night marked by fire.

  On this night, she told herself with satisfaction, on this night, all of Britannia is webbed with light that even the once-born without spirit sight can see!

  A maiden of the marsh folk, her cloud of black hair bound back with a wreath of eglantine, knelt before the priestess with shy grace, offering a basket of dried berries preserved in honey. Caillean pushed back the blue veil from her brow and took some, smiling. The girl, glimpsing the silver crescent that gleamed above the smaller half-moon tattooed on the priestess’s brow, made a sign of reverence and looked quickly away.

  When she had gone, the High Priestess left her face uncovered. This was a night of festival, when the doors opened between the worlds and the spirit swung free. There was no need for mystery. The veil was only a symbol anyhow—Caillean knew how to draw an illusion of shadow across her features when there was need. The maidens they were training were convinced that she, like the Faerie Queen, could appear out of thin air.

  To the sound of the drum that had pulsed like a heartbeat beneath the sounds of celebration was added suddenly a ripple of harpsong. One of the young Druids had carried his lap harp to the top of the Tor. Now he sat cross-legged beside the little dark drummer, fair head cocked to one side as he listened for the rhythm. In another moment the bittersweet bray of a cowhorn pipe joined the music, leaping about the chiming chords of the harp like a young calf in a field of flowers.

  The girl with the eglantine wreath began to move to the music, arms twining, slim hips shifting beneath the doeskin garment she wore. Hesitantly at first, and then with more abandon, Dica and Lysanda joined her. The drumming quickened, and soon their brows shone with perspiration and the thin blue stuff of their tunicas began to cling. How beautiful they were, thought Caillean, watching. Even she found herself swaying to the music, and it had been many years since she had danced at a festival.

  It was a change in the pattern of the dancing that alerted her, a ripple of motion like the shift in the current when a man steps into a stream. Dancers swayed aside, turning, and Caillean glimpsed Gawen. He wore the white kilt of a king, belted in gold. A royal medallion of ancient workmanship lay on his breast, and green oak leaves formed his crown.

  Besides those, only the blue serpents etched into his forearms adorned him. But he needed nothing else. Those months of Roman training had sculpted his upper body and put hard muscle on his calves and thighs. More than that, the last youthful softness had been honed from his features; the good bones defined his face, everything in balance now. The boy whom she had loved and feared for was gone. This was a man.

  And, she thought, seeing the radiance that glimmered about him, this was a king. Did she want him? Caillean knew that she still had the power to wrap herself in a glamour beside which even Sianna’s radiant youth would pale. But if, as she suspected, the tie between them was a thing of the soul forged in ages past, Gawen would choose his true mate even if she appeared a hag. In any case, Sianna was young, and she could give Gawen a child, as Caillean, for all her wisdom and all her magic, could never do now.

  He is not the beloved of my soul, she thought with a touch of sorrow. The soul of the man who should be my mate is not incarnate in a body now. Her attraction was only a natural response to the overwhelming male magnetism of the King and the power of the Beltane fires. On this night Gawen was everyone’s beloved—male or female, old or young.

  Was this how Eilan had seen the boy’s father when he came to her beside the Beltane fire? Gawen was taller than Gaius had been, and though the proud arch of his nose was all Roman, it seemed to her he had something of Eilan in the set of his eyes. But in truth, at this moment Gawen did not really resemble either parent, but someone else whom she had known, in other lifetimes, long ago.

  “The Year-King,” ran the whisper as he moved among the dancers, and Caillean repressed a pang of foreboding. This boy’s father had claimed that title before he died. But Gawen bore the sacred serpents. He was not merely the Year-King, who for one cycle of the seasons is honored and then, if the times require it, is sacrificed, but the Pendragon, who serves the land as long as he lives.

  The maidens clustered around him and drew him into the dance. She saw him laughing, taking a girl by the hands and swinging her around, then leaving her breathless and laughing while he moved to another, clasping her in a brief embrace, and sending her spinning into the arms of one of the young men. They danced until everyone but Gawen, who seemed ready to go on all night, was gasping. Then he allowed them to lead him to a seat, covered with soft deerskins like the one on which Caillean was sitting, on the other side of the fire.

  They brought him food and drink. The drumming ceased, and only the sweet trilling of a bone flute continued to ornament the babble of talk and laughter. Caillean drank watered wine and surveyed the gathering with a benign smile.

  It was the return of the drum, soft and steady as a heartbeat, that made her turn.

  The drummer, a man of the marshes himself, must have known what was coming, but Caillean frowned, wondering what Waterwalker and the ancient who walked with him were intending now. Nothing hostile—beyond the sheathed knives at their belts they were unarmed—but something more serious, or perhaps she meant solemn, than the playful abandon of the festival. Three younger men escorted them, watching Gawen with shining eyes. What were they carrying? She got to her feet and moved softly around the fire so that she could see.

  “You are king.” In Waterwalker’s guttural tones it was a statement, not a question. His gaze flickered to the dragons on Gawen’s arms. “Like the old ones who come from the sea. We remember.” The elders nodded. “We remember the o
ld tales.”

  “It is so,” said Gawen, and Caillean knew that he was seeing former lives that his initiation had allowed him to remember. “I have come once more.”

  “Then we give you this,” said the old man. “From a fallen star our first smiths forge it—oh, long ago. And when it is broken, a sorcerer of your people made it whole. In that time, lord, you use it to protect us, and when you die, we hid it away.” He held out the bundle he had been carrying, a long shape swathed in wrappings of painted hide.

  A silence fell as Gawen accepted it. Caillean could hear the pounding of her heart, heavy and slow. Within the wrappings, as her own returning memories had told her it must be, lay a sword.

  It was a long, dark blade, about the size of a Roman cavalry sword, with the leaf shape she remembered from the bronze blades the Druids used in ritual. But no bronze ever had that mirror sheen. Star metal… She had heard of such blades but never seen one. Who would have thought the marsh folk had such a treasure in their keeping? It did not do to forget that, though they might be humble, their tribe was very old.

  “I remember…” Gawen said softly. The hilt fitted his hand as if it had been tailored to his palm. He lifted the sword, and flickers of reflected firelight danced across the faces of those gathered around him.

  “Then you take it, to defend us,” said Waterwalker. “Swear!”

  The sword swung upward with weightless ease. The boy Gawen had been would have dropped it. A deft twist of the wrist sent it slicing the air. How strange, thought Caillean, that it was the Romans who had trained him to become a protector of those whom they themselves oppressed.

  “I have sworn to serve the Lady,” Gawen said softly. “Now I swear to you also, and to the Land.” He turned the blade and drew the edge across the fleshy part of his hand. It did not take much pressure—the thing was serpent-sharp—and in a moment dark blood welled along the cut and began to drip onto the ground. “For this life, and this body,” he went on. “And as for my spirit, I renew the oath I swore before…”

  Caillean shivered. What memories had the lad recovered when he was in the hill? With luck, they would wear away as time went on. It could be hard to live normally if one remembered one’s past lives too well.

  “In life and death, lord, we serve you.” Waterwalker touched his finger to the blood on the ground and then brought it to his forehead, leaving a red smear on his brow. The other young men did the same, then ranged themselves around Gawen like a guard of honor, two to either side. The young Druids who were watching looked rather bemused, as well they might, trying to understand this transformation of one who had been a boy among them until the year before.

  Caillean glanced upward. The stars were wheeling toward midnight, and the fire was beginning to burn low. The astral tides were turning; the time for the working of the deepest magics was near.

  “Where is Sianna?” Gawen asked softly. Caillean realized that even before they brought him the sword he had been scanning the crowd.

  “Go into the circle. Call your bride, and she will come.”

  His eyes glowed suddenly with a light that did not come from the fire. Without another word he strode toward the circle of stones. His escort followed, but when he passed the two pillars that flanked the entrance they took up position before it. For a moment Gawen faced the alter, then lifted the sword and placed it like an offering before the stone. Empty-handed, he turned to look back the way he had come.

  “Sianna! Sianna! Sianna!” he cried, and the longing in that call carried it through all the worlds.

  For a moment all the Tor was silent, waiting.

  And then, from the far distance, they heard a sound like silver bells. With it came drumming, a swift and dancing beat that set the heart to skipping with joy. Caillean peered down the hill and saw lights bobbing up from below. Soon she could glimpse faces—the rest of the marsh folk, and others, who were not quite human, able to walk among men on this night when the gateways opened between the worlds.

  A shimmer of white moved in the midst of them—a length of some gauzy material held like a canopy over the one they were escorting. The music grew loud, voices soared in the bridal song, the feasters drew back to either side as the procession came over the rim of the hill.

  A king at his crowning, a groom at his wedding, a priest at his initiation—all these were in their moment of glory divine. And Gawen, watching as they brought his bride to him, was all three.

  But Sianna—however great the beauty of the God, that of the Goddess surpassed it. As they lifted the canopy and the maiden passed between the pillars to meet him, hawthorn-crowned, Caillean recognized that even with all her magic she could never have matched her. For, while Gawen had slept, Sianna had gone back to her mother’s realm, and it was the jewels of the Otherworld that adorned the daughter of the Faerie Queen.

  Gawen’s whole body shook along with the pounding of his heart. He was glad he had put down the sword; the way he was trembling, he would have cut himself for sure. The torchbearers who had escorted Sianna stood now around the circle. As Sianna passed between the pillars and came toward him, their light seemed to thicken, and the world outside the circle disappeared.

  In that moment he could not have said if she was beautiful. That was a human word, and, bard-trained though he was, no words he could command would have expressed what he was feeling now. He wanted to bow down and kiss the ground upon which she was walking, and yet something equally divine within him was rising up to meet her. He saw its reflection in her eyes.

  “You called me, my beloved, and I am here….” Her voice was soft; in her eyes he saw a gleam that recalled the human girl with whom he had hunted birds’ nests so long ago. It made it easier to bear the god-power that beat within him.

  “Our joining,” he said with difficulty, “will serve the land and the people. But I ask you, Sianna, if to lie with me now will serve you?”

  “And what will you do if I say no?” There was a gentle mockery in her smile.

  “I would take another—no matter who—and try to do my duty. But it would be my body only that acted, not my heart or soul. You are a priestess. I want you to know that I understand if you—” He stared at her, willing her to understand what he could not say aloud.

  “But I have not,” she answered him, “and neither will you.”

  Sianna moved closer and set her hands upon his shoulders, tipping back her head to receive his kiss, and Gawen, his hands still open at his sides, bent to take what she offered him. And as his lips touched hers, he felt the God enter fully in.

  It was like the fire that had filled him the night before, but gentler, more golden. He knew himself, Gawen, but he was conscious also of that Other who knew, as he did not, just how to untie the complicated knot of the Maiden cincture, and unpin the brooches that held her gown. In a few moments she stood before him, the sweet curves of her body more beautiful than the jewels she still wore.

  She moved then, unhooking his gilded belt and tugging at the ties of his kilt until he too was freed. In wonder he touched her breasts, and then, straining together as if they could become one being, they kissed once more.

  “Where shall we lie, my love?” he whispered when he could breathe again.

  Sianna moved back and eased down upon the stone. Gawen stood before her, feeling the great current that passed through the Tor surge upward from the core of the hill through the soles of his feet, rushing up his spine until he trembled with power. Carefully, as if at any sudden movement he would shatter, he bent over her, sinking between her opening thighs as he fitted his body to hers.

  In the moment of their joining, he felt the barrier of her maidenhood, and knew she had not lied, but that no longer mattered. He was coming home, with a sweetness that the man in him had not expected, and a certainty that the god in him recognized with joy. For the space of a breath they lay without moving, but the power that had brought them together could not be denied.

  As Sianna clasped him, Gawen found himself
moving in the rhythms of the oldest dance of all, and knew that he was only a channel for the power that surged within him, that drove him to give all the strength that was in him to the woman in whose arms he lay. He felt her turn to fire beneath him, opening yet further, and strained against her as if through that human body he could reach something beyond humanity.

  In the final moment, when he had imagined himself beyond conscious thinking, he heard her whisper, “I am the altar…” He answered, “…and I am the sacrifice,” and, answering, found release at last for the passion of the man and the power of the god.

  The fountaining flow of energy, magnified by the union of God and Goddess, rushed back through the Tor. Too great for its main channel, it surged through every passage available, pulsing down the lesser leys that crossed at the Tor to bless all the land. Caillean, waiting outside the circle, felt it and sat back with a sigh. Others, sensing in their own ways what had happened, leaped to their feet, eyes brightening. The drums, which had continued their steady beat since Sianna joined Gawen within the circle, exploded with a sudden thunder of exultation, and first one voice, then another took up the shout until the entire hill resounded with their joy.

  “The God has joined with the Goddess,” Caillean proclaimed, “the Lord with the Land!”

  The drummers, after their first tumult, settled into a lively dance beat. Laughing, the people got to their feet. Everyone, even the oldest Druids, had felt the release of tension. With it went fatigue and, as it seemed, inhibition. Those who had watched the earlier dancing from the sidelines began to sway. A young girl of the marsh folk pulled old Brannos into the space before the fire, and he bobbed and circled more nimbly than Caillean would have believed possible.

  Though the fire was lower, the heat was greater than it had been before. Soon the dancers were streaming with perspiration. To Caillean’s surprise, it was one of her priestesses, Lysanda, who first pulled off her tunica, but others swiftly followed her example. A young man and woman of the marsh folk, freed from the danger of fluttering clothing, joined hands and leaped for luck across the fire.