Lady of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Sir.” A dark shape staggered down the walkway, and Carausius recognized the hortator, the hammer he used to set the beat till clutched in his hand. “We’ve six oars smashed and two men with broken arms who cannot row.” The sailors were muttering, the note of panic sharpening their voices as spray sluiced over the benches.

  “The gods have abandoned us!”

  “No, they’ve sent us a guide!”

  “Silence!” Carausius’ voice cut through the babble. He looked at the captain. Command of the squadron was his, if any of his ships survived, but the Hercules belonged to Aelius. “Captain,” he said softly, “the oars are no use in this sea, but we’ll need a balanced pull when it calms.” Aelius blinked; then understanding came into his eyes.

  “Tell the foreman to shift men from the starboard benches to even the numbers, and run in the oars.”

  Carausius looked once more at the sea. And for a moment then he saw what the officer at the prow had seen, the shape of a woman wrapped in white. She looked anguished, and surely it was not for herself, for her feet barely touched the waves. With a desperate entreaty, her eyes met his, and she motioned westward. Then a rising wave seemed to crash through her, and the image disappeared.

  The Admiral blinked. If this were not some figment born of moonlight, he had seen a spirit, but not one that was evil, surely. In life, as in a dice game, a time came when a man had to chance all on a single throw. “Tell your helmsman to steer to port until we’re running before the wind.”

  “We’ll go on the shoals if we do,” said the captain.

  “Maybe, though I think we’re too far to the west for that danger. Even so, better to go aground than capsize, as we surely will if we’re struck by another such swell.” Carausius had been raised among the mud banks at the mouth of the Rhenus. The shoals of Belgica seemed friendly compared with this maddened sea.

  The ship still bucked beneath him, but the change in course had brought a certain predictability to her motion. Now the waves, driven by the wind, were carrying her forward. Each time her prow slid downward he wondered if this time they would go under, but before they could founder the next wave would bring the ship up again, with seawater cascading from the figurehead and the weathered bronze of the ram beneath it like a waterfall.

  “Steer to port a little farther,” he told the helmsman. The gods alone knew where they might be, but that glimpse of the moon had reoriented him to the directions, and if the apparition had not lied, they would find safety somewhere on the British shore.

  The pitching grew a little less as they began to cut across the swells, though now and again a freak wave, cutting crosswise from the others, would break across the side. Half the sailors were bailing already. The ship would need the strength of her namesake to survive until dawn.

  But, oddly enough, Carausius no longer felt afraid. When he was a child, an old wisewoman of his own people in the delta of the Rhenus had cast the sticks for him and pronounced him destined for greatness. To serve as admiral of a squadron had seemed achievement enough for a lad of the Menapii, who were one of the smaller German tribes. But if this vision brought them to safety, the implications could not be denied. Men whose birth was no better than his had risen to the purple, though never by command on the sea.

  The Admiral stared over the waves. Who are you? What do you want of me? his spirit cried. But the white lady had disappeared. He saw only the wave crests, flattening at last as the storm passed them by.

  Dierna returned to knowledge of herself a little before dawn. The moon had set, and heavy clouds were coming in from the southeast, blotting out the stars. The storm! She had not dreamed it, then. The storm was real and it was coming to challenge the land. A damp wind stirred her hair, and muscles grown stiff with stillness complained. Dierna shivered, feeling very much alone. But before she spoke to any other, she had to bring from the depths of her vision the images that must guide her decisions in the months to come. The movements of the stars she remembered clearly. But of her final vision there were only fragments—there had been a ship, tossing upon a wind-whipped sea, and there had been a man….

  She turned to face the oncoming storm and lifted her hands.

  “Goddess, keep him safe, whoever he may be,” she whispered in invocation.

  The sun was just beginning to spark through the clouds above the Channel, glinting from brown puddles ashore and the grey waves of the sea, when a fisher lad of Clausentum, watching for the driftwood tossed up by the storm, stiffened and stared past the dim bulk of the Isle of Vectis toward the sea.

  “A sail!” His cry was taken up by others. Folk gathered, pointing across the waves, where a square of salt-stained canvas grew steadily larger. Even ashore they had felt the strength of last night’s wind. How could any ship have lived in that sea?

  “A liburnian,” said one, seeing the two men who sat at each oar.

  “With an admiral aboard!” exclaimed another as a pennon went fluttering up the mast.

  “By the tits of Amphitrite, that’s Hercules!” cried a trader, a big man who never let the rest of them forget that he was a naval twenty-year man. “I served as her helmsman the last two seasons out of Dubris before my enlistment ended. Carausius himself must be on board!”

  “The one who outfought those two pirate keels a month ago?”

  “The one who cares as much for keeping coin in our purses as for lining his own! I vow a lamb to whatever god has saved him,” breathed the trader. “His loss would have hurt us indeed!”

  Slowly, the liburnian came about and began to beat around the bend of the Ictis, toward the wharves of Clausentum.

  Traders and fisherfolk streamed down to the shore, and the folk of the village, awakened by the shouting, came after them.

  The Hercules stayed run up on shore for most of a week, while the carpenters swarmed about her, healing her wounds. Clausentum was a busy port; and if repairs were not up to fleet standard, nonetheless her artisans knew their trade. Carausius took advantage of the opportunity to confer with the magistrates and whatever traders were in port at the time, seeking to find a pattern in the pirates’ raids. But it was noted that when he was not needed elsewhere he spent much of his time walking alone on the shore, and no man dared to ask him why he frowned.

  Just before Midsummer, Carausius and the newly repaired Hercules set out, heading once more for Gesoriacum.

  This time, the sea was as calm as glass.

  In Avalon, the rituals of Midsummer were ancient; these customs had been old when the Druids first came to these lands. At the base of the Tor cattle lowed, scenting the fire the Druids had built for their blessing. Teleri was glad she had been assigned to sing with the other maidens around the other fire, the holy flame that had been kindled atop the hill.

  She smoothed her white gown, admiring the grace with which Dierna cast incense on the flames. Everything the High Priestess did had such certainty—perhaps the word she wanted was “authority”—it came, she supposed, from a lifetime of practice. She herself had come so late to the service of the Mysteries, she found it hard to believe that she would ever be able to move so that everything she did seemed part of a spell.

  Below, the cattle were being driven between the fires while the people cried out to the gods for blessings. Above, the litany was a recognition that all things, both light and darkness, must pass. The full moon waned and was swallowed by the night, only to be reborn as a sliver of light. The cycle of the sun took longer, but she knew that this moment, the longest day, was the beginning of its decline. And yet in the midst of midwinter’s darkness the sun would be reborn.

  What else, she wondered then, followed this round? The Empire of the Romans covered half the earth. Many times it had been threatened, and always the Eagles had returned in even greater power. Was there a moment when Rome would reach the fullness of her power and begin to decline? And would her people recognize that moment when it came?

  Dierna stepped back from the fire, bowing to Ceridachos, eldest
of the Druids and Arch-Druid of Britannia, to begin the ritual. It was noon of the longest day, when the power of light was at its fullest, and it was right and proper that the priests should lead this ceremony. When darkness fell, the priestesses would come into their own. The old man gestured, wide sleeves fluttering.

  “What existed in the beginning? Try to imagine—an emptiness, a gaping nothing? A teeming womb, pregnant with the world? If you can imagine it, already it existed in potential, and yet it was like nothing you can imagine, for it was the Force, it was the Void. It Was, it was Not…. An eternal, changeless Unity…”

  He paused, and Teleri closed her eyes, swaying at the thought of that immensity. The Druid spoke again, and now his voice had the ring of incantation.

  “But there came a moment of difference—a vibration stirred in stillness—

  “An indrawn breath in a silent shout,

  And that which was contained flares out—

  Divine Darkness and Supernal Light,

  Time and Space appear in might,

  Lord and Lady, Holy Pair—

  Sisters, Brothers, call them here!”

  “We call Him Lugos!” cried the Druids. “Lord of Light!” Behind them, the younger men began to hum.

  “We call Her Rigantona, Great Queen!” the priestesses replied from across the circle. Teleri opened her throat to support them with a note that was a third higher than the one the Druids sang.

  More names followed. Teleri heard them as bursts of illumination, dazzling the senses. She sensed power building around the priests who stood on the other side of the altar stone, and felt an answering energy gathering among the priestesses.

  Once more Dierna stepped forth, lifting her hands. As she spoke, Teleri felt the words resonating in her own throat, and knew the High Priestess spoke for them all.

  “I am the Sea of Space and Primal Night,

  I am the womb of Darkness and of Light;

  I am the formless flux, eternal rest,

  Matrix from which all matter manifests;

  I am the Cosmic Mother, the Great Deep,

  Whence life emerges and returns to sleep….”

  Ceridachos stepped forward to stand facing her, on the other side of the altar stone. Teleri blinked, for in the face of the old man she saw now a youth and a warrior, a father and a healer, radiant with power. And when he answered the priestess, she heard a multitude of voices resonating with his own.

  “I am the Wind of Time, eternal Day,

  I am the staff of life, I am the Way;

  I am the Word of Power, the primal spark,

  Igniting act and motion in its arc;

  I am the Cosmic Father, radiant rod,

  Source of energy, the seed of God!”

  Dierna held out her hand above the kindling that had been laid upon the altar stone. “From my womb—”

  “By my will—” said the Druid, reaching out so their hands were not quite touching. Teleri blinked, seeing a shimmer in the air between their palms.

  “The Light of Life appears!” Priest and priestess spoke in unison, and the intricately crossed sticks burst suddenly into flame.

  “So burns the Holy Fire!” cried the Druid. “Now is the triumph of the light—in this moment we claim its power. By the union of our forces we shall keep that light burning through the darkest hours, and so we shall have victory.”

  “This fire shall be a beacon, a light to be seen throughout the lands,” said Dierna. “Let it summon to us a Defender, to keep Britannia in peace and safety!” From the fire she plucked a flaming brand.

  “Let it be so!” responded the priest. He too took a burning stick and held it high.

  One by one the Druids and priestesses took sticks from the fire, extending their lines to either side until the central blaze was surrounded by a circle of flame, as if the sun which blazed in glory overhead had sent down his rays to inflame those who stood below.

  Teleri, gazing upward, shaded her eyes against the radiance of the sky. Then she rubbed them, for a black speck was moving across the blue. Others had seen it—they pointed, then fell silent in wonder as they realized it was an eagle, beating steadily up from the south and the sea. Closer and closer it drew, until she could see it clearly, as if the bird were being drawn by the flames.

  Now it was overhead. The eagle dropped downward, circled three times above the altar, and then once more ascended, spiraling upward into the heavens until it became one with the light.

  Blinded, Teleri shut her eyes, but behind her lids the image of the great bird still danced against the blaze of the sun. The eagle flew free—why did she feel as if it had escaped the compulsion of the fire only to be trapped by the sun? It must be her own fancy that made her think so, she told herself as she followed the other maidens down from the Tor, for if the freedom of the wild eagle of the heights was an illusion, what could be truly free?

  For a moment then a memory from before this lifetime hinted at the paradox of a freedom that could exist only as part of a greater pattern, but the mind that knew itself as Teleri could not comprehend it, and, like the eagle, in another moment the insight had disappeared.

  Chapter Eleven

  “It is good to see you—we had almost given you up after that storm.” Maximian Augustus looked up from his wax tablets and smiled.

  Carausius stiffened to attention, his forearm slapping across his chest in salute. He had not expected to find the junior Emperor in Gesoriacum. Throughout the West, Maximian, stocky and grizzled and beginning to thicken in the belly, carried the imperium. Almost twenty years of service had conditioned Carausius to respond as if Diocletian himself were in the room.

  “The gods favored me,” he answered. “One of my ships was lost, but the other managed to return to Dubris. I myself was blown down-Channel and lucky to make Clausentum before I went onto the rocks or out to sea.”

  “You were indeed. But the gods love a man who will fight even when hope seems gone. You have luck, Carausius, and that is rarer even than skill. We would have been sorry to lose you.”

  Maximian waved at him to sit, and the other, younger man in the room relaxed as well. A glance was enough to identify him as regular Army—the erect posture, as if he were wearing an invisible breastplate over his tunic, was unmistakable. He was half a head taller than Carausius himself, with yellow hair that was beginning to thin.

  “You know Constantius Chlorus, I assume?” the Emperor went on.

  “Only by reputation,” said Carausius.

  Constantius had been popular when he served in Britannia. Rumor had it that he had taken a native woman as his permanent concubine. Since then he had won several notable engagements on the German border. Carausius looked at the other man more carefully as Constantius smiled, his face for a moment open and unguarded as a boy’s. Then the control snapped down again. An idealist, thought Carausius, who has learned to hide his soul. Such men could be useful friends—or dangerous enemies.

  And how did he himself appear? With hair faded by years at sea, and skin weathered to brown, he supposed he must seem no different from many another sea-dog, unless some reflection of the vision he had seen during the storm still lingered in his eyes.

  “You’ll be happy to know that the cargoes from those raiders you captured last month have brought a good sum,” said Maximian. “You keep telling me that we need another base on the southern coast…. A few more victories like this one will win the funds you need.”

  There was an odd expectance in his smile. Carausius frowned, aware of something strange in the wording. The gods knew he had argued for this long enough, but he had had little hope of being heard.

  “Who will command it?” he asked carefully.

  “Whom would you recommend?” said the Emperor. “The choice will be yours, Carausius—I’m giving you the Britannic fleet and the forts of the Saxon Shore.”

  He must have blinked then, for even Constantius began to grin. But Carausius scarcely saw him; abruptly his vision was filled by the
image of the woman in white, walking upon the waves.

  “Now, we will need to coordinate your dispositions on both sides of the Channel,” Maximian said briskly. “What forces would you like, and how would you allot them? I can’t promise you everything you ask for, but I will try—”

  Carausius took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus on the man before him.

  “First of all, we need the new base. There’s a good harbor that could be fortified on the coast below Clausentum. The Island of Vectis shelters it, and it could be supplied from Venta Belgarum.” As he spoke, the image of the woman faded, to be replaced by dreams that had come as he paced the deck of a liburnian on the long Channel crossings.

  Teleri had not wanted to leave Avalon. When Dierna had chosen her shortly after Midsummer as part of her escort for this journey, she had protested. But by the time their journey brought them to Venta Belgarum, she could no longer pretend a lack of interest. The old capital of the Belgae lay in a gentle valley with green water-meadows and noble stands of trees. After the marshes around the Tor, she found the rich earth beneath her feet solid and reassuring. There was a feeling of quiet assurance here, of permanence different in quality from the ancient echoes she sensed in Avalon, as if things had rarely changed. Despite the market-day bustle in the town, she found Venta relaxing.

  The priestesses had been offered hospitality by the Duovir Quintus Julius Cerialis, most prominent of the local magistrates, who was in fact a descendant of the old royal house. Not that one would have known it by looking at him. Portly and complacent, Cerialis was more Roman than the Romans. He spoke Latin by preference, and Teleri, who had been brought up to speak it as well as the British tongue, was often asked to translate for the younger of the priestesses who had come with them, Adwen and Crida. Even Dierna sometimes requested her assistance, for, although the High Priestess understood the language of the Romans well, her command of its subtleties was not always sufficient for really formal occasions.