The Hallowed Isle Book Four (20 page)

“Eat something, my lady, and rest while you may,” said Ninive, her gaze gone inward. “And in the dark hours, when the men lie drunk or sleeping, we shall see. . . .”

Sure that sleep was impossible, Guendivar obeyed, but exhaustion
claimed her, and when she roused at last to Ninive's whisper, it was from a dream of the Isle of Apples and the sacred spring.

The hearthfire was cold and the doorflap had been thrust aside. Mist curled through the opening, and when she emerged, wrapped in the Pictish cloak, she could see no more than the snoring shape of little Doli, the Pictish servant whom Medraut had set to guard her. Beyond him rose the bulk of the half-built hall. Then, as if he had precipitated from the mist, another figure was there, tall, swathed in a mantle, leaning on a spear.

He gestured, and Ninive took the queen's arm and drew her after, past men sprawled in sleep and drowsing horses, through the open gate of the fortress and down the hill into the waiting fog.

To Guendivar, it was as if they passed through the mists of the Otherworld. But by morning, her aching legs told her that they had covered many miles. They took refuge in a shallow cave, its entrance hidden by hawthornes whose buds were just on the edge of bloom. Guendivar had barely a moment to long for the Pict-queen's mattress before she fell asleep in Ninive's arms.

The next night also they travelled, though the queen's sore feet and aching muscles would not let her go fast or far. If Medraut had set the Picts to search for her she saw no sign of them, and trusted Merlin's woodcraft to keep their passage unknown. On the third day, he brought them horses—sturdy moorland ponies who could cross rough terrain without injury and would keep on going long after the endurance of a warhorse failed.

They moved south and east through the hills, Merlin pacing like a shadow ahead and beside them. His hair and beard were now entirely silver, but despite his age, he pushed on. Each morning there would be a handful of spring greens and some small creature, a hare or grouse or hedgehog, to cook over their little fire. Where Guendivar was sore and exhausted, Ninive grew lean and hardy, kirtling up her skirts
and letting down her hair until she was no longer a royal lady but a woods-colt who could keep pace with Merlin.

On the fifth day of their journey, the pace eased, and they began to travel by day. They had crossed over into the lands of the Votadini, where the Picts would not yet follow. That night, Merlin asked her where she wished to go.

“Artor is on his way northward, though he goes slowly, trying to heal the destruction Medraut wrought as he passed. There is hardly a family that this rebellion has not divided, a thousand sparks that must be stamped out before he can fight the real fire.”

“I cannot face him!” Guendivar drew back, trying to read the dark eyes beneath Merlin's bushy brows. He walked now in the skin garments of a Wild Man, the only touch of civilization about him the rune-carved Spear. It seemed to her that from time to time he leaned on it more heavily; that the pace he had set for them during the past days was slower, but she did not dare to ask if he were well.

“If I could choose, I would return to the South, to my own country. Perhaps I could take refuge with the holy women at the Isle of Afallon.”

“Do you not understand?” He shook his head. “The choice is always yours—you are the queen.”

Guendivar stared at him, tears burning down her cheeks, her throat aching so that she could not say a word.

“But the time for decision is not yet upon us,” he went on as if he had not seen. “We will continue south towards the Wall, and perhaps on the journey you will find better counsel.”

The days lengthened towards Beltain, and the land began to bloom. Now creamy primroses appeared in sunny patches, and the first bluebells nodded beneath the leafing trees. The moorlands were starred with white heather and budding bilberry. Just so, thought Guendivar, the land had arrayed itself when she rode to her wedding, and wondered if she would ever be done with tears.

They made their way eastward along the shore of the Bodotria,
and then turned south to follow the old Roman road. Travel grew easier and she lost count of the days.

And then, one evening as the sun began to sink behind the hills, she heard the faint throb of drums. She kicked the pony into a trot and caught up with Merlin.

“What is it? Is there war?”

He shook his head, smiling oddly. “It is the eve of Beltain. . . .”

“Do you know some warded spot where we will be safe through the dark hours?”

“My child, why are you so frightened? Have you forgotten everything you knew?” He picked an early hawthorne blossom from the hedge and laid it in her hand. “Do not fear— where I lead you we will be welcome.”

They rode onward through the long spring dusk. Across the valley she saw three peaks in silhouette against the sky. The drumming came now from one direction, now from another, soft with distance. Ninive had made wreaths for herself and Merlin, out of primrose and fragrant herbs. She held another up to Guendivar, and the queen had already set it on her brow before she realized it was a hawthorne crown.

For a moment Guendivar wanted to throw it down, remembering the wreath that had held her bridal veil. But the air was full of a rich, green smell, and she was no longer the child who had been Artor's bride.
Let them do as they will . . .
she thought with sweet melancholy,
it does not matter what happens to me.

It was almost dark, but Merlin led them unflagging onto a track that wound across the moor. The western horizon still glowed, but above them, stars were blossoming in the sky. They had come around behind the tall northeastern peak where the remains of earthen ramparts rose, and were approaching the space between the other two hills.

The drumming was much louder. A prickle of fear chilled her.

“Ninive—what is it? Where are we going?”

For a moment the younger woman paused. “Oh my lady, those are the drums of my own people! I did not know that any still lived in these lands!” She ran ahead up the path.

But Merlin took Guendivar's bridle and led the horse up around the curve of the hill, stopping once or twice to catch his breath before pressing on. In the fold between the middle and southern peaks rose a rocky bump, where a bonfire sent sparks whirling up to dance with the stars. Dark figures cavorted around it, clad, like Ninive, who had cast off her tunic and run to join them, only in wreaths of flowers. The dancers clustered around her, chattering in a swift gutteral language Guendivar did not know, but as Merlin led her into the circle of firelight they fell silent.

She stared into eyes dark as Ninive's, memory whirling with fragments of fearful tales of the people of the hills. After a long moment, she realized that they were as frightened as she. Merlin spoke then, his deep voice rumbling like an echo of the drums, and the fear changed to wonder. Women pulled heather and covered it with skins to make a seat, and when she slid down from the pony, escorted her there. As the drumming began once more, a small girl shyly offered her a wooden bowl filled with a dark liquid that tasted like honey mixed with fire.

“What did you tell them,” she asked Merlin, “to make them welcome me this way?”

He smiled down at her, his hair bright as a snowy peak in the sun. “I told them the truth—I said that I had brought their queen.”

She should have been angry, but the mead had lit a fire in her belly, and the drumming was beating in her blood. She looked at him and laughed. If eating this food bound her to the Hidden Realm, perhaps she could forget Artor.

The dancing continued. Guendivar ate roasted meat and dried berries, mixed with other things she did not try to identify. There was always more mead when her bowl emptied, the fire's reflection burning across the surface like liquid gold. She grew warm, and pulled off gown and tunica until she was as naked as the dancers. Men and women jumped together over the fire and wandered off into the darkness, laughing softly. The sighs of their passion whispered in time to the beat of the drums.

In the heavens, the stars were dancing, wheeling across the
sky in patterns ancient when the world was new. She thought it must be near midnight when something in the music began to change.

People were still leaping around the fire, but they were not the same. They had put on the skins of animals, or perhaps they
were
animals, coupling in the compulsion of spring. She blinked, peering through the swirling smoke, and could not tell. Merlin would know, she thought then, but he too had disappeared, or changed. The drumming had a deeper note, as if the earth itself had become a single vibrating skin. That beat throbbed in her belly, bringing her swaying to her feet. From some depths she had never suspected, a sound rose in her throat and burst free in a wordless cry.

All around her, people were joined in the night's ecstasy, exulting in the passion that she had never been free to enjoy— she, whose fulfillment should have renewed them all! Guendivar took a step forward, stretching her arms to the skies.

“Come!” she cried to the night, to the fire, to the earth beneath her feet. “Oh my beloved, in the name of the Lady, come to me!”

And in the moment between one breath and another, from forest and flame and shadow, He came.

Furred like a beast, like a man He walked upright, and the antlers of the king of the wood crowned His brow. Erect, He came to her and bore her away in His strong arms. Filling and fulfilling He served her, pressing her down upon the moist earth, and the passion that until now had lain potential within her welled up in response, and flowed out from her into the land.

Guendivar was awakened in the dawning by the singing of many birds. Warm wool wrapped her, but the grass against her face was chill with dew. She stretched, muzzily aware of a pleasant soreness, and opened her eyes. The Pict-queen's cloak covered her, and her head was pillowed on her folded clothes. She blinked again; the world around her was a delicate dazzle of light. Through the branches of the hawthorne she could see a translucent sky whose banners of cloud were beginning to flush with gold. But each leaf was outlined in
its own radiance, and moving among them she glimpsed vortices of whirling light.

She sat up, and clearing vision showed her luminous forms that expanded, as if in response to her attention, until they were the size of children, staring back at her with shining eyes.

“We hail the Queen!”
sang the sweet voices.
“We hail the Hawthorne Bride! The Lady has come to the land!”

“I know you . . .” whispered Guendivar, looking back in memory at the girl-child who had played with the faerie folk in the woods of the Summer Country long ago. For a moment, her vision blurred. Prisoned within walls, surrounded by humans with all their blind needs, she had forgotten how to see. . . .

“We live between the worlds. Between sunrise and sunset we can fly from one end to the other of this Isle. Will you stay with us, Lady, or will you ride?”
Bird song and faerie song mingled in a cascade of harmonies.

“The queen has come to the land, but the king still wanders—” she answered.

Merlin had tried to tell her what was needed, but she had been unable to understand. She looked from the bright spirits to her own flesh—it felt solid, but her skin had a translucent glow, as if she could see the pulse of power.

“Between sunrise and sunset, my fair ones, take me to Britannia's true king. . . .”

A.D.
515

I
T WAS THE EVENING OF
B
ELTAIN, AND THE SUN WAS WITHDRAWING
westward, trailing tattered standards of flame. From the Wall, Artor could see the flicker of bonfires here and there upon the land.
Like detachments that have been cut off from their main force and must stand alone against the dark
— A very military metaphor for the fires of spring, he thought grimly, but his heart was a battlefield, with no room for anything but war.

Some of the fires burned in the old fortress of Vercovicium, where his army had made camp. It was a central location, and until he knew whether Medraut meant to strike southward through Luguvalium or Dun Eidyn, as good a place as any to wait for news.

Here, the Wall took advantage of natural escarpments, with a view of the open country to either side. The water of the loughs reflected the sky's conflagration in fragments of flame. There were fires there as well, where the folk of scattered farmsteads had gathered to celebrate the festival.

On this night, no army would move. In the fort, his men could safely drink as much of the local beer as they had been able to collect on their march northward, but liquor would
not drown Artor's sorrows. Instead he had set out to walk the Wall.

It curved away to the eastward, climbing the escarpments and swooping through the dales, even now, when parts of it were crumbling, a mighty testament to the empire it had defended. As he walked, the king fingered a fragment of bronze he had found among the stones, an old military badge with the image of an eagle, wishing it had the power to call to his aid the spirits of the men who had set these stones, as the image of the goddess had raised the ghosts at Mons Badonicus.

He had done what he could to pacify the land behind him, swearing new oaths with the sons of King Icel, and fighting a series of swift and bloody conflicts with the rebel lords of Demetia and Pagus and Guenet. They were a flock of fighting cocks, each crowing on his own dunghill. How quickly they had forgotten the host of enemies that waited beyond the farmyard wall!

This Wall
, he thought, as his footfalls rang against the solid masonry. He peered into the shadow that was creeping across the northern lands. There lay the darkness that would extinguish the light of Britannia, where Medraut was gathering the wild tribes of the North. Their last defense was this slender line of stone.