"Britannia seems small," said Cunoarda, looking out at the gentle alternations of wood and field beyond the rounded shoulders of the downs.
"I suppose it is, considering how far we have come. No doubt Londinium will seem little, compared to Rome. But I know the scent of that hay, and the way the power flows through the land."
"This is still a very different country from my home," she said with a sigh. "I was taken in a raid by a rival clan when I was not much older than little Crispa. I have memories of slopes purple with heather, and the baaing of the sheep as they came down from the hills. But I cannot see my mother's face. I think perhaps she died when I was small."
"Then I shall be your mother, Cunoarda—"
"Oh, but that was only a part of our disguise, while we are on the road—" She flushed to the roots of her hair. "You are—"
I laid a finger to her lips. "I am only Eilan, now, and I have reason to know that the children of one's body are not always the children of one's heart." Gazing at that familiar strong-boned face, I was amazed that through all those years when I had thought myself destitute of love, I had not noticed the treasure that lay beneath my hand.
"I never imagined… I never dared…" She shook her head, sniffing and wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "Oh my lady—my mother! You gave me my freedom, but I was still empty. Now you have given me a soul!"
I opened my arms then and held her until her sobs had ceased.
In my will, I had bequeathed the house in Londinium to Cunoarda, and she had written from Treveri to tell the tenant she was coming there to live. When we arrived, the place was empty—indeed, it was practically without furnishings, and Cunoarda and Lena spent a busy day in the market-place purchasing bedding and kitchen gear.
I had looked forwards to seeing what more than twenty years had done to the city, but that morning I was having trouble with my breathing, and I thought it best to stay indoors with Crispa to bear me company.
"Avia, who are the pretty ladies?" Crispa pointed at the relief of the four matronae which I had commissioned so long ago. It was one of the few decorations that had survived my absence, perhaps because it was bolted to the wall.
I took a careful breath, then turned. "They are the Mothers."
"Look! One of them has a dog!"
Leviyah stood up, tail wagging, at the word.
"Not you, silly!" exclaimed Crispa, reaching up to pat the carven flank of the hound in the lap of the third figure in the frieze. "And one has a baby, and the other two have fruit and a loaf of bread. Are they goddesses?"
"They are the Goddess—but She has many faces, as many faces as there are mothers in the world, and when they grow old and leave their bodies to pass over to the Otherworld they continue to watch over their children…"
I had tried to keep my voice calm, but Crispa was a sensitive child, and she climbed into my lap and put her arms around my neck.
"Avia, will you always watch over me?"
As I hugged her, I felt an ache in my throat, and knew it was not caused by shortness of breath, but unshed tears.
That night my illness reached a crisis. Gasping for breath, I saw terror in the faces of Cunoarda and Lena, and could not comfort them.
"Shall I send for a priest?" asked Cunoarda anxiously.
I managed a bark of laughter. "What use? I have already been buried! You heard the funeral oration Bishop Sylvester gave!" Then I began to cough again.
At the height of my paroxysms I would have welcomed death gladly, and continued to fight only because the two women begged me not to leave them alone.
A little after midnight, the mint-scented steam with which Cunoarda filled the room began to relieve me, and I was able to drink some comfrey tea. At length I fell into a state halfway between sleep and waking, cradled against Lena's breast.
During the crisis, I had raged against my weakness, unready to go into the night. But now, I realized that in our old age, what we lose in infancy is miraculously given back. Instead of crying in the dark for the mother who abandoned us before we were able to stand alone, now, with children and kindred having come and gone, we are free. In our darker moments we feel ourselves wholly alone, weak, aged. But in the end the Mother is given back to us and we are reborn, going back to infancy, lying in trust on the breasts of our daughters…
Everything is taken from us, even God; we spend ourself to the death. And then the Goddess comes back to us. From becoming the Goddess, the mother, we have created the Goddess in our daughters, our sisters, as we turn to Her, knowing that even if we must die still not knowing anything else, we die in Her arms and on Her breast.
But I did not die. Waking to the clear light of morning in Lena's arms, I took a deep breath and rejoiced as the life-giving air filled my lungs. Nonetheless, I was desperately weak, and I could feel my heart bound in my breast. For the first time I faced the possibility that this body might fail me before I reached my goal.
I remembered times during my illnesses when death would have been a welcome release. At other moments I had called on the teachings of Avalon to counter my panicked fear. I had reason to believe that death was only a passage from one kind of existence to another, but I had still dreaded the moment of transition. Now, however, I realized that my fears were not for myself but for those I would leave behind me.
"You are awake!" Lena exclaimed as she felt me stir. "And you are better, thank the gods!"
"For now, but if I do not recover, I must tell you how to get to Avalon."
Lena's cheeks grew pink with embarrassment. "Do you mean it is a real place? I thought you were speaking as the poets do, to describe the safety we would find in Britannia."
I opened my mouth to correct her, then closed it, realizing how deeply ingrained was the prohibition against telling outsiders of the sacred isle.
"It is real, though… difficult… to attain. It lies in the land called the Summer Country. There is a vale between two lines of hills, so low that when the rivers are in flood or the winter storms back up the tides the water covers it, and any bit of higher ground becomes an island. And there is one such, crowned by a pointed tor, that is called Inis Witrin.
"When you reach it, do not go to the monks who have their little church at the base of the Tor, but stop at the village of the fisherfolk who live in the marshes, and tell them that you are Eilan's grand-daughter, and you wish to be taken to Avalon."
She looked dubious, and I sighed, for in truth, I could not even guarantee that I would be admitted after so many years. And was I justified in taking Lena there? This vital young woman, whose cheeks were glowing despite the shadows a difficult night had painted beneath her eyes, was a very different creature from the fragile and frightened girl I had helped to escape from Treveri almost two months ago.
"The holy isle is a refuge where no king or emperor can follow. But you are not required to go there. If you and Crispa take new names, I think it likely that you will be able to live in perfect safety here in Londinium."
The winged brows drew down. "Don't you want us to come with you?"
"Lena, do you not understand how I have come to love you? That is why the choice must be yours. I only know that I have to go there, or try."
I recovered slowly, and it was October before I was strong enough to attempt the journey. The carriage in which we had travelled from Dubris was fitted with a soft mattress and loaded with provisions. But before departing Londinium there was one last task.
I had seen how swiftly, with Constantine's favour, Christianity was becoming the religion of the Empire. I could foresee a time when its shrines and symbols would displace those of the old religion entirely, reinventing Britannia as a Christian land. In the time that was coming, there would be few to understand that it was possible to honour both the Goddess and the God.
It pained me to think that my carving of the Mothers might one day be mocked by folk who no longer saw it as holy. And so workmen were summoned to remove it from the wall and load it into a barrow, and in the n
ight, when the men had gone home, Lena and Cunoarda pulled it to the stream that ran through the fields behind my dwelling, and tipped the carving in. Hidden in its depths, the Mothers would bless the city through which its waters ran.
"Tell me about when you were a little girl on Avalon…" Crispa had elected to ride for a while inside the carriage with Cunoarda and me, though I knew she would want to sit with Lena, who was driving, before long.
"I had a white dog called Eldri—"
"Like Leviyah?" Crispa pulled back the curtain to point to the dog who was trotting beside us, head up to catch all the scents of this new land.
"Smaller, with curly fur. A boy at the Lake village gave her to me, and said she was a faerie dog, and I think it was true, because she guided me once to a land even farther from this world than Avalon, and brought me safely back again."
Cunoarda's lips quirked, and I could see that she thought I was telling the child a fairy story. I found it strange that she, who had been born in Alba, found it harder to believe in Avalon than Lena, the child of a thoroughly Romanized Gallic aristocracy. But perhaps Cunoarda still needed the walls she had erected to protect her from the pain of her loss, and did not dare. I knew that she had found great comfort in Christianity, and when we were in Londinium, she had attended the rituals at the Church of Saint Pancras which I had long ago endowed.
"Did you have other girls to play with?"
"I lived in the House of Maidens," I answered, remembering the murmur of girls' voices in the darkness with a sudden overwhelming clarity. "I had a little cousin called Dierna, with hair as red as Cunoarda's. I believe that Dierna is the Lady of Avalon now."
I realized with a flutter of anxiety that I did not know. I remembered dreaming Ganeda's funeral—would I not know it if Dierna, whom I had loved, had also died?
If she was gone, there might well be no one left at Avalon who remembered me.
After we left Lindinis we turned north on the Aquae Sulis road. It was now the end of October, the season of Samhain when the spirits of the dead return. A fitting time, I thought, for my own homecoming. The landscape was growing very familiar now. It was I myself who seemed unreal, as if I had died in truth as well as seeming and was being summoned with the other ghosts who walked at this time of year.
For two days it had been raining, and a silver sheen of water lay over the lowlands, but I insisted that we press onward, for I remembered these marshes as a country with little provision for travellers. We were surprised, however, to find a small inn where the track that led towards Inis Witrin turned off from the Sulis road.
"Oh yes, we have been here for nigh on twenty years," said the round-faced woman who brought us our food. "Ever since the good Emperor granted protection to the Christians. My father built this place to serve the travellers who come on pilgrimage to the monks at the Tor."
I blinked at this, for in my day the monks of Inis Witrin had been a tiny community whose safety depended on being overlooked by the authorities. But the Christians were the authorities now, and it remained to be seen if they would use the power given them more wisely than those who had held it before.
In the morning we set out once more, bracing ourselves as the carriage lurched across the log causeways. And as the sun sank we saw the pointed cone of the Tor rising against the golden sky, haloed in light.
"It is real," breathed Lena.
I smiled, for in that moment even the isle that lies in the mortal world was touched with glory, and yet our true destination was a place more wonderful still.
I could see the smoke of the monastery's cookfires as we skirted the isle. From here we had to go on foot, for the Lake village could not be reached by a vehicle. It was almost sunset, and Cunoarda and Lena were growing nervous, but now that we were here, anticipation gave new strength to my limbs. The path, at least, looked the same—I doubt it had changed for a thousand years. Leaning on Cunoarda's arm and feigning a certainty I did not entirely feel, I started down it.
"No, honoured ones—you go back to houses of the shaven heads—" the headman of the village touched his forehead to indicate a tonsure. "No place for you here—"
The little dark people of the village whispered behind him, eyeing us nervously. On this night, the mound on which the round huts huddled was lit by torches whose red flicker seemed kindled from the setting sun. If we had come a little later, they would have thought us spirits and refused to admit us at all.
This was a difficulty I had not anticipated. I stared at the man, frowning. I should have renewed the crescent on my brow with woad, I thought then, as the elder priestesses used to do on festival days. How could I convince him to send word of my coming to Avalon?
"Do your people remember a daughter of the sun people who was brought here long ago to be trained as a priestess? A boy called Otter gave her a faerie dog. Does that boy live still?"
There was a murmur from the crowd, and a woman who looked as old as me pushed forwards. "Otter my father—he like to tell the story. A princess of the tall folk, he said." She gazed at me in wonder.
"I was that little girl, and I became a priestess on the holy isle. But that was many years ago. Will you send word to the Lady of Avalon and tell her that Eilan has returned?"
"If you are priestess, you can call mists and go—" The headman still looked dubious.
"I have been long away, and may not return without the Lady's leave," I answered him, remembering how Ganeda had cut my link to the holy isle when she banished me. "You will be well rewarded—please…"
He gave a snort of laughter. "Is not for gold we serve Avalon. I call the Lady, but this night they have ceremonies. She cannot come before morn."
In my dreams, it was Ganeda who came to me, with Cigfolla and Wren and the other priestesses and Aelia whom I had loved. I knew this must be a dream, because Ganeda was smiling, her arm around the waist of another woman with dark hair whom I recognized, without knowing how, as my own mother, Rian. They were robed in priestess blue, garlanded as if for a festival, and they held out their arms in welcome. I knew then that it was my own belief, not Ganeda's word, which had exiled me from Avalon.
Laughing, I started towards them. But as I was about to touch Aelia's hand, someone called my name. Annoyed, I reached for the dream image, but the call was repeated, in a voice I could not deny.
I opened my eyes to light that streamed through the open door of the roundhouse in which we had been sleeping, glowing in Crispa's bright hair and on Leviyah's golden hide, outlining Lena and Cunoarda as they helped me to sit up, and falling full upon the blue robe of the woman who stood before me.
I do not know why I had expected that Dierna would still be a young girl. The body of the woman who had called me had thickened with time, and her flaming hair was now the colour of sunset on snow. But I, who had known so many emperors, had not encountered anyone with such an aura of authority. Next to her, the man and the woman who attended her looked frail. Did Dierna remember how I had loved and protected her, I wondered then, or had she, like my son, been warped by the temptations of power?
"Eilan…" Her voice trembled, and suddenly I saw looking out of her eyes the little cousin I used to know.
I motioned to Cunoarda to help me up, wincing as stiffened muscles took the strain.
Dierna embraced me, one priestess to another, then her gaze grew stern. "I will use that name, but I know who you were, in that other world. You have been used to position and power, and you are heir to the elder line of Avalon. Have you come to claim rule here?"
I looked at her in amazement. Then I remembered that she had been trained by Ganeda. Had the old woman taught her to fear that I would return to challenge her one day?
"It is true that I have had power, and all the glory the world can bestow," I answered stiffly, "and for that very reason I need them no more. Now it will be enough if I may find peace, and safety for those I love."
"Come," Dierna gestured towards the open door. "Walk with me—"
We all
followed her outside into a misty autumn morning that veiled the marshes as if we were already between the worlds.
"Forgive me, but it was my duty to ask," Dierna said as we started along the path around the edge of the mound that kept the village above the floods.
I was still not quite steady, and Lena took my arm.
"I have known the fulfilment of prophecy and its deceptions. Through the child I bore, the world has indeed been changed, and if I do not like the results, I have only my own pride to blame."
"Do not judge yourself too harshly," Dierna replied. "I myself tried to shape the fate of Britannia, and I tell you that though our choices may determine the manner of its working, it is the Goddess who decides our ultimate destiny."
It is not only the Christians who sometimes need absolution, I thought, blinking back tears.
For a little while we walked in silence. The morning sun was burning the fog away. Silver ripples gleamed as a heron stalked among the reeds. Beyond them I saw the green slope of the Tor, and the huts of the monks clustering around Joseph's round church.
A gesture summoned Dierna's companions. "Do you remember Haggaia?" The silver-haired Druid gave me a smile, and I recognized in his face an echo of the laughing boy who had loved to play ball with Eldri so long ago. "And this is Teleri, whom I have been training."
To be your successor, I thought, smiling at the dark-haired woman beside her. "Teleri: I know and give thanks to the Lady for bringing her safely home."
"I bring with me two who have become my daughters, and my own great-grandchild," I said then.
"And do they also wish to cross over to Avalon?"
Lena's eyes were shining. "This is like a dream that turns out to be true! If you will have us, I and my daughter will gladly go."
Dierna's gaze grew wistful as she looked at Crispa. "My own children died," she said then. "It will be good to train another child of our blood for Avalon…"
But I had turned to Cunoarda, and my heart sank as I saw on her cheeks the silver track of tears. "What is it, my dear?"
"I will miss you till my life's end, lady, but I cannot go," she whispered. "I need to learn how to use the freedom you have given me. And it is the Christ, not your Goddess, whom my heart follows, and I cannot do that on your isle."
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