But when at last they walked out of the forest and saw the wooded hill rising before them, surrounded by a ring of grassy lowlands, and Merlin sank down as if in prayer, murmuring in a language neither he nor Marian understood, Robin knew more was at work than fancy or folly.
From his knees, Merlin said, “Avalon.”
Robin started. “No!”
“It was an island,” Merlin persisted. “Look, you, and see how it might have been. The shore here, the water there—and the isle beyond.”
Robin looked upon it. An expanse of land stretched before him, and a high hill above it, swelling out of turf. There was no water, no shore, nothing to cross save grass.
“It is much changed,” said Merlin, “but not so very altered that a man of my begetting may not recognize it.”
A man of his begetting. A chill prickled Robin’s spine.
Marian gazed upon the hill. “Women ruled there.”
“For time out of mind,” Merlin agreed. “It was the goddess’s place, and that of her servants. Men were occasionally tolerated but never truly welcomed.”
“You?” she asked.
His tone was dry. “Tolerated.”
“And the sword?” Robin inquired.
Merlin seemed to have drifted away from them. “There is a grave upon the island,” he said. “A man sleeps in it. But also an ideal. He and others embodied—and yet embody—it. The sword is there.” He looked at Robin. “Come nightfall, you and the goddess’s daughter must climb what is now a hill, but once was an island.”
Marian’s brows rose. “Goddess’s daughter?”
“In your blood,” he answered. “In your bones. But those who remain will attempt to stop you regardless.” He smiled as they exchanged a concerned glance. “Just as the sheriff attempts to stop you from robbing the wealthy and poaching the king’s deer.”
That put it in perspective. Robin sighed. “What do you want us to do?”
“Find the sword,” Merlin answered. “I am known there, even by the stones that outlive us all; I cannot go. It is for you to do.”
“I am a man,” Robin said. “Will I be—what did you say? Tolerated?”
Merlin inclined his head in Marian’s direction. “Because of her, yes.”
Marian’s tone was implacable. “We go nowhere, and do nothing, without knowing what we may expect.”
“Resistance,” Merlin told her.
Suspicious, Robin inquired, “What kind of resistance?”
The enchanter spread his hands. “That I cannot say. It may take many forms.”
Robin remained suspicious. “But you will not accompany us.”
Merlin shook his head. “If I go, the task cannot be completed. And it must be, for Arthur’s sake and the welfare of Britain.”
Robin laughed. “You have a way with words, Myrddyn Emrys. Perhaps that is the secret of your sorcery. You convince others to do the work for you.”
Merlin said, “So long as the work is done, it matters not who has the doing of it.”
Marian continued to gaze upon the hill. “How will we know to find the sword? Is it standing up from a stone?”
Robin’s laughter rang out. The enchanter was mystified, until the story was explained. Merlin frowned. “It was not like that at all. There was no such drama. It was—”
Marian halted him with a raised hand. “Please. Let it remain as we know it. Tales and legends are akin to food when there is little hope in a poor man’s life.”
Merlin’s smile twitched. “This is as much as I know: The grave and the sword are on the isle. Where, I cannot say.”
It felt like a challenge. Or even, after all, a quest. Marian looked at Robin. “The moon will be full tonight. Shall we go a-hunting?”
He put out a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, smiling. “Let us make a new legend.”
Moonlight lay on the land as Marian and Robin crossed the grass Merlin claimed had once been a lake. She wondered if it might possibly be true, as its appearance was so different from that of the forest behind them and the hill before. There were no great oaks, beeches, and alders, no tangle of foliage, no stone outcroppings. Merely grasslands, hollowed out of the earth.
A faint wind blew, teasing at their hair. Robin’s was awash with moonlight, nearly silver-white. The metal of his brigandine glowed and sparked. The light was kind to his face, for all his expression was serious; she wanted abruptly to stop him, to kiss him, to vow again how much she loved him, but something in the night suggested such behavior would be unwelcome. She felt urgency well up into a desire to find the sword for Merlin and return to him as soon as possible. Nothing in her wished to tarry.
Beside her, Robin shuddered. He felt her glance and smiled ruefully. “Someone walked over my grave.”
Fear sent a frisson through her. “Say no such thing. Not here.”
He glanced around, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Perhaps not,” he agreed.
Before them lay the first incline of the hill, a ragged seam of stone curving into the darkness, and a terrace of grass above it. Here vegetation began, clumps spreading inward, ascending the hill. The trees stood higher yet, forming a crown around the summit. She and Robin climbed steadily upward, until he stopped short just as they entered the outer fringe of trees.
The look on his face startled her. “What is it?”
“I am not supposed to be here.” He worked his shoulders as if they prickled with chill. “Merlin was right—men are not wanted. But—” He broke off, feeling gingerly at the cut on his head.
“But?” she prodded.
“But I in particular am not wanted. Or so it feels.” He studied his fingers. “Bleeding again.”
“Let me see.” She moved around to his other side, turning his head into the moonlight. “A little, yes…” She peeled hair away, saw where fresh blood welled. Moment by moment it ran faster, thicker, until even her fingers could not stop it. “Perhaps we should turn back.”
Robin’s expression was odd. “He said there would be resistance.”
Marian frowned as she drew her meat-knife and commenced cutting a strip from her tunic. “You believe you are bleeding again because of that?”
“I believe that on a night such as this, it may be possible.” He winced. “And the ache is returning.”
“Bend your head.” Marian tied the cloth around his head. “Do you believe what he says? That there even is a sword, and if we find it, it may guard England?”
Robin sighed, fingering the knot she had tied in the makeshift bandage. “I am not certain what I believe. But if there is truth to it…” He shrugged. “What harm if we try?”
“An aching head.”
“Ah, well, I daresay I can stand that.” Robin looked at the vanguard of trees springing up around them. “The stories say Arthur was taken away by nine queens and given secret burial rites. If this is Avalon—what remains of it, in any case—it is possible his grave is here. And what else is there to do but bury the king’s sword with the king’s body?”
“Give it to his son,” Marian answered promptly. “Save that no one of Arthur’s court would wish to see a bastard, a patricide, carrying it.”
“Merlin was not there when Arthur died,” Robin went on thoughtfully. “He may have meant to give it back to the lake on Arthur’s death, but if the women of Avalon took it away with the body—”
“—they would have brought it here.” Marian gazed up the hill to where the trees thickened, choked with undergrowth. “But all of it is merely a story…”
“Is it?” Robin asked. “Stories are changed over time, embellished the way Alan embellishes his ballads, but what if the kernel is true? What if that man back there, whom we witnessed come out of a tree no matter how much we wish to deny it, truly is Merlin?”
“Then Arthur’s grave is up there.”
“And the sword,” Robin said. “Excalibur.” He reached out a hand to her. “Shall we find it?”
Marian put her own in his. “A
lan would make a fine ballad of this.”
Robin’s teeth gleamed in a wide grin. “Oh, that he would! He would have us being beset on all sides by unseen enemies, battling evil spirits, making our way up a hill that crawled with the shades of long-dead men.”
“Well,” Marian said dryly, “of such fancies are legends born.”
With every step he took ascending the hill, Robin felt oppressed. Heavy. As if his body gained the mass and weight of stones, ancient under the sun. Breath ran ragged. His head ached. It took all of his strength to put one foot after the other and continue climbing.
He knew Marian was concerned. He saw it each time she halted a step or two above him, looking back to find him toiling behind her, expending effort merely to keep moving. The bandage around his head stilled most of the blood, but a stubborn trickle dribbled continuously down beside his ear. His shoulder was wet with it, where the blood had fallen.
They were nearly to the crown of the hill when he drew his sword. He could not say why it was necessary, save to know it was. In his years upon Crusade, and more years yet as an outlaw in Sherwood, he had learned to trust his instincts.
Just as they crossed beyond the last line of trees and stepped out onto the rocky summit, Marian stopped short. Her eyes, he saw, were stretched wide, unblinking; trembling hands moved to cover her ears. The sound she made was like nothing he had ever heard from her, a combination of whimper, protest, and astonishment.
He reached out to touch her, to put his hand upon her shoulder, but found such resistance in the air that he could not. His hand stopped short of her body, unable to go farther. “Marian?”
“I hear them,” she said.
Robin heard nothing.
She drew in a breath. “Their souls are still here.”
“Whose souls?”
“The women—the women who lived here. Those who worshipped the goddess.” She closed her eyes then, intent upon something he could neither see nor hear. “They knew peace here, in life and death. Not Christians, but reverent in their own way, following their faith.” She removed her hands and looked at him. “Merlin was right: He could not come here. Nor do they wish you to be here.”
“And you?” he asked.
Marian smiled crookedly. “I may or may not be descended from women who lived here in Merlin’s day. The power has faded, but there is memory here. I will not be chased away.” She closed her eyes again. He could see the lids twitching as if she slept; her mouth moved slightly. The words she quoted were nothing he had ever heard, from her or anyone else.
“Marian?”
This time it was she who reached out to him. Resistance snapped. He felt her hand on his, smooth and warm, as she led him to the center of the hilltop.
“He is with me,” she said, and the world made way.
There were voices in her ears. Nothing she could make out, not words she understood, but voices, women’s voices, calling out. Was it her help they desired or her absence? Marian could not tell what it was they wanted, merely that they existed, that they filled her mind with sound and her heart with yearning.
His hand was warm in hers, but she was barely conscious of it. She led him without hesitation to the center of the summit, to the place where stacked stone had tumbled into ruin, from graceful lines into disarray. Most were lichen-clad, moss-grown, buried in soil and ground cover. Some had cracked wide open, broken into bits by frost and sun. Nothing here resembled a place to live, but live they had. She could feel it in her bones, sense it singing in her blood.
“Here,” she said.
Robin stopped beside her. “The grave?”
She turned her face up to the moon, squinting at its brilliance. “No. The women worshipped here.”
He was silent. Marian sensed his unease. She turned to him, to reassure him that she was welcome here, that so long as he was her consort he would be tolerated—but she forgot the intention as something came down between them. A hissing line of light lanced out of the sky, so cold it burned. They broke apart and fell back, guarding their eyes. In the flash of illumination Marian saw Robin’s drawn and hollowed face, the grimness in his mouth. The bared blade of his sword glinted in the darkness.
She was Christian-born and-bred, not a goddess-worshipper. But something within responded to the place. She, a woman, had a right to be here. None of the women of Avalon had ever turned away one of their own, though not all had remained. What remained of them would not turn her away. Still, she was uneasy.
Resistance, Merlin had said. Robin had spoken of unseen enemies and evil beings. Marian sensed neither here, merely the memories of women who had left the world of men to make their own way, to find their own faith. That memory could make itself tangible did not, somehow, strike her as unusual. Not here. Not this night. Nor that the souls of the women, tied to the stone and soil of Avalon, would be present still. They had not known a heaven such as Christians did. They had worshipped another way.
Blasphemy, the priests would say. Heresy. It was not Marian’s way, but she could respect that women before her might seek another road. A woman’s life was difficult, with or without a man.
Her man stood beside her.
Marian looked into his eyes. Blood yet ran down his jaw to drip upon his shoulder. She reached up, touched his face, felt the warmth of his flesh beneath the beard. Felt the stickiness of blood.
In her heart welled a strange, strong fierceness. We have come at Merlin’s behest, she said within, not to disrupt, not to dishonor, but to set to rights what has been perverted. England—Britain—must prevail, but she cannot without your aid. Allow us to be the vessels of this aid. Let us have the sword.
A moment later, the answer was given.
Marian smiled. “I know the way.”
His brows arched. “To the grave?”
She gestured. “Look.”
She waited for him to see it, to find it, to remark in satisfaction. But he did none of those things. He looked, but he was blind.
“Here.” She took his hand again, led him to the stone. Beneath a scattering of dirt, encroached upon by ground cover, lay a flat, crude plinth of weathered stone half the length of Robin’s height.
“This?” he asked. “This is—nothing.”
The answer was immediate. “If men knew Arthur slept here, they would come. And if they came, they would undoubtedly expect a monument to the king. But that is not what the women, or Avalon, wished. Only peace. And that they offered Arthur.”
He was dubious. “How can you be certain this is his grave? Surely others have died here.”
She shrugged. “I can give you no explanation. I just—know.” Because they have told me.
Robin closed his mouth on his next question and squatted down. He set aside his sword, then leaned forward. One hand went out to the stone, to touch its surface. He ran his fingers over the stone and stopped. His expression abruptly stilled.
“What is it?” Marian asked.
He traced the stone again, feeling more carefully this time. She saw the pattern: down the length of the stone, then across.
“’Tis carved here,” Robin said. He motioned her to kneel down, then took her hand and pressed it across the stone. “Do you feel it?”
Marian shook her head.
“Wait…” He guided her hand up, then down, then across. “Do you feel it?”
She frowned. “Some kind of carving, I agree. But I cannot make it out.”
Robin retrieved his sword from beside the stone and set it atop the pitted surface. And Marian understood.
She said, “Merlin came out of the tree. Out of wood.”
Robin nodded. “And this is stone.”
With the touch of our blood. She stared at the sword as it lay atop the plinth. Then slowly she bent and took it into her hands. Her right she curled around the leather-wrapped grip. Her left she closed upon the blade, closed and closed, then slid it the length of the blade.
“Marian!” His hands were on hers, freeing the sword. He swor
e under his breath as he saw the blood flow.
“No,” she said as he searched hastily for something to stop the blood. “Wait.” She reached up, touched the side of his head with its soggy strip of cloth, brought her other hand away. Carefully, she pressed both against the stone. In the wake of her touch, she left bloody handprints.
“Marian.” He caught her now, trapped her hands, wrapped around the left the cloth he had cut from his own tunic. She allowed it, watched his eyes as he tended her. In this moment he thought only of her, not of what they wrought atop Arthur’s grave.
When he was done, she looked at the stone. “There,” she told him.
Robin barely glanced at it, more concerned with her welfare. But when he looked again, his eyes widened.
He stood up abruptly, stiff with shock. Of utter disbelief.
Marian smiled through her tears. “Take it up, Robin. Excalibur was never meant for a woman’s hands, any more than Avalon was meant for a man.”
But for a long time he stood atop the hill, moonlight bleaching his hair, and did not touch it.
Smiling, Marian rose. In her hands she carried the other sword, the blade that knew its home in the sheath at Robin’s hip. She began to walk away, back to the trees cloaking the shoulders of Avalon’s crown.
“Marian.”
She held her silence. When he joined her, when he came down the hill to walk beside her through the trees to the shore on the verge of grass, not water, he carried Arthur’s sword.
The enchanter saw it in their faces as they came up out of the grasslands below the hill. He had seen it many times before, hundreds of years before, in those who served Arthur: the acknowledgment that they were a part of something greater than any man might name, though he could not explain it. Goddess-touched, god-touched, God-touched; the name did not matter. What mattered was that they had, this night, become a part of the tapestry others long before Merlin had begun to weave. A tapestry made of living threads, dyed in the blood of the Sacrifice.