THE WISE WOMEN

Chapter 2

“Of course not! Who would?” he exclaimed, flushing furiously, and Lean nodded. The Druids who tutored the boys at the Forest House would have taught him to hate Rome. “But you should have told me! You should have let me choose!”

“I did!” she snapped. “You chose to come here!”

The defiance seemed to drain out of him as he turned to gaze out over the water once more.

“That’s true. What I don’t understand is why you wanted me….”

“Ah, Awen,” she said, her anger suddenly leaving her. “Even a priestess does not always understand what forces move her. Partly it was that you were all that was left to me of Ilan, whom I loved as my own child.” Her throat closed with the pain of that. It was a few moments before she could speak calmly again. Then she went on, in a voice as cold as stone: “And partly it was because it seemed to me that your destiny lay among us….”

Awen’s gaze was still on the golden waters. For a few moments the gentle lap of wavelets against the reeds was the only sound. Then he looked up at her.

“Very well.” His voice cracked with the effort he was making to maintain control. “Will you be my moth er, so that I will have some family of my own?”

Lean stared at him, for a moment unable to speak. I should say no, or one day he will break my heart.

“I am a priestess,” she said finally. “Just as your mother was. The vows that we have sworn to the gods bind us, sometimes against our own desires”— or I would have remained in the Forest House, and been there to protect Ilan, her thought went on. “Do you understand that, Awen? Do you understand that even though I love you I may sometimes have to do things that cause you pain?”

He nodded vigorously, and it was her own heart that felt the pang.

“Foster-mother—what will happen to me on the Island of Avalon?”

Lean thought for a moment. “You are too old to stay with the women.

You will lodge among the young apprentice priests and bards. Your grandsire was a not able singer, and you may have inherited some of his talents. Would it please you to study bard-craft?”

Awen blinked as if the thought frightened him. “Not yet—please—I don’t know…”

“Never mind, then. In any case the priests must have some time to know you. You are still very young, and your whole future does not have to be decided now—”

And when the time comes, it will not be Cunomaglos and his Druids who decide what he should be, she thought grimly. I could not save Ilan, but at least I can guard her child until he can choose for himself….

“So,” she said briskly, “I have many duties awaiting me. Let me summon the barge and take you to the island. For tonight there will be nothing before you, I promise you, but supper and bed. Will that content you?”

“It must…” he whispered, looking as if he doubted both her and himself.

The sun had set. In the west the sky was fading to a luminous rose, but the mists that clung to the waters had cooled to silver. The Tor was almost invisible, as if, she thought suddenly, some magic had divided it from the world. She thought of its other name, Inis Witrin, the Isle of Glass. The fancy was oddly appealing. She would be happy to leave behind the world in which Ilan had burned with her Roman lover on the Druids’ pyre. She shook herself a little, and pulled out a bone whistle from the pouch that hung at her side. The sound it produced was thin and shrill. It did not seem loud, but it carried clearly over the waters.

Awen started, looking around him, and Lean pointed. The open water was edged by reedbeds and marsh, cut through by a hundred twisting channels. A low, square-prowed craft was emerging from one of them, pushing aside the reeds. Awen frowned, for the man who poled it was no bigger than he. It was only when the barge drew nearer that he saw the lines in the boatman’s weathered face and the sprinkling of silver in his dark hair.

When the boatman saw Lean he saluted, lifting the pole so that the boat’s headway could carry it up onto the shore.

“That is Waterwalker,” Lean said softly. “His people were here before the Romans, before even the British came to these shores. None of us have been here long enough to pronounce their language, but he knows ours, and tells me that is the meaning of his name. They make a very poor living from these marshes, and are glad of the extra food we can give them, and our medicines when they are ill.”

The boy continued to frown as he took his place in the stern of the boat.

He sat, trailing one hand in the water and watching the ripples flow past, as the boatman pushed off once more and began to pole them toward the Tor.

Lean sighed, but did not try to talk him out of his sullens. In the past moon they had both suffered shock and loss, and if Awen was less aware of the significance of what had happened at the Forest House, he was also less able to deal with it.

Lean pulled her cloak around her and turned back to face the Tor. I cannot help him. He will have to endure his sorrow and confusion…as will I, she thought grimly, as will I….

Mist swirled around them, then thinned as the Tor loomed up before them.

The hollow call of a horn echoed from above. The boatman gave one last heave on his pole, and the keel grated on the shore. He jumped out and pulled it farther, and as it came to rest Lean climbed out.

Half a dozen priestesses were coming down the path, their hair braided down their backs, gowned in undyed linen girdled in green. They drew up in a line before Lean.

Marged, the eldest, bent reverently. “Welcome back to us, Lady of Valon.” She stopped, her eyes resting on the lanky form of Awen. For a moment she was literally speechless. Lean could almost hear the question on the girl’s lips.

“This is Awen. He is to live here. Will you speak to the Druids and find a place for him for tonight?”

“Gladly, Lady,” she said in a whisper, without taking her eyes from Awen, who was blushing furiously. Lean sighed; if the very sight of a male child—for even now she simply could not think of Awen as a young man—had this effect on her younger charges, her attempts to counteract the prejudices they had brought with them from the Forest House had a ways to go. His presence among the girls might be good for them.

Someone else was standing behind the maidens. For a moment she thought one of the older priestesses, perhaps Eiluned or Riannon, had come down to welcome her. But the newcomer was too small. She caught a glimpse of dark hair; then the figure moved past the others into plain view.

Lean blinked. A stranger, she thought, and then blinked again, for the woman seemed suddenly both completely at home and utterly familiar, as if Lean must have known her from the beginning of the world. But she could not quite call to mind when, if ever, she had set eyes on her before, or who she might be.