The Hallowed Isle Book Four
Read The Hallowed Isle Book Four Online
Authors: Diana L. Paxson
In Memoriam
Paul Edwin Zimmer
To do justice to my sources for Hallowed Isle would require a bibliography the size of a chapter. These are only some of the materials which have been most useful.
First and foremost,
The Age of Arthur
by John Morris, recently reprinted by Barnes and Noble. This is the best historical overview of the Arthurian period, and with a few exceptions, I have adopted his dates for events.
For names and places,
Roman Britain
, by Plantagenet Somerset Fry, also published by Barnes and Noble; and the British Ordnance Survey maps of Roman Britain and Britain in the Dark Ages.
For fauna and flora, the Country Life book of
The Natural History of the British Isles.
The History of the Kings of Britain
, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, with an occasional glance at Malory's
Morte D'Arthur.
For the history of the North,
Scotland Before History
, by Stuart Piggott, and W. A. Cummings'
The Age of the Picts.
For the Anglo-Saxons, the fine series of booklets published by Anglo-Saxon Books, 25 Malpas Dr., Pinner, Middlesex, England.
For insight and inspiration,
Ladies of the Lake
, by John and Caitlin Matthews, and
Merlin through the Ages
, edited by R. J. Stewart and John Matthews.
And a great many maps, local guidebooks, and booklets on regional folklore.
My special thanks to Heather Rose Jones, for her Welsh name lists and instruction on the mysteries of fifth-century. British spelling, and to Winifred Hodge for checking my Old English.
Through the fields of European literature, the Matter of Britain flows as a broad and noble stream. I offer this tributary with thanks and recognition to all those who have gone before.
Feast of Brigid, 1999
III ⢠IN THE PLACE OF STONES
E
ARTH IS THE MOTHER OF US ALL, AND THE BONES OF OF THE
earth are made of stone. Stone is the foundation of the world.
Born from fire, stone heaves skyward, taking a thousand forms. Cooling and coalescing, it endures the wearing of water, the rasp of the wind, becomes soil from which living things can grow. The earth convulses, burying the soil, and pressure compresses it into rock once more. As age follows age, the cycle repeats, preserving the bones of plant and animal in eternal stone. The lives of her creatures are but instants in the ages of the earth, but the stone preserves their memories.
Stone is the historian of humanity. The first primates to know themselves as men make from stone the tools that carry their identity. Time passes and the ice comes and goes again. Humans cut wood with tools of stone and build houses, till the soil and form communities. Laboring together, they drag great stones across the land, raise menhirs and barrows, great henges to chart the movements of the stars, and grave them with the spiral patterns of power.
With boundary stones the tribes mark off their territories, but in the center of each land lies the
omphalos,
the navel stone, the sacred center of their world. When the destined king sets foot upon
it, the stone sings in triumphant vindication for those who have ears to hear.
But kings die, and one tribe gives way to another on the land. The makers of the henges pass away, and only their stones remember them. Wise Druids incorporate them into their own mysteries. The men of the Eagles net the land with straight tracks of stone, and around the king stones the grass grows high. But the earth turns, and in time the Romans, too, are gone.
But stone endures.
The bones of the earth uphold the world. In the stones of the earth, all that has been lives still in memory.
THE SEED ONCE SOWN
A.D.
502
T
HE BONES OF THE EARTH WERE CLOSE TO THE SURFACE HERE
.
Artor let the horse he was leading halt and gazed around him at grey stone scoured bare by the storms, furred here and there by a thin pelt of grass where seeds had rooted themselves in pockets of soil. Harsh though they were, the mountains where once the Silure tribesmen had roamed had their own uncompromising beauty, but they had little mercy for those footed creatures that dared to search out their mysteries. Sheepherds followed their sheep across these hills, but even they rarely climbed so high.
The black horse, finding the grass too short and thin to be worth grazing, butted Artor gently and the high king took a step forward. In the clear light Raven's coat gleamed like the wing of the bird that had given him his name. The stallion had gone lame a little past mid-morning. The stag they were trailing was long gone, and the rest of the hunters after it. The track that Artor was following now, though it crested the ridge before descending into the valley, was the shortest way home.
A stone turned beneath his foot and he tensed against remembered pain. But his muscles, warmed by the exercise,
flexed and held without a twinge. Indeed, at forty-two, he was as hale and strong as he had ever been. And Britannia was at peace after untold years of war.
It still seemed strange to him to contemplate a year without a campaign. He would have to think of somethingâpublic works, perhapsâon which his schieftains could spend their energy so they did not begin fighting one another. He had even begun to hope that he might find it in him to be a true husband to Guendivar.
Artor was still not quite accustomed to being able to move freelyâfor three years the wound that Melwas' spear had torn through his groin had pained him. The night when the Cauldron, borne through the hall of Camalot by invisible hands, had healed them all was scarcely three months ago.
And a good thing, tooâhalf lamed, he could never have made this climb under his own power. But, now, gazing out across a landscape of blue distances ribbed by ridge and valley, the king blessed the mischance that had brought him here. On the Sunday past, Father Paternus had preached about the temptation of Christ, whom the Devil had carried off to a high place to show him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. Looking around him, Artor thought that the writer of the gospel must have gotten it wrong somehow, for he himself was high king of all he could see, and the sight of it did not fill him with pride and power, but with wonder.
And, he thought as the next moment brought new awareness, with humility. How could any man look upon this mighty expanse of plain and mountain and say he ruled it all?
Below him the land fell away in long green slopes towards the estuary of the Sabrina, touched here and there with the gold of turning leaves. A smudge of smoke dimmed the tiled roofs of Castra Legionis; beyond them he could just make out the blue gleam of the Sabrina itself. Closer still he glimpsed the villa from which the hunting party had set out that morning. To the south across the water stretched the dim blur of the Dumnonian lands. Eastward lay the midlands, and beyond them Londinium and the Saxon territories. Looking north he could imagine the whole length of the island, all the
way to the Alban tribes beyond the Wall. The sky to the north was curdled with clouds. A storm was coming, but he had a little time before it was here.
From this mountaintop, the works of humankind were no more than smudges upon the hallowed isle of Britannia, set like a jewel in the shining silver of the sea.
But it does not belong to me
â Artor thought then.
Better to say that I belong to the land.
A nudge from Raven brought him back from his reverie and he grinned, turning to rub the horse behind his swiveling ears, where the black hide sweated beneath the bridle. Men were not made to live on such heights, and at this time of year darkness would be gathering before he reached shelter. He patted the black's neck, took up the reins, and started down the hill.
For years, thought Medraut, these hills had haunted his dreams. But he had not visited the Isle of Maidens since his childhood, and he had convinced himself that the dark and looming shapes he remembered were no more than a child's imaginings. He was accustomed to mountainsâthe high, wild hills of the Pictish country, and the tangled hills of the Votadini lands. Why should these be so different? But with every hour he rode, the humped shapes grew closer, and more terrible.
They are my mother's hills
. . . he thought grimly.
They are like her.
As he dreaded these hills, he dreaded the thought of confronting her. But he was fifteen, and a man. Neither fear could stop him now.
At Voreda he found a shepherd who agreed to guide him in exchange for a few pieces of gold. For three days they followed the narrow trail that led through the high meadows and down among the trees. Like many men who have lived much alone, the shepherd was inclined to chatter when in company, and gabbled cheerfully until a glare from Medraut stopped him. After that, they rode in a gloomy silence that preyed upon the young man's nerves until he was almost ready to order the shepherd to start talking again.
But by then they had reached the pass below the circle of
stones, and Medraut could see the Lake, and the round island, and the thatched roofs of buildings gleaming through its trees. He paid the shepherd then and sent him away, saying that from here he could follow the trail to the coast without a guide. He did not particularly care if the old man believed him, as long as he went away. The remainder of this journey must be accomplished alone.