Sword of Avalon: Avalon Read online

  “I would like that.” She gave her daughter a hug. “We shall see.”

  FIVE

  As the first full moon after the Turning of Autumn drew near, the Lady of Avalon traveled to the great henge to honor the ancestors. The paths were already sodden with the approach of winter, the old bracken on the hillsides limp and brown. It was said that this feast had once marked the end of the harvest, but what harvest there was had ended a moon ago. The souls they had come to guide would have a wet journey home.

  The great passage graves had been abandoned generations ago, but every seven years, the spirits of the dead still flowed down the river to make their pilgrimage to the Henge, and from there to the Otherworld. In every farmstead and village the oldest woman in the household would preside over the ceremonies for the dead of the family, midwifing their transition into the Otherworld as she assisted at the birthing of each new child of her line. And this year, as in most of the years that Anderle could remember, far too many families would have lost a member to whom they must now bid farewell. But the Sisterhood of the Ti-Sahharin, the seven priestesses who guided the spiritual life of the tribes, had another task. And for this they had called the Lady of Avalon, who served all the tribes but was bound to none of them, to aid.

  They passed the crossroads and the line of mounds that Anderle remembered all too well from her flight from Azan-Ylir and came suddenly to the rim of the shallow valley that the Aman, swollen now to a small river instead of its usual gentle stream, had cut through the plain. To their left the storm-stripped branches of the oaks clawed at a cloudy sky. Across the river other travelers were passing the charred timbers that once had guarded the high king’s home. As they drew closer, Anderle recognized the rain capes of tightly woven rushes that the Ai-Giru wore.

  “Let us wait here,” she told her men. “If they have trouble with the crossing, they may be glad of our assistance.”

  But the fens of the Ai-Giru country were even more extensive than those that surrounded Avalon, and the Lady’s escort managed to ford the stream with a minimum of splashing and swearing. As the newcomers started up the bank, Anderle came alongside the tented wagon in which the priestess was riding.

  “Linne—I hope you are well. I will not ask if you have had a pleasant journey,” said Anderle as a thin hand lifted the leather flap and she glimpsed a pale face within.

  “Let me see—by pleasant do you mean two lamed horses, and the coughing sickness that hit three of my men so hard they had to be left along the way?”

  Anderle nodded. This was the beginning of the dark time, the season that belonged to the powers that dwelt below.

  “And this year how have your people fared?”

  “My country is like yours—mostly fenland, so we know how to deal with water, although if we truly had webbed feet like the frogs our tribe is named for we would be better off. But now we have to fight off raiders from the Great Land,” Linne went on.

  “I suppose that times are bad there as well.”

  “I don’t know why they should think that things here are any better,” she said bitterly. “But I questioned the one man we took alive. He told me their land lies so low that when the wind blows from the west it is easy for the sea to rush in. The great City of Circles loses ground every year. So the men without families take to their boats to see what they can find elsewhere.”

  “We should not be surprised.” Anderle sighed. “Is it not the same here, as one tribe is forced from its lands and attacks another, and they attack their neighbors in turn. It’s like an avalanche—one little stone falls, and before you know it half the mountain is moving.”

  Ahead the ground rose slightly. Now they could see the huddle of tents fashioned of raw wool or oiled leather and booths roofed with rough thatching that had been set up around the entrance to the Processional Way. This gathering was nothing to compare with the vast crowds that in former days had gathered here for the festival, but an impressive turnout all the same. Beyond them lay the pens where the hairy red cattle waited to be slaughtered for the feasting or traded to improve the stock of other tribes.

  One of Anderle’s men lifted a horn to his lips and blew three long blasts. People began to emerge from the tents, drawing their mantles over their heads against the fine drizzle that had begun to fall once more. She shivered, only now allowing herself to admit how welcome she would find a bowl of hot soup and the warmth of a fire.

  “AT THE TURNING OF Autumn I gazed into the Mother’s pool, but all I could see was the swirl of the water, everything dissolving, everything being swept away. . . .” Kaisa-Zan of the Ai-Utu looked up, firelight gleaming in the water that welled from her eyes. She was the youngest of the priestesses, a sturdy girl with a wealth of auburn hair.

  “It takes no seeress to interpret that,” observed Leka, who came of the Ai-Akhsi, the People of the Ram. “You are afraid of floods, so that is what you will see.”

  She dipped up another helping of stew, a mixture of mutton and beef and assorted roots and grains, as various as the women who were eating it. The flicker of the fire set their shadows to dancing with the images on the woven hangings that warmed the inner wall of the roundhouse. It was the only permanent building in the encampment, a sturdy structure with a roof of heavy thatch that came down nearly to the ground outside. Over the central hearth, a precious bronze cauldron of stew was simmering, and oat cakes toasted on flat stones at the edge of the fire.

  “You can afford to smile,” Kaisa-Zan answered bitterly. “You live in the Dales. But how would you like your hills to become islands? If that happens sheep are all you will be able to raise.”

  “Peace,” counseled Linne. “We are here to take counsel for our people—it serves no purpose for us to tear at each other.” She looked around the circle with a quelling glance, firelight lending a fugitive color to her silver hair. Nuya, who was the younger sister of Uldan and Zamara and high priestess of the Ai-Zir, sat as far away as possible from Saarin of the Ai-Ushen. They had not spoken to one another since they arrived. “Have we had any word from Olavi?” she asked.

  “They say the roads to the north are already covered in snow,” answered Saarin. “I almost did not come myself,” she added with a glance at Nuya. “You have not made me feel very welcome here. But it is needful. Many of my tribe have died too.”

  “All of us have too many to call this year,” said Leka, “but you can hardly blame the rest of us for resenting your king’s way of trying to solve his problems. It is bad enough that Eltan has seized lands in the territory of another tribe. Those he does not kill, he enslaves, and they are grateful to glean the leavings from their own harvests.”

  “And his creature Galid is worse,” added Kaisa-Zan. “His men scavenge like wild dogs, attacking farms and destroying what they cannot carry away. Does he think that if he destroys Azan, Zamara will approve him as king?”

  “He is like a wild dog that attacks a sheepfold,” said Leka, “rending and slaying for the pleasure of destruction.”

  “As does any beast divorced from its true nature,” observed Shizuret, “whether dog or man.”

  It was true, thought Anderle, remembering the fallow fields and abandoned farmsteads she had seen as she rode here from Avalon. And over the years she had heard a steady series of tales from refugees. They need not wait for worsening weather to destroy them when they had worse men.

  “I think that Galid’s sickness is something deeper, an emptiness that no amount of food, or blood, can fill,” she said then.

  “At least when the wolf kills, it is in order to live,” said Saarin. Nuya wrapped her shawl around her as if to protect herself from the other’s contagion. And yet come the morrow they would all make the journey to the Henge, joining their powers for the sake of those they mourned. Anderle gazed around the room, seeking for the common quality that made them what they were.

  She and Kaisa were the youngest, the others between them and Linne in age, for in the normal way of things a young woman would ass
ist her predecessor for many years before death or retirement thrust her into the senior role. But of course these were not ordinary times. Leka was in her early thirties, strongly built with curly brown hair and a direct manner that was sometimes interpreted as harsh. It was said that the Ai-Akhsi had been warring with their southern neighbors, and she had received a few dark looks from Shizuret, the priestess of the Ai-Ilif, who was almost as old as Linne, and had had a husband and six children before a plague took them, along with the woman who had been intended to succeed the tribe’s priestess before her. Perhaps the similarity was that air of self-sufficiency, as if having looked upon the Otherworld, they could not be defeated by any tragedy of this one.

  “I can foresee disasters in plenty even if the Island of the Mighty remains above the sea,” said Shizuret gloomily. “We are in for a hard time, my sisters, and we must set ourselves to endure.”

  “That will be difficult when our leaders put all their energy into fighting each other instead of addressing the ills that assail us,” agreed Linne. “I am reminded of a litter of puppies someone tried to drown. The top of the bag had come open, and they were struggling to stay afloat. But every time one reached the surface, another would try to climb up and push his brother under again.”

  “Hard luck,” said Leka.

  “What happened to the puppies?” asked Kaisa-Zan.

  “I pulled them out and found them homes . . .” Linne’s smile faded. “But I cannot do the same for your chieftains.” Her gaze lingered for a moment on Saarin and Nuya, then passed on.

  “Our magic is for growing and healing,” whispered Kaisa-Zan.

  “And the chieftains doubt our ability to use it,” agreed Nuya with a venomous look at Saarin. “The only power men understand now is the point of a spear.”

  Anderle closed her eyes, summoning up the image that had come to her more than once in dreams. She had seen Mikantor, grown to manhood, striding across a battlefield with a sword in his hand that shone like white fire. Dare I tell them? They need that hope so badly, but it will be many years yet before what I have seen can come to pass. She bit back the words with a sigh. So long as Galid lived, the world must continue to believe that Uldan’s heir had died.

  “And yet we are the Sacred Sisterhood.” Linne straightened, the folds of her blue gown giving her gaunt figure a sudden majesty. “And if all we can do is to pull an occasional puppy from the flood we will do that.”

  Or from the fire . . . thought Anderle, remembering Mikantor, as she had seen him when she passed through the Lake Village on her way to this conclave. It must have been nearly time for Redfern to dye his hair again, for hints of red sparked through the dusty brown like a fire through ash. In the past year there had been no exploits as outrageous as the visit to the island of the Wild God, or not, at least, that involved her daughter, but he seemed to have twice the initiative and energy of any of his playmates. I will have to do something about that boy.

  “We must work with the children,” she said aloud, one thought leading to another. “This crisis will not be over soon. We must teach the children to trust each other, even the girls you are training, and we cannot do that if you keep them at home.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Saarin asked sharply.

  “Send them for a few seasons to Avalon, both girls and boys. We will teach them healing and history, make them work together in the rituals. When they have learned and laughed and tested each other’s minds, it will be harder to think of the folk of other tribes as those evil wretches from over the hill.”

  “As we do here . . .” Linne said dryly.

  Anderle shrugged. “Send me the ones you think have talent. The ones with energy and inquiring minds. The ones who their parents think are troublemakers, but whose hearts are good. From each tribe, take two or three between the ages of seven and fourteen.”

  “With a load or two of supplies toward their upkeep?” snorted Shizuret, “or had you thought about how you were going to feed them? Children are always hungry at that age, and your marshes are not exactly the breadbasket of this isle.”

  “Neither is Azan, these days,” murmured Nuya sadly.

  “The men of the Lake Village will teach them hunting”—Anderle smiled—“but we will not turn down any supplies you can spare.”

  “Speaking of which, I believe that the oat cakes are almost done—” said Shizuret, “and to waste the good food would be a sin.”

  And that, thought Anderle, was a sentiment upon which all of them could agree.

  TORCHLIGHT THREW THE EARTHEN banks that defined the Processional Way into high relief, leaving both the rolling plain and the river behind them in an even deeper darkness. Anderle held the edges of her cloak together with one hand, for the wind had come up with sunset, and the black wool flapped around her legs. At least it was also driving the clouds away.

  The light brightened as Shizuret emerged from her tent to join the other priestesses who were forming up behind the Lady of Avalon, and her escort fell in around her. In the flickering light the black boar sewn to the back of her cloak seemed gathering itself to charge. A few more moments and Saarin and her wolf-warriors followed and took their places in the line, the priestess in the middle, her torchbearers to either side. Images of Wolf and Frog, Hare and Ram and Bull danced in the firelight, for all of the priestesses wore their tribal regalia here.

  That was the last of them. Anderle held up her staff, crowned with the same triple moon that was stitched across her shoulders. A glance over her shoulder showed the real moon already well above the horizon, easing shyly in and out of the remaining clouds. As the staff lifted, the whisper of conversation ceased, until the only sounds were the crackle of the burning torches and the murmurous voice of the river.

  “Sisters, the moon is risen. The season of Achimaiek is come. Is it the Hour of the Calling?” Anderle cried.

  “The Hour of the Calling is come—” came the reply.

  “Then let us seek the Gateway between the Worlds. . . .” She signaled, and the two lads with the bull-roarers began to swing their thongs. As they started forward, the eerie buzzing rose and fell, making the hair prickle on her neck with a chill that did not come from the cold.

  The way led to the right and up a gentle slope before turning west toward the Henge. As the road leveled and they emerged onto the plain, Anderle saw the line of barrows extending to her left, and brought the procession to a halt to salute the ancestors who lay there. Before her, the avenue ran straight for a time, and the moon, escaping finally from the encircling clouds, revealed the plain with a cold light that made the torches pale. Here and there the smooth line of the horizon was broken by the tree-covered grave mounds of ancient kings.

  As they resumed their march, Kaisa-Zan, who had a fine, clear voice, began to sing the verses that welcomed Achimaiek, whom the tribes worshipped as Grandmother, and whose season was the wintertime.

  “High the eye of autumn’s moon;

  Rain scours the hill, now winter chill

  Chides the flesh and flays the bone.

  With shortened days,

  The wild wind’s moan

  Brings in the Crone.”

  Anderle saw a point of light to the north where at Carn Ava the balefire had been lighted upon the Lady’s hill. On this night the fires would be signaling from hill to hill from the farthest north to the southern sea, sending the living to huddle behind their doors, calling the dead to their long home. At the sight her heart beat more quickly. The dead whose spirits had clung to bone and ash were waking, hearkening to the song.

  “She calls you home, no more to roam;

  She sets a light upon the height,

  Hails plain to hill, and softly calls,

  Past good or ill,

  Past praise or blame

  Your own true name.”

  The priestess had a sudden awareness of the Henge before them, even though at this distance it seemed no more than a leafless thicket, barely visible in the light of the moon. D
espite that clarity, shadows were everywhere, more sensed than seen. The ghosts of the ancient folk whose mounds dotted the plain were welcoming the more recent dead, whom Anderle could feel gathering behind them.

  “Follow, shadows, that bright road

  To its last end. The final bend

  Shall bring you to the place where best

  You may find peace,

  Your Self, at rest,

  There in the west.”

  The final note faded, and the bull-roarers began to swing once more, but this time that humming was supported by the voices of the priestesses, rising and falling in eerie harmonies. The tension thickened; the spirits in the barrows were listening. As the road curved once more to the left, Anderle could see the paired stones that marked the entrance to the causeway across the ditch. The shadows of the priestesses lengthened before them as the torchbearers fell back to follow in single file. Anderle paused again when they reached the upright that marked the Midsummer sunrise and unhooked the flask of beer from her belt to pour over the stone in offering. Then their line bent around it and they continued forward.

  As they crossed the gap in the bank and ditch and passed between the three boundary stones, their shadows changed again, for the men who carried the torches were turning aside to form a circle of fire outside the Henge. As they moved, light and shadow began to weave a wavering pattern through the linked stones of the sarsen ring. The priestesses slowed their steps so that they entered it at the same time that the men completed their circle. But though only seven living women had entered the circle of stones, a far greater company had followed them.

  Now the light steadied, raying between the linked standing stones and the circle of smaller bluestone pillars within them so that as the priestesses arranged themselves within the semicircle of great trilithons, they seemed to stand at the center of a great wheel. But only light entered the circle. If there was any sound from outside they could not hear it, and Anderle knew that the men outside would hear only the faintest murmur from within.