Part 15 (2/2)
”Will you truly have me for your Imperator?” Carus might be a republican by preference, but he must know that if he refused them now they could pull him down as swiftly as they had killed Probus.
”Ave! Ave!” they cried.
”I will not treat you gently-I will punish those who killed Probus, and then I will take up the old war in Parthia, that has waited so long-”
The cheering redoubled in volume.
Why are they so happy!? I wondered.He has just promised to lead them to battle in a land where it is as much hotter than Dalmatia as this land is than Britannia . But the lands of the East held riches, and if the heat killed them, they would die not like slaves but as soldiers.
The noise, as they carried Carus in procession around the forum, deafened the mind as well as the ears.
The other officers had drawn back to the shelter of the colonnade. Carus belonged to the legionaries now.
”Ave Carus!” came a new cry from beside me. Constantine had extended his own arm in a stiff salute, and he gazed at the figure of the new Emperor with visions in his eyes.
The new Emperor, with no more than a curt announcement of his accession to the Senate in Rome, set about establis.h.i.+ng his authority. The Romans rioted in protest, but so long as the army supported him, Carus did not appear to care. Probus had valued his abilities so much that he had requested the Senate to award him a marble palace and an equestrian statue. Now, with the exception of the palace in Sirmium, which was a charred ruin, he had palaces in plenty, and no doubt the statues were already being created, along with the panegyrics that came in from every corner of the Empire. Carus had no time to read them. He had promised the army glory in Parthia, but before the expedition could set out, there was much to be done. If he was grateful to the legionaries of Sirmium for raising him to the purple it did not prevent him from executing the men who had been the first to attack Probus, an act which apparently did him no harm in the eyes of the survivors, for that autumn they followed him willingly into battle against a horde of Sarmatians who had come down upon Illyria, and gained a resounding victory.
The succession was also provided for. Carus had two sons, both now grown, whom he raised to the rank of Caesar. Carinus, who was the elder, was directed to deal with the latest barbarian raids into Gallia and then take charge in Rome, while his brother Numeria.n.u.s became the Emperor's second-in-command on the Parthian campaign.
I dared not speak my fear that the Emperor would drag Constantius along with him, but the G.o.ddess must have heard my prayers, for shortly before the army was to depart, my husband returned to Sirmium with the news that Carus had appointed him Governor of Dalmatia.
In my dream, I was moving along the Processional Way at Avalon. I knew it for a dream because I seemed to see everything from a vantage point of several feet off the ground, and because when I spoke, no one noticed me. But in every other regard, I was fully present. I could feel the moist chill of the night air and smell the resins in the torches. I trembled to the reverberations of the great gong that was used to summon initiates to the greater ceremonies.
It had summoned me, I realized, all the way from Sirmium. This was no dream but a spirit journey. But what was the ceremony?
Cloaked and hooded, the priestesses in black and the priests in white, they pa.s.sed between the last of the pillars and began the spiral ascent of the Tor. Drawn along with them, I could neither lag nor hurry.
Soon I recognized Cigfolla and some of the others, and realized that I was in the place in the line in which I would have marched had my body been there. I knew then that in the depths of my spirit I had never ceased to be a priestess of Avalon, and that was why I had answered this call.
Presently we reached the top, and in the midst of the circle of stones I saw the intricately-stacked logs of a funeral pyre. The body was shrouded, but it seemed small to be the centre of so much ceremony. Yet only a High Priestess or Arch-Druid received such a funeral.
Holding a torch beside the pyre I saw Ceridachos, wearing the Arch-Druid's tore of gold. He had taught the boys music when I was at Avalon. It was not the Arch-Druid, then, who lay upon the pyre, but the Lady of Avalon.
For a moment amazement held me, that in the end Ganeda should be so little, whose spirit had been such a towering presence, dominating us all. And now she was gone. I wondered whom they had chosen to follow her.
”I was justified! See, I bore my son and my man still loves me! I wanted to cry, as if we were still in contention, but I would never have the chance to tell her so, unless her spirit could hear.
The gong had ceased to resound. Ceridachos stood away from the pyre, turning to face it, and I saw another torch on the other side. A priestess held it: no, it was the new Lady of Avalon, for beneath the open front of the cloak gleamed the ornaments of moonstone and river pearl. Then her hood fell back and I recognized Dierna's blazing red hair.
But she was just a child! Then I looked again and thinking hard, realized that Dierna must be twenty-five years old. When I last saw her, she had been a child, but we would be women together, were we to meet now. She lifted her arms in invocation.
”Hail to Thee, Dark Mother who art the Mistress of Souls! This night we remember before Thee Ganeda, who is pa.s.sing through Thy kingdom. Her blood flows in the waters, her breath is one with the wind. The holy Tor will receive her ashes and the spark of her life return to the fire that enlivens all.”
The warriors and kings who were Avalon's guardians were buried on the Watch Hill, but the great priests and priestesses, whose ascending spirits might have been constrained by too much adulation, were sent to the G.o.ds by fire.
Ceridachos lifted the torch. ”Let the holy fire transform that which was mortal, and the spirit fly free!” A glittering ribbon of sparks trailed behind it as he moved around the pyre, touching it at intervals to the oil-soaked logs. The wood caught quickly, and in moments the shrouded form was hidden behind a veil of flame.
”No part of her will be wasted, nothing lost,” said Dierna as she followed him around the pyre. Her voice was calm, as if she had put herself into an altered state for the ceremony, where no grief could trouble her serenity. ”Even her spirit, taught by life's pains, still evolves towards her true ident.i.ty.” From the pouch at her waist she took a handful of incense and cast it onto the stacked logs.
Ceridachos turned to face the others. ”But we, remembering that particular coupling of body and spirit in which she walked the world, pray to Thee to guide and guard her on the path she now pursues.” His voice was hoa.r.s.e as if he had been weeping, and I realized how closely he, as Arch-Druid, must have worked with the Lady over the years. He cleared his throat and continued.
”We have not forgotten-bear Thou our love to her, and ask her to pray for us with the wisdom she has now. And when in time we also come to Thee, receive us gently, oh Thou Dark Mother, as a child is lulled to sleep, and wake us to the Light.”
All around the circle, heads bent. I bowed my head as well, though no one could see. For so many years I had feared my aunt, and fought her, and in the end, tried to forget her. And yet she had done the work of Avalon and done it well. Having managed my own household for a dozen years, I could in some wise appreciate her achievement now. Were there things that Ganeda could teach me?
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 forme! 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ddess 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 s.h.i.+ver 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 beyour 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, finis.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sed. 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?
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