Part 31 (2/2)
I smiled, for in that moment even the isle that lies in the mortal world was touched with glory, and yet our true destination was a place more wonderful still.
I could see the smoke of the monastery's cookfires as we skirted the isle. From here we had to go on foot, for the Lake village could not be reached by a vehicle. It was almost sunset, and Cunoarda and Lena were growing nervous, but now that we were here, antic.i.p.ation gave new strength to my limbs. The path, at least, looked the same-I doubt it had changed for a thousand years. Leaning on Cunoarda's arm and feigning a certainty I did not entirely feel, I started down it.
”No, honoured ones-you go back to houses of the shaven heads-” the headman of the village touched his forehead to indicate a tonsure. ”No place for you here-”
The little dark people of the village whispered behind him, eyeing us nervously. On this night, the mound on which the round huts huddled was lit by torches whose red flicker seemed kindled from the setting sun. If we had come a little later, they would have thought us spirits and refused to admit us at all.
This was a difficulty I had not antic.i.p.ated. I stared at the man, frowning. I should have renewed the crescent on my brow with woad, I thought then, as the elder priestesses used to do on festival days.
How could I convince him to send word of my coming to Avalon?
”Do your people remember a daughter of the sun people who was brought here long ago to be trained as a priestess? A boy called Otter gave her a faerie dog. Does that boy live still?”
There was a murmur from the crowd, and a woman who looked as old as me pushed forwards. ”Otter my father-he like to tell the story. A princess of the tall folk, he said.” She gazed at me in wonder.
”I was that little girl, and I became a priestess on the holy isle. But that was many years ago. Will you send word to the Lady of Avalon and tell her that Eilan has returned?”
”If you are priestess, you can call mists and go-” The headman still looked dubious.
”I have been long away, and may not return without the Lady's leave,” I answered him, remembering how Ganeda had cut my link to the holy isle when she banished me. ”You will be well rewarded-please...”
He gave a snort of laughter. ”Is not for gold we serve Avalon. I call the Lady, but this night they have ceremonies. She cannot come before morn.”
In my dreams, it was Ganeda who came to me, with Cigfolla and Wren and the other priestesses and Aelia whom I had loved. I knew this must be a dream, because Ganeda was smiling, her arm around the waist of another woman with dark hair whom I recognized, without knowing how, as my own mother, Rian. They were robed in priestess blue, garlanded as if for a festival, and they held out their arms in welcome. I knew then that it was my own belief, not Ganeda's word, which had exiled me from Avalon.
Laughing, I started towards them. But as I was about to touch Aelia's hand, someone called my name.
Annoyed, I reached for the dream image, but the call was repeated, in a voice I could not deny.
I opened my eyes to light that streamed through the open door of the roundhouse in which we had been sleeping, glowing in Crispa's bright hair and on Leviyah's golden hide, outlining Lena and Cunoarda as they helped me to sit up, and falling full upon the blue robe of the woman who stood before me.
I do not know why I had expected that Dierna would still be a young girl. The body of the woman who had called me had thickened with time, and her flaming hair was now the colour of sunset on snow. But I, who had known so many emperors, had not encountered anyone with such an aura of authority. Next to her, the man and the woman who attended her looked frail. Did Dierna remember how I had loved and protected her, I wondered then, or had she, like my son, been warped by the temptations of power?
”Eilan...” Her voice trembled, and suddenly I saw looking out of her eyes the little cousin I used to know.
I motioned to Cunoarda to help me up, wincing as stiffened muscles took the strain.
Dierna embraced me, one priestess to another, then her gaze grew stern. ”I will use that name, but I know who you were, in that other world. You have been used to position and power, and you are heir to the elder line of Avalon. Have you come to claim rule here?”
I looked at her in amazement. Then I remembered that she had been trained by Ganeda. Had the old woman taught her to fear that I would return to challenge her one day?
”It is true that I have had power, and all the glory the world can bestow,” I answered stiffly, ”and for that very reason I need them no more. Now it will be enough if I may find peace, and safety for those I love.”
”Come,” Dierna gestured towards the open door. ”Walk with me-”
We all followed her outside into a misty autumn morning that veiled the marshes as if we were already between the worlds.
”Forgive me, but it was my duty to ask,” Dierna said as we started along the path around the edge of the mound that kept the village above the floods.
I was still not quite steady, and Lena took my arm.
”I have known the fulfilment of prophecy and its deceptions. Through the child I bore, the world has indeed been changed, and if I do not like the results, I have only my own pride to blame.”
”Do not judge yourself too harshly,” Dierna replied. ”I myself tried to shape the fate of Britannia, and I tell you that though our choices may determine the manner of its working, it is the G.o.ddess who decides our ultimate destiny.”
It is not only the Christians who sometimes need absolution, I thought, blinking back tears.
For a little while we walked in silence. The morning sun was burning the fog away. Silver ripples gleamed as a heron stalked among the reeds. Beyond them I saw the green slope of the Tor, and the huts of the monks cl.u.s.tering around Joseph's round church.
A gesture summoned Dierna's companions. ”Do you remember Haggaia?” The silver-haired Druid gave me a smile, and I recognized in his face an echo of the laughing boy who had loved to play ball with Eldri so long ago. ”And this is Teleri, whom I have been training.”
To be your successor, I thought, smiling at the dark-haired woman beside her. ”Teleri: I know and give thanks to the Lady for bringing her safely home.”
”I bring with me two who have become my daughters, and my own great-grandchild,” I said then.
”And do they also wish to cross over to Avalon?”
Lena's eyes were s.h.i.+ning. ”This is like a dream that turns out to be true! If you will have us, I and my daughter will gladly go.”
Dierna's gaze grew wistful as she looked at Crispa. ”My own children died,” she said then. ”It will be good to train another child of our blood for Avalon...”
But I had turned to Cunoarda, and my heart sank as I saw on her cheeks the silver track of tears. ”What is it, my dear?”
”I will miss you till my life's end, lady, but I cannot go,” she whispered. ”I need to learn how to use the freedom you have given me. And it is the Christ, not your G.o.ddess, whom my heart follows, and I cannot do that on your isle.”
”Then stay, with my blessing.” I kissed her on the brow. It would be no use to tell her that there was a place beyond all such divisions where Truth was One. She still belonged in this world.
”That is settled, then,” Dierna said briskly. The barge is waiting. We will breakfast on the holy isle.”
”Not quite-” I pointed out over the waters. Tor you to accept me means much, but Ganeda cast me out. I must prove-to myself, if not to you-that I am still a priestess. Let me call the mists, and win my own way back to Avalon.”
The barge rocks to the push of the poles as the boatmen move us away from the sh.o.r.e. lean see the silver waters part before the prow. Dierna sits beside me, trying to hide her doubts, and Cunoarda is watching from the village, hoping that I will fail and return with her to Londinium. Perhaps they are right to question, and this vow of mine is no more than a final act of pride.
But since I came to this decision I have been silently rehearsing the words of power. If I have got them wrong, everyone will pity the foolish old woman who thought she was still a priestess. But if I succeed...
It is the gift of age to remember the events of fifty years ago more clearly than what happened yesterday.
Suddenly the timing and distances of this journey are clear. My heart is pounding, and when the s.h.i.+fting flow of energy around us peaks, it is hard to breathe. Crispa steadies me as I get to my feet, shoulder-joints protesting as I raise my arms high.
I fight for air, and then, all at once, power surges through me. Words pour from my lips, and now it is easy, so easy to bring down the mists and slip through the chill dark pa.s.sage between the worlds. I can hear the others calling out in alarm, but I cannot allow them to distract me now, for the silver veils around us are thinning, wisping away in coruscations of rainbow radiance- Light is everywhere, light all around me, light that grows beyond all the words I have for vision until I see, glowing as if lit from within, the sh.o.r.es of Avalon...
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