Dierna let her breath out on a sigh, only then admitting her own anxiety. Tonight, at least, they would be safe and warm within Eiddin Mynoc’s new walls. Now she could allow herself to wonder about the girl who was the reason for this journey through the rain.
“Teleri, are you listening? The High Priestess will dine with us this evening.” Eiddin Mynoc’s voice rumbled like distant thunder.
Teleri blinked, wrenching her mind back from that rapidly approaching future in which the priestesses were already bearing her away with them to Avalon. The present was her father’s study in Durnovaria, where she was twitching her gown straight like a nervous child.
“Yes, Father,” she answered in the cultivated Latin which the Prince had required all his children to learn.
“Lady Dierna is coming all this way to see you, daughter. Is your mind still set on going with her? I will not press you to this decision, but there is no going back once it is made.”
“Yes, Father,” Teleri said again, and then, seeing he expected some elaboration, “Yes, I want to go.”
No wonder if he thought her fearful, standing before him tongue-tied as a kitchen slave. The Prince was an indulgent father—most girls her age had already been married off without anyone’s considering their wishes at all. But the priestesses did not marry. If they wished they took lovers in the holy rites and bore children, but they answered to no man. The priestesses of Avalon had powerful magic. It was not fear that held Teleri silent, but the strength of the wild joy that surged through her at the thought of the holy hill.
She wanted it too much—she would sing, shout, whirl about her father’s study like a madwoman if she once began telling him how she really felt today. And so she cast down her eyes as a modest maiden should and murmured monosyllabic answers to his exasperated questioning.
They will be here tonight! she thought when the Prince dismissed her at last and she was free to return to her rooms. The house, Roman in structure, looked inward to the atrium, its potted flowers glowing in the falling rain. Her whole life had been like that, she thought as she leaned against one of the pillars of the colonnade, protected and nurtured, but turned inward.
But there was a ladder that led to the rooftop. Her father had set it there so that he could watch the building of his new walls. Hitching up her skirts, Teleri climbed it, opened the trapdoor, and turned to face the wind. Rain stung her cheeks; in a few moments her hair was wet and water was running down her neck to soak her gown. She did not care. Her father’s walls gleamed pale through the rain, but above them she could see the grey blur of the hills.
“Soon I will see what lies beyond you,” she whispered. “And then I will be free!”
The town house in which the Prince of the Durotriges stayed when he was in his tribal city was Roman in design, decorated by native craftsmen who had attempted to interpret their own mythology in a Roman style, and furnished with a careless disregard for consistency and an eye to comfort. Thick native rugs of striped wool covered the cold tiles; a coverlet of pieced fox pelts lay across the couch. Dierna eyed it wistfully, but she knew that if she once sank into its softness she would find it hard to get up again.
At least the Prince’s slaves had brought warm water for them to wash in, and she had gratefully stripped off the breeches and tunic in which she had made the journey and put on the loose-sleeved blue robe of a priestess of Avalon. She wore no ornaments, but her garments were of finely woven wool dyed that particularly rich and subtle blue whose production was a secret of the holy isle.
She picked up the bronze mirror and twitched a stray tendril back under the coronet of braids into which she had twisted her abundant hair, then pulled the edge of the stola up over her head and drew its folds across her breast so that the free end hung down her back. Both garb and hairstyle were severe, but the soft wool molded itself to the generous curve of her breasts and hips, and against the deep blue her hair, curling ever more rebelliously in the damp air, blazed like fire.
She looked at Erdufylla, who was still trying to adjust the folds of her own stola, and smiled.
“We had best go. The Prince will not be happy if we keep him waiting for his dinner….”
The younger priestess sighed. “I know. But the other women will be wearing embroidered tunicas and golden necklaces, and I feel so plain in this garb.”
“I understand—when I first attended my grandmother on her journeys away from Avalon, I felt the same. She told me not to envy them—their finery signifies only that they have menfolk who can indulge them. You yourself have earned the garb you wear. When you go among them, carry yourself with such pride that it is they who will feel overdressed, and envy you.”
With her narrow features and mouse-fair hair, Erdufylla would never be beautiful, but as Dierna spoke the younger woman straightened, and when the High Priestess moved toward the door she followed with the graceful, gliding gait that was the gift of Avalon.
The town house was a large one, with four wings surrounding a courtyard. The Prince and his guests had gathered in a large room in the wing farthest from the road. One wall was painted with scenes of the marriage of the Young God with the Flower Maiden against a burnt-orange background, and a mosaic patterned with knotwork covered the floor. But shields and spears were mounted on the other walls, and a wolfskin covered the chair on which Prince Eiddin Mynoc awaited them.
He was a man of middle years, with a great deal of silver in his dark hair and beard. What had been a powerful physique was going to fat, and only an occasional gleam in his eye revealed the wit he had inherited from his mother, who had been a daughter of Avalon. None of his sisters had shown any talent worth training, but according to Eiddin Mynoc’s message, his youngest girl, though pretty enough, was “so filled with odd fits and fancies she might as well go to Avalon.”
Dierna looked around the room, acknowledging the Prince’s welcome with a gracious, and precisely equivalent, nod. That was another thing her grandmother had taught her. In her own sphere, the Lady of Avalon was the equal of an emperor. The other guests—several matrons dressed in the Roman style, a portly man wearing the toga of the equestrian class, and three beefy young men who she supposed were Eiddin Mynoc’s sons—eyed her with mingled respect and curiosity. Was the girl she had come here to meet still primping, or too shy to face the company?
One of the women rather pointedly avoided her gaze. When the priestess saw that she wore a silver fish on a slender chain, she realized the woman must be a Christian. Dierna had heard there were many of them in the eastern parts of the Empire, but although a company of monks lived on the isle of Inis Witrin, the counterpart of Avalon that still remained part of the world, in the rest of the province their numbers were relatively few. They seemed to be so given to quarrels and disputations that they were likely to destroy themselves soon enough without any assistance from the Emperor.
“Your walls, lord, are rising quickly,” said the man in the toga. “They have grown halfway around the city since I was here last.”
“By the next time you come here they will be finished,” Eiddin Mynoc said proudly. “Let those sea wolves howl elsewhere for their dinners, they’ll get nothing in Durotrige lands.”
“They are a magnificent gift to your people,” said the man in the toga, ignoring him. Dierna realized that she had met him once before—he was Gnaeus Claudius Pollio, one of the senior magistrates here.
“It is the only gift the Romans will allow us to give,” muttered one of the sons. “They do not let us arm our people, and they take the troops that should protect us back across the Channel to fight their wars.”
His brother nodded vigorously. “It is not justice, to take our taxes and give us nothing. Before the Romans came at least we could defend ourselves!”
“If the Emperor Maximian will not help us, we need an emperor of our own!” said the third boy.
He had not spoken loudly, but Pollio fixed him with a disapproving glare. “And who would you elect, cockerel? Yourself?
”
“Nay, nay,” his father put in quickly, “we speak no treason here. It is only the blood of his ancestors, who have defended the Durotriges since before Julius Caesar came over from Gallia, that burns in his veins. It’s true that when the Empire is troubled Britannia sometimes seems the last province they care for, but we are still better off within its boundaries than squabbling among ourselves….”
“The Navy ought to protect us. What are Maximian and Constantius doing with the money we send them? They swore they would put the pirates down,” one of the older men muttered, shaking his head. “Have they no admirals who can command a fleet against such men?”
Dierna, who had been listening with interest, turned in annoyance at a pull on her sleeve. It was the most richly dressed of the women, Vitruvia, who was married to Pollio.
“Lady, I am told that you know much of herbs and medicines….” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she began to describe the palpitations of the heart that had frightened her. Dierna, looking beneath the careful cosmetics and the jewels, recognized the woman’s very real anxiety and forced herself to listen.
“Has there been a change in your monthly courses?” she asked. The men, still arguing politics, did not notice as they moved aside.
“I am still fertile!” Vitruvia exclaimed, the color in her painted cheeks intensifying.
“For now,” Dierna said gently, “but you are passing from the governance of the Mother to that of the Wise One. To complete that transformation will take some years. In the meantime, you must make a preparation of motherwort. Take a few drops when your heart troubles you, and you will be eased.”
From the other room came an enticing scent of roasted meat, and she was suddenly acutely aware of how long it had been since the morning meal. She had thought the Prince’s daughter would be joining them for dinner, but perhaps Eiddin Mynoc was an old-fashioned parent who believed that unmarried girls should be kept in seclusion. A slave appeared in the doorway to announce that dinner awaited them.
As they moved out into the corridor, Dierna felt something, a breath of air, perhaps, as if a door to the outside had been opened farther along the hall, and turned. In the shadows at the far end of the hallway something pale was moving; she saw a woman’s figure, coming with a quick, light step as if blown by the wind. The High Priestess stopped so suddenly that Erdufylla bumped into her.
“What is it?”
Dierna could not answer. A part of her mind identified the newcomer as a woman just emerging from girl-hood, tall and slender as a bending willow, with pale skin and dark hair and a hint of Eiddin Mynoc’s strong bones in the line of cheek and brow. But it was another feeling that had silenced her, which she could only characterize as recognition.
Dierna’s heart bounded like poor Vitruvia’s; she blinked, for a moment seeing the girl fragile, with fine pale hair and robed as a priestess, and then again small, with auburn highlights in her dark curls, and golden bracelets curling like serpents around her arms.
Who is she? she asked herself, and then, Or who was she, and who was I, that I greet her return with such anguished joy? For a moment then she heard a name—“Adsartha…”
Then the girl was before her, dark eyes widening as she saw the blue robes. With a fluid grace she sank to her knees, seized the trailing corner of Dierna’s stola, and kissed it. The High Priestess looked down at that bent head, unable to stir.
“Ah, there she is, my erring child!” came Eiddin Mynoc’s voice from behind her. “Teleri, my dear, get up! What will the Lady think of you?”
She is called Teleri…. The other names and faces were banished by the living reality of the girl before her, and Dierna found that she could breathe once more.
“Indeed, my daughter, you do me honor,” she said softly, “but this is not the time or the place for you to kneel to me.”
“There will be another, then?” asked Teleri, taking Dierna’s outstretched hand and rising. Already the awe in her face was giving way to a delighted laughter.
“Is that what you wish?” asked Dierna, still holding her hand. A power too deep to be called impulse brought new words to her lips. “We will say this again in the presence of the priestesses, but I ask you now. Is it of your own free will, without force or coercion by your father or anyone, that you seek to join the holy sisterhood that dwell in Avalon?”
She knew that Erdufylla was staring at her in amazement, but since she had been made High Priestess, there had rarely been anything of which she had been so sure.
“By moon and stars and the green earth I swear it,” said Teleri eagerly.
“Then, in earnest of the greeting my sisters will give you when we return, I welcome you.” Dierna took Teleri’s face between her two hands, and kissed her on the brow.
That night Teleri lay long wakeful. When dinner was done, Eiddin Mynoc, pointing out that the priestesses had had a weary day on the road, had bidden them good night and sent his daughter to bed. With her mind Teleri knew that he was right, and that she herself ought to have noticed their fatigue. She told herself that she could talk to them on the journey back to Avalon—she would have the rest of her life to talk to priestesses. But her heart cried out in frustration at having to leave them.
Teleri had expected to be impressed by the Lady of Avalon. Everyone had heard tales of the pointed Tor that was hidden, like Faerie, by mists through which only an initiate could pass. Some thought it a legend, for when the priestesses went out into the world it was usually in disguise. But in the old royal families of the tribes the truth was known, for many of their daughters had spent a season or two upon the holy isle, and at times, when the health of the land required it, one of the priestesses would be sent to make the Great Marriage with a chieftain at the Beltane fires. What she had not expected was to respond as if the High Priestess were someone dearly loved from long ago.
She must think me a fool! Teleri told herself, turning over yet again. I suppose they all worship her. In all the stories, the Lady of Avalon was an awesome figure, and it was true. Lady Dierna was like a beacon fire blazing against a midnight sky. Next to that radiance Teleri felt ghostly. Perhaps, she thought then, she was indeed the spirit of someone who had known Dierna in another lifetime.
At that, she began to laugh. Next she would be fancying herself Boudicca, or the Empress of Rome. It is more likely, she told herself, I was Dierna’s serving maid! And, still smiling, she fell asleep.
Teleri would have happily ridden out the next morning, but as her father pointed out, it was hardly hospitable to send the folk of Avalon off without even a day to recuperate from their journey, and as it happened, they needed items from the markets of Durnovaria. Teleri made herself Dierna’s shadow. The moment of astonishing intimacy which had occurred when they met was not repeated, but she found it surprisingly easy to be in the older woman’s company.
And gradually Teleri realized there was not so great a difference in their ages as she had supposed. She herself was now eighteen, but the High Priestess was only ten years older. It was responsibility and experience that made the difference between them. Erdufylla had told her that Dierna’s first child, a daughter, had been still in the womb when her mother became High Priestess at the age of twenty-three, and had been sent away for fostering before she was three. To think about Dierna’s children made Teleri feel like a child herself. And it was with a child’s anticipation that she fell asleep that night, eager for their departure the next morn.
They rode out from Durnovaria in the damp and rainy dawning, leaving the city still wrapped in sleep behind them. The High Priestess had wanted an early start, for the first stage of their journey would be long. The freedman who opened the gates had still been yawning and rubbing his eyes. Teleri wondered if he would even remember the travelers for whom he had opened them. Wrapped in their dark cloaks, the two priestesses passed like shadows, and even the men of their escort seemed to have absorbed some of their anonymity.
Teleri herself was wide awake; she had
always been an early riser, and anticipation had brought her from bed well before she was called. Even the glowering skies could not dampen her spirits. She twitched at the reins to make her mare step out and listened for the first birds to greet the dawning day.
They were just coming down the slope to the river when she heard a birdcall she did not recognize. It was autumn, when many birds passed through on their way southward. Teleri looked around her, wondering if the call had been made by a kind she had not seen before. They said that the wetlands around Avalon were a haven for waterfowl. No doubt she would find many new birds there. The call came again, and her mare’s ears pricked. Teleri felt a flicker of unease and pushed back her hood to see.
Something moved among the willows. She reined her mare back and spoke to the nearest freedman, who straightened, reaching for his cudgel and looking where she had pointed. Then someone whistled, the willows shivered, and in the next moment the road filled with armed men.
“Look out!” screamed the younger of the two Druids, who rode in the lead. A spear jabbed; she saw his face change, and his pony bolted, whinnying, as he fell. Her own mare half reared as she started to pull her around; then Teleri realized that Dierna was unguarded, and reined back toward her.
The road was full of men. Spear points glinted in the early light, and she glimpsed the flare of a sword. The freedmen were laying about them with their cudgels, but those were poor weapons against sharp blades. One by one they were pulled off their horses; the air echoed to their screams. Teleri’s own mount plunged at the scent of blood. A contorted face leered up at her and she felt a callused hand close around her ankle. She slashed at the man with her riding whip and he fell away.
Dierna had dropped her reins and lifted her arms, to draw strange signs in the air. Teleri felt her own ears hum as the High Priestess began to sing; the confusion around her slowed. From beyond her came a deep-voiced shout. She turned, saw a heavy spear flying toward Dierna, and kicked her mare forward. But she was too far away. It was Erdufylla, who had not dared to leave Dierna’s side, who made the convulsive movement that put her body between the High Priestess and the spear.