What was in that drink? I blinked hard, trying to focus my vision. I opened the door a crack and peered out.
A disembodied light floated toward the cottage, flickering in and out as it weaved through the leafless trees. I held my breath. My heart galloped, my palm sweaty as it gripped the iron latch. The radiant orb stopped as if suddenly anchored to the earth yet hovering above it. An ethereal figure dressed in white robes moved in the blackness, its gauzy silhouette undulating in the otherworldly light. Surely it must be Muirgen. Leaning against the wall, I shuffled back a step in case it wasn’t. Muirgen had been wearing her green kirtle and a dark cloak when she left. I wanted to admonish myself for my foolishness, but couldn’t quite manage it. Instead I closed the door quickly and practically crawled back to the stool.
Reconsidering my options, I snatched my sword from my belt and laid it beside me. I wasn’t sure it would be much use against spirits of the dead, but if there really were faeries or mystical creatures wandering about, I would be ready. The latch turned, and I gripped the hilt a little too tightly. Would the dead not just float through the door? What need did they have for locks and handles? I swallowed, willing my imagination to settle, shaking my head, desperate to clear it. The door opened and a swish of white robes billowed into the room as the wind gusted. I may have stood, possibly even taken a step backward. The robes vanished, the doorway empty. I craned my neck to look around the frame in time to catch the outstretched hand of an old woman beckoning. I didn’t dare move.
She stepped fully into the room, a wraith of a thing, the white robes flowing around her thin body, her face pale and wan in the faint candlelight. A cloak of white ermine draped from her bony shoulders. She wore her silver hair garlanded like mine, the roses bloodred in contrast.
Her voice startled me. “It is time. Come, child.”
Did the dead talk? Was she one of the fae sent to lead me to my death?
“Do not be afraid.” The apparition wavered, and a small child stood before me, her smile welcoming. I took her outstretched hand.
I followed the girl as she weaved through the trees, her footfalls silent as mine crunched over fallen leaves. She stopped just within the torch’s light, the warm glow highlighting the soft cheekbones and gentle eyes of a woman, her beauty luminous, as pure and fresh as the morning dew. She pointed. Beyond the first torch lay another, and another, illuminating a narrow path.
“Where does it—” I turned but she was gone. A violent shiver passed through my body as if I had been hit by a cold gust, yet the trees did not move. I spun on my heels, trying to determine the way back to the cottage, but the whole world flexed and coalesced, light and dark playing and turning in my mind. Panic seized me.
“What’s wrong?” Muirgen’s eyes looked deep into mine. “Come, we’re almost there.”
Had she been there all along? Had I just imagined the apparition? I didn’t trust myself to speak and followed blindly, clinging to her hand.
Shadows danced, the mist ebbed and flowed, breathing, opening onto eternity, swirling around my feet, grounding me, lifting me. Time stopped and Muirgen followed, her movement halting. Torches encircled a pool of water. A rushing brook cascading over rocks burbled downhill just beyond the wreath of stones protecting the pool’s shelter. I stepped closer, drawn by the shimmering surface, the moon’s silvery light shivering as if from a lover’s touch. I reached out, trying to catch it, but came up empty, droplets sluicing through my fingers.
Muirgen helped me forward, and I stood in the center of the pool, water lapping around my thighs, my dress billowing bloodred in the inky blackness. In the cradle of my arms she placed a large tray, burgeoning with acorns, seeds, apples, jars of milk, and honey on a bed of dried greenery and flower petals.
She raised her hands heavenward and walked the circle of stones, stepping from one smooth surface to the next. “In the name of the one true Goddess, I cast this circle.
“Aine, Goddess of Winter, Graceful Swan, Innocent Maiden, I welcome you. Winds of the North, Darkness of Days, Ice and Snow, embrace Avelynn. Guide her on her journey so that she might honor you as high priestess in all her words, thoughts, and deeds.
“Macha, Goddess of Spring, Noble Horse, Sovereign Queen, I welcome you. Fire of the East, Promise of Plenty, Seeds and Furrows, embrace Avelynn. Guide her on her journey so that she might honor you as high priestess in all her words, thoughts, and deeds.”
I tried to impart every word, but no sooner had she spoken them than they drifted like smoke from a candle, light and tenuous until they dissipated into air. I should have been cold standing in the water, the wind gusting through the skeletal trees, but I felt cocooned, bathed in a warm light.
“Danu, Goddess of Summer, Abundant Calf, Plentiful Sow, Regal Mother, I welcome you. Rock of the South, Deliverer of Abundance, Earth and Womb, embrace Avelynn. Guide her on her journey so that she might honor you as high priestess in all her words, thoughts, and deeds.”
I fell to my knees, the tray slipping from my hands. I stared at my reflection in the tranquil water. My face shimmered in the moon’s glow. An acorn bobbed out of sight.
“Badb, Goddess of Autumn, Wise Raven, Loyal Wolf, Noble Crone, I welcome you. Spirit of the West, Battle’s Messenger, Decay and Restoration, embrace Avelynn. Guide her on her journey so that she might honor you as high priestess in all her words, thoughts, and deeds.”
She began to sing, a soulful keening that stirred my heart as it raised the hairs on my arms. I tried to push myself out of the water but failed, my limbs grown heavy, my head fogged.
An insistent voice called to me, summoning me, pulling me away from my silent contemplation as I studied the distorted image of my fingers rippling under the smooth surface of the pool. “Avelynn.”
I looked up, unable to focus on Muirgen’s face, which seemed to blend and blur, becoming all at once young and old.
“Do you accept the title of high priestess?”
I managed to press out the words “I do,” though they sounded distant and strange to my ears.
“Do you promise to keep your faith, honoring the Goddess above all others?”
“I do.” I braced my hands against one of the stones.
“Then so shall it be.”
I heard a calf bleating, and then all was silent. There was blood. Everywhere blood. I was anointed. I bathed in it. I swam in the bloodred water, my dress mixing and merging with the elixir of life. I beseeched. I cried. Chanting. A great fire blazed. Howling. The moon descending. Flames rippling, distorted underwater. My breath taken. Air. Water. Blood. Fire. Earth.
Then all was darkness.
* * *
“Good morning.” Muirgen held a cup in front of her, offering.
I closed my eyes, wanting nothing more than to burrow back under the covers. “I am not drinking any more of your noxious potions ever again.”
“This is mead, nothing more.”
I groaned and sat up, listing a little to the right. “What did you give me?”
“An ancient tonic to help open you to the divine.”
Split open would have been more appropriate. My head felt as though Mjölnir pounded inside, Thunor himself wielding the mystical hammer. I took a tentative sip of the drink, testing, swirling it around my mouth before swallowing. Satisfied it tasted like mead, without a hint of anything nefarious, I took a liberal mouthful.
She laid her hand on my shoulder. “You are a high priestess now, Avelynn, a sacred gatekeeper of our faith. Guard your heart and your secrets well. I see great challenges ahead. Your will be tested, but you must persevere. Use your gifts wisely.”
I started to sweat, from the aftereffects of the ritual or her warning, I couldn’t tell. “What is it? What have you seen?”
“The Witan. You appear before them. You are standing on higher ground, but there are lampreys undulating in the water. They want your blood.”
SIXTEEN
November heralded warnings and suspicions. There were hints th
at the Vikings were preparing to move, but no one knew where or when they might attack. Despite the flurry of missives and reports burying England under parchment, I received only more silence from the Continent. I had written numerous letters to the monks of St. Denis imploring answers, but none came, nor was there any word from my father. If he had met with trouble as Demas had hinted, I had no idea of the outcome.
December brought everything to a head. As my concern for my father and brother swelled, so did Demas’s ambition. In the dread of silence, he saw opportunity. When the Witan met before the twentieth of December, Demas beat me to the strike and approached the tribunal, seeking approval to proceed with our wedding. They granted his request, giving me one night to prepare.
The ceremony was to take place in the magnificent two-story hall at Winchester. Downstairs, supplicated with a steady supply of mead and wine, the lofty men of the council waited in leisure for the wedding to finish and the business of the Witan to resume. Upstairs, King Aethelred, Wulfrida, Ealhswith, and Alfred sat at the high table. Another table along the sidewall was occupied by various clergymen, but the only one I recognized was Ealhferth, the Bishop of Winchester, whose massive swath of belly made him impossible to miss.
Wulfrida and Ealhswith had decorated the hall with swags of greenery. A huge arrangement of autumn leaves, willow branches, and feathery grasses hung suspended from the massive beams overhead. Directly beneath it stood Aldulf, the Archbishop of Canterbury, ready to join our hands in marriage. I was supposed to be honored that the archbishop was presiding over the service himself.
Demas stood on the opposite side of the hall from me. His hair was trimmed to just below his jawline, and he had grown a mustache since I saw him last. He wore a purple tunic and a pair of pale brown trousers, his legs wrapped with leather banding.
In a pale green kirtle devoid of any ornamentation, my long blond hair unadorned, I sat with my back against the wall, my hands clasped and resting on my lap. Sweat pooled cold and wet between my palms.
“Demas and Avelynn, please step forward,” Aldulf said.
We both moved, joining Aldulf in the center of the room. Deep lines fanned out from the corner of the archbishop’s eyes and the skin beneath them sagged into pouches of purple and blue. A halo of gray hairs peeked through his blond tonsure.
“Avelynn, please repeat after me: I take thee, Demas, to be my wedded husband; to have and to hold; at bed and at board; for fairer, for fouler; for better, for worse; in sickness, in health; till death us do part.”
“No.”
Aldulf’s gray-blue eyes blinked. “No?”
“I refuse to marry this man.”
Moments before, the hall had buzzed with the sounds of revelers below, but as word of my declaration spread, a heavy hush settled around me. The wood floor creaked beneath our weight. Shuffling and stomping followed as ravenous spectators ascended the stairs, their ears tuned to succulent scraps.
I knew it would come to this. From the moment Aine had planted the idea in my mind, it was only a matter of time before the thought blossomed into reality. When Alrik told me he couldn’t take me away from England, I knew what had to be done. I was tired of running, of blindly accepting my fate.
Muirgen’s warning had been fortuitous. It had given me the time I’d needed to prepare. I was ready. The day of reckoning had come. “I wish to exercise my right to terminate my engagement.”
“On what charge?” Aldulf asked.
“On the charge that my bridegroom is a sodomite.”
The momentarily silent hall erupted into sentiments of shock, outrage, and disbelief.
King Aethelred stood. “Silence!” he barked, and then turned to me. “This is a serious charge, Mistress Avelynn.”
“I know, my lord.”
He looked at Demas. “What say you to this charge?”
“I firmly deny it, sire.”
“I have a witness,” I offered. The crowd began to hum with speculation.
Demas narrowed his eyes at me. “Mistress Avelynn has refused to marry, going against her father’s wishes for several years now. This is merely another one of her tactics. The claims are false.”
Aldulf approached the head table and bent his tonsured head to Aethelred. The two whispered in conference. Aethelred nodded and Aldulf addressed us.
“It is the lady’s right to a trial. We will reconvene the Witan and address this matter presently.”
While the men of the council sorted themselves, Ealhswith marched over and grabbed my arm, pulling me aside.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m getting out of my marriage.”
“How?”
“By proving he’s a cretin and a cur.”
“By charging him with sodomy? I know you had words, but if you go through with this you’ll ruin him.”
“Good.”
She studied me, eyes filled with concern. “What has he done?”
“Aside from binding me and threatening to rape me, you mean? I caught him with his pants down, engaging in carnal activities with another man.”
Her face paled, and she made the sign of the cross. “Jesu, Avelynn.” She looked around anxiously, her voice low. “Could we not be charged with the very same thing?”
I held her hands, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “You know where my heart lies on the matter, but his aggression and threats have left me little choice. I needed a charge strong enough for the Witan to grant me a release.” My eyes pleaded with hers for understanding. “I cannot marry him, Ealhswith. What would you have me do?”
She pulled me close. “I’m sorry. It is dreadful what he has put you through. I’d no idea things had gotten so out of hand.”
Out of the corner of my eye I caught the purple of Demas’s tunic as he pushed his way forcibly to the stairs. What was he up to? I withdrew from her embrace. “Will you stand for me and swear to my character?”
“Of course. I will support you in any way I can.”
“Thank you.” Demas disappeared from view. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to excuse me.” I slipped my hands from hers. “I’ll be right back.”
I maneuvered through the press of bodies and reached the stairs in time to see Demas step outside. The lower level was almost empty. Everyone crammed upstairs to see the spectacle first hand. I peeked out the door just as Demas slipped behind one of the outbuildings. Borrowing a heavy wool cloak that someone had left lying over one of the benches, I followed. I nodded to the guards who kept vigil over the weapons and retrieved Alrik’s knife. It was the only thing I had left of him, and I refused to hide it any longer.
I reached the building I had seen Demas disappear behind, but he was nowhere to be found. I scanned the area. He couldn’t have gone far. I might be overreacting, but the way he left the hall, the urgency in his step, made the skin on the back of my neck prickle.
I wandered the grounds until I heard voices, one of which was very loud and very angry. I followed the confrontation to a small sunken building and crouched near the window. Demas was inside. I could hear his rich Roman-accented voice raised in defense, but I didn’t recognize the other speaker. I lifted my head and tried to see inside. There was a small crack around the frame of the shutters. I closed one eye and peered into the gloom beyond. It was a weaving cottage; two large looms leaned against the wall farthest away from me. Demas was standing by the door. I couldn’t make out the man looming over him, his back to the window.
“You did what?” the man spat.
“I was drinking.”
“Drinking?” He moved so quickly, I only had time to see Demas’s reaction to the swing. Demas stumbled backward and hit the door with a loud thud.
“In Rome, teachers shared more than manuscripts with their young acolytes. It was not a sin.” Demas picked himself up off the dirt floor.
“You foolish ass,” the man hissed. “This is England. Not some cesspool of depravity. You would risk everything we have worked for.” The man turned. I slid down and
pressed my back against the wall, my heart pounding.
“I hadn’t expected to meet anyone. I made a mistake.”
“A mistake?” The voice moved away from the window, and I chanced another look.
I didn’t have to see the blow—I heard it. Demas went down like a sack of grain. Why wasn’t he fighting back? The man kicked him several times in the ribs, causing Demas to emit a grunt of pain but no resistance.
“Get up.”
Demas stood, using the wall to brace himself.
“You will do whatever is necessary to convince them of your innocence. If you fail, you will not live long enough to regret it.” He opened the door and left.
I scrambled to the back of the building and peered around the corner as the man made his way to the hall. He was a tall, thickly built man with wavy blond hair and wide shoulders. He wore a red tunic, his waist cinched by a thick leather belt. It would certainly be easy enough to determine who he was once we were all back inside.
I glanced back at the window of the weaving shed. The council would be assembled by now and wondering where we were. I couldn’t leave until Demas was gone. I couldn’t risk getting caught listening.
When Demas finally stepped outside, his face was red, and a line of blood clung to his chin, dripping from the side of his mouth. He wiped his face, straightened his tunic, and walked a little gingerly to the hall.
“What are you doing lurking about?” a woman’s voice chastised me.
I spun around, startled, but relaxed when I saw Muirgen.
“When did you get here?”
“Just now.”
“But I didn’t hear you.” I regarded the stables behind me.
“I suspect you were otherwise preoccupied.”
“Yes, I guess I was.” I watched Demas disappear into the hall. “Are you ready?”
Avelynn Page 19