Child of the Northern Spring (Guinevere Trilogy) Read online

  With the first light I was up and dressed, running off to see if the Medicine Woman was in her quarters by the kitchen. There was a muttered response to my knock, and I was through the doorway and plopped down on the three-legged stool by the bed before the hanging curtain had ceased to sway.

  “Kaethi, did you know the Lady of the Lake was going to summon me to come study with her?” The question was out before we even exchanged greetings.

  My venerable friend finished tying the herb pouch to her belt before she turned and peered at me with a crooked smile, as though to ask what had kept me so long.

  “Well, let’s say I’m not surprised, though I don’t think ‘summon’ is the right term. She’s not powerful enough to command the attendance of kings and queens upon her own word.”

  “Did she use to be? In the Old Days?”

  “What do we know of the Old Days, except for rumors and the stories bad memories embroider to make them more lively?”

  The old woman came over to the bed and sat down to put on her soft leather boots.

  “Here, I’ll do that,” I offered, and when she lifted her foot to my lap I concentrated on adjusting the strap. “But why won’t my parents let me go?”

  “The deeper question is why did the Lady ask for you at all? There’s more behind this than a friendly concern for your mental development, make no mistake, child.”

  Kaethi dropped the finished foot and slowly lifted the other. The buckle had gotten bent on this one, and I had to coax the strap to get it into position. My mentor didn’t even notice, so intent was she on her musings.

  “The Lady and her priests are a small group, known more in stories than in person after all this time. But now that the peaceful days of the Empire are gone, every religion is gaining new recruits. They’re all looking for new blood, and new political advantage. What a feather it would be for her to train a fine young princess so that when you are a great queen someday…”

  Kaethi’s voice had become soft and dreamy, and her gaze was hazed with seeing things that I could not. I held my breath while she probed about in the future, and after a bit she sighed and shook her head.

  “Your parents are doing the wise thing, Missy. You aren’t meant to be a pawn in someone else’s game.”

  I finished with her boot and she stood up and shook herself like a bird settling its feathers, as though putting everything to rights that way.

  “What else did you see, Kaethi?” I asked hopefully.

  She gave me a fond glance, then grinned. “That it’s a grand day dawning right now, and one shouldn’t miss the opportunity for freedom and light spirits when they are available.” She paused in the doorway, holding the curtain for me while I skinned past her. “But maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t hurt for you to be tutored by the druid here at court. As for the Lady, it seems she will have to wait a bit to make your acquaintance.”

  After that the days passed like a scatter of bright leaves, full of color and activity. The cheesemaker’s daughter and I were inseparable: nipping into and out of each other’s households as if we were fosterlings…climbing through the tall apple trees to gather the last of the fruit that still hung there…running to the gate as the hunting party brought in a full-sized boar, slung on a pole between two warriors…milking the cows as they grazed in the field or skimming the risen cream from the flat stone basins in the dairy yard.

  And everywhere we turned there were apples: spread out in trays for drying or packed in barrels for the cellars, cooked into preserves with honey and spices or pressed into casks of cider for winter use. Their fragrance filled our days with heady perfume, and we romped through it as blithely as a pair of kittens through catnip.

  When the harvest drew to a close, preparation started for Samhain, that day when the old year dies and the new one begins. It is a gathering-in against the season’s change, and while it is the highest, most holy time of the year, it is also the most taxing.

  Throughout the whole of Britain, any animal that cannot be fed over the winter must be slaughtered by the end of that day, and all the preparations have to be concluded by sundown of the day before, since Samhain begins at twilight. It is the time when the spirits of the dead return to warm themselves before winter and the line between this world and the Other melts away.

  Of course the Old Gods and the Fair Ones are always near; sidhe and sprite and spirit mix all around us every day. But on the night of Samhain there’s a difference, for then they tempt, steal, buy, or barter with the souls of men, and anyone caught outside the circle of the hearth is likely to be lost by morning. Everyone knows that the Otherworld is a place of beauty and delight, as in the Land of the Ever Young, but it is filled with danger and terror as well, and always it is ruled by powers that are beyond the control of men. So we would all observe the ancient rites and stay indoors that night.

  Down in the water meadow, where the river curves round, the men had been checking the cattle pens and tethering stakes for several days, and the smith was honing butcher blade and fleshing knife as well. The great caldron was brought out to the kitchen courtyard, and the women set about scrubbing it with soft fleeces and polishing clay. It stood on its tripod gleaming dully in the October sun, a symbol of the fullness of life and death.

  “How old is it?” Llyn asked, wriggling in between the workers in order to get a better look at the figures that marched around its side.

  “No one knows,” said a servant, buffing what appeared to be the relief of a stag’s head.

  “I’ll bet Kaethi knows,” someone else offered.

  “Kaethi wouldn’t have anything to do with it,” I announced proudly, convinced the thing was evil and foreboding.

  “It is not wise to speak for other people, Missy.”

  The familiar voice came from behind me and I turned, startled, to find her standing in the archway to the kitchen.

  A hush stole across the yard as the women made way for her, and she walked slowly toward the monstrous vessel.

  The rim came up to the Medicine Woman’s waist, and she bent close to study the carvings more carefully, squinting her eyes to make out the shapes. She made me think of a whitethroat peering inquisitively from the tangled underbrush of a thicket, and I would have giggled but for the solemnness of her expression.

  “Many of the Old Gods have caldrons,” she muttered, as much to herself as to the gathering. “Once I heard of another, even larger, somewhere on the Continent. That one is big enough to stand a human in, head first.”

  For a moment I thought she was going to reach out and trace one of the designs with her fingers to better understand what it meant, but instead she shuddered and tucked her hands back into her sleeves and turned away from the vessel as one turns away from an adder, not wishing to provoke it. “They appear to be gods and sacrifices…and some questions are better left unasked. It’s enough to know its presence satisfies the Old Ways.”

  Her voice echoed with some unspeakable knowledge, and the women returned to their work in silence as though each were filled with a hollow, nameless dread. The day before Samhain was no time to tempt the fates, and everyone concentrated on getting ready for the morrow, for there would be no time then to catch up on tasks undone. I caught Llyn’s attention and we quietly slipped away.

  That afternoon we repaired to our favorite spot on the steep hillside that falls sharply down to the river, and from the shelter of its wooded slope stared out across the rumpled land. A flock of noisy crows had gathered at the Sacred Grove near the top of the hill across the river. Special to the War Goddess Herself, their harsh voices and strutting ways grated on my nerves.

  “Mum says the druid still hasn’t returned from his trip to the Sanctuary,” my friend commented. “She says it’s a bad omen to celebrate Samhain without a druid.”

  “My father’s been leading the Samhain rites since before you and I were born,” I retorted. There was a prickling under my skin and I felt decidedly cross. “I don’t think it matters much whether a
druid is standing around watching or not.”

  “Shush, shush,” she answered, lowering her voice. “I was thinking about tonight…when all the spirits are abroad. What’s to keep them from coming to our beds and taking away every one of us?”

  Something had disturbed the crows, and they scrambled upward through the air, clacking and clattering in alarm, and I wished I had the druid’s art of reading what their movements meant.

  “Have you ever heard of them stealing a human from inside a house?” I turned to look at her, hoping my voice sounded more confident than I felt. Llyn was tracing a little pattern on the ground, and when she realized I was watching she brushed the dirt smooth with a grin.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.” She shrugged. “Just a sign Daddy showed me that a traveling fellow had taught him.”

  “The Christian sign?”

  “I guess. Daddy said the traveler spent some time with the holy man who lives in the caves down by the Eamont, so maybe that’s what it is.”

  I drew my knees up under my chin, wishing I had my fur wrap because the afternoon had suddenly turned chilly.

  “Think it will keep you safe tonight?”

  “Maybe, but I’ll still be abed before the dark comes!” She laughed, and I knew I would too, so I laughed with her.

  We left our perch and climbed back up the trail to the stockade at the top of the hill. The sound of the cattle being driven into the slaughter area drifted up, and we looked down the long slope at the dozen or so animals milling about in their different pens. The tanners had arrived, dragging their empty sledges behind them, and those who had no friend or kin to stay with that night were busy setting up a leather tent to share against the prowling of the Others. I thought it wasn’t much more than shelter from the weather, but perhaps the magic of Samhain lay in being with kindred people rather than behind stout walls.

  Llyn and I parted then, giving her plenty of time to return to her family’s dairy before the dusk crept up, and I hugged her once just for good luck. We had never known anyone lost at Samhain, but there were some at court who could remember bodies found in the woods, faces stiff with death and terror, their spirit gone without any sign of wound or fight. And some, they said, disappeared entirely, without even a trace.

  This year the sacred night was calm, with neither wind nor howling banshees to disturb the peace, and tucked away snugly under the fur blankets I thought how glad I was to be safe in our sleeping loft. The soft glow of a rushlight cast a wedge of warmth through the crack between the curtains that partitioned my sleeping niche from the big room where my parents were talking quietly. In her own niche Nonny began the rhythmic snoring I had known since I was a babe sleeping by her side. I thought of the tanners in their tent by the river, and like many another that night, prayed that nothing would disturb their slumber.

  Sometime in the dark hours I woke when the baby cried fitfully with a dream. Nonny’s snoring stopped abruptly while she saw to his needs, then began again when she drifted back to sleep. The light was out, so I knew it was late and was surprised to realize my parents were still talking. Their voices were low, and at first I was unaware of specific words, but as everyone else went back to sleep I could hear them more clearly.

  “Put it before the people, then,” Mama was saying in her most logical voice. “You know they wouldn’t hear of it when you were first wounded, and I don’t think they’ll consider it now. You are the king they want, and as long as you can rally the men in war and offer them wise counsel in peace, they will follow you.”

  “Oh, I know they’ll follow. I don’t doubt that.” My father’s voice was weary. “But sometimes I think they should have a king more”—he paused, searching for the word—“more whole.”

  “Leo! How ever can you doubt your ‘wholeness’?” Mama was so shocked she forgot to keep her voice down. “Lame, yes. Crippled even, if you must. But a leader’s power doesn’t live in his bones, and many a man has grown lame from old wounds poorly knit. They don’t care that you walk with a limp; most of them don’t even notice it, if you ask me. It’s not as though you had been born deformed, after all.”

  There was a quiet chuckle from my father. “Sometimes, my dear, I think you don’t even see how much I’ve changed. I’m no longer the proud young prince who stole you from your intended groom on a wild summer night, and claimed you as my bride by right of possession.”

  “We all change,” Mama said hotly, more intent on the present moment than on the memories of what seemed to me the most romantic elopement in the world. “We’re both wiser and much, much more knowledgeable now. But the best thing I ever did was refuse to go home after you’d made peace with my father. As for daring adventures in the dark of night, there’s no need for that anymore. What’s needed now is a king with a clear head and a sense of organization; a keeper of justice and a man who envisions more for his people than another cattle raid or the collecting of booty from a neighbor’s treasure.”

  My father’s reply was low and thoughtful, but it carried through the dark to me. “The people have a right to a king who can walk tall and proud among them…who can stand upright for more than a few minutes without sweating in pain and fighting off the fatigue. They are restless these days, and frightened, and there is always the memory of the Old Ways haunting them. They may begin to feel that a younger, more vigorous monarch would be more pleasing to the Gods.”

  Mama snorted disdainfully, and I heard her sit up on the pallet of bracken. “And the druids don’t help, with their whispered talk of ‘proper’ sacrifices. But the people won’t turn away from a proven leader just because he grows old and gnarled in their service. Why, old King Coel was in his dotage and they still followed him!”

  “But he had Roman tradition behind him, at least in memory,” my father reminded her. “And that memory is fading fast. The elders have died off, and among the general people there are few now left who have traveled in body or thought even as far as Chester. So they fall prey to tales of great times in the past, and lose sight of what is possible for the present. And those old, past stories require a king who inspires fear and awe and admiration for his physical strength, not his mental prowess. I tell you”—his voice dropped almost to a whisper—“I have no doubts about governing my people. It is the rites, the traditions, the ‘trappings,’ if you will, that I dread more than any battle. A ruler must spend his life for his people, and offer it up, if necessary. And that I am willing to do gladly. But if one day I should falter in some ceremony, should stumble or fail to make a clean sweep of the sacrifice, the muttering will begin. And with it will come talk of the older, darker sacrifice as well.”

  He sighed heavily, and I heard Mama lie back down next to him, clucking soothingly as one does to a fretful child.

  “You’re just overtired tonight. Wait and see; when tomorrow comes you’ll march down the hill with all the majesty anyone could wish, and every man there will watch you with love and admiration.” She must have added something else, because I heard him laugh softly, and there was no more conversation.

  I lay awake for a long time after that, thinking about my father and, for the first time, about his crippledness. I had always known he was twisted and bent, but on seeing him astride his horse or seated in a Council one did not notice the deformity. Indeed, I had never considered it a liability till now, and the very notion that men might turn away from him because of wounds received in their behalf made me indignant. That his lameness itself could become a threat to his life came as a shock.

  Drat the druids, I thought fiercely as I snuggled even deeper under the covers. Pesky creatures always meddling in people’s affairs…as far as I was concerned, they could all go back to that Lady of theirs and sink into her precious Lake!

  Chapter V

  Winter

  In spite of my father’s doubts the sacrifice went well the next day, and while the bullock’s blood flowed into the caldron the people chanted the old songs and took great pleasur
e in how fruitful the year had been. There was no restlessness or dissatisfaction, and we all began the new year with high hopes and joyful feasting.

  Winter came soon after that, earlier than usual and bringing with it the Great Crown of the North which glimmered and sheered across the night sky in sheets of brilliant color. Often when the days were stormy or Llyn stayed home I would go to Rhufon’s tack room and take my place by the mending box.

  I spent hours there, watching the sturdy older man thoughtfully chewing on a straw while his strong hands tugged and pulled and stitched away at bridles and harnesses, straps and saddlebags. He’d shown me where to look for the first signs of wear and how to splice in a new piece of hide, and I took pride in doing work that met his exacting standards. And always he talked about the animals.

  Once he told me about the warhorses that were shod for battle and trained to lash out with their hoofs as weapons.

  “Did the Legions use warhorses like that?” I asked, fascinated as well as repelled by the ghostly presence of Roman ways.

  “Not that I heard of. The Romans weren’t much for horses in battle, I guess, though they certainly used ’em along The Wall. Mostly they say the Legions fought on foot, same as we do now, but with them it was like an entire country on the move, there were that many of ’em.”

  I used to try to imagine what the Romans were like. Once I’d asked Nonny, who snorted and said they were fiends, as any good Celt could tell you. Kaethi only laughed and allowed that we had all been Romans, back before the Legions left and the Time of Troubles began. Rhufon said he just plain didn’t know and didn’t much care; as far as he could see they had no sense about horses, and therefore weren’t worth bothering about.

  One day when I came into the kitchen from the barn I found Mama rummaging through the spice cupboard. She looked over at me and wrinkled her nose.