I was near a hilltop and the trees stopped some distance before I reached the pool. It was a basin of broken rock. I couldn’t reach the water from this side because the slope was almost a vertical drop into the pool. Not unless I wanted to take a swim, I couldn’t. I saw I would have to circle the pool and go to the other side, where a strip of sandy beach allowed access to the water.
Why didn’t I get up and go? Why did I find myself crouching like a mouse among the boulders?
When I tried to rise to my feet, every instinct in me screamed with alarm.
To this day, this very hour, I cannot for the life of me tell what warned me. And it was the life of me the warning saved.
Just then a small herd of deer broke cover. Their antlers were still in velvet, two spike bucks and a four-pointer.
The four-pointer, a little older and more confident, dropped his head to drink first, while his two companions looked around nervously.
I never saw where it came from. It was just there, looming up in the darkness over the four-pointer. Its talons closed on the deer’s throat.
The spike bucks took flight, and I do mean flight. You have no idea how far and fast a deer can leap when it’s frightened. They went into the air, then into the center of the pool. It must have been shallow, because they bounded, pushing off from the bottom, up and over the rocks where I lay concealed. One cloven hoof caught me near the right shoulder blade. I didn’t feel it at the time. I found the hoof-shaped black-and-blue mark on my back the next day. And then they were gone.
All I remember at the time was being horribly afraid the thing might chase them and find me!
But no—the four-pointer seemed enough for it.
I saw the deer die; horrible panic glowed in its eyes for a second as its throat was crushed. But then the thing’s jaws tore its throat out and it died.
A second later the thing was gone, vanished into the dense screen of bushes and birch that clothed the other side of the pool.
For a long time I lay there shaking. I felt no thirst, and even the icy morning air didn’t seem to touch me. I just lay there, grateful to be alive. Grateful that I hadn’t circled the pool and gone to the other side to get a drink before the deer got there.
Then a small miracle happened. Most take no note of it, since it happens every day. It is called dawn. Where moments before darkness reigned, I suddenly found I could see, though the world remained wrapped in gray shadow. Then slowly colors began to emerge among the gloomy shapes hiding in the shadows.
The first is brown tree trunks, branches, the scattered shapes of dead leaves that floor the forest. Then green marks out leaves, foliage clustered on the boughs, the tall stems of cattails standing stately at the pool’s edge, water lily pads … and she was there.
I saw her by the first light, gray-green and glowing with the faint ground mist. The Flower Bride. At first I thought her only a thick growth of blackberry vines circling an ancient willow growing near the falls. Her skin was the delicate white flower petals of the spring-blooming vine, the long trailing branches of the willow her hair.
The other stood like the glowing quince tree. This one reclined as did the cruel thorny vines. And again I looked into her loving eyes.
“The pool is not defiled,” I whispered.
She didn’t reply. I’m not sure she could. They are woven into the warp and weft of the universe. Their time is not ours. To them each morning is the first morning. Each spring is the first and again the last the world knows. That is why no man foolish enough to love one ever survives. He is always betrayed, even if he be perchance a god. She will leave him and his heart will break in adoration and longing.
The white flower petals that were her face, neck, and breasts stirred as the first breath of morning breeze moved the fragile stems. Her eyes spoke; they rested on the ground mist coalescing in silvery wisps on a path leading away from the pool—downhill in the growing light.
Two choices. Wiggle away through the forest to my deep-water friend. Flee. Very, very tempting.
Do as the Flower Bride suggested. Challenge my fate. I was doomed to be a scullion, running about the kitchen being badgered by a cook, a lower servant in a great hall, helping prepare feasts I would never taste. Or the second or even more minor wife of a great chief. Bowing humbly to my betters and raising such children as my husband would allow me to bring up, to respect their father.
No, when I refused the curse of the Lord of the Dead and insulted the British queen in her own hall, I had chosen. And I’d best take the path.
My stomach muscles were quivering with fear, my arms and legs numb with cold. Waiting, I thought, will not help matters. At least the deer never knew what hit it. I hope if that is my fate, the same holds true for me.
Warrior’s choice. Go!
I ran for the trail that led downhill in the increasing gray light. Fatigue forgotten, I flew down the path. It seemed I knew by instinct where to put my feet.
The birches at the side of the path gave way to pines, then squat, thick-bunched oaks as it curved downhill. When I came to open pasture silvered by the ground mist, I began to slow. I ventured a glance back over my shoulder and saw nothing was chasing me.
I slowed to a walk.
Ahead I saw a farmhouse. I recognized the style. It was round, the roof a thatched cone reaching almost to the ground.
But I knew no one builds such a house any longer. Its center pole was an oak, a gigantic old specimen. The branches towered over the roof, the thick leaf bundles looking like green clouds.
The thatched roof was alive, also. It was covered with low-growing soft wheat. Soft wheat is a hot, dry-country plant. It doesn’t make bread flour but when mixed with water makes dumplings. The wheat was still grass colored and hadn’t begun to head up. On the house roof, it was in the sun, away from the damp ground that would ruin it.
The fields were a mixed crop: oats, rye, wheat, and barley. Few farmers plant barley now. But the old people did as the poor even now in the land of the Picts, the Caledonians, do. For barley will thrive probably as well as oats when it is too wet and cold for wheat. A mixed crop will always give you something, even if it is a bad year.
To one side of the house another round building, more lightly built than the big house, did duty for cows, sheep, chickens, and geese. Pigs, then as now, were left to forage in the forest.
It had a hearth in the center, because a faint curl of pale smoke rose from the hole in the roof.
I walked in. There were really no doors; the walls were only a lattice of wattle and daub. A woman and a cow occupied the center of the room, the warmest place close to the hearth. The moment I saw her I knew who she was.
I hunkered down on my heels near the hearth. The cow was in labor and seemed close to her time. The woman was giving her water from a pail.
“Greetings and well met, my lady. I am like the cow, thirsty. Also tired, hungry, and cold.”
“To be sure,” the woman answered. And then without another word, she went to the cow’s udder and drew a large cup of milk.
Milk straight from a cow is not usually the finest beverage. It can have a rather strong odor, but this was good—warm, sweet, and delightful. Also uncommonly thick with cream.
I drank and felt the warmth fill my body, creeping down my arms and legs to fingers and toes. When I emptied the first cup, she obligingly filled another.
Across the room the chickens and geese made soft poultry sounds as they awakened and began to pick among their straw bedding. One hen strutted toward the door.
“No, my child,” the woman said. “It is too early. The hawks will be on the hunt.”
The chicken turned and went back to the nest.
I emptied the cup a second time and handed it back to her. I felt much better—revived.
“You have not eaten,” she said.
“No,” and I was about to add, no, thanks to you, but I decided I’d best keep a civil tongue in my head. It’s not every day one has the privilege of meetin
g a goddess.
But she answered me, anyway.
“Yes, you had better be on your best behavior. And no, it isn’t. Besides, I was a friend to you. I sent the deer. So you are not correct. I did offer you help when you needed it.”
“I can’t think the buck felt much gratitude for your assistance,” I said.
“ ‘Pert,’ the devious British queen was right about that—if nothing else. You are. And I will have you know when the buck stands before me—and he has as much right to do so as you have—I will owe him a favor.”
“What was that thing?” I asked.
“He, for it is a he, is the servant of a man—should I call him a man? He isn’t human. But in the interest of clarity in dealing with you, I will. ‘Man’ is the best usage for my purposes. This man wanted, still wants, to possess the sacred spring. It has, as its guardian implies, special powers. He placed that creature there long ago.”
“To protect it?” I asked.
“No!” She sounded annoyed. “It needs no protection. The Flower Bride is her own best guardian. He put the vile thing there to drive all visitors away. When the king came to perform the proper rites, he was attacked and driven away.”
“The king,” I said, “is the destined husband of the Flower Bride.” Then, “That’s wrong.”
“Yes. Why do you think I’m here? He was not only driven away but also his eldest son was killed and his wife injured. A great grief has entered the hearts of my people. They shun this king and his family. They fled, leaving them here alone. They believe the land is under a curse.”
I rose. I was warmer now. I went and sat on a milking stool near the hearth.
She made a gesture and the fire blazed. It warmed me.
“I can’t believe,” I told her, “that I am summoned here for no purpose.”
She chuckled. The cow gave a bellow and the calf presented. I started to rise.
“Don’t be foolish,” she said. “I am midwife to all living things.” A second later the calf shot out into the straw.
The cow knew her duty. She turned and began to lick away the caul.
She wasn’t disposed to worry about the afterbirth. It vanished in a puff of steam, leaving the cow to wash her offspring in peace and then nudge it toward an udder.
“You want me to kill it, don’t you?” I asked.
She directed a brilliant smile at me. “Yes.”
“I will need some steel,” I said.
“These people are strangers to iron,” she said. “They have bronze. It is, however, excellent. The axes are, at least.”
“With an ax,” I said, “I would never get close enough.”
“Unfortunately, true,” she admitted regretfully, as she stroked the cow’s rump, its rather bony rump. It was clear the beast was a milk cow. It gazed at her adoringly and I noticed all the effects of calf’s birth had vanished and the structures under the tail through which the calf (a she, by the way) had passed were back to their normal size and shape.
“I have,” I told her, “not the slightest idea how to accomplish that feat. But if the wonder tales Kyra told me are any indication, I will think of something. I suppose I must enter your service. The tales are explicit about that, also.”
“That is correct,” she answered.
“A year and a day?” I asked.
“You won’t be here that long,” was her answer.
I mulled this over while I fixed the breakfast for the family. When we entered the hall, it was obvious the family was still abed. It was, as I have said, like the stable, round.
She opened the doors—there were four of them as is customary in a noble house, one facing in each direction. We stood together enjoying the morning breeze, looking out over the green and gold countryside.
“I’m not presentable,” I said.
“You will be,” was her answer. She touched my head and my hair arranged itself into a coil at my neck. Then she reached out and plucked a spiderweb from the corner of one of the doors. It became a silken snood and arranged itself over my hair.
She stepped back to contemplate the effect. “You are beautiful,” she said darkly. “Just as well you won’t be here long. They have another son, not to mention that the chief himself, once free of his first grief, would cast covetous eyes upon you, thinking you would make him a fine second wife.”
“The dress,” I said. “This thing is a rag.” As indeed it was. The sleeve that once covered my right arm hung in shreds and the cloth was stained and dirty from my travels.
“Umm,” she said. “Needs work.”
I unwrapped the flowers from my waist. They were secure in their cloth packet. She scented them.
“Ah, that fragrance. They are long gone from the world of living things, but they were, in their time, one of the fairest offerings of creation. Tell me, why did you gather them?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Instinct. They were wonderful, not just the looks, the fragrance. It is human, I think, when we encounter the marvelous to try to bring away some of it with us.”
“Abad and good thing about your kind.” She nodded.
“I did them no harm,” I protested. “There were plenty of flowers.”
“Yes, I can see that,” she said, then touched the dress.
The torn, smudged, filthy shift vanished. I found myself wearing a soft green dress. It was simply made, two pieces of linen cloth stitched together at the shoulders and sides with holes for the arms and head. But it was fine cloth, it had a nice drape and I looked well in it. It hung to just below my knees and was cinched at the waist with a leather belt ornamented with bronze knots.
“Keep the flowers,” she said. “They have many powers, not the least of which is truth.”
“Truth,” I said. “Truth, is it? Well, the truth is I could better use a strong spear with an iron spade blade and an iron throwing ax. Fancy clothes are well and good, but I need weapons more.”
“Yes? Well, I need a powerful six-foot man covered in scale mail with a long bronze sword. Fair maidens are well and good, but this job wants more strength than you have.”
“Since you can do all these wonderful things, why can’t you kill this monster yourself?” I asked.
She sniffed. “It is warded against me. And flies through my weapons as if they were made of air. I could not help any of the people here when they were first attacked.”
“Do they know who you are?” I asked.
“She knows,” was the answer, “the wife. I said I was her sister. She has no sister. The rest accepted my story.”
With its door open, the hall was cooler now. And I saw it was a proper chief’s residence. Round, as I have said, with an oak, a massive tree in the center.
The hearth was near the massive oak tree but far enough away from it so that the tree was not harmed. It was on a stone platform on a stone floor.
But surrounding the center hearth was a wooden floor that extended out to stone walls that supported the conical roof. They were whitewashed and, as is customary, covered with wall hangings. These were not the fiery red, bronze, black, and orange designs of the highlands, but were colored pale yellow and green shading away to blue and brown with touches of gray and even black.
“They,” she said, “are of the rich farmland in the valleys, filled with trees and meadows covered by moist, dark earth. Their hearts are more quiet than yours are, less filled with strife and trouble. He must wed his Flower Bride or the land will fall to waste and ruin.”
“The dragon?” I asked. “He is expecting me.”
“I dealt with him. He is swimming now with a pod of gray whales, learning their songs of the ocean. At dawn—when the first light once and as it has forever transforms the water into a mirror of color and brilliance.”
I was presented to the family.
The chieftain was a tall, lean, faintly blond man. His shoulder and arm had been badly slashed. His eyes were pools of sorrow. I remembered I had seen the carrion birds circling a high stone platform
near the coast. His son had perished.
I bowed. “My lord,” I said.
“This is Risderd,” she said.
He extended his left hand. “I fear,” he said, “I am not fitted to receive guests.” He was on his back on the bed platform. His wife lay beside him.
“She, my Aine, is sleeping now. She was in much pain last night. I beg you, let her be for now.”
“Certainly,” I said very softly. “And I am no guest but have the honor of being your servant, for the present.”
“A well-bred girl,” he whispered to my lady.
“Indeed,” she answered. “I was not mistaken in her.”
The second son—he could have been no more than ten—was sleeping in the enclosure next to his parents. He had a terrible bruise on his forehead and one cheek. He was weeping.
“My brother,” he said. “We slept together. I woke and reached for the spot where he lay. But he is gone.”
I eased out of the portion of the house where they slept and returned to the hearth. Strange to say, I was familiar with the equipment. A quern, trivets, a stone for kneading, and a bronze pot. One difference. Kyra and I baked our bread on a hot rock. They used a clay bowl with a design in the bottom.
A clay jar with a cover held the mixture of wheat and barley. Water from the spring passed the house in the form of a brook. I found a milk jug and a crock of butter in the water, left there to keep cool.
I ground the grain, no little chore that, but the quern was a good one and the work went quickly.
I made a porridge with milk and butter as I do at home, the only difference being there was more wheat in the mixture here, this being good farmland, not like the cold, foggy, rainy climate of the highlands. I put the porridge on the coals to cook and then assayed bread making.
A pair of very small, warm, soft arms wound themselves around my neck. The little arms didn’t startle or frighten me. I remembered “the lady” said there was another child. The little girl smelled like warm bread and sleep.
“Did my aunt send for you?” she asked.
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