The Hallowed Isle Book Three (15 page)

Even Cataur of Dumnonia could see that this was good counsel. Merlin resumed his seat as the princes of Britannia began to debate which borderlands should be resettled, and where they would find the men.

That night, after everyone had eaten, Merlin walked along the sentryway built into the wall, troubled in his mind. While they feasted, he had watched Artor, seated at the central table with his lady beside him. The king should have been smiling, for the council had gone well that day. With a wife like Guendivar, he should have been eager to retire. But though Artor's body showed his awareness of her every movement, they did not touch, and his smiles did not reach his eyes. And when the queen made her farewells and departed into the royal chamber that was partitioned off from the main part of the hall, the king remained talking with Eldaul and Agricola by the fire.

A full moon was rising, its cool light glittering from the open water of pond and stream, and glowing softly in the mist that rose off the fields. The distant hills seemed ghostly; in that glimmering illumination, he could not tell if it was with the eyes of the flesh or of the spirit that he saw, away to the northwest, the pointed shape of the Tor.

Merlin had been standing there for some time, drinking in peace as a thirsty man gulps water, when he sensed that he was no longer alone. A pale shape moved along the walkway, too graceful to be any of the men. The White Phantom that was one meaning of her name . . . Guendivar.. . .

He drew his spirit entirely into his body once more and took a step towards her. She whirled, the indrawn gasp of her breath loud in the stillness, and pressed her back against the wall.

“It is true, you
can
make yourself invisible!”

“Not invisible, only very still.. . . I came to enjoy the peace of the night,” he answered, extending his awareness to encompass her, smiling a little as the tension left her body and she took a step towards him.

“So did I . . .” she said in a low voice.

“I thought you would have been in bed by now, with your husband—”

She jerked, staring. “What do you mean? What do you know?”

“I know that all is not well between you. I know that you have no child . . .” he said softly.

She straightened, drawing dignity around her, and he felt her barriers strengthening.

“You have no right—” Her voice shook.

“I am one of the guardians of Britannia, and you are the High Queen. What is wrong, Guendivar?”

“Why do you assume the fault is mine? Ask Artor!”

He shook his head. “The power passes from male to female, and from female to male. You are the Lady of Britannia. If the difficulty is his, still, the healing must come from you.”

“And I suppose the knowledge of how to do that will come from
you?
You flatter yourself, old man!” She turned, watching him over her shoulder.

Her hair was silver-gilt in the light of the moon. Even he, who had admitted desire for only one mortal woman in his lifetime, felt a stirring of the senses. But he shook his head.

“The body serves the spirit,” he said steadily. “It is in the spirit that I would teach you.”

“Tell the woman who wounded Artor to help him! Let him seek healing from the mother of his son! Then, perhaps, he can come to me!”

In the instant that shock held him still she flowed into motion. For a few moments he heard the patter of her retreating footsteps, and then she was gone. Even then, a word of power could have held her, but to such work as he would bid her, the spirit could not be constrained.

Igierne had foreseen this. But she had not seen the mother, only the child. The child would bring war to Britannia, but its mother had already struck a heavy blow. Who was she? In one thing, Guendivar had the right of it, he thought then. He must speak to Artor.

The fortress had been closed up for the night, but the guard on duty at the north gate was a very young man, and half in love with his queen, so he let her through.
They are all in love with me!
Guendivar thought bitterly.
All except the only one I am allowed to love
.

Stumbling in her haste, she made her way down the trail to the well. A pale shape swooped across the path and she started and nearly fell. For a moment she stared, heart pounding, then relaxed as she saw that it was only a white owl. On such a night, when the sky was clear and the full moon sailed in triumph through the skies, she felt stifled indoors. Even Julia's warm arms were a prison, where she stifled beneath the weight of the other woman's need.

Guendivar had thought a walk on the walls would allow her spirit to soar as freely as the bird, but Merlin was before her. What had she said to him? Surely he, who knew everything, must have known about Artor. The old sorcerer had offered her help—for a moment she wondered if she had been a fool to flee.

But how could a change in
her
do any good? The sin was Artor's, if sin it was—certainly he seemed to think so. He had. attempted to be a husband to her two times after that first disastrous encounter, with even less success than on their wedding night. After that, they had not tried again. He was kind to her, and in public gave her all honor, but in the bed that should have been the heart and wellspring of their marriage, they slept without touching, proximity only making them more alone.

Guendivar knew this path well, but she had never been here in the night. In the uncertain light, the familiar shapes of the lower ramparts swelled like serpent coils. Beneath the melancholy calling of the owl she could hear the sweet music of running water. Everywhere else, the trees had been cut to clear a field of fire from the the walls of the fortress, but halfway down the hill, birch trees still clustered protectively around the spring.

Guendivar had never visited the hill until Artor began to build his fortress there, but the people of her father's lands had many tales of the days when it had been a place of pilgrimage. When the lords of Lindinis became Christian they had ceased to support the shrine, and after its last priestess died, the square building with its deep porch had fallen into decay. Now its tumbled stones were part of Artor's walls.

But the sacred spring from which the priestesses had drawn water to use in their spells of healing remained, bubbling up from the depths beneath the hill to form a quiet pool. The stone coping that edged it was worn, but the spout that channeled the overflow had remained clear. From there, it fell in a musical trickle down the hillside in a little stream. Moonlight, filtering through the birch trees, shrouded pool and stone alike in dappled shade.

Guendivar blinked, uncertain, in that glamoured illumination, of her way. The old powers had been banished from the hilltop, but here she could still feel them. She stretched out her arms, calling as she had called when she ranged the hills at home. Gown and mantle weighted her limbs; she stripped them off and unpinned the heavy coils of her hair. She stretched, exulting in the free play of muscle and limb. A little breeze lifted the fine strands and caressed her naked body, set the birch leaves shivering until the shifting dappling of moonlight glittered on the troubled waters of the pool.

Light swirled above it like a mist off the waters, shaping the form of a woman, clad, like Guendivar, only in her shining hair.

“Who are you?” Guendivar whispered. She was accustomed to the folk of faerie, but this was a being of nobler kind than any she had met before.

“
I am Cama, the curve of the hill and the winding water, I am the sacred round. It has been long . . . very long . . . since any mortal called to Me.. . . What is your need?”

Guendivar felt her skin pebble with holy fear. The new faith had not yet succeeded in banishing the old wisdom so completely that she could not recognize the ancient goddess of this part of the land. But her cry had been wordless. She struggled for an answer.

“The water flows—the wind blows—but I am bound! I want to be free!”

“
Free
. . .” The goddess tested the sound as if she did not quite understand. “
The waters flow downhill to the sea . . . heat and cold drive the currents of the wind. They are free to follow their natures. Is that what you desire?”

“And what is my nature? I am wed, but no wife!”

“
You are the Queen
. . .”

“I am a gilded image. I have no power—”

“
You
are
the power
. . .”

Guendivar, her mouth still opening in protest, halted, almost understanding. Then the owl called, and the insight was gone. She saw the figure of the Lady dislimning into a column of glimmering light.

“Help me!” she cried. She heard no answer, but the figure opened its arms.

Shivering, Guendivar climbed over the coping and stepped into the pool. Soft mud gave beneath her feet and she slid into the cold depths too swiftly for a scream. Water closed over her head, darkness enclosed her.
This is death
, she thought, but there was no time for fear. And then she was rushing upwards into the light. Power swirled around her, but she was the center of the circle—
being
and
doing
, the motion and her stillness, one and the same.

In this place there was no time, but time must have passed, for presently, with no sense of transition, Guendivar found herself experiencing the world with her normal senses once more. The moon had moved a quarter of the way across the sky, and its light no longer fell full on the pool. She was standing, streaming with water, but the bottom of the pool was solid beneath her feet.

She felt empty, and realized that what had departed from her was her despair. Perhaps this serenity would not last, but she did not think she would ever entirely forget what she had seen.

A.D.
498

G
UENDIVAR HUDDLED NEXT TO THE HEARTH OF THE HOUSE
the king's household had commandeered, listening to the hiss of the fire and the dull thud of rain on the thatching. If she sat any closer, she thought unhappily, she would catch fire herself, but her back still felt damp even when her front was steaming.

None of the other dwellings in this village were any better. She pitied the men of Artor's army, shivering in the dubious shelter of tents made of oiled hide as they cursed the Irish. The euphoria of their great victory at Urbs Legionis—the city of legions that was also called Deva—had worn away. Illan, king of the men of Laigin who had settled in northern Guenet a generation ago, was on the run, but he was going to make the British fight for every measure of ground between Deva and the Irish Sea.

She laid another stick on the fire, wondering why she had been so eager to accompany Artor on this campaign. For most of the past week it had been raining, grey veils of cloud dissolving into the silver sea. With each day's march, the stony hills that edged the green pasturelands had grown nearer. Now they rose in a grim wall on the left, broken by an occasional steep glen from which shrieking bands of Irishmen might at any moment emerge to harry the army that was pushing steadily westward along the narrowing band of flat land between the mountains and the sea.

Artor was up ahead somewhere with the scouts. It had been foolish to think that their relationship might improve if she accompanied him. The king spent his days in the saddle, returning tired, wet, and hungry when night fell, usually escorting wounded men. Artor had not wanted to bring her, but during their brief courtship he had said she could ride with the army, and she had sworn she would neither complain nor slow them down.

There was no risk of the latter, Guendivar thought bitterly, since she travelled with the rearguard. As for complaining, so far she had held her tongue, but she knew that if she had to stay cooped up in this hut for much longer she was going to scream.

With that thought, she found that she was on her feet and turning towards the door. She pushed past the cowhide that covered it and stood beneath the overhang of the roof, breathing deeply of the clean air. It was damp, heavy with mingled scents of wet grass and seaweed. Mist still clung to the hilltops, but a fresh wind was blowing, and here and there a stray gleam of sunlight spangled the sea.

It might only be temporary, but the skies were clearing. Guendivar gazed longingly at the slopes whose green grew brighter with every moment. Surely, she told herself, they could not be entirely different from the gentle hills of her home. Some of the same herbs would grow there, plants that her old nurse had taught her to use in healing.. . .

The young soldier who had been assigned to her personal escort straightened as she came out into the open. His name was Cau, one of the men who had come down from the Votadini lands with Marianus. There was some tension between the followers of Marianus and Catwallaun, both grandsons of the great Cuneta, though Catwallaun's branch of the family had been settled in Guenet a generation before. Many of the newcomers resented being set to guard the rear of the army, but Cau had attached himself to Guendivar's service with a dedication reminiscent of those monks who served the Virgin Mary. He had left a wife back in Deva with their infant son, Gildas, but he still flushed crimson whenever Guendivar smiled.

“Look—it has stopped raining.” She stretched out a hand, palm upward, and laughed. “We should take advantage of the change in weather. I would ride a little way into those hills to gather herbs for healing.”

Cau was already shaking his head. “My lord king ordered me to keep you safe here—”

“The king has also ordered that his wounded be cared for. Surely he would not object if I go out in search of medicines to help them. Please, Cau—” she gave him a tremulous smile “—I think I will go mad if I do not get some exercise. Surely all the enemy are far ahead of us by now!”

Cau still looked uncertain, but he and his men were as frustrated by their inaction as she was. She suppressed a smile, knowing even before he spoke that he was going to agree.