Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword of Avalon

by Diana L. Paxson

  “Goddess,” she whispered. “Enjoy your lovely white garment, but send our men home safely, and soon.”

  It was a bitter truth that from their danger came their safety, for if travel on the moors was hazardous even with the clansman Curlew for their guide, it was certain that no enemy could attack them. And this corner of the country was rich in ancestral spirits, who haunted the standing stones they had left behind them, each capped now with its own helmet of snow. A league to the north stood the barrow of the Three Queens—the ancient Mothers who still watched over the land. It was a place where the power of the Goddess was strong. And it lay beside the current of power that ran from the tip of Belerion all the way through Avalon and across the land.

  Another gust of wind sent a cold draft up her back. It was time to go home.

  MIKANTOR SAID FAREWELL TO Pelicar and ducked into the angled entry of the house he shared with Tirilan, silently praising the ingenuity of the original builders, who had put all their entrances facing downhill to help with drainage, away from the prevailing wind. Behind him he heard the shouts as those who had stayed welcomed the others. He paused, gathering his resolution to face her. Living with her over these past months had made him acutely aware of her as a physical being, and his body responded accordingly, and yet he could never forget that she was a priestess, bound by her vows. He stamped the snow from his feet and hung his cape of tightly woven natural wool on a hook beneath the overhang before pushing past the hide that curtained the door.

  “Did the meeting go well?” Tirilan looked up as he came in. She was mending one of his tunics. His breath caught as he saw how the flicker of the fire burnished the smooth planes of her face and her shining hair.

  He shrugged off his sheepskin coat and hung it up. Fingers and feet were beginning to throb in the warmth of the room.

  “Lycoren seems to be reliable, and he hates Galid. When we come down from the moors in the spring he has promised to join us with his band.”

  The Ai-Akhsi leader was the third chieftain who had made his way to this wilderness to pledge his support. The queens and their war leaders were still preserving an official neutrality, but word of the Running of the Deer had spread among the people. By spring, Mikantor might find himself leading a small army.

  “I expect you could use something hot right now. I have a bag of yarrow tea steeping in the cooking hole—I’ll just put in another rock to bring it to a boil.” She set the tunic aside and with a deft flick slid the tines of an antler under the round piece of granite that had been heating among the coals. Another practiced twist dropped it hissing into the water that filled the stone-lined depression by the hearth, one of the amenities the long-dead builders of this place had left behind.

  “I went up to the tor this morning,” she observed, dipping up tea and filling one of the clay beakers they had brought with them. “The view was wonderful. This land is hard, but there is beauty here.”

  “Beauty, and fear,” he agreed. “On the way back, Curlew was telling us about the spirits of the moors. I’m not sure whether he meant to warn or frighten us. He says there’s a monstrous black dog that can run a man down.”

  “That sounds like the demon Guayota about whom they have such tales among the tribes,” she replied. “Old Kiri used to tell us some truly scary stories—”

  As Tirilan continued to talk, he took the beaker and sat down on the sleeping ledge, casting a surreptitious glance behind him. The sheepskins and blankets in which they slept were arranged, as always, in two neat piles. He sighed and stretched out his feet toward the fire. The men all assumed that he was sleeping with her, and the best way to protect her seemed to be to let them think so. But she took such pains to avoid any show of flesh that might arouse him, he had no reason to believe she would welcome his advances. Living with her day by day, he had finally come to understand that he loved her as much as he did Velantos. But he understood the smith. Tirilan was still a mystery. They had left Anderle behind, he thought bitterly, but her daughter was still bound by Avalon’s rules.

  TIRILAN SHIVERED AS THE roof beams flexed to another gust of wind. The houses were sturdy, with a rubble filling between two shells of stone slabs and a lining of wooden planks or sheepskins to insulate them within. The walls had been easy to repair. It was only the roofs that were a problem, for poles long enough to attain the proper pitch were hard to come by on the moors. There were spirits in that wind, she thought grimly, whose icy fingers plucked at the bindings to spin the thatch away.

  The moon that followed Midwinter had brought one storm after another, swirling drifts man-high in one place, while others were swept bare, hiding the shape of the land even from those who knew it well. Stocks of food and fuel were getting low. Some of the men muttered that they should have stayed in the marshes, where they might be wet, but at least they would not freeze. She broke off a corner from the slab of peat and eased it into the fire, then picked up her spindle once more. Her fingers were almost too cold to grasp the wool, though she was already wearing every garment she owned, but she would not use more fuel while she sat here alone.

  Mikantor and most of the other men were out there somewhere, searching for Pelicar and Romen, who had gone out to hunt that morning and had not returned. One could hope that the freezing weather had also hardened the surface of the bogs, but there were a hundred other ways a man could die in this land. They had been gone for so long! She yanked more wool from her basket and loosely joined it to the end of the fiber that dangled from her spindle.

  She felt her fingers warm as she wound the thread around the shaft and hooked the rest over the end, pulled out the wool with one hand and with the other gave it a spin, letting the spindle’s weight pull the loose mass of fiber through her fingers into a twisting strand until it neared the floor and she repeated the process once more.

  As she worked she began to hum, shutting out everything but the hypnotic twirl of the spindle, the flicker of the fire. Twirling and winding, feeding in new wool and beginning again, vision blurred until it seemed to her that she was spinning flame. The Three Queens were sometimes called spinners. What did they spin? The image of the barrow formed among the coals, and she glimpsed three shapes that bent and hummed, spinning glistening threads from the flowing streams of light that swirled across the land.

  “I spin out all the deeds that have been . . .” sang one.

  “I spin what is happening . . .” sang the next, “my thread has no end . . .”

  “From your threads I twist what shall be,” came the voice of the third queen.

  “And I break it, and twine it into the past once more,” the first replied.

  “Each life a strand, across the land, I take in hand . . .” together they sang. “If you would see, whatever must be, hark unto me . . .”

  Lives . . . thought Tirilan, watching those clever fingers. “Whose lives are you spinning now?” her spirit cried.

  “Would you join us?” called the third queen. “Can you see the lifelines of those who struggle through the storm?”

  As she stared, Tirilan realized that lines of light were twisting through the glowing landscape before her. Some were bright, some fading. Some of them flickered away as she touched them while others came easily to her hand. One by one she gathered them, smoothing and straightening, drawing them in. “Come—” she whispered. “This is the way home—”

  She never knew how much time had passed when the sound of shouting broke through the howling of the wind. A gust set the ashes swirling as the door flap was unpegged and thrust aside. She rose to her feet, shocked back to the present with a suddenness that set her temples to pounding. Mikantor stood in the doorway, eyes as wide as her own. She looked down and saw her spindle abandoned on the floor. But her fingers were still moving, still twining the lines of light that streamed into her hands from the remains of the fire.

  Only the discipline of long training kept her from falling. She drew a deep breath. “Are all returned?”

  Mikanto
r nodded.

  Tirilan let out her breath in a long sigh, then bent and very carefully released the fire.

  “We found them,” Mikantor said hoarsely. “Romen had stepped in a hole and broken his leg, and Pelicar was trying to carry him. He kept falling. By the time Beniharen stumbled over them, he couldn’t get up again. . . . He’s a long lad to carry, is Pelicar, but we managed. Banur’s bones, it was cold!”

  “Get those clothes off. You’re wet through—” Tirilan interrupted him. Except for two spots of red on his cheekbones his skin was corpse pale. She tugged off his cape and the sheepskin coat, wrapped a blanket around him, and pushed him down on the edge of the sleeping ledge, resisting the compulsion to throw her arms around him and force her warmth into him. She had to keep moving or she would faint with the relief of having him safe and be no use to anyone at all.

  “We made a litter with our spears, but the snow—” He shook his head. “It was blowing from every direction. No stars, no paths, no shelter. . . . And we could hear a howling that was not the wind. Curlew said the Hound was on our track—I swear Guayota was out in that storm.” He shuddered and winced as he took the beaker of ale she had kept warming by the fire. “Oh gods, I can feel my feet again—” he exclaimed as she pulled off the hide boots stuffed with straw, and the woolen leg wrappings that held them.

  They felt like ice. She pulled a sheepskin with the fleece still on from the bed and set it beneath them. Only now could she allow herself to admit how deeply she had been afraid. Was this weakness what came of love? Was this why her mother had denied her own feelings so long and well?

  “We were lost. I thought I would never see you again—” He took another gulp of ale and his shudders began to ease. “And then I felt a heat at my breast . . . I felt you calling me. . . .” His eyes moved from the fire to her face in desperate question.

  “Ssh . . . ssh . . . you must thank the Three Queens, not me. . . .” Refusing to meet his gaze, she turned away to build up the fire. “Where are Pelicar and Romen now?”

  “In Ganath’s hut.” He moved his feet on the fleece, wincing as returning circulation began to turn them from white to red.

  “I will go to them—” She reached for her cloak, fighting back the hysterical laughter. Yes, I found you. I think I saved you.Yes, I love you . . . her heart cried, but if once she gave way she would be undone. “Get the rest of your clothes off and into bed. I will be back soon.” She dared to drop a kiss on the top of his head, then slipped through the door.

  Ganath’s hut was warmer, rank with the smells of male bodies and wet wool. Most of the men had crowded into it, but they stepped back to give her room. The two rescued men lay on the sleeping ledge, wrapped in blankets. Ganath had set and splinted Romen’s leg. She ought not to have worried—he had received the same training as she. She nodded as he described what he had done for them, passing her hands above the men to sense their energy.

  “Romen is doing well,” she murmured when she was done. “He is weak from pain, but Pelicar seems more depleted.”

  “That makes sense. He was using more energy—” said Ganath.

  “Do we have any broth left? Get some into him,” she answered. She turned back to Pelicar, held her hands over his head and breast, willing power out through her palms. In a few moments he seemed to breathe more easily and she stood back, flushing as she realized that the rest of them were staring at her.

  “Did your prayers save us, Lady?” asked Acaimor.

  “Thank the gods,” she said quickly, “and the spirits of this land.” She put on her cloak once more. “Ganath has done well. Go to bed, all of you, and stay warm. I must get back now. I left Mikantor sitting by the fire—I’d best make sure he has not fallen into it.”

  She made her escape then, but could not ignore the gestures of reverence they made as she went by. Had she saved them? If so, the way of it was like nothing she had learned at Avalon. What else might she learn from the spirits of this land?

  When she got back to the house she shared with Mikantor, she found that he had crawled into his blankets still half dressed, and the fire had died down. She set in two more slabs of peat, angling them to burn more efficiently, and banked ash around them. Then she knelt on the sleeping ledge and shook Mikantor by the shoulder.

  “Wake up—we’ve got to get these wet things off you—just for a moment, my love—please!”

  He mumbled something and half sat without really waking. It was enough for her to pull the tunic over his head and snug the blanket around him as he subsided again, half curled on his side. His flesh was very white, and still cold, despite the blankets and the warmth of the hut. Too cold, she thought, chafing his long limbs. She could call for some of the other men to come and lie beside him, or she could share her own warmth, skin to skin.

  Just until he was warmer . . . Tirilan shook her head as she realized that even now she was trying to deny her desire to hold him in her arms. But whatever came after, she had been too frightened by his danger to let this opportunity go by. Swiftly she laid her own sheepskins next to his, then stripped off her garments and slid into the bed behind him, pulling the blankets over them both and tucking them in.

  I spun fire, she thought, feeling how chill his skin was against hers, surely I can call fire to warm him now. . . . She tightened her arms around him and sought inward for the core of light, with each breath willing the fire to rise within her, through her, and enclose them both in a cocoon of warmth. And it was working. . . . That deathly chill was fading from his skin, the shivers easing. The strong muscles of his back moved against her breast as he breathed. His arms lay loose beneath hers. He was warm now, warm and safe at last. With a sigh she turned her cheek against his shoulder and slid into sleep.

  TIRILAN KNEW THAT SHE was dreaming of the night in the cave, for her body was flushed and throbbing. She sighed, striving to remember past the moment when the Goddess had overwhelmed consciousness, and heard Mikantor whisper her name. That had never been in her dream. She opened her eyes and saw his features half lit by the glow of the fire. He had turned to face her, and she could feel his body trembling against hers.

  “Tirilan—” he said again, “I love you. I always have, I think, even when you were a wretched little brat teasing me. Will you let me love you? I swore I would never trouble you, but—”

  “I am not the Goddess . . .” she whispered.

  “You are a goddess to me. You carry light. I have always seen you that way. And you are a priestess, which is almost the same thing.” He shook his head with a groan.

  “Priestesses are women . . .”

  “I can feel that—” he said wryly, trying to laugh. “That’s why I dared—Tirilan, finding you in my arms, I thought I had died out there in the snow and gone to the Blessed Isles. But this is real, isn’t it?” His grip tightened. “You could not still be lying here if you did not mean to be merciful . . .” His voice failed.

  “Merciful!” She tipped back her head, trying to make out his features. “Is that what you think this is? Why in the name of all the gods would I have followed you into this wilderness if not that I love—”

  Her words were cut off by his kiss. Her arm went around his neck, and she laid her leg across his and welcomed him to her fire.

  THE CHARCOAL IN THE firebox pulsed with a fitful light that flickered across the smithy and the wicker screen Velantos had pulled across its open end. With strips of hide covering the gaps at the edges, it held the heat well enough so that beneath his broad apron of bullhide the smith was wearing only two woolen tunics instead of a mantle over three. Anderle wore a shawl over her long-sleeved tunic of fine blue wool.

  With winter, the tension between them had eased, perhaps because with cold weather the woman kept her clothes on. A shapeless mass of wrappings was less disturbing than the glimpse of arm or breast the pinned garments of summer revealed. Since Mikantor had taken Tirilan with him to the moors the priestess had visited Velantos more often. At first he had thought it was t
o bedevil him, but lately he was beginning to suspect that she was lonely.

  Velantos tightened the thongs that bound the pipe from the firebox to the hoses for the bellows, frowning as Anderle paced past him, and sat back to pump them once more.

  “If you cannot be still, woman, take a turn at the bellows and be useful!” he snapped.

  Anderle stopped, as if surprised to find she had been moving. “That is right, the boy Aelfrix usually helps you. Ellet told me that she has confined him to the healer’s house until he recovers from his cough. What must I do?”

  Velantos stood up, surprised in turn to hear her agree. “Sit there and take the handles for each bag. Alternate pushing them up and down, letting the sticks separate a little as you lift them again. You have seen me do it often enough. Force air through the tube. Air makes coals burn hotter, and melts the bronze.”

  The crucible that nestled among the coals in the firebox was filled with pieces of scrap metal from the bin. They had already begun to lose their outlines when Anderle arrived. Now they looked like blurred lumps in a molten stew. He grinned as she took a rather tentative grip on the handles and the bellows gave an asthmatic wheeze.

  “Did Mikantor do this for you?” she asked, panting.

  “How do you think he got those shoulders?” Velantos grinned. “He learns quick, that lad. I think he’s good at any craft he tries, but metal does not sing to him . . .”

  “He was born to be a king. . . . Do you miss him?” she asked then.

  Do you miss your daughter? He did not say those words aloud.

  She paused, wiped her forehead, then unwound her shawl. As she settled back into the rhythm, he saw how the movement alternately tightened and released the fabric across her breasts, and felt his flesh stir.