Priestess of Avalon

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "I played on that beach when I was a little child, while my father inspected the watchtower on the point," I replied. "I remember wondering where the passing ships were going."

  "And now you are going with them," Constantius smiled.

  I nodded, leaning against his solid strength. There was no need to burden him with my sudden longing to go home. It was, in any case, impossible. My father was dead, and one of my brothers as well. The other was serving with the false emperor Tetricus in Gallia. In the palace at Camulodunum a distant cousin ruled now. The home of my childhood was gone as surely as the little girl who had once gathered shells on that sandy shore.

  I clutched at the rail as the ship leaned into the wind that blew down the river, tacking across its mouth towards the narrow channel between the isle of Tanatus and Cantium. We spent two nights at an inn, while Viducius supervised the loading of additional cargo, but before I had quite got my land-legs back we were afloat once more.

  Now, we had not even a glimpse of shoreline to show us our direction, only the sun and the stars, when the clouds parted and we could see them. But I began to wonder if the senses that Ganeda had stripped from me were returning, for I found that even when the mists surrounded us I could feel Britannia behind us, and as the hours passed, I began to sense a new energy ahead. On the third day, as the sea-mist dissipated in the morning sun, I saw ahead a horizon smudged with islets, the many-branched channels of the delta of the Rhenus that guarded the way to Germania Inferior.

  Our destination was Ganuenta, where the River Scaldis flowed into the delta of the Rhenus, a major transfer point for shipping from the continent to Britannia. While Constantius made arrangements for our transport up the Rhenus, I was free to explore the marketplace that adjoined the port, the faithful Philip at my side. Like all frontiers, it was an amalgam of cultures, where the gutturals of the Germanic tongues mingled with the sonority of Latin. Since the days when Arminius destroyed Varus and his legion, the Rhenus had been the border between Free Germania and the Empire. But for over a century it had been a peaceful boundary, and the folk who brought their furs and their cattle and their cheeses across the river to market seemed little different from the tribes on the Roman side.

  I was looking at wood carvings at one of the market stalls when someone called my name. Turning, I recognized Viducius, got up in a toga with a basket of apples under his arm.

  "Are you going to a party?" I asked, indicating the fruit.

  "No, although I will see a noble lady—I am on my way to the temple of Nehalennia to give thanks for the safe voyage. You would be welcome to accompany me."

  "I would like that. Philip, you must find Constantius and tell him where I have gone. Viducius will escort me home."

  Philip eyed the trader a little suspiciously, but after all, we had just spent an entire sea voyage in his company. As the boy trotted off, Viducius offered me his arm.

  The temple was located on the rising ground at the northern end of the island, a square cloister surrounding the central shrine, whose tower was just visible above it. In between the votive altars that lined the path, vendors had set up stalls offering copper medals with images of dogs or the figure of the goddess, more apples for offerings, and wine and fried breads and sausages for hungry worshippers. The fruit Viducius was carrying was much better than anything for sale here, and we swept past disdainfully and passed through the entryway into the cobbled courtyard.

  I had seen finer temples, but there was a comfortable informality about this one, with its red-tiled roof and cream-coloured walls. There were more altars here—Viducius paused to show me the one his father Placidus had dedicated long ago. Then he handed an aureus to the priestess, and pulled the end of his toga up to cover his head as we entered the sanctuary, lit by arched windows high in the tower. On a plinth in the centre of the chamber stood the image of the goddess, carved from some warm reddish stone. She held a ship in her hands, but a basket of apples was carved at her feet and beside it a dog that looked so much like Eldri that tears came to my eyes.

  When I could see again, the trader was setting his apples down before the plinth. The image of the Goddess gazed serenely past him, her hair drawn back into a simple knot, her draperies falling in graceful folds. Meeting that carven gaze, I felt a shiver of recognition, and put back my veil to bare the crescent moon upon my brow.

  Nehalennia… Elen… Elen of the Ways… Lady, in a strange land I find you! Guard and guide me on the road I must travel now…

  For a moment then, my inner silence overwhelmed all outside sound. In that hush, I heard, not a voice, but the sound of water flowing from a pool. It sounded like the Blood Spring at Avalon, and it came to me then that all the waters of the world were connected, and where there was water, the power of the Goddess flowed.

  Someone touched my arm. I blinked and saw Viducius, his prayers completed. The priestess of the shrine was waiting to escort us out. Without intention, words came to me: "Where is the spring?"

  She looked at me in surprise, then her gaze moved to the crescent on my brow and she nodded with the respect due a colleague.

  Motioning to Viducius to stay where he was, she led me around the image to an opening in the floor. Carefully I followed the woman down the wooden steps into the crypt beneath the sanctuary, walled with raw stone and smelling of damp. The flickering light of oil lamps glinted from plaques and images fixed to the walls and gleamed in slow-moving whorls from the dark surface of the pool.

  "The water of the Rhenus is brackish where it mingles with the sea," she said softly, "but this spring is always pure and good. Which goddess do you serve?"

  "Elen of the Ways," I answered her, "who may be the face your Lady wears in Britannia. She has guided me here. I have no gold, but I will offer this bracelet of British jet if I may." I worked the round bangle over my hand and let it fall into the hidden depths of the spring. The reflections scattered in a burst of spangles as it hit the water, then came together once more in a bright swirl.

  "Nehalennia accepts your offering…" the priestess said softly. "May your journey be blessed."

  The transport Constantius had found for us was a barge laden with salt fish and hides that laboured upriver by the efforts of the twenty slaves who toiled at the oars. It stopped often to take on more cargo, but the delays allowed me gradually to gain a sense of this new land into which I was travelling. At Ulpia Traiana, set at the edge of the river as it meandered through the gently-rolling countryside, we were given dinner by the commander of the fortress. In theory he served Tetricus, but information from the eastern empire also flowed down the river, and Constantius was eager for news.

  Thus we heard of the bitter victory at Mons Gessax in Thracia, where the Romans had encircled the last of the fleeing Goths. But the ineptitude of the commander, who had not had the wit to use his heavy cavalry to press his advantage, had cost many lives. Aurelian was now continuing his operations against the Vandals in Dacia. At least it appeared that the barbarian threat had been dealt with, for a time.

  By the time we boarded our boat once more a new passenger had joined us. He was called Father Clemens, a round little priest of the Christian cult who had been sent by the Bishop of Rome to visit the congregations in the western lands. I observed him with some curiosity, for apart from the monks of Inis Witrin, he was the first priest of his faith whom I had seen.

  "Oh yes, there are Christians in Eburacum," he assured us when Constantius mentioned our point of departure. "A small congregation, to be sure, meeting in a house-church belonging to a virtuous widow, but they are strong in the faith." Father Clemens eyed us hopefully, reminding me painfully of Eldri when she thought I might throw her a scrap.

  Constantius shook his head, smiling. "Nay, I serve the Soldiers' God, and the eternal light of the sun, but there is much good to be found in your belief. Your churches care for the unfortunate and the needy, I have heard."

  "God has so commanded us," he said simply. "And what of you, lady? Have you he
ard the good Word?"

  "There was a community of Christians near the place where I grew up," I said carefully. "But I follow Elen of the Ways."

  Father Clemens shook his head. "It is the Christos who is the Truth, the Way and the Life," he said gently. "All others lead to damnation. I will pray for you."

  I stiffened, but Constantius smiled. "The prayers of a man of good will are always welcome." He took my arm and drew me away.

  "I am a priestess of the Goddess!" I hissed when we had reached the prow. "Why should he pray for me?"

  "He means well," answered Constantius. "Some of his fellow-believers would damn us both, without waiting for their god to take a hand."

  I shook my head. The monk, whoever he had been, who had appeared to me at Inis Witrin, had spoken otherwise. Still, in Eburacum I had met many pagans who dealt only in the forms and ceremonies of their religion. I wondered if among the Christians, there was also a difference between the common folk and those who understood the Mysteries.

  Constantius put his arm around me and I leaned against him, watching the long vistas of plain and forest, edged by marsh or mudflat or sandy strand, slide by. One side was Roman, the other, German, but I could not see much difference between them. I had looked at the maps the Romans made in an attempt to define their territory, but the land knew no such divisions. For a moment I hovered on the edge of some crucial understanding. Then Constantius turned his head and kissed me, and in the flood of sensation that followed, the moment was lost.

  Our journey halted again at Colonia Agrippinensis, a flourishing city built on an eminence above the Rhenus. There was more news here—the Emperor had pursued the Goths all the way across the Danuvius and destroyed them in another great battle, killing their king, Cannabaudes, and five thousand of their warriors. The Senate had voted him the title of Gothicus Maximus and a Triumph. But despite his victory, Aurelian had apparently decided that Dacia north of the river was indefensible, and was pulling the limits of the Empire back to the Danuvius.

  "And I can't say but that he has good reason," said the centurion we were talking to, "just as when he abandoned the agri decumates south of here and withdrew all the troops back to the Rhenus. Rivers make nice clear borders. Maybe Aurelian thinks the barbarians will be too busy fighting each other to trouble us. But it galls, just the same, when I think of all the blood we shed to hold that land."

  Constantius had grown very silent. "I was born in Dacia Ripensis. Strange to think that it will become the frontier. I suppose the Goths will be fighting what's left of the Carpi, the Bastarnae and the Vandals for it now."

  "Not the Vandals," corrected the centurion. "Aurelian has brought them in as federates and enlisted them as auxiliaries."

  Constantius frowned thoughtfully. "It may work; the gods know the Germans breed good fighting men."

  The barge took us as far as Borbetomagus. There, we joined a party of traders who were taking their pack mules along the Nicer and through the hills to the Danuvius. The farther we travelled the stronger my awareness of the density of the land around us became. In all my life I had never lived more than a day's journey from the ocean, but now solid earth surrounded me, and even the mighty rivers were no more than the blood flowing through her veins.

  These lands might have been abandoned by the legions, but they had not yet reverted to barbarian rule. The villas and farmsteads the Romans had carved out of the forest still prospered, and we were glad of their hospitality. And for me, this leisurely journey through Germania brought the unexpected benefit of my husband's undivided attention. When he first joined the army Constantius had been posted to the German limes and knew them well. To hear his stories of garrison and battlefield gave me a picture of who he truly was that was to stand me in good stead thereafter.

  But with each league we travelled my own past fell farther behind me. I became Julia Helena only and entirely, and memories of that Eilan who had been a priestess of Avalon dwindled until they had no more substance than a dream.

  A moon of travel brought us to the upper reaches of the Danuvius, where we found another boat that would take us downstream. Here the great river flowed east between the Suevi hills and the lowlands of Rhaetia. When the autumn haze cleared, we could see the snow-clad Alpes glittering on the southern horizon, drawing gradually closer and lower until the river passed through a gap in the hills and presently made a sharp turn southward through the broad Pannonian plain.

  This river was in fact far longer than the Rhenus, but going with the current, we moved faster. Presently we turned eastward once more, heading, so Constantius told me, towards the Euxine Sea. To the south lay the lands of Graecia of which Corinthius had told me so many stories, to the north, Scythia and the unknown. The land itself told me that we had journeyed far indeed. As the season advanced towards winter, cold winds blew down from the mountains, but the days were not appreciably shortened, and the trees and plants were different from the ones I knew.

  I had thought that we would stay with the boat all the way to the Euxine, but when we stopped at Singidunum, Constantius reported to the fort's commander and found there orders that had been waiting in case he should come that way. The Emperor, having settled the barbarians, was preparing to march on Palmyra, where Zenobia had attempted to wrest her desert kingdom free from Roman rule.

  Aurelian wanted Constantius, and he wanted him now. Authorization for posthorses was therefore included, and chits for lodging in the government mansios along the way. Leaving Philip and Brasilia to follow with our goods, Constantius and I set out by horseback along the good military road that led through Moesia and Thracia to Byzantium. From there, a ferry took us across the Straits of Marmara to the province of Bithynia, and the city of Nicomedia, where the Emperor and his court were now in residence.

  "Wait until summer—this can be a beautiful land," said Constantius. His tone was bracing, as if I were a homesick recruit. It was not so far from the truth, I thought, tucking my heavy shawl more firmly around me. We had been here for over four months, much of which Constantius had spent riding back and forth between Drepanum and Nicomedia, where the Emperor was preparing for the Palmyran campaign. Zenobia, who called herself Queen of the East, had laid claim not only to her native Syria, but to Egypt and parts of the province of Asia as well. In another moon, the army being sent to punish her would be gone.

  "This is February," I reminded him. Though we were too near to the straits for snow, the chill had settled in my bones. The villa he had rented for me was damp and draughty—a house built by people who refused to believe it would ever get cold. Not surprising, I thought glumly, since the town of Drepanum, just down the coast from Nicomedia and across the strait from Byzantium, was a popular resort to which the court escaped during the summer heat. In winter, it had only the spa with its hot springs to recommend it.

  "Britannia is colder—" he began, the plates of his cuirass creaking as he turned. I had not yet become accustomed to how he looked in uniform, but it was clear to me that the merchant he had played in Eburacum was only half the man Constantius was meant to be.

  "In Britannia," I retorted, "they build their houses to keep out the cold!"

  "It's true that it was summer when I was here before," he capitulated, looking through the opened shutters at the rain that was dimpling the waters of the lily pool in the atrium. For most of the past two months it had rained. He turned to me again, suddenly serious.

  "Helena, did I do wrong to take you from your homeland and drag you all the way here? I was so accustomed to the army, you see, and all the officers' wives who have travelled with them from post to post all over the Empire, I never thought that you were not bred up to this kind of life, and might… not…" He shrugged helplessly, his eyes fixed on my face.

  I swallowed, searching for words. "My love, you must not mind my complaining. Don't you understand? You are my home now."

  His bleak gaze brightened, like the sun breaking through clouds. I had a moment to admire him, then he took me
in his arms, carefully, for we had already learned that his armour could leave bruises, and for the moment, I was not cold any more.

  "I must go," he said at last, murmuring the words into my hair.

  "I know…" Reluctantly I stepped away from his warmth, trying not to remember how soon he would be gone indeed, on the Palmyran campaign. The overlapping plates of the cuirass scraped slightly as he bent to pick up his heavy coat. I noted with sour satisfaction that it was a byrrus, the hairy, hooded kind we made in Britannia.

  "By the time you reach the city, you will be wet through," I told him, not entirely sympathetically.

  "I'm used to it," he grinned back at me, and I realized that not only was this true, but that he actually , liked confronting the weather.

  I accompanied him to the entry and opened the door. Our house was halfway up the hill above the main part of the town. Tile roofs and the marble columns of the forum gleamed through drifting veils of rain. Philip was holding Constantius's horse, an old woollen mantle drawn over his head against the rain.

  "I am sorry, lad—I did not mean to keep you waiting!" Constantius reached for the reins. As he started to mount, there was a squeak, and the horse, a skittish chestnut gelding, tossed its head and swung away. Constantius wrestled it down, and Philip made a step with his laced hands so that his master could swing a leg over the beast and settle himself between the horns of the military saddle.

  But I was no longer watching. That odd squeaking noise had come again, or perhaps it was a whimper. My searching gaze fixed on a pile of debris swept against the corner of the wall by the overflow from the gutter. Had it moved, or was it only the wind? I picked up a twig blown down by the storm and bent to poke at the pile. It quivered, and suddenly I was staring down at a pair of bright black eyes.

  "Helena, take care! It might be dangerous!" Constantius nudged the horse closer. From the rubbish came a faint but unmistakable growl. Bending closer, the debris proved to be a sodden huddle of hair, as if someone had lost a fur cap in the rain.