The Hallowed Isle Book Three (6 page)

The other women had stripped off their black robes. For a moment she thought that beneath they were wearing blue-embroidered garments. Then she realized that she was seeing skin, tattooed in intricate patterns with woad. She was too dazed to prevent them from removing her black mantle as well, but within the circle the air was warm.

Tulach began to speak, her voice blurred as if it came through water. “We will make no permanent mark upon your skin, but the sacred signs we paint upon your body will mark your spirit shape so that the powers can see . . .”

She dipped a small brush into a bowl in which hare's blood had been mixed with something else and began to draw upon Morgause's breast and belly the same spirals that marked her own. The brush tickled as it passed, and left a tingling behind it. By the time the priestesses had finished painting her front and back, upper arms and thighs, her entire body was throbbing with a pleasant, almost sexual pain.

The soft heartbeat of a drum brought Morgause to her feet again.

“Now you are ready . . . now we call
Her.. . .”

The drum beat faster, and Morgause found herself dancing as she had not danced since before her first child. Sweat sheened her body, adding its own meanders to the painted designs; she could smell her own female musk mingling with the scent of the herbs. It was very late; the distorted husk of the waning moon hung in the eastern sky.

The priestesses were singing. Presently Morgause recognized goddess-names within the murmur of incantation. She began to listen more carefully, understanding without knowing whether she was hearing with the ears or the heart.

The goddesses they were calling were older and wilder than any face of the Lady she had heard of on the Isle, names that resonated in earth and fire, in the stone of the circle and the whisper of the distant sea.

“Call Her!” sang Tulach as she whirled by. “Call Her by the name of your deepest desire!”

For a moment Morgause faltered. Then the drumming drew from her belly a moan, a shout, a cry of rage she had not known she held within.

She spun in place, light and shadow whirling around her. And then it was not shadow, but ravens, a cloud of black birds whose hoarse cries echoed her own.

“Cathubodva! Cathubodva! Come!”

Was she still moving, or was it the birds who swept her up to the heart of the maelstrom, where it was suddenly, shockingly, still?

“
You have called Me, and I have come . . . what do you need?”

“I want what my mother had, what my brother has! I have as much right as he does to rule—I want to be Tigernissa—I want to be queen!”

“
The power of the Black Raven, not the White, is Mine. I am the Dark Face of the Moon
. . .” came the answer. “
I madden the complacent and destroy that which is outworn. I drink red blood and feast upon the slain
.. . .”

“My mother clings to a power she can no longer wield! My brother fights for a dream that died with Rome! Let me be your priestess, Lady, and do your will!”

“
What will you sacrifice?”

“I have a young son, who is also the son of the king! Help me, and I will raise him to be your champion!”

Abruptly sound returned in a cacophony that whirled her with it into a chaos of fire and shadow until she knew no more.

A.D.
494

B
USHES BLURRED BY IN A HAZE OF GREEN AS
G
UENDIVAR BEAT
her heels against the white pony's sides. Then they burst out onto the sunny ridge, and the mare, seeing a clear trail before her, stretched out her neck and responded with a new burst of speed. Guendivar tightened her long legs around the blanket and whooped in delight. She was flying, lifting like a bird into the blue.

Then the road dipped, and the pony began to slow. Guendivar dug in her heels, but the mare snorted, shaking her head, and her canter became a jarring trot that compelled the girl to rein her in.

“Oh, very well—” she said crossly. “I suppose you deserve a rest. But you liked it too, didn't you, my swan? I wish you could really fly!”

Guendivar had gotten the pony for her seventh birthday. Now she was thirteen; too old, said her mother, to spend her days careering about the countryside. The dark shadow of adulthood was creeping towards her. Only on Cygnet's back could she be free.

A gull's cry brought her head up; she followed its flight, shading her eyes against the sunlight, as it wheeled above the ridge and away over the Vale. It had been a beautiful summer, especially after last year, when there was so much rain. Through the mist she glimpsed the distant glitter of the Sabrina estuary. Closer, golden haze lay across the lowlands, reminding her of the waters that in the winter turned it into an inland sea. A few hillocks poked through like islands, dominated by a pointed cone in the middle of the Vale. In this light, even the Tor seemed luminous; she wondered if that was why some folk called it the Isle of Glass.

The pony had halted and was tugging at the rein as she tried to reach the grass. Guendivar hauled the beast's head up and got her going again, frowning as she became aware of a dull ache across her lower back. In a canter, Cygnet was as graceful as the bird from which she took her name, but her trot was torture.

Suddenly the bag of apples and bread and cheese tied to her belt seemed very attractive. Guendivar gave the pony a kick and reined her down the hill towards the spring.

It was little more than a seep in the side of the hill, but the constant trickle of water had hollowed out a small pool, fringed with fern and stone-crop and shaded by a willow tree. On the sunny slopes, the grass was ripening, but near the spring the spreading moisture had kept it a vivid green. Cygnet tugged at the rein, eager to be at it, and laughing, Guendivar swung her right foot over the pony's neck and slid down.

“You are a goose, not a swan,” she exclaimed, “and just as greedy. But while we eat we may as well be comfortable.” She turned to uncinch the blanket and stilled, staring at the blood that had soaked into the cloth.

Frantically she unbuckled the cinch and pulled off the blanket, searching for the injury. But the pony's sweat-darkened hide was whole.

Guendivar's racing pulse thundered in her ears. She tethered the mare so that she could graze, and then, very reluctantly, she loosened her breeches, a pair that had been her older brother's when he was a boy, and pulling them down, saw on the inseam the betraying red stain.

Swearing softly, she pulled the breeches off. She could wash them, and no one would know. But even as she bent over the pool she felt warmth, and saw a new trickle of red snake down her inner thigh.

That was when panic changed to despair, and she curled up on the grass and let the hot tears flow.

Guendivar was still sniffling when she became aware that she was not alone. In that first moment, she could not have told what had changed. It was like hearing music, though there was no sound, or a scent, though there was no change in the air. As she sat up, her senses settled on vision as a mode of perception, and she saw a shimmer that she recognized as the spirit of the pool. Words formed in her awareness.

“
You are different today
. . .”

“I've got my moonblood,” Guendivar said bitterly, “and now everything is going to change!”

“
Everything is always changing
.. . .”

“Some changes are worse than others. Now my mother will make me stay home and spin while she talks to me about ruling a house and a husband! After this, she'll never let me ride alone again! I don't want this blood! I don't want to change!”

“
It was the blood that called me,”
came the reply.

“What?” She opened her eyes again. “I thought growing up would mean I couldn't see you.”

“
Not so. When you are in your blood it will be easier
.. . .”

Guendivar felt the hairs lift on her arms. Around her the air was thickening with glimmering forms: the slender shape of the Willow girl bending over her; spirits of reed and flower; airy forms that drifted on the wind; squat shapes that emerged from the stones.

“Why are you here?” she whispered. “What does my woman blood mean to you?”

“
It means life. It means you are part of the magic.”

“I thought it just meant having babies. I don't want to be worn out like my mother, bearing child after child that dies.” Petronilla had borne eight infants, but only the oldest boys and Guendivar survived.

“
When man and maid lie down together in the fields they make magic. Before, you were only a bud on the branch. Now you are the flower.”

Guendivar sat back, thinking about that. Abruptly she found herself hungry. She reached for the bag, and then, remembering, started to offer a portion to the pool.

“
You have something better to give us
—” came the voices around her. “
There is a special power in the first spurting of a boy's seed, and a girl's first flow. Wash yourself in the spring.. . .”

Guendivar flushed with embarrassment, even though she knew that human conventions meant less than nothing to the faerie kind. But gradually her shame shifted to something else, a dawning awareness of power. She bent, and scooping up the cool water in her palm, poured it over her thighs until her blood swirled dark in the clear water. When she was clean, she washed out her breeches and the saddle cloth and laid them out in the sun to dry.

The faerie folk flitted around her in swirls of light.

“
Sleep a little
. . .” said the spirit of the pool, “
and we will send you dreams of power.”

Guendivar lay back and closed her eyes. Almost immediately images began to come: the running of the deer, mare and stallion, sow and boar, men and women circling the Beltain fire. All the great dance of life whirled before her, faster and faster, shaping itself at last into the figure of a laughing maiden formed out of flowers.

When she woke at last, the setting sun had turned all the vale into a blaze of gold. But the spirits had disappeared. Her clothing was dry, and for the moment, her flow of blood seemed to have ceased. Swiftly she dressed and cinched the saddle cloth back onto the mare. She was still not looking forward to telling her mother what had happened. But one thing had changed—the thought of growing up no longer made her afraid.

For all the years of Guendivar's childhood, the Tor had been a constant presence, felt, even when clouds kept it from being seen. But except for one visit made when she was too little to remember, she had never been there. As soon as she told her mother what had happened to her, Petronilla had decided to take her to the nuns who lived on the Isle of Glass for a blessing. The prospect filled her with mingled excitement and fear.

It is like growing up
—she thought as they reached the base of the isle and the curve of the lower hill hid the Tor from view.
For so long it loomed on the horizon, and now I cannot see it because I am almost there. I will only be able to see my own womanhood reflected in others' eyes
.

The top of the round church that the holy Joseph had built showed above the trees. Around it clustered the smaller huts that were the monks' cells, and a little farther, a second group of buildings for the nuns. Nearby was the guesthouse where the visitors would stay. As they climbed the road, the deep sound of men's voices throbbed in the air. The monks were chanting the noon prayers, her mother said. Guendivar felt the hair lift on her arms with delight as the sweet sounds drifted through the trees. Then the shadowed orifice of the church door came into view and she shivered. The music was beautiful, but cooped up in the darkness like that, how could men sing?

She sighed with relief as they continued along the hillside toward the houses of the nuns. To one side she saw apple trees, ripening fruit already weighting their branches, and to the other, neat gardens. Beyond was a tall hedge, hiding the base of the hill that nestled next to the Tor. She wondered what was behind it. There was something in the air of this place that made her skin tingle as it did when the faerie folk were near. If she could escape her mother's watchful eye, this would be a good place to explore.

A tall woman came out of one of the houses, robed in a shapeless gown of natural wool with a wooden cross hanging from a thong around her neck, her hair hidden by a linen veil. But when she looked up, Guendivar saw a broad smile and twinkling eyes. For a moment that gaze rested on her in frank appraisal. Then she turned to Guendivar's mother.

“So, Petronilla, this is your maid-child—she has grown like a flower in good soil, tall and fair!”

“Nothing so rooted,” answered her mother ruefully. “She is a bird, or perhaps a wild pony, always off running about the hills. Guendivar, this is Mother Maruret. Show that you know how to give her a proper greeting!”

Still blushing, Guendivar slid down from her pony, took the woman's hand and bent to kiss it.

“You are welcome indeed, my child. My daughters will show you to your quarters. No doubt you will wish to wash before your meal.”

Guendivar's belly growled in anicipation. Along with other changes, she was growing, and these days she was always hungry.

“You are not our only guests,” said Mother Maruret as she led them towards the largest building. “The queen is here.”

“Igierne?” asked Petronilla.

“Herself, with two of her women.”

Petronilla lifted one eyebrow. “And you allow them to stay on the Isle?”

The nun smiled. “We have been in this place long enough to understand that the ways of the Creator of the World are many and mysterious. If the queen is deluded, how shall that trouble my own faith? But indeed, she has never been other than quiet and respectful when she was here . . .”

Guendivar listened, wide-eyed. She had heard many tales of Artor's mother, the most beautiful woman of her time. They said that King Uthir had fought a war to win her and killed her husband before her eyes, though others whispered that Merlin had murdered him with his magic. She lived now in the north, ran the tales, on a magic island. Of course by now Igierne must be quite old, but it would be exciting to meet her all the same.