“What will you give Me?” Her voice was lazy, amused.
“My life—”
“You have offered that already, and indeed, I will require it of you. But not yet. What I ask on this night”—She looked around Her and then laughed once more—“is a virgin sacrifice….”
The appalled silence that followed seemed very long. Taliesin, his hand gripping the hilt of his knife as if he were afraid it would escape his grasp, shook his head.
“Let the blood of the sow suffice You, Lady. The girl You may not have.”
For a long moment the Goddess considered him. Watching her, Viviane seemed to see the shadow shapes of ravens flying, and understood that it was the Dark Mother of the cauldron who had come to them tonight.
“You have sworn—all of you—to serve Me,” She said severely, “and yet you will not give the one thing I ask.”
Viviane found herself speaking without intending it, her own voice tremulous in her ears. “If You had it, what would You gain?”
“I would gain nothing. I already have everything.” The amusement had crept back into Her tone. “It is you who would learn…that it is only through death that life can come, and sometimes defeat brings victory.”
It is a test, thought Viviane, remembering the Voice in the mist. She unclasped her cloak and let it fall.
“Druid, as a sworn priestess of Avalon I command you, in the name of the powers we are sworn to serve. Bind me, lest the flesh flinch, and do as the Goddess commands.” She walked to the stone.
As Taliesin, shaking, took the belt she handed him and bound her arms to her sides, Vortimer found his voice at last.
“No! You cannot do this!”
“Prince, would you obey if I begged you to hold back from the battle? This is my choice, and my offering.” Viviane’s voice was clear, but it seemed to come from very far away.
I have gone mad, she thought as Taliesin lifted her onto the slab. The dark spirits of this place have seduced me. At least she would die cleanly; she had seen him kill. The woman who was and was not her mother watched implacably from the foot of the stone. Mother, if indeed this is your doing, I shall be revenged, for I shall be free, but when you return to yourself you will have to bear this memory.
For a moment the stone was cold; then it began to feel warm and welcoming. Taliesin was a dark shape against the stars. He had drawn his knife; light glittered on the edge as his trembling communicated itself to the blade. Father, do not fail me…, she thought, and closed her eyes.
And in that darkness, she heard once more the Goddess laughing.
“Druid, put the blade away. It is another kind of blood I demand, and it is the Prince who must take the sacrifice….”
For a moment Viviane could not imagine what She might mean. Then she heard the tinkle of a thrown knife striking stone. She opened her eyes and saw Taliesin crouched against one of the outer menhirs, weeping. Vortimer was standing as if he had been turned to stone.
“Take her…” the Goddess said more gently. “Did you think that even I would demand her life on Beltane Eve? Her embrace will make you a king.” Softly She came to the Prince, and kissed him on the brow. Then She walked out of the circle, and after a few moments Taliesin followed Her.
Viviane sat up. “You may unbind me,” she said when Vortimer still did not move. “I will not run from you.”
He laughed shakily and knelt before her, fumbling with the knot. Viviane looked down at his bent head with a sudden tenderness which she knew was the beginning of desire. When the cord fell away at last, he laid his head to rest in her lap, embracing her thighs. The pulsing warmth between them intensified; suddenly breathless, she ran her fingers through his dark hair.
“Come to me, my beloved, my king…” she whispered at last, and he rose up and stretched himself beside her on the stone.
Vortimer’s hands grew bold, until she felt herself dissolving. Then his weight pressed her into the rock of the altar, and consciousness diffused along all the lines of power that rayed from these stones. This is death…. A flicker of thought fled away. This is life—His cry brought it back again.
That night they died many times, and were reborn in each other’s arms.
Chapter Twenty-two
When Prince Vortimer returned to the east, Viviane went with him. Ana sat her pony beside Taliesin’s mule, watching them ride away.
“After so many years, you still surprise me,” said the bard. “You did not even argue when she said she wanted to go.”
“I have lost the right,” the High Priestess said hoarsely. “Viviane is better away, where she will be safe from me.”
“It was the Goddess, not you…” Taliesin began, but his voice wavered.
“Are you so certain? I remember….”
“What do you remember?” He turned to her, and she saw lines in his face that had not been there before.
“I heard myself speaking those words, and I felt glee, seeing you standing over her with that knife, seeing you all so afraid. All these years I have been certain I was doing the Lady’s will, but what if I was deceived, and what spoke through me was only my own pride?”
“Do you think I was deceived?” Taliesin asked.
“How can I tell?” she exclaimed, shivering as if the sun had no power to warm her anymore.
“Well…” he said slowly, “I will give truth to you. That night my own judgment was clouded by fear. Of us all, I think that only Viviane could see clearly, and in the end, I honored her right to make the offering.”
“Had you no thought for me?” Ana cried. “Do you think I could have lived with the knowledge that my word had condemned my own child?”
“Or I,” he said very softly, “knowing she died by my hand?”
For a long moment they looked at each other, and Ana understood the question in his eyes. And once more, she refused to answer. Better that he should think the girl his daughter, even now.
Presently he sighed. “Whether it was your true self that willed to save her, or the Goddess who changed Her mind, let us give thanks that Viviane is safe and has a chance for happiness.” He managed to smile at her.
Ana bit her lip, wondering how she had deserved that this man should love her. She was no longer young, and she had never been beautiful. And now her woman’s courses had become so irregular, she did not even know if she was fertile any longer. “My daughter has become a woman, and I have become the Death Crone. Take me back to Avalon, Taliesin. Take me home….”
Durovernum was hot and crowded, as if half of Cantium had taken refuge within its stout walls. The Saxons had attacked it several times—but the city had never fallen. Today, pushing through the crowds on Vortimer’s arm, Viviane thought that if any more people were packed in, it might explode.
People nudged each other and pointed to Vortimer as they passed. From their comments, it was clear that they found the sight of him reassuring. Viviane squeezed his arm, and he smiled down at her. When they were alone, she could let down her defenses and know what he felt for her. But in such a crowd she had to set up mental shields as stout as Durovernum’s walls or the clamor would have driven her mad, and could only judge by the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes. No wonder people in the world outside had so many misunderstandings—she wondered if she would ever know the peace of Avalon again.
The house where they were going lay in the southern part of the city, near the theatre. It belonged to Ennius Claudianus, one of Vortimer’s commanders, who was hosting a party. Viviane had found it strange that Vortimer and his captains should waste time on entertainment practically on the eve of a battle, but as he explained, it was important to display to the people their confidence that the life they had known would go on.
Darkness was falling, and slaves ran ahead of them with torches. Above, the clouds blazed as if they had been set afire. Viviane suspected that they owed their brilliant color to the smoke from burning thatch, for the Saxons were marching on Londinium, but the effect was certainly
spectacular. Remembering the many abandoned farmsteads in the countryside through which they had ridden to come here, she was surprised the people had anything left to burn.
Why had she come? Did she truly love Vortimer, or had she simply been seduced by her body’s response to him? Was it distrust of her mother that had driven her away? She did not know, but as they moved into the atrium and she looked at the elegantly dressed Roman women around her, Viviane felt like a child dressed up in her mother’s clothes. In blood these people might be British, but they were clinging desperately to the dream of Empire. Flute-players twittered in the garden, and in the atrium, acrobats leaped and tumbled to the beat of a drum. The refreshments, she was told, were scanty compared with what would have been served in better days, but what they had was exquisitely prepared. For all her efforts to deaden her inner senses, Viviane wanted to weep.
“What is it?” Vortimer’s hand on her shoulder brought her out of her reverie. “Are you unwell?”
Viviane looked up and shook her head, smiling. They had wondered if she would come from that first encounter in the stone circle pregnant, but in the two months since she and the Prince had been together her courses had been regular. Vortimer had no child; it was instinct, she supposed, for a man who faced death to want to leave something behind him. She had hoped for a child as well.
“Only tired. I am not used to such warm days.”
“We can go soon,” he said with a smile that made her pulse beat more quickly. He glanced around him with that watchful look that made her wonder.
All day, she thought, he had been waiting for something; when they were alone she would make him tell her what it was. That first time they made love, at the Giants’ Dance, they had known each other utterly. Since then, when she lay with him in places that were not protected, her instinctive defenses had kept her from so complete a union. Vortimer had not complained; perhaps he, with his greater experience, did not consider it a problem; perhaps, she thought ruefully, this was what relations between men and women were usually like, and her own initiation the anomaly.
Suddenly impatient, she set her hands on his arms and willed the barriers away. She sensed first the warmth of his feeling for her, a blend of passion and affection and more than a little awe. Then all the awareness she had blocked came upon her in a rush, and she saw….
Vortimer stood like a wraith before her. Her hands told her that his flesh was still solid, that this was an illusion, but to her Vision, he was fading away. With a gasp she made herself look away from him, but it did little good. Of the men in the room there was scarcely a one who had not become a ghost. She stared out toward the city, and images came to her of the streets deserted, buildings fallen, and gardens overgrown.
She could not bear it, she would not see it! With a last effort she closed her eyes and shut all sight away. When she could think again, they were outside and Vortimer was holding her.
“I told them you were feeling ill and I would take you home…”
Viviane nodded. That was as good an explanation as any. She must not allow him to suspect what she had seen.
That night, they lay in each other’s arms with the shutters thrown open so that they could watch the three-quarter moon climb the sky.
“Viviane, Viviane…” Vortimer’s fingers stroked down her thick hair. “The first time I saw you, you were a goddess, and again when you first gave yourself to me. When I asked you to come to Cantium, I was still dazzled, certain that you would be my talisman of victory. But now it is the mortal woman I care for.” He lifted a strand of hair to her lips. “Marry me—I want you to be protected.”
Viviane shivered. He was doomed, if not in the next battle, then another. “I am a priestess.” She fell back on her old answer, even though she no longer knew if it was true. “I may not marry any man except as we were joined, in the Great Rite, before the gods.”
“But in the eyes of the world—” he began, but she laid a finger across his lips.
“I am your mistress. I know what they say. And I am grateful for your care of me. For all to accept me, the Church would have to bless our union, and I belong to the Lady. No, my love, while you live, I need no protection but Hers, and yours….”
For a few moments he was silent. Then he sighed. “This morning word came that Hengest is moving on Londinium. I do not think he can take it, and if he does not, he will retreat back through Cantium and I will be waiting. The great fight for which I have been preparing is coming. I believe that we will be victorious, but a man puts his life at hazard every time he goes to war.”
Viviane’s breath caught. She had known that there must be another battle, but she had not expected it so soon! She forced her voice to remain even as she replied. “If you should fall, is there anywhere, do you think, that your name would protect me? If you were…gone, I would return to Avalon.”
“Avalon…” He let out his breath on a long sigh. “I remember it, but it seems to me a dream.” His hand moved from her hair to trace the curve of cheek and brow, caressed the smooth skin of her throat, and rested above her heart. “It is like you—your bones are a bird’s, I could break you with one hand, but inside you are strong. Ah, Viviane, do you love me at all?”
Wordless, she turned in his arms and kissed him, and only realized that she was weeping when he wiped away her tears. By then, it seemed, her lover was beyond speech as well, but their bodies communicated with an eloquence beyond words.
That night Viviane dreamed that she was back on Avalon, watching her mother weave. But the roof of the weaving shed had grown higher; the beams of the loom extended into its shadows, bearing the fabric of the tapestry. She peered upward, and glimpsed men marching, the lake and the Tor, her child-self riding with Taliesin through the rain; but as the weaver worked, the finished tapestry moved beyond her vision into the darkness of forgotten years. Lower down, the images were clearer. She saw the Giants’ Dance and herself and Vortimer, and armies, always more armies, marching across the land in blood and fire.
“Mother!” she cried. “What are you doing?” And the woman turned and Viviane saw that it was herself at the weaving, as it was she who was watching, separate, but the same.
“The gods have strung the loom, but it is we who make the figures,” said the Other. “Weave wisely, weave well….”
Then she heard thunder, and the loom began to pull apart into fragments. Viviane tried to catch them, but they slipped through her fingers. Someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes and saw Vortimer, and heard the hammering at the door.
“The Saxons—the Saxons have been thrown back from Londinium and are retreating! My lord, you must come—”
Viviane shut her eyes as he went to open it. It was the news he had waited for, she knew, and she wished desperately it had not come. In memory she saw her dream-weaver and heard her warning. Weave well….
What did that mean? Vortimer was going to war and she could not stop him. What could she do?
Vortimer was already pulling on his clothing. She flung her arms around him, her head against his breast; she could feel his heartbeat quicken as he let his tunic fall and held her. There was more noise at the door. Vortimer stirred, and her arms tightened around him. He sighed, and she felt his lips brush her hair. Then, very gently, he freed himself from her embrace.
“Vortimer…” She reached for him again and he took her hands. She realized she was weeping when he reached out to wipe away her tears.
“So”—his voice shook—“you do love me…as I love you. My beloved, farewell!” He stepped away from her, took up his tunic and belt, and started for the door.
Viviane stared after him, waiting until she heard the latch click behind him. Then she collapsed back onto the bed that still bore the imprint of their twined bodies, weeping as if to spend a lifetimes worth of tears.
Eventually, even her weeping came to an end.
As Viviane lay listening to the silence, it occurred to her finally that she was still a priestess. Why had she
spent all that time learning magic if she could not use it to protect the man she loved?
Before the sun was high, Viviane was on her way. She encountered no difficulty. The road behind an advancing army was as safe a route as you might find, so long as you brought food of your own. And she had taken the precaution of dressing in a boy’s tunic she got from one of the gardeners and hacking off her hair. After so many years, she had become accustomed to having it short, and if she needed to look respectable afterward, she could always cover it with a veil.
Even her mount was no temptation—an ugly and evil-tempered roan gelding that had been judged too slow to take to war. But once she persuaded it to move, its rough paces covered the ground. That night she slept within sight of Vortimer’s campfires, and the next day, unrecognized and unsuspected, she attached herself to the camp cooks as a kitchen lad.
On the third day, the British vanguard encountered a band of Saxons and engaged them briefly. Hengest was falling back on his old stronghold on Tanatus. Vortimer’s hope was to cut him off and destroy him before he could cross the channel to the isle. Now they turned east, moving with all their speed.
That night they made camp reluctantly, knowing the enemy might continue marching. But it is only men who will outrun strength and reason; the horses must be rested if the British were to preserve their advantage in cavalry. Viviane shivered in the dank sea air, for their road lay near the estuary of the Tamesis, and wished she were in Vortimer’s arms. But it was better he should think her safe in Durovernum. She made her bed on a little rise from which she could look down on the softly glowing leather of the field tent where he lay. And there, in the darkness, she called upon the old gods of Britannia to ward his body and strengthen his arm.
The British rose at first light, and by the time the sun rose the warriors were on their way, leaving their supply train to follow as best they might. Now Viviane cursed her nag’s slow paces; her link with Vortimer had become strong enough for her to know when they were making contact with the enemy.