The Hallowed Isle Book Four (9 page)

“On the way north there were . . . accidents. I sent Medraut to the Saxons—to Cynric at Venta Belgarum, who for the sake of his own cub's life will guard him as the apple of his eye. It would seem that the secret of Medraut's parentage has become known, and perhaps there are some who think they would be doing me a favor to get rid of him.”

“Perhaps they are right,” Morgause answered bitterly. “Why should you trust him, when he is what I made him? You have good reason to distrust
me.”

“For the Lady's sake, Morgause! It may be that he should never have been born, but he is here, and he deserves a chance. I have not come here to blame you, but you know
him better than anyone else. Like it or not, he is my son. I need to understand. . . .”

Morgause stared up at the brother she had hated so long and so intimately betrayed. He was still strong, but there was silver in the brown hair, and his face was carved by lines of responsibility and power. He seemed so sure of himself, as if he had never doubted his own integrity, that she almost began to hate him once more.

Should I tell him that Medraut is brilliant and seductive and dangerous? How much am 1 willing to admit? How much do I dare?
Looking back, the woman who had manipulated and schemed seemed like a stranger, but the reverberations of that woman's past actions still troubled the present, like the ripples from a cast stone.

“Medraut is very intelligent,” she said slowly, shame moderating her words. “But his brothers were too much older—he has been very much alone. He does not have much experience of friendship.” She paused. “I raised him to think he had a right to your throne.”

“That is the one thing I cannot give him,” Artor replied, his gaze troubled. “Even if his birth were acceptable, what I have to leave will go to the man best fitted to hold it. To the man, if there is one, who is chosen by the spirit of this Sword. I told him that. I do not know if he believed me—” he said then, gripping the hilt of the weapon that hung at his side.

“Then you must somehow teach him to be worthy of it,” said Morgause, “for that is what he will desire.”

Perhaps
, she thought,
in rejecting me, Medraut will reject what I taught him.
But she found that hard to believe.

Artor was staring out across the lake, his gaze as grey as the troubled surface of the water.

“One thing I would ask of you—” she said aloud. “To take Gualchmai's daughter with you when you go. She is a wild creature of the moors, not suited by nature for the quiet life we have here. Perhaps Guendivar will be able to tame her.”

“Very well. What is her name?”

“She is called Ninive.”

* * *

At the feast of Christ's Resurrection, the queen and her household journeyed from Camalot to the Isle of Afallon to hear mass at the round church there. Sister Julia was here, having finally taken full vows as a nun, but to Guendivar, it was as if she walked with the ghost of the girl she had once been. Here, Queen Igierne had set her on the path to her destiny. And now she was woman and queen, but not a mother.

Men were beginning to whisper that that strange boy, Medraut, was Artor's son. It seemed to Guendivar that they looked on her less kindly now, holding her a barren stock and no true queen.
But even the most fertile field will not bear without sowing
, she thought bitterly. If she was at fault, it was not because she could not conceive, but because she had not been able to awaken the manhood of the king.

When the service was over, Guendivar walked out of its scented darkness and stood blinking in the sunshine. On this day, the Church forgot its mysteries of blood and sorrow and rejoiced in life reborn, and the world seemed to echo that joy. Above the smooth peak of the Tor, the clouds from last night's storm hung white and fluffy in a blue sky.

The wind was chilly enough for her cloak to be welcome, but there was a promise of warming weather in the heat of the sun. She could not waste such a day cooped up with a flock of chattering women—but she glimpsed two small heads, one red, one fair, by the horse trough, and began to smile.

“Ceawlin! Eormenric! Come walk with me!” she called.

“Oh my lady, wait—” Netta, the woman who tended the boys, came bustling over. “The wretched children have soaked each other with their splashing and must have dry things!”

Eormenric shook himself like a puppy and Ceawlin looked mutinous as Guendivar bent to touch the cloth.

“They are a little damp, truly, but the day is growing warmer. They will dry off soon enough if they run about in the sun!” She turned to the boys. “Will you escort me, my warriors? I would walk in the orchard for awhile.”

Yipping gleefully, they dashed ahead, then circled back
around her. Fox-red Ceawlin had the features of his Belgic forebears, but in thought and speech he was all Saxon. It was Eormenric, in appearance a lanky, blond reincarnation of Oesc, his father, who was most fluent in the British tongue and easy with their ways. That was the doing of Rigana, who had been born a princess of Cantium and now was Cantuware's queen. Artor had been wise to ask her to send her son to Camalot. The boys had become fast friends.

The apple trees were leafing out, with only a few flowered branches remaining to bear witness to their former snowy glory. Guendivar had pulled one down to smell the scent when she heard a cry behind her.

Ceawlin lay sprawled on the grass, like a doll dropped by some child in play. Eormenric bent over him, then straightened, gazing at Guendivar in mute appeal.

“He fell out of the tree—”

Guendivar knelt. She could feel her own heart thumping alarm as she felt at his throat for the pulse that beat in answer to her own.

“Did he fall on his head?” she asked, sitting back on her heels.

“I think so—” answered Eormenric. “Is he going to die?”

“Not today,” she said, hoping it was true. “But he will have a sore head when he wakes up.” Carefully she felt his limbs.

Ceawlin stirred, whimpering. “
Modor.
. . .”

It needed no knowledge of Saxon to interpret that. Guendivar settled herself with her back to the tree trunk and gathered the boy against her breast. For a moment she remembered how the priest had wept over the image of Christ's mother with her dead son in her arms. But this boy would not die—she would not allow it! She tightened her grip on Ceawlin, and as naturally as a puppy, Eormenric snuggled beneath her other arm.

“It will be all right,” she murmured. “All will be well. . . .”

The tree at her back was a steady support, the scent of crushed grass intoxicating. Guendivar leaned into its strength, and suddenly it seemed to her as if she had become the tree, rooting herself in the awakening earth and drawing up
strength through her spine. Power welled through her from the depths of the earth to the child in her arms.

Ceawlin stirred again, and this time when his eyes opened there was recognition in his gaze. She waited for him to tense and pull away, but he only sighed and burrowed more comfortably against her.

She steadied her breathing, willing the shift in vision that would show her the spirits of the apple trees. The world began to change around her, but the shift was going too fast. Held in this moment, she went deeper than ever before. She
was
the solid earth and the warmth of the sunlight, the wind that stirred her hair and the pliant strength of the tree, a woman's body and the children in her arms, all part of a single whole. Life was reborn from the womb of earth with the springtime as the Christian god came forth from his earthen tomb. And in that moment, Guendivar understood that she was not barren at all.

She did not count the passing of time, but surely the sun had not moved far across the sky when she became aware that someone was speaking. For a time she simply listened to the musical rise and fall of the language, for it was a tongue she did not know. The sound seemed to come from all around her, as if the wind were speaking in the leaves.

“Come to the holy temple of the virgins

Where the pleasant grove of apple trees

Circles an altar smoking with frankincense.”

The words became more distinct, and she realized that now she was hearing the British tongue.

“The roses leave shadow on the ground

And cool springs murmur through apple branches

Where shuddering leaves pour down profound sleep.”

It must be true, thought Guendivar, for Ceawlin, eyes closed and breathing even, had passed into a healing slumber, and even Eormenric lay quiet against her breast. But her expanded soul was returning to the confines of her body. She
heard with her mortal senses, therefore the words she was hearing must have some tangible source.

“In that meadow where horses have grown glossy
,

And all spring flowers grow wild
,

The anise shoots fill the air with aroma.”

She straightened a little, turning her head, and saw a man, his limbs as gnarled and brown as the branches, sitting in one of the apple trees. In that first moment, the sight seemed quite normal, as if he had grown there. And so she was not startled when returning awareness resolved the abstract pattern of bearded face and skin-clad body into the figure of Merlin.

Seeing her gaze upon him, the Druid slid down from the tree and took up the staff that had been leaning against it.

“And there our queen Aphrodite pours

Celestial nectar in the gold cups
,

Which she fills gracefully with sudden joy.”

“Heathen words . . .” Guendivar said softly, “for such a holy day.”

“Holy words, first sung for the Goddess by a lovely lady in the Grecian isles. In those days it was the death of Her lover Attis that the women mourned in the spring. The gods die and are reborn, but the Goddess, like the earth, is eternal. You know this to be true—I see the understanding in your eyes.” Merlin came closer and squatted on his haunches, the staff leaning against his shoulder.

“Perhaps . . . but I am no goddess, to be hailed with such words.”

“Are you not?” He laughed softly. “At least you are Her image, sitting there with your sons in your arms.”

Guendivar looked at him in alarm, remembering the sense of union she had experienced only a few moments ago. How could the old man know what she was feeling? The last time he had tried to talk to her she had run from him, but she could not disturb the sleeping boys.

“And you are Her image to your husband's warriors, their Lady and Queen.”

“But not to my husband,” Guendivar said bitterly.

“All things change, even he, even you. Is it not so?”

“Even you?” she asked then.

He laughed softly, long fingers stroking lightly over the staff that lay against his arm. Its head was swathed in yellowed linen, but she could see now that strange symbols were carved up and down the shaft.

“I have been a salmon in the stream and a stag upon the hill. I have been an acorn in the forest, and the falcon floating in the wind. I was an old man once, but now I am as young as the cub just born this spring. . . .”

It was true, she thought. He had not moved like an old man, though the hair that covered his body was grizzled as a wolf's pelt, and streaks of pure silver glinted in his hair and beard.

“I think sometimes that I will be old without ever having seen my prime, passing directly from virginity to senility . . .” Guendivar said then.

“Do you believe that to bear in the body is the only fertility? I was a father to Artor, though another man begot him. It is not what you receive, but what you give, that will grant you fulfillment. You must become a conduit for power.”

Ceawlin stirred, and she soothed him with a gentle touch. “How?” she asked when the boy had settled once more.

“You have done it already, when you brought the earth power through the tree. Build up an image of the Lady of Life standing behind you, and you will become a doorway through which Her force can flow.”

Did she dare to believe it might be so? She would have questioned him further, but Eormenric opened his eyes and seeing Merlin, sat up, staring. Ceawlin, disturbed by his motion, began to wake as well.

“What's
he
doing here?” whispered Eormenric.

“He is wise in all the ancient magics,” Guendivar answered. “He will make sure that your friend is well. . . .”

And Merlin, taking his cue, rose in a single smooth motion and came to her, passing his hands above the boy's body and
resting them on his brow. Ceawlin, who lay with eyes rolling like those of a frightened horse, whispered something in the Saxon tongue.

“What did he say?” Guendivar asked Eormenric.

“He called the old man by the name of Woden and asked if he had come to take him to his hall . . .”

Merlin grunted and got to his feet. “Nay, child, I am a prophet sometimes, but no god.” He stood looking down at the boy, his face growing grim. “I foresee for you a long life, and many victories.”

His dark gaze lifted to meet hers, and Guendivar recoiled, wondering what it was he had seen. But without another word he turned and strode off and in a few moments had disappeared among the trees.

Guendivar stared after him. If he was not a god, she thought then, still, Merlin was something more than a man.

On a day of mingled sunlight and shadow towards the end of May, the high king of Britannia returned to Camalot. Another year's storms had weathered the timbers, and the thatching had been bleached by another year's suns to a paler gold. Artor remembered it half finished, all raw wood and pale stone, but now buildings and fortifications alike seemed to have grown out of the hill.

As always, he approached Camalot with mixed emotions. This was his home, the heart of his power, and here, in perpetual reminder of his greatest failure, was Guendivar. If he had been able to give her children, would she by now have grown fat and frowsy? But he had not, and so she remained in essence virgin, forever young, beautiful, and not to be possessed by any man.