Sword of Avalon: Avalon Read online

  Anderle forced herself to take a deep breath, and let her exhalation carry the pain away. She was still tired, but for a moment at least she could stand in balance upon the earth and remember that she was something more than a stumbling creature of flesh and bone.

  The sky was filling with radiance. Old disciplines straightened her back, brought her arms up in salutation to the coming day.

  “Oh beautiful upon the horizon of the east,

  Lift up Thy light unto day, O Eastern star,

  Day Star, awaken, arise!”

  Ni-Terat, she added in silent prayer to the Goddess, You who from the darkness gives birth to day, have mercy upon this little one, hide us from our foes!

  For a moment Manoah’s golden arc burned upon the horizon. Dazzled, she shut her eyes, and with the image still imprinted upon her inner eyelids, turned and took a step away. In the moment between the lifting of her foot and its descent, she heard a bleating that did not come from the child.

  “What is it?” came Ellet’s voice from behind her.

  “The Lady’s answer . . .” Anderle fought to keep her voice from shaking. “Come—” Together they pushed upward through the tangle of hawthorn, dog rose and bramble that had grown up around the base of the old mound.

  Ellet squeaked as something moved behind an elder bush, black and then white—were there two creatures there? Carefully Anderle lifted a trail of bramble, met the baleful glare of the she-goat trapped by her horns among the branches, and stifled a laugh. Sheep, the silly creatures, were always having such mishaps, but it was unusual to find a goat in such a fix.

  “Never fear us, nanny!” she said softly as the goat wrenched at the branches and bleated again. “Have you lost your kid?” she asked, seeing the swollen udder swing as the animal moved. “Here’s a youngling that has lost his mother, perhaps we can help each other . . .” There was a small clear space beneath the ash trees that grew at the top of the mound.

  For a long moment the yellow slit-pupiled eyes held hers in an evaluating stare. Then the she-goat’s head drooped, resting in the branches rather than fighting them as the tension left her limbs. Her front half was black, the back white with black spots. No wonder she had been hard to see.

  “So . . . so. . . .” Anderle moved forward until she could stroke the goat’s ragged flank. Heavier guard hairs hid a soft undercoat. The branches of the elder were festooned with tufts of fleece where the goat had struggled to get free, and all the nearby twigs grazed bare. “Be easy, then, and we will take care of you.

  “Ellet,” she said in a low voice, “bring the baby and hold him beneath her teats.” Humming softly, she stroked down the she-goat’s flank with one hand and with the other felt down the udder. The goat stirred a little at the touch, but did not try to kick or jerk away.

  “Be still and I will ease you,” murmured the priestess, blessing the tradition that required the priestesses to learn the practical skills that maintained the community. She angled the teat toward the child’s pursed lips and squeezed. A thin stream of milk hit his mouth and dribbled down his chin. For a moment Mikantor stared in astonishment; then his mouth opened. The second squirt went in before he could decide whether or not to cry. He coughed, swallowed, and opened his mouth again.

  About the time the goat’s milk began to fail, Mikantor’s eyes closed and he subsided into peaceful sleep for the first time since their escape. Anderle sat back with a sigh and held out her arms.

  “I can take care of him now. I want you to use your belt for a tether and take the goat back to that rivulet to drink. She must be nearly dry.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I drank when we crossed it. You and I can go without more water until nightfall, and so can Mistress Nanny, once she has drunk her fill. Keep your ears open. You can let her graze a little, but you must both be back here before full day.”

  “And if the Ai-Ushen wolves find me?” asked the younger woman as she unlaced the branches that had trapped the goat’s horns.

  “Why, you’re naught but a girl from a farmstead nearby who lost yourself seeking this strayed goat and spent the night in the fields. They will be looking for a woman with a baby, and in your present state, if you pull your hair down to hide the crescent moon on your forehead, I assure you that no one will take you for a priestess of Avalon!” With her brown hair and blue eyes, burrs in her shawl, and the hem of her sleeping shift ragged and mud stained, Ellet was a typical, if rather grimy, daughter of this land. “Try to sound stupid and don’t lose your nerve, and I think they will leave you alone.”

  “I’ll pretend it’s Master Belkacem, quizzing us on the lineage of the High Priestesses,” the girl said dryly. “Name lists always turn my brains to wool.”

  Anderle leaned back against the trunk of the ash tree, as the girl and the goat picked their way lightly down the side of the mound. This sense of safety was an illusion, but at least she was sitting still. She had not known how completely their dash across the countryside had exhausted her. Just at this moment she did not think she could have moved if the entire Ai-Ushen war band had appeared below.

  THEY REMAINED ON THE mound throughout the day, sleeping fitfully while the goat, whom they had named Ara, continued to trim the undergrowth beneath the ash trees. She proved a bountiful producer of milk, providing enough to feed Mikantor and the two priestesses as well. With that, berries from among the brambles and some cresses Ellet had brought back from the stream, they felt strong enough to continue, leading the goat, once darkness fell.

  The second night’s journey was uneventful, and they found another mound on which to shelter when daylight came. They had seen no pursuers, and by the third morning Anderle was beginning to believe they had evaded their enemies. Their wanderings had forced them north of their best route, but if taking a roundabout way home cost them time, it gained them safety.

  Old Kiri would have a seizure to see me now, thought Anderle, marching along with her skirts kirtled up beneath her swaying belly and her hair knotted and wound around a thorn. Until this journey had proved her endurance, she had not realized that she herself had doubted it. But she could see the gaunt hollows in Ellet’s cheeks and knew her own must be the same. A diet of berries and goat’s milk was not sufficient for such an extended use of energy.

  “If I remember right, just over that hill is the settlement from which Chrifa came.”

  “Wasn’t she the tall girl who told such good stories? She was just finishing her training when I arrived, and then she went off to serve at Carn Ava.”

  “She did, and I think her people would be willing to help a priestess who had become separated from her escort.”

  “Just one priestess?” Ellet looked at her warily.

  Anderle nodded. “I believe that we are safe, but there’s no need to take foolish chances. I will stay in that wood by the old tomb with Mikantor and Ara while you go and ask for some bread and cheese in the name of Avalon.”

  “And if they try to keep me there?”

  “They will hardly dare object if you declare you must go out to the wood to make an offering!”

  The mound was old enough to have lost the earth that covered one end. The denuded stones that had framed the first tomb looked pink in the morning light. A dark opening beyond them suggested another chamber farther within. After a greeting to those whose bodies had lain here, Anderle tied the goat’s tether to a hazel trunk, curled up against one of them, and settled Mikantor in the crook of her arm. Thank the gods he was not yet crawling.

  For a time it was enough to enjoy the solid support of earth and stone. Somewhere above her, a warbler was greeting the sun with a descending “hoo eet” that ended in a trill. She gazed upward through the canopy of beech leaves until she could see the pale greenish feathers of the bird. Here was peace, she thought drowsily. Both the subtle stresses of life in Avalon and the violence of the attack on Azan seemed far away. Whatever passions had ruled those buried here had faded long ago. She tried to stay awake and
watch for Ellet’s returning, but the warming air drew her into a sweet embrace.

  It was not the light footstep of the girl that woke her, but the hard tread of sandaled feet. And perhaps her sleep had not been so deep as she believed, for without needing to think Anderle found herself pushing Mikantor through the gap between the stones of the tomb and forcing her swollen body through the opening after him.

  “I saw somethin’ move—” came a man’s voice, dulled through earth and stone.

  Anderle curled into the dirt. Her heart hammered in her chest—surely it must be resonating like a drum in this chamber of stone.

  “By the tomb?” a second man answered. “This place belongs to the dead, and they don’t walk by day!”

  Had she pulled all of her draperies within? She strained to see over the curve of her hip.

  “Then why’re ye hangin’ back, eh, Izri?” This, in the accent of the north. “The chief says we’re to check ev’ry farm, ev’ry hiding place. I don’t know if ghosts can hurt ye, but Ramdane surely can!”

  “This land has too many tombs,” came the second voice again. “The dead aid their sorceress, or we would have found a trail.”

  A little earth sifted down as someone climbed up the mound. Anderle fought a vision in which his weight shifted the balance that held the stones, of great masses sliding to crush her and the child. At least, she thought grimly, they would have a worthy burial.

  “By the Hunter’s prong, it’s a goat!” the first voice exclaimed.

  “Then I thank him—” answered the northerner. “’Twill be a nice change from boiled barley.”

  Anderle tensed, unconsciously squeezing the child. But Mikantor’s protest was covered by Ara’s sudden bleat.

  “Leave it alone!” one of the other men cried. “It might be an offering!”

  Old Ones, hide us, and I will give you an offering in truth! the priestess prayed. Set fear in their hearts until they flee! Abruptly she sensed that she was not alone. The warriors could feel it as well.

  “If you want your balls to wither and your crops to die you go right ahead, but I’m getting out of here now!” The sounds of crushed leaves and breaking branches told her when first one, then the second man went away.

  “Very well, but I think ye spineless fools,” the northern man replied. “Still, if ye had any backbone, I suppose we’d not have taken Azan.” His muttering faded as he too retraced his steps through the wood.

  For a long time Anderle lay trembling, but presently her heartbeat slowed and her tense muscles began to ease. Reason told her that the warriors had been too frightened to return, but just now that was not enough to persuade her to leave this earthen womb. It had never before occurred to her to envy the ancestors. But here they were sheltered by eternal stone, all passion spent, all danger past.

  Or at least a part of them, she thought then. Another part lived in the blood and bone of their descendants, and yet another moved from life to life across the centuries, seeking to work out its destiny. And that one would outlast even these stones. . . .

  From time to time a memory of other times would surface in the meditations of one of the people of Avalon. Even little Ellet had dreamed of using an antler pick to hack at the soil of the Tor to create the spiral path around it; the elder priests thought it likely that she had been one of the acolytes who came to Avalon from the Sea Kingdoms that lay now beneath the waves. But Anderle’s visions were of the Sinking, of the last cataclysmic explosion when the mountain shattered and her city died in flame.

  If I was indeed there, then I did not survive it, she realized suddenly. Perhaps that is why foreseeing the destruction of Azan frightened me so. . . . Mikantor stirred in her arms and she turned on her side to make more room. And who were you in those days, my little one? Are you the child who was saved to inherit a new land? At the moment, it was enough to have saved him from the burning.

  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

  Anderle 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.”