Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon (6 page)

It was said that Micail, who built the great henge, had come from a line of kings, though he had lived his life as a priest, not a ruler. It seemed to her then that the darkness had become a tapestry on which dim figures moved, fighting, dancing, shifting great stones. Still striving to understand, she slept as deeply as any of the ancestors.

When Anderle woke again, the band of light that filtered in through the opening to the tomb was barely brighter than the gloom inside. For a moment she could not think where she was, much less what had awakened her. Then she heard the bleat Ara made when they had not given her enough water or food. Whoever had come was someone whom the she-goat expected to take care of her. The priestess smiled in the darkness and gathered her forces to send a mental call.

“My lady!” came Ellet’s soft voice from outside. “Where are you? Have you turned invisible?” Her voice wavered. There were stories that some adepts of Avalon had known how to do just that. “It’s safe now—the evil ones have gone!”

Mikantor squeaked in protest as Anderle pushed him through the opening, and Ellet gasped. When she got her own head and shoulders through the gap, she saw the girl staring, fingers twitching in a warding sign.

“I’m no ghost—” The priestess suppressed a laugh. “But I am surely grateful to the spirits who sheltered me. When the Ai-Ushen came, they thought Ara was an offering. If you have brought any food, we should leave some in the tomb.”

Ellet recovered enough to hold out a bulging sack. “You must be hungry, and poor Ara is more than ready to be milked again.” She took a wooden bowl and a waterskin from the sack and let the goat drink, then settled herself at the black-spotted flank and laid Mikantor in her lap.

Anderle stretched carefully. The last light glowed in the west, and the new moon was already high. She sensed that Ellet had spoken truly, for a palpable peace lay on the land. She rummaged in the foodsack and drew out two barley cakes, setting one at the entrance to the tomb.

“But what happened to you?” she asked as she began to eat. “Did the wolves come to the farm too?”

“They did indeed, and we owe Chaoud and his people the blessing of Avalon! The wretches lined us up in the farmyard while they poked their spears into the thatching and the storage pits. Chaoud told them that I was his sister who had never been quite right since she had the fever, and I pulled my hair over my eyes and gibbered and drooled until they gave up any ideas they might have had about raping me.” Ellet grinned.

“They carried off what food they could find,” she went on, “but in these times folk have learned how to hide their supplies. There was enough left to feed them, and spare us some provisions as well. Surely another day or two will bring us to the Tor . . .” She looked at Anderle hopefully.

The priestess nodded.
And what will I do if the Ai-Ushen follow us?
she wondered then. The Lake People had no warriors.
Our magic is for healing and growth, not destruction. If only I could draw the marsh mists around us and hide us from the world!
Perhaps by the time they reached the Tor the gods would have given her some counsel.

But first they had to get there.

THREE

A
nderle and Ellet came to the village of the Lake People on the fourth day after the fall of Azan. The sky flushed with pink as the sun lifted over the eastern hills, but mist still swathed the platforms on which the villagers had built their dwellings so that from the higher ground the buildings seemed to float above the water.

A few dogs began to bark in answer to Ara’s bleat, and in moments people were appearing at the edge of the platforms. Presently Badger shouldered through the crowd, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, with his mother, Willow Woman, behind him. He was young to be headman of the village, named for the white streaks that had appeared at his temples when his father died.

“Holy One, you are here!” He hurried across the causeway, bending to make the sign of reverence at heart and brow. “We hear of the burning, and then no word. We feared . . .”

Anderle suppressed a grimace. She could well imagine how the news of the fall of Azan would have been received at Avalon. “What have you heard?”

“They say king and all his family dead.” His gaze moved to the baby. “Irnana and her baby burned in fire.”

“My cousin ran into the Children’s House to try to save him,” Anderle answered truthfully, “and the roof fell before she could escape.” She shuddered, remembering.

“We hear Durrin was killed in fighting—” Badger sent her a quick glance. “Some say the Ancestors take you to live with them in the mounds.”

The priestess nodded, wondering at the way people could sometimes sense the truth even when they did not understand it.

Ellet’s laugh was a little too shrill. “We have had such a journey! But the Goddess watched over us—she sent Ara here”—she rubbed the goat’s poll between the horns—“so that we could feed the child!”

Eyes rounded as the people realized that Anderle held a baby in her arms. “This is an orphan we rescued on our journey,” she said clearly.

Clucking, Badger’s mother pushed past her son. “Baby not the only one needs feeding—you two come with me. There is porridge hot on the fire.” She lifted the corner of the blanket and Mikantor opened his dark eyes and favored her with a searching stare that made her laugh.

Willow Woman had been Anderle’s nurse when she was a baby. Anderle’s own grandmother came from the same family, and there was no one whom she would rather trust to watch over Mikantor. She was still thinking about that as she settled gratefully onto a down-filled leather cushion. A fire burned on a stone slab in the center of the long room. The clay plastering of the smoke-stained walls rippled slightly over the woven withies beneath. The scents of drying fish and woodsmoke were among her earliest memories. Avalon was her life, but this felt like home.

“Irnana’s boy?” asked the older woman as Anderle unfolded the baby’s wrappings and she saw the red hair. “He looks strong.”

“Thanks to Caratra,” answered Ellet. “Or he might well have died before we found the goat.”

“That too was a miracle,” Anderle said then. “It was all as I saw in my vision, mother, except that I was there. This child has a destiny. But until he is old enough to claim it, the world must think that he
did
die.”

“Even the folk of Avalon?” The old woman’s dark eyes gleamed.

“Especially them,” Anderle said ruefully. “The Ai-Ushen, and the traitors who aided them, will come seeking Mikantor when they hear I have returned, and those who are sworn to serve the Truth find it hard to lie.”

“Then he must be hidden. You know Redfern, Osprey’s woman? She has new baby and much milk. She will take him if I say.” Willow Woman reached out to stroke the bright hair. “We shave his head for now. Later we use nut dye. He is big already as a child of five moons. Anyone sees him, they will think him older, and ours.”

Anderle sank back on the cushion, only now allowing herself to recognize that the anxiety she had carried had been a greater burden than the child. She sipped gratefully at the yarrow tea the old woman ladled into a cup carved from oak wood.

“Ellet, you go find Redfern, tell her to come—” When the girl had gone, Willow Woman turned to Anderle. “Now you tell me how it is with you.”

For a moment Anderle could only stare. “I don’t . . . know,” she said slowly. “I have thought only about the next danger, the fear. Durrin died to save me. I want to mourn for him, but I feel nothing, not even gratitude to be alive.”

“That will come.” Willow Woman nodded. “Now you need rest.”

Anderle nodded. Her backache had returned, and she wriggled on the cushion, trying to ease the strain. From outside she heard laughter, and turned as Ellet pushed past the hide that curtained the doorway, followed by a round-faced woman who must be Redfern. She clearly had some of the blood of the tribes. She might even be able to pass Mikantor off as her own child. But what inspired instant trust was Redfern’s smile.

Anderle reached out and Willow Woman passed the warm bundle across. She cuddled the boy to her breast and felt her eyes fill as he nuzzled against it, searching lips making soft sucking sounds. He began to fuss as he found nothing there.

“After the past few days I will miss him as if he were my own child. But he needs to be fed.” She looked up at Redfern. “Willow Woman tells me that you have the milk, and the love, to take another child. All children are sacred to the ones who care for them, but the gods have told me that this boy’s life is important to all the people of this land. Do you understand this? Do you understand that because of it he has enemies? We will do all we can to protect you and him, but you could be in danger. Are you willing to run that risk and care for this child?”

“Give me the boy—” said Redfern simply, opening the doeskin cape she wore over her skirt. Beneath it, her full breasts were bare. As she took the baby into her arms the milk began to flow. An expert adjustment popped one dark nipple into the seeking mouth, and the woman sighed. Then she looked at Anderle once more.

“You speak true, Holy One. All children a gift of the gods. This I say to you. As I give this boy my milk he becomes my own flesh. As my own I protect him. No more can I do for any baby, no matter whose son.”

“Yes . . .” breathed Anderle. “The Goddess speaks in me—She will watch over you, and I will come to see him when I can. Thank you!” She shifted on the cushion, felt moisture and looked down, wondering if she had spilled her tea. But the warm wetness was spreading between her thighs.

She looked at Willow Woman in confusion and tried to rise. “I am sorry, I think I’ve wet myself and spoiled your cushion—”

Willow Woman and Redfern exchanged glances, and the younger woman laughed. “I take this little one away now and feed him more. I think that soon you will have baby of your own to fill your arms.”

For a long moment Anderle simply stared. Then she felt the muscles of her belly contracting and understood that her labor had begun. Durrin had promised that when the child came he would sing her past all pain. She wondered if she would be able to hear him from the Otherworld.

“The baby is coming?” Ellet squeaked. “Now? Lady, shall I send for Kiri to come over from Avalon?”

Unable to speak until the next contraction had passed, Anderle shook her head. “Willow Woman has helped dozens of babies into this world, and with Caratra’s blessing I trust her to deliver mine. Send no word to Avalon. They must know only that I arrived here with a baby, and I will leave as I came, with a baby in my arms. And to that, all of you can truthfully swear!”

 

 

 

TIRILAN
. . .
THE NAME FELL from Anderle’s lips like the chiming of a sistrum. Her sign was that of the Peacemaker. Belkacem had read the stars for her and Merivel scried her future in the sacred pool.
“She will be a singer, and much loved . . .”

Anderle treasured the words.
Like her father,
she thought as she leaned over the cradle to tuck the blanket more closely around the sleeping infant. Like her father, the child had curling fair hair, and Anderle did not think it was only a mother’s besotted love that saw in her child’s sleeping twitches the beginnings of Durrin’s heart-stopping smile.

Since Tirilan’s birth, thoughts of Durrin had often been with her, moments of grief alternating with a bittersweet memory, an anguished joy.

As winter’s rain flooded the marshes, life continued at the Tor almost as before. The mist that hung above the reeds seemed to separate them from the world, as the old lore said the People of Wisdom had known how to do. But occasionally someone would come from the Lake Village with information. Even in this season when men huddled close to home, rumors still swept the land. It was said that in the fire Uldan’s son had been transformed like copper ore in the furnace and been taken up to live with the gods; it was said that the ancestors had taken him into the mounds; it was said that he was hidden in a dozen different places across the land, from which he would return to destroy his enemies when he became a man. The stories about her own journey were equally fantastic. Now they said that she had spent those four lost days in the Otherworld and given birth to her daughter there, or within a mound, which was very nearly the same thing so far as popular belief was concerned.

They may well think you a child of the Hidden Realm,
thought Anderle, bending over the cradle once more. The cradle was very old, carved with the symbol of Manoah’s winged sun that the Wise Ones had brought from the Drowned Lands. The sleeping child frowned a little in her sleep, then turned and settled once more.
You are not a child of the hollow hills,
her mother thought then,
but of the gods
. She looked up as Ellet pushed through the door.

“Lady!” At Anderle’s frown the younger woman straightened and took a deep breath. “Lady, a boy from the Lake Village has come. He says that Galid of Amanhead is here with a dozen warriors. He demands a boat to bring them across to the Tor.”

“Have they searched the houses?”

Ellet shook her head. “They are only interested in Avalon. Badger told the lad to say he can hold them for a little, but they will start killing if he delays too long.”

“Send him back,” she said swiftly. “Tell Badger to let them come.”

 

 

 

ANDERLE CHOSE TO AWAIT the traitor beneath the winged sun on the pediment of the Temple of Light, with her senior clergy behind her, all of them robed in shining white, brows bound with the diadems of their grades. The robes were woven of heavy linen, bleached to the whiteness of a cloud on a sunny day and embroidered around the hems with sigils in gold. As the visitors approached, she realized that Galid was followed by men of his own clan. Belkacem stepped forward to bar their way with his staff. Carved and gilded to resemble a serpent, it was a thing of beauty, but no match for a spear.